Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (25 page)

When the last barrels were loaded aboard, Rolfe sighed in relief and saluted the bosun who had supervised the loading. Captain Samuel Argall’s ship, the
Treasurer,
waited at anchor in the midst of the river, and Rolfe found himself wondering about the oft-repeated rumor that chief Powhatan’s daughter had traveled for over two months as a prisoner aboard that ship. Rolfe had heard that Lieutenant Governor Gates was due from Jamestown to board the
Treasurer
and see for himself whether the girl was aboard and if she was being well-treated.

Intrigued by the idea of a captive Indian princess, Rolfe decided to seek shelter for the night at the public house at Henrico rather than walk the miles to his plantation.

Three days later, a pillaring thunderhead in the west marched inexorably toward Argall’s ship as Rolfe paced nervously on the deck. Along with Lieutenant Governor Thomas Gates and Governor Thomas Dale, he had been selected to board Captain Argall’s
Treasurer
to ascertain the status and health of the hostage Indian princess.

His mind reeled in confusion. Captain Argall had assured the governor that this move had been wisely done and according to the will of God, but John wondered how keeping a teenage girl hostage aboard a cramped ship could possibly be considered a Christian act. If she wanted to return to her father, were they not wrong to hold her? And if, perchance, she agreed to remain with the English as a willing hostage, would it not be better to give her a decent house and a woman to attend her?

He had not been in Virginia long, but he had often been struck speechless by the amazing ability of men to twist God’s words and will to condone almost any situation. He had lost a baby and a wife not long after landing in Virginia, and those who expressed sorrow at his loss did not hesitate to prophesy that ‘twas God’s will that Rolfe remain unmarried in Virginia, for a wife and child would only make life in the colony more difficult. How could they acknowledge his grief and urge him to rejoice with the same breath? Mayhap they had never felt as he did, shipwrecked by grief, marooned on an island of guilt and self-doubt. If he had not insisted on venturing to Virginia, if he had not chosen the disease-laden ship he did . . .

His thoughts were interrupted when Captain Argall appeared on deck to welcome the three men aboard his ship. After the perfunctory and customary greetings, Argall smiled and gestured toward the companionway. A young Indian girl had come up from below and looked at them with careful, anxious eyes.

Uncommonly lovely, she wore a simple dress of buckskin that revealed her slim legs and delicate arms. Her long neck curved like a bird taking wing, framed by dark hair carefully plaited into braids interwoven with strips of leather and feathers. Her very uniqueness was alluring: dark eyes, straight nose, determined mouth. John realized he was staring, and forced himself to look away. At the princess’ side stood a much younger girl, her handmaid, he supposed, who kept her eyes downcast and her hands behind her back.

The princess rested her hands on the smaller girl’s shoulders, a clear sign of devotion. “Are you happy?” the governor bellowed, as if by shouting he could magically make the maiden understand English, but her soulful eyes seemed to understand. After a moment, she nodded to the governor’s question.

When the three men made certain that the girls had not been mistreated in any way, they withdrew from the ship and talked with the captain on the dock.

“‘Tis of certain you cannot keep her, Captain,” Rolfe said. “Surrounded by rough seamen—there’s no gainsaying that such a lovely young woman hath no place aboard ship.”

“No harm hath come to her thus far,” Argall answered, his chest rising in indignation. “My men are mannerly, sir, and would not touch her or the young one—”

“‘Tis better that she come into the fort at Jamestown, in any case,” the governor interrupted smoothly, putting out a hand to smooth Argall’s ruffled pride. “As she is a political prisoner, she should be kept at the fort.”

“In the gaol?” Gates asked, aghast. “She’s done no wrong, naught to warrant putting her in that miserable place.”

“Mayhap in a private home,” Governor Dale said, looking closely at Rolfe. “You, sir, have a house at Jamestown, do you not? And does not your sister live there now? She would be an excellent chaperon for these two.”

