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

by Paul Clayton

  He rapidly sketched her slight curves, her long legs. Grabbing his paints, he daubed and mixed on his pallet, cadmium orange, Indian red, Chinese white. He remembered her beautiful fair skin. Keeping one eye on the rust, stirring and daubing till he had it right, he painted her rose so sweet. Oh God, how like a young colt he would ride it! Yes, he would return and he would have her! He smeared a horizontal swath of emerald green across the canvas, then Chinese white. Using fine, delicate brush strokes he created the beginnings of a wet marsh on the mainland. Knifing quick brown vertical strokes he began the forests of Virginia. From far away a tiny voice called to him and then was gone. Sketching furiously, he lost his bearings, finding himself in another, almost-heavenly place. He seemed to float at a great height as he recreated the world he had left. He began sketching his daughter, the parson, Sir Robert, Captain Stafford and his soldiers, and the dark ones peering from the trees, the white combers racing across the blue waters of the sound, the boiling brown currents rushing through the channels, the sky radiating cerulean blue, the Chinese white clouds sailing past. He went back to the girl, her flesh pinkish white with those beautiful brown freckles. His heart raced as he rendered her and he felt alive for the first time in a long time.

  Chapter 24

  February 5, 1589. Roanoke

  An hour after sunrise Thomas Shande stood on the ramparts, his breath issuing in plumes of steam as he looked out over the low woods to the north. He shifted his feet, trying to keep them from going numb, as he pressed his hands against his sides. Gray, skeletal trees stretched up to a sky thick with cloud. At least there would be no snow, he thought, for it was far too cold for that. He heard a call and turned. Down on the deserted common, Merton approached to relieve him of his watch. As Thomas started backward down the ladder, he relished the thought of the roaring fire in the big house.

  “Be there any savages crawling about in the woods?” Merton asked when Thomas reached the ground.

  “A score or two, ‘tis all,” said Thomas.

  “Good,” said Merton, “perhaps I shall get in some musket practice… Now would you look at that.”

  Thomas turned to where Merton indicated and saw Lionel’s idiot son, Humphrey, walking alone alongside the wall. He clutched his wooden ball tightly to his chest as if he were afeard of losing it. “How did he get loose?” said Thomas. “Methinks they tie him to his bed.”

  Merton shook his head. “God could set him down in the very bowels of hell and he would be more than happy.”

  Thomas scowled and said nothing as the boy approached. When he was a few feet from the two men, he dropped the ball at their feet. “Ball,” he said.

  “Methinks he wants you to play with him,” said Merton.

  Thomas picked up the ball, turned round, and heaved it over the wall. “Go fetch,” he said.

  “Tommy boy,” said Merton with a frown, “that be a bit too cruel, methinks. That ball be his world.”

  “‘Twas his world,” said Thomas.

  The boy looked at the two men, a frown replacing his silly smile. “Ball?” he asked.

  Thomas laughed.

  “Look who comes,” said Merton.

  Maggie hurried across the common towards them. She took the boy’s hand and glared at the two men. “Ball?” the boy said to her.

  “Which of you has his ball?” she said.

  “I saw no ball,” said Thomas.

  “Nor I,” said Merton.

  Maggie shook her head in anger and led the boy away.

  Later that day when the common was unusually busy with people -- soldiers practicing close order drill, their breaths rising like puffs of smoke, other soldiers and serving men cursing and grumbling as they struggled to dig graves in the hard ground with mattocks and hoes, serving women talking softly in small groups as they watched them -- no one noticed the tiny figure walking purposefully along the palisaded wall. No one saw him as he went quietly out the half-opened gate and turned toward the woods.

  Ananias Dare wrapped the shawl Eleanor had given him over his head and around his neck as he prepared to go out. Earlier, Slade the carpenter had knocked on his door and told him that the parson wished to see him. Eleanor and maid Maggie remained in the bed, Virginia huddled between them for warmth. Thank God they were not coughing like so many of the others, Ananias thought, as he pulled the door closed. Outside the air was biting cold and a smoky haze from the fires hung low over the fort.

