Cate of the Lost Colony (12 page)

Our voyage had been brought to a safe end. But our trials were only beginning.

Chapter 19

From the Papers of Sir Walter Ralegh

Memorandum

12 May 1587. The
Lion
has departed Plymouth and I have had no reply from the Lady Catherine. Perhaps she did not receive my letter? No, it must be that her reply was lost. I see the sodden pages adrift upon the furrowed sea. Alas, I shall never know her mind.

My heart beats with a passionate remorse. If only I had delivered the letter myself! But I was afraid to face her and now am punished for my cowardice.

24 May 1587. I live the dream of every man in England. Who does not desire to behold the virgin queen at the hour of her awakening, all the day long, and in the last moments before sleep? I see her in her shift, her bosom drooping like a withered bloom. I see her scalp beneath her white hair. I watch her grimace, limping on an ulcered leg, and feel compelled to offer her my arm. This is a husband’s intimate office, not mine.

I think I never will marry. Does every man fear to find his ardor cooled by the sight of frailty? By a beauty exposed as stark plainness?

There was nothing false or painted about C.A.’s beauty. Even now I see her lips and cheeks of a natural coral hue, her dark thick hair—all her own. Ah, in years hence it will show strands of silver, and lines will mark her face like tributaries on a map. The thought does not repulse me. Why? Because I will be old as well.

I cannot forget her, though an ocean widens between us. Does she sit in John White’s cabin and take her fill of stories from him, as from a father’s lips? Does she gaze upon the swarthy Fernandes and wish to sail with rovers and adventurers?

It was her lively imagination—so like my own—that I loved in her. And now it has wandered from me, to wonder new thoughts.

And I am, though never alone, lonelier than can be imagined.

Poem

I hope for what I have not,

I would come, but may not.

Of my wounds you care naught,

Because the pain you see not.

13 June 1587. At the banquet for the Dutch ambassador Her Majesty called me her second Sir Philip Sidney. It was the highest praise, for this soldier-poet lately slain in the Netherlands is England’s greatest hero. Before everyone, she demanded a sonnet, which I created extempore:

Let us honor fair Astro-phil

(Fall’n on the battle’s bloody plain)

By meeting his enemy, Spain, full well

In Virginia, across that watery main.

The queen bade me sit at her right hand, while Walsingham gave me the blackest of looks. He is still angry I received the Babington estates. Alas, I would almost give them up to obtain what I have not: my freedom, my own will, and true love.

1 July 1587. Outside the privy chamber, Walsingham stopped me with these words: “Do not forget I am the architect of Her Majesty’s policy with regard to Spain. Your efforts must not interfere with mine.”

Is he so full of envy he does not welcome my enterprise of challenging Spain in the New World?

Fie upon his threats! The old spymaster does not command me.

I wonder how he can hear anything with that cap pulled over his ears?

24 July 1587

Dear brother Carew,

Her Majesty’s summer progress will take her through Devonshire. I may not leave her side, so you must contrive to visit me. You will recognize me by my puffed-sleeve tunic the color of a Valencia orange, and a plumed hat too ostentatious even for my taste. Do not laugh at me or I shall thrash you as if we were boys again.

I swear no man is more hated for being loved than I am. The queen has granted me the monopoly on broadcloth, and every man who suffers the loss of his trade because of it hates me. I wish she would love me more by hating me more. It is a paradox, I know; oftentimes things most contrary are both true.

By now the
Lion
and the pinnace have landed at Chesapeake. There must be no time lost in sending a supply ship, but I am all of out funds. Go to our investors and praise Gov. White’s abilities. Remind them of the innumerable pearls and the veins of copper awaiting our discovery, by which we shall all be made richer than King Croesus.

Your brother,

Sir W.R.

Chapter 20

A Dead Man

T
he tides ebbed and flowed around the
Lion
, anchored near the inlet at Hatorask. But after so many weeks of confinement we still could not leave the ship. John White, Ananias Dare, Manteo, and forty soldiers had set out in the pinnace to retrieve the soldiers Grenville had left at the fort. When they returned we would sail the short distance to Chesapeake and settle there.

