‘He didn’t write it, he spoke it to me.’ Joseph made her jump, appearing suddenly before her on the path.

Hester put her hand to her heart. ‘You frightened me! Coming out of the gloaming like a ghost!’

‘He said: “No plague. Rooms ready. Whenever.”’

Hester smiled at the man’s frowning delivery. ‘Was that all?’

‘Absolutely all,’ he said. ‘I made sure I would remember it, and he heard me say it over and over a dozen times before I left.’

‘Thank you,’ Hester said. ‘Johnnie and Frances and I will help you with the tulips tomorrow.’

He nodded and went round the back of the house to the yard pump and the kitchen door. Hester sat alone, watching the last light leave the tops of the trees, the nodding flowers. When it grew cold she rose to her feet and went towards the door. ‘John,’ she said softly. ‘I wish you would come home.’

Summer 1643, Virginia

The days that followed John’s arrival in the Indian village fell into a routine as orderly as the smooth running of John’s English home. In the morning Suckahanna’s boy would waken him with one of the smooth black bowls filled with hot water for washing. Outside his hut, in the cool dawn light, John would see the People coming and going as they went down to the river for the morning prayer.

When they returned John would look for Suckahanna, her face bright as she walked beside her husband, his son at one side, her baby strapped on her back. The boy was Suckahanna’s shadow and she seemed to know his whereabouts, without even turning her head to look for him. It was as if, when she adopted him and married his father, she had made a bond with him that stretched over any distance but was as palpable as touch.

Before he was allowed to eat the boy had marksman training. Suckahanna plucked a piece of moss from a tree and threw it in the air for him. Not until his little arrow had pierced the falling moss could the boy eat his breakfast. Some mornings Suckahanna was out under the trees with him for three, four, five attempts before John heard her word of praise and the quick touch of her fingers on his dark head.

‘He had no mother for his early years,’ she explained to John. ‘He has much to learn.’

‘Why did his father not teach him?’ John asked. He was tempted to complain of Suckahanna’s husband, to make him look foolish in her eyes. She just tossed her head and laughed. ‘Bringing a child into the world is work for a woman,’ she said simply. ‘A man cannot do it.’