Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (42 page)

She put out a finger, wanting to touch it to his lips as she told him that she understood, but she could not move toward him.
There was no look of the weak, confused schoolmaster about him now. Under the heavy fur mantle he wore a loose cotton shirt, and his Indian tattoos, so similar to hers, shadowed his wiry forearms as he rested them upon the table.

In the beginning, she had been the wiser one.
Now he was as much at home in her world as much as she was in his.

Intimidated by his confidence and concern, she shook her head and turned back to the kitchen to help Edith bank the hearth fire.

A week later, Governor Argall approached Fallon and Gilda as they left the church after the Sunday service.
Fallon felt himself grow tense; after the governor’s frank attempt to be rid of him, he never knew what to expect from Argall.

“
I am pleased to report,” the governor said, smiling mechanically at both of them from beneath the rim of his hat, “that we have finally collected sufficient funds to establish a school for both English and Indian children. ‘Twill be established at Falling Creek, Master Bailie, and since you often travel that way I thought you’d like to know about it. George Thorpe, a devout English scholar, hath come to direct the school, and we hope to instill and educate the savage children according to the same Christian principles that govern this colony.”

From the corner of his eye Fallon saw Gilda stiffen, and he cast a quick glance at her face.
All color had left her cheeks, and her eyes glittered strangely.

“
Welladay, sir,” Fallon said, guessing her concern as he turned to the governor, “I hope you have consulted with the Indian werowances. I doubt that Opechancanough will take kindly to his children being taught in a Christian school. I believe he hath a very devout hatred for all things having to do with our God.”

“
Why should he?” the governor replied, honest surprise on his face. “Pocahontas was Powhatan’s daughter, yet she converted without a moment’s hesitation.”

“
After you kidnapped her and held her prisoner aboard your ship,” Gilda interrupted, her voice low and quiet. “By the time you sent the minister to us, Governor, she had fallen in love with John Rolfe. She would have done aught to stay with him.”

The governor blanched.
“Surely y’are not saying that her conversion was insincere!

“
Nay,” Gilda whispered. “But her motivation was strong. She had lived among the English and learned to love them. Opechancanough hath no such motivation. No one has tried to live among his people and learn to love him.”

The governor bristled visibly at her words.
“Again, you folk insist upon giving me trouble,” he muttered to no one in particular before stalking away.

“
I’faith, now you’ve done it,” Fallon said, resisting the impulse to squeeze her hand as the governor joined a circle of men and began to shout and gesticulate his opinions. “You’ve angered our honorable governor.”

“
I spoke the truth,” she replied, walking steadily toward the house. “Aren’t we supposed to speak naught but the truth?”

“
Yea,” he answered, hurrying to keep up with her swift step. Even in the confining long English kirtle, she could still out pace him. “But what harm will it do if the governor and Master Thorpe establish their school? Mayhap some good will come out of it.”

“
There are pitifully few English children here,” Gilda pointed out, waving her arm toward the fort behind them. “And none at all at Falling Creek. The chief will see this for what it is, an attempt to take Indian children and make them bow to the English God. The governor wants to make them English.”

“
But shouldn’t they worship the true God?”

She whirled to face him and pressed her finger to his chest.
“Yea,” she whispered, “for He is the truth. But you cannot force a man to accept truth by overpowering the hearts and minds of his children. Naught will come of this school but trouble, Fallon, mark my words.”

Winter melted into spring; spring bloomed into summer.
Of all the one hundred boys who had travelled to Virginia with Fallon in 1617, only Wart survived the year. And as Gilda had suspected he would, Fallon took on the cause of the entire servant population of Virginia, making regular visits to the various plantations and even investigating stories of ill-treated runaways who had hidden themselves in the Indian villages.

At each plantation and Indian town, Fallon inquired about the Tripanicks.
Their villages lay south of the James River, and their hunters had not ventured northward in many years. Few of the soldiers, planters, or traders with whom Fallon talked could report dealings with Tripanick tribes. Once Fallon spoke with a captain of a Dutch ship who had travelled up the Chowan River and attempted to trade in Tripanick territory, but the Dutchman found entire Indian villages wiped out by the dreaded smallpox.

“‘
Tis terribly painful,” Fallon later explained to Gilda and Edith at dinner, not realizing that both women had stiffened at the mention of the disease that had killed Pocahontas. “They say the bravest warriors cut their own throats in order to die swiftly and surely. Others plunge themselves into icy rivers to ease the fever and take water into their lungs.”

While Fallon
’s appearances at the ladies’ dinner table were increasingly rare as he searched for Noshi, Brody’s were common. He usually came to help with hauling water or mending the roof, and inevitably stayed for dinner or supper. Gilda knew the house was a welcome change from the rough masculine quarters where Brody lived with fifty other soldiers. After serving his six month term, Brody had signed on for another half year, still planning to buy a boat and set out to find gold and the elusive northwest passage to India.

Edith cackled merrily at his dreams of adventure, urging him on, but Gilda usually listened to his boasting in silence, uncomfortably aware of Brody
’s interest in her. Though his admiring gaze gratified her and she held him in great affection, she could not imagine what she would do if he ever seriously proposed marriage or offered to take her from the house in Jamestown.

“
Did you hear? Fallon is to be a voting member of the House of Burgesses,” Brody announced at dinner one Sunday afternoon. His eyes met Gilda’s over the table. “Martial law is to be replaced by English common law, and we’re to have the same rights of his Majesty’s subjects in England.”

