Virgin Earth

by Philippa Gregory

Hester enjoyed the expression on the cavalier’s face. ‘We keep the rare ones potted up,’ she said. ‘These are only garden tulips. I can show you the rarities, we keep them in our orangery.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ he said softly. He was walking between the tulip beds, scanning them, bending to read the labels and then going on. ‘I had heard you were great gardeners, but I thought you worked on the palace gardens.’

  ‘We do,’ Hester said. ‘We did,’ she corrected herself. ‘But we had to have our own garden to stock the palace gardens, and we have always sold our stock.’

  He nodded, paced the length of the bed, kneeled down and then got up again. Hester noted the dirt on the knees of his grey suit and that he did not trouble to brush it off. She recognised at once the signs of a besotted tulip enthusiast and a man accustomed to employing others to keep his clothes smart.

  ‘And what rarities do you have?’ he asked.

  ‘We have a Lack tulip, a Duck tulip, Agatha tulips, Violetten.’ She broke off at the eagerness in his face.

  ‘I’ve never seen them,’ he said. ‘D’you have them here?’

  ‘This way,’ Hester said pleasantly, and led him towards the house. Johnnie came running out and checked at the sight of the stranger. He gave a neat bow and the man smiled at him.

  ‘My stepson,’ Hester said. ‘John Tradescant.’

  ‘And will you be a gardener too?’ the man asked.

  ‘I am a gardener already,’ Johnnie replied. ‘I am going to be a cavalry officer.’

  Hester scowled a warning at him but the man nodded pleasantly enough. ‘I’m in that line of work myself,’ he said. ‘I’m in the cavalry for the Parliament army.’

  ‘That John Lambert!’ Hester exclaimed and then flushed and wished she had the sense to be silent. She had read about the talents of the cavalry leader who was said to be the equal of Prince Rupert, but she had not pictured him as a young man, smiling in spring sunshine, and devoted to tulips.

  He grinned at her. ‘Shall I keep a place among my officers for you, Master Tradescant?’

  Johnnie flushed and looked awkward. ‘The thing is –’

  ‘He is too young to be thinking of such things,’ Hester intervened. ‘Now … the tulips –’

  John Lambert did not move. ‘What is the thing?’ he asked Johnnie gently.

  ‘The thing is that I am in the king’s service,’ Johnnie said seriously. ‘My family have always been gardeners to the royal palaces, and we have not yet been dismissed. So I suppose I am in the king’s service, and I can’t, in honour, join you. But I thank you for the invitation, sir.’

  Lambert smiled. ‘Perhaps by the time you are old enough to ride with me there will be a country united, and only one army and one cavalry and all you will have to choose is your horse and the colour of the feather in your hat,’ he suggested diplomatically. ‘And both Prince Rupert and I will be proud to serve under the same colours.’

  He straightened up and looked over Johnnie’s head at Hester’s concerned expression. ‘Please don’t fear, Mrs Tradescant,’ he said. ‘I am here to buy tulips, not to cause you a moment’s uneasiness. Loyalty is a difficult path to tread and these are difficult times. You may well garden in a royal palace once more and I may yet dance off a royal scaffold. Or I might be the new Chief Justice and you Mayor of London. Let’s just look at some tulips, shall we?’

  The warmth of his smile was irresistible. Hester smiled in reply and directed him to the terrace where the tulips stood in their beautiful ceramic pots. Warmed by the sunshine and sheltered in the orangery at night, these were more developed than those in the bed and they were showing the colours in their petals.

  ‘Now these are our rarities,’ she said. ‘These are green parrot tulips, very special.’ Hester indicated the ragged fringe on the green petals. ‘And these are Paragon Liefkens, they have a wonderful broken colour – red and white or red and yellow. The Semper Augustus comes from this family but excels them in shape, it has the true tulip shape and the best broken colour. Here are the Violetten, they come in a different colour in every bulb, very unpredictable and difficult to grow a consistent strain: they can be as pale as a bough of lilac or a true, deep purple-blue like violets. If you were interested in developing your own strain –’ She glanced at him and saw the avidity in his face.

