A Company of Rogues, page 7
The other men nodded, but it was Daisy who spoke, the first woman to join the conversation. “I’m sure I don’t know how I’d cook anything without an iron pot.”
Tisquantum glanced at her, his face briefly lighting up in a smile. “I promise, you would find a way! But once you trade for things, it is good—easier, sometimes—to have those things. So we thought this trade was good, just as trading with the Narragansett and the Nauset and the other people of the land, was good. We traded with English ships, and Dutch, and French—many times, many years.”
“Exactly,” Nicholas said. “That is what we hope to do here. Trade is a benefit to everyone.”
Tisquantum paused, then said, “When the English captains, John Smith and Thomas Hunt, came to Patuxet, they took twenty Wampanoag men—myself one of them—in their ship. Tricked us to come aboard, and bound us in chains. They took us across the ocean to Spain, to sell us as slaves. I am only free because the Spanish priests took pity. My companions—my brothers and kinsmen, my friends—I did not see again. They might live or die in chains.”
His words fell into silence as the men around the table shifted awkwardly on their benches and looked everywhere but at Tisquantum. It was, again, a woman’s voice that broke the silence, Nancy this time.
“They did the same to the lady Pocahontas,” she said. “The daughter of the Powhatan chief. An English captain tricked her to come aboard his ship, and then he took her captive.”
“That was Captain Argall,” Ned said. “I served under him. A good master to his sailors, but he dealt unfairly with the native folks, as my wife says.”
“Well, now. I’ll not say I countenance lying, or deceit,” said Nicholas. He met Tisquantum’s gaze again. “We want friendly, peaceable relations. That is all.”
“All the same,” said Willoughby, with a touch of irritation, “we can see now that such relations are unlikely to happen anytime soon. The best we can hope for is that we have no violent clashes with the natives. Which raises again the question—what is this colony for? What does it hope to achieve, if there is to be no trade with the people of the land? I swear our London masters have no idea.”
And they were off at it again, arguing about London men and Bristol men, about who controlled the colony and to what end. Kathryn rose to clear away the last of the meal, with Daisy and Nancy following her lead, as the talk went on.
“I’ll leave the ale jug on the table, for this seems a thirsty conversation,” said Nancy. She brought a pot of water warmed over the fire and poured it into the bucket they used to scrub out the cooking pots and trenchers.
“Aye, they are kindling a good deal of heat with their words.” Kathryn looked up at her friend. “What you said just then—about the lady Pocahontas that you served. You have spoken so little of what happened down there, and I know you have many tales to tell.”
“Ah, you know I am no good for telling tales. Never one to spin a yarn.”
Kathryn sighed. “And I have not been the best at drawing those tales out of you. I have been—I do not know. Heavy of spirit, since I had the news from home. Like going about in one of those fogs that rolls in off the ocean.”
“No-one could blame you.”
I could blame myself, Kathryn thought. The truth was, she still did not rightly know what was wrong with her, why grief had crushed her so completely. But when she thought of Nancy’s tales, of sitting by the fire on winter nights hearing her stories, or Ned’s, or perhaps Tisquantum’s accounts of faraway lands, she felt something coming awake in her, like shafts of sunlight beginning to pierce that fog.
Around the table, the men still debated while the women washed the dishes. Willoughby’s voice rang out above the rest; when Kathryn looked back, she saw he was standing now, at the head of the table, as if lecturing the men. Nicholas and the others sat as if they were his pupils, save for Tisquantum, who had moved to a stool a little distance away and sat watching, his dark eyes flickering from the men’s debate to the women’s work.
“Do you want me to go down to Bess’s and fetch the youngsters, Mistress?” Daisy asked.
“Ah, no, I think she will keep them down there tonight,” Kathryn said. Indeed, she hoped so, and had asked Bess to have them stay. Better they were out from underfoot while the men talked of colonies and conquest, especially with Willoughby here.
Daisy nodded. “If the savage man is staying here the night,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “best the young ones are out of the way.” Kathryn watched Tisquantum as Daisy spoke and saw him flinch at the words “savage man,” as if Daisy had reached out to slap him.
