Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (35 page)

The chief lifted his shoulder in an expressive shrug.

“
If we are men, and happy, we should prove it by killing these holy men,” another elder said, and soon the council was agreed.

Opechancanough hid his victory behind a stony face of resolution as his warriors raced to strike the war pole and began the dance that would work them into the frenzy of bloodshed.
Askook, a brave and powerful young warrior, volunteered to serve as chief of the war party, and he danced particularly vigorously whenever he ventured close to Kimi, the blue-eyed girl who remained unmarried.

Opechancanough felt his favorite wife slip under his arm as she took her place at his side.
“It is good you have promised Kimi to Askook,” she whispered as she watched the dance. “Kimi is skilled in healing, so they will have strong children. Even the conjuror has come to respect her gift.”

Opechancanough
’s eyes narrowed as he watched the girl ignore her dancing suitor with studied indifference. Such coy behavior was common among the women and considered properly modest. But was she yet of the same heart and fiber as the others of the Powhatan, or did loyalty to the English God yet remain in her heart?

A dull malaise choked Kimi
’s heart and voice at sunset as the war party gathered their weapons and streamed through the tall gate of the palisade. She did not cheer them, for some part of her had always dreaded the sight of war clubs and the shriek of battle cries. ‘Twas her nature to heal wounds, not cause them.

When the warriors had gone, Opechancanough and his wives disappeared into his hut, and the other women dispersed to bank the cooking fires or send their overwrought and
excited children to bed. The hot winds of summer would make sleep uncomfortable for everyone, Kimi thought, lifting her eyes to study the outlines of treetops silhouetted against the darkening sky. And many of the women would not sleep at all because their husbands had joined Askook and the war party.

She slipped inside the dwelling she shared with a dozen others and lay down upon her grass mat.
The heavy, regular breathing of children filled the hut, but Kimi could not sleep. She should have been worried about Askook, for they were to be married at the celebration of the green corn ceremony in another month’s time. After that, Kimi would move her meager belongings to the hut Askook shared with his parents and siblings.

She knew Askook desired her, for she had felt his eyes grow hungry when he looked her way, and the other women never hesitated to praise Askook for his courage, loyalty, and skill as a hunter.
But though he possessed a rugged, masculine appeal and could throw a spear with the force of a cannon, Kimi’s smile did not warm when he caught her eye, nor did her heart stir at his approach.

She had confided her reservations to the chief
’s eldest wife, and the esteemed woman had waved away Kimi’s concerns. “Your heart will grow fond as the seasons pass,” she promised, gazing fondly upon her grandchildren as they frolicked near the river’s edge. “Your heart will grow fierce with love and longing. But these things take time.”

But time had not lessened the ache of sorrow in Kimi
’s heart; how could it lead her to love a man for whom she had no feeling?

She sat up on her grass mat and beat her fists into the beaver pelt that pillowed her head.
As she lay down again, the golden circle on the leather cord around her neck slipped from beneath her tunic and cast a beam of reflected moonlight upon the walls of the hut.

“
Boldly, faithfully, successfully,” she murmured in English, recalling the distant words of Reverend Whitaker. “But I cannot be bold, God, alone. And how can I be faithful when you have deserted me? And how can I measure success in this village? Our chief would say I should marry Askook and bear him children who will rise up to drive the Englishmen from the land. But in the house of one Englishman I was happy for a time . . .”

She closed her eyes against the troubling memories and willed herself to sleep.

The canoe spun lazily across the water as she crouched inside. Fear knotted and writhed in her stomach because soft, silent, warm bodies were in the darkness of the boat with her. The air smelled of grass and humidity, and a hard wind blew the canoe across the water faster than any man could row. Kimi pressed her knuckles against her mouth to keep from crying.

T
he canoe struck a riverbank, and she sat up, gasping aloud in panic. Every nerve leaped and shuddered in relief when she looked around and realized that she was not in a boat, but in her own hut with the others of her tribe. ‘Twas naught but a dream, her old nightmare.

She lay back upon her bed and curled into a tight ball, her heart thumping against her rib cage.
On this night, like many others, she would not sleep.

Twenty-eight

T
he two ministers slept as easily as if they had been born on the side of a riverbank, but Brody found it difficult to rest amid the rustling of wildlife and the shifting of shadows beyond the edge of the fire. He finally slid into a thin sleep as Fallon kept watch, but awoke abruptly at the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

“
Soft, do not shout,” Fallon said, his eyes scanning the shadows in the forest. “But you must wake, Brody.”

“
Is it my watch already?” Brody mumbled, struggling to throw off the heavy mantle of exhaustion.

“
We will need another pair of eyes, I fear,” Fallon said, cautiously creeping back to his place by the fire. “There is trouble afoot in the forest. I can smell it.”

Brody lifted himself on one elbow and sniffed the air.
Looking around, he saw nothing unusual. The moon reflected itself in full splendor upon the gently ruffled surface of the river, the canoe rested easily upon the bank. The two ministers’ bellies rose and fell rhythmically as they snored in the silence of the night. Nothing moved in the fire-tinted darkness.

“
Y’are imagining things, my prince of the forest,” Brody muttered, lowering himself again to the ground. “I hear naught but the snoring of our two holy escorts.”

“
In that lies the problem,” Fallon answered, his face pale, almost bloodless, against the darkness of the night. There was no look of the timid schoolmaster about him now. Determination lay in the jut of his chin; cunning and hard-bitten strength was etched into every feature of his face. “Where are the night sounds? They are hushed, for something treads in the forest.”

