The Fire Blossom

by Lark, Sarah

  “It’s not bad, went clean through,” he said calmly. “Not too much blood. But we should bandage it.”

  “Without you, I wouldn’t be here,” Tuckett said, turning to Karl with a grimace. “Thank you. It’s surely better to let this heal in Nelson than in the Maori village.”

  Karl waved away his thanks, embarrassed. “I not do much. Maori—they kill men?”

  A fresh wind was blowing, the Victoria set quickly into motion, and the Maori soon gave up the chase. The retreating group could finally relax and take inventory of the damage. It was grave. Twenty-two men were missing, among them Captain Wakefield; Police Magistrate Thompson; Cotterell, the surveyor; and Christopher Fenroy.

  “Will they kill the prisoners, you mean?” Tuckett asked. “I hope not. They’ll probably ransom them. For money and perhaps goods as well. And some kind of concession, like the delivery of the murderer from Nelson, the one Wakefield didn’t send to court.”

  “Now another murder,” Karl said thoughtfully.

  Whether on purpose or out of ineptitude, one of the settlers had shot the Maori woman standing next to the chief. She clearly wasn’t just some member of the tribe, but a member of Te Rauparaha’s family. That doubtlessly made things worse.

  Tuckett sighed. “We can only hope and pray,” he said. “And the men can thank God that Fenroy is with them. He speaks the language well and knows the customs. If anyone can talk them out of a death penalty, it will be him.”

  At the sight of Te Rangihaeata wailing over Te Ronga’s body, Christopher Fenroy came to the same conclusion as Karl: there was no way the situation could be saved, and the best option was a fast retreat. But the sight of the blonde girl had captured him for a heartbeat too long. He couldn’t leave without stammering an apology to her, even if she wasn’t listening.

  When he finally began running toward the brig, he found himself accompanied by Wakefield. Now the captain seemed ready to negotiate with the Maori.

  “Stop! Stay where you are! That was an accident!”

  His words were directed at the advancing Maori, but of course they didn’t understand.

  Wakefield grabbed the young interpreter by the arm. “Stay here! You don’t want to run away like a coward, do you? Translate what I said!”

  Christopher Fenroy tried to wrench himself from the man’s grip, but warriors were already too close.

  “We surrender!” Wakefield shouted at them. “Do you understand? We give up!”

  Christopher translated—and took a deep breath of relief as Te Rauparaha’s voice rose over the noise.

  “Enough!” the chieftain ordered. “Take these men prisoner.”

  A little later, Christopher Fenroy found himself back in the village square with eighteen other survivors, this time with their hands tied. Some of them, including Thompson, were wounded. Three other pakeha had fallen, and the Maori dragged their bodies to the edge of the marae. Maori women were singing death chants for three dead Maori warriors.

  “The same number of casualties on both sides,” Captain Wakefield murmured. “That’s good, it’ll make the negotiations easier.”

  “Don’t forget the woman,” Fenroy remarked.

  The younger chieftain still sat in the same place, weeping and rocking his dead wife in his arms. The blonde girl was there too. As she spoke to him, tears streamed down her face. She held the dead woman’s hand as though it were possible to awaken her.

  “The woman’s death was an accident,” Wakefield insisted.

  Fenroy bit his lip.

  Now Te Rauparaha joined Te Rangihaeata. He kneeled down and began his own chant to the gods.

  “What is he doing?” Wakefield asked his translator indignantly.

  “He’s mourning for her.” Fenroy sighed. “The woman was part of his family. But she might not be his daughter. Perhaps we’re lucky and she was only a niece . . .”

  “This is going to be expensive,” Wakefield said with a groan.

  Te Rauparaha ended his lament and looked over at the prisoners. He said something to Te Rangihaeata and Cat, who looked like she was about to get up. He had probably asked her to interpret again. But Te Rangihaeata jumped up first and began to shout at the chieftain.

  “You can’t possibly negotiate! You can’t forgive them! They killed your daughter!”

  Chris translated for Wakefield while the tribe shouted loudly in agreement. The warriors pounded their spears on the ground.

