Sister of the Sun

by Coleman, Clare;

  "He wants to speak with canoe-masters of other clans. He needs their knowledge of reefs and currents. Otherwise he will not be able to sail his foreign boat away from here."

  "Yes, he needs that knowledge," she agreed coldly. "What else have you taught him?"

  White-sea seemed taken aback by her change in mood. Cautiously he spoke of other activities that Kiore was trying. He had improved his spearfishing. The fire plow frustrated him, but at least he could get the wood to smolder. When he broke the handle of a stone adze, he was able to lash the head onto a new handle.

  "And his speech?" she asked. "He must make himself clear if he wishes to talk to canoe-masters."

  "He surprises me sometimes," said White-sea. "He is beginning to compose chants...." The young man's voice trailed off, as if he felt embarrassed to continue.

  "Tell me."

  "Do not be angry, ariki. He uses the words of a poet. He calls you his rainbow fish or his high-winging tropic bird."

  She felt heat rash to her face. "Does he ask why I do not see him?"

  "He does not ask, but I feel his unhappiness. He told me that he was angry because you sent away his companion. Now that he has neither you nor his friend, I see that he is doubly sad."

  "Tell him that I will bring Nika back soon," she answered. "And try to make him understand why I am preoccupied now. Explain to him, if he does not know, why the priests are beating their drums."

  I have shared the grief of his loss, she thought, and soon he must share mine. She remembered Kiore's sorrow over his dead comrade. It was then that she first saw Kiore as a man, and not as a demon from afar....

  Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard hurried footsteps coming toward her and frenzied shouting. From farther off, in the direction of Kohekapu's house, came a piercing wail. Had it already happened?

  Her heartbeat quickened. Tears stung her eyes and a sob rose in her throat. Leaving the astonished White-sea, she turned and rushed down the path.

  Just before the cries sounded, Paruru was drilling his warriors on the training field. These men included Two-eels and the other guards who had succumbed to Cone-shell's trickery. Stripped of his rank and ornaments, Two-eels wore only a coarse, frayed maro. He lunged and granted and sweated with the common warriors.

  Today the exercise was combat with clubs, and the sharp sounds of parried blows made a frantic rhythm. Paruru had paired Two-eels with a large and enthusiastic youth who often forgot that he was training and not on the battlefield. Parura watched the punishment that Two-eels was suffering, seeing that he bore it without complaint. Two-eels was fortunate to still have his life. Another chief might have been far less lenient than Tepua.

  Now Paruru felt the burden of his own failings and was glad that he had not urged stronger punishment for the young warrior. In the eyes of the gods, he believed that his own deception of Cone-shell was a far more serious offense. Paruru could not forget the turtle. He saw it in dreams. Even in the daytime it sometimes floated, ghostlike, before his eyes. He knew every patch of color on its shell, and the ugly, red wound in its neck.

  Had the gods accepted the offering? He could not know. And to conceal what had happened, he had been forced to fabricate one story after another.

  He had created his lies for Nika's sake, but also to protect Tepua. If news of Nika's transgression got out, her enemies would have what they wanted—proof that she was unfit for high office. The misdeeds of the foreigners would be blamed on the chief who had taken them in.

  Despite all the strength Tepua had shown, Paruru believed that people might still turn against her. Lately there had been troubling signs. A two-headed fish had been caught in a net. At night, strange howls were heard in the forest. Recalling these events made him cold and hot by turns, until sweat streamed from his forehead....

  So deep was he in thought that at first he did not recognize the outcry that broke from a cluster of nearby huts. As the shrieks and wails grew louder one pair of men after another stopped fighting, tossed clubs to the ground, and turned to listen.

  Paruru filled his lungs to order the warriors back to their drill, but he halted, finally understanding what the cries meant. Kohekapu was gone. Was this yet another sign of the gods' displeasure? As his men broke ranks and ran off, howling and wailing in mourning for the old chief, Paruru heard a different cry from his own lips. It was a moan of despair.

