The Captive Princess Read online

  “Pack a haunch of venison, bear meat, and corn.”

  Pocahontas could picture how much they could fit into her brother’s canoe. It would be enough food to last for two, maybe three weeks.

  “Tell John Smith to come to me when he needs more food. We will trade. Tell him to bring his father with him.”

  This time, as Nantaquaus landed his canoe, both men jumped out and pulled the canoe onto the beach. Pocahontas got out and waited for the shout to announce visitors, but they waited and heard nothing.

  Nantaquaus put his hands to his mouth and called, “John Smith!”

  The gate opened and their friend came walking out by himself, rubbing his hands on his breeches. “My friends, I did not know you were coming. I am sorry none were here to greet you. We are trying to rebuild what was lost in the fire.”

  “We bring food from our father, the great Powhatan,” Pocahontas said, smiling.

  “This is our uncle Rawhunt, my father’s brother. You may have met him at the council.” Nantaquaus lifted the haunch of venison out of the boat.

  “I remember you. Welcome to our village, Rawhunt.” John Smith seemed distracted. “I don’t have men to help unload the food right now,” he said. “Let me help.” He reached in to take the bear meat but seemed to hesitate under the load.

  Pocahontas moved as if to help, but Nantaquaus shook his head. John Smith would not want to be seen as weak, especially in front of her father’s brother. She reached in and took out a large basket of squash. It looked as good as the day it had been harvested. They kept squash fresh in the storehouse for months under a blanket of straw. Fresh vegetables and berries would help John Smith’s people as much as meat and grain.

  As they walked into the village few men moved about. Captain Newport came forward to greet them and she could see some of the men John Smith pointed out as newcomers working on the houses. A new storehouse had been constructed close to the cooking pits.

  “May I begin to cook a meal while you unload the canoe?” Pocahontas asked.

  Her brother looked at her with raised eyebrows. So she had never cooked at home. She’d watched it enough.

  “You mix the dough for the ponepone” Rawhunt said. “Nantaquaus and I will roast the meat.”

  The boy Pocahontas remembered came over to watch. She smiled at him, so glad to see that he still lived. “Can you get me water?”

  He nodded.

  She reached into a small basket and removed three goose eggs. She knew she had to feed close to a hundred men, so she took out another egg. If she could just get the proportions right. She scooped a basketful of dried ground corn and dumped it into the large bowl the boy brought her from the storehouse, adding a good-sized lump of bear fat and the eggs she had cracked. She took a wooden paddle and began to mix it all together. She remembered Alaqua telling them that the pieces of bear fat needed to be no bigger than the pearl threaded through her ear.

  Pocahontas tried to picture that pearl as she mixed. When the mixture was crumbly, she poured in water—just enough to make a soft dough. She wondered what the people in her village would think to see their princess cooking like a slave for the English. It felt good, though, like it was important work.

  The dough looked just like Alaqua’s. She pinched off a piece and put it in her mouth. It tasted the same as well. Her brother and uncle put the venison on a spit over the fire and begin to turn it. It didn’t take long for the smell to begin filling the village. Men began to emerge from the shelters to come near and watch. Pocahontas had never seen such hunger among her people.

  John Smith joined her. “You saved my life once and you will forever have my gratitude.” He inhaled the smells of food. “Now you save the lives of all of our people. England owes you a debt of gratitude as well.”

  “Not I,” she said. “It is my father.”

  He looked around. “How can I help you?”

  “If we were at Werowocomoco, the mothers would now make loaves of ponepone and put them into the clay ovens. You do not have ovens here.”

  “We have iron kettles.”

  “Iron kettles,” she repeated.

  “If we put the dough into the kettle over a small fire, the bread will bake slowly as the venison roasts.”

  They used both kettles, first smearing them with more of the bear fat. Pocahontas divided the dough, shaping each half into a massive loaf on the bottom of a kettle. Soon the smell of baking ponepone filled the air, mingling with the rich scent of roasting meat. John Smith poked through the fire, pushing many of the glowing pieces of wood into a pit.

  “That lowers the heat so the ponepone can bake slowly,” he said. “And we’ll put the squash into this pit with the ashes so they can roast.” He went over to his lodge and brought back two chairs. “With any luck, the food will all be done at the same time and we can feast.”

  He sat on one of the chairs and motioned to Pocahontas to take the other chair. She smiled but sat on a rock near the fire. “It’s much warmer down here.”

  “If our settlement survives, I wonder if people will remember the little princess who saved us?”

  Pocahontas looked down. She didn’t know what to say. Her father was the one who saved them. She looked around. One by one, the men and boys had made it out of their lodges —their houses—lured by the smell of food. She knew the food had come none too soon.

  Nantaquaus gestured to her. She knew what that meant.

  “We need to leave now,” she said to John Smith as she stood to go. “We don’t want to have to navigate the river in the dark of night.” She didn’t mention that they didn’t want to take any of the food needed by the English.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the feast you’ve provided?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He walked the three down to Nantaquaus’s canoe. He helped them load the tools he had given in exchange for the food. “Thank you, friends.”

