The Captive Princess Read online

  Pocahontas laughed at her friend. It hadn’t been that long since Nokomias came to Werowocomoco. At first she seemed like one who walked in her sleep, but Pocahontas kept talking to her and including her whenever she and Matachanna played. Before long Nokomias began to talk a little. Never about her village or her people, but about whatever they were doing.

  It was a start.

  Recently, she had even begun to laugh once in a while. One of the mothers, Alaqua, had made a home for Nokomias in her lodge. Pocahontas was glad Nokomias had a new mother to watch over her.

  “Why do we plant three kinds of seeds all together?” Nokomias asked. “In my village we planted the corn in one plot, squash in a different plot, and beans in yet another.”

  Matachanna looked at Pocahontas. That was the first time Nokomias had mentioned her village. Pocahontas recognized it as a big step.

  “We plant them all together because the corn grows strong and tall and makes a pole for the beans to climb. The squash grows fast and broad, shading the tender shoots and keeping the earth moist.” Pocahontas put another seed into the furrow.

  “And there’s something about planting them together that feeds the earth,” Matachanna said. “Before we planted them together the mothers say we had to move our fields more often. Now they all grow stronger.”

  “So why do you plant two squash seeds, two beans, and three corn? Why not just one of each?”

  “You ask almost as many questions as Pocahontas,” Matachanna said.

  Pocahontas pitched a soft clod of dirt toward her sister’s head.

  “Ouch!” Matachanna picked up a clod of her own and weighted it in her hand for a moment before letting it fall back to the ground. “We plant two beans, two squash seeds, and two kernels of corn to give the earth one for growing and another one to keep if she desires. If earth decides to send both shoots, we pluck the weaker one out of the ground to make room for the strong one.” She stooped down and laid the seeds into another furrow.

  “And we add the third kernel of corn because no matter how hard we work to keep the crows away, they always seem to steal at least one of the kernels of corn.” Pocahontas eyed her sister moving ahead and increased her own rhythm. Two bean, two squash, three corn; two bean, two squash, three corn…

  They did work hard to keep the crows away from the fields. In the middle of the field stood a platform called the scarecrow hut. The young boys took turns in the hut, scaring off the crows. They flapped their arms, danced, shouted, jumped, and even threw pebbles. Despite the ruckus, the determined crows still managed to dine on corn kernels.

  “Why don’t we push the earth over the seeds after putting them in the furrow? It would save us having to come back to cover them,” Nokomias asked.

  “That’s where the real secret comes,” Pocahontas said. “See those mothers with baskets by the river?”

  Nokomias shaded her eyes and looked toward the river.

  “They are waiting for the boys to fill the baskets with fish from the nets,” Pocahontas said.

  “Yes. They’ll come behind us and put a small fish in the furrow with the seeds and then cover the earth over the fish and seeds.” Matachanna continued working down the row.

  “A fish?” Nokomias looked confused. “What grows out of a fish? More fish?”

  Pocahontas and her sister looked at their friend to see if she were teasing, but when they saw that she was serious, they both burst into laughter.

  “The fish does not sprout like a seed,” Pocahontas said as she kept laughing, pacing her words between gulps of air.

  Matachanna interrupted so Pocahontas could catch her breath. “The fish rots in the ground and becomes food for the corn, squash, and beans.”

  Nokomias couldn’t help laughing as well. “Everything is so strange here in Werowocomoco, I would not be surprised to see fish bushes growing right up with the other.”

  “Now that would be fun,” Pocahontas said. “Can’t you see the fish wriggling to get plucked off the vine and thrown into the river?”

  The girls continued to laugh and talk as they finished all the rows for the first planting. During spring and nepinough, they planted three different times. That meant that there were three different times of harvest as well. They usually picked corn all through the summer.

  This year, however, the mothers kept looking at the sky. “Where is the rain?” they whispered over and over.

