Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga) Read online

  “There’s a kind of war going on here right now, Mara,” Eru said. “My father and mother are fighting about whether I should be pakeha or Maori. Or both, if that’s even possible. At least they agree that I should follow in my father’s footsteps as a leader one day. But for my father, being chieftain is most important, while my mother sees me more as the chairman of the Sheep Breeders’ Association. ‘A mediator between cultures,’ she says. They’re all pulling me in different directions, Mara! My father’s people are teaching me how to make spears and use war clubs. My mother thinks that’s totally useless, since guns are more effective. Of course, she’s not wrong there. The English have conquered half the world without ever having danced a haka before a battle.”

  Mara had noticed a strong British military presence on the North Island, even though many of the soldiers who had fought in the Taranaki war had been sent back to Australia. The thought of the redcoats doing any kind of dance before battle made her laugh.

  “This is serious!” Eru said. “My mother thinks war is old-fashioned, anyway. She says in the end economics will rule the world, and instead of learning how to beat people up, I should go to college and study economic theory. Then I could improve the sheep-breeding business, and the tribe would have more money and prestige. And, well, anyone who has money and prestige doesn’t need to fight a war. She’s probably not wrong about that either. It’s just that I—”

  “What do you want, Eru?” Mara asked gently. “Do you want to go to college?”

  The two of them had sat down on a sand spit and were gazing out over the glistening water of the Waimakariri. Mara nestled against her beau, and he put his bare arms around her in the cool night air.

  He sighed again. “Not really. But at the same time, I do want to be taken seriously. And I see how the Sheep Breeders’ Association treats my father.”

  Te Haitara hated the meetings in Christchurch, but Jane insisted that their tribal breeding business be represented there. Behind Jane’s back, the breeders sarcastically referred to the village as Iron Janey’s Station.

  “If I had a college degree, they’d be more likely to accept me,” Eru said. “I don’t want to go to England, but the only college in New Zealand is a medical school.”

  Mara squeezed Eru’s hand and played with his fingers. “How much economics do you really need in the Canterbury Plains?” she asked. “I don’t know of one sheep baron who’s read your mother’s beloved Adam Smith.”

  Eru shrugged. “I think it’s more important to learn as much as possible about sheep.”

  Mara nodded. “Then work for the Deanses for a year, or for the Redwoods,” she suggested. “Or for the Wardens at Kiward Station. That’s the gigantic farm Carol got her dog from. And afterward, maybe you can go to high school in Christchurch or Dunedin for a year. There must be some kind of private school there.”

  Eru shrugged. “Maybe. My mother was also talking about one in Wellington.”

  “Wellington.” Mara hesitated for a moment. “We were just there. It’s a very modern city, and it surely has a high school. And probably a school for girls too! Eru, if I ask my parents, then maybe we could both go to high school! We could go to Wellington together. Would you like that?”

  Eru straightened his shoulders. “I’d go anywhere with you,” he said, but didn’t sound completely convinced.

  Mara, however, was on fire. The more she thought about it, the more ingenious the plan seemed. She was determined to marry Eru. It was what she had always wanted, and any lingering doubt had disappeared with their first kiss. However, it was clear to Mara that they were still both too young for marriage. So, she and Eru would have to figure out how to keep themselves busy for the next couple of years doing something they enjoyed.

  For Eru, that wasn’t a problem. Mara had assumed he’d stay in the village and be educated as a warrior. But she hadn’t been able to come up with anything for herself. Unlike Carol and Linda, she had never been interested in special duties at Rata Station. She could neither train dogs nor help bring newborn lambs into the world. She’d always done routine tasks like checking the fences, herding the sheep, or helping in the shearing shed, but she hadn’t really enjoyed any of it. Fortunately, her parents were preoccupied enough not to question why their daughter wanted to stay on the farm instead of moving to Russell with them. And if she told her family that she wanted to go to school, Karl and Ida would be thrilled. They’d always regretted the fact that grouchy Miss Foggerty had never managed to motivate the children. They themselves had adored their village school in Mecklenburg, but had been forced to leave at the age of thirteen. Later, they had educated themselves as best they could in the undeveloped new country while doing farm work. And of course, they had happily shared the cost of the tutor that Jane had hired. If that now bore delayed fruit and additionally helped attract their daughter to the North Island where they wanted to settle, Mara’s persuasive skills wouldn’t be put to a difficult test.

