“Only a couple of hours until dawn,” Lawrence observed. “We should probably make use of the accommodation while we can.” He laid back on the settle, stretched out his legs and drew his coat about him. “So what’s our next move?”

“Continue north; head for Canada. With luck, we’ll make it before the weather turns.”

Lawrence tucked his head on to his chest. “Splendid. And did you have a particular route planned?”

Hawkwood summoned the Lewis map to mind. “Maybe. It’ll depend on the state of the roads. There’s been heavy flooding along some stretches of highway. We might have to make it up as we go.”

Lawrence folded his arms, snuggled down and let out a low chuckle. “Ha, nothing new there, eh?”

“Story of my life, Major,” Hawkwood said.

But he was talking to himself. Lawrence was already asleep.

It had been four days since the old man’s passing.

The entire village had turned out for the feast in honour of their departed brother and prophet, Ayonhwathah. Now, in the pale light of morning, they gathered to watch as the deceased’s relatives accompanied the body from the long-house to the waiting scaffold.

With great solemnity, the corpse bearers carried the litter through the village and out to the place that had been chosen at the edge of the forest. The mourners followed closely behind, many weeping openly as the procession made its way towards the ten-foot-high elm-bark platform. The scaffold timbers creaked as the blanket-wrapped bundle was laid to rest and his weapons – hunting knife, tomahawk, war club and carbine – were placed alongside him. When the final items had been added – a pipe and a full tobacco pouch – a black bear skin was drawn across the corpse to protect it from the wind, rain and snow.

Perched in the surrounding trees, a flock of crows fixed their gimlet-bright eyes upon the small baskets of food that hung from the scaffold; left there to sustain the deceased’s spirit on its journey into the afterlife.

When all the baskets and the water pots had been secured, the ladder was taken down and the funeral fire was lit. The fire was neither large nor fierce enough to consume the corpse, for that was not its purpose. It was there to deter scavengers and to help the dead man’s spirit prepare the food.

When the flames had been reduced to small flickering tongues, the mourners turned and with heavy hearts began to wend their way back towards the village, their lamentations gradually fading in volume as they re-entered their houses, where the grieving would continue.

On the evening of the ninth day Kodjeote left his bed to tend the funeral fire. The night was dark and clear and bitterly cold, and the ground, already veneered with a thin frost, crackled beneath his feet.