She would wear her purple gown. Sew a new coif that bespoke her married standing.
For now, she looked west, to the land Watseka knew so well and would soon return to.
My beloved, hurry home.
Was being four so ... absorbing?
Since the start of their journey, Oceanus had not lagged behind. He’d forged ahead. Now that he was away from his nurse and the routines of Rose-n-Vale, something seemed to have unlocked inside him. No longer was he the old soul who’d landed. Out in the open without clock or tie to tether him, Oceanus missed nothing around him—the call of a bird, the shift in the wind, a tortoise beneath the river’s surface. Xander was riddled with questions, some he gladly answered, some he couldn’t, glad the lad had a quick wit and a ready memory.
As for himself, the journey west seemed less arduous than before. Mayhap because of fair weather. Or Oceanus’s company. Or because he had finally confessed all and revealed the truth of the lad’s origins to Selah? Whatever the cause, Xander felt lighter in both step and spirit. Oddly, he’d begun to view Oceanus through a different lens since. Not as Laurent’s son. Not as the result of a vile act. But as a youth who’d inherited his mother’s intrepid spirit, her love of the land.
“Father, how shall I greet my Indian grandfather? When do I give him the gift we brought?” Oceanus touched the pouch in which the ivory compass was encased. With its fly and needle, it would be well received, even awe inducing. “Shall I speak of my mother?”
Xander pondered his reply as they traded walking for riding, Oceanus sharing a saddle. “Your grandfather the chief will be surrounded by a great many warriors and werowances. You’ll be held in high honor as his grandson. ’Tis wise to speak little and observe much, at least at first. There will be a feast and gift giving to welcome us. You’ll soon find you have as many kin as grains of sand.”
“But not Watseka.”
“Nay, she remains with the Hopewells for now. But you will meet Shay, the Hopewells’ son, who is living there.”
“He is not Powhatan like me?”
“Shay is British to the bone but desires to learn all he can of the Naturals’ ways, just as Watseka learns about the English, the Tassantassas.”
“I am not much afraid.”
Xander almost chuckled. The lad wasgreatlyafraid. The nearer they drew to the Powhatan encampment, the more hunched his small frame became. For a few fleeting moments Xander was beset by doubts. Was Oceanus equipped for such a visit? Would he even remember it in time? Mayhap the changes dealt him—an ocean voyage, a new world, an Indian grandfather—were too much for one so young.
“You have nothing to fear from your grandfather’s people,” Xander reassured him. “Tomorrow we will come to the Chickahominy River and pasture Lancelot till our return. You have the unmistakable look of your mother. That is sure to please Chief Opechancanough.”
The yellow pine canoe on the river’s banks seemed an almost eerie acknowledgment that their arrival in Powhatanterritory had not gone unnoticed but was highly anticipated. White oak paddles lay in the dugout’s rough-hewn bottom. Shoving off from the shore sunwise, east to west, Xander navigated as Oceanus sat on the loose board seat in front of him.
Here the landscape altered and became a vast, swampy expanse between southern bluffs and gentler northern hills. Cypress trees, their fringe a smudge of green against overcast skies, intermingled with tallow shrubs heavy with berries, their spicy-sweet scent reminding Xander of the candles Mattachanna once made.
“Father, what is that?” Oceanus pointed a finger at endless miniature mounds of mud along the river’s banks.
“Crayfish burrows,” Xander replied, paddling around a fallen birch with a fierce tangle of branches. “You cannot see these creatures by day. They come alive at night.”
“Can we eat them?”
“Some do, but they make better bait, as you shall find once you learn to fish.”
A woodpecker began a raucous tapping, the echo like a hundred hammers in their ears. Mallards and herons paid their swift, silent passage no mind, though a lone doe eyed them warily from a thicket. Soon, small Chickahominy towns appeared on both south and north banks, the Naturals gathering in small knots to bathe as was their morning custom.
Xander raised a hand in greeting, deciding it never amiss to teach a New World lesson. “The Chickahominy made friends with the English when we first set foot on their soil. Once they were our allies. They taught us to grow and preserve our own food. They even promised to supply us with bowmen if the Spanish came to fight us.”
’Twas a fragile, tentative alliance, further strained by the land-stealing English. Once, Xander had plied these waters in trade with the very Indians now estranged. Did they regard him with animosity and suspicion? Might Oceanus be in danger? Clearly the two of them were at the mercy of Providence above and Xander’s own earthly reputation here below. Not once had he cheated these people. Not once had he abused their trust. Would his previous fair dealings allow them safe passage?
At the next bend in the river, taking them away from the stone-faced onlookers, Xander felt a palpable relief. The very presence of a child, always a token of peace, boded well. And with his ebony hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin, Oceanus looked far more Natural than English. God be thanked.
Lord, is it low of me to ask Thee to hide any likeness of Laurent in the lad? Any and all baseness of spirit?
The desperate prayer swelled his heart. How could he parent the lad if he grew to resemble such a wicked man? When every glance at him was a reminder of the evil act that had spawned him?
Yet the child was not evil.
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that mysoul knoweth right well.
Hope took hold, lighting his soul. With Selah by his side, he would see the boy raised right. Oceanus need never know about his true origins. What mattered was God had made him, made him fearfully and wonderfully and marvelously. As such, there was no impediment to his becoming an upstanding, God-honoring man in time.
