Opening Atlantis (17 page)

Not quite by chance, one of his mittened hands came to rest on the wrought-iron barrel of a swivel gun. “I wonder if we could hit New Hastings from here,” he said in musing tones. “I wonder if we could hit a particular house in New Hastings from here.”

“Hit the town? I think the piece'd reach that far,” Bartholomew Smith said. Henry nodded; he gauged the range, and the gun's power, about the same. The mate went on, “Hit one house in particular? That'd take the Devil's own luck, don't you think?”

Regretfully, Henry nodded again. “Afraid I do.”

Smith eyed him. “Which house have you got in mind?”

“Oh, let's just say I was thinking of putting a ball through my father's door, to wake him up if he was sleeping.”

“You can say that if you want to.” Smith looked around to make sure no one besides Henry was in earshot. “Me, I'd sooner put one through Warwick's door—or through Warwick, though from here that'd take more than the Devil's luck.”

“It would, wouldn't it?” Henry said sadly. He sent the mate a hooded glance. “So you're not fond of his Lordship?”

“Lucy Fenner's mother is my first cousin,” Smith said.

“I should have remembered that.” Henry thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Well, no, then you have good reason not to be.”

The mate scowled. “Lucy's a good girl, a sweet girl, damn him. Not her fault she was born pretty, and she shouldn't have to pay for it like that.”

“Women have been paying for their looks that way since the days of Adam and Eve,” Henry said. Seeing the mutinous expression on the mate's face, he quickly added, “Not that that makes it right.”

“I should say not,” Bartholomew Smith spat. “The day is coming when Warwick'll push all of us too far, like he's already pushed me. I think it's coming soon, and when it does…” His strong, scarred hands folded into fists.

“My father feels the same way. I do believe he's felt that way since he first set eyes on Warwick, before the earl even set foot on our soil.” Henry looked around again. No one was paying him or Smith any special heed. In a low voice, he continued, “When the day does come, he aims to fight.”

“Skipper, I always knew your father was a good man,” Smith said. “I always knew he was a smart man, too. Only question is, can we kick those bastards when we have to?”

“That's what's held him back this long. And, he says, even winning you can pay too high a price. If the battle tears New Hastings and Bredestown to pieces, if half the people die and half the houses and shops burn down, we'll all be years getting over it,” Henry said. “When he was a lad, he says, his old grandfather would tell him stories about what England was like just after the Black Death passed over the countryside.”

The mate shuddered and made the sign of the cross. “God keep the plague on the other side of the sea. That bloody Warwick's plague enough for these lands.”

“Plague enough and to spare,” Henry agreed. “But that's just Father's point. A war here could be as bad as the plague. It could set us back the way the Black Death set England back. That's why he doesn't want to fight unless we can beat the soldiers in a hurry without ruining ourselves in the doing.”

“That's sensible, no doubt about it,” Bartholomew Smith said. “How long do you think poor Lucy will want us to go on being sensible?” Henry grunted; that shot hit the target in the bull's-eye. Smith asked another question: “Isn't it better to die on our feet than to live on our knees?”

Henry grunted again—he hadn't dreamt the other man had so much fire in his belly. Slowly, he answered, “It is, yes. My father would not say otherwise. But he
would
say it's better still to live on our feet. He's looking for a way to do that, which is why he waits.”

“God grant he find one,” Smith said. “How long can he—how long can we—keep waiting, though? If we get used to saying, ‘Yes, Lord,' to whatever Warwick demands of us—well, we'll be living on our knees then, and I fear me we'll forget how to climb up on our feet again.”

“I don't think it will go that far,” Henry said. “Back in England, even the king has trouble telling his people what to do. That's why the wars go on and on. If the king can't make Englishmen obey, Lord have mercy on a poor earl who tries, eh?”

Smith's smile touched his lips, but not his eyes. “Don't they call Warwick the Kingmaker, though?”

“That was his nickname, all right. But the king he made unmade him. And if a mere king can cast him down”—Henry winked—“don't you suppose a settlement full of Englishmen can do the same when the time comes?”

“Belike you're right.” Despite his words, Smith still didn't smile with his whole face. “It had better come soon, I tell you, for Lucy's sake. A woman's not like a man, you know—she keeps her honor between her legs.”

