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Thanks, reviewers. Sorry I'm making you wait so long for more JS/Pocahontas moments: but I have to make things good and difficult for them!

I thought it would strengthen the story if Kocoum and his marriage with Pocahontas were important to Powhatan politically, as well as personally. Also I hope to show that, although Pocahontas's destiny is obviously to love John Smith, she underestimates Kocoum and he gets a raw deal. It's tragedy ...

Disclaimer: Disney characters ...

CHAPTER 14

Only when it came to going back to the village did Powhatan and his leading men fully realise how large a step they had taken in leaving it. It scarcely seemed to be theirs any more: it was imprinted with the footmarks, the belongings and the sudden wanton incursion of the foreigners.

Why had they done it? For two or three hours the lone stranger left in the village had done nothing, so that Powhatan's watchers across the river and on the slopes had begun to feel secure. Then, suddenly, another large body of men had arrived and without warning begun to ransack the village. A runner took the news to Powhatan and all the warriors quickly moved to the river-crossing, ready to attack. But by the time they got there, the foreigners were leaving all together, in haste and empty-handed. Powhatan called off the attack. Now it remained to try to discern, from the traces of their presence in the village, what manner of men they were and what they could possibly want.

The chief kept most of the people back at first and crossed the river with Kekata, the elders, and a guard of twenty men. They walked among the buildings, silent and angry, seeing the spoilt and disordered food and the overturned racks. Why would anybody do this? To take food to eat because you were hungry, that they could understand – but why this senseless destruction? It never occurred to Powhatan or any of the others that they might be seeing the result of a dispute among the white men themselves.

Kekata took a long breath, like a man about to plunge into deep water, before he went into the circle of posts to see what had become of his message. He walked over to the central pillar and put out his hand to take his string of beads at arm's length. He looked carefully at it, and at the missing beads on the ground, the gleaming gilt necklace lower down on the pillar and the little box at its foot.

'What does it mean?' asked Powhatan quietly after a short time.

'I cannot tell at once,' said Kekata in a thin voice. 'I need more time to divine this. Please keep the people away and leave me here alone for a while.'

'Must we go back across the river, or can I tell some of them to stay and set things in order?' asked Powhatan. He, the high chief, sounded subdued, like a child offering to do a small task to comfort a parent who is in some great trouble.

'Keep them away altogether,' said Kekata. 'This witchcraft may be dangerous. It would be better if they did not come until I have cleansed the place.'

'Very well,' said Powhatan and withdrew.

Kekata sat there for an hour or more, and then roused himself to light a fire, chant before it and sprinkle the pillars with water. At last, when it was near sunset, he gave the word for the villagers to return. They moved quietly among the huts, made up their fires and cooked, tidied their stores, but not with the air of people who were coming back to stay. Powhatan had given the order that they were to abandon the village next morning and sleep in quickly made shelters in various places in the forest until the warriors he had sent for arrived. Only those people who were needed to tend the crops and finish the stockade would go to the village by day. When the new warriors came they would all return there, take council and decide how and when to attack the invaders. Until then they would avoid them.

Kekata was still sitting cross-legged in front of the central post of the sacred circle. Powhatan went alone and sat opposite him.

'It was hard to interpret,' began Kekata, 'because they left no message in signs, but only in things. It is as if they disdain to speak to us, except with blows of a stick, as one does with dogs.'

'Perhaps they know no signs,' suggested Powhatan.

'They know all kinds of signs,' said Kekata, 'but they are not messages. Look at this.' He held out the little box of coins.

'What are these things?' asked Powhatan, opening it. 'Faces ...' He touched one of the coins and drew back his finger, startled. 'It's cold!'

'If you hold it for longer, it grows hot,' said Kekata. 'There must be some power in these. I do not know if we should keep them, or if it would be safer to throw them away or burn them. But they may have done some mischief already.'

'What about this?' asked Powhatan, gingerly picking up the silver-gilt necklace which lay on the ground, snake-like, in front of Kekata. 'It is the same.'

'It was hung round the pillar of the Eagle. It says nothing, you can see; all the links are alike.' Kekata paused and then said: 'It was as if the foreigners had placed their rope round our god's neck.'

Powhatan made a hasty gesture to hush the unlucky words. Nevertheless he kept hold of the necklace and looked at it again. 'I wonder how this work is done,' he could not help saying, half to himself.

'It is no good to us,' said Kekata. 'Our message had been thrown down and broken, and then put together again differently. I could see no sense in the way they had rearranged the signs. But they had left out the sign for "holy" and that for "law". I found them still lying on the ground a little way off. They have made a mock of us.'

