They stood a moment longer looking at their orders and at Laurence, with oddly uncertain expressions, but in the end drifted away back to their tents without quietly. Temeraire himself was at a standstill. He could not understand why Laurence should have taken the command. He was already in command, and it was important, was it not, for a dragon to have the post? Laurence had said as much himself. But Temeraire did not mean to be selfish anymore, not now that he knew he had already been selfish. If Laurence wished to have the command, of course he should have it, and yet, if it mattered for politics sake, for the dragons …

He struggled over it, and ventured at last to ask, timidly, though he added hurriedly, ‘I do not mind at all, for myself, I am very happy that you are restored, and a captain now again. Only, if it is important—’

He was coiled up with the others, but everyone else was asleep and the other men in their tents. Laurence had told Roland, Demane and Sipho to go and sleep in his tent, and had stayed out wrapped in his coat and cloak to look over the maps, which he had laid out on a small camp table. He was marking them with a small wax pencil, here and there, as Temeraire spoke.

‘In the present, it is the more important that you should not be in command, nor anyone but myself,’ Laurence said.

There was something odd in his voice, it was queerly flat as if he did not much care what he was saying, and he did not look up from his work. Temeraire wished it were not so dark, and that he could see Laurence's face. ‘In any case,’ Laurence added, ‘whether the courts will believe you truly command is a proposition yet untried; and I hope you would not risk the lives and the careers of the other captains for the sake of your precedence.’

‘But,’ Temeraire said, ‘are they not risking their lives anyway?’

‘In battle only,’ Laurence said, ‘not afterwards.’

Temeraire did not much want to pursue; however dreadful it was to think Laurence angry with him, it would be all the worse to know it, to hear it from Laurence himself. ‘Laurence,’ Temeraire said anyway, bravely, ‘pray explain to me; I know—I know I have let you be hurt, because I did not try to understand well enough, and I do not mean to let it happen again; only I cannot help it, if I do not know.’

Laurence did look up at that, his eyes briefly catching the reflection from the castle upon the hill. ‘There is nothing to help. I am in no danger.’

‘If they should be, so should you,’ Temeraire said.

‘I cannot be condemned twice,’ Laurence said. ‘Pray get some rest. We have a hundred miles to fly in the morning.’