The braves clutched his arms, there was no chance of escape, and marched him towards the block. John kicked out and swore but they held him, the sheer weight of them forcing his head down and down till his chin met the pitiless coolness of the skilfully shaped wood and he felt his body recognise the place of his death.

‘God forgive me my sins,’ John whispered. ‘And keep my children and Hester safe. God forgive me, God forgive me.’ He closed his eyes for a moment against the horror and then he opened them again and looked for Suckahanna. The women had released her and she was standing stock still among them, her face as white as an Englishwoman’s with terror.

‘Suckahanna,’ John said softly.

He tried to smile at her, to reassure her that there was, even now, no bad blood between them, no regrets and no reproaches. But he knew that he could only bare his teeth, that all she would see was his skull beneath the rictus of the smile, that soon she would see the white of his skull as they peeled back his forehead to cut the trophy of his scalp.

The pressure on his back and his neck was gradually released as the men sensed his surrender. John rolled his eyes to look for the executioner and his axe, and saw instead a great war club, beautifully made and counterweighted, and the man holding it, waiting for the signal to step forward and pound John’s head into fragments.

His courage failed him completely then, he felt warm water gush between his legs. He heard a little wail which was his own voice of terror.

The werowance lifted his ornate ceremonial spear, the black feathers on his arms rustled like pinions, like a black angel he stood between John and the rising sun, and his face was filled with joy.

The spear fell. The war club rolled back on the upswing, and John waited for the blow.

Something hit him hard, and his whole tortured body flinched from the impact, but it was not a war club to the head, it was the full weight of Suckahanna, broken free of the circle of women, diving across the dancing ground to lie along his back, one knee in his piss, her hair falling over his flinching spine, her head above his, her chin on his skull, offering herself on the block.

The executioner was too late to stop his downswing, he could only shift it to one side, and the mighty club thudded, like a cannon ball, into the beaten mud of the dancing ground. John felt the whistle of its passing lift the hair of his beard, opened his eyes and looked towards the werowance.

The old man was serene. He raised his spear and spoke as quietly as ever.