by Angela Hunt
Often, when she awoke in the middle of the night and heard his deep, labored breathing, Jocelyn pressed her hands onto her belly and told herself that ‘twas enough having him at her side. She had never expected joy or happiness in marriage, and she had known from the beginning that his heart belonged to another. ‘Twas natural that he wanted no more children to replace the boy he had to leave behind, but he had promised to take care of her and her child. ‘Twas enough, wasn’t it?
But then she would close her eyes and see her father, his eyes filled with pity and compassion as he gazed at her. And she would cry, lifting her heart to the God in whom she and her father had trusted. Why had God taken her from her secure world and thrust her into this cold, alien wilderness? In the new world Jocelyn Colman had relatives, a servant, and a husband, but she had never felt more alone.
“Are you sure you won’t come with us, Reverend?” Henry Payne called, his musket over his shoulder. “I would love to see you bring a deer home to your missus.”
“No, Henry, I will not carry a gun,” Thomas called as the hunting party of a dozen men made its way toward the thick stand of forest behind the village. “But I will pray that God will bless your efforts.”
A wicked winter wind howled from the east and a heavenful of gray scud seemed to press down upon the earth, but the bearded men shouldered their guns and waved farewell to the women watching from the circle of houses. Jocelyn whispered a prayer for them as they left the village. Though they wore careless smiles and treated the excursion as a grand adventure, she knew desperation drove them into the woods because the food supplies in the storehouse were dangerously low. Their meager corn crop had been devoured before the end of December, and the few dried foodstuffs that remained had been aboard the Lion and were barely edible.
Ananias, last in the line of hunters, turned and saluted those who remained behind, and Jocelyn saw his eyes light on Thomas and grow cold. He would never forgive Thomas for winning the battle over the church, Jocelyn knew, and since the church’s completion, Ananias had not once stepped inside. He held council meetings in his own crowded house, and had not yet called one of the promised assemblies for self-government.
The men disappeared into the yawning mouth of the forest, and the villagers went back to their work. Thomas gave Jocelyn a brief glance in farewell, studied his hands absently for a moment, then clasped them behind his back and made his way toward the church.
Hours later, a strange series of shouts passed through the colony and Jocelyn paused from sewing, her needle in the air. Goosebumps lifted on her arm; something had happened. She tossed her mending aside and rushed to the door of her house as other women ran to the center of the village.
Five men of the hunting party had returned, and two of them carried a sixth man between them. Jocelyn gasped as she recognized the blood-streaked form of Ananias Dare. While Roger Prat ran for Doctor Jones, two hunters carefully lowered Ananias to the ground. A bloody gash had parted his scalp and an arrow protruded from his belly.
Eleanor screamed and ran from her house, her apron flapping in the wind. Henry Payne caught her by the shoulders and held her still while Doctor Jones ran up from the beach and shouted for the men to carry Ananias to his own house. From the church, Thomas strode forward with urgent steps. “Keep away, good women, and pray for our brother,” he told the pressing crowd as he hurried toward the Dares’ house.
Jocelyn turned to Audrey for reassurance, but the younger girl’s mouth hung open in a whine of mounting dread. There had been no trouble with the Indians for many months—what had brought on this attack? Jocelyn felt a sudden stab of guilt that made her knees go weak. What if Thomas had been right? Mayhap she should have told Ananias of the Indians she saw on the island the afternoon she ran away. Mayhap the boy Kitchi was a spy, sent to prepare for this attack . . .
Jocelyn put her arms around Audrey to guide her back into the house. “What happened, Miss Jocelyn?” Audrey whispered, her wide eyes irresistibly drawn to the forest. “Where are the other six men?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Weary and rumpled, Thomas Colman sat silently on his stool as Audrey propped the board upon its supports and Jocelyn ladled a bowl of pottage for his supper. Night had fallen and the village lay in a shroud of silence, its citizens stunned by the ferociousness of the day’s misadventure.
Thomas raised his head and regarded his wife with tired eyes. “Our brother Ananias will live,” he said simply. “But six others have been killed. Five of the men were unmarried, thank God, but Elizabeth Viccars has been made a widow today.”
“Not Ambrose!” Jocelyn whispered, sinking down to her stool. “And Elizabeth with a baby!”
“Ambrose was a righteous man and had no fear of death,” Thomas said dully. “Surely he is in heaven today, with the others.”
“What happened?” Jocelyn asked, still haunted by the suspicion that she had somehow brought on this attack. “Was it the Roanoacs?”
Thomas stirred his pottage with his wooden spoon. “John Chapman says they were tracking a herd of deer when they were ambushed by a war party. The Indians sent a rainstorm of arrows before our men could even load their guns.”
“What kind of war party?” Jocelyn pressed. “Roanoacs? Surely they weren’t Croatoan.”
“That is what we must discover,” Thomas answered. “Until Ananias is well, one of the other assistants must form our answer to this attack.”
