A Roll of the Bones

by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole

  The strangers turned away from the Englishmen, though one of them kept a wary eye on them. They spoke among themselves for a few moments. It sounded like no language Ned had ever heard yet it was clear enough that they were doing what he and the other Englishmen had been doing: consulting with one another about how to proceed with this parlay.

  Then one of the men stepped forward, bent his head and removed a necklace from around his own neck. It was made of seashells strung together on a piece of animal hide. He proffered it to Whittington, who bent his own head to receive it. In return, Whittington took a white linen kerchief from his pocket and handed it to the native, who looked at it closely and showed it to his fellows. They looked at it with some interest, though hardly with the awe and wonder Whittington had predicted they would show at the sight of linen cloth.

  “We wish to trade,” Whittington said slowly, and though they surely could not understand the words, he accompanied them with gestures. He held out his hands in a sweeping gesture as if to suggest the English had much to give. Then he shifted back and forth with both hands, opening and closing them as if to indicate giving and taking.

  Tipton offered his brass button and got another shell necklace in return; the natives showed more interest in the button than in the handkerchief and passed it around among them. One took it between his teeth to test how hard it was. When one of the men approached Ned, he spread his empty hands to indicate he had nothing to trade. The man reached back and took a bird’s feather that was woven into the long, glossy plait of his hair. Reaching forward, he gently tucked it into Ned’s hair, behind his ear. Their faces were close for a moment as the exchange was made.

  Ned imagined for a moment he was standing next to a being almost like the centaurs of myth—half man, but also half beast in his wildness. Then the man laughed, a sound so familiar and homely that Ned joined in. He smiled once more at Ned, nodded, then turned to look at another handkerchief that John Teague was offering in trade. The moment of strangeness passed: now it seemed to Ned that he stood only among men who were doing business with one another. Men with skin of different colours who spoke different tongues, but then he had seen that before on the Bristol docks, where all the world came to trade.

  Now the other men, both English and native, climbed out of the boats, crossing the shore to each other. They passed back and forth objects in trade including, Ned was surprised to see, Henry Crout’s knife, which was given in exchange for an arrow. The two groups of men drew closer to the fire, and although neither could understand the other, there was much talk as the trading continued.

  One of the men offered Ned a strip of dried meat, which was delicious—it tasted like venison. More food was coming out, and drink too, and he thought someone must have rowed back to the Indeavour for food, because he saw John Crowder unpack a basket with bread, butter, and raisins. Nicholas Guy handed around jugs of beer.

  Ned shared his beer with the man who had given him the feather; the fellow took a swig and made a face as if to spit it out but then struggled to swallow, as if realizing it would be rude to reject a gift. It must have been an odd taste to him. People everywhere made some kind of strong drink, as far as Ned knew, but in this land where grain was so scarce, the natives might not have tasted anything like beer or ale. Likely they made wine out of the autumn berries, as some of the women were doing back in Cupids Cove.

  Everyone sat on the ground around the fire, sharing the food and drink, passing around the objects they had traded. Ned wondered if the trip back to the Indeavour had only been for food or if the governor had also called for some of the better trade goods, like the amber beads he had brought for the purpose. But aside from a couple of knives, he saw only cloth objects—the handkerchiefs, a pair of gloves, the white truce flag. George Whittington, flushed with triumph at having been the first to make contact, stripped off his shirt and gave it to one of the natives, and the man responded by giving him the animal pelt they had waved as a banner. George draped it around his shoulders like a cape and took a hearty swig from the bottle of aquavit that was making its way around the circle.

  One of the strangers took the bottle George proffered, drank from it, and said something in his own language that made the other men near him laugh. The gesture, tone, and expressions on the men’s faces were so clear it was almost as if Ned had heard them say in English, Well, at least this is better than the other stuff they gave us. When the other replied with a short comment and both men laughed, he imagined the reply had been something like Do you suppose they drink that sour swill all the time?

  Again something shifted in Ned’s mind; he saw them, for a moment, as two men who might sit in a tavern in England, making a jest about how bad the ale was. They are like us, he thought, and then looking again at their animal-skin garments, the bare red skin, the shining black hair, he amended the thought. Like us, and not like us.

  He shivered. Then he heard an unexpected sound: the beat of a drum. An older man, seated near the fire, beat a rhythm on a small drum he held in his lap, his hands striking the taut animal hide. Was there some ceremony, some ancient rite about to happen? Was the drum a signal for an attack?

  Instead of raising spears, several of the men began to clap in time to the drumbeat. The young man with the feathers in his plait looked directly at Ned and stood up, as did several of the others. Ned and his fellow Englishmen followed suit. Then the Indians began to dance.

  It was such a surprise, Ned almost let out a whoop of laughter. The nearest dancer did not break his gaze, keeping his eyes locked on Ned’s as if the dance was a challenge. And maybe it was; maybe it was. Very well then: this was a challenge Ned knew how to answer.

  Picking up the rhythm of the drum and the clapping, he began a few steps of a jig. In his head he played a fiddle tune to match the rhythm, and his feet flew through the steps of the dance. A shout of laughter and approval went up from the natives. Ned shot a glance at George, a wordless plea that he not be the only Englishman to make a fool of himself.

