“Avalon! Thank you.” Henry nodded. “That was supposed to be a wonderful country. It should do for this place, eh?”
Nobody said no. Even Bartholomew Smith unbent enough to allow, “Well, you could have done worse, and I thought you were going to.”
“Avalon it is, then. We’ll get water and meat before we sail out again,” Henry said. “We won’t find a finer place to do it, that’s sure.”
A river did run into the bay. They named it the Arthur. They filled the water butts there, then spent some time skylarking in the pure, cool water. Henry Radcliffe fought shy of that; the water was too cool for him. Avalon Bay seemed locked in an eternal April. Farther south along this coast, perhaps some other anchorage basked in an eternal July. That would suit him better for splashing and snorting and ducking.
Skylarking…His smile went wistful. His grandchildren wouldn’t know what a skylark was. He hadn’t seen one, or heard its explosion of song from on high, since coming to Atlantis. Horned larks hunted bugs here, but their more musical cousins hadn’t crossed the ocean.
Honkers came down to the river to drink. Knocking them over the head was as easy as it usually was. You had to be careful to do the job right, that was all; if you didn’t, a wounded bird would kick your guts out through your back. But as long as you killed clean, you could go through a whole flock and knock one bird after another over the head. The honkers would stare in surprise, but what was going on didn’t register as danger to them.
When they saw the wide-winged shape of a red-crested eagle in the sky, though, they would scramble for the closest trees, honking and gabbling in alarm. They knew the eagles meant to kill them. And fleeing, gabbling honkers meant the fishermen had to beware. Maybe the eagles thought they were honkers, too. Maybe the fierce-beaked birds didn’t care. But they would strike at men without hesitating—like the honkers, they didn’t know enough to be afraid.
To Henry’s way of thinking, the eagles were only thorns on the rose. (Nostalgia again. No wild roses here—only the few brought from England, and the ones sprung from their seed.) “If we had our women with us, I’d start a town here today,” he told the mate. “As is, next summer will have to do.”
“It will likely do well enough, too,” Smith replied. “We’re the only ones who’ve ever seen this place.”
“And I praise God for that, too. Anyone who did see it would want it,” Henry said.
“Well, skipper, I won’t quarrel about that,” Smith said.
Getting out of Avalon Bay wasn’t quite so easy as getting in had been—another thorn on the rose. The Rose herself had to wait till a warm breeze blew off the land and wafted her out through the opening and into the rougher waters of the Atlantic once more.
A few of the fishermen needed to run for the lee rail when the cog started behaving like a restive horse once more. “Damned if I didn’t lose my sea legs there,” one of them said sheepishly, spitting into the drink to get the last of the puke out of his mouth.
“You’ll have plenty of chances to get them back,” Henry said. He steered the Rose straight west, out into the ocean. If the wind suddenly shifted, he wanted to put some distance between the cog and the land behind her; clawing off a lee shore in a storm was every sailor’s blackest nightmare.
And then he got his biggest surprise since he watched his father agree to pay François Kersauzon a third of his catch for the secret of the Breton’s fine new fishing ground. “Sail ho!” the man in the crow’s nest cried. “Sail ho off the starboard bow!”
Henry’s first thought when the shout went up was outrage pure and simple. How dared anyone but he come into these waters? Then fresh wonder filled him. The other ship was coming out of the northwest? Did legendary Cathay lie beyond Atlantis? Was the Great Khan’s fleet stumbling onto this new land at the same time as he was? Wouldn’t that be a marvel wild beyond belief?
Before long, he could see the other ship from the Rose’s deck. A wry smile spread across his face. How likely was it that the Great Khan built his ships to look just like the cogs the men of Western Europe had known for generations? Not very, not unless Henry missed his guess.
Then he made out the oak-tree flag, and a slow smile spread across his face. Whatever else that ship held, it wasn’t fearsome warriors from Cathay. Bartholomew Smith realized the same thing at the same time. “Bugger me blind if they aren’t a bunch of bloody Basques!” he said.
