A Roll of the Bones

by Trudy J. Morgan-Cole

  “They never attacked us, but they were marauding all up and down that part of the coast,” the man called Henry Crout told everyone when he came ashore. “I had some dealings with them myself and was compelled to give them two of our pigs in return for a promise to leave us alone. Four of our men, including our surgeon, were so frighted by the thought the pirates might attack that they fled into the forest. We heard nothing more of them—we think they must have perished in the woods, or been taken by the natives.”

  “A heavy loss,” John Guy said.

  “Heavier than even the loss of the men; in his distraction Master Oliver fled with his chest, so all the medicines and surgeon’s tools we had were gone. I packed up our men and what gear we had down there, and came here, for ’tis not fit to try to plant a colony when one is harried about on all sides by pirates.”

  “No, indeed,” said Philip Guy. “We have been fortunate here thus far. How many men are still on the ship?” The rowboat had gone back out to the ship after depositing Master Guy, Master Crout, and two other Renews men on shore.

  “We plan to land sixteen men here, along with those who were in the ship with me,” Governor Guy said. It transpired that the report of a man killed by the pirates was exaggerated: John Teague had been wounded when the pirates shot at Guy’s vessel, but he was recovering. “Along with Master Crout, the minister Reverend Leat, and the apprentices, is Master Thomas Willoughby, the son of Master Crout’s employer.”

  Kathryn noticed the glance that John Guy and Henry Crout exchanged at this comment. Sir Percival Willoughby had invested a great deal in the colony. No doubt he would be little pleased at the news that some of his men had been lost already, the new settlement abandoned, and his son threatened by pirates.

  “Along with our own men and Master Crout’s,” John Guy went on, “some of the fishermen who were stationed at Renews will finish out the season here with us, giving us more hands to work and to defend the settlement. The rest will go to St. John’s, to see if that port has recovered from Easton’s attacks. It is said he captured thirty English ships there, and holds six of their captains as his captives.”

  “Six English captains?” echoed Nicholas Guy in disbelief. “How much power does he command?”

  The men went on talking of the pirate Easton, whose fleet of ships had been attacking English, French, and Portuguese vessels up and down the coast all through the spring and summer. The governor said Easton was looking for a pardon from King James. It seemed to Kathryn that capturing English ships and their captains, and harrying English fishermen and colonists, was an odd way to go about winning the king’s favour, but she knew little of the ways of pirates and was mostly relieved that Cupids Cove was spared an attack.

  Kathryn found Nancy and linked arms with her, walking down towards the water. “You were very brave, Nan, going out there to find Molly.”

  “There was naught to fear,” Nancy said with a shrug. “I told you ’twas no pirate ship. If anything, you were the braver—hopping up on that bench and giving orders! I had a like to laugh at all of them running around like a bunch of clucking hens, but you brought them all to heel mighty quick.”

  “I did, did I not?” Kathryn felt a little warm flush of pleasure. “It seems I like being in charge.”

  “You’d best have yourself a whole brood of children soon.”

  Kathryn hugged Nancy’s arm a bit closer. “I’ve not told Master Nicholas yet, but the truth is I’ve missed my flowers for the second time now. If I fell pregnant as soon as we got here, I’d be close to two months along now—do you think it could be true?”

  Nancy wrinkled her brow. “I missed my courses the first month after we landed, and you know I’m pure as the driven snow—I put it down to the voyage, and the change of food. But I had mine again only a week ago. Missing two months in a row is surely a sign, but if I were you I’d wait another month to be sure before you say anything to your master.”

  “Of course—I’d not want to raise his hopes only to have them dashed. But today, Nan, I feel as if I could bear a child here, and raise it, and all might be well. How passing strange—we are facing the first real danger we’ve faced since we came here, but yet I am sure I could face down Peter Easton myself. I’m not a bit afraid today!”

  Nancy laughed. “Hold to that feeling. I’m sure we’ll all need all the courage we can muster. Ah, there’s the boat; those must be the Renews men.”

