Roanoke (The Keepers of the Ring) (42 page)

“But we’ve waited for three years,” John Sampson interrupted.

“Three years are nothing to God,” Thomas answered, pacing with stiff, brittle dignity across the front of the room. “Neither is a decade. Neither is a lifetime. We are nothing, our petty wants are nothing; we should be grateful that God considers our guilty, unworthy lives at all.”

“Yes, Reverend Colman, we know this,” Roger Prat said, rapping his knuckles against the council table. “But we have to make a decision regarding our men at Croatoan. I, for one, believe they should marry.”

“No!” Every eye turned again toward the minister. “Doth not the Bible tell us that the Apostle Paul said it is good for a man not to live in marriage with a woman?” Thrusting his hands behind his back, Thomas surveyed the entire assembly, daring any to refute him. “Then, I say, let the men on Croatoan remain unmarried,
even as I
!”

Jocelyn stiffened. Though many might think Thomas was still quoting the apostle Paul, in her innermost heart she knew he spoke of himself. Despite their marriage vows and all that had happened between them, despite their child, in the most basic part of his soul Thomas considered himself
unmarried.

In an obvious attempt to east the tenseness in the room, Ananias chuckled. “Welladay, Reverend,” he stood to face Thomas, “how can the men on Croatoan remain unmarried like you when you yourself are married to Mistress Colman?”

Thomas closed his eyes as the men and women around him chuckled. Jocelyn knew in that moment that he fully realized his mistake, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, her expression told him that she understood what he had meant.

His countenance fell. “I have spoken what I ought to say,” he said, his voice strangely toneless.

“Then each man on Croatoan shall search his own heart and act according to his own beliefs,” Ananias said as the other assistants nodded in agreement. “‘Tis decided.”

“But I shall speak to them first,” Thomas interjected. “They shall make their decision after the Word of God has been refreshed in their minds.”

The assistants looked at one another, whispered in consultation, and then Ananias turned to the minister. “Agreed,” he said simply.

After the pinnace bound for Croatoan pulled away from the shore, Jocelyn went to her house, packed her trunk, locked it, and dressed Regina in warm clothes. If Thomas was not married in his heart, she had no right and no reason to live with him. Without saying farewell to anyone, she slipped her arms through the soft leather harness that held Regina to her back and walked out of the house.

‘Twas late in the afternoon when she entered the Indian village, and Hurit and Pauwau seemed surprised to see her. “I need a place to sleep,” Jocelyn said, ignoring the blush that burned on her cheek.

If the women were surprised, they gave no sign, and without question or complaint Hurit moved aside so Jocelyn could enter her hut.

Though Richard Taverner knew the perfect attendance of his men probably had more to do with the long-awaited funeral for William Berde than with any spiritual hunger, he was glad to see that all twenty-eight of his men had assembled under the oak trees to hear the minister’s sermon. Poor William had drowned while swimming in a treacherous undertow the month before. Taverner and the others had buried him, said a few words from the
Book of Common Prayer
, but now ‘twas up to the minister to properly send poor William off to heaven.

The minister seemed to have other things on his mind, though, and after an hour of preaching about righteous living before a holy and angry God, he abruptly closed his Bible and thrust his arms behind his back. With his dark eyes searching the faces of the men before him like a searchlight, he told his listeners that God considered sexual immorality the basest of all sins, and that those in the body of Christ had no reason or cause to ever join themselves with harlots or infidels.

Taverner squirmed uncomfortably. At least six Indian women lived now in their little village. They had been converted to the Christian faith and married to their English husbands in a simple ceremony performed by Manteo. Taverner himself had lately been much taken with Chepi, a beautiful Croatoan girl who waited even now in his hut, for he had planned to ask the minister to perform a proper Christian wedding after poor William’s funereal.

But the mood of the gathering grew solemn as the minister stood before them. Thomas Colman had changed in the months since Richard had last seen him. His mouth was angrier, a cold, pinched expression lay on his face, and his glittering dark eyes seemed to have found hard answers to the world
’s most difficult questions.

No one interrupted or dared to ask a question as Thomas Colman opened his Bible and read the scriptures forbidding intermarriage. “Unless you want a great wave from the sea to cover this place,” the minister said, his hand trembling in awe as he pointed to the water beyond the beach, “you will live rightly before God. Unless you want the great monsters of the deep to pitch themselves forward onto this island and devour you in the middle of the darkest night, unless you want the wrath of God to be poured out in a storm unlike any you have ever seen, you will obey the Word of the Lord and restrain yourselves from this kind of immorality.”

The minister’s face was strained with fatigue, but seemed lighted from within as he held his Bible to his breast. “The council of assistants has directed Ananias and I to tell you that you may do as you think best regarding the marriage of yourselves with the heathen savages in this place. But I could not let you surrender yourselves to immorality and unholy marriage without first hearing the Word of God.”

He swept his long arm over the gathering and his voice thundered through the whisper of the ocean breeze. “Judge for yourselves, and weep over the folly of your thinking.”

When the sermon was done, the company followed the minister to the small stretch of beach where William Berde lay buried, but Richard hung back and waited for an opportunity to discreetly tug on Ananias Dare’s sleeve.

“What is it?” Ananias whispered, lingering behind.

“It’s what he said,” Richard whispered, nodding toward the spare, dark form of the minister. “In truth, Ananias, half a dozen of the men are already married. I was hoping to gain a wife myself, this very day.”

Ananias pressed his lips together. “Will the men heed the minister
’s words?”

