by Jenny Barden
Stafford hailed him from the helm. ‘Sit down, if you please, Master Dare.’
To Kit he spoke more gently. ‘We’ll sail round and come in from the north. There’s a fair anchorage in a wide bay on the east side of the island, but the approach is very shallow, like everywhere around Roanoke: barely greater than a fathom, and in the bay no more than a few feet. We’ll use the leeboards and go easy. Time to tack, I think.’
Stafford pulled on the tiller and Kit gave the orders to bring the mainsail round, hauling on the lee brace as he did. ‘Brace about! Slack windward sheet and haul the leeward. Make all!’
They both ducked when the boom swung over, and so did everyone else astern of the mainmast; they’d soon learnt the essentials of sailing gaff-rigged. But there was barely a puff of wind to fill the sails, and, once they began to drift on the next tack, the silence settled as still as stone. The view ahead was a perfect expanse of pure smooth blue: azure sky mirrored in turquoise water – a sea of glass.
‘Hoay!’ Ananias Dare called out. ‘Is anyone there?’
His shout seemed to land in felt. There was no answer, and even White hissed at him to hold his peace.
Manteo, sitting at the stern, took out a hook and line and began to fish, so did Towaye and Rob along with several of the Planters who were crammed together in the bows. Soon the pinnace trailed lines like darning threads, and they had their first catch: a small blue fish from a vast shoal that slid by, crystal clear in the sun-bright water, as if the hull was gliding through a shower of pieces of eight. More followed, along with one like a bass with a spot near the tail. Manteo pulled it aboard.
‘Manchauemec,’ Manteo proclaimed. ‘A young one. It’s good to eat.’
‘We’ll get a fire going when we’re ashore,’ White promised. ‘We’ll grill the fish in the open and eat well tonight.’
‘No more cold pottage for us,’ someone remarked and patted White on the shoulder. ‘Sweet bully-rook, thank Christ!’
Kit looked about, seeing more fish shoaling, even leaping from the water, and birds without number flocking over the lagoon. How had Lane’s men ever run short of food in this place? He squinted across at the island and thought he saw the shapes of fields over the slopes, though there was still no sign of people; the clearings, if that’s what they were, seemed overgrown and desolate.
Suddenly Rob cried out and Kit turned to him in a flash. The spool he held span in a blur, making a whoosh like a whipping top as it unwound out of control.
‘Let go!’ Kit yelled, but it did no good.
Rob tried to catch hold of his line and jerked back his hand. He tried again, blood streaming down his wrist.
‘It’s big!’ he shrieked. ‘A huge fish. Help me!’
He leant back, tugging on the spool which had wound itself out, and the fish he had hooked jumped clear out of the water in a jagged arc of silver. Writhing and thrashing, it plunged back, spraying water, almost yanking Rob overboard though Kit held him fast, grabbing hold of him by the waist.
‘Drop it!’ Kit shouted again.
‘No! I’ve got it hooked. Just hold me …’
‘It’s dragging the ship. Let go!’
The fish was taking the pinnace with it, even under sail. The thing was a mass of twisting muscle, shooting into the air then plummeting into the water, splashing and spiralling, swerving wide and carrying the pinnace onto another tack.
‘Cut the line,’ Stafford called.
The next instant Rob toppled back, all resistance gone. The spool span and slowed, and Manteo sheathed his knife.
‘That fish is best to leave,’ he said.
Rob glared at him, clutching his bleeding hand. ‘But I had it. Why didn’t you help me?’
Manteo passed over a strip of leather. ‘Bind your hand. The fish was too big.’ He looked across at the island and the lengthening shadows over the water. ‘We should get ashore.’
‘He’s right, Rob.’ Kit rubbed his back. ‘We’ve got enough fish, more than we can eat. We’ll hunt for that kind another day.’ He looked at the cut. It was deep. He should have warned Rob to let go if he hooked something big, told him to secure his line first on some part of the ship: tie the end round the rail, not try to hold the thing in his hands. The boy could have lost his fingers.
