Methinks many are pleased to settle here, outside the circle of the Virginia government.

But they must needs create government of their own, for voices of discontent have rose to mutinous pitch since we turned north. Strangers like Jack Hilyard say that without charter for this place, the Saints have no control over them, and they will go where they wish once ashore.
So the elders gather in the steerage cabin where, with strident voice and much debate, they compose charter to bind them till their London men gain legal one. They will ask all freemen and male servants to sign in the morning.
Jack Hilyard, for one, says he will refuse. Ezra Bigelow threatens to clap him in the stocks they have brought for public discipline.

v.

The fire threw shadows on the walls of the longhouse. The men listened with grim faces as Autumnsquam spoke. In the wetus, the children cried, and their mothers soothed them. Outside, the dogs barked at the wind.

The old sachem Aspinet threw another log on the fire and watched the sparks rise with the smoke. “The white men may never stop coming.”

The others nodded and said yes, except for Autumnsquam. He cast his eyes toward the roof hole, where smoke and sparks escaped. “We are like the embers going up in the night sky. We must send these whites away before our fire is used up.”

“We are no longer strong.”

“We will only grow weaker if we allow the whites their way.” Autumnsquam looked at the others. Their eyes were on him, but their brows furrowed so the sockets were like dark shadows hiding their thoughts. “We drove off whites not four moons ago. Let us do the same with this ship.”

Aspinet shook his head. The lines in his face had deepened since the Great Sickness. He had been laid low but had defeated death. This made him stronger in the eyes of his people, though the people themselves had grown weak. “This ship is bigger than any other. It could be filled with warriors. If they have gone north, let them go.”

Autumnsquam said no. Though young, he was a pinse, a trusted brave and close counselor of the sachem. He could speak his thoughts openly. “These whites think we are weak, so they come to avenge those we have driven off. We must fight them.”

He sat back and looked around again. The bodies of the young men glistened with grease. It was all they needed to keep them warm in winter or keep off the bugs in summer. The old men needed dogs sleeping beside them on cold nights and deerskins around their shoulders even in spring.

But the sickness had not burned all the fire from Aspinet’s belly. He thought for a time, he sucked a long breath of smoke from his pipe, and he told the others that Autumnsquam was right. They should fight for their land or they were women. Now the others nodded and said yes.

Aspinet handed his pipe to Autumnsquam.