Raleigh's Page

by Alan Armstrong

  In the last light, Tremayne helped Andrew dig slits to heel in the apple shoots until they could plant them proper. “Water them good!” the boy heard Pena saying. There was no fresh water close by. Anyway, he didn’t have a bucket. “Tomorrow!” he whispered, touching the closest one.

  When he came into the fort, one of the explorers brought a candle to look at his swollen ear.

  “I saw it happen,” the man said. “It was a crate of chickens did it. I was sure you’d sink when it crowned you.” He bathed the injured ear with the stinging spirits they called aqua vitae, or “water of life.”

  The next day, the man whose scalp Andrew had stitched found Salt on the island, weak and unsteady, sick from swallowing seawater.

  That afternoon a small party of warriors came up, armed but curious. They’d seen white men before. They recognized Manteo and Wanchese.

  Manteo repeated in Algonquin what the explorers’ land captain, Captain Lane, told him to say:

  “Make ready! Our chief will soon present himself to your chief. He brings word from the ruler of these lands, Sir Walter Raleigh, and from Big Chief Elizabeth, the chief of all chiefs.”

  Andrew stood beside Mr. Harriot as Manteo spoke in case there was interpreting to do. There wasn’t. The warriors looked hard at Manteo, then left without speaking.

  Sir Walter would have begun friendlier, Andrew thought. Captain Lane makes us sound like Spaniards.

  30

  TO CHIEF PEMISAPAN

  On hearing his warriors’ report that the English chief was going to visit, Chief Pemisapan called all his lesser chiefs to his lodge. He ruled the island and the mainland opposite. The mile of water that separated them was so shallow a man could walk most of the way when the tide was out.

  The next morning, Captain Lane ordered Wanchese and Manteo to take him across to Pemisapan. Mr. Harriot, Tremayne, and Andrew were to go along. Sir Walter had given the captain written instructions that Mr. Harriot was to accompany every mission, with Tremayne as his assistant and Andrew as secretary to write the daily log and help interpret.

  By now Manteo had learned enough English to get along, and Mr. Harriot and Andrew knew basic Algonquin.

  “I don’t expect trouble,” Captain Lane announced, “but to impress them we’ll go with a squad of soldiers in armor. We’ll be asking for food. We’ll want those people to be in a willing mood.”

  That wasn’t the way they’d planned their first meeting with the natives when they’d sat with Sir Walter in the turret back at Durham House. It was as if the shipwreck and loss of food had changed everything. Captain Lane was preparing for war. He was acting like a Spaniard!

  Andrew looked at Mr. Harriot. The tall man’s lips were pressed tight together.

  Mr. Harriot spoke with Manteo for a moment.

  “Manteo suggests no weapons and we take the chief a gift,” he said.

  The captain glared. “You may trust them; I do not. We travel as soldiers,” he exclaimed. “My men and I will wear armor and carry weapons. As for gifts, I have a small knife and some trinkets in this bag.”

  “More, for when you ask for the food,” Manteo whispered to Mr. Harriot. “That!” he said, pointing to a large copper pot.

  “Manteo suggests we take that as well,” said Mr. Harriot.

  “You’ll spoil them from the start,” the captain muttered, “but if that’s what you want to do, you can have Andrew lug it.”

  Approaching Pemisapan’s village, the Englishmen clanked past rough-kept fields of corn with beans and yellow-blooming squash underneath. Nearby there were smaller plots of tobacco.

  “How much crop do they save?” Mr. Harriot asked.

  “Enough to eat through winter and plant in spring,” Manteo replied, “unless the cold lasts long or the seeds rot.”

  The Indians’ dogs set up a racket. Salt growled. Andrew picked him up. He didn’t fit in the boy’s pocket anymore.

  A fence of sharpened poles dug in and laced together with vine ropes surrounded a cluster of lodges made of cedar hoops covered with reed mats.

  One lodge stood apart. There were paths to the others, no path to that one.

  “Who lives there?” Andrew asked.

  “Our dead chiefs and priests,” Manteo replied. “You put yours in the ground; we keep ours.”

  The boy looked puzzled.