The water settled to glassy stillness, and Stafford got the pinnace back on course. They furled the sails and used the oars, took soundings by the rod and crept through the bay. The bed of the lagoon was only feet below them and every so often the hull ground against a shoal. They reached a small natural harbour as the sun was going down. A narrow bank of sand led to low wooded hills, and, just above the waterline, as far as the eye could see, were flat brown swathes of cord grass and rushes.
White led the Planters ashore but no one was waiting to greet them. There was no path, beacon, shelter or remains to suggest that anyone had ever been there, not that Kit could see.
White turned to Stafford. ‘You’re sure this is the place?’
Stafford looked about, took off his hat and mopped his brow. ‘As much as you are,’ he said. He scanned the water; then pointed to a log at an angle protruding a few feet from the surface in a tangle of weeds.
‘That’s one of the mooring posts. Odd there’s only one left.’
‘Very well. We’ll camp here tonight and proceed to the fort in the morning. There’s no reason for Master Coffin to have taken any interest in this anchorage, not without a vessel bigger than a boat. Hardly surprising that it’s been neglected.’
‘Good,’ said Dare. ‘Let’s cook the fish.’
It didn’t take the men long to start a fire and set up a few canvas shelters. Rob found a lizard and dropped it down Tom Humphrey’s neck. Tom then found a crab and put it down Rob’s breeches. That seemed to restore Rob’s humour since he was able to retaliate in kind with something larger. The sun sank to a shimmering red disc like a boss of molten metal plunging behind the dark shield of the land. Fireflies began to glow and cicadas started to trill. The smell of spruce and pine hung resinous in the cooling air. Kit walked along the bank and then to the edge of the trees. Manteo followed him. They both probed and scraped, examined and pondered, picking over driftwood and shells, pinecones and roots. Every so often one of them would find something that would make them both crouch down, heads together.
‘A button?’ Kit asked, fingering something black, round and smooth which seemed to have a hook on the back.
‘A nut,’ Manteo answered, shaking his head and smiling in the shadows. ‘Like a walnut.’
From the camp came the sound of singing and the smell of fresh grilled fish. The beach glowed orange in the flicker of firelight, and the water was motionless with a gleam like pewter in which the ship seemed grounded, black and lifeless, a broken skeleton of angled yards and cable.
Kit found something else, a pale domed carapace. He blew away the sand and held it out to Manteo.
‘A turtle shell?’
‘Yes. You are right. Here is a leg.’ He flourished a little white bone and they found more as they searched.
‘Another turtle,’ Kit said, brushing sand and dirt from a discovery which he could feel was domed, though broken, even more than the first. He passed it to Manteo along with another piece that seemed to fit by its side. He rooted around and found something else that was small and hard, shiny and ridged. He held it up in the fading light.
Manteo was quiet.
It was a tooth – unmistakably; a human tooth.
Manteo hunched down beside Kit and dug with him. They exhumed part of a jaw in which three teeth were embedded. There was no doubt.
‘This is a man,’ Manteo said. ‘This is his skull.’
Kit scraped in the sand. The limbs, when he found them, were far less damaged. He unearthed whole leg and arm bones, ribs and pelvis. But the skull was smashed to fragments.
He made a neat pile of the teeth.
‘Whoever this was, he didn’t die a natural death. Beasts wouldn’t pul
verise a skull and leave the rest intact.’
Manteo nodded, scrutinising a femur. ‘There are no teeth marks. A bear would have chewed the bones, so would a wolf. They would have broken them for the marrow, probably eaten them.’
‘So the man’s head was crushed by the people who killed him?’
‘Yes, so I think.’
‘Beaten to a pulp – as if they wanted to destroy his face.’
‘Yes, beaten in that way.’
‘Can you tell how long ago this happened?’
Manteo fished around the grave site and Kit did the same. They both looked for other clues: a trace of fabric or metal, some relic of weaponry or clothing, anything other than bone.
‘A long time,’ Manteo answered. ‘Maybe a year, not much more; the bones are not decayed. But not recently. There is no flesh or hair …’
‘There are no clothes either.’
‘They could have been taken.’
