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 truth, I did not think to ask.” Sir Christopher had marshaled his defenses now. The set of his shoulders and the jut of his jaw declared that he had taken his position and would not be moved.
“And not a word to your own daughter!” Rowena fumed. “Indeed, why did you neglect to make me privy to your plans?”
Sir Christopher speared a morsel of beef with the point of his knife and used it to jab the air emphatically as he spoke. “Because you would have behaved exactly as you’re behaving now. And you would not have succeeded in changing my mind, Rowena. Not by a whit. The discoveries I make about this creature and his world will restore my favor with the queen. Yours, too. Perhaps you might even be offered a position at court—”
“I have no wish to wait upon the queen, Father. My life is here in this house with you.”
Sir Christopher sagged in his chair, an expression of profound sadness stealing over his once-vigorous features. “And what kind of life have I given you, child? When I pass on, you’ll be alone here. No husband, no children—”
“Let the savage go,” Rowena demanded gently. “Take him back to Falmouth and put him on a ship for the New World. I’ll pay his passage myself out of the dowry of jewels my mother left me.”
Rowena’s father shook his head. “You know as well as I do he would never survive the journey. Likely as not, the captain would take your money and throw your savage overboard at the first sign of trouble.”
“My savage?” A bitter smile tugged at the corners of Rowena’s mouth. “So now he’s my savage, is he?”
“Why not, since you seem to have taken up his cause?” Sir Christopher scowled at the tidbit of meat on the end of his knife, then brought it to his mouth and began the tedious chewing that his meager teeth allowed.
“Well, then, as long as I have claim to him, I want him out of the cellar,” Rowena said. “There are empty chambers aplenty in this house. The least we can do is lock him in a warm, dry place with ample food and bedding.”
Sir Christopher downed the remains of the meat with a swig of ale. “What? And have him leap out of a window or attack the first poor soul who comes in to feed him? No, Rowena, as long as the creature is a danger to himself and to others he will remain behind bars. As for you, you are not to go near him, nor is any other woman in this house. Leave the tending of him to Thomas and Dickon.” He pushed back from the table, his chair scraping on the stones. “And leave the breaking of him to me. I mean it.”
“Breaking?” Rowena paused in clearing away the platters, something she often did if the evening meal lingered past the