The Lost Voyage of John Cabot PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Editor's Pick, August 2004

Historical adventure and mystery – both equally compelling. 1498. Sebastian Cabot, age fifteen, can only wait and wonder. His famous father has abandoned him at home in Bristol, England, but has taken the boy’s older and younger brothers, Ludovico and Sancio, on his second voyage in search of the Asian mainland. On his first journey, sailing north across the Western Ocean in 1497, John Cabot had discovered the New Found Land. He returned to England a hero. Five years earlier, Spain had given Christopher Columbus a similar welcome. He had found Asia, he claimed. And by a southern route. Cabot was skeptical and set out to the north again to prove his old friend a fraud. But silence followed. Now, Sebastian and history are confronted with a tantalizing mystery. What has become of John Cabot’s second endeavor? Letters to the boy from fourteen-year-old Sancio tell of a fearsome storm and its aftermath. They, and the surprising climax to Sebastian’s and Sancio’s story, make for unforgettable voyaging.

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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Review (starred) August 9, 2004 This unglorified fictional account of British explorer John Cabot\'s final voyage may well appeal to history buffs as much as to fans of adventure tales. Devoting equal attention to the political and religious climate of the times and to Cabot\'s trip along the American coastline in search of a western passage to Asia, Garfield (great-great-grandson to the former president and author of Tartabull\'s Throw) sheds light on some controversial corners of Europe\'s past. He focuses on the ill treatment of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, and the early settlers\' abuse of power against Native Americans. The story unfolds through the alternating points of view of two of Cabot\'s sons: 14-year-old Sancio and middle son Sebastian. Sancio, who accompanies his father on board the Pandora, records his impressions of the new uncivilized continent in letters written to his brother. Meanwhile, back in Bristol, Sebastian ponders the fate of his father\'s ship, seemingly lost at sea. Portraying 15th-century explorers as more human than heroic, the author gently urges readers to look beyond the facts to find the hidden truths.

