Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (15 page)

He would have been mesmerized by the marvelous panorama unfolding before his eyes, but two small images haunted the back of his mind and kept him from fully enjoying the new world that was spreading itself in front of him.
Somewhere in Virginia Noshi and Gilda were alone and unprotected, and he could not rest until he kept his promise to take of them. Though John Smith had promised to find and rescue them, how capable would the Englishman prove to be? He did not know the Indians or the country as well as Fallon did.

“
Mayhap I should have stayed behind to search for them,” he whispered guiltily. But he had felt so insignificant and helpless in the face of Smith’s brave bluster, musket, and armor. Surely Smith could find and rescue two children—couldn’t he?

The two ships under Newport
’s command docked at Portsmouth. Shortly after their docking, Fallon heard the bosun call his name. “Captain wants to see you in his cabin,” the bosun said, jerking his head toward the narrow companionway that led to the upper deck. “Right now, boy.”

Fallon sprinted up the stairs and crossed the deck with eager steps.
He knocked tentatively on the captain’s door, but was reassured when Newport’s sharp voice rang through the heavy oak: “Enter!”

Newport sat at the small table in his cabin, a sealed letter in his hand.
“Your future lies within this parchment, Fallon Bailie,” he said, shaking the letter slightly for emphasis. “John Smith hath written explicit orders about what is to be done with you once we reach London.”

Fallon swallowed over the nervous lump in his throat.
“Will you read it to me?”

“
Yea, in a moment,” Newport answered, hesitating. He leaned forward, his eyes brightening like shrewd little chips of quartz. “Y’are a bright lad, Fallon Bailie, and I’ve been watching you for weeks. What do you say to me tossing this letter overboard and let’s forget it all together? Make the sea your mistress, and come with me when we leave again. We’ll be back to Virginia for the colony’s second supply, probably leaving in a couple of months or so, and you could be my cabin boy or one of the bilge rats working below decks.” He paused to give Fallon an appraising glance. “What do you say, boy? You’ve taken well to the sea, or I’d not be asking you to consider this thing.”

Fallon
’s gaze centered on the letter in the captain’s hand. “Is there some reason why I should not follow John Smith’s instructions?”

Newport
’s eyes narrowed, then he shook his head. “None but my own hunch. Of the men we left behind at Jamestown, none but John Smith and mayhap the good Reverend Hunt have the wherewithal to last a year in that place,” he said. “Smith’s liable to emerge the leader of that rabble, and my suspicion is that he’ll not be gambling his success on what damage you might do to him, boy.”

“
I cannot hurt him,” Fallon answered quietly. “What harm could I do to such a man?”

“‘
Tis not you, but the truth you represent,” Newport said, shifting uneasily on his stool. “And if the truth is not plain to you, let’s not worry with it. But make your choice, son. The sea or John Smith. Which will you follow?”

Fallon looked again at the parchment in Newport
’s hand. He was tempted by the captain’s offer, for he had loved the sights and sounds of the sea. But Newport would return to Jamestown in a few months, and John Smith had said ‘twould be dangerous for Fallon to remain in Virginia while Powhatan’s anger hovered over the colony. Fallon sensed he would be better off to follow the wishes of the man who had sent him away.

“
I would do as John Smith bids,” he whispered after a moment of consideration. “If you please, captain—what does the letter say?”

With a deft stroke of a knife Newport broke the seal upon the parchment.
After skimming the letter, he thrust it toward Fallon. “Do you read?” he asked abruptly.

“
Yea,” Fallon answered, scanning the brisk handwriting on the page. The message scrawled upon the parchment was brief and to the point:

My ward Fallon Bailie, of late from Virginia, is to be taken to the Royal Academy for Homeless Orphans, there to serve as a student until the age of sixteen or until he can be apprenticed to a willing master. He is to remain at the Academy under the care and guardianship of the headmaster until, God willing, I, John Smith, shall call for and make provision for him. May God preserve and protect us both while we are apart.

