"All right." For once, Stafford didn't seem to feel like arguing-or not about that, anyhow. He did have other worries: "What do you suppose they'll do to us once we get back to New Marseille and word of what happened here gets to New Hastings?"

"I don't know," Newton answered. "Maybe they'll decide we were a pack of fools and send out a new army to take a shot at the insurrection. Or maybe they'll try to turn this cease-fire into a real peace. If they do that, we're the people on the spot."

"On the spot is right." The prospect failed to delight Stafford. "Make peace? I wanted to kill them all! Sweet, suffering Jesus, but I still do!"

"I want all kinds of things I'm not likely to get. No matter how well I'm marching now, a carriage would be nice, wouldn't it?" Consul Newton tramped on for a while. He wondered what would happen if he wore through the soles of his shoes before he got back to New Marseille. You'll start wearing through the soles of your feet, that's what. After a furlong or so, he said, "That Frederick Radcliff is a piece of work, isn't he?"

Jeremiah Stafford made a horrible face. "Oh, just a little!" he answered. "Yes, sir, just a little. He's a chip off Victor's block. I don't suppose anyone who ever met him would tell you anything different."

"I expect his owner might have," Newton remarked.

"Yes, I expect the poor bastard might-and much good it would have done him," Stafford said. "Long odds that he's dead now. I wonder what he did to deserve it. I wonder if he did anything."

"Some would say you deserve whatever happens to you if you buy and sell other people," Newton said.

"Some would say all kinds of damnfool things so they can fan themselves with their flapping jaws." Stafford used a flint-and-steel lighter to get a cheroot going. He tried to blow a smoke ring, but didn't have much luck.

"Frederick Radcliff…" Newton tried to bring things back to what he wanted to talk about: "If he were his grandfather's legitimate descendant, chances are he'd be Consul today instead of one of us. He knows his onions, no two ways about it."

"Onions," Stafford echoed disdainfully. "I half wish he would have killed us all. That would have set the country going in the right direction, anyhow. This way… It's humiliating, to know the damned insurrectionists could have killed you but decided not to on account of politics."

"In theory, I can see that," Newton said. "In theory."

"Reminds me of the Caudine Forks," Stafford continued, as if he hadn't spoken. Back even before the battle of Cannae, the Sam nites had beaten a Roman army there and made the defeated soldiers pass under a slave's yoke before letting them go. Sharing a classical education with the other Consul, Newton understood the allusion. "Humiliating," Stafford repeated.

"It could be so," Newton agreed.

"Could be! My dear fellow-"

"It could be," Newton repeated, more forcefully this time. "But whether it is or not, I'm still damned glad to be alive. This way, at least I have a chance to sort things out later. If I were dead, I don't know how I'd manage that. Do you?"

Stafford opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. Newton had tried any number of things without obtaining that desirable result. He cherished it now that he finally had it.

Lorenzo admired the rifle muskets and the cartridge pouches and all the other impedimenta of war the white Atlanteans had to leave behind for their long march back to New Marseille-and their even longer march into disgrace. "Will you look at this shit?" the copperskin crooned. "Will you just fucking look at it?"

"I am looking at it," Frederick Radcliff answered. "Believe me, I like it as much as you do."

"You've got to go some to do that," Lorenzo said. Frederick believed him; Lorenzo might not have paid such careful, loving attention to a beautiful woman dancing naked before him. "We've even got cannon," he added.

"Can't do anything with 'em," Frederick said. "Now I know why people talk about spiking somebody's guns."

Lorenzo waved that aside. "We'll fix 'em. Won't take too long, neither, I bet. And even if we don't, so what? Damned white folks won't be able to shoot 'em at us."

"Yeah." Frederick had no trouble sounding enthusiastic about that. He'd never found anything he liked less than trying to stay nonchalant while roundshot screamed by. But, like most slaves, he had no trouble seeing the clouds that darkened silver linings. "Trouble is, these are the onliest cannons we've got. The damned buckra can go and pull more out of their assholes any time they please. It's the same deal as percussion caps-they can make 'em, and we can't."

"Won't have to worry about percussion caps for a hell of a long time, not after all the ones we took," Lorenzo said. Frederick wondered whether he'd missed the point. A moment later, Lorenzo proved he hadn't: "I bet some of our blacksmiths could make cannon if they set their minds to it."

"Maybe." If Frederick didn't sound convinced, it was only because he wasn't. "Sure wouldn't want to stand behind one the first time some poor damned fool fired it."

"Use a long fuse the first time," Lorenzo said. "After that, though… Hell, these guns the white folks make blow up every once in a while. Chance you take when you join the artillery."

"Reckon so," Frederick said. "With luck, though, won't be anybody shooting for a while now. Maybe the shooting's over. I hope so. Jesus! Do I ever!"

"Oh, I hope so, too. Doesn't mean I won't stay ready to fight," the copperskin answered. "White folks are likely too muleheaded to quit just on account of we licked 'em once. That's why I was so surprised you let 'em go when we could've hurt 'em a lot worse'n we did."

"If they want to beat us bad enough, they can. They got to decide to spend the money and spend the men, but we're whipped if they do," Frederick said. "What we've got to do is, we've got to make 'em decide not to do that stuff. If we scare 'em too much, we're dead. It will take a while, but we're dead. We've got to make 'em think, These niggers and mudfaces ain't so bad. Fighting them is more trouble than it's worth. We let 'em go free, after a while they'll be just like anybody else."

"Fuck 'em," Lorenzo said. "I don't want to act like Master Barford did, puttin' on airs like the fat fool he was."

"Not what I meant," Frederick said. "We got to make 'em figure we'll be peaceable once we're free. If they reckon we'll keep on stealin' and burnin' and killin', they won't give in no matter what."

Quite a few insurrectionists had found they liked the outlaw life. That would cause trouble when peace came-if it ever did. One more thing to worry about later, Frederick thought. First we've got to get peace.

Negroes and copperskins and captured white soldiers who weren't badly wounded dug long trenches in which to bury the Atlantean regulars who'd died trying to get over the rampart and up the gently sloping sides of the valley. The stench of blood and shit and fear that hung over any new battlefield was beginning to go off, to change to the spoiled-meat stink that announced what the flesh was heir to. The fight was only one day past; in the humid heat of Atlantis' southwest, nothing stayed fresh for long.

"Good to get them underground," Frederick said.

"Sure is," Lorenzo answered. "And you'd best believe our boys and girls'll go through their pockets one more time, make damned sure nobody goes into a hole in the ground while he's still got anything anyone can use."

"That's the way it ought to be," Frederick said. His fighters had already plundered the battlefield. Plenty of them wore boots and socks that had graced white soldiers who didn't need them any more. (Some of the white prisoners walked around barefoot, too. If a man with a rifle musket wanted what you wore on your feet, would you tell him no?) Some of the copperskins and Negroes sported trousers or belts or tunics they hadn't owned a couple of days earlier. Some of the clothes were still bloodstained. Soaking them in cold water would get rid of most of those sinister marks.