The ring was like a coal in the small breast pocket inside Laurence's coat, heavy beyond its weight. Woolvey's blood had dried cold and stiff on his stolen shirt. Laurence tried not to think of Edith, and how she would learn the news, or what her fate would be, widowed and alone with a small child in the occupied city.

‘He was a brave fellow, sir,’ Janus ventured. The old sailor had climbed over to Temeraire for the trip. ‘Bad luck we had, there.’

Laurence only nodded. He could not go back, his duty lay ahead.

They caught up with Wellesley's corps that afternoon, and kept pace with them for the rest of the long way to Long Eaton, as a bitter wind blew southwards: just a taste of the weather they would have in Scotland. They shuffled more quickly as they came at last to the cold comfort waiting for them. The ground was frozen solid as stone, and covered with drifting flurries of snow, but the wagons rolled easier, as the muddy road had frozen into uneven ridges.

‘I don't see why we must stay up here,’ Requiescat said, gliding into another slow circle. ‘There is a nice clearing below us. We could see just as well from there if anyone attacked, which they won't, as we would have seen them sometime during the last hundred miles.’

‘We may not land until the infantry are settled,’ Temeraire said, but then turned his head back and murmured, ‘Laurence, why can we not?’

‘They have less comfort marching than do we aloft,’ Laurence said tiredly, ‘and will sleep in worse. The least we can do is protect them until they have established their guard-posts, and lit their fires. If you went to your leisure while they struggled, it would only arouse envy and discontent.’

Temeraire said, ‘Well, I can hover, but it is not very easy for the others to stay up. We had better go down there and help them. We could pull up trees for them, for firewood—’

Laurence opened his mouth to say that it would undoubtedly throw the soldiers into a panic, but looking down at their slow and weary ranks, he did not think they had the energy to run. ‘The smaller dragons, perhaps, might begin.’