Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Libbie Hawker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477829929

  ISBN-10: 147782992X

  Cover design by Salamander Hill Design Inc.

  Illustration copyright Lane Brown

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921617

  In memory of Judie Guich. When my time comes to face the inevitable, may I do it with as much courage, humor, and love as you.

  And for Paul, always.

  CONTENTS

  SMITH

  THE FIRST NAME

  POCAHONTAS

  SMITH

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  SMITH

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  SMITH

  POCAHONTAS

  SMITH

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  POCAHONTAS

  THE SECOND NAME

  SMITH

  POCAHONTAS

  SMITH

  POCAHONTAS

  SMITH

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  SMITH

  THE THIRD NAME

  POCAHONTAS

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  POCAHONTAS

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  POCAHONTAS

  POCAHONTAS

  POCAHONTAS

  THE FOURTH NAME

  SMITH

  POCAHONTAS

  POCAHONTAS

  POCAHONTAS

  POCAHONTAS

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SMITH

  April 1607

  Prologue

  He was far away, reclining on a bed of cool silk, the sweat drying on his skin. The window was unshuttered. A breeze moved the long wisp of curtain, carrying a scent of rosemary into Antonia’s chamber, bringing with it the rich perfume of Constantinople in elegant decay: the dust of hot brick; ancient incense from the church on the hill; fish offal sharp and salty at the wharf; the inoffensive, homey tang of horse dung drying on the bare streets.

  Antonia moved from behind her screen and dipped a rag into a basin. The water fell like stars over her smooth skin. I should like to see it, she said, her voice distant and wavering in his memory, an echo from a lost shore. He could no longer recall her face—not with any accuracy, though he knew that she was beautiful. He did remember her voice. The subtle rich smoke of it, the water running down her shoulder, tracing over the curve of her hip, puddling under her small foot. See what? he asked. His Greek was nearly as bad as his French, but she understood him well enough. The world, she said. All of it. I want to see it all.

  He could smell her still—her and Constantinople, and the rosemary. The memory shut out the stink of the brig, the reek of peat tar and his own piss. Antonia’s bed was much softer than the narrow plank where he huddled. He no longer felt the damp roughness of the wood, nor the splinters pressing through his clothing.

  The Susan Constant heeled. He cursed and braced himself; the chains of his fetters clanked. A cry came through the thick boards of the deck, muffled, but even in the brig he could hear the joy and relief in the man’s voice.

  “Land!”

  He pressed himself against the Susan Constant’s curved rib, ducking his head to peer through a chink in the wood. But he could see nothing, and the sunlight hurt his eyes. Tears streamed down his face and into his long, matted beard.

  He heard footfalls on the deck above. A grunt, an oath, and with a squeal of hinges, the trap opened. Light as bright and shocking as the cut end of a lemon fell into the small chamber. With it came a great gust of fresh air, carrying the scent of a new world: rich and green, damp, spicy, fertile. It startled him, how much it smelled like the coast of England.

  “John Smith.”

  “Aye.” His voice grated like the hinge.

  He waited for an explanation, perhaps even a word of acknowledgment that they had made it, after everything, to the New World. A ladder dropped into his rathole; it was a sad thing made of worn rope and faded dowels. He climbed it gingerly.

  Wingfield was waiting on deck. He stood straddle-legged, the sun gleaming on the neat jut of his red beard, his body moving with unconscious ease as the Susan Constant dipped into a gentle trough of a wave and rolled up to its white crest. Edward-Maria Wingfield rode a ship as easily as some men ride horses. The damnable creature was pointed ever upward as surely as a compass needle points north, as if God Himself had tied a line to Wingfield’s helmet to keep him permanently in divine plumb. He was the only shareholder of the Virginia Company to set sail for the New World, and he thought his wealth had given him the right of leadership. There were five score and four men divided among the three ships. Too many of them agreed with Wingfield. It seemed that even on the open sea, blood counted for more than brains.

  Wingfield did cut a dashing figure in his perfectly polished steel armor, Smith grudgingly conceded. A foolish figure, too. One storm, one slip on a wet deck, and Edward-Maria Wingfield would find himself and his fine armor beautifying the seafloor. Smith had advised him not to wear the stuff aboard the Susan Constant. The warning had been scorned and dismissed, as ever.

  All the men were on their feet. Even after so many months at sea, they swayed with less grace than Wingfield. The deck was crowded—the whole ship was crowded. It was a freighter, a trade ship, and not a large one at that. Its hold was outfitted to transport goods, not men. The Virginia Company had purchased it for a song, and songs were a good bit less dear than gold. Beyond the crowd, Smith could make out the two sails of the Godspeed ahead, already entering the deep-green arc of a bay. A thrill of dense woodland spread north and south, fading far off into a blue haze. Southeastward, lagging behind, the Discovery was a white smudge on the horizon.

  “Clackety-clack,” one of the men jeered, pantomiming his own hands in chains.

