White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke

by Paul Clayton

  White nodded, swallowing. “Aye. I am sure that he has told you much, m’Lord. But now I must set the record straight.”

  With his knife, Sir Walter dug an ember out of his pipe and it fell onto the floor. He crushed it with his boot. “Sit down,” he said, “and tell me.”

  White gave Sir Walter his version of the events on the Roanoke adventure, recounting all of the Portuguese navigator’s transgressions, from his foolhardy decision to set sail in a near-gale, his abandonment of the colony almost a hundred miles from their designated landing site, to his skewed priorities, putting privateering raids before the needs and safety of the colonists. Sir Walter smoked two bowls of tobacco as he listened, nodding on occasion, asking a few questions. White tried to gauge the effect his words were having on the younger gentleman, but could get no bearing. Before White finished, the boy returned and whispered something in Sir Walter’s ear. Sir Walter nodded and the boy went away. “Continue,” said Sir Walter, but White sensed that the gentleman’s thoughts were now elsewhere and that he was no longer listening.

  When White concluded, Sir Walter leaned back in his chair. “I will have Richard Grenville put together a resupply convoy,” he said. “Here.” Sir Walter dipped a quill into an inkpot and wrote a short missive, handing it to White, “show him this.”

  “Aye, m’Lord.” White got to his feet. “About Fernandes, m’Lord? What measures will be taken against him?”

  Sir Walter frowned. “Unfortunately, with the Spaniards building their attack armada, we need men with Fernandes’ experience, especially if we are to take the fight to the New World.”

  White shook his head. “M’Lord, I seriously question his loyalty. I do not think… ”

  Sir Walter cut him off. “He can navigate in chains, if need be. Now, I must be about other business. Later I will consult with Richard Grenville and the others and we will decide what to do about Virginia.”

  White nodded tiredly. “Thank you, m’Lord.”

  Sir Walter’s tepid response angered and confused White as he made his way to the door. A sense of foreboding struck him. He never should have left Roanoke. A vague panic came over him and he had an impulse to run, as if he could possibly run all the way back to the New World. He remembered the crude stranger, Spencer, who had approached him earlier in the Great Hall and wondered if he was still waiting. White knew nothing about the man, but he would make a deal with the devil if he had to, just to get back to Roanoke. As White entered the courtroom he spotted the stranger sitting alone in the rear, and he headed in his direction.

  As Benjamin Spencer waited for White to return, he decided that the old gentleman was involved with the harlot. He could see it in White’s eyes the moment he mentioned her name. Spencer marveled at the power this girl evidently had over men. He wondered if she used spells to manage it. None of that would stop him, however. No woman, no mere girl, had ever gotten the better of him.

  He heard footsteps. White emerged into the open court and headed in his direction

  “And now, sir,” said White, “state your business.”

  Spencer nodded. “Good sir, I must locate this young woman, Margaret Hagger.”

  “Aye,” said White. “And what is your business with her?”

  “Both her brothers have been killed in the fighting in the Low Countries. She must be told.”

  White frowned. “Put it in a letter and I will see that she gets it.”

  Spencer smiled and shook his head. “Good sir, there is an estate settlement for her, and I have been commissioned to find her.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “If and when I find her, and tell her of her fortune I will receive a sum of money. I will receive even more if I can convince her to return.”

  White nodded. This man might prove useful to him. If not, at the very least he was another Englishman wanting to get to Raleigh’s New World colony. Once there, he could exhaust himself attempting to induce Maggie to return to England.

  “You may contact me through the offices of Sir Richard Grenville. He will be putting together the convoy which shall next sail to Virginia. Good day, sir.”

  Chapter 19

  December 13, 1587. Roanoke

  Maggie worried when young George Howe did not come for his lessons. He had not come by all week. She dreaded bothering the already overburdened Parson Lambert with this, but knew she must bring it to his attention. One of the children had already told her that young George had taken to hanging about the soldiers, and Phillip claimed to have seen him smoking a pipe.

