Serpent Never Sleeps

  EIGHTEEN

  I was no sooner back at the fort, having failed to bring Pocahontas with me, than the High Council—Governor Gates, Admiral Somers, Secretary Strachey, and others—met together in a short session. Without a dissenting voice, they voted to abandon the colony and return to England.

  Four days after their decision, to a stir of drums and a fusillade of musketry, we left Jamestown and moved down the river on our way to the sea. We were not out of sight when the Indians swarmed into the deserted fort. Their flaming brands glowed in the dusk.

  We anchored at the mouth of the river and ate supper on the deck of Deliverance. It was a happy feast, for most everyone was glad to be going home to England—not only the survivors of the awful winter, but also the newcomers shocked by the desolation they had seen.

  As for me, I was the happiest person at the feast.

  Already I was across the endless sea. I was home in Foxcroft, at my desk in the tower, about to write a letter to James, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. But what could I say? I cudgeled my brain. I got up from the desk. I peered out the window at the River Dane flowing sweetly in the meadow.

  The king wouldn't know that I had followed Anthony Foxcroft to Plymouth and beyond. He'd think that I had been seized by the New World fever, a fever that he himself had kindled. But would he look kindly upon the fact that I had turned down his kingly offer to be a secretary to his wife, Queen Anne? Would he? If not, what then?

  The feast lasted well into the night. Survivors had regained their taste for food and consumed great quantities of it, to the point that before the feast was over, Somers grew alarmed that our supplies wouldn't last till we reached England.

  Even six-year-old Humility, comforted by the thought that both her father and mother were in heaven and she would see them soon, ate like a grown-up, some of everything, but two of the big turtle eggs, which she had never tasted before. I told her how the turtles swam out of the sea, dug holes in the sand, laid their eggs, and covered them up, and how later on, often on a moonlit night, the eggs hatched and the tiny turtles crawled down to the sea and swam away.

  Humility got up and quietly disappeared.

  "She's a pretty child," Emma Swinton said. "But she's in dire need of guidance. Prettiness can lead to sin, you know. She needs a Christian mother."

  "You'll have to ask Governor Gates about that," Tom Barlow said.

  "I'll do so tonight. There's no time to lose. The devil never nods."

  I left the two of them arguing about the devil. I found Admiral Somers, who again was in charge of the expedition now that we were going to sea, and told him that I liked Humility and wanted to take care of her.

  "Legally?" he asked.

  "Legally, beginning now, if you please."

  "There are papers to sign. We'll attend to them in the morning."

  "Why papers? Why can't I just take her?"

  "Steal her, like a gypsy? No, it's the law."

  "Then remember that I asked for her first. Someone else wants her."

  "Who?"

  "Emma Swinton."

  "I'll remember," the admiral said. "I'll remember well."

  But the papers were not signed the next day. An hour after sunrise, as the tide turned and Admiral Somers made ready to depart with the current, a lookout on Deliverance called down from his lofty mainmast perch. Everyone crowded to the rail.

  "Sails!" the lookout shouted.

  A gray mist swirling low along the river made phantom shapes that looked like castles.

  "It can't be," Governor Gates shouted back.

  "Sails," the lookout shouted. "A fleet. Sailing slow against the current."

  "No ship sails against the current," the governor told him angrily, "slow or otherwise. Look again!"

  There was a short silence. Then the lookout said, "Five ships, sir. Coming slow against the current on the starboard tack, sir. Could be Spaniards."

  Governor Gates stiffened at the word "Spaniards." Enemies of England, they were strongly placed in habitations along the southern coast and on the islands of the Caribbean Sea, ready to pounce upon the rich lands of Virginia now that Jamestown lay abandoned.

  He took a step toward the mainmast, as if to climb to the tower where the lookout crouched. Instead, he shouted, "Do you see markings, Spanish markings? The cross and the castle of Castile?"

  "Nothing of the kind, sir. And the ships are rigged the English way. It's an English fleet, five ships heading straight toward us. And against the current, sir."

  "If they sail against the current, they're English."

