“What news from Paspahegh?” Opechancanough said.
“Wowinchopunck, my werowance, sends his greetings and respect to his old friend Opechancanough.”
Opechancanough’s chest tightened with a queer sensation that was somewhere between elation and sinking. He was not the mamanatowick—not yet. But Powhatan had retreated so far into himself, into the world of his wives and his private thoughts, that Opechancanough may as well have been declared the Chief of Chiefs already. None of the territories would send either greetings or respect to Powhatan—not unless the old man was close by. It was Opechancanough whose favor they all sought now. This had been the way of things all winter long.
Opechancanough nodded.
“New ships have entered the capes near Paspahegh. They carry more white men for the fort.”
“Ships.” More white men. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of them, like ants marching from a sand hill.
Opechancanough took the message to Powhatan himself. But the mamanatowick only shook his head and pulled his fur robe tighter around his wasting body.
As the year unfolded, Opechancanough began to doubt his god, for it seemed the Okeus had turned his face away from the Real People. The planting season of cohattayough came late. The gardens would be small and sparse. Nepinough, the season of growing and early harvest, was thin and poor. Drought plagued the land for the fifth year running. Or was it the sixth? The seventh? Opechancanough found he could no longer recall the seasons, could not summon up the chronicle of years as he once had. The twin plagues of the tenacious white men and the failing harvest beat at him, and his spirit was mired like a moccasin in a bog.
The tassantassas ate through the food their ships delivered, like grasshoppers loosed among tender leaves, and soon the white men ventured out of their strange wooden village for the first time in many months, seeking trade with the nearby villages. The Real People rebuffed them, of course, for there was no surplus to spare—not for any price—not even, with such a pathetic harvest to come, for guns.
Violence flamed, fanned by hatred and desperation, and crises erupted and spread through the forest of Tsenacomoco like brush fires. Tassantassas fell upon a village, sacking the caches of food. The men of the village apprehended scouting white men, and took their scalps to diminish their spirits when they returned in a new body. The friends of the scalped men threw torches into canoes, and laughed and hooted as the priceless dugouts burned. It went ever on, each act connected to the last, rolling ever faster like the Great Netted Hoop, the Universe itself, spinning in the dark sky.
Nepinough drew to an early close. A hasty harvest ensued, rushed by the untimely departure of the season as much as by the specter of the tassantassas, who were assumed to lurk about the edges of every field like manitou prowling for human flesh.
Before the last of the corn was in, another visitor arrived at Orapax: Japazaws, werowance of the Pattawomecks. He was a stout, squint-eyed man given to licking spittle of greater men, ingratiating himself with any man whom he thought could further his own standing. Opechancanough had never liked Japazaws, and he liked him even less as the man settled at the edge of Powhatan’s fire.
“Why have you come yourself?” Opechancanough demanded. “Does Pattawomeck not need the guidance of its chief at a time such as this?”
Japazaws made a noise that was dangerously close to a woman’s giggle. He nodded. “It is true, Opechancanough; the days are terrible. Even more terrible at my village, close as we are to the white men. I assure you, none of my tribe enjoy the luxury of distance as our great mamanatowick and his fearless brother do, here in Orapax.”
“Stop,” Powhatan said. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “I will not stand for this foolish baiting. Why have you come, Japazaws?”
The little man puffed himself like a grouse strutting in a springtime lek. “I bear a very important message. Too important to trust to any man who is not a werowance.”
Opechancanough gestured impatiently. “Let us hear it, then.”
“The tassantassas have a new werowance at their fort. He arrived several days ago from their homeland, the place they call Iing-land, and he called me to his presence with a message for you, O Powhatan.
“He demands that you order all hostilities against his people to cease. He also demands that any Real Men who have recently killed tassantassas be sent to Jamestown to receive his mamanatowick’s justice.”
Opechancanough leaned toward Japazaws, looming close in the firelight. “You seem to speak the white men’s tongue well, to understand their chief’s message so precisely.”
