The final episode. Disclaimer: as usual.

CHAPTER 23

In the days after Pocahontas stopped the battle, she found she was changing so fast that she could barely recognise herself. Although everything in her cried out to be beside John Smith, she did not go to the white men's camp for some days; she acknowledged her father's and her people's overwhelming concern for her safety. They all needed her. She saw the looks that followed her when she came away from sitting in the longhouse with the men, from using words in the strange language, looking from one man to another, guessing, fitting, smoothing, prompting. The villagers no longer thought of her as an ordinary woman but as a special being, a female shaman, able to step into the souls of these creatures from beyond the great waters. No one, not even Nijlon, would speak to her without shyness and ceremony. She was the one who had done the unheard-of thing: gone to the men's sacred stone when a sacrifice was ordained, pleaded for the victim and gained his life – and it had clearly been a divine act, for as soon as the victim was spared had he not freely laid down his life for Chief Powhatan, who would otherwise be dead? They did not think of John Smith in the same way as the other white men. He must be a spirit that had taken on some exceptional form; he had gone to his death with such strange quietness, and on being struck down had changed everything. The white men themselves had killed the chief wolf among them and were now milder: perhaps even human. Everyone was, tentatively, satisfied.

This, Pocahontas understood, was the way the villagers read things. She had patience with them. She knew that the white men were human, was beginning to discover the blend of strangeness and familiarity in their behaviour; and while the work was going on, it absorbed her as nothing else ever had. It was only when she came away that the deep desolation woke in her like a wolf howling at evening. Outwardly, she was the property of all her people, dark and high and unbending as a carved post. Inside she was bleeding, her strength drained by anxiety and wild anger at the cruelty of fate. She felt that without John Smith, with whom she had spoken three or four times in her life, everyone else among whom she had to live, even her father, was a stranger. He was no spirit-creature, he was her man. How could the world separate them like this when surely, if anyone had, they had earned the right to be together?

On the third day Powhatan stopped trying to prevent her and she went to Jamestown and stayed all day. It was the day the council were arguing about Thomas, so no one was much concerned with her. It was also John Smith's worst day. Pocahontas did not understand the anxious muttering of the surgeon, nor the use of any of the objects in the strange house where John lay: to make herself useful and not become distraught was the hardest work she had ever done. Her only comfort was that her being there sometimes seemed to be helping him, although she could not be certain that he recognised her. She walked home at dusk exhausted, unable to believe that only one day had passed and that she was still in the same world as before. After that she went for some part of every day, and saw him improve a little. But for some reason the first day he was able to speak coherently was the first day that she missed. She was overcome by a half-conscious shyness, and a wish to avoid the question, 'What now?'

It was soon answered. He sent for her by Thomas the next day. She spent the whole walk to the camp wondering what they would say to each other, and yet the question turned out to be unnecessary. Unlike Thomas, as soon as she came into the tent she saw only how much like his old self John Smith was, raising his head slightly from the pillow with the eager gaze that had been the first look of his she had seen. His hands were ready to take her arms, but she got past them and seized his head to kiss him. They stayed like that for minutes without speaking. The servant, who had been hovering, retired discreetly.

After a while, however, John became constrained and turned his head away. She realised that he wanted to talk and sat up in silence.

'Pocahontas,' he said, and then, after a long pause, 'Our ship is going back across the sea, and I have to go with it.'

Pocahontas sat frozen, and then, barely moving her lips, said softly, 'To your homeland.'

'No,' he said, 'this is my homeland now. Here. But I have to go because …'

How to explain? He felt so tired, and it was difficult now to find the few words of her language that he had learned. 'The high chief of all our people …' he began.

'The King,' said Pocahontas in English.

He turned his head to look more closely at her face. She said the word with a curious resonance, and a proud, practised air. She looked grave, queenly. How much she had already changed since the last time he had knowingly seen her! She probably knew a great deal more English than he knew of the Indian language now. She had probably spent longer talking with Thomas than she ever had with him. Suddenly, grief and bitterness rose in him and he found his eyes were swimming.

She embraced him, carefully, but with her fingers pressing fierce messages of love on his face and arms.

'Mine!' she said. 'My love … my husband … you are mine, always, always …'

'Always is long,' he said, 'and you are so young.'

'I will be old now,' she said, and began to cry with him, without speaking.

At last she dried her eyes and said, 'My father knows that you saved his life. He has taken your people under his protection and is giving them land and food. He wants to honour you.'

No one had spelled this out to John Smith yet. He felt a moment of deep, almost narcotic relief. They were all safe for the moment: Lon, Ben, Thomas, Sir Richard …

'I thank him,' he said. 'And if there was something I could offer for the life of that young man…'

'You have already paid it, he says, and more. And so I say.'

