‘We’ll start with this,’ Sir Henry said cautiously. ‘I’ll give you the note of credit and you can buy some carpets and some glass for me, and then I’ll send you a few hogsheads of sugar and you can see if you can obtain a better price for me than my normal agent. And then you can send me some more goods. Rarities are no use locked up in a cabinet, you know. They should be traded.’

John nodded. ‘I should be glad to do a little trading,’ he said. ‘My father’s rarities have to stay together in the collection we have made. But if you shoot any strange birds I should be glad of their skins and their feathers.’

‘I’ve got some trophies,’ Sir Henry said without any great interest. ‘I could sell them to you.’

‘I have no money until I am at home,’ John said awkwardly.

‘Note of credit,’ Sir Henry said equably. ‘We all do it by notes of credit all the time. Just as well there are no damned thieving Jews to redeem the notes before the sugar crop is in, eh?’

By the time John sailed he had a new shrub, a most curious and delightful plant which the islanders called the tree of life because it acted like a living thing, shrinking away when touched. He had a couple of roots of the cabbage tree, and a dozen skins and feathers including a rather fine specimen of the West Indian kingfisher which Sir Henry donated for free. ‘Just do me some decent business, when you are in England,’ he grumbled. ‘An honest agent in London is as rare as a virtuous woman. Which is to say, rare enough to put in your collection.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ John said politely and watched Sir Henry recede into the distance without any regret as the ship slipped her ropes and drifted away from the shore.

Spring 1646, London

It was a homecoming as ordinary as any man might wish. John hired a carter at London dock to carry his barrels of seeds and roots, the two barrels of saplings, the chest of Barbados goods, and sat up on the wooden seat at the front of the cart as they jolted up the frozen lanes to Lambeth.

‘What’s the news of the war?’ John asked.

‘You’ll have heard that Chester surrendered?’

‘No?’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Virginia,’ John said. ‘Is the king truly defeated?’

‘Humbled to dust,’ the carter said feelingly. ‘And now pray God we can see some peace and order in this land and that crew of parasites run back to Rome where they came from.’

John tried to say ‘Amen’, but found the word did not come out. ‘I’ll pray for peace,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough of war for a lifetime.’