Raleigh's Page (11 page)

25

T
O
A
MSTERDAM

Just before Christmas there was a hard frost. Pena and Andrew had bedded the gardens for winter and wrapped the more tender fruit trees. All fall they’d battled slugs, snails, rats, and moles.

“Moles work at night mostly,” Pena had explained, “but if you see one tunneling, you must dig him out with care and be gentle how you kill him. His skin is fine for caps.”

Now, with the wind biting mean, he gave Andrew one he’d stitched himself from four mole pelts. It was soft as velvet.

“You will wear it, yes? Fur side to the head. The others will not have such caps! Let them taste the cold! This is your cap for America!”

It was a dull gray day, but Andrew was merry: he was going home for Christmas. Mr. Harriot was headed to Amsterdam to buy instruments and see to the making of lenses for use in Virginia. From the instrument makers he hoped to learn about the new astronomical discoveries.

An hour before the coach left for Exeter, Andrew was summoned to the turret—to exchange Christmas wishes with Sir Walter, he thought.

Mr. Harriot was there. His mouth was tight. He shook his head when Andrew came in, then looked down.

“You must go to Amsterdam tonight in Mr. Harriot’s stead,” Sir Walter announced. He was grimfaced. His tone was flat. “The Queen demands Mr. Harriot’s presence at Whitehall to show our Indians again and do his frightening tricks for the Turk emissaries. His warriors and the fire snakes have gained him reputation!”

“I was promised a holiday,” Andrew blurted in his dismay. “I have plans.”

“Mind your tongue!” barked Sir Walter. “We all had plans. You will do as I order. Go!”

“Don’t be angry with Sir Walter,” Mr. Harriot muttered as they went down the stairs. “This is all useless bother to him, and he has the Queen’s wrath coming. He told her the Indians will not dance again. ‘Order them in my name and they will!’ she said.

“They won’t, and following the broil sure to come I must present fire toys for her guests, among them the foreign agents and ambassadors who would have my throat slit if they could. You know what mischief they arranged for Doctor Dee….”

When they got to his room, Mr. Harriot handed Andrew the glass slugs to be ground into lenses.

“You’ll manage them,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He’d taught Andrew to measure the correct pitch from the Arab’s book.

Mr. Harriot drew a paper from the pocket of his black cloak. “You will call on the instrument makers there for me and collect what they’ve made. They all live in one quarter of the city, but they’re hard to find. If you locate one and earn his trust, he’ll direct you to the next, and he in turn will pass you on. Guard this paper. In the wrong hands it could cause hurt.”

“Is their work secret?” Andrew asked.

“There are some who think even clock makers work for the devil, so those artisans live quiet,” Mr. Harriot said, looking away and frowning. “Some of them know the new science. Much of that is secret: how the stars move, the planets, the moons. It is not what the Church teaches. Such news always makes men afraid.

“You forfeit a holiday with your parents,” he said. “I lose a chance to hear about discoveries in the heavens made by a Pole named Copernicus—all to parade two men who deserve better than to be trotted about like circus animals.”

He fumbled again in his deep pocket. “The name of the vessel I was to ship on,” he said as he handed Andrew a scrap. “You’ll board her below London Bridge at high tide. You will wear my disguise.”

“Disguise?” Andrew asked.

“Yes. You will go in the dress I was planning to wear—as a Catholic woman fleeing England.”

“But how will I get word to my people?” Andrew asked. “And to Rebecca—how can I let her know I’m not coming?”

“Sir Walter has seen to that,” Mr. Harriot said. “As we speak, the peddler who took Doctor Dee’s reading tincture to your people is awaiting your place on the Exeter coach.”

Mr. Harriot gave Andrew two small bags, one of slugs, the other of gold. “Those people are honest,” he said. “Pay what they ask.”

Dark comes early around Christmas. No one was about as Andrew stepped into the Strand in the disguise of a religious woman.

In blowing drizzle and a thick fog, he made his way to London Bridge and down the flight of stone steps to Irongate Wharf. There was a smell of fish. His ship lay at anchor. He made his way down the gangway. Instead of Pena’s moleskin cap, he wore a wimple, a nun’s hat. His bust was filled out with wads of wool that itched and tickled. His holy book was Mr. Harriot’s Arab book of optics. Under his skirts he carried the gold and slugs. He had to walk slowly to muffle what was tied about his waist.

The crossing was rough. It rained and sleeted on the Channel, the wind shrieking and snarling in the rigging like spirits. The ship creaked and groaned like she was dying. The trip was all staggering up steep hills of frothing waves and falling down the other side, only to begin the same again as waves dashed and slobbered them. They made nothing forward; it was all side to side.

