Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

The food was plain and poor, but healthy and there was plenty of it. So much, in fact, that both serving pots had soup left in them. Mama Squirrel poured them back into the big cauldron by the fire. "I never made but one batch of soup in all the years we've lived here," she said.

Even the old bread and the half-eaten scraps from the children's bowls were scraped into the big pot. "As long as I bring the pot to a long hard boil before serving it again, there's no harm from adding it back into the soup."

"It's like life," said Papa Moose, who was scouring dishes at the sink. "Dust to dust, pot to pot, one big round, it never ends." Then he winked. "I throw some cayenne peppers in it from time to time, that's what makes it all edible."

Then the children were herded upstairs into the dormitories, kissing their parents as they passed. Papa Moose beckoned Alvin to come with him as he followed the children up. It wasn't quick, following him up the stairs, but not slow, either. He seemed to bob up the stairs on his good foot, the clubbed foot somewhat extended so it stayed out of the way and, perhaps, balanced him a bit. It was wise not to follow too close behind him, or you could find out just how much of a club that foot could be.

They all lay down on mats on the floor-a floor well-limed and clean-swept. But not to sleep. One-hour candles were lighted all around the room, and all the children lay there, pretending to be asleep while Papa Moose and Mama Squirrel made a pantomime of tiptoeing out of the room. Naturally, Alvin glanced back into the room and saw that every single child pulled a book or pamphlet out from under their mat and began to read.

Alvin came back downstairs with Moose and Squirrel, grinning as he went. "It's a shame none of your children can read," he said.

Papa Moose held to the banister and half hopped, half slid down the stairs on his good foot. "It's not as if there were anything worth reading in the world," he said.

"Though I wish they could read the holy scriptures," said Mama Squirrel.

"Of course, they might be reading on the sly," said Alvin.

"Oh, no," said Papa Moose. "They are strictly forbidden to do such a thing."

"Papa Moose showed our ragged little collection of books to all the children and told them they must never borrow those books and carefully return them as soon as they're done."

"It's good to teach children to obey," said Alvin.

" 'Obedience is better than sacrifice,' " quoted Papa Moose.

They sat down at the kitchen table, where Arthur Stuart was already seated, reading a book. Alvin realized after a moment that it was written in Spanish. "You're taking this new language of yours pretty serious."

"Since you know everything there is to know in English," said Arthur Stuart, "I reckon this is the only way to get one up on you."

They talked for a while about the children-how they supported them, mostly. They depended a lot on donations from likeminded persons, but since those were in short supply in Barcy, it was always nip and tuck, allowing nothing to go to waste. "Use it up," intoned Papa Moose, "wear it out, make it do or do without."

"We have one cow," said Mama Squirrel, "so we only get enough milk for the little ones, and for a little butter. But even if we had another cow or two, we don't have any means of feeding them." She shrugged. "Our children are never noted for being fat."

After a few minutes the conversation turned to Alvin's business-whatever it was. "Did Margaret send you here for a report?"

"I have no idea," said Alvin. "I usually don't know all that much more about her plans than a knight does in a game of chess."

"At least you're not a pawn," said Papa Moose.

"No, I'm the one she can send jumping around wherever she wants." He said it with a chuckle, but realized as he spoke that he actually resented it, and more than a little.

"I suppose she doesn't tell you everything so you don't go improving on her plan," said Squirrel. "Moose always thinks he knows better."

"I'm not always wrong," said Papa Moose.

"Margaret sees my death down a lot of roads," said Alvin, "and she knows that I don't always take her warnings seriously."

"So instead of giving you warnings, she asks you to help her," said Squirrel.

Alvin shrugged. "If she ever said so, it would stop working."

"The woman is the subtlest beast in the garden," said Papa Moose, "now that snakes can't talk."

Alvin grinned. "But just in case she actually sent me here for a purpose, do you have anything to report to her?"

"Meaning," said Arthur Stuart, looking up from his book, "do you have anything you'd be willing to tell old Alvin here, so he can figure out what's going on?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"There's all kinds of plots in this city," said Papa Moose. "The older children eavesdrop for us during the day, as they can, and we have friends who come calling. So we know about a good number of them. There's a Spanish group trying to revolt and get Barcy annexed by Mexico. And of course the French are always plotting a revolution, though it don't come to much, since they can't come to any agreement among the parties."

"Parties?"

"Them as favor being part of an independent Canada, and them as want to conquer Haiti, and them as want to be an independent city-state on the Mizzippy, and them as wish to restore the royal family to the throne of France, and two different Bonapartist factions that hate each other worst of all."

"And that don't even touch the split between Catholics and Huguenots," said Squirrel. "And between Bretons and Normans and Provencals and Parisians and a weird little group of Poitevin fanatics."

"That's the French," said Moose. "They may not know what's right, but they know everybody else is wrong."

"What about the Americans?" asked Alvin. "I hear English on the street more than French or Spanish."

"That depends on the street," said Moose. "But you're right, this city has more English-speakers than any other language. Most of them know they're just visitors here. The Americans and Yankees and English care about money, mostly. Make their fortune and head back home."

"The dangerous plotters are the Cavaliers," said Squirrel. "They're hungry for more land to put into cotton."

"To be worked by more and more slaves," said Alvin.

"And to restore some glory to a king who can't get his country back," said Squirrel.

"The Cavaliers are the ones who want to start a fight," said Papa Moose. "They're the ones who hope that a revolution here would make the King step in to bail them out-or maybe they're already sponsored by the king so he'd just use them as an excuse to send in an army. There's rumors of an army gathering in the Crown Colonies, supposedly to guard the border with the United States but maybe it's bound for Barcy. It's one and the same-if the King came in here, in control of the mouth of the Mizzippy..."

Alvin understood. "The United States would have to fight, just to keep the river open."

"And any war between the U.S. and the Crown Colonies would turn into a war over slavery," said Papa Moose. "Even though parts of the United States allow slavery, too. Free-state Americans may not care enough to go to war to free the blacks, but if they won the war, I doubt they'd be so stone-hearted as to leave the slaves in chains."

"Does all this have anything to do with Steve Austin's expedition to Mexico?" asked Alvin.

They both hooted with laughter. "Austin the Conqueror!" said Papa Moose. "Thinks he can take over Mexico with a couple of hundred Cavaliers and Americans."

"He thinks dark-skinned people are no match for white," said Squirrel. "It's the kind of thing slaveowners can fool themselves into believing, what with black folks cowering to them all day."

"So you don't think Austin and his friends amount to anything."