'Perhaps it was by chance,' murmured Powhatan.

'There is no chance in these matters,' said Kekata sharply. 'When men handle holy things they always do what it is their fate to do, even if they do not know it. And the way they have treated our food has the same meaning. They have said to us, "We despise your message. We do not need your food. Our ways are otherwise and our power is greater; we need not take what you have, we will simply walk over it."' Kekata's eyes looked hollow in his pale, blotched old face. 'This is a terrible enemy,' he said. 'I am afraid, more afraid than I ever was of the southerners. They only wished to destroy us and take our land. That I could understand. But I do not understand what these want.'

Powhatan stood up, shaking his long cloak loose around him. 'If we were right not to meet them, then it does not matter what they want. They will not get it. We will attack them as soon as we have the strength, and kill them all or drive them back over the sea. Above all, we must not make the people more afraid. I will tell them that the strangers' message was only insolence, and that they left the food because they dared not take it. Perhaps something happened to frighten them, and that was why they threw it all down. Perhaps the gods are fighting for us.'

'Yes,' said Kekata. 'Tell them that. And I will keep these things with me under a strong spell. We may need to look at them again.' He spoke with a show of animation, but Powhatan could tell that under it he was still chilled with fear.

Powhatan sent for his sister, her two eldest sons, and his bodyguard, and went with them all on a progress round the village, reassuring every family and making sure they all understood what they were to do the next day and had what they needed. Afterwards he went to his sleeping hut and sent his attendants out, telling one of them, 'Find Pocahontas and tell her to come to me.'

He sat cross-legged on a mat on the floor, his cloak drawn over his knees, until the girl came and stood in the doorway, facing him and bending her head before she let the door-hanging fall behind her. It was very different from the way she had run to embrace him after the victory feast. He could see that she knew that she had been punished for her recklessness the day before; she felt his displeasure and would neither defy him nor ask his pardon, but would keep her distance until he made a move towards her. It was yet another burden for him, but at the same time his anxiety was soothed by simply seeing her, with the light of the clay lamp glowing on her skin and making brilliant gossamer-threads of the edges of her hair.

'Sit down, my daughter,' he said gently. When she had come and sat down opposite him, he went on, 'I was hard on you today. I am sorry. But there was much to do, and you know how I long to keep you safe, Pocahontas.'

'I know, Father,' she murmured. 'It is good of you.'

She forgave him, but sounded almost absent-minded in doing so. He looked hard at her for a few moments.

'What is in your mind, daughter?'

She blushed, and seemed to be searching for words but to be unable to find them. He had not known her to be at a loss like this for years. At last she said, 'Nothing, Father. But ... had you not more to say to me?'

Perhaps it would come out later, if he confided in her first. He said, 'Yes. I have to take you into my counsel, my dear one. We are all in great danger and we cannot know how many of us will live to see the next moon. If I die, I want you to know what my purposes were.' Pocahontas sat and listened intently without protest. He went on: 'I always told your mother all that was in my mind, and she always helped me to see more deeply. You are her daughter and you deserve no less.'

'But I am not her,' said Pocahontas. 'I still grieve for her, Father.'

'And so do I,' said Powhatan . 'But remember, her spirit is not far from us. It is especially near you, who are her flesh and blood.'

'I cannot fill her place but I can listen,' said Pocahontas restrainedly. 'Speak, Father.'

She was so different from Suleawa. She was always turning a little away from him.

'In a few days' time we must give battle to the foreigners,' he said. 'We must destroy them or they will destroy us; it is certain that they will never let us live here in peace. I believe that we can defeat them, but many of us will be killed. They have fearful weapons and it must be a battle to the end. If too many are killed for us to go on fighting, then you, Pocahontas, must lead the women and children to safety as best you can. You are the bravest, the most resolute. Go inland past the hills, ask for shelter, and warn the chiefs there: rouse them to war.'

She watched him and nodded. He saw with satisfaction how her face quickened as she took the measure of the task and realised how much he trusted her.

'If we win the battle,' he went on, 'but I am killed, then it is a question of who takes the chieftainship. My sister's sons are too young. If one of them becomes chief in name, the chief of Tapahannock will try to take leadership of our alliance, but he will oppress the others if he gets the chance, and then the alliance cannot last.' He paused. 'I want Kocoum to be chief after me, if he lives, with you as his wife.'

She went on looking at him and made no sign at all.

'I did not want to hurry you into marriage,' he said, feeling his voice grow constrained. 'But in these straits we must all do what we can. Kocoum needs you, and the people need you, Pocahontas. You are too old and wise to stay a maiden.'