Gilda shook her head, unable to conceive of such abstract governmental concepts, but Brody and Edith lifted their glasses in a spontaneous toast.
“To the General Assembly,” Edith said, her pale cheeks glowing.

“
To the governor and council,” Brody answered, clinking his glass to Edith’s. They turned expectantly toward Gilda, who obediently raised her glass to theirs. “To Fallon,” she added weakly, mentioning the only name that sprang to her mind.

The first session of the General Assembly of Virginia met from July thirtieth to August fourth in the choir of the village church at Jamestown.
The new governor, Sir George Yeardley, was present, as were John Rolfe and Reverend Richard Buck, who served as chaplain. Two burgesses, or representatives, from each plantation were also present, independently elected from the free men who lived and worked at each plantation.

As part of the new council, Fallon took his seat next to the governor
’s secretary and winked at Wart, who remained in his shadow in case Fallon needed him. The session began as the burgesses stood for a prayer offered by Reverend Buck, then they took their seats and the credentials of each burgess were examined. Next on the agenda was the matter of relations with the Indians, which had worsened considerably in past months.

Several of the planters stood and raised their concerns about parties of raiding Indians which had plundered or burned their fields in recent months.
These planters, most of whom lived far out in the forests, wanted the authority to mount armed attacks of reprisal against the Indians, but Governor Yeardley vetoed the idea. “No injury or oppression shall be wrought against the natives,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “We shall not give their king any justification to raise a hand against us.”

Fallon pressed his lips together.
Governor Yeardley surely was an intuitive man, for he had apparently sensed what Fallon had known all along—Opechancanough was not the easily-placated man that Powhatan had been. The present chief of the Powhatan tribe waited only for an excuse to attack the English.

“
There is one additional matter of business before we adjourn,” the secretary announced on the fifth and hottest day of their meeting.

“
What’s that?” the governor growled, fanning himself with a crinkled sheet of parchment.

“
It pertains, sir, to the matter of, ah—women.”

One of the burgesses cheered, and Fallon grinned as the mood lightened.
“The plantation can never flourish till families be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil,” the secretary went on. “While it is not known whether men or women be more necessary for a colony’s success, ‘tis of certain that few are women here.”

In no mood for debate, the governor stood to his feet.
“I do so move,” Governor Yeardley said, his face dripping with perspiration as he leaned forward, “that we write to the London Company and petition for women.”

“
Aye, aye!” the crowd cheered.

“
Any other business, Secretary?” the governor barked.

“
None, sir.”

“
Then this meeting is adjourned.”

The
Mary Elizabeth
docked again at Jamestown in September 1619, and this time Fallon was prepared when the shallops began to bring boatloads of boys ashore. With the governor’s full blessing and authority, Fallon, Brody, and Wart supervised the purchase of boys for indentured service. The sick boys were not immediately assigned, but sent to Mistress Rolfe’s house to regain their strength and health, and no master against whom Fallon had filed a complaint in the previous year was allowed to purchase a boy’s contract. As Wart examined the boys and asked them about their particular skills, Fallon recorded each contract in a ledger, and brawny Brody stood on the dock with his arms folded and sized up the planters. All in all, ‘twas an efficient arrangement, and after two weeks, the seventy-six boys who had survived the voyage had been set to work. Reverend Archer and the London Company had even agreed to pay Fallon and his men a nominal fee for agenting the students’ services.

“
I think we handled things well, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Brody said as he and Fallon relaxed in the tavern room after settling the indenture accounts. “‘Twas nothing at all like last month.”

“
Nay,” Fallon said, shaking his head. The month before, a Dutch ship captained by a man called Jope had brought a group of twenty black men and women to the docks for sale into indentured service. Startled by the dark complexions of the Negroes from the West Indies, the planters refused to bargain for them. Finally Governor Yeardley and the merchant Abraham Piersey bought them, paying for the group with provisions. The blacks now lived in Jamestown, eight with Piersey’s household and twelve with the governor’s.

“
Would you ever buy one?” Brody asked, staring at the tabletop as if he pondered a difficult question.

“
A black servant?”

“
Nay,” Brody laughed, blushing. “A bride. There’s a notice posted in the fort. For two hundred pounds of tobacco a man may chose a virgin bride from a ship the London Company’s sending. Truth to tell, they say a bevy of beauties will sail from England in the Spring.”

Fallon tapped his pen against the table and rested his chin in his hand.
Obviously, Brody was anxious to marry, and mayhap he didn’t have the full two hundred pounds. Plus there were other expenses to consider; once Brody had a bride he’d have to house and feed her—

“
I’ll put up half of the money,” Fallon said, looking again at his ledger. “If you’ve got the other half.”

“
I’ve got it,” Brody said, his eyes bright. “I know a planter who’ll sell us tobacco cheap, and we’ll have two hundred pounds in two days.”

“
When does the boat come in?” Fallon asked absently, studying his accounts.

“
Can I be predicting the sea?” Brody shrugged. “But, Fallon—”

“
What?”

“
Which of us takes the bride? ‘Tisn’t right or moral for a woman to have two husbands.”

The corner of Fallon
’s mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile and looked over at his friend. “Nay, ‘tisn’t. Welladay, Brody, I guess we’ll just see which of us needs marrying the most when the ship arrives. Agreed?”

Brody slapped the table in delight.
“Agreed!”