“I am listening,” he said, his expression suddenly sober.
She glanced at the other man, who was older than Matopahu but apparently equally fit. “No one else must hear it.”
Matopahu nodded toward the other. “This is Eye-to-heaven, my taio.”
Tepua frowned. The other man was his sworn friend, and this was all silly play. Even so, she would not disobey Aitofa.
“All right,” said Matopahu, when she remained silent. “I will come closer so you can whisper in my ear.”
Tepua lifted the rock again. “Put your hands behind your back,” she insisted. “I know how fast they can move.”
“There is a tapu against hitting the chief’s brother with a rock,” said Matopahu with a wink. “Is that not right, taio?” He glanced at his friend. “Eye-to-heaven is a priest. He will tell you.”
Priest? Tepua took a step back and narrowed her eyes.
“Do not think that all priests are against me,” said Matopahu hurriedly, his mood serious again. “We are both in exile. Eye-to-heaven confirmed my prophecy, but Ihetoa overruled him.”
She stared once more at the other man. He was shorter and stockier than Matopahu, with a round pleasant face. He was broad of shoulder and well muscled, his belly protruding gently above his loincloth. She thought he seemed too amiable to be a priest.
“I am waiting,” said Matopahu softly, and now she realized that he had come up just in front of her, his ear cocked toward her lips.
“When—” She cleared her throat and began again. What a child’s game this had become. But Aitofa had told her to say these words: “When the ghosts stop walking.”
“That is all?”
She had repeated the phrase in front of Aitofa until she knew it better than any Arioi chant. “When the ghosts stop walking, the eye must start.”
“Ah, that is the news we have been Waiting for,” Matopahu exclaimed. Then his arms went around her and he was pressing his nose gently against hers.
“Eye!” she said, making a halfhearted effort to wriggle free. “That is your friend’s name. Now the message makes some sense.”
“I will explain it all to you. Later.” He bent down, clasped her by the legs, heaved her over his shoulder. She felt wildly dizzy as he carried her toward deeper water. “I thought you had something to take care of upstream,” he called jovially to the priest while Tepua thrashed in his arms.
“Yes,” answered Eye-to-heaven. “I will get nothing done if I sit here enjoying these games.” Tepua caught a glimpse of him vanishing into the shrubbery.
“My cloth is getting soaked!” she complained. Matopahu’s answer was to unwrap her, throwing the garment onto the bank. She took that opportunity to slip from his wet grasp. Diving under him, she grabbed his feet and toppled him into the stream. “Now we will both have our baths,” she said, spitting cool water as she came up.
Matopahu stripped off his own waist cloth and tossed it aside. He came after her, but she was too quick for him, splashing through the shallows and then into a deeper pool. She realized that she was laughing like a child.
Suddenly she caught herself. This game could only lead to one thing, and she was not sure she wanted it. After Rimapoa’s betrayal ...
Matopahu plunged in after her, and she held him off with a barrage of splashing. He stood, grinning, with his arms open, as the water cascaded down his broad, glistening chest. Then he reached up onto the bank and broke off a long banana shoot. “Do you know what this means, daughter of coral?” he asked as he waved the leaf. “It is our sign for peace and friendship.”
“I am not feeling friendly,” she answered, trying to keep her tone serious.
“I cannot afford to have more enemies.” He reached up and plucked another shoot. “Here. You hold one, too. Then we will discuss the terms of truce.”
His eyes shone with reflected sunlight. Droplets danced on his cheeks. His mood was so cheerful that she could not hold herself back. Her hand reached out and took the stalk he offered.
With his free hand, he drew her closer. This Matopahu was nothing like the man she had scorned so many days before. She wanted to trust him. She wanted far more than that.
When he gave her the nose kiss, she did not try to pull away. He rubbed his cheek against hers, then against her shoulder, then her breasts. Gently he lifted her, carrying her to the bank, setting her down with her feet trailing in the water.
She lay on cool springy moss while she felt his gentle touch moving over her, his fingers across her belly, his lips along her thighs and in the hollows behind her knees.
He picked a creamy petal from a flower on the bank, then touched its softness to her belly. She realized that all thoughts of resisting him had fled. She felt so comfortable now that she parted her legs when his fingers moved lower. He began to stroke her inner thighs with the petal, pausing once in a while to add a caress with his nose or his lips.
The stroking sent little tickles of pleasure up between her legs. Matopahu brought the petal to his nose and closed his eyes with blissful enjoyment.
“How wonderful are the perfumes of love—the aroma of flowers and the scent of a desiring woman.”
He put the petal in the stream and let the rivulets carry it away while he stroked her inner thigh again, this time with the tips of his fingers.
“Your skin here is so soft and smooth,” he whispered. “Softer than the petal. I have a place like that.” He moved up, laying his stiffening member against her. The silky tip rose and he moved his hips so that it traveled down the sensitive area where he had been stroking, across the little nest, up the inside of the other thigh, then down again.
She could feel herself growing engorged with desire as the tingles became intense waves of pleasure, rippling up from her inner thighs into her loins. She breathed out a low moan and began slowly rocking her hips.