'Yes, Father,' she said faintly. 'But ...'

'But?' he probed, making his voice playful, and when she still said nothing, he said very gently, 'Tell me what you think, Pocahontas.'

She took a breath and said with sudden boldness, 'I think that Kocoum is not the man you are, Father.'

It was improper, but he was not altogether displeased. 'Nor was I at his age, Pocahontas,' he said, smiling. 'Listen. Kocoum is my cousin, and his father was a chief's brother of the Massowomecks, so he has royal blood on both sides. He is a great warrior, and a man true to his word. The people will accept him. If you would say that he does not see things far off, and dreams no dreams ... then perhaps it is true. But it is not always needful for a chief to do these things. Dreams can be a trap for him. He has his elders and his shaman for that – and his wife.'

Pocahontas said in a low, bitter voice: 'What is it to be a chief's wife? Packed off to the fields again after a year or two, when he takes a new one. And with a child that is neither one thing nor the other.'

Powhatan, the high chief, flinched. This was the heart of the matter. She had accused him of what was the grief of his life, what he knew was unjust to her but could see no help for. It was not his fault that his children had no formal standing, but must rejoin the people. And it was not his fault that despite this, so many men of worth among the Powhatans and their neighbours vied to send him their sisters and daughters, to gain his notice and favour and a link with royal blood. He always did his best for these girls, treating them kindly and sending them back with gifts. None of them was a Suleawa.

'If your mother had lived,' he said tonelessly, 'I would never have sent her away, no matter what custom demanded. 'And Kocoum, I think, will be the same with you. He loves you greatly, and will value your counsel.'

'If I married him,' said Pocahontas, as if thinking aloud, 'then he would protect me ... but he would not listen to me.'

'Don't believe that,' said Powhatan, lowering his voice. 'His love for you is strong.' She gave a very slight toss of her head, as if to shake the hair out of her eyes. 'May I tell him he can come and speak with you tomorrow?' he asked, very low.

Pocahontas brooded, looking at the floor; almost pouted, like an obstinate child. Powhatan felt anger begin to rise in him. It is my fault, he told himself. I ought to have accustomed her to the thought of marriage years ago. It is because I was jealous, because I wanted to keep her with me, that I am having this trouble now. 'Well?' he said.

She looked at him suddenly with clear distress. 'Oh, Father,' she said, 'why would you not meet with the foreigners? Do we have to fight them?'

His first thought was that she wanted to protect him, and, even more, to escape from having to marry Kocoum. He was disappointed in her. 'Are you really a child still?' he asked angrily. 'Of course we have to fight them, and it had better be sooner than later. What are they here for if not to take our land? Why waste time on words?'

She said carefully, 'But if a man has to flee from a forest fire, what is it best for him to do? Should he run in the first direction that comes to mind, or should he stay to consider which way the fire is taking, and which is his best way to water?'

'We have considered the best way,' he answered. 'Considering is one thing, letting yourself be beguiled is another. Do you really think we have anything to gain from talking to them?'

'How can we tell unless we do?' she said in a low voice.

He would have been ready to take her counsel seriously, had he thought that it stemmed from some other cause than a wish to avoid her duty. Even if it did, she was not being frank with him. If she would not tell him the reason for her doubts, how could he understand them?

'Why did the stranger stay alone in the village all that time?' she asked again. 'He put himself in our power. Should we not have trusted him in return?'

'Who says he trusted us? He may have been using some witchcraft. All the more reason to leave the village for a while, until we have our full strength.'

Powhatan looked at her face and a suspicion brushed the edge of his mind. He thrust it firmly away before it could take shape as a thought. His virgin daughter ... it was impossible. Yet if it had not been for the suspicion, he would have asked straight out, 'Do you know anything of these men?' As it was, he could not.

'I ask you again, Pocahontas,' he said, 'will you meet Kocoum tomorrow? Will you bear your part, as I ask you to do?'

She looked at him, gripping her hands together. 'No, Father,' she said softly. 'I cannot. My ... my dream is against it. Mother ...' She stopped short and then went on more calmly. 'Please, Father, believe me. It does not have to be. There must be another way, though we may not see it yet.'

What did she mean by that? Some clear voice had come to her. He was certain of it for a moment, awed and even convinced; he dimly saw the next days, not as a narrow way leading to duties and bitter necessities, but as a doubtful night sky full of stars and clouds. It was only for a moment, though. Then he remembered Kekata's fear, the destruction in the village, all the carefully laid plans that the foreigners, and now his daughter, were thwarting. He grew angry again. If a man at war questioned his duty like this, he, Powhatan, would beat his brains out. Pocahontas's duty was as important as any warrior's, and yet she could shirk it, could look at him with those bright eyes of hers, and there was nothing he could do.

