by Lisa Klein
The assistants, including Ananias, left. After a few minutes I slipped into the house again. John White sat at the table staring at his hands. He knew his men had lost confidence in his leadership. I could imagine the lowness in his heart.
“I am sorry, Governor,” I said. There was no use pretending I had not overheard their conversation.
“How can I leave them?” he asked, sounding forlorn.
“Someone must go,” I said. “And no one is more likely than you to move heaven and earth to bring back what we need.”
“My daughter,” he said, his voice faltering.
“I will take care of Eleanor and the baby and see that they come to no harm,” I said. But I wondered how I could keep myself or anyone safe in this unpredictable land.
He nodded gratefully.
“People are fickle,” I said. “When you return, they will welcome you as a hero. Though some of them may have less reason to celebrate if they are hanged for treason.”
He looked at me with a wry smile. “You are wise and well spoken for a woman. The queen should regret sending you away. But I think her loss will someday be judged Virginia’s gain.”
I warmed at this praise, yet I would have traded every word of it to have John White stay at Fort Ralegh.
The next morning, Governor White called all the colonists together and announced he would sail back to England at once. He demanded an inventory, an accounting of the colony’s assets, and a list of its requirements. He ordered his assistants to preserve his maps, papers, books, and drawings, as they were of great value to him and to posterity. By asserting his authority in this way, he was trying to conceal that it had already been taken from him.
“Your welfare has been entrusted to me by God and by England’s queen,” he told the assembly. “And I promise I shall fulfill my duty to every one of you. It is not my desire to return to England. But I have been persuaded by my assistants that I am the best man to convince Sir Walter Ralegh to supply our needs.” He paused before resuming his speech. “There is some urgency, I grant you. And there is danger, for the growing hostility between England and Spain makes sea travel hazardous. Thus I understand why others … declined to make the voyage.”
The colonists glanced from one assistant to the next, wondering who had shown fear. Bailey and Ananias looked uncomfortable.
“Know, all of you,” the governor said, “I will not rest until I return, for my sole purpose will be the relief of this colony.” His voice broke, then gathered strength again. “I have decreed that in my absence, my seven assistants will govern with equal voices, and all matters are to be decided by the greater number of them.”
I thought that unlikely. Some voices, like Roger Bailey’s, were always louder than others.
“Let there be no dissension, but only a unity of purpose and goodwill among you,” he concluded.
It was a worthy speech. Some of the women dabbed their eyes. I clapped my hands and others joined in. A few people smiled, showing a forced cheerfulness. But the malcontents could not remain silent.
“When will we go to Chesapeake and settle?” called Ambrose Vickers. “We cannot trust the savages around here.”
John White replied with vehemence. “I said before, this is not the time. You have only the pinnace, which is too small to carry much. If you divide yourselves to make the journey in stages, or go by land, you increase the danger to everyone. I will return with ships and men and arms. In the spring we will move to Chesapeake.” He stared down the line of the men standing to his right. “This is my decision, to which my assistants have consented.”
But by the warning tone of his voice, I suspected that the men were hardly of one mind.
The governor’s household was also divided. Eleanor wept and begged her father not to go, to send another man, and to stand up to the scheming Roger Bailey. John White pleaded with her to be brave, and anyone with a heart would have wept to hear them. I held little Virginia and wiped my tears on her dress. She was not even mine, and still I could not imagine parting from her. Poor John White! When Ananias returned, Eleanor released her fury on him, saying he had betrayed her father and thus was no longer welcome in her bed. He shouted at her but managed to refrain from striking her. Then he left the house to lodge elsewhere.
Retreating to a corner of the tempest-tossed house, I wrote a hasty letter to Sir Walter, my words flowing like water over a broken dam. The time was short, for Fernandes would sail with the morning tide. I gave the letter to John White to deliver and thanked him for his kindness to me. His face was grooved with sadness.
That night three of the assistants rowed the governor to where the Lion and the flyboat were anchored. Our little household was headless, the colony leaderless. And I was mindful of a suppressed longing my pen had reawakened, the desire for Sir Walter’s familiar voice and his touch.
Chapter 24
From the Papers of Sir Walter Ralegh
Memorandum
8 August 1587. There is a new favorite at court—the Earl of Essex, Leicester’s stepson. Leicester, grown too old for the queen’s love, slips the boy into his place, knowing she will not be able to resist the hot-blooded pup. He is barely able to grow a beard and skilled at nothing but playing cards.
2 September. Essex dared to thumb his nose at me. I seized his collar and promised to answer the insult later.
18 September. The queen was entertaining her knavish boy in her chamber when I heard shouting and a crash from within. I flung open the door and entered the chamber with a sergeant behind me. “I cannot serve a mistress who would be in awe of such a man,” Essex was saying. He held a broken wine vessel, its contents spilled over the queen’s dressing gown.
Seeing me, he said in a tone of contempt, “Speak of the devil, and he comes!” Then he put his hand to his sword hilt, and I arrested him by the arms.
“It is treason to draw in the the presence of the sovereign,” I said.
