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from Baghdad. What I’m learning now, my Arab author knew five hundred years ago.”
    “What do you mean, your ‘Arab author’?” Andrew asked.
    “The Arabs were great astronomers,” Mr. Harriot replied. “They built on what the Greeks knew. I have an ancient Arab astronomy book I got from a Turk trader out of Constantinople.”
    “We saw Turks at Plymouth,” Andrew said, eager to add something to the talk. “A Turk trading ship foundered on the rocks off Plymouth and put in there. Some of the crew had fever. The town doctor wouldn’t go to them because he said they kill Christians. My mother went and tended them.”
    “What were they trading?” Mr. Harriot asked.
    “Cloves and cotton. They paid her in spice and cloth.”
    “Good trade for us, if we could get it,” Mr. Harriot mused.
    As the sky began to go from pale gray to smoky purple, dots of light came on like someone lighting candles far away.
    “There’s the waning moon. No planets now, but stars,” Mr. Harriot explained. “That one over there is the North Star; to the left, higher, the Big Dipper,” he said, helping Andrew aim.
    Through the brass cylinder Andrew saw stars closer than the eye ever brought them, but he was more eager for Mr. Harriot’s talk about America. He wished Tremayne were there to hear it.
    Before Andrew could get Mr. Harriot away from his stars and back to the New World, Peter and William came up to join them for a quick game of catch in the last light.
    They used one of Mr. Raleigh’s tennis balls. Mr. Harriot said they were stuffed with the hair of poor women. It was a point of honor that no ball go off the roof. The last time his turn came, Peter threw hard over Andrew’s head. As the newcomer leapt to catch it, he nearly went off the roof himself.
    Mr. Harriot scowled as the shadow of a smile flickered across Peter’s face. Andrew felt sick.
Already I have an enemy,
he thought.

7
    T HE B OY W HO F AILED
    That night, Andrew lay awake in the strange bed. There were noises from the street. William’s bed was next to his. Peter was asleep in the bed beyond William’s.
    “Are you awake?” William whispered.
    “Yes.”
    “Are you going to Court tomorrow?”
    “I don’t know. First thing, I go to school, to Monsieur Pena.”
    “Oh,” murmured William. “I was going to show you my hawk.”
    “The boy who was sent away,” Andrew asked, “what was his lie?”
    William turned and leaned on his elbow. Andrew could just make out his face.
    “Charles’s family was rich. His father was dead and his older brother, who’d inherited everything, was sickly. He said he wished his brother would hurry up and die so he’d inherit and be page to nobody.
    “Mr. Raleigh had a leaky vessel on the river. Charles was sent to measure the water in her. Mr. Raleigh told him it would take some doing—shifting cargo to lift a center plank, then mucking around in the ballast to measure to the hull.
    “Charles was from the Midlands. He was used to ordering farm laborers about; he didn’t know sailors. They’re proud and independent, each one responsible for the whole ship. No landsman puts on airs to them—even if his father does own a thousand acres! Well, Charles goes out to the ship and tells the sailors to do his task. They wouldn’t. They said the bilge was filthy and the last man who’d touched it got plague and died horrible. They gave Charles a candle and warned him to go careful with it—the bilge gas might catch fire and blow him up.
    “The next morning, Mr. Raleigh called us to the turret and had Charles tell us his test. We were never to tell anyone what Mr. Raleigh put us to: he’s a great one for secrets!
    “So there we are, lined up like soldiers, and he has Charles step forward.
    “‘What was the depth of water in the bilge?’ he asks.
    “Charles says so-and-so much.
    “‘Did you measure?’ Mr. Raleigh asks.
    “Charles nods.
    “‘Speak!’ says Mr. Raleigh, so loud we all