I
11 May 1610
“Les Sauvages sont véritablement noble,” Jack read from the book’s page. It took him a moment to translate it into English: “the Savages are truly Noble.” He smirked; a clever turn of phrase. Lescarbot’s Histoire de la Nouvelle France, written just a year before, reached London quickly—as all things reached London quickly. He wrote here of the Mi’kmaq Indians, who could hunt as freely as any nobleman in Europe. The thought of it made Jack’s heart leap. Beyond the seas lay now a whole New World, where the corrupt powers, principalities, thrones and dominions of the Old held no sway—a world where men might live free.
Europe left more behind than it accepted. From the days of ancient Rome, land, honors, titles all passed from eldest son to eldest son. The world they knew had strict limits; it simply did not possess the room needed for such teeming throngs of humanity. Nearly everyone toiled and died in the harsh anonymity of serfdom; of the elite few born into the nobility, only the eldest held onto it. Most became disinherited, and Europe fought constant, brutal wars to give the rest something to do—a meat-grinder in which to dispose of the excess population. The Old World valued human life cheaply. Old men lived forty full years before they expired. Plague, or pox, or famine, or war would always cut life short.
For those like Jack Quick, for whom the Old World offered naught but grinding toil, filth, misery, and early death from either plague, or famine, or murder, or war, or torture, and who possessed some means by which to remove themselves, the New World sounded a clarion call, announcing that life did not have to follow that path. Beyond the seas, a New World waited. Jack closed his book and looked out over the waves. “Where even the savages are noble,” he thought to himself, and chuckled.
“Think you’re so clever, doncha?” a gruff voice sounded behind him.
Jack turned to see the hairy, greasy face of another colonist, his eyes glaring with accusation. “Generally, yes,” Jack smiled.
The man had a friend—two of them. “We know what you runnin’ from, Quick. And Jamestown don’t need people like you.” Jack noted the flash of light as the man pulled a knife. His friends did likewise.
Jack Quick leapt to his feet and unsheathed his longsword, swinging it in a brilliant arc that knocked the dirk from one of the ruffians’ hands. He knew that it would open his side to the other two, but what else could he do? He braced for the cut of cold steel into his skin, but instead heard a clang of metal.
Jack turned, and saw the tall, black figure that had moved between him and his assailants. He wore the somber clothes of a Puritan, and the rangy look of a hardened wanderer. His hair had turned white, but Jack could still see a steel behind his bearing that he did not dare to countenance. He spoke in a gravely voice. “This hardly seems a fair fight,” the Puritan said.
Jack recovered, and stood side-by-side with the tall Puritan against his assailants. “I think this about evens it up, friend.” The two assailants lost their nerve then, and broke away. Jack laughed; his companion did not.
“Oh, aren’t you a humorless fellow?” Jack asked. “Did you see the looks on their faces? Ah, well. But tell me, friend, to whom do I owe my hide?”
“You owe me nothing,” the Puritan replied. “I indulged myself, for the satisfaction of justice. But men call me Solomon Kane.”
“Solomon Kane, eh?” Jack extended his hand. “Jack Quick.” Solomon took his hand. “I’ve seen you about the ship before,” Jack mentioned. “You’re a Puritan, aren’t you? You and your companion, an elderly gentleman…?”
“John White,” Solomon replied. “Yes.”
“John White?” Jack turned the name over aloud. “I’ve heard that name before…”
“I should think,” Solomon said, as he bent over to pick up the book Jack had dropped. He dusted it off and handed it back to him. “You seem to keep at least a modest track of how things go in the New World, so the name of the famed illustrator and once-governor of the colony at Roanoke should sound familiar to you, I should think.”
Over the remaining weeks at sea, Jack became friends with Solomon and John. John told him what had moved an old man like him to take to the seas once more for a final voyage, one he did not expect to survive. Twenty years before, circumstances had forced him to abandon his search for the lost colony. What lingered in the myths of avid adventurers like Jack held a poignant, personal tragedy for John White. He had taken with him his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Ananias—and their unborn daughter, his granddaughter, known better as the first English person born of the New World’s soil: Virginia Dare.
Last year, rumors began to circulate about London, rumors of a chief called “Gepanocan,” who held four Englishmen and put them to labor working copper, including a “young maid.” When those rumors reached the aging John White, already all but forgotten, living on the former estates of his erstwhile patron Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland, John’s heart leapt. He sent word to his old friend, Solomon Kane, whom he’d met while they both sailed beneath Sir Richard Grenville, when the first colony at Roanoke failed.
