Lovestorm

by Judith E. French

  Her destiny had never troubled her. She had accepted it with the same ease that she accepted her own physical beauty. Her honey-blond hair had framed a face that would have commanded attention even in a girl without her family’s wealth and position. She had inherited her fair looks from a grandmother and had never been particularly vain about them. She had known, of course, that her physical charms enhanced her value in her father’s eyes, and she had taken a most unmaidenly pleasure in the fact that her older sister Alice had a nose too long to be considered attractive.

  Alice had wed the widowed earl of Trusberry two years before and had flaunted her new title, reminding Elizabeth that Edward Lindsey had small chance of ever coming to his father’s title. “I shall take precedence over you when we are presented at court,” she had said mockingly.

  Elizabeth had only laughed. Alice’s earl was in his dotage and as bald as a pigeon egg. Edward might have an unpleasant disposition, but at least his flanks wouldn’t be as thin as bed slats.

  The high tones of a flute snatched her from her reverie. The haunting refrain came from just outside the wigwam. Cain, she thought. It must be Cain! Unable to resist the lure of the music, she rose from her bed and left the wigwam.

  When she got outside, he was gone. The notes faded into the night, leaving only the sound of the wind and the waves. “Did I dream it?” she whispered.

  The fire had burned low. She knelt beside it, holding out her hands to the warmth. Minutes passed, and then he was there sitting beside her.

  “How do you do that?” she demanded.

  “Do what?”

  “Come and go without my seeing or hearing you. That was you playing the flute, wasn’t it?”

  He shrugged. His face was immobile, revealing nothing. “Perhaps you heard the dolphins. They sing at night.”

  “Do they?” She inhaled shakily. “I would like to hear them sometime. There were dolphins when I was alone in the boat on the sea. They kept me company for a while.” One hand dropped to her side; idly she sifted sand through her fingers. “That was no dolphin I heard before. Where is your flute?”

  “Do you wish to see the dolphins now?” Catching her hand, he pulled her up on her feet and began to run down the beach. When they reached his dugout, Cain pointed to a place in the bow. “Sit there,” he ordered.

  “Now? We’re going out on the ocean now?”

  “You said you would see the dolphins. I do not know if they will sing tonight, but they will swim in the moonlight. Will you come, Eliz-a-beth?”

  Nodding, she climbed into the boat. For the first time, she realized that she had seen nothing of the longboat since he had brought her ashore. “What did you do with the boat I was in?” she asked.

  “Burned it for firewood.” The muscles on his back and shoulders rippled as he began to push the dugout down the sand to the water. Elizabeth clung to the sides with both hands. With a shout, he splashed into the low rolling surf and shoved the boat toward an outgoing wave. When he was almost chest-deep in water, Cain heaved himself over the side, seized his paddle, and guided the dugout through the waves.

  In minutes, they were beyond the surf. Cain chanted as he drove the paddle into the sea in a steady, rhythmic pattern. Elizabeth couldn’t understand the words of his song, but she found herself humming along.

  Gliding along the surface of the dark water seemed almost like flying. As the moonlight frosted the waves with silver, Elizabeth hugged herself to prove she wasn’t dreaming. The spray was cold against her face, but she didn’t care. The night was one of wild enchantment, and she meant to savor every bit of it. She glanced back at Cain, and her heart thudded in her chest so loudly she was certain he must hear it.

  “You promised me dolphins,” she reminded him.

  In answer, he raised the tip of his paddle and pointed. From the east, a dark form rose in the water and emitted a shrill cry.

  “Oh,” Elizabeth murmured as the second dolphin broke the surface of the sea. “They’re coming. They’re really coming.”

  He nodded. “They come, and if the wind is kind, perhaps they will sing to you of deep water and far-off shores . . . or perhaps they will sing you a tale of the dolphin people who live beneath the sea.”

  “Perhaps they will,” she agreed with shining eyes. “After this, I’d believe anything.”

  Chapter 6

  The sweet, poignant song of the dolphins echoed in Elizabeth’s head in the days and weeks that followed. There was no repeat of the intimate kiss she and Cain had shared that night they watched the vixen and her cubs, but she knew that a bond was forming between them. “Our souls have touched,” Cain had said. Elizabeth wondered if, in his primitive way, he was right.

