Isle of Tears (29 page)

Te Whaenga opened his hands, palms up. ‘We did
not
know.’ He gestured vaguely at his comrades sitting around the camp fire, trying not to listen. ‘We left the taua last night to hunt for kereru.
Then…’—he made an exaggerated sniffing noise—‘…we smelled the roha, the rose. The roha does not grow here. Only rewarewa has a strong smell.’

The rose soap that Hope had thoughtfully put into her peke: Isla could have kicked herself.

‘So we followed our noses,’ Te Whaenga went on. ‘And there you were! A little Highland rose!’ He removed the pipe from his mouth and appraised her through half-closed eyes. ‘I have not had a white-skinned woman before. I am looking forward to it.’

Isla strained against the rope and kicked out at him.

Te Whaenga only laughed, then rose gracefully to his feet. ‘But not yet. You are too angry.’ He stepped out of range as Isla spat at him. ‘Although, in my experience, that sometimes makes things…even better.’

They arrived at Te Whaenga’s kainga towards dusk the following day. The village lay near the shore of a very beautiful lake which Isla assumed to be Rotoma. The lake itself wasn’t particularly large, but it was almost completely surrounded by high, forest-clad hills and the water was as clear as crystal. The sun, just touching the summit of a hill to the west, spilled molten gold across the calm surface. Isla could almost understand why Te Whaenga’s people had become turncoats to keep it.

The village was a little smaller than Waikaraka, but just as neatly laid out, with gardens, stock fences and several large, spectacularly decorated houses. The courtyard in front of the
wharenui was only about a hundred yards from the shingled shoreline, and Isla could hear the susurration of the small pebbles as tiny waves crept in off the lake. But, again, she noticed that strange, metallic smell she had first tasted on the wind the day before yesterday. But it was stronger here, like sulphur. Like Hell, as she had always imagined it to be.

As the villagers gathered around to stare at her, Isla was taken to a small whare at the rear of the wharenui. Laddie trotted determinedly after her, but when the man named Noko attempted to hold him back, Laddie spun around, snarled and snapped at his hand, which Noko rapidly withdrew. He looked to Te Whaenga, who shrugged. ‘It does not matter. For now.’

So Isla entered the whare, which had only one small window and was almost dark inside. A few minutes later Noko followed her and, to her horror, produced a set of leg irons.

She scrambled away from him. ‘No, I willnae run away.’

He had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘I am sorry. It is what he said to do,’ he said as he reached for her legs. She pulled them away, and he reached for them again. ‘Do not struggle.’

She closed her eyes against the tears and extended her legs in front of her, feeling the weight of the metal as the irons were put on. They were not as heavy as they looked, but they would stop her from running, and certainly from riding. She wondered whom they had last shackled, and opened her eyes.

‘Leg irons are for prisoners and slaves,’ she whispered. ‘I will
never
be a slave.’

Noko wouldn’t look at her, and turned away. As soon as he
had gone, Isla stood to see how much of a step she could take, and discovered that anything more than a small one would trip her. She sat down again.

‘Oh Laddie, what are we gonnae do?’

He flopped down beside her and she lay with her head against his belly, grateful to be so close to the heartbeat of someone she loved.

She awoke when the oilcloth was pulled back from the doorway and the sun streamed into the whare and across her face.

‘E oho,’ a woman’s voice commanded.

Isla tried to wake up, but even her bones felt tired. She blinked, made sure that Laddie was still beside her and struggled into a sitting position.

A woman stood in the doorway, holding back the cloth. She was quite possibly the most beautiful Maori woman Isla had ever seen. Her dark eyes were almond-shaped and the lashes very long, her mouth wide and her lips full and smooth, and her nose was almost aquiline—a shape not normally associated with Arawa. Isla wondered if her whakapapa included Ngati Kahungungu.

‘I am Hukapapa,’ the woman said. ‘I am Te Whaenga’s wife.’

Her name meant frost, and Isla could certainly hear it in her voice.

Hukapapa set a basket on the floor. ‘Kai.’

But Isla had a more urgent need. ‘I need a mimi.’

Rolling her eyes, Hukapapa moved the basket aside and
beckoned. Isla glanced at the irons on her legs, then back at Hukapapa.