'I see well enough,' he said, 'that you will not obey me. You know I will not force you. There is no more to be said.' He stood up. 'Yet I had hoped ... I had hoped for better than this from you, Pocahontas.'

She understood his signal and got up, too, moving towards the door. 'I hope none of what you fear comes to pass, Father,' she said, with a quiver in her voice, 'and that you live a long time.'

If I die, then why should I care what follows? You can do as you like, thought Powhatan bitterly, but he was too proud to say it. A minute later he was sorry even to have thought it; he had an impulse to follow his daughter, throw his arms around her and say: 'Don't let it trouble you any more, my dearest. What does anything matter, as long as you are content?' He stepped to the entrance of the hut and looked out, but she was already gone. Only his guards stood there.

He waited for a minute to get command of himself, and then beckoned to one of the young men and told him to fetch Kocoum. He had better know at once. Besides, they had other things to speak of.

He sat down again and sighed. What could this dream of the girl's possibly be? Perhaps it would be best, after all, to wait, to see what victory or defeat would bring. He knew that wars often had outcomes that neither side had expected. There might be wisdom in what she said. But it was the evasion, the reluctance to tell him the truth, that troubled him most. It was so unlike her, who had always been honourable to a fault. And how could she go from him so coldly, when every day might be the last they ever spent together?

Kocoum came silently and stood in the entrance. He had to stoop low to pass in, and when he stood straight again the eagle feathers in his hair brushed the roof. He looked every inch a chief, but it was plain that he was not yet at ease with his new rank. He did not sit opposite Powhatan until he was told to do so, and he seemed surprised when Powhatan took a small stone cup of the ceremonial black drink and made him take a sip of it first, before doing the same himself.

'My daughter says she will not receive you,' said Powhatan at once, unemotionally. 'I am sorry for it. You know that this marriage is very much to my mind, and I still hope to bring it about – but we shall have to be patient.'

A flash of anger showed in Kocoum's face, but it grew calm again after a moment. 'Did she say why?' he asked hesitantly.

'Some dream she has had. Nothing I could reason with. But,' he went on, almost without willing it, 'she has a true spirit, Kocoum. It may be that she is right. If we wait for the thought to ripen, it will be a better marriage for you than if we hurry her.'

Kocoum considered this for a good while, as was his way, and then nodded. 'So I would say. I would wait as long as she asked – for any time – if only it were not for the danger upon us.'

'I thought,' said Powhatan, 'that having Pocahontas as your wife would make your task as chief easier. I did not mean that you would not be able to do it without her.'

'You do me much honour, great Powhatan,' said Kocoum. 'I accept it, but I fear it. I have known no chief but you; few of the people have. And I never thought to be chief: the river of our blood flows on to your sister's sons – why would it turn back to me?'

Powhatan had never seen Kocoum admit to any weakness before. He wondered at it, and was a little angry, but moved.

'That is plain,' he said. 'They are too young. I do not wish any other tribe in our alliance to lord it over the Powhatans: none of the others would hold it together as you would. They will follow you because they know that you would die for them without hesitating; you will not seek to turn misfortune to your gain, to trample your rivals or bargain them away to the enemy. There are many who wish to lead us who might do this. But the gods will protect you, as they have done until now.'

Kocoum bowed his head and then said, 'There is one thing only I would ask of you, Chief: do not ask me to hold myself back in battle, and do not send others into the place of danger instead of me. I have always fought in the front and I want to do so still. I could not bear men to say of me, "He made sure that he would live to be chief."'

Powhatan touched him lightly on the shoulder. 'I do not ask that. I do not work the wood against the grain.'

'My thanks, ruler of Powhatan,' said Kocoum. Then, in a troubled voice, he said, 'But I must ask: who will know that I have been chosen?'

Powhatan smiled. 'Never fear,' he said. 'Do you think I would leave you to shout for your chieftainship like a man claiming a lost arrow? My sister and your mother already know. Nijlon is not happy, but she has consented: you will protect her boys and they will still be your heirs. I know this should have been differently done, with a meeting of the chiefs and elders to recognise you first of all, and then a great feast to present you to the people. The time has not been ours to spend. But Kekata knows, and the elders of this village, and they are of one mind with me. Now that I know you have accepted, I will proclaim it to the whole army and people when the new warriors come and we get ready to fight. And if we both live, our victory feast shall be the feast that makes you my heir.'