  George Whittington did one better than just joining in the dance; he began to sing. Not the same tune Ned had had in mind but another that fitted just as well with the simple rhythm of the dance: “We Be Three Poor Mariners.” As George’s feet, too, moved into the dance steps, and Ned and Frank danced and sang along, the older men of the English party clapped the rhythm and added their voices.

  Come let us dance the round,

  A round, a round

  And he that is a bully boy

  Come pledge me on this ground

  Laughter and shouts of approval, now, from both the natives and the English, as the younger men of both groups came together. Ned and George, Tipton and Crowder, along with four or five natives, formed a circle and began to dance in a wheel, as if they were doing Sellinger’s Round.

  Now the wild men began a chant that went along with the drumming and clapping, a chant that wove eerily in and out through the words of “Three Poor Mariners.” It was joyous, it was a celebration, but in the middle of the dance circle Ned knew there was a challenge being thrown out too. Not just a challenge to dance as fast or leap as high as the others, nor for one song to drown out the other. Here is our dance, here are our songs, this is our world. Can you match us?

  Deep thoughts for a dance. Ned brushed them away as George started up another tune.

  Once I loved a maiden fair

  But she did deceive me;

  She with Venus might compare

  In my mind, believe me.

  Ned heard the voice of Nicholas Guy, who had abandoned the sober older men and joined the dance too now.

  She was young and among

  Creatures of temptation,

  Who will say but maidens may

  Kiss for recreation.

  Whoop! A shout, almost a shriek, went up from the men of the forest as more joined the dance and the circle widened. The drumming, the clapping, the chant, the song all went on and on as they circled and circled, white men and red, fixing
their eyes on each other, copying each other’s steps.

  When the dance ended, the panting, breathless dancers stumbled to a stop, laughing. The circle broke and each dancer returned to the men of his own kind.

  John Guy stepped towards the native hunters and began to speak. He used an abundance of gestures along with his speech, hoping to make himself understood. Tonight the English would sleep aboard their ship; to-morrow they would return with more goods to trade. The native men nodded what looked like agreement, and talked among themselves. They bid farewell to the little party of Englishmen, and as Ned and the others climbed aboard the shallop and pulled away from the beach he saw the hunters moving towards their canoes, deep in talk with one another.

  On board the Indeavour, the shore party shared their tale, and the plan for the morrow, with the men who had remained on board. “’Twas passing strange,” Governor Guy said, “how they danced and sang with us. I am glad they met us in peace, but I know not what they meant by it.”

  “’Tis how they greet strangers, perhaps,” suggested Master Crout. “A show of welcome?”

  “What if it were meant for a threat, instead?” the governor wondered. “Some spell they cast in their own rites, to make us go away and leave them alone?”

  “Any Christians who have dealt with them before have found them most willing to trade for our goods,” Master Crout pointed out. “Who would not want steel knives and iron pots, if they had none of their own?”

  It made good sense, but Ned remembered the fleeting thought he had had while dancing: that there was a challenge of sorts being thrown out on that shoreline, something the Englishmen could not fully understand. There had been a kind of joy in that dance, while it lasted, but who could truly know what the men of the forest had intended by it?

  Nicholas Guy took from around his neck the chain of seashells one of the Indians had given him. “Surely these things they gave us show they are willing to truck with us. We’ll bring these back as gifts for the womenfolk—I’m sure my Kathryn will fancy this bauble.”

  Ned had nothing to bring back but the memory of the dance. He imagined himself with a necklace of shells on a strip of animal hide, saw himself presenting it to Nancy. Heard the clear ring of her laughter as she said, “Now, what am I to do with these, Ned Perry, you great daft ape?”

  He had danced with her, only a few weeks ago at the wedding. Taken her hand and run through the steps of the country dances they all knew. It was the dance he had always meant to dance, and now he could see that Nancy was the one he had always been meant to dance it with. Familiar tunes and steps and a familiar partner, even here in this strange land.

  The dance he had danced this evening was the one he could never have imagined. If someone had told young Ned Perry of Bristol that at twenty years old he would be standing by a campfire deep in the forests of the New World, dancing to a skin drum with the wild men of the New Found Land, he would have said, “Go on, you’re mad.”

  Now, here he was. The dance of his life had turned, and like the person at the end of the line who lets go of the others’ hands, he was flung off in this strange and new direction. I have changed; the world has changed, he thought as he fell into a sleep filled with strange songs and drumbeats.

  But when a chilly grey morning dawned, there was a fine rime of frost on the Indeavour’s deck, and no party of friendly natives waiting on the beach. Ned and the others from yesterday’s landing party rowed in to shore, but nothing remained of the last night’s gathering save the burned out ring of the fire. No men; no weapons; no canoes pulled up on the beach. All that remained were several poles with animal furs fixed upon them.

  “Hung up to dry?” Crowder wondered aloud.

  “Or a message of some kind?” said Frank Tipton.

