Nation

us.”
    “And this happened weeks ago!” said Mr. Red, who had been scrutinizing the penciled message.
    “That is true, gentlemen. But I’ve been working things out, and I’m wondering where the Sweet Judy might have been about that time. Old Roberts likes to island hop, and the Judy isn’t the fastest ship. The king’s daughter is on board the Judy .”
    “So the heir might have been caught up in this?”
    “Could be, sir,” said the captain gravely. He coughed. “I could set a course to pass through there, but it would slow us down.”
    “I need to think about this,” snapped Mr. Black.
    “And I need a decision soon, sir. It’s a matter of wind and water, see? They are not yours to command, nor mine.”
    “Who do the Mothering Sundays belong to?” said Mr. Black to Mr. Red, who shrugged.
    “We lay claim to them, sir, to keep the Dutch and French out. But they’re all tiny and there’s no one there. No one to speak of, anyway.”
    “The Wren could cover a lot of ocean, sir,” the captain offered. “And it sounds like the king is safe and, of course, you get some rum types fetching up in out-of-the-way places like that….”
    Mr. Black stared ahead. The Cutty Wren was flying like a cloud. The sails boomed, the rigging sang. It sneered at the miles.
    After some time he said, “For all kinds of good reasons, beginning with the fact that we cannot be certain of the Sweet Judy ’s course, and there are many of these islands, too much time has passed, his majesty would certainly have sent out searchers—”
    Mr. Red said, “He doesn’t know he is king, sir. He may well have led the search himself.”
    “There’s cannibals and pirates to the northwest,” said the captain.
    “And the Crown requires that we find the king as soon as possible!” said Mr. Black. “Would either of you gentlemen like to make this decision for me?”
    There was a dreadful silence, broken only by the roar of their speed.
    “Very well,” said Mr. Black rather more calmly. “Then we follow our original orders, Captain. I will sign the log to this effect.”
    “That must have been a hard decision to make, sir,” said Mr. Red sympathetically.
    “Yes. It was.”

It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Die

    D APHNE WAS EATING FOR Mrs. Gurgle, who had no teeth. She did this by chewing her food for her, to get it good and soft. It was, she thought as she chomped dutifully on a lump of salt-pickled beef, very unlike life at home.
    But life at home seemed unreal now, in any case. What home was—really was—was a mat in a hut, where she slept every night a sleep so deep that it was black, and the Place, where she made herself useful. And she could be useful here. She was getting better at the language every day, too.
    But she couldn’t understand Mrs. Gurgle at all. Even Cahle had difficulty there and had told Daphne, “Very old speaking. From the long ago.” She was known all over the islands, but none of the survivors remembered her as anything but ancient. The boy Oto-I could remember only that she had plucked him off a floating tree and drunk seawater so that he could have the fresh water in her water bag.
    The old woman tapped her on the arm. Daphne absentmindedly spat out the lump of meat and handed it over. It wasn’t, she had to admit, the most pleasant way of passing the time; there was a certain amount of aarghaarghaargh about it if you let your mind dwell on it, but at least the old woman wasn’t chewing food for her .
    “Ermintrude.”
    The word hung in the air for a moment.
    She looked around, shocked. No one on the island knew that name! In front of her, in the garden, a few women were tending the plants, but most people were working in the fields. Beside her, the old woman sucked enthusiastically at the newly softened meat with the sound of a blocked drain.
    It had been her own voice. She must have been daydreaming, to take her mind off the chewing.
    “Bring the boy here. Bring the boy here now.”
    There it was again. Had she said it? Her lips hadn’t moved—she would have felt them do so. This wasn’t what people really meant when they said “you’re talking to yourself.” This was herself talking to her . She couldn’t ask “Who are you?”—not to her own voice.
    Pilu had said Mau heard dead grandfathers in his head, and she’d thought, well, something like that would be bound to happen after all the boy had been through.
    Could she be hearing his ancestors?
    “Yes,” said her own