“No, not yet,” he whispered, laying his cheek along hers. With his nose and chin, he laid a trail of caresses from her throat down between her breasts to her belly. Aglow now with desire, she clasped his head against her belly, winding her fingers in his curly hair and pushing her loins against his chest.
His hands massaged her, spreading their warmth over her flanks and belly, then briefly reaching to her breasts and stroking her nipples. She was astonished at the joy surging through her at that touch.
She thrust with her hips, searching for that hard member that had teased her. “You are merciless!” she cried, until at last she felt the silky spear pressing at her entrance, gliding inside with a smooth, long thrust.
She thought then that he would start moving and that she would find joyful release, but he stopped, holding himself as deep as he could. She felt him trembling, saw how his head strained back as he leaned on his hands.
Inside, she could feel him expanding into her deepest recesses, growing until she became deliciously tight about him. She lay, eyes closed beneath him, wanting this to last forever, wanting him to keep getting larger until he completely filled her.
She thought she was already climbing the peak to ecstasy when he started to move in easy gliding strokes. The pearl of her womanhood became an intense center of blue-white fire that radiated into every part of her body...
Then it exploded. She knew dimly that she was wiggling, kicking and shouting in abandonment, caught in an eruption of fire that consumed all else.
When she regained her senses, she still felt gentler waves of pleasure sweeping over her. Now Matopahu was nearing his own release, thrusting deep into her moist slickness, tossing his head wildly, clenching his hands into fists. His eyes wide and bright with need, he withdrew from her then plunged in again, giving a great groan as shudders racked his body.
He collapsed atop her, then rolled to the side, still giving little shivers of pleasure. She stroked his neck, starting in the damp hair behind his ears, drawing her fingers down across the bronzed cords of muscle in his neck.
They dozed awhile, and when they woke they strolled upstream to w
here the flow narrowed and the water ran faster. They joined again, this time atop a smooth, flat rock, with the stream rushing past them. The chill of the spray on Tepua’s skin only heightened her excitement and she reached climax with rainbows dancing about her head.
He swung her up and carried her out of the stream into the shade. She felt languid, golden. She could not imagine a satisfaction deeper than this.
But another part of her still felt distant, even resentful. He had teased her, pushing her to the extremes of desire. He had held her entranced, withholding himself for as long as he wished.
He could do exactly what he wanted with her, she thought, and he knew that. She looked at him as he lay on his side, his head propped up on one elbow, his spent member lolling along one thigh. Reaching out, he ran the back of his hand along her jawline and raised his eyebrows.
She looked down, away.
“My loving is not good enough, pearl woman?” He paused. “Or is it too good?”
Her face warmed. How was it that he somehow knew her thoughts even before she spoke them?
Did he have some unspoken command over her, some ability to draw her to him? She rebelled at the thought. After joining the Arioi and setting her own course for her life, she had hoped that no man would ever rule her, either by force or by charm.
She brushed back her hair and tossed it over her shoulder, watching him narrowly.
“Woman, what is it? You cannot say that I gave you no pleasure. Your cries were loud enough.”
She gave him a level look, letting a slight, scornful smile touch her lips. “I think you have lost your turban, brother-of-the-chief.”
The sun had passed noon by the time Tepua finished washing herself in the stream. She slowly put on her wrap, aware that Matopahu had been staring at her the entire time. “I think my business here is finished,” she said, forcing the unkind words. “I have done everything that Aitofa sent me for.”
Matopahu, sitting on the bank, groaned and slapped his forehead. “You still believe that I conspired with Aitofa to lure you here!”
“Why else would she have chosen me, except at your request?”
“If she thought to please me, it was her own idea. Perhaps there was some other reason she sent you.”
Tepua answered in a quiet voice. “I had to go away awhile, and she thought I could stay here. But you are not the only one living in the highlands. I heard today that a group of Arioi has a temporary settlement near the base of the falls. I can stay with them.”
“What is this? You are also in exile?”
“For a foolish mistake. I will make amends to the gods somehow. It is not for myself that I grieve—” Tepua felt a catch in her throat. She had not intended to tell anyone about Fenaa Ura. Now, suddenly, she could not hold back. It did not matter if he despised her for taking up with a fisherman, or laughed at her folly. She sank down beside him and spoke until her tears ceased to flow.
“That rascal!” said Matopahu when she was done. “At least you are rid of him now.”
“But the priests cannot kill him!”
Matopahu rested his chin in his hand. “Maybe not, but he will be put on some small, distant island, where nobody will ever see him again.”
Her voice fell. “Then he will die anyway.”
“Perhaps. In that case it will be the gods’ doing and not the hands of men.”
Tepua felt slightly relieved. Wherever Ihetoa sent him, so long as the sea was nearby, Rimapoa could probably catch something to eat.
“Come now. After all that, you surely do not care what happens to him.”
“I should not care,” Tepua said angrily, but tears threatened again.
Matopahu gently put his arm around her. “I would like to have you stay with me. When my taio leaves, it will be very lonely up here. It is your message that will take him from me.”
She sighed. “You still have not explained that message.”
“It is simple. We—my friends and I—are trying to get rid of Ihetoa and put Eye-to-heaven in his place.”
