Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  She’d expected a pot would be set in the middle of the table, from which they each would dip their midday meal a scoop at a time. Instead, Argall’s men presented each of them with a container of a steaming jumble that was not unlike mix-pot stew. The containers were curved like large turtle shells, flat on their undersides so that they stood securely on the table’s surface. Little wooden paddles followed, each with a scooped end. Pocahontas stared at the paddle lying beside her container of stew. She tried to imagine some use for such a strange object. Was it waved like a priest’s rattle to bless the meal?

  Then Argall dipped the scooped end of his paddle into his stew, lifted the dripping thing to his mouth.

  Ah! The paddle is like a dipping shell, with a digging stick’s handle. She had seen the men of Jamestown eating often enough, it was true—but always with their hands, or by spearing bits of meat on the ends of their short knives.

  She tried the tassantassa way, plunging the paddle into her stew. It wobbled when she lifted it, and the chunks of meat splashed back into the container.

  Nonoma giggled. “Not like that. Here—hold it this way.”

  Pocahontas stared at Nonoma in shock. “You have feasted with tassantassas before?”

  A thump sounded under the table and Nonoma jumped as if a wasp had stung her backside. Japazaws shot his wife a swift warning glance, a flash of squinting eyes that did not escape Pocahontas’s notice.

  He kicked her foot; that’s what made the thumping sound.

  “Oh, Japazaws got some of these things for me in trade. The white men call them spoons. My friends and I had great fun learning how to use them.” Nonoma’s smile was strained; her eyes overeager.

  A sudden wave of suspicion swelled in Pocahontas’s spirit. She dropped her spoon on the table and lifted the container of stew to her lips. It was heavy, and she nearly spilled it down her bare chest, but she managed a mouthful of broth before she returned it to the table with a loud thud. Argall looked at her steadily as she licked the stuff from her lips. She glared back at the captain. The broth was as salty as the river at Jamestown, and tasted of scorch and fire.

  Japazaws chuckled uneasily. “Pocahontas was ever a wild thing. My wife could tell you tales about this one.”

  “I could tell tales,” Pocahontas retorted. The English words formed easily on her tongue. “I could tell tales to my father, Japazaws. And to my uncle, Opechancanough. I wonder what tale I ought to tell him about you?”

  Argall’s chair scraped against the deck as he stood. “Perhaps it is time to bring these pleasantries to a close.”

  Pocahontas jerked to her feet. Her chair fell with a crash. “Yes. It is past time. Return me to the shore.”

  Japazaws ignored her. He slid close to Argall, and his voice wheedled. “We discussed the terms. It is agreed. You must give me what I am due.”

  Argall called to one of his men. “Bring the copper kettle from my berth.”

  Trembling, Pocahontas moved close to Nonoma, but the girl stepped away. There was no longer any warmth in her eyes—not even feigned warmth. She slid behind her husband and peered around his shoulder at Pocahontas with a hard, vengeful glare.

  Heart pounding in her constricted throat, Pocahontas spun away from the table. She ran across the deck like a rabbit bolting from the underbrush, searching for the place where she had climbed aboard, pushing through the mass of sailors who moved to block her way.

  “Stop her,” Argall called.

  Hands seized her, closing around her wrists, and a strong male arm fell across her chest. The hands were reluctant and gentle, but they held her fast; she could not break free, no matter how she twisted or thrashed. She was a fish in a weir, helpless in the trap.

  “Be kind to her,” Argall’s voice snapped. “I won’t have her harmed.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Pocahontas pulled against the sailors, kicked, gnashed her teeth near faces and ears that flinched away before she could bite. “Let me go!”

  “We won’t hurt you, Princess,” a man’s voice said behind her. His words were soft and soothing, but all Pocahontas could think of was Wowinchopunck’s wife, raped on the deck of a ship just like this one, and then speared like a sturgeon.

  With a terrible, trembling effort, Pocahontas stopped struggling. She hoped her stillness might lure the men into complacency. Then she would break free. She would dive from the ship’s rail and swim to shore, hold her breath beneath the water until her lungs screamed and the bubbles rushed from her nose. She would pray to the Okeus that she might surface out of range of the tassantassas’ muskets.

