Raleigh's Page Read Online Free PDF

could stay.”
    Andrew looked around the hall. The crone and Mistress Witkens were the only women; guards, servants, and soldiers made up the rest of the noisy company.
    William nudged his new friend. “Did you notice what Mr. Raleigh took his salt from?” he whispered.
    Andrew nodded, looking up at the silver ship again.
    “The Queen gave it to him as a mark of favor,” William said quietly with a proud smile.
    Peter ate fast, saying nothing. When he finished, he interrupted William’s whispers. “My father served with Mr. Raleigh in Ireland,” he said, loud enough for everyone around to hear. “They both have large holdings there. The natives are rebellious. When I complete my service here, I’ll go as officer with the army in Ireland. ‘Blood and iron for the natives!’ my father says. ‘No conciliating!’”
    He pressed his thin lips so tight together his mouth went white as he fixed his eyes on Andrew. “Do you know Ireland?” he asked.
    “No,” Andrew answered.
    Peter turned away.
    Other talk at their table that night was that Mr. Raleigh was just back from seeing two exploring captains off to America.
    When Mr. Harriot finished his meal, he came and sat with the pages. “To the spies on the docks and in the taverns, the rumor is our expedition men are pirates out for prizes,” he reported. “They’ll keep what they catch, sure enough, to help pay for the voyage, but their main business is finding a base for our investigators.”
    Andrew’s breath came short. Everything Tremayne had said about Mr. Raleigh’s plans was true!
    Mr. Harriot asked the new page friendly questions about his family and schooling. He wore plain black like a Puritan, but the boy soon learned he was not one of those.
    “What do you do here?” Andrew asked.
    “I tutor Mr. Raleigh in the new mathematics and help his navigators with their maps for deep-water sailing. Maps lie flat,” he explained, gesturing with his hands. “Mr. Mercator’s new projection makes the shortest distance from England to America appear a straight line, but since the earth is round, the shortest way is really a curve. I show the mariners how to allow for the curve of the globe and correct the sea compass. Mostly, though, I study things about America to get ready for going.”
    Andrew bit his tongue to keep from saying that was the thing he dreamed of.
    “And I am employed by Mr. Secretary Walsingham, the Queen’s chief spy,” Mr. Harriot continued, “composing and breaking codes.”
    “Are you a spy?” Andrew asked.
    “Watch who you ask that of,” Mr. Harriot laughed. “Some might think you rude. Anyway, as the saying goes, ‘The Queen’s eyes are in every place.’ My eyes are in service to hers. Sooner or later yours will be too.
    “Now!” he announced, standing up. “To the roof! In the last light I’ll show you a bit of London.” Andrew nodded, smiling and grateful but dizzied by so much new and strange.
    When they got to the roof, Mr. Harriot reached into the pocket of his long black coat. “Here,” he said, handing Andrew a brass tube. “Astronomy is what I like best. This is my device for looking at a distance.”
    Andrew put it to his eye. Suddenly he could make out deckhands on ships in the Pool, then, some distance down the Strand, a red-faced man telling another a story with big gestures and laughter the boy could see but not hear.
    “I fashion these myself with lenses I have made from rounds of glass I get from the glassblowers,” Mr. Harriot was saying. “I buy the ones with the fewest waves or bubbles and take them to a Jew in Amsterdam who cuts gems. No Jews here and it is our loss.”
    Andrew wanted to ask why there were no Jews in England, but Mr. Harriot was eager to go on about his lenses. “My friend in Amsterdam shapes the glass for me, working the rounds like a potter on a wheel, cutting with tools of crystal and polishing with garnet paste. I calculate the curve he must cut to from pictures in a book