Tepua scowled, remembering her conversation with the chiefess. “Aitofa hinted at that. She said that your brother still supports the high priest.”
“That is so, from all I have heard. Now you told me, ‘When the ghosts stop walking, the Eye must start’. Five nights after the moon is full, the spirits stop troubling us. That is when my taio must go home. By then, my friends think that Knotted-cord will be ready to back down. They want Eye-to-heaven to be there to assert his candidacy.”
“Your friend will replace the high priest?”
“That is our plan.”
“Then I will have to deal with him in the end,” she said moodily.
“About the feathers? Yes. That is likely.” For a moment the thought seemed to weigh on him.
“Then tell me,” she said, “since I have confessed so much to you. Is Ihetoa the only man you wish to see replaced? Is it possible also that you envy your brother’s office.”
“You misjudge me, Tepua. Do you think I would like to be carried everywhere I go, and have food brought to my mouth by servants? That is the life of an infant. No. My only aim is to give my brother the guidance he sorely needs—by making Eye-to-heaven his high priest.”
“If that succeeds, will you be able to go home?”
“Yes. Would you be glad to see me back?”
When she did not answer, he stood up and held out his hand. “We need not talk of that now. For you, I am still a mountain man, and I do live well up here. Come along, and I will show you.”
As the afternoon passed Tepua realized that she had almost forgotten about rejoining her Arioi party. The thought of dangling from the ropes again made her knees watery. She could not imagine going back right away.
The ropes were not the only reason, she admitted. The Matopahu of the heights was far more appealing than the Matopahu of the high chief’s court. If he returned to his old life, she believed she would come to despise him once again. For now she found herself enjoying every aspect of his wild existence.
First he showed her the pinnacles that he and his friends used as lookout points, though she declined to climb them. Then he led her toward the shaded pools where he fished. She saw Eye-to-heaven returning with evidence that he had not just disappeared out of politeness. He carried three fine brook fish, strung through the gills on a hooked twig.
Tepua glanced at the priest, wondering what sort of man he was. The priests she had known did not soil their hands with common tasks. They always had servants and attendants about them. But here was Eye-to-heaven, humming to himself, a smile on his lips as he ambled along the trail with his catch.
“We build fires far from where we live,” explained Matopahu as his friend continued in the opposite direction. “That way, if someone finds the ashes, they will not know where to look for us.”
But he did not show her today’s cooking place at once. Instead, they followed the stream, up one bank and down the other, until the afternoon was half-gone. Finally they reached a clearing where the priest sat beside a fire.
“Now you will learn an easy way to cook,” said the priest with a smile. “Without a pit oven. Just watch me, and then you can do it.”
Beside him lay several sections of stout, green bamboo. He cleaned a fish, cut it into small pieces, and slipped these into a bamboo hollow. After he had stopped up the open end with leaves, he placed the bamboo on the coals.
Tepua prepared her own fish in the same manner, then added chunks of fe’i. The moist bamboo fibers sizzled in the heat and finally began to blacken, at which point everything was taken out of the fire.
“Now I know why you two look so fit,” Tepua said when she tasted the meal. “Down below, we are lucky to have yams.”
The priest shook his head glumly. “Only a few people can live up here. What they need below is breadfruit. The time for flowering has come, and still, I am told, the trees show no buds. Ihetoa’s offerings have not pleased the gods.”
Te
pua nodded. She had seen the barren trees, and she knew the importance of breadfruit. All the other sources of food combined could not replace it.
“We must find an answer soon,” said the priest, “or many will die.”
“You are the answer, my taio,” said Matopahu, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “When you stand in the marae and offer your prayers, the gods will listen.”
After the three had eaten, Matopahu led Tepua to a rough face of rock. “Here is our cave,” he said. “You must climb a few steps.”
Tepua looked up, but saw no opening.
“That is the marvel of the place,” he said. “It cannot be seen from the ground.” He pointed out the handholds and toeholds, and helped her take the first large step up. Then her head was above the stone lip and she could see into the cave’s small mouth.
The place was only a few paces deep. She pulled herself over the lip and crawled inside. The floor had been covered with a layer of fragrant ferns. A few pieces of wood served as crude seats.
The men came in, bringing with them leaf-wrapped packets of food left over from the meal. The priest hung these by cords from the ceiling. “In case of rats,” he explained.
Soon Eye-to-heaven retired to the rear of the cave. Tepua and Matopahu stayed at the mouth, and she curled up against him. Soft whistling snores soon told her that the priest had gone to sleep.
“Eye-to-heaven is a good man,” said Matopahu. “Do you like him?”
She answered sleepily. “Yes, I do.”
“Yet you seem shy around him,” Matopahu said, drawing her head into his lap and stroking her hair.
“I am still wary of priests. What I did on that island—”
Matopahu touched a finger to her lips. “We will not tell him about that yet. He has other, more pressing problems. For now I think you should follow Aitofa’s advice and turn your efforts to your work with the Arioi.”
“But your taio will learn soon enough. When he returns to the district, he will certainly hear about it. And if he becomes high priest—”
Daughter of the Reef Page 24