“What, do you think his people eat little English children?” Nancy said, the scorn in her voice cutting like a whip.
“You can’t be too careful, is all I’m saying,” Daisy retorted.
The other men, paying no attention to the women’s talk, were growing more heated.
“…our own charter, our own colony!” Willoughby was saying. “And our own governor, of course. No slight against Mason, but he is a tool of the London merchants.”
“This is no more than we have been saying all summer,” Nicholas said. He turned to Crowder. “Next spring, when you and your family move up to Harbour Grace—and Holworthy with his family—that will be the time—”
“Why wait? If we get word to Bristol now, before winter—”
“On what ship? Sure there’s ice starting to form in the bay already—there’ll be no more ships—”
Willoughby cut across the other men’s voices. “If we cannot send word before winter, then as soon as may be in the spring. Before some governor gets appointed for us, some friend of the merchants who knows nothing of this land—”
“Now, you cannot say that of Mason,” Nicholas said. He, too, was on his feet now, facing down Willoughby. Willoughby outranked him, of course, as a baronet’s son, but Nicholas was a cousin of the first governor, the colony’s founder, and one of the men who had been here the longest. “John Mason was a sea captain, he’s had experience with seafaring, with piracy—I’ve nothing against him save that he’s London’s man—”
“Fine! What we need is our own colony, under our own company, and a governor for it who is Bristol’s man. Someone of the station in life to serve as a governor, but one who knows this land, knows what we aim to do here.”
“One quite like yourself, you mean.” That was Ned, speaking up as no other serving-man, even a colonist of long standing like Frank Tipton, would have done.
Willoughby’s eyes flicked towards Ned, then around the room. “I would not presume to put myself forward in such a way. But I do know, and you’d do well to remember, Ned Perry, that we are all appointed our proper station in life. My father is a man of such station as to have put more into this colony than any other man in England.” Then he broke off and smiled—that roguish grin that had once twisted Kathryn’s heart like a wrung-out cloth. “I’d not put myself forward, but there’s many who’d do worse than I would, I think.” His eyes, roving the room, locked on Kathryn’s. “Surely even the ladies would agree—is’t not so, Mistress Guy?”
Kathryn felt her husband’s eyes, too, upon her. She shrugged, made her voice light. “I am sure I know not, Master Willoughby. I leave such business to my husband, who is the only governor I need obey.”
Willoughby laughed. “Well said! What a model wife you have, Master Guy. Now, I suppose if we are to get back to Harbour Grace before ’tis full dark, we should be back on the water.”
Nicholas made the expected offer that they could stay the night. Willoughby and Crowder declined, but Tisquantum, who had been talking with Nancy and Ned by the fire, said that if Master and Mistress Guy would welcome him, he would gladly stay a little longer.
“We can make up a bed for you in the storeroom with the menservants,” she heard Nancy tell Tisquantum, as Willoughby and Crowder got their cloaks and made ready to leave. Just at that moment the door opened and Bess appeared, holding Alice by the hand.
“Sorry, Mistress,” Bess said, weaving her way through the throng of men, “I thought the young ones would all be content to stay at my place—Jemmy fell asleep right after supper, and you know Jonathan, he’s always glad to spend the night with Will and Matty—but Alice said she must have mama, and would not settle without you.”
Alice let go of Bess’s hand and ran for Kathryn’s arms. As Kathryn knelt to embrace her, she felt rather than heard Thomas Willoughby come up behind them. “So, this is your little one?”
“My daughter, Alice.” Her heart pounded.
Willoughby squatted down beside Kathryn, close to Alice. “And how old are you, little Alice? Ah, three years old?” For Alice had held up three fingers. Willoughby smiled at her, then at Kathryn. “Why, you were not even born when I was here in the New Found Land before. What strange times those were—four or five years ago, when we all came out here. I am sure you remember, Mistress Guy.”
