They'd grown scarcer around New Hastings-and, from everything he could see, along the rest of the eastern coast as well. But men were new in these parts. The red-crested eagles would think they were nothing but strange honkers-nothing but food.
To his relief, the work party got the water butts loaded and back to the Rose without trouble. Honkers watched without understanding as the cog weighed anchor and sailed south.
Fishing in the warm current that ran up the west coast of Atlantis wasn't anywhere near so fine as it had been farther east. There were fewer sea birds to nab, too; their numbers depended on those of the fish they ate. Every so often, then, the Rose would come in close to shore. Honkers were never hard to find, and never hard to kill. Their smoked and salted meat fed the fishermen on the journey south.
"Don't know what we'd do without them," Henry Radcliffe said, cutting a slab of meat from an enormous thigh.
"We'd go hungry, that's what," Sam said. Grease ran down the fisherman's chin.
"I'm glad they're so stupid," Henry said. "It makes hunting them so easy, you almost feel ashamed."
Sam shook his head. "Not me. I'd be ashamed of starving when you can just knock them over the head."
The men who went ashore to kill the honkers also came back with pine cones, which had tasty seeds. Other than that, though…"No berry bushes," one sailor grumbled. "You'd think there'd be swarms of them, too, in weather like this. Nice and damp, but not too cold-feels like spring every day."
Henry nodded; that was nothing but the truth. "I wonder why there aren't," he said. "None by New Hastings, either-only the ones we brought from England."
"Not many proper trees, either," the sailor said. "No oaks, no elms, no chestnuts, no willows, no apples or pears or plums…Bloody pines and these redwood things. And ferns, like there should be fairies flitting through them."
"Haven't seen any, God be praised," Sam said. "No more wee folk in Atlantis when we got here than men."
"Don't let Bishop John hear you talking of fairies and wee folk, or he'll give you a penance you won't fancy," Henry warned them. They both nodded. You might believe in such things, but you didn't talk about them where churchmen could overhear. They'd make you sorry if you did.
Up in the crow's nest, the lookout sang out: "There's an inlet ahead!"
Before long, Henry could see it from the deck, too: an opening a couple of miles across, with the sea entering to some considerable distance. He nodded to Bartholomew Smith. "We'd better go in and see what we have there."
"Aye, skipper." The mate nodded. "Could be a prime harbor." He laughed. "Could be, I mean, if there were any people here, and if there was anything to ship from here, and if there was any place you'd want to ship it to from here."
"Damn it, Bart, if you're going to grumble about every little thing…" Henry said. The mate and the rest of the fishermen laughed.
A few minutes later, a breeze from out of the northwest wafted the Rose through the inlet and into the calm waters of the bay. Everyone looked around, trying to see every which way at once. "Oh, my," Sam said softly, and that summed things up as well as anything.
The bay widened out to north and south beyond the inlet, leaving the best and biggest natural harbor Henry had ever seen. He nodded to Bartholomew Smith. "Well, you were right," he said.
"I couldn't have been much righter," the mate replied. "Almost makes me want to settle here, just to make sure nobody else does."
"Right again," Henry said. "By Our Lady, what an anchorage! You could put a navy here."
"Or a flock of pirates," Smith said.
"You named the trouble there," Henry pointed out. "What would they have to steal? This is a bare shore." He paused thoughtfully. "Well, it's a bare shore now. Maybe it won't be one of these days, but not yet."
Gulls and terns wheeled overhead, white wings flashing in the sun. Ducks and geese bobbed in the green-blue water of the bay. A shag plunged from on high, emerging with a fish in its beak. Ashore, redwoods taller than a spire speared the sky. The more Henry looked around, the more he too wanted to stay.
Now, all at once, he understood what had pushed his brother ever deeper into the forests of Atlantis. You wanted to find something like this, to be the first one ever to set eyes on it, to think it was all yours, if only for a little while. He looked east toward the shore there, half expecting to see Richard coming out from the trees-not that he could have seen a man at such a distance. But Richard hadn't even crossed the mountains yet…or, if he had, he hadn't admitted it.
"Somewhere here, there'll be a river coming in," Henry said. "We can fill the butts at its mouth. And after that, after we clear the inlet again, I think it's time to head home. We won't find anything finer than this."
"What'll we call this place?" Sam asked.
"Paradise Bay," Bartholomew Smith suggested.
"I'm not sure God would like that," Henry said.
The mate went on plumping for his favorite, but Henry's point carried the day. "Well, what do we call it, then?" Smith grumped, scowling at his shipmates.
Henry had a name on the tip of his tongue, but it didn't want to come off. "What's the name of the land that was supposed to lie off the coast of England, the one where Morgan Le Fay took Arthur?"
"Avalon!" three fishermen called out at the same time.
"Avalon! Thank you." Henry nodded. "That was supposed to be a wonderful country. It should do for this place, eh?"
Nobody said no. Even Bartholomew Smith unbent enough to allow, "Well, you could have done worse, and I thought you were going to."
"Avalon it is, then. We'll get water and meat before we sail out again," Henry said. "We won't find a finer place to do it, that's sure."
A river did run into the bay. They named it the Arthur. They filled the water butts there, then spent some time skylarking in the pure, cool water. Henry Radcliffe fought shy of that; the water was too cool for him. Avalon Bay seemed locked in an eternal April. Farther south along this coast, perhaps some other anchorage basked in an eternal July. That would suit him better for splashing and snorting and ducking.
Skylarking…His smile went wistful. His grandchildren wouldn't know what a skylark was. He hadn't seen one, or heard its explosion of song from on high, since coming to Atlantis. Horned larks hunted bugs here, but their more musical cousins hadn't crossed the ocean.
Honkers came down to the river to drink. Knocking them over the head was as easy as it usually was. You had to be careful to do the job right, that was all; if you didn't, a wounded bird would kick your guts out through your back. But as long as you killed clean, you could go through a whole flock and knock one bird after another over the head. The honkers would stare in surprise, but what was going on didn't register as danger to them.
When they saw the wide-winged shape of a red-crested eagle in the sky, though, they would scramble for the closest trees, honking and gabbling in alarm. They knew the eagles meant to kill them. And fleeing, gabbling honkers meant the fishermen had to beware. Maybe the eagles thought they were honkers, too. Maybe the fierce-beaked birds didn't care. But they would strike at men without hesitating-like the honkers, they didn't know enough to be afraid.
To Henry's way of thinking, the eagles were only thorns on the rose. (Nostalgia again. No wild roses here-only the few brought from England, and the ones sprung from their seed.) "If we had our women with us, I'd start a town here today," he told the mate. "As is, next summer will have to do."
"It will likely do well enough, too," Smith replied. "We're the only ones who've ever seen this place."
"And I praise God for that, too. Anyone who did see it would want it," Henry said.
"Well, skipper, I won't quarrel about that," Smith said.