“Perchance it wasn’t an attack at all,” Jocelyn said, thinking again of the boy in the woods. “What if the Indians were following the deer as well, and the two hunting parties happened to meet? If we are taking their food, Thomas, surely we must understand—”
“Roanoke Island belongs to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England,” Thomas interrupted. “Not to the savages. Indeed, the entire land of Virginia and everything on it belongs to our queen. The savages have no rights unless they become English subjects.”
Jocelyn sat back and stared at him, amazed beyond words.
Ananias Dare recovered enough from his wound to attend church on Sunday, and every eye in the building turned to stare as he and Eleanor entered and seated themselves on the last row. Jocelyn saw the corner of Thomas’ mouth droop in a wry smile as he stood to face his congregation. She knew Thomas understood that Ananias had only condescended to present himself in the church because he wanted to prove himself capable of leadership. His appearance reinforced his worthiness to lead, for he wore his wound as a badge of honor.
After leading the congregation in a hymn, Thomas spoke for an hour on the importance of holy living. “This I say then,” he quoted, reading from the heavy Bible that lay upon the lectern, “Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
“We intend,” Thomas’s voice rumbled with stentorian authority over the gathering, “to build such a colony as would mirror the kingdom of God. In order to do so, we must put away all uncleanness and evil from our midst. If, therefore, a fellow colonist tells you of sin in your life, be grateful, thank them for their knowledge, and thank God for revealing the flaw in your character. We will inherit the kingdom of God, my friends, by living righteously and purely before the eyes of God.”
He led the congregation in a benediction, but before they could depart, Ananias stood and held up his hand. “I would like to address the colony,” he said, moving gingerly down the aisle. He stood beside the lectern until Thomas grudgingly moved out of
the way, then Ananias gripped the wooden platform with both hands and leaned his weight upon it.
“‘Tis obvious from the attack of the savages last week,” he said, his brown eyes circling the entire room, “that this island is no longer safe for us. I therefore have planned, with the counsel of the assistants, that we should move the colony in March.”
A collective gasp rose from the crowd. So soon, and in the heart of winter? The assistants’ original plan, drafted by John White, had called for the colony to move during the milder months of April or May.
“The sooner we move,” Ananias persisted, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the lectern, “the sooner we can plant crops and settle our houses.”
“What of our supplies?” a man in the crowd called out. “The governor will return any day with our provisions.”
“We will send thirty unmarried men south to Croatoan, where the supply ship can be spotted,” Ananias said. “The rest of us will journey north to the Chesapeake.”
“Chesapeake!” The widow Viccars stood, as pale as a frail china doll, but her voice carried the iron of anger. “I have heard the savages are even more fierce in that place. I have lost a husband, sir, and I do not want to lose a son.”
“The Spanish know of Chesapeake harbor,” Edward Powell shouted, standing. “‘Tis likely they have not discovered our fort here because we are protected by the barrier islands. But if we move to a natural deep water harbor the poxy Spaniards are certain to discover us—”
“We will send a scouting party ahead,” Ananias promised, holding his hands aloft to restore order. “We will find a place where the natives are hospitable, the harbor isolated, and the situation ideal. You must trust me, my friends. God has protected us thus far, but we are not safe here. We must move on to establish our permanent settlement.”
The meeting broke up in a storm of speculative and angry voices, and Jocelyn remained behind in the silence of the church as the others moved outside to argue in the open air. Sitting motionless on her bench, she considered Ananias’ words. Her baby would be born in April or May, and she had always visualized the birth occurring in her small house. But apparently she would not give birth on Roanoke. She would bring her child into the world somewhere further away from the sea that bound her, however remotely, to England and her past.
She yearned suddenly for Audrey or Eleanor. She would need a friend in the days ahead.
The January wind blew from the Western Ocean with sleet in its breath, and none of the colonists ventured outside their homes except the hardiest—and Thomas Colman. Though the temperature was never cold enough to completely freeze the water in the storage barrels, the biting wind made outdoor work miserable, and the colonists made only brief trips to the storehouse or the communal woodpile.
Each colonist seemed to be content to remain in his home except the minister. Jocelyn watched him rise each morning as usual and doggedly resist the wind until he was safe within the wood and clay walls of the house of God. Only on unusually bitter days of freezing rain did he remain at home, and Jocelyn knew he stayed with her only because the church had no hearth, and therefore no fire. But even on days of frightful weather he spent little time with his wife, waiting until Audrey had come down the ladder, then climbing to the attic to pray and study in preparation for his next sermon.
“Y’know, ‘tis almost as if he’s afraid of you,” Audrey whispered one morning as she laid the day’s fire.
“Mind your tongue,” Jocelyn warned. The girl had forgotten her place; servants did not remark upon the private habits of their masters. But, after a moment, Jocelyn’s curiosity got the better of her. “In truth, do you really think so?” she whispered back.
Audrey lifted her pretty little nose into the air. “I’m minding my tongue,” she replied tartly.
In mid-January Ananias announced that any willing man could join the expedition to seek a new location for the colony. Jocelyn felt her jaw drop in astonishment when Thomas found her at the hearth and told her he had signed on for the journey. “Why?” she asked, her spoon clattering from her hands to the floor. “You won’t even carry a gun. Why would you want to venture into the wilderness?”