‘It is not far,’ the Maori woman said irascibly. ‘Hurry up.’

Outside, she firmly gripped Isla’s elbow, half-marched her through the village to the latrines and waited while Isla did her business. Then she marched her straight back to the whare. Once she was inside, sitting down, Hukapapa also entered, and loomed over her, her long, lustrous hair almost touching Isla’s face.

‘Listen to me, e hine. As I have said, Te Whaenga is my husband. He is a man of large appetites. I do not mind him eating to excess, or fighting, or even his colossal arrogance. But I
do
mind him lying with other women.’

‘Ye’ve nothing to worry aboot there,’ Isla snapped. ‘I wouldnae touch him if he wis the last man alive.’

Hukapapa flicked out a hand and slapped her. Not hard, but sharp enough to sting. Isla stared back at her, refusing even to blink.

‘Do not be so insulting,’ Hukapapa hissed. ‘And you are likely to have little choice. He is a man. He is ruled by his passions and led by his ure. But I am warning you, if you accept his advances I will not tolerate it!’

Laddie growled. Hukapapa growled back at him and he jerked his head up in confusion.

‘Do you understand me?’ she said.

Isla nodded, but she had already decided—she would rather die than lie with this woman’s husband.

To her relief, Te Whaenga appeared to be very busy, and left her alone. She was put to work in the gardens and harvesting flax; and one morning, a week after her arrival, she trudged to the wharekai for her meal to find that half of the men of the village had gone, Te Whaenga included.

She asked a woman where they were, and was told that they had been called to a council of war and might not be back for some time. As Isla put pork and kumara into her basket, she felt some easing of the anxiety that had formed a hard, sour knot in her belly over the past few weeks. But she still had to work out how she was going to escape from the village. She would be going nowhere until she could rid herself of the leg irons, which were beginning to rub painfully at the skin above her boots whenever she walked. She had tried in vain to open them, but knew that unless she somehow obtained the key, or managed to smash the chain, she was trapped.

She was not a slave here—slavery among Maori had almost died out, thanks to the efforts of the Pakeha missionaries—but nor was she quite a prisoner. Although she couldn’t leave the village, she was not locked up at night, and no one took much notice of her when she was working in the gardens. If she had wanted to slip away, she could have, but making her way through the bush in leg irons would be impossible, and she would soon be apprehended again.

And the people were not unkind; they treated her more like some sort of poor relative than a slave or a captive. A woman had fetched angiangi for her a few days ago when her mate marama
had begun, a tohunga had offered her salve for the chafing around her ankles, someone else had given her a mat and blanket for her whare, and she had been allowed to change into her skirt, as she couldn’t get her trousers off over the irons when she wanted to bathe in the lake. In fact, all her possessions had been returned to her, except for her knife and her shotgun.

But when she had asked various people why she was being held at the village, none had said it was because she was a Kingite: they had all confessed, with varying degrees of embarrassment, that it was Te Whaenga’s will. Gradually, Isla was forming the impression that, even though Te Whaenga had great mana, he was a tyrant and a bully. She didn’t envy Hukapapa at all, having to live with the shame of her husband’s clearly very public proclivities. After her outburst on Isla’s first morning at the village, Hukapapa had said nothing more about him, although she had relaxed noticeably after he’d departed for the council.

But one day—on the sixteenth day of the new year of 1865, in fact, if Isla had kept track of the calendar correctly—Te Whaenga came back.

Te Whaenga ignored Isla for the first few days after his return, but one evening he came to her whare, entered without asking permission and sat down on the mat.

‘I am back,’ he announced.

Isla said nothing, and continued to weave blades of harakeke into the new food basket she was making. Laddie didn’t even look
up, and perhaps it was this that most angered Te Whaenga. He reached over, snatched the half-made basket from Isla’s hands and flung it across the whare.

‘I said, I am
back.’

Finally, Isla met his gaze. His eyes flashed with irritation and something else—she couldn’t decide whether it was cruelty or glee.

‘I am back, and I am weary of battle and in need of…entertainment.’ He stretched luxuriantly, the muscles in his chest and arms rippling. ‘I believe I will visit you here in your whare tonight. I expect you to prepare to receive me.’

Isla dared not let her gaze waver. ‘I cannae. I have the mate marama,’ she said, thanking God that, as of this morning, it was true.

