Fic: "That has Such People in It…" by neotoma, Marvel 1602, gen, rated PG
Title: That has Such People in It…
Author: neotoma
Prompt: 1602 | The Witchbreed. Scotius, Hal or Javier would be preferred. | Gen | How do the witchbreed adjust to living in the New World?
Rating: PG
Word count: 9514
Disclaimer: The characters and settings featured in this story are the property of Marvel Entertainment. This is a work of homage and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: objectionable (but period) language
Author's notes: thanks to beta clara_swfit and st_aurafina
After the anomaly was destroyed, and Sir Nicholas mourned, the village settled back to a normal life on this plantation of fair England in the New World. The travelers from the Eagle's Shadow helped setting the disorder to rights, and then were each man required by nature to find an occupation for himself.
Javier wished to continue his self-appointed task of sheltering and educating Witchbreed. While no other boy in the Roanoke was like to be of that uncanny kind, all of them were boys, and ill-taught by elders who needs must look to crops and industry for the survival of the colony. Javier, being too weak in body to do likewise, was strong in his mind. Turning his hand to labor over village records and ragged schoolboys was no hardship.
But first there had to be a school. There was a space along the wall, where a hovel had been placed and then abandoned in the long years from the first settlement. Governor Dare deeded it to Javier, with the provision that his students build a house and that all the boys in the village were to be taught their petty schooling there, and grammar schooling if their parents or masters could spare them.
Laying a hearth was the first task. The local stone was not the quality that one would wish, but with diligent attention, they gathered and fitted enough granite to floor a kitchen hearth.
The workingmen of Roanoke village lent a hand, glad to see the Witchbreed depart from the village hall. They showed how differently the house had to formed - the roof might be thatched like any in England, but the timbers were mere anchors for wall of woven matting. Proper daubed and whitewashed walls would have left the school an oven in the cruel summer heat. Walls woven of silk grass let cooling breezes play throughout the house, and when winter came more mats could be added to thicken the walls for warmth.
With Scotius acting as axeman, and Hal and Werner using their monstrous brawn to haul the felled trees, they had the timbers framed and even an upper floor jettied out to shadow their pack-dirt courtyard in two days. It was not Sanctuary, but it would serve, with a kitchen, hall, and small chamber for Master Javier below, and two long rooms above. One would be a solar, if the house was ever graced by a wife, and one would be a library and workroom if they ever happened to have books again - there were precious few in Roanoke, and not likely to be more, unless ships were sent out, or they took to copying them by hand, like Papist monks.
Hanging the walls was simple, though the labor they bargained away for the woven mats was long and tiring. Even Scotius tired of felling brush, and Werner's wings were no help when it came to pruning the orchard trees.
Robbie and Hal, however, made light of their labors. Scotius thought it not at all fair. Robbie's touch with ice drew water out of the air like sweat, watering corn and tobacco that had no rain for days, though he the risked of killing them with rime if he didn't attend closely to his labors. And Hal, well, he'd been a farmer's boy, years ago and a world away; the work was harder than his service as Javier's bearer, but he had strength to spare.
Petros, of course, was nowhere to be found again. Whatever his hardships with the Inquisitor had been, he did not talk of them, nor did he share the labor in the fields. He simply turned up at night, bedded down beside Robbie (who did not think Petros was enough of a gentlemen to share the woven mats he had as bed, but could no muster a coherent argument when Werner asked him why Petros was worse to share bedlinens with then Hal, who was certainly not a gentleman, and snored besides), and departed on his own business in the morning after a slice of bread and a cup of small beer.
Two days after the house was built enough to live in - though they had yet to furnish it beyond the beds of wicker and mats, and table and benches rough-hewn of logs, Scotius declared they should set a kitchen garden behind the house that day as they ate day-old rusks in the morning.
Robbie looked askance. "From where shall we get pot herbs, Scotius? I do not fancy some wife knocking me about with a broom for scrumping from her own plot."
"We shall plant them," Scotius said. "There are seeds yet; I have inquired."
"In late summer?" Hal asked. "Though Virginia is as warm as Spain, 'tis passing late for starting herbs, friend Scotius."
Scotius frowned. "What would you have us do instead, Master McCoy? We can labor piece-a-meal, and rely on the Christian charity of the villagers of Roanoke for the rest, but you and I both know that many a time Witchbreed are not accorded such."
Hal looked down at his outsized hands, and sighed. "No, that is true."
"Perhaps," Robbie said, when the air had grown too thick, "we might try the herbs, and make other provisions also? I have listened - the sound is thick with herring and sturgeon soon, and the geese will come. If we are mindful, we might labor one day on village affairs, and catch fish and fowl the next. That way we earn our daily corn, but have better to eat. And if we build a smokehouse, we might have the excess for winter. Goose at Christmas will be worth more than goose in August."
"And there are herbs in the woods now," Werner added. "Mushrooms, and onions. I gathered such as a boy. I can do it again."
"You must need have a guide," Hal said. "The mushrooms are strange to us, and a dish of toadstools would do us no good at all."
"I will take care," Werner said. "I am no fool, who cannot tell a death-cap from a woodear."
"Ask the goodwives of the town for help," Scotius said. "Hal is right. It is a strange land, and the food itself is strange."
Werner pulled his wings close, and frowned. They all turned their own ways, and finished breaking their fast.
Half a day of woodcutting earned Scotius a bucket and rootlings of rosemary and thyme from the cooper, and advice about how to keep such in the Virginia heat from his wife. He used his terrible eyes to churn up the ground behind their schoolhouse, and planted the herbs himself.
It was a good feeling, to put roots into the soil. Perhaps Javier's men would do well in Virginia. He had almost finished, just pouring water over the transported plants, when he heard Hal's voice come around the house.
"I think it is of a kind with markery by its leaves. 'Tis a pot herb - it shall be good in tarts, Robbie."
"We will be fasting all winter, if all we have to eat are fish day meals, Hal." Robbie said as the fast pair rounded into the garden. He carried a forked stick with two large striped fish upon it. Scotius did not know the fish at sight, but was glad that they might have something beyond porridge to eat tonight.
Hal had a grass basket in his hands, and long leaves spilled over the top.
"What have you there, Hal?" he asked.
His old friend smiled, showing the long teeth at the corners of his mouth - something Hal never did in front of strangers. The day had gone well indeed, if Hal were happy enough to show himself so completely.
"Markery, I think, and wild onions. I found them along the streambank. Mistress Baxter lent me this basket to gather as many plants as I could."
"Markery?" Scotius asked. The word was familiar, but he didn't remember what the plant was for - eating, obviously, but roots, leaves or fruit?
"Fat hen," Robbie said, naming a plant that Scotius did know. And the weed that Hal scooped out of his basket did look of the kind.
"Ah. Fat hen!" Scotius said. "We shall have tarts, then?"
"When we have butter and flour to make paste, yes. This day, we will plant these herbs and hope for the best," Hal said as he crouched down. "I see you have turned the earth already."
"And made furrow most even," Robbie added, though he hung back. Robbie disliked the labors they had been pursuing these past days - he thought it below his dignity as a gentleman. In truth, it was, but they were all reduced by their circumstances, and dignity earned no food.
"It was simple enough. I need but look at the ground with my eyes uncovered. Shall we plant our herbs, then?" Scotius asked.
Hal nodded, and pointed toward the other end of the small plot. "I think this part at the edge might be best…"
It was simple work that they did with their hands. Hal had no trouble digging holes with his fingers, though the dirt clung to him because he was hairy in a way that Scotius was not. But they had the fat hen and pungent onions settled in short order, and Robbie carefully poured water over each plant as they finished. Scotius suspected Robbie was chilling the bucket to pull water out of the air; Robbie was most adept with his Witchbreed talents, and if the water was not killing cold, its coolness might be good for the plants as the noon sun was unbearable.
Finished, they entered the house. Master Javier was gone, but like as not Master Reed had taken him to the village hall. Scotius was not sure what his master and the natural philosopher did for the days, but it was not his place to ask.
They used an old brush to clean off the worst of the dirt, and there was a stoneware ewer and basin to wash their hands - the goodwives of Roanoke had been generous with the trifles of a house, perhaps for lack of young men to fuss over. There were very few folk between the ages of 15 and 25 in the village; the few there were had come over as serving boys and apprentices, and were too busy (and too afraid) to talk to at-ends Witchbreed.
A loud flap from without, and Werner poked his head through the door. "Help, please?" He tossed a canvas bag through the doorframe, and stumbled inside.
"What have you there?" Robbie asked, even as he reached the sack and upturned it.
"Roots," Werner said, shaking out his wings and setting his buff jacket to rights. "Of all sorts. There was weeding and thinning and it was all quite tiring, but I am assured they are fit to eat."
"Perhaps some are fit to *plant*, if you haven't killed them pulling them from the ground," Scotius said. There were turnips and beets and parsnips for certain in the pile, and perhaps the ones whose leaves were not too battered could be put into the kitchen garden instead of the soup pot.
"Perhaps," Werner agreed, and crouched down beside Robbie and helped him sort the vegatives into ones they would need to eat, and ones that might be salvaged. There were not many of the second, but Scotius gathered them to himself and went outside to plant them.
Soon he was filthy to his elbows again, and not entirely sure that his gardening had done any good, but there was a row of root-tops in his little garden when he was finished, and he had emptied a water bucket into the earth.
There was a disagreement in progress when he walked back through the door. Or so it appeared from the way Hal was bristling, Robbie was looking at the floor, and Werner stood with his arms folded across his chest like a stern Michael.
"I am serving as cook today, not scullion. Thou," Hal tossed a turnip at Werner, who caught it without thinking, "can be scullion."
"What!"
Hal pointed to the knife and board. "Cut that."
"A hit, Hal, a certain hit," Robbie laughed. Scotius chuckled beside him; it was unkind, but it amused him to see the winged youth so startled.
"Do you think you will not help likewise?" Hal asked. "You, go spit those fish, Robbie. Scotius, have we water for pottage?"
"Pottage again?" Scotius said. It was not *porridge*, of course, but he wanted something more substantial than roots and pulse boiled to fragments.
"Have you caught us a coney, Master Summerisle? If not, then complain not."
The cooking proceeded, and only was interrupted when Petros ran inside in his customary recklessness. He took half a loaf - they only had a cast of three for them all! - and did not help at table or hearth. Scotius frowned at him sternly, but just as he was about to rebuke the silver-haired wastrel, Master Richards and Captain Grimm brought Master Javier home.
They all quieted then, and followed Master Javier in prayer for the meal. Master Javier did not remonstrate Petros, and commended them all on their day's labors, but Scotius felt his Master's knowing gaze as he ate. He was losing control, and as captain of their small company, it was a profound failing.
The evening was not much better - they separated after that awkward dinner, and Scotius found himself scratching figures on birchbark paper. He did not have Robbie's head for accounts - but even his poor estimates were bleak.
Tobacco was the best crop for coin, and coin was needed to truly have the school again. But the English and Spanish markets for tobacco were closed to them now that Roanoke had rebelled against the King, and had Witchbreed living openly on the plantation. France then? Or Arabia? And there was the matter of feeding themselves while growing it. The tobacco would need more attention that any corn or root - if they scrimped at growing food to raise tobacco, what benefit did it do them?
Scotius wished that Master Javier would confide in him, or give him a surmountable challenge, not this amorphous ordeal of planning.
***
The day after they planted their garden behind the school had a wonder. Robbie was delighted when two Indians came to the gate and were granted leave through the palisade. They brought a deer, as a gift from their weroance -- as was their title for their ruling prince, lord of the six nearest towns - for Master Dare.
