Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) (22 page)

Ananias Dare leaned toward Stafford.
“Do y’know this man?”

“
I do not recognize him,” Stafford murmured in reply. “But surely the chief will explain.”

The dark eyes of the werowance did a long, slow slide over the younger man, who sat with his atrophied legs straight out in front of him and kept his head down.
Gesturing broadly, the chief spoke in a loud voice, then he lowered his hands and waited for the English reaction.

Manteo listened without expression, then turned to the Englishmen.
“This young man, a nephew of the chief’s, was injured by an English musket and has not been able to move his legs since that day. The chief knows that the English mistook this man for one of Wingina’s Indians and are therefore not to blame, but he wants your promise that such evil will never befall the Croatoan again.”

Thomas Colman leaned forward into Stafford
’s view. “What happened here, Captain? Surely one of your people—”

“
They were Lane’s people, not mine,” Stafford snapped, forgetting for a moment that the chief watched him closely. “They were all soldiers.”

He lowered his voice and took pains to guard his expression.
“To an Englishman, one savage looks very much like another. Wingina’s Indians were out for our blood, and killed more than one of our men, do you not remember the skeleton in the sand? It is likely this lad stumbled into a landing party of Lane’s men and was injured. I do not know why he does not walk; sometimes these things happen.”

“
What will you tell the chief?” Ananias asked, his eyes carefully searching Stafford’s face.

Stafford stared without expression at the chief for a moment.
To apologize would admit wrongdoing; an expression of sorrow might be interpreted as weakness. One had to be firm with the savages, one had to keep the upper hand. The Indians’ fear and uncertainty were powerful weapons for the English.

Stafford raised a gently wagging finger.

“
Tell the chief,” he said, shifting his weight in the sand, “that this will not happen again if the other villages of his tribe make contact with us within a week. After seven days our governor will severely punish the Roanoacs, and the Croatoan must stay away from our swords and long guns.”

Manteo relayed the message.
The werowance nodded gravely and stared at Stafford with deadly concentration. After a moment, he settled his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers as he made another short statement.

“
There is more,” Manteo said, nodding to Stafford. “The werowance and his village welcome you with joy, but asks that the English not gather or spill any of their corn, for they have but little to get through the winter.”

From the corner of his eye, Stafford saw the minister squint in embarrassment.
The chief’s request was really a warning: the tribe was not prepared to feed an ill-equipped English colony through the winter.
This is another legacy of Ralph Lane,
Stafford thought wryly, remembering the former English governor’s brash assumption that the Indians should and would feed them when Lane’s soldiers proved themselves to be poor farmers.
These people, who once thought we could do no wrong, have learned how little prepared we are to face the wilderness.

Stafford nodded respectfully toward the chief.
“Tell the chief we have no intention of asking anything but friendship from the Croatoan,” he told Manteo. “We want only to live alongside them as brethren and friends.”

Manteo translated; the werowance nodded and gave the Englishmen a wide smile.
He clapped his hands, and women came from timbered huts to lay wooden bowls of steaming stewed venison at the men’s feet. Stafford smothered a smile as the minister lowered his eyes before the bare-breasted women.

“
Now we feast,” Manteo said simply, looking at his English friends.

“
God be thanked,” Thomas Colman answered, keeping his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the bowl in front of him.

Along with promises of peace, the Croatoan landing party brought back an accounting of what happened to Grenville
’s fifteen caretakers. After Lane’s colony departed in such haste, Edward Stafford reported that the fifteen men left to guard the island as England’s possession lived in peace for a time. The Croatoans marveled that the men took few precautions, and lived as though the only threat they might face was Spanish ships from the sea.

The real danger, however, came from the mainland.
The gruesome story had filtered through the Indian villages and tribes for months, and Stafford did not spare details when he related it one night to John White and an assembled company of colonists aboard the
Lion.

Sitting next to her father on the deck, Eleanor held his hand tightly as Stafford related the terrible tale.
“The men were living carelessly,” he explained, “and the savages attacked by treachery and stealth. Thirty Roanoacs approached the village—”

“
Where we are living now?” Eleanor burst out, unable to contain her fear.

Stafford ignored her.
“The thirty approached,” he went on, “most of them hiding behind trees. The savages could see only eleven of the fifteen men, so they sent two emissaries to ask for a parley. The two savages appeared to be unarmed, so the English sent out two unarmed men to talk with them. As they were embracing in friendship, one of the Roanoacs took a wooden sword from under his mantle and killed one of the English with a blow to the head. Then the other savages attacked. The unharmed English delegate ran back to the storehouse where the food and ammunition were kept, but the Indians set it ablaze. The soldiers ran out in complete disorder with whatever weapons they could find.”

Eleanor felt the blood in her veins grow cold as she thought of savages appearing outside her house, then Stafford took a breath and continued:
“They fought for an hour. Another Englishman and an Indian were killed before the remainder of Grenville’s men, many of whom were wounded, escaped to their shallop. They managed to pick up four men who had been gathering oysters at the tidal pool, then rowed to a small island between Port Lane and Port Ferdinando. After a while, the Croatoans saw them leave. They have not been back.”

“
I’faith, the sea took them,” Fernandes offered, looking around at the group. “A shallop could never survive the sea.”

The company buzzed with speculation until the governor held up a hand.
“‘Twas their own fault,” John White announced solemnly. “And I believe there is a lesson for us in the story. We cannot live as carelessly as they did. We cannot let acts of murder go unavenged. Trust me, gentle ladies and men, the fate of the fifteen will not befall us.”

