Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

be…like a bishop, almost.” He didn’t wink at Father John. If the priest thought of himself the way Radcliffe hoped, he would rise to the bait on his own.
    â€œIf I am to be sent alone to a strange shore, I should become one,” Father John said. “This is to enable me to ordain new priests so that the Church may continue in that far-off place.”
    â€œYou will know such things better than I do, the same as I’m likely better at salting a cod,” Edward said. “Do you think you can make the necessary arrangements?”
    â€œWell, well,” the priest said, and then again: “Well, well.” He rubbed his smoothly shaven chin. “Do you know, sir, it is possible that I might.”
    â€œAll right, then,” Edward said, as if that were a complete sentence. By the way Father John smiled, it was.

    Edward Radcliffe was a man of some consequence in Hastings. Any successful fishing captain was. All the same, he didn’t expect a summons to the castle, and he didn’t expect the summons to be delivered by four large, unsmiling men in chainmail. The largest and most somber of them growled, “You are to come with us at once, in the name of Sir Thomas and in the name of his Majesty, Henry VI, King of England!”
    Henry VI, King of as much of England as he can persuade to obey his writ at any given moment. The thought ran through Edward’s mind, but he kept it to himself. Sir Thomas Hoo, the local baron, was a loyal follower of the king’s. “I am at your service, gentlemen, and at Sir Thomas’, and of course at the king’s,” the fisherman said. If he tried telling them anything else, he had the bad feeling he would die as unpleasantly as Hugh Fenner.
    Sir Thomas’ men had horses waiting in the street. They even had one for Radcliffe. He took that as a good sign. If they were going to throw him in the dungeon, they would have made him walk, probably with a noose around his neck to advertise his disgrace to the town.
    He was more accustomed to riding a pitching deck than even a sedate gelding. Two of Sir Thomas’ retainers sniggered as he awkwardly swung up onto the horse’s back. “You’ve got more practice at this than I do, friends,” he said. “In the St. George, in a storm on the North Sea, you’d be the sorry ones, as I am here.”
    â€œJust ride,” said the one who seemed to do their talking for them. Ride Radcliffe did, not well but well enough.
    The wooden motte-and-bailey castle William the Conqueror built as soon as he landed in England and its stone successor had long since grown useless: the sea had chewed away most of the land that once stood between the old fort and the water’s edge. Its replacement, a solid mass of gray stone, safely stood farther inland.
    Their horses’ hooves drumming on the lowered drawbridge, Edward and his escorts rode into the castle. Sir Thomas Hoo stood in the courtyard, watching some young soldiers hack at pells with swords. Sir Thomas was no youngster. He was five or ten years older than Radcliffe, and his strength, once massive, was beginning to fail. His stooped shoulders and wrinkled, jowly face warned of the storms of life’s winter ahead.
    He rolled his eyes at Edward’s dismount, which was no more graceful than the way the fisherman had mounted. “What’s this I hear about you wanting to put all of Hastings on board ship and sail off with it to some unknown shore?” he growled without preamble.
    â€œBy the holy Cross, Sir Thomas, if you heard any such thing, you heard lies!” Edward exclaimed.
    â€œOh, I did, did I?” Sir Thomas Hoo’s eyes were red-tracked and rheumy, one of them clouded by the beginnings of a cataract. But they were very shrewd. “If it’s all moonshine and hogwash, why do I hear it from so many folk? Eh? Answer me that!”
    â€œIf you believed everything you heard from a lot of