Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (51 page)

“
What is it?” Brody asked from a distance, uncertainty and fear ringing in his voice.

“‘
Tis Gilda,” Fallon called over his shoulder. Brody started forward, and Fallon flung up his hand. “Stay back! ‘Tis the pox. You should go back to Jamestown, Brody, and warn the others not to venture southward. I had heard that several Indian villages were infected.”

Brody shifted his weight uneasily as if uncertain that he should go, but Fallon turned the full intensity of his gaze upon him.
“You can do naught for me here, Brody, so go back to Jamestown. If you get to the river, a merchant ship will pick you up. You will be safe. If Opechancanough wanted us dead, we’d never have made it this far.”

He knelt by Gilda
’s side and lifted her head into his arms. She felt weightless in his grasp, but he thanked God that she still breathed.

“
Are you quite sure I should go?” Brody called.

“
Yea,” Fallon said, looking up as quick-moving shadows of clouds skimmed over the empty village. “Don’t feel that you have to stay. I don’t know that she’ll make it, and I—”

He paused.
How did he tell Brody that he might not return to Jamestown? If Gilda died, he would never be able to spend another day in the settlement whose citizens had ignored her unfailing compassion and spat upon her. He had not been there to protect her from their hateful ignorance, and in his blindness he had allowed her to leave. I’faith, he’d opened the gate and practically
told
her to return to the savages and she’d left safety only to come to this . . .

He cleared his throat.
“Go back to Jamestown, Brody, and take care of Edith and Wart. Don’t send help, and don’t worry. But pray for us.”

Brody nodded and hurried away, his shoulders relaxing in the posture of relief.
When he had gone, Fallon lifted Gilda easily and carried her from the village of death.

thirty-nine

A
well-worn trail curved outside the palisade, and Fallon followed it, certain it would lead to water. The air around him seemed as lifeless as the deserted village, the winter light melancholy and filled with shadows. Gilda groaned once, in his arms, and the sound startled him so that he almost lost his footing. He could scarce believe that life still remained in a body so ravaged by disease.

About a quarter-mile down the trail he caught sight of a meandering stream at the bottom of a gully, and stepped carefully down the steep embankment toward the healing water below.

Gilda
’s flesh burned beneath his hands, so he found a shallow spot and laid her in the cold stream. She gasped when the chilly rivulets poured over her skin, and he cupped his hands and splashed more water over her limbs. With the professional detachment he’d developed while working with the sick and injured, he removed her stained garment and tenderly wiped her oozing flesh with a soft pad of moss.

As he poured water across Gilda
’s parched lips, her eyes flew open and she looked straight at him. “I am here to take care of you,” he whispered, smoothing her damp hair from her forehead. “‘Tis your turn to rest, Gilda.”

When her fevered body at last began to shiver, he wrapped her in a blanket and laid her beneath a shelter he had fashioned by stringing his cloak between two trees.
He would not take her back to the village. He had seen enough sickness aboard crowded ships to know that through some mischief of deviltry contagion could lurk in physical spaces.

He scooped a narrow crevice into the soil beneath the shelter and placed Gilda into the slender space, knowing the earth would cool the fevered warmth of her body.
Over the crevice he threw another blanket, then he lay down upon the edge of the covering, shielding her body with his own as sun departed and the dark winter winds blew harsh and cold.

The next day Fallon left Gilda sleeping and scouted about the area.
Further up the steep hill he found a rocky overhang that formed a small cave. The cavern was not large, barely deep enough to shelter a sleeping man, but it would afford protection from the wind and rain. After checking on Gilda again, he retrieved furs, clean blankets, and a pot from Ramushonnouk. Inside the cave he fashioned a bed from a length of blankets covered with rabbit skins, the softest fur he could imagine for Gilda to lie upon. Then he carried her from her earthen cradle to the cave, and over her he placed a heavy bearskin.

The second, third, and fourth days passed as a blur of pain and struggle.
Each morning Fallon carried Gilda to the cooling waters of the stream and sponged her ravaged skin. She screamed at the icy touch of the waters, and begged in Algonquin and English for death to come and relieve her of her misery. At other times she lifted her eyes to the barren sky and demanded to know why God had chosen to afflict her since birth, since she had done naught to offend him. Fallon did not answer her rash charges, knowing that she spoke in the delirium of fever. She seemed not to know who held her or who cared for her.

