Raleigh's Page

by Alan Armstrong

  Andrew looked over at Mr. Harriot as the tall man raised his eyebrows. The boy looked back at the Indians. Did they have any idea what was being said?

  “To my ear their tongue is ugly,” the younger captain muttered, shaking his head, “and you’ll find it harder than any Spanish code. Most of our talking has been pointing and grunting.”

  “What do they need?” Sir Walter asked.

  “They eat ship biscuit and salt pork,” the man replied. “Bread, meat from the spit. Give them water, no ale—they do not brew in Virginia, so it makes them sick. They sleep in their deerskins on reed mats from their country. You’ll find them restless; they’ll want lots of exercise.

  “They keep strong drugs in the leather pouches at their waists for ceremonies. One they stuff up their noses, the other they sprinkle a pinch of on an open fire and sniff up the smoke. It makes them drunk, so when they do that, be careful.”

  Mr. Harriot said he knew the smoke drug. The Spanish called it tobacco.

  “We won’t leave them on their own,” Sir Walter said. “They’ll live in the apartment next to Mr. Harriot’s. He and Andrew will be their daytime companions. We’ll keep some of our people around them always.”

  William was awake when Andrew returned.

  “What are they like?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Andrew replied in a hushed voice. “I couldn’t tell if they were frightened or pleased at being here. The captains say they volunteered to come, though for what pay or reward I don’t know.”

  “Are they tied?” William asked.

  “No, but they’re to be kept close. Mr. Harriot and I are to stay with them and study their ways. The captains say their voices are high for singing their prayers; to each other they grunt low. They talk little.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “They’re brick colored,” Andrew whispered as he got into bed. “Their heads are shaved so there’s just a strip down the middle. Manteo is the handsomer. He has high cheekbones. The captains say he is the higher born, the son of a great priest. The other, Wanchese, has a dark look. Their fingernails are long, like claws, for fighting. Sir Walter says Mr. Harriot and I must learn their language.”

  “And shave your head?” William murmured as he turned away.

  The boys had just gone back to sleep when there were thumps and shouts from the hall. They rushed out. There was smoke! The Indians’ room was on fire!

  They’d raked coals from the fireplace out onto the floor to smoke their drug. “I went in when I smelled burning,” the man minding them explained. “They was singing, whooping and dancing, and when I come in to check, they pitch me out to my hurt!”

  Andrew and Mr. Harriot settled them, then went back to bed as the Indians’ minder settled grumbling in his chair.

  “Get us some of their drug to try!” William said. He giggled.

  “I don’t think they did it for pleasure,” Andrew said. “I didn’t see tears, but I think they were crying.”

  As they followed the Indians around the next day, Andrew asked Mr. Harriot, “Why did they come?”

  “I’m told the captains showed them many strange things,” the tall man said quietly, “talked about saving their souls and promised to make them powerful chiefs when they returned. They gave them Bibles, crosses, knives, and trinkets. The Indians were dazzled. They had no idea what they were getting into. When they lost sight of land, they lay on the deck moaning and singing to their god.”

  The strange-looking pair attracted crowds. People came up to touch them. When a well-dressed lady did so, Wanchese reached for her brooch. As she pushed his hand away, he tore the jewel from her blouse and pinned it to his cape. A moment later, Manteo lifted off a man’s hat and put it on. It sank down over his ears. When the man tried to take it back, he got knocked down.

  “Make a record,” Sir Walter laughed when he heard. “I’ll pay for their hats and jewels. Those two are walking advertisements for my Virginia colony!”

  “Advertisements?” Andrew asked.

  “Proof to the common people that there really is a New World out there,” Mr. Raleigh explained. “Some will want to go see where they came from.”

  Andrew wondered what the warriors thought about being paraded around.

  “They aren’t shackled like the trained bears that dance outside Whitehall Palace with rings through their noses,” he said to Mr. Harriot later, “but they’re being used the same way. It’s wrong!”

  Mr. Harriot pursed his lips as he thought.

