J said nothing. He thought of his father who had travelled half way round the world and never came back without his pockets filled with treasures. He thought of the debts at home which would be mounting and only his father and two young children to care for the business of nursery plants and rarities.

‘Then I shall have to go out alone. On my own. For I must go home with plants and rarities.’

‘I can give you an Indian girl,’ the man said abruptly. ‘Her mother is in prison for slander. She’s only in for the month. You can have the child for a month.’

‘What good will a child be?’ J demanded.

The man smiled. ‘This is an Indian child,’ he corrected. ‘One of the Powhatan people. She can pass through the trees as quiet as a deer. She can cross deep rivers by stepping on stones that you cannot even see. She can eat off the land: berries, roots, nuts, the earth itself. She’ll know every single plant and every single tree within a hundred miles of here. You can have her for a month, then bring her back.’

He threw back his head and shouted an order. From the yard outside came an answering shout and the back door opened and a child was thrust into the room, her hands still full of the flax which she had been beating.

‘Take her!’ Mr Joseph said irritably. ‘She understands some English, enough to do your bidding anyway, she’s not deaf, but she’s dumb. She can make noises but not speech. Her mother is a whore for the English soldiers, or a servant, or a cook, or something. She’s in prison for a month for complaining of rape. The girl knows enough to understand you. Take her for a month and bring her back here three weeks on Thursday. Her mother comes out of prison then and she’ll want her back.’

He waved the girl towards J and she stepped slowly, unwillingly forward.

‘And don’t rape her,’ he warned matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t want a half-breed baby nine months from now. Just order her to find your plants and bring you back within the month.’

The magistrate waved them both from the room and J found himself on the doorstep in the bright morning sunlight with the girl like a shadow at his elbow. He turned and looked at her.