by Joanna Orwin
Kai was the first to laugh. When even Matu couldn’t restrain a reluctant chuckle, his henchmen joined in. As they filed back to the fireside and Kota handed each of them a filled platter, no more was said about fish ownership. They ate in silence, but it was a more companionable silence. At one point Taka met Matu’s eye again, and the Hara youth nodded slightly, then returned his gaze to his platter.
When they’d finished eating, it was Matu who broke the silence. ‘About payment for these fish you’ve just eaten — I reckon some entertainment would do it.’ He was looking at Taka and Kai as he spoke.
Kai grinned. ‘They were good fish — worth dancing for, I reckon.’ He turned to Taka. ‘How about it?’
For a moment Taka considered refusing, but his cousin was giving him that warning look, so he shrugged. ‘Dance for our supper? Why not?’
They built up the fire with bundles of ti until its glowing heart radiated light over a wide area, then found a level place where the sand hadn’t been trampled into hummocks and hollows by their skirmish. The sun had just gone down and the sky turned crimson in the west. That first evening star blazed white just above the horizon. Taka stripped to his loincloth, then faced the star and started to dance.
At first, he danced the leaps and bounds he’d put together earlier as homage to the evening star. Once his muscles had warmed up, he forgot he was dancing as a gesture of truce. It was weeks since he’d last had the chance to dance like this. Homage to the star took on new meaning now he knew it was the beacon Tanga had set in the sky for the Travellers to follow across the Great Ocean. He danced on, the sweat on his body glistening in the glowing light from the fire. Kai stamped and clapped an accompaniment that was gradually taken up by the others. Soon, Taka was the centre of a circle of clapping youths, their feet pounding the rhythm.
Then, as the sky darkened, he began turning in a spin that gradually gathered pace. The others matched his pace with their accompaniment until the growing speed of his spinning forced them to give up. Taka whirled faster and faster, his arms flinging out wide to increase his speed, his feet pivoting rapidly. Time wore on and he kept spinning. The beckoning light of the evening star focused his eyes as he turned until he was unaware of his flying body.
It wasn’t until the star had passed below the horizon and myriads of other stars wheeled their own glittering dance in the night sky that he slowly wound down. At last he came to a halt. He stood still for a brief moment, his chest heaving. He could hear his breathing fill a silence. Then the brilliance of the night still whirling before him blurred into blackness. His legs gave way and he sank into a slumped heap on the sand.
When, much later, he returned to his senses, he was cold, despite the cloak someone had placed over him. Only Kai was still there, sitting beside him. His cousin handed him a gourd of water and supported him as he sat up to drink thirstily. Every muscle in his body felt strained. He could feel the blood pulse behind his bruised and half-shut eye. He had no idea how long he’d danced, but the glow of the fire had faded to grey ash. Kai wasn’t saying anything.
Taka put the empty gourd down and wiped his mouth. His voice sounded thin in his ears. ‘Did that pay for the fish?’
Kai looked at him, a strange expression on his face that Taka could only just see in the glimmering light of the stars. ‘I don’t think that was quite what they were expecting.’
Chapter 9
Taka paused halfway down the sand dune, his arms full of stiff flax stalks. Below, on the river bank, the other Travellers were working in pairs. They seemed strangely separate from him. He wondered whether he could ever become a true part of this odd group the gods had brought together. They still seemed unlikely material for moulding into an effective band of heroes. For a moment he lingered, reluctant to join them.
Since their return from the small lagoon, the others had treated him with cautious respect. Kai told him they weren’t comfortable with someone inhabited by some kind of supernatural force. They were reserving judgment, not sure whether this force was benign god or malignant demon. Even Kota made the demon-averting sign when he got too close. Yet the rest of the time at the lagoon had passed peacefully enough. Matu’s henchmen slipped away before dawn the next day, apparently not wanting a bar of someone so possessed. Matu himself was subdued and silent.
‘He didn’t throw his weight around after that. So perhaps your dancing serves a useful purpose after all.’ Kai seemed to be the only one not fazed by Taka’s performance.
