Besieged (30 page)
Authors: Bertrice Small
“How do we get there?” Kieran asked.
“Fortune will remain here,” Charlie said. “You and I will ride down in a few days’ time. I’ll send ahead to gain an appointment with him, for this expedition of his is extremely popular, and he is besieged by those who are interested in going. Many, of course, are only interested in gaining lands, and then leaving them to their colonists while they return to England to live well. Cecil Calvert, like his father before him, wants responsible colonists who will remain in Mary’s Land. I think you will qualify, and that, along with your ability to support yourselves, will weigh heavily in your favor. And of course because I am the king’s dear nephew, and want a place for you,” he teased them both.
“And we have our own vessels,” Fortune said. “I’m going with you, Charlie. You aren’t going to leave me behind while you two have all the fun, little brother.”
“Wardour will be no place for a woman,” he protested. “An important expedition is being set up there. It will be full of men, Fortune, and you are a respectable married woman now, for God’s sake.”
“Doesn’t Lord Baltimore have a wife, Charlie?”
“Aye, Lady Anne Arundel,” was the answer.
“Is she there?”
“Of course! It’s her father’s home,” he replied.
“Then I shall go,” Fortune said. “You’re a courtier, Charlie, and you don’t really know a great deal outside of the court. And my husband is a country gentleman from Ulster, unfamiliar with English ways. I have to go. I’m the only one of us with a practical nature, and we’ll need my skills at negotiation.”
“She’s right,” Kieran said with a chuckle, “but I’ll not mind her company at all, Charlie.”
The young duke thought a moment, and then he grinned. “Damn me if you aren’t correct as always, sister. I’d forgotten that you are the sensible one among us. Aye, come along, but we’re going to ride, Fortune. No servants, and no fancy clothing. Wardour at Tisbury is several long days’ ride from Queen’s Malvern. Perhaps on the way back we’ll go by way of Oxton, and see India and her family.”
“Ohhh, I should like that!” his sister responded enthusiastically.
They sent word to Cadby to Henry Lindley that they were leaving for Wiltshire, and would see him when they returned. Rois and Kevin were left in the care of the Queen’s Malvern servants, and the trio rode out one fine June morning. Kieran was surprised to find how capable his wife was in caring for herself. He had not realized it before, and it struck him suddenly how little he really knew Fortune. They reached Wardour Castle several days later. Fortune had never seen a building such as Wardour before. It was hexagonal in shape, and its Great Hall was laid out over its entrance.
Cecil Calvert greeted them personally. “Charlie! ’Tis good to see you, my lord. The king is well?”
“I haven’t been at court in a month,” Charlie replied. “I’ve come today to ask a favor of you, Cecil. This is my sister, Lady Fortune Lindley, and her husband, Kieran Devers. Kieran was heir to a lovely little estate in Ulster until his English stepmother decided her son, Kieran’s half-brother, would make Mallow Court a better master.”
“You’re a Catholic?” Lord Baltimore said, his look sympathetic.
“Aye, my lord, I am,” Kieran said quietly.
“They want to go with you, Cecil,” Charlie said.
Lord Baltimore looked distressed. “We already have more people than I had anticipated,” he said.
Now it was Fortune who spoke up. “We have our own ships, my lord,” she said. “My own two trading vessels. The larger I’ll use for our transport. The other I intend using for the horses. We have colonists, too. Fourteen men of whom five are farmers, two fishermen, two weavers, and one each, a blacksmith, a cooper, a tanner, a shoemaker, and an apothecary. The five farmers have wives, and several children among them. All are healthy, devout, and of good character. And we have a physician, Mistress Happeth Jones, plus my two servants. We can provision all our people as well as the ship, my lord. Please, let us come with you. There is nowhere else for us to go, for while my husband is a Catholic, I am an Anglican. They say you will practice toleration of all faiths in your Mary’s Land. It would seem the perfect place for us.”
