Isle of Tears (12 page)

Looking increasingly anxious, Wira nodded. ‘But Mere, will you not get the sickness yourself?’

Mere gave him a sharp look. ‘It is my duty, Wira. She is our whangai tamaiti. If I am struck down, then that also will be on your head.’

When they reached Waikaraka, Mere told Niel and Tai that after they had carried Isla to the whare they would have to stay outside the village as they might yet be tainted with the sickness.

Tai looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. ‘For how long?’

‘Until time proves that you are not.’

‘But I want to stay with Isla,’ he protested.

‘Aye, me as well,’ Niel echoed.

Mere silenced them both with a hard look. ‘I do not care about that. You have already been with Isla for several days. If you mix with others and you are sick, you may pass it on and lay waste to the whole village. This way we can be sure that if you do have the sickness, only…a few people will be lost.’

‘Will ye stay wi’ her?’ Niel asked.

‘Ae, I will. I will not leave the whare until the sickness has passed.’

Niel swallowed hard. ‘Or until she dies?’

Mere’s expression softened, and she patted his cheek. ‘Try not to worry, e tama. I will do my best.’

Overwhelmed with fatigue and shock at the sudden turn of events, Niel did not even realize that if his sister died, then Mere probably would, too. Nevertheless, he turned away, blinking back tears.

‘I will have some food and drink brought to the gate for you,’ Mere said to Tai. ‘Wait until it is left on the ground before you come for it.’

‘Tena koe, whaene.’

‘Look after the boy, nephew. He has not had an easy time.’

Shaken by the sadness in his aunt’s eyes, Tai asked quietly, ‘Will she die?’

And just as quietly, Mere replied, ‘I do not know.’ Then she seemed to take hold of herself and said briskly, ‘Haere atu, bring
her to the whare now. And be careful with her.’

She led the way, Niel and Tai behind her carrying Isla on the litter.

In the village itself, curious and frightened faces peered from whare doorways. Niel’s attention was caught by Jean and Jamie, their red hair flying, dashing towards the fence and crying out for Isla before Ngahere caught up with them and dragged them away. He fought tears again, and it occurred to him that Mere must command a lot of respect from her people to be able to bring someone so ill virtually into their midst and not be challenged. But he had learnt already that, although Mere wasn’t the oldest and most revered Ngati Pono woman, she was the one to whom people turned most often for practical advice and skills.

Over the next week, while Isla lay in the little whare struggling constantly to draw breath, Mere’s skills were pushed to their limits. Ngahere and Pare left food, water and supplies for medicines at a safe distance for Mere to collect, but apart from that she was on her own, Te Katate having refused to attend Isla because she was harbouring what he termed a ‘Pakeha’ disease.

Mere bathed her patient every few hours with kareao steeped in water to lower her fever, and at intervals during the day and night tried to drip meat broth between Isla’s lips in the hope that she might ingest a little nourishment. But Isla remained in a semi-delirious state and her throat retained its hideously swollen aspect, despite the kawakawa poultices applied to her neck and chest. On
the third day, Mere peered into Isla’s mouth and felt her blood freeze at the sight of the thick grey membrane that had grown over much of Isla’s throat, making her attempts to breathe even more laborious. For Mere, that was the lowest point of the entire vigil: she had not encountered this sickness before and did not know how to treat it, so could only continue to apply the cures that had been passed down through the women of her family for generations. She was a healer, not a tohunga like Te Katate, so she could not cast spells to alter the course of a person’s destiny. But she could pray, and she did so, constantly.

On the eighth day, Ngahere informed her that Niel and Tai were still not showing any signs that they had been afflicted with the sickness, so Mere told her to instruct Wira to allow them back into the village, praying that she was making the right decision. Only a week after that, when there had been no indications that the sickness had taken hold at Waikaraka, did she allow herself to stop worrying about it.

Three weeks after she had become ill, Isla finally opened her eyes and demanded, albeit in a weak and hoarse voice, to know where Niel, Jamie and Jean were. Then she said that she was hungry, and seemed bewildered when Mere burst into tears and gathered her in her arms, hugging her ferociously. Her progress back to sound health was steady from then on, although it took her several months to regain the weight she had lost. Soon she was able to move back to the Tamaiparea whare, well enough to take part in life at Waikaraka again, even though it was a life increasingly overshadowed by the simmering war.