Kathryn stood up, Alice in her arms, and Willoughby stood also. “I am very glad to have met you, Alice,” he said, then to Kathryn, “Who does she take after, with that golden hair, those blue eyes? I cannot see your husband in her, nor much of you either. Some distant relative, no doubt.” He smiled at Kathryn. “We can be good neighbours, Mistress Guy. Even a woman, such as yourself, can have a great influence on her husband. What influence you have I am sure you will use wisely.” And then he was gone.
Nine A Feast is Observed
Musketto Cove, Christmas 1617
To see a neighbour’s feast
Adorn it through; and thereat hear the breast
Of the divine Muse; men in order set;
A wine-page waiting; tables crown’d with meat,…
The cup-boards furnish’d, and the cups still fill’d;
This shows, to my mind, most humanely fair.
—Homer’s Odysseys, Book 9, 13–19
“It is the English custom, to bring boughs of trees into the house?” Tisquantum asked as he and Ned carried armloads of spruce and pine branches inside. The women had declared they wanted some to deck the mantel and windowsills.
Ned shrugged. “’Twasn’t done when I was a child in Bristol—not in my house nor in my master’s house, any rate. I think some of the wealthy folk, merchants and the like, would put holly or mistletoe about.”
Eight men, four women, and five small children were now living on Nicholas Guy’s plantation. Ned was reminded of that first Christmas at Cupids Cove, seven years ago, when he and the rest of John Guy’s men had all lived in the one big dwelling house and tried to make what cheer they could. A man had hanged himself between Christmas and New Year’s, which Ned thought went a long way towards saying how successful they had been in making the season merry. This holiday could not help but be an improvement.
“Holly—it was this plant that Master Slany’s servants would put about his house. I was with them at Christmas last year,” Tisquantum said. “My people do something the same with some of our thanksgivings, using the plants of each season to make all beautiful for our celebrations.”
“And do you celebrate anything at this time of year—in midwinter?”
“After the moon of hunting, it is the moon of storytelling—like you, we stay warm by the fire and tell tales in winter. We have rituals for all the turnings of the year—I think perhaps all people do. But this Christmas is to do with your god, yes?”
“Yes—when the Lord Jesus Christ was born on earth,” Ned said. He knew that Tisquantum had been instructed in the basics of the Christian faith, but unlike the Powhatan women that Nancy had known in Virginia, Tisquantum had not been baptized or taken a Christian name. He was curious about what the English believed, but his was the curiosity of a traveller, intrigued by the customs of the strange lands he visited.
“Ah yes, gods. Always being born, always dying, over and over,” Tisquantum said, a comment that reminded Ned that the world was much larger and stranger than he had imagined it when he was growing up in Bristol.
Nicholas Guy had, at Ned’s suggestion, invited the Wampanoag man to spend the winter on their plantation here at Musketto Cove. Governor Mason’s plan to have him act as a translator with the native people had been foiled, for now at least, and Tisquantum’s plan to find a ship that would carry him to his own country could not happen until spring.
On the day before Christmas Eve, the hall of the big house, always a busy place, was a hive of activity. Mistress Kathryn, Daisy, and Bess were all chopping and mixing bowls full of ingredients for the pies and puddings that would grace the table on Christmas Day. Nancy was not there; she was at Bess’s house with the children. Lately the women had developed a pattern on busy days: one of them would take all five children down to Bess and Frank’s little house and care for them there, so they would not be constantly underfoot in the main house.
“Where will we lay these?” Tisquantum asked. He stood behind Daisy, who was working with her back to the door, and she gave a nervous jump as he spoke. Ned had noticed that of all the women, Daisy seemed the most uncomfortable about having a native man living among them, and she rarely spoke directly to Tisquantum. But now she turned, gestured to his armful of boughs, and said, “Leave them on the bench—we will decide where to put them when we deck the hall later today.”
Tisquantum did so, then took out a twist of cloth he had carried in his pocket. Inside it lay a few handfuls of hard, red berries. “I found these,” he said, showing them to Daisy. “Not to eat, but they will look well if you place them among the branches. To make them bright.”