Robbie thought it great entertainment merely to watch them; he was not alone in this, as many of the boys and no few of the men of the town turned to look at the painted savages as they walked through the village. His own task of knotting rope into sea mats he abandoned to watch them.
They were tall and broad, very clean in their limbs, with glossy black hair cut most curious on one side and gathered at their napes in loose knots. They were naked except for deerskins covering their privates, and ornamented with painted sigils and chains of dark beads.
He had to tell Hal. This was great news - Indians, come to Roanoke!
His friend was across the village, dressing the roof of the new communal store with Scotius - the village store was improving now that they five - and maiden Wanda - were contributing in full. Petros might be a jackanapes but he was an excellent hunter, able to snatch coneys off the ground and fowl from their roosts by speed alone.
"Hal!" Robbie cried, "Come look you. Indians have come to Roanoke!"
"Indians?" Hal asked, from his perch on the roof. He stood on the kingpost and shaded his eyes to see. "Indeed, Indians. Most curious."
"Hal, this roof with not lay itself," Scotius said. He shook a stave of straw at them.
"But, Scotius - Indians!" Hal said.
"Yes, Indians! They are a spectacle, Scotius, all painted and savage!" Robbie flapped his arms, emphasizing how unusual and entertaining this was.
Scotius refused to budge. "They are guests or peddlers, and of no account to us!"
"Matthew the Polander said they were men of the local prince," Robbie said. "A generous man, to gift Governor Dare with a whole stag."
"A stag? Not a buck? Here?" Hal asked, and leaped down from his perch. "This I must see. Stags are almost gone, in England."
"'tis quite large," Robbie said as they left Scotius behind, fuming, "but perhaps it is only a buck."
Hal grinned, and ran on all fours through the village beside Robbie, only drawing to stop when they came to the green. The Indians were there, conversing with some of Governor Dare's soldiers.
"Ah, there is John Sampson, who knows the Indian tongue. Let us ask for introduction?" Robbie said, spying a man who was friendly enough to them since they had landed.
Sampson, a lean and weathered man, glanced at them askance, but introduced them to the Indians - Matteo and Neeswanee. Both men were grave, but their eyes were bright and dancing.
"Robberteo," the younger man, Matteo, said carefully. "Enree. That is proper?"
Robbie laughed. "Yes. But you may call me Robbie. Everyone does."
"And I am Hal."
Matteo looked at Hal consideringly. Robbie held his breath, because this was always the fraught moment, when a stranger looked at Hal entire, and realized how monstrous he was.
"You are… bear?" Matteo asked.
Hal blinked, and then laughed, loud and strong enough that he had to cover his fangs with a hand.
Robbie smiled as well. Perhaps this would work out?
They tried to explain that Hal was not a bear, magicked to speak like a man or no, but Robbie didn't think Matteo understood. His companion Neeswanee certainly didn't. But it hardly mattered, since Matteo was perfectly happy to talk with them in his halting English even if he thought Hal was a magician's familiar. The man was hardly older than they, and fast made a friend for the afternoon.
Hal spent much time with the Indians, and then was so distracted in the evening writing down all that he learned, words and customs, that Scotius had to bear Master Javier to his appointment to dine with Governor Dare and Sir Reed.
Robbie thought it a good day, in all.
***
Scotius stayed to carry Master Javier home - it was not far, but it seemed unkind to force one of Master Dare's small household to bear Master Javier to the schoolhouse, as it would like be late indeed when they finished dining and conversing. After he ate his own late meal in the kitchen - the broken meat and some sweet pastries of beet and onion -- young Parquarh came down from his work transcribing records to talk. They passed the time with idle plans for a sea voyage and a game of tables scratched into the yard and played with stones before the sun disappeared entirely.
Just before Master Javier called for him, one of the kitchen women pressed a package of broken meats and beet tarts on Scotius, wrapped in leaves and birch bark. "For your fellows," she said, and smiled. Surprised, Scotius wondered which of the others she was sweet on - perhaps Robbie, who was boyish enough that a woman might look on as a son to spoil with special treats like venison.
Master Javier, Master Richards, and Governor Dare were at table when he entered, along with Master Richard's betrothed wife Susan, who was not visible except for the collar of blackwork she was embroidering, and young Virginia. John Storm stood at the fireside, reciting from a battered manuscript. The words were antique, but amusing, and Scotius soon recognized one of the stories of Chaucer.
"Scotius, you are ready?" Master Javier asked when Storm paused in his recitation, and the other men finally deigned to notice Scotius.
"You have called me, Master. I am."
"Then Sir Reed, Master Storm, Governor Dare, gentlewomen, I take my leave."
"Good night to you, Master Javier," the Governor said.
"Good night, Carlos," Master Richards said. "Send your man around tomorrow; he will be of great assistance."
Scotius carried Master Javier without and turned across the green towards the schoolhouse. The air was hot and thick with moisture. Scotius wondered if it reminded his master of Spain - the climate seemed alike, from Scotius' brief forays to that country.
"Master," Scotius asked, "who does Master Richards wish to speak with?"
"Sir Reed wishes to speak to Henry."
"Hal? Why?"
Javier smiled knowingly. "He says he needs aid in his arithmetics, but I believe he wishes an audience that can comprehend his greater fancies. And our Henry will be that - Sir Reed is the most quicksilver mind I have ever encountered, but Henry is not much overshadowed."
"There is that, Master."
***
"Good day to you, Hal," Susan Storm said when Hal came to Sir Reed Richard's little house on the opposite side of the village. He wondered briefly if Master Richard's and his companions has been given land far from the school to separate potential allies should the villagers turn on them, or if Master Richard's studies into natural philosophy had so unsettled Governor Dare as to place the scholar-knight as far from the village hall as possible. Perhaps both.
"Good day, Mistress Susan." He inclined his head towards where his ears and nose told him the invisible woman stood.
"You are here to assist Reed, I have heard."
"Master Javier has sent me thus, yes."
"You saw the Indians come to Roanoke, and conversed with them?"
"Yes. I have started a study of their language. I enjoy learning different tongues."
"We crossed the Americas, the four of us," Susan Storm said. "Algonquin was the easiest to learn - I will converse with you in it at dinner, so that you may improve your speech. Now go, and rend all assistance to Reed as your master bid you, good Hal."
Hal nodded, and cautiously entered Master Richard's home. He risked a glance backward, and saw only a needle flashing as Mistress Susan stitched a handkerchief - adding to her marriage chest, Hal supposed. She had much to do before Lady Day, when she and Master Richards had promised to marry.
It had been a thoroughly baffling conversation, in truth. Hal was glad to enter Master Richard's chamber with its makeshift alchemical apparatuses. Here at least, was something solid and understandable.
***
That evening, when Master Javier had retired to his chamber, and they to the upper floor for bed, Scotius laid out his plan to his fellows. He had refined it as much as he could on his own; it was time for other eyes to spot the flaws now.
Hal and Robbie both gave close attention to his words, but Werner did not, and Petros as usual sneered at them all. The Inquisitor's messenger was an entirely unpleasant fellow, in Scotius' eyes, and he wished Master Javier had not taken him up.
"Therefore, tobacco is the best crop for revenue," Scotius concluded.
"Yes, that's true," Robbie agreed. "I looked at Master Dare's ledgers, and even four barrels of best tobacco brought the colony quite a return of coin."
Werner frowned, and his wings twitched. "Tobacco is wretched - it might be most profitable, but the labor is never-ending. We would never tend our corn, for it requires such constant attention."
Scotius shook his head. "We must support the school, Werner. Tobacco is the best way. With the five of us-"
"The five of us, Scotius?" Hal said. "I think not. The labor exhausts all who tend tobacco; you have seen it as well as I - and Werner and I would labor most by virtue of our greater stamina. And I will not be a donkey to carry your baggage."
"Hal, it is only right that the strongest among us do the most taxing of the labor."
The Orkneyman glared and set his jaw.
"Hal…" Robbie began.
"Do not, Robbie, try to persuade me."
Robbie collapsed. Scotius sighed. He would get no help from that quarter, with Robbie and Hal such boon companions.
"There are other crops…" Robbie offered.
"What do you propose, Robbie?"
"Well, cotton, for one. It grows in like climes - the Spaniards grow it in their colonies -- and it is very costly. Perhaps we should grow it, instead of tobacco. After all, would be wise to diversify our investments."
Werner looked askance. "I thought me that cotton is more work than linen, to grow and make into cloth."
"Yes, but that's why it is profitable!"
Hal rolled his eyes. "We might as well plan to grow indigo. That fetches a high price, too."
"Do you think we might?" Scotius looked askance. There was so much he hadn't considered.
"No!" Hal said.
"Yes!" Robbie said.
They looked at each other.
"Where do we get the seeds, Robbie? The Spaniards have a monopoly, and they will not sell such to the English. And certainly not English colonists who are rebels and Witchbreed!"
"Arabia!"
"Arabia?" Hal's eyebrows rose to his hairline.
Werner looked askance. "I hope you do not propose I *fly* you there…"
"No, no!" Robbie said. "We have the Eagle's Shadow. She is not the best of ships, but she's seaworthy. Captain Grimm is an experienced man, and there are enough sailors in Roanoke to make a crew. And Roanoke will need trade -- whatever else we cannot get iron unless it is brought from Europe as pigs. If we plan wisely and present a stratagem to Governor Dare *along* with collateral we could buy a share in a voyage - and get the seed stock then!"
"You plan too much," Petros said from his corner. "We do not even have corn, but what measure the village store allots us."
They all turned to look at him. He was sullen since Master Javier had taken him in and set his sister to Mistress Storm to serve as maid - truly it was more proper than it had been with Jean, which had been a comedy and a tragedy of desperation -- but Scotius thought not one of them had warmed to the Inquisitor's messenger.
"We can plan corn crops as well, Petros," Scotius said. "Governor Dare has told our Master that there are hundreds of acres of waste land beyond the current borders of the plantation. We are welcome to farm there, if we clear the land."
"Truly?" Werner asked. "We could remove ourselves to a manor, as we had at Sanctuary?"
"Perhaps not that-" Scotius said.
"We would must build a manor, first," Hal said dryly.
"-but," Scotius overrode his friend, "we might work towards that goal. Plant fields of barley and rye first, if the ground is good. Oats, if the ground is poor."
"Oats are peasant food," Petros complained.
Scotius frowned. Would Petros ever stop being difficult, merely for the delight in troubling others?
He calmed himself, and said, "It grew well in Scotland, even on poor land. I am not too proud to eat peasant food, if that's all that will ripen."
Robbie frowned, "We should be bolder -- adventuresome. Farming is a work for the lesser sort. Are we not gentles?"
Scotius looked at Werner, and then at Hal. "My father was a ship's captain, Robbie. I am a gentleman by courtesy only."
"My father was an - ironmonger, is that the word? --" Werner looked to Scotius, then added. "We were townsfolk, until he died; after, my mother took me back to her home village."
Hal looked sour. "My father was a tenant on Egilsay."
Robbie had the grace to look crestfallen.
"Ha. You are all impostors, then," Petros said. "'Sons of the gentlefolk', indeed."
Scotius did not like how the runner crowed. He drew breath to rebuke the youth, when Werner spoke.
"You should not talk --" Werner said. " -- Zigeuner!"
Scotius did not know that word - German, he thought it - but Petros leaped to his feet, and battered at Werner with blurring hands.
Scotius shouted, appalled at such behavior, but Hal and Robbie were swifter than he. Hal leapt the table and knocked Werner away from his attacker, and Robbie rounded on Petros.
