Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [90]
Yet Ladi-cate did not appear grateful for my sacrifice. I wanted her to regard me as Jane-peers regarded Tameoc. But she hardly looked at me, nor did she attempt to speak to me. Did she consider me no better than Wanchese?
If Ladi-cate did not seem glad, the Englishmen were pleased that I had slain their enemy. They asked me to remain at the fort to aid them if Wanchese’s allies attacked. I said I had to visit the peoples of Ossomocomuck to persuade them not to take revenge. To befriend the Croatoan and the English instead.
So I left Fort Ralegh. The colonists were still in some peril. No ships had come to their aid, and they had not even a pinnace to sail in. I could best serve them by seeking peace among their neighbors, so I spent the harvest months going from village to village, sometimes with Tameoc as my councilor. He spoke of the virtues of his wife, Jane-peers. Told how Ladi-cate had brought a white medicine woman to treat their sickness the winter before. Entertained them with stories in which the red-bearded soldier, Grem, became the trickster Fox. All to make them see that the English were like us in many ways.
To those who could not be persuaded to friendship, I offered this counsel: the English, being few, might soon die of hunger if left alone. Still they were suspicious, and in their mistrust I heard the echo of Wanchese’s long-ago taunt: You are one of them now, are you? Had I betrayed the native peoples? Brought them harm? No, they had warred among themselves before the big ships came. But I had been mistaken about the montoac of the English. I thought it would bring us power and prosperity. Instead it had stirred up only trouble, which it was my purpose now to settle.
As I returned to my mother’s village for the winter, I reflected that my dreams of being a hero were like a copper trinket dimmed by foul weather. During the bitter months that followed, the leeward shores of Croataon froze as hard as stone. The lodges were half buried by snow. The air inside was rank and smoky. The hunters came back empty-handed, having killed nearly every deer in the forest. I considered how Ladi-cate must be suffering from cold and hunger and felt helpless to relieve her.
One night I dreamed that a white hare lost in the snowy woods stumbled into the den of a black bear, awakening it. The bear growled, angry at being disturbed, but the hare conquered its fear to ask for the bear’s protection. Admiring the hare’s bravery, the bear permitted it to live in the cave. In time the hare gave birth to a human child with a white face and a mane of black hair who grew up to be a weroance capable of great feats of strength. He lifted a canoe filled with many people and set it on a river that flowed into the sunset. When I woke up the bear skin I slept under had fallen to one side and I was shivering. The strange dream made me confused, as if I had a fever.
I thought I would forget the dream, but it did not leave me. It came back the next night, so lifelike I decided it must have come from Ahone, the creator. A man must not ignore such a dream but try to discern its truth. I thought about it for many hours, and after dreaming it a third night, I awoke with an understanding of Ahone’s message.
He was demanding that I save Ladi-cate and her people.
Chapter 35
From the Papers of Sir Walter Ralegh
Memorandum
10 March 1589. Myrtle Grove, Youghal, Ireland. As storms blew the great Armada into the northern seas, Her Majesty now blows my feeble bark to Ireland. I am exiled because of a poem I wrote comparing her to Venus and Lord Essex to Cupid. (I thought she fancied herself