“Warwick has dishonored her, but he hasn't taken her honor away. It's not the same thing,” Henry said. “Everyone knows what he would have done to her kin if she didn't yield herself to him. That would have touched off the fight, I expect, but it wouldn't have done the Fenners any good.”

“No, it wouldn't…. Touched off…” Smith set his own gloved hand on the wrought-iron barrel of the swivel gun. He swung it toward the house the Earl of Warwick had taken for his own, as he'd taken Lucy Fenner for his own.

As he aims to take New Hastings for his own,
Henry thought. When you got down to it, wasn't it that simple? Warwick didn't want to be a kingmaker here: he wanted to be a king himself. It would be a small kingdom. Maybe that would suffice him, or maybe he dreamt of taking England in King Edward's despite, using Atlantis as his base. If he did, Henry judged him a madman, but wasn't a madman all the more dangerous for being mad?

“We'll settle him,” he declared. “What does Atlantis need with kings?”

“King Warwick?” Smith followed his thoughts without trouble. “King Neville? King Richard? Whatever he'd style himself, let him carve it on his tombstone instead.”

“My brother would make a better King Richard than Warwick would,” Henry said. “He's better suited to the job, too, by God.”

“How's that?”

“He doesn't want it.”

E
dward Radcliffe was coming to dread a knock on the door. He never had before, not in all the years since coming to Atlantis. In that stretch of time, a knock on the door meant a friend had come to call. Now a knock was much too likely to be trouble calling.

This particular knock on the door came just before supper.

Chicken and turnips and parsnips and cabbage bubbled in a pot, filling the house with savory fragrance and making Edward's stomach rumble. He said something unchristian when a fist thudded against the planks of the door.

“Tell whoever it is to go away,” Nell said.

“Nothing I'd like better.” But when Edward went to the door, he found that his visitors were not likely to take no for an answer.

They were five of Richard Neville's biggest, roughest bravos, all of them armored, all of them with drawn swords except for one who carried a crossbow instead. “Well, well!” Edward said. “What's all this about?”

The soldiers with the swords hefted them. The fellow with the crossbow aimed it at Radcliffe's chest. The biggest ruffian growled, “His Lordship wants to see you. And I mean right away.”

“Does he?” Edward said mildly. All the soldiers nodded. Edward asked, “Suppose I don't care to see him right away?”

“That would be too bad—for you,” the trooper answered. “And he would still see what was left of you.”

There was a line between bravery and stupidity. Edward Radcliffe knew which side of the line defying five young, tough, armored men lay on. “Well, supper will just have to wait in that case, won't it?” he said.

“Smartest notion you've had in a long time, Granddad,” the big soldier agreed. “Now get moving, before he gets sick of waiting.”

“I'm coming.” Edward raised his voice to call out to Nell: “His Lordship has something to talk about with me.” She squawked in dismay. He was dismayed, too, but he didn't think squawking would do any good. He nodded to Warwick's men. “Lead on. I'm honored to have such a fine escort.”

They snorted, almost in unison. “We aren't doing it for your honor, old man,” the big soldier said. “We're doing it for his.”

“Really?” Edward said, as if that hadn't occurred to him. He didn't think pushing them any further was a good idea. He stepped over the threshold and into the street.

He remembered when New Hastings literally hadn't been there. Now it could have been any other English seaside town—if you didn't notice the redwood timber, and if you didn't raise your eyes past the fields to the dark woods that didn't lie far away.

Guards stood in front of the house Neville had appropriated: the biggest one in town. They carried spears taller than they were. The sharp edges of the spearpoints glittered blood-red in the fading light. “So he came, did he?” one of the guards said. “How about that?”

“He came, all right,” the crossbowman answered. “See? He's not so dumb as he looks.”

“Couldn't prove it by me,” the guard said. “Take him on in, then. His Lordship'll let him know what's what.”

“Right.” The crossbowman gave Edward a little shove. “You heard Peter. Go on in.”

“Thank you so much,” Edward said. The fellow with the crossbow smirked. Plainly, he didn't recognize irony when he heard it. Too late, Edward realized that might be good luck; had the archer recognized it, he might have made him sorry.