  “No,” he said at last, shaking his head. “They’re learning about us, how we live. They’ll go back and tell the others. When we go to their country and they show us around, we will be the curiosities poked and stared at. They’ll have to care for us just as we care for them, protecting us from things we have no idea of. There is no other way.”

  That night, Andrew dreamed he was in an Algonquin camp, feeling as strange as Manteo and Wanchese must have felt in London. Dark people stared and pointed at him. He understood nothing he heard; the food they offered tasted strange. He was ignorant of everything, locked out of words. The strangeness of it all worked like one of Mr. Harriot’s glasses, magnifying his loneliness.

  24

  CHRISTMAS REVELS

  The Queen ordered Sir Walter to bring the Indians to Whitehall Palace for her Christmas Revels. Andrew and Mr. Harriot had learned some of their Algonquin language by now, so they went along as interpreters.

  Andrew stood tall, proud to enter the Presence Room of the palace in his best page’s outfit: tan hose, pale gray tunic with “WR” embroidered in red silk at the center, black shoes of Venetian leather. Mr. Harriot wore what he always wore, his long black coat.

  The great hall was bright with music, scented candles, and cords of evergreens. The people wore perfume and powder. The air was choking thick with cinnamon, clove, sweat, and smoke.

  There were great platters of meat cut up small for the guests to spear on their knives, pies and sugared fruits, marchpane, sweetmeats, and great bowls of syllabub—thick cream mixed with sweet wine, lemon rinds, and sugar. One cup made Andrew’s head spin. The company downed it like water.

  Sir Walter wore the orange silk tunic of the Queen’s Guard over black hose, his knife at his belt. A gold hoop flashed in his ear. He looked the prince of pirates.

  On a sign from Raleigh, Andrew and Mr. Harriot paraded the Indians forward, their bodies oiled and painted mulberry red under their war costumes—loincloths, ornamented deerskin capes, and the stone-headed war hatchets they called tomahawks. As they walked, they gestured what they would do to their enemies. It was not pretend; despite everything Andrew and Mr. Harriot had said to put them at ease, they lived ready to fight.

  The revelers stilled and murmured as the two glided past.

  Manteo and Wanchese understood that while Sir Walter was chief of Durham House, the Queen was Big Chief Elizabeth, in charge of all.

  To a drum-and-trumpet fanfare of Sir Walter’s composing, the Indians were to carry the boar’s head to the Queen’s table—red water like blood at the neck, its tusks and eyes wetted so it would appear fresh killed.

  It was Andrew’s first visit to the Queen. She took no notice of him; she saw only the warriors. Her eyes were brown and piercing, coldly measuring everything she saw.

  As Andrew stood to one side, he tried to figure her age. Was she as old as or older than his mother? Her body was that of a youngish woman, but her face was a puzzle. It was long and pointed. Her chin was sharp. It could be a boy’s face, he thought. She is not beautiful, but she looks strong in purpose.

  To appear young, Elizabeth had her people smear her face with a fine white paste that concealed every blemish. Behind this mask, only her eyes and mouth moved, her mouth but little. The heavy jeweled dress and jacket she wore kept her body fixed in place.

  The Indians had a superstition that the paleness of their English skin meant they were spirits from the dead. The whiteness of the Queen�
�s face scared them. In Virginia, when a chief died, they dressed him in his finery and laid him on a shelf in a special house they kept for their dead.

  That moment in the Presence Room, Manteo and Wanchese thought they were in the presence of a dead chief who moved her eyes and hands!

  The Indians forgot to bend the knee as taught. Manteo crept forward like one stalking game, staring at the Queen’s hands. She was proud of her hands. She had beautiful slender fingers adorned with many rings. When she noticed Manteo’s staring, she twiddled her fingers a little to show them better.

  Andrew froze as Manteo reached to touch her hands, Wanchese crouching up close behind. No one was permitted to touch the Queen except at her bidding!

  Her guards rushed forward. Wanchese raised his war hatchet. Mr. Harriot and Andrew stepped before them as Sir Walter and others in the company pushed the guards back.

  “No hurt! No hurt!” the Queen laughed. She’d taken it all as flattery. She might not have been so flattered had she known what the Indians thought they were seeing.

