‘I’m telling you that I will be away for a while,’ John said patiently. ‘I am asking you to watch Suckahanna for me and fetch me if she is in any need. She will not send for me; she is angry with me. She would not send for me even if she needed me.’

‘She will be in no need. The game is coming back, the fish are spawning. What would she need you for? You can go to your smelly friends.’

John gritted his teeth. ‘If one of the People was in trouble you would go to his help.’

‘Hobert is not one of the People. He is not one of mine.’

John hesitated. ‘Nor is he mine,’ he said, conscious of the pain of divided loyalty. ‘But I cannot see him fail or fall sick or die of hunger. He was good to me once, and I have made him a promise.’

‘This is a path in a circle,’ Attone said cheerfully. ‘You are wandering like a man snow-blind, round and round. What is blinding you, Eagle? Why can you not walk straight?’

‘Because I am pulled two ways,’ John said grimly.

‘Then cut one string,’ Attone said briskly. ‘Before it tangles around your feet and brings you down.’ He rose to his feet and loped down the river towards the fish weir without looking back.

The Hoberts’ house was amid a sea of green. Bertram had started planting the fields which ran between the house and the river and the absurd flop-leaved plants were three rows thick before the house.

‘John, thank God you’ve come!’ Hobert said, kneeling. ‘I was afraid you would fail us.’

‘Mr Tradescant, you are very welcome!’ Sarah said from further down the row.

John, hot in his reclaimed breeches and shirt, waved at them both.

‘You should have a hat to shield you from the sun,’ Sarah scolded. ‘Men have died of sunstroke in this country.’

John put his hand to his face and felt the heat radiating from his flushed skin. ‘It’s these clothes,’ he said. ‘How can anyone wear wool in this country in spring?’

‘It’s the vapours in the air,’ Sarah said firmly. ‘When we next go to Jamestown I will buy you a hat. We’ve only just come back from town.’

‘There was a letter for you,’ Bertram said, remembering. ‘I went into Jamestown to buy a hoe and to collect some money sent me from England. I called in at your inn and there was a letter for you there.’

‘For me?’ John asked.

‘It’s inside. I put it under the mattress you used last time to keep it safe.’

John put his hand to his head.

‘There you are! Sunstroke!’ Sarah exclaimed triumphantly.

‘No,’ John said. ‘I just feel … It is so odd to have a letter …’