Cate of the Lost Colony Read online

  Wanchese’s words were like seeds on damp earth. I felt doubts growing within me. Some of the colonists hated all natives. John-white said he wanted peace, but why had he brought so many soldiers, if not to make war on us?

  “I have been across the water like you and know the English are many,” said Wanchese. “We must make them fear to come here. We will unite and show the white men our strength. Kill them before they kill us.” He gripped my arm. “And if you do not join my alliance, you and your people will suffer.”

  My anger rose. I would not be threatened by Wanchese. I was a weroance by the power of the English kwin, whom I had vowed to serve. I could not betray that vow and keep my honor. Nor would I let my people submit to Wanchese.

  “What are you asking me to do?”

  Wanchese replied, “Deliver the English to us.”

  My heart drummed inside me. I thought of John-white’s kindness to me. His daughter and the child. The brave maid with the dark hair who had found George-howe’s body, yet welcomed the Croatoan to her house. How could I deliver them to Wanchese? To their deaths?

  “Would you destroy the women and children too?” I asked.

  Wanchese only shrugged. “Show me where they are weak, that I may know when to strike.”

  I, too, could be a deceiver. “Give me time to consider how this can be done,” I said.

  I went back to Roanoke filled with uncertainty. When I arrived, John-white was gone and I was greeted with cold, mistrustful stares.

  Chapter 26

  The First Winter

  Edmund Vickers was lucky to be little and have no worries. He dashed through the fields shouting and waving his arms. It was his job to keep the crows and deer away from the crops, and he thought it was a fine game. Sometimes Georgie would join him, and I would smile to see the large boy capering like a court fool while little Edmund clapped his hands. Not a whole village of scarecrows, however, could have made the maize grow taller. Only rain would do that. But not a drop fell in all of September, and the spindly stalks turned brown. When at last we plucked the ears and stripped the husks, the kernels were as small and sparse as baby’s teeth. After a portion was set aside for planting in the spring, what remained was enough to last only two months.

  The beans fared a little better, but most of the squash had rotted on the vine when the frost came. Everyone blamed the planters, who said it would not freeze because of its thick skin.

  Whenever two people met, they talked about the weather and debated how many days it would be until the governor returned, and whether his ship would take the southern route or the more direct but dangerous northern one. All agreed he could not reasonably return before December. As winter drew closer, Betty Vickers would kneel down right in her garden or in the middle of the street and pray out loud for deliverance.

  John White’s house was still the meeting place for the assistants. Ananias had returned home and made peace with Eleanor. He even began to listen to her advice. “He owes me that much,” she said. When I had an opinion, I would tell it to Eleanor, who would pass it to her husband, who might raise it with the assistants. He seemed to regret his part in ousting John White from the colony.

  But Ananias was not strong enough to stand in the way of Roger Bailey, who took leadership of the assistants. At once the dispute resumed over whether or not to remain at Fort Ralegh. Bailey wanted to disregard the governor’s instructions and move the colony to Chesapeake. Ambrose Vickers and many of the colonists were also of this mind. But three assistants thought it wiser to remain on Roanoke Island and await relief. One of these was Christopher Cooper, who of late had set himself openly against Bailey.

  “Our governor won’t return. We are on our own,” insisted Bailey.

  This made Eleanor weep, and she used all her persuasion, including tears, to convince Ananias to wait for her father’s return. Thus he voted with Cooper and two other assistants to remain at The fort, leaving Bailey and his two supporters furious at being outnumbered.

  “We’ll take this matter up again,” said Bailey darkly.

  When Manteo had returned from his envoy to the Indians, he was surprised to find John White gone. Bailey and Ananias gave no explanation and made him feel so unwelcome he had gone back to Croatoan. Now that winter was approaching, they summoned him back and offered kettles and axe blades in exchange for food. Manteo opened his hands and said the Croatoan had no food to share.

  “I don’t believe him,” said Bailey. “He wants us to starve.” He said this in front of Manteo as if he lacked understanding.

