"I do want to sail off, yes, Father," Radcliffe said, and the priest's mouth tightened. Quickly, the fisherman went on. "But I never dreamt of leaving the church behind. If a priest would come with us, we'd count it a blessing. There should be a chapel in Atlantis-why not?"
"I…see," Father John said slowly. Edward hoped he hid his own tension; he didn't want every clergyman in town preaching against his venture. If anything could ruin his plans, that could. If people decided God was against them, they wouldn't go. Father John tapped a forefinger against the side of his leg. "If a priest did come with you, you would give him proper support?"
"We'd be glad to have him, as I said. We'd give him what we could. I can't say he wouldn't have to work some on his own, though," Radcliffe answered. "It's a bare shore, you understand. We'll all be working hard, at first, hard as can be. How can we have a drone among us, meaning no offense?"
"Priests are not drones. Drones toil not, nor do they spin." Father John's voice was as stiff as his spine. Radcliffe thought priests fit the definition more than well enough, but saying so wouldn't do. Sure enough, Father John went on, "Who would intercede with God, but for priests? Who would baptize, who hear confession, who give unction at the end of life?"
"No one," Edward said, as he had to. He didn't want to go out of life without unction, the way luckless Hugh Fenner had. But he was a stubborn man in his own right. "A priest who is respected among men is better than one who is not," he insisted. "Anyone who pulls his own weight in this world will be better liked than a man who expects to be waited on hand and foot. Holy Father, you know there are priests like that. We both wish there weren't, but there are. We don't need one like that where everyone else is bending his back like a beast of burden."
Maybe his earnestness got through to Father John. "What sort of priest do you need then, eh, Radcliffe?"
Edward calculated for a heartbeat and part of another. As if he hadn't, he answered, "Why, one much like yourself, holy Father."
Had he read his man aright? "Me?" Father John rapped out. "Why would I want to sail to the back of beyond-beyond the back of beyond?"
"Where would you find a better chance to be your own man?" Edward asked. "You'd 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.
"If 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."
"You 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?"
"Well, 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."
"All 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."
"Just 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.
"By the holy Cross, Sir Thomas, if you heard any such thing, you heard lies!" Edward exclaimed.
"Oh, 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!"
"If you believed everything you heard from a lot of people, sir, you'd be a sorry soul, sir, and that's the truth," Edward said. A couple of his escorts scowled; one of them dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. Then Sir Thomas grunted laughter, and his retainers relaxed. Radcliffe went on, "Rumor always outruns fact. And any man who wishes me ill would work to make it outrun fact the more."
"It could be," the castellan said. "I don't say it is, but it could be. Well, then, what do you intend?"
"A small settlement on the new shore," Radcliffe answered. "The fishing grounds there are finer than any in the North Sea. That I saw for myself. Would we want to let the Bretons and Basques and other foreigners seize the advantage over Englishmen in using them?"
"Fish. Cod." Sir Thomas made them into words of scorn, if not into swear words. He glowered at Edward from under shaggy, gray-streaked eyebrows. "You want to get away from peasants in rebellion against their rightful lords and from French sea dogs."
I should say I do, Edward thought. The French had almost burnt Hastings to the ground not long before. But he couldn't admit what he wanted. Without the least hesitation, he shook his head. "How could we leave our homeland behind for good?" he said. "Where would we sell the fish we caught if we did?" That was a legitimate question; he couldn't imagine cutting all ties with England even if he and his kin spent most of their time in Atlantis and off its shores.
"How many folk would fare with you on this madcap venture?" Sir Thomas asked.
"A couple of dozen families, sir, and we'd need to bring the seed grain and livestock to let us make a go of it in the new land," Edward answered. "Does not the Good Book speak of casting your bread upon the waters? This is England's bread, and she shall find it again after many days."
"You've been talking with Father John." Sir Thomas turned that to an accusation.