Cecil Calvert looked at the lovely young woman before him. While she was dressed for riding, rather outrageously in doeskin breeches, her garments were expensive, and elegant. Her hands were the hands of a lady. Her speech refined. “It will not be an easy place to settle, Lady Lindley,” he told her. “You will have to build your own home, and it will be nothing, I will wager, like that which you are used to for it is a wilderness. There are other dangers too. Some of the natives are not friendly, and as prone to war as the French and the Spanish, although I hope to negotiate a peace treaty with them. You must bring everything that you need with you, and if you find you are in need of something you do not have, you will have to do without it. You will be bereft of your family, for I know from Charlie that yours is a large family. You will not see your brothers and sisters for years, if indeed you see them ever again. Are you truly certain that you would make this great journey, and live in this new world?”
“Aye,” Fortune told him bravely, “I am, my lord.”
“I would consider it a debt owed you, Cecil,” Charlie Stuart said meaningfully.
Lord Baltimore waved his hand. “Nay, Charlie, I am happy to offer your sister and her husband a place in my colony. They are just the kind of people I truly want. They will make something of the land given them, and they will remain to build the colony. Come with me now to my privy chamber. I will tell you what is involved, and what you will get in exchange.” He tucked Fortune’s hand in his. “I remember you, and your sister, India, at court. You were two of the prettiest young ladies there at the time. You departed, leaving behind many broken hearts.” He led them along a stone corridor, finally ushering them into a paneled room where a fire was burning merrily.
Lord Baltimore settled his guests, sitting with them. “Now,” he said, directing his gaze to Fortune and Kieran. “For every grant of land made by me, an oath of fealty must be sworn to me as the colony’s Proprietary. You will receive a thousand acres for every five men you bring with you. As you are bringing fifteen men you will be given three thousand acres, Master Devers. I will want twenty pounds for each man transported. The women and children will not be charged. Each male colonist will receive a hundred acres for himself, and if he has a wife, one hundred acres for her in addition. Fifty-acres is assigned to each child over the age of sixteen years. They will pay twelve pence quitrent each year for every fifty acres. You will pay twenty pounds quitrent yearly.
“Each of your people must have a minimum of two hats, two suits, three pairs of stockings, shoes, one ax, one saw, one shovel, nails, one grindstone, one spit, one gridiron, a pot, a kettle, a frying pan, and seven ells of canvas. The women, of course, will take gowns, and not suits. Each man will need a musket, ten pounds of powder, ten pounds of lead, bullets, and goose shot, as well as a sword, a belt, a bandolier, and a flask. Your people, both men and women, should learn how to shoot for they will not be able to depend solely upon the gentlemen in the expedition for protection.”
Kieran nodded. “What kind of food supplies shall we stock?” he asked.
“Flour, grain, cheeses, dried fish, meat, and fruit. Casks of beer, cider, and wine. And seed. You will be given a list of what to bring for we must get through a winter and spring before we will be able to eat off our own land,” Lord Baltimore said.
“Then you intend sailing this year?” Kieran was surprised. Both his father-in-law and Charlie believed Lord Baltimore’s expedition could not set off until the next year. They would have to send to their people and tell them to prepare. Monies would have to be dispatched to Rory Maguire for the supplies. “When?” There was so much to do.
“Autumn. ’Tis not the best time to travel, but we have no other choice. Unlike my father, I seem to have enemies who would prefer Mary’s Land not be settled.”
The representatives of the Virginia colony were in particular most vexing. They complained to the king that by allowing the Mary’s Land colony to come into existence they would lose both land and settlers. They complained that Cecil Calvert was setting up a colony where all people, even Catholics, could worship in freedom. Then they started rumors that only Catholics would be allowed in Mary’s Land. They lobbied hard to get King Charles to rescind Lord Baltimore’s charter. He listened to them all, but he remembered George Calvert’s faithful service to his family. And, too, his young Catholic queen pleaded privily with him to ignore the malcontents.
