Daughter of the Reef

by Clare Coleman

  “We have had peace in this district for a long time,” he answered with a yawn.

  “Have you seen any strangers tonight?” She wondered if Ihetoa’s men had been careless.

  “No.”

  “Have you seen the old high priest—Ihetoa?”

  The guard jerked his head up. “Why would that sad fool be wandering about?”

  “A fool can still kill a man,” she retorted. “I will take this. You can get another.” Before he could stop her, she grabbed one of the spears resting against the wall beside him.

  She hurried toward the high priest’s marae, dreading the prospect of entering the deep shadow that surrounded it. A man could hide easily behind one of the ancient trees. As she neared the turnoff to the woman’s shrine, she saw a pair of opu-nui coming out on the path from the main temple.

  “Go back,” they shouted, waving briskly. “Do not enter, woman.”

  “Then call Eye-to-heaven for me,” she replied as she tried to catch her breath.

  “He will not like being disturbed.”

  “I bring news of Ihetoa!”

  At those words, both men turned and rushed back in the direction they had come. Tepua stood there, holding her weapon upright and leaning on it for support until the high priest came running out to meet her.

  “What is this about Ihetoa?” Eye-to-heaven asked, his oval face perspiring despite the coolness of the morning air.

  She described her encounter with the fisherman and watched the priest’s expression darken. “If Ihetoa has come seeking revenge,” he said, “then perhaps some evil god is helping him.”

  “Evil—why?”

  “Because Feet-out-of-water has died. Ah, you are confused. Your friend was of high birth. Now he will be mourned with all the fervor his family can muster. It will be a dangerous time for everyone when those people start to run wild.”

  She frowned in confusion. She had watched funeral rites that became frenzied, but none that menaced bystanders.

  “You have not seen our ghost-masquers,” the priest continued. “The dead man’s kin and friends will paint their faces and become madmen, rushing through the settlements, swinging clubs or slashing with shark-toothed swords at anyone who gets in their way. Do you understand why I am worried?”

  “Then—Matopahu—”

  “I will warn him. Do not worry. We Tahitians are used to this. We take refuge in the marae, where the mourners dare not come. You are safe from them because you are Arioi. Even a crazed mourner will not harm an Arioi. Go home now. You are not safe from Ihetoa. You must keep out of sight until this is over.”

  Tepua stared at him. In the distance, she heard the faint sound of chanting. “Go,” the priest insisted, “before the ghost-masquers reach us.”

  Tepua clutched her spear. Perhaps he was right. Ihetoa might send someone else after her when he realized that

  Rimapoa had failed him. And Matopahu could take care of himself.

  “Listen—I hear them!” said the priest.

  Ghost-masquers? She turned and fled toward Aitofa’s compound.

  21

  INSIDE a decaying, deserted house that stood alone on a hillside, Rimapoa crouched, staring up at Ihetoa and his men. The fisherman had spent the morning in the nearby hills, trying to keep out of sight while he gathered supplies that the priest had ordered. By now the sun had passed noon, its heat beating down on the broken thatch overhead. Small patches of sunlight lit the bare dirt floor.

  “More coals!” Ihetoa demanded.

  Rimapoa looked at the string of charred candlenuts that lay cooling at his feet. He gingerly touched one and found it did not burn his fingers. “These are ready,” he answered, handing a piece of charcoal to each man in Ihetoa’s party.

  The warriors, who bore unfamiliar tattoos and frightening scars, began to paint black stripes on each other’s faces. Rimapoa could not guess where the priest had found these men, or how he had induced them to help him. They were not Maohi, for they spoke with grunts that the fisherman could not understand. He assumed they were savages, who cared nothing about offending the gods by taking a man’s life.

  A rat scuttled across the floor. One warrior casually tossed a club, catching the creature with a glancing blow. It scampered off, squealing in pain, while the other men laughed.

  “That is what you will get, fisherman,” said Ihetoa, “if you miss the atoll woman another time. And we will cut off a part of you that you are fond of.”

  Rimapoa bit his lip and busied himself with his next task—kneading sticky breadfruit sap into a heap of white clay. The resulting paste would also be used to decorate the men. He thought he understood their foul purpose.

