Daughter of the Reef (35 page)

It was said that the gods only spoke through those they favored. Yet Tepua wondered how anyone could call this an honor—subject to the whims of some unknown spirit, forced to speak words that might be nonsense, unaware of what happened during the seizure.
 

Sacred or not, she would not wish for such a thing. Her own small gifts were frightening enough. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to wake, and drifted back into sleep.
 

 

Matopahu woke slowly, rising from slumber as if he were coming up from deep water. He felt a dryness in his mouth and a stiffness in his muscles that could only mean one thing...
 

He lay on his side, staring at his left hand, feeling and seeing the wrapping of bark-cloth about his fingers and palm. Yes, he dimly remembered winding it around his hand when he felt the aura coming on.
 

And—the woman. Had she been here?

He turned to glance at Tepua, sleeping, curled up against him. Feeling his dismay grow, he pulled away from her. What had he said? What had he looked like, thrashing on the floor like a speared lizard?
 

Quietly he crawled to the priest and shook him awake. He put a finger to his mouth, telling Eye-to-heaven to move silently, without waking Tepua. When he slipped down out of the cave, Matopahu saw that they had all slept late. He stood blinking in the bright sunlight, then walked a short distance to the stream.
 

“I had hoped the god might leave me alone awhile,” Matopahu said wearily to the priest. “Tell me what the voice said this time.”
 

Eye-to-heaven repeated the enigmatic words.

“You are probably right about
ihe-ohe
and Ihe-toa,” said Matopahu, “but there is still a puzzle.” He rubbed behind his neck, realizing that he must have strained it when he thrust his head back. Eye-to-heaven said he often did that when the god entered him. “I hope you got Tepua away before I—”
 

“I am sorry,
taio
. She insisted on staying. And when you reached out to her, there was nothing I could do.”
 

Matopahu stopped at the stream's bank and stared at the priest. “I—reached out to her?”

“Or the god did.”

Angrily Matopahu tossed aside his wrap and plunged into the cool water. He stayed down as long as he could, and when he brought his dripping head up, he did not speak at once. “Why do the sacred ones make me forget what I have done?” he complained. “One day I will wake up to learn that I have bitten a shark—or coupled with a wild boar.”
 

“If that happens, the shark or boar will have my sympathy,” answered the priest cheerfully.

“I can always depend on you for a wise answer, my
taio
,” Matopahu said. He paused, then approached again the question that troubled him. “So Tepua saw me. She must have been frightened. What woman would not be at such a sight?”
 

Eye-to-heaven put his hand on Matopahu's shoulder. “She insisted on remaining at your side. She was afraid, perhaps, but she wanted to help you.”
 

Matopahu let his breath hiss through his teeth. He had never before cared that a woman saw him babbling nonsense and squirming like an infant. Instead of feeling honored by the god's visit, he now felt shame. Tepua was an outsider. For all he knew, she might view what had happened to him as a sign of weakness.
 

He turned to his friend, who was staring at him with a puzzled expression. No, the priest would not understand. Matopahu could not even explain these feelings to himself. “Do not discuss this in front of her,” Matopahu said quickly.
If she does not see it happen again, she may forget.

 

When Tepua woke, she found the men gone. Matopahu must have recovered, she thought with relief. She imagined that he was out scaling cliffs while she still rubbed sleep from her eyes.
 

Hungry, she nibbled on some baked banana wrapped in a leaf. While she ate she stared at a long piece of cord that had suspended the packet of food from the ceiling. Now it hung free.
 

When she finished eating, she decided to go out to wash. She was about to try the tricky descent from the cave when her gaze fell again on the hanging cord. A long time had passed since she last felt a need to make string figures. Now she had a good reason.
 

She pulled the cord loose, wrapped it around her arm. Then she crawled from the cave, feetfirst, easing herself over the lip as she tried to find a purchase for her toes. Birds screeched overhead, laughing at her clumsiness, she thought. Bits of broken rock clattered below. At last she steadied herself and dared to look down.
 

It was not so far to the ground, she realized. Gripping an edge of stone near her waist, she lowered one foot, then the other. She arrived at the bottom, panting, but unhurt.
 

Now she would have some time to herself before the men came back. The sound of running water beyond a stand of fern trees called to her.
 

Tepua did not linger at her bath. After she had dried off in the sun, she moved to the cool shade. Then she took the cord from her arm and made it into a loop.
 

The string figures! How she missed them. They helped her to relax, let her mind wander onto new paths. Now she hoped they might lead her to understand Matopahu's mysterious pronouncement. The gods had guided her before, in this way ... She started with a prayer to her guardian spirit, Tapahi-roro-ariki.
 

When she was ready, Tepua began with simple figures, loosening her hands.
Priests and spears
. The shapes did not match her thoughts. This one resembled an ironwood tree just a little. Bamboo? Perhaps this one. She tried the more difficult forms of
fai
.
 

After a time she groaned with frustration and put down the cord. The insight was not coming. She was trying to force the figures in one direction or another. She needed to let them flow of their own accord. Once more she called on her ancestress for aid.
 

Again she began, this time barely watching what her fingers wove. The cord moved so quickly that sometimes it seemed to blur. She glimpsed tantalizing visions that were gone before she could interpret them. Then she paused for a moment to rest her tired fingers.
 

Glancing down, she saw a new shape in the string—an upraised hand. And then she was looking at an image far away—at a hand of flesh, at a man in a tall feather headdress, at a high altar in a
marae
. The image grew startlingly clear.
 

The man was smiling, his expression mocking the solemn proceedings. He was praying before the altar, yet his face wore a sly grin. And the offering, she saw with a shudder, was a man.
 