“Let me go, ape! My lady, order him to release me,” the arrogant youth commanded.
“Nay, hold him still,” she said to me, much angered. Then to the boy: “You speak and act too boldly for a subject of mine.” She struck him across the face with her fan, leaving a red welt. “Let this be a lesson to you. You rise by falling.”
She pointed to the ground and he duly fell to his knees. Then she laughed, saying to me, “Let him go and leave us alone.”
Essex is fortunate that Elizabeth is smitten. For less offense than his, many a luckless creature has been sent to the Tower.
21 October. With the prospect of a Spanish invasion growing more likely, the queen has appointed me to raise armies and strengthen the coastal defenses of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset. She also tasks me with converting merchant vessels for the use of the navy and enforcing the Privy Council’s ban on shipping from all ports.
Thus I am released from guarding her private person, that I may guard her public body—the realm of England. This is a duty that befits a man of action.
20 November 1587. Received a most unexpected visitor today—a sea-roughened, bone-thin John White. The news from Virginia is dismal: my colonists left at Roanoke Island, the need for supplies immediate, and the governor forced to seek relief himself, his voyage so fraught with misfortunes that he was at sea for months and returned home more dead than alive.
What ill luck attends this venture! I explained to White that the threat of war, the ban on shipping, and my own lack of funds prevented me from sending a relief ship.
White was not sympathetic. “I came through that battlefield alive. Surely Her Majesty can spare a thirty-ton bark. Remind her that the lives of her subjects are at stake, even women and children.” Here his voice faltered. “They have consented to live in her new colony despite the dangers. They must not be abandoned there.” His eyes, deep in his weathered face, shone with weary desperation.
Then he told me of the killing of George Howe, the shifting loyalties of the natives, and wondered whether even Manteo cou
ld succeed in reconciling them to us.
“But the most pressing need is for food,” he said. “In the month I was there, the Indians would not meet with us or trade for food. They know there is not enough for them and for us.” He rubbed his forehead as if it pained him. “Moreover, we may have planted too late to reap before the winter. My family may be starving even now.”
To hide the regret that swept me, I began to arrange the weapons in their racks. I thought of all those who had sailed seeking the chance to become wealthy in a new world. I told myself they had chosen the journey, its risks as well as its rewards. But my Catherine had not chosen her fate. She was banished to Virginia because of me. Now what undeserved miseries does she endure?
“How fares your ward, the Lady Catherine?” I asked.
“She is useful to my daughter and beloved of her and the child,” said White, smiling for the first time. “She has no fear or hatred of the natives, unlike many of the colonists. I was pleased to see how she welcomed the Croatoan women, giving them pieces of lace with which to adorn themselves.” He paused, reflecting. “Truly, if she were a man, I would wish her to be one of my assistants.”
So speaking, John White made me see my witty and lovely C.A., a pale rose among the tawny savages. I must find a way to succor her and the others.
“I cannot permit the colony to fail after so much has been invested,” I said. “Let me speak to Her Majesty and summon you after.”
As he left, White placed a letter in my hand. I knew at once it was from C.A. The page was crinkled as if it had gotten wet and the ink had run in places. I put my lips to the letter and thought it tasted of salt. The spray of the sea? Tears? I hoped to read, at long last, a protestation of love or a declaration of sorrow at our separation. Perhaps a poem to prove her affections.
Oh, the letter did strike me strongly, though in a most unexpected way.
Dear Sir Walter,
I have often composed in my mind the phrases in which I would praise this New World. But there is little to be written in favor of seasickness, the hellish climate, and other discomforts. Nor have I any matter for a sonnet, but enough for an elegy upon poor George Howe, deprived of his life by sixteen arrows and several blows of a club. But I must keep to my point.
My purpose here is to inform you of injustices committed upon the bearer of this letter, John White. It is bold of me, a maid of honor now disgraced, to appeal on behalf of a gentleman and bolder still to charge others with wrongdoing. But I have the liberty of one who has nothing to lose, and so I presume upon our past affections and your present influence with the queen.
First, Capt. Fernandes has defied the authority of our governor. I and many others witnessed his brazen refusal to carry us to Chesapeake. The reason he gave—that the season was too far advanced—was contradicted by the five weeks he remained at anchor offshore. In my judgment, Fernandes is a traitor determined to ruin this colony. Some even think he is a secret papist in league with Spain.
Simon Fernandes, whom I have trusted on so many voyages—a mutineer loyal to Spain? He is Portuguese and thus an enemy of Spain. He is no more a papist than Walsingham. Indeed, Fernandes has been Walsingham’s man ever since W. saved him from hanging once. Can it be that Walsingham uses Fernandes to ruin my colony? To kill my fame and all my credit?
Seeking more evidence I read further, but found little satisfaction.
Second, in the matter of our governor’s departure, it is evident his assistants have conspired to remove him from his office that they might rule instead. To preserve the appearance of concord, the governor has consented to this second mutiny. In my judgment Simon Fernandes, Roger Bailey, and Ananias Dare ought to be hanged and the others thrown into the Tower.