  The fisherman had considered running away at daybreak rather than returning to tell Ihetoa that he had failed to catch Tepua. But then, how would he know what this fiend was planning? For Tepua’s sake he had let himself be drawn into Ihetoa’s new scheme.

  Silently he watched the warriors dab red sap on the unblackened parts of their cheeks, then paint red and black stripes on their bodies. Wherever these men were from, they certainly knew Maohi decorations. When they finished, no one would be able to distinguish them from real mourners.

  “You will remain undisguised, fisherman,” said Ihetoa as the warriors grinned at each other, their teeth flashing against their shadowy faces. “I want the woman to have no trouble recognizing you.”

  Mutely Rimapoa nodded. Ihetoa’s men would also have no trouble recognizing him, he thought glumly, if they decided he no longer was of service to their master. He watched them adding stripes and circles with the gummy white clay mixture. Then they donned traditional headdresses made of ferns and bright red berries. Finally they took up clubs and paehos, fiendish weapons made of shark’s teeth sewn onto heavy sticks.

  The priest did not disguise himself like the others. Rimapoa offered him a candlenut, but Ihetoa contemptuously slapped it from Rimapoa’s hand. “Your work is done here, fisherman,” he said with a snarl. “Go and do what you came for.” He handed Rimapoa a four-sided club the length of his arm.

  The fisherman rushed out, glad to be away from Ihetoa and his men, but his relief lasted only a moment. The mourners were a greater danger to him now than were the painted warriors of the priest. From his high vantage point he could see down into paths between the houses. The compound of the dead man lay far to the side and by the shore, but he glimpsed a cluster of mourners much closer. Turning, he fled the sound of their wailing.

  His route wound back and forth along the hillside, sometimes taking him closer to Aitofa’s compound and sometimes farther away. He did not know these hills; during his visit here, he had rarely strayed far from the water. He whispered to his god, begging for guidance.

  Then, much closer, he heard a noise that made his hair stand on end. It was the hollow sound of oyster-shell clappers announcing the presence of ghost-masquers. Another group! They would attack anyone they caught.

  He darted off the trail, but the mourners were fanning out, sweeping through the bush for anyone who had not fled their noise. The foliage rattled near the fisherman and he leaped from his hiding place. A shaft of sunlight dazzled him, then fell on a horribly contorted face, gashed and bleeding, eyes wild with grief, torn hair flying. The apparition lashed out at Rimapoa with the shark’s-tooth paeho. The fisherman dodged and heard the hiss of the blade.

  As the mourner recklessly swung his weapon back Rimapoa saw an opening and kicked the berserk man in the belly, doubling him up. With a bound, Rimapoa was away and running down the hill, ignoring the trails, pushing through underbrush that slapped and scraped at his face and body. The mourners might be anywhere. He did not know how to stay clear of them.

  Only two thoughts came to him. He must protect Tepua, get her to safety. And he must find charcoal and paint to disguise himself, or he would not survive the afternoon.

  Despite the disruption caused by the funeral, Tepua and the other women tried to get on with their tasks. A dozen Arioi warr
iors stood guarding the compound, but they could not keep out the cries of the mourners. “I should go,” said Tepua to Curling-leaf as they stood by the compound fence, looking out. “I should blacken my face and mourn the man who was my friend.”

  “If you do, then I will come,” said Curling-leaf. “No one wishes to harm me.”

  “You should not take the risk.”

  Curling-leaf put her hand on Tepua’s shoulder. “Then why should you? You have already wept for Feet-out-of-water.”

  “It is not just the mourning,” Tepua whispered. “Matopahu worries me. He was warned to take refuge in the marae, but I know how stubborn he is.”

  “If your Mend is in danger, then he may need my help, too.”

  “I do not want—”

  “I will follow you in any case,” said Curling-leaf. “Have you forgotten the gifts Matopahu left for me? I owe him much.”

  They found charcoal and face paint among Aitofa’s supplies. Arming themselves with spears, they hastened out past the guards. In the distance, Tepua heard shrill yells from half-crazed mourners. She thought once more about Feet-out-of-water, but did not turn to join his grieving kin.

