He was sure he knew where his breastplate was at every moment, and his small gold chain, these being in his own possession; his talon-sheaths had been left with Emily, and he was quite certain she could be trusted to keep them safe. Ordinarily he would have trusted Laurence, to keep himself safe; but the circumstances were not what they ought to be, and it had been so very long. The Admiralty had promised that so long as he behaved, Laurence would not be hanged, but they were not to be trusted, not at all. Temeraire resolved twice a week to go to Dover, at once, or to London – only to make inquiries, to see they had not, only to be sure. But unwanted reason always asserted itself, before he had even set out. He must not do anything that might persuade the Government he was unmanageable, and therefore that Laurence was of no use to them. He must be as complaisant and accommodating as ever he might.

It was a resolution already sorely tried by the end of his third week, when Lloyd brought him a visitor, admonishing the gentleman loudly, ‘Remember now, not to upset the dear creature, but to speak nice and slow and gentle, like to a horse,’ which was infuriating enough, even before the gentleman in question was named to him as one Reverend Daniel Salcombe.

‘Oh, you,’ Temeraire said, which made Salcombe look taken aback, ‘Yes, I know perfectly well who you are. I have read your very stupid letter to the Royal Society, and I suppose now you have come to see me behave like a parrot, or a dog.’

Salcombe stammered excuses, but it was plainly the case. He began laboriously to read to Temeraire a prepared list of questions, something quite nonsensical about predestination, but Temeraire would have none of it. ‘Pray be quiet; St. Augustine explained it much better than you, and it did not make any sense even then. Anyway, I am not going to perform for you, like some circus animal. I really cannot be bothered to speak to anyone so uneducated that he has not even read the Analects,’ he added, guiltily omitting Laurence; but then Laurence did not set himself up as a scholar, and write insulting letters about people he did not know, ‘And as for dragons not understanding mathematics, I am sure I know more on the subject than do you.’

He scratched out a triangle into the dust, and labelled the two shorter sides. ‘There; tell me the length of the third side, and then you may talk. Otherwise, go away, and stop pretending you know anything about dragons.’