Isle of Tears (8 page)

‘No one lives here while we are not at war,’ she explained, then gestured at the tower. ‘Would you like to see from the top?’

While Laddie whined fretfully, Isla gingerly followed Mere up the narrow ladder on the inside of the tall wooden structure, then gasped in amazement as she emerged onto a viewing platform surrounded by a chest-high manuka fence.

The three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view was breathtaking. To the west and the north, Isla could see the bright blue of the sea off the Taranaki coast; to the east rolled endless miles of jade green forest; and to the south-west rose Taranaki mountain, its peak gleaming with snow even at this time of year.

‘That’s no’ Waikaraka, is it?’ she asked, pointing at a miniature village bordered by tidy green and brown cultivations and the glint of a small river.

Mere stood beside her, the brisk breeze lifting her heavy hair away from her face. ‘Ae. Is it not beautiful? Do you see why we will not relinquish it without a fight?’

‘Oh, it is, it’s verra lovely,’ Isla replied, reminded sharply of the beauty of Skye. ‘It’s verra like home, only Skye is more…unforgiving.’

‘Unforgiving?’

‘Aye. I loved Skye, but life has been easier for us here than in Scotland. Well, for a while it wis,’ she amended wistfully. ‘For quite a while it wis verra good.’

‘And now?’

‘Now, it’s…different.’

‘But you are happy at Waikaraka?’

‘Aye, I think so,’ Isla replied truthfully. ‘As happy as we would be anywhere.’

‘Like us, when we have to come up here,’ Mere mused. ‘We would rather be at the village, but when we are here it is our home.’

Isla nodded, understanding exactly what Mere meant. ‘When did ye last have tae come here?’

‘Thirty years ago, when the last big war party came down from the Waikato. I was only a young girl then.’ Mere was silent for so long that Isla thought she had finished speaking. But then she said, ‘And we came here ten years ago, when the Pakeha plague was among us. We thought we could outrun it, but we could not. We brought it to Puketeitei with us, and many of us died. Come, I will show you something else.’

Isla followed her back down the ladder and to the bottom of the hill, where Mere set off on a different track to the one that had brought them to the pa. After about fifteen minutes, she stopped at a narrow fern-filled gully between two steep hills. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and began to climb over the rocks bordering a tiny stream.

As soon as she entered the gully, Isla noticed the silence. There wasn’t even the sound of birds in here, only the delicate trickle of the stream as it made its way down to the flat, where it spread into a boggy patch and disappeared into the ground. It was colder in the gully, too, and the rocks were slippery. She noticed that Laddie had not followed her, but was standing forlornly at the opening to the gully.

‘Come on, leannan,’ she called, and slapped her thigh.

Laddie barked once, but refused to move.

Using the ferns to pull herself up and concentrating on not losing her footing, Isla stopped again a minute later: Mere appeared to have vanished into thin air.

Then her head seemingly popped out of solid rock. ‘In here. It is an ana. A cave.’

Isla scrambled the last few feet until she could kneel in the mouth of the cave.

‘You can stand up further in,’ Mere said. ‘It is not far.’

Isla took half a dozen or so stooped, waddling steps into the cave until she was crouching behind Mere, who took a tinderbox from a ledge and lit a candle. Beyond them, the cave opened out into a shadow-shrouded area of about twenty feet square and half as high. Mere moved further in and straightened up, holding the candle at head height. Isla followed.

The floor was smooth although not very even, and was coated with a fine layer of sand that felt dry underfoot, and on three sides of the cave wide ledges had been hewn into the stone. On them lay tidy bundles of rust-coloured sticks and round globes that reflected dully in the candlelight. Isla took a step forward, then recoiled in horror as she realized what the sticks were. Bones! These were human bones!

‘This is a burial ground!’ she cried, and rapidly made the sign to ward off evil.

‘Ae,’ Mere said calmly. ‘We brought the bones of our revered dead here for many generations. But when the missionaries came they told us that the practice was unclean, so we have buried our dead next to the village ever since. Although I do not think it is
unclean. Yes, the rotting flesh is paru, it is dirty, but the eternal spirit resides in the bones, not the flesh, and the bones were not brought here until the flesh had gone from them, so how can they be unclean?’

Isla knew she would regret the question, but fascination made her ask it anyway. ‘The flesh, how did ye, well, how did ye get it off?’

