“Fine! You’ve a fine ship there. Load her with mast timbers and send her back.
I’ll buy them, and whatever else you have to offer, and if you take any prizes,
bring them to me.”
“I will do that,” I said quietly, “and I am grateful.”
He got up suddenly. “Let us walk down to the inn. I’ll have a drink with you
there. Could have it here, but I need the air. Need the walk. Don’t move around
so much as I used to.
“Raleigh’s land, is it? Well, well! Savages there? You’ve seen them? Are they
truly as fierce as we hear?”
I shrugged. “Some are, some aren’t. They are good fighters, and some are good
traders as well. I hope to be friendly with them.”
“It is well. Send your ships to Falmouth. We’ll treat you fair and ask no
questions, nor make a report. Why, ’tis foolishness, this talk of treasure! I
believe no part of it, for you acted no part like a man with gold.”
We sat over our ale and talked, of ships and the Queen, of Raleigh and Essex and
Mountjoy, and of Kinsale that had fallen, and of the actor Shakespeare, and a
likely man I found him, Peter Killigrew.
The Abigail lay still upon the crystal water of the bay when I returned, and the
lighters were alongside, out-loading our goods, and Abby was at the rail.
She looked anxiously into my eyes. “Barney, I was that worried! I was afraid
they’d taken you for the Queen.”
“Not them.” Suddenly, I remembered. “Abby, have you heard anything unusual
aboard ship? Or seen anyone not of the company?”
She looked at me oddly, and I explained. “A boy?” she asked. “Who came aboard in
Kinsale? Oh, Barney, let’s find him!”
“We must. I’d not like to be taken up for kidnapping.” I called to Jeremy.
“Stand by the scuttle, will you? I shall go below.”
“What’s up?”
When I explained, he shrugged. “It’s just another lad, wishing for the sea, no
doubt.”
When I was in the darkness of the hold, I spoke out. “Lad, I saw you come from
the boat last night. Come out now, for we’re sailing to America in the morning,
and there’ll be no place there for lads whose family will be wanting them.”
There was silence, then slowly from among some bolts of sailcloth, he stood up.
We eyed each other in the dim light.
A fine, likely-looking lad he was, slender, but with good shoulders upon him,
and a clear, clean-cut face with a shock of handsome hair. The skin of his face
and of his hands marked him for gentry.
“Who are you, lad?”
He stared at me, brave enough, but frightened, too. “I am of Ireland,” he said,
“and my kinfolk are killed. I am alone, wanting only to get to France where
there are others of my kind.”
“To France, is it? You’d fly away and leave your land behind? We’ve enemies in
France, boy.”
“You have, if you’re English, as I’ve no doubt you are. I’ve none, for it’s
Irish I am, and they are friendly to us there.”
“Aye, so I’ve heard. You are Papists, Irish and French. Well, come on deck.
You’ll be hungry, and Catholic or Protestant, you’ll be ready to eat. I’ll have
no lad hungry aboard my ship.”
“It is very kind of you.”
Yet he watched me .warily, and I was sure he had no trust in me. So I commented,
“Boy, you’ve the manner and style of a lad well-raised, so I’ll trust that
you’ve honor as well.”
He turned on me, drawing himself up a little and looking directly at me. “I
have, Captain. In my family, honor comes first.”
“Do you know the name of Barnabas Sackett?”
“I do not.”
“Well, the name is mine, and a good name it is as names go, but I am wanted by
the Queen’s men. It is a mistake, but the devil of a time I’d have proving it,
so come the dawn I shall be away upon the sea to America.”
“America?” he was startled. “I had thought—”
“Aye, no doubt you had expected aught but that. Well, America it is, and I shall
not come back. Nor did I think that you’d such a voyage in mind when you came
aboard.”
“To get away, Captain. That was all I wanted. Had they found me they’d have
slain me … upon the spot. I am—”
I lifted a hand. “Tell me nothing. It is not needed. I know something of the
troubles of the Irish, and have naught against you, m’self, nor does anybody
aboard, but there’s some as might in the towns about here. Was I you I’d get far
from the sea.”
“You do not go to France, then?”
“To America only, and we’ll touch no land, God willing, until we reach there. If
you go ashore, lad, it will be here, in this place.”
He stared off into the distance, frightened a little, but not wishing to show
it.
“Say nothing of who you are, lad. Tell nobody you are Irish for a great while.
There be many a lad adrift in England now. Mayhap you can get yourself
apprenticed—”
“I am a gentleman!”
“Aye,” I agreed grimly, “but would you rather starve a gentleman or live fat an
apprentice? Lad, I know none here, but I’ll set you ashore with a good meal
inside you, a bait of food to last you, and enough money to buy an
apprenticeship in a trade you welcome.”
Startled, he looked at me. “You’d give me money?”
We went on deck and to the cabin then, where Lila fed him well, with some talk
from Abby and me.
“My name?” He hesitated. “My first is Tatton. I’ll not be telling the other.”
A handsome lad he was, with clear hazel eyes, and a warm smile. Such a lad as
someday I hoped my son would be, but we put him ashore in Falmouth with five
gold coins sewed into his waistband and a packet of food.
He waved to us from the shore road before he started off, and we saw him no
more, a fine, sturdy lad, walking away toward a future no man knew.
22
Dark flowed the waters of the Chowan River, dim the shadows in forest and swamp,
sullen the light upon the empty hill where once our fortress stood. The timbers
we had hewn with our hands, the joints we had fitted with loving care, the huge
gate with its repairs … all were gone.
Burned …
“Do you see anything, Jeremy?”
Ring was studying the forest and the riverbanks through his glass.
We stood together on the poop, watching the banks slide by in the fading light
of an aging day, seeing the red touch the hills with warning. Abby was beside
me, large now with child, and John Tilly, calm, serious, a little worried, I
think, for he approved not of our going. Jublain had told me at last that he had
not the stomach any longer for the wilds. “I fear you must go from here without
me, Barnabas.”
Well enough I understood, and blamed him not a whit. There were other places for
him, and other climes. In a way I was relieved, for I much wanted a good friend
who knew where we were and what we did.
At the last I had decided to leave the ship to Tilly, for Jublain wanted it not,
only passage back to Europe or to the French lands to the north. Pimmerton
Burke, Tom Watkins, and Jeremy Ring would come with me, and others had chosen
also to attempt the wilds. Jublain assured me he would come again on another
voyage, but within days now we should be pushing upstream with Wa-ga-su as our
guide.
We had hoped to find the fort intact, but it was gone, burned. Had they found
the food caches? We did not need the food now but a time might come, and it was
a comfort to know it was there.
We went up the hill in the morning under a sullen sky of clouds with lightning
playing, and we stood among the charred timbers and felt a sadness upon it, for
what man does not love that which he himself has built?
The earth above the caches was grown now with grass. If the food had been found
it was long since. The nuts, at least, would keep.
We returned and went back aboard and sat at table with few words between us. “Is
it all gone?” Abby asked.
“Burned,” I said, “a few timbers and ashes. Grass grows where our house was, and
where the wall was built. I think it must have been but a little while after we
sailed.”
“Nick Bardle?” she asked.
“Indians, I think. Bardle would not burn it. He would rather leave the timbers
for further use sometimes, if along this coast he needed a spar. Scoundrel he