At a signal from Opechancanough, seated on his throne, dark as a shadow in the moonlight, the men moved off, making as little noise as a herd of wolves, silent in their moccasins, their quivers held still at their sides, their bows strung over their shoulders. The moonlight touched each one like a benison, the white gleam falling on a feather plaited into dark hair, on a pale old scar on one high cheekbone, on a smile of excitement, on the gleam of burnished skin. John went silently in Attone’s steps, watching the pace of his moccasins, the movement of his haunches beneath the leather skirt, concentrating wholly on the moment of the journey so he could hide from himself the knowledge of the destination.

They were to split into two main parties. One was to travel by canoe downriver to Jamestown, taking advantage of the night to move swiftly and to form a pincer around the town by dawn. The other was to go by land either side of the river, and at every house and cabin, every grand, ambitious building and hopeful shack, they were to go in and kill every man, woman and child in the place, leaving none to escape, and none to take the news downriver.

John was in the land party, Attone with him. He thought that Opechancanough was testing his loyalty to the Powhatan by putting him in the group that would kill so early and so immediately – and not against the fighting men at the fort, but against the vulnerable, sleeping men and women with their children bundled up in the same bed beside them. But then he realised that Opechancanough had placed him where, if he were faithless, he could do no damage. He was at the rear, he could not dash ahead and warn Jamestown. All he could do was botch a few killings upriver and get himself shot.

They came upon a little house near dawn. It was set back from the river on a rise of ground, just as John had built his own house, just as Bertram Hobert had built his. Before it was a little cottage garden, neglected and overgrown, and between it and the river were long fields of tobacco, the plants set in straight rows and growing well. A little quay stretched out into the river for loading the tobacco to sail downriver to Jamestown. No light shone in the window and only a wisp of smoke showed that someone had banked the fire in overnight so that it would be hot to cook the morning breakfast.