Now Edna eyed Nellie. Now Nellie flushed and had trouble meeting her daughter's eye. She didn't reckon Bill Reach a missing friend. Reach had mortified her during the war, drunkenly taking her for the strumpet she'd been a long time before. She'd never been able to tell Edna anything since, not hoping to be taken seriously.

But not even Edna knew how Bill Reach had died. No one but Nellie knew that, which was just how she wanted things. She'd been foraging for supplies when he tried to rape her, counting on a broken bottle to intimidate her into cooperating. But she'd carried a butcher knife, and she'd been sober. Bill Reach's body was one of God knew how many hundreds or thousands from the time of the U.S. bombardment, the time before the Confederate Army finally and sullenly pulled out of the U.S. capital. So far as she knew, nobody'd ever found it.

I hope nobody ever does, either, she thought savagely. I hope he rots in the ground and burns in hell forever. It'd serve him right, by God.

Her husband had said something to her, but she had no idea what. "I'm sorry, Hal," she said. "I must've been woolgathering."

"It's all right, sweetheart," Hal said with a tender smile. He did love her. She knew that. She was absently fond of him, too, not least because, being a long way from young, he didn't try to make love to her very often. She'd had more than enough of that. Now he went on, "I said, I know you feel the same way about poor Bill as I do. He always praised the information you got to the skies. He did like the bottle a bit too much, but he was a fine man, a first-class patriot."

Nellie managed a nod and a glassy smile. They sufficed. Edna made a small noise that might have been the start of a snicker, but did stop at Nellie's glower. And then they all got distracted, for Clara came in shouting, "Ma! Ma! Armstrong went and put somethin' down the potty and then he flushed it, and now there's water all over everything! Come quick!"

"Oh, for God's sake!" Nellie sprang to her feet, as did the other grownups.

Getting out the pair of long johns and mopping up the water didn't take long. For Merle Grimes to wallop Armstrong's backside with a hairbrush didn't take long, either. Armstrong's howls needed some little while to subside. So did Nellie's temper. "He's only a little boy, sweetheart," Hal said.

"Boys!" Nellie snorted, in the tone she usually reserved for, Men! "You'd never see a little girl doing something like that."

"You tell 'em, Ma," Edna said. She and Nellie argued whenever they got a chance, but she would back her mother in a quarrel against the other half of the human race.

Except there was no quarrel. Hal Jacobs and Merle Grimes looked at each other, as if wondering who would bell the cat. At last, Hal said, "Well, Nellie, you may be right. If the world held nothing but women, we probably wouldn't have fought the Great War."

Merle chuckled. "Oh, I don't know if I'd go that far. They wouldn't have fought it over Serbia, though-I am sure of that. More likely over which was better, Macy's or Gimbel's."

He laughed. So did Hal. And so did Edna, betraying her sex after all. Nellie glared at her-yes, they would squabble over anything. Defensively, Edna said, "Oh, come on, Ma-it was funny."

"Well, maybe," Nellie said with the air of one making an enormous concession. She was so obvious about it, her husband and son-in-law started laughing again.

"Peace," Merle Grimes said when he could speak at last. "Peace. It's 1926, and we've already drunk to peace. Let's keep it for as long as we can." Not even Nellie could find anything to argue with there.

J onathan Moss got to his feet in the courtroom. "May it please your Honor," he said wearily, "but I must object to the prosecution's speaking of my client as 'the guilty party.' The purpose of a trial is to find out whether or not he is guilty."

His Honor was a U.S. Army colonel named Augustus Thorgood. Down came the gavel. "Overruled." He nodded to the prosecutor, a U.S. Army major named Sam Lopat. "You may proceed."

"Thank you, your Honor," Lopat replied. "As I was saying, Stubbs there is plainly guilty of insurrection against the military government of the United States in the former province of Ontario, as defined in Occupation Administrative Code, section 521, subsection

Horace Stubbs, Moss' client, leaned toward him and whispered, "Thanks for trying."

"We're not out of it yet," Moss whispered back. But he was whistling in the dark, and he knew it.

Major Lopat went on, "Before witnesses, the defendant said the United States deserved to be booted out of Canada on their backside. His very words, your Honor!" His voice trembled with indignation.

"Objection." Moss got to his feet again. "No witnesses have been produced before the court to show my client said any such thing."

"We have the testimony," Lopat said smugly.

"But no witnesses," Moss persisted. "Testimony can come from a man with a personal grudge, or from one out for a profit. How do we know unless we can cross-examine a witness?"

"This is not an ordinary criminal proceeding, Mr. Moss, as you know perfectly well," Colonel Thorgood said. "Testimony from certified informants may be admitted without their being liable to appear in open court, for fear of reprisal against them from the unreconciled."

"How can you possibly hope for justice under such conditions?" Moss asked.

"We aim to stamp out rebellion," the military judge said. "We will, too."

"Yes, your Honor. No doubt, your Honor." Moss turned Thorgood's title of respect into one of reproach. "But, sooner or later, ignoring the needs of justice and caring only for the needs of expedience will come back to haunt you. As Ben Franklin said, your Honor, 'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' "

He'd pulled that quotation out of his Bartlett's, hoping he wouldn't have to use it. If he did, his client would be in trouble. Well, Stubbs was in trouble, and Moss, like any lawyer worth his pay, used whatever weapons came to hand. And this one struck home. Colonel Thorgood turned red. Major Lopat jumped to his feet. "Now I object, your Honor! Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial."

"Sustained." Thorgood thumped the gavel. "The record will be stricken."

"Exception!" Moss said. "If you're going to railroad an innocent man, at least be honest about what you're doing."

Bang! The gavel came down again. "This inflammatory speech will also be stricken," Colonel Thorgood declared. He nodded to Lopat. "Carry on, Major."

Carry on Lopat did, with soldierly precision. The case against Horace Stubbs was strong-was, in fact, airtight-as long as one believed what informants said about him. Moss was convinced the informants were lying through their teeth. But he doubted whether Colonel Thorgood cared one way or the other. Thorgood's job was to keep Canada quiet. If he had to shoot every Canuck in sight to do that job, he would, and go to dinner with a hearty appetite five minutes later.

When Major Lopat finished, the military judge nodded to Moss. "Now, Counselor, you may have your say."

"Thank you, your Honor." Moss fought to keep sarcasm from his voice. He thought he still had some small chance, not of getting his client off-that was plainly hopeless-but of earning him a reduced sentence. Further affronting Colonel Thorgood wouldn't help there. He set forth the evidence as best he could, finishing, "May it please your Honor, the only people who claim Mr. Stubbs was in any way involved with recent unfortunate events in Ontario are those whose testimony is inherently unreliable and who have a vested interest in giving him the appearance of guilt regardless of whether that appearance is in any way justified." He sat down.