Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (40 page)

“
What can you do about it?”

His blue eyes met hers again, and she found herself grudgingly admiring the steady glow of devotion that gleamed from them.
“I can travel to the plantations, and make certain that the boys are well treated,” he said, wincing as she began to wrap the bandage. “If they are not, I’ll appeal to the governor. There is no excuse for cruelty to indentured servants. A cruel master turns servants into slaves.”

“
I believe people would be more kind to slaves than to indentured servants,” she said, slowly wrapping his hand. “IN my tribe, slaves are valued property. Indentured servants, on the other hand, are worked by the English ‘till they drop, for the masters intend to wring every ounce of energy from them until their contract expires.”

“
You know this to be true?”

“
Everyone knows this,” she said, shrugging.

“‘
Tis wrong for any man to abuse another in such a way,” he said, his free hand rising in exclamation.

“
You sound very sure of yourself.”

“
I am. I was an indentured servant for seven years.”

She paused, reflecting upon this new nugget of information.
She had neglected to consider his past, so centered had she been on her own. Mayhap the past accounted for Fallon’s concern for his students, for his unreasonable devotion to duty . . .

“
And after you have given an account of your boys, what will you do?” She finished wrapping the bandage, and pulled a wooden needle and thread from a pocket under a slit in her skirt.

“
I will look for Noshi.”

“
And when you have found him?” Her needle bit into the fabric and pulled it taut.

“
I suppose I will go home.”

She stitched quickly, angry that she had wasted a quarter of an hour in conversation with him.
He would go back to England without further thought for her if she married his friend Brody. So much for his glorious quest to find and protect her!

She gave herself a stern mental shake and rose from her stool, leaving the kitchen.
She had been foolish to allow her heart to soften.

Thirty-two

C
harles City, October 1618

To Thomas Smithson, Student

The Royal Academy for Homeless Orphans, London:

Loving and kind brother Thomas, this is to let you understand that I am in a most heavy case by reason of the nature of the country.
It causes me much sickness such as the scurvy and the bloody flux and diverse other diseases which make the body very poor. And when we are sick, there is naught to comfort us, for since I came off the ship, I never ate aught but peas and water gruel. As for deer or venison, I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve four men, which is most pitiful.

We live in fear of the Indians every hour.
We are in great danger, for our plantation is very weak by reason of death and sickness of our company. We are but thirty-two to fight against three thousand if the savages should come, and the nearest help that we have is ten miles from us. When the rogues overcame this place last, they slew eighty persons.

I have naught to comfort me, nor is there aught to be gotten here but sickness and death.
But I have naught at all, no, not a shirt on my back, but two rags, nor no clothes, but one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, one pair of stockings, and one cap. My cloak was stolen by one of my own fellows, and to his dying hour he would not tell me what he did with it, but some of my fellows saw him receive butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak no doubt paid for, so I have not a penny, nor a penny worth to help me to get either spice, or sugar, or strong waters, without which one cannot live here.

I am not half a quarter as strong as I was in England, and all is for want of victuals, for I do protest unto you, that I have eaten more in a day at the academy than I have allowed me here for a week.
The cook hath given more than my day’s allowance to a beggar at the door. And if Mr. Fallon Bailie had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case, but he is like the father we do not have.

Ofttimes we go up to Jamestown, for there lie all the ships that come to the land, and there they must deliver their goods.
And when we went up to town as it may be on Monday at noon, we arrive there at night, and load the next day by noon, and go home in the afternoon, and unload, and then go away again in the night. We have naught in all this but a little bread, so it is hard. But Master Bailie pitied me and found me a place to rest when I come up, and hath given me bread. Oh, he is a very godly man, and will do aught for me, and he much marveled that you would consider indenturing yourself to come to Virginia as a servant to the London Company.

If you love me, make efforts to redeem me soon, for which I do entreat and beg.
And if you cannot get the headmaster to redeem me for some little money, then for God’s sake entreat some folks to lay out some little sum of money in cheese and butter and beef. I will deal truthfully with you before you send it out, and beg the profit to redeem me, and if I die before it comes, I have entreated Master Bailie to send you the worth of it. He hath promised he will.

Good brother, do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case.
I know if you did but see me you would weep. Wherefore, for God’s sake, pity me. The answer of this letter will be life or death to me, but as for you, I pray you will not come to Virginia. And as for me, perchance ‘tis too late. But pray for Master Fallon Bailie.

Your loving brother,

Richard Smithson

Fallon knew nothing of Richard Smithson
’s letter nor the scores of others like it. Nor did he know that in the winter of 1618 a rumor ignited in Jamestown and blazed its way through the frontier plantations. One master, or so the tale went, had so viciously beaten his servant that a gentleman intervened and spent the night in the goal for his efforts. But since that day that same princely gentleman had undertaken to seek out and destroy all cruel masters who mistreated their servants.

Some claimed that the brave gentleman was a dishonored aristocrat, others described him as a simple tutor.
Those on the most distant plantations called him a phantom, a wraith-like pale creature that crept through the woods with the stealth of a savage and the cunning of a panther. It was generally agreed that he could take any form, so masters should take care and be wary lest he appear unexpected.

