The Lost Duchess (40 page)

The singing had stopped.

*

They approached the city as the mist fled wraith-like from the water and early sunbeams filtered between the cypress trees. The light had
a quality that Kit had observed before in cathedrals, slanting down from unseen openings, hazed as if through the smoke of candles, entering a vastness framed by countless pillars that were buttressed tree trunks reaching to inestimable height, their branches bearing tattered flags of moss that gleamed golden where the sunbeams struck. Fur-cloaked priests led them along a path like a cloister, the view framed by the arches of creepers, the passageway trailing through courtyards of swamp, shining under the few rays that penetrated so far, black in the shadows, or crusted by weed glowing green like mown grass. Their first sight of Choanoke was the brightness of a clearing around a low hummock of higher ground, then the palisade that surrounded it, over twice the height of a man: an impenetrable wall of tree trunks driven into a depthless mire, their tops hewn to spikes. The entrance was a double ribbon of stakes leading to the outermost dwellings, mostly bow-framed huts covered in skins or rush mats, some of which were rolled back to air raised sleeping platforms. Beyond these was an inner palisade with another concealed entrance, and behind this wall were great longhouses, and a higher building on stilts with a curious terrace-ridged pointed roof. To this place the priests led them. Kit reckoned the number of the city’s inhabitants as he followed the cloaked men up a ladder to the high floor inside. There must be close to fifteen hundred; he’d counted seventeen longhouses, each large enough to house sixty people, along with at least a score of smaller shelters. The whole place was so well protected that it would take an army to overpower, but the strength of the defences suggested the Choanokes feared attack. They must have enemies amongst other savage tribes; perhaps that would help the City of Raleigh.

Kit looked round at the others before entering the gloom within
the strange building. No one spoke. They all looked apprehensive, Emme most of all. Her shock-wide eyes revealed fear bordering on terror. He wanted to soothe her but something about the eerie silence held him back from uttering a word. This place was sacred, he felt sure. It smelt of death.

Once inside, the mats that had been raised for them were lowered back down. The darkness was blinding, and, in the time it took for Kit’s eyes to adjust, he heard nothing but ragged breathing. No one moved. Gradually he made out forms in the shadows: ghostly shapes revealed by a spectral luminescence that somehow managed to seep through the covers, stripped of colour and reduced to shades.

He saw bodies. Many of them. Before him was a long row of men laid out side by side, legs stretched to an unnatural length, faces shrivelled around empty eye-sockets, lips parted like gaping slits baring the smiles of skulls covered in masks of leather.

Emme gasped and gripped his arm.

He covered her hand.

The priests began to sing, deep and low with powerful resonance, voices rising in wailing harmony, circling in pitch, soaring in mood. The song was uplifting and infinitely sad. They seemed to direct it at something, then Kit saw what that was: a man attired completely in black apart from a blaze at his breast, sitting, ankles crossed, knees apart, his dress accentuating his shoulders as if he was wearing a padded doublet, open at the chest, and with a black hat on his head of the high-crowned kind that he’d seen no Indian wear. Was the man Spanish? English? Was he alive? He merged so completely into the shadows that Kit could hardly discern him. His face was invisible.

Manteo came close, bringing his own smell of hide and resin. He placed his hand on Kit’s shoulder and whispered into his ear.

‘This is Kiwasa, guardian of the dead. He watches over former kings.’

‘
What
is he?’

‘He is between our world and theirs.’

‘Does he see us?’

‘Yes, though his eyes are wood.’

‘Ah.’ Kit exhaled. ‘He is a statue.’

Kit stared harder at the manikin, imagining the thing was moving, head turning as he edged nearer. He must have imagined it; no statue could move unaided. Emme was still with him, clutching his sleeve. He felt her shivering and murmured reassurance.

‘It’s just an effigy. This place is no more than a wicker tomb.’

‘The smell …’

‘The smell of mortality; it could be worse.’

She huddled closer as the singing enveloped them. Suddenly it ended.

A hand slid over his throat as fur brushed his cheek. The pressure on his throat was slight but it made his blood run cold. He imagined the hand tightening, two hands strangling him.

A priest spoke quietly.

‘He wants you to tell him the message,’ Manteo said.

