Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) (31 page)

After leading the congregation in a hymn, Thomas spoke for an hour on the importance of holy living. “This I say then,” he quoted, reading from the heavy Bible that lay upon the lectern, “Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

“We intend,” Thomas’s voice rumbled with stentorian authority over the gathering, “to build such a colony as would mirror the kingdom of God. In order to do so, we must put away all uncleanness and evil from our midst. If, therefore, a fellow colonist tells you of sin in your life, be grateful, thank them for their knowledge, and thank God for revealing the flaw in your character. We will inherit the kingdom of God, my friends, by living righteously and purely before the eyes of God.”

He led the congregation in a benediction, but before they
could depart, Ananias stood and held up his hand. “I would like to address the colony,” he said, moving gingerly down the aisle. He stood beside the lectern until Thomas grudgingly moved out of the way, then Ananias gripped the wooden platform with both hands and leaned his weight upon it.

“
‘Tis obvious from the attack of the savages last week,” he said, his brown eyes circling the entire room, “that this island is no longer safe for us. I therefore have planned, with the counsel of the assistants, that we should move the colony in March.”

A collective gasp rose from the crowd. So soon, and in the heart of winter? The assistants
’ original plan, drafted by John White, had called for the colony to move during the milder months of April or May.

“The sooner we move,” Ananias persisted, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the lectern, “the sooner we can plant crops and settle our houses.”

“What of our supplies?” a man in the crowd called out. “The governor will return any day with our provisions.”

“We will send thirty unmarried men south to Croatoan, where the supply ship can be spotted,” Ananias said. “The rest of us will journey north to the Chesapeake.”

“Chesapeake!” The widow Viccars stood, as pale as a frail china doll, but her voice carried the iron of anger. “I have heard the savages are even more fierce in that place. I have lost a husband, sir, and I do not want to lose a son.”

“The Spanish know of Chesapeake harbor,”
Edward Powell shouted, standing. “‘Tis likely they have not discovered our fort here because we are protected by the barrier islands. But if we move to a natural deep water harbor the poxy Spaniards are certain to discover us—”

“We will send a scouting party ahead,” Ananias promised, holding his hands aloft to restore order. “We will find a place where the natives are hospitable, the harbor isolated, and the situation ideal. You must trust me, my friends. God has protected us thus far, but we are not safe here. We must move on to establish our permanent settlement.”

The meeting broke up in a storm of speculative and angry voices, and Jocelyn remained behind in the silence of the church as the others moved outside to argue in the open air. Sitting motionless on her bench, she considered Ananias’ words. Her baby would be born in April or May, and she had always visualized the birth occurring in her small house. But apparently she would not give birth on Roanoke. She would bring her child into the world somewhere further away from the sea that bound her, however remotely, to England and her past.

She yearned suddenly for Audrey or Eleanor. She would need a friend in the days ahead.

The January wind blew from the Western Ocean with sleet in its breath, and none of the colonists ventured outside their homes except the hardiest—and Thomas Colman. Though the temperature was never cold enough to completely freeze the water in the storage barrels, the biting wind made outdoor work miserable, and the colonists made only brief trips to the storehouse or the communal woodpile.

Each colonist seemed to be content to remain in his home except the minister. Jocelyn watched him rise each morning as usual and doggedly resist the wind until he was safe within the wood and clay walls of the house of God. Only on unusually bitter days of freezing rain did he remain at home, and Jocelyn knew he stayed with her only because the church had no hearth, and therefore no fire. But even on days of frightful weather he spent little time with his wife, waiting until Audrey had come down the ladder, then climbing to the attic to pray and study in preparation for his next sermon.

“Y’know, ‘tis almost as if he’s afraid of you,” Audrey whispered one morning as she laid the day’s fire.

“Mind your tongue,” Jocelyn warned. The girl had forgotten her place; servants did not remark upon the private habits of their masters. But, after a moment, Jocelyn
’s curiosity got the better of her. “In truth, do you really think so?” she whispered back.

Audrey lifted her pretty little nose into the air. “I
’m minding my tongue,” she replied tartly.

In mid-January Ananias announced that any willing man could join the expedition to seek a new location for the colony. Jocelyn felt her jaw drop in astonishment when Thomas found her at the hearth and told her he had signed on for the journey. “Why?” she asked, her spoon clattering from her hands to the floor. “You won
’t even carry a gun. Why would you want to venture into the wilderness?”

Thomas slid his eyes toward Audrey, and Jocelyn understood that he would not discuss his reasons until after Audrey had gone to bed. So Jocelyn finished her meager bowl of pottage, helped Audrey clean the bowls and cooking pot,
and dismissed her maid with a curt nod.

When at last the overhead noises had stilled and Jocelyn lay in her own bed, she sat up and interrupted Thomas as he knelt in prayer. “God hears you all the time,” she said, taking pains to keep her voice low. “Now
‘tis time for you to talk to me. Pray tell me why you must journey with Ananias. You know he dislikes you. If perchance you are killed with a bullet to the back, how am I to know he did not kill you himself?”

“God will protect me as he pleases,” Thomas answered, rising from his knees. He unbuttoned his doublet in the semi-darkness and slipped it from his shoulders. “I came as a colonist to your uncle
’s office, Jocelyn, because I thought God might have me spend my life in service to the American Indians. I had heard much of them and their need for the true gospel, but since we have arrived here I have ministered only to the type of folk I would have met in England.”