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘Then these are the ones I would choose. To get a consistent deep purple would be a wonderful thing to do. Gardeners would thank you forever. And here,’ she led the way to the shelter of the terrace and the tulips standing proudly in the precious pots, ‘these are our Semper Augustus. We believe them to be the only Sempers in England. My father-in-law bought them and gave one to the queen. When she left the palace my husband brought it back here. As far as I know, no-one else has a Semper.’

  Lambert’s attention was all that she could have desired. He squatted down so his dark head was on a level with the scarlet and white flower. ‘May I touch?’

  ‘Gently,’ Hester assented.

  He put out a fingertip, the ruby on his hand winked at the scarlet of the petal and he noticed the match of the colour at once. The red of the petal was as shiny as silk shot through with white. One flower, a little more mature than the others, was open and he peered into the cup to see the exotic darkness of the stamens and the sooty black of the pollen.

  ‘Exquisite,’ he breathed. ‘This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.’

  Hester smiled. Johnnie glanced up at her and winked. They both knew what would come next.

  ‘How much?’ John Lambert asked.

  ‘Johnnie, go and ask Cook for some shortbread and a glass of wine for our guest,’ Hester commanded. ‘And bring me some notepaper and a pen. You will want to place a large order, Mr Lambert?’

  He looked up at her and grinned, the confident smile of a handsome man whose life is going well for him. ‘You may command my fortune, Mrs Tradescant.’

  Summer 1645, Virginia

  John thought that the life at the new village in the creeks would become easier once the crops yielded and the hunting improved, and the fruits were ripe in the forest. When the good weather came there was indeed enough food for everyone; but the easy contentment of the old village life was lost. They dug out a pit and built a new sweat lodge, and dedicated a new dancing circle. They built a grain store and the women made the tall, smooth black jars to hold the dried peas and seeds and maize which would see them through the winter; but the joy that John had thought was inseparable from the Powhatan had gone from them. Expelled from the land where they had chosen to live, and confined to the brackish waters near the shoreline, they were like a people who had lost their confidence and their pride.

  They had never thought that they could be defeated by the colonists, or if they thought they could lose, they thought it would be in a great battle, and the braves would lie dead in heaps, and the women would grieve and take their men home and weep over their bodies. Then a price would be paid – the orphans and the widows would disappear into Jamestown and not be seen again and the Powhatan would grieve for them too, as among the lost. Then, after a season, after a cycle of the year, everything would return to normal.

  What they had not anticipated was that the war would never stop. What they had not anticipated was that it would not be a battle and a withdrawal of either one side or the other. What they had not anticipated, and John had not thought to warn them against, was the inveteracy of English spite against a native people which takes arms against them.

  The colonists were not driven by fear, it was no longer a matter of self defence. The army of half-naked yelling warriors which had come against them had melted away, disappeared back into the woods. The colonists were fuelled instead by a deep sense of outrage and moral righteousness. Ever since the first uprising they had felt that the Indians had escaped punishment, had been pushed back into the woods but not pushed far enough. Even when they had built the wooden palisade to mark the limit of their tolerance of the
native people, they had thought that too much land had been left to them. Now, under Sir William Berkeley, there was talk of ‘solving’ the Indian question. In these terms of speech the families of the Powhatan were now defined as a problem which had to be solved, and not as a people with rights.

  Once that shift of thinking took place there could be only one conclusion, and John understood the determination of the colonists who marched out in expedition after expedition to hunt down first one village and then another until it felt as if the trees had ceased to hide the Powhatan, and the leaves ceased to shelter them, as if the colonists could see through the branches and the morning mist, and wherever there was one of the People, a man, a woman or a child, a musket ball would find them.

