“What is yer number now outside Virginia?” McCaskey asked.
“Eight other colonies exist, the most recent being Maryland.”
“But none so old or so prosperous as Virginia.”
“Oh aye, the colony is a braw age, truly, nearly as auld as I am,” Xander replied, to McCaskey’s amusement. “What would you like to see next?”
“Yer water-powered sawmill.” McCaskey lifted his eyes from his dwindling plate. “With Virginia’s timberlands, ye colonists have no lack while all of Britain cries for wood.”
“And all Virginia cries for laborers.” Nurse Lineboro frowned. “Yet your port officials detained Rose-n-Vale’s indentures who put to shore with us just yesterday. The French physician raised a concern about their health.”
A concern? More uproar. Laurent had threatened to send them all back to Scotland, citing suspicion of a contagion among them. The consulting Mount Malady physic dismissedthe concern as groundless, yet Xander’s bondsmen were still in quarantine, little better than gaol.
“Another reason to consider Africans.” McCaskey brandished his fork like a weapon. “Think what more could be done here with them.”
Xander leaned back in his chair, his patience thin. “Must we come to blows over the matter?”
“My apologies.” McCaskey reddened. “I am your humble factor. If ye continue exporting the quality Orinoco you do, I’ll say nae more about the matter.”
Xander looked toward the clock. “We’ll return for the dinner hour, after which I plan on showing Oceanus his pony.”
Nurse Lineboro frowned. “He’s not ridden before, sir.”
“Time to begin then.” To his aunt, he said, “I’ll leave his riding clothes to you. I believe you’ve made something suitable for him.”
She nodded. “Oceanus is so tall I might need to adjust them. But ’twill be done in time for your first ride.”
Breakfast finally over, Xander went out, McCaskey trailing, leaving the women to whatever women did in their absence. His aunt would oversee Nurse Lineboro and Oceanus in the meantime.
“She’s an industrious child,” Candace remarked as she and Selah paused from their gardening to watch Watseka at work beneath the arbor. “Her aunts have trained her well. Sad, though, she is missing a mother.”
While Candace returned to her weeding and watering, Selah took a stool and sat beside Watseka in the shade. Truly, she was a wonder of productivity. Beside her was the basketof ribbed mussels—tshecomah—they had gathered on the beach the day Xander came upriver with Oceanus. Ever since, Watseka had been toiling tirelessly at breaking the mussels into small pieces.
Though it had taken some help from Ustis and a great deal of misunderstanding due to their inability to speak Powhatan, Watseka finally obtained what she was after—a handmade drill.
“I believe she is wanting to make the mussel shell beads the women of her tribe are known for,” Ustis finally said. “I recall some of her people bringingrawrenockto James Fort early on.”
The word brought a telling sparkle to Watseka’s eyes. “Rawrenock,” she repeated with joy over and over.
“She means to make a necklace,” Selah mused, helping her whenever she could.
Though some might naysay the child’s efforts, Selah sensed it was important to her, a tangible tie to her roots in a very white world.
“I am glad to see her happily occupied. She’s an able helper in the garden and kitchen, but I sense those don’t satisfy like her bead making.”
Selah sought a great length of leather string in anticipation as Watseka rasped each shell on a sharp rock to a uniform size.
“’Twill take weeks,” Ustis murmured in a sort of awe at the child’s efforts. “In the meantime, I wonder what Shay is doing. I doubt he is as hard at work bead making.”
Despite a bittersweet twinge, Selah had laughed. “Fishing and hunting in buckskins, likely.”
They gathered beneath the arbor in the shade after supper,even Izella, Ustis preparing his pipe with the tobacco tamper Bazel McCaskey had given him. The gift turned their conversation to Rose-n-Vale, though Selah’s thoughts never strayed far from its master.
“An invitation should be forthcoming, something about a gathering or frolic, if I remember correctly,” Candace said, arranging her handwork in her lap.
Silently, Selah counted the days since she’d last seen Xander. An appallingly long fortnight. “With the harvest near at hand, such seems a stretch.”
“A little merrymaking sweetens the work, aye?” Ustis settled in for a smoke, leaning back against an arbor post. “No doubt the indentures deserve a frolic of their own to hearten them before the harvest. Much sickness at Rose-n-Vale of late, or so I’ve heard.”
