Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  “May I ask what you did there?” the prosecutor asked unabashedly.

  The judge called for order and demanded silence from the audience again.

  “We made love,” Mara said simply. Not loudly, but clearly. “It’s not what you think—that is, it wasn’t some hasty affair. Eru and I have been in love for a long time. We grew up together, and we’ve been promised to each other for years.”

  “So you followed him?” Sir Richard asked. “When he went to the North Island to join the Hauhau?”

  Mara shook her head. “No. It was a coincidence that we met again in Patea. Eru was, well, the prophet had sent him out to spy on General Cameron’s camp, and—”

  “You ran into each other? How touching!” the prosecutor said sarcastically.

  The judge gave him a look of warning.

  Mara blushed. “No. It was just—I went out with Fancy, my sister’s dog. Fancy caught his scent and greeted him. That’s how we found each other.” She smiled triumphantly at the prosecutor.

  “Afterward, you were kidnapped by Hauhau warriors,” Sir Richard said. “Was Eric Fenroy among them?”

  “No,” Mara said. “Eru wasn’t in Weraroa anymore. The prophet had sent him away. I think—I think as a punishment, because he didn’t find out anything when he was supposed to be spying on the base and the depots and all.”

  “He was too busy with you,” Sir Richard remarked, admiration in his eyes.

  Mara blushed again. “Yes,” she admitted. “I only met him again in Waikoukou afterward. I was already there . . . Please, I don’t want to talk about Te Ori—or the kidnapping.”

  She lowered her eyes, and her face assumed the touchingly injured and terrified expression that Sir Richard was accustomed to from their previous meetings. Yesterday, he had been afraid it would make her seem aloof, but now it awakened sympathy. He risked a glance at the jury. They were hanging on the young woman’s words.

  “Eru tried to free my sister and me from Waikoukou,” Mara went on. “But he got captured. Later, he came with Major McDonnell’s kupapa troops to Pokokaikai. And then he rescued me . . .” Her voice faded.

  Sir Richard didn’t say anything, but the prosecutor, a small, pudgy man who had gone red with agitation, interrupted the dramatic silence.

  “And all of this has only just occurred to you now, Miss Jensch?” he barked. “Your beau has been sitting in jail for months. Why didn’t you come out with this sooner?”

  Mara rubbed her nose, and cast Eru a shy sidelong glance. Again, she looked innocent as a schoolgirl.

  “I couldn’t. I mean, I wasn’t allowed to. Eru forbade it. He—he wrote to me and said I shouldn’t come to the trial. He’s very afraid of the Hauhau.”

  Eru’s brow creased.

  “The Hauhau movement is finished, Miss Jensch,” the prosecutor reminded her. “Te Ua Haumene is dead.” The prophet had died of tuberculosis in October in Oeo, Taranaki.

  “But Reverend Voelkner’s murderer is still alive, and many others are too,” Mara replied. “Eru betrayed them all in order to free me. All of this is utu. Revenge.” She made a wide gesture, implicating the entire courtroom. “They wanted to get Eru arrested for something so they could kill him in prison.” She appealed directly to the judge and jury. “You can’t let that happen!” Her voice sounded pleading.

  “You mean that Eric Fenroy was prepared to accept any punishment that was imposed here in order to protect you from the Hauhau?” Sir Richard prompted.

  Mara nodded and looked at Eru. “Me, and our child . . .”

  She had to force herself to keep her gaze on his tattooed face.

  The audience couldn’t take any more. Several journalists leaped to their feet and rushed from the room. There were probably messengers waiting outside to take any sensational details back to their newsrooms.

  The judge shouted loudly for order. “I will have to ask you all to leave if you can’t keep quiet!” he threatened. “Do you have any further questions for the witness, Mr. Prosecutor?” he asked. “If not, then I will dismiss the young lady, and we will take an hour recess. I suspect the prosecution would like to rethink their strategy.”

  Sir Richard helped Mara down from the podium. He felt her trembling slightly, but not enough for anyone to see.

  “You were tremendous,” he whispered to her. “You saved his life.”