They all went down in a jumble.
Petros was screeching like a cat, but Robbie would not be budged from where he sat on top of him. Robbie had laid rime on the floor as well, and Petros scrabbled like a fox on a frozen pond.
Hal had pulled Werner from the fight, and still had an arm slung around him, lest his bile overcome him as well. The great wings were flexing and restive, though Werner made no move to kick or otherwise abuse his disadvantaged attacker.
"What do you!" came like an axe to Scotius' skull. From the wincing, all had heard Master Javier in their minds like shouting.
"Master?" Scotius said meekly.
"You rumble like tomcats! This is not the behavior of young gentlemen!"
"No, sir."
"Robbie, let him up," Master Javier ordered, his mind's voice firm and exasperated. When the young men had separated, and climbed to their feet, he went on quietly, "Petros, you bring yourself no credit with this display of choler."
Petros made a sour face, and muttered something unintelligible. Master Javier must have plucked the meaning from his mind, because he responded forcefully.
"Your master handed your care to me, Petros son of Django. Make peace with my students, and act as the gentleman you can be."
Petros frowned, but nodded.
***
There was an Indian woman sitting with Mistress Susan and Wanda when Hal came to Master Richard's home at his appointed time; she was watching with fascination as Mistress Susan spun flax from a wet cloth in her lap. Hal glanced at the Indian woman once and tried not to stare too much. Yes, he had lived in a tavern that was also a shugging den in the horrible months when he was Juan Cortes' apprentice, but he had been taught better since.
But she was tall and straight and wearing nothing but paint and a deerskin apron that didn't even reach her knees. It was very much to ask of a young man to not notice her state, especially when her paint including lines set like a pendant between her breasts.
"Mistress Susan. Wanda," he greeted them. Wanda did not look at him - again - but kept her eyes firmly on the shirt she was sewing. Of course, Wanda did not look at any man, and did her best to be a mouse, now that she had been forced to put away her habit.
Hal supposed he did not blame her. He had found it hard to be among Protestants when he was newly come to England. And Wanda was twice alienated, from her Gypsy origin and her vows as a Sister. At least she had Petros, though Hal supposed that was not much comfort, as unreliable as the runner was.
"Good morrow to you, Hal. Have you met our guest yet?"
"No," Hal said, turning toward the spindle and cloth that marked where Mistress Susan sat, "I have not had the honor, Mistress Susan."
Mistress Susan laughed, and said in slow Algonquin, "Hal, this is Walking Plover of Croatan. Walking Plover, this Hal McCoy, a young man of Roanoke. He is clever and helpful to my Reed."
"I greet you, Hal McCoy," Walking Plover said. She looked forthrightly at him, and had bold eyes.
Hal smiled. This was going to be fascinating.
***
Hal was doing something with stones in the garden. It involved piling one atop another and spinning them. Robbie forbear to inquire; he anticipated his friend's explanation would be more confounding than his actions.
"What is he doing?" Scotius asked when Robbie came through the kitchen door.
"I've no understanding. Perhaps Master Richards has set a task for him?"
Scotius sighed, in that way he had that was very nearly scorn. "Hal spends too much time with Master Richards. He is Javier's man."
Robbie would not let that pass. "Hal is a student here; none of us are servants or retainers, dependant on our patron for advancement at *court*."
He collected half a loaf and some of the dry cheese, and went without again.
"What do you do, Hal?" he asked. Scotius' questions had left him curious enough to beard Hal's rambling explanations after all.
"I have gathered these stones - see the fineness of the grain. I think the will do well to grind corn."
"There is already a mill in the village, Hal. It is not the finest stone, but good enough."
Hal smiled. "But the Indians have no mills. The pound their maize in wooden mortars."
"Yes?" Robbie said. What cared he about how the Indians ground their corn?
"It is a matter I have discussed with Mistress Storm, Robbie. Indian women spend much time laboring over their corn - time that the could use for bettering their station, did they not have so much care in feeding their husbands and children."
"Mistress Storm is a partner to your endeavor? What is your endeavor?"
"Making trade with the Indians, Robbie."
"And that involves a grinding corn?"
Hal rolled his eyes. "It is a stepwise plan, Robbie. Mistress Storm contributes her name and her persuasion, and the surplus of her household. And I hazard myself, and what I can make on my half-days of liberty, and in my evenings. The grindstone is merely an offering to the Indians to open the door."
"You propose to become a river merchant."
"For now, Robbie," Hal said. "It is a stepwise plan, as I have said. The river trade is merely a foundation, to earn a base for our true aim."
"May I contribute? A share of the company, for a share of labor?"
Hal blinked. "I… what would you do?"
"I can build as well as any of us, and I understand your schematics for devices well enough. And I can keep accounts better than you - you love your geometry more than simple arithmetic."
"Ah. Perhaps. I must consult Mistress Storm. She is my yoke-mate in this endeavor."
"I do understand that. And Master Richards? When she is his wedded wife, he will be your partner as her endeavor will be his, even if it is her marriage portion."
"I do not think Master Richards will interfere overmuch. He trusts Mistress Storm's good sense, and is altogether preoccupied with natural philosophy besides."
"So you hope to jog along with another man's wife," Robbie said.
"Robbie!" Hal turned to glare at him, and drew himself erect, outraged as a cockerel. He was enormously tall when out of his perpetual slump - Robbie had forgotten quite how much his friend overtopped himself, at that. "I observe all propriety, and Mistress Wanda is there as chaperone!"
"An apostate nun to guard your credit? Have you no sense, Hal?"
Hal shook his head, and said, "Wanda must earn her own dowry, and is shrewd enough to see it, unlike her brother. She will not let us fail through scandal."
"I think I will join your company, just to see where the masque ends."
"What confidence you have in me, Robbie."
Robbie shrugged, "You are my friend, but I know your limitations." When Hal made to protest, he added, "I also know that you can exceed all hopes and expectations, and so I will gamble on your endeavor. Be that enough, friend?"
"It will be." Hal said.
***
When Hal announced he was taking one of the Eagle's Shadow's boats upriver to visit the Indians, Werner asked to permission to come. He was tired of the field labor, tired of setting nets for birds, tired of staying in one place when he could be a-wing.
Master Javier merely cocked an eyebrow, and gave him leave, though Scotius looked askance. Scotius often did; he took too much concern on himself.
"What the devil do you have there?" Werner asked as he watched Hal climb into the boat the next morning. Even before he settled into it, it rode low in the water.
Hal smiled sweetly. "Trade goods. Good fustian, glass beads, tape and ribbon, copper pots, and two axes. And a gift for the weroance's womenfolk."
"Axes? You were allowed to take axes? We are not supposed to trade weapons to the savages!"
"My axes are half the size of your hand, my good angel. They could be used for warring, but they will be more needful for clearing wood. I do not smuggle them, Master Dare knows I take them - he suggested it, in truth. They are gifts for the weroance, to sweeten his disposition to us."
Hal rowed his way through the sound, and then set the small sail to tack up the river, following a map sketched on birch bark. Werner stayed aloft, guiding Hal from the air. The sound was clear water, and from a height he spied fish flowing past Hal's little boat.
They continued up into the river's mouth, following the scant directions, until the sky clouded over with the furious gray of rain. Werner found a glade along the river bank, and helped Hal tie up the boat, take down the mast, and cover it all with a tarp before the storm broke.
Even hiding under oiled cloth draped over a tree - almost an ash, but strange and foreign, as everything was in Virginia - did not help much. Werner tucked his wings as close as he could and shivered. Hal clung from the branch that the cloth hung from, but trickles of water poured over him as well dripping from the ribbons tying back his hair.
The pounding rain seemed to last forever, but in truth was perhaps a quarter-hour or less. After, it was cooler than it had been, but still unpleasantly warm and damp.
"Will it rain again, do you think?" Werner asked, peering out of their makeshift shelter.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Hal shrugged, and crawled along the branch until he was out in the open. He swung himself up into the tree's crown, and peered about, looking like a bedraggled cat.
"My wings are wet."
"Wet through?"
"No, just on tops of my feathers," Werner said, as he stepped out of the poor tent to shake out his wings. "It's unpleasant."
"Perhaps you can sun them out, like a cormorant on a rock."
Werner frowned. "The air is wet; I doubt my wings will dry, even if I wait until morning."
"We can only hope. Fortune favors us, in that it has not turned chill. Here," said Hal, stretching his long arm down to help Werner up, "do climb and we will bed down in this tree. It is damp in truth but the ground is near to a peat bog."
The tree was damp, and Werner's garments were not improved when he sat in a convenient crook, but they were sturdy tow-cloth, and would dry soon enough.
Hal shared out dried rusks and cheese from his rucksack. They had been wrapped in oilcloth, and were barely damp. The rusks smelled sweetly of the maple syrup they were made with, and Werner devoured them quickly. The cheese was hard and sharp in the English style, and he nibbled it dutifully; there was no meat, even dried or smoked, of course.
The skies dimmed again, but instead of a rainstorm, it was merely the sun going down. Werner yawned, muttered a half-intelligible prayer, and folded his wings about himself for sleep. He closed his eyes to the sound of Hal scratching away in the little commonplace book the other youth carried in his jerkin - it must have survived the rain well enough to be written in.
He dozed in the manner he did, but was awaked by Hal's voice, odd and rolling and utterly incomprehensible. It sounded like an incantation. Hal was Witchbreed, but Werner had not thought him a sorcerer.
"-- Firgive vus sinna vora sin vee firgive sindara mutha vus, lyv vus ye i tumtation, min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen."
"What speak you then, Master McCoy?" Werner asked. He tried to keep his voice level, but he feared it sounded an accusation.
"Do you not know the sound of evening prayers, my friend? The Lord's Prayer is universal in Christendom, even as far as the Germanies, I do think."
"I know it in English and Latin and even in Spanish, but I have never heard it that way. What speak you?"
"I spoke in Norn, Werner. It is the tongue I was born to; I pray in it privately, as I have no one else to speak it with, and no other way to retain it."
"I thought you were English."
"I'm an Orkneyman," Hal said.
"That's not English?"
"No. The Orkneys are islands north of Scotland."
"So you're Scotch, like Scotius."
"No," Hal laughed, "I'm an Orkneyman. Scotius is a Borderer - he's almost English himself. Speaks Lallans as his mother-tongue."
"I thought he spoke Scots."
Hal leaned down from his perch until he was staring at Werner upside down. "You jest at my expense."
"I do not."
"You do."
"I do not, truly. I do not understand the English at all."
Hal rolled his eyes, which looked very peculiar as he was inverted. "I am not English. Scotius is not English. Only Robbie is English."
"But Sanctuary was in England."
"And you were rescued from Dom Daniel. Does that make you a Spaniard?"
"I am from the Palatinate!"
"And I'm an Orkneyman, from the islands at the north of Scotland. Not an Englishman."
"This is too confusing."
"Hmm. I do not see how, for one from the rabblery of the Germanies. Besides, we are Virginians, now…"
"Yes," Werner agreed, feeling utterly befuddled. Hal engendered such just by opening his mouth, "now we are."
"And as Viriginians, I think it mete that we sleep now. We will reach Croatoan on the morrow, and must be rested. The weroance will take our gift of axes, but Master Dare warned that the savages are tricksome even under the guise of good will - myself, I think they are merely sharp dealers. Nevertheless, we must have our wits to make best bargain, and if we do not sleep they will desert us ere we rise."
