Standing on the cobblestones at the wharf, holding her basket, she took tentative steps, trying to regain her balance after so many days at sea. She’d never seen such a swarm of activity. Men shouting at each other, women peddling wares, dogs barking, gulls squawking, horses whinnying and tossing their manes. Bleating goats and grunting pigs. The briny smell of seaweed, a whiff of horse manure, the earthy sweetness of roasting chestnuts. Against the side of a building, a cluster of men in garish yellow-and-black costumes stood toeing the dirt. When she looked closer, she saw that they were chained together.

Hearing the captain’s distinctive laugh, Mathinna turned. He was several feet away, talking with two men wearing red uniforms, muskets slung over their shoulders. He raised his chin toward her. “That’s the one.”

“Ye hardly need to point ’er out.”

“Where’re her parents?”

“No parents,” the captain said.

The first soldier nodded. “Just as well.”

The captain crouched in front of her. “It’s time to hand ye off. These two will take ye where ye need to go.” He lingered for a moment as if he wanted to say more. Then he nodded at her basket. “Glad we didn’t have to eat your possum.”

The seats of the open carriage—horsehair, dyed royal blue—were slippery. Mathinna had to grip the armrest to keep from sliding onto the floor. The horses’ hooves made a slurping noise as they clip-clopped along cobblestones slick with mud. Looking back at the wharf receding into the distance as they jolted away, Mathinna felt more alone than she had ever been in her life. No one in this strange place looked like her. No one.

Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, Australia, 1840

The horses turned down a short drive and lurched to a stop in front of a long, two-story, cream-colored building with blue trim and a wide front porch. One of the soldiers jumped down and lifted Mathinna out of the carriage. Instead of setting her on the stone apron of the driveway, he carried her to the entry stairs. “You’re a proper lady, I’m told,” he said in an exaggerated show of deference. “Wouldn’t do to muddy your hem.”

Mathinna craned her neck to look around. Though she’d never seen such a large and stately building, she felt oddly at ease, as if she were stepping into an etching in a book she’d read with the schoolteacher.

A stout middle-aged woman wearing a gray dress and a white apron and cap appeared on the porch. “Hello, Mathinna,” she said, inclining her head. “We’ve been expecting you. I am Mrs. Crain, the housekeeper. This is Government House. Your new . . . home.”

The schoolteacher on Flinders had a housekeeper, an old missionary woman who made his bed and prepared his breakfast. Mathinna had always ignored her. But she didn’t know the customs of this place. Was she expected to curtsy? She curtsied.

“Don’t waste your fine manners on me,” Mrs. Crain scoffed. “I’m the one should be bowing to you, I suppose. A princess, I hear!” She raised her eyebrows at the soldiers. “Lady Franklin and her fancies!”