In Search of Spice, page 32
“I swim where I want and I am safe from shark because I good swimmer and shark killer. Grandfather is not god. Is food and dangerous fish. Stupid tabu. I think you wrong, stupid man, not speak to gods.”
The Bete didn’t understand but was inflating rapidly and turning purple at the flagrant disrespect and heresy of this awful girl standing naked in the sight of the gods. An assistant whispered a translation to him, and he understood why the Ratu was trying to hide a smile.
The Bete snatched up a war club from a nearby warrior and stalked towards Hinatea, his mouth working uncontrollably. Hinatea watched him come, a slight smile on her face and turned slightly so she was side on, ready. Pat and Silmatea moved up slightly on either side of her, Maru and Wiwik just behind them. The two kai Viti blanching in terror at how the gods would respond, but staying with their friends.
The Bete suddenly whirled in a circle, the war club went flying into the crowd where it was caught by a warrior, and he collapsed on the ground, his body humping and shuffling while he frothed at the mouth and screamed inarticulately.
The crowd gave a great shout, and Maru whispered to Hinatea, “The god takes him.”
The Bete twisted horribly on the ground, then pulled himself to his feet, and looked at Hinatea. His eyes were turned in on themselves so only the white showed, and despite herself, Hinatea took a step backwards.
The Bete spoke. In the trade language.
“You are right, brave girl from faraway. He does not speak to me. But I can use his body to speak, which is why he is a Bete.” The voice of the god was rough and dark, but it had depth, substance and rolled around the village and the beach. Many in the crowd threw themselves face down. The god had not spoken like this for a few years. Usually he took the Bete is a far less dramatic fashion, and spoke very respectfully of the Bete.
“I did beat Dakuwaqa and my people are free of sharks as a result. But I do not live in the octopus, the Grandfather as you name it like my cousin does. If I did you would not have killed him. But his death called me and here I am. That is the true purpose of the Guardian of the Reef, which the Bete must remember in future.” He turned from the fishermen and spoke to the crowd and to the Ratu. “Hear me, Ratu, Great Grandson. Killing the Guardian is not tabu. You must do it every five years, and replace him with a young one. I will enjoy the contest. It must be done as the girl did it, with no weapon. And afterwards the victors must walk the stones in my honour. As these ones will. Their kai Viti friends will walk with them to show the way. They will walk tonight, and then I shall know the girl.”
There was a stunned silence, before Hinatea stepped forward. “Oh Great Kadavu, I am honoured that you select me. Please know that I am under a geas from my own Gods, to travel the world and protect another, important to our Gods. While the geas is upon me, I cannot bear a child.”
The God laughed. “Wise as well as beautiful. Very well, Ratu, you will send your youngest wife to accompany this girl and she will bear the next Ratu so I strengthen the line.” He looked down at the Bete’s emaciated chest. “I shall choose another vicar tonight, maybe even you, Ratu.” And the Bete slumped to the ground like a rag doll.
The silence stretched. It was broken by Pat, who spoke low to Maru but loud enough for all to hear.
“What did he mean by walking the stones, Maru?”
“The blessed of the Gods walk over fire as a ritual,” answered Maru, still staring at the Bete. “We cannot eat coconut today, really we should fast till after the ceremony. It is not usual to do it so quickly. But we trust in the Great God Kadavu.”
Sara and Suzanne stood together looking at the fire with some incredulity. Young men were pulling it away with green sticks and vines, chanting “O-vulo-vulo” as they did so. As they cleared away the burning logs, they revealed a bed of large stones, the heat shimmering off them as they glowed dully in the huge pit.
A long tree fern branch was laid on the stones, pointing at the Bete who was overseeing the process, looking rather worse for wear. He shouted angrily at two men who were pulling a vine across the stones, easing them into place. Seemingly in a fit of bad temper, he proceeded to jump onto some of the stones. Suzanne gripped Sara’s wrist without realising it, but he just jumped out of the incandescent heat with no ill effects.