Andrew stayed on deck. He knew he’d be sick below.

As he chewed his ginger, the crew pumped in shifts like galley slaves. They called to him.

“Who do you send your prayers through, Sister?”

“Saint Nicholas!” Andrew yelled as loud as he could in his false voice.

They cheered. Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of seamen and children in their helplessness. They were helpless, but slowly, after hours of deluge, the gray paled and the sea calmed enough for the pumps to get ahead of the flood down below.

They dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland. Snow mixed with drizzle as Andrew rode overland to Rotterdam and Gouda and on to Amsterdam. The buildings were not so fine as London’s. Outside the towns, everything was flat and white with windmill after windmill. His diet on the road was dark bread, dark beer, onions, and cheese. His mood was black.

Even without the bags strapped to him, it was difficult going about in a long dress. He stumbled on stairs. Strangers greeted him in the street and asked particulars of his holy life. He kept a small stone under his tongue and feigned to be mute, as Sir Walter had instructed.

With some difficulty, he found Mr. Harriot’s jeweler. The Jew and his family spoke English. They made Andrew welcome with a warm room and a decent meal.

While the man worked at his kick wheel, shaping and polishing the lenses, Andrew ran Mr. Harriot’s other errands. At night he measured each lens against what was given in the Arab’s book.

He stayed with the jeweler’s family over Christmas, struggling to talk high, eat dainty, and hold his legs and arms like a woman. Out of respect for his nun’s dress, they called him Sister. His voice was changing, cracking like William’s. He made to cough when that happened.

If the jeweler and his family suspected his disguise, they never let on. They were used to sheltering people hiding who they were, where they were from, what their business was. It was everywhere a time of war, watchfulness, and secrets.

Along with their Torah, the jeweler had the Bible in English in Mr. Tyndale’s translation. Andrew was used to hearing readings from Saint Luke on Christmas Eve. Instead, on this Christmas Eve, the jeweler and his wife and their children took turns reading aloud the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt.

“Our family story is the same,” the jeweler told Andrew as the last candles died. “Our people fled Spain the year Columbus sailed for the New World. By decree of May 1492, all Jews were given four months to choose between leaving the country without any valuables or embracing the Catholic faith. Eighty thousand left, our people among them.”

“And now, here, are you safe?” Andrew asked.

“Some people are never safe,” the jeweler replied. It was too dark to make out his face.

They heard singing in the street, faint at first, then swelling louder and louder. “Come,” said the jeweler, opening the door. “They are the Star Singers, the town poor out caroling. It is the one time in the year they are allowed to gather.”

A mob filled the road, motley and ragged, young and old, some carrying candle lanterns. At the head of their procession, a stout man, a kind of giant, carried a large star on a pole. “The star in its stable of light,” he chanted in Dutch between the songs, “the star in its stable of light.”

Andrew thrilled to their music. He’d never heard anything like it—so many voices in such a space, hopeful, joyful. It was better than any church singing.

A child came up. “Alms, please, alms,” she begged. Andrew figured her meaning.

As he fumbled for money, the jeweler gave her a coin. Then Andrew came up with his.

“Christ bless you both and your house all,” the child said with a curtsy.

“And you and yours,” the jeweler replied as he closed the door.

Sir Walter had sent Andrew off with a note to open on Christmas Eve. When he was alone that night, he did:

“Andrew—I send you Christmas blessing. The enclosed is for yours at home.” It was signed “WR.”

“The enclosed” was a small gold coin, the one they called an angel. Sir Walter meant it for Rebecca.

26

T
O
V
IRGINIA

It was early on a spring morning. Andrew stood waiting for Pena by the door of Durham House in rough clothes and his cap for America, and a rat catcher out calling his trade in the Strand took him for a servant.

“Hey, lad! A brave dog here,” he yelled. “Good company! Keep you free of varmints!”

The furry pup squirmed in the man’s rough hand. The rat catcher laughed and came close. “Tuck him in your jacket, boy. My terrier just littered. This one’s the runt. No use to me, but he’ll be good for you. Lad your age needs a dog,” he said, slipping the pup into the boy’s pocket. “See? He fits!”

Andrew curled his hand gently around the warm wriggle as Pena walked up.

“Ah, you’ve got a friend close by now,” the Frenchman laughed. He rubbed the small white muzzle. The puppy licked his finger.

“It’s salt he’s after,” Pena said, nodding. The puppy continued licking as fast as he could. “Salt of the earth, salt of the sea,” Pena murmured.

“So I’ll call him Salt!” Andrew exclaimed as Pena handed the rat catcher a small coin.

