Currently, his entire arm and shoulder ached like the devil – the cold didn’t help – but Hawkwood knew the Governor was only being polite when he’d asked after his health. It was what politicians and commanding officers did by way of conversation when they couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Capital! And your … ah, other companion, Chief … Tewanias?” Sir George frowned. “Declined the services of de Salaberry’s surgeon, I understand; preferred to be treated by his own people. Is that right?”

Not exactly, Hawkwood thought, but it would have been splitting hairs to contradict.

“Can’t say as I blame him; some of the army butchers I’ve come across over the years,” Sir George added good-naturedly, moving to the fire and turning his rear to the flames. He fixed Hawkwood with a keen stare. “Will he fight for us?”

“Sir?”

“Chief Tewanias. Will he fight for us?”

Hawkwood considered his reply. “The Lacolle engagement cost him some of his best warriors. His village is not large. It can’t afford to lose that many men. He’d prefer it if he didn’t have to fight at all.”

“I fear that die was cast the moment he agreed to side with you and Major Lawrence,” Sir George said grimly.

“He’s aware of that,” Hawkwood said, more curtly than he had intended.

Sir George appeared not to notice. “He knows there is land for them here in Canada?”

“He does.”

Sir George, Hawkwood had discovered, wore three hats. As well as being Governor-General and Commander of the British Forces, he was also Superintendent of Indian Affairs and therefore responsible for overseeing the relations between the British government and the First Nations.

“The Americans are unlikely to accept his village’s neutrality now that blood’s been spilt,” Sir George said, lifting his coat-tails to be closer to the fire’s warmth.

“He knows that, too, sir.”

“He fought for us before, didn’t he?”

Hawkwood knew the information would have been in de Salaberry’s dispatch. “It was a long time ago.”

“Then let us hope old loyalties die hard,” Sir George murmured. “History will remind him that the Americans cannot be trusted. They’ll never let him rest. Not now.”

Once a warrior, Hawkwood thought, always a warrior.

“And we would be negligent if we did not try to take advantage of that fact,” Sir George said, throwing Hawkwood a meaningful look.

Anger flared briefly in Hawkwood’s chest but then subsided as it occurred to him that he was hardly in a position to pass judgement. Sir George’s statement and the argument that Lawrence and he had put to the council when they’d asked Tewanias for help were not that far removed from one another.