  Ananias continued to probe Manteo about which Indians had food, but Manteo said the harvest had been poor everywhere. I listened, stirring the kettle in which the soup was already thin.

  “What good is he to us?” Bailey asked Ananias, then turned his back on Manteo, dismissing him.

  Manteo said nothing to defend himself. I was ashamed of Bailey and wanted to show Manteo we were not all so lacking in respect.

  “Perhaps Lord Manteo will help us repair the broken weirs,” I heard myself say. “Then we can at least catch fish and dry them for the winter.”

  There was a silence in which I could hear Bailey seething.

  For a moment Manteo’s eyes met mine. Was it surprise or gratitude or simple interest that I glimpsed there? I turned back to my kettle, not daring to look at Bailey.

  I heard Manteo say, “It would please me to do this for my friends.”

  Ananias clapped his hands, breaking the tension, and proceeded to discuss the broken weirs with Manteo. It was not long before they were fixed and several of the men had learned how to maintain them and build new ones. Trust in Manteo was renewed as the colonists saw him working for our benefit.

  John White did not return even by Christmas. Dabbing away her tears, Eleanor prepared a meal of game, dried fish, and pudding made from eggs, suet, and precious dried figs. It was a meager feast compared to the rich pies and beef I had grown used to at court. The guests were fewer, too: Georgie and his aunt Joan, and John Chapman and Alice, who was now nursing an infant son. The babies’ cooings lightened the somber mood. The Chapmans brought Thomas Graham, who showed off the new gorget Chapman had made for him and tried to cheer everyone with tales of his exploits in London. I did not wish to remember those days. Alice reported the widow was ill. We were all thinner than we had been in the summer. I had to pin my skirts so they would not slide down my hips.

  Christmas night the prayer service was held in the armory, the only building large enough for so many people. The preacher read a gospel and recited the litany. When he prayed for God to preserve all who travel by the sea, he fairly shouted. And we called in return, “Hear us, good Lord!” as if God were deaf. And then, crowded together on the hard benches, we listened to a two-hour sermon, interrupted once by Betty Vickers crying out, “God bestowed the Magi’s gifts on his infant son. Surely he will provide for us!”

  Alice had little patience for Betty’s piety. “What use did Jesus have for gold, frankincense, and myrrh?” she murmured to me.

  “Only a midwife would say such a thing,” I whispered back.

  “We could use those riches now,” said Eleanor. “The gold alone would make our men wealthy enought to forget all their troubles.”

  “No, they would only fight over it like dogs over a bone,” said Alice. She was probably right.

  By this time the preacher had stopped his sermon to glare at us. I heard Eleanor giggle and I smiled despite myself.

  One January day, Tameoc and his band of Croatoan came to the village. There were eight of them, wrapped in furs that were white from the falling snow. Manteo was away, so there was no one to translate. But their need was clear, even without words. Mika’s eyes were large in her thin face. Takiwa held her small boy in her arms.

  Ananias and Roger Bailey went out to meet them but kept their distance.

  “We have no food!” shouted Bailey. “Go home.”

  “Bad sickness,” Tameoc said, pointing to the chi
ld.

  “No medicine either. Go away,” said Bailey, waving his arms.

  Ananias started to plead with him, but Bailey went back into his house and bolted the door. From shame or fear of sickness, all the doors in the village remained closed.

  The Croatoan turned and left, and Ananias came inside.

  “Surely we can spare something,” said Eleanor. Ananias shook his head, and they began to argue.

  I opened the cupboard. On a plate were six cakes, made from ground maize. I put four of them in my apron and ran until I caught up with the Croatoan. They ate the cakes right there where they stood. Takiwa fed her boy small bites with her fingers.

  “I am sorry I can’t do more,” I said, holding out my empty hands. I blinked away tears brought on by the biting cold. Mika smiled and touched my arm, and the others nodded to show their gratitude. For days I wondered where they had gone for shelter and whether the boy had recovered.