  For Eru, it would be different. Te Haitara wouldn’t be very happy about sending his son to the North Island. Most of the tribes there were enemies of the Ngai Tahu, which meant Eru wouldn’t be able to keep in contact with other Maori. He would have to concentrate entirely on his pakeha schoolmates. Of course, that would be fine with Jane—and Mara.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do!” she declared after they had both thought quietly for a few moments. “You just have to be smart about it. Your mother can’t know that I’m going to be in Wellington too. It would be better if you try first, and I wait until my parents have moved. Then I’ll write and tell them how bored I am at Rata Station, and how I suddenly got the idea about Wellington.” She smiled mischievously.

  But Eru looked at her in shock. “You want me to go to the North Island alone? Should we separate again now, for months?”

  Mara shrugged. “We can’t start in the middle of a semester. That means it will be at least three months before you can go to Wellington, Eru!”

  She smiled when she thought about the long, hot summer when she’d sneak away from Rata Station as much as possible to be with him.

  Eru rubbed his forehead. “Let’s keep practicing the kissing, anyway,” he said as Mara moved to stand. “Who knows when we’ll get another chance?”

  Mara offered her lips willingly again. He found her mouth, and they joined in a long, tender kiss that made everything shiver inside of her.

  “Well,” she said breathlessly, “I don’t think we really need practice anymore. If there was a degree in kissing, we’d already have it.”

  Chapter 8

  Jane had been born with the surname Beit, had married and divorced as Fenroy, and was now harnessed with a Maori name that no one but her loving husband could take seriously. She had heard the birdcall that lured her son out of the house, but hadn’t paid attention to it. Jane didn’t care about birds, and she wasn’t interested in the sounds that talented Maori musicians conjured from their koauaus either. The only thing she managed to get excited about was running the tribe’s sheep-breeding business. But she didn’t even like sheep. In fact, Jane had preferred the previous venture she’d arranged for the Ngai Tahu: the manufacture of herbal medicines and good-luck charms, which offered a predictable profit, a negligible investment, and guaranteed growth. Settlers had been streaming into New Zealand for decades, but there were very few doctors among them. Therefore, the people at farms, whaling stations, and seal-hunting outposts had eagerly purchased everything from the traveling merchant who had sold the items for Jane, and had ordered more. As news of the medicines’ effectiveness spread, the tribe could have hugely increased production. But the tohunga, tribal elders, and wise women hadn’t wanted to do it. For them, the tinctures for coughs or stomachaches weren’t just concoctions. They contained the spirits of the plants, who had to be invoked in complicated ceremonies. That was all very time consuming, and apparently the spirits didn’t always want to be conjured. In any case, Jane’s efforts to expand the business had failed. Fina
lly, she had invested the profit they had earned in sheep, which had been imported to New Zealand by the pakeha and thus had no close relationship to the local spirits.

  The tohunga kept her distance from the sheep business, and the Ngai Tahu seemed to have a natural talent for working with the animals, so the tribe had achieved prosperity. That made her husband happy. Te Haitara had eventually made his peace with the “spirits of money,” whose successful conjuring had been demanded of him by his people since they had discovered the amenities of the pakeha lifestyle.

  Te Haitara’s position as chieftain had been questioned, but he had made it possible for every member of his tribe to fulfill their material wishes. Since those wishes were mostly limited to things like cooking pots, fabric, bird-hunting weapons, and fishing gear, there was always enough left over for the necessary investments in the sheep farm. Jane, too, could have been content. But she wasn’t. That night, she tossed restlessly while her husband slept peacefully next to her.

