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22

T
HE
W
ELL

Late that fall there were record tides on the Thames. The well at Durham House turned brackish. Sir Walter ordered his engineers to dig it deeper.

Pena and Andrew were working in the orchard mulching fruit trees. The well was fifty yards away, as large around as a stout man. The engineers were working in shifts, one pumping with a bilge pump, one at the bottom digging and putting his spoil in a bucket, which another raised and lowered when the digger tugged at his line. The fourth man worked perched above the digger, sealing the stonework with mortar. It was dank, dark work.

Andrew didn’t like tight places. It made him giddy to look down that hole.

Suddenly he felt the earth tremble. There was a rumbling noise, then shouts. The well had caved! The men on top were hauling the sealer out, his head gushing blood. The bottom-most man was trapped, and the narrowed hole was filling with water. The engineers were rushing about, screaming for help.

“Reset your pipes!” Pena ordered. “Pump! Pump hard!”

He looked at Andrew. “No one else is thin enough to get down. You must go see if he is alive. If he is, dig him out!”

“Me?” Andrew whispered. He had no voice.

“You!” roared Pena. “Be quick!”

The boy was lowered in harness with a trowel. The spoils bucket followed overhead. As he sank into darkness, he struggled to gulp air.

The man below him was stuck in a weight of clay and stone. Andrew could hear his groans, but it was too dark to make out his face.

“I…can’t…breathe,” the man panted. “My chest, my shoulder…”

“Courage!” Andrew called. He was acting now, playing at being someone else, someone brave.

“Courage!” the man gasped as Andrew reached him and began scraping away the mass at his chest. The man’s right arm was twisted at an odd angle.

For hours the boy dug and loaded stone and wet clay. The space was so close he could make only small movements. His arms grew numb, but the cheers from above that greeted every bucket he sent up inspired his working.

The men on top lowered mugs of beer in the empty spoils bucket. The pumpers kept the water down.

At last the man was clear almost to his waist, but he was still in too deep for the men above to draw him out without tearing his joints. It had gone from dark to black in the hole.

Suddenly a small circle of warm orange light staggered down. The light revealed Andrew and the trapped man to each other for the first time. They tried to smile at each other through sweat and grime. Mr. Harriot had ordered a fire built and rigged his mirrors and lenses to cast a beam. It was not large, but it was everything.

When Andrew had cleared the man to his knees, he gave the signal that they should try to lift him. The man screamed as the rope pulled at his hurts. The muck gave him up with an ugly sucking noise. As they hoisted Andrew clear, he followed.

Mr. Harriot helped unhitch Andrew’s harness and wrapped him in a blanket. After seeing to the engineer, Sir Walter joined them.

“Will he be all right?” Andrew asked.

“I snapped his shoulder back in place,” Sir Walter said. “He’s bruised and cut, but, yes, he’ll be all right. I gave him a drop of Doctor Dee’s opium tincture to ease his pain. He’s sleeping now.”

He gave Andrew a long look. “I was sixteen when I first killed a man,” he said slowly. “I was twenty before I saved one. You’re earlier at saving.

“Your father once saved me from drowning. Did you know that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sir Walter nodded. “You do well keeping to yourself. Few learn to. Mr. Harriot has remarked that about you.

“He says he needs your help getting ready for Virginia and writing his reports when he gets there. We all know about his writing, so I’ve agreed you may serve him as secretary, beginning now. In Virginia you will go with him everywhere he goes and write as he directs—gathering notes for our advertisement for Virginia. He’ll pay you a wage and supply your kit.”

Sir Walter must have noticed a change in Andrew’s face.

“Your work for him as secretary counts for more than being my page,” he said gently. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes…sir,” Andrew stammered. How could he explain that while he was glad for the promotion, Sir Walter was the man he admired most in the world and he didn’t want to leave his service?

He didn’t need to explain. Sir Walter smiled and gave him a friendly pat. “We’ll do things together again when you get back. I promise!”

23

T
HE
T
WO
I
NDIANS

Late that night Mr. Harriot came to the dormitory and shook Andrew awake.

“Sir Walter calls us,” he whispered, his voice charged. “It’s the exploring captains to America. They’ve arrived with two Indians!”