  Every morning the women woke early to spread a circle of apooke. They stood inside the circle to greet the sun, hoping to appease whatever god had decided to withhold rain from Werowocomoco. Without rain it was a tedious job to go down to the river and bring water in clay pots to water the seedlings, but if they didn’t keep them moist, a starving time would come upon their people.

  Each day when the girls finished their hard work, they played just as hard. Sometimes they swam or fished. Sometimes they just dug their toes into the sand at river’s edge and talked. Other times Pocahontas took the lead and had them turning cartwheels and jumping from rock to rock. She had learned to flip her body in the air without using hands. Every time the other girls tried this, they landed flat on the ground. Wherever the three went, laughter followed.

  It was unusual to see the three of them sitting quietly, but on a warm morning several days after the planting was finished Pocahontas took the basket of roanoke beads she’d been saving and divided them into three piles so each of them could fashion a new necklace onto pemmenaw thread. Their people wore many necklaces. Pocahontas loved to wear all of hers at one time and hear the click, click, click of beads as she walked.

  “Wait,” Nokomias said. “I have something for our necklaces.” She ran toward her lodge and within minutes came back with a small leather pouch.

  She took out three blue beads, handing one to Pocahontas, one to Matachanna, and putting the third on her pile of roanoke.

  Pocahontas had never seen anything like it. She held it up to the sun. She turned it over in her hand. It was smooth and cool to the touch. She thought it looked like a small cylinder of water with a hole lengthwise through the center for the thread to pass through. “Waugh! This is beautiful. Where did you get it?”

  “Did you see the boy, Micah? The one with yellow hair?” Nokomias paused as the girls nodded. “He came with some of his people to shelter with us.”

  “From what tribe?” Pocahontas asked. She’d never seen any people who looked like the boy.

  “Not a tribe. They came from across the Great Water. From the land toward the rising sun.” The girl shook her head. “They came and brought tools, copper, and beads like this, but they brought no food.”

  “Did they plant corn?” Matachanna asked.

  “Not right away. And when they began to plant, most of the people were already sick and starving. Only a bit of the corn grew. Bald spots covered much of the field. Those ears that formed came too late.”

  “How did they come to be with you? How did you get these beads? Where is the boy’s mother?” Pocahontas stopped. Nokomias did not often talk of her village. Pocahontas had as many questions as the apasoum has babies, but if she persisted, would her friend stop talking?

  “Our people took the last of the strangers into our village to keep them from dying. Micah’s mother became my friend. I helped her learn our language and she helped me learn some of hers.”

  Pocahontas wanted to hear the faraway language. Later she’d make sure Nokomias taught her words from the strangers.

  “When I showed her how we tan hides and make clothing she gave me these beads.” Nokomias picked up her bead. “She called them ‘glass.’”

  “It is beautiful.” Pocahontas kept turning her bead to see how the sun made sparkles on it.

  “You are my friends. I want you to share this gift from my friend Anna.”

  Pocahontas didn’t ask what happened to Anna.

  “Thank you,” Matachanna said. “It will make the prettiest necklace of all.”

  “You honor us with this
gift.” Pocahontas’s hand closed around her treasure. She would string this bead-like-water onto her necklace. She would remember Anna and Nokomias forever.

  “If you help me finish my canoe, I will take you for a long trip, out toward the Great Water.” Nantaquaus, Pocahontas’s brother, had walked over to the center of the village to find the girls. Nokomias had been weeding the cornfield with Pocahontas and Matachanna, but he hung back as he spoke.

  “Yes, we’ll help you,” Pocahontas said, including all three of them with a sweep of her hand. “You do the burning and we’ll do the scraping.”

  “You go. I need to get back to Alaqua,” Nokomias said, backing toward the village.

  Pocahontas could see a look of understanding come over Nantaquaus’s face.

  “Wait, Nokomias,” Nantaquaus said in a gentle voice. “Sit here.” He pointed to a rise of soft grass.

  Nokomias lowered her head but did as he asked. She hunched her shoulders and crossed her hands in her lap. The other two girls sat near her. Nantaquaus sat down as well, folding his legs and grasping his moccasin-covered feet.