John Smith could not quite make that add up. But it was difficult to remember, from moment to moment, everything that had happened.

'And if you stayed, I think he would make you his kinsman.'

'My love. Nothing would take me away.' He was speaking in English now, confident that she would understand. 'But the King and his council will send a new governor to us here, and more men. They care nothing, and know nothing about your people. If I go back, I can tell them – I can help them choose a man who will keep the peace with you.'

She considered this, and eventually seemed to grasp it in all its angles. She looked into his face and clasped his hand like a grateful ally.

'You do right,' she said, using the English word. 'And I will stay here, and help your people and mine live together. But …'

He knew she meant, 'If only …', and they were silent together again.

After a minute he repeated to her what the surgeon had said about his chances. Pocahontas cried a little more, embraced him again, and then, after a while, said:

'But that is not why you are going, is it? Because you think I no longer want you – like this?'

'When we first met, I was whole,' he said in a stifled voice, not looking at her.

'That would not matter. I would be your hands and feet for my lifetime. If I went with you I could be.'

He looked at her with hope flaring up in his heart.

'My father says I must choose my own path,' she said.

He looked into her eyes still, and after a while she said, 'No. I'm needed here. But will someone take care of you?'

'Yes,' he said. 'My father left me his farm. There's a good man there, and some people who knew me when I was a boy. I will be all right. I may get there before the leaves fall this year.'

They had little more to say to each other. As they had to part, what was the good of trying to meet in more places than they had already met? If you have to leave the hills of your home you do not busily explore them and try to find beauties you have never noticed before; you simply stand and gaze, making yourself small to leave more room for them in your memory. That was what John Smith and Pocahontas did. They were together; they sat quiet for a timeless stretch of time and were almost happy. He wondered slightly at how many words he had had to use with Thomas, and how few this had taken.

Before she went away she did a few necessary things for him. He did not avoid her eyes, but she could see how hard his new state was for him to accept. She feared for him, but could not argue with him any further. If he only knew how gladly she would do all this, for a lifetime if need be. But there were other tasks to do.

*****

She went and asked Grandmother Willow the question she knew had no answer. 'Why did this have to be? I dreamed for months of the spinning arrow and I found my path and now a mountain has fallen on it, and on me. What am I to do?'

Grandmother Willow's voice seemed fainter than usual. 'My child, I cannot answer you. This is a sad and wicked world and things happen which have no meaning. I feel it weighing on me, too. I am old and I was hoping to warm my hands at your happiness for a while. But no ... The world is changing. I do not know how much longer I shall be a part of it.'

Pocahontas shivered to her depths. Was even this support to be withdrawn from her? At the thought of losing Grandmother Willow, she felt such loneliness she thought she could not bear it, but after a moment a new, hopeless strength. Let this come, too. She would stay alone like a dark carved pillar, charred inside, but immovable. Though her living tree might be cut down, it could still be a support for her people.

'Kekata, too,' she said at random. 'He is sick and will not leave his house. He says he has lost his ear for the spirits. He refused to hear what they were saying to him, that night they were getting ready for war, and now they will no longer speak. Is nothing going to be the same as it was?'

'Nothing,' said Grandmother Willow, very faintly. 'But with us or without us, life goes on, my Pocahontas.'

*****

So now there was only the parting to wait for. Christopher Dawkins was sailing back with the full-time crew, leaving Sir Richard Clovelly as acting governor, and taking with him John Smith and also Wiggins, who was going to look after John on the voyage. John did not object to him; he was impersonal and efficient and, at times, good company.

Thomas finished his letter to his family and ended with a plea to them to do anything they could to help John Smith when he reached England. It got around the settlers that he had done so and for the next few days he and anyone else who could write was kept busy writing similar recommendations from the others to their families and better-off friends. When John Smith found out, he was humiliated but touched. He could not afford to be too proud.

He found that he could not worry about the future, however. Nothing was hurting him very much at this time. His body had decided that it was going to survive, and was using all the strength it had to that end, leaving none to spare for painful feelings. It was pleasant to lie in the ordinary world, simply feeling himself rooted in place and time instead of being hurled around in the frightening distances of fever; to drowse and feel no horrifying pain, only ordinary pain that he could play games against and ignore for good stretches of time. Every day he felt a little stronger, and he determined to prove the surgeon wrong: the man didn't know how resilient a soldier could be, John told himself. By the time the ship reached England, he would be walking the length of the deck, with help or without. He even felt amusement at the thought of himself hobbling into the King's presence, an old soldier wounded on royal service, and cunningly playing on the sympathy he got to make sure the right governor was picked for Virginia. Oh, he wouldn't make the same mistakes he had made with Ratcliffe; butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He knew it would be harder than that, might be very hard, but he did not feel it yet. He would worry about it when the time came.

