The Sea Hath Spoken

by Stephen Lewis

  “No.”

  “I did not think so,” Ninigret replied, and he splashed into the shallow water for a few feet and then dove in. He swam with strong strokes until he reached Jane.

  * * * *

  Willeweenaw was waiting for Massaquoit on the path that entered the village. She looked from the meetinghouse and then past Massaquoit in the direction of the stream.

  “One son keeping company with an English priest, and the other with an English woman. What do you think?”

  “I think it is the times.”

  “Not much of an answer.”

  “No.”

  “He will not flee?”

  Massaquoit shook his head.

  “And the other cannot.”

  “I promise...” he began.

  She put her hands to his lips, and he felt the strength in her fingers.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It is the times.”

  They stood in silence for a few moments. Massaquoit sought the words of assurance she would not let him say, and yet she seemed reluctant for him to leave her side. Then they heard the drums approaching from the other side of the village.

  “They are here,” Massaquoit said.

  “It is too late, then,” Willeweenaw said.

  Massaquoit held out the letter.

  “This might save Ninigret. Or condemn him.”

  “Use it as you think best,” she said, and she trotted off toward the meetinghouse.

  He looked across the stream where a moment before Ninigret and Jane had been splashing each other with water like children, but they were gone. As I think best, Massaquoit muttered to himself, and he followed after Willeweenaw. He caught up to her as she positioned herself in front of the meetinghouse door. She stood with her arms across her chest, her legs spread in a stance that suggested anyone wanting to gain entrance to the building would do so only by removing her body as an impediment. Massaquoit held her eyes for a moment, and then headed toward the entrance to the village where the sound of drums was growing ever louder. He reached the field separating the path through the woods and the village and saw the advancing column. He looked for the beaver hat, and did not see it. He knew that Wequashcook must have led the English, and it took only a moment’s reflection to understand why he was not now in front of the English soldiers leading them into this village as he had done years before at Mystic. However, there was nothing Massaquoit could do at the moment to intercept Wequashcook, who must be in the woods circling the village and heading toward the stream. More important, right now, was to make sure that Willeweenaw did not have to offer her body in defense of her other son, and incidentally sacrifice herself to protect Jonathan.

  Some several hundred yards behind the rear of the column, at a place on the path that was still working its way through the forest before it reached the clearing, Phyllis sat on the stump of a dead tree. Her face was red, and covered with perspiration that dripped down her neck and pooled at the base of her spine. She breathed hard and shook her head from side to side. She watched as Catherine in a smooth and unhurried gait approached.

  “Come along,” Catherine said, as she reached Phyllis and spoke without stopping. “Do you not hear how the drums are loud and have stopped advancing in front of us?”

  “Yes,” Phyllis said. “Surely I do, for that is why I am sitting here gathering my breath.”

  “Take your time, then,” Catherine said back over her shoulder. She continued at the same pace that had carried her for the three hours and five miles from Newbury to Niantic. Phyllis, as though to demonstrate the superiority of her youthful energy, had walked faster until she would be well ahead of her mistress, but then she would have to recover her wind, as she was now again doing. She rose unhappily to her feet.

  “I would not want you to go unattended,” she said, and walked fast enough to catch up to Catherine. She was about to move ahead, when Catherine seized her elbow.

  “Let us walk in together,” Catherine said.

  They arrived at the village in time to see the soldiers milling about in front of the meetinghouse. Indians, old and young, men and women, strolled about eying the soldiers. Some of the young Indian men held weapons, muskets and bows and arrows, tightly in their hands. Dogs sniffed at the feet of the soldiers who tried to ignore them but continually shifted their glance from the dogs to the Indian warriors and their weapons, and then back Lieutenant Waters, who seemed to be in conversation with an old Indian man and an Indian woman of about thirty or forty who were positioned in front of the door. Massaquoit stood in front of the door and behind the Indian man and woman. He was not speaking.