  With Curling-leaf just behind her, Tepua took the path to the high chief’s compound. The gate stood unguarded. She found the grounds empty, and so eerily silent that the back of her neck prickled. Peering in through the doorway of Matopahu’s cane-walled house, she saw the sleeping mats in disarray. A coconut cup lay overturned.

  “I hear footsteps,” warned Curling-leaf. Tepua turned quickly, tensing for a fight. Across the courtyard came not an enemy, but Eye-to-heaven, his white tapa cape fluttering behind him as he ran toward the two women.

  “You almost fooled me,” said the high priest, pointing at their sooty faces. “You should not be here.”

  “Nor should you,” Tepua replied. “And where is Matopahu?”

  “He did not listen,” answered the priest in a worried voice. “The others fled to the temple. Even Knotted-cord is there, but I cannot find my taio.”

  “Then we must look for him,” said Tepua, running for the compound gate.

  Matopahu jumped at the crash of a paeho sword cutting through brush. He had his own sword now, its grip slicked with the sweat of his palms, the wood shaft and serrated blade wet with a darker stain. Some of the blood on those savage teeth was his; he had tasted the bite of that blade before wrenching it from the mourner’s hand.

  Another black-smeared madman was coming at him. He knew now that these were the impostors that Eye-to-heaven had warned him to expect. The men were garbed as mourners, but their actions betrayed their purpose. They made no warning noise with their clappers, as true mourners did, but had tried to ambush him. Instead of rampaging through the settlements, looking for other victims, they stalked only him.

  Earlier, Matopahu had left the compound with the others who sought refuge in the marae. He had deliberately lingered on the path so that the mourners—false and real—could catch sight of him. He had hoped that Ihetoa himself might appear. Instead, he had met only these wild-eyed troublemakers.

  At first he had enjoyed the fight. With the club he carried in his other hand, he had crept up from behind to whack one fellow on the buttocks, or knock loose another’s headdress. Now he was tired of horseplay, and he realized that his opponents were in no lighthearted frame of mind.

  Aaah! A paeho sliced down through the underbrush where he crouched, nearly grazing his arm. He erupted out of the leaves with a howl, meeting the blows with flurries of his own. Parrying with his club, he cracked shark’s teeth from his opponent’s paeho, so that shards flew about the fighters and stuck in the skin like small, vicious knives.

  Swinging the club again, Matopahu bashed the other man’s sword into his face and watched him fall back, clutching the bridge of his nose. His triumph was cut off by a trickle of fear when he saw two more specters advancing on him, each carrying another fearsome paeho.

  There was a boundary between courage and foolishness, he decided, and he had overstepped it. Keeping his head low, holding his club and sword close to his body to avoid snagging them in the brush, he headed at last toward the refuge of the marae.

  The false mourners got ahead of him, barring his path before he could get within shouting distance. He retreated, then circled back, but once more found himself cut off from refuge. He felt leaves and forest litter sticking to his sweat-smeared face. Branches tore at his loincloth and scratched his body like the nails of long-toothed ghosts.

  This could be my death, Matopahu realized as he paused a moment to rest. The thought made him turn cold in his bath of sweat. He heard in his mind the warnings from Eye-to-heaven. Do not let the wrong god seize you. Yet he had persisted, night after night inviting the greedy spirit to possess him. Now, perhaps, the moment had come for his punishment...

  Matopahu put his thoughts aside as he caught the sharp smell of another assailant. He peered through the branches and realized that now he had three men stalking him. Then he glanced down at the ragged edge of his sword. Many teeth were broken, but the weapon could still make a serious gash. He was alone against three.

  He crouched, heart banging in his chest, waiting for the instant when the two in front would come within range. He tensed, ready to spring up in a twisting attack, sweeping the sword across both men at once. He imagined red blood spraying across their blackened skins.

  He jumped, but too late. As he uncoiled himself a club smacked his elbow. A bolt of pain shot down his left arm, but he managed to follow through on the sword stroke with his other. He had been thrown off balance and only scored one assailant across the belly, but that one dropped, howling.