  Ananias felt the rock-hardness of the earth through his thin boot soles as he walked. He looked up at the palisade ramparts and saw the forlorn figures of the soldiers on guard, swaddled in rags against the cold. Turning at the Reed cottage, he came upon the bodies left out on the ground. Ten of them had been lined up for burial when the ground thawed. The Assistants had decided that all would be buried within the walls of the fort so that the savages would not know the extent of their losses. Ananias saw that these were mostly soldiers, but two were women, wearing skirts. One of those was the serving girl, Anne DeVine. Maggie had been at her bedside when she died two nights earlier. Ananias spotted the shorter form of a child in the middle of the row. That would be young George Howe, now gone up to Heaven to meet his father. Ananias remembered how little George had grieved so much that he had never again played the lute that used to bring him such joy. They would all be buried in shrouds, for Goodman Slade could not keep up with the demand for coffins.

  Ananias came to the parson’s cottage and knocked. The parson exited after a few minutes and they began walking toward the main gate.

  “Where are we going, Master Lambert?” said Ananias.

  “I wanted you to assist me in searching for Lionel’s boy. The Assistants have agreed to provide soldiers to guard us as we search.”

  Ananias nodded. “And where is Lionel? I know he searched all the day yesterday until dark.”

  Parson Lambert nodded. “Aye. I had to ask the captain to order him back into the fort. And last night he got the soldiers to sell him boose and now he is too drunk to move.”

  Ananias said nothing. Both men knew that either the savages had abducted the boy, or else he had spent the day and night in the cold. Either way he was dead. They were met by two soldiers at the gate and headed out to the tree line. They entered the woods and began walking north. The trees were bare, their branches glazed with snow and ice. The soldiers stayed back a distance as Ananias and the parson carefully trod the frozen earth.

  “What will it take?” Ananias asked the parson. “How many more deaths before the others will vote to move the settlement?”

  Lambert eyed him calmly. “I know not, Ananias. The Captain is loath to move, as you know. A ship could arrive, making the transfer much less difficult, but that is unlikely.” He gestured at the branches hanging low with ice. “Winter is not the time to attempt an overland move of such distance.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ananias with a sigh. He thought of how poorly they all were faring. Too many were sick. Too many had died. Even Sir Abraham Bane, once as big and powerful as a bear, now resembled a long, scrawny bull, too sick to stand.”

  “Thank God the Croatoans still help us,” said Lambert.

  “Aye,” said Ananias. “But their supplies and their generosity have a limit.”

  Lambert said nothing.

  With the soldiers ten paces behind them, Ananias dared not say the word, gold. But he knew it figured heavily into reluctance of the other Assistants to move. It was rumored that the many trips by Captain Stafford and his men to parley with the savages for food were really gold hunting expeditions. Ananias himself had seen Abraham Bane and Mortimer Reed conferring with Bergman, the metals assayer and Captain Stafford upon their returns. Indeed! If not for the gold that the Devon gentlemen believed was buried in these lands, they would have been on the ship going back with Governor White. Ananias, himself, cared nothing about rumors of gold. Rather, his thoughts were of his little Virginia and his good wife sleeping back in the cottage. Sometimes he thought of the savage girl that
had died in his arms on the raid and he prayed that it was not the ball from his musket that had killed her. But he knew that it very well could have been. Sometimes in his dreams her face seemed to transform into Virginia’s.

  “At the very least,” said Ananias, almost to himself, “we should set a time table for our departure.”

  Lambert inexplicably paused beneath the tall pines. “Aye,” he said absently.

  Ananias stared at the fort, visible to the south, its brown walls mottled white where snow had adhered to the timbers. “I think the savages took him,” he said.

  Lambert ignored the comment and Ananias noticed that a change had come over the parson’s countenance, like a cloud darkening the sky.

  “Captain Stafford is taking some of his soldiers to the main,” said Lambert sadly. “When he returns, Sir Robert and I will take Manteo and some others to Croatoan to trade for more corn. I would be pleased if you would come along.”