William was at his desk when Andrew came in later. As he looked up, Salt crawled free and fell to the floor with a squeal. He piddled, then limped to William and pawed his shoe.

“Ah,” said William, gathering up the dog and making small noises. “Your protector in America.”

At the start of their time together, Salt lived in Andrew’s jacket. The boy liked the dog’s smell and the comforting noises he made at night when he snuggled beside Andrew’s head.

At last, after all the preparing, packing and repacking, corking tight the bottle of naphtha, polishing and oiling the edge tools until their blades gleamed like silver, checking lenses, astrolabes, and sundials, greasing vests, belts, and boots with a mixture of turpentine, beeswax, and boiled sheep’s fat against weathers they could only imagine, after counting out buttons, beads, bells, and toys—how many would they need? Would a hundred of each be enough?—in early April, word came that the ships were ready.

Andrew was working in his room, making up a kit for Tremayne, when Mr. Harriot came in.

“There’s word at Court,” he said, “that Plymouth’s taverns are full of our explorers filling every ear with tales of gold and adventure. They are as set on piracy as exploring.”

“We go as pirates?” Andrew asked with a start.

“We’ll take prizes as we go. Our explorers count on catching a fat Spanish merchant ship or two on the way. It’s the same with Sir Walter and his investors: gold on land and gold at sea is what they’re after.”

He was looking at the box of mirrors.

“Should we make them presents of those?” he asked. “They might be used against us for signaling or blinding.”

“How?” asked the boy, surprised.

“Watch,” said Mr. Harriot as he rose and went to the window. Early-spring sunlight was pouring in. He took one of the mirrors and, with a sureness that showed his practice, flashed a blinding beam into Andrew’s face.

“The Greeks used that trick against the Romans two thousand years ago,” Mr. Harriot said. “With sheets of polished bronze, they beamed sunlight on the Romans’ ships and set them afire. Good weapons, mirrors. Not to be given away.”

“Right!” said Andrew, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

The next morning, with Salt in his pocket, Andrew set out for Plymouth with Mr. Harriot. James stood with Mistress Witkens, William, the cooks, and the laundry people at the door to cheer them off.

Andrew’s breath came short as he waved goodbye to his Durham House friends. His face was hot. He swallowed a lot. After Pena, he knew he’d miss William most of all.

Slowly, though, the word “Virginia” began to drum in his head as he rode, the rhythm of the hoof-beats repeating it.

Even in the hot spring sunshine, Mr. Harriot, riding alongside, wore his long black cloak with the deep pocket.

Manteo and Wanchese had gone ahead with Pena and Sir Walter. “You’re going home,” Andrew had explained to the Indians. “Home. Back,” he’d said, pointing. “Over the great water.”

“Home!” the Indians had repeated, smiling. “Home!”

Andrew met his parents and Rebecca above the port at Plymouth Castle. Words came hard; nobody knew what to say. The boy was excited and distracted. It felt like getting ready for a footrace: all he could think about, all he wanted, was to be off, to go! Down below, the Virginia fleet looked like toys, with toy people milling about and waving flags as horns and kettledrums played a popular battle march. There was no secret about their business now; everyone knew they were bound for America—but where exactly?

At last it was time for farewells. He gave his parents and Rebecca awkward hugs. “I’ll write,” he promised.

He hurried down to join the expedition people. Tremayne was there, looking over the kit Andrew had made for him. Pena was holding two packages. “The apple shoots,” he said sternly as he handed over the smaller one. “Put them in your coat and keep them damp. First thing when you land, plant them and water them good!” His face softened as he held out the second package. “We are brothers of the spade now,” he said as he presented Andrew with a fine French shovel, the shaft and handle one piece of bent hickory, its heart-shaped blade the best steel. “With this one you will plant our English seeds and dig new things to bring home.”

The man’s face worked with feeling; Andrew’s too.

Sir Walter came over. He stretched his arms around Mr. Harriot, Tremayne, and Andrew. “You’re my Americans!” he said. “Observe everything! Be my eyes. Take in all.” Then his face changed and he looked away to study the fleet—his fleet, if he’d had his way. His gaze went beyond the ships, beyond the harbor.

They were among the last to board. The gangplank went up behind them.

The fort’s cannons boomed a farewell salute as trumpets blared the Queen’s anthem. Then Admiral Grenville raised his arm and the sailors threw off the hawsers that bound the Virginia fleet to England.

As the ships moved out on the ebbing tide, something let go inside the boy. He couldn’t help it; tears came as he waved and cheered, until all he could make out was the motion of Sir Walter swooping his feathered hat up and down.