  The young men scrambled up the ladders from the boat to the wharf, greeting the Cupids Cove men who had waited on the wharf to see them in. Ned beckoned the girls over. “This is Master Nicholas Guy’s wife,” he said to one of the strangers, “and this, her maid Nancy. You’ll soon know Nancy because if you cross her she’ll not hesitate to scold you.”

  John Teague introduced the Renews men. “These fellows are Hatton, Cowper, and Barton—all apprentices of Sir Percival Willoughby who have spent the summer fishing at Renews. And this here is Master Thomas, Sir Percival’s son.”

  The young man identified as the nobleman’s son did not, at first glance, stand out among the others. All the men were young and all dressed in shabby, work-worn clothes. “You are welcome to Cupids Cove,” Kathryn said. The apprentices touched their caps to her, and Willoughby’s son, who had been talking to Jem Holworthy, turned to greet her.

  She held back the little gasp when his eyes met hers; they were the most striking, ice-blue eyes she had ever seen, shining cold out of his weather-tanned young face. He was just a boy—younger than most of the others, about her own age. Tall and slender, his brown hair falling ragged and unkept almost to his shoulders, he bowed to her. “Mistress Guy,” he said, and flickered a brief glance and nod at Nancy before looking back at Kathryn.

  He put out his hand, and she placed hers in it. He brought it to his lips and brushed it with a kiss as he said, “I’m well pleased to see a lovely face here, Mistress Guy. The presence of a lady will brighten this harsh place indeed.” His eyes held hers; she found it impossible to glance away even as she took her hand back, and she knew her cheeks were colouring at the compliment.

  “I hope you will not find Cupids Cove so very harsh, Master Willoughby. We have done all we can to make a little England here on these shores.”

  Thomas Willoughby’s full lips looked as if they were more accustomed to pouting than to smiling, but he gave her a smile then, one that brightened his sullen, handsome face as if a lamp had been lit inside it. Even the icy eyes danced flame at her.

  “Come up to the dwelling-house now, and meet the rest of our company,” she said, finally managing to tear her eyes from his face to include the rest of the Renews men in her invitation. The clouds parted as she led the men up towards the settlement, and the day, though still chill and windy, was lit with a shaft of sunshine that touched the buildings and livestock, the hills and trees. Kathryn found herself thinking, ’Tis good that the first time Master Willoughby sees this place, the sun is shining on it.

  Then she caught herself in another surprising thought: that perhaps romance, like adventure of all sorts, was, indeed, more common in the New World than in the old, and not simply a thing for plays and storybooks.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Proposal is Made

  To have me, thou tellest me, on me thou’lt dote.

  I tell thee, Who hath me, on me must do’t,

  I may be cozened; but sure if I can,

  I’ll have no doting, but a doing man.

  CUPIDS COVE

  OCTOBER 1612

  THE FIRST WEDDING IN CUPIDS COVE—SURELY THE FIRST English wedding in all of the New Found Land—was held in October, when the busiest days of early autumn had ended. The fish were in, salted, and shipped to markets in Europe, along with some furs and timber sent back to England. Turnips, carrots, parsnips, and cabbage were harvested, and nothing more had been heard of pirates since the Renews men had arrived back in August. It felt as if the colony could draw a breath. The banns had been read, and now Reverend William Leat,
the minister that Governor Guy had brought out from England to perform marriages, baptize infants, and convert the natives, could perform the first of his duties.

  Three men and three maids were being wed in one ceremony—“Like something at the end of a comedy,” Kathryn said to Nancy. It seemed likely there would be more marriages to follow in the weeks ahead; with christenings, one assumed, following more or less nine months afterward.

  One of the couples, at least, had had the benefit of long acquaintance: Daisy More had agreed to marry Matt Grigg back in Bristol, and when he went off to seek his fortune in the New World, she had agreed that when it was possible, she would come over and join him. They had both waited faithfully for each other for two years—though in Matt’s case, there was no particular virtue in that faithfulness, since there had been no other women to tempt him in all that time.