Kit nodded. The Indians prized the clothes of foreigners, so if Indians had murdered the man they probably would have stripped him. Suppose the bones were those of one of Coffin’s men. But was that likely? Was he jumping to the worst conclusion? The body could have been that of a savage killed in some tribal skirmish, or any one of those left marooned on the coast of Virginia over the years; he’d heard talk of slaves abandoned along this shore, both African and Indian, even of a few men left behind when Lane’s garrison was evacuated. He rummaged in the dirt, feeling the grains of grit between the pads of his fingers. He came across another tooth, a smooth enamelled molar broken off from its root. Was there a way of distinguishing English teeth from savage? He supposed there wouldn’t be.
He delved again and touched a thin strip of something metallic. He held it up to the vestiges of light. It was brass, a tiny elongated cylinder, fatter at one end than the other: an aiglette of the kind that a man would have at the end of the laces on his doublet or sleeves.
He passed the find to Manteo. ‘It’s an aiglette, like this.’ He held out one of his own laces.
It wasn’t fancy or very valuable, not gilded or jewelled, but the sort of tag that a soldier might use. He imagined the man brought down, perhaps clubbed or struck by an arrow, the clothes ripped off him as he lay dying, the lace torn away and lost in the dirt to later rot and leave just its capping behind. He watched Manteo push the aiglette over his palm.
‘This was no Indian,’ Kit said. ‘I think he was English, most probably one of Coffin’s men, murdered not long after being left here.’
Manteo nodded. ‘Yes. I think so too.’
‘We must warn the Governor.’ He stood and looked down at the remains. ‘We’ll show him what’s left and I’ll give him the aiglette.’ He held out his hand and Manteo pressed it into his safekeeping.
‘The Secotans will have done this,’ Manteo said.
‘The Secotans.’ Kit looked up at the black woodland. ‘I wonder where they are now.’
8
Manner of Wars
‘Their manner of wars … is either by sudden surprising … most commonly about the dawning of the day, or moon light, or else by ambushes, or some subtle devises …’
—From an account of the ‘natural inhabitants’ in Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report of the new found land of Virginia first published in 1588
Roanoke Island, the new found land of Virginia
July 1587
‘You need not go.’
The wind thrummed through the Lion’s rigging, and drove rolling waves against her hull, making the ship strain against her anchor lines, rocking with a sickening motion. But Master Ferdinando smiled.
Emme regarded him askance. ‘Of course I must go. Mistress Dare will require help in establishing her new home on Roanoke, and her time is almost come. She needs me now more than ever.’
‘Is her comfort so important to you?’ Ferdinando took hold of the main halyard and leant over her. ‘I think, considering your friends, that probably it is not.’
What was he getting at? She supposed he meant to unsettle her by inferring that he knew more than he did. She would not rise to him.
She turned aside and looked down at the pinnace she was meant to board. It bobbed up and down, knocking against the side of the ship, already fully loaded with the last of the Planters to be taken ashore: the old men, women and boys. She saw the anxiety in their wan faces. They were waiting for her.
Ferdinando took her arm as if to help her to the rail, and she tried to wrench away from him but to no avail. His hold meant she could not easily proceed further and the constraint made her flesh creep. He stood in front of the boxes placed to form steps over the bulwarks, released her and gave her a sly look.
‘I mean those who are concerned about your safe return to England. They would not want you lost on this island.’
‘I do not intend to be lost.’ She took a few steps to skirt past him. ‘I shall serve the Dares and Governor White in the new City of Raleigh. I will not be difficult to find.’
He took hold of her again and she shot him a fiery glance, standing rigid until he let go of her.
His lips twisted into another subtle smile.
‘But you will not stay on Roanoke for long. When I am ready, you will leave.’
‘Most generous of you, considering that you have told all the other Planters that they are not to be allowed back aboard this ship.’
He stood by the rail, speaking in an undertone that followed her, low and unhurried as she negotiated the steps.
‘I shall allow Governor White back and possibly one or two others. Someone must return to England to report to the venture’s patrons. I would rather not have that responsibility – or need to explain your absence.’ He inclined his head, confident now of her attention. ‘So do not expect to remain here for more than a few days.’
She turned to him before climbing down. ‘I expect nothing, Master Ferdinando, least of all anything from you.’