And the men on the other cog would be able to see England’s red St. George’s cross on white. Would they be wondering about the Rose the same way Henry was wondering about them? Better not to take chances. “Load the guns,” Henry said quietly. “Don’t make a fancy show of it, but do it. You never can tell what foreigners have in mind.”
To the Basques, Englishmen were foreigners. Henry squinted across the narrowing gap of sea. Yes, they carried guns, too. Yes, they were also loading them. Henry swore under his breath. He didn’t want to fight, dammit. But he didn’t want that other cog to be able to rake the Rose with impunity, either.
One of the Basques pointed toward Henry’s ship. Like most of the men from that corner of the world, he was dark-haired and heavy-bearded. He wore linen and wool, not quite in the same cuts as an Englishman would have, but not so very different, either.
All the Basques on the other cog were dressed that way. All the Basques were, yes, but not all the people were. Beside Henry, the mate pointed. “Who are those funny-looking bastards up near the bow?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen folk like them.” Henry stared. Like the Basques, the strangers had black hair. But their chins were smooth and their skins weren’t just tanned—they were coppery. Their clothes were in shades of buff and brown. Made from hides? Henry wondered. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth. “Ahoy, the Basque ship! Parlez-vous français?” Surely somebody over there would know a language you didn’t have to be born a Basque to speak.
And somebody did. “Hello, Englishmen!” one of the men on the Basque cog yelled back. “Yes, we understand you.”
“Who are your friends? Are they from Cathay?” Henry asked.
All the Basques who spoke French thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. “No, by God,” their spokesman answered. “They say they are Pattawatomi.”
“They say they’re what?” Henry wondered if the last was a word in Basque.
But evidently not, for the man in the other cog repeated it: “Pattawatomi. It’s the name of their clan or tribe.”
“Where did you find them?” Henry asked. “I didn’t think Atlantis had any people of its own.”
Before answering, the Basque talked with some of his countrymen. Then, a little reluctantly, he said, “No, they aren’t from Atlantis.”
“Well, then?” Henry said.
More confabulating on the other ship. At last, and even more reluctantly, the Basque spokesman pointed west. “There is another land, a new land, about ten days’ sail that way. We thought we were the only ones who came to this side of Atlantis.”
“A new land? With people in it? How can it have people in it when Atlantis has none?”
With a shrug, the Basque replied, “If you want to know how, ask God. I cannot tell you that. But I can tell you it is the truth, and here are these Pattawatomis to prove it.”
The men in skins eyed him impassively. They had broad faces with high cheekbones and strong noses. One of them held a wooden club with a ball of polished stone in the head.
“I will tell you another thing. This new land is large—maybe even as large as Atlantis—so why not?” the Basque said. “If it had no folk of its own, it would be better to settle than Atlantis is.”
“Why, when it is so much farther from everything?” Henry asked.
“Because the trees and the animals are more like the ones we know. There are oaks, with acorns growing on them. And there are squirrels in the oaks, too. Not red squirrels like ours, but gray ones. Still—they are squirrels. Where will you find oaks or squirrels in A
tlantis?”
“Did you see honkers? Or red-crested eagles?”
“We saw eagles, but smaller than the ones in Atlantis. They have white heads and eat fish like our sea eagles. We saw no honkers, only ordinary geese—but they have black heads and white chins like some honkers. We heard wolves howling in the night.”
Wolves were almost hunted out of England. “Your new land is welcome to them,” Henry said.
“We have them at home. I used to hear them howling outside my village in the wintertime,” the Basque said. “They would kill sheep. Once in a while, if they got hungry enough, they would kill men.”
“What will you do with the Patta-whoever-they-ares?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know yet,” the Basque replied. “Maybe we’ll trade with them and take them back to the new land one of these days. Maybe we’ll just keep them and put them to work. They look strong, don’t they?”
The two cogs had come close enough to give Henry a good look at the copperskinned men from the unknown country. They did look strong; they were taller than most of the Basques. Even so…“They look like warriors to me.”
