Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (33 page)

Fallon shook his head.
“My most urgent concern is for my students,” he said, sweeping his arm wide to indicate the boys crowded around the windows. “I must make sure they are positioned in service. And then I must make a search for Gilda and Noshi. I’m certain God hath sent me back to Virginia to find them.”

A mask of disbelief settled onto Brody
’s features, and Fallon gave him a rueful smile. “I won’t hold you back, Brody. If you feel you must take a wife or treasure hunting, don’t wait for me. But Noshi and Gilda are my family, and I promised I’d take care of them. I won’t stop searching until I know where and how they are.”

Brody raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Faith, ‘tis good to know some things never change,” he said, smiling. “You and the Gibraltar Rock. Though I think y’are an eejit for wanting to waste your time, do what you must, and I’ll wait. But let’s not take too long about it, agreed? And to speed things along a wee bit, I’ll lend a hand with the boys.”

“
What about your wife?” Fallon asked, giving his friend a wry smile.

“
Ah, she can wait, too, but not for long,” Brody said, folding his arms in resignation. “So let’s unload these boys and get out into the wilderness.”

Fallon shrugged.
“Agreed. How long can it take?”

Since they had dropped anchor in late afternoon, Fallon expected to wait aboard the ship on their first evening in Virginia.
But when the captain came to the lower deck at sunrise on the morrow and told him that no one was permitted to leave the ship unless they could pay for their passage, Fallon flushed in anger. The boys around him grew quiet and still at this announcement, waiting to see who would win the contest of wills.

“
The fee for these boys hath already been paid by the London Company,” Fallon protested. “I have seen the letter of agreement. You were paid three pounds for each boy’s transportation.”

“
Three pounds covered the expenses of their food,” the captain snarled, his single good eye gleaming malevolently across the hold. “‘Tis up to their new masters to pay for their passage.”

“But how are they to meet their new masters if they are not allowed off the ship?” Fallon answered, his temper rising. “These boys are sick, sir, and they need fresh water and good food, the care of a willing master and mistress—”

“
They’ll not be here long,” the captain answered, turning his back to retreat up the companionway. “The planters are already lining up at the dock. Have a party of ten boys, the biggest and strongest, ready to go at once. We’ll send them to the dock in the shallop, and when they’re all accounted and paid for, we’ll come back for another group.”

“
I’ll go ashore with the first group,” Fallon said, brushing dirt from his stiff shirt and breeches.

“
Nay, sir, you’ll not leave the ship until the last boy’s been apprenticed. I’ll not have these brats running about my ship without someone to watch over ‘em.”

Fallon was about to protest that none of his boys had the energy or strength to cause mischief, but his words died in his throat.
He and Reverend Archer had agreed that Fallon would personally interview prospective masters and place the boys in apprentice positions well-suited to each boy’s talents and abilities. He had not been hired to wait aboard ship, but what could he do? At sea, a captain’s word was law.

He shook his head, remembering his rosy dreams for his students.
This situation, like so many others he had experienced since boarding the
Mary Elizabeth
, would be orchestrated solely by the captain. Mayhap ‘twas best to get his students off the ship however he could, and meet with the masters later on shore.

Without a word, Fallon pointed to ten of the oldest and strongest boys and gestured toward the companionway.

For three days the shallop carried boys to the wooden dock and returned empty for another boatload.
The planters prove the captain right, for laborers were scarce in this colony and even the small boys were readily purchased. On the morning of the fourth day after their arrival in port, Fallon and Brody lowered the last eight boys, all of them sick, into the shallop, then climbed in after them. The fresh air smelled sweet and a warm, sunlit day opened peacefully before them.

The arc of the shallop
’s bow dipped and rose through the pounding surf, sending a deliciously cool splash of spray over Fallon’s filthy skin. One seaman sat at the back of the boat, working the rudder, while eight others lined the sides and rowed the boat through the blue water that rippled gently toward the shoreline. A lacy white garland of foam feathered along the sides of the shallop and Fallon reverently dipped a finger into the froth and marveled that he rode once again upon the waters of his birthplace.

Hunched on the bench before him, Wart opened one eye and squinted up toward the sun.
“Is it beautiful, Master Fallon?” he asked, clutching his stomach.

Fallon nodded, his heart moved with compassion at the sight of the sick boy.
He had prayed they would reach Jamestown before Wart’s strength evaporated, and that Wart would find a kind master.

An impatient crowd surged forward on the docks as the shallop approached, and a dozen hands reached forward to pull the boys out of the boat.
As Fallon climbed out onto the dock, he was amazed at the temerity of the men who crowded around him. “I need two more,” one man said, casting a hasty glance at the pale boys in the boat, “but these are puny sacks of skin. Have you none better?”

Fallon met the man
’s words with a stony glare. “These are the last of my students,” he said, nodding gravely. “They are fine lads, but they have had a difficult time in the crossing. With time, care, and a few decent meals, I am sure any one of them would serve you well.”

“
I need a boy in the fields tomorrow!” another man shouted, pressing forward. He leaned into the boat and pulled Wart forward by the lapel of his coat. “I’ll take this one. I’ll sign over forty pounds of tobacco for the captain, and since this lad weighs no more than that, that’s all I’ll be giving.”

Wart
’s eyes widened in fear and Fallon put out a restraining hand. “Excuse me, sir, but there’s been a misunderstanding.”

“
There is no misunderstanding,” one of the seamen interrupted, cutting Fallon off with a stern glance. “That’s the price the captain demands. The price of a boy’s weight in tobacco, and no quibbling. They serve until they’re twenty-one, then they’re free to indenture some other bloke who’s desperate for Virginia.”

