‘The next voyage shall be my last,’ he promised. ‘I will go to the Mediterranean on the Mercury and then I shall come home with orange trees and olive trees and all manner of spices and grow them quietly in my garden with you.’

When J learned that his father was to go to the Mediterranean he insisted that he go too, but John refused. J went quite pale with anger. ‘I am old enough to come with you now,’ J insisted.

‘I want you to continue at school,’ John said.

‘What’s the use of that!’ J exclaimed passionately. ‘You never went to school!’

‘And I felt the lack of it,’ John pointed out. ‘I want you to read and write in Latin as well as English. I want you to be brought up as a gentleman.’

‘I won’t need that, I shall be a planter in Virginia. Captain Argall said that the last thing the new plantation needs is gentlemen. He said the plantation needs hard-working men, not scholars.’

Elizabeth looked up at the mention of Argall’s name and compressed her lips.

‘He may be right,’ John said. ‘But I was counting on you to help me with my business, before you leave for Virginia.’

J, who was in full flight, checked at that. ‘Help you?’

‘All the plants these days are given new names, Latin names. When the King of France’s gardeners, the Robins, write to me and send me cuttings, they send them with their Latin names. I was hoping you would learn to read and write Latin so you could help me.’

‘I shall work with you?’

‘Of course,’ John said simply. ‘What else?’

J hesitated. ‘So you’ll stay home and teach me?’

‘I shall go on this trip to the Mediterranean,’ John stipulated. ‘Destroy Algiers, defeat the corsairs, collect all the Mediterranean plants, and come home. And after that I shall stay home and we shall garden together.’

J nodded, accepting the compromise. Elizabeth found that she had been gripping her hands tightly together under the cover of her apron, and released her grasp. ‘Tradescant and son,’ John said, pleased.

‘Tradescant and son,’ J replied.

‘Of Canterbury,’ Elizabeth added, and saw her husband smile.

Spring 1620

‘They say that Algiers is a town which cannot be taken,’ Elizabeth said to John on the quayside, refusing to be optimistic even at this last moment.

‘You are too doubting,’ John said mildly. ‘Algiers can be defeated, no town is invincible. And the pirates who use it as their base must be stopped. They cruise in the English Channel, even up the Thames. The king himself says that they must be taught a lesson.’

‘But why should it be you that goes?’ she demanded.