Philippa Gregory - Earthly Joys

There were shrubs he had never seen before, many in flower, white star-shaped flowers, and some tinged with pink. He walked on and came to a bush of whorts, with an unusual red flower. John brought out his little knife and took cuttings, wrapped them in more of the damp moss and laid them carefully in his satchel. A few steps more and he was in a clearing. Where the sunlight poured in there were bushes forming fruit like an English hedge mercury except that they were a brighter red and with three sharply shaped leaves at the head of the twig, and every leaf bearing a berry inside it. In the darker places, beneath the trees, John saw the gleaming blossom of hellebores, thickly growing and carpeting the forest floor.

There was an explosion of noise from the trees above his head and John instinctively ducked, fearing attack. It was half a dozen birds, a new species to John, big pheasant-sized birds in white with green bodies and slate-blue tails. John clasped his hands together in frustration, longing for a musket so he could have shot one for the skin, but they were gone with a clatter of wings and there was no one there for John to compare notes with, and wonder if he could possibly have seen aright.

He dug and snipped like a squirrel preparing for winter until, from the distance, he heard a faint voice calling his name and looked up, realizing that it was growing dark and that he had promised the lad that he would be little more than ten minutes – and that was more than an hour ago.

John trotted down the path back to the boat and the shivering lad.

“What is it?” he asked. “Cold or terror?”

“Neither!” the lad said stoutly, but as soon as he had the boat pushed off and rowed back to the ship he scampered up the ladder at the side and swore that he would never take Mr. Tradescant anywhere again, whatever the captain said.

He did not need to risk a charge of mutiny. The next day the captain waited for the fullness of the tide to save them from the dangers of being grounded on sandbanks, and the ship landed at Archangel. The ship’s company were able to go ashore to eat the oat bread and cheese and drink the Russian beer. And the gentlemen traveling with Sir Dudley unloaded their goods and moved into houses on the quayside. The company were particularly scathing about the houses – which were wooden cabins – and about the bread, which was made in different shapes, some rolls no bigger than a single mouthful.

John waylaid the Russian ambassador and was given permission to hire a local boat and set sail around the islands in the river channel. He took a purse of gold with him and bought every rarity he could find for his lord’s collection, and took cuttings and roots and seeds from every strange plant he saw. At every island John went ashore, his eyes on his boots and his little trowel in his hand. And at every place he came back to the boat with his satchel bulging with cuttings and plants which had never before been seen in England.

“You are a conquistador,” Sir Dudley remarked when Tradescant arrived back at the Archangel quay and had his barrels of plants set in damp earth unloaded on the quayside. “This is a treasure for those who love to make a garden.”

John, filthy and smelling strongly of fish, which was all he had eaten for many days, grinned and came stiffly up the quayside steps.

“What have you seen?” Sir Dudley asked. “I have spent all my time getting my goods unloaded and preparing for the journey to Moscow.”

“It is mostly waste ground,” Tradescant explained softly to him. “But when they clear a piece of land for farming, they are good farmers; they can lay their crops down into soil which is only just warm and get a harvest off it inside six weeks.”

Sir Dudley nodded.

“But a poor country?” he suggested.

“Different,” John judged. “Terrible ale, the worst taste I have ever had. But they have a drink called mead made with honey which is very good. They have no plane to work their wood, but what they can do with an axe and a knife is better than many an English carpenter. But the trees!” He broke off.

“Go on, then,” Sir Dudley said with a smile. “Tell me about the trees.”

“I have found four new sorts of fir trees that I have never seen before, the buds of the boughs growing so fresh and so bright that they are spotted like a dappled pony, the bright green against the dark.”

Sir Dudley nodded.

“And a birch tree, a very big birch tree which they tell me they can tap for liquor and they make a drink from it. And they have a little tree for making hoops for barrels that they say is a cherry, but it was between the blossom and the fruit so I can’t be sure. I can’t believe there could be a cherry tree which could make hoops. But I have a cutting and a sapling which I will set to grow at home and see what it is. Its leaf is like a cherry. If you so much as bend a twig down to the ground it will grow where it is set, like a willow. That would be a wood worth growing in England, don’t you think?”

Sir Dudley had lost his indulgent smile and was looking thoughtful. “Indeed. And it must be strong to survive this climate. It would grow in England, wouldn’t it, John?”

Tradescant nodded. “And white, red and black currants, much bigger than our fruit, and roses – in one place I saw more than five acres of wild roses like a cinnamon rose. Hellebores, angelica, geranium, saxifrage, sorrel as tall as my son John at home – and a new sort of pink-” John broke off for a moment, thinking how pleased his lord would have been to hear that he had found a new sort of pink. “A new pink,” he said quietly. “With very fair jagged leaves.”

“These are treasures,” Sir Dudley said.

“And there are plants which could yield medicines,” Tradescant told him. “A fruit like an amber strawberry which prevents scurvy, and I was told of a tree which grows at the Volga River which they call God’s tree. It sounds like fennel but they say it will cure many sicknesses. You might see it, my lord. You might take a cutting if you see it.”

“Come with me, John,” Sir Dudley replied. “Come and take your own cuttings. You’ve been here such a little time and found such novelties. Come with me to Moscow and you can collect your plants all the way.”

For a moment he thought the man would say yes. John’s face lit up at the prospect of the adventure and the thought of the riches he would see.

Then he shook his head and laughed at his own eagerness. “I’m like a girl running after a fair,” he said. “I can think of nothing I would like more. But I have to go home. Lord Wootton expects me, and my wife and son.”

“His lordship comes first?”

John was recalled to his duty. “My lord must come before everything. Even my own desires.”

Sir Dudley dropped an arm carelessly around John’s shoulders, and they strolled together to his waiting horses. “I am sorry for it,” he said. “There’s no man I would rather have beside me, all the way to China.”

John nodded to hide his emotion. “I wish I could, my lord.” He looked down the wagon train of the strong Tartar horses, tacked up with deep traveling saddles.

“All the way to China, you say?”

“Think what you would find-” Sir Dudley whispered temptingly.

John shook his head but his hand was on the stirrup leather. “I cannot,” he said.

Sir Dudley smiled at him. “Then safe homeward journey,” he said. “And if I find anything very rare or strange I will cut it and send it to you, and I will make a note of where I found it so that you can make the journey yourself one day. For you are a traveler, John, not a stay-at-home. I can see it in your eyes.”

John grinned, shaking his head, and made himself release his grip on the stirrup, and made himself step back from Sir Dudley’s horse. He forced himself to watch, and not run after, as the whole cavalcade of them turned from the quayside to set off on the track toward Moscow and the East.