Colon turned at last to what he believed to be the strongest plank of his argument: his own personal experience. He spoke of evidence he had seen with his own eyes, relics from the lands across the sea fortuitously washed east: bits of carved wood, branches of unfamiliar species of trees, even war canoes carved from single logs. It had been such bits of evidence, Colon said, which had been the seed of his own quest to go west.

Concluding, Colon spoke of the riches of the east, and quoted at length the biography of Marco Polo, who had crossed China in the days of the Mongol Peace. And Colon spoke of his dream of a grand alliance of western Christendom with the armies of the Khan and the wealth of the domain of Prester John, all linked by Colon’s mighty new trans-oceanic trade routes: a grand alliance that would fall upon the great Islamic states from the east and wipe them from the earth, at last liberating Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel.

One by one the court’s experts rose to counter aspects of Colon’s case.

Harry half listened. Of course, he thought, there was a hope, just a grain of it, that Colon might actually be right. Much of Colon’s evidence was faked by Harry, Geoffrey and Abdul. But not all of it.

And if anybody could succeed at this venture it would be Colon. He was a vision of doggedness, of determination. Where others had tentatively probed a little way west before running for home, if Colon ever got his ships he would keep right on going come what may.

Yet, Harry thought sadly, Colon was at the same time an unimpressive figure. His poor education showed in the stumbles in his Spanish, and in his sometimes weak grasp of scholarship. Snobs about the new printing presses mocked men like Colon, who now found learned material much too easy to get hold of, and regurgitated it, half-digested, in pursuit of their own pet theories. Such nostalgics pined for the good old days when books were so rare and expensive that scholarship was properly kept in the hands of the privileged few.

But, Harry thought, his soul stirring, if the prophecies were right, these flawed arguments by a flawed man might yet result in a bold stroke that would transform the fortunes of mankind for ever.

The last speaker was Diego Ferron. ‘This is all fanciful. Legend. Tittle-tattle from drunk sailors. It is the mission of this court to prosecute holy war. But the way to do that is to drive east, straight for the exposed belly of Islam, not to follow some fool’s errand to the west. The monarchs’ money should be spent on weapons, not ships, not thrown into the endless Ocean Sea in pursuit of a dream . . .’

De Santangel heard him out. Then he got to his feet.