Isle of Tears (30 page)

His eyes narrowed, although she could see in his face that he was very much enjoying her discomfort. ‘You dare to tell me what I may not do?’ He spoke quietly, but his voice carried a thick undertone of menace.

‘It isnae that,’ Isla said quickly. Feeling her cheeks burn, she indicated the irons around her ankles. ‘It’s these. Will they no’…get in the way?’

‘You might try to escape,’ he said, almost, but not quite, playfully.

‘I willnae, I promise.’

In a flash he gripped her wrist and squeezed the small bones there until she whimpered. ‘If you do,’ he breathed, ‘I will hunt you down. And there will be no leniency this time, do you understand?’

Isla nodded vigorously.

He reached into the waistband of his maro and withdrew a small key, then bent and unlocked the irons. They slipped off with a barely audible clink, but Isla felt as though her feet had suddenly grown wings.

Te Whaenga indicated the oil sitting on the ground. ‘You may anoint the rest of my body now.’

Isla poured more of the silky liquid into her hands and began to rub it into the skin of his chest and arms. Beneath her fingers his body felt as hard as granite; despite his reputation for gluttony, there was barely an ounce of fat on him. Then suddenly his hands were at the buttons of her waistband; in a moment he had opened them and the skirt fell, pooling around her feet. She hesitated for a moment, her mind racing, then stepped out of it.

Te Whaenga gave a small, private smile as he gazed at the pale gold thatch of her pubic hair. ‘Oil my back,’ he murmured, ‘then rub your body against me.’

Desperately shamed by her nakedness, Isla was relieved to move behind him. She dribbled oil onto his shoulders and massaged it in until his back glistened. Then she made herself kneel and press her chest and belly against him, her hands resting on his thick waist, feeling her skin slide over his. He groaned again.

She removed one hand from his waist, and let the other creep slowly down to his maro. While her fingers toyed with the waistband, her free hand reached into the basket and felt under the cloths for the knife she knew would be there. She touched smooth ivory and her hand closed around the hilt.

‘Do not stop,’ Te Whaenga urged in ecstasy.

Sweat trickled freely down Isla’s sides and her pounding heart felt as though it might burst out through her chest. She knew she was about to cross a line, and the knowledge both elated and terrified her. It was one thing to fire a shotgun or a musket and hope that she might hit someone, but another altogether to deliberately take a life in cold blood.

All of this went through her head in less than a second, and in the next she thrust the knife into his back, feeling the long blade punch through skin and muscle, then into the less resilient tissue of his lungs and heart.

He stiffened, gave a strangled yelp of surprise and his arms flew up, but Isla dodged out of reach. He tried to turn around, but slumped forward instead and toppled off the stool onto the ground. Standing above him, Isla waited anxiously until his body became absolutely still, then crouched and pressed her fingers against the place in his neck where his pulse should be.

Nothing. She let out a ragged sigh of relief.

Grunting when it stuck for a second, she dragged the knife out of his back and stepped clear as blood poured from the small wound, slowed quickly, then stopped. She wiped the blade on a cloth, and hurried to the corner of the whare where she tugged
on her trousers, shirt, jacket and boots, and threw her peke over her shoulder.

Peering cautiously around the door, she waited until her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, noting with gratitude that the moon was bright and clear. She would need it to find her way. She made sure no one was about, then trotted to the edge of the bush bordering the village and made her way about five hundred yards along a well-worn track.

As she approached the arranged meeting place, a figure leading a horse stepped out of the trees in front of her. Laddie also appeared, his tail wagging excitedly.

‘Is it done?’ Hukapapa asked.

‘Aye.’ Isla bent over and set her hands on her knees as the fear and exhilaration drained from her, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal.

‘You are sure?’

‘Aye, I’m sure.’

Hukapapa nodded then, and handed over the reins. Isla pulled herself up into the saddle, patted Prince’s neck, and then the holster to make sure her shotgun was there as promised.

She looked down. ‘What will happen tae ye now?’

Hukapapa’s face was impassive, but there was more than a hint of triumph in her voice when she replied, ‘I will be a widow, but I will be
free.’
She touched Isla’s leg. ‘Thank you, Isla McKinnon.’

Isla touched her hand to her forehead in mock salute. ‘Thank
you.

Then she turned Prince away and kicked him into a canter.