Each morning, after the waters of the stream had cooled her inflamed skin, Fallon carried her back to the cave, then poked around in the rocks to find food.
The rattlesnakes of Virginia did not appreciate being disturbed in the middle of winter, but Fallon managed to trap three. With a forked stick he pinned their writhing heads and, using a sharpened stone for a knife, beheaded them with a clean stroke. After slitting the belly and removing the innards, Fallon skinned the animals, then shredded the meat into thin slivers. Because she was still too weak to eat herself, he chewed Gilda’s meat for her, then slipped it inside her mouth and offered water until she swallowed.

Often she would stir beneath him in the night, her fever raging, and once she opened her eyes in a bright flash of recognition.
“Give me your knife, Fallon,” she demanded, her hot breath striking him in the face like a physical blow. “Why does God make me endure this? What sin have I committed? I tried to save them all, but Noshi died in my arms . . .”

Her words ebbed away as did her strength, and Fallon lifted her weightless body and struggled down the hill to the stream to cool her fever once again.

He felt like shouting with joy on the morning when he awoke and Gilda had no fever. Lifting the bearskin, he saw that the sores on her arms and chest had begun to crust, so he did not take her to the river lest he disturb the healing process. Her eyes opened at some point while he examined her, and he flushed when he realized that she had been watching him for some time.

“
Good morrow,” he said, feeling his cheeks burn. He dropped the bearskin over her body to preserve her modesty. “Y’are better today. I’ll go down to the stream and bring up some water—”

“
Fallon.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and he leaned forward to listen. “Are they all dead?”

He paused, wondering what to tell her, then he nodded.
Her eyes closed in defeat as her chin quivered. “Noshi—” she said, tears wetting her lashes.

“
Noshi will wait for us,” Fallon said, efficiently rearranging her bed. “You must get well before we look for him.”

“
Nay,” she protested, and her ice blue eyes met his again. “He is dead; he died despite my prayers—”

“
Y’are not well,” Fallon said, forcing a smile. “You only think you saw him. Indeed, many times I have imagined his face in every warrior I see—”

“
Let me die,” she whispered again, and with a great effort she lifted her scarred hand to grasp the edge of his coat. “Life is a journey toward death, so let me pass to the other side. Leave me, Fallon, and I will follow Noshi—”

“
Shhh, rest now,” Fallon answered, gently lowering his hand across her eyes. Obediently, her eyes closed, and a moment later she was asleep.

But her words echoed in his mind as he searched for food, and he wondered what she had meant.

Now that Gilda’s body had determined to mend, Fallon was forced to reenter the ghost village to search for stores of substantial food. He found the community’s winter provisions, buried pots of ground corn and dried beans, and was able to cook adequate meals for the recovering invalid and his own hard-working appetite. But he refused to return Gilda to the village where she had endured the nightmare of disease. Part of him idly wondered if his reluctance sprang from a desire to help her forget the man who had been her husband. Had she loved him?

A mocking voice inside insisted on answers, so one afternoon he decided to discover the truth.
As he sprinted up the hill with a bowl of boiled squash and pumpkin, he was glad to see that she was awake and waiting for him. He had combed and cleaned her hair with dried herbs, and sewn her a new buckskin dress from the softened hides he’d found in the village. Though her skin still bore the ravages of the disease, the pustules had begun to heal. She looked surprisingly pretty.

She demurely smiled her thanks as he approached, and he wondered if she was more grateful for the food or for his help.
As he lay the bowl beside her, he gathered the courage to voice his questions.

“
At Ramushonnouk,” he said, offering her a wooden spoon from his pocket, “did you live with a husband?”

She accepted the spoon, but her eyes flew to his in a question.
“How did you know?”

Fallon sank onto a blanket beside her bed in the cave, and made an effort to shrug as if the matter were of no more than casual interest.
“Opechancanough told us you had married. Did you—” he paused, the words forming reluctantly on his tongue, “Did you love this man you married?”

A faint smile played upon her lips before she lifted her eyes to his.
“He was a brave and comely warrior. Opechancanough did me great honor by choosing him as my husband.”

