‘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.’

‘I want him bled,’ Wellesley had said, in the tower room of Edinburgh Castle, as they stood over the map of England swarming with blue markers, with the icy rain lashing at the windows. Down the hall, the muffled sound of the King's voice was rising in some complaint. To Laurence it seemed very loud. ‘Every man to him is worth five to us. He must bring them across at great expense, and he must spend his dragons’ strength to do it. And his men live off the land; he relies upon them raiding the countryside, feeding themselves and driving in cattle for the dragons, and keeping his supply lines meagre and short.'

‘You mean you wish us to attack his irregulars,’ Laurence broke in, tired of evasions.

‘His supply lines, his foragers, his scouts.’ Wellesley thumped the map. 'He has hundreds of small raiding parties scattered throughout the country north of London; he cannot survive long without them, and they are exposed. You will destroy every one of them you can find.

‘You will not engage,’ he added, ‘any substantial party, other dragons in number, or artillery: I do not mean to lose any of our beasts.’