“That is the sad tale,” Solomon said at its conclusion. “Beyond the tales of the lost colony, a man who wishes to know the fate of his daughter, and perhaps see his granddaughter one time before he dies. And what of you, Mr. Quick? Do you have the mettle to see a thing done, without promise of reward, glory, or even recognition—simply because it is the right thing to do?”
“On general principles, no,” Jack answered honestly. “I’m not what you call a good man. But …” his voice dropped, his heart touched by John White’s tragedy. “I will help you find Virginia Dare.”
II
23 July 1610
When the People come of age, their Song sings a dream to them in their sleep, showing them some token, a charm that held the rest of them and would make them a complete adult. When the strange little girl of Dark Water dreamed, though, she dreamt of a beautiful, white doe’s tail. This posed a problem for her: she belonged to the Deer clan, so for her, killing such a beautiful creature would count as murder, just as much as had she killed one of the human People. But the little girl knew she had to follow her Song, nonetheless, and so off she went, alone into the forests of the mainland. It took days of following the paths marked out by the stories her elders had taught her, sometimes chancing upon a hoof-print and tracking down a deer, but never the beautiful white doe that her Song sang to her in her dream.
Finally, after many days, the girl came to the edge of a stream where she stopped to drink, and as she looked up, she saw the beautiful white doe drinking from the same stream, on the other side, looking back at her. Slowly and gently, the girl extended her hand to the doe, and petted her face. The girl went with her. Wherever the doe went, the girl followed. When the doe laid down to sleep, the girl curled up beside her. When the doe foraged and ate, so did the girl. Finally, one night, the doe sang to her in her dream, and said, “Little girl, what do you want of me? Ask it, and I shall give it.”
“I come from the Deer clan,” the girl answered, “so bonds of kinship bind us. But before I came, my Song sang to me the dream of my completion, and it sang to me about your tail. I can hardly harm you, sister, but without your tail, I cannot become whole. So I travel with my sister; thus, I stay near your tail, and no harm comes to you.”
“You have wisdom beyond your years, strange little sister from beyond the sea,” the doe replied, “but do not fear. Go back to the People. Surely they taught you how beings with a great Song change their shape—you have a mighty Song, little sister, and now you have followed yourself.”
When the girl awoke, she held the doe’s tail in her hand, without any sign of blood, as if the doe had never existed—and indeed, the doe had disappeared, leaving no tracks whatsoever that the girl might follow. For the strange color of her skin, for her position in the Deer clan, but most of all for that unique experience, the People called her “White Doe.” She frequently dreamt of how she went out into the forest in the form of a white doe, and the People often saw her running through the forest near the village, so all knew what a powerful Song she sung, and how she could change her shape. Some had begun to ask her to join one of the medicine societies—until Gepanocan attacked.
White Doe and the People tripped over the strange, Algonquian names as much as the English did, but Manteo always told her how his own people had once spoken such a language, before their decimation, when they came to live with the Hemp People. White Doe had never known any other, nor had she ever known a world where the power of King Powhatan did not loom like a terrible shadow. Wahunsunacock had risen from the Waterfalls, where he ruled as an absolute monarch. Tribe after tribe, village after village, fell to his power as he expanded his empire. Manteo insisted that his growing power owed only a little to Powhatan himself: he had lived for several years in England, had learned their ways and their language, and had seen the incredible witchcraft they sowed. Wherever they walked, witchcraft followed; Manteo said he watched his people die of diseases shot at them from the Englishmen, but he insisted that they made a strange kind of witch. “They do not even know it,” he would say. “I think witchcraft comes so naturally to them, they shoot their arrows without even realizing what they do.” But that didn’t change much. Manteo’s people, the Chowanoc, had nearly all died. He had sought refuge, with many others, among the Hemp People, living further inland, and he had brought the strange little girl he had raised as his own with him.
But when Gepanocan attacked, Manteo could do little to protect her, or even himself. Gepanocan had submitted to the power of King Powhatan, and ruled over his village as chief. He sacked the village White Doe called home and burned it to the ground; he killed most, but others he took as slaves. And so White Doe lay, still but awake, on the cold dirt in a hut in Gepanocan’s village, thinking about the day she woke with the white doe tail in her hand, and how that tail now hung in Gepanocan’s hut, and how she had spent the whole day banging copper for him, just like the day before, and the day before that, on for the past year. And she thought of the plot she and Manteo and the other slaves had devised.