2 M
ARCH
1865

O
potiki was much busier than Isla had expected. She saw no Pakeha, but noticed the tell-tale signs of whalers, and also of missionaries. There were several vessels anchored offshore; they did not appear to be British, so perhaps they belonged to local coastal traders. The people in the village, and the few she had passed working in the gardens as she had ridden in, and who had stopped to stare at her curiously before returning to their labours, she knew to be Te Whakatohea, the tangata whenua of the area. The village consisted of whare and one or two European-style houses, and a new wooden church that stood exactly in the centre, its single spire reaching up towards God.

She stopped and stiffly dismounted, her buttocks and thighs aching after so long in the saddle. It had taken her almost five
weeks to travel from Rotoma to Opotiki, at least in part because she had lost her way in the Raungaehe Ranges and had strayed into the Ureweras: almost two weeks traversing the cloud-wreathed hills, the misty valleys and wild rivers of the region had put her well behind the schedule she had set for herself. But then she had righted herself, and come out of the hills on an afternoon so hot that the flatlands before her shimmered and wavered.

Now, after almost a year, she had finally reached Opotiki, and all there was left to do was pray that Jean and Jamie would also be here.

Looping Prince’s reins over her arm, she walked towards a large congregation of Maori sitting on the ground around a very tall pole, from which fluttered a single flag in colours of red, white and black. They seemed to be engrossed in something that was going on inside the church.

‘What is happening?’ Isla asked in Maori of an elderly man sitting with a blanket draped across his shoulders, despite the day’s heat.

Squinting against the sun he looked up at her, then raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. ‘Who are you? I do not know you. Have you come with the Pai Marire emissaries?’

‘Who?’

The man pointed to the pole. ‘Kereopa Te Rau and his people. The Hauhau.’

The Hauhau: Isla had read accounts of their exploits in the papers in Auckland, and, while assuming that those stories had been greatly exaggerated, felt a wash of unease at the news that
they were here. They professed to have the same goals as the Kingites, it was true, and it was said that Tawhiao himself had converted to the new religion late last year, but it seemed that unrest only ever increased wherever the prophet Te Ua Haumene’s followers appeared.

‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.

The old man rose creakily to his feet and demanded again, ‘Who
are
you?’

Isla knew that if she wanted information, certain protocols would have to be followed. ‘My name is Isla McKinnon. I am Pakeha-Maori and my people are Ngati Pono of Taranaki and the McKinnons of Skye. My whangai father is Wira Tamaiparea. I extend heartfelt greetings to you.’

Vaguely appeased, the old man grunted and adjusted his blanket. ‘I am Whakawhetu, and my people are the Whakatohea. Welcome to our papakainga.’ He waved his hand at the flagpole again, then indicated the little church. ‘Kereopa is here, presiding over the trial of our minister, Reverend Völkner.’

But Isla was more interested in other matters. ‘Whakawhetu, I have come to Opotiki to find my brother and sister. They may have passed this way some time in the past twelve months. Or they may still be here,’ she added hopefully.

‘Who were they travelling with?’ Whakawhetu asked, one eye still on the church.

‘A party of Ngati Pono, mostly women and children.’

Whakawhetu finally gave her his full attention. ‘What did they look like, this brother and sister? Like you?’

Isla forced herself to stay calm. ‘Ae, but they have red hair, not gold like mine.’

‘But they are not very small children?’

‘No, about ten years old,’ Isla said in a rush. ‘And they look the same as each other.’

The old man nodded slowly, remembering. ‘Ae, they were here. Five or six months ago? But they have gone now.’

Isla felt like shouting for joy and screaming with frustration. She grabbed a handful of his blanket. ‘Tell me, please, where did they go?’

Affronted, Whakawhetu pulled away from her, and looked around to see if anyone else was noticing what this strange Pakeha girl was doing. ‘I do not know.’

‘Then who might?’

Whakawhetu smoothed his blanket fussily. ‘I am not sure. I can ask. Someone will know.’

But at that moment, the doors of the church opened and a small procession emerged. There was a muted rustle of anticipation in the waiting crowd, and several people rose eagerly to their feet.

At the head of the procession came a handful of Maori men, one of whom, according to Whakawhetu, was Kereopa Te Rau. He was an imposing, ferocious-looking man, with a bushy beard and a distinctive facial moko. Behind him appeared, under armed guard, two Pakeha clerics, one of whom Isla assumed was the hapless Reverend Völkner, then a throng of those who had evidently been lucky enough to witness the actual trial.