Rolfe stiffened. He did have a house at Jamestown, built for the wife and child who died scarcely after leaving England. His younger sister, Edith, lived there now, for she had come to Virginia to help with the baby. Thus far he had spent most of his time at his plantation at Henrico, avoiding the Jamestown house and the empty dreams it harbored. But he could not deny that he had a house with a woman to care for the Indian girl . . .

“Yea,” he answered, finding his voice. “The princess and her maid can stay with my sister. They would be safe, and
Edith could educate them—”

“But your house lies outside the fort,” Gates protested. “What if Powhatan chooses to steal his daughter back? There is no guard at Rolfe’s house.”

“The house lies minutes from the fort and is easily defensible,” Rolfe offered, his enthusiasm for the idea rising. Mayhap would bring good out of tragedy after all. If there was some larger purpose for the house and his vanquished dreams—

“If y’are planning to keep the girl for some time, Governor, you can’t keep her on this ship,” he said, folding his arms. “‘Tis not healthy or safe. But if she is under Edith’s care—”

“In sooth, she could become one of us!” Governor Dale said, slamming his fist into his open palm. “Name of a name, why didn’t we think of this solution sooner, gentlemen? Rolfe, have your sister make plans for our guest immediately. Gates, take pains to keep this quiet. We don’t want the news spreading to the savages. Argall, wait until dark, then weigh anchor and escort the princess to Rolfe’s house at Jamestown.”

“Tonight?” Rolfe said, his pulse quickening at the thought of facing his sister with this surprise. Poor Edith had no idea of the political firestorm that was about to descend upon her—

“Tonight,” Dale answered, moving swiftly off the dock.

“Here?” Edith Rolfe said, her voice cracking. “In this house? I’m to keep a pair of Indian girls—”

“Hush, Edith, and do what you must to make ready,” John said, flashing a quick, disarming smile. He pulled out of the quick embrace he’d given her and glanced over his shoulder. “They’ll be here any minute. I barely managed to get ahead of them to warn you.”

“Welladay, then let them come,” she answered, wiping her hands on her apron. “They can take me as they find me.”

“‘Tis that attitude that’s kept you from getting a husband,” John teased, peering through the darkness toward the river.

“‘Tis that attitude that’s kept me happy,” Edith replied. She followed her brother outside and stepped into the comforting circle of light from his torch. There—just down the road, half a dozen yellow torch lights danced through the darkness like cat’s eyes. So many men to escort two girls?

“Armed men, too,” Edith murmured when she recognized the gleam of muskets at her gate. One of the men opened the gate and stood back as the two girls moved toward the house.

The oldest girl, a young woman really, carried herself with unusual grace, her dark hair stiff and gleaming like a crow’s wing in the moonlight. ‘Twas obvious that her rich, fawnlike beauty affected the men with her, for they stood at a respectful distance as she passed through the small gate outside the house and neared the front door.

Edith’s mouth curled into a wry smile. Men had never been affected that way by her presence. They were wont to say that she was sweet and kind, or mayhap charming, but they never stood a respectful distance away and gaped at her with the reverence these men now accorded the comely creature who walked up the path. Edith’s face was too plain, her figure too plump, her eyes too colorless for beauty.

Behind the young woman walked a younger girl, and Edith had to peer around the first girl’s figure to catch a decent glimpse of the little one. The two were obviously related, for they shared the same high cheekbones and widely-spaced eyes. The small girl’s hair was as dark and lustrous as the first’s, but when she lifted a timid glance to take in the house, Edith drew in her breath. Even in the yellow light of the torch she could see that the child’s eyes gleamed as blue as a summer sky over an English meadow.

“Welcome,” Edith said, awkwardly splaying her fingers against her apron. She didn’t know whether to hug the girls or curtsey as benefitted a princess, but John stepped forward and held the door open as the girls passed into the house.

“Show them where they can sleep, and make sure the wash basin’s full of fresh water,” John whispered, his brown eyes lit with an excitement Edith hadn’t seen in months. “You can talk to them on the morrow, my dear. And then, if you please, we’d all be more than grateful if you could teach them to be proper English ladies.”

