Cate of the Lost Colony Read online

  Lisa Klein

  Cast of Characters

  Italicized names denote fictional characters; all others are historical figures.

  IN ENGLAND

  Lady Catherine Archer

  Queen Elizabeth I

  Lady Mary Standish, lady-in-waiting to the queen

  Dick Tarleton, the queen’s fool

  Frances and Emme, maids of honor

  Anne and Veronica, ladies-in-waiting to the queen

  Sir Walter Ralegh

  Carew Ralegh, Ralegh’s brother

  Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, adviser to the queen

  Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s spymaster

  Earl of Shrewsbury, Queen Mary’s jailer

  Lord Burghley, adviser to the queen

  Humfrey Gilbert, Ralegh’s half-brother

  Anthony Babington, plotted to assassinate the queen

  Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

  The Earl of Essex, Robert Dudley’s stepson

  IN ENGLAND AND ROANOKE

  Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas, captains of 1584 voyage

  Thomas Harriot, scholar; goes to Roanoke 1585

  Simon Fernandes, pilot 1584, 1585, and 1587; an assistant to Gov. White

  John White, painter; goes to Roanoke 1585 and as governor 1587

  Ralph Lane, acting governor 1585

  Sir Francis Drake, captain; rescues colonists 1586

  Thomas Graham, courtier; later a soldier at Roanoke 1587

  Abraham Cooke, captain of the Hopewell 1590

  COLONISTS ON ROANOKE ISLAND

  Eleanor Dare, John White’s daughter

  Ananias Dare, Eleanor’s husband, an assistant to Gov. White

  Virginia Dare, daughter of Ananias and Eleanor

  Darby Glavin, an Irishman

  George Howe, an assistant to Gov. White

  Georgie Howe, son of George Howe

  Joan Mannering, Georgie Howe’s aunt

  Ambrose Vickers, a carpenter

  Betty Vickers, Ambrose’s wife

  Edmund Vickers, son of Ambrose and Betty

  Thomas Harris, Betty Vickers’s brother

  Jane Pierce, a single woman

  Roger Bailey, an assistant to Gov. White

  Christopher Cooper, an assistant to Gov. White

  Alice Chapman, a midwife

  John Chapman, Alice’s husband, an armorer

  James Hind, a soldier

  Griffen Jones, a Welsh farmer

  Edward Spicer, ship’s master; later, a captain

  NATIVES OF VIRGINIA, OR OSSOMOCOMUCK

  Manteo, a Croatoan Indian

  Wanchese, a Roanoke Indian

  Wingina, a Roanoke chief

  Sobaki, Wanchese’s wife

  Weyawinga, chief of the Croatoans

  Tameoc, a Croatoan warrior

  Mika and Takiwa, Tameoc’s kinswomen

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  The Queen’s Maid

  At a young age I learned how quickly one’s fortunes can change, a truth that never betrayed me. One day I was the beloved daughter of a Hampshire gentleman who had been chosen to serve the queen. The next, he was killed fighting in the Netherlands, and I was an orphan. My mother was already dead and my old nurse was almost blind, so I was taken to live with my aunt and uncle. They had three daughters of their own, none of whom desired another sister. Nor did my aunt want me, especially when it was discovered I had no inheritance, for my father had spent it all to win the queen’s regard. At the tender age of fourteen I was at the bottom of the goddess Fortune’s wheel, poor and loved by no one. Not two months later, that fickle wheel had turned again, carrying me to the top.

  The messenger stood by, waiting as I read the letter. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes at the first lines, but I blinked them away and read hastily to the end. The page trembled and I had to steady my hands on the back of a chair.

  “Read it to me, now,” commanded my aunt.

  So I did, my voice halting with amazement.

  13 October 1583

  To the Lady Catherine Archer

  Though misfortune has befallen you, be assured your Father in heaven has not forgotten you, nor has your loving queen, who is mother to all her people. I understand your grief, for at a young age I also lost my father.