Through the misery of illness, near starvation, and loneliness, indentured men and boys lifted their heads and looked with hope gleaming in their eyes across the tobacco fields toward each approaching stranger.
In fear of retribution, masters found themselves less quick to use the lash and more generous with their servants’ daily rations. And throughout the King’s colony, other reports and tales substantiated the first rumor so that the news became common knowledge: indentured servants now had an advocate.

Kimi had truly thought to leave Jamestown after a short visit with Edith Rolfe, but she had stayed to tend the sick boy and before he was well Fallon brought other boys to the house for her care.
Most suffered from malnutrition, for the plantation owners planted tobacco to the exclusion of all nutritional crops, and the servants worked every day in the fields and had no time for hunting or fishing. Fortunately, John Rolfe managed his plantation more capably, and after Edith sent him a dispatch explaining their need for corn, squash, beans, and pumpkin, supplies came regularly to the small house at Jamestown from the estate at Henrico.

But many of the sick men and boys who appeared at Edith
’s house shivered with fever or suffered from the bloody flux. Despite Kimi’s watchful eyes and potions of pulverized hemlock bark and sassafras, more than six died in November alone. She gritted her teeth and wept each time a soul slipped through her fingers, for in some perverse way she saw each boy Fallon brought to her as a challenge. Though he was still raw and unused to the wilderness, he ventured without fear into the forest, risking his life to bring boys to her for healing. ‘Twas a devastating blow when she discovered that she could not always heal.

Though Fallon often brought sick boys and men to the house, he did not often tarry to visit and only rarely did he beg permission to sleep on a mattress in the front chamber.
Mayhap, Kimi thought, he wished to avoid her. But despite her personal resistance to his force of will, she grudgingly admired his fortitude, for he persisted doggedly in his search for all of the eighty-eight boys he had escorted to Virginia. And through his efforts all indentured servants benefitted, for if his student was undernourished, Fallon demanded better rations for all the servants. If Fallon’s student bore the mark of the master’s whip, Fallon threatened to haul the master before the governor.

When faced with Fallon
’s threats, most of the planters either agreed to make changes or simply told him to take the sick servants away, and thus Mistress Rolfe’s house was slowly crowded with men and boys in need of attention. The large front keeping room filled regularly with sick men, and Kimi’s small chamber usually housed at least four boys, one against each wall. The large room, which had once served as a bedchamber for John and Rebecca Rolfe, had become a ward for the dying, and the marriage bed had long been stripped of its straw mattress and broken into kindling for the fire.

The kitchen was the only room that did not house the sick, and every night Kimi and Edith wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down to sleep on the hard-packed earthen floor.
Whenever she awoke shivering with cold, Kimi would rise to put fresh logs on the keeping room fire, thus on the coldest of nights she awoke four or five times as she worked to keep her sick boys warm.

She wasn
’t really sure when they became her boys, but once they passed the threshold of her house, she took them into her arms and heart as she tended their bodies. Edith joined in the effort gladly, happy to have a more productive role in the community, and ofttimes Brody came by the house to chop wood or help the woman carry some of the heavier patients.

Kimi had thought her of heart as frozen in grief, but as she worked for her boys her emotions begin to thaw.
Soon she felt great fondness for everyone who had aught to do with the healing house, save one. The only man who remained outside the defensive circle of her affections was Fallon Bailie himself.

She woke the house with her screaming.
Though darkness pressed down upon the kitchen, Edith sat up and grappled with the frantic girl. “‘Tis all right,” she shouted above Kimi’s screams as the younger girl slapped her hands away. “Y’are having a nightmare.”

Of a sudden the kitchen door flew open and Fallon
’s startled face appeared above a rush light. “Name of a name,” he whispered, his speech heavy with sleep. His hair and nightshirt were rumpled and he carried the light in one hand and a pistol in the other. “What hath possessed her? I thought of certain that savages had come into the house.”

“
She hath had another nightmare,” Edith explained, taking a moment to tie her nightgown more securely at her neck. “And she will be upset for an hour or more. ‘Tis like she doesn’t know us after such a dream; she won’t respond to anything I say.”

“
The Indians believe that spirits talk to them in dreams,” Fallon said, lifting the light to brighten the scene before him.

“
Well,” Edith said, moving away from the girl. “If God is talking to her, she’s not listening. She won’t hear a word I say, either.”

Fallon dropped the rush light and pistol on the table, then knelt at Kimi
’s side. The girl was sitting upright, her dark hair flowing over her nightgown in a tumbled mass, but her face was blank and her eyes focused on some fright in her imagination.

Edith lay back down, pulling her blanket up to her chin. If Fallon wanted to deal with this bad dream, she was more than happy to let him.

“
Gilda,” he whispered, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “What did you see?”

A terrible keening moan sprang from the girl
’s lips, and from under her blanket, Edith shivered at the sound.

“‘
Tis only a dream,” Fallon murmured, and Kimi seemed to relax within the coaxing timbre of his voice. “Can you tell me about it?”

Kimi trembled and stared in hypnotized horror into the darkness.
“A boat,” she finally whispered in a little girl’s voice, her hand crawling to the security of Fallon’s arm. “I was in a boat. ‘Twas dark. And we hit the sand.”