Laurence covered his face with his hands and shut his eyes against the filtered reddish light. The hayloft smell of straw and vanished horses, warm and familiar, and the sulphur tang of the dragons outside, woodsmoke and Arkady's smug prattle, broken occasionally by Temeraire's more resonant protests.

‘Very well,’ he said, and went out, leaving the orders upon the table.

Chapter Fifteen

‘Forgive me,’ Laurence said. Temeraire had settled himself for the night, curled up comfortably in an old ploughed field behind the barn, fallow now and full of soft dry grass underneath the snow. They were alone, or nearly so. Demane, Sipho, Roland and Allen were all tucked into the curve of Temeraire's haunch, under a little lean-to which Demane and Roland had worked out of a tent and a few sticks. But all four were fast asleep. Arkady at last had stopped telling stories, and was now busily making up to Iskierka, in order to sleep near the heat she gave off. Temeraire had sniffed a little in disdain, and curled his own tail about the lean-to, just to be sure his crew would sleep warm, and dry besides.

He did not at once understand what Laurence was apologizing for, until Laurence had explained a little. ‘Forgive me,’ he repeated. ‘Bad enough that I used myself so; but to have used you likewise, is unpardonable—’

‘But Laurence,’ Temeraire said, at once glad and baffled, ‘it was my fault, surely. It was my notion we should go to France in the first place. Only, I did not know that they should take your capital, and your rank; and I am so sorry—’

‘I am not,’ Laurence said. ‘I should give more than that, and count it cheap, to preserve my conscience. I am ashamed to have submitted to despair so far as to ever have thought differently.’

Temeraire did not wish to argue. Laurence sounded like himself again, if still rather drawn, and that was worth anything; but privately he could not help resent that conscience seemed so very expensive, and yet had no substantial form which one might admire, and show off to one's company.

‘But,’ he said, heroically, ‘I did mean what I said, dear Laurence, about the talon-sheaths, and I do wish you would sell them, and buy some new things for yourself. I would like my conscience to be just as clear.’

Laurence replied with a touch of amusement, ‘I am sorry to have neglected my dress, if it has given you so wretched a notion of my finances, but I am not so wholly impoverished.’ More gently he added, ‘There will be no more pavilions, I am afraid, but I hope I need not be an embarrassment to you.’

‘You would never be,’ Temeraire said, and nudged Laurence with his nose.