William heard. He sat up and waved as Andrew went out.

James was lighting torches in the main hall, where sailors trundled in crates and trunks. Sir Walter’s turret was bright with candles. The two sailing captains, dressed in their best silks, sat beside Sir Walter. Two Indians wearing deerskin capes squatted on the bare floor. They were not tied. There were no guards.

As he slipped in behind Mr. Harriot, Andrew caught the eye of the closer Indian. There was worry and curiosity in it, but no fear.

“We found a secret island, thick with trees and overgrown with grapes,” the older captain was saying. “The people are gentle and so eager to trade; one copper pot buys ten fine deerskins. They have pearls,” he said, handing a string to Sir Walter.

“The chief we met wore it to show his wealth and power. We traded a small copper kettle to get it for the Queen.”

“Large as berries, they are,” Sir Walter said as he weighed it. “This will please her—pearls are her favorite jewel. But go on—the island…”

“Roanoke is well hidden, with rough shallows all around,” the man continued. “We left a fort for your use—a frame of wood and earth behind a good ditch.”

Andrew barely heard as he stared at the Indians. They sat motionless. They looked to be about eighteen, the color of rubbed bronze. Their heads were shaved clean, save for a ridge of stiff black hair that ran from forehead to neck. They were well muscled, not tall. Were they prisoners?

Their eyes were on Sir Walter. Their stares drew his.

“Mr. Harriot, you and Andrew will learn their language,” he ordered. “See to their comforts as you help them understand how we live. Ask what they find strange. Ask every question you can think of: Is there gold? Do they know a way to the Pacific Sea? What do they eat? What are their medicines? What is their religion? Learn about their people, how they live. Andrew will write down their answers.”

Andrew looked over at Mr. Harriot as the tall man raised his eyebrows. The boy looked back at the Indians. Did they have any idea what was being said?

“To my ear their tongue is ugly,” the younger captain muttered, shaking his head, “and you’ll find it harder than any Spanish code. Most of our talking has been pointing and grunting.”

“What do they need?” Sir Walter asked.

“They eat ship biscuit and salt pork,” the man replied. “Bread, meat from the spit. Give them water, no ale—they do not brew in Virginia, so it makes them sick. They sleep in their deerskins on reed mats from their country. You’ll find them restless; they’ll want lots of exercise.

“They keep strong drugs in the leather pouches at their waists for ceremonies. One they stuff up their noses, the other they sprinkle a pinch of on an open fire and sniff up the smoke. It makes them drunk, so when they do that, be careful.”

Mr. Harriot said he knew the smoke drug. The Spanish called it tobacco.

“We won’t leave them on their own,” Sir Walter said. “They’ll live in the apartment next to Mr. Harriot’s. He and Andrew will be their daytime companions. We’ll keep some of our people around them always.”

William was awake when Andrew returned.

“What are they like?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Andrew replied in a hushed voice. “I couldn’t tell if they were frightened or pleased at being here. The captains say they volunteered to come, though for what pay or reward I don’t know.”

“Are they tied?” William asked.

“No, but they’re to be kept close. Mr. Harriot and I are to stay with them and study their ways. The captains say their voices are high for singing their prayers; to each other they grunt low. They talk little.”

“What do they look like?”

“They’re brick colored,” Andrew whispered as he got into bed. “Their heads are shaved so there’s just a strip down the middle. Manteo is the handsomer. He has high cheekbones. The captains say he is the higher born, the son of a great priest. The other, Wanchese, has a dark look. Their fingernails are long, like claws, for fighting. Sir Walter says Mr. Harriot and I must learn their language.”

“And shave your head?” William murmured as he turned away.

The boys had just gone back to sleep when there were thumps and shouts from the hall. They rushed out. There was smoke! The Indians’ room was on fire!

They’d raked coals from the fireplace out onto the floor to smoke their drug. “I went in when I smelled burning,” the man minding them explained. “They was singing, whooping and dancing, and when I come in to check, they pitch me out to my hurt!”

Andrew and Mr. Harriot settled them, then went back to bed as the Indians’ minder settled grumbling in his chair.

“Get us some of their drug to try!” William said. He giggled.

“I don’t think they did it for pleasure,” Andrew said. “I didn’t see tears, but I think they were crying.”