  Winter began to claim its victims. One after another they were buried on a hill near the village. The widow died from a weak heart and hunger, a planter from poisoned blood after his foot was cut by an axe, two soldiers from a fever that killed them so quickly they were buried with all their clothes on. No one even cut the buttons from their shirts or took the purses from their pockets, for fear of being contaminated. Then a laborer was chained to the bilboes for lewdness because he dared to piss within sight of Betty Vickers. He was left there overnight because he had no friends or kin to plead for him, and he froze to death.

  But worst of all was the hanging and what led to it.

  John Chapman had paid Georgie to guard his shop against thieves. But when a sword he was crafting for Roger Bailey went missing, he hauled Georgie before the council. It was the boy’s aunt Joan who brought everyone to the scene with her cries.

  “Only yesterday he touched it and made an admiring noise over it,” Chapman charged. “He is the thief.”

  “He is an idiot. How do you expect him to know right from wrong?” said Christoper Cooper.

  “He is innocent; the boy is innocent!” protested Joan, her hands raised in appeal.

  “Did you take the sword?” demanded Ananias. “What did you do with it?”

  Georgie shook his head and spittle flew from his open mouth.

  Bailey pulled a knife from his belt. “Do you know the penalty for thievery?” He grabbed Georgie’s hand, pinned it to the table, and put the blade to the back of his wrist.

  Joan screamed and fainted. Georgie’s eyes were wide with terror. I could not believe Bailey was about to cut off the young man’s hand!

  “That was my sword you stole,” Bailey said and drew the blade across the skin.

  “Stop! Where is the proof?” I heard myself shout, but my voice was drowned out by Georgie’s howls as blood welled from the wound.

  “They killed Georgie’s father!” the boy wailed. “They shot him in the chest with arrows. He was full of blood too. Now he is in the cold ground. Georgie is cold.” He shivered and turned pale.

  I started forward but Eleanor grabbed my arm.

  “Do not intervene, Cate.” And then she called to her husband, “Do something, Ananias!”

  But before Ananias could act, Christopher Cooper grabbed Bailey’s arm. “Stop this torture,” he said. “Search the boy’s house first. Search every house.”

  While Bailey and Cooper faced off over the shaking Georgie, Ananias and the other assistants began to search for the sword. They came back dragging a soldier I recognized as Graham’s gaming companion, the one who had spent ten years in prison.

  “State your name,” said Cooper. He leaned closer to the man and sniffed. “And why are you drunk in the daytime?”

  “He was on guard in the fort,” said Ananias, trying to be helpful.

  “James Hind, sir,” said the soldier belatedly. “This is my own sword, I say.”

  “A known thief,” said Bailey. “And drunk while on duty.”

  “That is not the missing sword,” said Chapman, peering at the hilt of Hind’s sword.

  “If he didn’t steal it, he most certainly stole the ale, for each man’s share is but three ounces a day,” said Bailey.

  “Why, he is determined to punish someone today,” I said, not scrupling to lower my voice.

  James Hind swayed and blinked at Bailey. “Are you calling me a thief? I am a man of honor, you scoundrel, and I shall prove it!” And with that he drew his sword and lurched toward Roger Bailey, who fell backward.

  The crowd gasped with one voice. Every man, woman, and child knew the punishment for drawing a weapon upon the governor or his assistants was death. James Hind was undeniably guilty, so he was seized and put in the bilboes until he could be executed. Georgie was forgotten.

  I had never been to a hanging. I knew noisy crowds gathered at Tyburn in London, shouting and jeering from the time the malefactor appeared until his lifeless body was carted away. I had no desire to see James Hind hanged. But I went along with everyone else to the gibbet that had been hammered together at the entrance to the fort. People were sober and wary, even doubtful about what they had seen. Had the man deliberately struck at Bailey, or had he only stumbled drunkenly while showing the sword to his accusers? For his part, James Hind shouted his innocence until the noose choked off his words and the breath behind them.

  When James Hind was dead, the mystery remained unsolved. The sword John Chapman had been making for Bailey was not found anywhere near Fort Ralegh. I wondered if Bailey himself had taken it and then created the entire scene to demonstrate his power over us. No doubt he made many people afraid of him, but he only made me hate him.