  Te Rauparaha grimaced and then gave a few orders, beckoned to several of the men and women, and walked purposefully toward one of the houses. The elders of the tribe followed him. Shortly afterward they were joined by Te Rangihaeata, who reluctantly left his dead wife. The interpreter covered the body with a blanket, and then she unwillingly approached the prisoners.

  “I’m so sorry!” Chris said in the Maori language.

  Captain Wakefield interrupted in English. “The chieftain has to believe us. No one wanted this—”

  “The chieftain doesn’t have to do anything,” the girl said brusquely. “He will now consult with the tribal elders. They will decide what is going to happen to you.”

  “But he should include me in the decision!” Wakefield said imploringly. “Then we can immediately—”

  Chris wanted to slap the man. He didn’t care if he was his superior and a decorated soldier, an agent of the New Zealand Company, and the founder of a city. For him, the captain was a stupid, heartless ignoramus.

  “My God, stop already, man!” he shouted. “Don’t you understand? They aren’t negotiating about whether to demand fifty or a hundred pounds, this is about our heads! Te Rangihaeata wants us dead!”

  Wakefield looked shocked and didn’t reply.

  Chris turned to Cat. “Who was she?” he said quietly. “She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?”

  “My foster mother,” the girl said, her voice breaking. “Te Ronga. Te Rauparaha’s daughter and Te Rangihaeata’s wife. She was a mother to us all, as well as a daughter. She spoke to the spirit world . . .”

  Chris groaned. “Please accept my deepest condolences,” he said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  Cat nodded. “You tried to help,” she said. “And I don’t believe that any of these men are the one who fired the shot.” She indicated the prisoners. “Still, you all came to our home with weapons and warlike intentions. It’s hard to say how the elders will see it.”

  “How long will it take for them to decide?” Chris asked.

  Cat shrugged. “Until sometime tonight. They’re discussing it now; we can only wait.”

  Chris leaned back. In spite of his fear and his pain, he still couldn’t stop gazing at the girl. Her eyes were a rich brown, and sometimes flashed with bright amber highlights.

  “You did a good job,” he dared to say. “The translation. We—we were headed in the right direction.”

  Cat nodded sadly. “It all went wrong. Te Ronga would say that we made the gods angry by shortening the powhiri. But your people, they didn’t even wait for the karanga.”

  The karanga was a cry from the highest-ranking woman in the host tribe, which was supposed to signal the end of the greeting ceremony and create a connection between the gods and both tribes.

  “And that would have been Te Ronga’s role?” Chris asked.

  “Yes,” Cat said. “She never wanted anything but peace.”

  Then she got up. Wakefield opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him with a dark look. “They will tell you in the morning, so it’s best that you pray as long as you can.”

  Chris spent a hellish night, freezing and tied up in a fenced area somewhat set apart from the village square. The ground there wasn’t as hard as in the square, but it had been freshly plowed and was damp. It was probably a garden prepared for planting. He wondered fearfully whether it would soon be fertilized with blood.

  The prisoners had been moved to the enclosure for security, but also to get them out of the way of the funeral preparations. The women of the tribe
sang chants and laments the entire night through. Though Wakefield and Fenroy hadn’t told the other prisoners the gravity of the situation, most seemed to understand, and spent the night staring at the sky.

  Cat wasn’t doing much better. She should have been helping to prepare Te Ronga’s body, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the meetinghouse where the village elders were deliberating. She wrapped herself in a blanket and cowered in the shadows nearby, feeling just as abandoned and desperate as she had when Frau Hempleman died. She feared that tomorrow would not just bring a funeral, but that she’d also have to take part in nineteen executions. Cat had purposely left Chris the comfort of hope, but she knew Te Rangihaeata. Once the young chieftain had an idea in his head, only Te Ronga could have talked him out of it. If the pakeha had even the breath of a chance, it lay with Te Rauparaha, who was known for his even temper and compassion. Would he decide to spare these men?