The rest of the night was fitful sleep - having his wings damp was unpleasant - but the sun rose as it would, and they cast off after eating more of the cheese.
Hal seemed entirely sure of himself when they came to a fish trap and two Indians in a canoe.
"Werner, alight from your fluttering."
"What? Why?" Werner did not see why he should risk landing in a boat that was on the river, especially when he wanted to fly closer to the fish trap to examine it.
"Because they might not hit you from this distance, should they turn those bows towards us, but I won't hazard they couldn't."
"Ah," Werner said, and landed in the prow. He near pitched himself into the river doing it, and had to crouch as Hal swung the sail around so as not to tip out entirely.
Hal called out to the Indians in their tongue, and they conversed a while - the Indian in rapid jets of words, Hal more slowly.
"That's it, then," Hal said, as the Indians turned their canoe, and made gestures as they paddled away.
"What is?
"They agreed to guide us to their village - Croatoan by name - and call out their kin for trading. It seems the credit of Roanoke precedes us."
"Let us hope it is a good one among them, yes?"
"Yes, let us."
***
They had been greeted warmly as they came to the village, with drumming and whistling, and an incomprehensible oration by an older man in a deerskin cape. Werner had found the whole thing dull, spoken as it was in savage gibberish, and spent much of the time trying to get the mist out of his feathers.
Hal seemed pleased as he chattered with the painted men in their brief and befeathered finery. Werner could not but feel like a prize goose as the men stared at him - their ornaments of turkey and eagle feathers were nothing compared to his wings, and he did not trust they would not try to take them from him, the savages.
But they were to the meat of it now, as Hal laid out the two copper axes for the prince - weroance, Hal said - as gifts.
And then Hal brought out the odd device of stone he'd carried so carefully in the boat, and presented it to the weroance's womenfolk.
"What have you there?" Werner asked, as the women - naked except for beads, paint, and deerskin aprons! - crowded round. They were fascinated by whatever Hal was saying, and watched as he scooped maize grains from a basket to pour into the device. Then he cranked its handle, causing a violent, scraping sound.
"It's a quern," Hal said. "I couldn't make a millrynd, nor cut the stones for a mill. Nor *carry* them here." Hal turned back to his device, poured another handful of maize corn into it, and spun the handle again. "But I can cut quernstones and carry a set in the boat."
Fine powder was escaping around the edges of the device. By its smell, Werner knew it was the maize ground to flour.
The women exclaimed loudly at this. They pressed near around Hal and watched him grind out meal with his quern. One woman, tall and fleshy and bedecked with chains of pearls, rubbed her fingers through the coarse flour. She looked up at Hal, and smiled.
Werner had no idea what she said, for she spoke rapidly and at length - however, her tone was appreciative.
Hal ducked his head, and smiled. He gestured extravagantly as he rattled off in Algonquin, and ducked his head again.
The woman smiled, and gestured to her attendants. One of them took over the handle (after a nod from Hal that she had it aright), another poured the maize corn in, several dashed off to fetch more baskets of maize and others stood chattering and watching. Every one of them would glance up at Hal and smile coyly.
"That went well," Hal murmured, thankfully in English.
***
"You have given them a mill," Werner said as they packed the boat that night, after they had been fed venison and maize until both of them were near to bursting. The Indians had been impressed with Hal's gifts to their prince and his household, and the trading went well after that. Werner had suffered no worse than small and curious children touching his feathers - and as they were small enough, it was not an offense, though he did not like people touching his wings in the main.
"Not quite," Hal said. "A quern will never grind for the whole village - but for a household, it is enough."
"There was a whole village there."
"Yes, there was. And now they know that Roanoke can give them copper *and* querns. Tools for war and for peace. Mistress Susan was wise to propose that."
"You have conspired with Susan Storm?" Werner was aghast. She was Sir Reed Richards' betrothed wife.
"I have. If Roanoke makes itself valuable to the Indians, we have allies - against the Spanish or against King James, whoever comes."
"That is fearsome clever. She is a dangerous woman."
"The best kind of woman, I believe," Hal smiled.
"So you will be the ship-captain on this river trade, and Mistress Storm will be the merchant who hires you."
"For a little while, yes," Hal said. "If we profit enough, then the school will be endow with enough capital to prosper. I will be content."
"Do you wish to be a schoolmaster for Javier, then?" Werner asked.
"I wish to be alive," Hal said, sharp and fierce. "We will have no help from England, now that Roanoke has declared rebellion and independence from James. Our position is precarious - Indians who look askance at us and far outnumber our little plantation, and Spaniards prowling the ocean just beyond our sheltered sound."
"But we are free to fly away."
"Those of us who have wings, or pillars of fire to carry us away. I am a groundling, as well you know."
***
When they arrived back in Roanoke, Mistress Susan and Wanda came to meet them.
"You have made interesting trades, Hal," Susan Storm said as she and Wanda stood over the wares as Hal and Werner unpacked the boat.
"I tried, Mistress Susan. But the folk of Croatoan have odd notions of what is valued."
Hal watched as the gentlewoman picked over the baskets - laden with maize corn, and beans and squash, as well as less edible wares - she seemed very approving over the beaver skins, by the way the fur ruffled as she held it. The thunderlizard hide must have startled her, for she gasped, but she replaced it carefully in its basket, so perhaps that was good as well.
"What is this?" Mistress Susan held up a strick that was not quite flax.
"Indian hemp, or as near as they have it. 'tis what they make their fishing nets of. I thought you might try it for weaving, belike."
"Wanda? You are the better spinner."
Wanda looked startled, but she stepped over from where she had been shyly examining the corn baskets, and took the strick in her hands to examine it.
"It is not as fine as line, I think, but better than most tow. We might try it in canvas?" She stopped and turned to Hal. "How much do you have?"
"Three baskets," Hal said, "perhaps enough to stuff a hogshead."
"Oh! Why, that is certainly enough try weaving canvas, and diaper, and even lawn, if it will spin so fine." Wanda turned back to Mistress Susan, "I will attempt them all, Mistress!"
"First you must spin for them," Susan said, a smile in her voice. "I will help, but we must need have a wheel made for you. Spindles are pretty, but not fast enough."
"A loom would be of more use. Will Master Richards build you one for your marriage?"
Mistress Susan laughed. "Only if he can make it into one of his devices, like an enormous mousetrap."
Hal looked up at that. "He has plans for that already."
"What?" Mistress Susan sounded appalled.
"He has plans - a device to make looms run by themselves, like an automaton. They are not very practical, though."
Werner winced at the look on Wanda's face. No doubt Mistress Susan was making as similar one, and they were spared such a glowering look by her invisibility.
"You have seen these plans, Hal?"
Hal looked startled as Mistress Susan and Wanda rounded on him, like cat attacked by mice. An invisible mouse, and a witch mouse, Werner could not decided which was worse.
"Yes, when I was assisting Master Richards."
"And you saw the flaws?"
"Yes. Master Richards made them too complicated - a waterwheel to impel the harnesses would be more easily made than the galvanic array he proposed-" Hal began, using his hands to illustrate his idea.
"Hal, come with me," Mistress Susan said. "Wanda, do assist Werner in unlading the rest of the wares and store them at my brother's house. Keeps close account, and note anything that interests you. Hal, come!"
Hal had only time to bleat like a lamb before Mistress Susan hauled him away.
"Well, that was unexpected," Werner said, looking dubiously at Wanda. He was not sure he liked being abandoned with the apostate nun - she had never apologized for her service to the Inquisitor, for one.
Wanda surprised him, by giggling, and then covering her mouth. "Indeed," she murmured.
***
The day after Hal and Werner returned Master Javier had Scotius help him copy hornbooks - Governor Dare had asked Master Javier to open the school, so that the boys of the village were educated enough to read and write and figure cleanly. Therefore, they needed primers for the lads before the classes started, and had spent the week preparing ink and paper.
"Scotius," Javier said in his mind, as they worked over the dark birchbark sheets, "your proposed course is a well-plotted one, but you have not considered all reefs and shoals inherent in our company."
Scotius looked up. "Sir?"
"We have at present only ourselves to rely on - the villagers do not love us, for we have alienated them from James and England, and already the school is fragmenting. You must needs make a compromise to keep our wayward lads from scattering like sheep in the mountains."
"I cannot act as shepherd, Master. Petros is entirely headstrong and will not listen. Hal and Robbie obeyed to me in Sanctuary because of your authority, but Hal has ever kept his own council, and Robbie has advanced beyond me to journeyman - he will not heed an apprentice much longer. The only one I can command with any surety is Werner, because he is afraid, and not because there is love between us."
Javier sighed. "Henry is restive as a stall-kept horse. I have narrowed and narrowed his liberty to protect him, and he knows it well - the world is not kind to monsters. That did not stop him from desiring beyond the schoolroom and the garden wall. And now he has all the freedom he wished for. I hope that Master Richard's attention can halt his wanderlust."
"And what of Robbie? "
"Robbie is a gentleman, but there is little estate for him, and less chance that he might claim it; the King has certainly made a writ of attainder against his inheritance. He must seek his fortune where he finds it, and that is not in Roanoke I fear."
"And Werner is an airling," Scotius grumbled.
"Indeed. If I were given wings, I might never wish to land. I do not think he will be so hard to check as the others; he knows our hazards bests, of all of us."
"And Petros is simply difficult."
"He was the Inquisitor's messenger. He went where he was bid, but he *went*. He has a natural inclination to go and come, Scotius. Find a way to harness that urge. Set him a task as explorer if you can - any labor that allows him to run."
"I will, sir."
***
Robbie found Hal sitting in the shade of the only tree in the garden. It was hardly more than a hedge, in truth, but it was shade in the unbearable heat.
"How now, my friend."
"Good day, Robbie," Hal said distractedly.
"What do you here, Hal?"
"Mistress Susan has given me a task. It looks to be involved."
Robbie waited for Hal to go on, but he merely kept scratching at his notebook, and then holding it away to peer blearily at it. His eyes were not the best - Master Javier had tried reading stones to help, but Hal said they made it worse, not better - so Robbie was used to his behavior with books.
"Hal?"
"Hmm?"
"What task?"
"She wants a weaving automaton."
"She *what*?"
"Sir Reed has plans for one, but it is too complicated to construct or use. I am attempting to simplify his plan - I think it could be driven by a waterwheel."
"And this is what you do now?"
Hal looked up, and blinked. "Oh. You need me?"
"No, I just wanted to hear of your adventure."
"I was rained on the first night, feasted the second, and dragged off to labor as soon as I returned home."
"Sounds joyous."
Hal grinned. "It was splendid. I will tell you all. But first, this," he said, and presented Robbie with a sheet of birchbark.
"Hello, what's this?" Robbie said, as he looked at the sheet. "A list?"
"It's simply wares I think you should search for when you go to sea. They would benefit the colony, if you could find space and coin for them on the return voyage."
Robbie smiled, "You believe I will, then."
"I do not think anything would stop you, Robbie."
"It is good that someone has confidence in me." Robbie considered as he read the list, "Hmm, brass, pig iron, smith's tools, a theodolite - a theodolite, Hal? Will you be wanting a virginal as well? -- quadrant, improved hemp seeds, blue flax seeds, cotton seeds, living beehives? *Beehives*, Hal?"
Hal looked up, his pale eyes serious "The crops need bees. Not the corn, of course -- barley and wheat do well without bees. However the fruits and the grapes have been poor harvests for the quality of the land. Bees would multiply the yield."
"Ah," Robbie said, and tapped the list. "Yes, that's sensible."
"And I want a lute, not a virginal."