While we waited, I borrowed an eyeglass to peer at the sand-covered hills, where grass and gorselike bushes grew. They were not as green and lush as I had expected. A seaman, gesturing with pitch-stained hands, explained this was a barrier island holding back the sea from the mainland that lay across the shallow bay beyond it. With the glass I searched the sea, hoping to see a great fish with fins like sails or the rare leviathan, creatures I had seen only in pictures. I was impatient to be on land, but it was a pleasure just to stand on deck and feel and taste the salty wind. I found myself wishing Sir Walter were beside me. Did he envy me, that I would see Virginia before him and help to build the colony he longed to govern?

I wondered what it was like for Manteo to return to his own land. Would he tell his people about great city of London and teach them English? Would they still accept him now that he looked like an Englishman? I smiled to think of the horrified looks that would greet us if we all returned to London dressed like savages.

When the pinnace returned, it carried the same forty men who had gone out the day before.

“Where are Grenville’s men?” called Roger Bailey from the deck of the
Lion.

“They were not at the fort,” shouted Ananias in reply. “But we will search until we find them.”

“No, son, we sail for Chesapeake now. We will return later,” said John White.

One of the women started weeping, for her husband had been among those left on the island.

Then Fernandes announced from the quarterdeck that none of the men would be allowed to board the ship again. But he demanded to see White and sent out a rowboat to fetch him.

At this the men in the pinnace grew restive. Ananias insisted on getting in the rowboat with White. I wondered about Fernandes’s purpose. The governor climbed the rigging and jumped to the deck, his face red with exertion and rage.

“What is this? Send the boatswain back to fetch all the men in the pinnace,” he demanded.

Without replying, Fernandes disappeared into the cabin, and White and Ananias could only follow him. Again we heard their angry voices. Eleanor clung to my arm. I knew she had not spoken to her father as she promised. Now trouble was in store.

John White emerged from the cabin and without preamble said, “Fernandes has elected to return at once to England because of the lateness of the season and the storms he is anxious to avoid.”

He frowned and his eyes flashed. But the storm on his brow was evidently not the one Fernandes feared.

“Thus we are obliged to stay at Fort Ralegh—”

Roger Bailey interrupted him. “What happened to Grenville’s men? Did the savages get them?” He pointed to Manteo standing in the pinnace. “He must know. He is one of them.”

I admired the way Manteo stood erect, not even glancing at the accusing finger.

“We have women and children with us,” said Ambrose Vickers. “We can’t stay here if we’re likely to be attacked.”

His words caused murmuring among the others and White raised his hand to silence it.

“There is still a fort. We will reinforce it and build up the existing houses.” He paused, then said with emphasis, “And
because
of Manteo, we have friends among the Indians.”

I did not understand why the men were angry with the governor and not with Fernandes, who stood before the cabin door as if he owned everything inside. I wondered if he would have dared to treat Ralegh as he treated White.

Vickers, too, noticed the pilot. “Wasn’t he ordered to take us to Chesapeake? And now he refuses. That’s mutiny!” he shouted to his fellows.

John White stepped so close to Vickers their noses were almost touching. “The weapons are on this ship and my soldiers are in the pinnace. Shall
you
fight Fernandes and his seamen for control of the ship? Shall we begin this venture with bloodshed?” His voice was low and tight. “Not while I govern here.”

Vickers seemed to consider his choices. His shoulders slumped. “Governor, I am at your service,” he said. But his tone was sullen.

“Men, to your tasks,” said White. “Unlade this ship.”

The slow business of transporting goods to the island commenced. Bailey oversaw the rebuilding of the shallop, a large rowboat with a mast and sails that had been stored in pieces in the hold. The pinnace and the shallop sailed back and forth over several days. Fernandes watched the operation in silence from the forecastle deck.

The women and children were the last to leave the ship. We climbed down into the shallop, which Ananias guided through the inlet and along the leeward side of the barrier islands. There in the shallows were thousands of sleek cranes with long necks and thin legs. As we passed by, they rose as one into the air. The flapping of their wings sounded like sails unfurling in a gale. Jane sat on one side of me and Eleanor on the other, our elbows linked, as the shallop entered the wide bay. We were all silent with expectation, even little Edmund, and Betty’s lips moved as if she was praying. The island of the Roanoke loomed larger as we drew near. Its shore was dark and dense with trees, their roots like fingers planted in the water. I peered into the swampy thickets and wondered what man or beast could survive there. I wondered if Grenville’s men had been killed by Indians and thrown into the black water or attacked and carried off by the Spanish.

