Liberating Atlantis (52 page)

“Do we have to bring the war across the mountains, then? We can do that.” Frederick wasn’t really sure the insurrectionists could do any such thing, but he wanted to keep the white men worried.

By the looks on their faces, he did. “Even if we give you everything you say you want, you may not end up happy with it,” Newton said.

“If the law says we’re free, we’ll be happy with it,” Frederick answered.

“If the law says we’re equal, we’ll be happy,” Lorenzo added.

Colonel Sinapis suddenly spoke up: “Not matter what the law says, white men will keep running Atlantis for a long time to come. You are right—there are more of them than there are of you. And they have more money. They have more experience running things, too. You may not be slaves in law any more, but you will not at once become equals, no matter what the law says.”

Frederick Radcliff glanced over at Lorenzo. The foreign colonel’s words seemed much too likely for comfort. Lorenzo spread his hands, as if to say he felt the same way. But what came out of his mouth was, “Chance we’ve got to take.”

“I think so, too,” Frederick said. “We have to start somewhere.”

 

Leland Newton had drafted the accord that would, with luck, put an end to what almost everyone these days was calling the Great Servile Insurrection. He wrote it in language more simple than he would have used most of the time. He was a barrister; keeping things simple wasn’t something he normally did. But, while Frederick Radcliff could read and write, he wasn’t trained in the law. Newton didn’t want him to be able to claim he’d signed something he didn’t fully understand.

“Why not?” Stafford said when Newton remarked on that. “It’d served the damned nigger right.”

“We came to Slug Hollow to stop trouble, not to stir up more of it,” Newton said.

“We came west to stamp out the insurrection,” Stafford replied, “and look what a good job of it we did.”

“If we bring home a peace the whole country can live with, we will have done well enough here,” Newton said.

“If.” The other Consul bore down heavily on the word. “And if the whites south of the Stour rebel because of the peace we’ve brought home, how well will we have done here? That may yet happen, you know.”

“I do intend to propose that they be compensated for the loss of what has been their property,” Newton said.

“That may do some good. Then again, it may not,” Stafford replied. “If living in houses were to be made illegal tomorrow, how happy would you be to get money for a house you had to leave?”

“Happier than if I didn’t get any, I suppose,” Newton answered.

“You would still be angry, though, wouldn’t you? You might be angry enough to go to war about it,” Stafford said.

“I hope not.” Newton heard less conviction in his own voice than he would have liked. He gathered strength as he went on, “White men south of the Stour can’t go back to living in the house they had before. Their neighbors will burn it down around their ears if they try. You know that’s so.”

Unwillingly, his colleague nodded. “But a good many of them don’t understand that it’s so,” Stafford said.

“We’ve got to convince them.
You’ve
got to convince them,” Newton said. “They admire you. They respect you. They believe you. They believe
in
you.”

“And much good any of that will do me. As soon as I tell them they really do have to give up their slaves, they’ll start plotting to assassinate me. And if you think I’m exaggerating, you’d better think again,” Stafford said.

Newton didn’t think the other Consul was. He knew how high passions ran among slaveholders. “Maybe what’s happened to our army—and what’s happened to some of them—will give them the idea that times have changed,” Newton said hopefully.

“Maybe.” Stafford didn’t sound as if he believed it for a minute.

“If you feel the way you do, why are you signing the agreement?” Newton asked.

“This will be bad. Not signing would be worse,” Stafford said. “I can see that much. I’m not a blind man, no matter how often you’ve called me one on the Consuls’ dais. But you and the insurrectionists seem sure angels will sing hosannas as soon as everyone’s name goes on that paper. I am here to tell you things won’t be so simple.”

Do I think everything will be wonderful once we have an agreement?
Newton wondered. Maybe he did. And maybe Stafford was right to have his doubts. But he was also right about something else: “Not signing
would
be worse.”

“I said so.” Jeremiah Stafford gestured impatiently. “But that doesn’t mean signing will be good. It just means signing won’t be so bad. You can say right away that a man is free. How long does it take before he truly believes he’s free, though? And how long before his neighbors believe it?”

