White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke

by Paul Clayton

Wordlessly Eleanor got to her feet. She took Virginia’s hand as Maggie stood to follow. Just then two soldiers appeared. One carried a pine knot torch. “Go to the common,” the torchbearer said.

  “Why?” said Ananias. “The children are frightened and should be put to bed.”

  “The captured savage is to be punished,” said the soldier, “and the captain has decreed that all must witness it.”

  Maggie walked close beside Eleanor as they followed the soldiers headed for the common. Many of them carried torches. They stopped at the gallows where a mob of soldiers had gathered. The soldiers stood a stout pole on its end and then lowered it into a hole already dug for it. The savage, who appeared to be unconscious, was supported by two soldiers, each with one of the savage’s arms pulled over their shoulders. Parson Lambert and Manteo argued animatedly with Captain Stafford.

  Maggie and Eleanor stopped, Ananias behind them. The soldiers pushed them closer. Ananias put his arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. “Come, we must go closer.”

  They moved to within earshot of Captain Stafford and Parson Lambert.

  Eleanor stopped. “Ananias, I will go no further.” Ananias nodded worriedly. Sir Robert, his wife, Margary and child, John, came up behind them. Soldiers pushed past them as they moved to the front of the crowd.

  Maggie saw Captain Stafford rudely push Parson Lambert out of the way. “There will be no prayin’!” said Stafford. “Did Payne and Wapping get to say their prayers before the savages killed them?”

  Parson Lambert came over, his face red with anger and shame. The soldiers tied the savage to the pole. More soldiers pushed through the crowd carrying armfuls of sticks and logs. They piled them at the savage’s feet, making a pyre. Manteo came over to stand with Maggie and the others.

  A soldier with a pine knot torch touched it to the wood and the flames began licking upward. The savage remained silent for a while, then came to consciousness, thrashing wildly. Drunken laughter floated back from those up close. The savage struggled with his bindings as Maggie watched in fascinated horror. The savage screamed suddenly, railing angrily against them in his language. He laughed dismissively and crazily, and Maggie looked down at her feet. People talked softly as the soldiers laughed. Maggie could feel the heat of the fire on her face as a smell tickled her nose, terrible in its inviting sweetness. The savage continued to rail angrily against them. Maggie closed her eyes and cried softly. A horrible scream pierced the quiet and then there was only the crackle of the fire. Someone tugged at her hand. “Come along, Maggie.” It was Eleanor.

  They slowly walked back to the cottage. Small groups of soldiers stood about, muttering and laughing to one another. Most were drunk and smiling oafishly.

  “Look at those two,” said Ananias under his breath, “they almost burned themselves up in their eagerness to see up close.”

  Maggie recognized one of the soldiers as Thomas. Like his mate, his face was blackened with soot, his beard singed. He smiled at her and she cringed, looking away in disgust.

  Chapter 34

  December 21, 1589. Virginia

  Thomas Shande hid behind the bushes with Lieutenant Hawkins and the other men, waiting for the signaling blast of the trumpet. Hawkins’ sword was sheathed and he held his crossbow at the ready, having left his heavy musket back at the fort. With hardly any shot or powder left for the muskets, crossbows were now the most sought after weapons in the fort. Before Sir Abraham Bane had died, he had offered Thomas three pounds for his crossbow. Thomas had laughingly turned him down. Now Thomas understood now fortunate he was to have been indentured by the captain to a soldier’s life. The gentlemen and their wives would not last a day without the soldiers and they knew it. The captain’s power was growing by the day.

  Thomas stared through the smoke-like gray expanse of bare tree branches to the outline of a large longhouse, visible in the dim morning light. A half-dozen other smaller houses surrounded it haphazardly. Captain Stafford had said the longhouse was a savage granary. A scouting party he had sent out earlier had seen two groups of savages carrying in baskets which the captain assumed were full of corn.

  Thomas’s nose twitched at the smell of sweet hickory smoke. There was another pungent scent in the air but he could not identify it, dressed game perhaps. Thomas wondered where his mate, Howard Smith and the other men were. Four days earlier, Captain Stafford had sent them out to raid any savage villages they found and take their corn. They should have returned to the fort the day before but had never showed.

