"Well, maybe," Nell said again.
Before long, Hastings bubbled with the name of Atlantis. If you wanted to go and settle someplace, you couldn't very well keep where you were going a secret. Word spread fastest among fishermen and merchants, who had the ships to get to the new land. But others heard, too: the smiths and potters and carpenters who sold them the things they would need on the distant shore, and after that those in authority.
Edward Radcliffe was dickering with a farmer named George Tree over several laying hens and a rooster when a black-robed priest strode up to him. "I would have speech with you, Master Radcliffe," he said importantly.
"What do you need, Father John?" Radcliffe asked.
"Step aside, if you please." The priest made it plain he wanted no one else to overhear.
"Whatever you like, holy Father." Edward nodded to the farmer. "I'll be with you in a bit, George."
"Them birds won't fly away while you're gone," Tree said.
Father John had the smooth pink complexion and double chin of a man who'd seldom known hunger. He also had a blade of a nose and shrewd black eyes. "Do I hear rightly?" he asked after leading Edward down the muddy street till they could talk in reasonable privacy. "Do you purpose sailing off to the edge of the world and leaving the holy mother church behind?"
"I do want to sail off, yes, Father," Radcliffe said, and the priest's mouth tightened. Quickly, the fisherman went on. "But I never dreamt of leaving the church behind. If a priest would come with us, we'd count it a blessing. There should be a chapel in Atlantis-why not?"
"I…see," Father John said slowly. Edward hoped he hid his own tension; he didn't want every clergyman in town preaching against his venture. If anything could ruin his plans, that could. If people decided God was against them, they wouldn't go. Father John tapped a forefinger against the side of his leg. "If a priest did come with you, you would give him proper support?"
"We'd be glad to have him, as I said. We'd give him what we could. I can't say he wouldn't have to work some on his own, though," Radcliffe answered. "It's a bare shore, you understand. We'll all be working hard, at first, hard as can be. How can we have a drone among us, meaning no offense?"
"Priests are not drones. Drones toil not, nor do they spin." Father John's voice was as stiff as his spine. Radcliffe thought priests fit the definition more than well enough, but saying so wouldn't do. Sure enough, Father John went on, "Who would intercede with God, but for priests? Who would baptize, who hear confession, who give unction at the end of life?"
"No one," Edward said, as he had to. He didn't want to go out of life without unction, the way luckless Hugh Fenner had. But he was a stubborn man in his own right. "A priest who is respected among men is better than one who is not," he insisted. "Anyone who pulls his own weight in this world will be better liked than a man who expects to be waited on hand and foot. Holy Father, you know there are priests like that. We both wish there weren't, but there are. We don't need one like that where everyone else is bending his back like a beast of burden."
Maybe his earnestness got through to Father John. "What sort of priest do you need then, eh, Radcliffe?"
Edward calculated for a heartbeat and part of another. As if he hadn't, he answered, "Why, one much like yourself, holy Father."
Had he read his man aright? "Me?" Father John rapped out. "Why would I want to sail to the back of beyond-beyond the back of beyond?"
"Where would you find a better chance to be your own man?" Edward asked. "You'd be…like a bishop, almost." He didn't wink at Father John. If the priest thought of himself the way Radcliffe hoped, he would rise to the bait on his own.
"If I am to be sent alone to a strange shore, I should become one," Father John said. "This is to enable me to ordain new priests so that the Church may continue in that far-off place."
"You will know such things better than I do, the same as I'm likely better at salting a cod," Edward said. "Do you think you can make the necessary arrangements?"
"Well, well," the priest said, and then again: "Well, well." He rubbed his smoothly shaven chin. "Do you know, sir, it is possible that I might."
"All right, then," Edward said, as if that were a complete sentence. By the way Father John smiled, it was.
Edward Radcliffe was a man of some consequence in Hastings. Any successful fishing captain was. All the same, he didn't expect a summons to the castle, and he didn't expect the summons to be delivered by four large, unsmiling men in chainmail. The largest and most somber of them growled, "You are to come with us at once, in the name of Sir Thomas and in the name of his Majesty, Henry VI, King of England!"