He was full of hard questions this morning. Newton wished he himself were as full of answers. He said, “All we can do is find out.” He handed the other Consul the paper he’d been working on. “Does this say everything we need to say? Is it clear? Have I forgotten anything?”

Stafford perused it. He suggested two or three small changes. The points he raised were cogent; Newton made the changes without a murmur. His colleague sighed. “Now I suppose it is as good as it can be. Whether it should be . . .” Stafford sighed again. “I think not, but events have overtaken me.”

“General Cornwallis must have said the same thing when Victor Radcliff trapped him in Croydon,” Newton remarked.

“He ended up doing well for himself—and for England—in India,” Stafford said. “Atlantis can’t send me so far away. When the country learns what we’re about to do here today, it may wish it could.”

“The Treaty of Slug Hollow, or perhaps the Slug Hollow Agreement. Schoolchildren from now till the end of time will have to learn about it, and about the people who signed it,” Newton said.

“But what will they learn?” Stafford asked. “Will teachers say we were heroes, or will they call us a pack of fools and thrash all the little brats who can’t remember how we made a hash of things?”

More hard questions. Newton could only shrug. “We’ll have to do it and then find out, that’s all,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“No, but we’re going to do it anyhow,” the other Consul answered. “Then we have to persuade the Senate not to crucify us because we did it. And good luck on that score, your Excellency.”

“We’ll both need all the luck we can find,” Newton said. “So will the United States of Atlantis.” He carefully folded the Slug Hollow Agreement and put it in a jacket pocket. It meant nothing till it was signed. But that moment was only a few steps away now.

XXIII

Frederick Radcliff studied the paper in front of him with more care than he’d ever given any other piece of writing. No other piece of writing he’d ever seen would affect his life so much, or affect the lives of so many other people.

“Is it all right?” Lorenzo asked anxiously. The copperskin couldn’t read, and had to trust his judgment. With much effort, and with his tongue wagging from a corner of his mouth like a hard-working schoolboy’s, Lorenzo could write his name. Even that little put him ahead of most slaves.

“I . . . think so,” Frederick answered. He glanced across the table at Consul Newton, who’d given him the document. Newton was a white man, a barrister, and a politico, and so triply not to be trusted. He smiled back blandly now. Frederick discounted that. His gaze swung to the other Consul, the southern Consul. The less happy Jeremiah Stafford looked, the more relieved Frederick felt. Stafford was bound to have seen the agreement beforehand. If he didn’t like it, it was less likely to hold hidden traps that would limit the future liberty of blacks and copperskins.

“As you will see, we have already signed the document,” Newton said. “It needs only your signature, and that of your marshal, for us to submit it to the Senate and end this insurrection that has discommoded everyone.”

“Not everyone, your Excellency. Oh, no. Not everyone,” Frederick said. “You see freedom in front of you, you don’t reckon you’re—what did you call it? Discommoded, that’s right.” He filed the word away so he could use it again if he ever found the need.

Consul Stafford sniffed. “You see a chicken coop in front of you, you don’t care who owns it.”

“I expect that’s so, your Excellency,” Frederick said. “You’re hungry enough, I expect it’s so no matter what color you are. You want to get free bad enough, I expect you rise up no matter what color you are, too. Back in the old, old days, weren’t white men slaves? And didn’t they rise up whenever they saw the chance?”

“Spartacus,” Newton said.

“That’s the fella!” Frederick nodded. He knew little more about the ancient slave insurrectionist than his name. He hadn’t even been able to come up with it a moment before. All the same, lots of Negroes and copperskins knew there’d been plenty of slave revolts before their day. Whites didn’t want them learning such things, which was all the greater incentive for doing so.

Plainly, Consul Stafford also knew about Spartacus. Just as plainly, he didn’t like what he knew and didn’t want colored men knowing it. But that was his hard luck, nobody else’s.

Frederick went through the agreement one more time. He might miss something because Consul Newton was too clever for him. You took that chance in any dicker. He was damned if he would miss anything because he hadn’t been diligent enough, though.