  “’Tis most like they are left for trade,” Henry Crout said. “I have heard tell of the natives doing it in other places, when they wish to trade but not to have dealings face-to-face with us. I believe we are meant to take them, and leave metal goods in trade.”

  “But I was certain we had won their trust!” John Guy burst out in frustration. “They showed such friendship to us last night!”

  “Was it friendship?” Crout wondered aloud. “Belike that whole gathering last night was some manner of a trial, a test.”

  A test we did not pass, Ned thought. It troubled him to realize that the men who had seemed so friendly the night before must have conferred among themselves and decided not to trust the Englishmen further. Decided they were fit to trade with but not safe to have in their company. Last night he had imagined Governor Guy and the others taking easy mastery of this land, trading with peaceable natives, building a great colony here. Now he saw that things were not so simple: not all was as it seemed.

  They continued their search a little way further into the forest, then they breakfasted on ale, ship’s biscuit and a bit of cheese while the masters discussed whether to take the furs and if so, what to leave in trade. George Whittington squatted next to Ned, the wolf’s skin still draped about his shoulders. “’Twill take more than fair words and dances to tame the savages,” Whittington said, his grim tone sharply at odds with the smiling face he had shown the natives the night before. “Our best hope now is to persuade the governor to turn back to Cupids Cove before it grows any colder.”

  Ned shivered in the chilly morning wind that blew across that empty and silent beach. “In faith, I hope you are right,” he said as he got to his feet. “I am well ready to be gone from this place.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A Dalliance is Begun

  If with such men you would begin again,

  Honour and profit you would quickly gain.

  Believe him, who with grief hath seen your share,

  ’ Twould do you good, were such men planted there.

  CUPIDS COVE

  NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1612

  ON THE SECOND SUNDAY IN NOVEMBER, THE MINISTER being absent, Philip Guy read the morning service and then a homily from the book. It was the one about adultery and fornication—“And to avoid fornication, saith the Apostle, let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband.” When the exhortation was done, Master Philip seemed loath to let his congregation go. He began adding his own words, which, Kathryn thought, he was strictly speaking not supposed to do. But who was to stop him?

  He spoke of how good it was to see the marriages that had been solemnized in the cove the month before, how Christian marriage must be the foundation of the colony. He moved from that to saying how the wives whose husbands were gone exploring with Governor Guy must sorely miss their husbands and long for their safe return. This was certainly true: Kathryn felt like a knot was tied about her stomach, a band of fear she could not loose. But Master Philip assured them the Indeavour and the shallop must soon return. “Exploring all of Trinity Bay could not take them more than a month,” he said, dropping the preacher’s cadence from his tone, “even supposing they met with the natives and were able to treat with them. They will return before ice comes into the harbour,” he said, “so we shall surely see them back again before the first of December.”

  Bess, sitting on the bench next to Kathryn, leaned up and put her mouth close to Kathryn’s ear. “All very well, Mistress, to say they might trade with the natives—but what if they found the natives, and those wild men slaughtered ’em? What then, hey?”

  Nancy, on the other side of Bess, whispered “Hush,” as Master Guy directed a stern glance at their bench. Kathryn composed her face and looked down at her hands folded against the faded green of her kersey gown, and Bess fell silent. But her words echoed in Kathryn’s head, followed by a litany more powerful than anything Philip Guy might recite from the prayer book:

  What if they were attacked by savages….

  Or captured by pirates…

  Or shipwrecked and drowned?

  What if they never return?

  What will become of the colony if John Guy is lost?

  What
will become of me if Master Nicholas is lost?

  What will become of us, what will become of us all?

  Serving girls like Bess could voice such thoughts aloud. Kathryn thought it her duty, as wife of one of the colony’s leading men, to soothe the maids’ fears and tell them all would be well. Her own fears she expressed to no one but Nancy when they were out of hearing of anyone else.

  When the service was over, Bess began fretting again, joined by Molly who worried even though her husband Tom was safe here in the colony. “We’ll have none of that kind of talk, now,” Kathryn said, doing her best to sound firm. “Governor Guy and Master Crout and all are skilled seamen and well able to take on the natives should they prove fierce. And we know the pirates are all gone south—no sign of any of Easton’s ships has been seen in these waters for months.”

  “Aye, the pirates are all harrying the Spanish in the West Indies now—they’ve more sense than to winter in a place so cold as this,” Matt Grigg said, arriving with Daisy on his arm and taking a seat at the table. Pork pies were on the menu for today, along with turnips, parsnips, and carrots from the fall harvest.

  Kathryn looked around. The whole colony dined together in the main house on Sundays. Sitting around her were her own dear Nancy, along with Bess, Daisy and Matt, Tom and Molly. They had worked so hard to prepare for this winter: she and the maids had boiled and preserved the berries they had picked in late summer and sealed them in jars, harvested vegetables from the gardens, salted and smoked meat and fish, milled grain, and brewed ale, all against the long season when no ships would come from England. The picture she had long held in her mind: herself as the mistress of a fine house, pleasing her husband and managing her servants, had come to pass in the strangest way in this faraway land.