  “You will come to Werowocomoco to trade for more food, won’t you?” Pocahontas asked.

  “I will come.”

  “And you’ll bring Captain Newport?” she added.

  “Your father?” Nantaquaus smiled as he pushed off. He and Rawhunt stabbed their paddles into the water and the boat glided out onto the river.

  As they headed back to their village, Pocahontas couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable about her father’s insistence that John Smith bring Captain Newport to trade at Werowocomoco. Why couldn’t they continue to bring the food to Jamestown? Why did he want them in the village?

  Fraiters

  and Freachery

  Pocahontas knew that the Jamestown party was coming to trade long before it reached the village. That was the thing about having allies all along the route. Runners had been sent ahead from every tribe, warning of the tassantassuk.

  The last few times the English came, they brought gifts for her father as well as trade goods. Each new meeting showed how little they understood each other. The problem was, her father wanted guns and swords. John Smith was just as determined to keep them out of his hands.

  As Pocahontas observed each trading mission, she could see that Captain Newport created problems. John Smith and her father had an understanding of sorts. A grudging respect. The great Powhatan kept trying to outsmart John Smith to get guns and weapons and to strike a better deal for the food the English so badly needed.

  But John Smith never seemed desperate. He would work just as hard to get the better end of the deal. And he made sure that her father never got his hand on a single gun or sword.

  It had become a game to them, and she could see that her father enjoyed matching wits with John Smith.

  But the first time John Smith brought Captain Newport with him the balance shifted. She still remembered the way the captain ignored John Smith and played right into Powhatan’s hands.

  “Great Powhatan,” the captain said, approaching the dais before her father had signaled for him. “I bring gifts.”

  Her father looked John
Smith in the eye before bowing his head to signal that he would accept the captain’s gifts.

  First the captain pushed forward the boy Pocahontas had seen that first day in Jamestown—the starving boy. “This is Thomas Savage. I’ve brought him to you to serve you. He will learn your language and help you learn ours.”

  Pocahontas wondered how Thomas Savage felt about being given as a gift.

  The captain then spread out a suit of clothes made with red cloth. One of Powhatan’s advisors accepted that on his behalf. Pocahontas could tell that her father was not impressed. Next Captain Newport offered a hat. Another of the men accepted that.

  The captain pointed to Thomas Savage and had him go outside. He came back in with a greyhound on a lead. “This dog is for you, Powhatan, sent from England.”

  Pocahontas could see that this was the gift that delighted her father. He stepped down himself to get the dog, coaxing it up to the dais. The animal curled at his feet. Every few minutes she could see the great Powhatan reach down to stroke the dog’s head.

  All would have been well if the captain had stepped back and allowed John Smith to trade with her father. Instead the captain laid out an array of tools and pots. Her father offered only a fourth of what he normally gave for each implement. John Smith tried to step in, but Captain Newport would raise his hand to silence the younger man and accept the trade.

  “I much prefer trading with your father,” Powhatan said, smiling at John Smith.

  Pocahontas noticed that her English brother did not translate that comment for the captain. She looked at the amount of grain her father had traded and saw that the English only had a fraction of what they should have received. This could mean another starving time.

  John Smith stood behind the captain, saying nothing but fingering several strands of blue beads. Pocahontas recognized the beads as being the same kind as the one Nokomias had given her.

  “Will you trade for those beads?” Powhatan asked.

  Captain Newport turned around and looked at John Smith, frowning.

  “No. These beads are exceedingly rare.” He held them so they caught the light streaming in from the open thatch of the roof. “They reflect the very color of the sky above.”

  Pocahontas could see the trade battle heating up. Her father wanted those beads.

  “How much do you want for the beads?”

  Captain Newport began to speak up, but this time, John Smith cut him off. “I cannot trade for these beads. I may never be able to replace them. Does the substance from which they are made still exist? I do not know.”

  Pocahontas fingered the white beads around her neck, subtly letting her father know she’d love to have a few of those sky blue beads adorning her neck.

  John Smith smiled. “I see our princess longs for these beads. You know I can deny her nothing since she saved my life.”

  Powhatan laughed out loud now.

  “I will let you have these beads for three hundred bushels of corn—but only because of Pocahontas.”

  John Smith caught Pocahontas’s eye and winked. She knew that had he not worked that barter, their shallop would have headed back to Jamestown nearly empty.

  That was not the end of Captain Newport’s interference.

  At one point he led a whole regiment of men to Werowocomoco to hold an English coronation for Powhatan. They brought the robe and a crown, but the ceremony fell apart when her father refused to kneel to receive the crown. Her father explained that the Mamanatowic cannot kneel for anyone. The captain insisted that even their king—the mighty King of England—had to kneel. In the end, Powhatan lowered his head enough for the crown to be placed on him.

  It took a dozen men to carry the king’s gift to him—a massive carved wooden four-poster bed. When Captain Newport told him it was a gift from the English king, it didn’t make the impression he’d hoped. Matachanna looked at it and whispered to Pocahontas that she’d be afraid to sleep on it in case she rolled off into the fire.