  For his sacrifice on the field of battle, Sir Thomas Archer will be remembered as a most true and faithful subject. I am told that he loosed from his bow a keen arrow in you, his only offspring. Your attendance upon me at Whitehall I would consider a due and honorable extension of your father’s service. With all confidence that you will prove a young woman worthy of a place among my ladies, I remain your loving queen,

  Elizabeth R

  My aunt reached out to pluck the letter from me, but I held it fast to my bosom. The queen of England had penned this message and folded it with her own fingers! My aunt would not take it from me. I had little enough that was my own.

  “The queen requires me to attend her!” I said, my voice rising with excitement. To be granted such a prize was like being invited into the firmament to shine next to the sun.

  My aunt lifted her eyebrows in disbelief. Or was it relief? I knew she was thinking of her own daughters, who needed food, clothing, and dowries, while her husband did nothing but gamble and drink.

  “It is an honor she does not merit,” she said in rebuke to the messenger. “It will not take long to pack her things. Go, Catherine.”

  I floated from the room on a cloud, wondering if the queen was as beautiful as everyone said. Was her bed covered with cloth of gold? Did she eat from plates made of crystal? Were her shoes set with jewels? I would see these glories for myself, living in a palace and waiting on the queen daily.

  My cousins, clustered in the hallway, sniffed and made sour faces.

  “Uncle always did think he was better than us,” said the eldest.

  I wanted to remind them that my father had died in the queen’s service, while theirs was little more than a drunkard. But I said nothing and only stuck out my tongue as I passed.

  The queen had sent a litter for me, a covered chair atop a brown palfrey. A small chest with my few belongings was secured behind. We set out before dawn the next day. I felt like a grand lady riding so high, but I was a little afraid of falling off. The messenger on his horse seemed to be smiling at me, whether in pity or friendliness, I could not tell.

  All the way to London I thought about my father. I had sat dry-eyed through his funeral, unable to believe he was dead. His visits home had been rare, for he lived at court as a gentleman of the queen’s privy chamber. He even spent Christmases there. I never questioned why he chose the queen over his family. It was just the way things were. After all, who would not desire to be in the queen’s presence? I had never been out of Hampshire County and I shivered with the anticipation of arriving in the greatest city in the kingdom and meeting the queen. As we passed through the villages and the golden fields and woods of russet-leaved trees, I wished my father could see me riding in the litter. I longed for him to hug me. He would smell of civet and his beard would tickle my face as he kissed me. But alas, he was dead. I would not see him at court or anywhere ever again.

  A dull pain pressed behind my ribs and rose into my throat. This was more than missing him. This was grief at last, and I let it out in quiet weeping as raindrops spattered on the canopy overhead.

  Why had my father gone to the Netherlands? He had written in a letter, “It is a great honor to be chosen to escort the French prince from London to Flushing. Thankfully Her Majesty, after much indecision, has declined to marry him. Rejoice, daughter, for England need no longer fear submission to a Frenchman, one who is, moreover, a papist.” Though I did not understa
nd everything he wrote, I was proud of my father. I expected him to return once the prince was delivered overseas. He did not write that he would stay in the Netherlands and take up arms. Perhaps he did not want me to worry. My uncle explained that Elizabeth was supporting the Dutch Protestants who were trying to drive Spain out of the Netherlands. I only knew that Spain was wicked for wanting to rule England and to force its Catholic religion on the people of Britain.

  So while I had imagined my father on the deck of the queen’s flagship, wearing a cloak with fur-lined sleeves, he had been fighting in a field in the Netherlands, knee-deep in mud and blood. I thought of him riding into battle, proudly wearing the queen’s livery. Did he call my mother’s name when he died, or Elizabeth’s?

  He came home in a coffin, and we buried him in the churchyard beside my mother.

  I drifted in and out of sleep as night fell. The smell of damp horseflesh filled my nostrils and I remembered standing in the midst of a cheering crowd in the rain when I was about six. Bells pealed from the cathedral tower and fiery squibs shot into the sky. The queen was passing through Winchester with my father in attendance. I watched for him, but all the men looked the same in their velvet doublets and feathered hats. I was close to tears because I could not find him.

