Someone knocked on the front door. "That will be Blaise," Margaret said.

"Not likely to be anyone else," Victor agreed. He opened the door. It was Blaise. "You are ready?" the Negro asked, his English flavored both by the French he'd learned as a slave farther south and by the tongue he'd grown up speaking in Africa. He and Victor and two copperskins from Terranova had escaped French Atlantis together. Victor didn't know what had become of the men from the west. Blaise had stuck with him. The black man had been his sergeant during the war against France and Spain, and his factotum ever since. "I'm ready," Victor said.

"Let's go, then. It will be good to get away." Blaise had two boys and two girls. He and his wife had buried only one baby. With the genial chaos in his household, he probably meant what he said. He made sure this trip wouldn't be for nothing: "You have the manuscript?"

"Put it in my saddle bag half an hour ago," Victor replied. "I won't be the kind of author they make jokes about-not that kind of joke, anyhow."

"Good." Blaise lifted his plain tricorn hat from his head for a moment. "I'll bring him back safe, Mrs. Radcliff."

"I know you will." Meg smiled. "I don't think I'd let him go if you weren't along."

"I'm not an infant, Meg. I have been known to take care of myself," Victor said, a touch of asperity in his voice.

"I know, dear, but Blaise does it better." No one could deflate you the way a wife could.

Victor left with such dignity as he could muster. He swung up onto his horse, a sturdy chestnut gelding. Blaise rode a bay mare. Stallions had more fire. They also had more temper. Victor preferred a steady, reliable mount. Blaise had come to horsemanship late in life. He rode to get from here to there, not from a love of riding. A temperamental horse was the last thing he wanted.