  Massaquoit was, in fact, listening to the negotiations between Rawandag and the lieutenant. He remembered Waters very well indeed, but he bore him no personal ill will. The English officer was a soldier doing what he had to do. Massaquoit recognized that, and he was glad that he was leading these troops rather than some younger, inexperienced, and likely hot headed English. When Waters had arrived at the head of the column, he had exchanged a silent greeting with Massaquoit, two old soldiers who had seen too much blood spilled for too little reason. On each side of the meetinghouse stood a young brave with a lit torch.

  “I must have Master Peters,” the lieutenant now said. “And the woman called Jane who now lives with a brave named Ninigret.”

  Rawandag handed Waters a folded piece of cloth, stained red with blood.

  “What is this?” the lieutenant asked.

  “You want your priest?” Rawandag asked.

  A look of recognition formed on Waters’ face, and he opened the cloth. He lifted the severed thumb from it.

  Rawandag turned back to the door of the meetinghouse.

  “The rest of your priest is inside the building.” He swept his arm to indicate the bundles of dried reeds pushed against the wooden planking of the building, and the torches held above them at each corner. “He will burn very well. The smoke will carry him to the nose of your god that you think lives in the sky.”

  Willeweenaw, her face set in a desperate anger, started to take a step forward, but Massaquoit took her harm and held her back. Her motion, however, was detected by the lieutenant. He looked hard at her.

  “I take it Master Peters is not alone in that building.”

  Rawandag shrugged.

  “That is not important. The other is of no interest to us.”

  “The woman?” Waters asked.

  “I know nothing of her. Or Ninigret. You can search the village. You will not find them.”

  “I did not think they would be waiting for us here, in truth,” Waters said. He turned back to face his soldiers.

  “Here, you two,” he said to soldiers right in front of him, “search the village from that side.” He pointed to the eastern edge. “You two,” he continued, indicating another pair, resting on their pikes a few feet from the first couple, “you look from the other side. You seek the English woman Jane, and the Indian Ninigret.”

  “How will we...” one of the first soldiers began. He was a boy of no more than seventeen, and he scratched the beginning of a scruffy beard on his chin.

  “I do not think there are too many English women hereabouts to confuse you,” the lieutenant said, “and I am certain they will be together.”

  The two pairs of soldiers looked at each other for a moment and then separated in the directions indicated by Waters. They walked slowly and fearfully toward the wigwams. Mangy dogs sniffed at their heels, and the women sneered at them as they passed by. They held their pikes and muskets more tightly. While others’ eyes followed the soldiers, Massaquoit instead looked at those remaining. He noted a red faced man of about forty, sweating beneath his helmet, and cradling his heavy musket in his arms. It was an ancient matchlock, and the tip of its cord was glowing, ready to ignite the powder in the pan as soon as the man squeezed the lever like trigger.

  “You will not find them,” Rawandag said.

  “I do not expect to. But still I must be certain,” Wat
ers replied. “Tell those two to move away from the building.”

  Rawandag shook his head. The man with the musket shifted his position so that he was standing more at an angle that would permit him to lift his weapon and fire it.

  “That would be foolish,” Rawandag replied.

  “We are too many for you,” Waters said. He noted the direction of Massaquoit’s eyes, and he turned. “Steady, Jones,” he said. “There is no need for that.” The soldier relaxed, but continued to perspire and to breathe heavily.

  “Perhaps too many for us,” Rawandag said, his glance also now directed at Jones. Then he looked back at the building. “But not for the fire.”

  By this time, Catherine and Phyllis had reached the group. Lieutenant Waters acknowledged their presence with an expression that hovered between disgust at their possible interference in a mission that was becoming increasingly difficult, and hope that Catherine, whose gift for taking control of a situation he had witnessed, might actually provide help in finding a resolution. Phyllis stepped back to stand near the protection afforded by the soldiers while Catherine walked up to Waters.

  “Lieutenant,” Catherine said, “I do not think the governor would be pleased to receive his nephew back as a pile of ashes. Nor would he be happy to hear of the outbreak of hostilities.”

  “I trow I know that, Mistress Williams,” Waters replied. “But...”