Brody rested his head on his hand, listening.
The air of the clearing seemed to vibrate softly in the rising heat from the fire, and the wavelets of the river whispered as they brushed the overhanging shore. But Fallon was right. Throughout the night there had been bird calls and wild hootings and rustlings, but now a silence had settled upon the place, an absence of greater sound that had almost a physical density. Fear like the quick, hot touch of demons shot through him, and Brody sat up, shivering.

“
We should wake the ministers.”

Fallon paused.
Tenseness and fear lay upon his face. “I will feel foolish if I am wrong,” he said, a nervous edge in his voice, but he put out his hand and gently shook Reverend Whitaker’s shoulder.

“
Reverend, will you wake?”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth when the heavy silence exploded into evil shrieks and howls.
The sounds came spiraling down from the forest, chilling Brody’s blood with its awful intensity, then the leaves of the trees parted and the darkness filled up with the bodies, shields, and spears of savagely-painted Indians whose copper-colored torsos gleamed with malevolence in the red firelight.

Brody screamed and rose to run, but felt the copper tip of a spear bite the soft flesh beneath his chin.
A warrior appeared before him, chattering wildly in an angry, foreign tongue while he applied pressure from the long spear aimed directly at Brody’s throat. Brody raised his head and backed up against another Indian warrior who caught his paralyzed arms and bound them tightly behind his back.

A whisper of absolute terror ran through him as he watched his comrades undergo similar treatment.
Fallon tried for a moment to defend himself by brandishing the end of a burning log, but another warrior simply raised his bow and pointed an arrow at Fallon’s chest. Fallon dropped the log and raised his hands, then was bound as quickly as the other three men.

The ministers, so abruptly roused from sleep, turned their protests into prayers as they were lined up and forced to follow a meandering trail through the woods.
The clergymen walked in the front of the line, guarded by warriors on either side, and Brody turned his head long enough to whisper to Fallon: “I told you we should have brought soldiers!”

“
If we had, we would be dead now,” Fallon managed to reply before a brave slapped him silent.

The war party returned at daybreak, and Kimi ignored the celebratory gathering in the center of the village as she rose from her bed.
War parties came and went at the chief’s whim, often bringing back captives from neighboring tribes who were either adopted into the clan, tortured, or branded as slaves. She had no stomach for the art of torture and death, and little interest in other Indian tribes.

She walked to the river and splashed water on her face and hands.
Shafts of bright sunlight fell through the clouds, and she knew ‘twould be another hot day. Seizing the opportunity of peace and quiet, she slipped from her leather tunic and waded into the water, relishing the feel of it on her skin. She floated on her back and kicked lazily for a minute, recalling the wonderful warmth of the bath water in Edith Rolfe’s big tub. Though she had abandoned all things English, Kimi had to admit that Edith’s strictly-enforced weekly baths had been a rare pleasure.

Echoing from the palisade, the raucous noise from the village had evolved into the rhythmic song and dance of judgment, and Kimi knew that the prisoners, whoever they were, had stood before Opechancanough and heard his decision.
Undoubtedly Askook stood at the chief’s right hand, beaming with celebration and honor, and he would search the crowd to see if she approved of his victory. Sighing, she swam to shore, squeezed water from her thick braids, and donned her tunic again.

Fallon stared at the man before him in a paralysis of astonishment.
By heaven, how could this be the same Opechancanough who had sentenced him to death eleven years before? The years that had grown Fallon from a boy to a man had not marked the Indian. The chief stood as tall as ever, his dark eyes a stream of black gold above the white scar on his cheek, and his arms glistened with hard, distinct muscles. Now, however, the shock of hair that stood upright on his head was woven with many feathers, and a richly embroidered mantle hung upon his shoulders.

After only a quick glance at Fallon, Opechancanough focused his anger and distrust upon the two ministers.
His eyes gleamed hard and cruel and pitiless as he pronounced judgment in the Indian tongue, and though Fallon recognized the accent and sound, he could not follow the rapid words.

The people of the village roared with approval as the chief announced his verdict, and with a broad swoop of his arm he indicated Fallon and Brody as well.
Rough hands grabbed all four men, and warriors herded them from the chief’s dwelling to the center of the village.

Four stout poles had been thrust into the ground, one at each corner of the central fire.
Rather than unloose the bonds that tied their hands behind them, the warriors lifted each man until his bound hands fell behind the top of the pole, then he was dropped so that he fell, helpless, to await judgment.

Hideous dancing figures whirled before Fallon, each seemingly intent upon his destruction.
Little children, goaded by their mothers, rushed at him with clubs, which they swung effectively at his arms, knees, and stomach. One little girl, barely old enough to talk, fastened her mouth onto Fallon’s hand and seemed determined to chew through his fingers. Brody screamed in panic and confusion as he met the same lot of punishing youngsters, and Fallon turned his face away from the sight of his friend. The great adventurer had met more danger than he had hoped to find within two days of landing in Virginia, and ‘twas all Fallon’s fault.

Is it for this that you brought me home?
Fallon prayed, his eyes sweeping across the crowd for some reason to hope, some miracle of release.
I followed your will, God, and if it is your will that I perish here under the same sentence of death from which you saved me years ago, yet I will trust you. But Brody hath done naught to deserve this, nor have your two ministers . . .

He leaned back against the heaviness of the pole and was filled with remembering as the dancing warriors lifted their voices in a high, thin song of triumph.
The inhabitants of Ocanahonan had sung similar cadences, but theirs were songs of praise and thanks to God for a bountiful harvest and recovery from illness. And the converted Indians among them had sung songs upon their deathbeds, not the mournful, defiant heathen songs designed to impress death, but joyful, confident songs of children coming home to God.