Opening Atlantis a-1 Read online

  One of the honkers puffed up its chest and flapped its silly wings at another. "Honnnk!" it screeched. The other bird skittered away, as well as something as tall as a man and considerably heavier could skitter.

  Getting the water butts back onto the boat once they were filled was slow, careful work. If you made a mistake, you could put one right through the bottom. Henry was calling out instructions when the rambunctious honker ambled up to him. Perhaps because he was making noise, it seemed to think him some kind of rival. It went through the same sort of display it had with the other honker, puffing itself up, flapping its wings, and making a noise like a badly played horn full of spit.

  Henry straightened up. He was, he noted with satisfaction, a couple of inches taller than the orange-legged honker. He jumped up and down. He waved his arms. "Yaaah!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

  The honker started at him in bird-brained disbelief. Then, with a piglike grunt of dismay, it backpedaled, turned, and hastily retreated. The fishermen cheered Henry to the skies. "Well done, skipper!" Sam cried. "I didn't know you spoke its language!"

  Laughing, Henry answered, "Hell, it's got to be easier to learn than Basque. And if it decided to give me more trouble, I could always clout it over the head."

  "That works pretty well with the damned Basques, too," Sam said.

  "It does," Henry agreed. "But they've got harder heads than honkers, and they're liable to try and clout first."

  "You're right about that. Can't trust any of those foreign folk," Bartholomew Smith said. It never occurred to him, or to Henry, or to Sam, or to any of the other Englishmen, that foreigners might feel the same way about them. In fact, the mate added, "Bugger me blind if we can trust those bloody Dover bastards, either. Freetown? Free, my arse!" He spat to show what he thought of the neighboring settlement.

  Sam nodded. "The Bretons are a better bargain than the Dovermen, even if Kersauzon's getting old. Your father's right about that, skipper."

  "Yes." Henry tried not to sound too glum. Thinking that Francois Kersauzon was getting old reminded him that his father was, too. The graveyard back of the church already had its share of headstones and more. He didn't want to think about its having one more in particular. And thinking about death and dying reminded him of something else. "Keep an eye out for eagles," he called. "Wherever we find honkers, chances are we'll find them, too."

  They'd grown scarcer around New Hastings-and, from everything he could see, along the rest of the eastern coast as well. But men were new in these parts. The red-crested eagles would think they were nothing but strange honkers-nothing but food.

  To his relief, the work party got the water butts loaded and back to the Rose without trouble. Honkers watched without understanding as the cog weighed anchor and sailed south.

  Fishing in the warm current that ran up the west coast of Atlantis wasn't anywhere near so fine as it had been farther east. There were fewer sea birds to nab, too; their numbers depended on those of the fish they ate. Every so often, then, the Rose would come in close to shore. Honkers were never hard to find, and never hard to kill. Their smoked and salted meat fed the fishermen on the journey south.

  "Don't know what we'd do without them," Henry Radcliffe said, cutting a slab of meat from an enormous thigh.

  "We'd go hungry, that's what," Sam said. Grease ran down the fisherman's chin.

  "I'm glad they're so stupid," Henry said. "It makes hunting them so easy, you almost feel ashamed."

  Sam shook his head. "Not me. I'd be ashamed of starving when you can just knock them over the head."

  The men who went ashore to kill the honkers also came back with pine cones, which had tasty seeds. Other than that, though…"No berry bushes," one sailor grumbled. "You'd think there'd be swarms of them, too, in weather like this. Nice and damp, but not too cold-feels like spring every day."

  Henry nodded; that was nothing but the truth. "I wonder why there aren't," he said. "None by New Hastings, either-only the ones we brought from England."

  "Not many proper trees, either," the sailor said. "No oaks, no elms, no chestnuts, no willows, no apples or pears or plums…Bloody pines and these redwood things. And ferns, like there should be fairies flitting through them."

  "Haven't seen any, God be praised," Sam said. "No more wee folk in Atlantis when we got here than men."

  "Don't let Bishop John hear you talking of fairies and wee folk, or he'll give you a penance you won't fancy," Henry warned them. They both nodded. You might believe in such things, but you didn't talk about them where churchmen could overhear. They'd make you sorry if you did.

  Up in the crow's nest, the lookout sang out: "There's an inlet ahead!"

  Before long, Henry could see it from the deck, too: an opening a couple of miles across, with the sea entering to some considerable distance. He nodded to Bartholomew Smith. "We'd better go in and see what we have there."

  "Aye, skipper." The mate nodded. "Could be a prime harbor." He laughed. "Could be, I mean, if there were any people here, and if there was anything to ship from here, and if there was any place you'd want to ship it to from here."

  "Damn it, Bart, if you're going to grumble about every little thing…" Henry said. The mate and the rest of the fishermen laughed.

  A few minutes later, a breeze from out of the northwest wafted the Rose through the inlet and into the calm waters of the bay. Everyone looked around, trying to see every which way at once. "Oh, my," Sam said softly, and that summed things up as well as anything.

  The bay widened out to north and south beyond the inlet, leaving the best and biggest natural harbor Henry had ever seen. He nodded to Bartholomew Smith. "Well, you were right," he said.

  "I couldn't have been much righter," the mate replied. "Almost makes me want to settle here, just to make sure nobody else does."

  "Right again," Henry said. "By Our Lady, what an anchorage! You could put a navy here."

  "Or a flock of pirates," Smith said.

  "You named the trouble there," Henry pointed out. "What would they have to steal? This is a bare shore." He paused thoughtfully. "Well, it's a bare shore now. Maybe it won't be one of these days, but not yet."

  Gulls and terns wheeled overhead, white wings flashing in the sun. Ducks and geese bobbed in the green-blue water of the bay. A shag plunged from on high, emerging with a fish in its beak. Ashore, redwoods taller than a spire speared the sky. The more Henry looked around, the more he too wanted to stay.

  Now, all at once, he understood what had pushed his brother ever deeper into the forests of Atlantis. You wanted to find something like this, to be the first one ever to set eyes on it, to think it was all yours, if only for a little while. He looked east toward the shore there, half expecting to see Richard coming out from the trees-not that he could have seen a man at such a distance. But Richard hadn't even crossed the mountains yet…or, if he had, he hadn't admitted it.

  "Somewhere here, there'll be a river coming in," Henry said. "We can fill the butts at its mouth. And after that, after we clear the inlet again, I think it's time to head home. We won't find anything finer than this."

  "What'll we call this place?" Sam asked.

  "Paradise Bay," Bartholomew Smith suggested.

  "I'm not sure God would like that," Henry said.

  The mate went on plumping for his favorite, but Henry's point carried the day. "Well, what do we call it, then?" Smith grumped, scowling at his shipmates.

  Henry had a name on the tip of his tongue, but it didn't want to come off. "What's the name of the land that was supposed to lie off the coast of England, the one where Morgan Le Fay took Arthur?"

  "Avalon!" three fishermen called out at the same time.

  "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 a
nd 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 Francois 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 francais?" 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 Atlantis?"

  "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 sh
eep. 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."