Cate of the Lost Colony (8 page)

Chapter 12

From the Papers of Sir Walter Ralegh

A Letter from Lady Catherine

Sir Walter, I have made a poem for Her Majesty, which I copy here for your eyes also. (It is not the one you composed, but one that befits my humbler state.) It is crammed with fine praise, and I am pleased with the rhyme. Thus:

As that new domain, the VIRGIN land,

One part of your kingdom, submits to you;

So I, one maid, from mine own hand

Submit this praise that is your due:

All desire but few deserve

A place in your affection.

All I seek is but to serve

You, joying in my election.

My life I trust you to preserve

By granting your protection.

And when from pleasing you I swerve,

I beg for your correction.

A poem is a powerful thing, I find. What my tears and pleas did not accomplish, my verses did. She calls me her Cat again! I purr! I am content, save for one thing I lack: your love.

Alas I, too, find it is easier to write my feelings than to speak them.

Your affectionate

Cat. Archer

What does she mean by that last sentence? Does she accuse me? Why should one speak words, when actions will do more? Is writing not an action?

My Catherine pretends humility, yet is proud of her verses. They are indeed passable. Amazing, that a maid should show a poet’s wit! I like her even better.

Memorandum

30 July 1586. Sir Francis Drake has docked in Plymouth with half his fleet, some cargo pillaged from Spanish colonies in Florida, and all my colonists.

Damn Ralph Lane. I never gave permission for him to leave the island, or his pack of sorry dogs, slinking home with their tails between their legs. What fears did Drake, that dandified pirate, arouse to make him abandon all our efforts there? Lane protested he had been abandoned without supplies. But on the first of May I dispatched Grenville with a relief ship. Damn him, too, for sailing around robbing Spanish frigates for his own profit! The delay has cost me my colony.

The queen is angry with Grenville and with Lane, whom she has dismissed from her service. The fool Tarleton, drawn like a vulture to carnage, mocked their failure in Virginia—and my own. “They are no men, if a hundred of them cannot subdue a single virgin, but run away when she throws a tempest.”

10 August 1586

Dear brother Carew,

By now you have no doubt heard of my setback. Reassure our investors they have not been defrauded. Do not heed the malicious reports of those disgruntled men who magnify the dangers of Virginia. No worthwhile enterprise is without risk, and those who take chances most deserve to be rewarded.

Thomas Harriot still has a favorable view of our prospects for success, citing the many resources, including the healthful
uppowoc
(which the Spanish call tobacco). He has no doubt that in time even greater riches will be discovered—if not by us, then by Spain.

He is writing a treatise and John White works on his drawings. Those that survived the storm strike the mind with their strangeness, yet convey our common humanity. My favorite is the depiction of a dancing conjuror, who but for his nakedness resembles Dick Tarleton. When published, Harriot’s report and White’s drawings will induce more men to try their fortunes in that land of wonders.

For true it is that the appetite for newness is never sated. Fashions change with the wind, and anything exotic is desired by all the moment it appears. Thus I may yet hope that my Virginia, a blushing maid dressed all in feathers and furs, will attract many suitors.

Your brother, Walter

…

Memorandum

Concerning Manteo.
I did not expect to find such worthiness in one of the savages of Virginia, but Manteo daily surprises me with his excellent judgment and quick mind. His command of our tongue is better than a Frenchman’s, and happily he lacks their affectation of speaking through the nose.

Concerning the Indians and the best means of governing them, he concedes they are divided by long-standing grudges and their alliances shift constantly.

“Do they understand their prosperity depends on their submission to the English queen and her deputies?” I asked.

Manteo hesitated. “We understand laws that are just. We understand the English are very powerful.”

I said I was angry at Lane for the killing of Wingina and asked if he thought it had been justified.

Manteo thought before replying, for it was his nature to be circumspect.

“It is better to be feared than loved, so I have heard.”

I was astonished to hear him quoting Machiavelli like a statesman. Harriot’s lessons have been wide-ranging indeed.

The business of diplomacy had made me crave a pipe, so I asked Manteo if he had some of that uppowoc. Smiling, he produced two pipes and placed some shredded leaves into their bowls. We lit them and drank in the fragrant smoke. I could feel the ill humors being purged from my body. Assuredly my next voyage will meet with more success.

