Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove

“A few? Our longbowmen can deal with a few knights, beshrew me if they can’t. An army of ’em? An army of ’em would tell me he’s gone quite mad. But if he does send so many—if he can send so many—why then going up the Brede with Richard looks better and better. We can live off the land. Can knights newly come here do the same? I would rejoice to see them try.”
    â€œSomething to that, I shouldn’t wonder,” his son said. “I will thank the Lord, though, if we don’t have to put it to the test.”
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œNo, 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.”
    â€œWhy should we believe a lying Saoz?” the Breton yelled back.
    â€œIf 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.”
    â€œThank 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?”
    â€œCosquer 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.
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œBy 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?”
    â€œSure looks like her.” Henry eyed François Kersauzon’s cog. “She didn’t carry those swivel guns last time we saw her.”
    â€œYou’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