Daughter of the Reef (34 page)

Matopahu gently put his arm around her. “I would like to have you stay with me. When my
taio
leaves, it will be very lonely up here. It is your message that will take him from me.”
 

She sighed. “You still have not explained that message.”

“It is simple. We—my friends and I—are trying to get rid of Ihetoa and put Eye-to-heaven in his place.”

Tepua scowled, remembering her conversation with the chiefess. “Aitofa hinted at that. She said that your brother still supports the high priest.”
 

“That is so, from all I have heard. Now you told me, ‘When the ghosts stop walking, the Eye must start'. Five nights after the moon is full, the spirits stop troubling us. That is when my
taio
must go home. By then, my friends think that Knotted-cord will be ready to back down. They want Eye-to-heaven to be there to assert his candidacy.”
 

“Your friend will replace the high priest?”

“That is our plan.”

“Then I will have to deal with him in the end,” she said moodily.

“About the feathers? Yes. That is likely.” For a moment the thought seemed to weigh on him.

“Then tell me,” she said, “since I have confessed so much to you. Is Ihetoa the only man you wish to see replaced? Is it possible also that you envy your brother's office.”
 

“You misjudge me, Tepua. Do you think I would like to be carried everywhere I go, and have food brought to my mouth by servants? That is the life of an infant. No. My only aim is to give my brother the guidance he sorely needs—by making Eye-to-heaven his high priest.”
 

“If that succeeds, will you be able to go home?”

“Yes. Would you be glad to see me back?”

When she did not answer, he stood up and held out his hand. “We need not talk of that now. For you, I am still a mountain man, and I do live well up here. Come along, and I will show you.”

 

As the afternoon passed Tepua realized that she had almost forgotten about rejoining her Arioi party. The thought of dangling from the ropes again made her knees watery. She could not imagine going back right away.
 

The ropes were not the only reason, she admitted. The Matopahu of the heights was far more appealing than the Matopahu of the high chief's court. If he returned to his old life, she believed she would come to despise him once again. For now she found herself enjoying every aspect of his wild existence.
 

First he showed her the pinnacles that he and his friends used as lookout points, though she declined to climb them. Then he led her toward the shaded pools where he fished. She saw Eye-to-heaven returning with evidence that he had not just disappeared out of politeness. He carried three fine brook fish, strung through the gills on a hooked twig.
 

Tepua glanced at the priest, wondering what sort of man he was. The priests she had known did not soil their hands with common tasks. They always had servants and attendants about them. But here was Eye-to-heaven, humming to himself, a smile on his lips as he ambled along the trail with his catch.
 

“We build fires far from where we live,” explained Matopahu as his friend continued in the opposite direction. “That way, if someone finds the ashes, they will not know where to look for us.”
 

But he did not show her today's cooking place at once. Instead, they followed the stream, up one bank and down the other, until the afternoon was half-gone. Finally they reached a clearing where the priest sat beside a fire.
 

“Now you will learn an easy way to cook,” said the priest with a smile. “Without a pit oven. Just watch me, and then you can do it.”
 

Beside him lay several sections of stout, green bamboo. He cleaned a fish, cut it into small pieces, and slipped these into a bamboo hollow. After he had stopped up the open end with leaves, he placed the bamboo on the coals.
 

Tepua prepared her own fish in the same manner, then added chunks of
fe'i
. The moist bamboo fibers sizzled in the heat and finally began to blacken, at which point everything was taken out of the fire.
 

“Now I know why you two look so fit,” Tepua said when she tasted the meal. “Down below, we are lucky to have yams.”

The priest shook his head glumly. “Only a few people can live up here. What they need below is breadfruit. The time for flowering has come, and still, I am told, the trees show no buds. Ihetoa's offerings have not pleased the gods.”
 

Tepua nodded. She had seen the barren trees, and she knew the importance of breadfruit. All the other sources of food combined could not replace it.
 

“We must find an answer soon,” said the priest, “or many will die.”

