Maori

by Alan Dean Foster

  There was only one thing that made her father worse than being drunk, and that was for someone to see him drunk. He drank freely but carefully among his friends. That he would get falling-down drunk by himself in the privacy of his own home was something no one knew but herself and the household staff. Hull didn’t worry about any of them gossiping. Nor were they tempted to try their master’s temper by whispering his weaknesses.

  She pressed her back against the wall and waited. She considered giving up and going back to the bed in her small, spare room, but only for a moment. She wasn’t sleepy and she fully intended to go out tonight. Joby and Edward would be waiting for her. They wouldn’t wait forever, she knew.

  Joby was the netmaker’s son and Edward his best friend. Nobody knew who Edward’s parents were, but he was always well-dressed and had a few coins in his pocket. He refused to show Joby and Rose his home. She suspected this was because he didn’t have one, but neither she nor Joby ever challenged him on it.

  She was dressed in the boys’ clothing her father favored, which suited her purposes well. It made her less conspicuous as she scurried around the harborfront with her friends. The heavy cap fell over her forehead. She made sure it was secure. It was damp outside and there was talk of more rain. It rained often in Auckland this time of year. Unhealthy weather for an eleven-year-old girl to be taking nocturnal strolls in.

  She’d been caught once or twice but that only made her more determined to continue. Mrs. Pertwee had lectured her ad nauseum about the dangers she was risking. Why, any man might catch her and turn her over to the police, or worse. The governess had gone on at length about “other men.” Not just people like themselves, good God-fearing Christian white people, but Chinamen and Malays and worse who made Auckland a temporary port-of-call. They’d like nothing better, Mrs. Pertwee assured her charge, than the chance to abduct a mildly pretty little colonist and carry her off to slavery in some sadistic sultan’s harem.

  It didn’t take Rose long to realize that Mrs. Pertwee enjoyed giving such lessons. As a result it made it impossible for the girl to take her instructor seriously.

  She knew how to run, where to hide. With the clothes she wore and the cap pulled down over her face no one could tell her from a boy. When they found out she was a girl Joby and Edward had turned leery of her, but soon accepted her into their company when they discovered she was as reckless and daring as either of them. Rose wasn’t much interested in the girlish pursuits Mrs. Pertwee inflicted on her. How much more interesting to sneak into the waterfront taverns to listen to talk of pirates and whaling!

  The governess protested to Tobias Hull.

  “Let the whelp run where she will. If she gets killed, that’s her loss.”

  Mrs. Pertwee never mentioned it thereafter.

  Her father paid little attention to Rose at all, except to yell at her or hit her. At such times Mrs. Pertwee and the rest of the household staff would retreat to their rooms and close their doors, not coming out until the sobbing had subsided. They would walk quickly past the beaten girl, studiously avoiding her eyes. Rose didn’t blame them. All of them were terrified of her father.

  At least Mrs. Pertwee strove for neutrality, favoring neither Tobias Hull nor abused daughter. Her job was to teach and instruct and she resolutely did that and no more. Rose was convinced the governess didn’t like her. What she didn’t realize was that Mrs. Pertwee’s heart often went out to her charge but that she was frightened of establishing any emotional bond that might interfere with her ability to do her work. It might induce her to intercede on Rose’s behalf one day. That would only get her fired. But Rose wasn’t mature enough to understand that, so she saw only the coldly formal woman who presided over her lessons every day.

  She continued to listen motionlessly, standing on the thick rug which had come all the way from Persia and which her father had purchased far too cheaply. The house surrounding her was immaculate. Not because Hull was a particularly fastidious man but because he could afford to keep it that way and it impressed his occasional visitor. Every morning a cluster of Maoris and colonists appeared as if by magic to sweep and polish and wax and buff the entire cavernous edifice, only to vanish by lunchtime and reappear like clockwork the next day.

  Besides Mrs. Pertwee there was Miss Tournier, the portly old Frenchwoman who did the cooking and had a room of her own at the back of the house. Miss Tournier talked to herself a lot. Tobias Hull found this amusing, especially as it unnerved the proper Mrs. Pertwee. It didn’t bother Rose at all.

  Her left leg itched and she crossed her right foot over to scratch. She’d have to move soon. Joby and Edward would get tired and go off without her, assuming quite naturally that the third member of the little club had been unable to gain her freedom.

  A new ship had just docked at Pier Six, stuffed with cargo from both the Americas. There was no telling what it might contain, what stories its crew would have to tell. Adventure! That was something sorely lacking in the stultified, prim lives of Rose’s society equals. Girls her age seemed obsessed with sewing and cooking, with frilly dresses and jewelry. They were just beginning to notice the older boys, giggling as they whispered about which was the most handsome, or the strongest, or the most, polite.

  None of it interested Rose. She already had boyfriends: Joby and Edward. Friends who regarded her their equal. She’d proved her worth on numerous occasions and they had long since ceased disputing whether to take her along on their riskier excursions. There were even times when they deferred to her judgement, realizing that there were areas where she was smarter than they. Neither boy was too old to take directions from a girl.

  Her father had stopped shouting and was crying now. That was a good sign. Usually when he started crying he wasn’t far from falling unconscious. She checked the big clock at the end of the hall. Still time. She would wait.