Henry VI, King of as much of England as he can persuade to obey his writ at any given moment. The thought ran through Edward's mind, but he kept it to himself. Sir Thomas Hoo, the local baron, was a loyal follower of the king's. "I am at your service, gentlemen, and at Sir Thomas', and of course at the king's," the fisherman said. If he tried telling them anything else, he had the bad feeling he would die as unpleasantly as Hugh Fenner.
Sir Thomas' men had horses waiting in the street. They even had one for Radcliffe. He took that as a good sign. If they were going to throw him in the dungeon, they would have made him walk, probably with a noose around his neck to advertise his disgrace to the town.
He was more accustomed to riding a pitching deck than even a sedate gelding. Two of Sir Thomas' retainers sniggered as he awkwardly swung up onto the horse's back. "You've got more practice at this than I do, friends," he said. "In the St. George, in a storm on the North Sea, you'd be the sorry ones, as I am here."
"Just ride," said the one who seemed to do their talking for them. Ride Radcliffe did, not well but well enough.
The wooden motte-and-bailey castle William the Conqueror built as soon as he landed in England and its stone successor had long since grown useless: the sea had chewed away most of the land that once stood between the old fort and the water's edge. Its replacement, a solid mass of gray stone, safely stood farther inland.
Their horses' hooves drumming on the lowered drawbridge, Edward and his escorts rode into the castle. Sir Thomas Hoo stood in the courtyard, watching some young soldiers hack at pells with swords. Sir Thomas was no youngster. He was five or ten years older than Radcliffe, and his strength, once massive, was beginning to fail. His stooped shoulders and wrinkled, jowly face warned of the storms of life's winter ahead.
He rolled his eyes at Edward's dismount, which was no more graceful than the way the fisherman had mounted. "What's this I hear about you wanting to put all of Hastings on board ship and sail off with it to some unknown shore?" he growled without preamble.
"By the holy Cross, Sir Thomas, if you heard any such thing, you heard lies!" Edward exclaimed.
"Oh, I did, did I?" Sir Thomas Hoo's eyes were red-tracked and rheumy, one of them clouded by the beginnings of a cataract. But they were very shrewd. "If it's all moonshine and hogwash, why do I hear it from so many folk? Eh? Answer me that!"
"If you believed everything you heard from a lot of people, sir, you'd be a sorry soul, sir, and that's the truth," Edward said. A couple of his escorts scowled; one of them dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. Then Sir Thomas grunted laughter, and his retainers relaxed. Radcliffe went on, "Rumor always outruns fact. And any man who wishes me ill would work to make it outrun fact the more."
"It could be," the castellan said. "I don't say it is, but it could be. Well, then, what do you intend?"
"A small settlement on the new shore," Radcliffe answered. "The fishing grounds there are finer than any in the North Sea. That I saw for myself. Would we want to let the Bretons and Basques and other foreigners seize the advantage over Englishmen in using them?"
"Fish. Cod." Sir Thomas made them into words of scorn, if not into swear words. He glowered at Edward from under shaggy, gray-streaked eyebrows. "You want to get away from peasants in rebellion against their rightful lords and from French sea dogs."
I should say I do, Ed
ward thought. The French had almost burnt Hastings to the ground not long before. But he couldn't admit what he wanted. Without the least hesitation, he shook his head. "How could we leave our homeland behind for good?" he said. "Where would we sell the fish we caught if we did?" That was a legitimate question; he couldn't imagine cutting all ties with England even if he and his kin spent most of their time in Atlantis and off its shores.
"How many folk would fare with you on this madcap venture?" Sir Thomas asked.
"A couple of dozen families, sir, and we'd need to bring the seed grain and livestock to let us make a go of it in the new land," Edward answered. "Does not the Good Book speak of casting your bread upon the waters? This is England's bread, and she shall find it again after many days."
"You've been talking with Father John." Sir Thomas turned that to an accusation.