  When she was still and silent, the men turned her about to face Captain Argall. The man spoke a few words to Japazaws, leaning close to his ear, smiling genially. Beside them, Nonoma cradled a copper cook pot in her arms, cooing as if she held a newborn babe. The sun flashing from the kettle’s surface struck tears into Pocahontas’s eyes.

  They’ve sold me for a tassantassa kettle. No telling what else Japazaws had already traded with the fort in exchange for Nonoma’s finery, for the steel and beads that littered Pattawomeck territory like fragments of shiny shell around a crow’s nest. I must be calm and quiet. I must await my chance to break free and warn Opechancanough of this boil festering in the flesh of Tsenacomoco.

  Nonoma and Japazaws made their way through the ranks of sailors toward the rope ladder. The girl clutched her prize against her body, absorbed in its smooth, polished gleam. But she looked up as she passed Pocahontas, who was still circled by the sailors like a deer ringed by torches in a twilight hunt.

  “Don’t worry,” Nonoma said. “Japazaws has told the tassantassas to send for your father, to trade you back. You’re to be exchanged for all the goods the Real People have stolen from the fort. They will treat you well. Argall gave his word.”

  “The word of a tassantassa is as good as the word of Japazaws. Or his wife.”

  Nonoma grimaced. “Don’t be so wild, Pocahontas. It won’t do you any good. You’ll be back home before you know it.”

  She turned her back on Pocahontas, but Nonoma’s grim, cold-eyed smile was reflected in the surface of her copper kettle. The glossy curve of the pot distorted her reflection. Her face wavered and danced like a spirit mask in a darkened temple.

  POCAHONTAS

  Season of Cattapeuk

  Were it not for the three-corner palisade, Pocahontas would never have recognized Jamestown. Wooden houses clustered within the walls, crouched close together like sparrows in popanow. Gone were the cloth tents, the wallows of mud. Even the fire pit where she had often practiced words with Chawnzmit had vanished, replaced by a group of small cabins. A pathway of planks, fitted as tightly together as the bark strips of a longhouse wall and raised a hand’s breadth above the ground, wended through the center of the fort. What had once been a great sloppy puddle churned by the tassantassas’ boots was now a sward of short green marsh grasses and half-solidified ground ringed by wooden houses.

  What surprised her most, though, were the women. Had Chawnzmit not told her of ladies and princesses, Pocahontas would have doubted the tassantassas had any women at all. Now, however, they moved about the cramped, narrow lanes of Jamestown with small, stiff strides, enveloped in wool garments that covered their bodies like too-long winter capes, falling in colorful folds to the ground. Their faces were smooth and hairless, their skin even paler and more translucent than the men’s. Wide necklaces of some unusual fabric, pale as well-worked buckskin and decorated with intricate cutouts, clung high and tight about their necks, reaching almost to their small, pointed chins. Tassantassa women grew their hair long, at least as long as a Real Man’s, but no part of their scalps were shaved, nor did they loop their hair in ornamented braids. Instead, they gathered it at the backs of their heads in thick, round knots, or piled it beneath tall hats that looked like clay pots upended on their brows. The women lifted the hem
s of their long, swaying robes as they moved. Now and then she saw the dark blur of little pointed boots on their feet.

  So they have brought their women at last.

  If anyone had ever questioned whether the white men intended to stay, there could be no doubt now. With women would come gardens and harvests to see the men through the winter. With women would come children, and the tassantassa villages would only grow.

  Jamestown itself was growing, even outside its palisade walls. Pocahontas had noted the outbuildings as Argall and his men rowed her ashore, shacks and storehouses rising from the marshland like mushrooms in the autumn wood. A new stockade was taking shape near the neck where one could cross from the boggy spit into the forest. A pen of low, long-bodied, grunting animals, watched over by a pair of boys, smelled even stronger than the tassantassas did.

  Okeus save me, they have doubled in number since we have been hiding at Orapax—tripled! Opechancanough cannot hope to eradicate them now.

