Free Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

bathe.”
    “This is only a temporary harness,” Rankin said, adding tentatively, “and I shall have a nicer made for you, chased with gold,” in what Temeraire felt was a quite shameful bargaining sort of manner.
    “Ah, now that sounds more like,” the dragonet said.
    “And I shall give you a name, straightaway,” Rankin added, with more firmness. “We shall call you
Serenitus—
”
    “I have been thinking
Conquistador
, myself,” the dragonet interrupted him, “or perhaps
Caesar;
only as I understand it, the conquistadores came out of it with a good deal more gold.”
    “No-one is going to call you
Caesar,”
Temeraire said, revolted. “You are only going to be a middle-weight, anyway, if you are that big: Wringe is not even as big as a Reaper.”
    “You never know,” the dragonet said, unphazed. “It is better to be prepared. I think
Caesar
will suit me very well, now I think about it a little more.”
    “Well, I wash my hands of it all,” Temeraire said to Laurence, afterwards, in more than a little aggravation, watching Caesar—oh! how ridiculous—eating a
second
sheep; Rankin had sent out for it, after Caesar had eaten all the first one, down to the scraps, and suggested with a very transparent air that perhaps eating quite a lot while he was fresh-hatched would help him to grow bigger. “And I do not believe that at all,” he added.
    “Well, my dear, they seem to me admirably suited,” Laurence said dryly. “Only I am damned if I know what we are to do now.”

Chapter 4
     

     
    “L AURENCE , I HOPE you will forgive me,” Granby said, low, while across the way Caesar continued his depredations upon the livestock which Rankin had evidently intended for his first week of feedings. “I didn’t mean to say a word, unless he should manage to harness the beast; but he has, and there is no way around it—you must let me go-between, and make up the quarrel.”
    “I beg your pardon?” Laurence said, doubtfully, certain he had misunderstood; but Granby shook his head and said, “I know it’s not what you are used to; but pray don’t be stiff-necked about it: there can’t be two captains in a covert at dagger-ends forever and anon, and you can’t fight him; so it must be made up, whatever you think of the blighted wretch,” he added, rather failing at conciliation.
    It was by no means what Laurence was used to; the thought of offering Rankin anything so like apology, for an act which had been richly merited by his behavior, and which Laurence would gladly have drawn swords to justify, appalled more than he could easily bear.
    “You needn’t think of it that way,” Granby said, “for it’s only that you have the heavier beast, you know: that is the rule. It’s for you to make the first gesture; he can’t, without looking shy. And it don’t signify you aren’t a captain anymore in the official way, because that doesn’t make Temeraire vanish into the air.”
    Laurence could not be so easily reconciled, despite all the obvious sense in this policy, to a gesture which to him partook of the worst part of both withdrawal and deceit. “For I do not withdraw, John; I cannot withdraw in the least. It would be rankest falsehood for me to pretend in any way to regret my actions, or any offense which was given bythem; and under the circumstances, such a withdrawal must bear a character of self-interest which I must despise.”
    “Lord, I am not saying you must truckle to the fellow!” Granby said, with a look half affection and half exasperation. “Nothing of the sort; you only need to let me go forward, and have a word with him, and then you shan’t speak of it again, either of you: that is all. No-one will think any less of you: the contrary, for it would be rotten for the dragonet, you know. If you are giving his captain the go-by, it must make a quarrel between him and Temeraire, too, and you can’t say that is fair.”
    This argument had too much justice for Laurence to ignore; he