“Turn a savage into a lady?” she gasped, grasping the sleeve of his doublet. “Me? John, have you lost your mind?”

“Who else is there to do it?” he answered, pointing out the fact that only a handful of women resided in Jamestown. “Y’are strong and quick, Edith, and you’ll manage very well. I’ll be back to check on you, and the governor will make sure a guard is posted if you need one.”

“John,” she protested, stammering, but her brother gave her an abrupt wave, then turned and walked out to join the party of men who left the gate and wended their way through the darkness toward the fort.

Edith watched him go, then squared her shoulders. She hadn’t expected this, but she’d been wondering what she was to do in Jamestown without a baby and sister-in-law to care for. Now it seemed that God had declared a change in her plans.

Edith Rolfe stood in the kitchen of her house and crossed her arms with a sigh of exasperation. Her charges sat on a bench before her, a study in opposites: Pocahontas wanted desperately to learn how to speak English and behave as an English gentlewoman, but her very eagerness tripped up her efforts. Numees, on the other hand, seemed diffident and vaguely bored by the endless lessons in language and deportment, but she picked up the language amazingly well and spoke with excellent diction and natural phrasing.

Content that the two girls were safe and secure in English hands, Governor Dale never bothered to inquire about the girls’ progress. But John, Edith noticed, traveled in from his plantation at Henrico to visit the house every weekend. He would often sit in the front chamber on a bench, a pipe of tobacco in his hand, his eyes intent upon Pocahontas as she struggled to read. The idea of “talking from books” was totally foreign to Pocahontas, but Numees picked up the concept with ease. Within three weeks of her arrival at Jamestown she could find and read elementary words in Edith’s Bible.

“I think Pocahontas ought to have religious tutoring,” Edith confided in her brother one night. The two girls were in the kitchen reading hornbooks at the board while John and Edith watched from the front chamber. “For how can we make her one of us unless she understands the God we serve? She is not far removed from idol worship, John, despite her refined looks and character.”

“I will see what can be done,” John answered, closing his own book. “Mayhap the minister at Henrico would enjoy this challenge.” He winked at her. “He is unmarried, you know.”

“So is every other man in this place,” she said, casting him a disdainful look as she rose from the bench. Hiding her face from her handsome brother, she felt her heart twist as she deliberately hardened her voice. “And I have yet to find a man worthy of me.”

Pocahontas thought the Reverend Alexander Whitaker’s ideas strange at first. How could one God rule so vast and varied an earth? But as the minister explained more about the mighty eternal God, Pocahontas realized that the God Reverend Whitaker talked about was the great spirit known to the Indians as the “manitou.” Once she had grasped the concept of one mighty God, the minister went on to say that the spirits of wind, rain, and fire she had long worshipped were only manifestations of God’s power. She had, the reverend explained, been worshipping the creation, not the Creator.

She and Numees sat silently on a bench in the front chamber of the house as Reverend Whitaker told them about sin, God’s love for man, and Jesus the Christ. As he spoke, a light slowly dawned in her heart, and Pocahontas realized that his words contained simple and profound truth.

“Man is a noble ruin,” Reverend Whitaker said, his large hands cradling the leather-bound Bible that King James’ scholars had recently released. “We were made in God’s likeness with dignity and authority over creation, but sin opened the door to death, decay, and suffering.”

“I know about suffering,” she said, recalling the misery that rose in her heart when John Smith told her he could never be her husband.

Reverend Whitaker lifted an eyebrow. “You do? Then give your pain to God, Pocahontas. If you surrender the grief you carry, ‘twill be as a clean wound that God can heal.”

“I would be a Christian,” she said, falling on her knees before the clergyman. “What must I do to surrender to this God?”

“Repent of your idol worship and be baptized,” he said, his eyes wide with wonder as if the sight of a savage girl on her knees surprised him. “Follow Christ, and take a new name to signify the change in your life.”