  The outcries were spreading from house to house as Tepua hurried by. The tear-streaked faces that looked at her seemed filled not only with grief, but with reproach as well. Reproach for what? To Tepua's ears the laments carried a new concern—that Kohekapu's successor might not be capable of replacing him.

  When she neared her father's house, she saw a crowd of mourners gathering by the doorway. A group of women led by Natunatu were screaming in frenzied grief and gashing their foreheads with shark-tooth flails.

  As Tepua approached, a cold hand seemed to reach into her bowels. She tried to make a path through the rocking, wailing mass of women, but Natunatu leaped up and fixed Tepua with hate-filled eyes.

  "There goes the daughter of Kohekapu—without a mark on her forehead. Look at her!"

  "Let me pass," said Tepua weakly.

  "So that you can assure yourself that he is gone?" Natunatu thrust her trembling cheeks so close mat Tepua smelted her sweat mixed with trickling blood. "You are the one who made him die," Natunatu accused. "Your black arts brought him down. Helped by that pale-skinned pig you call a sailor." With a scream of rage Natunatu flung herself at Tepua. "False ariki! I will make the gashes on your forehead, if you will not!"

  Tepua grappled with the older woman, trying to dodge the wild swings of the tooth-edged flail. But a vicious strike hit the side of her cheek and another scored her forearm. She barely felt the sting, or the warm trickles of blood.

  Tepua could not hold back her rage at the accusations. "False wife," she retorted. "You cared nothing for my father. All you wanted was to make your son chief."

  Natunatu shrieked her denial and struck again, but others entered the fight. Suddenly Natunatu was pinioned and pulled back. Tepua, flinging tangled hair from her face, saw that Ehi had a grip on her attacker.

  "Let me go!" shouted Natunatu, but Ehi shook the smaller woman as she would a recalcitrant child. There was no anger, only regret and sorrow on her broad face as she struggled to hold Kohekapu's widow.

  "She is maddened by grief, daughter," said Ehi. "Pay no heed to her."

  Tepua glanced once more at Natunatu's tormented features. Then she straightened her shoulders and walked forward. At the low doorway she paused a moment, whispering a prayer before she slipped inside.

  The priests moved away, letting her approach the body of her father. She recalled the Kohekapu of long ago—a magnificent man, tall, clear-eyed, broad of shoulders. Since coming home, she had preserved that memory, never really noticing what he had become. Now she tried not to see the shape of the shrunken body beneath its cover of mats. Even at the end his face had not lost the majesty and dignity of one who was a true ariki.

  The enormity of her loss burst upon her. She wailed aloud, bending to strike her forehead against a heavy beam of the house. Then someone handed her a flail, and she began to gash her face with repeated strikes, letting the mixture of tears and blood fall onto Kohekapu's chest.

  She heard the women outside take up her cry, then men as well, until the air resounded with howls of grief. She used the flail in self-reproach as well as mourning, for Natunatu's words had struck a note of truth. Tepua and Kiore had done nothing to harm her father. Yet her attention to the foreigner had often taken her from Kohekapu's side. Even at the old chief's final moment she had been talking about Kiore when she should have been sitting here.

  "Father, I did not mean to neglect you," she whispered. Then she moved aside so that others could enter the house. It would be Natunatu's privilege to remain by the body and accept the offerings of sympathy. People would bring her mats and ornaments and even red feath
ers. These would be Natunatu's keepsake—to forever show how her husband had been esteemed.

  And Tepua would have—only her memories. She gripped the shark-tooth flail and began to moan....

  Through the night she grieved for her father, until her forehead was covered with gashes and her throat raw from wailing. It was then that gentle hands lifted her and guided her away. Numbly she followed Ehi out into the light of early morning.

  With kindness that made Tepua weep all the more, Ehi put her to bed in her own house, and stayed by her, dressing her cuts and speaking softly to her.

  "Do not blame yourself," Ehi said. "It was time for Kohekapu to join the outers of our line, and that is all." She took the flail from Tepua's clenched hand and laid it aside. "Do not let Natunatu's words make you strike deeper than grief demands."

