Meanwhile in Jamestown the governor was mustering all the able-bodied men and hunting dogs to counter-attack. He had promised the colonists a fight to the death, a solution once and for all.

‘We have to move,’ Attone said as soon as all the men had returned. ‘Deeper into the forest, perhaps across the river and into the wet creeks. Once the village is safely hidden we can come out again and fight.’

The women went to the houses at once to start packing. ‘And the crops in the fields?’ Suckahanna asked him.

He made a gesture which told her that they were lost. ‘Perhaps later. Perhaps we can come back,’ he said.

They exchanged a sharp, hard look. He took in the hardness of the lines around her mouth and John, hovering helplessly behind her.

‘You are hurt,’ she said.

‘Just bruised. You?’

She turned away. ‘Just bruised.’

They travelled all day. Once, when they paused, they heard a hunting horn and the baying of a dog. It was the governor Sir William Berkeley’s hounds on the track, hunting Indians would be the colonists’ great sport this season.

They crossed the river at once, the children riding on the shoulders of the men, the women wading through chest-high, rapid-flowing water without a whisper of complaint, and crossed it again, then Attone led them on at a steady run.

John was in the rear, helping the old men and women keep up, carrying burdens for them. Suckahanna had told no-one of what had passed between her and her husband, but she did not need to speak. Everyone could see that the Eagle was not at the side of his friend, not at the side of his wife. Everyone could see that he was a dead man to Attone, to Suckahanna, as surely as if he had gone into Jamestown and fought like a brave and died like a hero. So they let him carry their goods or hold them steady in the river as if he were a rock or a tree, or something of use. But they did not speak to him, nor smile at him, nor even look into his eyes.

All day they travelled as Attone led them closer to the sea, where the mosquitoes rose in clouds from the sodden grass and reeds and the trees bowed down low over dark, silty, salty water. At night they found some ground only a little higher than the tidewash. ‘Here,’ Attone said. ‘Make shelters but no fires.’

An old woman died in the night, and they piled a heap of stones over her face.

‘We move on,’ Attone said.