  The big house was very cold and Maggie and the children crowded close to the hearth for warmth. The children frowned with concentration as they wrote their letters on sheets of elm bark she had gathered for their writing. Someone had broken the half-dozen slates the children used to write on and paper was growing scarce. Humphrey sat a few feet off by himself. She watched him throw his ball down, his face brightening as it rolled off a few feet. He would get up, fetch it, and repeat his simple game.

  Maggie smiled and turned to the hearth. Kneeling, she picked up a small log and tossed it onto the flames. Half the children had finished their lesson by the time she got to her feet and faced them. She waited quietly for the slower ones.

  Thomas Reed raised his hand.

  Maggie nodded.

  “Mistress Maggie. Does Manteo eat people?”

  “Why, Thomas,” was all Maggie could say as her face went bright red at the thought.

  “That is what young Master Howe has said. The soldiers told him that all the savages eat people. Is it so?”

  The Condewell girls looked at Maggie in open-mouthed fear as Charles leaned over to whisper in Thomas’s ear.

  Maggie was struggling to speak over her own shock when footsteps scratched up the steps to the door and it opened. Eleanor Dare entered carrying little Virginia close to her bosom. She nodded primly.

  “Mistress,” said Maggie, “how nice of you to join us.”

  Eleanor smiled. “Thank you, Maggie.” Eleanor looked the children over and turned to Maggie. “Maggie, some of the other serving women are going out with the soldiers to gather firewood and kindling. You can go with them and I will take over here.”

  Maggie curtsied. “Aye, mistress.”

  “They are meeting at the gate,” said Eleanor. “I will see the children through the rest of their lessons.”

  Later, Maggie left the gates of the fort with her friend Elizabeth, Lionel Fisher, the cutpurse, and three other men servants. Two soldiers accompanied them, as well as Manteo, the savage. Maggie was still fascinated by the Croatoan and watched him walk out ahead, his fancy German musket cradled lovingly in his arms.

  They entered the forest, their feet crunching the dead leaves. Snow from the last storm lay in patches on the ground. Maggie looked up at the gray sky through the tangle of bare branches. She had never felt such cold before. It seemed to go all the way to one’s very bones. She thanked God she had not gotten sick, for back at the fort, groaning and coughing now issued from every other cottage, a constant reproach to those who still had their health. And five soldiers had died in one night; Maggie had seen their bodies lined up on the frozen ground. The soldiers’ lot was even more harsh than that of the common people, with twice as many of them jammed into their cottages. The only development which mitigated the harsh circumstances of everyone’s life here was the fact that some of the Roanoke savages had returned to their village at Dasamankpeuc and were now trading with the colonists. Just the day before Maggie had helped unload a shipment of corn from their village. Mostly the colonists ate loblolly, a thick gruel of boiled corn. Fortunately, they had all of that they could stand. But, like everyone, Maggie wanted meat. As they walked along in the crisp cold air, she remembered a cut of roast beef she’d had once in an English ale house when she’d first arrived in that country. Her teeth ached at the memory of it and her nose sniffed reflexively for the sweet aroma, but found only cold, pine-scented air.

  The party stopped and th
ey began gathering deadwood, placing it in neat piles that they would later carry back upon their backs. Snow began drifting down in tiny flakes.

  Elizabeth came over, a thick piece of wood in her hand. “Think you we will soon spy a ship, Maggie?”

  Maggie smiled sadly. “Perhaps. But it could be the wrong kind. I do not expect Governor White will return until the spring.”

  “Aye. But other English ships could call here.”

  “Aye,” said Maggie, not wanting to get her hopes up. She continued to gather up sticks. From here and there came the crack of branches being broken into manageable lengths. The snow came down thicker now and the clean whiteness of it cheered Maggie a bit as she worked.

  “How about that last lot that came from Powhatan’s town?” said Elizabeth as she looked up at Maggie. Another party from the powerful savage leader had arrived at the fort, asking the Governor-Assistants if they would call upon Powhatan for a visit. The Assistants had voted not to go to Powhatan’s village and had sent the savages away. Part of their reasoning, Maggie knew, was that they would leave this place for Chesapeake anyway as soon as the Governor returned in the spring. Then they would parley with the friendly tribe of savages, the Chesapeakes.