  And then the news came that Opechancanough had been captured. John went to find Attone by the river. He was not fishing, nor sharpening a bow. He was not chipping at the blade of a stone knife, nor tying an intricate knot to flight an arrow. He was standing, uncharacteristically idle, his hands limp at his sides, watching the light on the sluggish water of the river as it lapped at the pebbles at his feet.

  ‘The white men have taken Opechancanough,’ John said.

  Attone did not turn his head. He had heard John approach from half a mile away and known from the sound of the footsteps that it was John, and that he was looking for someone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was thinking, should I go into Jamestown and ask them to spare his life?’

  Attone turned his bright dark gaze on John. ‘Would they spare him if you asked it?’

  ‘I don’t know. They might. At least I could speak up for him. I thought I should go to them and explain what the Powhatan believe. At the very least I could make sure that they understand what Opechancanough is saying.’

  Attone nodded. ‘Yes. Go.’

  John stepped forwards and stood beside the man, shoulder to shoulder. ‘I have loved you like a brother,’ he said suddenly.

  Attone flashed him a quick look and at the back of it was a smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would end here, like this.’

  The Powhatan shook his head, his gaze returning to the moving water. ‘I didn’t think it either, Englishman.’

  ‘You call me Englishman because I am no longer of the People,’ John stated, hoping to be contradicted.

  Attone simply nodded.

  John summoned his resolve. ‘Then I will go into Jamestown and plead for his life, and then I will go back to England. I know that there is no place for me with the People any more, and the food I eat robs the hungry men and women.’

  ‘It is time that you went back to your own people. There is nothing for you here.’

  ‘I would stay if Suckahanna asked me –’

  Again there was that dark flash and a half-concealed smile. ‘You might as well wait for the deer to speak, Englishman. She has turned her head from you, she will not look back.’

  ‘Because of her pride?’

  Attone nodded. ‘Now she is a Powhatan,’ he said.

  ‘When I am gone will you tell her that I loved her?’ John asked. ‘And that I went because I believed she wanted me gone. Tell her it was not uncertainty, and not knowing where I belonged. Will you tell her that my whole heart was with her?’

  Attone shook his head, a lazy gesture. ‘I will tell her that you loved her as much as a man like you can love.’

  ‘What would a man like you do?’ John cried out in frustration. ‘If you’re saying that my love is less – what would your love be like? What would you do?’

  Attone laughed at that. ‘Oh! Beat her, I suppose. Love her. Give her a baby to care for. Send her out in the fields to work. Bring her home at night and keep her awake all the night with lovemaking until she is too tired to do anything but sleep. Don’t ask me, Eagle, she left me for you. If I knew how to manage her she would never have married you.’

  John laughed unwillingly. ‘But you will tell her that I love her?’

  ‘Oh go, Englishman,’ Attone said, suddenly weary of the whole thing. ‘I will tell her the words if I can remember them, but we have no interest in words. And words from Englishmen mean less than nothing. You are a faithless race, and you talk too much. Go and see if your talking can save Opechancanough and then go back to your people. Your time here with us is finished.’

  John washed himself clean in the river but the paleness of his skin seemed stained forever by the redness of the bear grease. He asked Musses to cut his hair for him, in a short crop, the same length on both sides, so that he no longer had the side plait of the Powhatan braid. She did it neatly, with two sharpened oyster shells, and gathered up the fallen locks and threw them on the fire.

  ‘Going home?’ she asked.

  ‘I have nowhere else to go,’ John replied, hoping for sympathy.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said pleasantly and walked away.

  John rose up from her fire, took a knife and his bow and arrow and went to find Suckahanna. She was at a corner of the camp, a deerskin strung taut on the curing frame; she was rubbing oil into the skin to keep it supple and sweet.

  ‘I am going to Jamestown to speak for Opechancanough,’ John said.

  She nodded.

  ‘After, I shall take a ship for England.’

  She nodded again.

  ‘I may never come back,’ he warned.

  The tiniest of shrugs greeted that remark and she turned around and tipped some more oil into her palm and worked it into the skin.