  Mara didn’t answer. She only had eyes for Eru, whom the guards were already leading away. In the corridor in front of the courtroom, she collapsed, exhausted, into Ida’s arms.

  “Will they believe her?”

  Jane wrapped her trembling hands around her teacup. All of Eru’s supporters were gathered around a table in a café across the street from the court building.

  “Maybe,” Sir Richard replied. He looked like the cat that had gotten the cream. “The prosecutor certainly won’t, but the judge might. It depends how carefully he read the files. The jury believes every word; she’s got them all wrapped around her finger. But basically, it doesn’t matter if anyone believes her or not. As long as it can’t be proven that she is bearing false witness, Eru won’t be sentenced.”

  Te Haitara frowned. “It’s her word against four warriors!” he said, objecting.

  “Exactly.” The lawyer smiled his sly smile again. “On one side, we have four violent, bloodthirsty, tattooed Hauhau warriors who look at least as though they spent the past four years murdering settlers. And on the other side, we have a fetching young pakeha woman.” He bowed to Mara, who now sat shyly between Linda and Carol. “She’s telling a tragic story and speaking for the father of her child. We also have a young man who verifiably saved her life, and would be prepared to sacrifice himself for her again. If this trial is decided in favor of the Hauhau, the press will destroy the judge—especially if something really does happen to Eru in prison. He’s not going to take that risk, particularly since he’s being considered for a high government position. If the prosecutor doesn’t have a rabbit to pull out of his hat, and if I haven’t badly misjudged the jury, then your son will be free today, Mrs.—what was your name again?”

  “Jane Te Rohi to te Ingarihi,” Te Haitara said proudly. Chris, Cat, Karl, and Ida looked on with interest. The ariki lowered his eyes and then gathered his pride and looked at each of them. Jane blushed. The couple seemed to have reconciled. “But what does the prosecutor have to do with a rabbit?” he asked.

  When the trial resumed, the prosecutor pulled out all the stops to undermine Mara’s credibility. Next, he attempted to beat Sir Richard with his own weapon, and called Franz Lange to testify for the prosecution.

  Franz had been waiting in the witness chamber and hadn’t heard Mara’s statement. But of course, he was aware of the general dramatic tone, and he could imagine what his sister and Linda must be expecting of him. He purposely kept his testimony vague.

  “Yes, a tattooed young man freed me, and he spoke English.”

  “Fluently or broken?” the prosecutor asked.

  “I can’t remember,” Franz replied.

  The prosecutor took a deep breath. “Could it have been Eric Fenroy?”

  “Yes, but it might have been someone else too.” Franz cleared his throat. “Those tattooed faces all look the same.”

  The prosecutor looked as though he were about to explode.

  “Eric Fenroy has green eyes,” he said. “How many Maori do you know with green eyes?”

  “It was quite dark in the church,” Franz said. “Also, I was terrified. I didn’t look at the man too carefully.” He looked miserable.

  Sir Richard declined to question him.

  The prosecuting council’s last possible attempt to discredit the defense had to do with Mara’s ability to leave the military base. Somehow he’d discovered that Bill Paxton had been serving under Cameron at the time, and he insisted on interrogating him about the safety measures in Patea.

  “Not strong,” Bill said calmly. “The camp wasn’t in the middle of enemy territory. It was a mustering point
, not a fort. Of course the ammunition depot was guarded, and the gates were manned. At least the most important ones.”

  “And a young woman could have come and gone as she pleased?” the prosecutor inquired.

  “It was a military base, not a prison,” Bill said. “The guards made sure that no one unauthorized entered, but anyone who wanted to could leave.”

  “Without being seen?” the prosecutor pressed.

  Bill shrugged. “There might have been a hole in the fence, or perhaps the girl climbed over it. Or she bribed a guard. You’ll have to ask Miss Jensch how she got in and out. I can only tell you that it wouldn’t have been impossible.”

  The prosecution’s closing arguments were quite weak, but Sir Richard seized the opportunity to shine. He drew on Mara’s story, summed up the contradictions in the Hauhau warriors’ statements, and named utu as the reason for their false accusations.