  "Natunatu cares only for Umia," Tepua answered bitterly. "My father served her purpose. Now she is glad he is gone. Maybe she even used sorcery to get rid of him."

  Ehi soothed her again with soft hands. "The gods have taken your father for reasons we will never know. Flinging accusations does no good. Sleep, and gather the strength you will need for tomorrow."

  "Sleep? With that woman's foul words still in my ears?" But gradually she allowed Ehi's comforting words to soothe her and at last she drifted off.

  When Tepua opened her eyes in Ehi's house, she thought for a moment that she was still a young girl in her adoptive mother's household. About her were all the things she remembered from childhood, the arrangement of the mats, the rough wooden bowls, the many bundles hanging from the roof beams. In the twilight between sleep and awareness she could almost persuade herself that the recent events were only nightmares. But full wakefulness stole the illusion. She remembered the night of wailing, and how Ehi had finally brought her here. Now she felt the ache of the cuts on her skin and the knowledge that her father was dead.

  Many times I have been without him, Tepua thought. This will only be another. Tears spilled from her eyes and she reached once more for the shark-tooth flail. A heavy but gentle hand on her arm stopped her. She looked up into Ehi's face.

  "There will be plenty of days to bleed for your father," she said. "You must rest awhile longer. Besides, you have a visitor. Umia has just arrived to join the mourners, and he wishes to see you."

  Groggily Tepua made her way outside and found her brother standing under a fara tree. Salt from the canoe journey still crusted his hair, and she saw traces of tears on his face. Haggard as he looked, she knew her own appearance was even more disheveled. He could not reproach her for lack of feeling.

  She recalled her last meeting with him, when Cone-shell's influence had seemed to control his every word. Now she sensed a change, though she could not see it in any one place. Perhaps he held himself with a new dignity, as if some of the grace that had fled from Kohekapu had come into him. As she looked at her brother Tepua longed to lift the burden of rulership and let it fall onto his younger, broader shoulders.

  "I have not had a chance to tell you this," said Umia after they had greeted each other. "It is important you hear it first from me. I had nothing to do with Cone-shell's act of deceit. He arranged it all secretly. He kept me away from the kava drinking so that I could not interfere."

  "You need say no more, brother. I did not believe that you had any part in that."

  "I will say something else. You have suffered abuse not only from Cone-shell, but also from my mother. I heard what happened yesterday." He picked up Tepua's hand, touched her arm where Natunatu's flail had cut. "Is this where she struck you?"

  "It did no true harm," Tepua managed to say.

  "And here?" Umia drew his fingertips along the sides of her face. "She tried to blind you? Aue! I am greatly shamed!"

  She caught his wrist. "Umia, I do not wish to speak of Natunatu. Tell me about Cone-shell. When you left, did he try to hinder you?"

  "His priests advised him not to interfere with my coming here. A son must be permitted to mourn his father."

  "But Cone-shell will not mourn him," she replied angrily. "Though he honored Kohekapu as high chief during his lifetime."

  "Cone-shell is not ready to be seen here," he explained. "He is preparing a grand arrival and does not want it overshadowed by the great chief's death."

  "Then when will he come?"

  "When he has finished gathering the gifts. He means to acknowledge your rule and pay you homage."

  "That is good news," said Tepua. "I would like to hear only one more thing from you."

  Umia wrinkled his brow. "I know what you want."

  "Listen to my offer. I have a house for you here. You can fill it with your own attendants. I will call you to the meetings of the chief's and you will sit by my side. That is the proper way to ready yourself for high office."

  "Tepua, I cannot agree."

  "Because you still doubt my leadership?"

  "I am sorry to say it, but that is one reason. I worry about the sailor you sent to Piho Clan. Cone-shell was wrong for what he did to you, but he may be right about the foreigner."

  "I thought that Nika was doing well."

  "My uncle calls him a troublemaker."

  "Does he say why?"

  "He doesn't always confide in me. But I have spent enough time with my uncle to know when he is serious."

  "Then I will find out for myself. But that should not be the reason that keeps you away."

  "Tepua, you know that I have always lived with Varoa Clan. My friends and my foster parents are there."

