Amber

by Deborah Challinor

‘Your Daniel believes it was for revenge.’

  ‘He’s not my Daniel!’ Kitty shot back, and then her faced sagged with dismayed realisation. ‘Oh no, Rian, are you telling me he murdered Kinghazel for me?’

  ‘To avenge your honour? Yes, it appears so.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. I hardly know him.’

  ‘Well, you appear to have made quite an impression on him.’

  Kitty disentangled her feet from the sheets and hung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘But surely he didn’t say that? Not to you?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But obviously he’s infatuated.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Kitty frowned. ‘Is that why he stowed away with us?’

  Rian took another sip of brandy. ‘He said it was because he didn’t think I’d turn him in for Kinghazel’s murder.’

  ‘Was he right?’

  ‘Well, of course he was. I’ve agreed that we’ll take him as far as New Zealand. But after that he’ll have to make his own way. He did us both a favour, Kitty, but we can’t be responsible for him beyond what I’ve agreed to.’

  Kitty nodded, then looked down at her bare feet. ‘Does it matter, that he did what he did for me? And that he’s sailing with us now?’

  Rian stared into the bottom of his brandy glass. ‘Are you asking me does it bother me that he admires you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kitty said after a moment.

  ‘Should it?’ Rian asked.

  Kitty climbed off the bed and crossed the cabin to sit on his knee. She drew his head to her until his face rested against her breasts, and began to stroke his hair. ‘No, my love, it shouldn’t. I love you with all my heart and there is nothing in this world that will ever come between us, I promise.’

  And then she bent her head and kissed him.

  But later, when Rian was asleep beside her, his breath gentle on her bare shoulder, she stared up at the planked ceiling, listening to the steady hiss of the waves as they swept past the Katipo’s hull.

  She had lied to Rian, and it didn’t sit at all well with her. She had been almost speechless with surprise when the intruder in the hold had turned out to be Daniel Royce, and even more startled when Rian had told her of the crime he’d committed on her behalf. And then she’d begun to recall what she had suspected about Daniel four and a half years before, during those visits she’d made to Hyde Park Barracks, but had ignored because even then her heart had belonged to Rian, even if she hadn’t been willing to admit it. Daniel Royce had been falling in love with her. Or was at least well on the way to becoming infatuated, as Rian had suggested. He had known what she was up to, and had in fact seriously risked his position as a barracks officer by allowing her to smuggle in contraband to Avery Bannerman. She had flirted with him and taken advantage of him when she should have discouraged him, but she’d been so anxious to obtain Rian’s freedom, perhaps even save his life, that she’d not thought for a second about the consequences of her actions. She should never have gone back to say goodbye to Daniel before they’d sailed from Sydney, she knew that now, and she most certainly should not have kissed him.

  She sighed, but quietly so she wouldn’t disturb Rian. Daniel Royce very obviously wasn’t a boy any more. She had guessed at the time that he had been twenty years old, if that, which meant that he would now be twenty-four or twenty-five. He’d filled out noticeably and was really rather attractive, beneath the grime and the beard. Clearly, he also had a mind of his own and considerable determination, which, Kitty knew, Rian would find far more worrying than a pair of alluring brown eyes and a winning smile. And that was why she had not told him the truth about what had happened at the barracks.

  But Rian had no need to be worried: Daniel Royce was not, and never would be, a threat. What worried Kitty, however, was the flicker of unease she had seen in her husband’s eyes when he had been talking about Daniel. She turned to look at Rian, loving the way the shadows from the moonlight touched the planes of his sleeping face and made his eyelashes look at least an inch long.

  ‘I love you, Rian Farrell, and I always will,’ she whispered.

  Then she rolled carefully onto her side, snuggled her bottom into Rian’s lap, lifted his arm over her and pressed his hand tightly against her belly.

  Behind her, Rian’s lips curved in a tiny smile.

  ‘You are making a mistake, Rian,’ Hawk said the next morning.

  They had almost left the Australian coast behind them, although a flat, bluish line on the horizon beyond the Katipo’s stern, and the abundance of sea birds still wheeling in the sky, suggested it would be several hours yet before they had the ocean completely to themselves.

