Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (100 page)

“Nay. And I sha’n’t tell him until I can no longer hide it. But, Ellie, I know for certain he loves me and will care for me; so mayhap I can change him for the better, perchance learn to love him . . . or at least tolerate him.”

Elyoner shook her head wildly, shouted, “ Nooo, Emily, can you not see? Being with him will solve nothing. ’Twill make matters worse. You’ll hate and resent him every moment of every day. And forget not, he’s a wanted man, a lying, murderous blackguard; and a sheriff or some angry husband, father, or brother will one day end his stinking, miserable life with a pistol ball or a noose.” She leaned her angry face close to Emily’s. “And where will you be then . . . the former mistress of a dead criminal? No, Em. Do not do this!”

Emily waved her hands, shook her head desperately at Elyoner, screamed, “Ellie,
I have no choice!
What am I to do? I must think of my baby, live for
it
, sacrifice my life for it, and forget about myself, Isna, my past life, my dreams, my everything. Why do you not understand?”

Elyoner started crying. Emme whispered, “And what will you do when he grows tired of you and the child, seeks other pleasures, other women, casts you out or abandons you as he did his wife and two children in England? What then, Em?”

Emily calmed, yielded to a stifling wave of despair, felt her intricate tapestry of self-delusion unraveling around her. Deceived myself,
no future, especially with Hugh Tayler. “My God, Emme, I know you’re right, but what else can I do? How can I live . . . how can I end this hideous nightmare?” She paused, again looked at the floor, sighed, then looked up at the others. “I’m to go to him tonight, please him . . . and I know in my heart he’ll demand the same every night hereafter. So you see, I’m trapped . . . and I
must
go.”

Elyoner waved her hands in the air like a berserk. “Ahhhh! What are you saying, Emily Colman? God forbid it!”

Emme said softly, “Emily, you must not go to him!”

“Emme, I must, or . . . or. . .”

Elyoner said, “Or what?”

“Nothing.”

Elyoner shook her head angrily. “Or what, Emily? What does he hold over you? How does he govern you like this? ’Tis insane.” She stood, started for the door. “Enough! I’m telling Ananias.”

“Noooooo, Ellie.” Emily lunged after her.

Elyoner turned as Emily dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around her legs, and sobbed hysterically. “Please, Ellie, please! Hear me! Do not do this! Please trust me.”

Elyoner burst into tears, knelt, laid her hands gently on Emily’s cheeks, then hugged her. “Emily, how can he do this to you? Your father’s dead, and you’re far too strong to be intimidated by threats against
yourself
. What is it, Em? Tell me.”

Emily blubbered, “Please, Ellie, don’t ask me this, I
beg
you, for I dare not tell you.”

Elyoner studied her for a long moment before her face suddenly flashed a glimmer of discovery. “ ’Tis Isna, isn’t it?”

Emily looked away, rubbed her eyes, said nothing. Lord, what if he harmed Isna? Could he? No. He fears Isna, and he’s a coward. But what if he had help, ambushed him? He could, dear Lord, he could.

“Emily! Is it . . . is it me? Or . . . or . . . dearest God in heaven, is it Virginia?”

Emily shrieked, buried her face on Elyoner’s shoulder, shuddered, sobbed. “No, Ellie, no. Please stop.”

Elyoner, Shines, and Emme looked at one another, their faces overflowing with anguish and frustration. Emme spoke softly, calmly. “ Elyoner, Emily fears that if Tayler thinks she’s told others of his threat, he will
carry it out
rather than be deterred from it.” She looked at Emily. “I understand your fear, Em, but I believe you wrong. I think if all know the truth, he will be afraid to act; for he is, in the end, a coward.”

Emily looked at her with a suddenly tranquil expression. “Emme, he is an
irrational
,
obsessed
,
likely insane
coward, and he will
not
act predictably. He also has henchmen who do his bidding.” Her mind whirled, wobbled like a top nearing the end of its spin. We cannot assuredly protect Virginia, and Isna alone cannot defeat a band of assassins. So a momentary lapse could mean the end for both . . . and ’twould be my fault, and mine alone, plague my conscience for the rest of my life. And what matter if I then killed myself to spite him? They’d still be dead, and . . . and ’twould murder my child, and I’d have even
more
grave sin on my soul. In the end, I’ve no choice but to quietly and secretly bear this burden God has given me and do his will, for such will protect the lives of those I love and limit my sin to adultery.