  With his head, he rammed the second man in the gut, sending him retching into the bushes. Still clutching the sword firmly in his other hand, Matopahu leaned down and forced tingling fingers to scoop up his fallen club. His hurt arm hung heavily, weighted with pain and numbness, and he could not raise it. Turning just in time, he kicked sharply at the third attacker’s flanks and made him stagger.

  Before he could strike with his weapon, he felt another blow, against the back of his shoulder. The second man was up again, and Matopahu spun to face him, enraged by the fire roaring down toward his damaged elbow. He began slashing and sweeping in a one-armed frenzy. But beneath the madness of pain lay the freezing knowledge that he was no longer a match for one man, let alone two. His left arm only shrieked agony when he begged it to rise...

  He was slowing down. He could not help himself. Each time he fended off a club or paeho strike, he thought it came just a little nearer to his skull. He tried to retreat, but the trees were too thick behind him. The bared teeth of his two opponents showed against their blackened faces as the men closed in.

  A blow to the side of his head sent him sprawling. A foot pressed heavily on his chest, holding him down, while a four-faced club descended to finish him. As if his mind and eyes wished to postpone the moment of death, he saw the club move with increasing slowness, dragging against the sky. Even now, he thought, he still might cry out a last plea to his guardian spirit...

  And then the hand opened and the club, instead of swinging in its killing arc, spun off in another direction, tumbling harmlessly away. The man who had held it cried out and toppled, clutching at a spear that had just pierced his shoulder.

  People were yelling, their cries reverberating in his head, making it throb as painfully as his wounded arm. Shrill voices. Women’s voices. One he knew well.

  “Tepua—” he started to say, but a great buzzing blackness descended upon him, wiping out the sky and everything beneath.

  With alarm, Tepua watched Matopahu’s face go slack, his eyes roll up, and his head fall to one side. She knelt beside him, but Eye-to-heaven was quicker, raising his taio in his arms and cradling his head. Tepua caught the flash of jealousy that went through her, the wish to push the high priest aside and take the fallen warrior into her own arms. Instead she mouthed a silent prayer for his life.
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br />   She saw at once that Matopahu still breathed. His eyelids started to flutter. When Eye-to-heaven put pressure on his friend’s left arm, Matopahu gave a jump and a yelp. The priest made him sit up, held the arm gingerly, and traced with one finger the outlines of an enormous bruise spreading all over the back of Matopahu’s shoulder.

  Tepua let her breath out in a rush. “I thought they had broken his head,” she whispered.

  “Nothing will break this skull,” the high priest answered, stroking Matopahu’s matted hair. “It is harder than ironwood.”

  Tepua turned as she heard Curling-leaf’s voice approaching. “Three men are down,” said Curling-leaf. “None is Ihetoa. And I don’t see any more of them.” Yet behind Curling-leaf loomed a figure smeared in black. Tepua pointed, shouting her warning before she recognized the gaunt shape of this other mourner’s body. Rimapoa!

  “Tepua, I warned you of the danger,” the fisherman called in a loud whisper. “Why did you not listen?”

  “This man is my friend,” she said hastily to the others as Rimapoa came forward, showing his paint-smeared face. “He told me about Ihetoa’s plans.”

  Rimapoa stepped closer, glancing only once at the wounded nobleman on the ground. “It was not for his sake that I gave you the warning, tiare,” he chided. “And instead of listening, you did this. Think of the danger!”

  “Until we catch up with Ihetoa,” she snapped, “we will all be in danger. How safe are you, behind that layer of paint?”

  She turned back to Matopahu and saw that Eye-to-heaven was massaging his friend’s arm. “It was my taio who rescued me,” said the chief’s brother. “I do not ask fishermen or women to fight my battles.”

  “And I do not ask men to fight mine!” she retorted. “I will find Ihetoa myself and settle the score between us.” She turned to Rimapoa. “Tell me how he is dressed,” she demanded.

  “That priest is too clever,” Rimapoa said angrily. “He waited until I left before donning his mourner’s garb-—if he put on a costume at all.”