United States of Atlantis a-2

by Harry Turtledove

  "What can you do about it?" the man asked.

  Victor Radcliff considered again. He could go himself to investigate… if he didn't mind entrusting command in the vital eastern regions to someone else. He could send someone he trusted to see what was going on around Avalon… if he didn't mind depriving himself of that man's services for some weeks. Or he could simply wait to see which rumors proved true.

  Had any of the rumors Matthew Radcliffe cited been that the Royal Navy was about to try to seize Avalon, he would have dispatched someone on the instant to investigate. As things were… With a sigh and a shrug, he answered, "I believe I shall await developments, both in the west and here. I do not think I'll need to wait long in either case."

  Salty pork sausage, hard bread, and coffee enlivened with barrel-tree brandy-not the worst breakfast Victor Radcliff had ever had. As far as he remembered, his worst breakfast was some raw pine nuts and a roasted ground katydid. The flightless bugs grew as big as mice. You could eat them if you got hungry enough, and Victor had.

  Atlantis hadn't had any rats or mice till they crossed the Atlantic with the first settlers. Now they were as common in towns and in farms as they were back in England. Away from human settlement, the pale green katydids still prevailed.

  As he had more than once before, Victor wondered why Atlantis had no native viviparous quadrupeds but bats. England and Europe did; so did Terranova. Yet Atlantis, which lay between them in the middle of the ocean, didn't. It was as if God had arranged a special creation here.

  Many of His former productions were far scarcer than they had been when Edward Radcliffe came ashore in 1452. Englishmen who felt unfriendly called Atlanteans honkers. Yet the great flightless birds were extinct in settled country east of the Green Ridge Mountains. They were rare anywhere east of the mountains, and growing scarce in the wilder west, too.

  The same held true for the great red-crested eagles that had preyed on them-and that also didn't mind preying on people and sheep. Atlantis used the red-crested eagle to difference its flag from England's, but the bird itself was seldom seen these days.

  Oil thrushes, though less drastically reduced than honkers or eagles, were less common than they had been. Few eastern farmers found enough of them to render them down for lamp oil. The first settlers' tales said that had been a common practice.

  Along with people, the oil thrushes had to worry about foxes and cats and wild dogs these days. Even in the woods, there were more and more mice. Oak and ash and elm and nut trees grew in the woods, too, while deer roamed where honkers had.

  Taken all in all, Atlantis became more like Europe year by year. Victor resolved that it wouldn't come to resemble Europe in one way: it wouldn't supinely submit to rule from a tyrannical king. If General Howe didn't understand that…

  "General! Oh, General!"

  When somebody called for him like that, Victor knew the news wouldn't be good. He wished he'd poured more brandy into the coffee. He still could… but no. He gulped a last mouthful of sausage. For a second, it didn't want to go down; he felt like a small snake engulfing a large frog.

  Then it headed south and he stepped out of his tent. "I'm here," he called. "What is it?"

  "Well, General, now we know how come the redcoats ain't come after us even with the weather getting good and everything," the courier replied. He'd dismounted and was rubbing his blowing horse.

  "Perhaps you do. If so, you have the advantage of me," Victor said. "If you would be so good as to share your enlightenment…"

  "Sure will." The man went on rubbing down the horse. "There you go, boy… The redcoats… Well, the truth of it is, most of the bastards in New Hastings climbed into ships and sailed away."

  "Sailed away where?" Victor demanded. "To Hanover? To Croydon? Back to England?" If it was back to England, they'd won the war… hadn't they?

  "Nope. None of them places," the courier said. "Word is, the ships they were on sailed south."

  "South? To Freetown? To the settlements we took away from France?"

  "General, I'm mighty sorry, but I don't know the answer to that," the man replied. "I don't believe anybody does, except the damned Englishmen-and they didn't tell anybody."

  "Too bad!" Victor Radcliff said. More often than not, somebody blabbed to a whore or a saloonkeeper or a friend. Maybe someone had, but the courier hadn't got wind of it. Then something else occurred to Victor: "How big a garrison did they leave behind?"

