It was the smell of woodsmoke clean on the air, unmixed with any other scent, that threw John backwards; he physically recoiled and collided with the man trotting behind him. It was such an English smell. Woodsmoke for the Powhatan was the scent of the interior of their huts, mingled with the smell of cooking, of children, of people sitting around. The smell of smoke from a sooty chimney was the smell of an English homestead.

The man behind shoved John abruptly in the back but did not utter a single sound. John touched Attone’s shoulder. ‘I cannot do it,’ he said.

Attone turned and his glance was as cold as the blade of a knife on bare skin. ‘What?’

‘I cannot do it. I cannot go in and kill my people.’

‘Do you want me to kill you now?’

Dumbly John shook his head.

‘The others will kill you if I do not.’

John leaned forwards as if he would take Attone in his arms and lie his unhappy face against the man’s shoulder. ‘They must then. Because I cannot do it.’

‘Will you wait here while we do it?’

John nodded.

‘And not cry out, nor run off?’

John nodded again.

‘My brother will stand guard,’ Attone said simply to the others. ‘Follow me.’

The men trotted past John without a glance at him. He leaned back against a tree, a useless guard, a faithless friend, a broken warrior, and a shamed husband.

They were quick and clean. There was one surprised cry and no more, and in moments they came back, Attone wiping his shell-bladed knife on a piece of European muslin. ‘Go on,’ he said briskly to the others.

They nodded and turned to the trail again. One man had something in his hand. Attone reached out and smacked it down. A stone bottle fell to the ground and rolled away. Attone kicked it with his foot so that it spun round and round, spilling out the raw spirit and making the air stink. Then he turned to John.

‘Can you find your way back to Suckahanna at the village?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then go back there. Wait till the men return.’

‘She won’t have me,’ John said certainly.

‘No,’ Attone said. ‘We none of us will want you, Eagle.’ He paused as a thought struck him. ‘What was your name? Before you were my brother the Eagle?’

‘I was John Tradescant,’ John said, the name unfamiliar on his tongue.

‘Then you will have to be him again,’ Attone said flatly. ‘Now go to Suckahanna before someone kills you.’

‘I am sorry –’ John started.

‘Go to Suckahanna before I kill you myself,’ Attone said abruptly, and disappeared into the darkness.

The village was guarded by Attone’s son, who recognised John’s footfall and called into the grey dawn: ‘Is that you, Eagle?’

‘No,’ John said. His voice was flat and weary. ‘You must call me John.’