Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (56 page)

On the twenty-second morning of March 1622, a blurred and blood-red sun rose and lightened the horizon east of Jamestown.
Inside the fort, soldiers gripped their muskets and checked their ammunition for the hundredth time. In the outlying houses men wiped sweaty hands upon their breeches and shivered in the frosty morning air.

Across the western valley of Virginia, the retreating moon seemed bent on hurrying from one dark cloud to another as the warriors of the Powhatan shifted in their positions.
Most carried quivers of specially prepared arrows upon their backs and war clubs in their hands; others clutched weapons that their English friends had given them for hunting. Outside Henrico, Elizabeth City, Charles City, and Jamestown the warriors crouched at their posts with one eye cocked toward the sun as they waited for the angle of the eighth hour.

The citizens of every settlement but Jamestown rose and went about their business as usual, and at eight o
’clock the slaughter began. At Henrico, a war club crushed John Rolfe’s skull through an open window as he sat at breakfast to read his devotions. Bursting into the foundry outside the settlement, the Indians immediately killed the mill master and his men and threw the machinery into the creek.

The planters
’ houses were set aflame, and men, women, and children, both masters and servants, were killed as they ran in confusion from the carnage. Pillars of smoke rose one by one from the widely scattered English settlements, and before an hour had passed, more than three hundred fifty English lay dead in the Virginian forests.

Opechancanough
’s plan of genocide would have succeeded if not for Jamestown. Forewarned and ready, the Englishmen and women of that city successfully defended several Indian sallies by land and water. As muskets roared and cannon boomed, the savage invaders withdrew under the cover of the dense forest and retreated to await word from their chief.

The night drew down like a black cowl as Fallon and Brody waited at the house for another attack, and Fallon
’s stretched nerves jangled when the silence was shattered by Edith’s voice at the front gate. “Don’t shoot, boys, ‘tis only me and Wart,” she called, stepping into the dim rectangle of light that streamed from the open window. “Open up the door, I’ve brought you supper. I’d wager you haven’t eaten all day.”

“
Truth to tell, woman, are you crazy?” Brody said, jumping up to help her bring in a basket of supplies. “Edith, ‘tis folly to move about out there in the dark. We don’t know who might be lurking—”

“
Jamestown is safe,” Wart interrupted, warming his hands before the fire. “There’s been no sign of a warring savage since this morning. And every Indian in Jamestown hath been imprisoned save for Master Pace’s boy Chanco—”

“
The day’s true hero,” Brody said, tossing Edith a relieved smile. “I’m thinking we ought to erect a statue in his honor.”

“‘
That’s well done, but I’ve brought supper for all,” Edith said, moving toward the kitchen. “This day hath been a horror, but with a good meal in our bellies we’ll all sleep more soundly.”

Wart followed her like an obedient puppy, but Brody paused when Fallon did not move from the window.
“Aren’t you coming?” Brody asked, his eyes narrowing in concern. “I’faith, Fallon, you can’t be thinking—”

“
If the streets are safe enough for Edith to come home, ‘tis time I left,” Fallon said, propping his musket against the wall. He moved toward the door and took a long cloak from a peg in the wall. “Gilda’s somewhere out there, Brody. If she was in one of the other settlements—”

His throat closed around the words, and Brody grasped his arm.
“Don’t think so, Fallon. She’s a smart girl, and an Indian.”

“
All the more reason for me to find her,” Fallon said, his voice grim as he slipped the cloak over his shoulders. “The English will begin a war of their own tomorrow, you can be sure of it. The days of peace are done, and anyone with dark hair will be a moving target.”

He opened the door and stepped out into the night air. A quiet voice nudged him out of his musings and told him that this would be the last time he would visit the healing house. Brody must have sensed Fallon’s feeling, for he followed through the open door and stood in the thin stream of light that cast a gentle glow upon the path. “Go with God, then, me friend,” Brody said, his voice husky.

“
Take care of Wart and Mistress Rolfe,” Fallon said, reaching out to clasp his friend’s hand. “You know, Brody, you ought to marry Edith and still the gossiping tongues of this town.”

“
Mayhap I will,” Brody answered, smiling. “She’s a bonny lass, to me way of thinking.” He cleared his throat. “Give Gilda me love when you find her. You will find her, Fallon.”

“
Aye,” Fallon whispered, releasing Brody’s hand. A flicker of a smile rose at the edges of his mouth, then died out as he mentally said farewell to Edith and Wart, two precious people he might never see again. Then he turned his back on the small house where a single brave lantern steadily pushed at the gloom of Jamestown.

The Englishmen who gave their lives in the defense of Jamestown lay respectfully covered in a corner of the fort.
But at least thirty dead Indians lay exposed in the shimmer of moonlight on the riverbank, a warning to others who might consider a midnight raid.

The river gravel crunched under Fallon
’s boots, and instantly half a dozen men materialized from out of the shadows. The muskets at their shoulders were aimed at his head.

“
Do not fire!” he called, lifting his hands.

“
What are you doing out here, fool?” one of the guards called, lowering his musket only an inch. “Go home where you belong. We don’t know who is in yonder woods.”

“
I need a boat,” Fallon said, carefully lowering his arms. “My wife is stranded up river, and I’m worried about her. I only came here to warn the governor—”

“
That’s Bailie,” another of the men said, lowering his musket altogether. “He was in the public house, telling us about the attack. We all thought he was crazy.”

“
How’d you know?” the tallest guard asked, keeping his musket cleanly in line with Fallon’s eyes. “How chummy are you with the savages?”

