Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [81]
“You forget that I am Lord of Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc. I have allies throughout Ossomocomuck,” said Manteo calmly. “You have need of me.”
Wanchese hesitated.
“Send Graham back with the woman. I exchange myself for him,” said Manteo, holding out his hands to be bound. “If he brings soldiers against us, you may hold me to account.”
“What are they saying? What will become of us?” said Jane in a voice shaking with tears.
I shook my head, for I did not understand Manteo’s deed. Like me, Graham was attentive to everything that passed between Manteo and Wanchese. I hoped he could make sense of it.
After a long moment, Wanchese reached his decision. He told Tameoc to take Graham and Alice to the boat. But Graham, though his hands were tied together, threw off Tameoc.
“I have sworn to protect the Lady Catherine!” he shouted. “Lord Manteo, you are the queen’s deputy. Command him to release the women.”
But Manteo knew he was powerless. Tameoc shoved Graham, who glanced over his shoulder at me with a look of such defeat and regret that my eyes clouded over with tears.
“Thomas, trust Manteo!” I called after him. “He must have a plan.”
The Croatoan women and children now came out of the house, carrying their belongings in bundles. When Takiwa saw Jane and me, she looked away in shame. Tameoc went to her but she pushed him away. Mika’s thin shoulders shook with tears.
I realized we were all Wanchese’s captives.
Chapter 31
Captivity
All my dreams about living in friendship with the Indians now mocked me as childish fantasies. Nor could I have imagined, while enjoying the comforts of Whitehall and the queen’s favor not fifteen months ago, the stark and perilous state in which I now found myself: captive to the serpent Wanchese in a ruined Eden.
More than myself, I pitied Jane. Her only mistake was to heed my reassurances that no harm would befall us at Dasemunkepeuc. It was my fault we had been taken captive. If I had heeded Manteo’s warnings, we would not have left the fort.
Jane clung to me as we were marched through the woods. “Where are they taking us, do you suppose? How long do we have to live?”
I had no answers to Jane’s questions or my own. Why had Manteo offered himself to his supposed enemy? Why didn’t Wanchese kill us outright? To add to my confusion, Wanchese’s behavior changed once the confrontation at Dasemunkepeuc was ended. He was not at all cruel. When we came to a clearing where several horses were tethered, he permitted the women and children to ride and left the men to walk. Later, when his men killed a deer and her fawn, we were given the fawn’s tender meat, the bones themselves soft enough to eat. Clearly he meant to keep us alive for some purpose.
For two days we journeyed through thick forests and swampland where sharp-edged grasses snagged my clothes and whipped my hands and face. They were so tall they hid us from sight, but the splashing of water and the sucking sound of feet in the mire gave us away. Shrill frogs ceased their calls at our approach and resumed when we had passed, but the biting flies and mosquitos never ceased. Soon Jane and I were covered with sores and our skin was scratched and sunburned, increasing the pain. When we stopped for the night, Takiwa took out a pot of bear grease and showed us how to smear it on our skin. It smelled foul but brought some relief.
Jane and I grew less fearful for our lives, but Jane was concerned for her child. “What will become of him if he is born among Indians?” she asked. “Will they take him from me?”
“All Indians are good to children,” I said, trying to reassure her. “The Croatoan woman was allowed to keep her child. Besides, we will be rescued before your time comes.”
Jane was easily encouraged, which made her a good companion for distressing circumstances. She also had a curiosity that sometimes made her forget the seriousness of our plight and succumb to amazement at anything new.
After several days we came to a village surrounded by a palisade. Larger than Dasemunkepeuc, it was known as Nantioc, and Wanchese was the weroance.