She steadied her breathing and listened. Feigning sleep also let her keep her ear pressed to the dirt, so she could hear. No footsteps. The night air grew chilly, even now in summer, at the coldest hour of the night. Slowly, silently, White Doe pushed herself up far enough to crawl stealthily out of the hut. She saw no one. Quietly, she straightened herself up.
As quietly as the deer that taught her and guided her, she crept into the great hut of Gepanocan. There, hanging from a peg in the wall, she saw her tail, lifted it up, and took it back.
No human could outrun the guards. No human could run all the way back, to find the nearest village of the Hemp People to raise a warband and return. Such swiftness and grace far outstripped the capacity of any human.
But a white doe? A white doe could do precisely that.
III
24 July 1610
The ships had arrived not a moment too soon. Ten miles downstream along the James River, at Mulberry Island, they intercepted the Deliverance and the Patience, with 90 persons aboard—all that survived of King James’ Town—intending to return themselves to England. They told of what horrible calamities they had survived over the previous winter, a period they already called, “The Starving Times.” For every ten of them, nine had perished. But the Baron de la Warr returned them to the site of the colony, and addressed them all: “It was the arm of the Lord of Hosts who would have his people pass the Red Sea and the wilderness and then possess the land of Canaan,” the Baron preached. “Doubt not God will raise our state and build his church in this excellent clime.”
Solomon leaned close to Jack’s ear. “He preaches, aye,” he whispered. “But his words stink of the worst kind of tyranny—the kind that hides behind the holy name of God.”
John White quoted scripture quietly, under his breath: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
As if in fulfillment of the Puritans’ misgivings, the Baron proceded to proclaim his commission: that the London Company had appointed him Royal Governor of Virginia, with complete autocratic control. He quickly set forth the “Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall”—his own martial law—and set forth penalties for the crime of blasphemy, which included challenging the authority of any minister or officer, much less the Baron himself.
John White and Solomon Kane called themselves Puritans in a time when the word meant something rather different. Their opponents in England mocked them for the purity they insisted upon: every man his own priest, with none who could interfere between him and his God. And if no one could stand between a man and his God, how much less should such a man, with direct access to the divine lord of all Creation, ever submit to any earthly authority? Religion comprised a particular field of politics; it involved less a question of personal belief, but rather, political sentiment and allegiance. The Reformation Martin Luther sparked involved more than questions of religious belief; it rebelled against the authority of Rome. The Puritans objected to the remnants of “Popery” in the English church, taking that Reformation to its obvious conclusion: rebellion against all authority. For men like these, the Baron’s words cut to the heart of everything they hated most.
Jack did not share their idealism, but the sentiment still moved him. He had come to find a New World, with the promise of freedom and dignity. Instead, he had found 90 starving, half-dead refugees desperately clamoring to go back to the same grimy hell in London Town he had just left behind, and now an autocrat of a Baron declaring martial law. But he had agreed to help Solomon and John while they still sailed the Atlantic; now, he could hardly wait to start on that path, and leave the walls of King James’ Town behind.
Jack found a colonist familiar with the rumors, named Francis Nelson. He shared a copy of his map with Jack, labelling where “remaineth four men clothed that came from Roonock to Oganahonan.” He showed it to Solomon and John, and together, they set out into the Virginia Wilderness, traveling south to Oganahonan.
On the first afternoon, they struck camp, and Jack took a musket into the woods to hunt dinner. It took some time, but he eventually chanced upon the tracks of a deer. Jack followed them into a clearing, and there saw before him the most beautiful doe he had ever seen, completely white. Silently, Jack readied his musket. The doe looked up, seeming to notice not sight nor sound, but Jack’s attention. She ran; the shot went off, cutting through the pregnant air. Jack tried to run after the doe, but the graceful animal easily outpaced him through the woods. He returned to camp, where the three Englishmen shared bread and beer, and Jack shared the tale of his marvelous encounter.
By the next day, they would reach Oganahonan, the village of Gepanocan, and John White prayed, he would finally see his granddaughter again.
IV
25 July 1610
Finding Oganahonan provided little challenge. The walls of the village rose up in the midst of cleared fields, surrounding perhaps a dozen huts clustered about a central fire. The arrival of Englishmen caused a bit of a stir. Warriors came out to meet them, and though they could not speak English and John White knew only the most broken parts of their language, their body language made it sufficiently clear that they had come to escort them to Gepanocan.