The people were arriving now, standing around the fire place in a big circle. The Great Ratu arrived to stand with the girls. A gap had been left at one side and the Bete went there now, adjusting the branch to his satisfaction. The young men were now placing bundles of grass around the fire pit. The Bete checked them, and shouted suddenly and loudly, “Vuto-O!” Suzanne jumped.
Maru appeared from the bushes, followed in single file by Hinatea, Pat, Silmatea, Rat and Wiwik. The Bete pulled the branch from the fire, smoking badly, and laid it to one side. Maru did not stop but walked straight into the fire pit, walking over the stones in a circle, followed by the others. Hinatea and Silmatea were of course naked, each with a serene smile on their faces, while the others wore grass skirts. Each looked confidently forward and strode over the hot stones without looking down. Pat and Rat followed their girls, looking straight at the back of their heads. As Maru completed a circuit, he moved into the middle of the fire while, at a shout from the Bete, the young men threw the bundles of grass onto the outer stones, where they smouldered. Maru and Wiwik started a chant in Vituan, while Hinatea and Silmatea sang their own song in Pahippian, and the Princess could make out that Pat and Rat were chanting, ‘cool, deep sea’ over and over again as they marched in the middle of the fire, and then Maru was leading them out.
Later, at the feast, Pat found himself seated between Hinatea and Sara, opposite Suzanne and the Ratu. Hinatea and the Ratu were discussing the differences between their fire walking, while Pat was finding it very difficult to explain to the girls and the Captain exactly what he had done and why it hadn’t hurt.
“I thought they weren’t really hot, at first,” he said, “because we had these little amulets of dry grass tied to our ankles and they didn’t burn, but then they threw the grass on the stones and they did burn! Weird! Hinatea got me into the same state of being that I go into when I shoot arrows, which is a sort of higher plane, and then she said the God looked after me. I don’t know. I just felt really strong and powerful. And look! All the inflammation from my cuts has gone, nearly healed too.”
Battle
The next few mornings were busy, though they devoted the afternoons to surfing. Prospectors went out with burly warriors and came back with not just iron ore, but gold and copper too. The Dwarven smiths built a furnace and started instructing volunteers, one of whom, Waru, promptly burnt off all his impressive mass of hair. Rather than take this as a mark of disgrace, as customary, he roared this was his badge of acceptance by the fire god. All the other apprentice smiths burnt off their hair.
Captain Larroche and Taufik spent hours going over charts with the local fishermen and war leaders, some of whom travelled great distances, and helped create accurate charts. Once they understood charts, they pinpointed shoals, unfriendly tribes, currents and irregular winds.
Sara tested the military prowess of the kai Viti, and started training them in modern tactics, bringing in the soldiers and the Spakka to assist. It proved easier to teach them axecraft, not dissimilar to their warclubs, and the Spakka excelled with the weapon. The kai Viti fought individually, as did the Spakka, so Mactravis taught them to use a shield and form a shield wall. This took a long time, but the warriors soon appreciated her expertise and picked up on the respect with which the soldiers treated her. They called her the Little Queen, decided she needed a personal guard of picked warriors and set up a competition to choose them. This caused a squabble with the Spakka, forcing Sara to intercede. Both the title and the guard, led by the Ratu’s son, Maciu, irritated her beyond words.
Maciu attended her at every opportunity, arriving aboard ship early to take her away on his canoe along with the guard. Sara found herself not just anticipating his arrival, but taking care with her appearance, noticing his reaction to different outfits and ways of brushing her hair. She took care not to ask Suzanne for advice, on the few occasions they spoke each day. Hinatea decided to protect her from Vituan treachery and two girls accompanied her everywhere, their presence developing into further irritation. She mused to herself, ‘More security attends me in friendly Vitua than ever back in Praesidium where Count Rotherstone hunts me. And I thought I would get some extra freedom on this trip.’
