Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (46 page)

“
They are wrong, Gilda, so why will you let them drive you away? Opechancanough hath no answers for you—”

She swung her arm wildly, thrusting off his grip, and Brody appeared from out of the house, his form a huge shadow in the yellow rectangle of light thrown through the open door.
“Thank God you found her, Fallon. Edith and I had just checked her room—”

“
The canary hath fled the cage, Brody, and thought to run away unheeded,” Fallon answered, his face strangely empty of emotion.

“
Run away?” Brody gazed at her with the naïveté of a child. “Whatever for, Gilda? I heard there was a bit of unpleasantness at church—”

“
Where were you, Brody?” Fallon asked in a stern voice.

For a moment Brody stammered, then he lifted a hand in explanation.
“I had to speak to the governor’s secretary about an important matter. I was on the far side of the church, and had no idea what was happening.” His blue eyes focused on hers. “Gilda, you can’t be thinking to leave. You promised to marry me.”

“
I made no such promise,” she said, noting a look of surprise on Fallon’s face.

“
But you didn’t say nay,” Brody said, shaking his finger playfully. “And we can forget all this. ‘Tis only a bit of trouble that will blow over like a bad storm. Now go back inside, put on your pretty dress, and let’s have supper.”

“
Nay.” She took a step toward the gate.

“
Fallon,” Brody’s voice carried a pleading tone. “You talk to her. Make her stay.”

Gilda lifted her chin reflexively.
Fallon would command her to go inside, ordering her life as he always did, and though she wanted desperately to leave this place and its rivers of anguish, she knew she would stay if he asked her to. Because he alone could convince her that things would be better . . .

But Fallon shook his head, and for the first time since she had known him, he refused to tell her what to do.
After a long moment in which her heart yearned for him to ask her to remain, he looked toward the ground and idly moved a mound of earth with his moccasin. “‘Tis her choice to make,” he said, more to Brody than to her. “She is not mine to command.”

She tossed her head, the victor in their war of wills, and Fallon opened the gate for her as Brody blustered in protest.
She did not look back as she moved away through the darkness, and soon broke into a run, breathing heavily as tears rained down her cheeks. She had finally broken free of Fallon Bailie’s self-ordained control of her life, and yet never had she been more unhappy.

Fallon shut out the sound of Brody
’s complaining and walked toward the house. He sank onto the bench he and Gilda had shared not long ago, and Brody left to find his supper in the public house, slamming the gate as he stalked away.

Leaning forward, Fallon wearily rested his face in his hands as he studied the rectangle of light from inside the house where Edith and Wart bickered companionably.
He had finally done it. He had set Gilda free, hoping she would be unable to leave, but she had flown away as surely as a caged bird that glimpses the blue bowl of sky for the first time. Had he been wrong to insist she belonged at Jamestown? She said she had suffered; had he taken her so for granted that he was blind to her unhappiness?

But he had suffered too.
He understood the ache she felt over the people she had lost, for his beloved parents, Noshi, and Captain Newport had disappeared from his life. Loneliness had become a hollow within him; he felt empty, a man without a past, unless Gilda would help him validate it.

It seemed to him that he had loved her all his life, that he had not ended a day without thinking of her well-being and praying for her happiness.
‘Twas because he loved her that he had thought to save her for Noshi or marry her to Brody. ‘Twas because he loved her that he had never allowed himself to imagine her arms solid and strong around him . . .

He abruptly checked his thoughts, for the woman who could take away the brooding hurt he struggled to hide had just vanished as utterly as a shadow at noonday.
Would he ever see her again?

He found no answers in the vast and endless plain of evening, and after a long while he went into the house and asked Mistress Rolfe if she would allow him a few hours
’ sleep on an unoccupied mattress.

Thirty-six

T
he dark docks rang with the noisy shouts of drunken sailors, so Gilda slipped quietly through the night to the river’s edge. In the shadows of a screen of shrubbery she eased herself into the black waters, then side-stroked across the river until she reached the far shore. Her leather dress clung wetly to her, causing her to shiver in the cool evening air, and she realized with some surprise that she had grown accustomed to the warmth and comfort of an English house. Time to unlearn comfort and adjust to life as an Indian. Again.

A well-worn path led away from a nearby clearing, and Gilda avoided it and ran to the shelter of a thick bush with needle-like branches.
She slipped below the lowest limbs and lay on the silken comfort of fallen needles, pillowing her head on her hands. She slept fitfully, waking as the sun rose, and sprinted out of her hiding place for the deeper security and shelter of the trees. Once she stood under a dense forest canopy, she brushed dirt from her damp clothing and allowed her subconscious survival skills to surface.

The virgin forest on this side of the river stood as a green fortress around her.
She forced herself to look through the forest instead of at it, and cocked her head to hear what sort of life might be afoot in the wilderness. The gnarled root of an oak showed its dark power as it pushed up earth before her, and the early morning shadows shifted like stalking gray cats that whispered, “we will take you back, daughter of the Powhatan. We welcome you back.”

With the sure grace of a forest creature she pressed forward into the woods, and within a quarter of an hour she discovered a deer trail that led westward.
She followed it eagerly, her eyes and ears acting as sentries.
I am Indian
, she thought, the refrain repeating in her mind as her feet slipped over the moist earth of the forest floor,
I am of the land.

But you are English, too, and as much at home in the healing house as you once were in the woods.
Your eyes are the color of the spring sky, and your heart yearns toward a pale, copper-haired man who will never see you as more than a child. You worship his God; you understand his thoughts. In this you will forever be different.