  “Margaret Jensch has no reason to lie. To the contrary. She was terribly abused by members of the Hauhau movement. She was kept prisoner for a year in various Maori pas. If she is still willing to speak so vehemently for a former Hauhau warrior in spite of it all, that shows a monumental sense of justice and forgiveness. And perhaps we are also witnesses to her true love. Acquit Eric Fenroy, gentlemen of the jury. He had nothing to do with Reverend Voelkner’s murder.”

  The judge listened to all of this with a detached expression, and then surprised everyone by turning to Eru.

  “Young man,” he said sternly, “I would be very interested to hear your version of the events. Where were you on March 2, 1865?”

  Eru straightened his shoulders. He glanced briefly at the judge, and then sought Mara’s gaze.

  “With Mara. In my heart, I was always with Mara.”

  He spoke Maori.

  The judge cast a helpless look at the interpreter.

  The beleaguered man seemed touched. “He says he was with Miss Jensch.”

  The judge nodded and dismissed the jury.

  After a short deliberation, Eric Fenroy was acquitted.

  That night, Karl once again rented the hotel’s private dining room, this time for a celebration with the entire family. But the most important people weren’t there. Mara said she wanted to eat alone in her room because she didn’t feel well. Eru didn’t come either. The chieftain and Jane decided to have dinner in their suite with their son, and to travel to the South Island the very next day. Te Haitara felt as though he were in enemy territory on the North Island, and after Eru’s separation from the Hauhau, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

  “Just be careful that Eru doesn’t run away again immediately,” Chris had warned Te Haitara when he’d come to decline the invitation. “An intimate dinner with his mother . . . Perhaps he would prefer prison.”

  The chieftain rubbed his tattoos. “She has changed,” he said. “This situation has changed her.”

  “Who didn’t it change?” Chris said skeptically. “Te Haitara, forgive me, but I don’t understand. How can you want her back, after everything she did? What will your tribe say? How can Cat and I live next door to her?”

  Te Haitara sighed. “I need her. My days were dark when she was no longer with me. My heart hurt, too, when I saw how her own days became darker and darker. She wasn’t happy about what she had done. I don’t know what she was looking for when she took over Rata Station. I only know that she didn’t find it. Now she will have to search again, with me. This time she will allow herself to be guided, and she will learn who she is. I will show her who she is! Makuto will help me. My tribe will help me. And we won’t always be at Maori Station. We will go on a journey to find ourselves . . .”

  Chris repressed a laugh at the thought of Jane on a traditional Maori journey. But Te Haitara had to decide for himself. “I can only wish you both luck,” Chris said earnestly. “Will you marry her again in the pakeha tradition?”

  “Yes,” the chieftain said. “I don’t like it very much, but it will help us both. You get a paper, don’t you? A certificate that confirms it? It changes her name officially too. That will also change her.”

  Chris nodded. “Perhaps it will help. But of course, it’s not the name Fenroy that made her who she is. The most important thing for her would be to leave her father, John Nicholas Beit, behind. She has to stop trying to prove to him that she’s a good businesswoman. He married her off back then because she knew too much about him swindling the Maori out of land. She had made a plan that would have prevented the Wairau conflict. Many things would be different now if he’d listened to her. But instead, her father looked for a husband to get her out of the way. That hurt her badly. She told me about it once, when she was already together with you.”

  The chieftain’s tattooed brow creased again. “There’s still too much that I don’t know about her. When can we have a pakeha wedding?”

  Chris shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. First, the divorce has to come through. It’s another piece of paper from London or Wellington that confirms the karakia toko.”

  Te Haitara sighed. “We should have done it back then,” he said. “Papers are important to Jane. I should have known.”

  Chris put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He smiled. “Of course, Jane might be wary of a pakeha marriage certificate—it gives you power over your wife. She has to get your permission before she does any business—or accepts a questionable inheritance. Jane would find that difficult to accept. That’s one reason Cat doesn’t want to marry me. She wants to be free. The papers would limit her.”

