The United States of Atlantis

by Harry Turtledove

  The horseman doffed his tricorn. “Much obliged, ma’am.” He gulped the punch and smacked his lips. “Ahhh! Much obliged indeed—that’s tasty stuff.”

  “You shall be one of the first Consuls,” Meg said to Victor. “Schoolboys yet unborn will have to learn your name and deeds or get a whipping, as if you were William the Conqueror or Queen Elizabeth.”

  “You make me think I should say no!” he exclaimed. Blaise and the messenger laughed. Meg . . . didn’t.

  Blaise went back to his cottage to tell Stella and the children. They came out to congratulate Victor. In public, all seemed well between Stella and Blaise. But Blaise hadn’t said anything about her letting him make love to her again. Even though Blaise hadn’t got Roxane with child, Stella seemed less forgiving than Meg.

  Victor’s wife ducked into the house once more. When she came out again, she gave the messenger another mug of rum punch and a sandwich of roast duck between two thick slices of brown bread. The duck was from night before last, and wouldn’t stay good much longer. Even so, the messenger wasn’t inclined to complain. Just the opposite—he dipped his head and said, “By all that’s holy, ma’am, I wish I’d had call to come here sooner!”

  “You rode a long way, and you brought good news,” Meg said. Her gaze swung toward Victor. “I suppose it is good news, anyhow.”

  The messenger only grinned—he didn’t follow that. Victor smiled uncomfortably—he did. Blaise and Stella and perhaps even their children understood . . . some of it, at any rate. But none of them let on.

  “Well, General Radcliff—uh, Consul Radcliff, I guess I should say—will you write me an answer I can take back toward New Hastings?” the messenger asked.

  “I shall do that very thing,” Victor said. “Come inside with me, why don’t you? Everyone come inside—we’ll get out of the sun.”

  After finding a sheet of paper and inking a quill, Victor wrote quickly: To the Conscript Fathers of the Senate of the United States of Atlantis, greetings. Gentlemen, I am honored beyond my deserts to be selected Consul, and gratefully accept the office, which I shall fulfill to the best of my abilities, poor though they may be. I am also proud to share the Consulship with the most distinguished Isaac Fenner, and look forward to working with him closely and cordially. I remain your most obedient servant and the servant of our common country. . . . He signed his name and added his seal.

  He sanded the letter dry, shook away the sand, folded the paper, and used a ribbon and his seal again to make sure it stayed secure. On the outside, he wrote To the Senate of the United States of Atlantis, convened at New Hastings. His hand was no match for that of the Senate’s secretary, but was tolerably legible.

  “You did tell ’em yes, I take it?” the messenger said as Victor gave him the reply. “I need to know that much, in case something happens to the paper.”

  “Yes, I told them yes,” Victor answered.

  After two mugs of rum punch, the messenger thought that made a fine joke. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, yes . . . Yes, yes . . . Yes, yes!” He kept trying to find the funniest way to stress it, and laughed harder after each new try.

  He rode off down the dirt track that would take him east and south, back toward New Hastings. Victor wouldn’t have been amazed had he trotted west instead, and ended up in the foothills of the Green Ridge Mountains. But no.

  “Well, I won’t have to chase after him and put him on the right road,” Blaise said, so Victor wasn’t the only one who’d had his doubts.

  After congratulating Victor again, the Negro and his family went back to their own cottage. That left the new consul alone with his wife. When Meg said, “New Hastings,” she might have been talking about the tallest dunghill for miles around.

  “New Hastings,” Victor agreed in a very different tone of voice.

  “I had not planned on leaving the farm for so long, but I had better come along with you,” she said in a voice that warned she would tolerate no dissent. “You go there to keep an eye on the country, and I shall go there to keep an eye on you.”

  Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? For once, Victor had an answer to Juvenal’s ancient and cynical question. He knew exactly who would watch at least one of Atlantis’ watchmen. He let out a soft chuckle.

  “And what do you find funny now?” Meg asked ominously. Victor explained. To his relief, Meg at least smiled. She was an educated woman, even if she hadn’t used her Latin much since her school days (for that matter, neither had Victor). After a moment, though, she said, “But Juvenal wasn’t talking about the Roman Senate and Consuls when he wrote that, was he?”

  “No, I don’t believe he was,” Victor said, and not another word. Juvenal had been talking about brothel guards. If Meg didn’t recall that, Victor wasn’t about to remind her.

  “Between you and Isaac, the country will be in good hands,” she said, mercifully letting the quotation drop. “Between my right and my left, so will you.”

  “Fair enough,” Victor agreed. And, at least for the time being, it was.