Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

"You can say that if you want to." Smith looked around to make sure no one besides Henry was in earshot. "Me, I'd sooner put one through Warwick's door-or through Warwick, though from here that'd take more than the Devil's luck."

"It would, wouldn't it?" Henry said sadly. He sent the mate a hooded glance. "So you're not fond of his Lordship?"

"Lucy Fenner's mother is my first cousin," Smith said.

"I should have remembered that." Henry thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Well, no, then you have good reason not to be."

The mate scowled. "Lucy's a good girl, a sweet girl, damn him. Not her fault she was born pretty, and she shouldn't have to pay for it like that."

"Women have been paying for their looks that way since the days of Adam and Eve," Henry said. Seeing the mutinous expression on the mate's face, he quickly added, "Not that that makes it right."

"I should say not," Bartholomew Smith spat. "The day is coming when Warwick'll push all of us too far, like he's already pushed me. I think it's coming soon, and when it does…" His strong, scarred hands folded into fists.

"My father feels the same way. I do believe he's felt that way since he first set eyes on Warwick, before the earl even set foot on our soil." Henry looked around again. No one was paying him or Smith any special heed. In a low voice, he continued, "When the day does come, he aims to fight."

"Skipper, I always knew your father was a good man," Smith said. "I always knew he was a smart man, too. Only question is, can we kick those bastards when we have to?"

"That's what's held him back this long. And, he says, even winning you can pay too high a price. If the battle tears New Hastings and Bredestown to pieces, if half the people die and half the houses and shops burn down, we'll all be years getting over it," Henry said. "When he was a lad, he says, his old grandfather would tell him stories about what England was like just after the Black Death passed over the countryside."

The mate shuddered and made the sign of the cross. "God keep the plague on the other side of the sea. That bloody Warwick's plague enough for these lands."

"Plague enough and to spare," Henry agreed. "But that's just Father's point. A war here could be as bad as the plague. It could set us back the way the Black Death set England back. That's why he doesn't want to fight unless we can beat the soldiers in a hurry without ruining ourselves in the doing."

"That's sensible, no doubt about it," Bartholomew Smith said. "How long do you think poor Lucy will want us to go on being sensible?" Henry grunted; that shot hit the target in the bull's-eye. Smith asked another question: "Isn't it better to die on our feet than to live on our knees?"

Henry grunted again-he hadn't dreamt the other man had so much fire in his belly. Slowly, he answered, "It is, yes. My father would not say otherwise. But he would say it's better still to live on our feet. He's looking for a way to do that, which is why he waits."

"God grant he find one," Smith said. "How long can he-how long can we-keep waiting, though? If we get used to saying, 'Yes, Lord,' to whatever Warwick demands of us-well, we'll be living on our knees then, and I fear me we'll forget how to climb up on our feet again."

"I don't think it will go that far," Henry said. "Back in England, even the king has trouble telling his people what to do. That's why the wars go on and on. If the king can't make Englishmen obey, Lord have mercy on a poor earl who tries, eh?"

Smith's smile touched his lips, but not his eyes. "Don't they call Warwick the Kingmaker, though?"

"That was his nickname, all right. But the king he made unmade him. And if a mere king can cast him down"-Henry winked-"don't you suppose a settlement full of Englishmen can do the same when the time comes?"

"Belike you're right." Despite his words, Smith still didn't smile with his whole face. "It had better come soon, I tell you, for Lucy's sake. A woman's not like a man, you know-she keeps her honor between her legs."

"Warwick has dishonored her, but he hasn't taken her honor away. It's not the same thing," Henry said. "Everyone knows what he would have done to her kin if she didn't yield herself to him. That would have touched off the fight, I expect, but it wouldn't have done the Fenners any good."

"No, it wouldn't… Touched off…" Smith set his own gloved hand on the wrought-iron barrel of the swivel gun. He swung it toward the house the Earl of Warwick had taken for his own, as he'd taken Lucy Fenner for his own.

As he aims to take New Hastings for his own, Henry thought. When you got down to it, wasn't it that simple? Warwick didn't want to be a kingmaker here: he wanted to be a king himself. It would be a small kingdom. Maybe that would suffice him, or maybe he dreamt of taking England in King Edward's despite, using Atlantis as his base. If he did, Henry judged him a madman, but wasn't a madman all the more dangerous for being mad?

"We'll settle him," he declared. "What does Atlantis need with kings?"

"King Warwick?" Smith followed his thoughts without trouble. "King Neville? King Richard? Whatever he'd style himself, let him carve it on his tombstone instead."

"My brother would make a better King Richard than Warwick would," Henry said. "He's better suited to the job, too, by God."

"How's that?"

"He doesn't want it."

E dward Radcliffe was coming to dread a knock on the door. He never had before, not in all the years since coming to Atlantis. In that stretch of time, a knock on the door meant a friend had come to call. Now a knock was much too likely to be trouble calling.

This particular knock on the door came just before supper.

Chicken and turnips and parsnips and cabbage bubbled in a pot, filling the house with savory fragrance and making Edward's stomach rumble. He said something unchristian when a fist thudded against the planks of the door.

"Tell whoever it is to go away," Nell said.

"Nothing I'd like better." But when Edward went to the door, he found that his visitors were not likely to take no for an answer.

They were five of Richard Neville's biggest, roughest bravos, all of them armored, all of them with drawn swords except for one who carried a crossbow instead. "Well, well!" Edward said. "What's all this about?"

The soldiers with the swords hefted them. The fellow with the crossbow aimed it at Radcliffe's chest. The biggest ruffian growled, "His Lordship wants to see you. And I mean right away."

"Does he?" Edward said mildly. All the soldiers nodded. Edward asked, "Suppose I don't care to see him right away?"

"That would be too bad-for you," the trooper answered. "And he would still see what was left of you."

There was a line between bravery and stupidity. Edward Radcliffe knew which side of the line defying five young, tough, armored men lay on. "Well, supper will just have to wait in that case, won't it?" he said.

"Smartest notion you've had in a long time, Granddad," the big soldier agreed. "Now get moving, before he gets sick of waiting."

"I'm coming." Edward raised his voice to call out to Nell: "His Lordship has something to talk about with me." She squawked in dismay. He was dismayed, too, but he didn't think squawking would do any good. He nodded to Warwick's men. "Lead on. I'm honored to have such a fine escort."

They snorted, almost in unison. "We aren't doing it for your honor, old man," the big soldier said. "We're doing it for his."

"Really?" Edward said, as if that hadn't occurred to him. He didn't think pushing them any further was a good idea. He stepped over the threshold and into the street.

He remembered when New Hastings literally hadn't been there. Now it could have been any other English seaside town-if you didn't notice the redwood timber, and if you didn't raise your eyes past the fields to the dark woods that didn't lie far away.