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By Root 3105 0

nose and long, white forked beard. The knights, Andrew Judde and Will Chester, part-owners of the Primrose and the John Evangelist, and John Dimmock his host, owner of the Anne, now waiting to leave St Botolph’s Wharf with the Trinity, fully laden with twenty-one bales of cotton stuff and two hundred sorting cloths and five hundred pieces of Hampshire kersey in sky blue and red and green and ginger and yellow, with sugar and with nine casks of pewter of Thomas Hasel’s making, the cloth alone being worth £3,400. And below the casks and the crates and the bales, another cargo whose worth was not public knowledge, and whose contents had not been broadcast at all.

Sir Henry Sidney, soon to go back to Ireland, with his friend Edmund Roberts, newly back from his labours in Scotland, from which five hundred pounds of the cargo of the wrecked Edward Bonaventure had been recovered and was now on its way south in a hired English ship. Between them, Sidney and Roberts had given him the men and the advice he needed to mine the iron in Russia, and work it, and in time give them, he hoped, a steel surpassing that of the Turks and the Persians. In time.…

Anthony Hussey, whose cousin Lawrence had had such a signal success with the Queen Dowager in Scotland. As soon as he left for Russia, Lymond knew, a letter would be on its way from Scotland to the Queen Dowager’s dearest sister, Mary of England, regretting that she could not, without her dearest daughter’s advice, dispense with the rebellion of the sometime Earl of Lennox, and that therefore, as the wife of a man without civic rights, Lady Lennox’s claim to the Angus estates would instantly be stopped.

John Buckland, Master under God of the new flagship the Primrose, with Tony Jenkinson, who would sail in Chancellor’s place and do as well, probably, as Chancellor. And whom he, the Voevoda Bolshoia, would come to know in the long journey north, and either tolerate or dislike, it did not matter which. There had been good news for the Company that day, John Buckland had told him. They had had word that the Searchthrift was safe and had wintered at Kholmogory: the pinnace which Stephen Burroughs and Richard Johnson had taken to Vardȯ, hoping to sail east past the Ob. This they had not done, but this spring they were to set out again. So the Company were not without their adventurers, or John Dee his pupils.…

William Garrard, who had told Philippa how to reach Bailey’s house: a good thing, or a bad? Robert Best, who knew as much as anyone about the Voevoda’s activities in Russia, but who was going back to Russia with him, and therefore had to be circumspect. Philip Gunter, whom he had met with Sir Henry; and Harry Becher, with the harem of drakes, whom he had not met at all.

Those with office near to the Queen: Sir Henry Jerningham, Vice Chamberlain and Captain of the Guard; the Earl of Arundel, President of the Council; Sir William Cecil; Sir William Petre, who left the chamber unexpectedly with Dimmock beside him, and did not come back for ten minutes.

The speeches began. Wine, in a loving cup, was passed back to back through the whole company to pledge the departing Muscovite Ambassador; and then the old man, Cabot himself, made the announcement they had all come to hear. To Osep Grigorievich Nepeja, first Ambassador to England from the Tsar of all Russia, the Company here present were agreed to bear the whole cost and charges incurred by the Ambassador and those travelling with him from Scotland to London, and also during his stay until sailing, as testing and witness of their good hearts, zeal and tenderness towards him and his country.

There was a touching display of appreciation, as this generous offer was translated by Rob Best and received by the Ambassador with hands clasped over his sturdy pearled chest. He embraced Master Cabot. He embraced Sir Andrew Judde and Sir George Barnes. He almost embraced Rob Best until he remembered that he, a mere servant of the Company, would be returning to Russia. Then, in rolling tones, the Ambassador started his answer.

It was launched