  "Not too big," the courier said. "And if we try and take New Hastings away from them, what happens wherever they are heading farther south?"

  That question had claws as sharp as those of any red-crested eagle. "Are they taking the war into the old French settlements? If they seize tight hold of those, can they move up against us the way Kersauzon did?" Do I want to find out? He knew he didn't.

  "General, how in blazes am I supposed to know that?" The man who'd brought the news sounded reproachful.

  Victor couldn't blame him. He didn't know the answer himself. He only knew England had widened the war, and he'd have to find some way to respond. He muttered under his breath. One more thing he didn't know was how the still largely French population of the southern settlements would react when English and English Atlantean armies started marching and countermarching down there.

  Many French Atlanteans resented England for taking their settlements away from King Louis and bestowing them on King George. But they also resented English Atlanteans for swarming down into their lands and grabbing with both hands after the conquest. And, of course, settlers from England and France had been rivals here since the long-vanished days of Edward Radcliffe and Francois Kersauzon.

  Other related questions bubbled up in Victor's mind. How much would the whites-French and English alike-in the southern settlements resent the redcoats if General Howe tried to weaken slavery down there? How much help would he get from the enslaved Negroes and copperskins in the south if he did?

  And what would France do when a large English army started traipsing through lands that had been French less than a generation before? Maybe nothing, but maybe not, too. Even though France had lost settlements in Atlantis, in Terranova, and in India, she'd recovered from the late war remarkably well. If she wanted to resent English incursions, she could.

  Or am I letting hope run away from reality? Victor wondered. He couldn't judge what France was likely to do. He could think of three men from the Atlantean Assembly who knew more about that than he did: Isaac Fenner, Custis Cawthorne, and Michel du Guesclin.

  The courier said, "You look like you just had a good idea, General."

  "Do I?" Victor Radcliff shrugged. "Well, I can hope so, anyway."

  Deliberating in a three-hundred-year-old church in a town of respectable size, the Atlantean Assembly made people who saw it in action think of the English Parliament that had treated Atlantis so shabbily.

  Deliberating in a chamber that was half a tavern's common room and half a tent run up alongside to give more space, in a hamlet with the illustrious appellation of Honker's Mill, the Assembly seemed oddly diminished. The men were no less eloquent, the issues they debated no less urgent. But their setting made them seem no more than farmers gathered together to grumble about the way life was treating them.

  New Hastings was a city. Honker's Mill would never be anything but a village. The honkers that had helped name it were long gone. The stream that powered the gristmill was too small to float anything more than a rowboat. The road that crossed the stream went from nowhere to nowhere. As far as Victor was concerned, it went through nowhere traversing Honker's Mill.

  Isaac Fenner had got word of General Howe's movement south before Victor brought it. That encouraged Victor; the Assembly needed to know what was going on if it was to make sensible decisions. To have a chance to make sensible decisions, anyhow, Victor thought cynically. Even knowing what was going on, some Atlantean Assemblymen hadn't the vaguest idea what to do about it.

  But Fenner wasn't of that ilk. The c
lever redhead from Bredestown nodded when Victor told him what was on his mind. "General Howe doesn't expect his move to stir up the French- else he'd not have done it," Fenner said. "Of course, that doesn't necessarily prove he's right."

  "What can we do to help make him wrong?" Victor asked. "If we fight with France on our side, we're much better off than we are fighting alone."

  "We've already done some of what we need. We've stayed in the field against England," Isaac Fenner answered. "We've shown we're an army, not a rabble that melts away when things turn sour. Your winter raids went a long way toward proving that: we didn't vote you your fancy sword for nothing."

  "I'm glad to hear it." Victor touched the gold-wrapped hilt for a moment. "The French will have heard of this, then?"

  "Rely on it," Fenner told him. "Even though they no longer have settlements here, they are well informed as to what transpires in these parts. And they will also know of Howe's incursion."

  "Capital! This being so, how do we cast the incursion in the worst light possible?" Victor asked.

  Isaac Fenner smiled at the way he phrased the question. "I know the very man to do it, provided we can get him to France. You will, I daresay, be better able to judge the likelihood of that than I."

