Habakkuk Biddiscombe not only went over to General Cornwallis and King George, he reveled in his treason. To him, of course, it seemed anything but. What man ever acted for any save the highest motives? None: not if you asked the actor himself.

A scout brought back a broadsheet from a village still under the redcoats' control. It was called "The True Relation of Colonel Habakkuk Biddiscombe, Formerly of the Rebel Cavalry."

"Huh," Blaise said when he saw that. "He won himself a promotion for running off, he did."

"Thirty pieces of silver," Victor said bitterly. "I wonder if he would have stayed had I granted him higher rank." He sighed. "We'll never know now."

Biddiscombe-or, more likely, some pro-English hack purporting to be Biddiscombe-characterized the Atlantean Assembly as "a witches' Sabbat of betrayal." He called the army that fought on behalf of the Assembly "a pack of starveling hounds, remarkable alike for savagery and cowardice," And he described Victor Radcliff as "the blackest traitor since Judas" (a man likely to be mentioned when anyone turned his coat) and "an oaf masquerading as a general: a leader utterly incapable of recognizing and acknowledging a clever stratagem." Remembering the cavalryofficer's scheme he'd turned down, Victor suspected that, at least, came straight from Biddiscombe.

"What do you aim to do about this-this arsewipe, General?" the scout inquired.

Victor felt of the paper. "I think I'd sooner use a handful of leaves," he said. The scout and Blaise both laughed. Victor went on, "What can I do about it? If the famous Colonel Biddiscombe should dare lead enemy horse against us, we shall try to shoot him out of the saddle Of that I have no doubt-he betrayed the soldiers he formerly commanded more foully than any others here, for he enjoyed more of their trust. Other than killing him first chance we find, I know not what course to take."

"Me, I'd sooner catch him alive," Blaise said. "Then I could roast him over a slow fire and turn him on a spit so he got done on all sides." He grinned evilly. "Easy enough to tell with a white man, eh? And that would give the dirty scut plenty of time to think on his mistakes before he gave up the ghost."

"Devil take me if I don't fancy the sound of that myself," the scout exclaimed.

"So long as we kill him, that will suffice," Victor said. Blaise was born a savage, of course. But men who favored the Atlantean Assembly and those who remained loyal to King George were roasting each other over slow fires: oh, not where the main armies marched and countermarched, but in the countless little ambushes and affrays that would never make the history books or change the war's result by one iota but went on nonetheless. And those men on both sides gleefully played the savage without Blaise's excuse.

"We'll go on," Victor said, as he had so many times. "If we can winkle them out of Hanover, that will be a great triumph for us and a great disaster to them. And if Habakkuk Biddiscombe has to sail off to England-on which he has never in his life set eyes-even that will be enough."

"Devil it will," Blaise muttered, but not loud enough for Victor to call him on it.

Victor was anything but sure they could squeeze Cornwallis out of Hanover. Even if they didn't, they might reach the sea and cut the English coastal holdings in half. That would be worth doing in and of itself.

Go on they did. Loyalists skirmished with them. Like King George's Atlantean Rangers, these men fought as soldiers, not in ambuscades. Sometimes redcoats stiffened their ranks; sometimes they managed well enough on their own. Victor ordered his own men to treat them as prisoners of war when they were taken. "If they meet us fairly, we must return the favor," he insisted.

And his troops obeyed him… more often than not. Even so, an unfortunate number of such captives were shot "trying to escape." He wondered whether he should issue harsher orders. In the end, he decided not to. Issuing orders that weren't likely to be obeyed only damaged the force of other commands.

Before long, a scout carried another broadsheet back into his encampment. This one announced the creation of something called "Biddiscombe's Horsed Legion." Volunteers in the Legion would "root out, eradicate, extirpate, and utterly exterminate the verminous rebels opposing in arms his brilliant Majesty, good King George."

Most printers worked in the coastal towns the English held. Victor found one back in Brandenburg who was loyal to the Atlantean Assembly. He had the man crank out a counterblast, one warning men who leaned toward King George that "no individual from the cavalry formation styled Biddiscombe's Horsed Legion who may be captured by the armies of the Atlantean Assembly shall under any circumstances hope for quarter."

No Horsed Legion appeared. Victor wondered whether Cornwallis had had second thoughts-and, if he had, whether Habakkuk Biddiscombe was contemplating desertion from the English cause. Probably not, Victor decided-the cavalry officer had to know Atlantis would never take him back. Biddiscombe had made his bed. Now he had to lie in it, even if it proved uncomfortable.

Victor also wondered when the French declaration of war would produce soldiers on the ground in Atlantis. Indeed, he wondered if it ever would. In the last war, the French managed to convey one small army across the Atlantic, all their later efforts failing. Their navy was stronger now. Was it enough stronger? it had better be, he thought. His own men made vastly better soldiers than they had when they first enlisted. All the same, he could use some cynical, hard-bitten professionals to show them by example how the job was done.

Meanwhile, he used what he had. Redcoats and loyalists skirmished with his forces before falling back toward Hanover. Cornwallis seemed less interested in fighting big battles than General Howe had been before him. Maybe he was clever. Howe had tried to crush the Atlantean uprising. The only thing he'd proved was that he couldn't. Cornwallis, by contrast, seemed to want to force the Atlanteans to crush him. As long as he held the towns on the eastern coast, the United States of Atlantis were only wind and air. They weren't a nation, any more than a man deprived of his head was a man.

And then, to Victor's surprise, he got word that some of Cornwallis' garrison in Hanover was putting to sea and sailing away. When he heard the rumor the first time, he had trouble believing it. But it came to him again the next day, brought by a man who didn't know anyone else had carried word ahead of him.

"Why would he do that, when we're pressing him toward Hanover?" Victor asked. "I know the Englishmen make good soldiers, and I know Hanover has good outworks. All the same, if too many forts are empty of men, the place will fall."

"Well…" His second informant was a plump merchant named Gustavus Vasa Rand, who plainly enjoyed knowing things the commanding general didn't. The man steepled his fingers, then tugged at his ear before going on, "I hear tell the redcoats have themselves trouble somewheres else."

"Where?" Radcliff exploded. If it was anywhere in Atlantis, he thought he would have known about it. If the English had trouble anywhere in Atlantis, he hoped he would have helped foment it.

But Gustavus Vasa Rand replied, "Over in Terranova, is what folks say. Some of the settlements there, they've decided they don't fancy King George any more'n we do."

"Have they?" Victor breathed. "Well, well, well. Has anyone reported why they chose this moment to rise up?"

"Don't you know?" Yes, Gustavus Vasa Rand exuded the amiable scorn the man who's heard things feels for the poor, ignorant twit he aims to enlighten. "Why, this past year or so a demon pamphleteer's appeared amongst 'em. He's tossed so much red pepper into the stew, even the boring old Terranovans can't help breathing fire after they go and eat of it."