As they followed the Indians around the next day, Andrew asked Mr. Harriot, “Why did they come?”

“I’m told the captains showed them many strange things,” the tall man said quietly, “talked about saving their souls and promised to make them powerful chiefs when they returned. They gave them Bibles, crosses, knives, and trinkets. The Indians were dazzled. They had no idea what they were getting into. When they lost sight of land, they lay on the deck moaning and singing to their god.”

The strange-looking pair attracted crowds. People came up to touch them. When a well-dressed lady did so, Wanchese reached for her brooch. As she pushed his hand away, he tore the jewel from her blouse and pinned it to his cape. A moment later, Manteo lifted off a man’s hat and put it on. It sank down over his ears. When the man tried to take it back, he got knocked down.

“Make a record,” Sir Walter laughed when he heard. “I’ll pay for their hats and jewels. Those two are walking advertisements for my Virginia colony!”

“Advertisements?” Andrew asked.

“Proof to the common people that there really is a New World out there,” Mr. Raleigh explained. “Some will want to go see where they came from.”

Andrew wondered what the warriors thought about being paraded around.

“They aren’t shackled like the trained bears that dance outside Whitehall Palace with rings through their noses,” he said to Mr. Harriot later, “but they’re being used the same way. It’s wrong!”

Mr. Harriot pursed his lips as he thought.

“No,” he said at last, shaking his head. “They’re learning about us, how we live. They’ll go back and tell the others. When we go to their country and they show us around, we will be the curiosities poked and stared at. They’ll have to care for us just as we care for them, protecting us from things we have no idea of. There is no other way.”

That night, Andrew dreamed he was in an Algonquin camp, feeling as strange as Manteo and Wanchese must have felt in London. Dark people stared and pointed at him. He understood nothing he heard; the food they offered tasted strange. He was ignorant of everything, locked out of words. The strangeness of it all worked like one of Mr. Harriot’s glasses, magnifying his loneliness.

24

C
HRISTMAS
R
EVELS

The Queen ordered Sir Walter to bring the Indians to Whitehall Palace for her Christmas Revels. Andrew and Mr. Harriot had learned some of their Algonquin language by now, so they went along as interpreters.

Andrew stood tall, proud to enter the Presence Room of the palace in his best page’s outfit: tan hose, pale gray tunic with “WR” embroidered in red silk at the center, black shoes of Venetian leather. Mr. Harriot wore what he always wore, his long black coat.

The great hall was bright with music, scented candles, and cords of evergreens. The people wore perfume and powder. The air was choking thick with cinnamon, clove, sweat, and smoke.

There were great platters of meat cut up small for the guests to spear on their knives, pies and sugared fruits, marchpane, sweetmeats, and great bowls of syllabub—thick cream mixed with sweet wine, lemon rinds, and sugar. One cup made Andrew’s head spin. The company downed it like water.

Sir Walter wore the orange silk tunic of the Queen’s Guard over black hose, his knife at his belt. A gold hoop flashed in his ear. He looked the prince of pirates.

On a sign from Raleigh, Andrew and Mr. Harriot paraded the Indians forward, their bodies oiled and painted mulberry red under their war costumes—loincloths, ornamented deerskin capes, and the stone-headed war hatchets they called tomahawks. As they walked, they gestured what they would do to their enemies. It was not pretend; despite everything Andrew and Mr. Harriot had said to put them at ease, they lived ready to fight.

The revelers stilled and murmured as the two glided past.

Manteo and Wanchese understood that while Sir Walter was chief of Durham House, the Queen was Big Chief Elizabeth, in charge of all.

To a drum-and-trumpet fanfare of Sir Walter’s composing, the Indians were to carry the boar’s head to the Queen’s table—red water like blood at the neck, its tusks and eyes wetted so it would appear fresh killed.

It was Andrew’s first visit to the Queen. She took no notice of him; she saw only the warriors. Her eyes were brown and piercing, coldly measuring everything she saw.

As Andrew stood to one side, he tried to figure her age. Was she as old as or older than his mother? Her body was that of a youngish woman, but her face was a puzzle. It was long and pointed. Her chin was sharp.
It could be a boy’s face,
he thought.
She is not beautiful, but she looks strong in purpose.