As the warriors escorted them through the village, the Englishmen all took note of the small shelter off to one side, surrounded by a handful of warriors, where workers pounded metal. Some had the hue of Indians, but others among them—three men, Jack counted quickly—had the pale complexions of Europeans. The rumors of them put to work beating copper confirmed the worst suspicions, suspicions only Jack had really figured out: Gepanocan kept them as slaves. For John, the thought bore too much grief to consider, that he had led his congregation into the hands of slavers; for Solomon, the crime so unforgivable that however typical it might have seemed, he could never assume it. But Jack Quick had lived a difficult life in Europe, one he hoped to put behind him. He hoped that tales like those of Lescarbot might hold truth; he prayed that Michel de Montaigne had it right when he wrote Of Cannibals. But he also always suspected them of naïveté. He had seen the cruelty that men could work all his life. He could never share Solomon’s fanaticism, for at the core of such fanaticism must lie the conviction that men can do so much better—hence, the indomitable rage Jack could already see swelling in the rangy Puritan when men fell short of that nobility. But to Jack, the scene seemed all too typical. He hoped that men might prove him wrong; but to date, his suspicions remained that humanity shared an implacably fallen condition.
But besides Solomon’s rage, he could also see the fear growing in old John White. Jack placed his hand on the old artist’s shoulder to comfort him, saying, “There’s no girl there. Just men. She may yet be free somewhere here, perhaps with Manteo still, yes?” John nodded. He had told Jack the story of the lost colony—how the renowned pilot, Simon Fernandez, had repeatedly delayed their approach, kept them from taking on necessary supplies, and then left them not at the Chesapeake Bay where their plans had originally intended, but on the island of Roanoke. Roanoke! Of all the cursed places! John knew the island well, as did Solomon. They had gone there with Sir Richard Grenville in the years before to establish a colony. Their attempts had failed, largely because of the monstrous, bloodthirsty treatment of the local tribes at the hands of Ralph Lane, left there in command of the colony. Solomon and Manteo had worked together to create a peace with the Chowanoc of Croatoan village, but the cruelty of Ralph Lane proved insurmountable, and soon they faced full-out war against the chief, Wingina. Sir Francis Drake happened past and picked them up, but the natives still cursed the name of Lane, calling him “wendigo,” the name of some horrible demon that haunted their lands. When John recognized where Fernandez had deposited them, he knew that the pilot’s constant failures and misfortunes amounted to far more than simple negligence or bad luck. They had come to the New World seeking a fresh start, a congregation of Puritan Seperatists hoping to escape the hierarchies of the old world and found a new one where all could live as equals. That sentiment had made them particularly unwelcome in England, but the idealistic Sir Walter Raleigh agreed to finance their expedition. But Raleigh represented another aspect of that revolutionary sentiment, himself a man of low birth who proved his mettle, and that angered many of the entrenched nobility. Raleigh had powerful enemies, and his enemies became the colony’s enemies. Fernandez, the old pirate, had no doubt accepted some coin to see the job done, and to ensure that none would return. White tried to renew the peace, but when George Howe turned up dead, with a quiver of arrows in his back, Manteo had no doubts about what they faced. Fernandez would soon sail back to England, and the colonists panicked. They recognized that they would soon fall to slaughter; they begged White to return to England for help.
White did return, and from the moment they reached the western coast of Ireland, a race began—a race that Edward Stafford won, as he began to declare the good news which he brought you of the safe arrival of your last colony in their wished haven. John arrived too late; how could he beg for aid, when Stafford had already declared the mission a success, the colonists landed in their “wished haven,” when in truth they had left many miles south of their wished haven, abandoned in perhaps the most dangerous stretch of American coast an Englishman could find, one where they already had a reputation? The Spanish Armada’s attack delayed his return, and then one misfortune after another. It became far too much for White to accept as simple misfortune; he suspected a mastermind dogging him, closing off every path, keeping him from his people in their hour of need. He dared not speak the name, though he knew the culprit; he whispered it only to his closest friends in confidence: “Walsingham.”
Sir Francis Walsingham, the Virgin Queen’s fabled intelligencer, died in the same year that John White finally made it back across the Atlantic, to find Roanoke abandoned. On his granddaughter’s third birthday, John Wite returned to a lost colony. He had left them clear instructions, to leave the sign of a Maltese cross, and where they had headed, in the event that they came under attack and had to flee. He found the word, “CROATOAN,” but no cross. They must have retreated to Manteo’s village, though not under assault. He knew where the village lay; from there, a simple jaunt to the south could rescue them all. But a hurricane came brewing then, and when it had passed, the privateers he had finally found to bring him across the sea refused to make the journey. White could do nothing as the ship sailed away, and the last hope of finding his family faded over the horizon.