‘Perhaps.’ Taka wasn’t bothered by his cousin’s wry comments. He took pride in being different, not one of the crowd. But now, as he watched the others working companionably, their heads close together, unaware of his presence on the dune above them, he felt an unexpected pang of Something close to desolation. He liked being part of the moki crew and had been enjoying the more recent sessions on the river — the co-ordinated and disciplined rhythm that sent their craft flying across the water. But when Kai suggested he should be the one to trudge back and forth, fetching the flax stalks from their stockpiles while the others put the reinforcement together, he agreed without fuss. Hadn’t Hina told him dancing was his destiny? His time would come.
Below him, the others were creating long, slender bundles by overlapping the stalks, then tightly tying the interlaced lengths at regular intervals. The first finished bundles laid out along the bank looked like the trussed bones of some mythical river beast, black, striated and knobbly. These were to provide strength inside the packed reeds that would make up the two hulls, which were to be six metres long, even longer than their practice moki. The Hara experts considered this the maximum length strong enough to withstand the rigours of an ocean voyage. Any shorter, and the Travellers would be uncomfortably cramped for space.
When Taka dumped his load of flax stalks, Matu let go of the tie he was fumbling with and lurched to his feet. ‘I’m not doing this any more. I haven’t got women’s hands like you lot.’
‘What do you suggest, then?’ Piko, who was paired with Matu, stood up too and stretched his arms over his head.
Taka had noticed the Hou youth was fastening three ties to each of Matu’s. Odd that someone so at home on the water in a flimsy moki could be so inept on land. His strength might be useful for pulling the ties tight, but his thick, clumsy fingers were impeding the flow of work, holding his partner back.
And Matu knew it. His brow was furrowed, his mood black. ‘I can carry more flax stalks at a time than any Repo weakling — best I take that over.’ He avoided looking at Taka.
‘Feel free.’ Taka waited, his toes curled expectantly, hoping the others would forget their wariness and let him be part of the more interesting work. The load-carrying needed no skill, only brute strength. He hid his grin, thinking Matu wouldn’t see the irony.
When no one else said anything, Kai took charge. He spoke briskly. ‘Makes sense. Putting Matu’s strength to better use. Piko? Maybe you should pair up with Kota. You two are bound to be the fastest. I’ll work with Taka.’
It was soon obvious the new combinations were more evenly matched. When their rate sped up, Matu began working twice as hard as before. He staggered back from the stockpiles with increasingly huge loads of flax stalks, double the size Taka had managed. The sweat poured off him, but his clenched jaw and bunched brow made it clear it would be unwise to comment.
As Matu ran off for another load, Taka paused and looked after him. ‘What’s he trying to prove? We all know he’s by far the strongest.’
‘He can’t stand being shown up in any way.’ Piko shook his head. ‘Always needs to be better than anyone else.’
Kai said thoughtfully, ‘That uncle of his has a lot to answer for.’
Matu trotted down the sand dune and tossed another huge load on top of the already large pile, his breathing laboured. As he turned to go back yet again, Kai suggested he take a break. ‘We can’t keep up with you.’
Matu sneered. ‘What are you? Feeble old women? Where’s your stamina?�
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As soon as he recovered his wind, he strutted around making disparaging comments about their workmanship and suggesting improvements until Taka was ready to throttle him. It was a relief when Matu saw one of the moki experts in the distance and took off, saying self-importantly that he should consult him.
Once he was out of earshot, Kai groaned. ‘Sorry about that. I should’ve known better.’
Piko laughed. ‘Anyone have a problem letting him think he’s our lord and master?’
‘Better that than Matu mad,’ said Kota.
Taka wasn’t convinced, but when Matu returned full of bluster, he listened to his suggestions, then, like the others, quietly carried on with what he’d been doing.