‘What has he done?’ she asked.

‘He was a spy for the government,’ Whakawhetu replied flatly. ‘It is most unfortunate. We warned him not to return to Opotiki, you know. We sent him a letter and told him to stay in Auckland.’

The crowd breathed a soft ‘aaaah’ of…satisfaction, was it?, as Völkner was led to a willow tree a short distance from the church and a noose of rope was placed around his neck, where it settled heavily over his dog collar. Völkner immediately sank to the hard, dry ground and knelt with his head bowed in prayer. Finally, he rose and offered his hand to Kereopa. There was a round of earnest and, Isla thought, deeply incongruous hand-shaking, then the executioners hauled on the rope and Völkner was hoisted off the ground. His body swayed gently for a second or two, his eyes bulging farther and farther from his head, then his legs jerked wildly and his hands flew to his throat as he tore at the rope in a desperate attempt to ease the pressure. His face darkened with blood, his mouth fell open and his tongue extruded, already turning purple. A spreading stain appeared on the seat of his trousers, and the crowd let out another collective sigh.

Isla felt sickened by what she saw. But this was Whakatohea business, not hers. And it did sound as though the missionary had brought the trouble upon himself. She watched Kereopa Te Rau as he observed the proceedings with an impassive face, aware, though, that he would be remembering the smiles and voices of his wife and daughter, murdered at Rangiaowhia.

Völkner’s body swung creakily from the willow until there were no more twitches or spasms, until it was obvious that he
was dead. But still the crowd waited. Laddie whined, perhaps smelling death.

‘You said you would ask about my brother and sister,’ Isla prompted Whakawhetu.

Without taking his eyes off the scene near the tree, as though afraid that he might miss something, the old man said tersely, ‘Not yet. Not until it is finished.’

And it had not finished. Völkner’s limp body was lowered and laid on the ground. His head was cut off with an axe, then brandished triumphantly by Kereopa, who swung it this way and that, the neck dripping, so that all might see it clearly. His Pai Marire converts among the crowd—almost all of them, it seemed, including Whakawhetu—then approached one by one to have their faces smeared with Völkner’s blood.

Isla, sensing that something else was about to happen, turned away. Whatever it was, it raised a great cheer from the crowd; Kereopa had clearly taken his vengeance in full. But she knew that, as had been predicted after the massacre at Rangiaowhia, trouble would also be sure to arise from this act of utu, no matter how justified it might have been. She would need to be gone from here as soon as possible.

‘It is over now, surely?’ she said to Whakawhetu.

His cheeks daubed with drying blood, Whakawhetu answered prosaically, ‘Probably. For today, anyway. Wait here. I will find someone who might answer your questions.’

Isla found water for Prince to drink, then she and Laddie sheltered from the heat of the sun until Whakawhetu reappeared
half an hour later, a woman in tow. She looked to be about thirty years old, and wore the kauae of a married woman of some rank.

‘This is Raiti,’ he announced. ‘Her mother belongs to Ngati Maru-whara-nui—the hapu, I believe, of your whangai mother?’

‘Ae, that is right,’ Isla confirmed. So this, perhaps, was the woman who had sheltered the Ngati Pono ope when they had arrived. ‘Whakawhetu says my people stayed here last year. Thank you for hosting them. Do you have news of where they might have gone after they left?’

Raiti pursed her lips. ‘It was a few months ago now,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Last September? October? The old woman Pikaki was leading them.’

Isla nodded eagerly, urging her to continue.

‘I
believe
she said she was taking them home,’ Raiti added. ‘Back to Taranaki.’

‘And my brother and sister? They were well?’

‘The ones with the copper hair? Ae, they seemed to be.’

Impulsively, Isla hugged the woman, who looked at first startled, then pleased. Isla decided she would leave immediately. ‘I have a horse. How long will it take me to ride from here to Taranaki?’

Raiti exchanged a glance with Whakawhetu—a glance, Isla saw, that was loaded with misgiving. ‘It is a long journey, and not a safe or easy one, especially when the winter comes. You must cross the high, frozen desert south of Taupo, and the snow-clad slopes of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe. It will be cold and lonely. And
the forests as you cross to the west towards Taranaki are dense and wild and the land very forbidding.’