  “Is it wise to go now?” said Ananias. “The savages seem to be more aggressive.”

  “We must,” said Lambert. “The Lord will protect us. And as we all now know, with a good wind, the shallop can easily outrun the savage canoes.”

  “Aye,” said Ananias. He clapped his hands together to warm them.

  “I have been too long away from my converts at Croatoan,” said Lambert.

  Ananias’s feet were numb and the cold stabbed into his very bones. He stamped his feet to warm them. “Perhaps we should go back now. We could get frostbite. And the boy is nowhere to be seen. Surely the savages have taken him.”

  Lambert shook his head. “Nay. We have found him.”

  “Master?” Ananias said.

  Lambert indicated several little mounds of snow and ice under a small pine. Ananias stared at them and a face became evident in one, then little arms wrapped possessively around a wooden ball. The face was smiling in triumph. “God a mercy!” Ananias exclaimed, shaking his head sadly.

  Lambert knelt before the boy and broke him free from the ground. He stood and, cradling the boy like a Catholic icon in a procession, they started back to the fort.

  ***

  Maggie swept the old rushes into the hearth, flaring the fire. It was only a little past suppertime, but already Eleanor had gone upstairs to bed with little Virginia. All that afternoon Maggie had stood a vigil at little Thomas Reed’s bedside as he died. Despite the boy’s ragged breathing and perspiring brow, he had looked peaceful. But his mother, Catherine, knew no peace. She had railed against her own husband for going off with the soldier to “hunt for gold.” Maggie knew not what the soldiers did when they were away, but she knew that Goodwife Reed was so aggrieved that she would not outlive her son by much. A rapid knock came at the door and Maggie opened it. Paulina stood in the dim light, a worried look on her face.

  “Maggie, ‘tis Elizabeth’s Ol’ Jack. He is taken sick and he calls for her. But I can not find her anywhere!”

  Maggie called up to Eleanor. “Mistress, I must go out for a time.”

  “Very well, Maggie,” Eleanor called down in a weak voice.

  Outside, no one was about and a heavy pall of wood smoke hung over the common. Maggie and Paulina walked along the frozen earth of the path.

  “Have you tried the storehouse?” asked Maggie.

  “Nay.” Paulina nervously looked up at the fighting platforms built along the inside of the fort’s walls.

  Maggie followed her look and saw two soldiers watching them closely. One of them was Paulina’s latest beau. “Let us go to the storehouse,” said Maggie.

  They walked quickly. Turning a corner, they spied Sir James and Elizabeth coming out of the storehouse. Maggie and Paulina quickened their steps but the pair did not see them and entered Sir James’ cottage.

  A moment later Maggie knocked at Sir James’ door. Elizabeth opened it a crack, but did not ask them in.

  “Elizabeth,” said Maggie, “‘tis Ol’ Jack. He is very sick and he is asking for you.”

  Maggie saw the worry come into Elizabeth’s eyes. She turned to speak to Sir James. “Master, a friend is terrible sick. May I go to him?”

  “Everyone is sick,” said Sir James gruffly. “You can go on the morrow. You have chores to do now.”

  Elizabeth turned back to them, tears filling her eyes. She shook her head. “Tell him I will come in the morning.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I shall sneak out at first light. He never wakes till eight or nine of the clock.”

  Paulina shook her head in concern. “Elizabeth, tarry not, there is not much time, I fear.”

  Sir James shouted something unintelligible and Elizabeth turned away.

  The door closed and Maggie and Paulina looked at each other for a moment.

  “Has the parson been called?” said Maggie.

  “Nay.”

  “Come,” said Maggie. “We must fetch him.”

  ***

  Parson Edward Lambert walked along the common toward the rear of the fort. He saw Maggie walking ahead with ten or so of her charges on their way to the burial plot for the service. He noted the stooped posture and quiet demeanor of the children. All the deaths were weighing on them. The prayers and homilies he used to comfort their parents had less an effect on them. He walked on. They would learn to accept as they grew older.

