Even if he hadn't known her habits, anyone not deaf as a stump would have had no trouble figuring out where she was and what she was doing. Frederick nodded economically. "Yes, sir."

"Well, she'd better turn Davey loose long enough to sizzle me some bacon and fry up a couple of eggs in the grease, that's all I've got to tell you." Barford hurried past Frederick. The view from behind showed his pants were out at the seat, too. Frederick couldn't imagine how much trouble he'd get in for wearing such disreputable clothes. No, he could imagine it, much too well. But the master did as he pleased. That was what liberty was all about. Henry Barford took it for granted.

Back in Victor Radcliff's day, the Proclamation of Liberty had announced to the world that Atlantis was free from England. Had the Atlantean Assembly, convening in the little town of Honker's Mill, noticed how many people the Proclamation of Liberty left out? Not many of the laws the United States of Atlantis had passed since gave much sign of it.

There had been uprisings, here in the southern parts of Atlantis where slavery remained a legal and moneymaking operation (assuming there were differences between the two). Planters and farmers and white townsfolk put them down with as much brutality as they needed, and a little more besides to give the slaves second thoughts next time. Once or twice, the Atlantean army helped local militias smash revolts. What were the odds the army wouldn't do the same thing again?

Frederick sighed one more time. You couldn't win, not if you were colored. You couldn't even break even-not a chance. And they would hunt you with hounds if you tried to run off to the north, where Negroes and copperskins were free. They weren't sure to catch you, but they had a pretty good chance.

He'd never had the nerve to flee. Things weren't too bad where he was. He could tell himself they weren't, anyhow. The top circle of hell wasn't supposed to be too bad, either. Good pagans went there, didn't they? The only thing they were missing was the presence of God. Frederick nodded to himself. Yes, that about summed things up.

The first carriage rattled up to the big house before ten in the morning. A black man in clothes as fancy as Frederick's drove it. A frozen-faced Negro in an even more splendid getup-he looked ready to hunt foxes-rode behind. When the carriage stopped, he jumped down and opened the door so Veronique Barker could descend.

Like Clotilde Barford, she was from an old French family that had married into the now-dominant English-speaking wave of settlers who'd swarmed south after France lost its Atlantean holdings ninety years before. Henry Barford wasn't a bad fellow. By everything Frederick had ever heard, Benjamin Barker was a first-class son of a bitch.

Sure enough, Clotilde had changed into her new gown by the time Veronique arrived. The mistress swept down to greet her guest in blue tulle and a cloud of rosewater almost thick enough to see. "So good to have you here, dear!" she trilled. Then she switched to bad French to add, "You look lovely!"

"Oh, so do you, sweetheart," Veronique answered in the same language, spoken about as well. Frederick could follow them-his own French was on the same level. Here in the southern Atlantean states, most people had at least a smattering, though English gained year by year.

Arm in arm, chattering in the two languages, Clotilde and Veronique went into the big house. Veronique thought nothing of leaving her driver and footman standing there in the hot sun. Frederick's mistress probably would have been more considerate, but there were no guarantees.

Pointing, Frederick told the driver, "Why don't you put the carriage under those trees? Horses can graze there if they want, and they won't cook."

"I do that," the driver agreed. "Marcus and me, we won't cook in the shade, neither."

"That's a fact," said the footman-presumably Marcus.

"Before too long, we'll bring you out something to eat, something to drink," Frederick promised.

"Got me somethin' to drink." The driver pulled a flask from one of his jacket pockets, then quickly made it disappear before anyone white could see it. "Food'd be mighty good, though. When the white ladies gits together, all the niggers who takes 'em gits together, too."

"That's a fact," Marcus said again. When he reached into his pocket, he pulled out a pair of dice instead of a flask. "Me, I aim to head on back to Master Barker's with some of their money."

"Good luck," Frederick said, wondering how much luck would have to do with the dice games ahead. Maybe those were honest ivories. Then again, maybe the footman had reason for his confident smile. Frederick decided he wouldn't risk any of his small, precious hoard of coins against Marcus.

Odds were he'd be too busy to get the chance even if he wanted it. Here came two more carriages, almost bumping axles as they rolled up the narrow path side by side. They rode that way so the women inside them could talk together. A handkerchief fluttered from a carriage window as one of those women made some kind of point.

Out came Clotilde Barford again to greet the newcomers. The women went in talking a blue streak. They hadn't even begun on the punch yet-though the guests might have got a head start before leaving home.

One driver had another flask. The other produced a deck of cards. The practiced way he shuffled them made Frederick leery of getting into a game with him, too. Were there no honest men anywhere any more? Once upon a time, Frederick had read a story about a Greek who'd gone looking for one-and ended up with nothing but a lantern to light the way and a barrel to sleep in. That didn't much surprise him. The world would have been a different, and probably a better, place if it had.

Carriages kept coming. Before long, Clotilde got tired of going in and out to greet each new arrival. That happened every time she threw one of these affairs. She told Frederick, "You just send 'em on into the house, you hear? I'll say hello to 'em when they come in."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. She said that at every gathering, too. As long as he could stay in the shade on the porch between arrivals, he didn't mind.

In their dresses of white and red, blue and green, purple and gold, the women might have been parts of a walking flower garden. Some of them were young and pretty. Frederick carefully schooled his face to woodenness. Helen would tease him about it tonight. He knew that, but it was all right. But if any of those young, pretty white women noticed a black man noticing them… that was anything but all right. An incautious Negro could end up without his family jewels if he showed what he was thinking. But when a well-built woman was about to explode out of the top of her gown, what was a man of any color supposed to think?

Whatever Frederick thought, it didn't show on his face.

One of the housemaids tried to sneak past him to join the colored men under the trees. He sent her back into the big house, saying, "Wait till the white ladies are eating. The mistress won't pay any mind to what you do then."

"Spoilsport," she said. Gatherings like this let slaves from different plantations get to know one another.

Frederick only shrugged. "Don't want you getting in trouble. Don't want to get into trouble myself, either." She made a face at him, but she went inside again.

He watched the sun climb to the zenith and then start its long slide down toward the western horizon. The broad Hesperian Gulf lay in that direction, but Frederick had never once glimpsed the sea. Dinner was set for two in the afternoon. He figured just about all of Mistress Clotilde's guests would be there by then. Chatter and punch were good enough in their way, but he didn't believe any of the local ladies wanted to miss a sit-down feast.