‘What message?’

‘The message that you hear.’

He heard nothing. The priest was silent, waiting. Why him? Why the question? He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Quell his fear. Nothing could be achieved without trust. Empty his mind, black within black. He spoke what he thought.

‘There must be an end to mistrust.’ He turned to Manteo. ‘Tell them that.’

Manteo translated, and the priests spoke softly between themselves.

Perhaps the message was what he most wanted from the Choanokes, perhaps what he hoped they wanted. It seemed to satisfy the priests; they said no more and ushered everyone outside.

The priests led him on towards a huge longhouse at the heart of the clearing. The others trooped with him, Emme on his left side, Manteo on his right; Rob followed with Tom Humphrey, Jack Tydway with Jim Lacy. They marched inside the immense barrel-roofed structure and assembled at the centre before a line of seated elders. Scores of people were at either end, all crammed together, squatting cross-legged; there must have been several hundred all told. Light streamed in from the side Kit faced where the middle strips of matting had been rolled up to the roof. The elders sat with their backs to this light, their faces in dark shadow as they gestured for everyone to sit. Kit took his place opposite on a wide row of mats, and Emme joined him, soon followed by the others. They spread out their gifts, mostly tools and beads, things that the Choanokes might find useful and prize, and all the while Kit searched for someone who could be Menatonon, but there was no sign of a cripple amongst the cloaked and aged men. He cast a quizzical glance at Manteo but his friend shook his head.

‘He is not here,’ Manteo murmured.

Kit spread his hands and fixed his attention on the elders.

‘We come in peace in hope of friendship. We offer these gifts of steel and glass. If the
weroance
Menatonon is here, we ask to speak with him. We wish to renew our alliance with the great tribe of the Choanokes.’

The elders conferred amongst themselves, roached heads bent
together, occasionally glancing over their shoulders. Smoke rose from their pipes to writhe like transparent snakes in the sunbeams above. None of the elders was distinguished in dress beyond the fringed deerskins they wore like the robes of the ancients. They had no tattoos or ornamentation, no strings of pearls or emblems of leadership. Were any of them
weroances
? It didn’t seem likely. They looked uncomfortable, as if they were waiting for someone else to take charge. Kit saw one of them puffing on a pipe and staring into the shadows at the north end of the longhouse. He looked there too. There was someone approaching. A hum of anticipation rose from the people all around; then, at a single word of command, everyone got to their feet. The elders stood, and Kit motioned for his company to stand also. Absolute silence fell as a figure strode forwards, passing through the crowd which opened up before him, forming a passageway to the place where Kit and his party waited.

The man was magnificent, tall and strongly built with the sinuous grace of an athlete, clothed in nothing but a breechclout, but covered in tattoos from head to toe that flowed around the lines of his powerful muscles. His hair was shaved either side of a spiked and feathered roach, and at his chest was a great square pendant of burnished copper. There was copper around his neck and in bands around his wrists. When he smiled, as he drew closer, Kit saw a gap between his upper teeth.

‘Wanchese!’ Manteo croaked, stiffening at Kit’s side.

Kit groaned inwardly, sensing their chances crumbling. What was Wanchese doing at Choanoke if not fomenting trouble for the colony?

The warrior eyed Manteo suspiciously, and spoke in English. ‘Still fawning before our enemies, Manteo? There is no place for
you here. I can speak for myself and the Choanokes in the tongue of the English. I can tell everyone at this council the truth of what is said. We have no need for your meddling.’

Kit spoke up. Manteo’s position had to be recognised.

‘We would like Manteo to stay so there is no misunderstanding. He can put your words to us in the tongue of the Choanokes for the benefit of those assembled, and you can do likewise with our words to you.’

Wanchese inclined his head.

‘Very well, Englishman. I will know if he lies.’

Manteo’s translation followed, hoarse but defiant.

With his arms spread wide, Wanchese welcomed Kit and his company and turned to include everyone.

‘Greetings, English, ghosts from the spirit world.’ His eyes narrowed as he addressed Kit directly. ‘You must know you cannot speak here with the
weroance
Menatonon. He lies now in the House of the Dead.’