“I am a skilled man,” Japazaws bristled.
“You must trade often with the tassantassas, to speak their tongue so easily. Or have you already moved into their fort, Japazaws?”
Japazaws allowed the accusation to slide over him. “There is more to the message,” he said, and turned to face Powhatan as if Opechancanough were not there. “He demands the return of any tassantassa runaways who might have taken refuge over the winter with any tribes of the Real People, or else he swears to recover such cowards by force.
“Finally, he reminds you, Powhatan, that you swore your friendship and homage to his mamanatowick, King James, when you were crowned.”
At mention of the crowning, Powhatan’s face darkened. “Enough,” he growled.
Opechancanough’s scalp prickled. A surge of rage and strength seemed to rise in Powhatan’s spirit, so that he filled his fur robe, bellying outward like one of the white men’s ships sailing in a high wind.
“What is this white chief’s name?” Powhatan said.
“He calls himself Lord-del-a-wair.”
Powhatan eyed Opechancanough sharply. “Brother, find your best runner. Send a message to my daughter Matoaka. She lives on the outer edge of Orapax in her husband’s longhouse, not far from the falls.”
“I know the place. It is not far—a quarter of a day’s walk, there and back.”
“And when your runner has gone, take this man who calls himself a werowance and put him under guard in one of my smallest houses. As he is fond of carrying messages like a boy shy of his huskanaw, I shall give him one to carry at first light.”
Matoaka arrived as night was falling, ever obedient to her father’s summons—or perhaps to her uncle’s. She had wrapped herself in a white feather cape against the early autumn chill. Opechancanough smiled when he saw her, despite his disgust at Japazaws and his tassantassa friends. Marriage—womanhood—agreed with Matoaka. In spite of the difficult year, her face was smooth, free of any mark of worry, and she looked up at him with a radiant, intelligent openness, a willingness to serve that kindled a sudden optimism in Opechancanough’s spirit.
He took her cloak and hung it on a peg. His hand trailed over the soft feathers, and beneath the swell of hope he felt a poignant pain as he recalled the brash child she had once been. A recollection of her flashed into his mind, sparking in brilliant colors: the girl Amonute standing with hands on hips, demanding of her father that she be allowed to serve at his fire.
“You used to have a white cloak like this one,” he said quietly, almost wistfully. “Though I recall it was ragged and patched.”
She laughed. “That old rag! It was handed down to me from Koleopatchika.” She shook her head. “I must have looked like a pigeon carcass in it, but I loved it. I thought it was so very fine.”
“Your new cloak is beautiful.”
She blushed, gazed down at the floor. “Kocoum gave it to me.”
“He is good to you? You are content?”
“More than content.” The flush on her cheeks deepened. Then she tossed her head, sending the blunt-cut, chin-length hair flying and the short fringe above her brows swinging. “But you did not call me here to talk of cloaks or of husbands.”
“No. Come, we have much to discuss.”
She
shared a long, sober look with Opechancanough as they settled together on mats at Powhatan’s feet. Her expression darkened all the more when Opechancanough relayed the message from the fort.
“Lord-del-a-wair,” she said, quietly musing. The firelight leaped and shivered in her dark eyes.
“And so,” Powhatan said, “we must compose a . . . suitable reply. A challenge like this cannot be left unanswered.”
“You know the tassantassas’ ways better than anyone else,” said Opechancanough. “Suggest how we might respond to this . . .”
“Outrageous offense,” Powhatan grated.
Matoaka’s brows rose. “You wish to send them an insult?”
Opechancanough shared a look with his brother. At last Powhatan said, “Yes.”
Matoaka clasped her hands atop her apron, studied her fingers as if she might read some trace of an answer in the crisscrossed lines of her own skin. Now and then her lips worked silently as she tasted the white men’s words with meticulous care, testing them gingerly like unripe berries on the tongue. There was something bitter and dark in her eyes, and Opechancanough sensed that even she, who had once been so proud of her mastery of the tassantassa tongue, had had enough of the white men’s presence.
