‘I don’t know the ways of the country …’ J said uneasily. ‘I would rather have a law-abiding guide –’

The governor laughed. ‘They’re all rogues and criminals,’ he said simply. ‘They’re all pagan. If you want to go out into the forest with any one of them you take your life in your own hands. If I had my way we should have driven them over the Blue Mountains into the western sea. Just over the distant mountains there – drive them back to India.’

J blinked, but the governor rose to his feet in his enthusiasm. ‘My plan is that we should plant the land from one river to the other – from the James River to the Patowmeck River – and then build a mighty fence and push them behind it, expel them from Eden as if we were archangels with flaming swords. Let them take their sins elsewhere. There’ll be no peace for us until we are undisputed masters of all the land we can see.’

He broke off. ‘But you must take your choice, Mr Tradescant. The only people who know anything of plants or trees in Virginia are the Indians and they may slit your throat once you are in the woods with them. Stay here, safe inside the city, and go home empty-handed; or take your chance. It is a matter of complete indifference to me. I cannot rescue you if you are in the woods with them, whatever the king asks of me, whatever safe passes you have in your pocket.’

J hesitated. He had a moment to appreciate the irony that he had thought he might die on the voyage and had welcomed the thought of his own death, which he had recognised as the only thing to ease his grief. But the thought of meeting his death violently and in fear in unknown woods at the hands of murderous pagans was a different matter altogether.

‘I’ll speak to this Mr Joseph,’ he said at last. ‘See what he advises.’

‘As you wish,’ the governor said languidly. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay in Virginia. Please assure His Majesty that I did everything in my power to assist you, when you get home; if you get home.’

‘Thank you,’ J said levelly, bowed and left the room.

The maid would not take him even for the short walk to Mr Joseph’s house until she had tied a shawl around her shoulders and put a broad-brimmed hat on her head.

‘It’s cool,’ J protested. ‘And the sun is not even overhead.’

She shot him a swift defensive look. ‘There are bugs that bite and a sun which strikes you down, and the heat that comes off the marshes,’ she warned. ‘The graveyard is full of men who thought that the Virginia sun was not yet up, or that the water was good enough to drink.’