Home > Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga #2)

Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga #2)
Author: Sarah Lark


Part 1

MISSION

RUSSELL, NEW ZEALAND (THE NORTH ISLAND)

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA

1863

 

 

Chapter 1

“Are we there yet?”

Mara Jensch was in a bad mood, and she was bored. The journey to the Ngati Hine village seemed to be taking forever, and even though the landscape was beautiful and the weather was good, Mara had seen enough manuka, rimu, and koromiko trees. She’d had enough of rain forests and fern jungles. She wanted to go home, back to the South Island, back to Rata Station.

“Just a few more miles,” Father O’Toole replied. He was a Catholic priest and missionary who spoke good Maori and was taking part in the expedition as an interpreter.

“Don’t whine,” Mara’s mother, Ida, reprimanded. She glanced disapprovingly at her daughter as she guided her small brown mare next to Mara’s gray one. “You sound like a spoiled child.”

Mara began to pout. She knew she was annoying her parents. She’d been in a bad mood for weeks. She hadn’t enjoyed the journey to the North Island at all. She shared neither her mother’s enthusiasm for wide beaches and warm climates nor her father’s interest in mediation between Maori tribes and English settlers. Mara saw no need for mediation. After all, she was in love with a chieftain’s son.

For a while the girl drifted off into daydreams, wandering over the endless grasslands of the Canterbury Plains with her beau, Eru. Mara held his hand and smiled at him. Before her departure, they’d even exchanged tentative kisses. Suddenly, a cry of surprise shook Mara out of her fantasy.

“What was that?” Kennard Johnson, the representative of the governor who’d hired Mara’s father for this mission, listened fearfully, his eyes on the woods. “Could they be spying on us?”

Mr. Johnson, a short, rotund man who seemed to be having difficulties with the many hours of riding, turned nervously to his two English soldiers. Mara and her father, Karl, had privately laughed at the man for bringing bodyguards. If the Maori tribe they were going to visit was inclined to kill Mr. Johnson, it’d take an entire regiment of redcoats to keep them from doing so.

Father O’Toole shook his head. “Must have been an animal,” he said reassuringly. “You would neither see nor hear a Maori warrior. But we’re quite close to their village now. Of course we are being observed.”

Mr. Johnson turned white as a sheet, and Mara’s parents exchanged knowing looks. For Ida and Karl Jensch, visiting Maori tribes was nothing unusual. If the two of them were afraid of anything, it was the possibility that the English settlers would panic. The Maori called them pakeha. Mara’s parents knew that violence between the Maori and the pakeha was seldom initiated by the tribes. It was much more likely for the Englishmen’s fear of the tattooed “savages” to result in a foolishly fired shot that would have terrible consequences.

“Above all, stay calm,” Karl Jensch advised.

Aside from Johnson and his soldiers, they were accompanied by the two farmers who had made complaints against the Ngati Hine in the first place. Mara regarded them with all the resentful eyes of a young woman whose romantic plans had been thwarted. Without these two idiots, she would have been home long ago. Her father had wanted to be back at Rata Station for the shearing, and he’d already booked the sea crossing. But at the last moment, the governor’s request had arrived, asking Karl to help resolve the conflict between the two farmers and the Ngati Hine as quickly as possible. It should simply be a matter of comparing a few maps. Karl had done the surveying himself when Chieftain Maihi Paraone Kawiti had sold the land several years ago.

“The Ngati Hine mean us no harm,” Karl told the men. “Remember, they invited us to come. The chieftain is just as interested as we are in a peaceful solution. There’s no reason to be afraid—”

“I’m not afraid of them!” declared one of the farmers. “They should be afraid of us!”

“They probably have fifty armed men,” Mara’s mother remarked dryly. “Perhaps armed only with spears or clubs, but they know how to use them. You would be wise not to provoke them, Mr. Simson.”

Mara sighed. During the five-hour ride, she’d had to listen to three or four similar exchanges. At first, the two farmers had been noticeably more aggressive. They seemed to think that this expedition had more to do with punishing the natives than finding a solution. Now, drawing near to the village, the farmers seemed tenser, more subdued. That didn’t change as the marae came into view.

For Mara, the colorful totem poles framing the village gate were familiar. But seeing them for the first time could be intimidating. Kennard Johnson and his men had certainly never been in a marae before.

“They mean us no harm?” the government official repeated nervously. “They look anything but friendly.” He pointed agitatedly at the warlike welcoming committee that was now approaching the riders.

Mara was surprised, and her parents looked alarmed. In a Maori marae, one would usually see children playing and men and women calmly going about their daily work. But here, they were greeted by the chieftain himself, flanked by a proud phalanx of warriors. His bare chest and his face were tattooed, and the richly decorated loincloth made of dried flax leaves made his muscular body look even more imposing. A war club hung on his belt, and he held a spear in his hand.

“They won’t attack us, will they?” asked one of the English militiamen.

“Don’t worry,” Father O’Toole replied. The priest, a gaunt, aging man, calmly got off his horse. “It’s simply a show of strength.”

As the white men came closer, Maihi Paraone Kawiti, ariki of the Ngati Hine, raised his spear. His warriors began to stamp rhythmically with their feet planted wide, moving back and forth and swinging their weapons. Then they raised their voices in a powerful chant that grew stronger and louder the faster they danced.

Johnson and the farmers ducked behind the bodyguards, who reached for their weapons.

Mara’s father guided his horse between the soldiers and the warriors. “For goodness’ sake, don’t draw your weapons!” he ordered the Englishmen. “Just wait.”

One warrior after another stepped forward, pounding spears on the ground, grimacing and shouting at the “enemies.”

Mara, the only member of the expedition who understood every bit of the war dance and songs, rolled her eyes. These North Island Maori were so old-fashioned! The Ngai Tahu tribe she’d grown up near had long since given up such displays at every confrontation. Since Eru’s pakeha mother, Jane, had married the chieftain, the Ngai Tahu greeted their guests with a simple handshake. This greatly simplified their dealings with visitors and trading partners. Eru’s mother and his father, Te Haitara, had founded a successful sheep-breeding business, which had helped make the tribe wealthy.

“According to the ritual, we should now, hmm, sing something,” Father O’Toole said quietly, as the warriors completed their dance. “That’s part of the exchange, as it were. Of course, the people here know that pakeha don’t usually do such things. These tribal rituals look very savage, but actually the people are quite civilized. Heavens, I baptized the chieftain myself.”

His words were intended to be comforting, but it sounded as though O’Toole was surprised, and not a little worried about Paraone Kawiti’s backslide to the old tribal rituals.

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