In the meantime it was pleasure enough to walk without pain in his leg, even on a damp cold morning. Lucky the bullet hadn't done much damage to bone and tendon as it drilled its way through; lucky it hadn't been a hollowpoint, too. He nodded greeting to friends and acquaintances, and once to a mainlander, an Indian struggling not to gape around him, a blanket wrapped about his shoulders. The sight set his teeth on edge. It was impossible to avoid all contact, he knew-if nothing else they were within canoe-paddling distance of Martha's Vineyard and the continent- and Doc Coleman was taking every possible precaution, but still… What will happen will happen.

At least the locals had proved reasonable enough, once you learned how to approach them. Eager to trade for cloth and tools, too; pelts, deerskins, birch-bark containers of maple syrup, gathered nuts and dried berries, roots and herbs.

He heard feet on the sidewalk behind him and turned. Alston and Swindapa were running side by side, sheathed swords in their left hands pumping back and forth with the movement of their legs. She's not limping either anymore, he thought with satisfaction. Alston must be back in fighting trim. He was glad of that, for her sake, and… And frankly, she was like a penned she-wolf for a while there. They slowed to a walk as they came up to him, wiping the sweat from their faces with the towels slung around their necks. You could work up some heat even in this weather, and they were wearing thick track suits and gloves.

"Mornin', Jared," she said, breathing deep and slow.

"Morning, Marian, Swindapa," he said.

"You're out early, I see."

He shrugged. "Martha didn't feel well last night, so I thought I'd let her sleep when she finally could." One drawback of marrying late was that she'd never gotten used to having someone else in the same bed; and when you piled morning sickness on top of it, a lot of rest got lost. "The doctor says it's natural enough. Why do they call it morning sickness?"

"Don't worry," Marian said. "There's a lot of variation. I was sick at unpredictable intervals right into the seventh month. And everythin' went smoothly enough come the time."

" 'Bye, Jared. I got to get breakfast ready, it's my turn," Swindapa said, giving Alston a kiss. "French toast today. Maple syrup!" She dashed off, vaulting smoothly over one of the sidewalk benches and pelting up past the shuttered Pacific Bank.

"Glad to see you're back in shape. Must be a bit of a trial, keeping up with all that youthful energy," he said, grinning.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, tell me 'bout it, Jared. 'Sides, I've got sisters-and both of them hit two hundred and thirty pounds by their second baby. Powerful incentive to sweat."

He turned his head sharply. "… that the sort of role model we want in front of our young people-" came from behind him. Sound was tricky in a fog like this.

Alston's head was turning too, the friendly expression congealing into that flat glare she had. She'd gotten a lot less likely to let that sort of thing pass recently. Cofflin turned on his heel and stalked back down the street, halting when he came to Lisa Gerrard. He'd recognized her voice; she was on the School Committee, and spoke often. Very often. He thrust his face into hers, conscious of the cold anger in him and holding it back. The words came out slow, deliberate, and bitten off:

"Well, actually, Ms. Gerrard, I do consider Captain Alston an acceptable role model. Considering that she saved Martha's life and nearly got killed doing it, and that she led the expedition that got us the food we're eating this winter, and everything else she's doing for this ungrateful island, I consider her an excellent role model. And when you, Lisa Gerrard, have done one tenth as much for the common good, maybe-just maybe-you can criticize her. Until then I suggest you shut… the… hell… up!"

He'd started loud, and the last part rose to a bellow. Whistles, cheers, and clapping came from the crowd around the bulletin board, and Gerrard retreated in confusion. Cofflin gave a curt nod to them and stalked back to Alston, who stood waiting with her brows raised.

"Why, Jared, I didn't know you cared," she said. "Thanks, by the way."

He snorted, but the tension relaxed out of his shoulders. "How's the ROATS program coming along?" he said, slightly embarrassed.

"Not bad, considerin', although we surely miss Martins. Leaton says the turntables and hull bracing shouldn't be any problem. Come on, I'll fill you in. 'Dapa's learned to make a smokin' piece of French toast with turkey eggs and barley bread."

John Martins turned away from the open end of the smithy. From here he could see the workers-slaves, in iron collars-putting up a new building, with a couple of the Americans supervising. There were already half a dozen frontier-style log buildings around a square, William's house, accommodation for his retainers, storehouses and workhouses and stables, and the smithy. The square itself had been roughly cobbled with round stones from the river, and the whole settlement kept reasonably dry with drainage ditches-refinements not current in these parts. Another working party labored to hollow out split logs, the chain-link hobbles between their ankles clinking as they moved. The logs would be strapped back together with iron bands and used to pipe in water from a spring not far distant.

One slave stopped a little too long to stretch his back, and the overseer's cane whistled. There was a pop, a yelp, and the man began working again with furious speed. Walker had mentioned that he was using Roman methods, including the ergostula, the windowless half-underground jail where most of the male slaves were kept shackled at night.

"Oh man, that guy is, like, an ore" he muttered to himself.

"What say?" one of the apprentices said.

There were four other men in the smithy with him, two of Isketerol's Tartessians and two Iraiina who'd sworn service with Walker. Not counting the poor bastard in the collar working the bellows, of course. He and the men learning from him were communicating fairly well now, in bits and pieces of each other's languages, despite the way Walker kept sending him new ones. Eventually you got across what you needed to, and teaching helped take his mind off the general shittiness of the situation. The smithy was warm and close inside, well lit by the glow of the big charcoal hearth as well, despite the rainy dimness outside. He turned back to the forge, explaining:

"Like, this is cast iron, man," he said, taking a piece that had originally been in the Eagle's ballast out of the forge and laying it on an anvil. "It won't forge like the wrought stuff we've been working-it's too brittle."

He demonstrated with a blow of his hammer. The iron split, showing gray at its heart.

"You gotta get the carbon out. So y' heat, sorta stir the puddle of melted stuff around, y' hammer to get the slag out, and heat again."

"Eventually," he went on, "it gets to be, you know, wrought iron. Then you can work it like we've been doing, or harden it up again to steel. Like, you need a rilly big hearth for a finery, not just a forge like this-this is just to give you an idea."

He picked out a piece farther along and bent it into a curl shape with a few skilled blows. Each of the others duplicated the process under his critical eye.

"This cast iron," one of the Tartessians said, "it is the same as will come from the blast furnace when it is finished?"

"Yeah, man, right on. You got it."

The twelve-foot-high fieldstone furnace was nearly complete, and there was ore and limestone and charcoal in abundance; mineral deposits didn't change, and they had the Ordnance Survey maps. They did need cylinder bellows and water-powered draft, though, which was taking a while. Judging from the way things had gone with other stuff, they'd have to fiddle around a good long while to get it to work really right-there were lots of little things the books never mentioned. Meanwhile they stockpiled materials.