  Argall led Pocahontas onto the plank pathway. They crossed the grown-over mud pit, Pocahontas moving with her head erect and her shoulders proud, hoping she did not look as vulnerable as she felt. The brush of their gazes left a sharp prickle on her skin, like the kiss of a nettle. Argall’s steps were heavy; the thump of his boots against the wooden path sounded as hollow as her heart and sent a disorienting shiver through her bare feet and legs as she walked softly beside him.

  Argall rapped at a cabin’s door with one hairy knuckle. Metal hinges squealed as the door swung wide. A white woman peered out, mouth agape in surprise. Her round face was just beginning to show the lines and sag of age. Hair the color of an old copper bell, shot here and there with strands of silver, was swept back severely from her brow. Watery, pale-blue eyes gazed at Pocahontas beneath eyebrows so fine and colorless the hairs were nearly invisible.

  “Mary,” Argall said. “This woman is my guest, and will be staying at Jamestown for . . . a time. I thought you might enjoy her company. She speaks English passably well. You might outfit her properly with civilized garments and teach her how to get along in the colony.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, touching her lips with small, slender fingers.

  “Her name is Pocahontas,” Argall supplied.

  “By the saints’ mercies,” Mary said. “It’s the princess.”

  “Treat her as such. She must be used kindly if she’s to be any good to us at all.” He pushed Pocahontas forward. “God knows I have gone through enough tiresome wrangling to get her. Japazaws, indeed!”

  With that, Argall was gone, stomping back across the planks and melting into the bustle of Jamestown.

  “Well,” Mary said with a resigned sigh, “we had best get you settled in, child.”

  Mary moved placidly about the tiny house, fussing with the table and chairs, spreading extra blankets of heavy wool on her bed with its thick, crackly sleeping mat. She spoke in low, soothing tones as she worked. Her soft voice reminded Pocahontas of Matachanna, and tears misted her eyes.

  The cabin was small, its walls dizzying in their straightness. Pocahontas could not stop herself from glancing up at the ceiling whenever she thought Mary’s eyes were turned away. The ceiling was low and nearly flat, peaked slightly in the middle but much too near the crown of one’s head. It made Pocahontas feel as if she stood inside a clay jar with the lid tamped down tight, packed away like a groundnut in a cellar.

  “What are you looking at, child?”

  Pocahontas glanced uneasily at Mary. She knew her fretful staring must seem queer, but she could not ignore the low, oppressive roof. She pointed up and Mary followed her gaze, shaking her copper head, uncomprehending. Then understanding broke over Mary’s face.

  “Ah. The ceiling. This is not like your home. Is that the way of it?”

  “No . . . that is to say, yes.”

  “What is your own house shaped like, then?”

  Pocahontas could not think of the English word; she cupped her hands above her head, miming the high, comfortable roof of a longhouse.

  “This must seem a very strange place to you.” Mary crossed the small room in three strides. She took Pocahontas’s limp hand, squeezing gently. “Tell me more about your house, love. If it doesn’t make you too miserable to talk of it.”

  Pocahontas spoke while Mary bent over her table, cutting a skinned rabbit into pieces with a large knife. Now and then the woman asked questions and seemed genuinely curious about Pocahontas’s life: the way she cooked, the tasks she performed as a wife, how she tanned deer hide and kept biting insects from her skin. But as with Nonoma, Pocahontas stepped deftly around any question that touched on Powhatan, or the strength and capabilities of Orapax.

  Mary carried the rabbit to a stewpot suspended over a small fire. Bitterly, Pocahontas looked away from the sight of the copper kettle.

  As the days passed, Mary was persistent in her kindness, as good a companion as Pocahontas could have wished for. Had she not been a captive, she might have enjoyed the time she spent at the older woman’s side. Mary told her of her own life, of the husband who died on the voyage from England and the kindness she had found among the other women of Jamestown. She told Pocahontas, too, something of Argall’s plans for her.

  “Do you know, Argall wants me to put you in a dress.”

  “Dress?”

  “Aye, like this.” She tugged at the long wool robe she wore, exposing the tips of her pointed boots. “You know, Pocahontas, we English think it is terribly bold for a woman to go about with her skin uncovered.”

  Pocahontas crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why?”

