Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

Naukaquawis frowned. “What an odd question. But she is here, too, in Pamunkey. How did you know?”

  “I suspected she might leave him . . . might follow Opechancanough as his strength increased. Poor Father.”

  “It went hard on him. You taken, and then Winganuske leaving . . . He is not a shadow of the man he was at the height of his power, but only the shadow of a shadow.”

  A painful lump rose in Pocahontas’s throat. She wanted to ask, And where is Kocoum? How does he fare? But he might be dead, and if he were not, he would surely be married again . . . and she did not know which would hurt her worse.

  She closed her eyes tightly. “It has gone hard on us all. None of us are the people we once were.”

  Naukaquawis took her hand and squeezed it. She smiled. He had never shown her such brotherly affection before.

  “You are wise, now that you are a woman,” he admitted. Then he squinted at her slyly. “Even if you are a white woman now.”

  She laughed and held up her hands. “I am not. You can see for yourself. No matter the clothes I wear, or where I make my hearth, I am still Real.”

  Naukaquawis’s face grew serious again. “If we cannot stop them, Pocahontas, what can we do? For there must be something. I won’t believe that the Okeus has abandoned us. There must be a way to . . . survive.”

  A cloak of shame darkened his eyes. She saw what it cost him, the admission that the Real People could not defeat this foe—that he, young and strong, a warrior and a chief, was powerless.

  “If anyone can find out how they might be stopped, Naukaquawis, it is I. If they have a weakness—any kind of weakness at all—who is better placed to know it than one who lives among them? Do you see now why I stay at the fort, why I wear their clothes and take on their customs?”

  “Yes, I see,” Naukaquawis said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is best, after all.”

  She did not tell him the rest: when a bridge is laid across a deep ravine, it is easier for men to come and go. She knew that once she had offered herself up to be that very bridge, their two worlds would bleed together and merge faster than anyone could try to stop it, like streaks of paint thinned by too much oil. As years passed, much would be lost of the Real way of life. Already so much had changed. The tassantassas’ glass beads, which had once been precious, were now nearly as common as shell. No one looked twice anymore at a copper cook pot or an iron digging hoe. She thought of Nonoma, sitting in a chair and sipping her stew from her tassantassa spoon, and she wanted to laugh—or cry. This was not the survival Naukaquawis longed for, but it was a kind of survival. And it was, she believed, their only hope.

  Oh, my brother, she thought bitterly as she watched his brows furrow in a frown, I will not be the last Real Person you see wearing tassantassa clothing. Perhaps one day even you will don trousers and a shirt, because you must. Because it is survival.

  “Since I have lived among them,” she said, trying to make her voice light, “there have been fewer deaths. On both sides of the palisade.”

  “I have noticed.”

  “It seems to help them, to see me there, to know me. They are less cruel to our people because they believe I am good.”

  She stared out across the garden, at the smoke hanging over the tops of Pamunkey’s longhouses. She remembered the dream on the night she became a woman—remembered the people drawing close to her small but glowing fire. How strange to think that only now, when she had been named Rebecca, would she truly become Matoaka as the Okeus intended.

  She drew another deep breath, straining against her laces. “I believe that if I marry a tassantassa man, I can plant a peace more firmly in the soil, and it will take root. The war will end for good.”

  Naukaquawis’s eyes flashed. “Marry one?”

  She was careful not to look at John Rolfe. “Why not? Did Powhatan not unite the tribes by marrying the daughters and sisters of powerful men? If the tassantassas cannot be driven away or killed, we must seek unity. Endless fighting will only see us all in our graves, sooner or later. Is love not better than war?”

  Naukaquawis grunted. “Only a woman would think such a thing.” His face softened. “But you might be right. Just don’t tell the other men I said so. I’d have my braid cut off and hung up for shame on Opechancanough’s longhouse.”

  “So I have your approval?” Not that she needed it. Pocahontas was determined to weave unity between her two worlds whether her family saw the sense of it or not. But she would like to know they approved.