There had been no direct confrontations between imperial troops and Maori since the clash at Waireka, although both forces continued to patrol the countryside. The men of Ngati Pono were involved in these patrols, but, like the warriors of other allied hapu, came home whenever possible to carry on with the essential tasks of gathering food and tending to crops. Tai came and went, too, but was so busy that Isla barely saw him. Because Waikaraka was so isolated, it was not subjected to the raids that imperial troops made on other Maori villages, slaughtering or running off livestock and destroying crops. Still, Wira kept Waikaraka on full alert, poised to depart for Puketeitei at a moment’s notice.

However, in May it became evident that Gold had at least temporarily suspended hostilities against Taranaki Maori, and Wira believed that he knew why: the Kingites from Waikato, led by the Maori king Potatau, were considering becoming allies of Wiremu Kingi. If the government continued to attack Kingi without provocation, they knew they risked incurring the wrath of a much larger Maori force. Worryingly, though, the government seemed to be going to great lengths to discredit Kingi in the Waikato, as well as trying to drum up support from the various pro-government chiefs, whom Wira felt should all be lined up and shot. But in June, when Kingi returned home from a hui with Kingites in the Waikato, he brought back with him a large Ngati Maniapoto taua, or war party, who made clear that they were willing to fight. Making the most of this opportunity, Kingi set about openly building a fighting pa at a site called Puketakauere, insultingly close to the imperial camp at Waitara. When Wira
learned of this, he and the Ngati Pono men departed for Waitara immediately.

Those who remained at Waikaraka, now suffering the same harsh, wintry and flooded conditions as the rest of the region, were elated to hear of the decisive Maori victory at Puketakauere on 27 July. Not long after, Gold evacuated the women and children from New Plymouth. Most of the men and a stubborn core of women who remained in the besieged, disease-ridden town over the winter found themselves living in conditions no better than those experienced in many of the local Maori villages, now also suffering from rampant illnesses and severe deprivation. Maori raids continued and moved ever closer to New Plymouth, and the government returned to sanctioning equally devastating assaults, including four on Ati Awa villages at Waitara.

What happened in the following months, the inhabitants of Waikaraka learned piecemeal from passing travellers and those men who returned to the village to recuperate from battle wounds. The fighting began in November, at Mahoetahi, between Waitara and the Bell Block Stockade, and continued sporadically until 18 March when hostilities ceased. Three weeks later, the war in Taranaki was over.

But neither settlers nor Maori were happy with the terms of truce. The government would assess whether the purchase of the Peka Peka Block had been unlawful, while Kingi’s general, Te Hapurona, would be allowed to take possession of the Matarikoriko stockade on the Waitara River, and receive a salary of a hundred pounds a year. In return, he would see that Maori in
the area kept the peace, would return all looted property, and hand over for trial all those who had killed civilian settlers. Maori were also expected to submit formally to Queen Victoria’s authority. Wiremu Kingi retired to the Waikato in exile, Governor Browne quietly began to implement plans to invade the Waikato, and Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron arrived in New Zealand to replace Major General Pratt, who had in turn replaced Colonel Gold.

When Wira returned to Waikaraka, he told his people that although Ngati Pono had lost men, and the Peka Peka Block remained in British hands, the numbers of Kingite followers had increased greatly and therefore the war had not been in vain. And that when the time came to fight again, as it most surely would, they would be ready to rise once more.

1861–1864

J
ULY
1861

I
sla hadn’t particularly liked Te Katate when she had first been introduced to him, and she liked him even less now. Kura, one of the Ngati Pono girls, had recently told her that he hadn’t wanted to attend Isla when she was ill because she was Pakeha. It had been an unnecessary thing to say, and Isla hadn’t understood why Kura had been so unkind until Mere explained that Kura wanted to be Tai’s wife.

‘Oh,’ Isla said. ‘Well, she’s welcome tae him.’

Noting the blood that had rushed to Isla’s face, Mere said quickly, ‘Is she? Are you sure?’