  “When they die, we take out the guts,” Manteo explained. “We lay their bodies on a shelf with medicine root to eat in the next world. When the flesh rots away, we wrap their bones in what’s left of their skins.”

  Andrew wanted to know what the medicine root was, but just then Captain Lane marched up. “Tidy!” he announced with a sweep of his hands. “A good camp, well protected.”

  The Indians stood silent, watching the English soldiers approach, noisy and awkward, red-faced and sweating as sunlight glinted off their polished armor.

  Andrew felt someone staring at him. He turned and saw a broad-faced Indian boy his age standing apart. He looked like a younger Manteo. Manteo noticed him too and waved him over.

  “My brother’s son,” he explained as the boy approached, his eyes fixed on Andrew. Manteo talked with him for a moment in a low voice that Andrew could not make out.

  “His name is Sky. He came when he saw your ships passing,” Manteo explained. “His village is called Ocracoke, an island to the south. He says your spirit called him. His father is a healer, a kind of priest; his grandfather too. He will be the same.”

  “My spirit called him?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes,” said Manteo. “He says it spoke when he saw the ships. He set out at once. He just got here.”

  The back of Andrew’s neck prickled as the Indian boy searched his face, hands, and feet. What was he looking for? His eyes were black, unblinking. They gave no sign; it was as if he were studying a rock. He was fine-looking, shorter and thicker than Andrew. He wore a plain deerskin apron around his waist and a drilled claw the size of a little finger from a leather strip at his neck. His silky black hair was cropped short.

  As Tremayne and Mr. Harriot moved on, Sky walked close beside Andrew.

  Tremayne pointed to the chiefs’ guards. Their heads were shaved bare save for a long lock on the left side, oiled and combed. Their fingernails were long as claws.

  “Look at their scars!” Tremayne whispered.

  So far as Andrew knew, Manteo’s body and Wanchese’s were unmarked. The older men he saw now had marks burned into their backs and upper arms: a long arrow on one, an “X” on another, four arrows diminishing in length on a third, three uniform arrows on a fourth.

  “What are the marks for?” he asked.

  “Allegiance marks,” Manteo explained. “You carry a flag for your Queen; our most powerful warriors carry a mark. Your men can switch sides,” he said with a smile. “Ours cannot, unless they are captured and made slaves. Wanchese is marked. On the inside of his leg—here,” he said, pointing to his upper thigh. “Here he carries a mark.”

  The Englishmen had not known Wanchese was allied to one of the chiefs.

  “Are you marked?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Manteo replied. “I am not a warrior. When I left here, I was studying to be a priest.”

  Pemisapan met them with his council. He said nothing. His head was shaved bare, save for a lock on one side tied in an oiled knot stuck with feathers and a shrunken hand. His teeth were small and wide-spaced. On his chest he wore a plate of beaten copper the shape and size of a man’s palm. Its gleam caught the captain’s eye.

  Wanchese introduced Captain Lane to the assembly in the Indian language. The captain stood tall, holding the silver-headed pole of polished wood, called a mace, that signified his office. In his other hand he held the leather sack of presents.

  Captain Lane did not know Algonquin, so he spoke his English extra loud.

  “I represent the owner of this land, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord of Virginia!”

  He thumped the pole.

  “We are all th
e Queen’s subjects! She is the chief of all chiefs.”

  Two more thumps.

  “We are here to introduce you to the Reformed Christian religion!”

  Several thumps.

  The Indians stood motionless, their eyes on the leather sack.

  The captain looked to his soldiers to clap. He then presented a small knife to Chief Pemisapan. The captain had bronze bells and tin whistles for the others.

  The captain ordered his men to rattle the bells and blow on the whistles as they passed them out. The Indians did nothing with them. They were not pleased; knives would have suited them better. They cut with sharpened oyster shells and chipped stones.

  The captain motioned to Mr. Harriot. “Now!” he said in a low voice.

  Mr. Harriot had been ordered to show the Indians something of his science. As Andrew gathered up twigs and dry leaves, Mr. Harriot took a magnifying glass from his pocket and passed it among the chiefs.

  “It will make fire,” he told them in Algonquin.