  Naukaquawis shrugged. “I suppose, since Kocoum . . .” He hesitated at the stricken look on her face. “Pocahontas, he did not survive.”

  Her body went cold, then numb, but she did not weep. Perhaps, in some small way, she had already known it. It could not be otherwise. All would be as the Okeus willed—she was to be Matoaka, the fire burning for all people—and nothing, not even her love for Kocoum, would be allowed to prevent it. She said a silent prayer for his spirit, and for hers, for its empty, burning ache.

  “One thing only,” Naukaquawis said. “Will you remain loyal to us above the white men? A woman takes on the identity of her husband. If he is Paspahegh, she becomes Paspahegh. If he is Appamattuck, she becomes Appamattuck. But you must remain Real, no matter what clothing you wear, or how long and ridiculous your hair looks.”

  In spite of her pain, she smiled. It surprised her that she could. “I swear it by the ashes of Uttamussak. I will always be loyal to the Real People. I am forever a Real Woman, no matter who my husband is.”

  “Then I approve,” he said, “and will pledge to Opechancanough that you will be true and faithful to our people, and will work for the greater good. But you know he won’t like this.”

  She gave a small puff, a faint exhalation of breath. “I know.” She pulled again at the neck of her bodice. “Naukaquawis, you cannot imagine how uncomfortable these clothes are. They told me I’d get used to them, but I know I never will. I hope you appreciate what I’m doing.”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come. Let us face our uncle together, little Mischief.”

  When they returned to the longhouse and Pocahontas stood once more in the ring of light before the chief, she was grateful for the thick skirts that hid the trembling of her knees. Naukaquawis was as good as his word. He immediately voiced his support for the marriage.

  But Opechancanough rose silently from his bedstead, face stony and cold. He stalked about the fire like a cougar waiting for the right moment to spring.

  “Marry a white man?” Opechancanough said. The hoarse quiet of his voice was more frightening than any shout could have been.

  Pocahontas swallowed hard. She summoned the child Amonute to her spirit, before the last of her courage could fly away, clattering and shrieking like a flock of birds startled from a marsh. “I am going to do it, Uncle, whether you will it or no. I do not ask permission—only your blessing.”

  Even Naukaquawis glanced at her in surprise. Surely this time Amonute’s boldness would be her undoing.

  Opechancanough glared at her, wordless with fury.

  “It’s this man I will marry,” Pocahontas said, indicating John Rolfe, who stood watching Opechancanough with unconcealed fear. When she translated her own words into English for his benefit, happiness warred with terror in his bloodless face and wide eyes. “Give us your blessing, and trade your captives for ours, and I shall leave happy.”

  Opechancanough turned his back on her and Pocahontas felt Naukaquawis flinch. “Trade the captives—yes,” Opechancanough said. “But approve of such an abomination? Never. Do not ask me again, woman. It will never be.”

  Opechancanough’s flat refusal hovered over Pocahontas’s spirit like a thunderhead, black and oppressive. As she and John were rowed back to the shallop, she felt the chief’s rejection weigh heavy on her heart. It stayed with her as she watched the exchange of captives from t
he rail of the shallop, and even John, quietly beaming as his fear dissipated, could not draw her from her dark reverie. As the anchor was raised and the shallop turned toward Jamestown, Pocahontas turned her face resolutely away from Pamunkey, thinking to shut Opechancanough from her heart, to move as swiftly and easily toward her new life and new work as the ship glided on the current.

  But her uncle’s grave displeasure clung to her like a burr in doeskin fringe. As Pocahontas stood with arms out, allowing Mary to measure her for alterations to her dress, Opechancanough’s scowling face was never far from her thoughts. Reverend Whitaker called Pocahontas to the chapel and spoke with her in earnest tones of the things expected of a Christian wife. But she heard him with only one ear. The other ear still rang with the anger of her uncle’s words, his tones of disgust and rejection.

  It makes no matter, she told herself again and again, whenever she caught herself growing sorrowful at the thought of the chief’s disapproval. I do what I must for the Real People, not for Opechancanough.

