Publisher's Synopsis
As the boy-king, Edward VI, lays dying in Greenwich Palace, three ships set sail from London to find a new route to China across the North Pole. At their helm is Richard Chancellor, a reluctant pilot-general who is more scholar than sailor. He must leave his entire life behind him: his work, his family and his beautiful, wealthy lover, Kate Thomas. When the ships are forced to land in uncharted Arctic lands, a plucky cabin-boy named Arthur Petty is taken in by a native Sami tribe after his shipmates abandon him.
