The Sea Hath Spoken

by Stephen Lewis

  The drum rolled again, and Constable Larkins brought his whip down on Roger’s back. Without waiting, as he had before, he called out “Two”, and brought the whip down on Jane’s back. As the whip cracked off her back the drum reached a crescendo. That was a signal to a soldier who climbed into the seat of the cart and snapped a long whip over the beast’s back. It did not respond at first, but a couple of lashes encouraged it to move, and it began a ponderous forward motion. The cart lurched ahead, and the two tied to it stumbled behind.

  It was a quarter of a mile from Newbury Center to Catherine’s house. With notable judgment, the constable rationed his strokes, two to Roger to every one for Jane, in proportion to their sentences, and all spaced evenly so that he would finish the whipping at the entrance to the path that led to Catherine’s house. Each time he raised his arm to bring down the whip, the drummer would roll his sticks on his instrument, and the constable would yell out his count. The governor and magistrates walked behind their faces stony, and their expressions blank. The crowd followed in a ragged semi-circle, and watched each stroke hit the bare flesh with looks of approval. The young people now fell each time the lash struck. Tears filled their eyes, and their backs were laid open in bleeding stripes.

  As they neared Catherine’s house Constable Larkins grew careless in his strokes, which did not always land on their backs, but on several occasions fell on their legs, arms, or neck. The fifteenth and last stroke to Jane glanced off her side and the hard knots at the end of the cords cut into her breast. She howled in pain, no longer able to stop herself.

  Catherine trudged right behind the magistrates, her eyes alternating between sorrow and anger as each stroke of the whip gave evidence of the cruel righteousness of her colony’s leaders.

  Massaquoit, as was his wont, drifted along at the extreme edge of the moving mass of people. As he witnessed this ritual he shook his head. He applauded the young woman’s courage until she could no longer repress the expressions of pain. He did not understand how such a savage beating, as he was now witnessing, should be administered to a young man who refused to lift his hat, or to a young woman who was clearly too spirited for her own good.

  Catherine glanced over her shoulder at Massaquoit and intuited what he must be thinking. She shrugged to herself, knowing that she would not be able to explain this harshness to him. She grimaced as the whip landed for the last time on Roger’s back as the ox pulled cart stopped in front of her house. He lay on the ground, his back a mottled texture of torn flesh, blood, and dirt kicked up by the wheels of the cart and deposited on his skin. Jane knelt next to her brother, her back only marginally less torn.

  They will be a long time healing, Catherine thought, and I can only hope they will be instructed by this pain and humiliation.

  Although unlike Massaquoit she did not question the sentence, recognizing its harshness as both logical and unwarranted, she did question whether she had served the young people well, and their parents for that matter, by saving them from banishment only to subject their flesh to be torn by the constable’s merciless whip.

  * * * *

  Massaquoit did not see the last blows land. His attention had been drawn away from the cart and the bloody victims tied to it. Just as the constable’s whip was about to come down for the last time, out of the corner of his eye, Massaquoit caught a glimpse of a beaver hat. He turned to see the owner of that hat leaning toward both the governor and the minister. The three held earnest conference for a few seconds, not bothering to look up as the whip snapped one more time against flesh. Then the governor and minister walked to the cart as the constable untied Roger and Jane, while the other blended into the crowd and moved away as the citizens of Newbury, now that the spectacle was over, moved in desultory twos and threes toward their homes.

  And just what did Wequashcook have to say, Massaquoit wondered, to the English? Whatever it was, it would be to his advantage whoever else might be hurt or endangered.