  Chapter 27

  I Rediscover My Dreams

  Roger Bailey began to lay out plans for the colony to move to Chesapeake, and no one dared contradict him, not even Ananias or Christopher Cooper. He came to John White’s house whether or not he had business there and put his feet up on the table as if he were the master. When he left, Eleanor would rail against her husband, calling him a weakling. Then little Virginia would start to cry and Eleanor would put her to her breast and rock back and forth, weeping herself. I felt sorry for all of them. But I decided when we got to Chesapeake, I would use Sir Walter’s money to build my own cottage. And Roger Bailey would never be allowed to set foot inside the door.

  One day I was alone in the governor’s house when I heard Bailey at the door. I slipped into the bedroom, hoping he would go away. His footsteps sounded inside. I heard him blow on his hands and knew he was standing at the hearth. The fire gave me away. If no one was at home, it would have been banked for safety.

  Bailey was standing in the bedroom doorway, trapping me inside.

  “You should not be here,” I said, determined not to show my alarm.

  “Were you expecting someone else? Thomas Graham, perhaps? Pah, he is nothing but a common soldier. You should grant your favors to one more suited to you—a gentleman.” He tapped his chest.

  “You, you … are a vile … worm!” I was so angry I stammered. “Graham is more a gentleman than you will ever be.”

  He laughed, baring his yellow teeth. “See how she defends her paramour.”

  “He is not my lover, and you I despise.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “So you were the queen’s maid? More like her bawd, I’ll warrant. I know why you were sent away from court.”

  “You know nothing,” I said. “Now let me pass.” I tried to get by him but he grabbed my wrist.

  “And you are too outspoken to be a decent woman. But I will teach you a lesson or two. First, how to obey a man.” He pressed me to the wall. His eyes were fixed on my bosom.

  Now I was afraid of Bailey, but my hatred of him was stronger. “Unhand me now or I will scream rape. Surely you know the punishment for that.”

  To my surprise he dropped my arm and stepped back. The penalty for rape was death.

  “You need to be married, and you can’t do any better than me,” he said.

  “I wo
uld marry the rudest savage in all Virginia before I would ever let you touch me as a husband,” I said, pouring all the disdain I could summon into my words. “Now get out.”

  “You’ll regret your pride, vain wench,” he said with a sneer. He turned to leave and on his way out kicked over the governor’s chair. It crashed onto the hearth and became singed by the fire before I could manage to set it upright.

  All my limbs were trembling, and I fell in a heap on the floor, resting my whirling head on the seat of the chair I had rescued from the fire.

  That night Eleanor noticed the bruises on my wrist, so I told her about Roger Bailey’s indecent demands. She struck her cooking ladle against the tabletop so hard Virginia began to cry in her cradle.

  “Damn him! You are not the first to be undone by that man.”

  “I did not lie with him, you understand. How can you even think I would?” I said. “Who else has he tried to violate?”

  “I have had it in confidence from Alice that Jane Pierce is with child by him, but she will not say he raped her because she wants to marry him.”

  “Jane? How could she want to marry Bailey?”

  “We are not as wellborn as you, Cate,” said Eleanor testily. “Jane hires herself out as a servant to earn her living. Bailey took more from her than her cooking. And now, to keep from being disgraced, she must marry him.”

  “Yet he dares to come to me and say I should marry him,” I said, more indignant than ever. “At least I told him what a vile worm he is.”

  “That was hardly wise,” she said with a rueful shake of her head. “You saw what he did to Georgie and that unfortunate soldier.”

  “Roger Bailey is not my governor,” I said. “He is a tyrant, and I pray he will come to a bad end.”

  “So you have no man to govern you,” she said with a wry smile. “I should envy you, Cate.”

  I thought about Sir Walter and how I had imagined marrying him. Would I have been happy to let him govern me? Did all wives consent to be ruled by their husbands? If so, marriage was no different than serving a king or queen. As a wife I might never have the freedom of my own will.