“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 clever 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.”
“Um . . . 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,” Vi
ctor 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 Général, 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 animals 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?”
“It’s likely, I fear,” Victor admitted. “We are not going to be able to challenge the Royal Navy on the high seas any time soon.”
“So long as I make myself into a stench in the nostrils of King George, I shan’t complain overmuch,” Cawthorne said. “I doubt not that one of my ancestors was a fisherman. Precious few Atlanteans whose families have been here a while and can’t claim that.”
“I certainly can,” Victor said.
“Radcliffs. Radcliffes.” Custis Cawthorne pronounced the e that should have stayed silent. “If not for you people, we’d probably all be speaking Breton or French or Basque or something else no one in his right mind would care to speak.”
“It could be.” Victor hadn’t much worried about that. “Get ready to leave Honker’s Mill. Get ready to sail. I shall make arrangements to take you out of Atlantis by way of some port or another the English aren’t watching too closely—maybe even New Hastings.”
“New Hastings, eh? Do you think so?” Behind his spectacle lenses, Cawthorne’s eyes were keen. “So you will be moving south after General Howe, will you? I thought as much. You can’t just let him have the south, or we may never see it again.”
“That did occur to me, yes,” Victor said. “News travels fast. You and Isaac have both heard of Howe’s move, while I wondered if I was bringing word of it here.”
“News travels fast,” Cawthorne agreed, a touch of smugness in his voice. It traveled fast when it came anywhere near him—not because he’d produced a newspaper but because he was who he was. Draining his mug of ale, he added, “I shall have to give Betsy and Lois something to remember me by.”
“They aren’t likely to forget you,” Victor said.
“True,” Cawthorne said, more than a touch of smugness surfacing now. “I hope I shan’t forget them. French popsies are enough to make a man forget everything but his last name—and, if he’s lucky, his wallet.”
“I shall rely on your superior experience there,” Victor told him.
“Get your hands on a French popsy, and I guarantee you a superior experience,” Custis Cawthorne replied.
“Enough!” Victor said, laughing. He switched to French to ask, “Does your wit work in this language as well?”
“By God, I hope so.” Custis Cawthorne had a better accent than Victor did. He actually sounded like a Parisian, where Victor talked like a French Atlantean settler, which would have left him seeming a back-country bumpkin if he ever had to present himself at Versailles.
He smiled at the unlikelihood of that. English Atlanteans sounded like bumpkins to the aristocrats commanding regiments of redcoats, too. Of course, so did most of the aristocrats’ own soldiers, so things evened out.
Cawthorne’s other . . . friend—Lois, yes: a statuesque brunette—grabbed Victor’s sleeve as he was about to leave. “Are you going to take Custis away from us?” she demanded.
“Atlantis needs him,” Victor said gravely.
Atlantis was not configured to do what she told it to do. As far as Victor knew, neither was anything else. “Betsy and me, we don’t want him to go away,” Lois said. “We never had fun like this before he came to Honker’s Mill.”
How did she mean that? Do I really want to know? Victor decided he didn’t. “He can help bring France into the war against England,” he said.
“So what?” Lois returned. “Why should the likes of us care one way or the other who wins?”
What difference would it make to her? Very little Victor could see. “Maybe your children will care,” he said, and retreated with her laughter ringing in his ears.
X
Bredestown fell. The English garrison fired a few shots for honor’s sake and then marched away down the Brede toward New Hastings. Exultantly, the Atlanteans pursued. Taking back their first city, the city that still thought of itself as Atlantis’ leader (Hanover? New Hastings never had cared a fa
rthing for Hanover) would be a strong blow against King George.
But New Hastings didn’t fall. No one could say that the redcoats lacked for clever engineers. They’d worked all winter to fortify the landward approaches to the town. Worse—certainly from Victor’s perspective—they’d taken big guns off some of their warships and mounted them in their fieldworks.
Some of those guns seemed to fire roundshot as big as a man’s head. One cannon ball sent a column of almost a dozen men to the surgeons—or to the gravediggers. After that, the Atlanteans lost their zeal for approaching the enemy works. The redcoats might not be there in numbers, but they could badly hurt any assault Victor tried.
And so Victor swung south without trying one. He didn’t expect the English garrison to come out after him. He hoped—he prayed—it would. But he didn’t expect it. The redcoats would have been giving themselves into his hands. Their commander, to Victor’s disappointment, saw that for himself.
Blaise laughed at him. “You want the duck to walk into the oven and roast itself,” the Negro said.
“Well . . . yes,” Victor admitted in some embarrassment. “Why should I work hard if the other fellow can make things easy for me?”
“Just because he can doesn’t mean he will,” Blaise said, which was true even if unpalatable. “How much French do you recall?”
“Un petit peu, j’espère,” Victor answered. “Et tu?”
“La même chose,” Blaise said, and then, in English, “French was the first white people’s language I learned after the slavers brought me here. Some of it got beaten into me, and that stuck. The rest . . . I use English all the time now, except when I’m with Stella.”
His wife came from the same part of Africa he did. Till Victor got to know Blaise, he hadn’t thought that Africa might have as many languages as Europe. He wondered why not; he knew Terranovan copperskins spoke many different tongues. Maybe it was because blacks looked more nearly alike to him than copperskins did.
How did whites look to Terranovans and Africans? That was an interesting question. One of these days, maybe he’d ask Blaise about it. For the moment, he had more urgent things to worry about.
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