by Angela Hunt
Without embellishment or theatrics, Rowtag then told such a story of horror that Jocelyn wanted to cover her ears and scream for him to stop. But she didn’t, and sat woodenly until Rowtag had told the entire tale. When he had finished, Jocelyn stared at him in horror.
“A bride for Powhatan’s son?” she whispered, clutching her shawl about her. “My Regina?”
“At least she did not have to face a gauntlet,” Rowtag said. “And Powhatan’s son, Kitchi, is a brave warrior.”
A distant bell ran in Jocelyn’s memory. Kitchi. Where had she heard that name?
“Praise the Lord that ye have your daughter home again,” Audrey said, smiling. She sat beside Rowtag and draped an arm over his broad shoulder. “Surely God has worked in this.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn whispered, standing. She thanked Rowtag for his bravery in returning Regina, then went home to tell Thomas what she had learned.
“She was given to this—Kitchi—as a bride,” Jocelyn explained as Thomas sat at the table. His face had tightened into a mask of rage, and she feared he would explode at any minute.
“‘Tis no matter. She is home now,” Thomas said, his hand clenching into a fist.
“But—” Jocelyn shuddered and put her hand over her eyes, unwilling to think of her virgin daughter in the hands of a savage. “Thomas, what if she bears a child?”
“She will not,” Thomas said, abruptly. “If only once—”
“Think again, Thomas, for Regina is the result of one night,” Jocelyn whispered fiercely. “And what if this savage comes back for her?”
“He does not know where she is,” Thomas said, staring at the ashes of the fire. “We will hide her for as long as we must. She can remain in her room. We must keep the news of her return even from the others, so no wayward rumor can reach Powhatan—”
“But what will we say of William?” Jocelyn asked, leaning her head on her hand. “We have to tell his folks what happened. ‘Tis not fair to let them hope he will come home . . .”
Thomas’ eyes hardened. “Would you tell them how he died? How he was tortured? ‘Tis evil enough that our Regina witnessed the sight of the heathen devils’ work—”
“But William was so brave, bursting into the camp to save her! Surely we should tell his aunt and uncle that he gave his life—”
“We will not speak of William Wythers, or of Powhatan, or his son,” Thomas replied firmly. “We will pretend this has never happened. Regina will forget. She will marry another, in time. God’s will must be done.”
Jocelyn stared at him, frowning, and knew that he did not perceive the irony of his words. Yesterday he would not consider that Regina’s abduction might be part of God’s will, but today God’s will had been restored. Did God’s will not include both peace and suffering?
She rose and left him at the fire while she went upstairs to check on their sleeping daughter.
Jocelyn and Thomas did not need to worry about hiding Regina. She slept through the day of her homecoming, never stirring, and when she awakened the next morning she stared blankly at Jocelyn and did not speak, neither did she make any effort to climb down from the attic.
Audrey’s eyes widened in horror when Jocelyn visited and confided in her. “I’ll be wanting to help ye, of course,” she said, reaching for Jocelyn’s hand across the table in Audrey’s kitchen. “If there’s anything I can do—”
“You will soon have more than enough to worry about,” Jocelyn said, pointing delicately to Audrey’s thickening waistline. “Since you are with child—”
Audrey blushed prettily. “Still, if I can come and talk to Regina, mayhap she’ll rouse herself. And in time, we can bring her down and take her about the village—”
Jocelyn nodded her thanks. “We will see,” she said simply, fighting back tears of helplessness. “And we will continue to pray.”
Despite the prayers and hopes of her parents, Regina’s dreamlike state continued for weeks. One spring day Jocelyn looked at her daughter’s body and realized that her worst fear had come to pass: Regina would give birth to a grandchild of the savage chief Powhatan.
Thomas refused to believe Jocelyn at first, but six months after the abduction he had to admit that his daughter’s body carried a child. And on a hot September morning when the baby was born to a mother who neither spoke nor screamed nor cried, Jocelyn caught the infant in her hands and noted that the baby girl had hair as stiff and black as a raven’s wings and skin the color of raw honey. “I think we’ll call her Gilda,” Jocelyn said, wiping the baby’s golden skin. “What say you, Regina? Do you like the name?”