  Although they lived together in his wigwam, shared their meals, slept within arm’s reach, and spent most of their waking hours together, both were careful not to touch. No maiden aunt could have been treated with more courtesy; no cloistered nun could have expected more respect from a man. Yet no hour passed without Elizabeth being intensely aware of Cain’s masculinity or the fact that he was courting her.

  Each morning when she awoke, she found a gift beside her sleeping platform: a polished conch shell, a string of copper beads, a comb of honey, a scarlet feather. Once there was a slate-colored stone, weathered and beaten by the ocean, twisted by nature into the form of a dolphin. Using only beach sand and reeds, Cain had painstakingly drilled a hole through the top so that the amulet could be worn on a braided leather cord.

  At night, Elizabeth fell asleep to the sounds of an eagle-bone flute and to the muted cries of owls and nighthawks. Her dreams were always of Cain, and in the misty world of her dreams he did not keep his distance. Time after time, she woke at first light still feeling the warmth of his touch, the thrill of his impassioned embrace.

  With May came the buzz of honeybees and the heady scents of wildflowers. Never had she seen or smelled such a profusion of plants and flowers, spilling across the earth in every color of the rainbow. She gathered handfuls of blossoms, laced them in her hair, and filled the wigwam and campsite with fragrant bouquets.

  The warm weather brought other changes to the beach. Birds and ducks and geese filled the skies, and the soft spring air rang with their melodious calls of mating. Cain pointed out the different types of shore birds, patiently identifying them in his own language. Gradually, Elizabeth began to sort out their colors and sizes, finding immense delight in matching the Lenni-Lenape words to the right bird.

  Cain taught her to weave a fish net and carve a fish spear. At night they would go out in the dugout beyond the surf. She would hold a torch over the water, and he would spear the fish attracted by the light. Together, they dug clams and netted crabs in a shallow bay to the west.

  Always, Cain took exactly what they needed and no more. “To waste is against the ways of Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu, the Great Spirit,” he explained gently. “It is a great wrong.”

  “Like a sin, you mean?” she had answered.

  “A mortal sin,” he agreed.

  “Then this Inu-msi is your god. I thought his name was Wishemenetoo.”

  Cain had frowned, searching for the right words to explain something he obviously believed even a child should know. “No. They are not the same. Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu is the Great Spirit, a grandmother. Wishemenetoo is the Great Good Spirit. Wishemenetoo is a male spirit.”

  “You told me you believed in one God, as I do,” she had reminded him. “Now you say there are two Indian gods.”

  He had sighed and shook his head. “One Creator, one over all. We do not speak His name.” He stared at her shrewdly. “And the English have more than one god.”

  “We do not.”

  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” Cain retorted. “Three.”

  “It isn’t the same.”

  “The same.”

  “You are a pagan. I don’t expect you to understand. ”

  He had laughed. “Who made the sea, the earth, and the heavens?”

  �
�God.”

  “What is His name?”

  “Just God. He has no other name.”

  “Ah hah! One Creator. I know His name, but I will not tell you.”

  “We have no female gods.”

  Cain’s eyes narrowed mischievously. “Mary.”

  “She is the mother of our Lord, but she isn’t a god.”

  “You pray to her. This one has heard you. ‘Holy Mary,’ you say. ‘Cede for me.’ ”

  “It isn’t the same.”

  “Same.”

  Elizabeth had decided it wasn’t worth discussing theology with an Indian. He didn’t realize when he was being blasphemous, and he took the entire subject too lightly.

  Late one afternoon, Elizabeth returned from the pond with water for cooking. Cain had taken his bow and arrows and left camp after the midday meal, promising to bring home a turkey. Spending part of the day alone was no longer frightening for her. In all of her time on the beach, the only dangerous creature she had seen was a shark, and that had been caught on one of Cain’s fishing lines. She had begun to think of the wilderness not as an enemy, but as her friend. The forest gives us food and drink and shelter, she thought. I’d be foolish to go on being afraid of my own shadow.