  Admiral Somers, dismayed by the conversation, spoke up. "Come, come, there's no fleet, English, Spanish, or otherwise, that sails against this current. More than likely the fleet's not sailing at all. It's anchored and we are sailing toward it."

  This proved to be true. In less than an hour we overtook the five ships.

  They were anchored at Mulberry Isle, waiting for the tide to turn. All were larger than ours and they were not Spanish. The flag of St. George flew at the mainmasts and, around the largest ship, just below the railings, ran a waistcloth emblazoned with an English coat of arms.

  "I recognize the ship and its waistcloth. She belongs to Lord De La Warr," Admiral Somers said.

  "To think that if we had sailed an hour sooner," Governor Gates said, "whilst the river was still fogged, we would have missed him."

  The Reverend Bucke fell to his knees. Cannons roared aboard the Deliverance and a ragged round of musketfire sounded from the Patience. Settlers crowded to the rails. A few cheered, but most were confused or outright stunned.

  To me, it was a bitter disappointment—De La Warr's five ships anchored there in the river, flags waving, decks crowded with settlers. Our people, despite what they had lived through, waved back. It meant that my dreams of England had come to an end.

  Tom Barlow, beside himself with joy, couldn't speak. He lifted Humility to the rail so she could see the ships.

  "What are they?" she asked.

  "New settlers," I said, "in five big ships."

  "Where are they going?"

  "To Jamestown."

  "It is a bad place. Why are they going to Jamestown? There's nothing in Jamestown anymore."

  "To start a new colony."

  "Why?"

  "Because" was the best answer I could give her.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Back to Jamestown."

  She gave me a fearful look.

  "Jamestown's saved by a miracle," a shrill voice said.

  It was Emma Swinton, elbowing her way toward us, reaching out for Humility.

  "You are saved, too, dear child," she said, "snatched from the sinful life of English sinners. I know Foxcroft. It's a sinful place."

  As she reached for Humility, picking at her with bony fingers, I clasped the child.

  "She's mine, she's mine," Emma Swinton kept saying.

  I turned my back. With a threat, she hustled off, calling out for Admiral Somers.

  Tom Barlow said to comfort the child, "The ships are stuffed with food. Now you'll have lots to eat. All you can eat every day and in the middle of the night."

  I didn't think the child heard him. She was trembling, staring at the ships.

  Tom looked at me, his eyes on fire. I imagined he was shaggy John Calvin, as I always did.

  "Like this child, you are also saved from sin," he said.

  I walked away, still clutching Humility, and found a place on the sterncastle deck where the fleet was hidden from view. The wide river stretched far out to sea.

  "There'll be a ship sailing back to England one of these days," I said to Humility, "and we'll sail with her. We'll sail to where I live. I live in a tower and you'll live with me. And you'll have lots to eat every day."

  Humility smiled. "Promise?" she asked.

  I crossed my heart and promised, but I doubted this day would ever come.

  Tom Barlow appeared and said, "Somers is in command until we're on sho
re and De La Warr takes over. I'll talk to him about the child."

  He came back before we landed at Jamestown with a scribbled paper signed by Admiral Somers. It did not give me the right to claim Humility as my daughter but did give me the right, so long as we were in Virginia, to serve as her guardian. The gift brightened the hour.

  NINETEEN

  We sailed with the tide and led Lord De La Warr's fleet up the James.

  Silence gripped our ship when the abandoned fort loomed through the mist. It was strange to return to the ghostly place we had departed just the day before, never to return. I do believe that Tom Barlow was the only happy one among us.

  Attired in slashed red velvet, Lord De La Warr leaped ashore and beckoned us up the hillock where the church had stood. Here, flanked by fifty liveried attendants, his standard-bearer read the terms of De La Warr's commission. The Reverend Bucke held a short thanksgiving service, and then the noble lord spoke at length in a voice that would have shaken the rafters had there been any to shake.

  "We shall rebuild the church," he said. "We shall rebuild the fort and build new forts down the river, two of them, to be called Fort Henry and Fort Charles in honor of the two sons of our king. We shall restore and strengthen the palisades and bulwarks. The church will be larger than before. Sturdy houses will go up. Above all, more land will be cleared and planted. We shall not starve again!"