“
You
are the answer, my
taio
,” said Matopahu, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “When you stand in the
marae
and offer your prayers, the gods will listen.”
 

After the three had eaten, Matopahu led Tepua to a rough face of rock. “Here is our cave,” he said. “You must climb a few steps.”
 

Tepua looked up, but saw no opening.

“That is the marvel of the place,” he said. “It cannot be seen from the ground.” He pointed out the handholds and toeholds, and helped her take the first large step up. Then her head was above the stone lip and she could see into the cave's small mouth.
 

The place was only a few paces deep. She pulled herself over the lip and crawled inside. The floor had been covered with a layer of fragrant ferns. A few pieces of wood served as crude seats.
 

The men came in, bringing with them leaf-wrapped packets of food left over from the meal. The priest hung these by cords from the ceiling. “In case of rats,” he explained.
 

Soon Eye-to-heaven retired to the rear of the cave. Tepua and Matopahu stayed at the mouth, and she curled up against him. Soft whistling snores soon told her that the priest had gone to sleep.
 

“Eye-to-heaven is a good man,” said Matopahu. “Do you like him?”

She answered sleepily. “Yes, I do.”

“Yet you seem shy around him,” Matopahu said, drawing her head into his lap and stroking her hair.

“I am still wary of priests. What I did on that island—”

Matopahu touched a finger to her lips. “We will not tell him about that yet. He has other, more pressing problems. For now I think you should follow Aitofa's advice and turn your efforts to your work with the Arioi.”
 

“But your
taio
will learn soon enough. When he returns to the district, he will certainly hear about it. And if he becomes high priest—”
 

“If so, he will be far more sympathetic than Ihetoa would have been. For now we say nothing. I am enjoying your visit too much to have it spoiled by more gloomy talk.” He continued to caress her. Her drowsiness gave way gradually to a warm feeling of arousal. The earlier urgency was gone, replaced by a gentler desire.
 

“You will find the nights chilly here,” he whispered as he led her back into the cave, to his bed of sweet-smelling ferns. “But I have only this one cape to spread over us. We must lie close together.”
 

“I am not cold yet,” she answered, feeling a sly grin cross her face. Then she felt the warmth of his chest against her back, like the sun's heat baking her. She reached behind to stroke his thigh, discovering quickly that he had already shed his loincloth...
 

 

In the early light of morning, Tepua woke to the sound of a low moan. She reached for Matopahu and realized that he was not beside her. She sat up, full of fears she could not explain.
 

At the side of the cave, she saw Eye-to-heaven crouched by Matopahu's sweat-slicked trembling body. “You must go out now,” said the priest firmly when he saw her crawling closer.
 

Tepua hesitated, baffled. Matopahu had shown no sign of oncoming illness. Now, suddenly, this. She stared with alarm at his contorted face and the jerky motions of his limbs.
 

Then she noticed that Matopahu's left hand was wrapped in bark-cloth. He held it stiffly upright as if injured. Once again a strange windy moan came from his throat.
 

“What has happened to his hand?” she demanded.

“I am sorry, but you must leave,” Eye-to-heaven insisted. He reached out to block her, but she got past him and seized Matopahu's wrapped hand. Beneath the bindings it felt twisted, deformed. Shivers crawled along her spine.
 

Biting her lip in terror, she tried to unwrap the binding. Eye-to-heaven seized her wrists and pulled her away. She was almost glad to let Matopahu's hand be torn from her grip, suddenly afraid of what she might expose beneath the cloth.
 

Now she understood. She had seen other men in god-induced fits. But this time it was Matopahu who lay on the ground, foaming and flailing, waving a bound arm that no longer seemed his own.
 

She felt an urgency to obey Eye-to-heaven's command and scramble from the cave, leaving the priest to deal with this nightmare. Then she saw Matopahu's unbound right hand moving to the floor, fingers opening and closing, as if desperately reaching for someone. Sending a defiant look at the priest, she grabbed Matopahu's palm tightly. The skin was damp and hot, the touch filled with urgency.
 