Regina’s wide eyes seemed not to have noticed that a living being had come from her womb. Jocelyn wrapped the baby in clean cloths and carried her downstairs, placing her in the same trunk that had held Regina as an infant. Thomas sat at the board with his books, watching the scene with undisguised aversion in his eyes. Jocelyn called a warning as she climbed the attic stairs. “Don’t touch my baby,” she said, carefully lifting her skirts as she climbed. “Regina’s in no condition to raise the child. If you don’t want her, Thomas, the baby will be mine alone.”
Regina’s eyes were mirror brilliant as Jocelyn knelt by her side. “Let me cool your forehead,” Jocelyn said, wringing a cloth in a basin of water. But the clammy skin under her ministering hand was cool, and Jocelyn uttered an indrawn gasp when she saw that Regina’s lips were blue. A scream clawed in her throat as she pressed her head to Regina’s chest and listened vainly for a heartbeat.
As tears of reality fell, Jocelyn sank to the floor and buried her face in the mattress upon which her only child lay.
FIFTY-FOUR
That afternoon, while Thomas wept and prayed over the body of their daughter, Jocelyn wrapped the baby in a blanket and left the house. She walked quickly, avoiding the glances of curious passersby, and rapped upon the door of the house where Audrey lived with Rowtag, Fallon, and her newborn son.
Audrey’s cheerful smile flattened when she saw the seriousness in Jocelyn’s face, and she gasped at the sight of the bundle in her arms. A meowing wail rose from the baby, and Audrey understood immediately why Jocelyn had brought her.
“She needs a nurse,” Jocelyn said simply, handing the child to Audrey. “Since your own Noshi is still at the breast—”
“Certainly, I’ll be happy to nurse this little one as well,” Audrey said, taking the baby as Jocelyn followed her inside the house. Audrey’s son, a chubby, dark-haired infant with pale green eyes, lay in a cradle by the fire while nine-year-old Fallon played with wooden toys on the floor.
Audrey said nothing as she unfastened her bodice, but when the baby had begun to suckle, she looked up at Jocelyn. “How fares Regina?”
Dry-eyed, Jocelyn lifted her head. “Regina is dead.”
Audrey closed her eyes and pressed the baby closer to her. Jocelyn studied Fallon and Noshi and considered that her own family had become as racially mixed as Audrey’s. Though Thomas hated intermarriage, he was now the grandfather of a black-haired, blue-eyed girl with direct ties to the most powerful chieftain in the land.
“Her name is Gilda,” Jocelyn offered, breaking the silence. “I told Regina so, at the end.”
“‘Tis a fitting name,” Audrey whispered, running her finger over the baby’s delicate brow. “‘Tis a beautiful baby.”
“Yes.” Jocelyn stood. “I must return to Thomas, but mark me, Audrey, the baby will be mine.”
“Surely.” Audrey shifted the tiny meowing bundle to her other arm. “I’ll bring her to you when she’s fed.”
“No—keep her tonight, and mayhap tomorrow, until after we bury Regina.” Jocelyn turned toward the door. “And Audrey,” she called, not looking back.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Jocelyn pulled the door open and stepped out into the September sunlight.
Jocelyn refused to go to the funereal service, and Thomas accepted her wishes without comment. Afterward, when the confused colonists had
dispersed from the grassy field where the dead were buried, she slipped from the house and made her way to the graveyard in silence. A fresh mound of earth lay among the graves, and Jocelyn knelt to brush the crumbled soil with her fingers.
Regina lay under her hand. Flesh of her flesh, the miraculous result of a lovely mingling of her body with Thomas’. Regina had inherited Thomas’ spirit, Jocelyn’s hair, Thomas’ dark skin, Jocelyn’s laugh, and Thomas’ hands. But the girl who had embodied their union breathed no more, and the mental and spiritual fusion that had given her life had long since disappeared.
Jocelyn stood and drew her shawl closer about her as a cool breeze caressed her cheek. Another daughter would inhabit their house in the years to come, born of the union between Jocelyn and Thomas and the barbaric world in which they had hoped to make a difference.