The ship was to sail on a high tide, early in the morning. She had been towed out into the fairway, fully loaded and ready, when John Smith was carried down to the river bank. The sailors wanted to get him on board, afraid of losing the tide, but he made them wait because he knew that Pocahontas would come to say good-bye. In fact, not only she, but the chief and a good number of the villagers stepped from the misty edge of the trees, coming so silently that the men had no warning until they appeared. The sailors stood tensely and one or two of them moved their hands to their weapons, but the Indians did not come close. Instead they stopped at a short distance and set down large woven baskets of food: corn, dried meat, and fruit. Pocahontas stepped forward alone.

The English watched the brown, bare-legged girl walk slowly, her head high and her face still, to where John Smith lay on his stretcher, and one by one they all uncovered their heads.

Pocahontas had said goodbye to him in private the day before. Now, she said very little, but only knelt beside him and clasped his hand.

'I will protect your people as if they were my own,' she said.

'And I yours,' he answered, gripping her hand.

There was a stir and some of the English bowed, nudging others to do the same. Chief Powhatan was coming forward, everyone making way for him.

'You will always be welcome among us. Thank you, my brother,' he said to John Smith. He undid the clasp of his chief's mantle, softly cured deerskin reaching to the ground, stitched with figures of animal spirits and wise men, and laid it over John Smith.

Pocahontas had helped John prepare a short speech in return, in the Tenakomakah language. 'You do me more honour than I can repay, and I thank you in the name of my people.' He said the words very carefully, closing his eyes for a moment to concentrate; he meant them. Powhatan had drawn largely on his credit as chief, for John Smith's sake. He had taken the English under his guardianship in relations with the tribe so as to make himself personally responsible for the compensation to Namontack and his kin. He had declared that the land the settlers occupied was theirs through the duty of hospitality, and that any question of payment or rent for it would be put off until it became clearer what the white men had to offer and what it was proper for the Indians to accept. He had now led the way in sharing food with them as it should be shared with guests. He would not have gone half as far had he not owed John Smith his life, and wished to show him and Pocahontas that he countenanced the love that they had shared. He could thank John by showing friendship to his people. He could do nothing for John himself, except this.

But Pocahontas, though deeply touched and satisfied, wished he had found some other thing to do. The mantle was spread over John Smith like the mantle of a dead chief when his body is carried away to the house of burial. It seemed to be saying that his life was past; it took him a step away from her, already, although his men still waited to lift him, hiding their impatience as best they could.

It was the last moment and still they could find no words to say, but only stared into each other's eyes until Pocahontas was nearly giddy with it and lowered her face onto his shoulder.

'Don't cry,' he said. 'I may come back. When the new governor is chosen, when another ship sails, I will come if I can. At least I can send word.'

But she did not really believe he would ever come back. That anyone could cross the waters and return was almost as unbelievable as that someone could come back from the dead.

'No matter what happens, I am with you,' she said, caught between tears and sad laughter as she found herself using words he had used to her, it seemed, a long time ago. 'And I will have this.' She showed him his compass, and he nodded and pressed it into her hand.

Then she bent over and kissed him, briefly and fiercely. When she straightened, their eyes met and each saw that, for the moment, the other had enough strength.

He gave a sign to the stretcher-party that they could lift him up. They lost no time. Pocahontas stood up at the same time as they did and remained standing where she was as they moved away. Her hand slid down over John Smith's wrist, clasped his fingers for a moment, and then dropped to her side. She had touched him for the last time. Her face felt numb and rigid, but she did not weep.

They laid John in the ship's boat: Thomas and Ben Macquarie pushed it off as the sailors got their oars out. 'Good luck, lad,' said Ben, and 'God-speed, John,' said Thomas, choking. They turned and splashed back onto the beach. 'Let's hope the wind is with him,' said Ben in a harsh voice.

Pocahontas watched the small boat pull over to the ship. The light of the rising sun was just beginning to strike on the water. Her throat ached with tears and she ached all over as if she had carried a heavy load all day. She saw Ben, as he came up the grassy slope, make a face at a young Indian boy who was standing just inside the fence with a basket at his feet, and heard the boy suddenly giggle, weary of the solemnity of the scene. This was her victory, then. Peace: for a few months, or maybe a few years; until the English got a leader who shared the mind of the dead chief whose body was now buried at the waterside; or until the settlers' desire for land and wealth overstretched what her people were able to grant; until tempers snapped and the work of understanding became too hard ... it could not be very long. She was not dissatisfied. Her father's wars had taught her that no victory lasts forever. Even if the reward had been still smaller, she and John would have acted as they had done – they could have done nothing else. But if only ...