  There was some applause at these bright prospects. But on the whole the one hundred sixty new arrivals, the one hundred fifty men, women, and children from Bermuda, the few survivors from the Starving Time, were uneasy. They wondered, as I did, how all this could be accomplished.

  Lord De La Warr was quick to give the answer. "We shall work six hours each day of the week, save Sunday. Furthermore, no one, not even the gentlemen, shall be exempt from work. Those whose breeding has not acquainted them with the saw, the pick, the ax, and the hammer shall be introduced to the same."

  The "gentlemen" were silent. The footmen and bodyservants hired by the gentlemen to attend them were also silent. It was a scene much like the one in Bermuda when Governor Gates had harangued the crowd. And with the same effect.

  Six of the new gentlemen and six from Francis Pearepoint's Bermuda group were sent to the mouth of the river, which teemed with every variety of fish. After two days they came back with empty baskets, having failed to cast a single hook.

  The rebuilding of the church and the bulwarks dragged, as did work on the huts and the fort. Fort Charles and Fort Henry were never started. Fields lay uncleared and untilled. Indians watched from the tall marsh grass, from bush and tree.

  After some months Lord De La Warr fell ill and decided to return to England. He complained of weakness of the limbs, but I believe he had foreseen that this Supply, like the First and Second Supplies, would fail. Winter had found the garrison without adequate food or shelter. And the failure would be blamed squarely upon him.

  Lord De La Warr's decision gave me a chance to return to England. I hadn't spoken a word to him during his months in Jamestown, but I had met him at the Foxcroft masque, when he made a passing comment about my pretty blue dress.

  I went to talk to him once I heard of his decision and took Humility with me.

  He had kept himself apart from the fort, living and directing the colony's affairs from his flagship. His cabin was twice the size of Admiral Somers' cabin on the Sea Venture, all paneled in precious woods, with golden scrolls around the doors and a ceiling covered with scenes of Neptune and his court of sea nymphs sporting among the waves.

  A small man, he looked even smaller now. He had shrunk since the day he stepped ashore at Jamestown in his large white ruff and slashed red velvet.

  He sat at a big table, half-hidden behind a pyramid of charts and papers. He didn't rise as I came in or ask me to sit in one of his damask chairs. Nor did he do so when I introduced myself and reminded him that we had met at the Foxcroft masque.

  "Oh, yes, to raise funds for the Virginia venture," he said scornfully. "What a hapless occasion! Little did we know what a calamity we were bringing down upon ourselves. What laughter we would evoke among our enemies, the Spaniards! What turmoil lay in store. The impoverishment of many who financed the folly. The deaths of lordly reputations."

  "And the deaths of many people," I said.

  He peered at me over the pyramid of charts, his eyes cold, as if I were to blame for Jamestown. The tide was running and the flagship strained against the ropes that held her to the trees. I thought that she, too, was anxious to leave Jamestown.

  "Why are you here," he asked me, "instead of at work?"

  He was angry before I had a chance to say a word. It was a bad beginning.

  "I wish to go with your ship when you return to England."

  Lord De La Warr got to his feet as if to dismiss me, tottered, grasped his chair, and sat down again.

  "Back to England? To England!" he shouted in a weak voice. "What an outlandish idea! You're sorely needed here, young woman."

  "But, sir, you just said that Jamestown's a calamity. That our enemies, the Spaniards, are laughing at us."

  He sighed. "Words spoken in a weak moment. Jamestown will persist and flourish. As soon as I return to London, I'll see that a hardened soldier is sent out to take my place. Someone who has been in battle. Someone who can handle the shiftless and tame the unruly, deliver a bloody nose or spring the gallows trap, whatever the offense demands. Someone with a stronger stomach than I have. Above all, a man who will see the Indian for what he really is—a treacherous barbarian—and treat him as such."

