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Hester enjoyed the expression on the cavalier’s face. ‘We keep the rare ones potted up,’ she said. ‘These are only garden tulips. I can show you the rarities, we keep them in our orangery.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ he said softly. He was walking between the tulip beds, scanning them, bending to read the labels and then going on. ‘I had heard you were great gardeners, but I thought you worked on the palace gardens.’

  ‘We do,’ Hester said. ‘We did,’ she corrected herself. ‘But we had to have our own garden to stock the palace gardens, and we have always sold our stock.’

  He nodded, paced the length of the bed, kneeled down and then got up again. Hester noted the dirt on the knees of his grey suit and that he did not trouble to brush it off. She recognised at once the signs of a besotted tulip enthusiast and a man accustomed to employing others to keep his clothes smart.

  ‘And what rarities do you have?’ he asked.

  ‘We have a Lack tulip, a Duck tulip, Agatha tulips, Violetten.’ She broke off at the eagerness in his face.

  ‘I’ve never seen them,’ he said. ‘D’you have them here?’

  ‘This way,’ Hester said pleasantly, and led him towards the house. Johnnie came running out and checked at the sight of the stranger. He gave a neat bow and the man smiled at him.

  ‘My stepson,’ Hester said. ‘John Tradescant.’

  ‘And will you be a gardener too?’ the man asked.

  ‘I am a gardener already,’ Johnnie replied. ‘I am going to be a cavalry officer.’

  Hester scowled a warning at him but the man nodded pleasantly enough. ‘I’m in that line of work myself,’ he said. ‘I’m in the cavalry for the Parliament army.’

  ‘That John Lambert!’ Hester exclaimed and then flushed and wished she had the sense to be silent. She had read about the talents of the cavalry leader who was said to be the equal of Prince Rupert, but she had not pictured him as a young man, smiling in spring sunshine, and devoted to tulips.

  He grinned at her. ‘Shall I keep a place among my officers for you, Master Tradescant?’

  Johnnie flushed and looked awkward. ‘The thing is –’

  ‘He is too young to be thinking of such things,’ Hester intervened. ‘Now … the tulips –’

  John Lambert did not move. ‘What is the thing?’ he asked Johnnie gently.

  ‘The thing is that I am in the king’s service,’ Johnnie said seriously. ‘My family have always been gardeners to the royal palaces, and we have not yet been dismissed. So I suppose I am in the king’s service, and I can’t, in honour, join you. But I thank you for the invitation, sir.’

  Lambert smiled. ‘Perhaps by the time you are old enough to ride with me there will be a country united, and only one army and one cavalry and all you will have to choose is your horse and the colour of the feather in your hat,’ he suggested diplomatically. ‘And both Prince Rupert and I will be proud to serve under the same colours.’

  He straightened up and looked over Johnnie’s head at Hester’s concerned expression. ‘Please don’t fear, Mrs Tradescant,’ he said. ‘I am here to buy tulips, not to cause you a moment’s uneasiness. Loyalty is a difficult path to tread and these are difficult times. You may well garden in a royal palace once more and I may yet dance off a royal scaffold. Or I might be the new Chief Justice and you Mayor of London. Let’s just look at some tulips, shall we?’

  The warmth of his smile was irresistible. Hester smiled in reply and directed him to the terrace where the tulips stood in their beautiful ceramic pots. Warmed by the sunshine and sheltered in the orangery at night, these were more developed than those in the bed and they were showing the colours in their petals.

  ‘Now these are our rarities,’ she said. ‘These are green parrot tulips, very special.’ Hester indicated the ragged fringe on the green petals. ‘And these are Paragon Liefkens, they have a wonderful broken colour – red and white or red and yellow. The Semper Augustus comes from this family but excels them in shape, it has the true tulip shape and the best broken colour. Here are the Violetten, they come in a different colour in every bulb, very unpredictable and difficult to grow a consistent strain: they can be as pale as a bough of lilac or a true, deep purple-blue like violets. If you were interested in developing your own strain –’ She glanced at him and saw the avidity in his face.

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘Then these are the ones I would choose. To get a consistent deep purple would be a wonderful thing to do. Gardeners would thank you forever. And here,’ she led the way to the shelter of the terrace and the tulips standing proudly in the precious pots, ‘these are our Semper Augustus. We believe them to be the only Sempers in England. My father-in-law bought them and gave one to the queen. When she left the palace my husband brought it back here. As far as I know, no-one else has a Semper.’

  Lambert’s attention was all that she could have desired. He squatted down so his dark head was on a level with the scarlet and white flower. ‘May I touch?’

  ‘Gently,’ Hester assented.

  He put out a fingertip, the ruby on his hand winked at the scarlet of the petal and he noticed the match of the colour at once. The red of the petal was as shiny as silk shot through with white. One flower, a little more mature than the others, was open and he peered into the cup to see the exotic darkness of the stamens and the sooty black of the pollen.

  ‘Exquisite,’ he breathed. ‘This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.’

  Hester smiled. Johnnie glanced up at her and winked. They both knew what would come next.

  ‘How much?’ John Lambert asked.

  ‘Johnnie, go and ask Cook for some shortbread and a glass of wine for our guest,’ Hester commanded. ‘And bring me some notepaper and a pen. You will want to place a large order, Mr Lambert?’

  He looked up at her and grinned, the confident smile of a handsome man whose life is going well for him. ‘You may command my fortune, Mrs Tradescant.’

  Summer 1645, Virginia

  John thought that the life at the new village in the creeks would become easier once the crops yielded and the hunting improved, and the fruits were ripe in the forest. When the good weather came there was indeed enough food for everyone; but the easy contentment of the old village life was lost. They dug out a pit and built a new sweat lodge, and dedicated a new dancing circle. They built a grain store and the women made the tall, smooth black jars to hold the dried peas and seeds and maize which would see them through the winter; but the joy that John had thought was inseparable from the Powhatan had gone from them. Expelled from the land where they had chosen to live, and confined to the brackish waters near the shoreline, they were like a people who had lost their confidence and their pride.

  They had never thought that they could be defeated by the colonists, or if they thought they could lose, they thought it would be in a great battle, and the braves would lie dead in heaps, and the women would grieve and take their men home and weep over their bodies. Then a price would be paid – the orphans and the widows would disappear into Jamestown and not be seen again and the Powhatan would grieve for them too, as among the lost. Then, after a season, after a cycle of the year, everything would return to normal.

  What they had not anticipated was that the war would never stop. What they had not anticipated was that it would not be a battle and a withdrawal of either one side or the other. What they had not anticipated, and John had not thought to warn them against, was the inveteracy of English spite against a native people which takes arms against them.

  The colonists were not driven by fear, it was no longer a matter of self defence. The army of half-naked yelling warriors which had come against them had melted away, disappeared back into the woods. The colonists were fuelled instead by a deep sense of outrage and moral righteousness. Ever since the first uprising they had felt that the Indians had escaped punishment, had been pushed back into the woods but not pushed far enough. Even when they had built the wooden palisade to mark the limit of their tolerance of the