At last she looked up and met Opechancanough’s eye, and then, with an apologetic shrug, she addressed herself to Powhatan. “Chawnzmit once told me that kings—white mamanatowicks—are always approached with great ceremony, and addressed with a display of honor and respect. And so I suggest you tell this Lord-del-a-wair the following . . .”
At first light Opechancanough hauled Japazaws from his well-guarded house, a drafty hut barely larger than a cellar where the man surely had passed an unpleasant night. At Powhatan’s fire, Matoaka made the little man rehearse the message until he had memorized it to her satisfaction.
I am given to understand that in your land, kings are always addressed with great respect. Therefore, do not send another message unless it is accompanied by a coach and three horses.
Opechancanough could not understand what a coach or horses were, but it did not matter. Matoaka assured him, with a hint of her old mischievous sparkle, that the message would work its way under Lord-del-a-wair’s skin like a splinter of wood, stinging and impossible to ignore.
The thought of this pompous white werowance twitching and moaning under the goad of taunting words buoyed Opechancanough’s spirit as he marched Japazaws back to his canoe. He saw the messenger off with an admonishment to leave nothing out of Powhatan’s reply, and stood waving his farewell until Japazaws was no more than a dark speck lost in the tangled horizon of forest and river.
Lord-del-a-wair’s sharp reply came two weeks later, as Orapax hummed with tense focus. The village was making ready for the hunt, and a treacherous season it was expected to be. With tassantassas roving, falling upon villages with torches and threats, many hunters were required to stay home to protect the women, children, the small caches of precious food and the prized canoes, so costly and difficult to replace once they were crudely hacked and burned. More men at home meant fewer hunting, and less meat to see them through a winter that already promised great difficulty. But the hunt must be undertaken, this year of all years. Summer after summer of drought had finally taken its toll on Tsenacomoco.
Opechancanough checked his supply of fresh bowstrings and tucked them into his carrying pouch. He issued a few orders to the women who flocked about his longhouse. Despite the threat of tassantassas rising like a black tide across the land, the women were still hopeful. He inspected the bag of food one of the women had prepared for him to carry on the hunt and nodded in approval. He was about to speak to her, for she was an exceptionally pretty and hard-working woman, and might make a good wife if she survived the coming winter. But before any words of praise could leave his throat, a hoarse, ragged wail cut through the trees.
The women dropped their work and fled for the safety of the longhouses.
Another wail shivered among the dying leaves of the canopy. It struck the chill of popanow deep into Opechancanough’s bones.
Manitou, he said silently. His thoughts were slow and blundering.
And as he thought the word, a woman cried it from inside the longhouse. “Manitou!”
Opechancanough snapped from his reverie. He tore the bow from his shoulder, nocked an arrow in one swift, sure movement. He would face the manitou single-handed if he must. No demon could be worse than the tassantassas, and he had already faced them bravely more times than he could count.
The longhouse fell silent, the women inside cowering in mute terror. Or perhaps the roaring in his ears deafened him to their cries. It did not matter. The mulberry bow creaked as he drew it, and his arm did not shake.
A figure emerged from the forest, stumbling and staggering, shoulders drooping in weariness, or with a sorrow too great to be borne. Its feet dragged as it moved; the clawed hands rose to tear at the flesh of its own chest, its bloody and distorted face, its hair.
The hair.
Opechancanough watched as the thing gathered its loose black hair in a blood-smeared fist and pulled. As it did, he could see that the hair grew from the left side of the scalp, with the right side clean-shaven.
He lowered his bow. Not a manitou, but a man. A man of the Real People.
The bedraggled man threw back his head and cried again. The wail rent the air, tearing into Opechancanough’s heart with cold claws as the man collapsed to his knees in the dust, still keening.
And in that moment, Opechancanough knew him.
“Wowinchopunck.”