  Rian tapped the contents of his pipe over the side and said nothing.

  Hawk turned away from gazing down at the Katipo’s churning wake and leaned his back against the rail. ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘The man is in love with Kitty,’ Hawk declared. ‘It is as plain as the nose on my face.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe definitely. Why did you allow him to sail with us? It will only mean trouble.’

  Rian spat, the saliva dissipating before it reached the sea’s restless surface. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do, Hawk? Turn around and dump him on the dock outside the Sydney customs house? Or perhaps even the gaol?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I owe him a debt.’

  ‘But what will it cost you to repay it?’ Hawk asked cryptically.

  Rian said angrily, ‘What do you mean? What are you implying? That Kitty will actually respond to Royce’s infatuation? Is that it?’

  He knew Hawk meant nothing of the sort, but he was out of sorts because he really wasn’t at ease with Royce being on board, and he felt like having an argument.

  But Hawk didn’t rise. ‘Do not be an idiot, Rian. Of course she will not respond.’ He gave his friend a sidelong glance. ‘Are you sure that this is not your pride speaking?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could it be that you are worried that Kitty may actually have some feelings for Royce, but you are ignoring that worry because you refuse to countenance that such a thing may be? Because your pride refuses to countenance it?’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Hawk,’ Rian snapped, annoyed at the accuracy of his friend’s perceptions. ‘When have I ever let pride interfere with my decisions?’

  Hawk simply stared at him, his ruddy face impassive.

  ‘Anyway,’ Rian went on somewhat defensively, ‘she told me last night that he means nothing to her. And that’s all I need to know. It’s all you need to know, as well.’

  Hawk said, ‘The men are very protective of her, Rian. There may be unrest.’

  ‘Well, that’s just unfortunate, isn’t it? They’ll just have to behave.’ Rian sighed. ‘Look, Hawk, I’m not pleased about him sailing with us either, but I don’t see that I have much choice. And he doesn’t seem a bad sort.’

  ‘Except that he is a murderer and covets your wife.’

  ‘More a rat-catcher than a murderer, Hawk.’

  Hawk shrugged. ‘You are the captain.’

  ‘That’s right, I am. And we’re a man down, remember? He might even be useful.’

  It turned out that Daniel Royce was in fact very handy on deck. But Hawk had been right—the crew did resent his presence and the threat he posed. Not that he ever made his admiration for Kitty known. He rarely spoke to her, and she spoke to him even less frequently. In her opinion, the crew were initially rather mean to Daniel, although she never said as much to Rian. Hawk allocated him the most boring and menial jobs, such as swabbing the deck and recoiling various lengths of rope—the same chores, in fact, that Rian had made Kitty perform to teach her a lesson on their first voyage together from Paihia to Sydney. But Daniel completed them all expertly and with good grace, until even Hawk had to admit he would be better doing something more relevant to the day-to-day running of the schooner. By their fifth day at sea Daniel was up the ratlines and working on
the masts, demonstrating that he was an unexpectedly skilled seaman. When Rian asked him where he had attained those skills, Daniel explained that he had gone to sea with his uncle from the age of fourteen to eighteen, before he decided to settle in Sydney and join the armed constabulary.

  However, Gideon, Ropata and Mick began to thaw towards Daniel only when they saw that he shared their affinity for the sea, that he was keeping as far away from Kitty as was physically possible, and after Rian had told them in no uncertain terms that they had to stop treating Daniel as though he had leprosy.

  From the outset, though, Pierre couldn’t bring himself to ostracise Daniel. He toyed briefly with the idea of serving him only the scraggiest cuts of meat and the dregs from the bottom of the coffee-pot, but, try as he might, he couldn’t really see anything wrong with having Daniel Royce on board. What could a man say? Pierre thought it a splendidly honourable and gallant thing to do, to slit the throat of a scoundrel who had besmirched the name of your beloved, even if your beloved was married to someone else. And anyway, Kitty would never consider dallying with Daniel Royce, Pierre knew that or his name wasn’t Pierre Babineaux. And if Royce did behave improperly towards Kitty, then Rian could kill him. It was as simple as that.