“
That is all?” Fallon asked, turning the parchment over. Smith had not mentioned Gilda and Noshi, or when he might be expected to return. Indeed, except for the last sentence, the reader would hardly expect John Smith to return at all.

Newport drew his lips in a tight smile.
“‘Pon my soul, I expected Smith would do better than this,” he muttered, his words barely reaching Fallon’s ear. “A home for orphans! Indeed!”

“
Is that not a good place?” Fallon asked, feeling a rock settle in the pit of his stomach.

“‘
Tis fine,” Newport said, standing. He took the letter from Fallon and held it aloft near the open window in his cabin. “‘Tis not too late, y’know. You might still be my cabin boy.”

Fallon slowly shook his head.
If he chose to follow the unpredictable sea, he might never meet John Smith or Noshi or Gilda again. And since God had used John Smith to save Fallon’s life, was it not better to follow God’s hand and obey Smith’s direction?

“
There’s no gainsaying that y’are more than kind,” he whispered. “But I will do as John Smith hath directed me.”

Captain Newport hired a coach to carry him and Fallon from Portsmouth to London, and in a paralysis of astonishment Fallon kept his face swiveled toward the window of the coach.
He had never seen a carriage, a horse, or men in so much fine clothing. As they left the bustle of the docks and moved into the countryside, Fallon felt his jaw drop at the openness of a land wiped clean of forests. The region near the shore lay as flat as stretched buckskin with the sharp, gray chimneys of little villages poking up from it like clinging cockleburs. As they rode north, the land rose and fell, but still the landscape lay quilted into neat fenced pastures where cattle and horses grazed next to carefully plowed fields. Window boxes gushed red with geraniums on small, tidy cottages that stood guard over these pastures. In the distance, gradually rolling hills provided a pretty scalloped border to the horizon.

The alien beauty of the countryside faded as the coach neared London.
The pointed roofs of tall city structures leapt up from the horizon, dragging up a cluster of other buildings brushed to a uniform sooty gray that reminded Fallon of the charred ashes upon his mother’s hearth. The road upon which they travelled grew crowded and filled with ruts, and of a sudden the coach jostled through a narrow cobblestone street encumbered with carriages, laden with smells, and packed with surging crowds of humanity.

Fallon had never seen so many buildings or people together in one place.
He sank back into the cushions of the carriage, overwhelmed by the intensity of the experience. There were a thousand things to be identified, a thousand faces to evaluate, a thousand dangers of which to be wary. In the forests of Virginia he had never imagined that such a barbaric, crowded place could exist. The reeking fog of sewage assaulted his nostrils, and the steadily falling rain did little to wash away the layered grime accumulated from generations of confined living.

The team of horses picked their way through the muck and mire, then the coach stopped outside a building on a street that seemed more quiet than the others they had traversed.
Captain Newport looked out the window, then nodded toward Fallon. “We have arrived,” he said, his voice abrupt.

The Royal Academy for Homeless Orphans a wide two-story house with the warmth of a mausoleum.
Rain fell heavily upon its windows and red brick facade as Fallon stepped from the coach. As he looked up, he saw half a dozen young boys standing at an upper window in mute appraisal. Their faces were drawn and utterly without mirth, then of a sudden they scurried away like frightened rats.

“
I hope you’ll find a home here,” Captain Newport said, stepping from the coach beside Fallon. He squinted toward the heavy double doors. “The school was established sixty years ago to honor the ten-year-old King Edward VI.” His mouth curved in a mirthless smile as he placed his hand upon Fallon’s shoulder. “The king’s long gone, but the school remains, and the headmaster hath a considerably good reputation in the city. He’s Delbert Crompton, or Master Crompton to you, of course, and I’ve heard he’s a sociable, jolly fellow.”

Fallon knew that Newport waited for him to reply, but he could not find words to cut through his fear and feelings of hopelessness.
His lips felt as cold as his heart, and the chill wind and rain colored his entire world as gray as the rooftops of London.