Emme held a long, thoughtful gaze on Emily then sighed. “Emily, you may indeed be right.” She glanced at Shines, then Elyoner, sighed despairingly. “God forgive me for saying this, but perhaps Shines was right.” She sliced her index finger across her throat. “Perhaps we
should
kill Hugh Tayler?”

“So all in all,” Waters said, “the men fought a courageous, effective fight against superior numbers.” His face abruptly saddened; he bowed his head. “But the loss of Alis Chapman was a terrible blow, even though there was naught anyone could do to prevent it. And—”

Terse, accusatory, John Sampson interrupted, “Why did you not pursue the Powhatans and try to rescue her?”

“For the reasons I explained to John Chapman.” He presented the case against splitting his command, leaving the village weakly defended. All but Willes, Stevens, and Sampson nodded understanding.

Sampson said, “Well, I disagree with your reasoning. The Powhatans will
never
attack these palisades. They’d suffer unbearable losses, and they know it. So I find your logic against pursuing the raiding party flawed and unsound. There’s another reason why you didn’t pursue, and I know what it is.”

Waters smiled, crossed his arms across his chest. “Do you, indeed?”

“Aye, I do.”

“Well, since you seem reluctant to reveal your secret to the rest of us, I shall say that you have less military training than that large spider climbing up your leg.”

Sampson frantically bent over, brushed his legs, shuffled his feet; finding no spider, he glared at Waters amidst a sudden din of hearty laughter.

Waters gnawed on his lower lip to avoid smiling. “With all due respect for your intelligence, Master Sampson, please consider the possibility of a Powhatan strategy that draws a large portion of our force away from the palisades, so they can then strike the weakened, remaining force with overwhelming strength.”

“Foolery! Savages are not that intelligent.” He glanced down his legs, again checked for spiders.

“On the contrary, Master Sampson, such thinking is common among them; and I suggest that you, and perchance others of your persuasion, would scream the loudest when hordes of Savages came pouring through the palisades, bent on your annihilation. And I doubt, at that moment, you would see the merit of having dispatched a large part of our force in cold, blind, nighttime pursuit of a swifter force that knows where it’s going . . . oh yes, and our force with the matches on its matchlocks glowing in the dark like small torches.”

“You insult me, Waters, because I disagree with you, and you can ill tolerate it. I hold that you should have sent a contingent to help Master Chapman find his wife rather than forcibly returning
him
here and abandoning
her
to the pleasures of Savages.” He looked around the room. Willes and Stevens mumbled support; others shook their heads dismissively. “He preferred dying, trying to save her, to being brought back here
without
her. So the truth, Lieutenant Waters, is that
you
were
afraid
to pursue.”

Waters spoke emotionlessly. “It may be true that he preferred dying while searching for her; and had we not found him, he would surely have had his wish. But that aside, we shall remember your spoken preference for James Lassie’s fate over being rescued if you should ever become lost in the forest as Master Chapman was.”

Sampson blinked several times, glanced at his cohorts with a nervous dither in his eyes, then looked back at Waters and promptly dropped his gaze to the floor.

Waters studied him for a moment. “Master Sampson, I truly wish you no ill will. My duty is to protect the colony and ensure ’tis prepared to defend itself when the time comes, and I fear that time may come sooner than any of us think. But
whenever
it comes, we will need every man and woman, able-bodied and otherwise, to defend—to the death—whether or not they agree with Governor Baylye and me . . . and that includes
you
men.” He eyed Stevens and Willes. “There is no alternative but certain death.”

