Nation

Place did listen, Daphne was sure of that. It made you listen, because she did, too. It must have even made her grandmother listen: Yesterday Daphne had seen her sitting next to Mrs. Gurgle, who very clearly was a woman of great power, because it looked very much as though her new companion was chewing a lump of salt-pickled beef. Her ladyship hadn’t seen her granddaughter watching, which was probably a good thing for both of them.
    Now Daphne looked around at the gardens. “I’ve come to say good-bye,” she said. “And thank you.” She didn’t shout it out. Either the Grandmothers were listening or they weren’t.
    She stood and waited. There was no reply but the vegetables’ silence and, in the distance, a pantaloon bird losing the remains of last night’s dinner.
    “Well, thank you anyway,” she said, and turned away.
    Were they real? she thought. Memory slips away so quickly here. I think it blows out to sea. But I shall remember. And in her head a fading voice said, “Good!” or perhaps she imagined it. Life gets really complicated if you think too much.
     
    The king had invited the carpenter of the Cutty Wren —in the few days he had been there—to help with the new building already begun by the carpenter from his schooner; and soon, because people feel uneasy watching a king work with his sleeves rolled up, both crews had rolled up theirs, too. The rest of the Judy had become another long hut and a big heap of useful things. And, of course, there was the Sweet Judy herself. She had been an unexpected find.
    The prow of the ship had hit squarely between two of the giant fig trees and its figurehead had been wedged, unseen and unscathed, while the ship collapsed behind her.
    A couple of the sailors had nailed the figurehead over the door, to the approval of all except the king, who wondered aloud if her undressed bosom might be considered unseemly. He hadn’t understood why everyone had laughed, but he had been pleased that they had. It had made up for the Big See.
    Now Daphne looked up at her for the last time. There was a faint smile on the wooden lips, and someone had put a garland of flowers around her neck.
    Daphne curtsied to her, because if any nonliving thing had earned respect, it had been the Judy . Daphne had been taught to curtsy years ago, and on the island it had been a skill less useful than ice skating, but just this once it was exactly the right thing to do.
     
    A boat waited on the edge of the lagoon. It had been waiting for some time. The crowd had wandered off, because there is only so long you can wave and shout at something that isn’t in any hurry to move, and a certain boredom sets in. In any case, Cahle had tactfully and not so tactfully got the islanders to wander back up to the fields. She knew when people, come to think of it, needed space. Besides, Daphne had said all her good-byes last night, at the big feast, and the king had been the only trouserman there to be given the sunset wave tattoo, and everyone had laughed and cried. The Gentlemen of Last Resort had carried the king back to their ship only a few hours ago, because he was, they said, “a little under the weather,” which is a code meaning “too much beer.”
    Now, apart from a dog warming up in the sun, it was as though she had the place to herself, but she would have bet anything that hundreds of eyes were watching her from the fields.
    She looked at the beach. There was the waiting boat, and there was Mau, standing where he always did, with his spear. He glanced up as she approached, with the faint half smile he wore when he was uncertain of things.
    “Everyone else is on board,” he said.
    “I will be back,” Daphne said.
    Mau drew squiggles on the sand with the end of his spear. “Yes, I know,” he said.
    “No, I really mean it.”
    “Yes. I know.”
    “You sound as if you don’t believe me.”
    “I believe you. But you sound as if you don’t.”
    Daphne looked down at the sand. “Yes, I know,” she said meekly. “Father’s going to send Grandmother to be our ambassador to the ReUnited States, now that she’s feeling better. She’s worked out that she’ll be able to lord it over all the snooty Bostonians, so she’s trying not to seem pleased. I suppose really she will be ladying it, which is probably worse. And, well, he hasn’t got anyone else…oh, except for lots of courtiers and the government and the people of the Empire, of course, but they won’t know him as himself,