"You can't win. No matter who you are, you can't win," Blaise said. The color of his skin gave him uncommon authority on such questions.

"Someone will have to win, I think," Victor said later that evening, hoping the mattress he'd lie down on wouldn't be buggy.

"Mm-maybe." Blaise still didn't sound convinced. "When he wins-if he wins-will he be happy in the end?"

Victor said the only thing he could: "I don't know." He blew out the candle he'd carried from the taproom. It was guttering towards an end anyhow. The landlord wasn't about to waste a quarter of a farthing by giving a customer any more light than he absolutely had to. Darkness fell on the bedchamber like a cloak. Victor fell asleep before he found out whether the mattress held bedbugs-but not before Blaise, whose first snores he heard as darkness came down on them.

By the time Victor and his colored companion got to Hanover, they were both scratching. One inn or another-or, more likely, one inn and another-had proved buggy. Victor was more resigned than surprised. Blaise was more apt to complain about big things than small ones.

Hanover was a big thing, at least by Atlantean standards. With about 40,000 people, it claimed to be the largest city in Atlantis. Of course, so did New Hastings, farther south. And so did Freetown, south of New Hastings. Croydon, north of Hanover, also had its pretensions, though only locals took them seriously.

Down in French Atlantis, Cosquer might have been half the size of the leading English settlement towns. Of course, most of the people who'd flocked there since the end of the war came from one English settlement or another. The same held true for the still smaller St. Denis, south of Cosquer, and for New Marseille, smaller yet, on the west coast of Atlantis. As for Avalon, north of New Marseille, it wasn't a pirates' nest any more, but it remained a law (or no law) unto itself. Nobody could say how many people lived there, which suited those who did just fine.