When they reached King James’ Town, John White heard other stories: stories about John Smith, who inquired after the Roanoke colonists during his time with King Powhatan. King Powhatan had impressed upon Smith the strength of his people, and how the English should submit to his power, lest he drive them into the sea. He told Smith that the colonists had opposed him, so he had attacked the colony and killed them. He produced a musket and a brass mortar to prove his point. The town government maintained that the colonists had all died, killed by the savage Powhatan. Yet they could not suppress the constant sightings, at villages scattered throughout the vast Virginia Wilderness, of white-skinned people among the Indians.
That hope, though he had long thought it dead, stirred again in John White’s heart as they entered the smoky darkness of Gepanocan’s hut. It overcame John, while Solomon quaked with rage at the sight of the slaves. So Jack Quick took the lead as diplomat.
He made a sweeping bow towards the chief, saying, “Lord Gepanocan, we come to you from King James’ Town, to enquire after rumors of our people found here in your village.”
Gepanocan spoke broken English—more than any of the Englishmen could speak of his language, poor though it seemed. “Yes. Foreign colony. Mighty King Powhatan crush them.”
“We saw men like us in your village,” Jack replied. “You have them working copper.”
“Yes,” Gepanocan answered. “Them work metal. Serve great king.”
“We have come to ransom them from slavery,” Jack began, trying a guile that he could not predict, but only follow.
“You have no,” Gepanocan laughed. “Them much labor.”
“We have great wealth to offer in return,” Jack offered. “England wishes mightily to have her subjects returned.”
“Them much labor!” the chief emphasized.
Jack sighed. “We had heard,” he began again, “that you held four of our people.”
“Great king Powhatan have three slaves here,” Gepanocan replied.
“But did you not have four?”
“Have three now.”
“What happened to your fourth slave?” Jack asked. “Did she escape?” John’s eyes darted to Jack’s smirking face, his eyes suddenly wide with hope. The chief fell silent, and Jack knew he had something. “I imagine Great King Powhatan would not be very pleased with you, losing one of his slaves—since, as you say, they provide you with much labor.” The chief shifted uncomfortably. Jack knew he had him. “Unless she escaped recently, and Great King Powhatan does not yet know…”
The chief looked up at Jack weakly. “How you know all that?”
Jack laughed. “My people read books. Your people read tracks. But I read your heart right off of your face!”
The chief steamed for a moment, embarrassed that this foreigner had read him as easily as his own people. He lashed out. “You steal children, now you want slaves back. No! They stay here! We take slaves in battle, you creep in night, steal children!”
“Stealing children?” Jack puzzled. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“We see more ships arrive,” Gepanocan said. He had the momentum now, and jabbed his finger forcefully towards the English, to underline each accusation. “Then children disappear. We find English who did it. They now with Great King Powhatan, Werowocomoco. We know you do it!”
Jack scratched the hairs on his chin. “What if we returned your children to you?” he offered. “Might that service be enough to consider selling us the slaves?”
The chief stopped to consider the offer. “Perhaps.”
“Good thinking,” Solomon commented. “This chief may be a villain, but the kidnapping of his people’s children is no less a crime than his own. With this, we might put two wrongs to right at once, and God willing, punish the villains of every hue who have authored this multi-faceted tragedy.”
Jack nodded, murmuring, “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but I suppose that’s the general idea, yes.” He turned back towards the chief. “Very well then, honored chief,” he said. “We will return with word of your missing children.”
As they left the chief’s hut, escorted by four warriors, Solomon said flatly and solemnly, “I will kill that man.”
Jack looked at the rangy Puritan in shock. He saw the implacable steel in his expression, and the fire in his eyes. “I don’t doubt that you will,” he replied, with equal parts admiration and horror at the fanatic’s zeal.
Then, a war cry pierced the air, followed closely by the whistling of arrows. They arched up over the wall of the village, and came falling down inside. The warriors escorting the Englishmen turned on them, assuming they had come as the advance guard of some attack. Solomon and Jack could see their intent plainly, and immediately drew their blades. Solomon’s rapier flashed once, twice; warriors to either side of him fell dead, huge slashes across their torsos. “This way!” he cried. Jack followed, moving defensively, the two fighters placing old John White between them. Solomon’s sudden attack had opened up a path towards the place where Gepanocan kept the slaves. The rest of the warriors rushed towards the gate, where a war band of enemy Indians already began to enter.
“Stay there with the slaves,” Jack instructed John. “It will make it easier for us to protect all of you at once; I just thank God that most of the warriors are focused on the attackers, and not on us.”
