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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 Fe
But Fe
"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 Fe
"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," Fe
"Capital! This being so, how do we cast the incursion in the worst light possible?" Victor asked.
Isaac Fe
"And this nonpareil would be…?" Victor asked.
"Why, Master Cawthorne, of course." Fe
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." Fe
"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 Fe
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 Fe
"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," Fe
"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," Fe
If you help me, I'll help you. Isaac Fe
"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 Fe
"In my opinion," Fe
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."
"Urn… 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," Victor 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."