told her, it was a warrior’s battle scream, an outburst of sheer, defiant rage.
Startled, the two servants drew back for an instant, and suddenly the dark stranger was free. He lunged across the courtyard, dragging the weight of his shackles as if they’d been made of twine. In full health, he might have made his escape, but as it was he tired swiftly. Halfway between the house and the stable, Thomas and Dickon caught up with him. A swift kick from Thomas’s boot sent the prisoner sprawling facedown in the muck. From there it was an easy matter for the two men to seize his arms and jerk him to his feet once more.
Dripping mud and manure, the savage faced his captors. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he burst into a sudden stream of the vilest profanity known to any English sailor.
“…Son of a whoring bitch…filthy, murdering red-skinned bastard…” The phrases he spat purpled the air around him. He had learned them on the voyage from America, Rowena realized, sick with dismay. In all likelihood, they were the only English expressions he knew.
A bitter smile tugged at the corners of Sir Christopher’s mouth. “Well, well,” he said, nodding in satisfaction. “At least we know the creature is capable of learning human speech. Take him to the cellar.”
Rowena half expected the savage to strike out again, but he had exhausted his strength for the moment. He offered no more resistance as Dickon and Thomas gripped his arms and dragged him into the house.
Black Otter felt as if the great lodge had swallowed him whole, as a giant frog might swallow a fly.
His gaze darted furtively over whitewashed walls and ceilings higher than a man’s reach, over huge, ornate pictures made entirely of thread, over tables and chairs that looked as solid as the trunks of great trees. At first he had planned to memorize the way inside so he might know it when the time came for his escape. But he had long since given up. The place was a maze of corridors and chambers as complex as the inside of a termite nest. Surely, with such a lodge, the old man who had taken him from the ship must be the chief of all the white tribe.
One of the rooms he had passed through appeared to be used for nothing but cooking. The fire pit was built into one wall like a cave, and over the crackling flames, the carcass of a large animal hung roasting on a metal spit. Loaves of fresh brown bread lay on long tables. Black Otter had never seen so much food in one place. The mouthwatering aromas had made his stomach contract with hunger, but no one had offered him food or even a sip of water. He had been dragged through one immense room after another and, at last, down a long, narrow passageway that ended in a pool of darkness.
A third man, plump and pale, joined them now. He was carrying a torch made of twisted reeds dipped in pitch. The foul smoke stung Black Otter’s eyes and nostrils as they forced him downward into the black space that opened up before them. His moccasin-clad feet stumbled on the rough stone steps.
Fear closed around his heart as the clammy air, redolent with mold, filled his lungs. It was cold and damp down here, below the earth. And without the torch it would be darker than the belly of the great boat. Even if they did not kill him at once, he would die slowly in this place. He would die like a caged animal, from want of sun, air, warmth and freedom. And he would never know what had happened to his precious children.
Torchlight flickered over mildewed stone walls, then over moldering crates and barrels that looked as if they had not seen daylight in years. Black Otter heard the faint drip of water and the scurrying sound of rats.
One of the men spoke as the torchlight came to rest on a framework of rusty iron bars. A door creaked open on corroded hinges, revealing a tiny, cavelike room that looked as if it had been hacked from the living flesh of the earth. Realizing he was about to be shoved inside the terrible place, Black Otter began to struggle—a waste of strength. With a quickness that belied his size, the largest of the white men struck out with one meaty fist. Black Otter saw the blow coming, but he was powerless to dodge or counter. He felt a flash of pain as the massive knuckles crunched against his cheekbone. Then the torchlight exploded into swirling stars, and he pitched forward into darkness.
Rowena toyed with her supper, too agitated to eat. “I understand none of this!” she declared, pushing her plate to one side. “You say you paid a hundred fifty pounds for the man! A small fortune, Father, and far more than we can spare! What under heaven possessed you to do such a thing?”
Sir Christopher lifted his tankard and took a draught of ale to wash his mouth free of bread and meat. “My dear Rowena,” he answered, scowling, “I grant you, a hundred fifty pounds is a considerable sum, but you must look on it as an investment.”
“An investment?” Rowena glared at him.
“An investment in the future. Mine and your own.” He leaned forward across the long, bare table where the two of them sat. A single candle sputtered between them, etching his face with stark ridges of light and shadow. He looked old and tired.
“Listen to me, child.” His earnestness all but made her weep. “We both know my reputation as a scholar has faded over the years. I am no longer consulted by the queen or invited to lecture at Oxford. But with the new discoveries I hope to make, all that will change.”
“You talk in riddles! What new discoveries?” Rowena asked, her concern deepening. Had the great Sir Christopher slipped over the edge of reason?
“Think of it, Rowena!” The candle flame, reflecting in his spectacles, transformed his pale eyes into blazing lights. “Spain has already gained a solid foothold in the Indies. While there is time, England must seize her own piece of this bright new world. The vast country to the northwest, rich in furs and land and treasure, is ours for the taking, save one obstacle—the savages who live there!”
Rowena gazed at her father, excitement clashing with dismay. The Spanish conquistadores had long since subdued the more civilized tribes of tropical America—the Aztecs, the Mayans and, far to the south, the Incas. But the northern forest dwellers were savage brutes, rumored to be more beast than human. Their ferocity had long kept white invaders from their shores.
And now one of them was here in England, locked in the cellar of this very house.
“Think, Rowena!” Sir Christopher’s voice rasped with emotion. “Think what we might learn if we can communicate with the creature—if we can subdue him, teach him to speak, perhaps even press him to serve as a guide and interpreter!”
“He’ll serve as nothing if he dies of the cold and damp in the cellar,” Rowena snapped. “A hundred fifty pounds, indeed! You might as well have—”
Her words died in a little choking sound. She stared at her father, thunderstruck. “By my faith, you didn’t just happen across that poor wretch in Falmouth, did you? You planned this, all of it!”
“Hear me out, Rowena.” Sir Christopher could be as strong-willed as his daughter. “What I did, I did for my own good reasons.”
“How long did it take you to arrange it?” she demanded, trembling as she rose to her feet. “Six months? A year? What did you have to do to get him?”
“I put up printed notices in the taverns around the docks,” he answered with the cold stubbornness of a rock in the Narrow Seas. “The notices declared that I would pay one hundred fifty pounds for a healthy savage from North America. A messenger brought me word yesterday that a captain, newly arrived, had such a specimen—”
“A captain, indeed! A privateer, you mean! No better than a pirate!”
“In