Kit swallowed with an effort, looked at Wanchese and saw their ruin. They were surely finished. Menatonon was dead, and Wanchese, their known enemy, now commanded the respect of the Choanokes who had once been their friends. What hope was there left?

But he would not abandon the course they had embarked upon, not yet, not with the lives of Emme and his son at stake. He would see it through until he could hope no longer.

‘We grieve to hear of the death of Menatonon,’ he said, projecting as much authority as he could. ‘My name is Kit Doonan, and I speak for the City of Raleigh at Roanoke, and the English, my countrymen. Our greetings to you and all the people of Choanoke.’

Wanchese bade everyone sit, and settled opposite Kit on a mat in front of the elders. The smell of sweat and smouldering tobacco pervaded the air. But Wanchese did not smoke, nor did he offer a pipe to Kit. He stared with eyes like glowing embers.

‘Menatonon spoke to you, the priests tell me. He told you there must be no more mistrust between us.’

‘Wouldn’t that help everyone?’

Wanchese calmly placed his hands on his outspread knees. His posture reminded Kit of the idol Kiwasa. Against the light he seemed almost as dark. The warrior half closed his eyes and inhaled. When his eyelids flicked open again it was to glare straight at Kit.

‘Menatonon died broken after you English took his best loved son.’

‘Skiko was not sent back?’

‘No one has seen him since you English took him away.’

Kit bowed his head. Lord, what had they done? Damn Lane for his arrogance and for handing the good citizens of Raleigh a chalice poisoned by cruelty. He understood Menatonon’s suffering; it would be his if Rob was taken from him to live out his life as a hostage, a misery he remembered all too well. He wanted to turn around, to reassure himself with a glance that Rob was still alive and behind him. But he did not move. Thank God for the boy’s colour; Wanchese would never recognise him as his son. But Rob’s fate, and Emme’s, now depended on healing the hurt that had been done, and all he could offer was remorse. He looked up.

‘Skiko should have been released and returned to you. We apologise for his loss.’

Wanchese shook his fist.

‘Apologise! You think that is enough for destroying the great
weroance
of the Choanokes and his son? He offered you friendship and tribute and in return you tore out his heart.’

Kit raised his scarred palm and turned slowly to take in all those gathered round, from the savage faces crowded together at one end of the longhouse to those at the other, some of them pooled in light, most cast in shadow, the whites of their eyes gleaming: hundreds of people he had to convince through filtered words and unasked for gifts with little to aid him but the way he spoke, the distance between them made greater by deep suspicion. How could he reach them?

‘We apologise sincerely,’ he said. ‘That is the truth. This company, and those of us now at Roanoke, had nothing to do with the taking of Skiko.’

A sneer curled the warrior’s lip.

‘Neither did I have anything to do with the offers of peace made by Menatonon.’

Kit turned again to all the Choanokes assembled.

‘There have been wrongs on both sides.’

Then he spoke directly to Wanchese, looking him in the eye.

‘You murdered one of our best men at Roanoke, a man innocent of any offence against you.’

Wanchese’s sneer twisted to a baleful smile.

‘His offence was to be English, as is yours. You English have proved you cannot be trusted. You bring us tainted gifts and evil ways. You invade our lands and kill us by stealth.’ He raised his voice to a shout. ‘You must all die.’

Kit sat motionless as a shiver shot through his spine: the chill barb of hatred. Wanchese would never accept the offer of friendship he brought. It was too late to try and reason with him; his ears had been blocked by the blood spilt in the past. Their only hope now
lay in direct appeal to the Choanokes despite Wanchese’s malign influence. He would have to try. He spoke to the elders and the people looking on, a task made harder by the sunlight that bathed him but left most of his audience in the shadow behind the walls. He felt the power of his own conviction, strong as the light, but he could not gauge the effect of his words.

‘I pray the Choanokes will think differently. I accept that some of the English who came before us did not act as honourably as they should have done. But we too have suffered wrongs. The Englishmen who came to Roanoke before us were brutally attacked. Many were killed though they had done no native here any harm. Now one of our own men has been murdered by the Secotans. I say the time has come for peace. The Roanokes and the Secotans have had their vengeance.’ He spread his hands, palms flat. ‘Let us call an end to enmity and move forwards in friendship.’