Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [89]
“Would you stay here, Jane? Would you leave your other life altogether?”
“I might,” she said.
The day came when we were to depart for Roanoke. I said my bittersweet good-byes to Mika and Takiwa, who had chosen to stay in Nantioc with their kin. When Jane embraced me, I knew she had made her decision. I clung to her as she had clung to me when we were first captured. Then she needed me; now I felt I needed her. As much as I wanted to see Eleanor again, I knew I would miss Jane even more.
Then she turned to Ananias and Ambrose Vickers and in a calm voice told them she would remain in Nantioc rather than be an outcast in Roanoke.
“Don’t be foolish, Mistress Pierce. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven,” Ambrose Vickers said. But his words lacked conviction.
“I repent of nothing,” she said, her eyes flashing. “I simply choose to live among those who will not judge me.”
She walked over and stood beside the Croatoan women. I was startled to see Mika stealing glances at Thomas Graham, an expression of sadness on her face. While Ananias and the others had averted their eyes from the women, Graham was gazing at Mika as if his Anne had never existed. My mind reeled, trying to take this in. Graham and Mika?
Tameoc reached out and put his hand on Jane’s shoulder, and I was glad for her. But Ambrose Vickers was horrified.
“Whore!” The single word came from his mouth before Graham seized him by the collar, almost choking him.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged,” he growled, a phrase Vickers surely recognized from his Bible.
Ambrose shook off Graham and strode out of Nantioc so fast Betty had to run to catch up with him.
I went up to Jane and said through my tears, “Maybe someday you can rejoin us—with Tameoc and your baby. I will always welcome you.”
There were eleven in the party that returned to Roanoke Island: Betty and I; Ambrose, Ananias, Graham, and three other soldiers; Manteo and two Indians. The journey was slow due to Manteo’s injuries. A week after setting out, we arrived at Roanoke Island on a day sunny with promise and loud with the buzz of late summer insects. I was giddy with relief and gratefulness. Graham helped me ashore and spun me around in a sudden dance. Ambrose and Betty knelt in prayer. But as we approached the fort, our joys dissolved. Fresh mounds of dirt in the graveyard and an ominous silence spoke of some calamity. My first thought was that the fort had been attacked and everyone was dead. Had it been the Spanish or hostile Indians?
It was neither. No, the attacker had been a mortal sickness that killed seven people. Roger Bailey and thirty-four healthy colonists had filled both shallops and sailed for Chesapeake, leaving behind those who were ill. Now there were fewer than thirty people at Fort Ralegh. One of them was the motherless child, Virginia Dare, for, to my sorrow and Ananias’s inconsolable grief, Eleanor had been the latest casualty.
Chapter 34
I, Manteo, Have a Dream from Ahone
When I found the white men lost in the forests of Ossomocomuck and went with them across the sea, learned their tongue and let them make me a lord, how could I foresee that my promises to my new friends would one day lead me to kill Wanchese? He had been my companion on the voyage to London. His people and mine were once friends. His blood and mine, two rivers flowing through Ossomocomuck to the same sea.
Yet I did not regret my deed. Wanchese had mistreated Nantioc’s neighbors and did not deserve to rule them. He had made himself an enemy of the English when he could have prospered by them. He would have forced Ladi-cate to marry him, although not even a weroance should take a woman against her will. Wanchese sought war and died by his own words: In war one must slay or be slain.
When I thought of our fight, I was surprised at the strength I had found to defeat him. It did not feel like montoac from the gods but like something already burning within me. I had killed Wanchese to free Ladi-cate. Surely Algon would have done as