  The tension eased as the days passed, and on the tenth night Daniel was invited to join the crew after supper on deck for a pipe. He didn’t say much, but the others addressed him from time to time, and he seemed happy with that. The only crew member who continued to pillory Daniel was Bodie. He had been allocated Sharkey’s old bunk, and on the very first night she piddled on his blanket. The next evening he discovered a reeking fish-head from the galley stuffed under his pillow, and the day after that a small, fresh turd in his boot. At first he’d assumed that one of the crew was responsible, but no human could be capable of producing such compact yet eye-wateringly noxious ordure, surely? Pierre took pity on him after that and suggested that the culprit was almost certainly Bodie, told him to keep the door to his cabin shut at all times, and regaled him with various other Bodie stories. Daniel laughed politely, but privately dreaded what the cat might do next. The crew found it all very entertaining.

  By the time the Katipo had passed through Cook Strait then turned north-east to sail up the eastern coastline of New Zealand’s North Island, the calendar on the mess-room wall read 21 December. They continued on all that day and throughout the following night, aiming to reach harbour at the Bay of Islands by early morning.

  Rian’s timing was perfect: just as they passed through the stretch of calmer seas between Waitangi and Waihihi Bay, the sun began to bleach the eastern horizon. As a mark of respect, and to alert those on shore to the fact that they were arriving with a body on board, Rian gave the order to lower his ensigns to half-mast. He flew two—the orange, white and green flag of Ireland, and the green ensign featuring a golden harp, which had been used widely during the Irish rebellion almost fifty years before, and which Rian belligerently insisted on flying even in English ports.

  The anchor clanked loudly in the muffled silence as it was lowered, and the crew waited patiently for the Paihia shoreline to be revealed as the sun climbed higher in the sky and burned off the heavy sea mist.

  But, as Rian gave the order to launch the rowboat twenty minutes later, Hawk pointed towards the shore and said, ‘Look.’

  At first all Kitty could see were the blue-green hills above Paihia, still wreathed in shreds of mist, and the solid shapes of the mission’s small buildings. There were a few more now, she noticed, and she wondered how many people the tiny settlement supported these days. But then she saw them—a large crowd of people standing motionless on the beach, at the point where the coarse sand succumbed to tough coastal grass. She squinted, but still couldn’t judge how many people were there. A hundred, perhaps? Or was it even more?

  The sight was so eerie and surreal that she found herself whispering as she asked Rian, ‘Why are they all on the beach? What are they waiting for?’

  Rian didn’t reply, but stared towards the shore a moment longer, then motioned to Mick to continue lowering the rowboat. It hit the water with a faint whump, then the rope ladder was released over the rail.

  Mick went down first, followed by Ropata, Gideon, Pierre, Hawk, then Rian one-handed and balancing Wai’s waka taonga on his hip, and finally Kitty. Daniel was told to stay aboard. When Kitty was seated, Rian handed her the box, which she cradled on her knee. Gideon took up the oars, manoeuvred the boat around so that the prow was pointing away from the Katipo, then struck out for the shore.

  No one spoke: the only sound was the rhythmic splash of oars dipping into the sea as Gideon leaned forward and pulled, leaned forward and pulled, his muscles flexing and his face set in concentration.

  The hairs on Kitty’s arms had risen: something out of the ordinary was about to happen. From this distance the faces of the people on the beach were still indistinct, but she thought she could make out a small knot of Europeans standing well to one side of the larger crowd, whose height and shape—and the weapons they appeared to be carrying—suggested that they were Maori. Kitty’s heart sank. Was it a taua, a war party? Had the old wounds from nearly five years ago not healed after all?

  As the rowboat neared the shore, Kitty began to recognise faces she had known, both Maori and Pakeha. She glanced at Rian seated next to her: he rested his hand on her knee and squeezed, and she felt a little better.

  When they were still a hundred yards out, several dozen men detached themselves from the larger group and danced down to the hard sand just beyond the hissing waves. The strands of their piupiu rattled as they advanced, their bare feet making no noise at all. Some wielded taiaha adorned with feathers and dog-hair, and the long thin spears called tao, while others carried feather-tufted tewhatewha, or long-handled battle-axes. A dozen held patu of both stone and whalebone. Their eyes wide and rolling grotesquely, the whites in stark contrast to their brown faces, and their tongues snaking in and out of wide-stretched mouths, they hissed and grunted, not chanting, but not silent either. Backwards and forwards across the sand they came, stabbing with their weapons and challenging the approaching rowboat, daring the occupants to set foot on land.