"I have, sir. He will vouch for me." Edward Radcliffe hoped he would.
"He's ambitious, too." The castellan scowled once more. "Well, go, then, and I know not whether to wish you Godspeed or say be damned to you. Atlantis? Nonsense!" He hawked and spat and turned away.
III
G etting animals aboard the St. George vexed Edward, to put it mildly. "I never worried about Noah before," he growled to Nell. "Now I feel sorry for the poor devil."
"I feel sorry for his wife," Nell said. "Chances are he made her do all the work."
"If you think I'm going to sleep from here to Atlantis, you're bloody well out of your mind," Edward said. "The cog won't sail herself, and the fish won't catch themselves, either." The hold, which still stank of fish, was full of hay and grain instead. They had to get the sheep and hogs and chickens and ducks across the sea before they ran out of fodder and water for them. Could they do it? He thought so, but feared it might be close.
He had no cattle or horses on the St. George. The boats that carried the bigger beasts had fewer of the smaller ones. He hoped things would work out. He didn't know they would, but he hoped so. What else can I do? he thought.
Richard said something hot as a smithy's forge when he stepped in sheep shit. "Get used to it, son," Edward advised. "It won't be the last time." Richard said something even hotter. Henry laughed at him, which only proved he hadn't stuck his foot in it…yet.
On another cog not far away, Father John's tonsured head gleamed under the bright sun of early spring. Two other priests were also coming along on this leap into the unknown. Edward Radcliffe smiled to himself. The other two were pliable, tractable fellows, men without ambition for themselves. If any of them was made a bishop, when one of them was made a bishop, it would be John. So far from any other prelate, he might almost be a pope.
Edward cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to the other boats assembled in the Stade: "Are we all ready?" Two or three skippers echoed his cry to make sure everyone heard. Nobody said no. "Then let's away!" he said.
Sailors ran to the lines and let the big square sails fall from the yards. The wind came off the land, and pushed the cogs out of the harbor and into the waters of the Channel with the greatest of ease. Women and children squealed in excitement; not many of them had put to sea before.
The water in the Channel was the way it usually was: rough. Those squeals didn't last long. Ruddy English complexions went ghost-pale. "The rail!" a fisherman shouted. "Get to the damned rail!" He was just too late-and somebody would have a mess worse than sheep shit to clean up.
"Is it…always like this?" Nell asked, gulping.
"No, dear," Radcliffe answered. His wife looked relieved in a wan way till he added, "Sometimes it's worse." She searched his face, hoping he was joking. When she saw he wasn't, she groaned. He said, "You'll get used to it after a while, though. Almost everyone does."
"Almost?" Nell got out through clenched teeth. She gulped again, and ran for the rail. Unlike the first victim of seasickness, she made it. She even knew which rail to run to. People who ran to the windward side only made that mistake once-trying to clean themselves afterwards ensured that.
Fishermen screamed at passengers to get out of the way as they swung the yard to catch the breeze. They screamed at the livestock, too, but the animals didn't want to listen (neither did some of the children). One irate soldier booted a hen into the English Channel.
"Don't ever do that again, Wat," Edward told him. "We'll need those birds when we get to the other side."
"If I trip over the damn thing and go into the drink myself, I won't make it to the other side," Wat retorted.
"You won't make it there if I toss you in the drink, either," Edward said. Wat was twenty years younger. A long look at the jut of Radcliffe's jaw and the size of his knobby fists, though, made the other man turn away, muttering to himself.
Edward was glad to be back at sea. He felt he belonged here. His time ashore he endured; he came alive on the waves. That wasn't anything he talked about with Nell, any more than he would have told her if he'd taken up with another woman. He didn't want her jealous-it would only have made things worse.
The St. George took much longer to shake down to routine than she usually did. The fishermen knew what routine meant. Their wives and children didn't, and had to learn. The animals didn't, either, and learned even more slowly, if at all.