‘And before that,’ Whakawhetu interrupted, ‘you will need to pass through the lands of the Arawa.
Kupapa
territory,’ he spat. ‘You are lucky you did not encounter any Arawa on your way here.’

Isla gave nothing away. ‘But how long will it take me?’ she asked again.

Raiti’s brow furrowed and she bit her lip as she calculated. ‘Two months, perhaps? Three if you do not reach the mountains before winter?’

Three months? That was an eternity; she could not wait three more months until she saw Jean and Jamie again. ‘Is there another way?’

‘Ae,’ Raiti replied. ‘You could sail. That might only take you a week.’

‘Sail? By sea?’

‘Ae. Up the coast, around and down the other side.’

Isla recalled the ships she had glimpsed anchored in the harbour, and felt suddenly lightheaded with possibility. ‘But how would I arrange that? Who would take me?’

Raiti and Whakawhetu shared another glance. ‘There is a ship anchored at Opotiki now, whose captain
may
oblige,’ Whakawhetu said doubtfully. ‘It depends on what you have to barter with. Te Kanene has never been known to do anything out of the goodness of his heart.’

‘Will you take me to him?’ Isla asked in a rush. ‘Please?’

‘I will,’ Raiti said. She turned to Whakawhetu. ‘Grandfather, go and wash that blood from your face. It is…barbaric.’

Whakawhetu looked for a moment as though he might protest, but then only shrugged, hitched up his blanket and wandered away.

‘I do not approve of the Hauhau,’ Raiti muttered. ‘But my people are enamoured and many have converted. They think Haumene’s god will save them from Pakeha disease and the British soldiers. I feel little of benefit will come of the association.’

Isla left a long enough pause so that she would not sound uncaring of Raiti’s concerns, then prompted, ‘Where is he, this Te Kanene?’

Raiti crooked her finger. ‘Come with me.’

Te Kanene was sitting in an armchair, its fabric worn and faded, outside a whare at the north end of the village, where the Otara River merged with the Waioeka. A short distance away, beyond an area of flat cultivated land that faded into sand dunes, the merged rivers flowed into the faintly roaring sea.

He was smoking a pipe and enjoying a drink from a cut-glass tumbler; by the smell, Isla knew that it was whisky of a quality her father would have very much enjoyed. Te Kanene was handsome in a cruel, hawkish sort of way. She guessed that he was approaching forty, although the grey at his temples suggested he might be older. He was tall and thin, with a hooked nose, the weathered skin of a habitual seafarer, a moko that extended across his forehead,
nose and cheeks, and shrewd, prominent eyes that gave away his Ngati Kahungungu origins. Dressed in a beautifully cut coat and trousers, he wore a long greenstone pendant in his left ear and his sea boots were highly polished.

‘May I help you?’ he said in perfect English.

Isla stepped forward, very aware of her filthy clothes and greasy, untidy hair. ‘I am looking for passage tae Taranaki. I‘ve been told that ye may be sailing there?’

Te Kanene inclined his head. ‘I am indeed. In less than two hours, to be precise.’

‘I wish tae purchase passage with ye, if ye can accommodate me.’

Te Kanene finished his whisky. ‘Just you?’

‘Masel’, ma dog and ma horse. Sir.’

He seemed amused at the reluctantly tacked on ‘sir’. ‘And how will you pay?’

Isla felt a blush that was part shame and part burgeoning anger heat her face. ‘I cannae pay. I’ve no’ the money.’

‘None at all?’ Te Kanene steepled his fingers thoughtfully. ‘Do you have anything you might care to barter?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing in that peke over your shoulder, perhaps?’

Disappointment sucked the air from Isla’s lungs. There was little in her peke except for a few trivial bits and pieces. But perhaps she did have something that might appeal to him. She loosened the string securing the peke and rummaged around inside until she found what she was looking for. ‘I do have this,’
she declared, pulling out the long roll of silver-gold hair she had cut off almost a year ago.

Te Kanene made a beckoning gesture. She moved closer, but did not offer him the hair.

He held out his hand. ‘I wish to touch it. If you please.’

Slowly, Isla passed over the shining coil. He took it and ran his long fingers over it, caressing it. ‘It’s yours, isn’t it?’