  Manteo pointed to her earring and signaled he wished to put it in his ear.

  Mr. Harriot explained the Indians’ gift custom. “Among their leading people, when one admires something, the other is expected to make a present of it. You must give it to him,” he said.

  The Queen glowered. “Must? Is ‘must’ a word to be addressed to princes?”

  Manteo smiled and nodded as if he’d understood all. The Queen shook her head and summoned one of her ladies to remove the ornament. The Indian jammed the pointed end of the earring into the rim of his ear. Blood dripped from the stab, but he seemed not to notice.

  Andrew watched, wide-eyed, sure that he and his charges were going to get in trouble for so much forwardness with the Queen. No. She turned away with a laugh to greet the ambassadors. Manteo touched his ear and smiled at Andrew.

  After the banquet there was music and dancing. The Queen changed her gown for the dancing. She did not like to eat in front of people, but she loved to dance for an audience.

  To a roll of kettledrums and trumpets, she reappeared in a costume of striped black and white silk figured with pearls.

  Sir Walter had changed too. His costume was almost the match.

  The Queen started when she saw it; then she laughed and took him up. To her, all was flattery.

  She led the dancing with Sir Walter on her arm. The gentlemen and ladies of Court followed in rows and squares of dancers.

  Horns, tambourines, drums, lutes, trumpets, and flutes played in the great hall under flickering orange-and-yellow flames. One of the women wore crushed garnet in her hair so it sparkled red like flashes of fire. Other heads in that light glittered with green of emerald dust; some were touched with blue of ground lapis. Two were dusted with gold. None was dressed so fine as the Queen, though.

  She led the pavane, fine figured and graceful, pointing her feet exactly, turning like a leaf spinning in air. One by one her partners dropped away as she danced on alone, faster and faster.

  Suddenly she stopped and summoned her maids to lift off her jacket and blouse. Her breasts bared, she resumed as before, only now with her hands over her head.

  Andrew’s mouth went dry. Never in all the gossip about the Queen had he heard about this! He looked at Mr. Harriot. The man stared openmouthed.

  Manteo and Wanchese stared breathless and openmouthed too at this dead-god chief of chiefs. Did she mean to cast some fantastic spell on them?

  They whispered to each other as they snuffed up pinches of drug from the pouches at their belts. Then, in frenzy, they rushed the musicians. Manteo seized a drum; Wanchese went for a tambourine.

  The music stopped, and with it the Queen’s dance as the Indians began their own music before her, banging drum and tambourine and howling so loud and heartfelt it seemed their throats would tear.

  Pouring sweat, they danced and cried to save their lives. Then, as if on some silent signal, they quit and dashed out into the cold.

  The company thought it all a show and cheered as Andrew ran after them, calling, desperate, sure they were going to kill themselves. He found them by the river. Mr. Harriot came up, out of breath. The Indians would not take the coats they offered. They would not speak. The four walked together, silent, back to Durham House.

  25

  TO AMSTERDAM

  Just before Christmas there was a hard frost. Pena and Andrew had bedded the gardens for winter and wrapped the more tender fruit trees. All fall they’d battled slugs, snails, rats, and moles.

  “Moles work at night mostly,” Pena had explained, “but if you see one tunneling, you must dig him out with care and be gentle how you kill him. His skin is fine for caps.”

  Now, with the wind biting mean, he gave Andrew one he’d stitched himself from four mole pelts. It was soft as velvet.

  “You will wear it, yes? Fur side to the head. The others will not have such caps! Let them taste the cold! This is your cap for America!”

  It was a dull gray day, but Andrew was merry: he was going home for Christmas. Mr. Harriot was headed to Amsterdam to buy instruments and see to the making of lenses for use in Virginia. From the instrument makers he hoped to learn about the new astronomical discoveries.

  An hour before the coach left for Exeter, Andrew was summoned to the turret—to exchange Christmas wishes with Sir Walter, he thought.

  Mr. Harriot was there. His mouth was tight. He shook his head when Andrew came in, then looked down.

