Chapter One

1

Winding the Spring

Stillwell Farm, Devon, 8 April 1584

Mr. Raleigh-

As you've heard, Andrew will be twelve next birthday. He is strong, healthy, tall for his age, steady. He has good teeth. He can read and speak English, Latin and French. He knows numbers and writes a fair hand. He finishes school this spring.

If you accept him for service, according to custom you will feed him at your own table and furnish him with the habiliments of a gentleman. He will be trained to ride, fight, hawk, and conduct himself according to the fashion. On his sixteenth birthday you will make him a gift of L4 in gold and the clothing, books, instruments, and items of daily use then in his possession.

I will deliver him to Durham House this month end.
Regards from your friend,
John Saintleger


Andrew was eleven, tall for his age, hair like wheat stubble, hazel eyes, big front teeth he'd not yet grown in to. His smile was eager and unafraid. He was wiry from farm work and managing horses. Helping his father build and repair around the farm, he'd learned carpentry. He liked the tools his father had taught him to use, their shapes and edges, what he could do with them. He and the brother who'd been sent to Bristol had built a tree house together, a fort they'd slept in sometimes and stood off neighbor boys' attacks with acorns and rotten fruit. Andrew had thought he might end up a carpenter.

Then came the night his father asked him to hold up clearing the table after dinner.

"You and I are going up to London together as soon as you finish school," he said raising his eyebrows and beginning a smile. "Listen"- and he r