  "Yet you must leave if you ever want to be free of Cone-shell's power. How can you aspire to the chiefhood if you aren't willing to stand on your own? Your father was of Ahiku Clan. Your place is here."

  He let out a long breath. "I cannot answer you now, sister. Perhaps you are right. But the mourning for our father has begun again. We must join the others."

  By late afternoon a high bier had been erected near the family marae of Kohekapu. Paruru stood with many others, looking up at the remains of his chief. About the annointed body lay sweet-smelling ferns and fruits of fara to scent the air.

  The wailing of the death chants continued, each mourner adding new praises to the account of Kohekapu's deeds. Paruru would not say so aloud, but Natunatu had shown herself to be gifted with words. Her dirge had been the longest by far, and the most touching. Now the day's mourning was coming to an end.

  With dusk approaching, no one wished to linger in this place of spirits. The last speaker finished. After a final chant by the priests, almost everyone headed home. But for Paruru and a few others there remained one more duty.

  By the time he reached Kohekapu's house, priests and a few people of high rank had gathered outside for the cleansing rite. The sleeping mats and other things that Kohekapu had touched during his illness would be burned. Paruru had seen many such ceremonies. He realized quickly that something was wrong here. The mats and other goods had not been carried out into the yard.

  An elder turned to him, and Paruru saw the troubled look on his deeply lined face. "The priests say they must burn everything. The house, too."

  "Aue!" Paruru realized what this meant. As was always done, diviners had sought the cause of the old chief's death. Sometimes they blamed sorcery, sometimes a punishment by the gods. Paruru did not know what signs the priests had discovered, only that they were ominous. He knew one reason why the gods might be angry....

  The sun had just set, and the waning daylight did little to dispel the gloom beneath the trees. No one spoke. In the quiet air, the beating of waves against the reef seemed to grow louder. All attention focused on the uncovered doorway of Kohekapu's house.

  The deep voice of a tahunga sounded from within. Then a flame sprang up and the tahunga rushed outside. Paruru heard the crackling of dry brush that had been used as kindling. He saw flames licking at the thatch above the doorway, then spreading higher.

  The tahunga faced the house, continuing his chant as smoke streamed through the narrow ope
nings in the walls and fire raced along the roof. The women began wailing again. How Paruru had come to despise that sound!

  As the fire consumed the belongings of the chief, the sounds of mourning eased. Paruru saw, in the glow of the flames, expressions of relief on the onlookers' faces. They felt safe now, he thought. The evil had been cleansed. Kohekapu was gone, but no further harm could come to them.

  Paruru felt no relief.

  FOURTEEN

  One evening, days after the cries of mourning had finally ceased, Tepua was sitting in her house listening to stories told by her newest attendant. The girl, a distant relation, had been raised on another atoll to the north and brought here recently by her father.

  The new girl was a good storyteller. Everyone in the house had clustered around her to listen. Even Tepua was entranced, and had moved her stool so that she could see and hear as the tales unfolded. Wedges of burning copra provided a dim illumination, enough so that the storyteller's expressive hands could be seen. She finished one legend and began another. "Now I will tell our version of Maui's search for the sea slug," she began.

  The sound of drumming interrupted, however, before Maui even started his adventure. All heads turned to listen to the beat. Even the storyteller could not compete against the insistent voice of the slit-log drum.

  "The dancing begins," Tepua heard the servants whispering to each other. To the new girl, they said, "You will come with us tonight. If the ariki permits."

  Tepua quickly gave her agreement. The phase of the moon, she knew, marked this as a special night. Ghosts would not walk; it was a safe time to be outside, a time for young men and women to enjoy each other's company.

  The attendants ran off, leaving Tepua alone. As she sat, watching the lights burn low, she remembered similar evenings during her youth. Then, too, the servants had bubbled with excitement as they went out, leaving Tepua with her chaperon. How she had argued and complained, making her guardian groan with despair! Tepua had known well what the other girls were doing while she remained a prisoner. Had she not been the high chief's daughter, she would have been with the others—dancing, making love.