“They shoot bows, and they have those clubs, but we saw no iron among them,” the Basque said. “No helms, no swords—they have knives, but they’re made of chipped stone. We can beat them if we have to.”
“Yes, but can you make them work if you keep them in Atlantis?”
“Like I said, it could be we’ll find out. Where are you bound now?” The Basque changed the subject—not very smoothly.
“Back to New Hastings.” Henry gave him the truth. He didn’t have ten days’ worth of supplies aboard the Rose—not this trip. “God keep you safe on your voyage back to Gernika.” God keep you headed south of west. You won’t spy Avalon Bay then—not if He’s kind, you won’t.
Again, the spokesman talked things over with other men before replying. Not too obtrusively, English gunners stood near their swivels. If the Basques wanted trouble, they could have it.
“And you—you go with God as well,” the Basque said after a long, long pause. The two cogs passed each other. Men on the other vessel looked ready to shoot, too. The range lengthened, lengthened some more…and pretty soon it was too long for the guns the Rose carried. Only as the tension slid out of his spine did Henry realize how tight he’d been strung.
“More new lands,” he murmured. “New lands beyond Atlantis. I wouldn’t have looked for that. It seemed big enough by itself.”
“There’s land west of Iceland,” Bartholomew Smith said. “You talk with some of the squareheads and you’ll hear about it. But it’s as cold as Iceland is, or maybe worse. They don’t go there very often.”
“I’ve heard some of those stories, too.” Henry laughed. “I always had trouble believing them. And here we are in a new land of our own, and now with news of more new lands beyond. I ought to do penance for doubting.”
“Well, skipper, if everybody did that who ought to, you’d have plenty of company,” the mate said. “Me, I’m just glad we didn’t have a sea fight on our hands.”
“So am I. They were thinking about sinking us to keep their secret. If they thought they could get away with it, they would have done it, too.”
Smith nodded. “Can’t keep a new land secret forever, though. We’re likely lucky those copperskinned fellows never sailed east and found Atlantis ahead of us. I think you’re right—they looked like men who could fight.”
“They did,” Henry Radcliffe agreed. “But if they can’t work iron…Even the Irish bog-trotters can do that. Turn your back on one, and he’ll take a knife and let the air out of you like a boy poking a pig’s bladder with a stick.”
“No doubt about it,” Smith said. “Well, between Avalon Bay and the miserable Basques, we’ll have a deal of news when we get home.”
Henry looked over his shoulder. The Basque cog was still sailing southwest, away from the Rose. That gave him a better chance of seeing New Hastings again—and it gave the Pattawatomis a better chance of seeing Gernika. He wondered what they would make of the Basque town. He wondered if he’d ever find out.
The pier didn’t push out as far into the sea as Henry would have liked. But it was there, and it hadn’t been when he sailed north from New Hastings. He was glad to be able to tie up at it instead of anchoring offshore and then rowing in, as he’d done more times than he could count.
A gull strutted along the planking. Plainly, it thought the pier had gone up for its benefit alone. It fixed him with a yellow stare and skrawked at him as he walked past. How dared he, a mere man, profane the timbers where its webbed feet had gloriously preceded him?
As soon as he was walking on solid ground and not on those gull-honored planks, his wife almost flattened him with a hug. After he untangled himself from her—which took a while, because he didn’t want to—his father spoke dryly: “I’m glad to see you, too, Henry.”
“And I’m glad to be seen.” Not having seen Edward Radcliffe for some months, Henry wondered if he’d been that stooped for a while now or if it had happened all at once while he was gone. He didn’t know.
“What’s it like on the other side?” His father laughed. “Never thought I’d say that to somebody who hadn’t died.”
“If you want to talk to ghosts, that’s your business,” Henry retorted. “If you want to ask me…Well, the weather’s better there, by God. Seemed like spring all the time.”
“It was spring all the time you were there—or a lot of the time, anyhow,” Edward reminded him.
