A Roll of the Bones

by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole

  As he had expected, Nicholas was summoned after dinner to a meeting with the other high-ranking men of the colony—Philip Guy, in his role as acting governor, William Colston and William Catchmaid, and Sir Percival’s agent Henry Crout. Distinctly not invited to the meeting was Sir Percival’s son Thomas. When she went down to the brewhouse to fetch a jug of ale, with the baby nestled in a sling against her chest, Kathryn was startled to see Thomas Willoughby step into the room. They had not spoken alone in many months, and now he had followed her here to the most isolated building in the settlement.

  “I had letters from my father,” he said to her without preamble. “He will not allow me to come home.”

  Kathryn tried to quell the little quiver of excitement she felt. It was best, best for everyone and certainly for herself, if Thomas Willoughby were to return to England. “He says you must remain here for the summer?”

  “For the summer?” Thomas laughed a short, harsh laugh. “Till I rot and die, more like. He says my duty is to make a life for myself here. He sends me a trunk of clothes and some trifles to cheer my exile, and informs Master Crout that by no means must I be allowed to take passage on any ship for England.”

  “Next winter will be better,” she told him. “We have learned so much about how to survive here.”

  “Those are not the lessons I wish to learn. This is not the life I was born to.” He lifted those eyes to her, their brilliant blue clouded like the sea on a stormy day. “There is only one thing might ever make this land bearable to me, and that one thing is denied me.” As if to be sure there was no chance she might mistake his meaning, he took her hand and held it to his lips for the barest second, before he turned and left the brewhouse.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Second Meeting is Thwarted

  Yours is a holy just Plantation

  And not a justling supplantation.

  CONCEPTION BAY AND TRINITY BAY

  MAY 1613

  THE SPRING WEDDINGS LACKED THE FESTIVE AIR THAT HAD marked the weddings in the autumn. As Tom Taylor and Daisy Grigg stood before the minister to say their vows, it was impossible for anyone in the little congregation to forget that six months earlier they had each been vowed to another partner at this same altar. As for Daisy’s sister Bess, her belly was already swelling with Frank Tipton’s child. That wedding had to take place as soon as possible, and no one was very surprised when Tom and Daisy, who had comforted each other over the deaths of Matt and Molly, had announced that they planned to marry as well. But the shadow of loss was too recent for any true celebration.

  Ned was keenly aware as he sat watching the two couples plight their troth that Nancy Ellis was now the only unmarried woman remaining in the colony. All the servant girls who had come out last summer had been married off—twice, in poor Daisy’s case. Just the week before, Nell Bly had pledged herself to George Whittington: Whittington gave himself such airs now that he would not share a wedding with the servants from Nicholas Guy’s household, but must have his own. Apart from Nancy, the only women who had not found husbands in the colony were Mistress Colston’s sister and her maid, who had both returned to England with the Colstons. There were still a good few unmarried men; Ned wondered if Governor Guy planned to return with another shipment of would-be wives.

  As for himself, Ned had no interest in girls who might be travelling across the ocean. True, Nancy had flatly refused him the one time he asked, but she had refused others since then. He still had a chance.

  Everyone shared a common dinner after the service, but there was no dance nor any other pretense of a wedding celebration. Only a Sunday afternoon, with chores still to be done, though fewer than on the other six days. No work on the walls or on buildings or boats, no fishing even now the season had begun, but the animals must still be fed, food cooked, and the houses kept clean. When he had done feeding the pigs, Ned walked up the path to the pond and found Nancy coming down with two buckets of water.

  “Can I take one down for you?”

  “No, I’m better with the two. They balance me out.”

  “I feel a fool walking along empty-handed,” he said.

  “’Twon’t kill you to feel like a fool, else you would have died of it long since. If you want to make yourself useful, bring in some wood.”