Excerpt (from Ch. 2 of The Lost Voyage of John Cabot) As his famous father and two brothers sail across the sea in the wake of Columbus, young Sebastian Cabot must learn to steer his own course. "You want to take her in, Sebastian?" Sebastian Cabot snapped out of his daydream and looked at the longboat's owner and helmsman. Richard Ryerson was his father's friend, and in the three weeks since the departure of the fleet, Sebastian had taken to riding out to King's Road and back with him almost daily. There he could look out the channel toward the open sea and watch for ships returning from trading missions to the Mediterranean, or from the fishing grounds, far to the west, where his father and his two brothers had gone. Ryerson never charged him. "Sure. Yes," the boy said, and moved toward the stern to take the tiller. "The current's easing a bit," Ryerson said, trading seats with Sebastian. "That's the beauty of Bristol, this current. No other place like it." Sebastian settled in at the tiller and steered the boat around a bend, and the city of Bristol came into view. The four oarsmen, not many years older than he, pulled the boat through the water with strong, smooth strokes. Indeed, the tides made Bristol what it was. You could drift out on the ebb and run back on the flood, and you could do this daily, no matter what the wind or weather. Seven miles up a river, protected by a steep gorge through which the tidal waters surged, Bristol was the best port in the British Isles. But if the concept was beautiful, Sebastian thought, the city itself was not. The docks were built out onto the mudflats, where ships sat uselessly eight hours out of every twelve, while most of the city's people lived crammed together along narrow streets that climbed the steep riverbanks. Dominating the approach was the old castle and fort, built before the millennium and now, in 1498, a graying relic. Sometimes large merchant ships would be waiting at King's Road to be guided up the river, as it was a treacherous passage for a captain who had never visited Bristol before. For nearly four years Sebastian had watched the great ships make their way through the gorge and round the twists and turns in the river, dependent upon pilot boats a fraction of their size. Sebastian recalled last year's triumphant return of the Matthew. Crowds had gathered around the docks as his father's ship was led in, news of the discovery of the New Found Land having already traveled upriver to the city. Within weeks his father had returned from an audience with the King himself, in possession of a contract to outfit a new expedition – five ships, to sail the following spring. Sebastian had protested his father's decision right up until the day the fleet floated down the channel. But who was he, a boy of fifteen, to argue with the great John Cabot, whom the entire city of Bristol treated as if he had walked, Christ-like, rather than sailed, to the New Found Land? His older brother Ludovico, whom the Bristol men called "Lewis," was taller than their father, darkly complected in the way of southern Europeans. He had accompanied his father the year before, and would do so again. But why had his father decided to take his younger brother Sancio, a child of fourteen, as ship's boy on board the newly-constructed flagship? Why Sancio, who regularly ditched his lessons to explore the waterfront and backwaters of Bristol, yet could always seem to talk his way out of trouble? Only last year, the boy had loosed a tender from one of the merchant ships and floated clear out to Hung Road on the ebbing tide. There he ran the boat up on some rocks, cracking two of the planks, and had been rescued by a fishing boat. The fishermen had made much of Sancio and given him huge quantities of fish to take home. Their father had been more curious about Sancio's adventure than angry at the theft, although he had to pay for the damage. Ludovico had fearlessness, but Sancio had something else, Sebastian thought, something like a cat's ability to land on its feet. And what did that leave him? Sebastian would never be as tall or strong as Ludovico nor as lucky as Sancio. He had no special qualities, although he applied himself to his lessons and was useful around a boat. He could do his geometry problems, but they bored him; he could speak English but thought it a crude language, full of harsh sounds, lacking the poetry of Castilian or his native Genoese. Sancio faked his way through Euclid, and the English he had picked up came more from his prowlings about the harbor than any concentrated effort to learn. Sancio still had a child's ear for language. As for Ludovico, he was such a strong physical presence he barely had to speak at all. Sebastian knew the truth of it – that his father considered him the dullest of his three sons. "I must rely on you to look after your mother and our house in my absence," he had said. But was not reliable another word for predictable? How many times had he heard his father laugh when Sancio brought back some colorful bit of conversation from the docks to the dinner table? Sancio was his father's favorite. That was the real reason he was out on the Western Ocean while Sebastian stayed behind. Above the busy waterfront Bristol presented layers of stone upon stone, row houses crammed together along narrow streets which wound up the hillsides. Sebastian picked out the simple but elegant spire of St. Nicholas, where he and his mother attended services. Off to starboard stood the magnificent St. Mary's of Redcliffe Cathedral, with its square bell tower and quadruple spires. Nearby, spread out along Redcliffe Hill, were the grand houses of Bristol's wealthy merchants, the owners of the great sailing vessels. The tide was nearly slack now, and the boat glided swiftly through the flat water. Sebastian called out directions to the oarsmen and steered the boat to a smooth landing at the dock. "Well done, lad," Ryerson said, as Sebastian and the bow man secured the lines. "My offer is still open, you know." "Yes, sir, and thank you," Sebastian said. "I will discuss it with my mother." Sebastian walked along the river and then up St. Nicholas Street toward his house. The smell of cooking meat from several of the tightly-bunched houses reached his nostrils as he strode up the hill. The Cabots lived in a two-story dwelling they rented from one of the Redcliffe Hill merchants. The house felt empty without his brothers. He did not mind his father's absence so much, for it was nothing unusual. His father had been leaving on and returning from trips ever since Sebastian could remember. "Sit down and have some stew," his mother said as he walked in the door. "Mutton and vegetables." The long wooden table had always seemed large even with a full family around it. Sebastian's mother took a seat opposite him, and said, "We could have a seven course meal, you and I, like the rich do, and still not fill this table." "Perhaps we should cut it in half, and make two tables," Sebastian said, as he began to eat. His mother laughed easily. Mattea Cabot was a handsome woman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, sturdy yet small, not round in the way of so many older women. She was forty-five; the years had etched lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and there were strands of white in her dark hair, which she wore in a bun behind the nape of her neck. She had set up house in Venice, Valencia, and now Bristol, and in every house she had endured her husband's long absences. As her sons grew older she turned to them increasingly for conversation, so that by Sebastian's fifteenth birthday they had fallen into something that resembled friendship, and Sebastian found that he could talk to his mother easily about all matter of things. With his father it was different. Sebastian's father had crossed the ocean; now the King of England had placed him in command of five commissioned vessels. He was becoming a legend. But John Cabot had always been something of a stranger in his own house. Sebastian often thought he knew the legend better than the man. "Mister Ryerson has said I can have a job if I want it," he told his mother, wiping up the remains of his stew with a thick piece of bread. "As helmsman on one of his river boats." "There is plenty of money, Sebastian," his mother said. "Father's money," Sebastian replied. "Meant to pay for this house and our food in his absence. I'm old enough to earn my own. Mr. Ryerson says I know the river and the currents as well as anyone. And I have taken some turns at the helm already." Mattea sighed. "You are your father's son," she said. "Always wanting to be going somewhere. I'm sure you know the river. You are on it often enough." "Mother, I can't just do nothing." "There are your lessons." Sebastian pushed his empty bowl away. "Lessons! Euclid and his angles! What difference do they make while I am stuck here in Bristol?"