"Hal, if this works, I will bring you a harpsichord from Flanders, never mind a simple lute."
END
Author: neotoma
Prompt: 1602 | The Witchbreed. Scotius, Hal or Javier would be preferred. | Gen | How do the witchbreed adjust to living in the New World?
Rating: PG
Word count: 9514
Disclaimer: The characters and settings featured in this story are the property of Marvel Entertainment. This is a work of homage and no copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: objectionable (but period) language
Author's notes: thanks to beta clara_swfit and st_aurafina
After the anomaly was destroyed, and Sir Nicholas mourned, the village settled back to a normal life on this plantation of fair England in the New World. The travelers from the Eagle's Shadow helped setting the disorder to rights, and then were each man required by nature to find an occupation for himself.
Javier wished to continue his self-appointed task of sheltering and educating Witchbreed. While no other boy in the Roanoke was like to be of that uncanny kind, all of them were boys, and ill-taught by elders who needs must look to crops and industry for the survival of the colony. Javier, being too weak in body to do likewise, was strong in his mind. Turning his hand to labor over village records and ragged schoolboys was no hardship.
But first there had to be a school. There was a space along the wall, where a hovel had been placed and then abandoned in the long years from the first settlement. Governor Dare deeded it to Javier, with the provision that his students build a house and that all the boys in the village were to be taught their petty schooling there, and grammar schooling if their parents or masters could spare them.
Laying a hearth was the first task. The local stone was not the quality that one would wish, but with diligent attention, they gathered and fitted enough granite to floor a kitchen hearth.
The workingmen of Roanoke village lent a hand, glad to see the Witchbreed depart from the village hall. They showed how differently the house had to formed - the roof might be thatched like any in England, but the timbers were mere anchors for wall of woven matting. Proper daubed and whitewashed walls would have left the school an oven in the cruel summer heat. Walls woven of silk grass let cooling breezes play throughout the house, and when winter came more mats could be added to thicken the walls for warmth.
With Scotius acting as axeman, and Hal and Werner using their monstrous brawn to haul the felled trees, they had the timbers framed and even an upper floor jettied out to shadow their pack-dirt courtyard in two days. It was not Sanctuary, but it would serve, with a kitchen, hall, and small chamber for Master Javier below, and two long rooms above. One would be a solar, if the house was ever graced by a wife, and one would be a library and workroom if they ever happened to have books again - there were precious few in Roanoke, and not likely to be more, unless ships were sent out, or they took to copying them by hand, like Papist monks.
Hanging the walls was simple, though the labor they bargained away for the woven mats was long and tiring. Even Scotius tired of felling brush, and Werner's wings were no help when it came to pruning the orchard trees.
Robbie and Hal, however, made light of their labors. Scotius thought it not at all fair. Robbie's touch with ice drew water out of the air like sweat, watering corn and tobacco that had no rain for days, though he the risked of killing them with rime if he didn't attend closely to his labors. And Hal, well, he'd been a farmer's boy, years ago and a world away; the work was harder than his service as Javier's bearer, but he had strength to spare.
Petros, of course, was nowhere to be found again. Whatever his hardships with the Inquisitor had been, he did not talk of them, nor did he share the labor in the fields. He simply turned up at night, bedded down beside Robbie (who did not think Petros was enough of a gentlemen to share the woven mats he had as bed, but could no muster a coherent argument when Werner asked him why Petros was worse to share bedlinens with then Hal, who was certainly not a gentleman, and snored besides), and departed on his own business in the morning after a slice of bread and a cup of small beer.
Two days after the house was built enough to live in - though they had yet to furnish it beyond the beds of wicker and mats, and table and benches rough-hewn of logs, Scotius declared they should set a kitchen garden behind the house that day as they ate day-old rusks in the morning.
Robbie looked askance. "From where shall we get pot herbs, Scotius? I do not fancy some wife knocking me about with a broom for scrumping from her own plot."
"We shall plant them," Scotius said. "There are seeds yet; I have inquired."
"In late summer?" Hal asked. "Though Virginia is as warm as Spain, 'tis passing late for starting herbs, friend Scotius."
Scotius frowned. "What would you have us do instead, Master McCoy? We can labor piece-a-meal, and rely on the Christian charity of the villagers of Roanoke for the rest, but you and I both know that many a time Witchbreed are not accorded such."
Hal looked down at his outsized hands, and sighed. "No, that is true."
"Perhaps," Robbie said, when the air had grown too thick, "we might try the herbs, and make other provisions also? I have listened - the sound is thick with herring and sturgeon soon, and the geese will come. If we are mindful, we might labor one day on village affairs, and catch fish and fowl the next. That way we earn our daily corn, but have better to eat. And if we build a smokehouse, we might have the excess for winter. Goose at Christmas will be worth more than goose in August."
"And there are herbs in the woods now," Werner added. "Mushrooms, and onions. I gathered such as a boy. I can do it again."
"You must need have a guide," Hal said. "The mushrooms are strange to us, and a dish of toadstools would do us no good at all."
"I will take care," Werner said. "I am no fool, who cannot tell a death-cap from a woodear."
"Ask the goodwives of the town for help," Scotius said. "Hal is right. It is a strange land, and the food itself is strange."
Werner pulled his wings close, and frowned. They all turned their own ways, and finished breaking their fast.
Half a day of woodcutting earned Scotius a bucket and rootlings of rosemary and thyme from the cooper, and advice about how to keep such in the Virginia heat from his wife. He used his terrible eyes to churn up the ground behind their schoolhouse, and planted the herbs himself.
It was a good feeling, to put roots into the soil. Perhaps Javier's men would do well in Virginia. He had almost finished, just pouring water over the transported plants, when he heard Hal's voice come around the house.
"I think it is of a kind with markery by its leaves. 'Tis a pot herb - it shall be good in tarts, Robbie."
"We will be fasting all winter, if all we have to eat are fish day meals, Hal." Robbie said as the fast pair rounded into the garden. He carried a forked stick with two large striped fish upon it. Scotius did not know the fish at sight, but was glad that they might have something beyond porridge to eat tonight.
Hal had a grass basket in his hands, and long leaves spilled over the top.
"What have you there, Hal?" he asked.
His old friend smiled, showing the long teeth at the corners of his mouth - something Hal never did in front of strangers. The day had gone well indeed, if Hal were happy enough to show himself so completely.
"Markery, I think, and wild onions. I found them along the streambank. Mistress Baxter lent me this basket to gather as many plants as I could."
"Markery?" Scotius asked. The word was familiar, but he didn't remember what the plant was for - eating, obviously, but roots, leaves or fruit?
"Fat hen," Robbie said, naming a plant that Scotius did know. And the weed that Hal scooped out of his basket did look of the kind.
"Ah. Fat hen!" Scotius said. "We shall have tarts, then?"
"When we have butter and flour to make paste, yes. This day, we will plant these herbs and hope for the best," Hal said as he crouched down. "I see you have turned the earth already."
"And made furrow most even," Robbie added, though he hung back. Robbie disliked the labors they had been pursuing these past days - he thought it below his dignity as a gentleman. In truth, it was, but they were all reduced by their circumstances, and dignity earned no food.
"It was simple enough. I need but look at the ground with my eyes uncovered. Shall we plant our herbs, then?" Scotius asked.
Hal nodded, and pointed toward the other end of the small plot. "I think this part at the edge might be best…"
It was simple work that they did with their hands. Hal had no trouble digging holes with his fingers, though the dirt clung to him because he was hairy in a way that Scotius was not. But they had the fat hen and pungent onions settled in short order, and Robbie carefully poured water over each plant as they finished. Scotius suspected Robbie was chilling the bucket to pull water out of the air; Robbie was most adept with his Witchbreed talents, and if the water was not killing cold, its coolness might be good for the plants as the noon sun was unbearable.
Finished, they entered the house. Master Javier was gone, but like as not Master Reed had taken him to the village hall. Scotius was not sure what his master and the natural philosopher did for the days, but it was not his place to ask.
They used an old brush to clean off the worst of the dirt, and there was a stoneware ewer and basin to wash their hands - the goodwives of Roanoke had been generous with the trifles of a house, perhaps for lack of young men to fuss over. There were very few folk between the ages of 15 and 25 in the village; the few there were had come over as serving boys and apprentices, and were too busy (and too afraid) to talk to at-ends Witchbreed.
A loud flap from without, and Werner poked his head through the door. "Help, please?" He tossed a canvas bag through the doorframe, and stumbled inside.
"What have you there?" Robbie asked, even as he reached the sack and upturned it.
"Roots," Werner said, shaking out his wings and setting his buff jacket to rights. "Of all sorts. There was weeding and thinning and it was all quite tiring, but I am assured they are fit to eat."
"Perhaps some are fit to *plant*, if you haven't killed them pulling them from the ground," Scotius said. There were turnips and beets and parsnips for certain in the pile, and perhaps the ones whose leaves were not too battered could be put into the kitchen garden instead of the soup pot.
"Perhaps," Werner agreed, and crouched down beside Robbie and helped him sort the vegatives into ones they would need to eat, and ones that might be salvaged. There were not many of the second, but Scotius gathered them to himself and went outside to plant them.
Soon he was filthy to his elbows again, and not entirely sure that his gardening had done any good, but there was a row of root-tops in his little garden when he was finished, and he had emptied a water bucket into the earth.
There was a disagreement in progress when he walked back through the door. Or so it appeared from the way Hal was bristling, Robbie was looking at the floor, and Werner stood with his arms folded across his chest like a stern Michael.
"I am serving as cook today, not scullion. Thou," Hal tossed a turnip at Werner, who caught it without thinking, "can be scullion."
"What!"
Hal pointed to the knife and board. "Cut that."
"A hit, Hal, a certain hit," Robbie laughed. Scotius chuckled beside him; it was unkind, but it amused him to see the winged youth so startled.
"Do you think you will not help likewise?" Hal asked. "You, go spit those fish, Robbie. Scotius, have we water for pottage?"
"Pottage again?" Scotius said. It was not *porridge*, of course, but he wanted something more substantial than roots and pulse boiled to fragments.
"Have you caught us a coney, Master Summerisle? If not, then complain not."
The cooking proceeded, and only was interrupted when Petros ran inside in his customary recklessness. He took half a loaf - they only had a cast of three for them all! - and did not help at table or hearth. Scotius frowned at him sternly, but just as he was about to rebuke the silver-haired wastrel, Master Richards and Captain Grimm brought Master Javier home.
They all quieted then, and followed Master Javier in prayer for the meal. Master Javier did not remonstrate Petros, and commended them all on their day's labors, but Scotius felt his Master's knowing gaze as he ate. He was losing control, and as captain of their small company, it was a profound failing.
The evening was not much better - they separated after that awkward dinner, and Scotius found himself scratching figures on birchbark paper. He did not have Robbie's head for accounts - but even his poor estimates were bleak.
Tobacco was the best crop for coin, and coin was needed to truly have the school again. But the English and Spanish markets for tobacco were closed to them now that Roanoke had rebelled against the King, and had Witchbreed living openly on the plantation. France then? Or Arabia? And there was the matter of feeding themselves while growing it. The tobacco would need more attention that any corn or root - if they scrimped at growing food to raise tobacco, what benefit did it do them?
Scotius wished that Master Javier would confide in him, or give him a surmountable challenge, not this amorphous ordeal of planning.
***
The day after they planted their garden behind the school had a wonder. Robbie was delighted when two Indians came to the gate and were granted leave through the palisade. They brought a deer, as a gift from their weroance -- as was their title for their ruling prince, lord of the six nearest towns - for Master Dare.
