They posed for more pictures in the downstairs reception hall, and then in Jake's office. Then they shooed the photographers out of the room. "Care for a drink before we get down to business?" Featherston asked. He'd heard Al Smith could put it away pretty good, and he wasn't so bad himself.
"Sure. Why not?" the president of the USA said.
A colored servant brought a bottle of hundred-proof bourbon, some ice cubes, and two glasses. Jake did the honors himself. He raised his glass to Al Smith. "Mud in your eye," he said. They both drank.
"Ah!" Smith said. "That's the straight goods." He took another sip. Anyone that whiskey didn't faze had seen the bottom of more than one glass in his day, sure as hell.
After Featherston poured refills, he said, "You know what I want, Mr. President. You know what's right, too, by God." As far as he was concerned, the two were one and the same. "Let the people choose. We'll take our chances with that."
"And in the meantime, you'll keep murdering anybody in Kentucky and Houston who doesn't go along," Smith said.
"We haven't got anything to do with that." Jake lied without compunction.
The president of the USA let out a laugh that was half a cough. "My ass."
Featherston blinked. Nobody'd come right out and called him a liar for a long time. He said, "You're just afraid of a plebiscite on account of you know what'll happen."
"If I was afraid of a plebiscite, I wouldn't be here," Al Smith answered. "But if we go that way, I've got some conditions of my own."
"Let's hear 'em," Jake said. Maybe he wouldn't be able to grab everything on the table. If he got it served to him course by course, though, that would do.
"First thing is, no bloodshed in the time before the plebiscite," Smith said. "If people are going to vote, let 'em vote without being afraid."
"If you call a plebiscite, I expect the folks in the occupied states will be happy enough to go along with that," Featherston said at once. He could rein in most of his people, and say the ones he didn't rein in weren't his fault. Besides, everybody knew by now what the Freedom Party could do. It wouldn't have to add much more in the runup to a plebiscite to keep the message fresh.
"All right. Number two, then," Al Smith said. "You want the people to vote, the people should vote. All the people-everybody over twenty-one in Houston and Kentucky and Sequoyah."
"I've been saying that all along," Jake answered. Despite his thunderings, he didn't know if he would win in Sequoyah. Settlers from the USA had flooded into it since the war. Before, the Confederates had kept white settlement slow out of deference to the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians, who'd helped so much in the War of Secession. The United States had always been hard on Indians, which was why the Creeks and the Cherokees and the rest were so loyal to the CSA.
But President Smith shook his head. "I don't think you get it. When I say everybody, I mean everybody. Whites and Negroes."
"Whites and Negroes?" Jake was genuinely shocked. That hadn't even occurred to him. "Niggers've never been able to vote in the CSA. They sure as hell won't vote once they come back, either. Hell, they can't vote in those states now."
"They'll vote in the plebiscite," Smith said. "They've got surnames these days. We can keep track of 'em, make sure it's fair and honest. They aren't slaves any more. In the USA, they're citizens, even if they don't vote. If they're going to change countries, they have to be able to help make the choice."
Jake considered. Smith had neatly turned the tables on him. He'd been yelling, Let the people vote! Now Smith said, Let all the people vote! How could he say no to that without looking like a fool? He couldn't, and he knew it. "All right, goddammit," he ground out. That made Sequoyah even iffier, but he didn't think it would hurt-except as far as precedent went-in Kentucky or Houston.
Smith seemed a little surprised he'd accepted, even if grudgingly. He gave his next condition: "Any state that changes hands stays demilitarized for twenty-five years."
"That's a bargain." Jake didn't hesitate for even a moment there. He knew he would break the deal inside of twenty-five days. He could always manufacture incidents to give him an excuse-or maybe, if the blacks got uppity, he wouldn't have to manufacture any. "What else?"
"These have to be your last demands as far as territorial changes go," Smith said. That would leave the United States with part of Virginia, part of Arkansas, part of Sonora-maybe enough to claim they'd still made a profit on the war.
"Well, of course," Featherston said, again without hesitation. If I get that much, I'll get the rest, too-you bet I will. "Anything else?"
"Yes-one more thing," the U.S. president said. "We can announce an agreement now, but I don't think the vote itself oughta come before 1941. We should have a proper campaign-let both sides be heard."
"What?" Featherston frowned, wondering what sort of fast one Smith was trying to pull there. Then, suddenly, he laughed. Al Smith would run for reelection in November. He wanted to be able to say he'd made peace with the Confederate States, but he didn't want to have to hand over any territory to them before Election Day. Afterwards, he'd have plenty of time to repair the damage. He thinks so, anyway. "All right, Mr. President," Jake said. "You've got yourself a deal."
XV
Anne Colleton had heard that people danced in the streets in Richmond when Woodrow Wilson declared war on the United States. Now the newsboys here shouted, "Plebiscite!" — and people danced in the street. Maybe that was because they thought there wouldn't be a war now. But maybe-and, odds were, more likely-it was because they thought the Confederate States would finally get back what they'd lost in the war.
She thought as much herself. She felt proud of herself for backing the right horse. Before the Freedom Party came to power, who would have believed the United States would ever even think of turning loose the lands they'd stolen from the CSA? But the stolen states had grown too hot to hold on to; the United States kept burning their fingers. And if that wasn't Jake Featherston's doing, whose was it? The right horse, sure enough, Anne thought smugly.
Celebrations in Capitol Square, across the street from Ford's Hotel, were noisy enough to keep her awake at night. She hadn't thought of that when she checked in. There were, of course, plenty of worse problems to have, even if she needed her sleep more regularly than she had when she was younger.
She was in Richmond to pay a call on the French embassy. Some of the men with whom she'd conferred in Paris years before had risen in prominence since. She could talk with one of them informally but still leave him certain he understood where the Confederate government stood. She hadn't had much chance to speak French lately, but she expected her accent wouldn't be too barbarous.
Across from the French embassy east of Capitol Square stood the much bigger building housing the U.S. embassy. A man-high fence of pointed iron palings protected the neoclassical white marble pile above which flew the Stars and Stripes. Anne understood why the U.S. embassy needed that kind of protection. How many times had her countrymen wanted to give it what they thought it deserved?
But not today. Today people cheered the U.S. military guards in their green-gray uniforms. The guards stood impassive at the entrance to the embassy. Their faces showed nothing of what they were thinking. All the same, Anne wondered what that would be. How happy did the prospect of a plebiscite in the annexed states make them?
Not very, I hope.
Colonel Jean-Henri Jusserand had been French military attachй in the Confederate States since sailing across the Atlantic with Anne aboard the Charles XL "So good to see you again, Mademoiselle Colleton," he said, bowing over her hand. "It has been too long a time."