But it had happened now, and he would have to live with it-though not for very long. "So long, old man!" the trooper shouted. He slashed once more. This time, the sword bit. Edward howled.
Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, with Warwick's soldier hacking at him as if he were a badly butchered sow. Nell grabbed the man's arm, but he knocked her aside. He swung up the sword again. It fell-right on Edward's neck.
So died the first Englishman to set foot on Atlantis, the founder of the first English settlement in the new land, not far from where the settlement began. It was in the year 1470, the sixty-ninth year of Edward Radcliffe's age, the tenth year of the reign of King Edward IV in England, and around New Hastings still the first year of the reign of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick. And the manner of his passing helped determine the Englishmen in those parts that Warwick's reign should reach no further.
"Like a dog!" Henry Radcliffe raged. "They cut him down like a dog on his own farm! I'll garter myself with Warwick's guts, the Devil damn me black if I don't."
"I never thought they would go after him," his brother said. "My idea was, I'd either kill them all or lead them a merry chase." His mouth twisted. "I didn't do either, not well enough."
"No, you didn't," Henry agreed. "And now we're all paying the price for it."
He and Richard crouched in the woods, somewhere west of Bredestown. They'd got their families away before Warwick's men could swoop down on them. Richard seemed utterly at home under the redwoods. He made little shelters of branches and twigs and bark, and by all appearances was as content in one of them as he would have been in front of his own hearth. He was as happy to eat honkers and fiddlehead ferns as he would have been with white bread and butter and fat mutton.
"We shouldn't pay the price. Warwick and his men should," Richard said.
"Well, yes. They should," Henry said. "The trouble is, they aren't. We're out here with the honkers and the oil thrushes and the cucumber slugs."
"Nothing wrong with them," Richard said.
"Nothing wrong with them, no," Henry replied. "But the bloody Earl of bloody Warwick, the man who bloody murdered our father, he's sleeping in a bloody soft bed back in New Hastings, and swiving Lucy Fenner in it whenever that strikes his fancy. And there's something bloody wrong with that."
"Oh, yes. There is," Richard said quietly. "And I aim to do something about it."
"You? By yourself?" Henry had trouble hiding his disbelief. "If not for you-" He broke off.
"If not for me, Father would still be alive. That's what you were going to say, isn't it?" Richard demanded. Henry might not have wanted to say it, but he nodded. Richard scowled at him. "Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong, and maybe I'll have somewhat to say to you about that when this mess with Warwick is over. But that can wait-that has to wait. For now, I'll just ask you this: do you think Father would have wanted to live in a place where a noble could steal his beasts because the bastard called it taking taxes?"
"Well, no, but-"
"But me no buts," Richard broke in. "As soon as bloody Warwick tries to lift anyone else's chattels, he'll have a bigger rising on his hands-this is tinder in dry grass, whether he knows it or not. And if you think I can't do anything about him by myself-well, watch me, big brother. Just bloody watch me."
He slipped east, toward the seashore, toward the settlements, as the sun set that night. Henry couldn't watch him after that, because he moved with a swift, silent assurance the sailor had no hope of matching. Richard knew Henry scorned his trips through the woods. Henry was a seaman to his marrow, as their father had been. For him, dry land was a necessary nuisance.
Richard was different. Richard could slip through the woods so quietly, even the mouse-sized katydids went on chirping. Killing honkers was easy, but killing them before they knew you were there was anything but. Richard could do that. He thought he could also kill men before they knew he was there. He looked forward to it, in fact.
A nearly full moon gave him all the light he needed. Before long, he came to the camp Warwick's troopers had made just inside the forest. Several loudly unhappy men sat around a fire. "How are we supposed to catch those buggers?" one of them grumbled. "They could be anywhere by now."
"Too right they could," another soldier agreed. "Damn trees go on forever."
"We'll beat the bushes for a while, and then we'll go and tell his Lordship we had no luck," a third man said. "What else can we do?"