'They will obey you, but ... Chief, I have never spoken of this before, and you may be angry with me for questioning your word. Forgive me ...' Powhatan made signs for him to go on, and he said, 'You know my father was a Massowomeck, and my mother conceived me when she was a hostage. There are some who will never believe that I am loyal to the Powhatans. You trust me, but what of them?'

'I am not angry with you for saying it,' said Powhatan gently. 'But let me tell you, Kocoum: an honourable man remembers his own shame much longer than anyone else does. It was long ago; people have their own concerns, and have forgotten.' His voice hardened a little. 'Anyone who still whispers such things has evil reasons. You must be harsh with them. No one will blame you for that, as long as you are harsher still to our enemies.'

Kocoum looked at him with a troubled face, and Powhatan guessed his thought. 'Anyone, Kocoum. Even my nephews, or anyone who takes their part. If they try to eat into the wood of our alliance with such talk as that, you must crush them like the wasps they are. If you bear with them then people will believe that, in your heart, you admit that what they say is true. We must not allow of any divisions between Powhatans and Massowomecks and Tapahannocks; they must all become one people if they are to meet the danger that is coming now. To make one out of many, one cannot always be gentle.'

'That is one thing no one has ever said, Chief – that I was over gentle,' said Kocoum proudly, and laid one finger on the scarlet tattoo on his chest. 'But I will care for your nephews, and make them ready to rule after me.'

'I have no fear on that score. Only ... Pocahontas: she has no standing but what I choose to give her, and my sister does not love her. Can you be generous, and protect her when I am dead, even if she will not marry you? If you are good to her, my spirit will always fight on your side.'

'Yes, Chief,' replied Kocoum, and sat there in silence for a few moments. Then he said again, 'Yes. 'But if she will not have me – however many others …' He buried his face in his hands.

'She will marry you,' Powhatan murmured. 'And even if not, time heals such wounds.' But even as he spoke he thought: what if I could not have had Suleawa? Would not all my victories have been ashes without her? Oh, Pocahontas. Do you not feel how much love you have to give?

'I know that you can do your task,' he began again, more loudly. 'And it is not all to be done today, or tomorrow; just now what we have to do is simpler. Tomorrow some of the men must hunt and others fish. Some must trap birds so that we can make more arrows. Some must go on working on the stockade, and watch over the women who will gather food at the village. I want you to be in command of these, and keep them practising their shooting and throwing at the mark whenever they are not busy otherwise. Ten I will send to watch the strangers' camp and make sure that none leave it without our being warned. You will understand why I do not send you with these: not to keep you out of danger, but to be sure that the greatest number grow used to obeying you.'

Kocoum had raised his head. 'I understand, Chief.'

'I will go in the morning, with my family,' said Powhatan, 'and be with the people as they find their places in the forest. I will return to the village in the afternoon. Pocahontas will be with us, and if she changes her mind, I will send to you at once.'

'I thank you, Chief.'

'Now let us rest. The gods be with you, Kocoum.'

Kocoum returned his blessing, rose and bowed low once more before leaving the hut.

Left alone, Powhatan wondered how much longer he might have delayed proclaiming Kocoum his heir if it had not been for the foreigners' arrival. If it were not for this emergency, might Powhatan have waited a few more years to see if after all one of his nephews were ready to succeed him? Whatever their weaknesses, they would have been easier for the subject chiefs to accept without loss of standing. He knew that it would take all his strength of will to make the chiefs, especially Tapahannock, play their full part in the war which was coming, knowing that their next ruler would be Kocoum, the son of one of their old Massowomeck enemies. Kocoum was right to have doubts. And would not his marriage to Pocahontas only make things more difficult for him? How many families would take offence at the distinction given to this one of the chief's children, among so many? Just because she was his favourite. Because he loved her.

A hawk-moth buffeting its way around the hut flew to the light of the lamp, burnt its wings and lay struggling feebly on the ground next to it. Is it an omen? thought Powhatan. Am I the moth, blinded by my own fondness, flying to destroy myself – and my people? Or perhaps the lamp is the foreigners with their shining craft, and the moth is warning me to have nothing to do with them? That would be plain enough. I must go and pray and sacrifice to the spirits; we have no choice but to go into this blindly, and only they can bring us out again safely.

But he found himself thinking again of the chain that was brighter than anything he had ever seen apart from firelight and sunshine on water, and wondering how Pocahontas would look at her wedding with that around her neck.