  He gathered up an armload from the woodpile, and she lingered to walk back with him. Once inside, Ned threw the wood into the woodbox and bent to build up the fire again as Nancy poured water into a pot to heat over the flames. They were alone in the house, for once; everyone else was still down at the big house or going about their chores. Living on top of each other as they all did here, it was rare for any two people to steal a moment alone: Ned sometimes wondered how Frank and Bess had managed to snatch enough time together for him to put a child in her belly.

  He kept prattling on to fill the silence. “’Twasn’t the merriest of weddings, was it?” No, if he talked of weddings he might find himself offering marriage again. “Though ’tis good to have something to celebrate, with so many people gone back to England. I am glad some of our folk mean to settle and make a go of it here.”

  “There’ll be more gone before summer’s over. Here, don’t sit idle—bring over those turnips, help me peel and chop them.” He brought over the vegetables and began paring one with his knife as Nancy continued talking. “They say all Sir Percival’s apprentices will be gone by summer’s end, and Master Crout with them.”

  “They’ve never been content here, any more than Thomas Willoughby has.”

  The name of the young nobleman left an uncomfortable little space. Ned was sure Nancy knew of the gossip that said Thomas Willoughby was too familiar with Nicholas Guy’s wife. He knew better than to speak of it; Nancy would give him the sharp edge of her tongue if he lent even a breath of credence to such tales. Instead he said, “Our own household will be down in numbers, I ’low—Crowder and Teague have gone to Master Philip Guy and told him they’ll be gone at the end of summer too, unless they can each have a piece of land for their own. More of the Bristol men mean to break with the company and strike out on their own, just as our Master Nicholas does.”

  “What of you?”

  “I intend to stay here in the New Found Land and to make a life of it.” He looked at the turnip, not at her face, as his hands copied her movements, slicing the tough fibre. “Whether in Cupids Cove or somewhere else along the shore, I know not. I do believe there’ll be Englishmen wintering all along this coast in twenty years, and I ’low I’ll be one of them.” If I have a woman to marry and bear my children, he did not add aloud.

  “And the master is much of your mind,” Nancy said, sliding the peels into a pan to throw on the fire. “Tom and Frank and the girls plan to go with him—will you?”

  Ned nodded. “I will, if he asks me. But before I join him in clearing land up there, I mean to go on Master Crout’s voyage into Trinity Bay, to see can we find the natives again, and trade with them. ’Twas a good beginning last autumn, but then they stole away from us in the night, leaving only furs laid out for trade, and we’ve had no sight of them since.”

  There was a noise at the door as the master and mistress came in, the baby setting up a lusty little wail as they entered the room. Master Nicholas caught Ned’s last words and replied to them as Mistress Kathryn soothed her infant.

  “I would go on that journey myself,” Nicholas Guy said, “were I not determined to clear my own land up the shore before the fish strike in. Last year’s encounter with the natives held promise, but ’twas clear they are still shy of meeting with us. This land’s riches will never be ours if we cannot truck with them and make friends of them.”

  Ned remembered that strange, enchanted night by the fire last November. How hopeful everything had seemed then. It had seemed possible that they could make peace with the people of the land and trade with them, and with their aid build a thriving English colony that would rival James Fort to the south. Sickness and hunger and discontent had taken
a toll since then. Ned thought that if they saw the native Indians again, he might feel once more that bold hope. When Henry Crout had said he purposed to take a small group of men in a shallop back to Trinity Bay, Ned had been one of the first to say he would come along.

  When their party set sail a short time later, they retraced their path of last autumn, up past Harbour Grace and around Baccalieu Island, then south again. They saw plenty of English fishing vessels, but no pirate ships, though with the coming of spring Philip Guy had warned the men at Cupids Cove to be vigilant. Word was that Peter Easton had moved on to warmer waters and richer prizes, but other pirates would follow in his wake.

  Travelling down the same coast they had sailed along in November, they saw signs that the natives had camped there. On an island at the entrance to a bay, where a canoe was pulled onto the beach, Crout ordered his men to put ashore. “If one of their boats be here, they cannot be far,” he insisted.