People who weren't used to the rations grumbled about them-or they did when they finally got their sea legs under them and found they had appetites after all. Radcliffe thought the food was extravagant: to go with the ship's biscuit, they had much more bacon and sausage aboard than usual, and less salt cod. The fish needed to be soaked before you could eat it. They had so many more mouths aboard than usual, they couldn't afford much water for that.
"This biscuit has weevils," Nell said when they'd been at sea about a week.
"Yes, that happens," Edward agreed. "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about it."
"But it's disgusting!" she said shrilly.
"It can happen on land, too," he pointed out. "It does."
"Not like this." Nell held the biscuit under his nose. "It's crawling with bugs!" He couldn't see them when she did that-his sight had begun to lengthen. It didn't mean he didn't believe her, because he did. She went on, "All the ship's biscuit is probably like this."
Edward nodded. "It probably is."
His wife glared at him. "Well, what are we supposed to do about it? We can't pitch it into the ocean the way we ought to, not if it's all bad. We'd starve."
"I'm afraid so." Radcliffe was also afraid Nell would grab something and try to break it over his head. He regretfully spread his hands. "I don't know what to tell you, dear. If you toast your biscuit over a candle flame, you'll drive out most of the bugs. Or if you close your eyes and don't think about it, you just…eat."
"I already tried that," she said bleakly. "It doesn't work-they crunch under your teeth. They taste bad, too. Maybe I'll toast it and see how many weevils come out. Maybe I don't want to know."
"I never did," Edward said. She needed to remember this happened to fishermen all the time.
She flounced off, as well as she could flounce on a pitching deck. Her long wool skirt swirled around her ankles. After a couple of strides, she turned around for a parting shot: "Do they have weevils in your precious Atlantis?" Before he could answer, she did it for him: "They would." Then she stormed away.
Later that day, Edward asked her, "Does the toasting help?"
"A little," she said grudgingly. More grudgingly still, she added, "You did try. I thank you for it."
"There's my Nell," he said. The scowl his Nell sent him told him all was not yet forgotten, even if it might be partway forgiven.
The fishermen went to work sooner than they would have on a regular run. Everything they caught stretched the supplies on the St. George further. Edward wouldn't have bothered salting most of what the lines brought in. But, as fishermen knew and few others ever had the chance to learn, fish just out of the ocean made far better, far sweeter eating than fish dried and salted or fish starting to go off at a fis
hmonger's stall.
The dogs didn't turn up their noses at fresh fish guts, either. That eased Radcliffe's mind; he hadn't been sure how he would keep them fed all the way across the Atlantic. Dogs would eat almost anything if they had to, but they did best with something meaty.
Fish suited the cats fine. There weren't enough rats and mice on the cog to keep them full for such a long voyage. Edward knew from experience that there were bound to be some. He also knew from experience that, no matter how many cats he had aboard, they wouldn't catch all the vermin.
He wondered whether Atlantis had rats and mice of its own. Hard to imagine a place that didn't. He laughed a little. If by some accident the new land lacked them, it wouldn't much longer. They were bound to come ashore and bound to get loose in the wilderness. It was a shame, but he didn't know what he could do about it.
Swine were bound to get loose, too. They were much closer to wild beasts than sheep and cattle and horses. Swine, at least, made good hunting and good eating.
Day followed day. Edward had a compass, to give him a notion of north. He had a cross-staff, to give him a notion of latitude-as long as he kept the date straight. As soon as he got out of sight of land, he had only a rough guess, based on how far he thought he'd sailed, about longitude. He wished someone would figure out how to keep track of it, but no one had.
"Are we almost there?"
He expected to hear that from his grandchildren, and he did. He was less happy to hear it from his sons' wives, and from his own. The more he heard it, the more it grated on him, too. "Do you see land out there?" he would ask, and point west. There was, as yet, no land to see. When whoever was grumbling admitted as much, he would say, "Then we aren't almost there, are we?"
When the fishermen started pulling cod that weighed as much as they did out of the gray-blue water, Edward smiled to himself. The lubbers aboard went right on wondering where land was. Edward knew it wasn't very far. They really were almost there-and he said not a word.
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