She did not look back at the ship; she had no wish to ever see it again. She fixed her attention on the line of white dunes and the turbulent channel that led to the lagoon. The pinnace was crowded, and everyone was thrown together in the rough passage through the inlet, tossed from side to side, soaked through with spray, and bounced to bruising against boards and netting. But the water calmed to blue serenity once they were through to the other side, gently rippled by a soft breeze, and she caught her first glimpse of the island that would be her home in Virginia. There it was – Roanoke: a low band of hazy green that gradually spread over the horizon during the long hours of their approach, and rose to give the promise of gentle wooded hills and land fit for farming. The whole island was less than twelve miles from north to south, and four miles from west to east, so Captain Stafford told her, but to circle it almost completely, as they did to avoid the shallowest water, took most of the sultry morning.
When they arrived the sun was high, and the distant line of dunes fringing the sea shimmered as if melting into the heavens. She was wilting in the heat and concerned for her mistress, but they were soon led into the shade of trees, and offered water by those sent to greet them. Kit’s page welcomed her with a bunch of sweet grapes, then escorted her and Mistress Dare along a trail fragrant with juniper. The lady walked slowly, but Emme was happy to savour the delight of everything around her: the sunlight filtering through moss-draped branches that made the trees look as if they were trailing long beards, the antlered deer feeding in sheltered glades, and the flowers that grew wherever the canopy thinned out, climbing over the undergrowth in glorious abundance – blush pink briar roses and bindweed with blooms like purple trumpets; passion flowers and red columbine; dainty plants covering the ground that sported florets like horn-shaped jewels. She lost sight of the sea but could still smell its freshness mingled with the tang of the pines. And almost everywhere she looked there were great oak and walnut trees; fruits and nuts that were ripe or growing; grapes on vines in patches of sunshine; small plums and orange fruits that
Rob assured her were safe to eat. They proved to be delicious, like medlars wrapped in mantles of paper.
How to marvel at wonders without name? She could only relish through her senses like a child before mastering language: enjoying the sight of a bird like a flame in the trees, a vivid flash of vermilion; see gourds like luscious melons, and flowers taller than she was with heads like radiant suns; touch the little leaves of the creeper that moved when she brushed by, feel them closing under her fingers; smell the bark scented of cherries; and hear the song of a sparrow that would have delighted the Queen.
What would the place be like in winter? She tried to picture that, reminding herself of the season and that now, in the height of summer, she was probably seeing the island at its best. Come the winter it would be colder and everything would die back. In the autumn there might be hurricanes, the wrecking storms that Kit had told her about. But Roanoke was sheltered by the ribbon of dunes; some of the oaks must have stood for a century or more. The island was further south than England and surely the winters could not be any worse. She doubted that snow ever settled or water thickly froze.
It was not that she saw only good as she walked, because she recognised things that could hurt and prove a danger: stems and fruits covered in spines; the webs of spiders, some of monstrous size; ant trails leading up tree trunks to giant nests hanging from high branches; a black snake like a whip that slithered into the shadows. But these were dangers she could understand and they did not frighten her. They only reinforced her perception of manifold variety, a land as fascinating as a gem splitting light, revealing more and more the closer she looked.
At the settlement, when they reached it, her delight was compounded for there were houses intact: good timber-framed cottages built on two storeys, brick walled on the lower level with lath and daub up above, better than many she had seen around London. They had chimneys and tiled roofs, wooden shutters and solid doors. There were not enough houses for everyone, but at least the families would have a roof over their heads, and more cottages were being built; she could see the studding posts in place. Creepers and ivy had grown over the houses still standing, but the Planters who had gone ahead had already cleared away the worst. Repairs were well underway. Men were up ladders, nailing back timbers, plugging with mud and patching with lead. Sounds of sawing and hammering rang round the clearing. There was a well with a winch at which the women gathered to draw water for themselves, the men and boys. They cut up calico for partitions and made rush pallets to serve as beds. Emme saw a kiln trailing smoke, and a forge with a roaring furnace. A smith was at the anvil, stripped to his waist, pounding iron and dripping sweat. Men were felling trees and hewing wood, heaping up dirt from a collapsed earthwork and dismantling the ruin of a burnt building inside.