Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (47 page)

Fallon clenched his fist under the table.
If he had a chance, he’d yet live to see Opechancanough defeated.

Five days after leaving Jamestown, Gilda entered Weromacomico.
The guards at the gate stared at her with expressions of stone, and women looked up from their cooking fires and whispered to one another as she passed. Young children blinked curiously at her, then ran to their mothers. She had been away for two full years, ‘twas no surprise that they did not recognize her.

Gilda knew she must immediately present herself to the great chief.
If he refused to welcome her, she would no longer have a place in the world. The English despised her, and if the Indians cast her off as well . . .

She found Opechancanough surrounded by his council of elders and priests in his dwelling.
She entered and bowed her head before him and opened her hands to show that she had brought nothing with her from the English village.

The power in Opechancanough
’s face had not lessened, and he stared at her with a combination of defiance and curiosity in his eyes. “And so, Woman-with-a-secret,” he said in the Algonquin tongue, his voice rumbling through the stillness of the dwelling, “you have come back to us with open hands. But what is in your heart?”

She forced herself to look up and meet his gaze.
“Willingness and submission,” she said, taking pains to hide the heartache that threatened to erupt in her voice. “I have come back to the Powhatan, my people, and will do whatever my chief asks of me. I will marry Askook or another warrior, and I will bear children for the Powhatan—”

The chief held up his hand, and she obediently fell silent.
“Is there naught else in your heart?” he asked, speaking in English so that his elders could not understand. “What of the English God? Does his image still dwell there?”

Gilda hung her head.
“My God is a spirit, he has no image,” she whispered. “And I am still Kimi, Woman-with-a-secret. I cannot tear the English God from my heart, for he will remain as long as my heart beats.”

The chief
’s eyes flared, then dulled to black holes in his granite face. “Our gods will cleanse your heart,” he proclaimed in the Indian tongue. “You will spend three days fasting in the ceremonial sweat lodge. After three days, you will be taken to the women’s hut on the bank of the river, there to stay until the moon returns to the full shape it will have tonight.”

“
And after that?” she whispered, knowing she risked his wrath by questioning him further.

The dark eyes gleamed as indecipherable as water.
“The spirits of wind and fire and earth will tell me what to do with you.”

Outside the protective walls of the palisade, the ceremonial sweat lodge stood in solitary remoteness far from the noise and bustle of village life.
Built of a framework of slender wooden poles covered with buckskin and an outer layer of heavy furs, the low, squat lodge was designed to cleanse a soul and body through perspiration and prayer.

Gilda could not recall a woman ever using the sweat lodge, but when the conjuror summoned her she followed him to the lodge and crawled inside the opening.
The lodge was empty but for a pile of steaming rocks set on glowing logs in the center of the room. Outside, the conjuror began a nasal chant as a heavy leather flap closed off the doorway.

One of the women poured water through a small opening at the center of the domed roof, and steam rose from the heated rocks.
Gilda shimmied out of her tunic and took shallow breaths to accustom herself to the stifling warmth of the enclosed space. She knew women sat outside to watch and listen, and they would not allow the fire to die down, nor the rocks to cool.

Gilda crossed her legs and closed her eyes as water droplets began to trickle over her skin and down her back.
Moving as if in a dream, she unloosed her braids and combed her hair with her fingers till it slipped like a soft tide over her shoulders and absorbed the water than poured forth from her skin.

The chief was wise to order this.
Here she could cleanse her heart and mind of all traces of Fallon and the life she had left behind. Here she could speak every unspoken word she had ever thought in his presence, and she would say her farewells to Edith and Wart and Brody until no more words remained to be said. Here she would tell Fallon how she resented his taking charge of her life and his over-protectiveness, then she would confess that she admired his compassion, persistence, and devotion.

And when all her strength had ebbed away, when naught remained in her but the most basic of emotions, she would tell Fallon that she loved him and let the words vanish without consequence into the steam of the sweat lodge.
And at the end of three days, when her heart was empty, her body purified, and her mind clear, she would be free of Fallon Bailie and all things English.

The women pulled her out of the sweat lodge on the morning of the fourth day, and Gilda was wholly taken aback to find that autumn had turned her bitterly cold breath upon the valley during Gilda
’s time of confinement. Shivering with weakness and the unexpected briskness, she did not speak as the women pulled a new tunic of buckskin over her head and piled a thick bear skin around her shoulders. After slipping her feet into new moccasins, the women pointed Gilda toward another hut that stood on the banks of the river. Gilda knew this hut well—’twas the ceremonial hut where women were required to live apart from the village during the time of their bloody cycle or during childbirth.

She shook off the women
’s supporting hands and stumbled determinedly toward the hut. She had not eaten since leaving Jamestown, but her body had defeated the arching pangs of hunger in her first two days of solitude. Hunger had been easy to conquer; thoughts of her other life had been far more difficult to eradicate.

She stooped to crawl inside the women
’s hut, and noticed with an odd sort of grateful detachment that the women had not forgotten to provide her with food. A wooden bowl steamed with hominy and a small cake of corn bread lay upon a broad leaf. One of the women had followed and stood outside the hut, peering curiously inside, and Gilda nodded her thanks.