Ananias sailed around the island to a more hospitable landing point, where the pinnace was lashed to some trees. A path had been cleared from the sandy shore to the fort. The site was already a hive of noisy activity, with men cutting down trees and milling the timber by hand. Others were repairing the palisade, a tall fence made from roughly hewed planks. From a forge erected in a clearing came a rhythmic clanging. A grinning Georgie Howe walked by, carrying a cask on his shoulder. Perhaps his mind was weak, but his body was strong and his temperament always sanguine.

But where was Fort Ralegh? I expected to see a high stone wall and a tower within. The soldiers were shoveling sandy dirt into wheelbarrows and dumping it on a high mound. To my dismay, I realized the fort was no more than an irregular earthen wall. Most of it had slid into the ditch around it, and the soldiers were shoring it up again. Inside the fort was a single building, the armory. I watched as three soldiers heaved a gun from its carriage onto a wooden platform built atop the earthworks. I was not reassured. Every city had its defenses; even peaceful London was surrounded by a wall. But here the houses were located
outside
the fort, and new ones were being built outside the palisade. If the Spanish attacked, or the Indians who were not Manteo’s friends, we would be at their mercy unless we were fortunate enough to be inside the fort.

I regarded the settlement, too, with dismay. The dozen cottages built by Grenville’s men had fallen into decay. Their doors sagged and the rush roofs were collapsing. Weeds grew waist high and melon plants with their thick, wide leaves twined like snakes through the windows. Ananias was already repairing the largest cottage to house the governor and his family. It had two rooms, one with a wooden bedstead, the other with a hearth and a rustic table. I wondered where I would sleep.

Eleanor, undeterred by the disorder, was already scrubbing the grimed hearth. She grunted and sweated with the effort.

I was not meant to be anyone’s servant in Virginia. But watching Eleanor working in her condition made me ashamed, so I took a broom and began to sweep. Beneath the dried leaves and twigs there was no floor. I stared at the packed dirt in dismay.

“We have mats somewhere,” Eleanor said, wiping her brow on her sleeve. “But not enough for both rooms.”

“I will find some rushes to strew on the ground,” I offered, thinking of the tall grasses I had seen near the shore.

I set out on a narrow path that led toward the shore beyond the landing place. It was hot and still in the woods, and my shift and bodice clung to my body. Even my legs were damp with sweat. The clangor of the settlement grew faint, until all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and the insects buzzing around my face. I wondered why I did not see the exotic creatures and plants John White had painted in such detail, the red fruits hanging in clusters of leaves, the yellow and black butterflies. The countryside around Wiltshire was more beautiful than what I could see of this island. The queen’s garden had flowers of every hue and was not so full of insects. I brushed past brambly shrubs that snagged my skirt. If I walked long enough, perhaps I would come to the Eden I had imagined.

I had gone far from the settlement when it occurred to me that I should not have ventured out alone. I began to wonder about the savages. If they were friendly, as White claimed, why had they not greeted us when we landed? Could they be hiding and watching me even now? I turned in a circle, smiling and holding my palms upward in a gesture of innocence. For some reason it made me feel safer. Then I heard a whispering that rose and fell. I froze until I realized it was the waves lapping the shore. The sound recalled to me my task, and I made for a patch of rushes near the water. I had not thought to bring a knife to cut the rushes or a cord to bind them. The sharp grasses cut my hands, so I wrapped them in my petticoat and pulled at the rushes until I had more than I could carry. Then I took off my sand-filled shoes, hiked up my skirts, and waded into the water, crouching to bathe my raw and aching hands.

The inlet was so still, the water so clear, I could see fish large and small darting in the lee of the rocks, an entire colony beneath the water’s surface. One was greenish in color, with fins as elaborate as a lace ruff. I was about to reach into the water and grasp it, when I beheld out of the corner of my eye a sharpened stick resting against a log, the point stuck in the stream bed. It seemed Providence meant for me to catch a fish that day.

Careful not to stir up the water, I took a few steps closer and reached for the stick. That is when I saw, behind the log, the figure of a man. His legs were in the water, the rest of him lying on his back over a rock. His chest was bristling with arrows, and his bloody head had been staved in.