And, suddenly, Isla wasn’t. Kura was an attractive girl, with lovely big eyes and a much more lush and curvaceous figure than her own, and, now that Isla thought about it, Kura did seem to
spend a lot of time around Tai, giggling and tossing her hair. The realization that Kura might be staking her claim hit Isla with rather an unpleasant jolt, and it occurred to her that, for the first time in her life, she was experiencing jealousy. But Tai had said he wanted to be her lover, hadn’t he? And that led to an even more alarming thought: what if Tai had
already
been Kura’s lover? The notion felt like a writhing, twisted knot in Isla’s belly, and she crossed her arms to try to subdue it.

‘And, do not forget,’ Mere added as she divided a large bundle of puha, ‘that Kura is Te Katate’s granddaughter. He would be very pleased to see a union between her and the hapu’s most eligible young man. What is the matter, e hine? You do not look very happy.’

‘I’m fine, thank ye,’ Isla said testily, thinking about all the advances that Tai had made, and how she had given him nothing in return.

Since the war had ended several months ago, Tai was away less, and he had pursued her with a doggedness that surprised then amused everyone, presenting her with gifts such as a small pounamu pendant, a comb for her hair, or sometimes just something particularly tasty to eat. Several weeks ago, he had returned from one of his travels with a length of tartan for her, a gesture so thoughtful she had almost wept. The fact that it wasn’t McKinnon tartan didn’t matter at all, and she had already started to fashion it into a handsome cloak. Pare had been wildly impressed, telling her that Tai had never gone to such extremes to court a girl.

Isla, for her part, could not deny that she found Tai very
alluring: he was handsome, strong, vital, full of himself, and he made her laugh. But since she had arrived at Waikaraka fifteen months ago, she had not allowed herself to believe that there was any room in her heart for anyone but Niel, Jean and Jamie. She had almost, she reflected uneasily, taken his presence and his attentions for granted.

‘You do not look fine,’ Mere remarked archly.

‘Has she been interested in Tai for long? Kura, I mean?’ Isla asked, trying but failing to sound indifferent.

‘Oh, only since she was a small girl.’

Isla blinked. ‘Are they betrothed?’

‘No, it has always been an informal understanding.’ Mere turned back to her task and said breezily, ‘But Kura would marry Tai tomorrow if she could.’

As Isla wandered off, apparently deep in thought, Mere smiled down at her basket of puha.

Matters came to a head several evenings later during a feast for visitors from a neighbouring hapu. Tai had invited Isla to eat with him after she and the other women had finished serving, but when she went to take her place she found Kura there, smirking, while Tai looked on uncomfortably.

Isla felt her heart thud with a combination of jealousy and indignation. ‘Excuse me, I think that’s
my
place.’

‘I think not,’ Kura replied, and flicked her hair so that it fanned out prettily.

‘No, I believe I wis invited tae sit here.’

Heads began to turn.

Kura smiled arrogantly. ‘And I believe I was here first.’

‘Only because ye didnae help wi’ the serving.’

‘Te Katate says that those who do not move quickly enough miss out. And you have missed out, Isla McKinnon.’

Tai looked around for help, but none was forthcoming; the unfolding drama was too riveting.

Isla’s anger rose a level. She bent close to Kura’s face and hissed, ‘It’s
me
he wants tae marry.’

‘Ae, and it is
me
he has lain with,’ Kura retorted, loudly enough for those nearby to hear.

Isla glanced at Tai’s mortified expression, then back at Kura. ‘Hussy!’

‘Pakeha stray!’

Isla raised her hand, then remembered where she was and lowered it again.

Kura sneered, ‘Go away, girl. You are too late.’

And Isla stood up straight, lifted her head and walked away: she would fight for Tai, but not in public.

Isla lay awake thinking for much of the night, but by the time the morning came she knew exactly what she was going to do.

She rose early, washed, combed her hair, ate a piece of last night’s bread and walked to the river. The sun had risen, although its wintry light was watery, and the hills surrounding the valley
were crowned with wreaths of mist. The land was quiet, except for birdsong, a welcoming low from Rosie and the familiar sounds of the river itself.