  Thomas thought that perhaps they had found a large cache of food. They were probably too stuffed with corn to make their rendezvous. Captain Stafford might give Smith a whipping for such an offense, but Thomas could understand the temptation. Again Thomas’s nose twitched at the strange scent in the air. Meat perhaps? He hoped so. He remembered one raid where, after running the savages off, they had found a small stag roasting over a fire. It had been the first real meal they had had in a long time and they did not have to share any of it with a worthless bunch of gentlemen layabouts and their women and pups.

  Maybe Smith and the others had also come upon some game the savages had been cooking and were loath to share it. Thomas almost smiled. If that was the case he did not blame them. He would do the same.

  Thomas turned to look at the men behind him. They were a grim-looking lot. If he were a savage and saw them coming he’d head for the hills. Like himself, they hadn’t eaten in a day and a half and would kill for a handful of corn.

  Thomas heard the blare of the trumpet and quickly got to his feet.

  “Charge!” the Lieutenant shouted, bursting from the bushes. Thomas ran as quickly as he could, men on either side of him. Holding the crossbow at the ready, he was determined to put a bolt into the first savage that showed himself. But none did. The village was strangely silent and his apprehension built as they approached the longhouse. They slowed to a quick, cautious walk. Captain Stafford reached the entrance at the far end of the longhouse and signaled them to follow him inside. When Thomas saw the naked men lying in the dimly lit interior of the building, he thought they were sleeping. Then, when the smell hit him, he realized they were dead, lined up neatly on the dirt floor next to one another. There were five of them, and he assumed this place to be a savage burial temple. He had heard tell of them and how the savage left their dead to dry out like tobacco or venison strips.

  Captain Stafford and seven or eight men returned from the far end of the building. Thomas looked around. He had never seen a savage dwelling so completely empty. All the bundles and baskets that usually hung from the rafters or were tied to the walls had been methodically removed, even the floors swept smooth. There was nothing, only the bodies. As Thomas drew near he saw that the nearest one was bearded and realized they were Englishmen.

  “God in heaven!” shouted Bide, coming up behind him.

  Thomas stared down in disbelief. The bodies had not been mutilated, but had been stripped of their armor and tattered clothing. They bore the usual scars of war, bloody wounds and broken bones. But there was a gruesome twist. Each of the bodies had its opened mouth stuffed full of corn. At the end of the row was his friend, Smith. He knelt beside the body.

  “Heathen bastards!” Thomas cried as he dug the corn from Smith’s mouth with his fingers. “Bastards!”

  Captain Stafford stood over him. “Easy, lad. Yeh be glad he’s here for yeh to bury. He be a lot better off than the two that ain’t. They took ‘em back to kill slowly, that I’ll wager.”

  Thomas stood and looked down on the bodies. He wished he was back in the big house, sitting before the fire, boosing it up with the others, blotting out his hunger, fear and pain.

  A soldier named Tucker came up. “God in heaven!” he said. “They be like capons ready for the oven!”

  “Do yeh mean,” said Thomas, “they were fixin’ to eat them?”

  “Nay,” said Captain Stafford. “The savages be sending us a message.”

  “Aye,” said Lieutena
nt Hawkins, “they do not want to victual us no more.”

  The other men crowded around, looking down angrily at the dead men.

  Captain Stafford turned to them. “That be enough talk,” he bellowed. “Everybody outside!

  “Lieutenant Hawkins, as soon as yeh get yer men buried, I want this place burned down to within an inch of the ground. Then we march.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  ***

  In the dimness of the longhouse, Pochins pushed the two bound Englishmen out in front of his braves so Powhatan could get a better look at them from where he sat up on his platform. One Englishman had been found after the fighting, hiding inside a thicket of bushes and was unscathed. The other had suffered a stunning club blow and there was much crusted blood on his head and face, but he would live.

  Powhatan stared intently at the two Englishmen. “How many were there?” he said.

  “Seven. We killed the others.”

  “Where are their thundersticks?” said Powhatan, seeming to lose interest in the English men.