  Their looks revealed nothing.

  He positioned the lens to beam the sun against Andrew’s pile of tinder. In a moment a curl of smoke rose, then a lick of flame.

  The lesser chiefs whispered among themselves.

  “They say your power to call fire means you are a priest,” Manteo explained. “They say that is why you do not dress like the others.”

  Andrew caught Sky’s eye as he watched. “I will show you,” he whispered in the boy’s language. Sky nodded and smiled a little.

  A feast was offered. While the women put out food, Andrew went to Mr. Harriot.

  “May I give him a present?” he asked, pointing to Sky. “He is Manteo’s nephew.”

  Mr. Harriot fumbled in his deep pocket.

  “I have more of the captain’s trinkets for the chiefs—bells and whistles—but it won’t do to give him any of those.

  “How about this?” he asked, pulling out a chipped piece of lens glass.

  Andrew took it.

  “A gift,” he said as he held it out to Sky. “A piece of the fire stone.”

  Sky nodded as he studied it carefully, feeling the edge. Suddenly he turned and ran back to the lodges. He returned with a claw like the one he wore.

  “My gift,” he said. “Your spirit told me to bring it. Bear claw,” he added. “I’ll bore it so you can wear it like mine. It will protect you.”

  The smell of food cooking made them hungry. They went to where the chief’s allegiance men were signaling the English to sit.

  The feast was a stew of corn and beans together with broiled meat cooked on wooden spits. Later, the squaws baked corn cakes on the heated rocks. Sky sat with Manteo and Andrew. As soon as the women served the corn cakes, the Indian boy tossed a fistful of dried corn on the hot rocks. Andrew started when the first grains popped. Sky laughed at his surprise. He grabbed up the white puffs and ate them. Then he handed a fistful of the popped corn to Andrew.

  As the biggest of the marked guards pulled his meat from a spit, he pointed to Salt and gestured as if to skewer and cook him in the same way. The Indians and the English laughed together as Andrew gathered the dog in his arms. Sky did not laugh.

  There was no beer, wine, or any spirit. The Indians’ drink was water flavored with sassafras root. It was not sweet; nothing the Indians ate or drank was sweet.

  “The grapes we see,” Mr. Harriot asked Manteo. “What do you make with them?”

  Manteo shook his head. He puckered his mouth to show their sourness.

  “Do you make wine?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you brew with corn?”

  Again he shook his head. “You want beer,” Manteo said. “We don’t make beer. To get like you with much beer, we smoke tobacco and dance!”

  After dinner the warriors gathered in a circle around the fire pit, clapping to a rhythm of drums, rattles, and a sort of flute as they sang in high voices. Suddenly a small band of black-painted priests appeared wearing antlers on their heads. They formed a smaller circle inside the larger. They shook their heads and waved green boughs up and down as they danced in the opposite direction, singing their own music. Then, as if on signal, the rattles and the singing stilled.

  Chief Pemisapan looked at Captain Lane and spoke slowly in a deep gravelly voice.

  The captain looked at Mr. Harriot. “What does he want?” he whispered.

  “Your speech of thanks.”

  “You make it,” said the captain. “And order food for the others.”

  “Send for the big pot,” Mr. Harriot commanded as he stepped forward and spoke in the Indians’ tongue.

  “We have enjoyed your feast,” he said slowly, bowing with his hands pressed together. “The hundred back at the fort would like the same for a week. In thanks, we will make Chief Pemisapan gift of a fine copper pot.”

  The chief and his council sat silent as they waited for the captain’s party to bring the pot.

  Mr. Harriot pointed to show they should place it at the chief’s feet.

  After a long pause, Pemisapan nodded slowly.

  It was late afternoon when the explorers rowed back across the channel to the fort.

  “Perhaps we feed on copper pots this winter,” the captain said. “We have plenty; the Tyger’s wetting didn’t spoil them!”

  He had learned the Indian word for the piece of bright metal the chief wore on his chest. He had smiled broadly at Pemisapan all through the feast and pointed to show that he wanted to hold it, but the chief wouldn’t take it off.

  “Wassador!” the captain announced as they paddled. “We must find where they mine it!