  “I hear tell they want muskets,” said Maggie.

  “Over our dead bodies,” said Elizabeth. She then looked around the woods suspiciously and bent to pick up another stick.

  Maggie was suddenly aware of Manteo. He stood a few feet away. Snow had collected on his hair as he stared fixedly in the distance.

  “What in the blazes is he doing?” Elizabeth said.

  Maggie said nothing. She felt pity for the Croatoan of late. Manteo lived alone in one of the cottages. With the exception of Parson Lambert, Ananias, and Lionel, no one had anything to do with him. Lionel had recently told Maggie that Manteo badly missed his young friend, Towaye.

  Manteo pointed to a tree. “Maybe have we-yass, adgeedamo!”

  Maggie and Elizabeth looked at him dumbly.

  “Meat, m’ladies.”

  Maggie looked at the massive oak he indicated. Its branches, perhaps as many as a hundred, spread out and up into the sky like skeletal fingers. Its thick trunk was ancient, pocked with half a dozen fist-sized holes.

  Manteo went over to the tree and Lionel, Maggie and Elizabeth followed, their curiosity piqued. As the snow thickened and swirled around them, Manteo made signs for silence. He bent and picked up a handful of leaves, dirt and snow. He packed it into one of the holes of the tree, plugging it. He gestured for Lionel to do the same. After a time they had sealed off five holes and Manteo seemed satisfied. He then knelt on his haunches and took a flint from his pocket. He struck a spark onto some tinder he’d produced from a pouch, and blew it into flame, bringing that to some leaves he had heaped up against the only remaining hole in the tree. He began fanning the smoke into the hole. The English people watched intently. After a while of this, the others went back to gathering wood. Finally Manteo stood, signaling to Lionel that he was finished. Manteo uncovered one of the holes at the bottom of the trunk and reached his arm in, probing exploratively. Smiling, he extracted a small bundle of fur and handed it to Lionel.

  “By my sword!” said Lionel, holding a squirrel up in amazement. “He has smothered it!”

  Manteo nodded happily and probed the other holes, removing two more squirrels. He held them out to Maggie. Tiny wisps of smoke wafted from the creatures’ fur. “Here, Mistress. For Master’s pot.”

  Maggie’s eyes met Manteo’s as the curtain of snow fell about them, imparting a dizzying sense of magical motion. She forgot the others for what seemed like an hour but could only have been but a moment as she stared into the savage’s handsome face. Elizabeth’s bold laughter broke the spell, “Ten of ‘ems enough for me, but what will everyone else eat?”

  Lionel and the others laughed.

  “Thank you, Manteo,” said Maggie, forcing herself to look away from him and cast her eyes down at her feet. Despite the cold she felt a warm glow to the very marrow of her bones.

  February 18, 1588. England

  The river port city of Bideford vibrated with excitement as gangs of workingmen and sailors labored to ready their part of the English fleet for the coming battle with the empire of Spain. Over thirty ships anchored along the wide river Torridge as the cold crisp afternoon air echoed with the cacophonous sounds of men at their work -- the hammer blows driving nails and dowels deep into planks, every blow hard struck, as if to an enemy’s face, the angry rasp of saws biting their way through wood, the bell-like ring of the smith’s hammer upon his anvil, the calls and shouted commands, the occasional outbursts of crude laughter. The coming fight was on every man’s mind and they discussed it with great energy when they gathered in alehouses or at home to sup.