She picked up the cake of bread and nibbled at the crusty edge.
Her days in the sweat lodge were a painful blur of tears, pain, and suffering, but now her mind felt as cool and clear as spring water. With no effort at all, the words to the daily morning prayer she had recited with Edith leapt into her mind: “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song. Be ye sure that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name. For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting: and his truth endureth from generation to generation. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.”

Outside the hut, yellow sun-shot leaves arched over the path to the river, and the river itself seemed to be dusted with ash orange tones by the fading light of autumn.
From far away came the sounds of children laughing as they splashed in the chilly waters, and Gilda leaned upon the backrest in the hut and smiled. Life was simple in the Indian village: women cooked and sewed clothing and pleased their men and looked after children. When necessary, they defended their homes or used their wiles to help trap food during the lean winter months. And during the time of their uncleanness, they came to this hut to ponder the ways of their sex and give thanks to the gods who had either gifted them with fertility or spared them from another mouth to feed.

If the chief married her to one of his warriors, mayhap she would be big-bellied with child the next time she came to this hut.
The thought made her shiver, and Gilda mentally braced herself as the image of Fallon inevitably rose from the depths of her imagination to shake a reproving finger at the notion. But Fallon was no longer a part of her life, and his frown of disapproval had no sway over her heart.

Gilda finished her breakfast and pulled her sleeping mat outside.
She would lie like an Indian on the earth and enjoy the woods. She was a Powhatan; she was Kimi, Woman-with-a-secret until the chief decreed otherwise. Her life would ever be spent with her tribe.

Sleep came nudging in among her thoughts.
She dreamed of the familiar canoe upon a narrow river that moved swiftly into the west. She was not alone in the boat, for a protective presence overshadowed her, and finally the canoe beached itself outside a palisaded city. Gilda splashed through the water toward the gate, but a voice called, “Nay! This way!” and a freckled, tattooed arm directed her toward a small hole underneath the timbered wall.

The dark space under the palisade gaped like a yawning mouth, and a new kind of fear shook her body from toe to hair, twisting her mouth in a spasm of terror.
She let out a tiny whine of mounting dread as sounds leapt over the wall: savage war whoops, the terrible ringing cash of steel upon steel, the rising screams of women.

“
Go!” the voice shouted behind her, and Gilda whirled around to protest. A young version of Fallon stood beside her, his handsome features dead-white against the gleam of his coppery hair. “Gilda,” he said, kneeling beside her so that his eyes were level with her own, “you have to go beneath the wall. And you must do it now.”

She trembled, turning slowly, and the dark void beneath the palisade gaped at her like Opechancanough
’s black eyes. “I won’t go,” she screamed, turning again and flinging herself into Fallon’s arms. But he pushed her away, and before her eyes his face shifted and hardened into maturity. Suddenly his eyes narrowed in the same pained, wounded expression he had worn when she left him outside Edith’s house.

“
You have to go,” he said, firmly pushing her away.

“
Nay!” she shouted, then wakefulness hit her like a punch in the stomach. She sat up, breathless, and saw that several children on the riverbank had turned toward her in surprise. Struggling to mask her panic, she painted on a warm smile and called out a greeting, then urged them on to their play. When they shrugged and moved away, she rolled over onto her elbows and hung her head in mortification.

Despite the rigors and harsh discipline of the sweat lodge, her nightmares had not vanished.
Despite her prayers and good intentions, Fallon still haunted her. And so did the dark dream, which came now even in the stark light of day.

She did not dream of the river again, nor of Fallon, during the time of her solitude.
At the month’s end, she stood before Opechancanough and proclaimed her readiness to reenter the tribe. When the chief squinted as if he would deny her petition, she rolled up the sleeves of her tunic and pointed to the fine marks of the tattoo upon her forearms.

“
These scratches declare me to be a daughter of the great chiefs of the Powhatan,” she said, blithely ignoring the sudden silence in the hut as the elders watched her challenge the great chief’s hesitation. “Deny this mark, if you can, my uncle!”

Two of the elders leaned toward each other to consult in hoarse whispers, but Opechancanough sat stiffly upon his mat and said nothing.
After a moment of stately deliberation, he raised his ceremonial pipe to his lips and inhaled deeply.

Gilda relaxed slightly.
The pipe was a bid for time, nothing more. The great chief wanted to occupy his hands with smoking while his mind raced to more important matters. The chief passed the pipe to the priest who sat at his right hand; the priest inhaled and passed it to the next elder. Around the circle the pipe went, while Gilda stood in the center of the men and waited patiently.

“
What is it you want, dear daughter?” Opechancanough asked when the pipe had returned to him. His voice was formal, and she knew the endearment was not meant to be taken literally.

“
I want to live with my people, the Powhatan. I want to take a husband and bear children.”

Opechancanough closed his eyes and nodded.
“How many years are you?”

Gilda blinked, surprised by his question.
“I have passed seventeen summers.”

The werowance looked at his conjuror.
“She will still be young enough to bear children in another year,” he said, knocking the ashes of the pipe onto the floor.

“
Yea,” the conjuror agreed. Opechancanough glanced at the other elders, who nodded in unison.

The dark eyes settled on her again, and Gilda knew he did not yet fully trust her.
“You may live and work with your people,” he said, “but you will not marry until next year. When you have passed eighteen summers you may approach and ask for a husband.”

Grateful that he had not cast her away, Gilda bowed and backed out of the chief
’s dwelling.