Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (26 page)

Smiling through tears, Pocahontas nodded. “It is right; we Indians have many names,” she whispered, clasping her hands. “Can you suggest a new name for me, Reverend Whitaker?”

The minister paused a moment, then placed a hand upon her head. “Rebecca,” he said, smiling. “‘Tis from the Bible, and the name means ‘captivating.’ It suits you, my dear.”

Pocahontas twisted her head to steal a glimpse of Numees, hoping the girl would join her in belief and obedience to this God of the English. But Numees sat stiffly upon the bench, her blue eyes burning toward the clergyman, her fists clenched at her side.

“And God said, let there be light.” Pocahontas looked up from the Bible flushed with a smile of victory. Edith, John Rolfe, and Reverend Whitaker applauded her enthusiastically, while Numees gave her older sister a grudging, momentary smile.

“You’ve made wonderful progress,” John Rolfe said, looking fondly toward the young woman. “Reading already!”

“Numees reads, too,” Edith said, tilting her head in Numees’ direction. “Will you read for us, little one?”

“Nay,” Numees said, wishing the floor would swallow her up. Pocahontas reveled in attention; Numees hated it. Under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes she frowned and snatched up another piece of bread, smacking noisily to demonstrate her deplorable manners. If they would only declare the girls barbarians and send them home! Pocahontas would become her old self and things would be as they had always been . . .

“I’ve always wanted to know, Numees, what is that you wear around you neck?” Reverend Whitaker asked, ignoring the crust of bread that dangled from her mouth as she chewed.

Numees debated whether or not she should answer, but Edith jumped into the conversation. “‘Tis a gold ring, Reverend. She hath worn it always, Rebecca says.”

“A gold ring?” The minister’s eyes narrowed as he smiled. “That is strange for the Indians, is it not? I have heard of copper in these parts, but not gold.” He looked toward his prized protégée. “Where did she find it, Rebecca?”

“I don’t know.” Pocahontas blushed demurely and lowered her eyes as John Rolfe looked her way. “She’s worn it since the first day she came to our village.”

“Interesting.” The minister reached toward Numees, and she reflexively pulled back. “I’m not going to hurt you, my dear, I only want to see the ring—”

“Nay!” Numees leaned far back over her bench, in real danger of losing her balance.

“Don’t be silly, Numees,” Edith chided. “Let the good reverend have a look at it.”

“Nay!” Numees cried. The ring was hers, had always been hers, had never left her neck. ‘Twas wrong for this Englishman to touch it—

She lost her balance and fell upon the hard-packed earthen
floor. Laughing, the Reverend hurried forward and picked her up, but before he released her he held the ring between his fingers and lifted it to the light. “Name of a name,” he whispered softly. “There’s an inscription inside. Latin.
Fortiter, Fideliter, Feliciter.
”

Numees whimpered softly in frustration, and Reverend Whitaker dropped the ring and stepped away. She felt his eyes burning toward her in curiosity.

“Where’d the child find such a thing?” John Rolfe asked. “The Indians have no use for Latin—”

“The Spanish,” Reverend Whitaker murmured, taking his seat on the bench next to Edith. “‘Tis rumored that they sailed up these rivers years ago. If, perchance, they insinuated themselves among the Indians, mayhap to spy out English fortifications—”

“Would it explain her blue eyes?” Edith asked.

“The Spanish are not fair like the English,” John pointed out. “At least, no Spaniard I know of.”

“‘Tis a mystery,” the reverend said, resting his chin in his hand. “But I pray the Spanish are not still hidden in the wilderness.”

“But what does it mean?” Pocahontas asked, her eyes wide with genuine fear. “Are the words a curse?”

“Nay,” Reverend Whitaker answered, smiling at her. “‘Tis Latin for boldly, faithfully, successfully.” He looked across the table to Numees. “What, dear child, are you supposed to boldly, faithfully, and successfully do?”