Waters floated his gaze from man to man, waited for replies, wished the scene he’d painted wasn’t so frighteningly probable. “Now I shall discuss the ugly aftermath of the fight with the Powhatans. The mutilation perpetrated by one of our men was disgusting and intolerable, and such behavior will not be tolerated again. The man who committed the mutilation is a highly skilled, dependable soldier who was in a fit of anger over the death of his closest friend . . . which helps
explain
his behavior but in no way
justifies
it.” He paused. “He has been dealt with privately by me; but any further deviance of this type will be dealt with by the lash, or if warranted, more extreme measures. Are there any questions? Governor Baylye?”

Baylye shook his head; no one spoke.

“Very well. Then what did we learn from this encounter? We learned that our tactical changes were effective but cannot completely overcome superior numbers—a lesson of great value since we will always be outnumbered, at least until Governor White returns. So how do we survive until then?” He paused, let the sobering reality of his question permeate and challenge their minds. “First, we must exercise greater precaution and vigilance in all we do; second, we must double the number of escorts for all outside work parties, which will require additional trained civilians; and
third, we must complete the palisades.” Loud groans inundated the room; Waters raised his voice. “In addition, we will post four guards high on scaffolds around the inside of the palisades, all day and all night; and last, until I state otherwise, there will be
no
unescorted sorties by
anyone
outside the palisades unless directly between our village and the Chesapeakes’ or less than thirty yards into the forest beyond the clearing around the village.”

After a brief silence, Thomas Stevens said, “Lieutenant, some of your measures seem reasonable and appropriate, but others are excessive and wasteful.” He glanced around the circle of visibly anxious men. “The truth is that the Powhatans met their match in that fight and now understand we can hurt them.” He shook his head. “They will
not
chance further losses by attacking us again.”

Loud
aye
s, louder
nay
s, raucous din.

Stevens shouted, “And most importantly, they will never risk an attack against the palisades, which are quite adequate and intimidating as they now stand. Further, we civilians have no interest in becoming soldiers
or
in unnecessary palisades construction. Protection is
your
job, and palisades construction is part of protection—also your job—for we civilians will soon have crops to plant. And last, restricting us to such a narrow band around the palisades is unreasonable and impractical; for as I’ve stated, the Powhatans have learned their lesson and will not return.”

More
aye
s and
nay
s.

Ananias Dare raised his hands, waited for silence. “Thomas, I disagree with you. That fight was naught but a skirmish in the Powhatans’ minds. They’ve a huge number of warriors to send against us, and ’tis absolutely certain they’ll return in force.”

Stevens and his cohorts scowled.

Waters said, “Protest if you wish, gentlemen, but at this moment there are seven gaping breaches in the palisades wide enough for five or six men to pass through shoulder to shoulder. That condition is far from what any military mind would call secure. And the
only
advantage the palisades provide is the ability to shoot down at the Savages, both inside and outside the wall, from high scaffolds, or from ground level from behind the palisades, on both sides of the breaches as they pour through the gaps. But that
latter
tactic will surely result in our people on opposite sides of the breaches shooting each other while they’re shooting at Savages.” He paused, sighed a lengthy sigh. “There are but four ways to bolster the effectiveness of our palisades. The first is to complete them as designed.”

Moans.

“Well, thank you all for telling me precisely what you think of
that
alternative.”

Laughter.

“The second is to cover the breaches with horizontally stacked logs to a height taller than a man and place elevated platforms on the ground behind them for our shooters to stand on. The third is to, instead, build several log barricades thirty or forty feet inside the breaches, so they can be manned by shooters with a clear field of fire at the Savages as they concentrate through the breaches. And last is to build front barricades across the breaches,
and
rear barricades inside them so that if the Savages scale the
front
barricades, we can withdraw to the
rear
ones and shoot at them while they’re scaling the front ones and unable to return fire. The obvious advantage of two, three, and four is that no time-consuming holes must be dug, no braces and pegs constructed, and no peg holes bored. We can simply cut and drag the trees to the proper locations and stack them. Of course, we’ll also have to complete construction of the gate, so we can enjoy easy passage under normal conditions but lock it shut under threat.” He surveyed their faces, felt an unexpected surge of assurance when he heard no objections. “Comments?”