  "And this nonpareil would be…?" Victor asked.

  "Why, Master Cawthorne, of course." Fenner seemed disappointed he couldn't see that for himself. "Imagine Custis in Paris. A man should not have to enjoy himself so much, even for the sake of his country."

  Victor chuckled. "Yes, I can see how he might have a good time there. The other question is, how will the French receive him? If he is but one more English Atlantean to them, I judge him to be of greater value here."

  "Oh, no, General, no." Fenner shook his head. "If any of us has a reputation in Paris, Custis is the man, in part for his printing, in part for his dabbling in natural philosophy, and in part because they reckon him a delightful curmudgeon, if you can imagine such an abnormous hybrid."

  "Well, then, to Paris with him," Victor said. "He may lose some dignity coming to France in a fishing shallop or a shallow-draught smuggler, but I expect he'll be able to make up for that."

  "I should be astounded if you were mistaken." Isaac Fenner smiled again, this time in a distinctly lickerish way. "The pretty women of Paris will greet him with open arms-and, I shouldn't wonder, with open legs as well."

  Victor Radcliff sighed. "You remind me how long I've been away from Meg."

  "We are all having to do without companionship, or to make do." By the way Fenner said it, he hadn't always slept alone. Since Victor hadn't, either, he couldn't very well reproach the other man. But he did miss his wife. Relief was not the same thing as satisfaction. Fenner went on, "If a fourth part of what I hear is true, General Howe has made do quite well. I shouldn't wonder if he's sailing south not least because he's gone through all the willing women of New Hastings."

  "He does have that reputation," Victor agreed. "So did General Braddock, and deservedly so. I will say, that had no part in Braddock's failure and death south of Freetown. And General Howe has fought better than I wish he would have, regardless of his lechery."

  "A pity," Fenner said, and Victor nodded. The Assemblyman from Bredestown went on, "I have heard he left behind only a very small garrison. Is that also your understanding?"

  "Not a large one, certainly," Victor replied. "As we shall move south after him come what may, I assure you I purpose investigating the situation in New Hastings. If we can recapture it, that will mark a heavy blow against England-far heavier than when we reclaimed Weymouth during the winter."

  "New Hastings is and always has been Atlantis' cradle of freedom," Fenner said seriously. "For it to groan no more under the spurred boot of tyranny would be wonderful. I should greatly appreciate anything you can do toward that end, I assure you."

  If you help me, I'll help you. Isaac Fenner wasn't so crass as to come straight out and say that. He got the message across all the same

  "I'll do what I can," Victor said. "I understand why you don't care to have the Atlantean Assemblymen continue meeting here in Honker's Mill."

  "Oh, my dear fellow, you couldn't possibly! You haven't been here long enough. On brief exposure, this place is merely stifling Not until you've had to endure it for a while does it become truly stultifying. Boredom dies here… of boredom."

  "Heh," Victor said, though he didn't think Fenner was joking. "I wonder what Cawthorne and du Guesclin think of Howe's incursion."

  "In my opinion," Fenner said sagely, "they'll be against it."

  And so they were. Michel du Guesclin couldn't have opposed it more vigorously had he rehearsed for a year. "Bad enough to have English Atlantean settlers on what was French soil," he said. "Worse to have so many English ruffians tramping through as if they owned the countryside."

  "Urn… King George believes he does. He believes he has since the end of the last war" Victor pointed out.

  Du Guesclin waved his words aside. "What can you expect from a German?" he said. "A blockhead, a stubborn blockhead- his Majesty the King of England is assuredly nothing more."

  "Assuredly, his soldiers will arrest you for treason if they hear you saying such things," Victor reminded him.

  "I doubt you shall inform on me," du Guesclin said, which was true.

  "You believe, then, that the French settlers are more likely to resist the redcoats than to oppose an army mostly made up of English Atlanteans?" Victor said.

  Michel du Guesclin nodded. "I do. I believe this to be especially probable if the soldiers from England show an inclination to interfere with the institution of servitude as it is practiced there."

