Opening Atlantis Read Free Page B

air and flew away—off to the west. It didn’t land on the Morzen; Edward didn’t think it did, anyhow. No, it kept on going. And where else would it be going but…?
    â€œLand,” Ned said. “Got to be land.”
    â€œYes. I think so, too. And I begin to think François Kersauzon was telling us nothing but the truth,” Edward Radcliffe said. “I didn’t believe that when I took his bargain. If half of what he claimed was so, part of our catch would have been a small price to pay. But if all of it’s true…”
    â€œWell, what then?” the fisherman asked.
    Edward stared west, after the vanished songbird. “I don’t know,” he whispered, more than half to himself. “I just don’t know. And I don’t think anyone else does, either.”

    More birds—plainly land birds—perched on the St. George ’s rail or in her rigging or atop her yard over the next few days. Edward Radcliffe would have bet that the cloudbank hanging off to the west hid the unknown land from which those birds came. He started thinking of it in his own mind as Atlantis, the fabled country set somewhere out in the ocean with which it shared a name.
    For some time, though, he had no chance to sail west. Along with everyone else on the boat—and, he was sure, everyone on the Morzen, too—he was too busy pulling cod from the sea. Kersauzon sure hadn’t been lying about what a fine fishing ground this was. Edward had never seen anything like it in waters closer to England.
    Some of the cod were almost as long as a man, and heavier than big men like Edward and his sons. The fishermen had to gaff them to bring them aboard, and even then the cod flapped and fought, desperate for life. Before long, the St. George ’s deck was running in blood and slippery with fish guts. The crew flung offal over the side as fast as they could. That only brought sharks and other wolves of the sea alongside to feast on the unaccustomed bounty. Gulls and skuas and other sea birds fought for their share, too, and screeched in rage when they didn’t get everything they wanted.
    Listening to those furious, dissatisfied cries, Edward straightened for a moment and said to Henry, “They might as well be men, eh?”
    His son nodded. “They’re greedy enough, all right. But there’s plenty here for all of them. Plenty here for the Bretons and us, too—François wasn’t wrong about that. And you weren’t wrong to take him up on it.” Henry managed a wry grin. “There, Father. D’you see? You can say, ‘I told you so,’ and I just have to put up with it.”
    â€œSo do I,” Richard said.
    Instead of coming out with the words every child—and every man and woman grown—so hated to hear, Edward Radcliffe only grunted and went back to gutting fish. The knife he used was a sturdy tool, not far removed from a falchion or shortsword, yet for some of the cod that were coming out of the sea it was barely big enough. He stropped it against leather again and again, and longed for a steel to do an even better job of keeping the edge sharp.
    The St. George ’s master salter was a lean fellow named Hugh Fenner. “Good thing we have a full load from Abrgall,” he said, spreading flower of salt inside the body cavity of a fish Edward had just gutted. “We’ll use every speck we got in Le Croisic.”
    â€œWell, I hoped for a good catch then—I always do,” the skipper replied. “But I own I never dreamt of anything like…this.”
    â€œBy Our Lady, who would? Who could?” Fenner said. “Some of these cod are so meaty, we need to carve ’em into thinner slabs to make sure the salt can cure ’em before they spoil.”
    â€œMore work. As if we didn’t have enough already,” Edward said. “But do what you need to do, Hugh, and make sure the lads all jump when you