The maid -I think her name was Anna -looked a little more tired and heavy-eyed after her exertions of the previous evening. I, however, strutted out like a barnyard cock, booted and cloaked, a broad-brimmed hat on my head with a black and white plume hanging from it. I thought I was a Hector and Paris combined. Good Lord, the folly of youth! I decided to go to St Paul's, walk past Duke Humphrey's tomb and along the Mediterranean, the main aisle where most men did business; there, the dirty round pillars were festooned with notices, men and women begging for work or prospective employers offering terms. At one end the professional scriveners sat at their desks, quills and parchment at the ready, to draw up wills, indentures, bills of sale, a letter to a friend or a billet doux to a lover. At the other end lawyers, in ermine-edged cloaks, touted for business, serjeants-at-law consulted clients, and outside in the porch, booksellers and pamphleteers did a roaring trade.

Now I avoided all of these. I was looking for a business venture worthy of my silver, some trade across the Narrow Seas or perhaps commerce with the Baltic. You see, in my youth trade was close. The Cabots had sailed for Newfoundland but that was as far as it went. The seas down the west coast of Africa and the routes to the Hispanic colonies across the Atlantic were not yet open for English ships. We had no sea dogs, no Frobishers or Grenvilles who would fight their way past Spanish galleons. And, of course, there was no Drake. (I knew Sir Francis. Have I told you the story? I was playing bowls with him when the Great Armada was spotted off Lizard Point and the beacons along the south coast flared into life. I am sure you must have heard the tale? When the messenger arrived to inform Drake of the possible invasion, the old sea dog announced he would finish his game of bowls, then he would finish off the Spanish.