“Ooh, lovely,” said Daisy.
Kathryn Guy gave the two men a beaming smile. “Thank you so much—I know ’tis a trivial thing when you are all so busy.”
“Truth be told, we are not so busy at the moment,” Ned said. “There’s more men on the place than there is work to be done, now that the snow is down. Mending nets, cutting firewood, and making furniture are all the chores left for the men to do.”
“While the women’s work never ends,” Kathryn said. “Odd, is’t not, how men’s work goes by seasons, but except for tending the garden, women’s work is much the same all year round. People must eat, clothes must be made and mended, no matter the time of year.”
The big room was warm and inviting, the fire crackling in the hearth and the air filled with the scents of food. Ned was in no hurry to go back out into the chilly morning. He was glad when Daisy handed a plate of small, spiced pastries first to him and then, after a brief hesitation, to Tisquantum.
“We are trying to save all the good things for the feast,” Kathryn said, “but you were good enough to bring in the boughs, so you have both earned a tart. I made them from the dried figs we got off a Portuguese ship in the autumn.”
Ned knew that in their first weeks back in the colony, Nancy had been worried for her friend and former mistress. Kathryn’s grief over the news of her family’s tragedy had been deep. But lately, Kathryn’s spirits seemed to be lifting. Perhaps it was the Yuletide celebration that lightened everyone’s mood as the days grew darker. Even Daisy cast a tiny smile at Tisquantum as he reached for a second fig tart.
After leaving the big house, Ned parted ways with Tisquantum, who was going back to help with more wood-cutting out behind the byre. Ned took the path that led further along the shore to where Frank Tipton was chopping wood outside his house. “I’ll give you a hand with that,” Ned said, “after I step inside and say hello to my wife. I’ve not seen her since before dawn this morning.”
“Ah, and that’s a long time when you’re newly married.” Frank laughed. “Wait till you’ve been a few years wedded, and you’ll find you can go all day without seeing her.”
Ned laughed. He did not say the truth, which was that after more than three years apart from Nancy, after thinking she was dead, after all the misunderstanding he had put them both through when they found each other—it seemed nothing short of a miracle that they were together again. Sometimes he thought if he closed his eyes at night, he might open them in the morning to find she was gone. He never said this out loud to Nancy. She would tell him not to give way to foolish fancies.
He pushed open the door and entered a room that was a miniature of the one he had just left—a hearth fire, a table with benches on either side, but everything smaller and more modest than in the Guys’ house. Instead of the busy hum of women at work, this room was clamorous with the voices of four small boys, ranging in age from Jemmy who was just a year old, up to Jonathan who was nearly five. In between them in age were Bess and Frank’s two boys, Will and Matt. All four were engaged in their seemingly endless pursuit of making wooden block towers, knocking down wooden block towers, and arguing over who had knocked down whose tower.
Beside the hearth sat Nancy, with little Alice by her side; Alice rocked back and forth with a cloth poppet in her arms, singing a tuneless lullaby to it, and Ned thought how much gentler little girls were than little boys. Nancy met his eyes as he came through the door and was about to speak when Alice took her poppet and hurled it into one of the block towers as if firing a catapult at the walls of a besieged city. The boys screamed, Alice sat down looking pleased, and Ned revised his thoughts about the gentleness of little girls.
Nancy raised her hands in mock surrender and rose to meet him, picking her way through the tangle of small bodies on the floor. “I ought to chide them and punish them for fighting, but truly, if I did that I would never stop. Bess and Kathryn are as close to sainthood as the blessed Virgin Mary herself.”
“More, perhaps, since Jesus was never naughty,” Ned said. He bent down to pick up the child who was squalling the loudest—Bess’s younger lad, Matt—and said gravely, “Do you see how people don’t like it when you knock down the towers they’ve made? ’Tis not very good, is it?” To Nancy he added, “It might be easier just to whip the lot of ’em.”
“I shall leave that to their parents. When I deliver them back to the house I’ll simply announce that everyone needs a good whipping, and that will be that.”
