"Me? Not a word of your language do I speak or comprehend," Blaise replied-in French.
Froissart blinked, then threw back his head and laughed. uEh bum, Sergeant, it seems you are one on whom we shall have to keep an eye."
"You white people have been saying that for as long as I was able to understand your speech," Blaise said. "Nevertheless, saying is easier than doing, or I should never have escaped from slavery." He eyed Froissart with a raised eyebrow. "The fellow who bought me when I first came to Atlantis was a Frenchman."
Victor waited to see how Froissart would take that "This fellow, he was not me," the French officer said. "He was not the marquis, either, or any of the soldiers who have come to Atlantis from la belle France. Please bear it in mind, Sergeant"
It was Blaise's turn to measure, to consider. "Well, I can probably do that," he said at last.
He might have angered or affronted Froissart if not for his earlier gibe. As things were, de la Fayette's aide-de-camp nodded judiciously. "Good enough. And can you also ride a horse?"
"How much you demand of me." Blaise sounded as petulant as a seventeen-year-old girl dreamt of being.
"You?" Victor exclaimed in mock dudgeon. "He doesn't even ask if I can ride."
Captain Froissart made a small production of charging his pipe and flicking at a flint-and-steel lighter till it gave forth with enough sparks to ignite the pipeweed in the bowl. After puffing a couple of times and ensuring that the pipe would stay lit, the Frenchman spoke in philosophical tones: "They warned me Atlanteans were… different. I see they knew what they were talking about."
Who were they? Victor almost asked. In the end, though, he decided he'd rather not know. All that mattered was that the French were on Atlantean soil, and on Atlantis' side. As long as he kept that firmly in mind, he could worry about everything else later.
When camped, French regulars pitched their tents with geometrical exactitude. The perfect rows of canvas might have been part of a formal garden: the effect was pleasing and formidable at the same time.
The effect the Marquis de la Fayette had on Victor Radcliff was almost the same. De la Fayette was both younger and better trained than Victor had expected. He also manifested far more enthusiasm for the Atlantean cause than Victor had looked for.
"It is not just a matter of giving England a finger in the eye, pleasant though that may be," de la Fayette declared. "But the Proclamation of Liberty? Oh, my dear sir!" He bunched the fingertips of his right hand together and kissed them-he was a Frenchman, all right. "This document… How shall I say it? This document shall live on as a milestone in the history of the world."
The praise sounded even more impressive in French, perhaps, than it would have in English. The marquis did speak English after a fashion, but both Victor and Blaise were more fluent in French. And, since several of the French officers had only their native tongue, they were happy not to have to try to learn Atlantis' dominant language on the fly.
"You gentlemen certainly have, ah, made yourselves at home here," Victor remarked.
"My dear sir!" de la Fayette said again. "It is from time to time necessary to fight a war. No denying that, however great a pity it may be. Still, it is not necessary to make oneself unduly uncomfortable while fighting it, eh?"
"So it would seem," Victor said, and left it there.
His allies lived under canvas: they were, as de la Fayette said, at war. But they'd brought over a variety of light, ingenious folding furniture-not just chairs, tables, and writing desks, but also bed frames and wickerwork chests of drawers-that let them feel as if they were back in their estates on the Loire or the Seine.
And they'd brought over some vintages finer than any Victor had ever tasted, and some brandies that taught him what brandy ought to be. They supplemented those with beer and ale and spirits taken from the countryside. And their chef… Blaise put it best when he said, "It's a wonder you gentlemen don't all weigh four hundred pounds. You've got some of the best victuals I ever tasted."
"You do," Victor agreed; he was thinking about letting his belt out a notch.
"Merci" the marquis said, smiling-he was an affable young man, no doubt about it. "I shall pass your praise on to Henri, who will be grateful for it." Henri was the genius who did things to poultry and beef the likes of which no Atlantean cook had ever imagined.
Captain Froissart said, "You will remember, my friends, that we get our exercise come what may." His colleagues grinned and leered and nodded.
Victor managed a smile himself. Most of the exercise the French officers got was of the horizontal variety. They hadn't been in Atlantis long, but they'd acquired mistresses or companions or whatever the word was. The girls were all uncommonly pretty. Quite a few of them, whatever they were to be called, had dark skins.
Victor wondered what Blaise would have to say about that. Blaise took it better than he'd expected. "If you sleep with an officer, you get presents you don't see from anybody else," he observed. "You hear things you don't hear from other folk, too. You do all right for yourself afterwards, I bet."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Victor said, and left it there.
Knowing the country between Cosquer and Freetown better than the newly come French-he'd fought against Montcalm-Gozon and Roland Kersauzon hereabouts in the last war-Victor accompanied the Marquis de la Fayette on reconnaissance rides to probe the English positions.
And, more than once, he accompanied the marquis on very rapid returns to the French army's positions. The redcoats also seemed to know the countryside quite well. Some of the Atlanteans who fought on King George's side knew it even better. Radcliff and de la Fayette barely escaped a couple of ambuscades.
"Nothing like being shot at when they miss, n'est-cepas?" de la Fayette said after some English musket balls missed by not nearly enough.
"It is an improvement on getting hit," Victor agreed. "Past that, I don't think it has a great deal to recommend it."
By then, they were almost back to the French commander's tent. "Come in and take some brandy with me," de la Fayette said. "You will see how much better it tastes now than it would have on an ordinary day when nothing interesting happened."
"I don't know about that, your Excellency, but I'll gladly make the experiment," Victor said.
One tumbler of brandy became two, and then three. Victor wasn't sure whether the bottled lightning tasted better than it would have on an ordinary day. He wasn't sure it got him anymore drunk than it would have on an ordinary day, either. Well before he finished that third tumblerful, he was sure it didn't get
him any less drunk.
The marquis seemed convinced he'd proved his point As he refilled his own tumbler, he solemnly declared, "There is also something else that improves after one is fired upon to no
effect."
"Oh?" Victor responded with a certain intensity of his own. "And what might that be?"
De la Fayette got a fit of the giggles. "It might be any number of things, my friend. But what it is… If you will excuse me for a few seconds…" He hurried out of the tent without waiting to find out whether Victor would excuse him or not. That affronted Victor, which only went to show he'd had a good deal to drink himself-not that he thought of it in those terms at that moment.
The marquis took longer to return than he'd promised. That didn't bother Victor Radcliff, who applied himself to the brandy with a dedication suited to-he supposed-celebrating a narrow escape.
Then de la Fayette did return-with his companion, a charming and intelligent (and Victor had seen that she was both) young mulatto woman named Marie. And with the two of them came another pretty girl, perhaps two shades darker than Marie. The marquis introduced her as Louise.