As if in answer, Gepanocan exited his hut then, four warriors surrounding him. When he saw the scene, his attention moved towards the Englishmen, already dispatching his men, gathered around the slaves. “Betrayers!” the chief roared, as he charged towards them with his personal entourage.
Few in the world could match Solomon as a fencer. He fought in the most technically perfect manner Jack had ever seen. The chief, on the other hand, called upon his native spirits to strengthen him, the power of his ancestors, and matched Solomon’s blade with the savage, brutal falls of his copper war axe.
Behind them, a large, red hand clapped on John White’s shoulder. He spun around, to see a sight all too familiar. The big slave smiled. “I think I might be able to help you out here, old friend.” Jack sliced one of the warriors, and he fell in a lump. He almost didn’t see one of the slaves clamor forward to grab the fallen warrior’s axe, and with a war cry of his own, begin attacking Jack’s assailants.
Jack and the slave fought against the chief’s warriors, while the chief himself matched Solomon Kane blow for blow. Finally, his righteous rage burning within him, Solomon made a relentless attack that visibly shook the chief. Jack saw an opening. His longsword lashed out, and sunk deep into the chief’s belly. He stopped suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head, and then his body went limp and fell off of Jack’s blade.
“So you are a man of action,” Kane said. “I was beginning to think you meant forever to talk of fighting this evil, and never to actually strike at it.”
Jack laughed. “It’s not a question of not striking at evil,” he replied. “But knowing when to strike.”
“You’ve found yourself a lad there a bit quicker than yourself, Solomon,” a big, laughing voice interrupted in perfect English. Solomon looked past Jack, to the big, red Indian behind him, and smiled.
Jack looked from one of them to the other. “You know each other?” he asked.
The Indian smiled. “Well, perhaps not that quick.” Seeing their chief fall had broken the spirit of the warriors; the enemy band put them to rout, and soon a different band began to surround the Englishmen around the slaves. “Calm, friends,” the Indian said. “These are my people. And if I’m not mistaken…”
White Doe pushed her way to the front of the group, and seeing the big indian, ran up to embrace him. John White’s eyes grew wide; though she dressed in the manner of an Indian, her skin had the pale complexion of the English. The Indian squeezed her, and said something to her in a language none of them understood. He turned to John White, as if presenting the girl to her. “Here is the reason you’ve returned, old friend, is it not?”
John’s voice barely broke above a whisper. “Yes…” He extended his hands towards her, feebly. “Virginia, oh Virginia, is it really…?”
The girl looked confused, as she took the old man’s trembling hands. Manteo placed his hand on her back and nodded, telling her in their language, “This man comes from across the sea. He is your grandfather.”
“I’m sorry, John,” Solomon interrupted. “The joys of reunion must wait a little longer; we have opened up the opportunity to escape and free these people, but I do not think we should tarry here.”
“Agreed,” the Indian replied. “It’s time we left this village behind.”
V
26 July 1610
The Indian—he had abandoned his Christian name, “Jack Straw,” and returned to his older name, “Manteo,” even though his new people thought it a strange sound—first had to explain to Jack Quick and White Doe his relationship to the two Puritans. As he explained, their friendship had more years than either of them. On the fourth of July, in the year of our Lord 1584, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe sighted the coast of the New World, and by the 15th, they had landed on Hatteras Island, where Manteo’s village—Dark Water, or, as the English pronounced it, “Croatoan”—sat. The captains led an expedition backed by Sir Walter Raleigh, and aboard ship they also brought an talented young illustrator to bring the sights of the New World back to England—John White.
At Roanoke, the chief, named Granganimeo and a brother of the weroance Wingina, sent Manteo and his friend Wanchese to meet the ships. At first, all went well. Raleigh, ever the idealist, insisted on the importance of building friendships with the New World’s native people. The captains carried out that vision, trading and sharing with them. When they prepared to return to England, Granganimeo sent the two friends with them, to see their world and report back about it. Manteo and Wanchese became wonders at the court and learned English fluently; for Raleigh, they epitomized his dream for the peace and friendship that would foster the spread of true religion, and the power of an English empire based on mutual assent and alliance.
The sight of London horrified and bewildered both Manteo and Wanchese; never had they seen such a dense press of humanity, or such squalor, or such enormous constructions. Manteo felt sorry for them. Bowing and scraping before their lords, miserable and wretched, bowed and broken, they seemed less like people than pale shadows of humanity, passing to and fro, debased and wounded. Yet he also knew what sickness could fester in such wounded hearts, and he pitied them. But Wanchese feared them, instead. He saw their weapons and numbers, and the incredible squalor of their condition, and said, “Why would they not attack us and take what they can? They want for everything. Our land gives us everything we need, freely; here, they have nothing. It amazes me that men can even survive in such poverty. Why would they not envy us, and try to take what we have by force?”