  “But,” Catherine continued for him, “you see no alternative to force.”

  “That is the case,” Waters answered. “I have my orders, and I must obey them.”

  “At any cost?” Catherine asked.

  “At the cost my judgment sees fit,” he replied.

  Massaquoit stepped forward.

  “I am pleased to hear that, for I respect your judgment, and know you to be a man of sense.”

  “Aye, and I know you too,” the lieutenant said.

  “Walk aside for a moment.” Massaquoit gestured toward the shade of a tall maple, twenty feet off to the side of the meetinghouse. “It will be cooler there.”

  Massaquoit squatted next to the trunk of the tree. Waters remained standing. He was wearing a corselet and a morion helmet, and a long sword hung from his waist. The sun glinted off the crest of the helmet as the lieutenant remained for a moment beyond the shade of the tree. He stepped beneath the branches and bent his knees as though contemplating lowering himself but the sword and steel of his armor made such a movement awkward. He contented himself with standing with his legs comfortably apart and his arms behind his back.

  “If we fight,” Massaquoit said, “nobody wins. Rawandag is an angry man. He has not forgotten how he lost the use of his arm to the English. And some of the young men seek vengeance on your English priest for attacking the girl. They will listen to him and are prepared to die. That meetinghouse will burn and you will have nothing but burned bodies inside and bleeding and dying bodies outside.”

  “Not a pretty picture,” Waters replied, “but I have seen worse.”

  Massaquoit stood up. He was a little taller than the lieutenant, who was broader of shoulder and thicker in the trunk.

  “I think you and I are evenly matched,” he said, and Waters nodded his assent. “And we have both heard the moans of dying men.”

  Waters shrugged.

  “I must have the priest. He is of the governor’s blood.”

  “You can have him.”

  “And the woman.”

  Massaquoit paused. He did not care about Jane, but he had to respect Ninigret’s relationship to her.

  “Perhaps.”

  “And her lover.”

  “No,” Massaquoit said. “You cannot have him.”

  Lieutenant Waters scratched his chin.

  “The priest and the woman. For now.”

  Before Massaquoit could answer they heard first the barking of the dogs and then the curses in English coming from the western flank of the village. A young Indian man, no more than seventeen or eighteen, came running toward the meetinghouse, accompanied by some of his companions, and followed by the soldiers who had been sent to search the village for Ninigret and Jane. The solders were breathing hard and running awkwardly, weighed down by their armor and their weapons. The pack of dogs nipped at their feet and legs. The moiling group came to an abrupt stop near the lieutenant and Rawandag. One of the trailing soldiers, who had now caught up, urged the Indian teenager forward with the point of his pike. The Indian swiped at the blade of the weapon and then stumbled forward onto his knees as it pressed against his spine. His friends formed a tight semi-circle around him and the soldiers. The open edge of the circle gave to the space where Rawandag stood. Massaquoit and Waters arrived and closed the circle.

  “Lieutenant,” Massaquoit said. “Your men have made a mistake. That is not Ninigret.”

  “I can see that,” the lieutenant said, his voice tinged with disgust. “Let him go,” he said to the soldiers. One of them was bleeding from the mouth.

  “He struck me, lieutenant,” this soldier said.

  “Let him go, nonetheless.”

  A musket fired. Everyone turned in the direction of the shot. One of the Indians at the side of the meetinghouse clutched his arm and dropped his torch. A moment later there was the barely audile pong of a drawn bow being released and then the whisper of an arrow in the air. A man groaned, and eyes sought him. Jones staggered a step or two forward with an arrow that had found his bare flesh above his corselet and burrowed into his neck. He dropped onto his stomach and rolled onto his back, blood gushing from the wound. The torch lit the reeds against the meetinghouse and in seconds that side of the building was ablaze.

  A figure in a beaver hat came dashing toward the fire. Wequashcook hurled his hat onto the flame and stomped on it. Willeweenaw seized one of the logs still jammed against the front door. She heaved against it but it would not move. Massaquoit went to help her, but Rawandag stepped into his path.