Despite the good news of peace from the Croatoan landing party, the colonists did not sleep on the island for several days after the return of Captain Stafford and his men.
Every morning they rose and filled the shallops as the small boats journeyed again and again to the island fort; after a full day’s work they returned to the
Lion
and the flyboat to fall asleep, exhausted, on the bare wooden floors of the ships’ decks.

Eleanor watched Jocelyn bear the endless days of fearful
waiting without complaint, but she was terrified each time she stepped onto the sand of Roanoke Island. Had her fellow colonists forgotten so soon that George Howe died in
daylight
? Had they not heard the horror stories of cannibals and treachery? And she, pregnant, and practically immobile, how was she to escape if a savage presented himself in her house or accosted her on the beach?

She would not let Agnes leave her side and demanded Audrey
’s presence as well. Most of all she found Jocelyn’s company soothing, and despite her cousin’s pale, thoughtful expression, she called for Jocelyn often. Eleanor felt her demands grow more and more unreasonable as her belly grew tighter and her temper more explosive. Ananias had long since deserted her, first with the landing party, and now he drilled daily with the squad of militia her father had organized. And for what? So that they might feel safe enough to sleep again on the island and be killed in their beds?

The ship
’s deck rocked beneath Jocelyn as she vainly tried to sleep. ‘Twasn’t the ship’s rocking that kept her awake, nor the hardness of the planks against her bones, but her thoughts about Thomas. In the seven days since George Howe’s death her husband had spoken little more than ten words to her and had barely looked in her direction. Something seemed to press heavily on his mind, but she could not guess what it might be. He had listened to Edward Stafford’s report of the landing party without disagreement, and had ventured onto the mainland every day to observe the select militia drilling under John White’s direction and Edward Stafford’s firm hand. Aboard the ship in the evenings, he consoled the sick, prayed with the weary, and nodded absently at her if she happened to cross his path.
‘Tis as if he is trying to distance himself from me
, she had thought earlier that evening as Thomas lingered in her uncle’s cabin where a group of assistants huddled in secrecy.
But why? And what did he mean that day on the beach when he said God had sent me to
torture
him?

Lying next to Jocelyn on the grimy deck, Eleanor groaned and mumbled in discomfort as the weight of her pregnancy pressed upon her back.
Snapping at each other like ill-bred cats, Agnes and Audrey jostled one another on the crowded floor. Jocelyn drew her light cloak around her and stood up. She’d find more rest walking the decks than trying to sleep in these conditions.

‘
Twas the middle of the night, yet footsteps sounded on the deck above. Jocelyn’s curiosity led her to the companionway, for usually even the seamen had bedded down by the darkest hour of night. Interested, she crept upwards and felt the warm August wind brush her hair from her face as she climbed out onto the upper deck.

The pinnace had been brought alongside the
Lion
; the gangplank lay in place and several of the colony’s men were filing silently onto the smaller ship. In the gleaming moonlight she recognized the white hair of her uncle and the glint of a musket in his hand. The wind flapped her cloak as she edged toward them, then she gasped as a hand fell upon her shoulder.

“
Well met, Jocelyn.” Thomas stood behind her, his face hidden in a shadow cast by the ship’s mast.

“
Thomas! How you frightened me! What are you doing up here? Where are they going?”

His voice was dark, restrained.
“They are going where they need to go, and you should be below. Your uncle will be upset if he sees you here.”

“
But why are they going ashore in the dead of night?” She raised her voice as wind began to blow in earnest, a fierce, steady bluster that shrilled toward the island and threatened to blow the pinnace out from under the waiting gangplank.

“
I have to pray for them, Jocelyn, so go below and wait. You’ll understand everything later.”

He stepped away from her, but fury flamed in Jocelyn
’s soul and her hand flew out to catch his arm. “You can’t just walk away from me, Thomas Colman!
What
will I understand later?”

His dark eyes were inscrutable in the dim shadow, but she heard a trace of gentleness in his voice, the tenderness a father displays toward a foolish child.
“Go below, Jocelyn. Say a prayer for these men. You will have to wait until morning.”

And firmly, gently, he removed her hand from his arm, brought it to his lips, and left her standing in the wind-whipped shadows.

Under the command of Edward Stafford, the guidance of Manteo, and the blessing of Thomas Colman, the twenty-four men aboard the pinnace slipped westward through the dark waters. The high arc of the bow dipped and rose through the waters, sending a cool splash of spray over Stafford’s face. ‘Twas well that this was over and done. The morrow would either bring victory or death to the fledgling settlement. But if ‘twas the latter, the remaining colonists upon the
Lion
could still sail for England.

A strong wind pushed the boat silently across the waters, and Stafford saw Roanoke Island slip by to his left, then the mainland rose ahead of him through a ghostly fog.
Too quickly, Stafford thought, the small ship silently beached itself less than a mile from the Roanoac village of Dasemunkepeuc.

The flintlock of his musket glinted in the moonlight, and the full significance of their action suddenly struck Stafford.
‘Twas the first occasion in which John White had approved violence against the savages, and he had done so only at the urging of Stafford and a few other assistants. Was this action truly wise? But English law demanded revenge.

After scanning the dark forest at the edge of the shore, Manteo nodded gravely to Stafford, who barked a single command.
The men shouldered their guns in unison and stepped from the boat. The attack to avenge George Howe and Grenville’s fifteen had begun.