They all nodded. They were luckier than they dreamt. Richard Radcliffe could have potted a couple of them as easily as made no difference. But he had his heart set on harder game, more dangerous game. He went on. The foul-mouthed soldiers never knew he passed them over.
Things got harder when he came into settled country, but not much. Few people were out and about at night. Dogs barked, but never for long-he carried gobbets of honker meat to make them lose interest in him. One farmer swore at his hound for raising a ruckus. Otherwise, the night stayed still. Richard slid past Bredestown and down along the riverbank toward New Hastings.
Torches blazed on poles thrust into the ground around the house Warwick had taken for his own. Richard Radcliffe smiled a predatory smile. Warwick's men would have done better to leave it dark. That would have made it a tougher target. The light the torches threw didn't reach anywhere close to the edge of bowshot. And standing in that light blinded the sentries to whatever might be going on beyond its reach.
One of those sentries yawned. He said something to the man standing beside him. They both laughed. Richard took his place behind a pear tree whose trunk had grown man-thick in the fifteen years or so since it was planted. He strung the bow and fitted the leather wristguard to his left hand. Then, in one smooth motion, he fitted a shaft to the bowstring, drew, and let fly.
The arrow caught the soldier who'd yawned a few inches above his navel-the bright torchlight made aiming easier, too. The trooper did what any suddenly wounded man would do: he screamed and clutched at himself. As he crumpled, his friend stooped to give what help he could. Richard's second arrow punched through the man's neck. He let out a gurgling wail and fell beside the other guard.
Richard had a third shaft nocked and waiting. If the cries outside didn't bring Warwick out, what would? And when the noble showed himself…
But he didn't. Another soldier opened the door to see what had happened. Richard let fly at him, too. He must have had uncommonly quick reactions, for he jerked the door shut an instant before the arrow slammed into it. The shaft stood thrilling in the redwood planks.
If Richard had had some tow and a source of flame, he could have burnt the house with fire arrows. I should have thought of that, flashed through his mind. Remembering after the fact, sadly, was easier than getting the idea ahead of time.
He heard the back door open and shut. He couldn't see back there from where he crouched. Men spoke to one another in low voices. He couldn't catch what they were saying, but he didn't need to be Alexander the Great to figure it out.
Before long, he could hear boots thumping on the ground. He'd lost some of his night vision staring toward the torches. He couldn't see what Warwick's men-or maybe Warwick and his men-were doing. Again, though, he didn't need to be much of a general to know. They would work toward him, wait till he did something to show himself, and then close with him and finish him with swords and spears.
It was as good a plan as they could make under the circumstances. But it would work only if he waited around and let them get that close. That didn't look like the best thing he could do. The best thing he could do looked like disappearing now. So he did.
He had practice moving quietly. Maybe he wasn't quite quiet enough, or maybe one of them made a better woodsman than the rest. "There he goes, dammit!" somebody behind him called. "After him! He's heading west."
"No need to chase him," another voice said. This one was cold and calculating and deadly as a pitfall trap with a bottom full of upthrusting spears. If it wasn't the Earl of Warwi
ck's voice, Richard would have been mightily surprised. It went on, "Make for the western edge of the cleared land beyond Bredestown, quick as you can. If you hurry, you can get there before him and keep him from sneaking into the woods."
Richard nodded to himself. Yes, that almost had to be Warwick. He thought fast, and he thought straight. They might be trouble if they interposed themselves between him and safety. They would be more trouble if he couldn't get back into the woods before daybreak, but he thought he could. Bredestown didn't lie that far upriver from New Hastings. Even after all these years, not much of Atlantis was settled.
He had to get away now. He took advantage of every bush and every copse of trees. Before long, his eyes adapted to the moonlight again, and he could see farther and more plainly. But Warwick's men would have the same edge, worse luck.
Barking dogs told where they were, or where they might be. No dog barked around Richard for long. He still had plenty of his meaty bribes left. Those convinced the hounds of New Hastings he was a splendid fellow.