  ‘Before I go, I want to tell you that I love you and that I am sorry for not being a true brave,’ John said. ‘I know I have disappointed you; but I could not spill the blood of my countrymen. If we had found a way to live at peace, white men and Powhatan, then you and I would have been happy together. It is the times which failed us, Suckahanna. I know that I loved you then, and I love you still. Without fail.’

  At last she paused in her work, she tossed her head and her black hair slid over her shoulder, and he saw the almost-forgotten sweetness of her smile.

  ‘Go your way, Englishman,’ she said. ‘You don’t snare me with words.’

  ‘And you still love me,’ John hazarded.

  She gave him that swift, flirtatious, elusive smile. ‘Go away.’

  It was a long way to Jamestown. John went northwards along the shoreline. He lived off shellfish and berries and early ripening nuts, and occasionally he shot a bird for some meat. He thought it was ironic that now he was preparing to leave the country he had found that he could live off it and that it was the rich and fertile place of his wildest childhood imaginings.

  For the first three days he trudged dully, like a London apprentice going to work, watching his feet on the stones of the shore, and looking around him only to check for enemies and to look for game. But on the third day he realised that just over the arid dunes was forest filled with trees and saplings and seeds coming into ripeness, and he left the shoreline, went into the forest and started collecting.

  By the time he reached the James River he had made himself a satchel from two duckskins, which were not properly cleaned and were smelling powerfully, and stuffed it with seeds and roots. He approached the first plantation he saw with caution, he did not want to be shot as an Indian by a nervous planter. He saw the man down on his roughly built quay.

  ‘Ahoy!’ John called from the shelter of the forest. The English words felt strange on his tongue, for a moment he was afraid he had forgotten his own language.

  The man turned to where the sound came from and raked the forest with his gaze. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘A friend, an Englishman. But buck-naked.’

  The planter lifted his musket. John saw that the fuse was not glowing and the chances were good that it was out. He stepped out of the shelter of the woods.

  ‘You’re an Indian dog! Stand still or I shoot you as you stand.’

  ‘I promise,’ John said. ‘I’m as English as you. I’m John Tradescant, gardener to the king of England, I have a hou
se and a garden in Lambeth and a wife called Hester Pooks and a daughter called Frances and a son called Johnnie.’ As he spoke the familiar, beloved names he felt a stirring as if they themselves were calling to him and he should have been listening, he should have heard them earlier.

  ‘Then what are you doing like a savage in the woods?’ the man asked, his gun pointed unwaveringly at John’s crotch.

  John hesitated. Of course, that was the very question.

  ‘Because I didn’t know where I should be,’ he said slowly. Then he raised his voice and said loudly enough to be heard: ‘I was living with the Powhatan, but now I want to go back to England. Can I borrow some clothing and take a boat to Jamestown? I can get money sent to me there, and repay you.’

  The man motioned him forwards and John stepped cautiously closer. ‘What’s the name of the new Parliament commander?’ the man asked him quickly.

  John spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been with the Powhatan for the last two years. When I left the king was defeated at Edgehill – I thought it would not be long for him then.’

  The man laughed shortly. ‘It still is not decided now,’ he said. ‘What’s the name of the king’s cousin?’

  ‘Prince Rupert?’

  ‘His son?’

  ‘Prince Charles?’

  ‘Nationality of his wife?’

  ‘She’s French, I can tell you the colour of her eyes,’ John said. ‘I was in court service, I was gardener at Oatlands Palace.’

  The man checked. ‘You were gardener to the queen of England and here you are as naked as a savage after running wild two years with the Powhatan?’

  John stepped forwards and held out his hand. ‘Odd, isn’t it? I’m John Tradescant, of the Ark, Lambeth.’

  They loaned John a pair of breeches and a coarse linen shirt and he crammed his feet into a pair of shoes that should have been the right size but which pinched his feet unbearably. Running barefoot for two years had hardened the skin and spread the bones of his feet, John feared he would never walk comfortably in boots or shoes again.