  John White stood outside an alehouse watching the fevered activity. Although he thought often of the coming fight, he was more interested in the closest ships, the Arrow and seven others, tied tightly to the quay, for they would soon take him and his supplies back to Roanoke. He watched anxiously as men came and went from these, carrying boxes and barrels. He had secured salted meats and beer, wheat, barley, pease and oat seeds to plant. He heard a rumble and looked up to see men rolling a huge hogshead of beer or wine before them. Nearby, a gang of men heaved upon a hawser as they hoisted a huge bale of cloth high over their heads. The boom creaked and groaned as another man pulled on a rope, guiding the bail over the Arrow’s open hold. As White watched them work, his fascination with this army of workmen and their talk and laughter mingled with his joy at the fact that the convoy had finally been assembled and would soon sail. Despite delay after delay, he had kept after the clerks and officials of the Virginia Company. That, more than any prayer, he reasoned, was why he was finally on his way. Soon he would again see his daughter, Eleanor, and little Virginia. The baby’s face suddenly came to him. He saw her as he had that last day, leaning down to kiss her bald little head. The babe’s eyes had shocked him. He had said nothing to Ananias and Eleanor at the time, but they were his wife’s eyes. Not Eleanor’s, for she had his blue eyes, nor were they Ananias’s steady gray, thoughtful eyes. Rather they were his own wife’s sea green eyes, eyes of mirth and charm. As he thought of those eyes he could still feel the baby wriggling in his arms. She had been just seven days old. White frowned as he thought of the many days that had passed. She would be six months of age now.

  Guffaws of bawdy laughter erupted nearby. White turned to see several men watching a rather buxom serving wench who had ventured out of the White Gull alehouse not far away to throw some slops into the sea. White’s thoughts turned to the maid, Maggie. His feelings for her were both fatherly and lusty, and a source of great confusion to him. White spotted Benjamin Spencer approaching from the town. Sometimes Spencer seemed even more eager than White to be off to Roanoke. White had formed an uneasy friendship with the man in the last six months. Spencer wasn’t the sort White would normally have sought out for company -- the man had an officious manner coupled with a peasant’s meanness. But Spencer had devoted himself to White’s cause, and, with his many contacts among the merchants of Bristol, he had been a great help to White in provisioning the ships that Grenville had provided them. Spencer had also been helpful in supplying the bureaucrats in Court with the official paperwork that was their stock in trade. Today Spencer was to help White inspect a load of provisions that had been stacked on the wharf the day before White arrived. White was determined not to be shorted by greedy merchants again.

  Spencer nodded a greeting.

  “Have you eaten?” asked White.

  Spencer nodded.

  “Aye. Then let us get to work. Follow me.” White led the way to the maze of boxes and bales. He walked into a corridor formed by the stacks and pulled the top off of one box, revealing dozens of newly manufactured iron axes. He called to Spencer. “We can’t get into everything today, the way ‘tis loaded, but inspect what you may and we will inspect again on the morrow
.” Spencer nodded.

  The two men worked as many other men came and went from and to the nearby ships. Despite the coolness of the day, White perspired profusely from his labors. Someone called his name.

  White saw a group of men standing about on the deck of the Arrow. He and Spencer crossed the gangplank. White was surprised to find Sir Richard Grenville and another, younger gentleman, a court hanger-on by the looks of him, standing near the captain’s cabin. Sir Richard was not supposed to arrive until five days later.

  White marveled at how smart Sir Richard looked before the crowd of disheveled, dirty workmen who gawked at him and his aide. Sir Richard’s broad-shouldered red silk tunic, cinched at the waist, gave him a powerful-looking hourglass shape, despite his later years. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword and his sandy blond hair was combed straight back, his mustache combed out and up. He looked as if he’d stepped right out of Court onto the ship. “Follow me, please,” he said.

  In the captain’s cabin, Sir Richard turned. His face was impassive as he stared at White and Spencer. His young assistant stood to his side and slightly forward.

  “I thought I’d find you in the town,” Sir Richard said.

  “I wanted to inspect the goods that were delivered yesterday,” said White.

  Sir Richard nodded. “I have news.”

  White looked at him hopefully.

  “I’m afraid ‘tis not good,” said Sir Richard.

  White’s brow furrowed with worry lines. “Another delay?”

  “I wish but that it were so, Governor,” said Sir Richard.

  “What is it, sir?” said White.

  “These ships will not be sailing to Virginia.”

  “Not sail?” said White slowly in shock. “What has happened?”

  Spencer watched the exchange, his face rapt with attention.

  “The Privy Council has put a stay on all shipping.” Sir Richard glanced cautiously at the closed door and continued. “The Spanish attack is thought to be imminent.”