She moved steadily through the dense vegetation, stopping periodically to listen for sounds of anyone following.
Would Fallon come after her? She had been honestly surprised when he had allowed her to go, and something within her hoped that he would follow and beg her to return to Jamestown. Or had he grown so weary of fighting her stubborn resistance that he had no more energy to care?

She picked up a dead branch on the trail and swung it lazily between two trees where a fist-sized spider hung motionless.
Such an action was careless, to an experienced scout ‘twould mark her path as surely as if she had hacked out a trail with a sword. If anyone from Jamestown chose to follow, ‘twould be easy enough to find her . . .

But she walked in silence for hours, and no one followed.
Didn’t Fallon worry about her at all? He wouldn’t send Wart or even Brody, out into the forest alone, but despite all his talk about protecting her, he had allowed her to go. Mayhap he had at last come to see that she was a strong woman who did not need his protection. Or mayhap he had thought she would grow so hungry and frightened she would return to Jamestown.

As the sun dipped toward the western horizon, Gilda found a dry spot and cleared brush away from a sizeable circle to make sure no snakes lingered nearby.
She thought about laying a fire, but the effort seemed like too much work for so warm a night. She lay down, exhausted, under the trees.

She had been gone from Jamestown for twenty-four hours, and Fallon did not care.
And somehow his indifference hurt her far more than his anger ever had.

With an effort, Fallon tore his thoughts away from Gilda and directed his attention toward the visiting planter.
Master John Rolfe sat with Brody, Wart, and Edith at the large table in the kitchen. A fire crackled under the dinner pot, and Wart sniffed the delightful mingled aromas appreciatively while Rolfe discussed the business and profit of tobacco and its effect on the burgeoning population of the colony.

“
The population in Jamestown will forever be transitory, I fear,” he said, pausing to sip the steaming cup of herbal tea Edith had forced upon him. He looked up at Fallon, then gave his sister an affectionate smile. “That is why I am taking my new bride to the house in Henrico.”

“
Your new bride!” Edith gasped, slapping her hand against her plump cheek. “What news is this?”

Rolfe smiled modestly and tapped his long fingers against the rim of his cup.
“I’m to marry Jane, the daughter of Captain William Pierce, within the month. I’m planning to take her out to Henrico, but I wanted you to know that I have deeded this house to you, Edith. ‘Tis yours now, though I’m hoping you’ll continue to maintain it as a hospital.”

Rolfe
’s eyes met Fallon’s, and the planter nodded in appreciation. “I am not unaware, sir, of the work you have done for the roughshod lives of the men who land here. Your success hath been noticed, I assure you—”

“
Is it success when four out of five men don’t survive their first year?” Fallon asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“‘
Tis success when you consider the hardships of this place,” Rolfe answered, unsmiling. His eyes hardened. “The merchants continue to overcrowd the ships, and the men who arrive here every week are in worse shape than the blokes the week before. Betwixt the decks a man can hardly catch his breath by reason of the stink in the air, and our men fall sick and poison their fellows. The voyage, poor food, foul water, cold, and dampness all contribute to debilitating those pitiful souls in the hold.”

“
The ships are horrible,” Fallon admitted, “but Jamestown could use improvements, too. Housing is poor, and bad air arises from the marshlands and swamps. The plague of mosquitoes every summer cannot do the men good, and rats consume more corn than men.”

“
Yet here at this house, you have managed to save many of the men who fall ill,” Rolfe pointed out. “You have done better than the governor’s English doctor. I pray you, tell me—what is your secret?”

Edith waved her hand in a genteel gesture.
“I feel, gentlemen, as did Gilda, that the men here do not die from diseases of the body, but of the mind.”

“
What do you mean?” Rolfe asked, leaning back to look at his sister.

The young lady
’s tired face looked middle-aged as she gently inclined her head. “They have no wives or mothers here, no family life, and they have heard this place over-praised in England. Ofttimes their masters harshly treat them, they fall ill, and when they lie down in sickness, nobody but Fallon comes to help them, and he cannot be everywhere at once. They starve, good sirs, as much for simple love and affection as for food and medicine.”

“
And so you—” Rolfe prodded.

“
Gilda and I prayed for their souls as well as their bodies,” she answered, slouching forward as she leaned against her hand. “We laughed with them and listened to their stories. We asked about their mothers and sweethearts back home. And when they recovered, if they recovered, we bade them remember to pray and not give up hope, for their time of service would soon be finished.”

Fallon cupped his chin in his hand, thinking.
He had been content to find ill-used men and bring them to the house with nary a thought of how Gilda and Edith had accomplished the wonders of healing. He had supposed that the women dosed their patients with Indian herbs and remedies, but he had no idea their cures had involved body, soul, and spirit.

How would they continue without Gilda?
‘Twas true that Edith and Wart could continue their work, but Mistress Rolfe did not have Gilda’s charm and vitality. And Wart was nearing manhood, and would of certain want to find a place of his own, and mayhap take a wife. Nay, the hospital could not remain open forever. Without Gilda, ‘twould fall into disrepair and disuse, and soon be naught but an empty shell, just like Fallon’s heart.

By heaven, he missed her.
Stubborn little fool that she was, she would never know what it had cost him to allow her to walk away. Fallon wanted to imagine her wandering on one of the river trails, tired and hungry, but he knew she was more than capable of finding food and her way back to Opechancanough’s village.

And the old devil had won at last.
The chief’s taunting prediction that Gilda would turn from the true God and become one of the Powhatan would of certain come to pass. Though she hadn’t yet begun to worship the heathen spirits, Opechancanough had won her loyalty. And loyalty, in the end, proved the measure of a heart.