"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 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.
"Radcliffe. 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.
Chapter 10
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 farthing 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.