  The day was so warm that she had cast aside her moccasins, running about in bare feet as she had done on carefree afternoons in her childhood. She’d just entered the camp when she saw two human figures coming down the beach and was so startled that she dropped the water jug. The clay bowl broke as it struck the ground and water sprayed in all directions, but Elizabeth didn’t notice. She stood frozen to the spot, staring at the advancing men.

  The strangers were too far away for her to tell if they were red or white, but the men carried a large bundle between them, swinging from two poles. Seizing a fish spear that stuck upright in the sand, Elizabeth ran toward the advancing party. “Hello!” she cried. “Hello, there! Are you English?”

  Her heart pounded as she ran. Had the men come to rescue her? Had they been searching since the shipwreck? She strained her eyes in the bright sunlight, trying to make out their features.

  The figures stopped and pointed in her direction, then quickened their pace. The lead man waved and called out, but Elizabeth couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “Hallo! I’m Elizabeth Sommersett!” she shouted. Her bare feet sank into the hot sand. “Hallo! Hallo!” Her breath came in great gulps, and she was dizzy with excitement. The running soon tired her, and she slowed to a trot and finally a walk. The men were much closer now, almost close enough to . . .

  Elizabeth stopped, swallowing a lump in her throat. The men were copper-colored, not white, and the first man wore his black hair in a high stiff comb, shaved on either side. His face was painted with yellow streaks, and his legs were bare beneath a short loincloth. The second man was older, with streaks of gray in his long hair.

  She leaned on the fish spear, trying to catch her breath and regain her composure as they approached.

  “Ta koom?” the man with the shaved head called.

  “A Lenni-Lenape?” his companion asked.

  “Mata. Quanna eet auween gatta napenalgun.” Both men laughed.

  Elizabeth stiffened. Lenni-Lenape, she understood, and the word mata. Cain used it for no. “I am Elizabeth Sommersett,” she replied formally. “I am English.”

  “Englishhokkuaa?” came a muffled voice from inside the large skin bag. “You are English?” The tone was high and reedy, the accent strangely like Cain’s.

  Hair rose on the back of Elizabeth’s neck, and her mouth dropped open in astonishment.

  The men came closer, and a shriveled hand appeared through a hole in the bundle, pushing aside the flap. Two faded blue eyes peered at Elizabeth from a tiny, wrinkled face. “Good morrow, Mistress Eliz-a-beth,” came the stilted greeting from the bright-eyed elf. “I am verra pleased to make your ‘quaintance. I be Mistress Virginia Dare.”

  Elizabeth blinked twice and backed away. “But you can’t be,” she protested. “Virginia Dare has been dead for nearly a hundred years. She was massacred with Sir Walter Raleigh’s lost colony.”

  The second man said something in the Indian tongue that sounded like a question, and the elf answered. Again, both men laughed.

  Elizabeth felt her face flush. “I’m not a fool,” she said, feeling like one. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  The little old woman chuckled, a sound like dry cornhusks rubbing together. “I have told you, child. I am Virginia Dare, the daughter of Ananias and Eleanor White Dare. I was born on August 18, in the year of our Lord, 1587. That hardly makes me one hundred years old, even if I be poorly at sums.”

  “What . . . what do you want here?” Elizabeth stammered.

  “I come to see my grandson, Cain.” Her face dissolved into a mass of wrinkles as she smiled, revealing a mouthful of pearly white teeth. “Are you Shaakhan’s woman? Have you broken the marriage cake together?”

  “No. Mata!” Elizabeth cried. ”I am not his wife. I was on a ship bound for Jamestown and we were wrecked at sea. He rescued—”

  The old woman laughed again. “He plucked you from the sea?” She clapped her hands together. “He said it! He said you would be a gift from the sea.” She flung out her hands. “Come close, daanus. Come here, daughter, and greet your grandmother. I have waited so long to see you.”

  “No.” Elizabeth backed away. “You aren’t my grandmother, and you aren’t Virginia Dare.”

  The older brave shifted one pole a few inches to ease his shoulder, and pointed north along the forest’s edge. “Pennau!”

  Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder and gave a sigh of relief as Cain came striding across the beach. The two men waved and called a greeting; the elf waited in silence for Cain to draw near.

  “Ili kleheleche?” Cain said formally. “Grandmother, do you still draw breath?”

  “N’leheleche,” the old woman replied. “Yes, I still draw breath.”

  Cain flashed a smile at Elizabeth, then dropped to his knees and extended his hands to the little woman. “My heart is glad to see you again, Cocumtha. It has been too long.”

  “It eases these old eyes to see you again,” she answered, hugging him. “We see you find that which you seek.” Mistress Dare released him and looked pointedly at Elizabeth. “Did I not tell you that Englishwomen have hair like autumn grass?” She chuckled. “Did I not say that I had such hair in my day?”

  Cain rose to his feet and went back to Elizabeth, catching her by the hand. “You have met my dear grandmother,” he said. “You must say to her a good greeting in English.”

  Feeling awkward, Elizabeth executed the most graceful curtsy possible in a short deerskin dress. “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress Dare,” she said.

  Cain nodded his approval. “This is my uncle, M’biak,” he explained, “and this is H’kah-nih Elene, Bone Man.” Cain grinned. “H’kah-nih Elene is a Shawnee and very fierce.”

  The crested warrior said something in his own tongue and smiled broadly at Elizabeth.

  “He does not speak English,” Cain continued, “but he understands a little. He has been to trade with the white men at their settlement, and he says they called him Harry. He says you may call him Harry also, so that you do not make a mock of his true name.”

  At the mention of the English settlement, Elizabeth felt a rush of excitement. If Harry had been there, perhaps she could persuade him to take her. Calmly, hiding her thoughts from Cain, she curtsied once more. “M’biak, Harry,” she said graciously. “Good morrow, sirs.”

  Harry spoke again, and M’biak pursed his lips to keep from laughing. Elizabeth looked expectantly at Cain.

  “He says your manners are much better than those of Englishmen. He says they behave like overfed toads in a muddy pond.”

  “Did you come from Jamestown?” Elizabeth asked Harry. “Jamestown?”

  Cain’s grandmother chuckled. “Mosquito Town,” she corrected in her thin
wavering voice. “These English build on swamp. I think wigwams sink into mud before many seasons pass.” She scratched the top of her head. “Are we to stand here all afternoon?” she demanded peevishly. “I am hot in this bag, and my belly growls with hunger. Will my grandson invite us to his campfire before the snow flies?”

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Cain replied with affection. ”I have the manners of an Englishman. Come. There is a basket of oysters cooling in the pond and a turkey for the spit.” He motioned toward the campsite. “We will sit in the shade and you will tell me all the gossip.”

  “This one does not gossip,” Mistress Dare protested. “But I do have news of your cousin, Aman. He has taken Yapewi’s young wife. Between them, they have made a scandal.”

  “I knew you would have something interesting to tell me.” Cain winked at Elizabeth. “Grandmother forgets that she once caused the greatest scandal of all.”

  Laughing and talking together in the Indian tongue, the group moved up the beach to Cain’s camp. Mistress Dare swung gently to and fro in her skin litter as her bearers trotted along. Elizabeth trailed after them, trying to sort out truth from nonsense. Obviously, the old woman was Cain’s grandmother. Could she possibly be Virginia Dare—the first English child born in America—or was this all some monstrous jest?

  When they reached the wigwam, Cain helped his grandmother from her strange conveyance. To Elizabeth’s relief, the white-haired woman was not crippled and was quite able to walk under her own power.

  Elizabeth tried not to stare at her strange apparel. The old lady wore a long skirt of the finest white doeskin that reached the tips of her tiny quill-worked moccasins. The skirt was topped with a tightly laced vest, worn over a full-sleeved bodice with wide, beaded cuffs. Around her neck was a ruffled collar consisting of hundreds of russet and white feathers, and on the back of her head she wore a matching feather cap that tied under her chin. Her hair, what there was of it, was tucked under the cap. Large pearls in an old-fashioned silver setting dangled from her tiny pierced ears. Elizabeth could have sworn the earrings were of English design.