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The Cutty Wren may have been the fastest ship in all the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean, but there was a remarkably large amount of ocean. Daphne stared out across the endless blue sea, and felt the weight of spare time settle around her shoulders like a warm but stifling eiderdown.
Spare time had not been something she had been well endowed with, back in the Nation. Even on the days when there had not been cannibals to fight or lost civilisations to discover, there had been beer to make, wounds to treat, and food to chew. Of course, there was plenty to do on the Wren to keep her clipping along over the ocean - mainsails to brace, bowlines to marlinspike, decks to swab. But the ship was well crewed, and her Grandmother had a way of finding her almost immediately she attempted to do anything useful. Grandmother’s ‘ahem’ was sharp enough to cut butter, and made it perfectly clear that overhauling the buntlines was not an appropriate task for the Crown Princess and heir to the English throne. Daphne would have stood up to her (when you have sawn off a man’s leg, a sharp ‘ahem’ is less intimidating than it once was) but there was a shadow in her Grandmother’s eyes now that reminded her of the loss in the eyes of the Papervine Woman. Mother of the King and Ambassador to the ReUnited States she may be, but she was an old woman clinging to a world that no longer existed. Daphne knew that as Crown Princess she would win any fight she chose about what she was allowed to do on the ship, yet strangely the knowledge that she would win allowed her to choose to avoid the battle out of pity.
And so she stared out at the sea, half watching the rolling waves, but mostly lost in thoughts of all she had left behind. Not the big thoughts - the cannons, the surgery, the court and the cave - but the little thoughts. The feel of the sand between her toes the first day she went down to the beach without her stockings. The jolly refrain of the beer song, and the gentle hissing of the beer. The way the water sparkled on Mau’s shoulders as he swam across the lagoon. The rational part of her mind remarked that this probably wasn’t very helpful, that she should stop pining for what was over and wallowing in self-pity, but it was mostly drowned out by the flood of memories. Mau with his concertina trousers. Mau curled up and sleeping. Mau peering over the spectacles they’d found in the god pool. Mau’s charade of ‘grandfather’ that first day on the beach. Mau standing with his spear, as her ship sailed slowly away from him.
She wished he’d begged her to stay. He’d been so wise and understanding, so supportive. It was, of course, all the things she loved about him that meant he hadn’t begged. But now, alone with nothing but the ocean and her regrets, their sacrifice felt hollow to her. She was angry at herself, for allowing the traps of duty and family to take her away from what she loved. And she was angry with him, for not fighting harder, for standing there calmly and politely and letting her walk away. Why had he just let her walk away?
***
It was a question Mau asked himself many times. The Nation was growing, and his waking hours were full and busy, but the memory of Daphne hovered on the edge of his thoughts at all times. Ever since the wave he had moved through a slew of unanswerable questions. But they had been external questions, the little blue hermit crab shouting at the universe, demanding to know why things happened as they did for reasons beyond his control. This time it was his actions that had led to a future where the ghost girl walked away from him. This is what I chose, he thought, the silver line that I have drawn... and sometimes it seems like the most incomprehensible thing of all.
The dark shadows of his mind were happy to provide reasons, as he lay awake at night and pondered his choices. He had sent the ghost girl away because politically, she was worth more to the Nation there than here. There, she would be a powerful ally, chief of her Nation one day. Her loyalty to this place would be a lever he could use to ensure their independence and advancement. Here, she was a weakness. He could show the Nation the world turned upside down, use the glory of the past to inspire them to walk as equals with the trousermen. But how could they listen to that when he had chosen of all people a trouserwoman Queen to rule over them?
These thoughts taunted him that he was a demon boy who had done a cruel thing for selfish reasons. Still, if he had done a cruel thing, it felt like it was he who bore the brunt of the cruelty. He imagined Daphne surrounded by the riches of England (which in his mind were a vague blur of pliers and horses and telescopes). She would not spend long missing an island where only three people could read and the tallest building was no higher than an octopus could climb.
Perhaps the real unanswerable question was not why he had let her go, but why the world was as it was. The reasons why they could not be together had been stitched in the fabric of the world from before they met. Mau could hear Ataba’s voice in his head, telling him to give thanks to the Gods for the time they had had, not curse them for the times they had lost. But how could he be grateful that the world had thrown them together when the same world forced them to be apart now?
In the end, it was simple. They had done what was best for his Nation, and what was best for hers. Personal is not the same as important.
And she had promised she would come back. She would come. And when she came, she would see all he had done while she was away. There were god-stones to excavate, and doctoring to learn, and if his reading improved then maybe soon he could write to her. There was plenty to do to keep moving the Nation steadily nearer to the Perfect World.
Mau climbed out of bed and went down to check on the pigs.
***
King Henry the Ninth of England watched his daughter from across the deck as she stared out across the ocean. Although he had an urgent message to convey, he still found himself pausing for a moment. She had changed so much from when they had lived together in England that sometimes the shock would overwhelm him. He could still see the girl he had known so well, bright and argumentative and passionate, but now she was a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, her enthusiasm tempered with maturity. He wondered how it was possible that the babe he had held in his arms had become this intelligent, independent lady. They had talked together about so much that had happened to her on the island, and yet he still felt she had secrets from him that had not been there before, new depths of both sorrow and joy.
“Daphne?” he called out, and she turned to him, wiping the sea spray off her cheeks. “There’s been an accident in the kitchens. The ship’s surgeon’s doing all he can, but there’s only one of him, and there’s no-one else with any experience...” He trailed off. Looking at her in her flounced skirt and pagoda sleeves his request seemed ridiculous. It was wrong of him to ask, he should be helping her to move on and forget about all the terrible things that she had had to do on that forsaken island. He was regretting the impulse that had sent him to fetch her already.
But then he saw some of the sorrow fade from her eyes, and a steely glint of determination appear there. “Of course”, she said. She hugged him, briefly, and strode off across the deck.
“You will have a purpose.” Mau’s words ran round her mind as she slipped out of her silks and crinolines. He was right, he always was. It might not be the life she would have chosen for herself with perfect freedom. But it would be a life full of worthwhile things. A life that would make Mau proud. There would be so much to do when she returned to England, and she would start with what needed doing here and now. Rolling up her sleeves, she opened the door to the sick bay. “I’m here. How can I help?”