‘After the tangihanga of a revered person, we would place the bodies in trees or on platforms, until the flesh disintegrated. This took about two years. The bones would then be retrieved and cleansed and oiled, then painted with red ochre and interred here, in this wahi tapu.’

Isla tried not to let her relief show: at least the colour of the bones wasn’t due to blood. ‘But if they’re no’ buried in a kirk yard, do the spirits no’ walk abroad?’

‘Ae, all the time,’ Mere said cheerfully. ‘Do not the spirits of
your
ancestors walk with you?’

Isla thought about it. ‘Aye, maybe they do, in a way,’ she replied, relieved all the same that the remains of her distant ancestors were safely buried beneath the ground in Scotland. She repressed a shudder and the urge to make the sign again; no matter what Mere said, the sight of the neat piles of human bones left her feeling deeply uneasy. ‘Ye said that this cave is wahi tapu?’

‘Aye.’

‘So are we tapu now, too?’

Mere nodded. ‘But it can be removed.’ She turned to go, but Isla touched her shoulder.

‘Why did ye bring me here, Mere? This is no’ a place for the likes o’ me.’

‘But it is, Isla,’ Mere replied incisively. ‘When Wira welcomed you to Ngati Pono, he invited you, and your brothers and sister, to
become
Ngati Pono. And to do that, you must know our ancestors, who are now your ancestors. Our ancestors are as important to us as the land is. Without one you cannot have the other, and sometimes they are the same thing.’

She blew out the candle, put it back with the tinderbox and led the way outside, where the sunlight was painfully bright. She showed Isla how to wash her hands and face in the stream to remove the tapu of the burial cave, then declared that they should head back to the village.

Isla had thought about the cave all the way back to Waikaraka, and why Mere had taken her to see it, and the pa. She was deeply suspicious now that war was coming. Her unease had only increased when Niel, who had embarked upon a regime to improve his physical fitness, told her it was so he could fight better, even though she knew it was still Tulloch on whom he was setting his sights. But what if he did become a competent warrior? Would the Ngati Pono expect his allegiance? Every day he went running to increase his endurance and stamina, choosing to go barefoot to harden his feet, and obsessively timing himself with his father’s watch. At mealtimes he ate as much as he could stuff down, particularly meat, which was quite a lot as he’d already
had a large appetite. Isla swore he’d grown at least an inch taller since they’d arrived.

But Niel wasn’t the only male at Waikaraka to be busy; a small team of men had been occupied over the past week cleaning and oiling guns, and sharpening spears and the lethal clubs and axes. In fact, it appeared to Isla that a good number of the village’s men had disappeared altogether. Growing more and more alarmed, she asked Mere one morning where they had gone.

Engrossed in stripping a blade of harakeke, Mere paused and regarded Isla for a long moment. ‘They have gone to other villages, to take counsel on various matters.’

Isla fiddled with her own piece of flax, reluctant to meet Mere’s eyes because of what she might see in them. Nevertheless, she heard herself ask, ‘What matters?’

Mere sighed, and it sounded like the wind in reeds. ‘Matters of war.’

A knot of dread swelled in Isla’s belly. ‘Is there gonnae be a fight somewhere?’

Mere attacked her flax again, wielding her small knife expertly until the soft inner fibre was revealed. ‘Ae, it seems so. I had hoped that there would not, but it appears now that the time has come.’

‘Is it o’er the land? The Peka Peka Block?’

‘It is over the land, but it is not
about
the land, although without that we will surely perish. We must keep our independence, our mana. The British are afraid of our king, Potatau Te Wherowhero, chosen by Wiremu Tamihana of Ngati Haua, whom Pakeha call
the Kingmaker. They think we will all eventually follow Potatau, and then the English queen will not be able to rule here.’

‘And will ye? Follow him?’

‘Not all, perhaps; but many will. You know that Te Ati Awa have opposed the surveyors?’

‘Aye.’

‘And that the imperial soldiers have built a blockhouse at the mouth of the Waitara and a fortified camp further inland?’

Isla hadn’t known that.