A dream.
I saw my Catherine with the stem of a pipe in her mouth. The pipe became my fingers touching her puckered lips as we breathed together the ambrosial smoke. Like the Indian women in John White’s drawings, she wore an apron of deerskin at her waist and nothing more. Her long black hair fell forward, hiding nature’s twin delights. I started up in my bed and the vision fled. Dismayed, I arose and wrote her a passionate letter, for I could not confine my thoughts within a verse.

1 September 1586. Another plot to kill Elizabeth has been uncovered by Walsingham’s network of spies. The king of Spain and the Jesuits promoted it and Anthony Babington—a known papist—was to carry out the deed. Fourteen others stand accused of treason. An intercepted letter proves that Queen Mary endorsed the plot. At last she will be tried for her treason. As for Babington, he lies in the Tower awaiting his due: hanging and disembowelment.

10 September 1586. Now some whisper the evidence against Mary was forged and Babington framed. Indeed, why would Babington turn traitor? He has too much to lose: lands, title, all his wealth—which the queen will now certainly give to Walsingham.

15 September 1586

To John White

Painter-Stainers Guildhouse, London

I request your attendance at Durham House to discuss your role in a proposed third voyage to Virginia. You know Grenville landed at Roanoke just after your departure in the hurricane and left fifteen men to defend the fort. Their numbers must be reinforced at the earliest opportunity.

Thomas Harriot and the savage Manteo affirm you are a man more disposed to peaceful understanding of the natives than to violence against them. As well, they testify to your love for Virginia, which favorably distinguishes you from those malcontents who complain about the hardships there.

The queen requires my service in her lawless counties of southern Ireland. Thus while my own ambitions tend toward Virginia, I must obey Her Majesty, on whom all our lives and fortunes depend. May God continue to preserve her.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Walter Ralegh

Chapter 13

Bold Dreams

S
ir Walter’s amorous letter set my cheeks on fire. I cannot imagine wearing a deerskin about my waist. What gives men such thoughts?

I hid the letter among the others tied in the wrinkled handkerchief. I had stopped thinking of it as the queen’s handkerchief, or even Ralegh’s. It was mine, a token of his love. The queen had Sir Walter’s loyalty, but his heart was given to me. Mine was the memory of his kiss, his hands touching my hair and face. And mine was the knowledge of his secret ambition to rule Virginia himself.

How hard it was to keep this all within me! Not to betray, by a slipped word or letter carelessly laid, that I loved Sir Walter. No doubt everyone thought my happiness resulted from being in the queen’s graces again. Anne, however, was still out of favor and aggrieved because of it.

“It’s not fair that Elizabeth should forgive you and not me,” she complained one day as we sat in the gallery with our embroidery. “I have served her longer, and we are cousins.” She stabbed at the cloth with her needle.

“But
she
is the queen’s Cat,” Frances said, narrowing her eyes at me. “Don’t you know you can throw a cat from a wall and she will always land on her feet?”

“What are you jealous of, Frances?” Emme said. “You have the queen’s ear.”

“Yes, and I’ll wager you have shared more confidences than any of Walsingham’s spies,” I said. “Whatever you disapprove of, you cannot help but reveal.”

Anne turned to Frances. “Was it you who turned the queen against Thomas Graham?” she accused.

Frances did not even look up from her needlework. “Why do you blame me? Do you think she didn’t know about you and Graham already? Anyone with eyes could see you were in love with him.”

“Just be warned,” said Anne, her eyes flashing. “If either of you dares to take a lover, I will tell the queen and see that you suffer as I do!”

“Catherine is the one you ought to watch,” said Frances coolly. “She is often distracted, and I have heard her reciting poetry when she is alone. She must be thinking of a secret love.”

I felt my pulse quicken. Again I wondered what Frances knew about Sir Walter and me. But I would not bear her smug teasing.

“Don’t bother to watch Frances,” I said to Anne. “No man will ever fall in love with her.” I tossed aside my needlework and left the gallery.

Later I complained to Emme, “I am weary of these games we play with each other.”

“You could endure them before you fell in love with Sir Walter,” she said.

“Hush! I am
not
in love with him,” I lied. “He only helped me write some verses for the queen.”

Emme shook her head. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, to a friend who knows you well.”

“Do Frances and Anne suspect?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” Emme said. “But you must be more discreet and hide your feelings. Sir Walter is the queen’s favorite, and she would be most angry to learn of your love.”