“The charter will stand,” the king told his wife. “I think the Calverts dreamers to believe they can actually make a place in this world where all people, no matter their faith, can be welcome. Human nature being what it is . . .” He shrugged. “But perhaps it is possible,” the king concluded. “We will pray for their success.”
Nonetheless Calvert’s detractors continued to work behind the scenes to destroy Lord Baltimore’s dream. Cecil Calvert realized he could not, at this time, go with his colonists. He put his younger brother, Leonard, in command, and his even younger brother, George, was made the colony’s deputy governor. Jerome Hawley and Thomas Cornwallis were named to assist the Calverts as commissioners. The preparations continued for an autumn departure. Kieran and Fortune returned to Queen’s Malvern to prepare. There was no time for visiting India at Oxton.
Back at Queen’s Malvern Fortune realized that her moon link had been broken. She was with child. The knowledge put her in a quandary. She knew if her husband learned of her condition he would not allow her to go to Mary’s Land until after their child was born. Had she been India, she would have kept the secret, but she was not India. She was the practical child, and yet . . . she sighed.
“What is it?” her brother asked as he came upon Fortune sitting upon a stone bench in the Queen’s Malvern gardens. He sat by her side, and took her hand in his.
“I have a problem to solve,” Fortune said. Her fingers worried her dark green silk skirts.
“Are you having second thoughts about leaving England?” he queried her. He didn’t really understand the passion she and Kieran had for going. Catholics lived in England. Not easily, but they did.
“Mary’s Land is where my husband and I belong,” Fortune said to Charlie. “I have never really felt at home anywhere, and neither has Kieran. We know Mary’s Land is where we must go. That is not my difficulty, little brother.”
“Then it can only be you have not told your husband about your expected child,” Charlie said.
Fortune was astounded.
“How did you know?”
she gasped.
“How did you know?”
she gasped.
Charles Frederick Stuart laughed aloud. “How many children does Mama have? I was the fourth. Five have followed me, Fortune. I know when a woman is with child. When is the babe due?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, and when he chortled, she said, “Don’t you dare to laugh, Charlie! I always expected Mama would be here when I had my first baby. I thought it would be she who explained to me how long it took for a child to grow inside a woman. What am I to do?” She stood up, and began to pace the gravel path.
“When was your link with the moon broken, sister?” he asked.
Fortune looked askance at him, but said, “I have had no show of blood since we left Glenkirk.”
His handsome brow furrowed a moment, and then he said, “Probably very early spring, but we’ll write to Mama. In the meantime you must tell your husband, Fortune. He has to know.”
Fortune debated with herself as to how she would inform Kieran that she was expecting their first child, and just how she would convince him nonetheless to let her travel to Mary’s Land with their party. Yet she couldn’t seem to get up the courage to tell her husband. She knew what he would say. He would insist they remain in England until the child was born, and able to travel in safety. After all, wasn’t that the decision her parents had made last year in Ulster? And Autumn was Mama’s ninth baby, not her first. Perhaps she would wait until they were at sea to tell him. Yes! She would apprise him of her condition then when it was too late to turn back. It was the perfect solution. God’s boots, Fortune thought to herself. I am more like Mama and India than I ever realized. So she said nothing, and astutely avoided her brother’s questioning looks.
She awoke one morning ravenous, and dressing, hurried to the family hall to join Kieran and Charlie in breaking their fast. She ate with enthusiasm. A bowl of oat stir-about with dried apples and heavy cream. Fresh bread smeared with butter and topped with a wedge of sharp cheddar. Two hard-boiled eggs, liberally salted, and topped off with a mug of sweet cider. Suddenly, however, her stomach rebelled. It rolled, and gurgled loudly, and then before Fortune could even stand up, she vomited her breakfast back upon the high board with a groan.
Both men looked somewhat horrified, and jumped up lest they be sprayed with her spew.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Kieran asked her, concerned.
Before Fortune might answer her husband, however, her brother spoke up. “You haven’t told him, you vixen, have you?”
“Told me what?” Kieran demanded, looking from his wife to his brother-in-law.
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