  No, trading had not gone well.

  The worst trade of all came just a couple of days before Captain Newport was to leave in the ship to go back to England. Powhatan had sent Rawhunt, Nantaquaus, and Pocahontas to Jamestown with twenty turkeys. In exchange they were to get twenty swords.

  Pocahontas knew it would never happen. John Smith would not let her father have weapons. She loved her father, but thought John Smith was wise to refuse to trade for weapons if he wanted to ensure the safety of his settlement.

  When they arrived, Captain Newport met them at the water. He called for help to unload the turkeys.

  “Is John Smith here?” Pocahontas asked.

  “No. I sent him with the crew to get one more load of gold to load on the ship.”

  Nantaquaus looked at Pocahontas. They both knew that the men had found no gold. They were loading the ship with dirt in the hope that in England they could find flecks of the metal somewhere in the pile.

  Rawhunt spoke. “Powhatan wishes for twenty swords in exchange for these twenty turkeys.”

  “Fair enough,” Captain Newport said. “Perkins, fetch twenty swords. Wrap them in old linen to protect them.”

  Pocahontas could not believe it. Twenty swords for twenty turkeys? A turkey was not even worth one fourth of a hatchet.

  As they set off for Werowocomoco, the three remained quiet. That trade signaled a fatal change.

  “Our father has issued a decree that no one can trade with the English for food until the English are willing to trade guns,” Nantaquaus told Pocahontas as they sat mending fishing nets.

  “They will starve,” Pocahontas said. She still visited Jamestown regularly. Even though she and Matachanna had tried to show them how to plant corn, a combination of salty ground, brackish water, and halfhearted husbandry doomed their efforts.

  “They have lived in their village for two planting seasons. Here we are at winter again. When will the English learn to feed themselves?” Nantaquaus’s voice revealed his exasperation.

  Powhatan’s embargo worked. No one would sell the English any food. Another severe starving time set in. Pocahontas could not go to Jamestown now, but she could imagine the desperation.

  “Our father has asked John Smith to build him an English house, complete with glazed windows right here in Werowocomoco,” Nantaquaus told Pocahontas. “They agreed and sent builders and the finest materials. They have already begun the house.”

  “A house?” Pocahontas thought that made little sense.

  “He also asked for a grindstone, fifty more swords, guns, a rooster and a hen, more mattassin, and beads.”

  “All that for food?”

  “Yes. And the runner just announced that John Smith was on his way when his ship became stuck on a sandbar. He ‘s stuck there until high tide.”

  “Shall we go out and see him?”

  “No. Our father no longer trusts John Smith.”

  Nantaquaus told Pocahontas what they’d learned from the men building Powhatan’s English house. Apparently the men preferred living in Werowocomoco to starving in Jamestown. They told Powhatan that John Smith was so desperate because of the embargo that the men planned to show up with guns and take whatever food they needed.

  They also told Powhatan all about the defenses in Jamestown, how their guns worked, and how they could keep them from working.

  “They are traitors to their own people.” Pocahontas couldn’t understand why her father would believe them.

  “The builders are not Englishmen. They call themselves German. They no longer like the English.”

  It confused Pocahontas. Trickery and traitors.

  “If John Smith and his men make it here to the village, you need to stay away from them.”

  “Why?” It didn’t make sense, but her brother would say no more.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about her brother’s warning. Was some kind of attack being planned? She thought about joining her father in the great lodge, but she didn’t want to be part of any kind of atta
ck.

  As soon as dusk came, she positioned herself outside the lodge. Because of the opening in the mats for air, she could hear the conversation without being seen. She hoped none of the dogs would sense her and start barking.

  Pocahontas heard her father speaking first. “Above all else, we must kill John Smith. Without him, the English will be helpless.”

  She strained to hear. Had she heard correctly?

  “They stay at a lodge near where their ship ran aground.”

  That must have been her uncle Rawhunt.

  “It’s simple. John Smith will come to trade tomorrow. He will not offer guns, so we’ll send him away. He won’t leave without food, so they’ll stay the night again, planning to talk trade on the morrow.” Powhatan cleared his throat.

  Rawhunt took over. “That night, we bring them platters of rich food. While they put down their guns to eat, we attack them.”

  Pocahontas had heard enough. She slipped away. Not a dog barked and the snow muffled the sound of her movements. She was glad the snow continued to fall. Her footprints would not be seen.

  The next morning, she slipped into the great lodge in time to see John Smith trading with her father.

  “Why do you come with armed men to my village?” her father was saying. “Are we not family?”

  “Why do your men bring bows and arrows to Jamestown when they come?”

  “If you want to show you are serious about trading, I demand that you have all your men lay down their arms and come as friends.”

  “Are we going to talk about trading? I already send my finest builders to work on a house for you.” He opened a sack and pulled out a rooster and a hen. “I brought the poultry you requested. These are among the first chickens in the New World.”

  “This is not a new world,” Powhatan said, seizing on John Smith’s slip. “This is our old world—our only world.”

  “I guess there’s no sense in looking at the copper and beads I brought?”