“
So you loved him, then.” Fallon said, wondering why he had ever imagined that she had not. She had always loved all things Indian, why not a warrior? ‘Twas folly to ever consider that she might hold anything more than affection for
him
, for he was too rigid, too stern, too
English
to suit her.

“
In sooth, I scarcely knew Anakausuen,” she answered, dipping the flat spoon into the bowl. “He took ill with the fever and was one of the first to die.” She paused to scratch her arms. “Name of a name, Fallon, can you find an ointment to stop this itching? I will scratch my skin off if it continues.”

“
Y’are better,” he said, grinning at her, his good nature restored. “Y’are complaining again.”

“
Nay,” she said, serious. She leaned toward him, and her nearness made Fallon’s heart pound. “I have news, Fallon, that will be hard for you to hear.”

“
Say it.” He braced himself for the worst.
She is in love with Brody, she is with child, she is—

“
I found Noshi.”

He pulled away, realizing that she was completely lucid and telling the truth.
“Noshi?” The word came from his soul like a prayer.

She nodded, and her eyes darkened with pain.
“He lived in Ramushonnouk all his life; he was never sold into slavery as you feared. The pox had nearly taken him when I found him, but he knew me, Fallon, and he remembered you.”

Fallon lowered his head to his knees, overcome by the knowledge.
‘Twas too bitter sweet to fathom. Noshi was dead, but he had remembered. Another of Opechancanough’s prophecies had failed, for some kind soul had disobeyed the order to sell the boy into slavery and had instead raised him as a Powhatan.

“
He bade me tell you that Opechancanough hath ordered the extermination of the English,” Gilda went on, pressing her hands to her forehead as though the news pained her. “He did not know when the attack would come. But he bade me warn you.”

“
In sooth, he remembered me?” Fallon asked, looking at her through a blurred haze of tears. “Did he know I was searching for him?”

Gilda nodded.
“He also remembered the one true God,” she said, lowering her voice. “As death approached, he did not cry out in a death song like the others, but bade me pray for him. I put his body onto the burial pyre with the others, and sent his soul to heaven.”

For an instant an indescribable wave of jealousy overwhelmed Fallon
’s conscience, for Gilda had found and sheltered Noshi while he had been the one determined to find him! But God, in his great mercy, had let Noshi know that Fallon cared. ‘Twas enough, knowing that.

Gilda tugged gently on his sleeve.
“I have prayed that you would not hate me,” she said, genuine tears shining in her eyes. “I tried to save him, Fallon. I tried to save all of them. But the fever would not leave, and I could not feed and tend them all. In the end, I was the only one left. I brought the disease upon them, and I wanted to die, too. In sooth, I do not know why God did not let me die—”

“
You didn’t bring the disease,” Fallon said, reaching for her hand. He gave it a comforting squeeze. “We have seen the disease of late in men aboard ship, and it strikes them two weeks after they have been exposed to another with the pox. The people of this village were stricken long before you came, Gilda. Y’are not to blame for their deaths.”

She believed him, for her eyes shone with relief.
He pulled her into his arms for a gentle embrace, then lifted the bearskin so she could lie down and rest. Surprisingly pliant, she obeyed and soon fell asleep.

Sleep would not come to Fallon, though, and he sat motionless for a long time, pondering the threat of an Indian attack and wondering why God had not spared Noshi long enough for Fallon to find him.

Though heavy sleep still fogged her mind, Gilda sensed a change in the atmosphere and awoke.
A gloomy gray fog seemed to thicken and congeal in the cave around her as gusts of bitterly cold wind blew past the opening of the cavern and worried the skeletal branches of the trees. The atmosphere was heavy with impending rain, and ghostly mists whirled and danced over the hillside like phantoms from the conjuror’s tales.

“
Fallon!” she screamed, the hard fist of fear growing in her stomach. “Fallon!”

The wind snatched her voice and carried it away, but soon Fallon appeared below her on the hill, his skin pale in the fading afternoon light and his hair tangled by the wind.
He carried a pile of furs from the village.

“
Where were you?” she called, her nerves at a full stretch. “You should not have left without telling me—”

“
I had to bury them,” Fallon answered, dropping the furs outside the mouth of the cavern. “All of them, since I couldn’t tell which one was Noshi. And then the wind freshened, so I gathered more furs. We’ve a storm coming on, but I think we’ll be fine here as long as—”