  His mumbling drifted out of the parlor, the only other sound in the house the tick-tick of the grandfather clock. Mrs. Pertwee would be cowering in her room, Rose knew, pretending she didn’t hear anything. Miss Tournier would be oblivious, muttering in her sleep.

  Flora, he was moaning. Rose knew that was her mother’s name. The woman who’d died giving birth to her. She knew her father blamed her for her mother’s death. That had always struck her as strange, seeing as how she hadn’t existed at the time. How could she have done anything? She was sorry her mother had died, at least as sorry as her father. All the other children she knew had both mothers and fathers. There was one girl her age, Clara Felling, whose mother had died when her daughter turned six, but at least she’d had a mother for a few years. At least she knew what it was like. There were good memories.

  Rose had no memories at all. There was only her father and Mrs. Pertwee and dotty Miss Tournier. Sometimes when she saw the other girls playing or walking with their mothers and fathers Rose would cry. That had stopped a long time ago. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.

  Of course she did have a father, though on more than one occasion she realized she’d be better off with him dead. She didn’t wish for that. There was ample reason for her to do so but she wasn’t that kind of person. It was even possible for her to empathize with her father’s distress. Apparently he’d loved her mother very much, though why he felt it necessary to take out his anger and frustration on his only child she would never understand.

  The English clock chimed. Was it half past the hour or one o’clock already? If one, she would have missed the boys for sure and might as well return to bed.

  She couldn’t linger here any longer. Go one way or the other, she told herself, but go. It wasn’t far to the door, a few feet past the parlor entrance. Surely her father was so drunk by now that he wouldn’t see her tiptoe past, wouldn’t hear the slight creak of the door as she slipped the latch and opened it enough to slip through. Even if he did hear, by then she’d be gone like a shot down the dark street.

  She took a couple of tentative steps, already feeli
ng the latch in her hand, the cool night air on her face.

  “Girl? Stop.”

  Her heart rose into her throat. She took another step.

  “Damn you, you stop right there, you little bitch!”

  Unable to breathe, unable to swallow, she turned. Her father was standing nearby, still inside the parlor, a near empty bottle dangling loosely from his left hand. He was swaying but still erect.

  “Thought you could sneak out on me, didn’t you?” He raised the bottle, made several attempts to find his lips before succeeding. Whiskey trickled out of his mouth and down his chin to join the heavy stains on his shirt front.

  She watched motionless, gauging the distance to the door. No good. He could move quickly when he was angry, the liquor notwithstanding.

  “Flora,” he mumbled. He turned back to her and his expression twisted into something so ugly anyone else would have run away instantly. Except there was nowhere for Rose to run but back to her room and she knew that wouldn’t save her. Once she’d locked the door on him only to find it enraged him all the more. After breaking down the door he’d beaten her until even poor old Miss Tournier had started to cry.

  She’d been unable to walk for two days after that beating. Finally a frightened Mrs. Pertwee had dared to summon the doctor. Like everyone else the doctor was scared of Tobias Hull, but perhaps not as much as some other people because he’d talked silently and steadily to her father and for a change her father had listened. Not that he cared if she lived or died, she knew, but he was worried about what the circumstances of her death might do to his standing in the business community. There might be some men in New Zealand who would do business with a child-killer, but most would not.

  After that he was more careful, more calculating. He made sure he stopped beating her before he did any serious damage. But when he was this drunk it was hard for him to keep control.

  He took a step toward her, hesitated and frowned as though unsure of his intentions. At such times she couldn’t tell if he was looking at her, past her, or through her. Sometimes she thought he was looking not at her but at her dead mother, whom she’d been told she much resembled. She was grateful for the confusion, needing all the protection she could get.

  That’s when he said it again, spitting it out as he had so many times before. “Why couldn’t it have been a boy? If you had to take my Flora from me why couldn’t you at least have given me a son!”

  As always, God didn’t answer. He never did, despite the priest’s assurances in church that he sometimes would. Perhaps her father pleaded too hard, or was too drunk for God to understand.

  One time she’d tried to talk to him about it and he’d beaten her as hard as he ever had. She learned fast and never mentioned it again. When her father was like this it was best to say as little as possible. He wasn’t asking the question of her anyway.

  If her father was known to God, she’d long ago decided, it was only in the most fleeting manner.

  “I’m not going to put up with it anymore.” He was bawling now, babbling to himself and his private demons. “I’m sick of it! Sick of paying for your room and board, you useless little whore. Don’t you think I know about you and your boyfriends?” He laughed, a mean-spirited, sniggering little noise as his eyes seemed to draw closer together. “Do you let them play with you? Do they give you money?”

  He straightened and his eyes swept over the parlor. Two massive claymore swords hung crossed above the fireplace mantle, brought all the way ’round to the colony by a man no longer in need of them. Hull staggered toward the fireplace, taking another swallow from the bottle as he wrenched one huge blade from its braces. At that point Rose knew she should have run no matter what the risk, but she was too terrified, paralyzed by the sight of the enormous sword in her father’s hand. Then it was too late to bolt toward the door or the stairs.