  Kitty’s hands felt sweaty and she wiped them on her skirt, then asked Ropata nervously, ‘Is it a wero? Are they angry with us?’

  Without looking at her, Ropata replied, ‘No. The jumping is from side to side so it is a tutu ngarahu, a haka of welcome, not war. But it is still a challenge.’

  The rowboat grounded gently a minute later, and Mick and Pierre, somewhat warily, climbed out and began to nudge the prow up the beach. When they had all disembarked, they stood and faced the taua as the haka continued. Kitty, with the box in her arms, stood behind the men. From the tension in their stances, she could see that Gideon, Mick and Pierre were ill at ease. And not surprisingly: the haka party was, at the very least, alarming.

  The crowd had formed into a horseshoe, and she could see Haunui now, standing in the centre, a small boy next to him. She couldn’t tell if Haunui had recognised her or not: if he had, he wasn’t acknowledging the fact. He stared resolutely towards the front, his eyes unwavering and his jaw clenched. Beyond the Maoris stood the missionaries. Kitty recognised Rebecca and Win Purcell, Marianne Williams, and Frederick Tait, Jannah’s long-suffering husband, but there were also several unfamiliar faces.

  As the haka group receded towards the horseshoe, a lone warrior came prancing through them, taking quick, light little steps that tautened the muscles of his calves and thighs, moving as gracefully as though he were gliding on ice. His hair was tied up, greased and adorned with two of the coveted huia feathers, and his moko covered his entire face, indicating that he had considerable mana. He made a downward slash with the long blade of his taiaha, cutting the air audibly, and began to manoeuvre it from hand to hand with breathtaking speed and dexterity, beginning the wero, the challenge proper. He grimaced and hissed, thrust and twirled, never once breaking eye contact with Rian. T
hen from the waistband of his piupiu he plucked a fern frond, dropped it on the ground at his feet and danced away backwards, the sharp tip of his taiaha pointing directly at Rian’s heart.

  There was a moment when there was no sound at all, when the tension became so thick that Kitty could feel it ringing in her ears, then Rian stepped forward, picked up the frond and tucked it into his own waistband.

  A collective sigh came from the Maoris, and suddenly a karanga began. The horseshoe broke and an ancient woman stepped forward, her powerful but grief-laden voice soaring in a lament for the dead. Her wrinkled face was green with the blurred lines of old moko, and Kitty recognised her as Erunora, the oldest and most revered kuia of Wai’s hapu. Her thin, white hair was crowned with a wreath of green leaves, and only then did Kitty notice that all the other women wore, or carried, greenery as well, and she realised that they were in mourning. For Wai.

  When Erunora had finished, her voice dying away on a note thinner than the wind and sadder than anything Kitty had ever heard, Ropata stepped around Rian and began to reply. He spoke in Maori, and Kitty understood that, in accordance with tradition, he was stating who he was and where he was from, and also that he belonged to the hapu who sailed on the Katipo, whose chief was Rian Farrell.

  He gestured to Kitty then to come forward. Gideon, Mick and Pierre stepped aside and she moved to the front, the waka taonga containing Wai’s bones held out before her. The weeping and keening began in earnest then, and a great tide of grief flowed out from the Maoris and washed over them all.

  Kitty began to walk, feeling her eyes fill with tears and her face grow hot with the pain of mourning her dear friend. Her heart felt swollen and her throat ached with the sobs she longed to release, but knew she couldn’t, not yet.

  Erunora limped down the sand to meet her, resting a gnarled hand on the box to lighten at least the spiritual load as they walked together towards Haunui, who stood in silence, tears coursing down his homely face. When Kitty was only a few feet away, he raised his arms to receive his daughter’s remains. Kitty settled the box in his arms. He nodded once, a simple gesture so filled with gratitude, dignity and grief that Kitty thought her heart might break.