Manteo tried to comfort his friend; “Pity these poor people. Do not fear them. They have nothing, so how can they threaten us? But if we help them and show them how to live like people, then what do we have to worry from them?” But the two friends had started down very different roads already.
The next year, based on the information Amadas and Barlowe brought back, Raleigh financed a new expedition to Roanoke: this one headed by Sir Richard Grenville as admiral. Grenville included his old comrade, Solomon Kane, as well as the now experienced illustrator, John White. And so, aboard the Tyger in the late spring of 1585, the three men met together for the first time. The fleet also included as High Marshal Sir Thomas Cavendish, the famous navigator, as Grenville’s second in command, and third in command, the soldier Ralph Lane, called upon for the mission by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth herself. Amadas joins the small fleet as Vice Admiral, and for pilot, they have one of the most experienced New World navigators, a Portuguese man named Simon Fernandez.
In the Caribbean, as they harry the Spanish, Ralph Lane and Sir Richard Grenville stand at odds with one another, Lane accusing the admiral of recklessness, pride and ambition that jeopardize their mission, their men, and most of all, his own life. Lane began a campaign of slander against Grenville, something that did not endear him whatsoever to Solomon Kane. Kane interrupts the story there to remark upon the generally contemptible mixture of bloodlust, cowardice and cruelty that mixed together in Ralph Lane, but Manteo quickly resumes his story. Lane engineers a veritable mutiny, bringing the council over to his side by sowing doubts about Grenville. Then the Tyger, Grenville’s flagship, ran aground, destroying many of their supplies, leaving food only for 21 days and landing too late in the growing season to plant crops. Ralph Lane led an expedition into the interior to trade for food with the natives, and John White went with him.
Old John White’s eyes well up with tears as he describes the kind, gentle people of Aquascogoc, how they prepared a feast for their English visitors and greeted them with such welcome arms. And then a silver cup went missing. White’s tears turned to anger. “Lane! Thinking of it now, he probably took it himself, just so he could raze the village.”
Jack looked at the old Puritan with a quizzical expression. “How do you figure that?”
“The smear campaign against Grenville, the Tyger going aground with Fernandez at the wheel,” White answered. “At the time, we could not know, but given what happened later, to my congregation … Lane wrote back, not to Raleigh, but to Walsingham! He hated Raleigh for what he represented: low-born who rose to the nobility, giving the lie to all the evil myths of domination and power. He hated Raleigh’s dream of a New World where friendship was the foundation of English power. He came from the old aristocracy, and he was a spymaster. His power laid in fear, paranoia, rumor and innuendo. That’s what he spread, and where he lived. That’s what it came down to: trust versus fear. Raleigh wanted to create trust, and Walsingham wanted to plant fear. Lane was his agent, planted in our midst. The struggle continues to this day; Walsingham may be dead, but the Baron serves the very same cause.”
“That’s why my people called Lane ‘wendigo,’” Manteo said. “But your people are not the only ones caught between trust and fear, old friend. I’ve told White Doe—Virginia—many times, how your people live in so much fear and squalor, witchcraft comes to them like a second nature. You are very nearly all witches.”
Solomon scoffed. “I doubt that. We have our witches, certainly, but most of us…”
“Wherever you go in my land,” Manteo cut him off sternly, “death follows. People fall ill and die. Your curses are so effective, even those who simply come into contact with someone who comes into contact with you, dies. My people are nearly all gone. I have been forced to live among the Hemp People. King Powhatan conquers the decimated remains your witchcraft leaves behind. I do not think your people even know the witchcraft they work, but every step you take brings pestilence as surely as any witch. That is what set Wanchese and me at odds.”
When Grenville returned to England, he left Lane as governor—not because he trusted him, but because the council forced him. Lane’s smear campaign had worked, and with Grenville gone, Lane could work freely to sow the animosity Walsingham desired. The burning of Aquascogoc had sparked a war, and Lane acted decisively. He slew Wingina, the weroance of both Manteo and Wanchese.
“By the time you returned,” Manteo told John White, “the witchcraft of your people had decimated this whole land. King Powhatan had already begun his conquests, growing his empire wherever the people had been wiped out by disease. We watched the whole world die. When you returned, Wanchese led those of Wingina’s warriors who remained loyal, intent on extracting his vengeance and driving you into the sea. I tried to tell him of the differences between men like Ralph Lane, and men like you, but he would not listen. He said you were all witches, and needed to be destroyed before your witchcraft killed us all.”