  “Put an end to it,” Hull grunted as he struggled to balance bottle and weapon. “Finish the game once and for all.” He took another step toward her, very near now, then slipped two steps sideways as he momentarily lost his balance.

  Her eyes were fastened on the sword. The blade was taller than she was. “I’ll tell Mrs. Pertwee,” she found herself saying in a voice so soft she didn’t know if he heard.

  He heard, all right. His head went back and he roared with amusement.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Riggins.”

  “That useless twit? Wouldn’t do you any good if you got the chance, bitch.” John Riggins was a local magistrate whose children Rose sometimes played with, they being less stuck-up than most of the children in her neighborhood. Their father had once smiled at her. Rose remembered every kindly smile she’d ever received in her life, easy enough since they were so infrequent.

  “He won’t save you. Nobody’s going to save you.” Once more his expression changed, became that of an animal instead of a man.

  He tried to take another swallow from the bottle only to find it empty. With a roar he heaved it at her. She flinched as it missed her by a foot to shatter against the floor behind. If not Miss Tournier maybe the sound would bring Mrs. Pertwee. Then she reminded herself that the governess had probably been awake all this time, listening as she cowered in her bed like a frightened mouse, pretending she didn’t hear.

  “Useless little runt.” He took another step toward her, a man trying to cross a chasm on a shaky rope bridge. A second step.

  He was gesturing weakly with the claymore when his eyes rolled back and he toppled forward. There was always the chance, she thought emotionlessly as he fell, that he might fall on the sword. It was big enough to kill him instantly. She could see it happening in her mind’s eye as he seemed to fall in slow motion: the heavy point piercing his chest, sliding through the meat and skin to punch its way free from the back of his fine, whiskey-sodden English jacket.

  The sword simply fell from his hand, bouncing a few feet to roll to a stop. Sword and man lay on the carpet, equally motionless.

  She started to breathe again. Then she walked over to stare down at him. His chest was moving slowly. Once he snorted but didn’t roll over.

  Her gaze shifted until she located the handle of the huge blade. Bending, she found that her small hands would just fit around the metal grip. It took all of her strength to raise the end off the floor, dragging the tip across the carpet. It would be difficult to lift further but she thought she could manage it, and it was so heavy it would penetrate of its own weight. All she had to do was place it on the back of the unconscious man’s neck and lean forward and it would all be over in an instant. All the torture, all the pain and fear. She would finally be safe. No one would blame her or even think of her. An accident, they would call it, or the act of a desperate intruder surprised in the middle of his thievery. The police would not even think to question a solemn-faced, quiet little girl.

  She wouldn’t be destitute, wouldn’t be forced to roam the alleys and docks like Edward. Friendly families would vie to take her in. With Tobias Hull gone Mrs. Pertwee would leap to her defense quick enough to describe what the poor child had undergone since infancy.

  Her arms were trembling from the effort of supporting the steel. Slowly she let the blade down. Having faced it so many times she knew well what death was, but she could face it again easier than she could cause it. She left the claymore by her father’s side as she backed out of the parlor.

  The latch on the heavy glass and wood door lifted easily. She made sure it was shut behind her, then turned to face the night. Outside the horrible house the air was rich with damp Auckland. She could smell the distant docks, other houses, the sea. A dog howled nearby and a cat flicked across her vision as it darted between two homes. Near the safety of a tree it paused briefly to stare across at her. It blinked once, its eyes flashing like tiny lights in the darkness.

  The heavily swaddled shape it had been watching on the porch opposite had vanished. The cat blinked again, though this time there was no one to witness it, and vanished into the bushes.
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br />   It was starting to rain. Time for all creatures of the night to seek shelter.

  BOOK THREE

  1858

  1

  The General Thomas was not in the same class as the famed gentlemen’s clubs of London like the St. James and similar establishments, but it was certainly the fanciest private watering hole Auckland had yet seen. Its comfortable sitting rooms reeked of fine tobacco and wine, were furnished with chairs and lounges of hand-carved walnut, Kauri and mahogany. Paintings from Europe and America lined the walls while glass cases displayed English silver and the best china Cathay had to offer. London it was not, but it was a far cry from the bars of old Kororareka.

  Robert Coffin handed his hat and cane to the doorman. There was just time enough for a cup of tea and a quick perusal of the morning paper before he had to attend the completion of the new warehouse, the company’s third. He was heading toward his favorite chair, the one by the window, when he spotted Angus McQuade, Ainsworth, Walter Ransom and a number of Auckland’s other leading citizens deep in animated conversation. They’d drawn their chairs into a semicircle facing the slate-faced fireplace. He hesitated until he was certain Tobias Hull wasn’t among them before changing direction.

  He knew McQuade was present without seeing him. Young Angus had become addicted to expensive imported cigars and there was always a private cloud following him wherever he went. Like those of his fireside companions, McQuade’s business had thrived during the past decade. The wealthy burghers of Auckland could now afford some of the finer things of life. They were catching up for years of hard work and privation with a vengeance. Coffin shook his head knowingly. They spent most of their time in ornately decorated offices these days, ordering flunkies about instead of overseeing their various enterprises in person.