The werowance of Paspahegh sat shivering beneath a wolfskin robe, staring into the heart fire with eyes as dull as a chip of old stone. Opechancanough and Powhatan reclined in their shadowy corners, suspended in awkward silence, assailed by the man’s palpable misery, unable to do more for him than remain close at hand with their eyes cast politely away from his display of grief. When Wowinchopunck’s cries had finally ceased, Opechancanough brought him food and water, but the gourd and the small basket of venison and dried berries sat untouched.
An hour passed, and then another. Now and then Wowinchopunck twitched or gasped as his memories came to vivid life again, but still he would neither speak nor eat. Finally Opechancanough uncoiled himself from the bedstead and sank to the ground beside his friend. He placed a hand on Wowinchopunck’s shoulder. “Tell me.”
Wowinchopunck inhaled, a ragged, desolate sound, a wind over a frozen marsh. His eyes focused on Opechancanough. A light of pain kindled there, burning away the merciful dullness. Then he glanced up at Powhatan on his high bed. The mamanatowick sat forward; the frame of his bedstead moaned.
“Several days ago—I do not know how many, for I have rowed and walked long, almost without stopping—a ship came to the shore of Paspahegh. It went under the command of a man who called himself Lord-del-a-wair. We thought they came to trade, and we warded them away, telling them with signs and words that we had nothing to spare and did not wish to trade with them in any case. But many of them came ashore—more than I have seen in one place, all of them armed with guns.
“This Lord-del-a-wair made it known that he wished to speak to the werowance. So I faced him, of course. I tried to find some reason in his shouting and waving, but his face was as dark as a half-ripe mulberry, and the veins stood out upon his forehead. He could not be reasoned with, and I turned my back on him.
“He hit me on the back of the head with something. His gun, I suppose, for he had no club that I could see. I fell, and my wife . . .” Wowinchopunck stammered into silence. Opechancanough feared that he would return to his silent trance of misery, and glanced up at Powhatan anxiously. But Wowinchopunck summoned his spirit and went on. “My wife rushed to my side even though the tassantassas were all about, and raging.
“Some of the white men seized her, started dragging her toward the small boat they use
to go to and from their large ships. Of course my men began firing, but the tassantassas were wearing their metal clothes. The arrows broke, or stuck in places that only wounded, and we did not fell a single man.
“My wife began screaming—she is brave, but no one expects women to remain silent when they are captured. My two . . .” Again he choked, again the veil of pain fell across his face. Opechancanough squeezed his shoulder again, hoping to impart some strength to Wowinchopunck’s wavering heart.
“My two sons heard her cries, and rushed out to save her. The tassantassas captured them, too, for you know they are only little boys, years short of the huskanaw.” He drew another deep, rattling breath. “Were. They were little boys.”
Opechancanough swallowed the hard knot that rose into his throat. “Go on.”
“The tassantassas pointed their guns at my family, and so I commanded all my men to cease firing. I called out to this Lord-del-a-wair, hoping to entice him into some trade so that I might buy their freedom. But he ignored my shouts, and bundled all three of them onto the small boat with his men.
“I rushed to the edge of the water, and even waded in, as if I might swim out to save them. But I knew it was no use. I pleaded with the white men to return them. I pleaded with the Okeus to intervene. My men took to their canoes, but the men aboard the little boat fired upon them, and they could not draw close enough to harm the tassantassas.
“They took all three aboard the ship: my wife and my two little sons. Lord-del-a-wair kept shouting down at me, words in his own tongue, words I did not understand. But I remember two, because he repeated them so many times. Coach and horses.”
Opechancanough, mouth dry, stared at Powhatan. The mamanatowick blinked several times; his nostrils flared, but he gestured for Wowinchopunck to continue.
“Then, when I did not respond—what response could I make?—he threw my boys off the ship and into the water, one after the other. They swam toward shore, crying out for me, and I thought they would make it, thought they would reach one of the canoes that went out to retrieve them.
Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony Page 36
