They had landed in Edinburgh covert after dark, and found it wet, bleak and muddy, and the water of the pond unfit to drink: there had been too many dragons buried there, too recently. So they were reduced to waiting their turn at thin run-off from the castle walls, which tasted unpleasantly green, and then settling themselves uncomfortably between the two burial-mounds most widely separated. They were crowded, and although there was plenty of room for one or another of them to go and sleep among the other mounds, no one at all proposed to go off alone; they preferred to huddle closely.

Laurence had left almost at once to go and speak with Wellesley, and he had been away a long time. So long, that they had finished their dinner long before his return. They had enjoyed a couple of old tough cows and three sheep, hacked up and pit-roasted with a great heap of potatoes, which Gong Su had. Happily these last took on some of the flavour of the meat and were not unappetizing at all, once they had cooked for long enough.

‘I don't hold with this cookery thing much,’ Maximus had said, licking his chops, having slowly and thoughtfully wrecked seventeen bushels of potatoes roasted in their skins, ‘but these are not half bad; if one cannot have a nice fresh cow, that is.’

Temeraire took a long time over his meal, but as Maximus was eyeing the last pile of sheep-intestines hopefully, he was forced to finish it off hurriedly. Then he had nothing to do but lie uncomfortably in the mud, curled up small to stay warmer, and worry about Laurence.

‘Of course he isn't happy,’ Gentius said sleepily. ‘The country overrun by all these Frogs, who would be happy? I would not think much of his sense if he were dancing a jig.’

‘But that is not the same as being unhappy,’ Temeraire said, ‘when we are going to fight to make the French leave, and will have some battles soon.’

Gentius cocked his head ruminatively. ‘Men like to be unhappy sometimes,’ he offered. ‘My second captain would sit under my wing with a book and weep over it, most evenings. I thought at first she must be wounded, but she told me not to fret, that she liked to do it. The next morning she would be right as rain again.’ Temeraire was doubtful. He had never noticed Laurence weeping over a book, although sometimes he did not enjoy them very much.

But he did not like to press the conversation too far. To be perfectly honest, Temeraire was a little afraid that he might learn that Laurence was not so much upset as angry. He was afraid that Laurence was angry with him.