“Is it all right?” Lorenzo asked again. He respected and feared the written word all the more because he had no control over it.

Reluctantly, Frederick nodded. He had his own fears: that damaging clauses still hid under the surface, the way crocodiles waited underwater for whatever might be rash enough to step into their river. But on the surface everything seemed as it should. “It
is
all right,” he replied, more firmly than he had the last time.

“May I offer you a pen?” Consul Newton took one from his pocket and held it out across the table.

“Got my own, thanks,” Frederick said, not without pride. He pulled it out. It was at least as fine as the white man’s, likely finer.

“Where did you steal it?” Stafford asked.

“I don’t have to tell you that, and I don’t aim to,” Frederick said. “Take a look at Article Four here.” His finger stabbed down onto it. “There’s an amnesty for things that happened during the war. If it covers killin’ folks, I reckon it covers gettin’ my hands on an ink pen.”

He waited to see if Stafford would call him a liar. By all the signs, the Consul from Cosquer wanted to. Since Article Four said exactly what Frederick maintained, Stafford couldn’t. He fumed instead. Leland Newton kept his face studiously blank. Colonel Sinapis looked amused, but only for a couple of heartbeats. Then his features also went impassive again.

Newton slid a bottle of ink across the table. That Frederick did accept, opening it with a nod of thanks. He dipped his pen, then signed his name on the line waiting for it. His signature wasn’t so fancy and florid as any of the white men’s—Sinapis’, in particular, was a production—but so what? You could tell it was his name, and nothing else mattered.

He pushed the paper over to Lorenzo and handed him the pen. “You sign it here.” He pointed to the only remaining blank line.

“By God, I’ll do it,” Lorenzo said, and he did.

“We have an agreement. The Great Servile Insurrection has ended at last,” Newton said.

“The Free Republic of Atlantis is no more.” Consul Stafford took what comfort he could from that.

“
We
have an agreement,” Frederick said. “But the Senate back in New Hastings still has to say everything’s all right, doesn’t it? Till then, it’s just what we’ve done. It’s not official, like.”

“That’s true. Consul Stafford and I will do all we can to make sure the Senate
does
approve what we’ve done here,” Consul Newton said. “We don’t want the fighting to flare up again. And our own prestige is on the line here, you know. If the Senate rejects this agreement, it’s the same as rejecting our leadership.”

Stafford made a wordless noise, down deep in his throat. Maybe his heart wouldn’t break if the Senate did reject the agreement. It might be the same as rejecting his leadership, but it might also keep slavery alive—for a little longer, anyhow. That was part of the reason Frederick said, “Reckon I’ll come back to New Hastings with you, me and my wife. Nobody’s got more reason to try and make the Senate see things the right way than the two of us.”

“Are you sure that would be wise?” Newton said slowly. “Your presence there might do more harm than good.” Consul Stafford’s face said—shouted—that he thought the same thing.

But Frederick answered, “I’ll take the chance, your Excellency. Honest to God, sir, I will. Let the Senate see that a Negro can be a civilized fella, or pretty close. Let the Senate see that a Negro and his woman can love each other just like a white man and his wife. Ain’t no proper reason our folks can’t get married, same as yours.”

“Copperskins, too,” Lorenzo added.

“Copperskins, too,” Frederick agreed. “An’ let the Senate see one more thing. Let the Senate see a Negro can be named Radcliff. That’s what happens when white men get to go tomcatting around with the slave women. And I’m here to tell you it ain’t right.”

“God bless my soul,” Leland Newton murmured. For a moment, Consul Stafford looked as if someone had hit him in the face with a wet fish. For an even briefer moment, Colonel Sinapis looked amused again. Then, as before, he donned the mask of impassivity.

“You gonna tell me I
can’t
come? What’s this piece of paper worth if you say somethin’ like that?” Frederick tapped the agreement Lorenzo had just signed.

“Come ahead. By all means, come ahead,” Stafford said. “It will be something out of the ordinary, at any rate. But you must understand: there is no guarantee the Conscript Fathers, even the ones from the north, will love you.”