John White may have his faults as a governor, but they do not proceed from a lack of kindness. Those who usurp his power seek only their own good, and they act from ignorance and ill will that will surely lead to war with the native peoples.
Because I have been mistreated by those I had reason to believe cared for me, it pains me to see Gov. White betrayed. I beg you: do what is necessary to restore just rule to your Virginia.
Come yourself and govern this colony that hungers for leadership and this heart of mine starving for lack of love’s food. Or we shall all be lost.
Yours, Catherine Archer
Truly, it cannot be tolerated when the governed decide to rule themselves and throw off their governor. It must be the savagery of that place that makes men descend from their civil upbringing to a beastly state in which the strong devour the weak. I should have made a statesman—not a painter—their governor. But no other man of merit and experience would consent to return there.
Shipping bans and Spanish pirates be damned! I will go to Virginia myself and teach them all what it means to obey. My iron hand once put down the Irish rebels and it shall be raised again over these wayward subjects. As for my duties of fortifying the coast, my deputy can perform them as well as I can.
For my Catherine calls me, and I will answer. No royal threat or command must hinder me from the embrace of my fair, my own, my sweet Virginia.
Chapter 25
I, Manteo, Am Tempted by Wanchese
When I returned to my home as Lord of Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc, I wore my English mantle. The trim glittered in the sun, making me look like a god. “See how great Manteo has become!” my people said.
“I am still Weyawinga’s son,” I replied. A hero must be humble and pay respect to his weroance and to his mother. I said the English had honored me in order to show their love for the Croatoan.
My village was changing. The children still ran in and out of the longhouses all day until they fell asleep. But now they played with English dolls and fought over them. The women decorated themselves with glass beads and bright cloth. Some warriors had knives and axes with iron blades. These differences led to envy and bad feeling. One of my kinsmen wore a piece of armor for which he had given a basket of mussel shells that he said contained pearls but were in fact empty. He was pleased with the trade, but I warned him that the English would not be friends with those who deceived them.
Death had also changed my village. Where Ralf-lane and his men had gone, a great sickness followed in their wake. A hundred Croatoans died. Many times that number in the villages of Ossomocomuck. The elderly and little children fared worst, and the women who cared for them. Now some of my kinsmen had no wives or children. They also thought I had died or been stolen by the wind gods when I went away on the English ships. But when I came back a lord, they believed my journey had caused them to be spared greater losses.
Dolls, beads, and death. These were not the gifts I wanted for my people. Was I to blame for the sickness because I brought Englishmen back with me? No, I realized they would have come anyway, bringing their goods, their weapons. And their sickness.
So far I had brought nothing valuable to my people. Not rain to make the maize ripen. Not grain and spices from distant lands or new plants to fill the fields in summer and feed us in winter. Would the people of my village one day be forced, like Tameoc’s band, to wander from place to place in search of food? What must I do to make them prosper again?
I visited all the Roanoke villages between Pomeioc and Dasemunkepeuc with the message that the white men desired friendship. Wingina’s people had left Dasemunkepeuc after killing George-howe and built a new village. I went there to parley with Wanchese, who was now their weroance. It was a dangerous envoy, but my robe of office gave me the spirit’s protection.
Wanchese greeted me coldly and regarded my robe with contempt. I said the English wanted to know why he had killed a man who had done them no harm.
“In war one must slay or be slain,” he said.
“We were not at war with you.”
“We? You are one of them now, are you, Manteo?”
“No. I am a Croatoan,” I said. Even being a lord would not change that.
“Have the Croatoan forgotten the white men kill
ed Wingina?”
“This leader is not the one who killed Wingina. But his men are preparing to take revenge for the death of George-howe. And for the soldiers killed at their fort before John-white arrived.” I wanted to make Wanchese afraid so he would offer payment and terms of peace. I wanted to go back to John-white and say I had prevented a war.
But Wanchese looked angry, not fearful. He said the soldiers had come to his village and forced women to lie with them. The women died, and others whom the soldiers had not touched. I saw the scars from his own disease still on Wanchese’s face. If hatred and ill will had caused Wanchese’s sickness, what explained the deaths of people who had never seen a white man to hate? People who were innocent of evil?
Wanchese said his warriors and the Secotan had killed the soldiers and burned their bodies to destroy the disease. “Now all the weroances are grateful to me.”
This was startling news, that the soldiers had violated the Roanoke women. John-white would have put the men to death for it. I could not blame Wanchese.
“Did they stay away from the council that John-white called because they feared a sickness?” I asked.
Wanchese said with a sly smile, “The peoples of Ossomocomuck do not heed John-white or Lord Manteo.”
Then I understood that Wanchese had prevented the weroances from meeting with John-white. Did he threaten the ones who wanted to make peace? Why? Because he wanted power only for himself? I think he was envious of me because the English preferred me from the beginning.
Now Wanchese was speaking to me as if I were a mere boy.
“Manteo, you do not understand the doings of men. The English are buying your faith with empty honors. They try to buy us with beads and copper, but I am not deceived. I know they plan to betray us.”