  “You must go to Amsterdam tonight in Mr. Harriot’s stead,” Sir Walter announced. He was grimfaced. His tone was flat. “The Queen demands Mr. Harriot’s presence at Whitehall to show our Indians again and do his frightening tricks for the Turk emissaries. His warriors and the fire snakes have gained him reputation!”

  “I was promised a holiday,” Andrew blurted in his dismay. “I have plans.”

  “Mind your tongue!” barked Sir Walter. “We all had plans. You will do as I order. Go!”

  “Don’t be angry with Sir Walter,” Mr. Harriot muttered as they went down the stairs. “This is all useless bother to him, and he has the Queen’s wrath coming. He told her the Indians will not dance again. ‘Order them in my name and they will!’ she said.

  “They won’t, and following the broil sure to come I must present fire toys for her guests, among them the foreign agents and ambassadors who would have my throat slit if they could. You know what mischief they arranged for Doctor Dee….”

  When they got to his room, Mr. Harriot handed Andrew the glass slugs to be ground into lenses.

  “You’ll manage them,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He’d taught Andrew to measure the correct pitch from the Arab’s book.

  Mr. Harriot drew a paper from the pocket of his black cloak. “You will call on the instrument makers there for me and collect what they’ve made. They all live in one quarter of the city, but they’re hard to find. If you locate one and earn his trust, he’ll direct you to the next, and he in turn will pass you on. Guard this paper. In the wrong hands it could cause hurt.”

  “Is their work secret?” Andrew asked.

  “There are some who think even clock makers work for the devil, so those artisans live quiet,” Mr. Harriot said, looking away and frowning. “Some of them know the new science. Much of that is secret: how the stars move, the planets, the moons. It is not what the Church teaches. Such news always makes men afraid.

  “You forfeit a holiday with your parents,” he said. “I lose a chance to hear about discoveries in the heavens made by a Pole named Copernicus—all to parade two men who deserve better than to be trotted about like circus animals.”

  He fumbled again in his deep pocket. “The name of the vessel I was to ship on,” he said as he handed Andrew a scrap. “You’ll board her below London Bridge at high tide. You will wear my disguise.”

  “Disguise?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes. You will go in the dress I was planning to wear—as a Catholic woman fleeing Engla
nd.”

  “But how will I get word to my people?” Andrew asked. “And to Rebecca—how can I let her know I’m not coming?”

  “Sir Walter has seen to that,” Mr. Harriot said. “As we speak, the peddler who took Doctor Dee’s reading tincture to your people is awaiting your place on the Exeter coach.”

  Mr. Harriot gave Andrew two small bags, one of slugs, the other of gold. “Those people are honest,” he said. “Pay what they ask.”

  Dark comes early around Christmas. No one was about as Andrew stepped into the Strand in the disguise of a religious woman.

  In blowing drizzle and a thick fog, he made his way to London Bridge and down the flight of stone steps to Irongate Wharf. There was a smell of fish. His ship lay at anchor. He made his way down the gangway. Instead of Pena’s moleskin cap, he wore a wimple, a nun’s hat. His bust was filled out with wads of wool that itched and tickled. His holy book was Mr. Harriot’s Arab book of optics. Under his skirts he carried the gold and slugs. He had to walk slowly to muffle what was tied about his waist.

  The crossing was rough. It rained and sleeted on the Channel, the wind shrieking and snarling in the rigging like spirits. The ship creaked and groaned like she was dying. The trip was all staggering up steep hills of frothing waves and falling down the other side, only to begin the same again as waves dashed and slobbered them. They made nothing forward; it was all side to side.

  Andrew stayed on deck. He knew he’d be sick below.

  As he chewed his ginger, the crew pumped in shifts like galley slaves. They called to him.

  “Who do you send your prayers through, Sister?”

  “Saint Nicholas!” Andrew yelled as loud as he could in his false voice.

  They cheered. Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of seamen and children in their helplessness. They were helpless, but slowly, after hours of deluge, the gray paled and the sea calmed enough for the pumps to get ahead of the flood down below.