Pat tried to teach the kai Viti archery, with singularly unsuccessful results. No suitable wood grew on the island. Bamboo could make a bow, when split, but not a powerful war bow and so the kai Viti disdained it. While they could send an arrow with great force, none of them possessed a knack for aiming. It didn’t help that they would all close their eyes as they fired and shout loudly to frighten the spirit of the arrow into going faster.
They concluded his skill was supernatural, so there was no point in trying to copy him.
Instead he delighted in their field craft and he and the Pahippian warrior girls joined the hunters on long treks where they exchanged tracking skills and scaled the cliffs for the prized eggs of the big booby birds. These mobbed them as they robbed the nests, inflating their scarlet neck pouches and screaming in their ears.
Suzanne moved into the Ratu’s hut, joining his seven wives who welcomed her with pleasure and spent time teaching her the language, customs and bedroom specialities, none of which last were new to her. They welcomed her reciprocal lessons and the Ratu began to look tired.
The Ratu had an official hairdresser. This was his only job, as the Ratu’s hair was sacred and hands which touched it could do no other work. The hairdresser even needed to be hand fed by his wife. The Ratu appointed him as Suzanne’s hairdresser as well, and she enjoyed a very soothing morning ritual, watched by many of the village, as he set about repairing the damage to his handiwork inflicted by the Ratu during the night. The Ratu felt it important that her hair stood high and proud to show her strength and magic, so no other poor male would fall into the mistake of attacking her.
Various members of the crew went out with the locals on different tasks. Sam found the pigs fascinating and the kai Viti were equally fascinated by his. The whole village came to enjoy the spectacle as his boar impregnated their sows, to great cheers. Not so many came to watch the cockerel treading the local hens, and Sam found himself hard pressed to stop the locals using his cockerel in a cock fight with horrifically sharp bamboo blades strapped to the legs.
Bart and several of his friends went out with the fishermen and spent long hours arguing about different netting and line techniques. The kai Viti used the same coral fish traps as the Pahippians, which harvested fish with every tide. The fishing boats were dugout canoes, with an outrigger and a triangular sail. The sailors spent some time working on improvements and showing the fishermen how to build jolly boats.
The smiths created an axe first, to the huge excitement of the kai Viti. Their weapons were spears and clubs, the spears either fire-hardened or flint headed. One blow with the new steel axe went straight through a banana tree so immediately needed to be tested on a real wood tree. The ringing sound of the blade on a kapok tree brought people running including the Ratu. He appropriated the axe after watching the smith for a few minutes, and with a couple of lusty blows went straight through the trunk to massive applause and delight from the crowd.
Sara asked the smiths and their apprentices to concentrate on making shields and war axes, along with spear heads and found her guard would do exactly as she said, showing incredible discipline under as difficult conditions as she could create. After a trial judged by the Ratu in which her six guards withstood and ‘killed’ an attack by a dozen warriors using the traditional tactics, all the warriors volunteered for the new training and the soldiers became busy. Sara’s guards became section leaders and started training their own sections. Finally Sara lost her personal guard.
The Spakka needed training as well. Their tactics differed from Harrhein tactics, much more individual and down to feats of skill. Janis spent hours with Mactravis, working out suitable tactics to incorporate into their training. Esbech and Stiphleek found themselves section leaders, a promotion that occasioned considerable suspicion.
Sara strode into the village one morning looking radiant, beaming smiles around, closely attended by Maciu and two Pahippian girls. Maciu’s eyes seemed to fixate on the Princess.
Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. She invited Sara off for a chat, waving the guards away, and made them both some tea. Sara grinned, looking forward to sharing her news. She accepted the steaming tea and sipped, spluttering at the bitterness before looking with accusing eyes at Suzanne.
“This is the tea for stopping babies! How did you know? I wanted to surprise you.”
“Your face rather gives you away, darling, while Maciu has that particularly silly look of the man helplessly in love.”
“Does he really?” Sara craned her neck to inspect him.
