Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

'We don't know what the circumference of this globe is at its greatest girth, but we do know that the distance will be less according to how close to or distant we are from the part where the girth is greater.'

Anish was looking puzzled now. Brother Peter, who had often speculated along these lines, as indeed had Roger Bacon in his coded writings, now came to his rescue by picking up an apple. 'Look,' he said, 'if we are here,' and he poked it with his finger then picked up a knife and with the point made a tiny cross, 'and Vijayanagara is there,' he marked it on the other side, 'then it does not much matter if one goes east to get to Vijayanagara or west…'

'But,' said Prince Harihara, 'if it were here…' and he took the apple out of Peter's hand and marked it with a third cross just to the left of the first one, 'then everyone's been going the wrong way round. For all we know we're just, say, a week's sailing from home, if we go west rather than east.'

At this point another customer intruded, a small man with a beard whose tarred gaberdine suggested a seafaring man. He leant over us, took the apple. 'We're not fucking daft, you know. Not the way you are.'

'Who are we?' asked Peter, laying a restraining hand on Prince Harihara's sleeve. The Prince was clearly annoyed to lose his apple and the centre of attention.

Fucking sailors, of course. The fucking wind, four days out of five, blows from the fucking west, don't it? Even if you left on an east wind you'd be back home in a week on a fucking westerly. Like it or not…' and he took a noisy crunch out of the apple, which was sweet and crisp though it still smelt of the hay it had been laid up in.

'But,' said Brother Peter, in his gentle way, 'I have heard how if one goes further south, to the south of Spain, or better still the north-west coast of Africa, one finds almost constant winds blowing from the north-east. Los Alisios, they call them.'

'All right for fucking dagos and darkies.' said jolly Jack Tar, 'not much bloody use for us."

The next day we said farewell to Peter at the gate of his friary. First, he gave us the pages of Bacon's writing to do with gunpowder and the casting of cannon. 'His secrets are in better hands with you. If this lot," he meant the Inglysshe. 'get hold of them, then the Prime Mover alone knows what will happen to us all…'

'What was the main gist of these disclosures?' I asked, as quietly and politely as I could.

'Ah, dear Mah-Lo, I do sometimes wonder about your occasional curiosity, your willingness to be bored by me day after day. Is it really just generosity to an old man, or do you have another agendum?' Ali sipped his lemonade. 'Well, I'll tell you. There were three important things only. First, the best proportions in which to mix the ingredients. They are as follows. Split it into one hundred parts. Seventy-five should be saltpetre, fifteen charcoal, and ten sulphur. Not the sixty-six, twenty-three, eleven split now in general use. The second is more clever. To avoid the separation of the three constituents by shaking and settling, the art is to mix them thoroughly, then wet them to a paste, then let the paste dry out. The three parts will remain in granules, each granule containing all the ingredients in exactly the same distribution as they were. Three, a method for extracting saltpetre from rotting vegetation. There were other hints of smaller importance, which I won't bother you with, but I can say that in recent skirmishes with Bahmani troops, the artillery in the pay of the Vijayanagarans has outshot theirs by a hundred paces or more. No, that is all I am saying. You must let us bring our story to a conclusion. Then you may ask questions.'

Uma smiled sweetly at her hands, spread like a cup in her lap, and Ali went on.

As I say, perhaps the saddest moment on the trip for me was parting with Brother Peter, whose company I had shared now for more than a year. I tried to persuade him to stay with us, to come back to the lost city of paradise with us, heaven on earth, the City of Victory, Vijayanagara.

'Ali, I would like to, but however beautiful and wonderful it is, however gloriously content the inhabitants are, I would always be a stranger.'

'Peter, I have been a stranger wherever I am, all my life. It's no bad thing.'

'Precisely. You are used to it. But I am used to these two cloisters, my library, my fish-pond, my cat. I am used to the English countryside through which each summer I make my peregrinations and preach, using what I have thought out during the winter months. It's a routine, but sufficiently interesting not to be dull. I am too old to change it.'

We embraced, then he pulled back.

‘I shall miss you, Ali. I have learnt much from you. Not least that across the world, amongst Muhammadans, Buddhists, Hindus, whatever, as well as Christians, there are people like us who have moved on to a more mature, wiser, more solemn religion based on being not becoming, living not dying, joy not pain. It is wonderful that this community exists, each…' he searched for the word '… atom in it separated from the rest, there are so few of us, but reaching out and touching, so one day we may envelop the world, which will become a better place as a result. Damn it, I'm sermonising.' And he embraced me again. 'Ali, thank you.'

He pulled the bell-rope that hung against the wall beside the outer double door. We heard the jangle distantly behind the walls.

'Be off with you now.'

I walked back to my friends, who had already crossed the rebuilt bridge. I turned once. Peter was still at the door, a familiar, short, dumpy figure. He waved, then reached up and gave the rope a second yank, more impatient than the first. The bend in the road and river took us out of sight.

Ali wiped a tear from his eye.

'The Bishop's men were waiting for him. They burnt him a month later, a week or so before we left.'

For a moment his garden seemed to hold its breath. Then the cat stirred, a bird flew across an angle from one eave to the other. The fountain began to tinkle again. Ali sighed, drew in a second breath and went on.

The first thing we did, once we got to London, was scout along the south bank to the east looking for a vessel that might take us to the north coast of Africa or, anyway, into the Mediterranean. Since we were now down to three people with little baggage this proved to be no great problem – we found a caravel taking on cloth and ingots of copper, preparing to sail in a day or two.

Very little problem? Baggage? That put the Prince instantly in mind of what he had forgotten for nine months – his damned crossbows. Anish and he had the first serious falling-out I had seen between them as they argued about whether or not the infernal engines had been left at Alderman Dawtrey's house or had gone with them to the Tower. It scarcely mattered: they were in neither place now. We spent a week looking for them, eventually tracing them to Clerkenwell Fields, outside the walls, where the army was camped, and there we found a group of soldiers being taught their management by a Genoese mercenary. There was no question of them being released: they had already proved their worth when the cannon failed at St Alban's.

What soon became clear was that Prince Harihara had no intention of leaving without them. We went to Baynard's Castle for an audience with Eddie, the King, already a changed man, not exactly haughty but busy, and the best we could get out of him was that Prince Harihara could have them all back just as soon as the Queen had been beaten, once and for all, scotched like a snake, stamped on like the poisonous spider she was. The army was to begin its move north in a day or two.

"That's all very well,' said the Prince, once we were well clear of Baynard's Castle and walking back down Thames Street, 'but supposing she wins? We're going north with them and that's final.'