  Then I saw the woman on a white palfrey with blue trappings. Her white gown was embroidered with gold, and a crown sat atop her long golden hair. With one hand she held the reins while extending her other arm to the onlookers. I could not take my eyes off her brightness, which even the rain did not dim.

  “Long live the queen!”

  “God bless Your Grace!”

  Forgetting my father, I ran forward to touch the queen. Trying to reach the hem of her skirt, I grazed the horse’s fetlock and smelled its wet flesh. Then my mother pulled me back.

  “Mama, she is more beautiful than anyone in the world!”

  I felt my mother’s arms stiffen around me.

  Father did not visit us that day. When I asked my mother why, she only said through tight lips, “He serves a most demanding mistress.”

  Had I really seen the queen pass and touched her horse? If I had, why couldn’t I recall her face? I wondered if it had all been a dream. I could no longer ask my mother. The plague had taken her five years ago. But she really died of loneliness long before that.

  It was late at night when we arrived at the queen’s palace. A woman of middling height with a few wrinkles in her pleasant face greeted me, introducing herself as Lady Mary Standish. She wore a nightgown and a coif as if she had come from her bed. I followed her to the kitchen, where she gave me some cold meat, bread, and ale. As I was eating, a man dressed in motley skipped into the kitchen. He was short and sturdily built, with bright eyes and a nose pressed flat against his face, which gave him an odd look.

  “Good e’en, Lady Mary, guardian of the maids and their maidenheads.” He winked at me and plucked at his hair. I could not help staring at him.

  “Dick Tarleton, why are you here so late? You had better not be dallying with the scullery maid,” she scolded.

  “Nay, never!” he said like an actor overplaying his role. “Our royal mistress was melancholy tonight and demanded a jest. But by Jove—or rather, by the suffering Job—my poor feet ache from so much cavorting. My calluses feel like barnacles on the bottom of a boat.” He appealed to Lady Mary. “Oh rub my feet, kind lady, and I will repay the favor at your will.”

  “Go to, fool,” said Lady Mary gently. “You have a wife at home.”

  “She will truss me like a turkey and baste me with my own juices,” he complained. Then, cowering under his raised arms, he minced out of the room.

  “Is the little man a lunatic?” I asked Lady Mary.

  She burst out laughing, then, remembering the late hour, put her hand to her mouth. “No, he is the queen’s clown and the only person who can say whatever he pleases without any consequences.”

  “Even lies and lewdness?” I asked, thinking of his jest about maids.

  “Even lies and lewdness,” she echoed. “He manages to turn it all into truth.”

  As she spoke, Lady Mary led me up three floors to the maids’ dormitory. There several girls slept in beds crowded under the rafters like a flock of sheep curled in the lee of a cliff. It took me but a moment to fall asleep.

  Awakening some time later to the murmur of voices, I pretended to be still asleep.

  “I just peeked at her. She’s a plain one,” said someone with a high voice.

  “No, just a little roughened from her journey,” came Lady Mary’s voice.

  “She has no fashionable clothes,” said the first voice again, with a note of pity.

  Then a third voice said with disdain, “What do you expect of one bred in the country?”

  “Emme and Frances, you shouldn’t spy in her trunk,” Lady Mary rebuked them.

  I stirred under my blanket with shame.

  “The queen will be disappointed in her,” came Frances’s voice again. “She expects us to be pretty.”

  “Enough!” said Lady Mary. “I will wake her now and dress her for the queen.”

  “I am awake,” I said, sitting up and glaring at the three of them.

  Lady Mary looked surprised. She was dressed now, her ample flesh restrained by a dark-colored bodice. Frances, sitting on her bed, raised her hands to her face. The other beds were empty. Emme stood regarding me with light brown eyes that were not unfriendly.

  “I am Catherine Archer, daughter of the late Sir Thomas Archer of Winchester and as much a lady as either of you,” I said, hoping they would not laugh at me. Instead they looked startled. I got up and stood in my shift while Lady Mary measured me for new clothes.