Robbie thought it great entertainment merely to watch them; he was not alone in this, as many of the boys and no few of the men of the town turned to look at the painted savages as they walked through the village. His own task of knotting rope into sea mats he abandoned to watch them.
They were tall and broad, very clean in their limbs, with glossy black hair cut most curious on one side and gathered at their napes in loose knots. They were naked except for deerskins covering their privates, and ornamented with painted sigils and chains of dark beads.
He had to tell Hal. This was great news - Indians, come to Roanoke!
His friend was across the village, dressing the roof of the new communal store with Scotius - the village store was improving now that they five - and maiden Wanda - were contributing in full. Petros might be a jackanapes but he was an excellent hunter, able to snatch coneys off the ground and fowl from their roosts by speed alone.
"Hal!" Robbie cried, "Come look you. Indians have come to Roanoke!"
"Indians?" Hal asked, from his perch on the roof. He stood on the kingpost and shaded his eyes to see. "Indeed, Indians. Most curious."
"Hal, this roof with not lay itself," Scotius said. He shook a stave of straw at them.
"But, Scotius - Indians!" Hal said.
"Yes, Indians! They are a spectacle, Scotius, all painted and savage!" Robbie flapped his arms, emphasizing how unusual and entertaining this was.
Scotius refused to budge. "They are guests or peddlers, and of no account to us!"
"Matthew the Polander said they were men of the local prince," Robbie said. "A generous man, to gift Governor Dare with a whole stag."
"A stag? Not a buck? Here?" Hal asked, and leaped down from his perch. "This I must see. Stags are almost gone, in England."
"'tis quite large," Robbie said as they left Scotius behind, fuming, "but perhaps it is only a buck."
Hal grinned, and ran on all fours through the village beside Robbie, only drawing to stop when they came to the green. The Indians were there, conversing with some of Governor Dare's soldiers.
"Ah, there is John Sampson, who knows the Indian tongue. Let us ask for introduction?" Robbie said, spying a man who was friendly enough to them since they had landed.
Sampson, a lean and weathered man, glanced at them askance, but introduced them to the Indians - Matteo and Neeswanee. Both men were grave, but their eyes were bright and dancing.
"Robberteo," the younger man, Matteo, said carefully. "Enree. That is proper?"
Robbie laughed. "Yes. But you may call me Robbie. Everyone does."
"And I am Hal."
Matteo looked at Hal consideringly. Robbie held his breath, because this was always the fraught moment, when a stranger looked at Hal entire, and realized how monstrous he was.
"You are… bear?" Matteo asked.
Hal blinked, and then laughed, loud and strong enough that he had to cover his fangs with a hand.
Robbie smiled as well. Perhaps this would work out?
They tried to explain that Hal was not a bear, magicked to speak like a man or no, but Robbie didn't think Matteo understood. His companion Neeswanee certainly didn't. But it hardly mattered, since Matteo was perfectly happy to talk with them in his halting English even if he thought Hal was a magician's familiar. The man was hardly older than they, and fast made a friend for the afternoon.
Hal spent much time with the Indians, and then was so distracted in the evening writing down all that he learned, words and customs, that Scotius had to bear Master Javier to his appointment to dine with Governor Dare and Sir Reed.
Robbie thought it a good day, in all.
***
Scotius stayed to carry Master Javier home - it was not far, but it seemed unkind to force one of Master Dare's small household to bear Master Javier to the schoolhouse, as it would like be late indeed when they finished dining and conversing. After he ate his own late meal in the kitchen - the broken meat and some sweet pastries of beet and onion -- young Parquarh came down from his work transcribing records to talk. They passed the time with idle plans for a sea voyage and a game of tables scratched into the yard and played with stones before the sun disappeared entirely.
Just before Master Javier called for him, one of the kitchen women pressed a package of broken meats and beet tarts on Scotius, wrapped in leaves and birch bark. "For your fellows," she said, and smiled. Surprised, Scotius wondered which of the others she was sweet on - perhaps Robbie, who was boyish enough that a woman might look on as a son to spoil with special treats like venison.
Master Javier, Master Richards, and Governor Dare were at table when he entered, along with Master Richard's betrothed wife Susan, who was not visible except for the collar of blackwork she was embroidering, and young Virginia. John Storm stood at the fireside, reciting from a battered manuscript. The words were antique, but amusing, and Scotius soon recognized one of the stories of Chaucer.
"Scotius, you are ready?" Master Javier asked when Storm paused in his recitation, and the other men finally deigned to notice Scotius.
"You have called me, Master. I am."
"Then Sir Reed, Master Storm, Governor Dare, gentlewomen, I take my leave."
"Good night to you, Master Javier," the Governor said.
"Good night, Carlos," Master Richards said. "Send your man around tomorrow; he will be of great assistance."
Scotius carried Master Javier without and turned across the green towards the schoolhouse. The air was hot and thick with moisture. Scotius wondered if it reminded his master of Spain - the climate seemed alike, from Scotius' brief forays to that country.
"Master," Scotius asked, "who does Master Richards wish to speak with?"
"Sir Reed wishes to speak to Henry."
"Hal? Why?"
Javier smiled knowingly. "He says he needs aid in his arithmetics, but I believe he wishes an audience that can comprehend his greater fancies. And our Henry will be that - Sir Reed is the most quicksilver mind I have ever encountered, but Henry is not much overshadowed."
"There is that, Master."
***
"Good day to you, Hal," Susan Storm said when Hal came to Sir Reed Richard's little house on the opposite side of the village. He wondered briefly if Master Richard's and his companions has been given land far from the school to separate potential allies should the villagers turn on them, or if Master Richard's studies into natural philosophy had so unsettled Governor Dare as to place the scholar-knight as far from the village hall as possible. Perhaps both.
"Good day, Mistress Susan." He inclined his head towards where his ears and nose told him the invisible woman stood.
"You are here to assist Reed, I have heard."
"Master Javier has sent me thus, yes."
"You saw the Indians come to Roanoke, and conversed with them?"
"Yes. I have started a study of their language. I enjoy learning different tongues."
"We crossed the Americas, the four of us," Susan Storm said. "Algonquin was the easiest to learn - I will converse with you in it at dinner, so that you may improve your speech. Now go, and rend all assistance to Reed as your master bid you, good Hal."
Hal nodded, and cautiously entered Master Richard's home. He risked a glance backward, and saw only a needle flashing as Mistress Susan stitched a handkerchief - adding to her marriage chest, Hal supposed. She had much to do before Lady Day, when she and Master Richards had promised to marry.
It had been a thoroughly baffling conversation, in truth. Hal was glad to enter Master Richard's chamber with its makeshift alchemical apparatuses. Here at least, was something solid and understandable.
***
That evening, when Master Javier had retired to his chamber, and they to the upper floor for bed, Scotius laid out his plan to his fellows. He had refined it as much as he could on his own; it was time for other eyes to spot the flaws now.
Hal and Robbie both gave close attention to his words, but Werner did not, and Petros as usual sneered at them all. The Inquisitor's messenger was an entirely unpleasant fellow, in Scotius' eyes, and he wished Master Javier had not taken him up.
"Therefore, tobacco is the best crop for revenue," Scotius concluded.
"Yes, that's true," Robbie agreed. "I looked at Master Dare's ledgers, and even four barrels of best tobacco brought the colony quite a return of coin."
Werner frowned, and his wings twitched. "Tobacco is wretched - it might be most profitable, but the labor is never-ending. We would never tend our corn, for it requires such constant attention."
Scotius shook his head. "We must support the school, Werner. Tobacco is the best way. With the five of us-"
"The five of us, Scotius?" Hal said. "I think not. The labor exhausts all who tend tobacco; you have seen it as well as I - and Werner and I would labor most by virtue of our greater stamina. And I will not be a donkey to carry your baggage."
"Hal, it is only right that the strongest among us do the most taxing of the labor."
The Orkneyman glared and set his jaw.
"Hal…" Robbie began.
"Do not, Robbie, try to persuade me."
Robbie collapsed. Scotius sighed. He would get no help from that quarter, with Robbie and Hal such boon companions.
"There are other crops…" Robbie offered.
"What do you propose, Robbie?"
"Well, cotton, for one. It grows in like climes - the Spaniards grow it in their colonies -- and it is very costly. Perhaps we should grow it, instead of tobacco. After all, would be wise to diversify our investments."
Werner looked askance. "I thought me that cotton is more work than linen, to grow and make into cloth."
"Yes, but that's why it is profitable!"
Hal rolled his eyes. "We might as well plan to grow indigo. That fetches a high price, too."
"Do you think we might?" Scotius looked askance. There was so much he hadn't considered.
"No!" Hal said.
"Yes!" Robbie said.
They looked at each other.
"Where do we get the seeds, Robbie? The Spaniards have a monopoly, and they will not sell such to the English. And certainly not English colonists who are rebels and Witchbreed!"
"Arabia!"
"Arabia?" Hal's eyebrows rose to his hairline.
Werner looked askance. "I hope you do not propose I *fly* you there…"
"No, no!" Robbie said. "We have the Eagle's Shadow. She is not the best of ships, but she's seaworthy. Captain Grimm is an experienced man, and there are enough sailors in Roanoke to make a crew. And Roanoke will need trade -- whatever else we cannot get iron unless it is brought from Europe as pigs. If we plan wisely and present a stratagem to Governor Dare *along* with collateral we could buy a share in a voyage - and get the seed stock then!"
"You plan too much," Petros said from his corner. "We do not even have corn, but what measure the village store allots us."
They all turned to look at him. He was sullen since Master Javier had taken him in and set his sister to Mistress Storm to serve as maid - truly it was more proper than it had been with Jean, which had been a comedy and a tragedy of desperation -- but Scotius thought not one of them had warmed to the Inquisitor's messenger.
"We can plan corn crops as well, Petros," Scotius said. "Governor Dare has told our Master that there are hundreds of acres of waste land beyond the current borders of the plantation. We are welcome to farm there, if we clear the land."
"Truly?" Werner asked. "We could remove ourselves to a manor, as we had at Sanctuary?"
"Perhaps not that-" Scotius said.
"We would must build a manor, first," Hal said dryly.
"-but," Scotius overrode his friend, "we might work towards that goal. Plant fields of barley and rye first, if the ground is good. Oats, if the ground is poor."
"Oats are peasant food," Petros complained.
Scotius frowned. Would Petros ever stop being difficult, merely for the delight in troubling others?
He calmed himself, and said, "It grew well in Scotland, even on poor land. I am not too proud to eat peasant food, if that's all that will ripen."
Robbie frowned, "We should be bolder -- adventuresome. Farming is a work for the lesser sort. Are we not gentles?"
Scotius looked at Werner, and then at Hal. "My father was a ship's captain, Robbie. I am a gentleman by courtesy only."
"My father was an - ironmonger, is that the word? --" Werner looked to Scotius, then added. "We were townsfolk, until he died; after, my mother took me back to her home village."
Hal looked sour. "My father was a tenant on Egilsay."
Robbie had the grace to look crestfallen.
"Ha. You are all impostors, then," Petros said. "'Sons of the gentlefolk', indeed."
Scotius did not like how the runner crowed. He drew breath to rebuke the youth, when Werner spoke.
"You should not talk --" Werner said. " -- Zigeuner!"
Scotius did not know that word - German, he thought it - but Petros leaped to his feet, and battered at Werner with blurring hands.
Scotius shouted, appalled at such behavior, but Hal and Robbie were swifter than he. Hal leapt the table and knocked Werner away from his attacker, and Robbie rounded on Petros.