Numees tossed in her bed, troubled by dreams of a God-man with holes in his hands and feet. She stood before a cross on the wall of a building, and loving faces surrounded her. A woman with fair skin and dark hair whispered a song about Jesus, and as the woman affectionately squeezed Numees’ hand, a ring pinched her finger—

“Mama!” The veil between sleep and dreams ripped abruptly, and Numees sat up, drenched in sweat. Panting in fear, she looked for a sign of assurance that she had been dreaming. On the other side of the room, Pocahontas slept peacefully, her hands under her cheek. She looked like an angel, her long dark hair spilling as a lovely contrast over her white nightgown.

Numees pressed her palms to her eyes. The dreams would not stop! Ever since the minister’s first visit she had been
haunted by dreams of a place she knew but did not recognize, of faces and voices that called her name, but they did not call her Numees. One night the dream had been colored with blood, the loving faces had mouths that opened in silent screams, and hands pushed her into a canoe where she fell, sobbing, until the river carried her away.

And Pocahontas wanted her to accept the God that inspired such dreams? She could not!

Silently, Numees pulled the soft blanket from her English bed and slipped to the floor. She was less troubled by dreams when she slept as an Indian.

She looked toward Pocahontas again and frowned. The love and admiration she had once felt for the older girl had begun to evolve into a reluctant disdain for the Indian princess who too readily accepted the ways of the clothed, soft English.

Henrico, January 3, 1614

John Rolfe to Sir Thomas Dale, Governor of Jamestown

Most Honorable Governor:

I hope this letter finds you well, sir, and I have but one request on this day. I have repeatedly examined my conscience to assure myself that to espouse myself to a creature whose education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so different, discrepant in all nurture from my self, will be acceptable to God and for the good of the colony. I propose to marry Rebecca, once known to you as Pocahontas, to whom my heart is and best thoughts are, and have a long time been so entangled.

I have sought to meet with my lady’s father, the chief Powhatan, but he hath refused to admit me into his presence. But others of the tribe have assured me that the chief does so only out of pride. He is said to favor this marriage, and so all that remains is your consent, Governor, and the consent of the lady herself. She hath not been yet asked, for I wait for your reply, and hope you will grant it speedily.

Sincerely,

John Rolfe

One month before the proposed wedding, John Rolfe took his intended bride with him up the Pamunkey River to meet with Opechancanough, who had agreed to negotiate a peace between Powhatan and the English. When Pocahontas had
originally been taken hostage, Governor Dale had demanded that in exchange for her release, Powhatan should return several runaway Englishmen as well as certain stolen goods and firearms. In addition, the Governor asked that Powhatan pledge five hundred bushels of corn as a guarantee to conclude a firm peace.

Throughout the year of Pocahontas’s captivity, Powhatan had refused to either meet the terms or parley with the enemy. But now that the chief’s daughter had freely chosen to marry an Englishman, Governor Dale hoped that Powhatan’s pride would allow him to forgive the kidnapping and confirm the peace as his blessing to the union. Everyone involved in the prenuptial journey trusted that the presence of the princess, so obviously in love with the handsome Englishman who held her hand, would sway the aged chief’s heart toward a permanent peace.

When runners reported that Powhatan refused to join the gathering or meet with her and her prospective husband, Pocahontas wept against John Rolfe’s shoulder, feebly wretched. But Opechancanough received the envoys into his village and promised to do all he could to meet the English terms for peace.

“Tell Powhatan this,” said Robert Sparkes, an assistant to Governor Dale. He strode forward into the center of the gathering before Opechancanough, his face flushed with anger. “Unless peace is reached by harvest time, we will come upriver again, kill your people, and destroy your homes and crops.”

Pocahontas felt a shiver of terror run through her. How dare this man make such a threat when her wedding and future happiness depended upon her uncle’s willingness to negotiate a peace?