  "Sir, I have this child to look after. She's one of the three children who survived the Starving Time. All of them are ill. They can't possibly last another winter, even if you send a soldier who can tame the unruly and kill the Indians."

  "Who is your husband? Where is he? Bring him here. I have a word for him. The child?"

  "I am unmarried, sir, and the girl's name is Humility Pryor. Admiral Somers has made me her guardian until we get to England."

  Humility was hidden from him behind the vast desk. I brought her forward to the center of the cabin where he could see the face that seemed all eyes and the arms and legs that looked like sticks.

  "Children are needed here in Jamestown," he said. "They're the heart of the future. Don't worry, she'll be taken care of when our new leader arrives." He paused. "By the way, you signed a legal contract before you boarded the ship in Plymouth, did you not?"

  "By happenstance, sir. I sold shares at the Foxcroft masque, you may remember, but I never intended to come to Jamestown. Jamestown was far from my thoughts."

  The cold look in De La Warr's eyes disappeared, or was it a shaft of sunlight that suddenly came through the windows?

  "I remember now," he said. "You were madly in love with Anthony Foxcroft and followed him to Plymouth. Tongues wagged. It was a scandal. To Plymouth and beyond. To Bermuda. I've heard that he was lost at sea."

  Suddenly there burst upon us a frightened soldier who announced that hostiles were lurking on the river. "Three canoes," he said, "carrying what look to be six warriors painted red and black. One of them has a gun, which he shot at us. Struck Sir William Poses in the arm. We can overtake them, sir. They're going slow."

  "In what direction?"

  "Upriver."

  "Let them proceed."

  "But, sir, they're—"

  Lord De La Warr waved him out of the cabin.

  Waiting to come in was the cook. When the lord told an attendant to shut the door, the cook said through the crack, "Weevils in the corn, sir."

  "Sort them out," De La Warr said.

  "Hundreds, sir."

  "Sort out what you can," De La Warr said, turning his cold eyes upon me. "And now you wish to return to England. A busy young lady, heh? You have a child to take care of. What else?"

  "The king has asked me to help the queen with Her Majesty's correspondence."

  De La Warr corrected me. "The king does not ask. Th
e king commands. And if he has commanded you to join his household as a secretary to the queen, he has not taken kindly to your running off after Foxcroft. Should you now appear in London, the king might toss you in the Tower, cool you off a bit."

  He squinted his tired blue eyes. "Secretary to Queen Anne? It is most unlikely. But the king is given to lightsome jokes."

  To prove that I was not lying, I took off the ring and laid it on the desk.

  He picked it up and ran a finger over the coiled serpent.

  "The ring is a gift from the king," I said. "I was wearing it the day he asked me to go to London and serve the queen."

  "You can serve the queen in Jamestown," he said, handing the ring back to me, "but you can't do so if you're a Jamestown deserter. The king has lofty dreams for the New World. His Majesty would not take kindly to someone who's fled the land."

  Unsteady on his thin legs, Lord De La Warr showed us to the deck. The big ship strained at her moorings. Desperately I sought for words that would sway him.

  Beyond him the river gleamed. A cannon roared and an iron ball struck the water, far short of a line of canoes moving toward the distant shore. Indians were everywhere, on the river, among the trees of the forest. They watched from the tall grass and the salt meadows. They watched night and day.

  "This is no place for a child," I said loudly. "Nor for anyone else."

  Lord De La Warr looked me in the eye. "Only for the brave," he answered, and closed the cabin door behind us.

  At dusk I took Humility by the hand and went back to the ship. The sailors were eating their supper, laughing, happy to be leaving Jamestown.

  The ship, except for De La Warr's cabin, was much like the Deliverance. I took Humility down a ladder-way to the bilge. At the stern I found a cubbyhole where tattered sails were stored. We got inside, closed the door, and stretched out on the sails.

  The hole smelled of tar and turpentine and was so dark we could scarcely see each other. We had no food or water, but that did not matter. De La Warr planned to sail at dawn on the ebbing tide. By noon we would be across Chesapeake Bay, bound for England. Then, when it was too late to turn back, Humility and I would appear on deck.