As the longest day drew near, the Hara settlement turned its attention to preparing food for the summer festival. After the weeks of concentrated work, Taka was looking forward to the occasion, at which young people were usually given a lot of licence. But it wasn’t to be like the time at Ra-Hou after the Choosing, when they were plied with all the food and female flattery anyone could want. The headman made it clear the Travellers wouldn’t be allowed to participate.
‘You have no role to play in this festival.’ When Tarapu saw their long faces, he relented slightly. ‘I’ve no objection to you watching, but you must stay in the background.’
After the headman left them, Piko said ruefully, ‘Our hero status must’ve lapsed.’
Taka had at least expected that he and Kai would be asked to dance. Now he noticed the local people making demon-averting signs whenever he was near. He took his cousin aside. ‘Those Hara mongrels must’ve told stories about what happened at the lagoon.’
Kai pointed out that it wasn’t just Taka who made the locals uneasy. ‘What do you expect? People don’t know how to treat us. We’re dedicated to Tanga, but we’re not like other Travellers. We’re still here, aren’t we?’ He sighed heavily. ‘We’re stranded between the real world and the Under-World, part-human, part-ghost.’
It all added up. The Travellers were lodged in a shelter built for them on the outskirts of the settlement, halfway between the houses and the estuary where they were working on the moki. That had made sense: it saved having to paddle the whole distance each day. The women left food at the shelter each morning and night, but now Taka registered that they always took care not to be seen by any of the Travellers. Any girls of marrying age had left for their new homes after the Choosing, and the Incoming wives were kept well away by their new husbands. Although the Hara men were working hard on preparing materials for the moki building, they did so elsewhere. Only the experts were in direct contact with the Travellers.
Made uncomfortable by their unusual situation, and keen to leave Hara and its unfriendly inhabitants as soon as possible, the Travellers began working as fast as they could without compromising the quality of their work. To Taka’s relief, Matu lost some of his aggression once he knew no one was going to challenge his self-imposed overseer role. The one time Taka grumbled about him to Kai, his cousin reminded him they had to find workable ways to accommodate their different personalities. ‘If that means allowing Matu to think he’s in charge, so be it.’
It was Piko who pointed out the irony. ‘Being outsiders is turning us into insiders.’
Now the evenings were drawn out, when they finished work for the day Taka, needing some time for himself, started checking the kua gathering on the local feeding grounds. He watched small flurries of birds swirl up into the air as though testing their wings, then settle again, constant eddies of movement that created ever-shifting patterns among the feeding flocks. The inner calm that filled him after the lagoon dance had slowly ebbed away. He felt the birds’ growing restlessness as though it was his own. Like them, he was preparing for the migration north across the Great Ocean.
It took the best part of a week before the Travellers had made enough flax-stalk skeletons for the reinforcing. When they finished, the Hara experts came to check the results. The men took their time testing the strength of the joins and the tightness of the knots. Taka was made impatient by their fussy thoroughness: he wanted to get on with the next stage. They were now some days beyond the non-event of the summer festival. They risked not being ready to launch the moki before the kua flew north.
As the moki experts conferred, Matu edged closer to them, putting some distance between himself and the other Travellers. Taka watched as he positioned himself where he would be seen as their spokesman. Sure enough, when the experts at last turned towards them, it was him they spoke to first. Taka gritted his teeth as Matu bent his head towards them, his hands linked behind his back as though he also was some elder statesman. ‘Who does he think he is?’
Kai wasn’t bothered. ‘Who cares? He can posture as much as he likes — it won’t carry any weight once we’re at sea.’
The experts beckoned the others to join them. ‘You’ve achieved this first task well, but the next stages will be more difficult.’
They talked about diameter and density of bundles in relation to buoyancy, and drew plans with sticks on the sand, then invited comments from the Travellers.
At first Taka held back, thinking he couldn’t contribute to such theoretical discussion. Then he remembered that time at Ra-Repo when he and Kai had tried to take a small moki out into the sea, and the trouble they had riding the waves back to the shore. So he spoke up, at first hesitantly, then with more confidence as the experts listened attentively. He described the way their moki skittered across the surface like a wayward water beetle. ‘It rode so high in the water we couldn’t control it. So I’m thinking, maybe saltwater will increase buoyancy?’
