Some of the whites carried muskets, others pistols. They all looked wide-eyed and jumpy, as if they were dealing with so many ferocious wild animals. Like as not, they thought they were. And they seemed to get even jumpier as they moved away from the cover of the house and barn.

Frederick waved encouragingly. "Go on. Nothing's gonna happen, not unless you start it."

They came up to him. "You got nerve, nigger," the spokesman said.

"Maybe you got nerve, too, trustin' me," Frederick answered. He almost said trustin' a nigger, but he couldn't make himself call himself by that name to a white man, even if he sometimes used it among his own people.

The white studied him with disconcertingly keen gray eyes. "You're a smart fellow, ain't you?"

Frederick shrugged. "Anybody who brags on bein' smart really ain't."

Ignoring that, the white went on, "I wouldn't tell you this if you didn't already know, but I reckon you do. We get out of here, we'll join up with the soldiers first chance we find."

"I suppose so," Frederick said. "You reckon that, just as soon as your bunch comes in, they'll have enough people to whip us up one side and down the other?"

"I-" The white man paused and sent him another sharp stare. "You are a smart fellow. No, I don't figure we'll make the difference all by our lonesome."

"In that case, we may as well let you go, long as you don't kick up trouble," Frederick said.

As the white man walked on with his comrades, he got off one last verbal shot: "Some smart fellows, they come to grief on account of they ain't as smart as they think they are."

That was bound to be true. Frederick hoped it wouldn't turn him upside down. But how could you know you were outsmarting yourself till you'd actually gone and done it?

Those white men would have found they'd outsmarted themselves if they opened fire on the insurrectionists. At least half of Frederick thought they would. Whites had trouble taking blacks and copperskins seriously as fighting men. Maybe the sight of all those bayonets had made these whites more thoughtful than usual. Bayonets didn't have to kill to be useful weapons. They only had to intimidate, and they were splendid for that.

"You sure you should have let them go?" Lorenzo asked.

"No," Frederick answered, which made the copperskin blink. He added, "But if we break a bargain once we make it, we give the whites an excuse to do the same thing."

"Like they need one," Lorenzo said scornfully.

"Army hasn't fought dirty," Frederick said. "They'd be worse if we did. Why give ourselves more trouble? Don't you reckon we got enough?"

"Well, it's pretty bad, way things are now," Lorenzo allowed. "I don't like getting shot at, and that's the Lord's truth. But I know what's worse."

"What's that?" Frederick asked.

"Way things were before," the copperskin answered. "I was gonna be a field hand the rest of my days-till I got too old and feeble to go out to the harvest, anyhow. Then I'd sit in my damn cabin till I got sick and died, or else Master Barford'd knock me over the head on account of I cost too much to feed. If I'm gonna go out, I'd sooner go out fightin'."

Frederick pondered that, but not for long. "Me, too," he said. White militiamen coming up from the south were one thing. White militiamen coming down from the north were something else again. Their leader, a bushy-bearded ruffian named Collins or Conlin or something like that, spread his battered hands and told Leland Newton, "I'm damned glad to be here, your Honor. I'm damned glad to be anywhere right now, and that's a fact."

"They let you get away, I heard," Newton said.

"They did," Collins or Conlin agreed. "They could have killed the lot of us, but they made terms and they kept them." He might have been a man announcing a minor miracle.

"We would have done our best to avenge you," Newton said.

"I expect so." The militiaman nodded. "Wouldn't've done us a hell of a lot of good, though, would it?"

Newton didn't know what he could say to that, so he didn't say anything. Instead, he asked, "Who made the arrangement with you? Were you sure he could get his friends to keep it?"

"We weren't sure of nothin'." Collins or Conlin spat a stream of pipeweed juice to emphasize that. "We damn near-damn near-started shootin' at each other before we decided we didn't have no choice. We was trapped where we was at. Fellow who dickered with us was a nigger. That's all I know about him for sure. Later on, some people told us he was Fred Radcliff hisself, but I can't say for sure he was and I can't say for sure he wasn't."

"What would you have done if you'd known he was?"

"Good question." The ruffian spat again, expertly. "If we'd plugged him then, they would've massacreed us for sure."

He massacreed the pronunciation of the word, but Newton didn't correct him. Instead, the Consul asked, "So the rebels observed the usages of war, then?"

"Observed the what?" Plainly, the militiaman knew no more of the usages of war than a honker knew about history. After a pause for thought, the fellow said, "They told us they wouldn't kill us if we came out peaceable-like, and they didn't. So if you mean, did they play square, well, I reckon they did."

"That will do," Newton said, nodding.

"But what difference does it make?" The militiaman sounded honestly puzzled. "They're still a bunch of mudfaces and niggers. They're still slaves in arms against their masters, too." He might not know anything about the usages of war, but he was sure what such folk deserved.

At the time, Consul Newton had no idea whether that would matter. It turned out to, and the very next day. Atlantean soldiers brought in four rebels they'd captured spying on the camp: a Negro and three copperskins. It was the first success the gray-uniformed men had had for a while. Their friends whooped and hollered. "String 'em up!" somebody shouted, and in an instant everyone was baying out the same cry.

Jeremiah Stafford nodded like an Old Testament prophet. "Just what the renegades deserve," he said.

He had the command that day. If he ordered the captives hanged, hanged they would be. All the same, Newton said, "I think we ought to treat them as prisoners of war."

The other Consul stared at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses. "You've come out with a lot of crazy things, but that may take the cake," Stafford said. "Why on earth should we act like a pack of fools? I mean, look at those villains!"

Newton did. Copperskins were said to be impassive. One red-brown prisoner was trying to put up a strong front. The other two, and the Negro, seemed frankly terrified. Even so, Newton answered, "They didn't kill that pack of militiamen, and they could have. Besides, if we hang these fellows, what will the insurrectionists do when they get their hands on some of our men? After the last two fights, chances are they already hold white prisoners."

He made Stafford grunt, which was more of a response than he'd thought he would get. "Why on earth do you imagine they would respect anything we do?" Stafford returned.

"Because they've kept terms after agreeing to them," Newton said. "War is bad enough when both sides stick by the common rules. It only gets worse when they throw them over the side."

Stafford grunted again. "The insurrectionists threw them over the side when they began their rising."

"Will you talk to Colonel Sinapis before you go looking for the closest tree with a thick branch?" Newton asked. "Why not see what a professional soldier thinks of the whole business?"

"He's soft on the insurrectionists, too," Stafford muttered, but he didn't say no. With Newton following in his wake, he hunted up the colonel.

Balthasar Sinapis gnawed thoughtfully at his mustache. "There are times when you do hang prisoners," he said. "When the other side has committed some atrocity, you want them to know they have not put you in fear, and that you can repay them in their own coin. Here, though… In battle, the rebels have not acted like savages. Do we want to give them the excuse to start?"