There was another scream and all the braves flung their arms around each other’s shoulders and swayed together, their feet pounding to their bellowing laugh.

A woman came to Suckahanna’s doorway. Suckahanna pushed back the deerskin and came outside.

‘What are the men doing tonight?’ the woman asked.

Suckahanna shrugged with a smile which said at once, ‘Men!’ and said, ‘How I love him!’ and said, ‘How impossible he is!’

‘How should I know?’ she asked.

The half-sacred silence of the sweat lodge calmed them and the exhaustion of the day took its toll. They sat against the walls illuminated by the glowing coals, eyes shut, soaking up the healing heat, sweating out the aches and pains. Every now and then one of the braves would grimace and giggle and then there would be a little ripple of laughter.

They stayed in the heat for a long time until their sinuses were hot and dry, until the very bones of their faces were filled with heat. John could feel the bruise on his head swelling like a maggot and the hoof print on his chest growing dark and tender. He did not care. He cared for nothing but the deep, sensual pleasure of this heat and rest.

After a long, long while, Attone rose to his feet and stretched himself like a cat, every vertebra in his backbone extending. He put out a peremptory hand to John and spoke in Powhatan. ‘Come, my brother.’

John looked up, saw the proffered hand and reached up his own to clasp it. Attone pulled him to his feet and for a moment the men stood side by side, hand-clasped, looking deep into each other’s eyes with a measuring, honest look of respect and affection.

Attone led the way out of the sweat lodge. ‘I have a name for you, your tribal name,’ Attone said. ‘You cannot be John Tradescant any more. You are a brave now.’

John took in the full meaning. So he was accepted. ‘What shall my name be?’ he asked.

‘Eagle,’ Attone announced.

The grandness of the name caused a murmur of admiration from the other braves at the honour being done to John.

‘Eagle?’

‘Yes. Because you kill a deer by dropping on it from the sky.’

There was a scream of uncontrollable laughter and the men were clinging to each other for support again, John in the centre, Attone with his arms around him. ‘Eagle!’ the braves said. ‘Mighty hunter!’ ‘He who falls like an eagle without warning!’

They turned and ran down to the river together to wash. The women pulled the smaller children out of the way of the laughing, shouting men. They plunged into the river together and splashed like boys before huskanaw. Then Attone caught sight of a shadowy tall figure on the riverbank and straightened up and looked serious.