  “They only had one, Mamanatowick,” said Pochins, “and it only thundered once before we overran them.” Pochins nodded and one of his braves threw the heavy thunderstick to him. He caught it and brought it over to show to Powhatan. “I tried to get it to thunder again, but it would not.”

  Powhatan glanced briefly at the weapon and waved Wanchese and Towaye over.

  “Wanchese…” Powhatan pointed at the bloodied Englishman. “Can you make the thunderstick kill him?”

  Wanchese took the musket from Pochins’ hands and inspected it carefully. Towaye watched over his shoulder.

  “It has been fired,” said Towaye.

  “Yes, little cousin,” said Wanchese. “But it will fire no more, not without powder and shot.” Wanchese looked up at Powhatan. “No, Mamanatowick. The medicine to make it thunder and kill is not here. But the English have it in their supply house.”

  Powhatan was silent as he considered Wanchese’s words.

  “If we sent enough men against them we could breach their fort,” Wanchese continued. “I am sure of it. Then we could get thundersticks and the medicine to make them speak.”

  Powhatan waved away Wanchese’s suggestion. “Yes. One time we would get thundersticks. And the next time the English people come they will trade them to our enemies, the Rattlesnake People.

  “No, Wanchese. We will wait. When the English people are ready to trade they must only trade with Powhatan. We must not give them a reason to trade thundersticks to our enemies.”

  “Yes, Mamanatowick.”

  Powhatan seemed to grow weary. He pointed at the bloodied Englishman. “Begin with him.”

  Pochins’ braves turned the man roughly and dragged him outside.

  ***

  Thomas’s anger fueled his limbs as they approached the savages’ village. They walked along a broad trail that paralleled the river. His nose picked up their smoke and he quickened his step, as did the others. They came in sight of the village and stopped, crouching down out of sight. Captain Stafford had Lieutenant Hawkins signal the charge on his trumpet and they raced into the square. The village was deserted, having already been evacuated. After a search of all the houses, Thomas and the others found a basket of moldy corn in one. They made a pot of porridge and lay down to sleep. Suddenly, Captain Stafford’s bellow came from outside.

  Thomas got unsteadily to his feet and pulled his sword. The others followed him outside. At the edge of the village, Captain Stafford and Lieutenant Hawkins waited at the entrance to a small house. Thomas and the others ran over. Inside, a half-dozen savages stared out at them like cornered rats -- five men and a hag, with three baskets of corn at their feet. They had evidently been in the process of evacuating the corn when Stafford came upon them. The men were old, but three of them were brandishing clubs, ready to fight.

  Captain Stafford nodded at Thomas. “Bein’ as what they did to yer friend, I knew yeh would not want to miss this.” The Captain pulled his sword. Lieutenant Hawkins, Thomas, and the others followed him into the house.

  ***

  Lionel carried the pickaxe over his shoulder, and Parson Lambert, the bundled-up form of the baby in his arms, as they left the cottage and started for the gate in the bitter cold. Peenay followed them, her eyes on the ground. Lionel let the parson go ahead, wanting to be close to Peenay in her grief. He was grieving the loss greatly but he knew it was worse for her, having carried the child inside for so long. Two of the soldiers at the gate joined them, following behind at a distance as they crossed the field toward the woods. The penetrating cold had no effect on Lionel. The cold inside was far worse.

  They found a place that looked like it would flower and bloom in the spring, and Lionel began breaking up the hard earth. As he worked, he thought of the dream he had long cherished, of going to Chesapeake, getting his own land and farming. Often in his dreams he was breaking up the earth. Little had he known that all he would ever plant in this New World were his sons, first Humphrey and now this one that Peenay had borne for them.

  No one spoke as Lionel worked, driving the pickaxe down, pulling out the hardened clumps of earth. Because the child was so small, hardly as big as a coney, it did not take him long. Parson Lambert lay the bundle in the hole and they piled the earth upon it with their hands. Then the parson stood and began his prayers. Peenay swayed from side to side, softly singing a song in her own language. Lionel, head bowed, felt a terrible hunger and wondered if they’d live to see spring.