  “In fetters again, Smith,” another called—a smoother voice, one of the many useless gentlemen who plagued the voyage. Smoother, but no less mocking. “Just like in the Turk’s fields, eh, lads?”

  The men laughed. No one believed him about what had happened after Antonia. He was already a slave when he’d been gifted to the woman, taken as booty after a misstep with the Tartars. Smith’s too-trusting master had sent him to Constantinople to act as door guard for the Turk’s beloved Greek mistress. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that she’d fallen in love with him; though what Antonia had seen in Smith, short, broad, and hairy as a half-grown bear, he still could not say. Once their master realized the truth, it had been the cane for Antonia—that soft, white flesh marred by red stripes—and sale into hard labor in the Crimea for Smith.

  Let the men laugh. Their scorn changed nothing. Their mockery was a good deal easier to bear than the Turk’s iron collar. Nor did they believe him when he told them how he had taken up his scythe in his master’s field, and struck the man off his own
horse as he came riding out to beat Smith for insolence. Let them call me a fool and a knave. Smith could still hear the rush of his scythe through the air, the crack of it upon his master’s head. Even now, five years later, he could see the Turk lying still in the furrow of his own field. He recalled how the horse had shifted and pranced when he raised his foot to the stirrup and clambered aboard. Muscovy and freedom had been but one hard ride away.

  “And here we are at last, lads,” Wingfield said. He spoke in his gentleman’s voice, an orator’s voice, the sound of it booming out across the waves as if an audience of fishes might hear him and applaud. “The New World. Each man behold it, even”—with a glance at Smith—“mutineers, and give thanks to God.”

  “Amen,” the more pious of them murmured.

  Smith kept his eyes on Wingfield, rather than casting his gaze up to Heaven. But in his heart he did thank merciful Christ. Soon they would go ashore, the locked box with sealed orders from the Virginia Company would be opened, and, by writ of their employers, Wingfield would no longer hold sway. Smith need not merely hope that Wingfield would soon deflate. He knew it would be so. God had shown him favor in the past, and He would again. Smith’s days of wearing chains, whether in the Crimea or Constantinople or a ship’s brig, were over.

  The Susan Constant breasted the last high wave at the bay’s mouth and sailed into gentler water. Wingfield set about ordering the men, placing them in ranks according to class. He eyed them with all the pomposity and bluster of a general. “We will send a party ashore,” he declared, tugging at his wedge of copper beard.

  Smith shifted; his chains rattled. “I would advise against it.”

  Wingfield rounded on him. “Keep your mutinous mouth closed, Smith. I will deal with you later.”

  “No doubt,” said Smith, half-feeling the bite of a rope around his neck but unable to stop himself from speaking on. “Still, I would advise against it.”

  “I have no use for your advice.”

  “You might, if you had any sense.”

  Wingfield was on him in two furious strides. Smith did not cower, but he braced himself for a blow. It never came. Wingfield’s face was very close to his own, and his breath was hot with anger.

  “You tried to set my men against me . . .”

  “I did not, and they aren’t your men. You aren’t even the captain of this ship. It’s Newport’s command, or have you forgotten?”

  “Be silent! You incited mutiny. Why in God’s good name you believe I should have any use for your advice, or for any part of you, is a mystery to me. Now keep your mouth well shut when your betters speak.”

  Matthew Scrivener cleared his throat. “Your pardon, Master Wingfield. Perhaps we ought to hear Smith’s reasons.”

  Scrivener possessed a trait most scarce in gentlemen: intelligence. Sallow though he was from the long voyage, he still held a gleam of bright awareness in his eye.

  Wingfield’s eyes narrowed with anger, but Scrivener spoke on: “After all, sir, the box has not been opened. You are not the president of the colony yet.”

  Wingfield fairly choked on his red-faced rage. Smith lifted his manacled hands and ran his fingers through the mess of his beard, hiding his grin.

  “Very well,” said Wingfield. “Advise us, John Smith, you font of wisdom.”

  “We don’t yet know the state of the naturals. Are they friends or foes? None of us can say. We ought to anchor in the bay, as near as we might come to the shore, and bide our time. The naturals will show themselves, soon or late. They know we are here already, or else I’m a virgin girl.”

  One of the men grabbed his cod through his stained breeches and waggled it, shouting to Smith a most indecent proposal.

  “The state of the naturals?” Wingfield sputtered. “Friends or foes? Don’t be a fool. You’ve read the reports from Spain. They’re eager to trade, and once we bring them the Christ, they’ll be more eager still. They’re savages, Smith. They need our guidance. They’re like babes in the wood, waiting for a kind hand to raise them up to civilization, to show them the light and the path.”

  “Truly?” said Smith. “You don’t suppose they may be hostile to us—see us as invaders?” He cast a significant glance about the crowd. There were plenty in London—even in King James’s court—who disparaged the very thought of colonization. Given the Virginia Company had faced such widespread opposition to the colony—resistance on the grounds that England had no right to wrest from the naturals their own God-given land—then surely at least a few of the men on this voyage felt the same.