Mere’s face set in deep lines of reproach at the deliberate British insult. ‘That in itself angered Wiremu Kingi. But he would not begin the bloodshed. He chose not to attack, but built instead Te Kohia, a fighting pa, also at Waitara.’ At Isla’s inquiring look, she explained, ‘Wiremu Kingi is Ati Awa’s senior rangatira, our paramount chief. He does not support sales of land to Pakeha. A week ago, Colonel Gold and the 65th Regiment attacked and destroyed Te Kohia, although all our people, including Wiremu Kingi and his general Te Hapurona, escaped. After the battle, six Pakeha settlers were killed near New Plymouth.’ As Isla gasped, Mere added, ‘But not all at once,’ as though this somehow made the news less horrifying.

‘Kilt by who?’

‘We have heard that the British are blaming warriors from Taranaki, Ngati Ruanui and Nga Rauru, come to help Wiremu Kingi. The warriors are now at Kaipopo pa at Waireka.’

Nervously, Isla asked, ‘Where is that?’

‘About six miles south of New Plymouth, near the sea. The
Pakeha at New Plymouth are frightened that they will be attacked.’

Isla swallowed. ‘And will they?’

Mere looked as though she wasn’t bothered if they were. ‘I do not know. Between Waireka and New Plymouth is the Pakeha blockhouse called Omata Stockade. Colonel Gold is gathering his soldiers there now.’

Isla bit her lip: so finally there was to be war. She, and every other settler in Taranaki, had lived with the possibility for several years, and now their fears had been realized. What would she have been doing at this moment if her mother and father were still alive? Bringing the stock in close to the house and making heavy shutters for the windows, if she knew her father; certainly not cowering in town as most of the area’s settlers seemed to be.

Even though she thought she already knew the answer, she asked, ‘Will Ngati Pono be taking part in the fighting?’

‘Ae. That is where the men have gone—to consult with other Ati Awa warriors.’

‘But no’ Niel, surely?’ Isla blurted.

Mere tucked her hair behind her ear as she reached for another blade of harakeke. ‘No, not your brother.’

Isla let out a huge sigh of relief. ‘Is it because he’s too young?’

‘No. A Ngati Pono boy is considered old enough to fight when he can wield his weapon with the required skill.’ Catching the look of renewed alarm on Isla’s face, Mere added quickly, ‘But Niel cannot do that yet. Although Harapeta says he is showing considerable promise.’

Isla digested this for a moment, already worrying about the time when Niel
would
be expected to go into battle. But would he be of a mind to take up arms against imperial soldiers? Would his loyalty to the Ngati Pono have reached such a level? Of the four of them, he had been the most reluctant to accept the kindness and generosity Wira and his people had offered, the most averse to the idea of them becoming Pakeha-Maori. But to Isla, living with the Ngati Pono was far preferable to fending for themselves or, even worse, having their parentless state discovered by well-meaning busybodies who would, without a doubt, separate them. She and Niel were old enough to find employment, but Jamie and Jean would more than likely be placed in an orphanage—and perhaps not even in New Zealand. That would mean Isla would never see them again, and she couldn’t allow that to happen: she had made a promise.

She shook her head to banish such awful thoughts, and, contriving to sound casual, asked, ‘And Tai? Will he fight?’

She had hardly seen him since the day they had arrived at Waikaraka, and assumed he had been away much of the time with the other men. She had not, however, forgotten the way his gaze had made her shiver even though the evening had been so warm and muggy.

‘Ae. But do not worry. He will come home again,’ Mere said confidently. ‘It has been foretold.’

Isla was too intrigued to pretend she wasn’t curious. ‘What d’ye mean?’

Mere selected another piece of flax, then discarded it when she
noticed several black spots near the spine. ‘When he was born it was with the membrane over his face, and as a very small boy it was foretold that he would not die on the battlefield, that Tu, the god of war, would always protect him. It is why he will make such a good warrior—he has no fear.’

Isla had heard of such things, of course, when she was growing up, but had understood that a bairn born with a caul would be protected from drowning, not death in battle. But perhaps things were different this far away from Skye. She had never met anyone who had had a prophecy told about them, and her interest in Tai was piqued even further, although she didn’t say this to Mere. ‘And Harapeta will fight, too?’ she asked.

‘Ae. And Wira.’

To Isla, Mere sounded unhappy, but resigned. ‘D’ye no’ want Ngati Pono tae go tae war?’

‘No, I do not.’ Mere set her knife aside and wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘But Wiremu Kingi has tried to avoid bloodshed to no avail, and now there is no other way.’

Ngati Pono heard, by word of mouth, of a clash between Maori and the British military at the end of March.