‘Berkley don't take cold easily, because he is so fat,’ Maximus said sleepily, cracking open an eye, ‘but I would also like to go and fight.’

So that was settled, but for the rest, Temeraire scratched his head a little. ‘Gentius may as well come with us, without counting against our tally.’ he said at last, ‘It is not as though he can carry anyone or even patrol. He is only staying here in Loch Laggan and sleeping, so we shall have Armatius to carry him. That would do very well for heavyweights. I do not think I ought to take Majestatis or Ballista, for they are so very handy at managing the others, nor Requiescat, because no one who is under a heavyweight will argue with him, even if he must be told what orders to give.’

He was a little puzzled how to leave them behind without giving offence, until he hit on the notion of giving them rank instead. ‘You do not suppose Wellesley can mind?’ he asked Laurence.

‘It is a capital scheme,’ Admiral Roland said in amusement, when Laurence had consulted her. ‘Your militia had better be shifted under command of the Corps in any case, so we will make you a commodore instead of a colonel, and your officers shall be captains; although it will be damned difficult to manage epaulets for them.’

‘Oh, epaulets,’ Temeraire said, eagerly. The party of seamstresses who had been recruited from the local villages around Loch Laggan to help sew carrying-harnesses, for the transport of the soldiers, were now induced to make up rosettes out of some of the leftover silk and leather. The results were not much like real epaulets, nearer instead to enormous mopheads made up of the brightest colours, with a little gold cloth at their knotted centres, and a great many ties to attach them to a harness. But no one minded, in the least.

‘I call that handsome,’ Requiescat said, admiring the bright green knot upon his shoulder from every direction, even craning his head almost upside down. Even Majestatis did not manage his usual degree of amused disdain and kept glancing sidelong at his own: it was red, to go well against his cream-and-black. It looked almost as fine, Temeraire thought, as his own pale blue matched set. He of course had needed two.

‘Yes, and if anyone should be particularly clever at helping you to manage, you may make them lieutenants, and they may have a smaller one,’ Temeraire said. ‘So that is all settled,’ he added to Laurence. ‘And for the rest, let us take some Yellow Reapers, and Messoria and Immortalis, of course, because they are our wing-mates, and that will do very well, because I also want Perscitia. She is very clever, and,’ he confided, ‘if I leave her here she will offend someone. Anyway, we may need her to manage some artillery.’