  Maggie walked with Eleanor Dare along the common, little Virginia Dare between them. With their tattered woolen scarves pulled tightly round their heads, they resembled more the peasants of an earlier, poorer time, than they did subjects of the great Queen Elizabeth. A couple of Captain Stafford’s soldiers wandered out from behind a cottage. Despite the cold, they were lightly dressed and seemed to be drunk. Maggie had heard that the spirits helped to quiet the emptiness in their bellies.

  “Wench,” one of them called out to her, “Red Hair!”

  Maggie’s heart raced.

  “Come here, wench” said the other.

  Neither Maggie nor Eleanor acknowledged the men in any way as they continued on their way with bent heads. With a quick glance behind, they turned into the Harveys’ gate and knocked at the door.

  Margary’s servant, Paulina, answered, curtseying a welcome. They rushed in quickly and closed the door behind them.

  “Bolt it,” said Eleanor.

  As Paulina bolted the door, Maggie relaxed a bit. Margary came down the stairs. She had obviously been in her bed, but Maggie thought she looked a little better than she had their last visit.

  “What happened?” said Margary.

  “Soldiers started to follow us,” said Eleanor.

  Maggie knelt to take off Virginia’s scarf. She sent her over to the hearth where Margary’s boy, John, aged three, and Paulina’s son, William, now four and a half, sat on the hearth stones, a small army of carved wooden soldiers arrayed before them.

  When she was certain the children were not looking, Maggie removed the package of dried venison from her bodice. She always took great pains to hide the smuggled food from the children, for they might, in their innocence, say something to the soldiers. Maggie handed the package to Margary.

  Margary’s eyes brimmed with tears and she gave Maggie a hug. “Bless you, girl,” she said. She immediately turned and embraced Eleanor. “Bless you.”

  Eleanor nodded. “Thank the Lord,” she said.

  “And Manteo,” said Maggie.

  “Aye,” said Eleanor, “and Manteo.”

  “Please sit, ladies,” said Paulina.

  Eleanor and Maggie sat at the bare table across from Margary Harvey as Paulina ladled out hot sassafras tea into pewter cups. Virginia and the boys had already forgotten the women as they played. Paulina put the tea before the women and sat down with them.

  Maggie took another package of dried meat from under her skirts and gave i
t to Margary. “This is for Lionel Fisher and his wife.”

  Margary stood and put the package in the cupboard. As she sat, the children laughed at something. The women looked over at them in wonder, shocked at their still-intact capacity for mirth.

  “Mister Fisher’s wife lost her baby last night,” said Margary.

  Maggie felt a pang of sadness deep down in that place where the death of a child pained all women.

  Paulina nodded. “Stillborn. The two of them and Parson Lambert left the fort this morning to bury it, poor thing.”

  “Do you talk to her?” said Eleanor.

  Margary nodded tiredly. “I try. We use signs and some of her words and some of ours.”

  Paulina nodded. “Poor thing. I think ‘tis very trying for her to be away from her own.”

  “Aye,” said Margary. “‘Tis bad for everyone.”

  From outside came the dim echo of drunken laughter. Maggie stared at the wall for a moment, then calmed again.

  “Barely enough grain to keep everyone alive,” said Margary, “yet they find enough to make their boose.”

  “They steal it from the savages,” said Paulina.

  The women said nothing for a few minutes and then Eleanor spoke. “My father is not returning. I know not why, but he will not be coming back.”

  Margary placed her hand on Eleanor’s. “Eleanor,” she said soothingly, “do not say such things.” Eleanor began sobbing and Maggie was surprised to find she felt no need to comfort Eleanor or convince her that she was wrong. She realized that she believed as Eleanor did.

  “I think that perhaps Eleanor is right,” said Paulina. “Something has gone terribly wrong. I do not think any ships will be calling here, ever.”

  Maggie felt a duty to say something to try and turn the conversation in a more hopeful direction. “Do you think the soldiers will bring back any grain for us this time?” she said.

  Eleanor shook her head. “Even if they did, it changes nothing. ‘Tis time our men took us out of here.”

  “Aye,” said Margary. “We must get out.”

  “But where would we go?” said Paulina. “At least here we have the palisade and the soldiers to protect us.”