She knew where he would be, and fifteen minutes later she came to him, standing thigh-deep in the river checking his hinaki, his eel pots. She could see from the bank that the pot he was holding was full of fat eels. He looked up at her, but said nothing.

Very slowly, not breaking eye contact with him and with her heart beating so furiously she was sure he would hear it, Isla began to take off her clothes. First her blouse fluttered to the ground, then her skirt, and, finally, her chemise. Her skin goose-pimpling from both nervous excitement and the cool morning air, she walked into the river, stifling a gasp as the cold water rose over her ankles, then to her knees. But she was pleased with her small, firm breasts, and the way the long muscles of her thighs tautened as she waded farther out, and the drops of water that made golden lace of her pubic hair.

Tai stared, then began to smile as the eel pot slipped from his hands.

‘Isla,’ he breathed when she stood before him. ‘My beautiful Isla.’

She took his hand and led him back to the riverbank, where he tried, eagerly but gently, to lay her down on the grass.

But she wriggled away and pushed
him
down, then sat on him, straddling his hips. He caught her hair in his hands and drew her face down to his and kissed her lingeringly until Isla broke
away. Gazing fiercely into his dark eyes, and only half aware that she was beginning to pant with anticipation, she traced the lines of his moko with her fingers, then trailed them down his throat where his pulse jumped excitedly, and across his muscled chest to his nipples, which were as erect as hers. She bent and kissed each one, then bit softly.

Tai groaned and his hips rose to meet her, but she moved out of reach and continued her exploration of his chest until she came to his flat belly. He tried to sit up, his stomach muscles rippling, but she pushed him down again and worked at the ties on his short maro until it fell away, revealing just how very excited Tai was.

She sat above him, her white thighs stark against the brown of his skin and the swollen darkness of his passion. She lowered her head and let hair trail across him, eliciting another, increasingly desperate, groan. He reached for her breasts to caress them, but Isla grasped his wrists and pushed them down by his sides, slid her hands up to his biceps and, leaning on him, positioned herself above him. She knew her body was ready, and slowly, slowly, she lowered herself and let him slide into her. She gave a quick intake of breath at the stinging moment of resistance, then heard her own involuntary moan of desire as he filled her.

Suddenly he flipped her over and was driving into her, his weight on his elbows and his hands cupping her face. She raised her knees and wrapped her arms around his broad back until, only moments later, teeth bared, he shuddered to a climax that drew from him a long, guttural moan. And then he subsided onto
her, panting heavily, his face buried in her damp neck.

Alarmed at his sudden inertia, Isla waited half a minute then whispered, ‘Are ye all right?’

Tai heaved himself onto one elbow and gazed at her. Then he grinned. ‘Isla, I have never been better.’

‘Oh.’ Then, because she couldn’t think of what to do next, Isla said, ‘Your eels will have got away.’

Tai flapped a hand dismissively. ‘Plenty more in the river. But there is only one of you, Isla. And I will never let you go.’

S
EPTEMBER
1861

Isla discovered that getting married was not a simple process. If she had still been living on Skye there would have been no need for parental permission, the banns would simply have been proclaimed, followed a few weeks later by a short wedding ceremony performed in church and perhaps a bridescake afterwards. But apparently not at Waikaraka. Because of Isla’s adopted status as a daughter of a rangatira, she was a puhi, an eligible girl of rank, so her marriage required considerable ceremony. Tai also had mana, as the grandson of Miharo, another tohunga in the village, a man steeped in the knowledge of Maori forest lore and guardian of the venerable history of Ngati Pono warfare.

Mere asked Isla if there was anything from her life on Skye she would like incorporated into her wedding at Waikaraka. But all Isla wanted was a silver sixpence to put in her shoe on the
day of the ceremony to bring her luck, and to wear her mother’s wedding ring.

On the morning of her wedding day, Isla rose early to bathe in the river. There were several hundred visitors staying at Waikaraka for the celebration, and she was grateful to have an hour or so to gather her thoughts. She was thrilled to be marrying Tai, but if she could magically be granted one single wish, it would be that her parents could be there to see it.