Richard nodded. “I believe they will. Not one man among us wants a wave to sweep the land, or a sea monster—”

“I see.” Ananias crossed his arms. “Richard, you’re the leader here. My advice—and the council’s—is this: say nothing to the minister about your wives. When we have departed, take up the matter among your own men, and do as you see fit. Let those who wish to marry do so, and those who wish to remain unmarried shall do so as well.”

“Aye,” Richard mumbled, not much comforted.

Ananias leaned closer and whispered in his ear: “This girl you want to marry—is she beautiful?”

Richard thought of Chepi—dark, lustrous eyes, gentle mouth, soft skin, her face like gold in the fading light of sunset. She had stolen his heart the moment he had seen her in the Croatoan village, and it had taken Richard six long months to gather the courage to even speak to her.

“Yes.” He drew a ragged breath. “She is beautiful.”

Ananias grinned. “You fortunate fool. I
’d marry two of the heathen beauties had I the chance.”

He slapped Richard on the back and together they walked to hear the funeral of poor William Berde.

After the pinnace had departed, Richard called a meeting of his men to relay Ananias’ message. “So those of you who wish to remain married shall,” he said in summary as hot water-scented winds blew across the clearing where the men had gathered. “And those of you who wish to put away your wives shall not be bound by the law.”

Hugh Pattenson leapt up. “I wouldn
’t want to risk calling down God’s wrath,” he said, his voice an awed, husky whisper. “I won’t keep a heathen wife. But what shall I do with her?”

“And I?” Richard Shaberdge stood, his face edged with anger. “Why didn
’t you tell us, Taverner, that we shouldn’t marry infidels? I believe I never would have married had I known this would happen.”

“I
’ll send my wife back,” Henry Rufoote said, leaping from his place. “Her and all her heathen things. ‘Tis only right. And who knows what sort of beauty the governor will bring me?”

“In truth, you have a point,” Charles Florrie said, standing. A blue flame of defiance burned in his eyes as he walked toward the hut where his Indian wife waited. “I
’ll send my wife back to her people this very day. These savages have no idea what marriage means anyway, ‘tis no harm to put a wife away—”

Richard felt control slip from his grasp like seawater as the entire company moved toward the huts to watch what would happen. Though the air was heavy with impending rain, snatches of their conversation reached his ears:

“I’faith, the women are worthless heathens, let’s take ‘em back—”

“But not without showing
‘em a good time, eh?”

“So if she
’s not your wife any more, you won’t mind me showin’ her what an Englishman’s made of—”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Richard called, but his words were snatched by the bawling winds and flung back in his face. Angry and ugly, the men ran from hut to hut, pulling out startled women, and Richard watched in helpless horror as Chepi, her eyes round with fear, was carried from his hut kicking and screaming. With no regard for her outstretched arms or pitiful pleas, her abductor threw her down upon the sand with the others.

Lightning cracked the skies apart as Richard sprinted forward. “Don’t you touch her!” he cried. He flung himself into the widening circle of men, his ears ringing with the screams of the women and the hooting of the wild, wet wind. He could feel his panic rising as all signs of decency and restraint fled from the faces of his men, then they fell upon him and the women. His arms pummeled whatever resistance he encountered, and once he felt a jawbone give way beneath his fist. Then one man held his arms and another produced a blade that shimmered and curved and finally bit into the soft flesh between his ribs.

Lightning ripped the storm cloud overhead, thunder rolled over the low island, and Richard Taverner pitched forward upon the sand where his blood mingled with the rainwater and the tears of seven women.

forty

T
homas was not entirely surprised to learn upon his return that Jocelyn and Regina had left the village to live with the Indians. “I’faith, her mind is a wee bit addled,” Audrey explained to Thomas, weeping delicately into her handkerchief as she stood with her husband outside the minister’s house. “We were distressed to find her gone, but one of the savage messengers told us she had simply walked into their village, and Master Bailie sent a delegation to be sure that she hadn’t been taken against her will.”

“She is well?” Thomas asked, taking pains to keep his voice level.

“Yes,” Audrey said, wiping her eyes. “And so is the little girl, bless her heart. They are well and happy, but—”

“
‘Tis enough, Mistress Bailie, we should be going,” Roger interrupted, steering his wife away from the minister’s frozen face.

As Audrey moved away, Roger Bailie regarded the minister with a curious look. “I can
’t imagine why you, of all people, should be the first to fail in marriage,” he said. “But if there is anything we can do—”

“Pray do not worry yourself,” Thomas answered, lifting the latch on the door to enter his empty house. He nodded at the old gentleman with the lovely girl at his side. “I give you good day, Master Bailie.”

The house seemed strangely empty without Jocelyn’s presence. Her trunk still lay against the wall, closed and locked, and her cooking pot lay in the fire pit, scrubbed and clean. The blanket had been neatly folded across the foot of the bed; Thomas’ trunk stood unmolested, his books stacked neatly on the floor near the board.

He removed his hat and hung it on the nail by the door. The space looked strangely empty. Despite the summer heat, she had taken her cloak from the peg upon which it hung; the blue bonnet that perfectly matched her eyes was gone as well. Mayhap he would spot it in the forest, and gain a private word with her. Though he was not surprised that she had gone, still he wanted to hear his condemnation from her own mouth. Torture, after all, demanded that the guilty one suffer to the fullest possible extent.

A pain pounded behind his eyes, his skin burned from its exposure to the sea and the July sun. He lay down on the empty bed and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

Three days later, at dawn, the lookout in the tower let out a cry. “Canoe on the river,” he called, the alarm ringing over the village. “Croatoan, from the looks of it!”