Opening Atlantis Read Free

you pay me a third of your catch this year to hear it?” Kersauzon asked. He might have drunk a good deal, but he wasn’t too sloshed to be sly.
    â€œThat’s outrageous!” Richard exclaimed.
    The Breton shrugged. He gestured toward the enormous, inexplicable drumstick. “If you don’t care to hear the story, no one will make you. But you can still eat your fill. We don’t begrudge it.”
    â€œA third of my catch?” Edward said slowly, in Breton. Then he said it again, in French, to make sure he had it right. François nodded. The Englishman went on, “And in exchange for this, you promise me…?”
    â€œThat you will hear my story, and that it will be true,” Kersauzon answered. “Past that, I promise nothing. How can I? Ours is a chancy trade. Things may go well, or they may not. Who can know ahead of time? A third of your catch may be worth nothing, too. God forbid it, but it may be so.”
    Richard Radcliffe set a hand on his father’s arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said in English. “He’s run out a line and baited a hook, and he’ll haul you in and cut your guts out and dry you in salt.”
    â€œYour father would be gamy, even in salt,” Kersauzon said, also in English. Richard turned red.
    â€œTell me your story,” Edward Radcliffe said. His son exclaimed in dismay. Edward held up a hand. “I will pay your price, friend François. Maybe I am a fool. It could be. Plenty of others have said so. And I will give you one small promise in return.”
    â€œWhich is?” the Breton asked politely.
    â€œIf you lie, or if you cheat, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
    Several of the Bretons growled. Jacques reached for his knife in a way that warned he wasn’t about to cut himself more of the strange smoked flesh that tasted so much like goose. François Kersauzon didn’t flinch, or even blink. “A bargain,” he said, and thrust out his right hand.
    Edward clasped it. Kersauzon began to talk.

    Maybe I am a fool…Plenty of others have said so. Radcliffe wondered whether his words would come back to haunt him. If they did, he would keep his promise. It was as simple as that.
    All around him brawled the immensity of the Atlantic. He’d never been a cautious sailor, clinging to the sight of land. You couldn’t be, not if you wanted to make a halfway decent living with your lines and nets. But he’d never sailed so far into the green-gray-blue of the ocean before, either.
    Ahead of him, like a will-o’-the-wisp, the Morzen bobbed on the swells. François Kersauzon’s cog—her name meant Mermaid —was a little smaller, a little faster, than the St. George. If she’d wanted to, she could have given Radcliffe the slip. But she reefed her big square sail a bit and stuck with the English vessel.
    Edward Radcliffe stood at the St. George ’s stern, holding the tiller that connected to the rudder. A few cogs still used old-fashioned twin steering oars, but he liked the new arrangement better. It let the builders square up the stern, so the cog could hold more than it would have otherwise. The Morzen was made the same way. Up ahead, Kersauzon was doing the steering; by now, Edward was as familiar with his distant outline against the sky as he was with those of his own sailors.
    â€œI don’t like this,” Henry grumbled. “I don’t like it one bit. Those damned tricksy Bretons are laughing up their sleeves at us. You wait and see if they’re not, Father.”
    â€œFine sleeves they have for laughing, too,” Edward said. His son gave him a dirty look. He was joking and not joking at the same time. A Breton kabig , with its hood, its wooden toggles, and its sturdy oiled cloth, was one of the best foul-weather jackets around. His own wool coat didn’t shed water so well, though it was probably warmer.
    One of the sailors pointed