‘Oh, the harlot and her daughter,’ Mr Joseph said, remembering. ‘No. They must have gone into the woods. I’ve not seen them.’

John had expected anything but this blank refusal. ‘But … but you must have?’

Mr Joseph shook his head. ‘No. D’you want another guide?’

‘I want that girl!’

The man shrugged. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’

John thought rapidly. ‘How could I find her? D’you know of other Indians who come in from the forest who might know her?’

Mr Joseph shook his head again. ‘They’re settling down at last,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘The ones who have been taken into service are kept here, in town, or safe on the plantations. The ones who have kept to the forest are pushed back, almost every day, further and further away from the river, away from the coast. We’re cleaning the land of them. We’re getting them out of the way. If she’s out in the forest with them you’ll not see her again. She could be over the mountains or the other side of York River by now if she’s got any sense.’ He paused for a moment. ‘What d’you want her for?’

‘I promised I would take her into my service,’ John said smoothly. ‘I said when I came back and built my house she could come to work for me. She’s skilled with plants.’

‘They’re all skilled with plants,’ Mr Joseph said. ‘Get another one.’

Every new immigrant to Virginia was awarded a headright of land, fifty acres a person. John, arriving for the second time, was awarded a further fifty acres, marked solemnly on a map held in the new building of the burgesses’ assembly. His father had been persuaded to purchase two headrights when the Virginia Company was founded, so John had his land put together in one spreading acreage of two hundred acres: as big as an English farm. It was upriver from Jamestown, not the most desirable of sites since the tobacco ships would not go too far upstream. The earliest assignments had all been around Jamestown or downriver. Latecoming planters had to ship their goods in their own boats downriver to Jamestown and catch the ocean-going boats there.

John looked carefully at the burgesses’ map. The lines of rivers and mountains were indistinct and vague. The only part of the country that John knew well was the woods where he had lived for the month with Suckahanna, and they were indicated with a rough scribble suggesting inlets and islands and swampy ground. It hardly mattered. There was so much land to be had in the new colony that disputes over boundaries had been left behind in overcrowded England. No-one in this new huge country was going to quibble over a mile to the east or ten miles to the west, scale was a different thing in this vast emptiness.