"So will I." Edward nodded. "Yes, by God, so will I."
Edward Radcliffe took an unarmed cog well out to sea before sailing south. He didn't want any of the Dovermen's fishing boats spotting him. His ploy worked: the first boat he saw was the Breton Amzer Gaer-the Fairweather, she would have been in English. When he hailed her, her skipper thought he was a Freetown man and made ready to fight.
"No, God butter you and the Devil futter you!" Edward shouted in Breton. "I'm Kersauzon's friend-can't you get that through your bloody thick head? Take me to him. I have news he must hear."
"Why should we believe a lying Saoz?" the Breton yelled back.
"If you don't know who Edward Radcliffe is, you son of a dog, I'll board your scow myself and pound some sense through your hard skull."
The Breton fisherman was bigger and younger than he was, but backed down before his fierce temper. "Why didn't you say you were Radcliffe? That's not your St. George. Yes, I'll listen to you-for a while, anyway."
"Thank you so much," Edward said with a mocking bow. "But I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Kersauzon-I know he doesn't keep his brains in his backside. Where have you hidden this new town of yours?"
"Cosquer lies south-southwest of here. You'll know it by the big rock offshore," the Breton answered.
The name made Radcliffe smile: it meant Old Village. Only the Bretons would use that kind of name for a place on a barely explored shore. "Obliged to you. God give you a good catch." He could be polite enough-after he got what he wanted.
"And you the same, Saoz gast," the other man shouted. Edward laughed as he swung his cog on the new course. How many times had the Bretons called him an English whore? Not enough to make him believe he was one, anyhow.
The rock in front of Cosquer was almost big enough to make a small island. Several of the strange Atlantean almost-trees with barrel trunks and leaves sprouting from the tops of them clung to its side. As for the village itself…Edward laughed again when it came into sight. Here was a bit of Brittany transplanted to a far land, all right. The thatched roofs had a steeper pitch than they would have in Hastings. The windows were different, too, even if the houses were built from wood rather than stone.
Henry was thinking along with him. "Only thing missing is a circle of standing stones in a meadow by the town," he said.
"By God, you're right," Edward said. "Damned if I'd be surprised if the stubborn buggers didn't put some up to remind 'em of home." He pointed. "Isn't that the Morzen lying right offshore?"
"Sure looks like her." Henry eyed Francois Kersauzon's cog. "She didn't carry those swivel guns last time we saw her."
"You're right-she didn't." Edward frowned. Those guns were longer and would probably shoot farther than the ones aboard the St. George. "If Kersauzon wasn't thinking along those lines before he saw us last, maybe we gave him the idea."
Half a dozen men pushed a boat into the Atlantic and rowed out toward the cog. "Ahoy, Englishmen!" Yes, that was Kersauzon's bellow, made louder by the hands he cupped in front of his mouth. "Is it you, Radcliffe?"
"No. It's your mother-in-law, come from Brittany to nag you," Edward answered.
"Anything but that!" Francois Kersauzon cried in mock terror. "Come ashore if you care to, and see what you have to nag about."
"I'll do that, and gladly, but first let me say my say-the Freetown men are not your friends."
Kersauzon clapped a hand over his heart. "I am shocked to hear it," he said, which made Edward and Henry both chuckle. More seriously, the Breton continued, "And you say you are?"
"Against them? Yes, by God!" Edward said. "I told them the same, too."
"You had better come ashore, then!" the Breton fishing captain said. Even across a broad gap of ocean, Edward could see how wide his eyes got. "Yes, you had better come ashore, because we have much to talk about."
"Let's get our boat in the water," Edward called to his crew. To his son, he said, "Would you rather come and dicker with me or stay here and do whatever you have to do in case there's trouble?"
"Do you need me to help put something over on the Bretons?" Henry answered his own question: "No, of course you don't. You can diddle them slick as grease all by yourself."
"I thank you for your trust in me," Edward Radcliffe said dryly.
He didn't faze Henry a bit. "Any time," the younger man replied. "We won't have trouble at sea from Kersauzon's people, either. Right now, after what you just said, they'd pick you for Pope if they had the chance. But if the Dovermen decide to raid Cosquer today…I'd better stay here."
"All right." The fishermen Edward chose to row him to Kersauzon's new village all spoke some Breton, or at least some French. They'd be able to make themselves understood once they made it to dry land-and maybe they would hear something the settlers didn't want them to.
Kersauzon waved when he saw the English boat heading toward his. A little to Edward's surprise, the Breton's rowers didn't make a race of it. They went back to shore sedately instead. A couple of the English fishermen sent Edward questioning looks, but he shook his head. Why push things? They'd get there soon enough any which way. And besides…
"Warmer here than it is in New Hastings," he called to Kersauzon. It was warm enough, in fact, to make the sweat stand out on his face, and unpleasantly sticky, too.
Unpleasantly for him, at least. Francois Kersauzon made a joke of it: "You are from the north, so you settle in the north, and you think chilblains are every man's God-given right-is it not so?"
"We like the weather we're used to," Edward said, and left it at that. The boat's keel grated on hard sand. He hopped out and helped haul it farther up the beach. Kersauzon and his men were doing the same with theirs. Edward pointed to the land they'd cleared in back of Cosquer. "Are those vines you've planted there?" he asked.
"What else would they be?" the Breton replied. "Beer is all very well-I have nothing against beer. Who could? But I want wine, too. And I'll have it…soon. Not yet, mind you, but soon. Maybe we can trade this for that, eh?"
"Maybe we can," Edward agreed. "My other son-not Henry, who's with me, but Richard-is starting a new settlement deep in the woods. Before long, we may have more lumber than we can use ourselves. And who knows what else we'll find once we look around a bit?"
"Who indeed? You're ahead of us. I think even Freetown"-Kersauzon pronounced the name as if it tasted bad in his mouth-"is a year ahead of us. But do you say the Dovermen want a war with us?"
"They're sure thinking about it. They're thinking hard, I'd say," Edward answered. "I told them to their faces I'd sooner stand with you if they start a fight. They didn't care to hear that, but I told them anyway."
"You are a gentleman." Francois Kersauzon bowed, as if to a nobleman in his own country. "It could be that Cosquer and New Hastings should band together and take this Freetown pesthole off the map before more trouble comes from it."
Radcliffe had wondered whether the Breton would say that. Not without some regret, he shook his head. "No, I don't want to. There's enough fighting across the sea-why bring more here? That's the other thing you need to know: if you strike first at Freetown, New Hastings will stand with her, too."
Kersauzon scowled at him. Some of the other Bretons swore. One or two of them ostentatiously turned their backs. Their leader asked, "Who appointed you the man to say who may war and who may not?"
"I say nothing of the kind," Edward answered. "I only say what will happen if a war does start."
"And if Cosquer and Freetown move against New Hastings together?"
"Good luck," Radcliffe said. "Watch your back-you'll need to."
Kersauzon stared at him, then started to laugh. "Well, when you're right, Saoz gast, you're right. But how long do you think you'll be able to keep the peace all by yourself?"