The Fire Blossom (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  Cat put her arm around Chris and leaned on his shoulder. “No,” she said tenderly. “But I can’t just live in this house with you either. It’s Jane’s, and it always will be. Aside from the fact that it’s so big, I feel lost in it. I don’t want a bedroom on the second story or a living room with a parquet floor. I want to feel the earth under my feet.”

  “Then we can move into the old house,” Chris suggested.

  Cat regarded him closely. “I’ll move into the old house on my own,” she said. “You can keep this house, or give it to Karl and Ida and build a new one for yourself.”

  “Do you really want to live alone?” he asked. “I mean, without me, just with Carol and Linda?”

  Cat stroked his cheek gently. “I think Linda and Carol will want to stay together and live with Ida, once she’s back. It would be cruel to separate them. As for me”—she kissed him—“I would be happy to invite my neighbor over very often.”

  “What about the sheep?” Chris asked. “You don’t want your own farm like Ottfried, do you? Your own herd of sheep on your own land?”

  “Don’t be silly!” Cat said. “Although I would like to have the land that he was hogging. At least half of it. I should talk to Ida about it. I’m entitled to utu, for Te Ronga.”

  Chris slapped his forehead. “If you marry me, you’ll have all of Fenroy Station!”

  Cat laughed. “No, I won’t. It would always be your farm, Chris. Of course I won’t separate your sheep, Karl’s, and mine. At the same time, though, I would love my own piece of land. Something no one can take away from me, even if—if we don’t love each other anymore someday. Chris, I’ve been hearing my whole life that a woman can only be a wife or a whore. I don’t want to be either one!”

  “But if you marry me, I’d give you my name. Then you wouldn’t have to be ‘just Cat’ anymore.”

  Cat dismissed the idea. “I don’t want that either. I’ve always given myself my own names, Chris. I made Cat out of Kitten, and Poti out of Cat. And now I’m going to make Rata out of Poti. I want Fenroy Station to be called Rata Station. And soon, people will be talking about me, Chris. About Cat Rata, one of the partners in Rata Station.” Pride glowed in her eyes. Pride that was stronger than love.

  Chris rubbed his temples. “Then, do you need me at all?”

  Cat wanted to laugh, but then she saw his sorrowful expression and nestled comfortingly against him. She didn’t want to hurt him or push him away. She only wanted to prove that love and freedom weren’t mutually exclusive.

  “What would you call me?” she asked gently.

  Chris looked deep into her eyes. Then he finally spoke the name that he’d secretly been using for her so long; it was a name she’d also chosen for herself. It was a sign that their souls were in harmony. They belonged together and would be together, whether they shared a house or not. In spite of all her freedom.

  “Fire Blossom,” he said tenderly. “I would call you Fire Blossom.”

  Afterword

  As usual in my New Zealand novels, the fictional plot of The Fire Blossom is based on the best possible research of a historical background. In this case, it’s based on the stories of Sankt Pauli Village, the Wairau conflict, and the beginnings of sheep farming on the South Island of New Zealand. It was relatively easy to reconstruct the incidents around the Wairau conflict. Aside from the fact that no one knew who had fired the fatal shot at the chieftain’s daughter, Te Ronga, the events were documented in detail. Even the words of Te Rangihaeata’s lament were passed down. However, on neither the Maori nor the English side were there such skilled translators as my fictional characters Cat and Christopher Fenroy. The communication between the conflicting parties actually depended solely on Te Puaha, a nephew of the chieftain. A few English words from Te Rauparaha were also recorded. The manager of the New Zealand Company, Captain Wakefield, and Police Magistrate Thompson didn’t make themselves any more popular with their limited knowledge of the Maori language.

  The execution of Wakefield and the other prisoners happened pretty much as I told it. However, there were no surviving witnesses on the English side. The news of Wakefield’s death only reached Nelson later, through a missionary.

