They went and Hawksworth had ordered the first round. When the tankards arrived, Huyghen attacked his thirstily, maintaining a cynical silence as Hawksworth began describing the Company's planned voyage, then asked him what he knew of the passage east and north of the Cape. As soon as his first tankard was dry, the old man spoke. "Aye, I made the passage once, wi' Portugals. Back in'83. To Goa. An' I've been to the Indies many a time since, wi' Dutchmen. But ne'er again to that pissin' sinkhole." "But what about the passage north, through the Indian Ocean?" "I'll tell you this, lad, 'tis a sight different from shootin' down to Java, like the Company's done before. 'Tis the roughest passage you're e'er like to ship. Portugals post bottoms twice the burden o' the Company's damn'd little frigates and still lose a hundred men e'ery voyage out. When scurvy don't take 'em all. E'en the Dutchmen are scared o' it." Then Huyghen returned to his stories of Goa. Something in the experience seemed to preoccupy his mind. Hawksworth found the digression irritating, and he impatiently pressed forward. "But what about the passage? How do they steer north from the Cape? The Company has no charts, no rutters by pilots who've made the passage." "An' how could they?" Huyghen evaluated Hawksworth's purse lying on the wooden table and discreetly signaled another round. "The Portugals know the trick, lad, but you'll ne'er find one o' the whoremasters who'll give it out." "But is there a trade wind you can ride? Like the westerly to the Americas?" "Nothin' o' the sort, lad. But there's a wind sure enough. Only she shifts about month by month. Give me that chart an' I'll show you." Huyghen stretched for the parchment Hawksworth had brought, the new Map of the World published by John Davis in 1600. He spread it over the table, oblivious to the grease and encrusted ale, and stared at it for a moment in groggy disbelief. Then he turned on Hawksworth. "Who drew up this map?" "It was assembled by an English navigator, from charts he made on his voyages." "He's the lyin' son of a Spaniard's whore. I made this chart o' the Indies wi' my own hand, years ago, for the Dutchmen. But what's the difference? He copied it right." Huyghen spat on the floor and then stabbed the east coast of Africa with a stubby finger. "Now you come out o' the Mozambique Channel and into the Indian Ocean too early in the summer, and you'll be the only bottom fool enough to be out o' port. The monsoon'll batter you to plankin'. Get there too late, say past the middle o' September, and you're fightin' a head wind all the way. She's already turn'd on you. But come north round by Sokatra near the end o' August and you'll ride a steady gale right into North India. That's the tail o' the monsoon, lad, just before the winds switch about. Two weeks, three at most, that's all you'll get. But steer it true an' you'll make landfall just as India's ports reopen for the autumn tradin' season."