  The six men of the party walked a little ways into the woods that fringed the beach. There was a trail here, for certain, and it led back to a clearing, much like the one they had visited on their previous journey. “They are here,” said John Crowder.

  “No, ’tis empty,” said Bartholomew Pearson.

  Ned said nothing, but was inclined to agree with Pearson, who was the most skilled hunter and tracker in the colony. There was a dwelling-house ahead of them, the same kind they had seen before, made of skins placed over a wooden frame. But there was no sound of voices. A small cooking fire stood before the shelter. There was cooked meat on a spit over it, and the stones were still warm, but no one was nearby.

  “They left in haste,” said Crout.

  “Then they must be near.” Pearson moved towards the edge of the clearing. “Let us search the forest.”

  “That will only fright them further. They might attack.”

  The natives, Ned thought, were elusive, as they had been even after that strange night of meeting and feasting together. Slipping back into the trees as silently as if they were a part of the landscape, evading contact with the English. He followed Crout into the empty shelter and saw the natives’ belongings there—sleeping pallets of furs laid on the floor, clothing piled beside them or hung on the poles.

  “This is no hunting party,” Crowder said. “Look.” He held up a pair of shoes made of animal hide. They were tiny, barely fitting two of Crowder’s fingers in one shoe.

  “A child. And belike these are women’s garments,” Crout said, looking at a tunic he had picked up, “for they seem to be smaller than what the men would wear.”

  “’Tis a family’s home, then,” said Ned, the first time he had spoken. It struck him almost as strange as it had when they had danced and sang and shared a meal with them: they are men like us, with wives, children, homes.

  But these natives had not lingered to parley. Crout kept their party waiting on the beach for a time, though he stayed Pearson from going deep into the woods after them. “We ought to stay all night, or through to-morrow,” Pearson argued. “They must come back before nightfall, if it is a family. Even a savage could not keep his woman and child on the run in the woods without food or rest. And all their belongings are here.”

  “I think you are right; they will return,” Master Crout said. “Yet if they knew we were coming, and have retreated, what advantage would we gain by staying till they return? They will not be glad to see us.”

  “Whether they are glad or not makes no odds,” Pearson grumbled. He sat on a rock on the beach, balancing the musket on his knees. “You talk as though they are Christian men.”

  “What would you have us do? We cannot force them to trade with us.”

  “What you ought to have done when you came out here last year—take a few captive.”

  Master Crout seemed shocked by this suggestion. Ned was shocked, too, though he was not about to interfere in an argument between his betters. He knew native people had been brought back to England, but they never lived long. Who would want to, after being stared at like beasts in a cage? They are not beasts, he thought, reflecting again upon the little child’s shoes, upon the men’s laughter on that night they had danced together. But mayhap, like beasts, they have learned to fear us.

  Crout was the leader of the party, and he prevailed. They left the cove that night without seeing the natives, leaving some food next to the fire to show they had been there and meant no harm. The shallop continued on along the coast, stopping at other sites, including the place where they had met with the Indians the year before. Here and there were tantalizing signs that the natives had been there—empty shelters, evidence of cookfires—but they never came as close to seeing the wild men themselves as they had on the day when they stood by the still-warm fire with meat cooking over it.

  Finally, as they began to sail back towards home, they approached that same spot again. This time, a fire burned on a nearby beach. “They must certainly be near, and perhaps are signaling to us,” Master Crout said. “We will put ashore, and see can we find them this time.”

  “I’d find them, did you let me track them properly,” Pearson said, but was quelled with a glance from Crout.

  By the time the shallop reached shore, the fire was burned to ash, wisps of smoke rising from it. “They must have run for the woods as soon as they saw us,” Crowder said.

  “They have left something, this time.” Ned pointed at a row of birch poles stuck into the earth at the edge of the strand. Animal skins were draped over the poles, as they had been on that morning last fall when the men of the Indeavour woke to find the native hunters gone from the beach.