Would Warwick have the wit to send someone into the woods to alert the unhappy men who'd gone after the younger Radcliffes? Richard's lips skinned back from his teeth in a savage grin. If one of the noble's men didn't warn them he was around, he'd let them know himself.
He didn't go up the Brede, as he'd come down it. That was the shortest way back to the wild country, which also made it the way Warwick's men were likeliest to take. All right-they were welcome to it. As long as he got into the trees before the sun rose, he was fine. He could lie up in a fern thicket and stay safe while they tramped by not ten feet from him.
He had to cross a meadow to get to the wild wood. Cows turned their heads to stare at him: people didn't belong out here at this time of night. Too right they don't, he thought. But he made it back among the pines and redwoods and ferns, back to the cool dampness of the forest, back to the spicy scents that seemed as good to him as the odor of baking bread and better by far than the smells of the livestock brought here from England.
The smell of burning wood led him to the fire Warwick's troopers had set to warm themselves. It had died into embers now. They lay rolled in blankets, all but one who yawned and nodded and hit himself in the thigh with his fist to stay awake. Warwick hadn't thought to warn them after all. He might be a good general, but he didn't remember everything.
Richard strung his bow. He shot the sentry first. He'd hoped for a clean, quiet kill, but the man let out a dreadful shriek when the arrow tore into his belly. The other soldiers sprang awake, grabbing for their weapons. Richard shot two of them, too, then slipped away.
He'd hurt Warwick tonight. He'd hurt him badly, but he hadn't killed him. Warwick was a man who would take a deal of killing.
X
H enry Radcliffe couldn't believe Warwick would keep on gathering taxes after what happened with his father. Had the nobleman contented himself with going after the surviving Radcliffes, most of the settlers might have decided it was none of their affair and tried to get on with their lives. But Warwick acted as if there were no feud. And he soon brewed up a bigger one.
More and more people fled into the woods. Richard began to worry. "We can't feed them all," he said. "Not enough game here to keep 'em eating."
"Then we have to fight Warwick straight up," Henry said.
"If it were just Warwick and his bully boys, we could do it. But he has settlers on his side, too," his brother said. "I don't want a war of settler against settler. It will leave bad blood for years."
"Bad blood's already here," Henry said. "Warwick's started burning some of the farms and houses that belong to people on our side. And he's giving others to his friends. Chances are that will make him more friends, too."
"Not everyone got away with a bow," Richard complained.
"Fine," Henry said. "Do you want to give up?" Richard only glared at him.
The next day, Bartholomew Smith came up from New Hastings with only the clothes on his back. "There's a skeleton crew on the Rose," the mate said. "They're for us. They've gone out to sea, far enough to keep Warwick's wolves from surprising them."
"That would be better if we could work together with them," Henry said.
"Why can't we?" Richard said. "Easy enough to go up and down the coast, out farther than the soldiers are likely to. But what comes after that?"
"What comes after that?" Henry saw the answer as clearly as if God had whispered it in his ear. For all he knew, maybe God had. Words spilled out of him, a flood of them. His brother and the mate listened. The longer Henry talked, the wider their eyes got.
At last, the fit left Henry. He slumped forward, exhausted. Richard leaned forward and set a hand on his shoulder. "We can do this. We will do this." Then he said, "Father would be proud of you." That was when Henry was sure he hadn't been spouting nonsense.
Bartholomew Smith said, "You sounded like a great captain, skipper-like somebody who's won battles in the War of the Roses."
"I don't want to sound like a captain. I don't want to have to sound like one," Henry said. "And I don't care about roses, except I wish more of them grew here. If not for Warwick, I never would have worried about any of this."
"Well, then, he's got a lot to answer for, by Our Lady," Richard said. "Only thing is, he doesn't know it yet."
Like his father, Henry Radcliffe was a leader of men. Richard had never much wanted to tell anyone what to do. He'd never wanted anyone else telling him what to do, either. No wonder wandering alone through lands no other man had ever seen suited him so well.