Fallon raised his hand, about to protest again, but Brody caught his arm.
“Let him go, Fallon,” he said, his voice a quiet murmur in the sea of men scrambling for a look at the remaining boys. “The others have been sold already, and these are not likely to live long enough to care about the morrow. You’ve done your best, but y’are not their father.”

“
They are my responsibility,” Fallon whispered, trying to put iron in his voice. But he felt limp with weariness, too drained to explain his feelings further. As his emotions tumbled hopelessly in his mind he was no longer sure of what he was expected to do or how he was to do it. Most of the planters who had signed contracts of indenture for his students had already taken the boys and left for their plantations. And if the remaining few were as coarse as the knave who bargained for Wart, they would of certain prove unwilling to sit for an interview in which Fallon pressed for the boys’ continued education.

Unable to fight the tide of resistance that surged against him, Fallon stood silently while the sailor collected the captain
’s tobacco and Wart Clarence was hoisted onto a burly man’s shoulder and carried off the docks.

George Yeardley, the successor to Governor Dale, turned John Rolfe
’s Indian weed into the prime product of His Majesty’s Plantation of Virginia. Governor Yeardley so fervently urged his countrymen to plant tobacco that when Fallon and Brody entered the center of the settlement known as Jamestown, they found the weed growing in the marketplace, along the sides of the streets, and even in cast-off trunks and barrels outside the fort.

“
The ships took away more’n twenty-five hundred pounds in 1616, and more’n eighteen thousand pounds last year,” one planter proudly told them as they sat in the public room of the inn. Pride rang in the colonist’s voice as he leaned upon their table. “They say this year we’ll export nearly fifty thousand pounds, for the crop is grown everywhere, as you can see.”

Brody
’s eyes glinted with interest as he surveyed the green tobacco fields through the window, but Fallon pressed the man for more information. “What of the corn?” he asked, remembering the long hours he and his parents had worked to grow maize, the base for nearly all their meals at Ocanahonan. “And the beans? The squash?”

The planter laughed and waved away Fallon
’s question. “We’ve always the savages to grow our food,” he said, lifting a burly shoulder in an inelegant shrug. “If we get hungry, we either trade with the savages for what we need, or—” he leaned forward and winked, “—we get it another way. But we’re fed here, and plenty, for now that England is buyin’ tobacco, the starving times are done.”

Fallon smiled politely and took a long sip of the first decent-tasting brew he
’d had in months as he looked out the window and studied the village. The few buildings in Jamestown were similar to those Fallon remembered from Ocanahonan, but not so well or sturdily built. ‘Twas almost as if men had thrown up these structures of timber and stucco with only a temporary dedication. When Fallon remarked on the transient nature of the city, the planter laughed.

“
Who’d want to live in this place forever?” he asked, lifting a hairy arm to point out the window. “You see that veil of mist coming yonder over the water? ‘Tis a killer fog, that. Betwixt the mist, the heat, and the strange diseases of this place, one of every three men to land here dies within a year.”

He lowered his voice and jerked his thumb toward the doorway.
“There’s a great pit not far from here where the soldiers at the fort quietly dispose of the dead, as not to alert the savages to our true weakness. There are more men buried there than live here, destroyed by cruel infirmities and wars with the savages. There were never Englishmen left in such misery as in this Virginia.”

“
Surely ‘tis not so bad,” Brody said, attempting to lighten the mood. “I’ve heard the land is rich with gold.”

“
Aye, if you count the green of tobacco as the yellow of gold,” the man said.

“
Is planting hard work?” Fallon asked, thinking of the boys he had sent to the plantations.

A sly smirk crossed the man
’s face. “Easier than being a soldier and a target for a savage’s arrow. ‘Tis hard work from March through November. Seeds are planted in March, transplanted in April to the fields, and one man can tend about three acres by himself. That is the back-breaking, hot work, and that’s why so many are quick to buy the contracts of indentured servants. I have ten myself.”

“
Ten servants?” Fallon asked, lifting a brow. “So you have thirty acres?”

“
Nay,” the man answered, grinning. “Five hundred. Of course, ‘tis not all planted. I’m in need of more men yet, and I want men, not these spindly boys that came off the latest ship.”

Fallon clenched his fist, and Brody must have noticed his reaction, for he hurried to change the subject.
“‘Tis mid-summer now,” he said, pinning the planter with a long scrutiny as if he were vitally interested in the planter’s trade. “What work is being done in the fields?”

“
Oh,” the man replied, his beery breath reaching Fallon across the table. “There are caterpillars to be picked off, weeds to be hoed, the plants to be pruned. The plants are cut in August and hung in the tobacco sheds for drying. In November the leaves are stripped from the stalks and ready for transport to England.”

“
And the profit?” Brody asked.

The man scratched his stubbled chin and grunted.
“I figure one hogshead of tobacco weighs about a thousand pounds. A hundred and fifty pounds will buy a man a virgin bride, and fifty pounds will buy a boy to work another three acres, so a thousand pounds will buy whatever a man hath his heart set on.”

Brody
’s eyes lit with excitement, but Fallon stood up from the table, too weary to ponder the joys and riches to be discovered in tobacco. “Good-night, gentlemen,” he said, pulling his cloak about his shoulders as he retreated into the dark, hay-strewn corner where he would sleep. “I will think more clearly on the morrow.”

Twenty-seven

F
allon had been under the impression that most of his students would be lodged near Jamestown so ‘twould be a simple matter to inspect their homes and situations. He frowned in dismay when he learned that most of the boys had been immediately transported to the plantations scattered throughout Jamestown and the three other English settlements: Elizabeth City, Charles City, and Henrico. The contracts of indentured service had disappeared with the planters. After making futile inquiries aboard the
Mary Elizabeth
about exactly where his boys had gone, Fallon found that he and Brody had very little to do.