  My representation of later events, such as the investigation of the conflict by surveyors William Spain and Frederick Tuckett, and the governor’s apology to the Maori are basically historical facts. The current official version says that the Wairau Incident (formerly called the Wairau Massacre, a designation that is no longer accepted because of its political incorrectness) was set off by an “accidentally” fired musket, or that the gun fired spontaneously. However, weapon experts say that, due to the way the muskets of the time were constructed, both would have been practically impossible. This knowledge, too, inspired my interpretation of the reasons behind Te Ronga’s death.

  Putting together the story of the voyage of the Sankt Pauli and the adventures of its passengers in the Moutere Valley was much more difficult than researching the Wairau conflict. There was manifold information, but unfortunately, the sources contradict one another about the details. But it’s certain that John Nicholas Beit recruited the settlers from Mecklenburg with the promises that were mentioned in the book. He also traveled with his family aboard the Sankt Pauli to Nelson—in first class, which doubtlessly caused unrest among the steerage passengers.

  Miss Jane Beit, however, is a completely fictional character. Unfortunately, I found no references to the names of John Nicholas and Sarah Beit’s children, or to how many of them there were. If one of the girls was actually named Jane, it would be a coincidence.

  As far as the settlers are concerned, the passenger list of the Sankt Pauli has been preserved to this day. One can glean from it that most of them were craftsmen, and their families probably cottagers. It was very important for the emigrants to live together in their new country, so one could assume that the passengers of the Sankt Pauli were the citizens of one or two villages who were trying their luck together overseas. The reasons I gave for their departure in the book were authentic. In that time, many cottagers and farmers left because of their religion and their dissatisfaction with the feudal system and, above all, the impossibility of being able to obtain unlimited land. However, I chose the village of Raben Steinfeld as the place of origin for the first German settlers arbitrarily. All of the villagers are fictional characters, even though I found some of their names on the passenger list of the Sankt Pauli.

  The conditions during the voyage of the Sankt Pauli were comparatively easy to reconstruct. John Nicholas Beit’s arrogance and his despotic manner with the settlers were well documented, including the protests against him, such as the petition that eleven men signed in Bahia, and the two young bachelors who escaped there from Beit’s strict control. The details in various reports are contradictory—for example, there’s the question of whether the stop in Brazil was planned or if it had been organized on short notice as a result of an epidemic of smallpox aboard the ship. However, the dreamlike atmosphere surrounding the temporary housing in Bahia was confirmed by contemporary witnesses. Many passengers remembered the sound of music that drifted over from the city, the tropical fruits, and the beach, until the ends of their lives.

  Contradictory reports were found again about the housing of the Germans in Nelson after it had become clear that the land assignment would take time. But it is certain that the community of Nelson took them in and supported them. Whether they were taken in by host families or housed in quickly built emergency accommodations differs depending on the source. There is just as much varying information about whether the missionary station in the Moutere Valley existed long before the arrival of the Sankt Pauli or if it was only founded by the missionaries Wohlers and Riemenschneider. It’s completely unclear to whom the pastors intended to missionize. The valley was definitely unoccupied by the Maori, and there are also no other reports about the missionaries’ contact with the natives. According to one source, the Maori in the Nelson area had alr
eady been converted to Christianity when Wohlers and Riemenschneider arrived. But I don’t believe that’s very likely. I personally believe the interpretation that I give in the book: the missionary station was founded by refugees of Friedrich William III’s church policy, and the Lutherans lived there quietly and alone with their beliefs while the Moutere flooded its banks in the valley below them.

  In any case, the fact is that the Moutere Valley was known to be a floodplain. Captain Arthur Wakefield had let himself be talked into buying inappropriate land for settlements, which was certainly one of the reasons for his bad relationship with Te Rauparaha. The situation may have been described to the German settlers somewhat euphemistically, but actually they must have known what kind of risk they were taking by building their village by the Moutere River. The scene with Karl during the community meeting is fictional, but the fact is that surveyor Frederick Tuckett urgently dissuaded the settlement of the area and was very angry about the assignment of the parcels to the German settlers. One can only speculate what may have caused the settlers to throw all caution to the wind and build there anyway.