  By now the other men were out of the boat, and all moved towards the poles to inspect the display. “Good quality pelts,” Crout said. “Fox, beaver, otter. Left to trade, as they did before, no doubt.”

  “Look yonder! There they are!” Pearson cried. He pointed; they could all see men moving through the trees a little distance inshore. Master Crout hoisted the truce flag and called out, but the natives came no closer, and Crout stayed Master Pearson from going into the woods after them. Instead, he decreed that they would take down the pelts and leave what trade goods they had with them at the base of the poles.

  “’Tis most unfortunate, after the pleasant meeting we had with them last year, that they will not trust us to trade face to face, but we must show them we mean good will,” Master Crout said as they set to work.

  “It might not be the same lot at all.” Crowder pulled down one of the poles to cut loose the fox fur tied to its top. “Or perchance since last year they have met with fishermen who treated them ill, and now they want no truck with our kind.”

  Although the shallop was laden with good-quality furs, Ned felt a curious sense of loss when they put back to sea a few hours later. He shared Master Crout’s regret that last year’s meeting had not led to the start of friendly trade. He wanted to know more of these red men, of how they lived, perchance even learn to speak a little of their strange tongue. Now, as they sailed past the empty coves of Trinity Bay, he felt that hope receding, just as the red men themselves were receding, melting back into the forest.

  This land is not ours, he thought—a traitorous thought, but one that would not stop rising up as they made for Cupids Cove through the sparkling sunlight of a day that finally felt like summer. The soil would not yield to their crops; the winters felled them with sickness; the natives would not treat with them. Even Englishman turned his sword against Englishman, once the black pirate flag was raised. Ned felt his usual good cheer harder to maintain on that voyage home than it had been at any time in the past, even in winter at the height of the sickness.

  After they passed Carbonear, Henry Crout suggested putting in at Nicholas Guy’s plantation site, where Master Guy and a few other men were working at clearing the land. That cheered Ned a little: a good laugh with Tom Taylor and John Teague would lift the gloom from his spirits, and he could lend a hand to the work. It was the long hours in the boat with nothing to
do that led him to brood, he concluded.

  “Are we all for spending a night here, lads?” Master Crout asked as they pulled the shallop ashore in the little cove where a clearing held the frame of what would someday be Nicholas Guy’s house.

  “Master Crout, if it please you, sir, I’d be glad to stay here longer, and have you go on back to Cupids Cove without me,” Ned said. “I promised Master Guy before we left that I would help him here when our expedition is done. I’m his man, sir, and I mean to work for him here.”

  Crout eyed Ned more closely. “So it goes,” he said. “Each man clearing his own land; each loyal to his own master. Well, I cannot change that, and I am not governor of this colony. If you’ve given your word to Nicholas Guy already, stay here and work for him. God’s teeth, ’tis no odds to me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Storm Approaches

  If Madmen, Drunkards, Children, or a Fool,

  Wrong sober, discreet men with tongue or tool,

  We say, Such things are to be borne withall.

  We say so too, if Women fight, or brawl.

  CUPIDS COVE

  JUNE 1613

  MASTER JONATHAN GUY WAS A HUNGRY, ANGRY LITTLE creature, who needed to be fed and have his clouts changed constantly, and in between those times seemed to cry for no reason at all. Perhaps all babies were like that, Nancy thought. She had had little to do with them until now. She was not a good nursemaid, but she had been thrust into the role whether she liked it or no, as with so many other roles she played in the household. Nursemaid, cook, scullery maid, gardener, goatherd. She was even doing the work of a manservant now: Ned and John Crowder had gone off in the shallop, while Master Nicholas had taken Tom Taylor and John Teague with him to clear his new piece of land. Frank was the only man left in their house to care for Mistress Kathryn, Nancy, Bess, Daisy, and the baby.