Fallon lifted his face to Captain Newport
’s, grateful that the wetness upon his cheeks would be disguised as rain. “This is where John Smith would have me wait for him?” he asked, finally finding his voice.

Newport nodded.

Fallon took a deep breath and wiped his cold hands on the new suit of clothing the captain had provided. The shirt, breeches, and jerkin fit him perfectly, though the fabric felt flimsy and too light for Fallon’s taste, but mayhap the school would prove to be an admirable fit as well.

“
Then let us meet this Master Crompton,” Fallon said, lifting his chin in what he hoped was a fair imitation of bravery. Newport stepped forward and swung open the double doors.

Delbert Crompton fancied himself the most capable and resourceful headmaster in London.
On the meagerest of charitable contributions he successfully administrated the Royal Academy for Homeless Orphans, and the boys housed there were fed twice a day, clothed admirably well, and apprenticed easily, for their masters knew they would work hard and expect little. He was a practical, observant man, who made it his business to know all that went on in his domain. The church ladies who descended weekly upon the school to do small acts of kindness for their consciences’ sake thought him good natured and sociable.

But the schoolboys knew his true nature, and Crompton made no effort to hide it from them.
If he was hard, the better to toughen his charges; if he was parsimonious, the better to teach boys not to expect too much from life. And if he was inebriated, well, so was half of London on any given night, and his boys had become used to the rheumy glow of his wine-reddened eyes and the scent of his bourbon breath.

He was a tall man whose chief physical attribute was an enormous stomach that protruded over his belt like a tumor.
At forty-and-seven, he considered himself in the prime of life. He had lost much of his hair, but his mistress assured him that she found the ginger freckles on his head as attractive as the sharp, hawk-like nose that sat atop his yellowed teeth. When curled into a snarl and coupled with the cane, that monumental nose never failed to quail the spirits of a rebellious boy.

A new student stood before Delbert Crompton now, a red-haired, freckled creature of at least thirteen.
He was tall and thin, but carried himself erectly with a quiet air of authority despite the uncomfortable way he shifted in the ill-fitting doublet and breeches. The urchin’s manner instantly aroused Crompton’s ire. Something seemed to flicker far back in the boy’s odd blue eyes, some secret or some wisdom. Crompton squinted at the boy for the space of a full minute, then decided that this one had seen too much of life’s hardness in his short years, but then, so had all the other boys in this place.

“
Your name?” Crompton asked, disguising his instant antipathy with a quick, brittle smile.

“
Fallon Bailie, sir.”

“
And y’are an orphan?” He asked the question with lofty concern and a mournful expression.

“
Yea. My mother and father are dead.” The boy looked at the floor as he said this, as if the admission still hurt. Crompton felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Snotty little brat, coming here with the air of a conquering hero when he was obviously without any social standing whatsoever . . .

“
Have you been educated?”

The boy tilted his head and frowned, then glanced to Captain Christopher Newport as if for advice.
Newport cleared his throat. “He is a very able boy, sir, and intelligent. But he hath had no formal schooling.”

“
I see.” Crompton lifted his chin. “So y’are totally ignorant.”

The boy flushed; the words had rankled his considerable pride.
Newport stepped forward in protest. “He is very learned, Master Crompton, but he hath no knowledge of city life. He is—from the country.”

Crompton perched upon the edge of his desk, lowering his eyes as he listened to the rain thrum against the roof overhead.
He had seen country boys, and all were humble lads with dirt under their fingernails and heads perpetually lowered from bowing to the lords on the great estates. This was no country boy, despite what the vaunted Captain Newport said. ‘Twas more likely the esteemed captain had sired himself an illegitimate son in some distant port and fetched the child to England after the mother’s death. Still, there could be no harm in accepting the boy, for Newport had ties to royal circles that might be useful in the future . . .