“But it is so unfair!” I burst out. “He is half her age. She will never marry him or anyone else. Why shouldn’t I be free to love whom I will? Why shouldn’t Anne marry Graham? Are
you
content to let the queen rule your feelings?”

Emme shrugged. “That is the way of our world.”

“When you are in love, you will not be so sanguine.”

“I have thought about this,” said Emme. “I will let the queen choose my husband, and then I will choose whom to love. It may be my husband, or it may be another. For once a woman is married, the queen can no longer rule her heart.”

I regarded Emme with astonishment. I wished I could be as practical and sure of myself. She was a sturdy bark navigating the rough waters of the queen’s court, while I was a shallow wherry, always in danger of capsizing.

That summer the queen was peevish, prone to outbursts and harsh accusations. Walsingham scurried through the halls, his beadlike eyes darting back and forth, and Robert Dudley was often in the queen’s privy chamber. When an ashen-faced Earl of Shrewsbury was called in, we knew the furtive business concerned the Scottish queen. Then Shrewsbury’s former page, one Anthony Babington, was arrested for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on her throne. After being hanged, Babington—still alive—was disemboweled, then quartered and beheaded. Balladeers sang the news of the gruesome death, which made me sick to think about. The damning piece of evidence against Mary was a letter written in her hand, approving the plot. The wily queen smuggled out her correspondence in a box hidden in a cask of beer, but the wilier Walsingham discovered it.

I ran to the chest where my own letters were hidden. They were still there, resting beside a pair of too-small shoes atop a hornbook from my childhood. Usually I placed the bundle beneath the hornbook. And the knot in the handkerchief seemed looser. Had I tied it carelessly? I undid the knot, thumbed through the letters, and assured myself nothing was missing. I folded the handkerchief and placed it in the toe of a shoe. I tied a ribbon around the letters and hid them inside my mattress. I determined to burn them at the earliest opportunity, for the Babington affair had frightened me.

The Scottish queen stood trial for her treason, which upset my royal mistress so much one would have thought she, not Mary, was to be judged. She could not eat. I set a platter of stew before her, but she pushed it away so violently it spilled all over my skirt before hitting the floor, where the dogs fell upon it.

“She sought every opportunity to betray me. She must die,” Elizabeth said to the dogs. “But she is my cousin, my own flesh and blood!” She slammed her palms onto the table and stood up, shouting for Lord Burghley, her secretary of state.

I stood in the shadows, holding my breath, while the queen argued with Burghley.

“Mary is an anointed queen. If I consent to her execution, I am guilty of regicide. What will stop my own people from granting me that same death?” she said, her voice shrill.

The dogs crept to my feet, cringing there.

“She must die,” Burghley insisted. “As long as she lives to give hope to papists and other disgruntled subjects, your life will be in danger.”

But Elizabeth would not consent, and the matter remained unresolved.

That fall, Sir Walter and I used such caution in our courtship that our letters were few and brief, carried by his valet or another of his trusted servants. One or two came by way of Emme, though I forbade her to take any risk for my sake. Meanwhile I lived in anticipation of Accession Day, the November holiday when all the realm celebrated the anniversary of the queen’s coronation. I knew I would see Sir Walter at the jousting and feasting. For days on end bells pealed, fireworks exploded, and the glow of bonfires lit the sky. In the streets hawkers sang ballads and psalms celebrating the queen’s deliverance from the evil conspirators.

Awaiting the start of the tournament, I stood in the tilt gallery at Whitehall with Elizabeth and all her ladies. The gallery overlooked the tiltyard, on the far side of which stood a colorful pavilion hung with banners. Spectators filled the galleries surrounding the yard. I watched as the knights arrived—some in glittering chariots and artful disguises—to greet the queen before riding to the tiltyard. I tried to guess which one was Ralegh. My gaze was drawn to a knight in burnished armor engraved with twining leaves. He carried a bow and arrow in one hand and a leafy branch in the other. When he removed his helm with a flourish, I saw that it was Sir Walter.

A cry of delight escaped me but no one marked it. Everyone’s attention was on the splendid figure climbing the stairs to greet the queen on Ralegh’s behalf. He wore loose leggings of chamois and a tooled silver gorget around his neck. Above his ankles were matching silver greaves. His wide brown chest was bare, showing the raised markings on his skin. Streaks of red paint decorated his cheeks and his long hair was plaited with feathers. It was Manteo! I could not take my eyes off him, not even to gaze on Sir Walter below.