  “Don’t be naïve.” Wingfield pointed into the crowd. “Archer, choose five men. You’ll go ashore. I’ll need two sailors to row the landing boat.”

  He did not bother to turn back to Smith. “John Smith, allow me to offer you advice in turn: keep your useless thoughts to yourself unless the president requests them.”

  Smith stood at the rail, well back from the lines as the sailors lowered the little vessel to the waves. He watched as Gabriel Archer directed his men into the boat. A pair of oars ran out, and the silent sailors in Archer’s crew began to row.

  Scrivener made his way to Smith’s side. “The mutiny charges are thin, Smith. We all know that, even the men who hate you. We’ll be on land soon, and they’ll be in a generous mood. It will come to nothing—nothing but Wingfield’s spite.”

  “I know it.”

  Scrivener looked at him steadily for a long moment. Smith could feel the intensity of the man’s gaze, but he kept his eyes on the boat. It was small now, making haste for the yellow line of the shore.

  At last, Scrivener said, “It’s only your tongue damns you.”

  “My tongue, and my common birth. You’re the only one who doesn’t think the highborn cunny he slid out of on his birthday makes him the next best thing to Christ.”

  Scrivener sniffed at the indelicacy.

  “Sorry,” Smith said.

  “Listen, old boy—if you’d only give over to Wingfield once in a while, be more cooperative, less . . . less haughty—”

  “Less haughty, he says! It’s Wingfield you want for haughtiness, not I. And I’ll be hanged if I let that red popinjay strut about the colony as if he owns it.”

  Scrivener shifted at the rail. “He fair does. He is a shareholder.”

  “Still . . .”

  “And it might come to hanging one day, Smith. Not this time, and maybe not the next. But sooner or later . . .” Scrivener trailed off. The landing boat entered the surf and grounded on the strand.

  “I’d be sorry to see you hanged,” Scrivener said meditatively. “Christ knows there aren’t enough good men on this voyage. We can’t spare a one. Not even the commoners.”

  Smith turned to him with a rebuke, but caught himself when he saw the humor in Scrivener’s eyes. The man laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Though Scrivener was slight and only a gentleman unused to real work, his grip was hard and sure.

  They watched in tense silence as the landing party made its way up the embankment. The men on the shore arrayed themselves in a rough half circle, moving tentatively toward the thick stands of salt grass and wiry brush. Slowly, they poked about with the muzzles of their matchlocks, turning this way and that to stare at the high, wind-stirred landscape that now surrounded them, held them, lulled them.

  “Well enough so far,” Scrivener muttered.

  In that very moment, Smith noted a quick blur, a black shape sliding between the trunks of two oaks.

  “Merciful Christ,” Smith blurted.

  “Your pardon?”

  “They don’t see . . .” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with all his might. “Ahoy!”

  But the landing party could not hear him over the rushing of the surf. Nor could they see what Smith saw from the vantage of the Susan Constant’s deck: the glide of tense, muscular bodies approaching,
the sinister crouch, the flick of a silent hand sign in the brush.

  One of them rose up from the salt grass, a full head taller than any Englishman, the glaring face divided red and black like a devil out of a nightmare. In one rapid, unthinking movement the natural raised the black arch of a bow, drew, released. Before Smith’s eyes could track the first arrow, another was on the string, and then it, too, was flying. The strand exploded in a confusion of bodies, the red and black of the naturals rising from concealment, the panicked flash of sun on armor as the men turned and cried out and blundered into one another. Somebody got off a shot; a blue ball of powder smoke expanded in slow motion; an instant later the report of the fired matchlock cracked across Smith’s ears. Somebody—Archer, Smith thought—held aloft both hands in a pleading gesture, and immediately fell back on the sand, writhing.

  “Cannon,” a hoarse voice bellowed in warning. Smith clapped his shackled hands to his ears in the same instant the cannon fired. The Susan Constant shuddered, a deep, bone-jarring, sickening tremor. The sulfurous stink of gunpowder burned Smith’s nostrils and eyes.

  The devils on the shore fled.

  The landing party scrambled back to their boat and rowed frantically for the Susan Constant. By the time they were hauled aboard, Wingfield was shaking and pale. Whatever great oratory he’d composed to welcome the landing party back, he kept to himself.

  The crew hauled Archer out of the boat and laid him carefully on the deck. He made a repetitive rasping grunt, a sound that now and then turned to a high-pitched squeal of panic before he controlled himself and resumed his gentlemanly grunting. Smith pushed through the crowd and stared down at Archer. Each hand streamed with blood, pierced clean through the palms with a pair of matching arrows. Another man, one of the sailors, clutched at his upper thigh where more arrows bristled.

  “Right,” Scrivener shouted, “bring whiskey to dull their wits. Russell, boil a pot of wine. We’ll need to clean these wounds. Where’s the ship’s boy? Thomas Savage, fetch your sewing kit.”