  Chapter Four

  Catherine stood between the two beds in what used to be her oldest sons’ room, but which now served her guests, and instead of looking at John, who shared both his name and his curly brown hair with his father, and Charles whose straight black hair mirrored Catherine’s before age silvered it, she stared at the flesh of Roger and Jane, still mottled and torn several weeks after their whipping and nowhere near healing. So it has come to this, she thought , so late in her life to witness the sorry spectacle of two young people under her governance so shamefully and painfully subjected to the colony’s insistence on conformity. She recalled others who had been expelled from the colony for their divergent views, but had not been so physically assaulted. She felt the anger rise in her, directed for the most part at the magistrates and minister, but not a little leavened by her recognition of the provocation offered by her two young guests.

  They both knelt rather than lay on their beds, in a kind of vertical fetal position, their heads upside down between their arms, their elbows supporting their upper torso. They attempted to remain absolutely still, as even the slightest motion wracked them with sharp pain, but they must breathe. They inhaled with the gentlest of motions, but still grimaced as their diaphragms expanded. Then they held the air trapped in their lungs before ever so slowly squeezing the air out. In spite of their best efforts, they could not draw breath without accompanying it with a moan.

  Phyllis continued her work on Roger’s back, applying the poultice of goldenrod with the softest touch she could manage, and still the young man winced as the cloth even approached his skin. Catherine examined her own work on Jane, and concluded she could do no more. Massaquoit stood at a respectful distance in the entrance to the room. Even from where he was, some twelve or so feet from the two beds in a room only half lit by the late afternoon sun coming in through one clouded glass window, he could see enough of the crusted blood and lacerated skin to conclude that these two young people would not have a night’s sleep for a very long time. He recalled a similar spectacle when he was a young warrior after a successful raid against the Narragansetts. He and his companions had returned with two captive braves, and he had watched as their skin was peeled from their backs, layer by layer, their faces set against the pain until first one and then the other collapsed in silent and unexpressed agony. The intention was to wait for them to revive so their torture could resume, but somehow during the night, they roused, and overpowered the unsuspecting guard and made their way into the woods. They left a trail of fresh blood as they crawled through the underbrush and were easily pursued and recaptured. As they were surrounded, they tried to lift their arms to strike their tormentors and rise to their feet to offer a fatal charge that would result in their quicker deaths. But their wounds so pained them that they were struck immobile and could only sneer as once again ropes were looped around their necks.

  They were returned to the camp, the torture resumed the next day, and they died in silence. Looking at the backs of Roger and Jane, Massaquoit saw again those two young warriors from long ago, and he could only shake his head and let out an explosive sigh. Jane lifted her head at the sound. She struggled to raise herself a few more inches so she could turn her head more fully towards him. Beneath the pain in her eyes sparkled something more, but he could not identify exactly what, except to convince him yet again of her unusual spirit. She was a woman like none he had met. Perhaps it was the passion of her religious beliefs, but he did not fully credit that explanation. He looked toward Catherine who had been studying the silent interplay. Catherine offered a gesture, half nod, half shrug, as though to say that she, too, saw the dangerous quality in Jane. For her part, Jane held herself up for a few moments more, and then without a word sank back down onto her elbows. Catherine ushered Massaquoit out of the room and into the hallway. She half shut the door behind them.

  “You see,” she said, “what has befallen them. They must learn to govern their tongues.”

  “The boy might,” Massaquoit replied. “He felt the whip
. I do not think the girl did.”

  “Surely, you saw her back, as bloody and torn as his.”

  “Yes. But I see in her eyes that she did not feel the pain in the same way.”

  Catherine sighed.

  “You only give voice to my own thought. She will not be instructed, but still I must protect her as I can.”

  “Why not send her back to her parents?”

  “And do the colony’s work for them? I think not.”

  Massaquoit smiled.

  “Ah, so, you agree with her protest?”

  Catherine lowered her voice.

  “More than I can show.”

  “You want to protect her, then?”

  “Yes. As best I can. And while they recover from their grievous hurts I have a little time to find a weapon to fight back on her behalf, and” she paused, “perhaps to right another wrong as well. I attended a birth yesternight.”

  “And you would like me to bring back the father.”

  “Why, yes,” Catherine said.