They all went down in a jumble.
Petros was screeching like a cat, but Robbie would not be budged from where he sat on top of him. Robbie had laid rime on the floor as well, and Petros scrabbled like a fox on a frozen pond.
Hal had pulled Werner from the fight, and still had an arm slung around him, lest his bile overcome him as well. The great wings were flexing and restive, though Werner made no move to kick or otherwise abuse his disadvantaged attacker.
"What do you!" came like an axe to Scotius' skull. From the wincing, all had heard Master Javier in their minds like shouting.
"Master?" Scotius said meekly.
"You rumble like tomcats! This is not the behavior of young gentlemen!"
"No, sir."
"Robbie, let him up," Master Javier ordered, his mind's voice firm and exasperated. When the young men had separated, and climbed to their feet, he went on quietly, "Petros, you bring yourself no credit with this display of choler."
Petros made a sour face, and muttered something unintelligible. Master Javier must have plucked the meaning from his mind, because he responded forcefully.
"Your master handed your care to me, Petros son of Django. Make peace with my students, and act as the gentleman you can be."
Petros frowned, but nodded.
***
There was an Indian woman sitting with Mistress Susan and Wanda when Hal came to Master Richard's home at his appointed time; she was watching with fascination as Mistress Susan spun flax from a wet cloth in her lap. Hal glanced at the Indian woman once and tried not to stare too much. Yes, he had lived in a tavern that was also a shugging den in the horrible months when he was Juan Cortes' apprentice, but he had been taught better since.
But she was tall and straight and wearing nothing but paint and a deerskin apron that didn't even reach her knees. It was very much to ask of a young man to not notice her state, especially when her paint including lines set like a pendant between her breasts.
"Mistress Susan. Wanda," he greeted them. Wanda did not look at him - again - but kept her eyes firmly on the shirt she was sewing. Of course, Wanda did not look at any man, and did her best to be a mouse, now that she had been forced to put away her habit.
Hal supposed he did not blame her. He had found it hard to be among Protestants when he was newly come to England. And Wanda was twice alienated, from her Gypsy origin and her vows as a Sister. At least she had Petros, though Hal supposed that was not much comfort, as unreliable as the runner was.
"Good morrow to you, Hal. Have you met our guest yet?"
"No," Hal said, turning toward the spindle and cloth that marked where Mistress Susan sat, "I have not had the honor, Mistress Susan."
Mistress Susan laughed, and said in slow Algonquin, "Hal, this is Walking Plover of Croatan. Walking Plover, this Hal McCoy, a young man of Roanoke. He is clever and helpful to my Reed."
"I greet you, Hal McCoy," Walking Plover said. She looked forthrightly at him, and had bold eyes.
Hal smiled. This was going to be fascinating.
***
Hal was doing something with stones in the garden. It involved piling one atop another and spinning them. Robbie forbear to inquire; he anticipated his friend's explanation would be more confounding than his actions.
"What is he doing?" Scotius asked when Robbie came through the kitchen door.
"I've no understanding. Perhaps Master Richards has set a task for him?"
Scotius sighed, in that way he had that was very nearly scorn. "Hal spends too much time with Master Richards. He is Javier's man."
Robbie would not let that pass. "Hal is a student here; none of us are servants or retainers, dependant on our patron for advancement at *court*."
He collected half a loaf and some of the dry cheese, and went without again.
"What do you do, Hal?" he asked. Scotius' questions had left him curious enough to beard Hal's rambling explanations after all.
"I have gathered these stones - see the fineness of the grain. I think the will do well to grind corn."
"There is already a mill in the village, Hal. It is not the finest stone, but good enough."
Hal smiled. "But the Indians have no mills. The pound their maize in wooden mortars."
"Yes?" Robbie said. What cared he about how the Indians ground their corn?
"It is a matter I have discussed with Mistress Storm, Robbie. Indian women spend much time laboring over their corn - time that the could use for bettering their station, did they not have so much care in feeding their husbands and children."
"Mistress Storm is a partner to your endeavor? What is your endeavor?"
"Making trade with the Indians, Robbie."
"And that involves a grinding corn?"
Hal rolled his eyes. "It is a stepwise plan, Robbie. Mistress Storm contributes her name and her persuasion, and the surplus of her household. And I hazard myself, and what I can make on my half-days of liberty, and in my evenings. The grindstone is merely an offering to the Indians to open the door."
"You propose to become a river merchant."
"For now, Robbie," Hal said. "It is a stepwise plan, as I have said. The river trade is merely a foundation, to earn a base for our true aim."
"May I contribute? A share of the company, for a share of labor?"
Hal blinked. "I… what would you do?"
"I can build as well as any of us, and I understand your schematics for devices well enough. And I can keep accounts better than you - you love your geometry more than simple arithmetic."
"Ah. Perhaps. I must consult Mistress Storm. She is my yoke-mate in this endeavor."
"I do understand that. And Master Richards? When she is his wedded wife, he will be your partner as her endeavor will be his, even if it is her marriage portion."
"I do not think Master Richards will interfere overmuch. He trusts Mistress Storm's good sense, and is altogether preoccupied with natural philosophy besides."
"So you hope to jog along with another man's wife," Robbie said.
"Robbie!" Hal turned to glare at him, and drew himself erect, outraged as a cockerel. He was enormously tall when out of his perpetual slump - Robbie had forgotten quite how much his friend overtopped himself, at that. "I observe all propriety, and Mistress Wanda is there as chaperone!"
"An apostate nun to guard your credit? Have you no sense, Hal?"
Hal shook his head, and said, "Wanda must earn her own dowry, and is shrewd enough to see it, unlike her brother. She will not let us fail through scandal."
"I think I will join your company, just to see where the masque ends."
"What confidence you have in me, Robbie."
Robbie shrugged, "You are my friend, but I know your limitations." When Hal made to protest, he added, "I also know that you can exceed all hopes and expectations, and so I will gamble on your endeavor. Be that enough, friend?"
"It will be." Hal said.
***
When Hal announced he was taking one of the Eagle's Shadow's boats upriver to visit the Indians, Werner asked to permission to come. He was tired of the field labor, tired of setting nets for birds, tired of staying in one place when he could be a-wing.
Master Javier merely cocked an eyebrow, and gave him leave, though Scotius looked askance. Scotius often did; he took too much concern on himself.
"What the devil do you have there?" Werner asked as he watched Hal climb into the boat the next morning. Even before he settled into it, it rode low in the water.
Hal smiled sweetly. "Trade goods. Good fustian, glass beads, tape and ribbon, copper pots, and two axes. And a gift for the weroance's womenfolk."
"Axes? You were allowed to take axes? We are not supposed to trade weapons to the savages!"
"My axes are half the size of your hand, my good angel. They could be used for warring, but they will be more needful for clearing wood. I do not smuggle them, Master Dare knows I take them - he suggested it, in truth. They are gifts for the weroance, to sweeten his disposition to us."
Hal rowed his way through the sound, and then set the small sail to tack up the river, following a map sketched on birch bark. Werner stayed aloft, guiding Hal from the air. The sound was clear water, and from a height he spied fish flowing past Hal's little boat.
They continued up into the river's mouth, following the scant directions, until the sky clouded over with the furious gray of rain. Werner found a glade along the river bank, and helped Hal tie up the boat, take down the mast, and cover it all with a tarp before the storm broke.
Even hiding under oiled cloth draped over a tree - almost an ash, but strange and foreign, as everything was in Virginia - did not help much. Werner tucked his wings as close as he could and shivered. Hal clung from the branch that the cloth hung from, but trickles of water poured over him as well dripping from the ribbons tying back his hair.
The pounding rain seemed to last forever, but in truth was perhaps a quarter-hour or less. After, it was cooler than it had been, but still unpleasantly warm and damp.
"Will it rain again, do you think?" Werner asked, peering out of their makeshift shelter.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Hal shrugged, and crawled along the branch until he was out in the open. He swung himself up into the tree's crown, and peered about, looking like a bedraggled cat.
"My wings are wet."
"Wet through?"
"No, just on tops of my feathers," Werner said, as he stepped out of the poor tent to shake out his wings. "It's unpleasant."
"Perhaps you can sun them out, like a cormorant on a rock."
Werner frowned. "The air is wet; I doubt my wings will dry, even if I wait until morning."
"We can only hope. Fortune favors us, in that it has not turned chill. Here," said Hal, stretching his long arm down to help Werner up, "do climb and we will bed down in this tree. It is damp in truth but the ground is near to a peat bog."
The tree was damp, and Werner's garments were not improved when he sat in a convenient crook, but they were sturdy tow-cloth, and would dry soon enough.
Hal shared out dried rusks and cheese from his rucksack. They had been wrapped in oilcloth, and were barely damp. The rusks smelled sweetly of the maple syrup they were made with, and Werner devoured them quickly. The cheese was hard and sharp in the English style, and he nibbled it dutifully; there was no meat, even dried or smoked, of course.
The skies dimmed again, but instead of a rainstorm, it was merely the sun going down. Werner yawned, muttered a half-intelligible prayer, and folded his wings about himself for sleep. He closed his eyes to the sound of Hal scratching away in the little commonplace book the other youth carried in his jerkin - it must have survived the rain well enough to be written in.
He dozed in the manner he did, but was awaked by Hal's voice, odd and rolling and utterly incomprehensible. It sounded like an incantation. Hal was Witchbreed, but Werner had not thought him a sorcerer.
"-- Firgive vus sinna vora sin vee firgive sindara mutha vus, lyv vus ye i tumtation, min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen."
"What speak you then, Master McCoy?" Werner asked. He tried to keep his voice level, but he feared it sounded an accusation.
"Do you not know the sound of evening prayers, my friend? The Lord's Prayer is universal in Christendom, even as far as the Germanies, I do think."
"I know it in English and Latin and even in Spanish, but I have never heard it that way. What speak you?"
"I spoke in Norn, Werner. It is the tongue I was born to; I pray in it privately, as I have no one else to speak it with, and no other way to retain it."
"I thought you were English."
"I'm an Orkneyman," Hal said.
"That's not English?"
"No. The Orkneys are islands north of Scotland."
"So you're Scotch, like Scotius."
"No," Hal laughed, "I'm an Orkneyman. Scotius is a Borderer - he's almost English himself. Speaks Lallans as his mother-tongue."
"I thought he spoke Scots."
Hal leaned down from his perch until he was staring at Werner upside down. "You jest at my expense."
"I do not."
"You do."
"I do not, truly. I do not understand the English at all."
Hal rolled his eyes, which looked very peculiar as he was inverted. "I am not English. Scotius is not English. Only Robbie is English."
"But Sanctuary was in England."
"And you were rescued from Dom Daniel. Does that make you a Spaniard?"
"I am from the Palatinate!"
"And I'm an Orkneyman, from the islands at the north of Scotland. Not an Englishman."
"This is too confusing."
"Hmm. I do not see how, for one from the rabblery of the Germanies. Besides, we are Virginians, now…"
"Yes," Werner agreed, feeling utterly befuddled. Hal engendered such just by opening his mouth, "now we are."
"And as Viriginians, I think it mete that we sleep now. We will reach Croatoan on the morrow, and must be rested. The weroance will take our gift of axes, but Master Dare warned that the savages are tricksome even under the guise of good will - myself, I think they are merely sharp dealers. Nevertheless, we must have our wits to make best bargain, and if we do not sleep they will desert us ere we rise."
The rest of the night was fitful sleep - having his wings damp was unpleasant - but the sun rose as it would, and they cast off after eating more of the cheese.