“It was yesterday, wasn’t it? When you went off surfing. How did you manage to get off alone?”
“It was a mistake, actually. I didn’t intend anything.” Sara bubbled out the story, delighted to confide in Suzanne, but determined to avoid the graphic details Suzanne included in her descriptions of the Ratu’s performance.
“Hinatea went fishing, all the girls wanted to go as well, so I sent them off. The men carried the food and Maciu and I decided to take the cliff climb to a new beach. The men took the main path with their burdens which is much further. I told them not to worry. The cliff path went by the cutest little cove; Maciu said the deep water was warm and great for swimming. He dared me to jump in from on top of the cliff. It was quite high.”
Sara smiled as she relived the moment.
“You dived, didn’t you? Little show-off!”
“Oh yes. He has never seen a dive, never mind from so high and was so impressed. He jumped after me, swam up to me and started to go on about how great I was. So I kissed him.” Sara blushed. “I’m not sure why, but I felt so good and pleased with myself. The water was deep and we sank down quite a way before I needed to come up for air. I was worried we were too deep but he pulled me up and while I was gasping for breath he pulled me towards the shore. As soon as his feet touched the sand he started to kiss me again, and, well, he didn’t stop.”
“What, he did you in the water? Naughty boy!” Suzanne arched her eyebrows, smiling. She loved this and readied to press for all the gory details.
“Well, on the edge. He started in the water and we finished on the sand. Suzanne, I smuggled him into my room last night. He swam ashore before dawn. We were very quiet. “
“Were you indeed? No doubt the entire ship heard you screaming and the Captain will tell you off at some point.”
“You think so? So there is no point in hiding? Can I just move him into my room?”
“Well,” said Suzanne, “I am not sure about that. We don’t have anyone who is totally conservative now the Captain has had his epiphany and nobody knows what Walters will do. Probably try to marry the two of you.”
“I was thinking. He is a prince, you know.”
“It’s more than a little early to think long term, darling, and won’t your father want a little more political match for you? Besides, he won’t inherit the Vituan throne.”
“I will never marry officially,” said Sara, surprising Suzanne. “My father and I discuss the politics all the time. Far better to promise always and never carry through, which lets us keep so many different factions trading off each other. None of them are powerful enough individually to make marriage worth our while. If I can turn up with an army of a thousand kai Viti in return for marrying this Prince, that makes the contract worthwhile..”
“The church will never accept him. They set their hearts on you marrying a true believer like Raphael.” Suzanne knew how far advanced the plans were, but refrained from mentioning this inflammatory news.
“That asshole! As if I would let him touch me. A thousand kai Viti axemen with their discipline will shut them up. Thank you for the tea, Suzanne, time to chat with the Ratu, I think. I will move Maciu in later, thanks for the advice.”
Suzanne felt a little nettled, the conversation not following quite her intended path, and she found herself left unsure. Sara would change from little girl to sophisticated courtier in the blink of an eye, so unsettling.
Sara installed Maciu brazenly and openly. She did this so casually that nobody turned a hair, not even Captain Larroche. Suzanne watched without comment, her help unnecessary. She reflected that Sara made a pretty good ruler all ready, persuading people to follow her desires without thought.
On the ninth day, the Ratu discussed tactics with Sara, Mactravis and most of his senior warriors, while nearby Suzanne and Captain Larroche compared Harrhein pottery with the style the local women called Lapita.
A warrior came running up the path, dropped in front of the Ratu and started reporting with his face in the sand. The Ratu stood, fury contorting his features, kicking the warrior’s head.
“What is the matter, Ratu?” Sara asked.
“The filth from the outer islands attack us. They take two fishing canoes, also the fishermen, including two of your men.”
“Where is their village ? Will they take the captives there and what will they do with them?”
“They will take them to their village and they will eat them.” said the Ratu, with a final furious kick and the poor bearer of bad news.
“How big is the village and how many warriors?”
“Maybe two hundred warriors. Same size as this one. The island is three days away by canoe.”