  Nancy remembered how Daisy had chattered about her darling Matt on the voyage across. At the same time, a shipboard romance had blossomed between Daisy’s sister Molly and a young labourer named Tom Taylor. They, too, were marrying today, as sure of themselves after two months together as Daisy and Matt were after two years apart. The third bride was the dark and quiet Elsie, Elizabeth Guy’s serving girl. She was marrying Jem Holworthy, whose father, a Bristol merchant, surely would have wished him to make a better marriage. But the governor had given permission, perhaps out of a suspicion that unsuitable matches were better than merrybegot babes.

  “Between the two of them, I hardly know how they’ll collect enough words to say their vows,” Nancy had said to Ned, for Holworthy was almost as taciturn as his bride.

  “No doubt ’twill be the happiest marriage in the cove, with neither of them to gainsay the other,” Ned said.

  Back home in Bristol, these were the comments Nancy would have shared with Kathryn in bed at night, voices low and curtains pulled around them. But now that Kathryn was reunited with her husband, Nancy slept near the hearth with Daisy, Molly, and Bess. As two of the new-wedded couples were from their household, that arrangement would change after today; new beds had been built upstairs in Nicholas Guy’s house for Daisy and Matt, Molly and Tom. Nancy and Bess would be left to share the bed downstairs by the fireside.

  Wherever anyone slept at night, and whoever they slept beside, it was all hands to work throughout the days, side by side at the hundreds of tasks required of colonists. Nancy had worked hard back in Bristol, but she felt a weariness at the end of every day here that was entirely different. Pulling weeds from the harsh, thin soil, hauling buckets of water from the pond, chopping firewood, spinning the wool they had sent out from England: all these tasks, in addition to the mundane household work of cooking and cleaning and sewing and brewing, left her bone-tired at the end of the day.

  But Sunday was the day of rest—at least, the day when chores were kept as few as possible, when the whole company gathered in largest of the dwelling-houses to hear Reverend Leat read the service and preach a sermon. There was a communal meal on Sundays after the sermon; today two cooks had made an extra effort with rabbit pies and a fish stew to provide something of a feast for after the wedding.

  “For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish till death us depart,” echoed each of the brides and bridegrooms in turn, save that the women promised also to obey. Those vows surely carried more weight here than they would have done back in Bristol, for here the chances of sickness, of poverty, of death parting the couples, were even greater than they would have been at home. Nancy scanned their faces as each of three couples in turn said their vows. Daisy raised her round little chin a fraction, as if reminding herself she had chosen this lot, and was vowing her loyalty as much to the colony as to Matt Grigg. Elsie looked, frankly, terrified; her hands were knotted together and trembling. Molly was the only one who smiled as she said her “I will,” a dimple appearing in her round cheek. She had a dimple on her left cheek; Bess had one on her right, and Nancy could only be sure of telling them apart when they both smiled.

  The date for the threefold wedding had been carefully chosen: after the garden was harvested and the fishing done, but before the Indeavour departed on its first voyage of exploration along the coast. The voyage had been delayed till autumn because of the danger of pirates, but John Guy now deemed it safe to venture further along the coast. The governor was going on the voyage himself, as was Nicholas Guy; Master Philip would stay behind with Master Colston and Master Catchmaid, to govern the settlement. Sixteen other men were going, all with the intention of trying to find the natives of the country and open trade with them.

  “In two years, we’ve seen no trace of them,” Ned told her over the midday meal following the service. “The pirates and fishermen say the natives frequent this part of the island but little, so if we want to find them, we must needs go to them.”

  “But why do we want to find them? Would it not be better if they leave us alone, and we leave them alone?”

  “The masters say we’ll have to truck with the natives if we’re to succeed here. Besides the chance of trading with them for furs, they know far more about the land than we do. The governor talks of bringing a few of them back to England, so they may learn our tongue and our ways.” “What if they do not want to go? Would they have to be taken captive?”