  “Frances, lend her a bodice and skirt, for she is nearer your size.”

  Grumbling, Frances obeyed. The sleeves were too long and she pinned them up. She didn’t apologize when she pricked me.

  Emme combed my hair and plaited it. “Her Majesty is sure to remark upon your hair,” she said. “It is the blackest that I have ever seen, and falls almost to your waist!”

  “Catherine, you are to kneel in the queen’s presence and look down until bidden to rise,” Lady Mary instructed me. “You will address her as ‘Your Grace’ but only after you are spoken to. The queen does not like a too-soft voice, nor a too-loud one.”

  I nodded. My leg began to bounce of its own accord, and I tried to still it.

  “Is she very … beautiful?” I asked.

  “She is the queen,” replied Lady Mary solemnly.

  “And what must I do to serve her?”

  “As the least of the maids, you will empty her closestool and wash her underlinens,” said Frances.

  Lady Mary gave her a sharp look. “Catherine is not a chambermaid, but a maid of honor, like you.” To me she said, “With Emme and Frances and three others, you will perform small tasks for the queen and wait on her at table.”

  At least I would not be alone. I would share the work with the other maids and eat and sleep with them. Perhaps in time they would become like sisters to me.

  And then Lady Mary was leading me down a staircase to a long gallery with guards standing at either end, holding sharp halberds.

  “This is the queen’s privy gallery. She may still be in her bedchamber,” said Lady Mary, opening the door.

  I blushed to think of meeting the queen in her bed. Did she sleep in a shift like any woman, or in royal robes? I followed Lady Mary into the room, which was lit by a single small window and dominated by a huge bed with gold-embroidered curtains drawn back. The bed was empty. I trailed her into the adjoining room and gasped. It was a bathing chamber complete with a gleaming porcelain tub and pipes for water. Next was a room full of musical instruments. I tripped after Lady Mary through a library filled with more books than I had seen in all my life and into a privy chamber containing benches with richly embroidered cushions. In the next room the remains of a meal were still on the table. I heard voices coming through the door
beyond.

  “Aha,” said Lady Mary, crossing the dining room, “she is in her dressing chamber.”

  I hesitated. “What if she is unclothed?” I whispered.

  “Her Majesty’s ladies are always about her,” said Lady Mary in a matter-of-fact tone, and opened the door without even knocking.

  I seemed to see more than a dozen ladies, until I realized several looking glasses were reflecting everyone in the room. In them I could also see my own astonished gaze. Finally I discerned the queen at the center of the circle of ladies. Her back was to me as she faced the mirror. One lady knelt to fasten her slippers. Another held out a selection of glimmering jewelry. A third tended to her skirts, while a fourth stood on a stool combing her curled hair.

  “Your Majesty, I bring you Lady Catherine Archer as you requested,” announced Lady Mary.

  The ladies fell back and the queen turned to face me. I could not help staring. I noticed how slender she was, how wide and white her forehead, how bright her hair. Then I saw a dull lock against her cheek and realized with a start the bright, curled hair was false. The lady with the comb had not yet finished her task.

  Lady Mary nudged me and I fairly crashed to the floor, bruising my knee. I could have died with shame at being so graceless.

  “Get up, my dear,” came the gentle voice. It was the queen speaking to me.

  “I cannot, Your Majesty,” I replied, for I was trembling all over. “Without your gracious help,” I added.

  Then the queen took my wrists and lifted me to my feet. Her hands were slim, her fingers long and tapered. I counted four rings on each hand.

  “Do not fear to look upon me, child. Think of me as your mother now,” she said. It was a command, though softly spoken.

  I lifted up my eyes to meet hers. They were bright and pale. She smiled and it was like the sun beaming from behind a cloud. I no longer saw graying hair against her cheek. I saw the woman on horseback who had once ridden through Winchester, ageless and beautiful. Gratitude welled up in me and I knew I would love the queen, even worship her, as long as she ruled. I would do whatever she commanded me.