  His eye caught movement up on the ramparts. Several ragged soldiers looked down at him. He thought worriedly of their ever-decreasing numbers at services. He had asked Stafford to give them a talking to, but if he had, it had done no good. It was another manifestation of the dark, cold malaise that had settled over the fort and all within. He would wait before taking up the issue with the captain again. The man had his back up these days and it wouldn’t do to push him too hard.

  Lambert nodded to the mourners as he approached. Despite the sadness and discomfort he felt, he preferred to be out here with them rather than back in his own cottage. His wife, although still of good health, had become morose and sullen. She would pray with him but would never tell him her thoughts, choosing instead to keep them inside where they ate away at her.

  Over the last several days the cold had lessened enough so that with much effort, the men had been able to dig the graves in a neat row. The bodies lay beside them wrapped in their shrouds. Two of them, little Humphrey and Ol’ Jack, he himself had helped to lay out.

  The mourners looked at Parson Lambert hopefully. Strangely, he found himself remembering his last trip to the village of Croatoan to preach to the savages. Not having many fine things, the savages did not want for much. And they had the faith of children, earnestly accepting the unexplainable power of God. Preaching to them had imparted to him a power that he had not felt since the early days of his ministry. But here and now with his own people so sick and almost starving, it was hard to summon that same power.

  “Let us pray,” he began. “Oh God, whose mercies cannot be numbered, accept our prayers on behalf of Thy servants …”

  Lambert walked the length of the row, pausing to look down at each shrouded form. He stopped at the end and immediately regretted it, for the wind sprang up and flipped back a shroud. The soldier stared up at him with a mocking smile frozen on his face. Lambert looked down, unable to move on. It was as if the dead man knew of Lambert’s thoughts and was challenging the strength of Lambert’s own faith. And laughing at him! Lambert turned away and concluded the ceremony. He hurried away as soon as the first shovel of earth was thrown down.

  Chapter 25

  March 13, 1589. England

  John White walked the narrow streets of Cripplegate. The month before, he had gone to see the cunning man called John Simon. Simon had been recommended by several respectable gentlemen as one who cast astrological charts with great accuracy and truth. White wondered what the intense, little man would have to say to him today regarding his future. He needed good news. The day before, White had returned from visiting Raleigh’s Durham House for a meeting with the Company of the City of Raleigh. Businessmen all, they t
alked of everything but ships. When White had inquired about Raleigh, one man had told him the great gentleman had gone off to the Orinoco River to find a golden city. Another merchant told him that Raleigh had returned to his estate in Ireland so that he could work on polishing his verse -- in order to win a lady!

  White passed the usual assortment of humanity, groups of boy apprentices, servants and yeomanry on their errands in the narrow streets. A loud rumble came from behind. Then a voice called out, “Comin’ up! Make way!” White turned. A huge dray cart pulled by a pair of geldings lumbered up the cobblestone street behind him. The cart took up the entire width of the street and he and others were forced to duck into doorways to let the thing pass or risk losing their toes to its ironclad wheels. The cart passed and White resumed his walk, coming up behind a common woman with a head of red hair. She was slightly built, like Maggie. Intrigued, he quickened his pace to get a glimpse of her. She turned and he recoiled slightly in shock. The woman was deformed, a cleft palate marring her face. He turned away as the beginning of a smile formed on her face and hurried on. Finally he came to the gate marked with two 2’s, and went in.

  Inside, the garden was in bloom with plants and herbs he did not know. A spray of red and pink gillyflowers here and there delighted the eye. White knocked on the door of the house. He thought he heard a call from within, but when he tried the door he found it barred. He waited, turning again to admire the flowers.

  The door opened and John Simon’s grim face looked out at him. Simon beckoned him in and indicated a chair. The study was in the same state of disarray as the last time White had been here, pooled remnants of candles on the desk and tables, books stacked on chairs, papers littering the floor. As White sat he became aware of a vague smell in the dark chamber. Then the door to the adjoining chamber opened and a lady exited. Her face had a color and sheen to it that immediately suggested to White that she and Simon had just lain together. She nodded demurely to Simon and walked to the door, letting herself out.