  “Nokomias, I forget you are a captive in our village. I forget that you witnessed what our warriors did to your people. I come and I ask you to help like a little sister, but I forget.”

  Nantaquaus’s directness surprised Pocahontas. In all the time she and Nokomias had been friends, she’d been careful not to mention the massacre of her village. She didn’t think of her as a captive anymore. She’d already become part of their village.

  Nokomias didn’t speak. Neither did Pocahontas or Matachanna.

  “When you back away from me, I understand. You are remembering me that day at your village.” Nantaquaus paused.

  Nokomias kept her head lowered.

  “Our great Powhatan, my father, sent us to rid our nation of a threat. As we obeyed those orders, we did not think of our brothers, the Chesapeakes. But on the march back to our village, I thought of little else. I had long hours to watch the faces of our captive women and children.”

  Nantaquaus’s words surprised Pocahontas. Maybe she was not the only one who hated fighting.

  Nokomias looked up at Nantaquaus.

  “I am a warrior. I am the son of my father. A warrior begs not for mercy from a captive.” He stood up, pulling his young body to its full height. As he started to walk away, he heard Nokomias’s voice.

  “I will help you.” She said it in a whisper, but her words were clear.

  Nothing more was said. The girls followed him to the river’s edge where he had banked the dugout canoe he was finishing. He had chosen the trunk from a tall, straight cypress tree for the canoe. To hollow it, he had spent many days burning the inside. It took a long time because the heart of the trunk was still damp with life. The fire needed to be carefully tended so that it only consumed what Nantaquaus wanted it to consume.

  “You are almost finished,” Pocahontas said. Both ends of the quintans, the canoe, were rounded so it could glide through the waters. Nantaquaus had worked pitch onto the outside of his canoe to make it waterproof. The inside only needed the finish scraping to make it smooth and remove the last of the charred wood.

  The girls took the scraping tools made of sharp oyster shells and went to work. They scraped and talked and laughed. The hours sped by. When they finished, Nantaquaus looked it over. “It is good.” He smiled and walked around it again and again. “Tomorrow we take it on its very first journey.”

  Pocahontas went toward her sleeping lodge to find Matachanna’s mother. Her own mother had died when she was small, so the other mothers cared for her—mostly Matachanna’s mother.

  She found her outside, grinding corn with some of the other women. “Tomorrow we plan to join my brother as he takes out his new canoe,” Pocahontas said. “He invited Matachanna and Nokomias to come.”

  “Where will you go?” the mother asked.

  Pocahontas knew the mothers would want to know where they were going and how long they would be gone, but she didn’t need to ask for permission because children in their village were given freedom to explore as long as their work was finished.

  “We will go down the river until we reach the mouth near the Great Water.”

  “You must take food for the journey,” Alaqua said. “I will put some ponepone in a basket and some dried weghshaughes. You can pick berries on the way.”

  Pocahontas could barely sleep that night. As the moon rose above the village, she watched it through the opening in the roof matting of her sleeping lodge. Matachanna’s regular breathing told her that her sister had no trouble sleeping.

  How beautiful the moon looked. She thought about the stories her people told about how the Gitchee Manitou—the Great Spirit—created the moon. When He finished He spoke the words, “It is good.” He was right. It was very good.

  Gitchee Manitou, I wish I knew You. I have so many questions to ask You. You are the Father of all people, and You are more powerful than the great Powhatan. I want to know You like I know my father.

  Something stirred within her. Maybe it was because she was excited about going with Nantaquaus to the very edge of land. Maybe not—but she sensed she was on the brink of something important.

  A change.

  As sleep began to wrap around her like a warm mantle, a whisper drifted into her dream, “Amosens, I have given you a heart to know Me. Search your heart.”

  Great

  White Bird

  This canoe slices through the water like an arrow through the sky.” Nantaquaus stopped rowing to appreciate his new canoe. He ran his hand along the rim and smiled.

