"Did he?" What Fenner said privately might be more interesting than the public proclamation it accompanied. Victor popped off the seal with his thumbnail and unrolled the letter. Fenner's hand was legible enough, but small and cramped: nothing much beside the secretary's splendid script.
Well done, the redhead from Bredestown wrote. You've given England one in the slats she'll be a long time forgetting. And something more may come of it. Not quite certain yet, but the chances look better by the day. You'll know when it happens-I promise you that. The whole world will know. His scribbled signature followed.
"What does Fenner say?" Habakkuk Biddiscombe asked with the air of a man entitled to know.
Since he was no such thing, he only succeeded in putting Victor's back up. "That something important will be coming out of Honker's Mill soon," he answered, which had the virtue of being true and the larger virtue-in his mind, at least-of not being informative.
"Fenner is full of moonshine promises," Biddiscombe said. "No wonder his hair is red-it shows he's descended from a fox, and not descended very far, either."
"If you feel that way, I'm surprised you're not riding alongside King George's men," Victor remarked.
"Oh, I hope I'm a loyal Atlantean, which I hope I've proved by now, too," the cavalry officer said. "But I also hope I know a rogue when I see one, and may I be damned if I don't see one whenever I look towards Isaac Fenner."
Victor Radcliff shrugged. "Maybe he is a rogue. But so what? If he is, he's our rogue."
"England has a great plenty of them. A few of our own may prove useful, as the mild dose of smallpox in inoculation commonly holds the stronger sickness at bay" Major Biddiscombe allowed. "Still and all, I doubt I'll be much impressed after Honker's Mill labors to bring forth a ridiculous mouse."
"Good to know you remember your Horace," Victor murmured. "All we can do is wait to see what happens there while we do our best down here. Have you ever crossed the mountains before?"
"No, sir," Biddiscombe said. "I like the comforts of civilization. I can live without them when I must, but I prefer not to."
"Not the worst attitude. You seem to cope in the field well enough."
"Your servant, sir." Habakkuk Biddiscombe doffed his tricorn at the praise.
But Radcliff hadn't finished: "We'll need your talents as we travel and those of the ruffians you lead. You'll be widely spread out in front of the army, to find trouble before it finds us and to forage for the main body."
"Well do all we can-you may rely on that," Biddiscombe said. "And we'll slaughter every honker and oil thrush we come upon."
"Up in Hanover and New Hastings, I've heard people who style themselves natural philosophers say we should try to preserve the honkers and other unique natural productions of Atlantis, to let forthcoming generations see and study them alive rather than from specimens and stories," Victor said.
"General, meaning no disrespect to such people, but talk is cheap," Biddiscombe said. "I'd like to hear them babble about not shooting honkers after they try to cross the mountains and get to New Marseille overland. If they didn't declare that there ought to be a bounty on the big, stupid birds, I'd be astonished."
"Well, now that you mention it, so would I," Victor admitted. "An empty belly makes a stern taskmaster."
Habakkuk Biddiscombe nodded. "I should say so! And how many 'natural philosophers,' so called, have ever known its pinch?"
"Why ask me? The next time you keep company with one, enquire of him," Victor said. "And in the meanwhile, why don't you go keep some order among your horsemen?" I've had enough of you, he meant, but he didn't say it.
He would have if Biddiscombe had argued with him. But the cavalry officer, for a wonder, too, took the hint. "Just as you say, sir," he replied, sketching a salute, and rode away.
"What does Fenner have in mind?" Blaise asked quietly.
As quietly, Victor answered, "I truly don't know. He's being coy. Whatever it turns out to be, I hope it proves as important at he thinks, that's all."
Nouveau Redon again, this time traveling from east to west. The town wasn't what it had been. It never would be again, not unless someone found a way to resurrect the spring that had watered it. Several ingenious engineers and charlatans-the difference between the two wasn't always easy to see in advance-had tried, but none with any success.
These days, Nouveau Redon drew its water out of the river that lay below the heights it commanded. That made it easy to besiege despite its still-formidable works. People said it was a sicklier place now than it had been when the spring gurgled up through the living rock. Victor didn't know for a fact that that was true, but he'd heard it more than once.
He didn't stop at the town, skirting it to the south. His foot soldiers didn't seem sorry not to have to climb up to it. The cavalry, whose horses would have had to do the work, might have had a different view. Victor didn't ask them. He was starting to find dealing with Habakkuk Biddiscombe as wearing as the intrepid horseman probably found dealing with him.
He wanted to force the march. If the redcoats got there before him… Then they do, that's all, he told himself sternly. If he confronted them with a few hundred starving skeletons, he wouldn't do Atlantis' cause any good. And that would happen if he pushed too hard. He'd leave men behind all the way to the mountains, and all the way across them as well.
The quartermasters at Nouveau Redon were unenthusiastic about turning loose of what they held in their storehouses. That was, as Victor had seen before, an occupational disease of quartermasters. These fellows had a worse case than most.
Only a direct order made a couple of them condescend to come down and talk to him. "We're here to protect these stores, General, and to preserve them," one of the men said importantly.
"Why?" Victor Radcliff asked.
"Why?" the quartermaster echoed. He and his comrade looked at each other. That didn't seem to have occurred to either of them.
"Why?" Victor repeated. "What's the point of protecting and preserving the supplies in Nouveau Redon?"
Again, he'd taken the officers by surprise. At last, the fellow who'd spoken before ventured a reply: "I suppose, to keep them in readiness in case they were to be required by some military situation."
"Aha!" Victor struck like a lancehead or some other southern viper. The quartermaster officers flinched as if he really did have fangs. He wished he did-he would have bitten both of them. In lieu of that, he said, "Do your Excellencies suppose a march west from here in the direction of the Hesperian Gulf might possibly be a military situation requiring the release of stores from Nouveau Redon?"
"It… might," said the quartermaster who talked more. He wasn't about to admit anything he didn't have to-oh, no, not him.
"Let me ask the question another way, gentlemen." Victor said in his iciest tones. "Do you suppose that, if you don't turn loose of what I need, I won't cashier the lot of you and clap you in irons?"
"You can't do that!" the quartermaster gasped.
"Watch me," Victor said. "I took Nouveau Redon back in the days when it didn't need to haul water up from the Blavet. I can damn well take it again if I have to. Cornwallis and I were on the same side then. I didn't think you were on his side now. Perhaps I was wrong."
"General, that is an insult," the man from Nouveau Redon said stiffly. His colleague nodded.
"Not by the way you act, it isn't," Victor told them. "This is a military necessity. You have the supplies I need. You can release them to me in accordance with the orders I am lawfully entitled to give by virtue of my appointment at the hands of the Atlantean Assembly-or you can declare yourselves the foes of Atlantis' freedom. Which will it be, gentlemen?"