The ship that was as tall as a cliff began to be busy with shouts and movement, the usual bustle of men at work, with the free, buoyant ring of a homeward voyage. A chant went up, astonishing Pocahontas by its familiar sound, and the huge anchor rose, streaming with liquid light. Then the tiny figures of men placed along the cross-beams of the masts broke out the sails. All at once the great white sheets dropped, smoother and more shining than the clouds for which she had taken them at first sight, and began to tremble, catching the wind. The ship moved. The beauty of it was more than Pocahontas could bear. Her father's hands were resting comfortingly on her shoulders, but she stepped from under them, blind with tears, and broke into a run, away under the cool shade of the trees.

To do what? She could not plead with him to come back to her after all: the ship was moving. No shout could reach it now, no canoe could outpace it. But she ran on, and up, and up, without slackening her speed, her breath sobbing in her lungs and her heart hammering, until at last she came out at the end of the trail, on the edge of the cliff by the waterfall where she had stood so often to listen and feel the wind in her hair.

From there she could see the whole estuary, out to the open sea. The ship had not gone very far yet: it had barely passed the foot of the cliff, and was small with height rather than distance. She could not recognise any of the figures on deck, but she knew that, outlined against the sky as she was, if anyone looked up towards her from the ship they would see her. And surely he would look. She felt like a burning tree, with a glowing shaft of pain at her centre and incandescent leaves of longing whirling away from her on the wind that blew freshly out to sea.

John Smith had asked the men to lay him on deck as long as they were in calm water, so that he could feel the sun and wind. He had always loved the beginnings of voyages. He lay there, drowsy, warm and dry under the deerskin cloak. The jolting of the freshening waves against the hull hurt him, but it roused him too. You have found your life, after all, he told himself. It does not matter, now, where you are, sick or well, with her or away from her: she is there, life is there, and it means her.

Whatever she does will be good. She can't fail herself, she is Pocahontas. The way she kept those armies apart, and laid her head down on mine ... Pocahontas ...

He thought he felt a strengthening of the wind, tilted his head to feel its direction, and opened his eyes. In front of him, as he faced the stern, was the high cliff. And there she was. It could be no one else: the straightness and stillness, the volume of her black hair blowing around her. He gazed until he could not see, then closed his eyes a moment and gazed again. She had come to do one last thing for him: show that she would be with him as long as ever she could. As he watched, he distinctly saw her hand come up past her head, then out and round in a slow and graceful circle, putting everything into the breadth and clarity of the movement. The sign he had stopped her making, beside the waterfall, beside the willow tree: an-na – goodbye. That was all. Having done it, she kept her hand by her side. Her stance reminded him of a captain after a battle, standing beside the corpses of his dearest comrades.

His eyes filled with tears, and he raised one hand. Of course he had never shown her that sign, and in any case she could not see him. But anyway, goodbye. Until some other time ...

*****

Pocahontas stood and felt the fire within her sink down a little as the ship drew further away. Only one thing was left for her to do, of the utmost importance: to stand straight, to be there, present to him and in his presence, as long as there was a line of sight between them. Something was left to her as long as her eyes could reach the place where he was. There would be time enough to walk back down the trail, listening to the silence and feeling the emptiness. Time enough to weep, wrapped in her cloak, alone in the forest. Time enough to take up the burden of peacemaking as a way of filling up her lonely days. Time enough to listen for the illusory, unfulfilling voices of spirits on the wind. For now, there was still something far more important than any of these: to send out her breath and her sight after the last reminder of the flesh and blood of her true love, until the very last moment, until the ship was a speck on the horizon, and then was lost on the endless waters.

Thank you, all readers, for staying with me to the end. I would very much welcome reviews of the whole fic: what worked and what didn't, whether you approved of my changes from the movie and noticed bits where I was especially indebted to it, whether there were any bits I left out that should have stayed in, whether you agreed with my ideas of what the characters were like, any loose ends.

I feel that, although, as Grandmother Willow says, life goes on, the story ends here. I welcome sequels, prequels and alternatives from more sanguine souls: for me, this moment of perfect sorrow is what makes the story obsessive.

I don't know when I'll be next moved to create a fanfic, but I will be regularly visiting the community to find out what you are all up to. Keep writing! It has been wonderful being part of the Pocahontas page.