“Our Gilda will certainly fare better than we,” she whispered, suddenly feeling much older than her thirty-four years. “For we, Father God, are yet aliens in the untamed world outside our palisade. But mayhap children like Noshi and Gilda will be able to bridge the sea of difference that lies between us and the savages.”
Finding comfort in that thought, Jocelyn murmured one last farewell to her daughter and began the long walk home.
FIFTY-FIVE
For over thirteen years Sir Walter Raleigh received impassioned letters from John White, begging that another ship be sent to search for the planters in Virginia. But Raleigh’s fortunes as well as his favor in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth had dwindled considerably. He had invested heavily in the exploration of Guiana and Cadiz, and most of his investment had disappeared.
Nevertheless, in the early months of 1603, Raleigh was able to dispatch two ships to explore the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay in hopes that the lost colony of planters might be found. But when Elizabeth breathed her last and James of Scotland assumed the English throne, Raleigh, who had never wooed James’ favor, was arrested and charged with treason.
At the end of September, Raleigh sat in his cell in the king’s Tower of London and heard a report from Henry Shute, a sailor who had been aboard the fifty-ton ship the Elizabeth. Under the command of Bartholomew Gilbert, the vessel had failed to find the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Shute reported that the captain and many of the crew went ashore north of the bay and stumbled upon an Indian war party.
“We found ‘em the next day,” Shute said, a grayish pallor under his skin as he told the tale. “All of ‘em dead, sir, not a one left alive. Me and the boys ran for the ship, and the eleven of us brought her home to the Thames.”
Raleigh thanked the man for coming, and nodded silently as Shute wished him well. The gaoler led his visitor away, and Raleigh pondered a rumor he had heard earlier. Samuel Mace, the captain of the second ship, had apparently kidnapped Indians from the Virginian shore before his return to England, for the tower buzzed with the story of a Thames wherry towing an Indian canoe and savages to the landing place leading to Lord Cecil’s house in the Strand. ‘Twas said that the savages willingly gave demonstrations in canoe handling for the gentlemen and the king’s court in Hampshire.
Raleigh rubbed his hand over his beard and picked up a pen. He had reached the end of his abilities. As a prisoner condemned to die, there was nothing else he could do for John White except report that his two ships had brought back much news of Indians, but no news of the colonists.
FIFTY-SIX
In a vast Indian camp northwest of the river Chowan, the great chief Powhatan sat in council with the elders of his tribe.
The fierce chief had a lean face, pitted and scarred from his youth, with thick eyebrows and carbon-black eyes which never failed to awe his followers. His sinewy arms and chest had been tattooed into emblems that signified his bravery and his office, and he wore his long black hair loosely tied at his neck.
For twenty summers Powhatan had been building his authority in the lands along the two mighty rivers that flowed to the great sea, and tribe after tribe had either submitted to his power or had been massacred. To date only the Chickahominy, a tribe on the north bank of the southern river, had successfully resisted paying him tribute, and he had heard rumors that the Chickahominy tribe had sent certain of its clans to trade with a group of clothed people who lived on the bank of the river Chowan and spoke in a strange tongue. He had also heard disturbing reports that clothed people in a large ship had taken several of his warriors aboard their boat and sailed away across the sea. “Clothed people,” Powhatan said, speaking to the group of werowances who led his subordinate tribes. “What have they to do with us?”
Matchitehew, Powhatan’s chief priest, inhaled deeply on his pipe and offered his thoughts: “A prophecy has come to us, great Powhatan, in dreams. From the mouth of the Chesapeake waters a nation will arise which will give end to your empire. We have dreamed this three nights in succession. A great bear will rise from the sea to devour Powhatan and his people.”
The chief stiffened. Into the flames of the fire before them, Matchitehew threw a powder that produced red smoke. Then the aged priest drew deeply on his pipe and passed it to Powhatan.
The chief inhaled and kept his eyes thoughtfully on the fire.