  Ten days later, on a morning bright with promise and sweet with the scent of plum blossoms, Mary escorted Pocahontas to the chapel of Jamestown. Her best dress, the green wool, had been carefully embroidered at the hem and sleeves with a line of white flowers and yellow, starlike spangles of flying birds. Mary had even added, to Pocahontas’s tearful, grateful surprise, the fire ring and heron from her old buckskin apron, picked out in stitches as red as the best puccoon.

  The chapel was crowded with smiling faces, all the people of Jamestown she had come to know and trust: the women in their best and brightest dresses, the men bowing their heads as she passed. From the altar where he stood beside the reverend, John Rolfe gave his shy, quiet smile.

  Reverend Whitaker directed her to stand opposite John, and then raised his voice in prayer. He prayed for a long time, speaking of their union, declaring it evidence of Christ’s mercy and God’s great and unknowable plan. He called the marriage a genesis of peace. At that, Pocahontas sighed with satisfaction.

  A murmur sounded from the rear of the chapel, near the open door. It grew into a burst of exclamations. Pocahontas opened her eyes. There was fear in those voices. She turned to stare back down the chapel’s aisle.

  For one fearful heartbeat, she thought she was still sleeping. A tall man strode down the aisle, his head raised at a haughty angle. His apron was a confusion of black-and-red shapes and symbols, the fringe of a werowance swaying about his knees. He clenched something in one hand, but there was no knife in the tie of his apron, no bow slung on his shoulder.

  Pocahontas blinked, and then her mind reeled out of its fog. It was her uncle.

  Opechancanough stood before the altar and looked at Pocahontas calmly.

  “Wingapoh,” Opechancanough said. He opened his tight-clenched hand.

  A string of white beads lay curled on his palm. No, not beads: pearls.

  She raised her eyes to his face.

  “I was told you would be married today,” he said quietly in the Real Tongue. He nodded once to John, then turned back to Pocahontas. “I bring the blessing you asked for. This plan you have—I have thought about it often since we last spoke. It is a good plan. Just be certain this man treats you well.”

  “I will.”

  “If he is unkind to you—too impatient, too cold, too caught up with fighting or hunting to see to your heart—leave him.”

  She nearly laughed. “I will. Thank you, Uncle.”

  Trembling, Pocahontas turned to Reverend Whitaker with a nod. The reverend instructed her in the vows, which she repeated carefully in English. She smiled when John stammered over the words of his own pledge. At last the reverend joined their hands together, and laid his own hands upon their heads to seal their vows with prayer.

  At the close of the prayer, Pocahontas glanced shyly into the reverend’s eyes. “May my uncle give his blessing, too?”

  “Of course, my dear,” the reverend said.

  She spoke a few quiet words to Opechancanough and he held the pearls up, stretched between his two hands. He glanced at the reverend, a questioning look, but the reverend only stared back uncomprehendingly.

  Pocahontas gripped John’s hands tightly. “Do it,” she said in Real Tongue, smiling.

  Opechancanough broke the pearls over their hands. When the string snapped and the tiny white globes scattered, a laugh of joy escaped from her throat. The sound of it filled the chapel and rebounded from the walls, rolling like pearls across the dark wood floor.

  THE FOURTH NAME

  Rebecca Rolfe

  SMITH

  October 1615

  He was far away, reclining on a bed of cool silk, tidewater drying on his skin. The window was unshuttered. No, not shuttered—it was a woven mat, rolled and raised like a curtain tucked high against a window frame. A breeze carried a scent into the dark dome of the longhouse; rosemary and the rich perfume of Constantinople; pine smoke, buckskin, ancient incense from a temple on fire; fish offal, salty and sharp; the earthy tang of red paint licked from sweat-beaded skin. When Antonia moved from behind her screen and the water fell like stars over her curved hip, he saw that she had shaved her scalp from hairline to crown, and her long dark hair was a braided rope wound with copper and pearls, hanging down her honey-brown back.