  Cat agonized over the answer, and finally came to a conclusion that wasn’t at all comforting. If the tribal elders wanted the heads of Captain Wakefield and his men, Te Rauparaha wouldn’t deny them their revenge.

  The verdict was reached just as the girl had fallen into a troubled sleep. As the elders and the chieftains left the meetinghouse, she started in surprise and then slipped closer to the entry so she could hear something.

  Te Rangihaeata was walking next to Te Rauparaha.

  “You made the right decision,” he said calmly. “Te Ronga was worth more than all the blood money in the world. We can’t buy her life back.”

  The ariki sighed. “But our verdict will threaten the peace,” he replied. “We will have to hope that the pakeha elders and their governors are prudent.”

  Te Rangihaeata snorted. “Aotearoa belongs to us,” he said. “We can’t keep hacking it up into pieces! And tomorrow, we will prove that to them.”

  Cat’s courage evaporated. For the first time in years, the bloody images from the beach in Piraki Bay flashed in her mind’s eye. The whales, still alive, being hacked into pieces . . . and now, superimposed on the image of the blood-soaked creatures, she saw Chris Fenroy. His brown hair, which he wore longer than most pakeha, was almost long enough to tie in a warrior’s knot. His kind hazel eyes had lit up when he had seen her, with an expression Cat didn’t recognize. Not lustful, but not disinterested either. Perhaps a kind of warmth. His friendly, slightly boyish face, the browned skin that would soon be pale with death . . . His easy way of moving, his cleverness . . . It was so rare that a pakeha could speak the Maori language! Chris Fenroy was tohunga. According to Te Ronga’s belief, the gods had blessed him with a special gift. He was under their protection. Te Ronga wouldn’t have allowed him to be executed.

  Cat snuck slowly between the houses toward the enclosure where the prisoners were being kept. She carefully skirted the guards, who were more focused on the lamentations in the village square than on the prisoners, most of whom had fallen asleep. Cat decided to leave the decision up to the gods—or to the spirit of Te Ronga, which she believed in more. If Fenroy was asleep, she would simply leave. But if not . . .

  “Poti?”

  A quiet voice broke into her thoughts. Chris Fenroy was leaning on the fence at the farthest end of the garden. He had obviously been trying to fray the ropes that bound his wrists.

  “Christopher Fenroy.” She said his full name, very seriously. Like a judge who was reading a verdict.

  “They’ve decided, haven’t they?” Chris asked. “They’re going to execute us.”

  Cat nodded. “They will kill Wakefield and Thompson,” she said. “But you are tohunga, you shouldn’t be—”

  Chris let out a burst of breath. “Really?” he asked, sounding almost amused. “I’ve heard other things about your people—that is, if they are your people. Someday, when we meet in heaven or Hawaiki, you’ll have to tell me how you got here. As far as I’ve heard, in the old days tohunga were not only killed but eaten so their talents would be absorbed.”

  “No!” Cat’s voice sounded tortured. She had never wanted to hear such things; they didn’t fit with Te Ronga’s loving view of the world. She made her decision. Fleeting as a shadow, she slipped closer to the prisoner, drew her knife, and cut his bonds.

  The young man stared at her with confusion. “You’re letting us go?” he asked in disbelief. “Give me the knife, I’ll free the others.” When she didn’t, he bent down and picked up a stone, checking its edge for sharpness, and turned to the sleeping Wakefield.

  Cat shook her head. “No,” she repeated resolutely. “I’m not letting them go, only you. You alone can escape without being noticed. If you free them all, the guards will sound the alarm before the first has left the enclosure. Your ship is long gone. If you try to flee on foot, they’ll catch you immediately or shoot you while you’re running.”

  Christopher bit his lip. She was right. Even if they could somehow slip away, nineteen confused men stumbling around in the woods would have no chance of getting back to Nelson. Besides, the guards weren’t asleep, just distracted. But if he left alone, his escape wouldn’t be noticed until morning. Perhaps not even then. And he knew this land, knew how to get back to Nelson. Perhaps he could even get help. The executions might not take place right away . . .

  Chris fought back his feelings of shame. He wanted to live! He reached for Cat’s hands.