  “Do not be surprised. Newbury might be English, but it holds secrets no better than my old village. There is no man about the house where the babe was born. All can see that.”

  “He is at Niantic.”

  “Helping us find the English god.”

  “Yes.”

  “What if he does not want to return.”

  Catherine now permitted herself a small smile.

  “I am sure you can find grounds persuasive enough to convince him.”

  A soft moaning now drifted out into the hallway where they stood.

  “I must attend their hurts,” she said.

  “It is the boy.”

  Catherine opened the door and looked into the room. She saw Roger’s baleful stare in her direction.

  “It is indeed,” she said.

  “I leave with the morning sun,” he said.

  Catherine looked into the room and sighed.

  “I do not think they will find any more trouble before you return.”

  “Only if it finds them in this room,” he replied.

  * * * *

  He heard the soft tread outside his wigwam and he knew that the person making it could have been quieter had he intended to be. He had been lying on his back looking up through the smoke hole at the dark sky, waiting for it to lighten. He had already eaten a breakfast of cold corn bread, which would hold him until he reached Niantic a five mile walk up the river that emptied into Newbury Harbor after cutting its way through the woods to the north and west of the town. He waited for his visitor to announce his presence. A moment later a soft whistle made its way through the thin summer matting of woven reeds that formed the shell of his wigwam. He pushed out the flap at his door and emerged. Wequashcook, wearing his beaver hat as always, was waiting for him.

  “You sleep light,” the older Indian said. “Or you are up early to begin a journey.”

  “And you are here to advise me not to go, are you not?”

  “I am here only to confirm my suspicion.”

  “You have done so. As you have correctly guessed, I am about to leave.” He glanced back at the entrance to his wigwam. “There is a little of my breakfast left.”

  Without replying, Wequashcook crawled into the wigwam. Massaquoit waited. It would be rude to leave before the other emerged. When he did, Wequashcook was wiping the crumbs from his lips with one hand, while holding the remains of the slice of corn bread with the other.

  “Thank you,” he said. He took another bite, chewing the hard bread slowly. He picked a crumb that had stuck between his front teeth. “I am to track you and prevent you from reaching Niantic,” he said.

  Massaquoit nodded.

  “You must do as you must.”

  “I am glad that I find you so agreeable.”

  “I do not think you will succeed in catching up with me. Your legs are older than mine.”

  “That may be.”

  Massaquoit took a few walking steps and then broke into a trot. He permitted himself a quick look back over his shoulder. Wequashcook was squatting in front of the wigwam, munching the last of the bread.

  * * * *

  Catherine looked across the table first at Roger and then at Jane. Both leaned on their elbows. Roger dipped his pewter spoon into the samp that filled his wooden trencher. He moved his arm with great care, and Catherine felt herself grimacing in sympathy with him as the pain registered on his face with the slow progress of his hand back toward his mouth. When he had raised the spoon almost level with his lips he gasped and dropped the implement with a dull clatter onto the table. Phyllis, who was standing nearby, picked up the spoon and tried to hand it back to him. He shook his head no.

  “I cannot,” he said.

  “But I have added extra molasses. It will sweeten your tongue.”

  “I cannot bring it to my tongue,” he said. “It is not possible.”

  “I will have a go,” Jane said.

  She forced her arm to move against the pain that the movement sent searing across the ruined flesh of her back. She brought a spoonful of the steaming corn mush to her mouth even as she had to close her eyes to shut out the agony. She swallowed and managed a weak smile.

  “You are right, Phyllis,” she said. “It is sweet enough perhaps even to sweeten his disposition.”

  “Aye, I warrant,” Roger said, “but I will have none of it.” He rose clumsily from the chair.

  “You must eat,” Catherine said, “that you may mend.”

  Roger began to say something but then had to set his jaw against another spasm of pain. When it passed, he nodded and walked out of the room.