“He wants you here,” said the priest in a tone of defeat. “You can stay, but keep quiet. We must listen carefully.”

Matopahu continued to moan in a harsh, breathy voice, but Tepua could hear no words. She prayed silently that the god would depart and cease tormenting him. Instead, he began to babble in a language she did not understand.
 

“Even I cannot interpret that,” Eye-to-heaven whispered.

Matopahu stiffened, his hand clenching Tepua's convulsively. She fought against his strength, trying to keep him from thrashing and hurting himself. Then suddenly a new, and deeper, voice boomed through the cave. Its resonance held the awesome glory of the
marae
, of dark stone crypts, of images wrapped in feathers. Tepua felt her gooseflesh rising.
 

The voice grated in Matopahu's throat. “The spear of bamboo is cast at the branches made bare. The tree is of the lance, the club, it stands. The tree is bare, the man pierced to the heart ... pierced to the heart. ...”
 

The words meant nothing, yet filled her with dread. Her body trembled and she scarcely dared to breathe until the voice was finally done. Then she heard a long sigh, felt Matopahu's grip weaken, saw his body fall still.
 

Eye-to-heaven continued to crouch over him, the priest's face intent with concentration. He began to mutter, more to himself than to her. “What is it? What can it mean?”
 

“Has the god departed?” she asked fretfully. “Is Matopahu all right?”

“Yes. He will sleep now. While I am left to struggle with his words.”

Frowning with doubt, Tepua lay down beside Matopahu and wrapped his cape around them. His skin felt cooler, no longer radiating the fierce heat of the god-touched. She pressed against him, trying to warm him with her own body.
 

“The branches are bare,” murmured the priest. “That refers to the breadfruit, of course. Pierced to the heart means that some great wrong is behind this. Spear-of-bamboo, ihe-ohe. That sounds like the name of the high priest, but now I am only guessing.” He sighed, looking down at Matopahu with a mixture of affection and frustration.' 'Yes,
ihe-ohe
does sound like the high priest's name, if we say 'Ihe-toa.'”
 

Tepua wished the priest would cease his muttering, at least until Matopahu recovered. Now she could find no rest for herself. Her thoughts kept spinning. Against her will, she found herself trying to interpret the message.
 

She knew that the gods' words were often cryptic, and that men sometimes spent days trying to explain them. “Why must the gods torture Matopahu so,” she complained, “only to confuse us?”
 

“He did not suffer,” the priest said. “When he wakes, he will remember nothing. But what am I to make of this?
Ihe-toa
, spear-of-ironwood.”
 

The more Tepua thought about it, the more the mystery annoyed her.
So what if the priest was called spear-of-bamboo instead of ironwood? He still had a sharp point
! “Tell me, Eye-to-heaven,” she asked. “How do your friends plan to force Ihetoa from his office?”
 

“They will accuse him of having lost the favor of the gods. They will say that the high ones misled him, making him reject the warning about famine.”
 

She was familiar with such accusations. Her father had once had troubles with a priest. “Sometimes an evil spirit influences a man,” she said. “Ihetoa may say that a demon misguided him, and that now he has driven it away.”
 

“He has a clever tongue. That is why my friends needed to wait so long. Even now they may not succeed.”

“Then perhaps these words we are puzzling over were meant to help you.”

“You are quick-witted. Now I begin to understand why Matopahu spoke of you so often.”

She felt her cheeks prickle at that piece of news. She was glad the dimness shadowed her face as she replied, “Up here, away from women, a man cannot help thinking about them.”
 

“That is true,” Eye-to-heaven said with a sigh and fell silent.

She cradled Matopahu awhile longer, trying to sort out her feelings. She felt an odd new tenderness toward him, as if he were an extraordinary yet fragile child. When he woke, he would be himself again, the free-living man of the mountains. But she would not forget that she had seen him shuddering on the cave floor, in the grip of something more powerful than any man.