A flash in the air, a harsh screech, a shriek from Fenner, and then he was down and thrashing with a great hawk or eagle clinging to his back and tearing at his kidneys with a huge, hooked, slicing beak. The honker might not fear men, but the sight of that eagle sent it running back for the shelter of the-redwoods, Kersauzon called them.
Shouting and waving their arms, Englishmen and Bretons rushed to Hugh Fenner's rescue. The eagle screamed harshly but flew away, blood dripping from bill and long, curved talons. Hugh lay where he'd fallen. He didn't move. A sharp stink said his bowels had let go. Edward grabbed for his wrist, then let it fall. The master salter had no pulse.
"He's gone." Radcliffe heard the dull wonder in his voice. Man could kill-but so could Atlantis.
II
F rancois Kersauzon seemed as upset about Fenner's death as Edward Radcliffe was. "As God is my witness, friend Saoz, I've seen those eagles take honkers before, but I never dreamt they would take men," he said.
"We probably look like honkers-a good name-to them," Henry said.
"Except smaller and maybe easier to kill," Edward added, staring into the trees where the eagle had flown. That was a formidable bird, bigger and fiercer than any golden eagle or sea eagle he'd ever seen. And if its prey walked on two legs…
As Kersauzon had said, the honkers seemed to have no fear of man. But that one had disappeared into the woods as soon as the eagle struck Hugh Fenner. Men might be an unknown quantity, but the birds that struck from the sky were enemies. Honkers had no doubt of that.
"Poor Hugh. He died unshriven." Richard crossed himself. So did the other fishermen, English and Bretons. Edward's younger son went on, "We have to bury him here. We can't very well salt him down and take him home."
"I'll say the words over him," Edward said. His sons and the other Englishmen nodded. He'd had to do that before, more than once, when someone on the St. George took sick and died or perished by some mischance. He was no priest, but he could hope his prayers helped a soul win through at least to purgatory. "A little piece of Atlantis will be English forevermore."
He'd spoken his own language, but Kersauzon, as he'd seen, could follow English. "Atlantis?" the other skipper echoed. "We've just been calling it the Western Land, but that's better, by God-a name to stick in the mind. Atlantis!"
Edward tried to remember if they had a shovel aboard the St. George. He didn't think so. He scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his boot. It was soft. Whatever they had, they could manage. "Are there wolves here, or gluttons, or anything else that might dig up a grave?" he asked.
"Haven't seen anything of the kind," Kersauzon answered. "Haven't seen any four-footed creatures at all, or heard them howling in the night."
"Some uncommon big lizards," one of his fishermen put in.
When Edward Radcliffe thought of a lizard, he thought of a scurrying thing as long as his finger. An uncommon big one might be-what? As long as his forearm? Anything larger than that was beyond his ken.
This whole land was beyond his ken-except that he was standing on it. Off to the west, beyond the trees, he saw the distant saw-toothed outline of mountains against the skyline. What lay beyond them? He snorted. He had no idea what lay on this side of the mountains, except for peculiar plants, even stranger birds, and eagles ferocious as demons from hell. But Richard was looking out toward those far-off peaks, too.
No other men here, not settlers, not natives. No wolves, no bears. As he rowed out in the boat to see what digging tools the St. George had, he remarked, "If you fished in the sea and cleared some land for a crop, you could live here. You could live here pretty well, I think."
"If you're going to live here, you'd need to bring some women over," Henry said.
Edward nodded, and that thought pulled him back to the present, or at least to the near future. "When we get home, I'll have to tell poor Hugh's Meg what chanced here," he said, and grimaced. "I don't look forward to that. Even paying her his full share, I don't look forward to it. How many children have they got?"
"Five, I think it is," Richard answered, "and Meg's likely to have another by the time we see England again." Edward nodded once more; he thought he remembered the same thing, and wished his son had told him he was wrong.
"Are you thinking of settling on these shores, Father?" Richard asked.
"Aren't you?" Edward said; Henry might be older, but Richard was the sharper of his boys, no doubt about that. "No moneylenders, no lord to bend the knee to, no king to pay taxes to. We're free when we're at sea now, but on land we might as well be slaves. Wouldn't you like to be free all the time?"
"No church," Richard murmured. Did he want to be free of the priest, too, or was he complaining of the lack? Edward couldn't tell.
Henry was more resolutely practicaclass="underline" "No boatwrights. No net-makers. No blacksmiths. No horses, no sheep, no cattle…"
"Not unless we bring 'em with us." Edward glanced over to the Morzen. "If we don't settle here, how long do you think these Bretons will wait? If they're on the spot, they'll have these fishing banks all to themselves, the bastards."
"They're bad enough on the other side of the Channel," Richard said. "Would you want them living a long spit down the coast from you?"
"Well, if the other choice is spending the rest of my days jealous because they're here and I'm not, maybe I do." Edward Radcliffe weighed his words and nodded yet again. "Yes, son, maybe I do."
The crews of the St. George and the Morzen spent ten days on Atlantis. The longer Edward Radcliffe stayed, the more he wanted to come back, to settle and never to leave. He kept glancing at Francois Kersauzon out of the corner of his eye. Was the same thought in Kersauzon's mind? How could it not be?
Henry did knock a honker over the head. It was as easy as the Breton said it would be. The enormous bird stared at the man with a kind of dull curiosity as he walked up to it. It wasn't afraid of him; it had never learned to be afraid of things that looked like him. It died without ever knowing it should have learned to fear.
More than anything else, that made Edward sure Atlantis had no natives. If even savages lived here, the local beasts would have learned to run away from them.
And Edward found himself eyeing Francois Kersauzon in a new way. The other skipper was properly alert, but if he got knocked over the head… Half in regret and half in relief, Edward shelved the idea. He wasn't afraid of wearing the mark of Cain. He was afraid he would have to kill all the Bretons to make killing Kersauzon worthwhile. And he was afraid he would lose too many of his own fishermen in the fighting. Sometimes-not always, but sometimes-peace was smarter than war.
Perhaps three miles south of where he'd first come ashore, he found a river flowing strongly out into the sea. Henry was with him when they came to the mouth of the stream. The younger man pointed inland. "It's bound to come down from the mountains," he said.
"No doubt. It would have to, with so swift a current," Edward agreed. "It runs hard enough to power a great plenty of grinding mills."
"Aye, belike, if the mills have a great plenty to grind," his son said. "No grain growing here, not yet."
"No, not yet." Edward looked inland again. He was also looking into the future-through a glass, darkly, which is as much as it is given to a man to do. "But do you see any reason why grain shouldn't grow here?"
"I seen none," Henry replied, "which is not the same as saying there is none. We don't know."
"I want to find out!" Edward said. "I want to live here, where when I'm ashore I can do as I please. I can hunt deer without poaching on the lord's land-"