  “Let it burn,” he said.

  “I cannot,” Massaquoit replied.

  Lieutenant Waters took unsheathed his sword and put it to Rawandag’s throat. Massaquoit grasped the flat of the blade and pushed it down. Waters let it drop to his waist, but then his arm stiffened.

  “That is not necessary,” Massaquoit said. “Is it old man?” he asked Rawandag. When the old Indian did not respond, Massaquoit strode past him. Rawandag lifted his one good arm as though to attempt to stop him, but Waters pressed the blade against his chest and shook his head. Rawandag stepped back muttering indecipherable words. Massaquoit rushed to Willeweenaw’s side and helped her pull the log back. Together, they seized and removed the other log, and then pulled the door open. Smoke billowed out, and then two figures followed, coughing and gasping for breath. Lieutenant Waters sheathed his sword and grabbed Jonathan who was stumbling about, his eyes blinded by the smoke. Willeweenaw took Peter’s arm and led him away, but they were stopped after a short distance by the soldiers.

  Other Indians were attempting to beat out the fire with blankets. Wequashcook had picked up his hat and was now standing aside catching his breath.

  “Let the house to the white man’s god burn,” Rawandag said. The Indians, a couple of women and several young men, stopped their efforts and stepped back. Rawandag turned to Lieutenant Waters. “Do you have any objections?”

  Waters shook his head.

  “It is your meetinghouse. I do not think the governor will raise money for another.”

  Peter stepped away from Willeweenaw.

  “We can build another, after our own fashion,” he said.

  Rawandag approached Waters, and gestured to the armed young braves. They surrounded the lieutenant and Jonathan.

  “We have unfinished business,” he said.

  At the musket shot, Catherine had turned to see Jones watching where his ball hit, and then she had seen him collapse as the arrow pierced his neck. She now knelt next to him, her hands pressed against the punctured artery in his neck. The blood continued to spurt again
st and through her fingers. Then it stopped, and she knew the man was dead.

  * * * *

  Smoke curled up from the ashes of the meetinghouse. The soldiers stood or knelt around the body of their dead comrade. Lieutenant Waters moved among them offering words intended to console or diffuse anger. An Indian woman bandaged the wounded brave, and they were surrounded by their armed comrades, expressions set hard in anger. Rawandag hovered stone faced next to the woman as she worked. Jonathan and Peter stood between the two groups, each closest to his own. Waters walked to Jonathan and handed him the cloth containing his severed finger.

  “Something to show your grandchildren, if you like,” Waters said.

  Jonathan turned pale and shook his head. The lieutenant closed his hand around the cloth and rejoined his soldiers.

  Catherine, Massaquoit, and Wequashcook formed their own small circle some distance away from everyone else.

  “I could have brought them in,” Wequashcook said. “But my heart argued against it.”

  “The governor will be happy to have his nephew back, almost whole,” Catherine said. “But two Englishmen have died in his town, and he will want some satisfaction.”

  “I did not think he bore much love for the sailor or the Quaker,” Massaquoit said.

  “He did not,” Catherine replied. “Nor for justice, in the abstract. But it is the show of it that he loves.”

  “We must give him something, then,” Wequashcook said.

  “Not Ninigret,” Massaquoit replied. He handed the letter to Catherine. She read it over, and then nodded.

  “I thought as much,” she said. “And I have been told more by a Quaker boy who saw Roger killed.”

  “Let us give the governor the woman,” Wequashcook said. He looked at Massaquoit. “You will have to talk to our young friend. Convince him that there are other women but he has only one neck.”

  “We can both talk to him,” Massaquoit said, “but first the lieutenant must be satisfied.”

  “I think he might listen to me,” Catherine said. She strode over to the lieutenant, and Massaquoit watched their brief, but intense conversation. She came back a little more slowly.

  “The lieutenant approves the trade of Jonathan and Jane for Ninigret. For now. He reserves his right to seek Ninigret again, if he is so ordered by the governor.”