Hawkwood nodded. “You may think me unpatriotic or a bloody fool, but it strikes me Tewanias’s people have more right to this land than either King George or Congress. They’ve fought for it, tended it, built their villages, raised their families and yet it’s been stolen from them. What you see is all they have left – and if the Americans have their way, they’re not even going to have this. They’ve become exiles, Major; exiles in their own damned country.”

For a long moment, Lawrence was silent. Then he said quietly, “I saw the way you and Tewanias talk to one another. This is not the first time you and he have met, is it?”

“No.”

Lawrence absorbed that, then said, “There was a word you used when you were speaking with him, when you asked for his help. Rag … rargay … something?”

“Rake’niha,” Hawkwood said. “It means ‘my father’.”

As the ramifications of that statement sank in, Lawrence let out a gasp.

“It’s time we talked,” Hawkwood said.

“You lived with them for how long?”

“Eight years, nearly.”

Lawrence stared back at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Not what you were expecting?” Hawkwood said.

Lawrence shook his head. “How could it be? I’ll be damned! It’s not often I’m at a loss, but this time … you actually lived as one of them!” Lawrence’s brow furrowed. “But why didn’t Tewanias deliver you safe home?”

“He did. He took me to his home.”

Lawrence spread his hands. “I meant to Canada, an English home.”

“He was honouring the promise Gil Wyatt made to Will Archer: that he’d keep me safe. Wyatt placed me in Tewanias’s care. Tewanias saw it as his obligation to a friend. Besides, what English home would that have been? The Archers weren’t my blood relatives, but after my father, they were the only family I’d known. There was no one else. If I had been taken north, I’d have been placed in an orphanage or a workhouse and left there. Tewanias decided the best thing for me was to remain with him, and that’s what happened. I was adopted into his clan.”

“There was no animosity towards you, being white?”

“Adoption’s common practice among the Iroquois. Or it used to be. The Nations have always known that, if they’re to survive, the population has to be maintained. War, tribal disputes, disease, old age, they all have an effect. They’d adopt to replenish the blood, taking in prisoners captured in battle or refugees seeking sanctuary from other tribes. They don’t discriminate. Black, white, Indian – makes no difference.”

“But what about …” Lawrence began helplessly, as if searching for something to ask, yet not knowing where to begin: “… schooling?”