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book of American plants. Knowing what he did of his master’s interest in drugs, he concentrated on those plants with medicinal properties. In the best hand he could manage he began an extract of what Señor Monardes wrote about tobacco: “A medicine leaf chewed or smoked that strengthens the heart as it stirs up the blood….”
    His head was heavy. The air was still. He put the pen aside and laid his head on his arm. Suddenly he heard Mr. Raleigh on the stairs. As he struggled to look alert at his work, Mr. Raleigh’s eyes took him in. Andrew was sure the man knew he’d been sleeping. Mr. Raleigh nodded and said nothing.

9
    H OMESICK !
    His third night at Durham House, Andrew called out in his sleep. Peter heard. “The baby cries and whimpers ‘Mamma’ in the dark,” he taunted as they dressed the next morning. “Perhaps Mamma’s precious should go home.”
    Andrew clenched his teeth and made fists as he struggled not to cry and not to fight. His father had warned him against brawling.
    “You called out other names too,” William told him later, when they were alone. “Nothing I could make out before I shook you quiet.”
    Pena guessed something was wrong when Andrew came to work. “It is hard at the beginning,” the Frenchman said, looking into the boy’s eyes and nodding slowly.
    Andrew bit his lip as Pena put a sweaty arm around him. “Courage!” he said. “I know. I had to leave home too.
    “But look here!” said Pena, pointing to a new plot he’d staked out. “You will make this your own garden,” he said, picking up his tools. The knot in Andrew’s chest loosened.
    Pena sang a silly verse he made up as they worked the ground together:

    I’m a man of the dirt,
    Which does no man hurt,
    As it feeds him and clothes him
    And saves him from Sin.
    The pretty ones hurry to wash it away,
    But without it they wouldn’t be here today.
    They think it low to dig and delve,
    But it was dirt that fed the Twelve.
    Hey!
    Hey!

    Andrew began to smile as Pena sang loud, clowning and pretending to plow:

    Adam’s delving, so they say,
    Helped him work his Sin away;
    We do the same, every day,
    So we have no Sin to pay.
    Hey!
    Hey!

    As he finished with an elaborate bow, sweeping his leather apron to one side, Andrew grinned and clapped. He felt better than he had in days.
    “Ma foi!”
Pena exclaimed. “They are too serious here. With them it is all work and no laughing, with this for the Court and that for the fortune. Even their play is work. This evening I take you into the streets for play! We’ll be safe together.”
    “I’d like that!” Andrew cried. “I’ve been once to Court but never to town.”
    “Good!” said Pena, beaming. Then he looked hard at the boy. “Your color is bad. Are you well in your gut?”
    Andrew looked down and shook his head.
    “Ah!” the man exclaimed. “Your guts grip because you eat no salads as they do in France. Come! I keep a bed for greens! Every morning now when you come to me you will eat leaves from my patch. All that meat, all that bread,” he said. “No Frenchman from the South, no Florentine, not even a Spanish peasant suffers in the gut like you English. And do you know why? Because you do not eat fresh leaves like the other animals.”
    He made Andrew eat a fistful of salad leaves. Some were bitter.
    After supper Andrew walked close beside Pena as they joined the slow tide of people out for pleasure—gaudy-dressed women, groups of sailors laughing and talking in their own tongues, country lads like Andrew looking around with new eyes. They drifted past musicians playing for a coin, acrobats in orange-and-green costumes, mimes with chalked faces. A hushed crowd watched a man pick his way over an alley on a rope stretched high. Every time the ropewalker teetered, Andrew felt the bottom go out of his stomach. He hated heights and tight dark places. The man twisted and danced and swayed for what seemed a long time before he slid down to get their money