Maybe rumors of disease in New Hastings gave the redcoats pause Maybe Howe would have gone after Bredestown any which way. The English commander seemed to like moving inland and then turning back toward the coast.

Word of the deployment toward Bredestown reached Isaac Fenner as soon as it reached Victor Radcliff. That was no great surprise: Fenner came from Bredestown, and people from the threatened city naturally appealed to the man who represented them.

Fenner came to the camp outside of New Hastings to confer with Victor. "Can you save Bredestown from the tyrant's troops?" he asked.

"I'm… not sure," Victor said slowly. "Even by trying to do so, I risk losing that town and New Hastings both."

"In what way?" Fenner asked, his tone leaving no doubt that anything Victor said would be used against him.

Sighing, Victor answered, "That Royal Navy flotilla still lies offshore. If we march up the Brede toward Bredestown, the enemy is bound to learn of it. What save the fictitious fear of the yellow jack then prevents him from landing a force of bullocks and sailors and seizing New Hastings before we can return? If the seaside forts fall, as they may well from a landward assault, nothing hinders the English warships from adding their weight of metal to the small arms the marines and sailors will have to hand. Under these circumstances, I fear nihil obstat, to use the Popish phrase."

"If we were to save Bredestown from the redcoats…" Like a lot of men from the city up the Brede, Fenner thought it was at least as important as New Hastings. Few people not Bredestown born and bred shared that opinion.

Victor didn't. Instead of coming out and saying so, which would have affronted the speaker of the Atlantean Assembly, he replied, "We have no assurance of holding Bredestown even with all our forces collected in it. And I would rather not do that if I can find any alternative."

"Why not?" Fenner asked sharply.

"Because it lies on the north bank of the Brede," Victor said. "I have never yet seen a manual of strategy advocating taking a position on a riverbank if there is danger of being pushed back, which would be the case there."

"What difference does it make?" Fenner said. "Several bridges span the stream at Bredestown."

"No doubt, sir. But if we have to try to cross them in a hasty retreat, under fire from the enemy's guns…" Victor's shudder was altogether unfeigned. "Meaning no disrespect, but I would prefer not to have to essay that."

"Would you prefer Bredestown to fall into the blood-dripping hands of King George's butchers, then?" Isaac Fenner's voice and the temperature of his rhetoric both rose dramatically, as if he were making a closing argument in a court of law.

That didn't impress Victor Radcliff. "I know who the enemy is," he said. "I surely fought alongside a good many of the redcoats now opposing us when we conquered French Atlantis. They are not fiends in human form-although I may have to qualify that opinion if they import certain copper-skinned mercenary bands from Terranova."

"Do you suppose they would?" Fenner asked anxiously.

"If they use mercenaries at all, I think them more likely to bring in German troops: Braunschweigers and Hessians and the like. Germans are better disciplined and better armed." Victor paused. "On the other hand, copperskins cost less. That will matter to his Majesty's skinflint ministers, even if not so much to him."

"Confound it!" Fenner said. "You are telling me Bredestown will fall, and we can do damn all to stop that. If we can't beat the damned Englishmen, why did we go to war against them?"

"Because the other choice was submitting to tyranny and oppression," Victor said.

"It looks as though we must submit to them anyhow," Fenner said.

"You gentlemen of the Atlantean Assembly determined to take arms against King George. You summoned me from a peaceful life as farmer and author to lead them," Victor said. "If now you repent of your determination or you would sooner have some other commander, you need but say the word. I assure you, I will return without complaint and without regret to the life that late I led."

"We entrusted you with command on the belief that you would lead our troops to victory against the redcoats," Fenner said. "Instead, we have suffered two sanguinary defeats. We face the loss of Bredestown. The safety even of New Hastings is far from assured."

"Your Excellency, I will say two things in response to that" Victor Radcliff ticked them off on his fingers: "First, I strongly believe General Howe's victories to have been far more bloody than our defeats. He held the ground after both encounters, but paid a high price for it. And second, sir, mark this and mark it well-the only assured safety's in the grave. Anything this side of it is subject to time and chance"

The speaker of the Atlantean Assembly sniffed loudly. "If you made as good a general as you do a philosopher, Mr. Radcliff, I would face the coming struggle with the utmost confidence"

"I, on the other hand, knowing my limits as a philosopher, would face it with trepidation verging on terror," Victor replied.

"Your limits as a general are what concern me," Isaac Fenner said. "We cannot simply abandon Bredestown to the redcoats. The Atlantean Assembly deplores the moral effect such an abandonment would have on Atlanteans and on Terranovans and Europeans favorable to our cause"

"For the reasons I just outlined to you, your Excellency, holding it seems unlikely, and all the more so unless you intend to risk New Hastings," Victor said. "Or has the Assembly some clever stratagem in mind by which both towns may be preserved in our hands?"

"We hope and trust, sir, that you are the repository of such stratagems," Fenner answered. He scratched his chin, then leaned close to Victor. "May I rely on your discretion here?"

"If you may not, sir, you chose the wrong general."

Fenner grunted. "A point-a distinct point. Very well, then. This is for your ears and your ears alone, do you understand?"

"Say on," Victor told him.

"If Bredestown must be lost, then it must." Fenner looked like a man with something sour in his mouth. Visibly pulling himself together, he continued, "But Bredestown must not be seen to be cravenly lost. We must not appear incapable of fighting for it even if we prove incapable of holding it. Does that make any sense to you at all, General?"

"Whatever our weaknesses may be, you do not care to advertise them to the world," Victor said slowly.

"That is the nub of it, yes." Isaac Fenner sounded relieved. Victor got the feeling that, had he failed to divine it, he would have returned to the retirement of which he'd spoken. The head of the Atlantean Assembly went on, "So-can you bloody Howe's men before you pull away?"

"I can try, sir," Radcliff answered.

"That is my home, you know. I shall rely upon you to make them pay a high price for it," Fenner said.

"I'll do what I can, sir," Victor said. That satisfied Fenner, which was fortunate, because Victor knew (whether the speaker did or not) he'd promised nothing.

Bredestown lay twenty miles up the river from New Hastings. Victor thought it was the second-oldest English settlement in Atlantis, but wasn't quite sure-Freetown might have been older. He knew some restless Radcliffe had founded it In those long-vanished days, twenty miles inland were plenty to get away from your neighbors. If only that were still true now!

Victor marched his field artillery, his riflemen, and a regiment's worth of musketeers up the Brede from New Hastings. He left the rest of his force behind to make the Royal Navy think twice about landing marines. The enemy admiral wouldn't be sure he hadn't left the whole army behind. The enemy general wouldn't be sure he hadn't brought everyone along. Neither of them would be able to talk to the other, not quickly or conveniently. And so, taking advantage of their uncertainty, Victor could do what Isaac Fenner wanted.