  Te Haitara shook his head in disbelief. “I will never understand the pakeha,” he said. “That a piece of paper can limit an adult woman. It makes her like a child, and her husband like her father. On the other hand, the word of a young girl is worth more in court than that of four warriors? You really do live in another world.”

  Over dinner, Karl and Ida laughed when Chris told them about his conversation with the chieftain.

  “He’s not entirely wrong,” Karl said. “But I’m glad that the court listened to Mara today. She was amazing. And so were you, Franz!” He turned to his brother-in-law. “To be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Would you like to say grace now?” Chris asked.

  Franz sat silently next to Linda, obviously uncomfortable. “No,” he said. “I’m not worthy. I lied under oath today. You’re acting as though it was a heroic act, but it’s a terrible sin.”

  “In this case, it was the right thing to do,” Linda told him. “God would understand.”

  Franz stared at her. “How can you say that? How can you believe we can interpret his word in whatever way suits us? I should give up my job; I drifted too far from him long ago.”

  Ida shook her head. Gently, she put a hand on her brother’s cheek. “Franz, you are not distancing yourself from God. You are only distancing yourself from Raben Steinfeld, Sankt Pauli Village, and Hahndorf. You have been fighting your way out of the prison of duty and guilt and bigotry that our father locked you into.”

  Linda took Franz’s hand. “When you came here, you only saw a world full of duty,” she added. “And now, more and more, you see a world full of people. You have given a home to more than a hundred orphans. Do you really believe you are distancing yourself from God by taking steps toward humanity?”

  Chris cast a glance at Karl. “We should order beer, including one for our reverend,” he said, “and drink to his successful departure from Raben Steinfeld!”

  Linda winked at them. “The reverend prefers whiskey,” she said, giving away their secret. “The Irish call it the water of life. A gift of God.”

  “Linda . . . ,” Franz groaned, but then he pulled himself together.

  For the first time since her brother’s arrival in New Zealand, Ida breathed a sigh of relief as he folded his hands in prayer.

  “What will become of us now that the trial is over?” Bill Paxton asked.

  He had invited Carol to take a stroll wi
th him in the hotel garden, and she had accepted gladly. It was a balmy spring night.

  “I don’t want to push you, but I can’t be your parents’ farmhand forever. I have to do something with my life, and I want to know what you think.”

  “Think about what?” Carol asked.

  “Carol, I’m serious!” he scolded. “About you and me.”

  Carol hesitated for a moment, and then she nodded. “Well, I already spoke to Chris and Cat. I’m going back to Rata Station. I love the farm. If you want, you can come with me. You could think of yourself as a kind of military settler,” she said with a smile. “We have about ten thousand sheep that need to be defended. From mange mites and liver fluke, among other things.”

  Bill didn’t smile. “I’ve had enough of battles and defense for my entire life,” he replied seriously. “That’s why I’m also a little afraid of the idea of going to Rata Station. You seem so sure that you’ll be welcome forever. But Cat is pregnant. She will have an heir of her own flesh and blood. And Chris Fenroy’s as well. Do we have a future there?”

  Carol nodded unworriedly. “The farm is big enough for two families.”

  “If they like each other,” Bill said.

  Carol shrugged. “Things are different now, Bill. There’s a will that settles all the inheritance matters. What happened after the ship sank will never happen again. Besides, I get a dowry. A large share of the sheep will belong to us if you marry me. This is supposed to be a proposal, isn’t it?”

  Bill frowned. “I messed it up again, didn’t I?” he said mournfully. “Last time I sounded like a grave robber, and now like a dowry hunter.”

  Carol wrapped her arms around him and tilted her face to his. “Just be quiet,” she said. “Let me talk.”

  He kissed her. “What do you have to say?”

  Carol gazed up at him earnestly. “Yes.”

  In the hands of a tohunga, every musical instrument conjured magic. The putara, the conch, called the spirits of war. The putorino spoke with the voices of the dead, and the pahu, a drum, filled the land with thunder. It was said that the little koauau gave a good flutist influence over people.