And they disembark, and they go to live in John Smith's small London house, and they seek an audience with the King and they wait.
Meg and Pocahontas give up their breeches, dress themselves once again as women, and the elder even captures her hair in a silken net, as other mothers do in England. Meg scowls and braids her hair defiantly into two childish plaits, and climbs out the window to sit on the roof, ranting against the limitations of dry land to the pigeons.
Pocahontas takes Thomas to see Mrs Jenkins and Uttamatomakkin. The old woman, even more frail than when Pocahontas had last seen her, coos over Thomas and gives him slices of cake to eat, and tea in delicate cups which he holds awkwardly. She pats Pocahontas' hand, calls her 'Dear Rebecca' and asks for news of her darling boy. Flinching with guilt, Pocahontas tells her that John is a successful tobacco merchant, that she is well respected in Jamestown, that she regularly goes to church, that they have a beautiful house, that Thomas has a tutor who thinks very highly of him, that there have been very few conflicts with the natives (she leaves out that this is because most of them are dead). When Mrs Jenkins starts to talk to Thomas, ask him about books, about his friends, Pocahontas goes to stand with Uttamatomakkin. She looks at him, dressed in foreign finery. Like a statue. Like a painting. Like a stuffed hunting trophy – come, behold the Noble Savage, tamed and dressed and still.
When they return to John Smith's house, Pocahontas breaks a pot, and smashes the pieces until there is nothing left but dust.
It will not be long before John Rolfe comes.
She turns down Mrs Jenkin's offer for them to stay there, prefers the musty smell of John's so long uninhabited house, with it's faded maps and mildewed books. He gives her and Meg funds to buy dresses appropriate for an audience with the king, and they are forced to endure the search for stays, farthingales, ruffs, even. The dressmaker sighs and tutts over Meg's unfashionably boyish figure, her calloused fingers and sun pealed skin, for all she is suitably short and delicate. In her turn Meg glares daggers at the woman, and sniffs loudly whenever the dressmaker comes too close. She wears a wig, and Meg can see fleas hopping in it, for all her lardy perfumes.
Pocahontas smiles to herself. She is not so much of a trial, for all they think she's far too tall, and readily accepts the draping of silks and satins, safe in the knowledge that it will be over soon.
But when they are laced and squeezed and cracked into their caged dresses, there is a kind of claustrophobic panic to them, and Meg holds her breath, to stop the frightened shrieks.
John walks with Pocahontas around London, takes her to the theatre, the Thames, markets bustling over with odd smells. She carries a posy of flowers with her, the stink is so awful, and John tells her not to touch anyone, because they may be sick. But he shows her the frantic, churning, fascinating underbelly of a world she's been to before but never really seen, and she thanks him for it.
They eat English foods, stodgy or gruel thin, which is bland but oddly interesting.
She is, however, particularly fond of the sweetmeats he buys her – sugared rose petals, like little whispers of saccharinity, candied orange peel, little marzipan pears and apples, painted to perfection.
He laughs with her. He makes jokes to see her smile. He listens to her – really, truly listens to her, and she has the feeling he's remembering everything she says.
He is her friend. First and foremost, broken hearts and history aside, he is her friend.
She cannot remember the last time she had a friend.
So when he finds her pounding that clay pot to bits, he catches her hands and holds her while she cries, and he asks her – not what's wrong, because he doesn't have the right to ask that and because it won't help her, and helping her is what he wants, first and foremost, before everything, anything except Meg – what he can do to help.
She tells him about the closing forces of stone walls, about the silken skirts that trap your legs, about gardens that must be grown just so, about beating back animals from a newly cleaned floor, about hair being tied away, about stockings and shoes and whispers.
About hearing that everyone you used to love is dead or disappeared.
About hating yourself.
Losing what you are.
Quietly, he tells her about the awful intoxication of watching men die by your own hand. About the crimson arc of blood. Cardinal red. About the heat and the dirt and the flies and the devil in your mirror. About losing who you are.
Then he takes her to the window, and pours grain into her hands, and doves and pigeons come, and the wind lifts up strands of her hair, and their clustered bodies are soft and warm and he is beside her and-
His eyes are very blue.