Thomas slid his eyes toward Audrey, and Jocelyn understood that he would not discuss his reasons until after Audrey had gone to bed. So Jocelyn finished her meager bowl of pottage, helped Audrey clean the bowls and cooking pot, and dismissed her maid with a curt nod.
When at last the overhead noises had stilled and Jocelyn lay in her own bed, she sat up and interrupted Thomas as he knelt in prayer. “God hears you all the time,” she said, taking pains to keep her voice low. “Now ‘tis time for you to talk to me. Pray tell me why you must journey with Ananias. You know he dislikes you. If perchance you are killed with a bullet to the back, how am I to know he did not kill you himself?”
“God will protect me as he pleases,” Thomas answered, rising from his knees. He unbuttoned his doublet in the semi-darkness and slipped it from his shoulders. “I came as a colonist to your uncle’s office, Jocelyn, because I thought God might have me spend my life in service to the American Indians. I had heard much of them and their need for the true gospel, but since we have arrived here I have ministered only to the type of folk I would have met in England.”
“Would it not be better to wait until we have established the City of Raleigh?” Jocelyn asked. “Then you can journey into the lands of Indians who regard us with affection. You would know they are receptive to your message, and you would not risk your life—”
“My life is not my own, ‘tis God’s.” He sat on the edge of the bed, raised the quilt, and lifted his legs beneath it. Jocelyn felt a strange stirring of her heart. Though he had been sharing her bed for weeks, this was the first conversation they had ever had beneath its blanket.
“My life belongs to God, too,” Jocelyn said, reclining upon her pillow. “But God would have me safeguard his possessions and not squander them uselessly. We have a child to think of, Thomas. Or think you that I would like to be a widow like poor Elizabeth Viccars?”
He turned his head to look at her. “So you say,” he whispered, his voice strangely tense. “Would widowhood not suit you better? You are not happy with me, and if I were gone—”
“You are not fair!” she cried, pushing the words across to him. “I do not want you to die! I want you to be—”
The words stopped at her lips; what was the use in uttering them? She wanted him to be her husband, to love her, cherish her, rejoice in their coming child, but he would not. He had made his position abundantly clear, he reinforced it every day as he held her at arms’ length—
“I don’t want you to die,” she finished, folding her arms across her chest. The mountain of her belly rose beneath her arms, and she resisted the impulse to stroke the unborn babe.
She thought she heard him sigh, then he turned his back to her. “Pray then, that God preserves me,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder. “For I have agreed to join the expedition, and I am a man of my word.”
William Clement decided ‘twas his manly duty to join the expedition, and Jocelyn was surprised when his master, Roger Bailie, agreed that the young man should go. Privately, Jocelyn wondered if perhaps the old man had grown tired of William Clement’s artificial deference, but her thoughts were soon diverted by Audrey’s breathless news that William had asked to marry her after the colony had moved to its new location.
“Did Roger Bailie give his permission?” Jocelyn asked as the two women walked home from church. While it was possible Bailie wanted to be rid of his servant for a few weeks, ‘twas overly generous to assume that Roger Bailie would give an indentured servant his freedom.
“William says he’ll be wanting to ask his master for permission when he returns from the voyage,” Audrey explained, her green eyes dancing with delight. She clapped her hands together. “And sure, don’t I know that the old man will agree? I’m only sorry that I’ll be leaving you, Miss Jocelyn.”
&
nbsp; “Marry, you’ll only be a stone’s throw away,” Jocelyn answered, smiling. She turned in at the door of their house as Audrey followed. “But ‘twould be nice if William asked Thomas’ permission to marry you.”
“Haven’t I told William so?” Audrey answered, pouting prettily. “But there’s plenty of time for that since they will be together on the ship.”
“Yes, plenty of time,” Jocelyn echoed, looking out the window for some sight of the man who seemed determined to leave her.
One week later Jocelyn joined Eleanor and Audrey on the beach as the search party set sail in the pinnace. Ananias stood by Thomas as the minister led the party in a benediction, then the sail lifted, bellied taut, and carried the ship away from shore and out of sight. William Clement made a great show of waving to Audrey, and for a moment Jocelyn thought Audrey would swim out to the ship for one last embrace. Jocelyn herself waved until she thought her arm would break, but no response came from the dark figure she knew to be her husband.
Over the next four weeks, thirteen people in the colony died from sickness and the privations of winter: eleven of the unmarried men; Jane Mannering, maidservant servant to John and Alice Chapman; and Elizabeth Viccars’ eighteen-month-old son, Ambrose. In Thomas’ place, John Chapman directed the burial of the dead. When the baby was laid to rest, Jocelyn sat and prayed with Elizabeth Viccars, who clutched her son’s blanket in her arms and wept for hours.
At the end of February, a bitterly cold rainstorm assaulted the village, and Jocelyn waited anxiously for Thomas’ return as rain soaked the thatched roof of her house and sheets of water streamed over the shuttered windows. Gusts of freezing wind blew through chinks in the walls and rippled puddles on the floor, shaking dead tree limbs down upon the house as easily as a dog shakes itself dry.