‘How dare you insult the man whose bread you eat? Who has put food on our table? How dare you repeat the dirt of the streets in his very garden? I should whip you for this, John. You are a graceless, dirty boy. Your learning was wasted on you if it has taught you wicked thoughts.’

J struggled to his feet and faced his father, his cheek blazing with John’s handprint. ‘I want to think for myself!’ he cried out. ‘I don’t want a lord to follow, I don’t want to have to shut my ears to the things that everyone is saying. I want to find my own way.’

‘You will find your own way to hell,’ John said bitterly. And he turned on his heel and left his son without another word.

Summer 1627

Buckingham, at New Hall for the summer, frightened back to Essex by the enmity of the parliament, found John in the fruit garden, tying back peach trees against the red brick wall. John turned when he heard the duke’s quick step on the brick-chip path and Buckingham, seeing the leap of joy in Tradescant’s face, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I wish I was a hero to all the world as I am to you, John,’ he said.

‘Is there trouble?’

Buckingham threw back his head and laughed his reckless gambler’s laugh. John smiled in reply but felt a chill sense of unease. He had learned to be wary when his lord was in joyful mood. ‘There is always trouble,’ Buckingham said. ‘I snap my fingers at it. And what of you, John? What are you doing here?’

‘I am trying a little experiment, I don’t know if it will work. It is a fancy of mine to see if I can give the peach trees a little extra heat, where they grow, here in the garden.’

‘Will you set fire to their trunks?’

‘I shall burn charcoal,’ Tradescant said seriously. ‘Here.’ He showed the duke the high wall and three small fireplaces placed one above the other. ‘The flues from the fireplaces run along the length of the wall and the hot smoke travels behind the bricks where the trees are tied. I am hoping it will keep the frost off them so that you can have early peaches and apricots. Weeks, perhaps even months, early. I think it must be something in the nature of the tree which makes it bear fruit; but then I am sure it is the heat of the sunshine which makes it ripen. The first year I scorched them and last year I was too cautious and the frost got them. But this year I think I may have done it right and you shall have sweet ripe fruit in June.’

‘I shall be eating no English peaches in June this year, and nor will you,’ the duke remarked.

Alerted, John turned away from his heated wall. ‘Not this year?’