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    The Youngest Navigator
    The Youngest Navigator
    The Youngest Navigator
    Ebook60 pages2 hours

    The Youngest Navigator

    By Mary Louise Clifford

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    About this ebook

    The Youngest Navigator is based on a chapter from the Portuguese Chronicles telling of a voyage in 1446 down the coast of Africa. Prince Henry the Navigator is seeking a way around Africa, and sends Nuno Tristam in a caravel to make contact with the people of Guinea.
    They anchor in the Gambia River so the officers and crew can go up the river in longboats. Hostile natives attack them with poisoned arrows. Only the four teen-age boys left on the ship survive. Airas Tinoco, who has shadowed the navgiator on the southbound voyage, takes charge of the return voyage.
    To avoid sand bars and shoals along the coast, they must sail far out to sea against the prevailing winds. After two long months at sea, his companions think Airas has gotten them completely lost. Will they ever see Portugal again?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMary Louise Clifford
    Release dateAug 11, 2011
    ISBN9781465727688
    The Youngest Navigator
    Author

    Mary Louise Clifford

    Mary Louise Clifford has published 20 books: adult nonfiction, young adult fiction, and young adult nonfiction. She lives in Alexandria, VA, with a Sudanese cat named Kadisa.The first chapter of several of her books can be read on her web site.

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      Book preview

      The Youngest Navigator - Mary Louise Clifford

      THE YOUNGEST NAVIGATOR

      by Mary Louise Clifford

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 Mary Louise Clifford

      All rights reserved

      ISBN: 978-1-4657-2768-8

      Chapter 1: Lagos, Portugal

      Live in a palace? Me?

      Airas's thoughts tumbled around in his head, as muddled as the crowd of jubilant men milling around him. He had just watched Prince Henry reward his father with a small leather pouch that clinked as it changed hands. Airas knew the sound of coins, and surely his father deserved them. After all, hadn't he designed and supervised the building of the splendid new caravel now anchored just offshore? Airas had watched for weeks as the ship took shape on the stocks in their patron's shipyard.

      Prince Henry, usually so serious, came ashore beaming after the first trial run. This vessel is faster than any I have ever seen, he told Airas's father—no small boast, for Lagos on the south coast of Portugal was a supply stop for all ships of every nation that traveled to and from the Mediterranean. This is exactly what I wanted, Tinoco. Shallow draft that can pass over reefs and shoals. The lateen rigging is perfect—I've never seen a vessel run so close-hauled into the wind. A proper exploring ship. You've done a splendid job!

      The carpenters and cord-makers and metal-workers in the shipyard cheered. Airas too yelled with joy at his father's success. Later Airas saw the Prince pause, before he finally left the yard, looking around as though there was something more he should do to reward the ingenious shipwright. Suddenly he felt the prince's eyes on him. He heard him say, Who is this lad whom I have seen shadowing the carpenters, eagerly handing them their tools?

      That's my youngest son, Airas, his father answered.

      The Prince's next words were a thunderbolt. Why don't I take this bright lad back to Sagres with me? He can serve me as a page—be instructed in the manly arts. Learn to read, if he wishes.

      Luis Tinoco didn't hesitate an instant. Run home quickly, he told his son. Tell your mother to make a bundle of your clothes. Tell her you are going with Prince Henry to Sagres to live in his palace.

      Airas obeyed his father, as he always did, but his mind was racing as he ran. Leave his family? Live in a palace? He had never even seen a palace. What would it be like?

      When her husband's instruction was repeated to Airas's mother, her mouth opened in dismay. Go to Sagres with Prince Henry? But Airas, you are only nine years old, she protested.

      The boy hunched his shoulders and shook his head, as astonished as she. Prince Henry says I can be a page, he answered, although he didn't have any idea what a page was. Father thinks it a splendid opportunity. Hurry, Mother. The Prince is waiting.

      He ran back to the shipyard with his small bundle, and before he knew it, was swung up onto the rump of a horse by Prince Henry's equerry. He had never been on a horse before, and slid tight against the rider's back, grasping his belt. The man's back was too broad to see around, and even if it weren't, they rode directly into a blinding sun, slowly descending toward the western horizon. So as they trotted off, Airas turned his head to watch his father's shipyard recede behind him.

      Chapter 2: Sagres, Portugal

      When Lagos slid out of sight behind a hill, Airas turned his attention back to the three horsemen. He couldn't see ahead of them, but he could study the somber Prince riding beside him. The sunlight shone on his sleek tunic of rich silk and glinted off the heavy gold chain around his neck, making the stunning jeweled case that dangled from it gleam. Airas's father had told the boy that the medallion contained a true piece of the Holy Rood, given to the prince by his mother before she died.

      Airas knew that Prince Henry's oldest brother Duarte was King in Lisbon. This youngest of the Avis princes had left the busy distractions of the royal court there to live at the small naval arsenal called Sagres, on nearby Cape St. Vincent. Airas's father had told him about Sagres and Cape St. Vincent, where land ended and the unknown ocean began.

      Airas remembered the many times Prince Henry had come riding

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