Te Whaenga’s expression changed from one of anticipation to truculence. ‘I will send a woman to check,’ he threatened.

Isla shrugged. ‘As ye wish.’

He snorted in disgust. ‘How long until you are clean again?’

‘Seven days,’ Isla replied, adding two extra days to give herself more time.

Scowling deeply, Te Whaenga rose to his feet. ‘I will visit you after that.’ At the door of the whare he turned. ‘And I expect my wait to be worth it.’

An hour later, Hukapapa appeared. Isla had almost completed her basket and was busy weaving in the final few blades of flax to make the rim good and firm. Her heart had stopped racing, but she still felt vaguely sick at the thought of what Te Whaenga was
demanding. She set the basket down as his wife pulled aside the cloth and came in, an oil lantern held before her.

Hukapapa looked as though she had been weeping, but when she began to speak, Isla immediately knew that any tears would have been the result of rage and humiliation.

‘I am to check that you have the mate marama,’ she spat as she crouched in front of Isla. ‘My husband demands to know.’

‘Ae, it is ma time,’ Isla replied warily, feeling as ashamed as Hukapapa so clearly did.

Tossing her hair, Hukapapa said with as much hauteur as she could muster, ‘I refuse to look.’

‘Ye dinnae have tae. I’m no’ lying.’

Hukapapa seemed about to say something, then stopped herself.

Isla watched her, sensing a change in the other woman’s demeanour, a slight loosening. ‘Ye must hate him sometimes.’

With one finger, Hukapapa turned the lantern around and around on the packed-earth floor. Finally, she allowed her gaze to meet Isla’s, and they stared at each other.

Isla felt much calmer than she had expected. Standing on the mat in her whare, naked except for the irons around her ankles, she poured some of the scented oil she had been given into her hand, rubbed her palms together and began to smooth it over her skin. She had lost a little of the weight she had gained as a result of Mrs Chisolm’s cooking, but had been fed quite well here, and
knew that her body would please most men. She combed her hair until it was tangle-free and silky, and chewed on a piece of rangiora gum to freshen her breath, then spat it out of the window. Finally, she slipped into her skirt and blouse, tidied her belongings into a corner of the whare, and sat down on the mat to wait. A low stool and a lantern had been provided, together with a bowl of water and a basket containing several clean cloths, Laddie had been taken outside somewhere; night had fallen an hour ago, and she was ready.

She didn’t have to wait long; fewer than ten minutes later, Te Whaenga whipped open the oilcloth and entered the whare. He wore a blanket around his shoulders and, beneath that, a short maro. He seemed in high spirits, and when he saw the bowl of water he gave her one of his grins.

‘Ah, Hukapapa has been talking to you. She can be badtempered and a she-devil sometimes, but she has her uses.’

Isla forced herself to smile back at him.

Te Whaenga cast aside his blanket, lowered himself onto the stool, and sat with his legs apart and his hands on his knees. His taut thighs were completely covered with the dark, spiralling lines of moko. ‘You may start,’ he announced.

Isla swallowed as she took in his thick neck, the ridges of muscle that ran down his stomach and the bulky curves of his arms and legs. He was almost hairless, as many Maori men were, except for a thin line than began at his belly button, trailed downward and disappeared beneath his maro. Already, she could smell his sweat.

She placed the bowl of water on the ground, soaked a cloth
and began to wash one of his feet. She noticed that his toenails needed cutting, and that the calluses on his soles and heels were thick. Glancing up at him, she saw that he was watching her with undisguised amusement. She bathed the other foot, dried them off then reached for the oil and began to rub it slowly into his feet and calves. He groaned in appreciation.

As she moved the bowl and cloth basket behind the stool, out of the way, he gripped her shoulder and murmured, ‘Stand up, woman.’ He stared directly into her eyes and she felt almost unable to tear herself from his gaze.

She stood, and he tugged at her blouse. ‘Take this off.’

She hesitated only for a second, then slid the blouse up and over her head, letting it drop to the mat.

Te Whaenga stared at her breasts with open admiration. ‘Small, but very pretty,’ he remarked as he reached out and lasciviously stroked her nipples. He grasped the hem of her skirt and began to slide it up her legs.

Isla recoiled. ‘No!’