FIFTY-SEVEN
In the town of Ocanahonan, Jocelyn relished her new role as mother. At Regina’s birth she had subdued her maternal instincts under Thomas’ stony disapproval, but now that Thomas had completely shut himself away, Jocelyn determined to love Regina’s baby so fiercely that the girl would not miss the love of a father.
She knew she had incurred the wrath not only of her husband, but of certain devout men and women in the colony who thought it unsuitable for a minister’s wife to raise the illegitimate half-breed daughter of a savage. One afternoon Beth Glane and Rose Payne made a point of stopping Jocelyn at the well and pointedly suggested that Jocelyn give the baby to one of the Indian women to raise.
“We know it grieves the minister to have such an emblem of sin in his house,” Beth said, her eyes narrowing in pious concern. She held her arms out for Gilda. “‘Tis affecting his ministry, which affects the entire town.”
“If you love God and if you love your husband,” Rose inserted, “you’ll want to set things to right. So if you will just give the child to us—”
“Good ladies,” Jocelyn said, turning so that Gilda lay out of the women’s reach, “I decided long ago that I must live to please God, without regard to whether my life pleases you or my husband or the town. And since God has brought this child into my life, Mistresses, until he tells me to surrender this child, you must forgive me if I continue to raise her myself.”
She painted on a smile and walked away, but Beth’s harsh parting words gave her pause. “Can ye say that ye are proud of that child of sin?”
Jocelyn thought a moment, then turned to face the pair of women. “I’m not proud of her conception, or the sorrow we bore the day she came into the world,” she said, her eyes misting despite her resolve. “But I accept what falls into my life, provided it comes at the hand of God. And of this beautiful creation of God’s, yes, ladies, I am proud.”
Turning on her heel, Jocelyn left them in the dust and took Gilda home, muttering as she went: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
As months passed, Gilda grew to be a favorite in the village. She and Noshi seemed to symbolize the best of the English and Indian cultures, and Jocelyn and Audrey often took Fallon and the babies down to the river to play. Like the Indian mothers, they indulged the children whenever possible, but began training them at age three for life in the wilderness. In the spring of 1606, Rowtag proudly gave Noshi his first bow and arrow, and Jocelyn bit her lip and said nothing while Rowtag took a long bone needle and tattooed the arms of both his sons with the mark of the Mangoak tribe.
Rowtag took a firm hand in the raising of his children, and since Thomas steadfastly refused to acknowledge Gilda’s presence, Rowtag stepped in as a substitute father for her. Jocelyn and Audrey did not object when he bade
the children to run from one end of the village to the other with a mouthful of water they were forbidden to swallow. Jocelyn did protest once, albeit feebly, when Rowtag took Fallon, Noshi, and Gilda to the river on a chilly spring morning and bade the children swim to the other side and back, but the warrior merely shrugged and said that children must be strong and unafraid if they were to survive in the forest.
To illustrate the importance of bearing pain without complaint, one afternoon Rowtag bade the children watch while he stood with crossed arms for the space of an hour upon a bed of stinging ants. As impassive and solid as stone, he neither moved nor flinched as the insects covered his legs and trunk.
What would the people of London say if they saw this? Jocelyn wondered, watching from the window of her house. How could I make them understand? The Virginian wilderness will demand more than iron guns and mighty ships if we are to survive here. ‘Twill demand strength of heart, body, and—
Her eyes fell upon her husband, who stopped to upbraid the silent Rowtag for indulging in yet another heathen practice.
—strength of spirit.
Miles away, Powhatan nodded a greeting to his brother, Opechancanough, who followed a string of captives into the village. Forced to run the gauntlet, the bruised and bloodied captives bolted haphazardly from one side of the camp to the other until Powhatan’s warriors rounded them up. As women and children sang songs of victory, the captives were tied to stakes in the center of the camp while the serious art of torture began.
Powhatan pulled Opechancanough from the sight and led him into his hut. Grunting, the great chief seated himself upon a mat and took up his pipe. Inhaling deeply, he fanned the smoke into his face, then passed the pipe to his brother. Opechancanough inhaled as well, then released the smoke in a steady stream through his nose and mouth and waited for his brother to speak.