To appear young, Elizabeth had her people smear her face with a fine white paste that concealed every blemish. Behind this mask, only her eyes and mouth moved, her mouth but little. The heavy jeweled dress and jacket she wore kept her body fixed in place.

The Indians had a superstition that the paleness of their English skin meant they were spirits from the dead. The whiteness of the Queen’s face scared them. In Virginia, when a chief died, they dressed him in his finery and laid him on a shelf in a special house they kept for their dead.

That moment in the Presence Room, Manteo and Wanchese thought they were in the presence of a dead chief who moved her eyes and hands!

The Indians forgot to bend the knee as taught. Manteo crept forward like one stalking game, staring at the Queen’s hands. She was proud of her hands. She had beautiful slender fingers adorned with many rings. When she noticed Manteo’s staring, she twiddled her fingers a little to show them better.

Andrew froze as Manteo reached to touch her hands, Wanchese crouching up close behind. No one was permitted to touch the Queen except at her bidding!

Her guards rushed forward. Wanchese raised his war hatchet. Mr. Harriot and Andrew stepped before them as Sir Walter and others in the company pushed the guards back.

“No hurt! No hurt!” the Queen laughed. She’d taken it all as flattery. She might not have been so flattered had she known what the Indians thought they were seeing.

Manteo pointed to her earring and signaled he wished to put it in his ear.

Mr. Harriot explained the Indians’ gift custom. “Among their leading people, when one admires something, the other is expected to make a present of it. You must give it to him,” he said.

The Queen glowered. “Must? Is ‘must’ a word to be addressed to princes?”

Manteo smiled and nodded as if he’d understood all. The Queen shook her head and summoned one of her ladies to remove the ornament. The Indian jammed the pointed end of the earring into the rim of his ear. Blood dripped from the stab, but he seemed not to notice.

Andrew watched, wide-eyed, sure that he and his charges were going to get in trouble for so much forwardness with the Queen. No. She turned away with a laugh to greet the ambassadors. Manteo touched his ear and smiled at Andrew.

After the banquet there was music and dancing. The Queen changed her gown for the dancing. She did not like to eat in front of people, but she loved to dance for an audience.

To a roll of kettledrums and trumpets, she reappeared in a costume of striped black and white silk figured with pearls.

Sir Walter had changed too. His costume was almost the match.

The Queen started when she saw it; then she laughed and took him up. To her, all was flattery.

She led the dancing with Sir Walter on her arm. The gentlemen and ladies of Court followed in rows and squares of dancers.

Horns, tambourines, drums, lutes, trumpets, and flutes played in the great hall under flickering orange-and-yellow flames. One of the women wore crushed garnet in her hair so it sparkled red like flashes of fire. Other heads in that light glittered with green of emerald dust; some were touched with blue of ground lapis. Two were dusted with gold. None was dressed so fine as the Queen, though.

She led the pavane, fine figured and graceful, pointing her feet exactly, turning like a leaf spinning in air. One by one her partners dropped away as she danced on alone, faster and faster.

Suddenly she stopped and summoned her maids to lift off her jacket and blouse. Her breasts bared, she resumed as before, only now with her hands over her head.

Andrew’s mouth went dry. Never in all the gossip about the Queen had he heard about this! He looked at Mr. Harriot. The man stared openmouthed.

Manteo and Wanchese stared breathless and openmouthed too at this dead-god chief of chiefs. Did she mean to cast some fantastic spell on them?

They whispered to each other as they snuffed up pinches of drug from the pouches at their belts. Then, in frenzy, they rushed the musicians. Manteo seized a drum; Wanchese went for a tambourine.

The music stopped, and with it the Queen’s dance as the Indians began their own music before her, banging drum and tambourine and howling so loud and heartfelt it seemed their throats would tear.

Pouring sweat, they danced and cried to save their lives. Then, as if on some silent signal, they quit and dashed out into the cold.

The company thought it all a show and cheered as Andrew ran after them, calling, desperate, sure they were going to kill themselves. He found them by the river. Mr. Harriot came up, out of breath. The Indians would not take the coats they offered. They would not speak. The four walked together, silent, back to Durham House.