  “Mr. Harriot,” he called in a loud voice. “That name the Indians call us by—‘Mucksoquick’ or some such—is that their word for God?”

  Mr. Harriot pursed his lips. “It means, sir, ‘They wear fine clothes.’”

  The man who laughed caught the heavy end of the captain’s mace.

  “Their name for him is ‘Big Thumps-a-Stick,’” Mr. Harriot whispered to Tremayne.

  When they landed, Tremayne and Andrew walked with Mr. Harriot up to the fort.

  “Manteo says game and fish grow scarce here in winter,” Mr. Harriot said. “We came as owners; we find ourselves guests. It will take all our science to stay fed. Our need for grain will soon outstrip theirs for copper pots.”

  Salt was trotting beside Andrew. Suddenly he shot into the brush. He came back with a red squirrel.

  “His science will feed him well enough,” said Tremayne with a laugh.

  As Andrew reached to look at it, Salt snarled. He wagged his tail, but he would not let go. He ate it on the spot.

  That afternoon, an Indian found in the fish traps a blue velvet jacket trimmed with silver lace. For days almost every tide brought in other English goods. Andrew was startled to encounter a warrior sitting on the shore in a long London coat with gold buttons. He was holding a book.

  31

  WASSADOR

  The next morning, Andrew and Tremayne rowed out to the Tyger to see their patients. The broken leg they’d set was hot and inflamed, dark with a crust of dried pus where the bone had come out. They dosed the sailor with spirits and scraped the wound open to drain it.

  “Skip all that!” the sailor growled as Andrew dug in his saddlebag for the herb his mother used for open wounds. “Wash it with salt water. That heals better than your blasted leaves!”

  They dipped up bucketfuls of cold seawater and poured them over.

  Mr. Harriot met them when they got back to the fort.

  “The captain says we must go to Chief Pemisapan to learn about their mines of metal. We’ll row across after dinner.”

  Andrew picked up his long package of hobbyhorses and filled a saddlebag with toys for the bright-eyed children he’d seen.

  As they paddled across the channel, Mr. Harriot asked Wanchese if he knew of any mines around.

  “No.”

  “Any deep pits your people visit?”

&nb
sp; “There is a cave on the mainland,” Wanchese replied. “It is a sacred place.”

  “Is there metal in it?” Mr. Harriot asked.

  “I’ve never been there. Only the priests go.”

  “Is it far?”

  “It is where the mountains begin. The priests go with no food. They chew a root. They are gone for days.”

  “Is that the root your priests lay beside the dead priests and chiefs?” Andrew asked.

  Wanchese shrugged. “I don’t know. I am not a priest.”

  Mr. Harriot met Chief Pemisapan in his lodge.

  “We have come to find the wassador,” he said. “Where does it come from?”

  “A great distance,” the chief said.

  “Does it come from the priests’ cave?” Mr. Harriot asked.

  Pemisapan turned away. His guards motioned the visitors out.

  As they walked back to the boats, Andrew handed out tops and toy animals to the children, who appeared like magic as soon as he opened his saddlebag. Their high chirping voices filled the air like music. Then he unwrapped the hobbyhorses.

  The children went silent, staring. Andrew took one and pretended to ride it around the fire pit. The children didn’t move.

  Sky had come up to watch. “Deer,” he called in Algonquin as he took one and galloped. “The English brings us deer.”

  Slowly, one of the girls came forward and took one. She didn’t ride it, though; she carried it to her lodge. Others did the same.

  “Manteo,” Andrew called. “May I bring Sky to the fort?”

  Manteo looked at Mr. Harriot. The tall man nodded.

  In the boat, Sky showed Andrew his bear claw gift, now bored and strung on a cord like his. “You’ll wear it?” he asked, pointing that Andrew should bend his head. Sky hung the claw around his neck. “Us,” he said, pointing first to himself, then at Andrew. “We.”

  Mr. Harriot reported to Captain Lane on his useless meeting with Pemisapan.

  “He’s hiding it!” the captain muttered. “The priests’ cave must be where it comes from. As soon as we have the fort in good order, we’ll go there.”