"No, you go, Father," Henry said. "You're entitled to enjoy yourself once in a while. I'll stay. I don't mind."

On such chances, worlds turn.

Edward and Richard Radcliffe walked into a dive called the Salicornes. Along with a grape vine, the place had a bunch of the stuff hanging above the door. In English, it was called samphire or glasswort; in springtime, its burgeoning growth turned the salt marshes purple. The locals ate boiled fresh samphire in season, and pickled it to eat when it wasn't fresh. As far as Edward was concerned, the locals were welcome to it.

When he and his son went in, the most ridiculous argument he'd ever heard had almost reached the knife-drawing stage. Some Breton fishermen and some Basques were quarreling over what year it was. They were doing it in French, which neither side spoke well-but neither spoke the other side's birthspeech at all.

"It's 1451!" the Basques shouted.

"No, by the Virgin-1452!" the Bretons yelled back. "Were you at sea so long, your wits got soaked in salt and you lost a year?"

Picking his way through the chaos, Edward asked the tapman, "Can I get myself a mug of red wine? And what are you having, son?"

"Red wine will do for me, too," Richard replied.

"Here you go, friends," said the fellow behind the counter, dipping two mugs full. He wanted nothing to do with the shouting fishermen.

But the Radcliffes couldn't stay out of the quarrel so easily. "Here are strangers who care nothing for any of us," one of the Basques said. "They will tell the truth and shame the Devil. It's 1451, not so?"

Edward's hand dropped to near his gutting knife, too: not on it, but near. "Well, now, friend, I don't mean to give offense, but I do believe it's a year later than you think."

The square-jawed Basque looked as if that knife had gone into his guts. The Bretons whooped and cheered. "Come drink with us, truthful man!" they cried. "Come eat with us, too!"