Hurrying through the Atlantean woods with a dozen grim, angry, determined men at his back felt very different. Bartholomew Smith would have made a better leader, but everyone looked to Richard. He was Edward's son. The magic had to be in him. They thought it did, anyhow.
Maybe their thinking so would help make it true. He could hope so. He had to hope so. If it didn't, he was only leading them into disaster.
Farms above Bredestown were thin on the ground. Only men with some of the same hermit streak that ran so wide in Richard built on the edge of the wilderness. But Richard and his followers had no trouble coming out of the forest wherever they pleased. Warwick's soldiers weren't about to go in among the trees again. They defended a perimeter closer to the sea.
"Go away!" shouted the first man whose house the raiders approached. "I don't want anything to do with the quarrel. I just want to be left in peace."
"Will Warwick heed you if you say that?" Richard asked angrily.
"No. All the more reason you should."
Richard felt the force of the embittered argument. He might have made it himself. But he couldn't listen to it now, not unless he wanted to let his father down. "We have to fight him," he said. "Otherwise, he'll be king in truth over us. Do you want that?"
"No. Don't want you doing it, neither."
"Not me, by God!" Richard said, and said not a word about his brother. "If we want to live our own lives, we have to free the land of the Earl of Warwick. We have to, dammit! Then I can go back to the woods and make my wife wonder whether I'm ever coming home again. And that's all I want to do. Don't you understand? Warwick won't leave you alone."
"He hasn't done anything to me yet," the man said. "When he does, that's the time for me to worry about it."
"No." Richard shook his head. "That's when it's too late to worry about it." He turned to the men at his back. "Come on. We'll find men who aren't puling babes somewhere else." We'd better, or we're ruined, he thought.
And they did. Some men could see the writing on the wall, unlike the blockhead at the first farm where they stopped. Some had kin whom Warwick's hounds had already despoiled. And some, like Richard himself, didn't want anybody telling them what to do. "I don't much like you," one of those told Richard as he grabbed his bow and slung a full quiver over his shoulder, "but you're the ague, and that Warwick, he's the plague."
"Too bloody right he is," Richard said. "I don't care if you like me or not. Put up
with me till we dig the God-cursed badger out of his sett. Then you can go back to thinking I'm a fool, and I'll go off into the woods and forget all about you. Is it a bargain?"
"It is," the farmer answered. "Not the best one, maybe, but the best I'm likely to get."
Richard wondered whether they would have to fight before they got to New Hastings. They did. Maybe one of the men who didn't want to fight on his side slipped away and carried word to Warwick's soldiers. Maybe they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However that was, a clump of them spotted Richard's ragtag force as it came out from behind some trees. The troopers wasted no time figuring out who was who. They strung their bows with frantic haste and started shooting.
"Back into the wood!" Richard cried. "The trunks will give us cover!" They would need it, too; a man screamed as he was hit. The soldiers had mailshirts and helmets and swords. Only a few of Richard's men had swords; most made do with belt knives or axes. None of them wore armor. If Warwick's troopers came to close quarters, they would slaughter their foes. They knew it, too. Some of them lumbered forward while others kept shooting to disrupt the Atlanteans' archery.
How fast could a man in a byrnie cover a couple of hundred yards? Not fast enough to keep the settlers from shooting before they got to the edge of the copse. Rings of iron kept glancing hits out, but an arrow that struck square would punch through any armor made.
Another Atlantean shrieked. He fell, clawing at the arrow in his throat. His blood rivered out, hideously red. Still another farmer took a clothyard shaft an inch above the nose and died before he knew it.
One of Richard's arrows caught a soldier in the left shoulder. Though it got through, it did less harm than the bowman would have liked. The soldier yelled, but he broke off the shaft and kept coming.
"Away!" Richard shouted. "This isn't the place for a big fight!" He didn't want the men to empty their quivers here. Archery was the one skill they had that let them confront Warwick's fighters. Without arrows, they could only run when armored men came after them. We'll, we've got arrows, and we're running anyhow, Richard thought glumly. He misliked the omen.
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