Kai took the idea further. ‘I’d assumed we’d need to allow for the weight of the shelter platform. But would the extra buoyancy—’
Matu chipped in, his voice disparaging. ‘Saltwater wouldn’t make any difference for a craft this size. Best focus on the distance between the hulls—’
One of the experts held up his hand to stop him, then looked at Taka and Kai. ‘These are useful observations indeed. We’ve no experience with moki in seawater, only the brackish water here in the estuary.’
Before Taka could smirk, the man turned to Matu. ‘everyone has Something to contribute here. The distance between the hulls is also an important ratio to be determined.’
Taka wasn’t sure whether Matu was being chided or acknowledged, and from the way the other youth stiffened he didn’t think Matu knew either. The experts continued to listen, treating each suggestion with courtesy, until the Travellers ran out of ideas. The experts then withdrew to consult among themselves. When they returned they focused on practicalities, before the talk took an unexpected turn.
The oldest expert addressed the Travellers, speaking at length in a quavering voice that Taka strained to hear. He’d dismissed this old man, a toothless, withered gnome whose skin drooped in wrinkled folds like a cloak borrowed from someone larger. Much like his grandfather Pare, he seemed beyond contributing anything useful, and he’d not said a word during the earlier discussion. But now Taka knew his appearance was misleading. The old man’s quiet, measured words resonated with the wisdom of a long life.
First, he spoke of the moki as a living creature, echoing Taka’s earlier fancy. ‘This new-born moki will carry the seeds of the future for all the swampland people in the same way each child born carries the seeds of the past, from our ancestors.’
His words became even more measured. ‘The strength of this moki depends on you being able to build a balanced and unified structure that holds together no matter what storms it encounters.’
He paused and looked at each of them, without haste, one by one. When it was Taka’s turn, the old man’s rheumy eyes seemed unexpectedly sharp, as though he knew him through and through. ‘Your very survival depends on recognizing that each and every one of you has individual strengths. It is for these strengths you have been chosen for this task. But such strengths cannot stand alone, any more than a stack
of loose flax stalks serves its final purpose. You must learn how to knit your strengths together. Like the moki, you too must form a flexible, cohesive structure that holds together no matter what storms you encounter.’
If his words contained a rebuke, it was a gentle one. His message was too important for even Matu to dare blustering in his own defence. Taka listened with bowed head. He felt humbled, yet at the same time elated. Not only was their mission highly significant, but they themselves were indeed chosen. Kai had been wrong to think they were nothing but expendable rejects.
After the old man finished speaking, the Travellers waited in silence until the experts dismissed them with the often used words: the new dawn would bring a new beginning. The familiar saying had never seemed more true.
Slowly but steadily, the trussed bones of the giant moki took on flesh as the Travellers clothed each skeleton. First, they laid out armfuls of the dried reeds to form thick, even footings that extended a metre beyond the skeletons at each end, then placed the flax stalks on top. They heaped more reeds over the trusses until they disappeared beneath a rustling cover of pale, bleached reed stems and strap leaves. That was the easy part. Now they were ready to begin the laborious task of creating the tightly bound bundles that would make up the framework of the moki — six long bundles needed for each hull. Each would be the thickness of a mature Hara man’s thigh, nearly twice the thickness of Taka’s own thigh. A seventh bundle, two metres longer and half as thick again, would serve as the keel and form raised prows and sterns.
The next day they would begin the construction.
Taka lay awake that night, excitement mixing with apprehension. He could tell the others weren’t sleeping any better: the shelter was noisy with their constant tossing and turning.
Earlier than usual the next morning, they set off without taking time to eat. They paddled down the river to the work place, where the fourteen long rows of heaped, shaggy reeds waited to be transformed. No one spoke as they fetched the first hanks of flax ties from the pools where they’d been stored to keep them supple.