“Would it not be better to wait until we have established the City of Raleigh?” Jocelyn asked. “Then you can journey into the lands of Indians who regard us with affection. You would know they are receptive to your message, and you would not risk your life—”

“My life is not my own, ‘tis God’s.” He sat on the edge of the bed, raised the quilt, and lifted his legs beneath it. Jocelyn felt a strange stirring of her heart. Though he had been sharing her bed for weeks, this was the first conversation they had ever had beneath its blanket.

“My life belongs to God, too,” Jocelyn said, reclining upon her pillow. “But God would have me safeguard his possessions and not squander them uselessly. We have a child to think of, Thomas. Or think you that I would like to be a widow like poor Elizabeth Viccars?”

He turned his head to look at her. “So you say,” he whispered, his voice strangely tense. “Would widowhood not suit you better? You are not happy with me, and if I were gone—”

“You are not fair!” she cried, pushing the words across to him. “I do not want you to die! I want you to be—”

The words stopped at her lips; what was the use in uttering them? She wanted him to be her husband, to love her, cherish her, rejoice in their coming child, but he would not. He had made his position abundantly clear, he reinforced it every day as he held her at arms’ length—

“I don
’t want you to die,” she finished, folding her arms across her chest. The mountain of her belly rose beneath her arms, and she resisted the impulse to stroke the unborn babe.

She thought she heard him sigh, then he turned his back to her. “Pray then, that God preserves me,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder. “For I have agreed to join the expedition, and I am a man of my word.”

William Clement decided ‘twas his manly duty to join the expedition, and Jocelyn was surprised when his master, Roger Bailie, agreed that the young man should go. Privately, Jocelyn wondered if perhaps the old man had grown tired of William Clement’s artificial deference, but her thoughts were soon diverted by Audrey’s breathless news that William had asked to marry her after the colony had moved to its new location.

“Did Roger Bailie give his permission?” Jocelyn asked as the two women walked home from church. While it was possible Bailie wanted to be rid of his servant for a few weeks,
‘twas overly generous to assume that Roger Bailie would give an indentured servant his freedom.

“William says he
’ll be wanting to ask his master for permission when he returns from the voyage,” Audrey explained, her green eyes dancing with delight. She clapped her hands together. “And sure, don’t I know that the old man will agree? I’m only sorry that I’ll be leaving you, Miss Jocelyn.”

“Marry, you
’ll only be a stone’s throw away,” Jocelyn answered, smiling. She turned in at the door of their house as Audrey followed. “But ‘twould be nice if William asked Thomas’ permission to marry you.”

“Haven
’t I told William so?” Audrey answered, pouting prettily. “But there’s plenty of time for that since they will be together on the ship.”

“Yes, plenty of time,” Jocelyn echoed, looking out the window for some sight of the man who seemed determined to leave her.

One week later Jocelyn joined Eleanor and Audrey on the beach as the search party set sail in the pinnace. Ananias stood by Thomas as the minister led the party in a benediction, then the sail lifted, bellied taut, and carried the ship away from shore and out of sight. William Clement made a great show of waving to Audrey, and for a moment Jocelyn thought Audrey would swim out to the ship for one last embrace. Jocelyn herself waved until she thought her arm would break, but no response came from the dark figure she knew to be her husband.

Over the next four weeks, thirteen people in the colony died from sickness and the privations of winter: eleven of the unmarried men; Jane Mannering, maidservant servant to John and Alice Chapman; and Elizabeth Viccars
’ eighteen-month-old son, Ambrose. In Thomas’ place, John Chapman directed the burial of the dead. When the baby was laid to rest, Jocelyn sat and prayed with Elizabeth Viccars, who clutched her son’s blanket in her arms and wept for hours.

At the end of February, a bitterly cold rainstorm assaulted the village, and Jocelyn waited anxiously for Thomas
’ return as rain soaked the thatched roof of her house and sheets of water streamed over the shuttered windows. Gusts of freezing wind blew through chinks in the walls and rippled puddles on the floor, shaking dead tree limbs down upon the house as easily as a dog shakes itself dry.

In such terrible weather, how could the men survive without shelter? Eleanor steadfastly refused to consider the possibility that Ananias would not return, but Jocelyn understood the danger and prayed hourly for Thomas
’s safe journey. Publicly, the colonists assured each other that the scouting party had undoubtedly met with great success; privately, they wondered if the entire group had been slaughtered or imprisoned by the Indians.

Little food remained in the village. The best hunters were away on the expedition, and several of the remaining men were tempted to raid a Croatoan village for food. The suggestion was proffered one Sunday afternoon after John Chapman had led the colony in a worship service, and Jocelyn could not believe that others were willing to seriously consider the idea.

“We must not do such a thing!” she cried, leaping to her feet. She felt huge and awkward and embarrassed as scores of eyes turned to her, but no one seemed surprised that she had spoken. She was, after all, the minister’s wife, and allowed to speak in her husband’s absence.

She ignored the burning of her cheeks and plunged ahead to speak her thoughts. “What would Ananias and Thomas say if they were here? What would Governor White and Sir Walter Raleigh think of such an idea? Our colony is to be a place of peace, a means of spreading the gospel to the savages. We cannot consider entering their camps and taking what does not belong to us!”

“None of those people are here now,” a man called from a front row. “White and Raleigh have full bellies, and are safe and warm in England. And for all we know, Ananias and the minister are even now in a cannibal’s dinner pot—”

Eleanor cried out, her eyes wide with horror, and Jocelyn trained a furious glare on the man who had spoken. “The Croatoan have told us from the beginning that they have barely enough to last through the winter,” she said, turning to survey the entire room. “We have let fear control our reason, and we have turned our profession of faith to a lie. If we believe in God, as we say we do, we must
trust
him for the future. The winter is nearly over, we have stores yet—”