"I wish we'd had your knowledge when first we arrived in Scotland," Laurence tells him, a little wry. "It may well have staved off some of what happened thereafter. We had believed him to be an Imperial; it was not until his use of the divine wind that it became clear he was in fact a Celestial."

He's on firmer ground with his own choice of name, and smiles, brief. "Yes," he says. "It is a French word; it means 'bold.'"

Or 'reckless', but the young man clearly thinks well of Temeraire and Laurence does not wish him to be distressed over less flattering definitions. "When he first hatched and spread his wings, I could think only of a grand ship of the line I had seen once; she is named Temeraire, for a French vessel which had been captured earlier."