  "I see." That had already crossed Victor's mind. How much would Howe care? How much help would he get from the Negroes and copperskins in the southern settlements if he interfered with slavery? Those were questions easier to ask than to answer. Victor found another one of a similar sort, and asked it anyway: "What about the settlers from English Atlantis who moved south after the last war?"

  Du Guesclin's shrug was peculiarly Gallic. "There, I fear, you would be better able to judge than I. Being one yourself, you will naturally have a better notion of the English Atlanteans' desires than I ever could. If I might venture to predict, however-"

  "Please do," Victor broke in. "I highly value your opinion."

  "Thank you. Very well, then. My guess is that some will favor the German dullard on the English throne while others will oppose him, as seems true here farther north. If General Howe should move against slavery, he will make more enemies than friends among the English Atlanteans. Many of them, after all, moved south in hopes of acquiring a plantation."

  Did his lip curl ever so slightly? Victor Radcliff wouldn't have been surprised. The plantations English Atlanteans wanted to acquire would have been made by French Atlanteans who died during the last war, whether in battle or from disease. A lot of them would have left widows but no heirs. Not all those widows were too fussy to look down their noses at vigorous Atlanteans of English blood, either.

  "One more question, if I may," Victor said. Du Guesclin regally inclined his head. He looked down his nose at English Atlanteans, though he tried not to show it most of the time. Victor went on, "How will France respond to this latest English move?"

  "Frenchmen from France are proud they were not born in distant settlements. I must tell you. Monsieur le General, that I am equally proud I was not born in France," du Guesclin replied. "I do not know what goes on there, especially with this new young king. France will do whatever she does. It may prove wise or foolish. It will prove to be in what she imagines to be her interest. Custis Cawthorne, I suspect, would make a better-certainly a more dispassionate-judge than I."

  "I was going to speak with him anyway," Victor said. "Thanks to your advice, I'll do it now."

  It wasn't easy to live well in a place like Honker's Mill. Even the locals had trouble managing it. Oh, they mostly stayed dry and they seldom went hungry, but animal
s in the forest could match that. So could the inhabitants of backwoods towns all over Atlantis.

  Even in Honker's Mill, Custis Cawthorne lived well. He smoked the mildest pipeweed. He ate the finest poultry and beef and mutton. He drank the smoothest barrel-tree rum, the best ale, the finest wine brought up-by whom? at whose large expense? not his, assuredly-from the south. He enjoyed the companionship of not one but two of the prettiest women for miles around.

  "How do you do it?" Victor asked when one of those women- the younger, a buxom blonde-admitted him to Cawthorne's presence

  "If you are going to live, you should live" Cawthorne declared. "It probably sounds better in Latin, but it's just as true in English. What can I have Betsy bring you? Don't be shy-I've got plenty."

  "Ale will do. I want to keep my head clear." Victor didn't say anything about whatever Cawthorne was drinking. He knew from experience that the printer wouldn't have listened to him if he had. Betsy smiled provocatively as she handed him the mug. With some regret, Victor declined to be provoked. He saluted Cawthorne. "Your health."

  "And yours. God save the general!" Cawthorne could be provocative, too, even if less enjoyably than Betsy. After drinking, he inquired, "And what is the general's pleasure?"

  "One of the things I desire to know is your view of the French view of the English incursion into the former French settlements there." Victor smiled at his own convoluted phrasing.

  "I can't imagine that Paris will be delighted," Custis Cawthorne answered. "Nor is it in our interest that Paris should be."

  Victor nodded. "Isaac Fenner said the same thing."

  "Did he?" Cawthorne sounded less than pleased. "So I am doomed not to be original, then?"

  Ignoring that, Victor went on, "He also said you were the right man to ensure that Paris was not delighted, and to incite the French against England if that be at all possible. How would you like to sail east and try your luck along those lines?"

  "Fenner said I was the right one to go to France? Not himself?" Cawthorne asked. Victor nodded again. The printer let out a rasping chuckle. "Well, in that case I must beg his forgiveness for the unkind thoughts about him that just now went through my mind. Paris! I would be smuggled there, I suppose, disguised as salt cod or something else as tasty and odorous?"