‘Lie still, Englishman,’ the old man said, his speech perfect, his diction Oxford-pure. ‘Lie still like a fool. Did you think we would give our daughter to a man with half a heart?’

‘I love her,’ John said. ‘I swear it.’

The two old men got slowly to their feet.

‘Love is not enough,’ said the old man. ‘You need custom and kinship as well. Love her all you like. There is no shame in it. But choose your people and stay with them. That is the path of a brave.’

Without another word the old men went out, their bare feet passing within an inch of John’s face. He lay on the skins, the very symbol of a man brought low, and let them walk past him.

It grew dark. John lay still. He did not notice the thickening of the light and the spreading shadows on the wall. He heard the distant sound of singing and knew that dinner had been cooked and eaten and that Suckahanna’s people were at the dancing circle, singing down the moon, singing the fine weather in, singing the herds of deer towards them, singing the fish into the weirs and the seeds strong and tall out of the ground. John lay face down in the skins and neither wished nor wept. He knew his own emptiness.

A light came to the doorway, a twig of burning candlewood, bright as the best wax in London. Beneath it, half-lit, half-shadowed, was Suckahanna.

‘You told them you did not want me?’ she asked from the doorway.

‘I failed a test,’ John said. He sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. He felt immensely weary. ‘They said I should have to fight against my own people and I could not agree to do it.’

‘Very well.’ She turned to go.

‘Suckahanna!’ he cried and the desperation and passion in his voice would have made any woman pause but a woman of the Powhatan. She did not even hesitate. She did not drag her feet. She went out as lightly stepping as if she were about to join a dance. John leaped up from the floor and ran out after her. She must have heard him coming, she knew the rhythm of his stride from her girlhood, but she did not hesitate nor look around. She walked without breaking her pace down the little street to her own house, parted the deerskin at the door and slipped inside without even glancing back.

John skidded to a standstill and felt an urge to scream and hammer his fist through the wall of the light, beautifully made house. He took a sobbing breath and turned towards the fire at the dancing circle.