  Mary tipped her chin to one side and gave a small, tinkling laugh. “I don’t know why, and that is the truth. Oh, the priests will go on about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, and I suppose I don’t know as much as a priest knows. But I do know this: God brings us into the world without a stitch, so nakedness can’t be all wrong in the sight of the Lord.”

  Pocahontas clutched herself tighter. Mary’s rush of strange words left her spirit spinning.

  “But I like your . . . your garment,” Mary went on. “It’s pretty, with those red-and-black shapes. It looks very soft indeed.”

  Pocahontas touched her doeskin apron with a trembling hand. She traced the lines of the flying heron, the ring of kindled fire. Lost in her memories of home, she did not see Mary cross the room. She jumped when the woman laid a cool hand on her shoulder.

  “There is no rush to put it aside, child. All the time in the world to learn to wear a proper dress. You need not fear going about as you are—not with me.”

  “But I won’t be here for long,” Pocahontas insisted. “Argall is to take me to my father, to trade me for stolen tools.” I am valuable to Powhatan—to Opechancanough, she told herself firmly, struggling to beat back the fear and certainty that gnawed at her. They will trade for me. They will send for me soon.

  Mary’s smile was tight. “Of course, child. Of course.”

  “He’ll do it soon.”

  “I am sure he will.” Her voice was soft and wrapped with sympathy as tightly as sinew wraps an arrowhead.

  Days passed. Mary took Pocahontas about the fort, introducing her to the women, who looked rudely away from Pocahontas’s bare skin. Some of them gasped and flushed red at the sight of her, as if she had smeared herself with filth and gone about unbathed.

  She learned how to draw water from a tiny house at the edge of the settlement—a well, Mary called it—so that she might wash at each sunrise. She hauled the sloshing, gurgling bucket up from the earth-scented depths hand over hand, and soon her arms grew strong from the daily work. The tassantassas had no rituals of cleanliness as the Real People did, which Pocahontas now understood accounted for their pungent smell. But Mary was accommodating, and dedicated her largest cook pot to Pocahontas’s use. Each morning as the rising sun fought its way past the roofs and ch
imneys of Jamestown to spill weakly through the cabin’s window, Pocahontas stood over the pot to rinse her skin with tepid water. It was not the same as wading into the brilliant cold of the river and sinking up to her chin, greeting the new day with the private chant of her spirit. But it was better than leaving her skin dusty and dry. Each morning as the water trickled from her cupped hands to run down her shoulders, as it renewed the dark of her tattoos with its wet gloss, the same phrase repeated in her heart. Let me go home. Let me go home.

  When half a moon had passed, Pocahontas began asking Mary when she would be returned to her home. Mary looked miserable and said she did not know, but answered the pitiful query each time she was asked, whether Pocahontas asked her once a day or a hundred times.

  Soon her thoughts were consumed by Kocoum, and a hard, sharp grief sank into her heart. She had been gone from their hearth for too long. He would assume she had walked away from their marriage, and he would find another wife. Or would he come seeking her? She feared for him, if he did. Kocoum did not have the wealth to buy her freedom. As likely as not, the tassantassas would kill him rather than suffer him to plead for Pocahontas.

  When a full moon had turned, when the days began to lengthen and the warmth of approaching summer hung like a haze over Jamestown, Pocahontas tore away the cloak of her dignity. When her morning bath was finished, Pocahontas stood panting over the pot of water, staring down at the ripple and sway of her shadowy reflection. Drops of water fell from her nose into the pot, and the reflection shattered and rolled.

  “Pocahontas?” Mary said tentatively, sitting up in the bed they shared. The sleeves of her nightdress were puffed and rumpled.

  But Pocahontas did not answer. She flew for the cabin’s door, not even stopping to tie her apron about her waist. She raged through the fort, screaming for Argall, beating on doors and walls, on posts, on anything that came before her. The plank pathway rattled like thunder beneath her feet. Early rising women fled from her, averting their eyes from her nakedness, hoisting their skirts to hasten out of her way. The men tried to calm her with outstretched hands, their mouths round with shock inside their heavy beards, but she charged at them, making her fingers into talons, shouting Argall’s name.