Buccaneer by Tim Severin Read Free Book Online Page B

itself into the shallows, to await the next day’s sales.
    At the end of the high street, he was close back where he had started, for he recognised the bulk of the fort which guarded the anchorage. Turning left, he entered a thoroughfare that looked more respectable, though the roadway was still nothing more than an expanse of hard packed sand. He noted the door plaques of several doctors, then a goldsmith’s shop, securely shuttered. Next to an apothecary’s hung a trade sign which raised his hope: it depicted a pair of mapmaker’s compasses and a pencil stub. The proprietor’s name was written underneath in black letters on a scroll: Robert Snead.
    Hector pushed open the door and stepped inside.
    He found himself in a low-ceilinged room, furnished sparsely with a large table, half a dozen plain wooden chairs and a desk. In the light of an open window an older man was seated at the desk. He was wearing a shabby wig and a rumpled gown of brown linen. His head was bent over his work as he scratched away with a quill pen. On hearing his visitor enter, he looked up and Hector saw that the man had thick spectacles balanced on a nose that showed a drunkard’s broken veins.
    ‘Can I help you?’ the man asked. He removed the spectacles and rubbed a hand across his eyes. They were bloodshot.
    ‘I would like to speak with Mr Snead,’ Hector said.
    ‘I am Robert Snead. Are you looking for a design or practical advice?’ The man’s near-sighted gaze took in Hector’s clothing which, now that he had sold his jacket, was not as respectable as it had seemed earlier.
    ‘I hope to find employment, sir,’ Hector answered. ‘My name is Hector Lynch. I have worked with maps and charts, and have a fair hand.’
    Robert Snead looked uneasy. ‘I am an architect and surveyor, not a mapmaker.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Anyone who makes maps and charts, or sells them, needs to have a licence.’
    ‘I did not know,’ Hector apologised. ‘I saw the sign outside and thought it was for a mapmaker.’
    ‘We use many of the same tools of trade,’ Snead admitted. He gave Hector a shrewd glance. ‘Is it true that you can work with charts?’
    ‘Yes, sir. I have worked with coastal maps, harbour plans, and the like.’ Hector thought it politic not to mention that his work had been for a Turkish admiral in Barbary.
    Snead thought for a moment. Then, sliding a sheet of paper and a pen across the desk towards him, he said, ‘Show me what you can do. Draw me an anchorage protected by a reef, showing the depths and marking the best place where a vessel might lie.’
    Hector did as he was asked, and after Snead had inspected the little drawing, he rose from his chair and said cautiously, ‘Well . . . there may be something for you to do after all, for a few days at least. If you will follow me.’ He led Hector up a flight of stairs at the back of his shop and brought him into the room directly above. Its balcony looked out over the street. Here too was a broad table, apparently used for entertaining as it was set with pewter plates and mugs and there were several chairs and a bench beside it. Snead pushed aside the tableware to leave a clear space, and crossing to a chest standing in one corner lifted the lid and took out several sheets of parchment. He laid them on the table and began to leaf through them. ‘These are for the conveyancing lawyers and landowners,’ the architect explained. The top sheets were surveyor’s plans of what seemed to be plantations, and it was evident that an important part of the architect’s job was to make drawings that established the boundaries of newly cleared estates. These sheets Snead laid aside until he came to what was obviously a sea chart concealed among the other papers. The chart was in some detail for it extended across two sheets of parchment. Snead took just one of the pages and spread it out on the table. ‘Can you make a fair copy of that?’ he asked, peering over