  “Thank you! Thank you, Poti. And again, I’m so sorry—”

  “Go!” Cat said, and pointed to the edge of the marae, where the forest began. “Follow the fence. There’s a gate behind the cookhouse. The path leads to a stream, and it will take you to the river.”

  She turned as Chris melted into the shadows. But then, as she was sneaking back to the village square to join the mourning, she heard Te Rangihaeata’s voice.

  “Where have you been, my daughter?”

  Cat winced. She had thought the young man would be by his wife’s bier, but he had been watching the village square from the meetinghouse, which also had a view of the enclosure. “I was just walking around a little,” she murmured. “My heart is filled with sorrow . . .”

  “But you are also sorry for the pakeha, are you not?” The chieftain’s voice was suddenly suspicious. “They will be executed. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Will they? Was that the verdict?” Cat feigned surprise, but she wasn’t a good liar. “Well, they—they deserve it. Wakefield is not a good leader, and the police magistrate certainly isn’t either. They—”

  “Do you not feel like a pakeha, Cat?” Te Rangihaeata asked.

  She flinched. No one had called her by that name since she had joined the Maori village. Te Ronga and the others had always called her Poti.

  “I feel like Te Ronga’s daughter!” she said firmly, and that was not a lie. “I mean, I feel like one of the people. Tangata, do you understand?”

  She pronounced the word with a short a in the first syllable. That way, it referred to all the people in the world. With a long a, it would have meant only the members of the tribe.

  The chieftain looked at her for a long moment. “At least you have learned our language well,” he said. Then he pointed to the prisoners in the enclosure. “Tomorrow, you will deliver our verdict. Prove to us that you are tangata—one of the Ngati Toa.”

  Christopher left the village, but he didn’t go far. He knew he should save his own skin as quickly as possible, and perhaps even get help for the others. The latter was a heavy burden on his conscience. If he ran to Nelson and told them about the verdict, Captain Wakefield’s brother would send men to free the prisoners without delay. But it would probably be another randomly chosen troop, which would further agitate the Maori. Then there would be more casualties, and the pointless skirmish would turn into a war. In the end, they would bring in real soldiers from the garrison in Auckland. Te Rauparaha’s village wouldn’t stand a chance against them. And Cat . . . Chris thought about all the massacres in various colonies that he’d heard about. When things got serious, neither the s
ettlers nor the natives spared women and children.

  No, before he set off such a tragic chain of events, he would wait to see if it were the only option. If the Maori delayed the execution, he would go to Nelson and organize everything. After all, his own people were closer to him than this tribe he didn’t know. But if the men were dead before he even reached the town, then there would be no reason to hurry. He could advise Tuckett to convince the settlers in Nelson to be reasonable and begin new negotiations with the governor in Auckland.

  So, Chris hid near the village. It wasn’t difficult. As a boy, he’d spent enough time with Maori children to know how to camouflage himself and even how to find edible berries and roots. He spent the rest of the night by the river and chewed a few leaves. To distract himself, he thought about the farm he hoped to establish in Canterbury, and John Nicholas Beit’s daughter who would help him get it. Then he finally fell into a fitful half sleep and dreamed of the blonde Maori.

  Chapter 19

  Cat could have told Chris that a Maori chieftain seldom delayed his actions—and that a man like Te Rauparaha always stood by his decisions. He appeared promptly the next morning, formally dressed in his elaborate chieftain’s cloak made of kiwi feathers and decorated with symbols of his power. Without any further explanation, he gathered his warriors and escorted the lamenting Wakefield and his men to a clearing by the river, somewhat removed from the pier and the village.

  The women and children followed them, and Cat came to translate. At least the ariki hadn’t sent her alone to give the men the verdict.

  Te Rauparaha positioned his warriors around the confused pakeha. Some were terrified, while others were filled with new hope at the sight of the river. Then the chieftain stood imposingly in front of Wakefield and Thompson. The police magistrate had regained consciousness and was leaning on the shoulder of one of his men, his face twisted in pain, his uniform soaked with blood at the shoulder.