  She spoke, but Smith could not make out the words. Another sound muffled her voice; it pulsed and rose, faded and rose again—a persistent, gravelly sigh. When he moved he felt cold, so he held still and watched Antonia slash at him with a pair of antlers that spread from her forehead like oak limbs in winter. He stepped away from the sharp points, and this time when he moved he was not only cold, but wet, too.

  Christ preserve you, Chawnzmit, Antonia said, if you don’t get dry you’ll die. It’s a wonder you aren’t dead already.

  Smith sat up. He was in a small boat that rested at a steep slant among jagged rocks and clinging brown weed. Bilge pooled against the low side. Smith had lain in it for God alone knew how long. His trousers and tunic were soaked through. The paddle end of one oar tossed in the surf nearby, its broken handle showing like sharp teeth in a white smile.

  Smith clutched frantically at his wet tunic. The packet was still there, wedged between this clothes and his sodden, burn-scarred body. He pulled it free and unwrapped the oilcloth, choking back his trepidation. When he saw that the pages within were dry—or at least, not too badly damaged by the damp that had managed to seep through—his relief was so great that he nearly wept.

  He wrapped the pages once more in the oilcloth, tucked them under his arm, and pulled himself carefully from the wrecked boat. He was stiff with cold, and his back ached fearfully, but he seemed unhurt.

  Step by careful step, he made his way over the rocks toward a low dune. Its back was crested with wet gray grass, which hackled in the seaside wind like a wary dog. The driving salt mist had compacted the sand, and he climbed it easily, if slowly. From its top he surveyed his surroundings.

  The sun was just rising. It spread a smear of wan light, fighting through a curtain of low cloud, the kind of cold, thick-smelling bank that hangs over the shores and never moves inland, no matter how the wind pushes at it. He could not quite determine where the sun was, and so he could not orient himself. Christ knew how long he had rowed in that storm, and once he’d dropped into the hull of the skiff, senseless with exhaustion, not even Christ could say how long or how far he had drifted. His throat burned with thirst.

  From somewhere in the near distance, in a stand of trees half-concealed by fog, Smith heard men’s voices calling.

  “Ohé! Êtes-vous blessé?”

  French. He would have dropped to his knees to thank Christ they were not Spanish, but now that he was aware of his thirst, it was rapidly taking hold. He feared that if he knelt he would never make it back to his feet again. He forced himself toward the copse, one foot and then the other, holding his packe
t of papers like a drowning man clings to a plank.

  The Frenchmen met him at the edge of the trees, and all he could see were the waterskins hanging from their shoulders. They made him sit and held a wooden spout to his lips. He seized the skin with weak, insistent hands, as a greedy infant grabs at the teat. But then they pulled it away after one mouthful, making him drink slowly, one sip at a time. The men tried to speak to him, but all he could think of were all the words for “water” he had ever known.

  Eau. Vερό. Su. Água.

  Suckquahan.

  Suckquahan.

  Suckquahan.

  As he recovered, he grew more aware of his surroundings. His senses broadened like a net expanding underwater to scoop at the drift and detritus of the world. There were two Frenchmen. They carried muskets and wore the pointed caps of hunters and a certain polished nobility. Out to bag a boar, and instead they’d felled a shipwrecked Englishman.

  One of them stooped and braced Smith’s arm with a firm hand. It took Smith some time to parse the French words he spoke. “We have food back at our lodge. You look like you could use a bite. Come along, friend.”

  Thank God, the lodge was not far away. They helped him stagger through the forest until they came to a stone building with a roof of new thatch. Smith collapsed onto a bench inside and laid his head back against the plastered wall, shivering. He accepted their dry blankets with gratitude, and watched as they stoked a fire and hung his clothes beside it. The room filled with the odor of wet wool and steam. An ocean dripped from his clothing to puddle on the clean-swept flagstones of the hearth.

  Wine came first, blessedly hot, thawing his gut and bones. Then bread, which he dunked in the wine, and a knob of hard cheese.

  “Now then, fellow,” said one of the hunters, “tell us how you came to be here.”

  “My French is poor.”

  The hunter waved a hand. “It’s serviceable enough.”

  “And you will not believe me, even when I tell the tale.”