Inside, the Earl of Warwick sat in a chair with a back. That emphasized his noble blood; like most people, Radcliffe had only stools in his house. “Lucy!” Warwick called. “Fetch my guest something to drink!”

“Yes, your Lordship.” Lucy Fenner hurried in from the kitchen. The silk gown she wore must have come from England with the exiled earl. It bared too much of her, and clung too tightly to what it didn't display. She lowered her eyes to the ground, and scurried away as soon as she'd set a mug in Edward's hand.

He raised an eyebrow even before he tasted it. The rich bouquet told him what it was. “Did the wine come from England, Lord?” he asked.

Warwick shook his head. “I took it in trade from the Bretons,” he replied. “It's horsepiss alongside what a proper vintner could do, mind, but any wine is better than none.”

Edward hadn't known the settlers François Kersauzon had brought to Atlantis were finally turning out enough wine to turn some loose. “I thank you for your kindness,” he said, and surprised himself by more or less meaning it. “Been a good many years since I've drunk anything but beer and ale and barrel-tree sap.”

“I deserve better,” Warwick said simply. “The one trouble is, getting what I want isn't always cheap.”

“Sorry to hear that, your Lordship.” As long as the earl was giving him wine, Edward would sound sympathetic.

He thought so, anyhow, till Warwick continued, “Since it isn't, I am going to have to take…certain measures, I suppose you would say.”

Maybe the exiled noble hoped the wine would fuzz Edward's wits so he'd blithely accept anything he heard. If that was what Warwick had in mind, he was doomed to disappointment. “What kind of measures, sir?” Radcliffe asked. He still sounded polite, but he was sure he also sounded wary. And with reason, for he was.

Warwick sent him a sour stare. Yes, the noble had wanted him fuddled, all right. Well, no matter what Warwick wanted, he had what he had. He needed only a handful of heartbeats to see as much. “I shall have to start levying a tax on the settlers here,” he said regretfully, as if it were Edward's fault that he'd been reduced to such measures.

“A tax?” Edward blurted. He could have sounded no more appalled if Richard Neville had denied that the Son and Holy Ghost were proper Persons of the Trinity. “You can't do that!”

One of the bully boys who'd fetched him hither growled like a dog on a chain. The Earl of Warwick raised a languid-seeming hand, and the soldier fell silent. He still glared in Edward's direction, though, and his knuckles whitened as his hand clutched the hilt of his sword.

“You are a bold man, Radcliffe—a bold man or a fool,” Warwick said. “How dare you tell me what I may and may not do? I suggest you think carefully before you answer. Think very carefully, in fact.”

“Lord, I could think from now till doomsday and not think you had the right to tax me,” Edward said. “I am sorry if my being so plain offends you, but that's the truth. Why, in England the king himself has to ask leave of Parliament before he taxes his people.”

Richard Neville's mouth tightened. “I will thank you not to speak of the king in my presence. If you value your neck, Radcliffe, you will honor my—request.”

“I don't know if I can, sir, not while we're talking about taxes,” Edward said. “How do you claim a power here that he doesn't claim in England?”

“How? Simple.” The Earl of Warwick drew from his belt a dagger whose hilt was ornamented with gold wire and began cleaning his nails with the point. “This miserable, godforsaken place isn't England. It's bloody Atlantis, and you people here never tire of telling me so.”

“But we are Englishmen, Lord. We have the rights of Englishmen.” Till that moment, Edward's main concern had been making sure that England paid no attention to Atlantis. Parliament might have decided to levy taxes here, too, and to whom could he have appealed if it did? To no one at all, as he knew too well.

Warwick eyed him like a cat watching a mouse it was playing with but hadn't yet decided to kill. “You claim those rights when you feel like it. Otherwise, you're glad England lies across the sundering sea.”

That arrow quivered in the center of the target. Edward couldn't, and wouldn't, admit as much. He took a deep breath. “You are not our king, Lord. You have not got the right to do this.”

Warwick went on cleaning his fingernails. The dagger was slim, pointed, and sharp—quite a bit like him. “I have the might to do it, sirrah, as you will learn to your sorrow if you prove lunatic enough to challenge me.”