“The Savage Knight greets you, O great English weroance,” he said, then began to recite:

“From the New World he hails,

Virginia she is named,

And in her forests, rivers, and dales,

Your virtue is proclaimed.”

He mispronounced a word or two but not a single lady laughed. He ended with a plea to let him—that is, Ralegh—go to Virginia and “
with the touch of my own hand, bring under your sway all that wild land.
”

Our applause sputtered like fire doused with water, for Elizabeth was not smiling.

“The messenger pleases me,” she said. “But tell your master I like not his message.”

She held out her hand for Manteo to kiss. I watched in fascination as he took her small white hand in his tawny one and brought it to his lips.

Manteo then retreated down the stairs to join Sir Walter, who spurred his horse, scattering gravel as he galloped toward the tiltyard. Entering the lists, he unhorsed his first opponent, who clattered to the ground and lay there trapped in his armor. Ralegh struck the shield of his second opponent so hard his lance shivered and cracked, and he raised the broken shaft toward the gallery. Was it a salute or a show of defiance? I glanced at the queen, who smiled as if the triumph were hers.

When the tournament ended, we hurried to dress Elizabeth for the banquet. Her damask gown was set with pearls and rubies, and she wore a matching headdress and a ruff made of Belgian lace. She glowed from the jewels and from the admiration of her knights. Concerns of state seemed far from her mind. At the feast I drank a little wine and danced with Emme and Frances while hoping to catch Sir Walter’s eye. I laughed myself to tears at the antics of Dick Tarleton, who pranced around on a hobbyhorse, mocking the tournament. I sipped more wine and its heat rushed to my face, making me bold. While dancers performed a masque, I glanced around the audience until I saw Sir Walter. He looked in an ill humor, frowning with his arms crossed over his chest. When he met my gaze he raised his eyebrows and pointed to the dancers. But I wanted to watch him, not the masque.

When the musicians had played their final notes, I made my way through the crowd until I was standing beside him. My arm brushed against his sleeve. His fingers grazed the back of my hand, then my palm. The touch was light but the shiver of desire went deep.

“Why do you look so unhappy?” I asked in a low voice.

“You saw how Her Majesty rebuked me at the tournament. She will not support another voyage to Virginia because the last one failed.”

I had heard Ralph Lane’s men were more interested in fighting and destroying villages than in building a colony, and they had killed an Indian leader.

“That was your own fault, Sir Walter,” I scolded him. “For there was no man’s wife or mother or sister among your colonists to restrain their bad natures.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, turning to face me.

“A colony peopled by soldiers and adventurers with no stake in their common welfare is a colony that must fail. A man with a wife and a family will be more inclined to live peaceably with the Indians than to provoke a war with them.”

Now Sir Walter had drawn me aside. “Go on, Cat. Tell me more,” he said.

“Has it occurred to you that you must have women as well as men for your colony to thrive? Why, how else will you multiply the queen’s subjects?” I felt myself blush. But I was excited, too, as the idea unfolded inside me. “Perhaps, Sir Walter, if the queen saw you intended to settle Virginia with families who would make a livelihood there, she might change her mind.” I saw his face brighten. “And if you were to insist on going there yourself, rather than sending a lieutenant to govern, she would see you are serious about its success.” My voice had risen, and heads turned in our direction.

The queen had also noticed us. She lifted her cup.

“Too much wine? Time for a sip of water instead?” she said, looking from me to Ralegh.

For a moment I was confused, my wits clouded by the wine. I saw Frances sneering and Anne with her hand over her mouth. Finally I realized the queen was rebuking me. And claiming Ralegh for herself.

Lightly as a dancer, Sir Walter stepped to her side. “I shall pour it out myself and slake Your Majesty’s thirst,” he said.

Now Emme was beside me, tugging me down onto a stool.

“Didn’t I tell you to be more discreet?” she whispered. “Why, the whole court saw how he looked at you!”

But I did not care. The idea I described to Ralegh was blossoming further, and with it my hopes. He would persuade the queen to let him go to Virginia. I would flee the court and, disguising myself if necessary, board his ship. At sea I would reveal myself, Sir Walter would declare his love, and we would be married. He would govern the Indians wisely, and I would be the first Englishwoman to live in that paradise, the New World, united with my heart’s desire.

It was a lovely dream.