But Opechancanough’s granite expression did not change. When Sparkes had finished speaking, the great chief stood and pointed toward the shallop waiting at the river’s edge. “Go,” he said simply, his dark, impassive eyes sweeping over Pocahontas as if for the last time. “We will send word of our chief’s wishes.”

Dashed dreams and disillusionment raked at her heart as Pocahontas took her place in the boat. Robert Sparkes and his fierce English pride had undoubtedly ruined all chances for peace, and she had come to know the English well enough to recognize their undeniable sense of superiority.
There are some things you English cannot conquer,
she thought, swaying slightly as the oarsmen pushed the boat from the sand into the water. She placed her hands on the sides of the vessel to steady herself, then lifted her chin.
And the pride of the Powhatan is one of them.

A week after their return to Jamestown, Opechancanough sent word that Powhatan had agreed to Governor Dale’s terms. Pocahontas was free to marry John Rolfe as she so ardently desired.

On the fifth day of April, 1614, the Revered Richard Buck married the widower John Rolfe to the Indian Princess Rebecca, née Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan. The great chief did not attend the wedding, but sent his brother, Opechancanough, and his sons, Kitchi and Keme, to represent him at the wedding.

Every soul present in the small chapel at Jamestown hoped that the marriage might seal the peace between the Indians and the English forever. The marriage, and the peace it represented, brought an end to five years of intermittent war.

As Numees watched the strange blending of English and Indian customs at the wedding, her only feeling was a heavy, sodden dullness. Pocahontas was her sister no longer, for now she belonged to John Rolfe. Powhatan cared nothing for Numees, indeed, the chief seemed to have forgotten all about her. And though Pocahontas often said Numees would always have a home in her house, still, the younger girl felt a forgotten bead from a broken string, an eleven-year-old half-loved child who was nobody’s daughter.

Is it possible?
she wondered, watching the glow of love light the face of the woman who had just become Rebecca Rolfe.
Will I ever know love like that?

Twenty

T
he days fell like autumn leaves from an oak tree, one after the other, indistinguishable but for the passing seasons of Virginia. Within two years John Rolfe’s tobacco had become the mainstay of the colony, and the fields outside his plantation at Henrico and the house at Jamestown were planted with rows of the weed. Numees did not understand the plant’s appeal, for she neither cared for the pungent tobacco of the Indians or the sweeter scent of Rolfe’s mixed strain, but Rebecca Rolfe was proud of her husband and delighted with his success. John, in return, was enraptured with his young wife and the son she bore him.

“The tobacco is like me and John,” Pocahontas told Numees one afternoon as she pressed a new skirt made of fine English silk. “A blend of Indian and English. Neither are quite palatable alone, but together we make a fine mix!”

Numees made a face and ignored her sister’s prattling. A warm kernel of happiness had occupied the center of Pocahontas’s being since her marriage and motherhood, and the older girl’s happiness stuck like a thorn in Numees’ side. At twenty-one, Pocahontas was still as light-hearted as a child, and in comparison Numees felt like a staid, quiet toad next to a butterfly.

“I hope you’ll consider going to England with us,” Pocahontas said as she worked the iron over the fabric of the new kirtle John had imported for her. Her English had improved tremendously, and she loved to practice speaking in her new tongue. “As soon as Governor Dale is recalled to England, we’ll be free to leave. We’re sailing on the
Treasurer
—do you remember the long days and nights we spent there? And after we arrive in London, John is to write a report for the King.”

“I don’t want to go,” Numees said slowly, waving her hand in front of the baby’s watchful eyes. He paused, eyes wide as he crouched on his hands and knees, then dimpled for a toothless, drippy smile. Numees shook her head and gently teased him in Algonquin.

“At least a dozen of Opechancanough’s people are going with us,” Pocahontas inserted.

“I won’t go,” Numees said stubbornly, lifting the baby onto her lap. “Who would stay with Edith? I won’t leave her alone.”