“We are Englishmen, Lord,” Edward Radcliffe repeated stubbornly. “You have no right to steal from us this way—and that is what it is, stealing. If you try to take what is ours, we will appeal to his Majesty.”

Even as he said the words, he wondered whether that was a good idea. The Earl of Warwick, with a small force of soldiers behind him, was an annoyance, and no small one. But the King of England could call on the whole strength of the island if he chose—and if he wasn't caught up in the coils of civil war. He might prove a more dangerous master than any local lord.

Or he might not, if the local lord made as much trouble as this one was doing.

The threat didn't seem to worry Warwick. He neither flinched nor paled. Nor did he raise his voice as he said, “I will kill every one of you if you try.” He was just stating a fact; he might as well have said,
Red-crested eagles will kill honkers if they can.

If I am a honker, by God, I can honk all the way across the ocean,
Edward thought. “Meaning no disrespect, Lord, but that is a silly thing to say,” he replied.

“Silly, is it?”
That
roused the noble's ire. “Explain yourself, and quickly—you are talking for your life.”

“We're fishermen, for heaven's sake,” Edward answered. “Cod are what brought us to Atlantis in the first place. We have lots of boats, and they can sail across the Atlantic. How do you propose to stop them all?”

Richard Neville's jaw dropped. Edward almost laughed in his face. The only thing that stopped him was the fear that he would never leave this room alive if he did. The Earl of Warwick plainly was a calculating man; you didn't get the name Kingmaker if you couldn't see past the end of your nose. But Warwick hadn't seen something here—his astonishment and dismay showed as much.

“You!” he said thickly. “I'll hold you to blame if boats go out and don't come back.”

“Then bring Bishop John here now so he can shrive me,” Edward said. “Boats go out all the damned time. They stay away a long time, too. They have to—otherwise, we'd go hungry. How will you know if one's gone to England and not just to the fishing banks? You won't, not till it's too late for you.”

By the way Warwick's jaw worked, he might have been gnawing on a piece of meat that proved tougher than he'd expected. “Get out,” he told Edward. “Just—get out. But if you think you can stop me from levying taxes when I have a mind to, you'd best think again.”

“You will do what you think best, your Lordship,” Radcliffe said.
And so will we.
He didn't say that out loud. Maybe Warwick would figure it out for himself. Or maybe it too would come as a surprise to him. If it did—too bad.

“Taxes?” Richard Radcliffe said when his brother came out to Bredestown to give him the news. To his embarrassment, surprise made his voice break like a youth's.

“That's right,” Henry said grimly. “He thinks he's strong enough to squeeze them out of us.”

“I almost hope he's right,” Richard said.

Henry dug a finger into one ear. “Did I hear that?”

“Damned if you didn't. If Warwick thinks he can have soldiers prowling all over the settlement, and if he thinks he can take away what he didn't earn, well, plenty of people will want to go somewhere else, and I'll be glad to take 'em there.”

“Wouldn't you rather fight him, so we make sure something like this can never happen again?” Henry asked.

“I'll do that if I have to,” Richard answered. “But packing up and leaving is even easier. Atlantis is a big place. If we settle somewhere else, nobody'll come after us for years.”

“No doubt,” Henry said. “And if Warwick wins here in the meantime, the tax collector will be the one who does.”

Richard winced. That, unfortunately, was all too likely to be so. “Well, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Stand with the rest of us. Stand, I say. Don't run,” Henry told him. “I know you'd sooner go off into the wilderness all alone and look at the birds and the frogs and the snakes. We've got our own snake here, and we need to slay him.”

“A bowman who knows his business could do that for us,” Richard said. “I will if you want me to. Warwick can't hide in his house the whole day through.”

But Henry shook his head. “He doesn't come out without bodyguards. Too likely they'd run down whoever shot him. And even if they didn't, no one knows what the soldiers would do if he got killed. They might try slaughtering everyone in sight to avenge him.”

“They'd seal their own fate if they did,” Richard pointed out.

“Which is true. And which might not have anything to do with anything—chances are it doesn't. Father says Warwick is a man who thinks past the moment. Not many folk bother. From what I know of soldiers, they mostly don't. Or will you tell me different?”

“Well, no,” Richard said, much as he would have liked to say yes. “Are we going to fight Warwick, then?”