  Jane ate her samp in silence, her face set as she brought the spoon to her mouth in even intervals until she was done. She then rose, and with a nod at both Catherine and Phyllis went to join her brother in the room they shared upstairs. Phyllis looked after her as she dragged herself, one step at a time, up the staircase.

  “I must tell you, Mistress,” Phyllis said in a voice just above a whisper, “that I heard them talking this morning when I passed by on my way down to the kitchen.”

  “Think you that odd?” Catherine asked.

  “It is not that they were, but what they said.”

  “And what might that have been?”

  “I could not hear their words,” Phyllis replied.

  “But did you not just now say?”

  “I did. And I meant what I said. It was not what they said, but their manner of conversation I refer to.”

  Catherine frowned.

  “You know I must go to Abigail.”

  “It was not right,” Phyllis insisted.

  “But in what fashion?” Catherine asked, as she stood up.

  Phyllis brought Catherine her midwife’s bag from the peg in the corner of the kitchen.

  “It just was not. If you had heard it, you would know.”

  “Then, perhaps tomorrow and the next I will, although I fear what you heard was no more than their groans.”

  Phyllis considered for a moment.

  “I do not think so, for it was words I heard.”

  “Words that you did not make out.:

  “Words nonetheless, angry words, I think.”

  Catherine strode to the door.

  “You may tell me more when you know more. Until then do not fill your head and my ears with such fanciful tales.”

  Phyllis muttered something under her breath that Catherine could not hear, and then busied herself clearing the table as Catherine closed the door behind her.

  * * * *

  She walked in her rapid, rolling stride up the path that led to the King hovel, her mind turning over Phyllis’s remarks, giving them a bit more credence now as she had time to consider them, for she, too, felt something odd in the relationship between her young guests. To this point she attributed whatever it was to a combination of their awkwardness as strangers in Newbury mixed with the intensity of their religious convictions, and she still believed she was right in
that view. Yet, she left her mind open a crack to admit Phyllis’s suspicions where she could examine them at her leisure. Whatever else she was unsure of, she was most certain that their injuries would prevent Roger and Jane from getting into mischief for at least a little while.

  Her thoughts thus engaged as she came within sight of the hut, she did not immediately take note of the figure coming toward her. She was slow to see that it was a man of substance, as indicated by the ruff collar and broad brimmed hat, adorned with a buckle, an extravagance permitted under the sumptuary laws only to a man of 200 pounds a year. She brought herself to a sudden stop as she realized she was about to walk right into the governor.

  Governor Peters himself was apparently absorbed in some thought, for as he walked he shook his head back and forth as though in sorrow or anger, his eyes looking at, but not seeing, the ground immediately beneath his feet. He looked up just in time to catch Catherine’s eye as she came to a halt in front of him.

  “Ah, Mistress Williams, is it? Come to check on mother and babe I do not doubt.”

  “Indeed I have.” She felt the tension in the governor’s face and chose not to explore its source. He seemed to have come to the same, tacit, conclusion, for he straightened his carriage as though dismissing whatever had been troubling him, and nodded his head.

  “A very good thing,” he said, “that the whore and her bastard should have you to look after them.”

  She felt her anger rise, but she also recognized that Peters wanted to provoke her and she should not take the bait.

  “I trust you left them well,” she replied, and without waiting for an answer, she turned herself sideways to pass him on the narrow path.

  “Well, Mistress?” he called after her. “For that you must inquire of them inside.”

  Miriam King stood hunched in her low doorway. The wrinkles on her face seemed deeper and she twisted something tightly between her hands. As Catherine approached, she retreated back into her house. Catherine followed. Inside, Abigail sat on a stool, her babe at her breast. She glanced at her mother, her eyes bright with anger. She started to say something, but then stopped herself. Catherine looked from one to the other. Neither woman returned her glance. She approached Abigail. The babe, its eyes closed, sucked, unaware of the new presence in its tiny world. Abigail looked up at Catherine.