  The events probably unfolded very similarly to the way I described in my story. The immigrants were afraid of losing their national identity and acted rashly to avoid having to assimilate to the English community of Nelson. Their belief in the godliness of their own actions contributed to the problem, although the Lutherans were not nearly as strict and fanatical as the immigrants from the Church of Scotland or the Boers from South Africa. Their church services were actually more relaxed than those of the reformists; there was more singing, for example. However, the atmosphere in Sankt Pauli Village must have been shaped by the piety and inflexibility of the community leaders. After all, it takes a certain amount of stubbornness and blind faith in God to ignore all warnings of natural catastrophe.

  There were many sources and chronicles about life in Sankt Pauli Village, unfortunately with conflicting information about times, distances, and important events. I took the liberty to put the “facts” into the story that best suited my purposes, but of course the general time frame is correct. Sankt Pauli Village was founded in August 1843 and given up again a year later after the worst of three or four floods of almost biblical proportions (reports vary). I was able to find many details that hopefully made my description of life in the village authentic. Chasseur, for example, who was brought to hunt rats but was not particularly effective as a working dog, is a “historical figure.” I only invented his later career as a sheepdog.

  After Sankt Pauli Village was given up, the community dispersed the way I described in the story. While some of the families adapted to the new way of life in the new country, others went to Australia. Some of them returned later to join the flourishing German communities of Rantzau and Sarau.

  The first sheep arrived on the South Island of New Zealand in 1843–44. They came either with the Greenwood brothers (in my book, I changed their names to the Redwood brothers, because of similar names in my earlier novels) or the Deans brothers. The Greenwoods and the Deans brothers probably both came to the idea simultaneously of establishing the new economic sector in the Canterbury Plains. At the beginning, they had actually been considering cheese and meat production, but then wool prices rose dramatically due to the budding textile industry in England. The Canterbury Plains, with their endless grazing grounds, quickly became a mecca for sheep farming in New Zealand, and many farmers made their fortunes.

  My model for Fenroy Station was the Deans brothers’ business, which, at least at the beginning, worked with other families as partners. My descriptions of land seizure with lease fees paid to the Maori were a reality, and the rise of sheep farming with animals imported from Australia, from the North Island, or from Europe very likely happened that way, or similarly.

  My first sheep rustling in the plains, perpetrated in the book by Ottfried, also has a historical background: In 1844, the Greenwoods in Purau were the victims of the first robbery in New Zealand. It later became clear that a band of criminals called the Blue Cap Gang were responsible.

  However, my sheep-farming Maori chieftain, Te Haitara, is completely fictional. As late as the 1850s, Maori tribes were not involved in the business, and also did not sell their traditional remedies. But as far as family law was concerned, the Maori were truly quite modern. The karakia toko ceremony described in the book is authentic, just as are the conditions of the divorce. A man or a woman could get divorced without agreement of their partner, with a few words.

  Chris, on the contrary, was wrong: Marriage in England has not been indissoluble since the time of Henry VIII. Theoretically, according to British law, a divorce would have been possible for Chris and Jane. However, it would have been almost completely unaffordable until the middle of the nineteenth century. Initializing the necessary Act of Parliament cost around five thousand pounds.

  About the Author

  Photo © 2011 Gonzalo Perez

  Sarah Lark, born in Germany and now a resident of Spain, is a bestselling author of historical fiction, including the Sea of Freedom Trilogy and the In the Land of the Long White Cloud saga. She is a horse aficionado and former travel guide who has experienced many of the world’s most beautiful landscapes on horseback. Through her adventures, she has developed an intimate relationship with the places she’s visited and the characters who live there. In her writing, Lark introduces readers to a New Zealand full of magic, beauty, and charm. Her ability to weave romance with history and to explore all the dark and triumphal corners of the human condition has resonated with readers worldwide.

  About the Translator

  Photo © 2011 Alex Maechler

  Kate Northrop grew up in Connecticut and studied music and English literature in the United States and the United Kingdom, until she decided to try out life as a musician. Her travels took her to the German-speaking part of Switzerland, where she has lived since 1994 with her Swiss husband and their two bilingual children. She now works as both a professional translator and lyricist. She has been translating for over fifteen years and runs her own literary translation business, www.art-of-translation.com.