  Their adventure began long before the sun rose to greet the day. They had packed their food into the canoe and decided where each would sit. As Nantaquaus pushed off, Pocahontas saw his chest fill with pride.

  The air warmed as soon as the sun rose, and Pocahontas could see that it would be a perfect day. As they paddled downriver, they watched a beaver dive under the clear water to hide in his lodge of sticks. Shy foxes stood at the water’s edge to drink but bolted back into the brush when they saw the canoe. Deer came out of the forest trailing speckled fawns. Fruit trees bloomed and wildflowers covered the riverbanks.

  Nokomias breathed in deeply. “The air smells like flowers.”

  It did. The splash of the oars and the sound of the boat cutting through the water had a rhythmic, almost hypnotic feel. Bickering crows, the screech of an eagle, and the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker punctuated the quiet.

  “We’re getting very near my old village,” Nokomias said.

  “Do you ever feel like running away, trying to go back to your village?” Matachanna asked.

  Nantaquaus looked at Pocahontas. She understood what his eyes communicated. There was no village to go back to.

  “No,” Nokomias said. “My family is gone and my village … well, who knows.” She sat silently for a while. “When I came to Werowocomoco, I tried to stay busy with my hands so my mind and my heart had no time to think or to feel. Eventually, instead of feeling sad, I became angry. I felt like a captive. I used to think about ways to escape.”

  Pocahontas could imagine what that kind of anger could do. She didn’t even want to think about how she’d feel if her family had been killed.

  “After I came to live with Alaqua and became friends with you and Pocahontas, the anger faded. I don’t feel like a captive anymore. I have nowhere to go. You are now my people.”

  It seemed strange to Pocahontas that a person could come to accept the very people who had captured her.

  Nantaquaus steered the canoe into a side creek. “Shall we eat? I saw berry bushes over there.” He pointed to a thicket. “It might be early for gooseberries, but strawberries shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  The girls took the baskets they brought for berry picking and fanned out. It didn’t take long until they each had a basketful.

  Though they never saw any other people, they knew the clearing must have been made by the Chiskiack. All the
land had been forested until cleared by people. If a clearing were abandoned it was because the tribe had moved on to let that piece of land rest. They would come back and plant it again when fertility had been restored. They knew that, no matter where they stepped, the land belonged to one tribe or another, even if nobody cultivated it at that time. For as far as a man could paddle in three days, in any direction, all the land belonged to tribes loyal to Powhatan.

  “Are you ready to continue?” Nantaquaus asked.

  “Yes,” Pocahontas said. “I want to see the Great Water.”

  They settled into the canoe and began paddling again. As the river grew wider and wider, she realized that they had entered the bay.

  “This is the Chesapeake,” Nantaquaus said, glancing toward Nokomias.

  “I remember,” she said. “The scent brings it back even more strongly.”

  Pocahontas leaned forward to put an arm around her friend.

  “If we keep on going, we’ll be on the Great—” Nantaquaus stopped speaking mid-sentence and put his hand up for silence.

  There, far out toward the direction of the Great Water, sat what looked like three great white birds perched on the water. Pocahontas blinked. They couldn’t be birds. They were bigger than Powhatan’s ceremonial lodge.

  Nantaquaus used every muscle in his body to silently paddle the canoe to the shore. He beached the canoe in a copse of trees and motioned for the girls to get out.

  “We need to understand what we see so we can report to our father,” he whispered.

  Whatever it was, it was far enough away so that their voices wouldn’t carry. The wind was blowing from the Great Water toward them, so it was even less likely that sound or scent would carry to whatever rested on the water.

  They hid the canoe in a tangle of branches and Nantaquaus signaled for them to follow him.

  “Are you afraid?” Matachanna asked Pocahontas.

  “Not afraid. More curious than afraid.”

  “Take damp earth and rub it on your skin so our faces will be less likely to be seen.” Nantaquaus reached down for a handful of mud and began smearing it across his face and chest. “Stay in the trees and make sure you are covered.”