“Don’t you think the same?” Solomon asked.
Manteo mulled the question over for a bit. “You may be witches, but I have known enough of you to know that if you are all witches, then you wield a strange kind of witchcraft that you do not even recognize. You are simply incapable of controlling your own power; you simply need to learn how. Look at your granddaughter, John,” he added, gesturing towards White Doe. “She has great power, but she has learned how to control it. In her, I see the hope for your people to become human, if you will follow her example.”
Wanchese led the remnant of Wingina’s warriors, and slew George Howe as he collected food. The colonists panicked, and sent John White back to England.
“After that,” Manteo picked up the story that John White had traveled so far to learn, “the colonists came to Croatoan, seeking shelter from Wanchese. But he led only the desperate remnant of a dead chief’s warriors; they knew nothing of the growing empire of King Powhatan. It did not take long before he attacked Croatoan.
“I am sorry, John,” Manteo said. “Ananias and Eleanor were killed by them.”
John nodded. “I had prepared myself for that.”
“Since then,” Manteo told him, “I have raised White Doe as my own daughter. We moved inland, and eventually joined the Hemp People. They are good people; they speak a very different language, but they still uphold the old values of egalitarianism and brotherhood, even in these dark, deadly times when others—like the Powhatan—succumb to the seduction of power and domination. She has known no other life; all she remembers is the Hemp People, and the ever-present threat of the Powhatan Empire. Our village fell to them scarcely a year ago, and she used her power to rescue us.”
The story finished, reunited with his granddaughter, a calm began to settle on John White’s heart. Manteo had taught Virginia to speak English, though she rarely did so; now, she spoke it to acquaint herself with a grandfather she never knew. Jack had other questions on his mind. He asked Manteo, “Gepanocan told us that children have gone missing. Have you heard anything of that?”
Manteo nodded. “Only recently. The Powhatan were muttering about it. Apparently, a new governor has come to King James’ Town, though that much you no doubt know better than I. What they said was that they had seen his men come in the night and kidnap their children. It was not at Gepanocan’s village, but other vill…” He stopped in mid-syllable, and took a deep sniff. White Doe seemed to notice it at the same time, and looked quickly to her foster father.
“Smoke?” she asked.
“Carried on a south wind,” Manteo murmured. “From Oganahonan.”
They all grabbed their things quickly and roused from their temporary retreat in the forests, where they had spent the morning sharing the stories of their intersecting lives. Oganahonan lay only a short run to the south. As they broke through the trees, they saw billowing smoke rising above the fence. English soldiers spread out around the perimeter. Jack spotted an officer on horseback, and broke out towards him. “Ho, there! What is the meaning of this?”
“Stand back, sir,” the officer barked. “This is Company business.”
“We have freed the slaves here!” Jack cried. “There’s no reason for this.”
“What slaves?” the officer asked. He saw White Doe emerge from the trees. “Oh, the stories about white Indians. No, we’re not here to chase silly stories, citizen. We’re here on Company business. Now, do not interfere. Return to the colony.”
Jack’s mind raced, but every possibility ran into a wall. In frustration, he drew his longsword and attacked the officer. Seeing the fight, both sides closed. The soldiers rushed to their officer’s defense, while Manteo, Solomon and White Doe ran to Jack’s side. The officer unsheathed his sword, and with a sudden cry, ran Jack through.
VI
26 July 1610
Jack awoke with a groan. “Hold still,” Virginia told him. “He wounded you badly; I’ve placed poultices that will help, but they take time.”
“You … healed me?” Jack asked. She nodded.
Solomon Kane sat beside him, staring at a scrap of parchment. “We found this on the officer,” he said flatly. “Orders from the Baron. He’s one of several sent out. Their mission is to burn the villages and massacre everyone. He calls it ‘Irish tactics.’”
“The Baron means to start a war with the Powhatan?” Jack asked.
“So it would seem,” Solomon answered. “It certainly gives credence to the stories of the abducted children. Orders from the London Company itself, to kidnap Indian children and teach them to become English, and to wage war against the Powhatan.”
“But Jamestown was on the brink of destruction when the Baron arrived here,” Jack replied. “Why would he want to start a war? That would simply mean the destruction of the colony!”
“Aye,” Solomon answered. “That is the mystery that remains, but we will find the answer to that riddle in only one place.”
Manteo looked solemnly at his old companion. “We must go to King James’ Town.”
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