Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"Not too bad," Radcliff ventured.

"No, not too. But nobody ever shooted me before." Blaise's grammar still sometimes left a bit to be desired. He looked down at the bandage the surgeon had given him. "It will make a brave scar, though." Was that more of his eccentric English, or did he mean exactly what he'd said? Victor wasn't sure.

"Did you pay back the man who did it?" Victor asked.

The Negro nodded. "Oh, yes, sir. That him there." He pointed to the gutted Spaniard. "I am a blooded warrior again."

"He won't argue with you-that's certain sure," Victor agreed. So Blaise won his warrior stripes whenever he killed somebody? Victor knew of white men-English, French, and Spanish-who shared the same attitude.

His little army couldn't stay in one place very long. It soon started eating the countryside bare. It moved on, plundering small farms and plantations the way it had all through French and Spanish Atlantis. Some of the hidalgos tried to fight back, others didn't. Maybe the released prisoners hadn't spread the word. Maybe the men defending their property just didn't want to listen. Spaniards could be as stubborn as Englishmen.

Two days later, Radcliff got a new surprise. His vanguard ran into Spaniards coming their way. The new arrivals weren't soldiers, but men, women, and children with no more than the clothes on their backs and whatever they could carry. "Save us!" they shouted when they saw the English soldiers.

They spoke Spanish, of course. "Hold fire!" Victor yelled, for the benefit of his men who didn't understand the language. "They're friendly!"

"Devil you say!" an unconvinced settler declared.

Ignoring him, Victor asked the nearest Spaniards, "Why do you need us to save you?"

"Because the slaves have risen up!" one of them cried. "The copperskins and the blacks, they want to kill us all!"

"What's that bugger going on about?" At least half a dozen men who spoke only English asked the same question in almost identical words. Instead of answering them right away, Victor Radcliff glanced over toward Blaise. The Negro knew some Spanish. By the predatory smile on his face, he knew plenty to understand that.

Heading up through French Atlantis toward the northern border and the war against the English settlements, Roland Kersauzon was not a happy man. He would gladly have sent Don Jose to hell or to London, whichever was worse. He'd known about Spanish arrogance before, but the refusal to let him enter Spanish Atlantis proved he hadn't known all about it.

He was more than halfway back to the war he'd left behind when a courier coming up from the south caught him from behind. The man looked to have ridden hard for a long time. He thrust a letter into Roland's hand. Roland stared at the fancy seals and ribbons bedizening it. "Don't tell me this is from-?"

"Oui, Monsieur," the courier replied. "From his Excellency, the governor of Spanish Atlantis. I don't know what he says."

"I don't care what he says," Kersauzon growled. "I might like to meet him with seconds, but any other way? I think not."

"Do you want that, then?" The other horseman pointed to the letter at the same time as he used his other hand to pat his blowing mount's neck.

"Want it? Dear God, no!" Roland said. "But I suppose-I suppose-I'd better read it anyway." He took a certain satisfaction in ripping off the ribbons and breaking the seals. If he tore the paper a little, too-well, so what?

The first thing he saw when he opened the letter was that the secretary hadn't written it. It was in Don Jose's own cramped script, and began, General Kersauzon, please believe that I abase myself before you. With all my heart, I beg you to return to the land that previously rejected the helping hand you put forward.

"Well, well!" Roland said, and then again: "Well, well! Here we do have something out of the ordinary!"

"What is it?" The courier was no less eager for news than any other mortal.

But Roland waved him to silence. He was still reading. Not only do the English afflict us yet, Don Jose wrote, but we are also tormented by a servile insurrection their invasion has touched off. We are in danger of being murdered in our beds by those who should aid and comfort us. And you must know this is a sickness which, if not nipped in the bud, may soon infect French Atlantis as well.

"Nom d'un nom!" Kersauzon muttered, and then a couple of Breton obscenities he only half understood.

"What's going on, Monsieur?" the courier asked once more.

"The slaves in Spanish Atlantis have risen up," Roland replied, which made the other man swear in turn. Roland went on, "Now the Spaniards want us to pull their fat from the fire."

"Are we going to do it?" the courier demanded, and did his best to answer his own question: "Lord knows they don't deserve it."

"No, they don't." Roland Kersauzon sighed. "Which doesn't mean they won't get it anyhow. Don Jose is right about one thing, damn him: an uprising could easily spread from his land to ours."

"If we kill enough slaves, the rest will remember their manners pretty quick," said the man who'd brought the letter. "Or if they don't, we can bloody well kill them all."

They couldn't. Roland knew that perfectly well, even if the courier didn't. Without slaves, French Atlantis-and Spanish Atlantis, too-would grind to a halt. But they would also grind to a halt from an uprising. You couldn't let slaves get away with rebellion, or with thinking they were as good as their masters. The whole system would fall apart if you did, even once.

And so, reluctantly, Kersauzon called to a bugler and said, "Blow halt."

Obedient but puzzled-the French settlers had been pushing hard toward the northeast-the man obeyed. The soldiers weren't sorry to stop. Soldiers were never sorry to stop, from everything Roland had seen. Some went off to take a leak. Others lit up pipes or cigars.

Roland rode out in front of them. "My friends, I am sorry to have to tell you that we must reverse our course again," he said.

The men muttered among themselves. "Who spilled the chamber pot into the soup this time?" one of them asked.

In spite of his own fury, Roland smiled. "That sums it up only too well, mon vieux," he said. "I learn that the slaves in Spanish Atlantis have risen." He held up the letter to show how he'd learned it. "The governor wants our help against them-and, I suppose, against the English settlers who inspired the revolt. And if we would rather not see an uprising in our own settlements, we would do well to give him what help we can."

They weighed that with grave attention. Not many of them came from plantation families, but even ordinary farmers who were doing well for themselves had a couple of Negroes or copperskins to give them a hand. Like plantation owners, they had to worry about their property absconding with itself.

One by one, they started to nod. Somebody said, "It's a damned nuisance, but we'd better do it."

"Once we get down there again, we ought to kick that damned Spaniard around the block," another soldier added, which brought more nods.

"Damned slaves are jumping on the Spaniards when they're down," yet another man said. "We need to teach 'em they can't get away with that kind of crap with us." That too produced a growing chorus of agreement.

"You are gentlemen-and it hasn't turned you into blockheads, the way it has with the Spaniards," Roland said. His soldiers grinned and nudged one another-they liked that. Roland wasn't lying, either. He pointed back the way they'd come. "About-turn, mes amis. We have two jobs of work to do, and with luck we can do both of them at the same time."

Had Montcalm-Gozon or the French regulars watched the settlers reverse their course, they probably would have laughed. Kersauzon's army wasn't long on spit and polish. It didn't drill constantly, the way a European army did. But it could fight when it had to. It had already proved that. As far as Roland was concerned, an army that could fight didn't have to look pretty…and an army that looked pretty was worthless anyhow if it couldn't fight.