When she had washed, Mere escorted her back to the Tamaiparea whare where she rubbed her skin with the sweet-scented oil of titoki berries and dressed for the ceremony. Mere had somehow managed to procure a pale blue poplin skirt and white blouse, both in excellent condition, and had patched and washed Isla’s old chemise, which had been let out many times now. The skirt had been taken in, as the previous owner had evidently been a woman with a more generous waist measurement, but the blouse—a long-sleeved style in lawn that fastened at the neck with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons—was a perfect fit. Around Isla’s waist Mere tied the maro, or apron, she had worn to marry Wira. The red feathers of the kaka, the white feathers of the kereru, and the shells woven into the very fine harakeke contrasted strikingly with the blue of the skirt.

‘Of course, I did not wear a garment underneath,’ she said as she fastened the ties. ‘We did not often favour Pakeha clothing in those days.’

‘Did ye no’ get cold, wearing something as short as this?’ Isla asked, her arms raised.

‘No. We had blankets, and our cloaks.’ Mere dug in her skirt pocket, then opened her hand. ‘I would be honoured, Isla, if you would consent to wearing these. They have been in my family for generations.’

Isla looked at the greenstone earrings softly shining in the palm of Mere’s hand and felt her eyes prick with tears.

‘Oh, Mere, they’re verra beautiful. I’d love tae wear them. Thank ye,’ she said, threading the fine twine attached to them through the holes in her earlobes.

Mere then lifted the kakahu, the ceremonial cloak, and settled it around Isla, passing it under her right armpit and fastening it over her left shoulder. The cloak was even more lavishly decorated than the maro, heavily layered with rows of kiwi and pukeko feathers, rich red-brown and gleaming blue-green, respectively, and trimmed with a red, white and black taniko border.

The kakahu was heavy, and Isla rolled her shoulders to position it more comfortably.

Mere stood back. ‘You wear it well, Isla. You look very beautiful. But there is one more thing.’ She reached for a carved wooden box and opened it, carefully extracting a handful of blue-black feathers with snow-white tips.

‘These are huia feathers. They belong to Pikaki, and are precious. Only people of significant rank or mana may wear them. She wished me to ask you if you would like to wear them today.’

Deeply touched by Pikaki’s consideration, and this demonstration of the old woman’s approval of her marriage to Tai, Isla could only nod, unable to speak. Mere attempted to place
the feathers, but Isla’s hair, although abundant, was too fine to hold them, so Mere crafted two thin plaits from the hair near Isla’s face, joined them at the back of her head and secured the feathers that way. She also tucked in the silver sixpence, as Isla was to be married barefoot.

‘There,’ she said when she had finished. ‘That should do, as long as the wind does not blow too hard.’

Isla had a sudden, uncharacteristic urge to admire herself in a mirror, but there wasn’t one. Just as well, she thought wryly; her mother had always told her that some sort of fall was guaranteed to follow an episode of self-serving pride.

The wedding ceremony itself was brief, and in truth Isla was distracted throughout by the sight of her magnificent, beautiful and virile soon-to-be husband. Tai wore a shirt and trousers, over which hung a cloak equally as splendid as Isla’s, except that Tai’s appeared to be decorated solely with kiwi feathers and was fastened at the shoulder with a curved whalebone pin. He also wore a pounamu earring, and his black hair was swept back and adorned with more huia feathers.

Miharo, charged with intoning the karakia that would bind them together in happiness forever, directed a pointed look at them when Isla declared that she did not want to take Tai’s name of Te Ruanuku—she would rather keep the name McKinnon, in memory of her father and mother. But Tai didn’t mind, and the moment passed.

The celebration after the ceremony was much longer, the feasting, speech-making and dancing continuing well into the night. There were many ribald comments about newlyweds accompanied by shrieks of laughter from the women and roars from the men, much covert advice from giggling wives about how to keep a husband happy, which made Isla blush to the roots of her hair, and a good handful of small, overexcited children who threw up and had to be taken aside and cleaned up. The festivities went on for so long, in fact, that when Isla and Tai finally escaped to the new whare they would share as man and wife, they both fell asleep as soon as they lay down.