Hal seemed entirely sure of himself when they came to a fish trap and two Indians in a canoe.
"Werner, alight from your fluttering."
"What? Why?" Werner did not see why he should risk landing in a boat that was on the river, especially when he wanted to fly closer to the fish trap to examine it.
"Because they might not hit you from this distance, should they turn those bows towards us, but I won't hazard they couldn't."
"Ah," Werner said, and landed in the prow. He near pitched himself into the river doing it, and had to crouch as Hal swung the sail around so as not to tip out entirely.
Hal called out to the Indians in their tongue, and they conversed a while - the Indian in rapid jets of words, Hal more slowly.
"That's it, then," Hal said, as the Indians turned their canoe, and made gestures as they paddled away.
"What is?
"They agreed to guide us to their village - Croatoan by name - and call out their kin for trading. It seems the credit of Roanoke precedes us."
"Let us hope it is a good one among them, yes?"
"Yes, let us."
***
They had been greeted warmly as they came to the village, with drumming and whistling, and an incomprehensible oration by an older man in a deerskin cape. Werner had found the whole thing dull, spoken as it was in savage gibberish, and spent much of the time trying to get the mist out of his feathers.
Hal seemed pleased as he chattered with the painted men in their brief and befeathered finery. Werner could not but feel like a prize goose as the men stared at him - their ornaments of turkey and eagle feathers were nothing compared to his wings, and he did not trust they would not try to take them from him, the savages.
But they were to the meat of it now, as Hal laid out the two copper axes for the prince - weroance, Hal said - as gifts.
And then Hal brought out the odd device of stone he'd carried so carefully in the boat, and presented it to the weroance's womenfolk.
"What have you there?" Werner asked, as the women - naked except for beads, paint, and deerskin aprons! - crowded round. They were fascinated by whatever Hal was saying, and watched as he scooped maize grains from a basket to pour into the device. Then he cranked its handle, causing a violent, scraping sound.
"It's a quern," Hal said. "I couldn't make a millrynd, nor cut the stones for a mill. Nor *carry* them here." Hal turned back to his device, poured another handful of maize corn into it, and spun the handle again. "But I can cut quernstones and carry a set in the boat."
Fine powder was escaping around the edges of the device. By its smell, Werner knew it was the maize ground to flour.
The women exclaimed loudly at this. They pressed near around Hal and watched him grind out meal with his quern. One woman, tall and fleshy and bedecked with chains of pearls, rubbed her fingers through the coarse flour. She looked up at Hal, and smiled.
Werner had no idea what she said, for she spoke rapidly and at length - however, her tone was appreciative.
Hal ducked his head, and smiled. He gestured extravagantly as he rattled off in Algonquin, and ducked his head again.
The woman smiled, and gestured to her attendants. One of them took over the handle (after a nod from Hal that she had it aright), another poured the maize corn in, several dashed off to fetch more baskets of maize and others stood chattering and watching. Every one of them would glance up at Hal and smile coyly.
"That went well," Hal murmured, thankfully in English.
***
"You have given them a mill," Werner said as they packed the boat that night, after they had been fed venison and maize until both of them were near to bursting. The Indians had been impressed with Hal's gifts to their prince and his household, and the trading went well after that. Werner had suffered no worse than small and curious children touching his feathers - and as they were small enough, it was not an offense, though he did not like people touching his wings in the main.
"Not quite," Hal said. "A quern will never grind for the whole village - but for a household, it is enough."
"There was a whole village there."
"Yes, there was. And now they know that Roanoke can give them copper *and* querns. Tools for war and for peace. Mistress Susan was wise to propose that."
"You have conspired with Susan Storm?" Werner was aghast. She was Sir Reed Richards' betrothed wife.
"I have. If Roanoke makes itself valuable to the Indians, we have allies - against the Spanish or against King James, whoever comes."
"That is fearsome clever. She is a dangerous woman."
"The best kind of woman, I believe," Hal smiled.
"So you will be the ship-captain on this river trade, and Mistress Storm will be the merchant who hires you."
"For a little while, yes," Hal said. "If we profit enough, then the school will be endow with enough capital to prosper. I will be content."
"Do you wish to be a schoolmaster for Javier, then?" Werner asked.
"I wish to be alive," Hal said, sharp and fierce. "We will have no help from England, now that Roanoke has declared rebellion and independence from James. Our position is precarious - Indians who look askance at us and far outnumber our little plantation, and Spaniards prowling the ocean just beyond our sheltered sound."
"But we are free to fly away."
"Those of us who have wings, or pillars of fire to carry us away. I am a groundling, as well you know."
***
When they arrived back in Roanoke, Mistress Susan and Wanda came to meet them.
"You have made interesting trades, Hal," Susan Storm said as she and Wanda stood over the wares as Hal and Werner unpacked the boat.
"I tried, Mistress Susan. But the folk of Croatoan have odd notions of what is valued."
Hal watched as the gentlewoman picked over the baskets - laden with maize corn, and beans and squash, as well as less edible wares - she seemed very approving over the beaver skins, by the way the fur ruffled as she held it. The thunderlizard hide must have startled her, for she gasped, but she replaced it carefully in its basket, so perhaps that was good as well.
"What is this?" Mistress Susan held up a strick that was not quite flax.
"Indian hemp, or as near as they have it. 'tis what they make their fishing nets of. I thought you might try it for weaving, belike."
"Wanda? You are the better spinner."
Wanda looked startled, but she stepped over from where she had been shyly examining the corn baskets, and took the strick in her hands to examine it.
"It is not as fine as line, I think, but better than most tow. We might try it in canvas?" She stopped and turned to Hal. "How much do you have?"
"Three baskets," Hal said, "perhaps enough to stuff a hogshead."
"Oh! Why, that is certainly enough try weaving canvas, and diaper, and even lawn, if it will spin so fine." Wanda turned back to Mistress Susan, "I will attempt them all, Mistress!"
"First you must spin for them," Susan said, a smile in her voice. "I will help, but we must need have a wheel made for you. Spindles are pretty, but not fast enough."
"A loom would be of more use. Will Master Richards build you one for your marriage?"
Mistress Susan laughed. "Only if he can make it into one of his devices, like an enormous mousetrap."
Hal looked up at that. "He has plans for that already."
"What?" Mistress Susan sounded appalled.
"He has plans - a device to make looms run by themselves, like an automaton. They are not very practical, though."
Werner winced at the look on Wanda's face. No doubt Mistress Susan was making as similar one, and they were spared such a glowering look by her invisibility.
"You have seen these plans, Hal?"
Hal looked startled as Mistress Susan and Wanda rounded on him, like cat attacked by mice. An invisible mouse, and a witch mouse, Werner could not decided which was worse.
"Yes, when I was assisting Master Richards."
"And you saw the flaws?"
"Yes. Master Richards made them too complicated - a waterwheel to impel the harnesses would be more easily made than the galvanic array he proposed-" Hal began, using his hands to illustrate his idea.
"Hal, come with me," Mistress Susan said. "Wanda, do assist Werner in unlading the rest of the wares and store them at my brother's house. Keeps close account, and note anything that interests you. Hal, come!"
Hal had only time to bleat like a lamb before Mistress Susan hauled him away.
"Well, that was unexpected," Werner said, looking dubiously at Wanda. He was not sure he liked being abandoned with the apostate nun - she had never apologized for her service to the Inquisitor, for one.
Wanda surprised him, by giggling, and then covering her mouth. "Indeed," she murmured.
***
The day after Hal and Werner returned Master Javier had Scotius help him copy hornbooks - Governor Dare had asked Master Javier to open the school, so that the boys of the village were educated enough to read and write and figure cleanly. Therefore, they needed primers for the lads before the classes started, and had spent the week preparing ink and paper.
"Scotius," Javier said in his mind, as they worked over the dark birchbark sheets, "your proposed course is a well-plotted one, but you have not considered all reefs and shoals inherent in our company."
Scotius looked up. "Sir?"
"We have at present only ourselves to rely on - the villagers do not love us, for we have alienated them from James and England, and already the school is fragmenting. You must needs make a compromise to keep our wayward lads from scattering like sheep in the mountains."
"I cannot act as shepherd, Master. Petros is entirely headstrong and will not listen. Hal and Robbie obeyed to me in Sanctuary because of your authority, but Hal has ever kept his own council, and Robbie has advanced beyond me to journeyman - he will not heed an apprentice much longer. The only one I can command with any surety is Werner, because he is afraid, and not because there is love between us."
Javier sighed. "Henry is restive as a stall-kept horse. I have narrowed and narrowed his liberty to protect him, and he knows it well - the world is not kind to monsters. That did not stop him from desiring beyond the schoolroom and the garden wall. And now he has all the freedom he wished for. I hope that Master Richard's attention can halt his wanderlust."
"And what of Robbie? "
"Robbie is a gentleman, but there is little estate for him, and less chance that he might claim it; the King has certainly made a writ of attainder against his inheritance. He must seek his fortune where he finds it, and that is not in Roanoke I fear."
"And Werner is an airling," Scotius grumbled.
"Indeed. If I were given wings, I might never wish to land. I do not think he will be so hard to check as the others; he knows our hazards bests, of all of us."
"And Petros is simply difficult."
"He was the Inquisitor's messenger. He went where he was bid, but he *went*. He has a natural inclination to go and come, Scotius. Find a way to harness that urge. Set him a task as explorer if you can - any labor that allows him to run."
"I will, sir."
***
Robbie found Hal sitting in the shade of the only tree in the garden. It was hardly more than a hedge, in truth, but it was shade in the unbearable heat.
"How now, my friend."
"Good day, Robbie," Hal said distractedly.
"What do you here, Hal?"
"Mistress Susan has given me a task. It looks to be involved."
Robbie waited for Hal to go on, but he merely kept scratching at his notebook, and then holding it away to peer blearily at it. His eyes were not the best - Master Javier had tried reading stones to help, but Hal said they made it worse, not better - so Robbie was used to his behavior with books.
"Hal?"
"Hmm?"
"What task?"
"She wants a weaving automaton."
"She *what*?"
"Sir Reed has plans for one, but it is too complicated to construct or use. I am attempting to simplify his plan - I think it could be driven by a waterwheel."
"And this is what you do now?"
Hal looked up, and blinked. "Oh. You need me?"
"No, I just wanted to hear of your adventure."
"I was rained on the first night, feasted the second, and dragged off to labor as soon as I returned home."
"Sounds joyous."
Hal grinned. "It was splendid. I will tell you all. But first, this," he said, and presented Robbie with a sheet of birchbark.
"Hello, what's this?" Robbie said, as he looked at the sheet. "A list?"
"It's simply wares I think you should search for when you go to sea. They would benefit the colony, if you could find space and coin for them on the return voyage."
Robbie smiled, "You believe I will, then."
"I do not think anything would stop you, Robbie."
"It is good that someone has confidence in me." Robbie considered as he read the list, "Hmm, brass, pig iron, smith's tools, a theodolite - a theodolite, Hal? Will you be wanting a virginal as well? -- quadrant, improved hemp seeds, blue flax seeds, cotton seeds, living beehives? *Beehives*, Hal?"
Hal looked up, his pale eyes serious "The crops need bees. Not the corn, of course -- barley and wheat do well without bees. However the fruits and the grapes have been poor harvests for the quality of the land. Bees would multiply the yield."
"Ah," Robbie said, and tapped the list. "Yes, that's sensible."
"And I want a lute, not a virginal."
"Hal, if this works, I will bring you a harpsichord from Flanders, never mind a simple lute."
END