  Ned frowned. “I’m sure if we can teach them enough English to make ourselves understood, they would be glad to come live among civilized folk.”

  “Perhaps. Do you remember Master Gale telling us about the wild folk from the North that were brought into Bristol?” The man, woman, and child from the far northern reaches of the New World had been paraded on display by a Captain Frobisher, and Master Gale, like many Bristol folk, had gone to see them when he was a younger man. But it was said they did not live long after being captured and brought to England. “And what of those Africans that the Spanish take for slaves? Like as not, most of the folk in the world would rather be left alone than set sail on any of our ships.”

  “They might not think of it as we do. In truth, we don’t know how they think at all. That is why we must meet them, learn their ways.”

  “If you be so eager to learn of the natives, why are you not going on the Indeavour?”

  Ned shifted in his seat and devoted his attention to his pie again. “I’m more use here, working on the walls and buildings,” he said. “Every man to his best efforts. I am...not much of a seaman.”

  “Meaning you get sick every time you go out on the water?”

  “Perhaps. A bit.” He looked up again then, and grinned. “Oh, very well. I was sick as a dog all the way across from England. If I can help to build the colony by keeping my feet on dry ground, I’ll stick with that.” He looked wistful for a moment. “I do wish I could see those wild men of the forest, though. I am curious about what’s out there.”

  “That is the great difference between us, then,” Nan said, tearing off a hunk of rye bread and dipping it into the rich gravy of the pie. “I am not curious in the least about what’s out there. I only hope to survive it. What if they find out we are here and are angry at us, and come attack us in our beds one night?”

  “Neither savage nor pirate will dare attack this settlement,” Nicholas Guy said, overhearing their conversation. “We are as safe here as back in Bristol, Nancy; you need not fear. Indeed, we may be better off, for the drought continues in England, while we have every abundance here.”

  “We’ve no shortage of turnips, anyway,” said Nancy. It seemed that vegetables like turnips and cabbage grew better than grains in the New Found Land’s thin soil and cold climate. There was indeed abundance in this land: fish teeming in the waters, all kinds of wild creatures in the woods to hunt, and fruit that grew rich and heavy on the bushes in autumn—berries of all kinds. But there had been no success at growing any kind of grain in the last year, and they still depended on barrels of wheat, rye, and oats shipped out from England to make their flour.

  Nic
holas Guy, Ned, and all the other men who had spent two years here, were almost painfully eager to convince the women they had come to a good place—a country that was safe where food was plentiful. Nancy stole a glance at Kathryn, seated next to her husband, across from Nancy. When the Indeavour left on its voyage and Nicholas Guy went with it, Nancy hoped she and Kathryn could have their long talks again. She wondered if Kathryn took as rosy a view of colonial life in private as she did in public.

  Later in the afternoon, with chores done and shadows outside growing long, everyone gathered again in the large dwelling-house. This time, the solemnity of prayers and sermon was replaced by music and dancing in honour of the wedding. John Crowder played his fiddle and the three new-wedded couples got up to dance. Then other couples joined the set as men pulled women to their feet. A good number of the men danced on their own, feet flying to the lively tune.

  Kathryn was quickly swept away by her husband, and Nancy sat on the bench chatting with Bess until George Whittington, fancying himself God’s gift to the women of the New World, danced by and held out a hand to Nancy. “Come, Nan, we’ve not got nearly enough girls out on the floor. None of your sauce, now—I demand a dance!”

  “Demand it from Bess, she’s got far less sauce to go around,” Nancy said, cocking her head towards her companion.

  “What about it, Bessie? Fancy a turn around the floor?”

  Nancy knew for a fact that Bess was waiting for Frank Tipton to ask her to dance. All the same, she lifted her chin with the exact same gesture her sister Daisy had used while saying her vows. “I don’t mind if I do, Whittington.” She took his hand quickly, no doubt eager to be out dancing rather than pining away after missed opportunities.