Tepua fell back under the force of the vision and lay on the ground. Her eyes were shut now, and the image had vanished. But the face—she could not forget it. She had seen that face before.
 

At last she got up and began to walk aimlessly along the stream's banks. Shiny lizards, sunning themselves on the rocks, darted into crevices as she approached. She paused now and then to stare into the glistening water. Then she remembered her audience, months before, with the high chief. The man from her vision, garbed in priestly white, had been standing close to Knotted-cord that day. It was his face—Ihetoa's mocking countenance—that she had just seen.
 

“Walk quietly, or you will scare the fish,” came a whisper that startled her out of her reverie. She glanced up to see Eye-to-heaven, holding a two-pronged spear, bending over a pool at the side of the stream.
 

“Where is Matopahu?” she asked.

“Walking alone and thinking. Shh.” He shifted the spear, his eyes intent on the quarry.

Tepua stamped impatiently. “Eye-to-heaven, I have something to ask you about that is more important than your dinner.”

His arm came down in a sudden thrust. He gave a cry of triumph as he pulled back the spear, bringing with it a struggling perch. “I am listening now,” he said as he dropped his catch into a basket.
 

“I do not know all your words. What do you call it when a priest fails to show the proper reverence?”

Eye-to-heaven put down his spear and turned his attention fully on her. He frowned as he answered. “That is called
hara
, a grave sin.”
 

“If a priest is irreverent, then how do the gods view his offering? Surely they turn away in anger.”

“Certainly. But I do not see—”

“Because,” she said excitedly. “We are puzzling over the meaning of 'spear-of-bamboo.' You say the offense of irreverence is called
hara
, and I have heard of a kind of bamboo called
hara-tavai
.”
 

Eye-to-heaven stared at her for a moment. His eyes widened and his mouth opened and then he sank to his knees. “So that is the word game the gods have played on us,” he said with awe. “Two names for bamboo. Two meanings for
hara
. By these rules,
ihe-ohe
becomes the 'spear-that-sinned.'”
 

“Then—”

“It is all clear to me now, Tepua,” he said, pounding his fist against the ground. “And you have unraveled it. 'Spear-that-sinned is cast at the bare branches.' Ihetoa must be guilty of
hara
, and that is why our breadfruit still does not flower.” He glanced down into the pool, his eyes narrowed. “All this time he blamed the famine on the people's shortcomings. No one dared suggest that Ihetoa himself was at fault.”
 

“Then what can be done? Is it possible to accuse him of his crime?” Tepua's exhilaration was already fading. She had solved one problem only to raise another.
 

Eye-to-heaven sat and put his chin in his hand. “That is what I must decide. The high priest can always cast doubt on Matopahu's words. He has had plenty of practice at doing it. If only someone had seen his transgression—”
 

Tepua almost spoke, but what point would there be in saying that she had seen the high priest's crime in a vision? No one would take her word for it.
 

“I will not wait here while my friends plot among themselves,” said Eye-to-heaven. “I must return at once and see how I can use this knowledge.”
 

“But the message from Aitofa said to wait—”

“The ones who sent it did not know about Ihetoa's misdeeds. Come. We must find Matopahu.”

 

 

17

 

AS evening approached, Tepua sat with the two men, looking out through the cave's mouth at the lengthening shadows below.

“If we leave early tomorrow,” said Eye-to-heaven, “we can catch Ihetoa at his afternoon nap. I would like to confront him when the priests and attendants are all drowsy.”
 

Matopahu grinned. “That will be the best time. Before he can clear his thoughts and invent new lies.” He turned to Tepua. “I do not want to leave you up here alone. You mentioned a camp of Arioi—”
 

“No,” she interrupted. “I want to return with you.”

“It will be dangerous,” said the priest.

“Not if I keep out of sight.”

“And if we fail?”

“Then I will run back to the hills.” She lifted her chin and stared at Eye-to-heaven. Did the priest want to deny her a part in the plan? She hoped she would not have to remind him how she had untied the mystery of the oracle's words.
 

“Until we are close to the high priest's
marae
, we must all stay hidden,” said Matopahu, breaking the impasse. Again, he turned to Tepua. “If we fail there, we will need you to carry a message to our friends. You cannot follow us where we are going—onto sacred ground. There is a boundary that no woman may cross.”
 

“I know about that boundary,” she answered coldly, recalling Aitofa's rebellious words. “I can take refuge at the women's shrine nearby.”
 

“Then let us get some sleep,” said the priest. “My belly is full and I am already nodding.” He turned and went deeper into the cave.
 

Tepua remained. She had not told why she was so eager to follow the men to the
marae
, and she was glad that they had not asked. Eye-to-heaven's questions at the stream had helped her remember another detail from her vision. She had seen a second man, a temple attendant, a witness to the high priest's transgression. If she could somehow find him ...
 

Matopahu drew closer and put his arm about her. “The night will be cold again,” he said in a whisper.

And it may well be our last together
. She tried not to let that dampen her spirits. Tomorrow he might be killed for his arrogance in accusing the high priest. Or he might succeed in pushing Ihetoa from his office. In that case, Matopahu could probably take up his old life—a life in which she did not fit.
 

It was possible, of course, that he would merely be forced back into exile. If he lost to Ihetoa tomorrow, she felt certain that the famine would continue. She was not so selfish as to want that.
 

“Listen,” said Matopahu with a wink as the last gleam of sunlight vanished. He nodded back into the cave. “Our friend is already snoring. And I am not even sleepy.”
 

She shook off her worries. “I know a way to tire you out,” she answered, teasing. “At least one part of you.” She let her hand travel slowly down his hard belly, coming to rest on the even harder erection in his lap.
 

“I am not sure I can tire out
you
,” he replied. “But I am willing to try.”