“
No more friendly than anyone else,” Fallon pointed out. “I’d wager half the men in this place have had dealings with the Indians in the past month.”

“
Yet none of them knew about the attack,” the tall man called, his voice brimming with suspicion. The other guards, who had begun to relax, suddenly hefted their muskets again.

“
My wife is a Powhatan,” Fallon said, making an effort to smile. “But her loyalties are with the English. She, like Chanco, told me to warn the folk at Jamestown. So if you will let me pass, I’ll be able to tell her that all is well with you—”

“
If your wife is an Indian,” the big man said, spitting the words slowly. “She’s under a death sentence. Governor Wyatt hath already prepared the papers. Tomorrow we begin our revenge on the Powhatan and Chickahominy tribes. The documents say we can seize their crops, burn their villages, and kill every last one of ‘em, just like they killed the English today.”

“
That is not right,” Fallon protested, backing slowly toward the water. “Though Opechancanough did wrong, still we have no right to kill the innocent—”

“
Come away from the water,” the guard ordered, gesturing with the end of his musket. “And put your hands on your head. We’ll not have you warning the Indians like you tried to warn us.”

Fallon slowly extended his hands upward, then locked them upon his head.
The men circled round to come between him and the water, and Fallon seized the moment to make a dash for the river. “He’s away!” one man shouted, and Fallon closed his eyes and dove just as the muskets roared and bullets whispered by him in the night.

Fallon stayed under the freezing water for as long as he
dared, then surfaced to gasp for breath. “There he is!” another voice cried, and bullets tore holes in the water as he dove and frantically propelled himself upriver against the current. Again he came up for air, and the musket fire repeated. The noise and movement attracted the attention of Indians hidden on the far bank, and arrows fell in a whistling cloud around Fallon, reaching even to the Englishmen on the opposite bank. The English guards fired at random targets, then ran for cover as they dragged two fallen comrades back to the safety of the fort.

Drained of all will and thought, Fallon wrapped his arms over a floating log and hung motionless in the water.
The current propelled him downstream, back toward Jamestown, and his tired legs managed to kick so that he and the log moved steadily westward as quickly as he dared without attracting attention from the dark savages who hovered unseen in the woods.

In the hut at Weromacomico, Gilda raised her head expectantly as the old woman brought a bowl of hominy.
“Eat,” the woman urged, her voice coarse with age. “The warriors celebrate. Our chief hath won a great victory.”

Gilda hid a thick swallow in her throat and turned away as she ruefully accepted the terrible knowledge.
Despite his noble intentions, Fallon had not reached the English in time to warn them. Mayhap he had not reached Jamestown at all, for she suspected that Opechancanough had sent scouts through the woods to strike Fallon in the midst of his journey. If the English were defeated, surely Fallon was dead.

She realized that the old woman watched her carefully, so Gilda pasted on a warm smile and dipped her fingers into the hominy as if she were eager to join in the celebration.
After the old crone nodded in satisfaction and left, Gilda flung the offending food off her fingers and hugged her knees to her, burying her head in her arms.

The hunger to leave gnawed at her heart, but where would she go?
The English were defeated, and Fallon was gone. She would gladly follow him and Noshi into heaven, but she did not know if she had the courage or the right to take her own life. A month ago she might have done it, but at the hillside cave she had surrendered her life to another, and ‘twas no longer hers to take.

She only knew with pulse-pounding certainty that she
could not stay in Opechancanough’s village. She had once considered him a kinsman; she had admired his strength of purpose, but no more. Fallon was right. Opechancanough was a devil, for he had looked into the heart of the same God she loved and rejected the goodness he found there.

The sounds of revelry and drums began to permeate the hut, and Gilda stood up, amazed at the dreamlike lunacy of it all. She bent low and crept out of the house. There was no guard at the door, no woman to screech for the warriors, no children to scream at her approach.

Opechancanough had said she would die if the English were prepared.
And though she saw no sign of the chief, she knew that the warriors who danced around the fire now had clearly been successful. She was free.

Without another thought, she turned on her heel and walked from the campfire and through the gate of the palisade into the forest.
There was only one place she now considered
home
. She would go there and wait for the voice of God to speak again.

Forty-three

A
t daybreak Fallon woke in the mud at the river’s edge. His fingers and toes were blue with cold, but he was grateful to be alive and uninjured. Orange mud coated him from his head to his feet, and he managed a sardonic grin—’twas excellent camouflage, no matter that he hadn’t planned it. Rising carefully like a fox, he crouched along the river’s edge and followed it westward for three days, eating greens and small fish from the river to sustain his strength.

Like ghostly shrouds, clouds of smoke from burning settlements hung over the river valley, but whether the smoke rose from destroyed English or Indian villages Fallon could not tell. More than once he saw dead bodies flow past him in the river current, but not a single canoe or shallop cruised past him. If any of the English in the outlying settlements had survived, he knew ‘twould be folly to travel upon the open river. They would likely make their way to Jamestown through the woods.

The moon nervously hid her face in fog when Fallon first approached the settlement where he had met Tobias Harden.
All that remained of what had been a prosperous plantation was a blackened chimney and a burned fence. In the courtyard Fallon found the twisted remains of two men in leg irons, and near the chimney lay the charred corpse of a woman, her face frozen for eternity in a paroxysm of terror. But the woman was not Gilda, of that he was certain.

Pain and frustration walked with him through the ashes of his dreams.
He had hoped to find Gilda here, but instead only death and destruction had awaited him. Where could he find her now?