“We stayed into summer, and it didn’t get hot and muggy the way it does here,” Henry said. “And there is a bay with the best harbor I’ve ever seen anywhere. Avalon Bay, we called it. If King Arthur had seen it, he never would have wanted to leave.”
“Yes, but a harbor on a coast with no people on it is like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear,” his father said. “It may be there, but so what?”
“There will be people on that coast,” Henry said. “And there are people beyond that coast. I know, because we saw them.” He told his father and his wife and the rest of the people who were listening about the Basques and the strange Pattawatomis.
“A new land? Another new land? With people in it, this time?” Edward said.
“Funny-looking people, but people just the same,” Henry answered. “And the Basques say the trees and beasts are more like England or their country than Atlantis. They talked about squirrels in oak trees and howling wolves.”
“I haven’t seen a squirrel in years,” Edward said, at the same time as Bess was going, “I miss squirrels.” His father added, “They’re welcome to the wolves, though.”
“I said the same thing, or near enough,” Henry answered.
“And who are the strangers?” his father asked. “Did the Basques find the court of the Great Khan of Cathay?”
“I asked them the same thing, and they thought it was funny. It didn’t seem that way to me, and it didn’t sound that way from what they said.”
Edward Radcliffe chuckled grimly. “Believing what Basques say is a fool’s game. By Our Lady, sometimes understanding Basques is a fool’s game.”
“The one who talked to me spoke pretty good French,” Henry said. “He said the strangers didn’t know the use of iron. One of them carried a club with a stone ball for a head—that argues the Basque was telling the truth. They wore hides. They had no gold or silver ornaments. If they come from the Great Khan’s court, ruling Cathay isn’t what it used to be. Easier to think this new land lies between us and Cathay, wherever Cathay may be.”
“Your children may go to the new land—I expect they will,” Edward said. “I might like to see it before I die. But I think my bones will end up here in Atlantis—and that won’t be so bad.”
He sounds like Moses, wanting a look at the Promised Land, Henry thought, and then, No—for him, this is the Promised Land. He really has got old.
But after a moment, he realized Atlantis was the Promise
d Land for him, too. He was curious about what lay to the west. He wanted to see it, and more than once. But, having pulled up stakes in England to settle here, he wasn’t eager to do it again. As his father said, maybe one of his boys would be, if they didn’t find Atlantis roomy enough. Or maybe his brother would….
“Where is Richard?” he asked.
“Out in the woods,” Bess said. “As usual.”
“He was talking about going over the mountains,” Edward added. “I half wondered if you would see him when you came ashore on the west coast.”
“So did I. That would have been funny,” Henry said. “I wonder which of us would have been more surprised.”
More people were coming off the Rose and telling loved ones and friends what they’d done and what they’d seen on the journey around the northern coast of Atlantis. Henry heard several sailors trying to pronounce Pattawatomi. Every man said it differently. Henry couldn’t very well complain—he wasn’t sure he was saying it right himself. He wasn’t sure the Basque had pronounced it very well. Any people that gave itself such an outlandish name probably spoke a language as bad as Basque, too. Henry hadn’t thought there was any such creature, but maybe he was wrong.
Then Bess put her arm around his waist and gave him an inviting smile. He suddenly and acutely remembered how long he’d been at sea. “I’m going to have a look at the house, Father,” he said. “We’ll talk more later.”
“Send the children out to play before you look too hard,” Edward answered. “Lord knows I had to chase you and your brother and sisters out the door after a few fishing runs—yes, just a few.”
Henry remembered that. He’d been puzzled when he was small, puzzled and hurt. Why wasn’t Father gladder to see him? Well, Father was, but he was glad to see Mother, too. And Henry was very glad to see Bess. They walked off side by side. In a little while, he thought, he would be gladder still.
VII
Pretty soon, Richard Radcliffe would reach the downhill slope. That was what he was waiting for—proof he’d made it into the western part of Atlantis, proof he’d got through the mountains at last.
Opening Atlantis Page 11