  It simply wasn’t enough for Jane to have a smoothly working farm that turned a good profit. She wanted to have the best animals, the most valuable fleeces, and the largest herd. Of course, that would lead to the highest income, which then could be used for other investments. Jane was flirting with the idea of investing in mining or railway construction. Coal had been found on the west coast, and train tracks were planned on the North Island. There were many opportunities to become rich by making intelligent investments in New Zealand. Her father had known that but hadn’t handled it well. Jane was determined to trump John Nicholas Beit in every respect. She would prove what his underestimated daughter was capable of!

  The problem was that Te Haitara and his tribe had no interest in Jane’s goals. They showed no understanding for her efforts to increase the size of the herd, to improve the breeding stock, or to reduce costs by learning to shear sheep themselves.

  “But we’re rich already, Raupo,” Te Haitara said affectionately. Raupo was his pet name for Jane. He thought she was as flexible, multifaceted, and clever as the spirit that made its home in the cattail reeds. “We can buy anything we want.”

  But the chieftain didn’t understand how much fun making money was for Jane, and how much she enjoyed the challenge. And for that reason, he didn’t understand why Jane was constantly in competition with Cat Rata and Chris Fenroy. He thought of their neighbors as friends, and didn’t care that their farm was larger and more profitable. And he certainly didn’t try to keep up with them, which made Jane absolutely furious.

  “Haitara, we have twenty young men who do nothing all day but swing their spears around and conjure war spirits, even though we don’t have any enemies here! And then there are all the women and old men. We could get at least fifty people involved with the farming. Cat and Chris have twice as many sheep as we do, and they only have five hired hands. Can’t you encourage the people to work every day, and not just when they feel like it?”

  Te Haitara could only shake his head at such outbursts. He didn’t see his tribe as lazy in the least. They were always available when there was important work to be done, and the women and girls who had chosen to make caring for the sheep their main occupation responsibly drove them out to pasture and back to the sheds. However, they never went to the trouble of separating the rams and the ewes. They were delighted about every lamb that was born, whether it was sired by a slaughter animal or a prize-winning ram. They thought intact fences were overrated. The men only maintained the fence around the marae in order to keep the sheep out. What was more, Te Haitara’s tribe thought the shearing shed, a long, hall-like structure that enabled the shearers to work in bad weather, was horrible. They refused to bless it with the usual ceremonies, insisting that the spirits weren’t comfortable there. When Jane finally gritted her teeth and asked Cat for advice, she just shrugged.

  “The sheep don’t feel comfortable there either,” she said. “From a spiritual point of view, it’s not a good place. On the other hand, we want to sell the wool, and the sheep can’t walk around all summer in their thick fleeces. You’ll just have to try to convince the tribal elder of that. Perhaps she knows an incantation to ask the spirits of the sheep for forgiveness. They do that for hunting and fishing.”

  Appalled, Jane had declined the suggestion. Delaying the shearing with hours of ceremonial singing was the last thing she wanted. She would rather try to work it out with her husband.

  Cat and Chris owned the better breeding animals and had better connections for selling their wool. They had just purchased an excellent Romney ram from the Butlers. It was exactly the breeding stock Jane needed for her herd. It was also what was keeping Jane from sleeping that night. The next day, she wanted to ask Chris and Cat if they would allow her to bring over a few ewes to join their breeding group. She was sure they wouldn’t refuse. To the contrary, Cat and Chris were the most accommodating neighbors imaginable. They were always ready to coordinate with Jane when it came to herding, breeding schedules, shearing, and shipping the fleeces. Te Haitara was very grateful, but Jane felt they were being patronizing. When she went to talk to them the next day, Cat would surely ask again about Eru’s plans for the future. Te Haitara assumed she was just being polite, but Jane interpreted it as covert criticism. Cat, too, had grown up caught between the two cultures. She had been maligned from both sides, seen as either a white Maori or a traitorous pakeha. Perhaps she had honest interest and understanding for Eric—but perhaps she just wanted to see Jane’s ambitious plans for him fail.

  Jane was still pondering the ram and Eru’s further education when she thought she heard someone open and close the front door very softly, and then footsteps. For the space of a heartbeat, she was afraid, but her common sense won out. She was safe in the middle of the marae. No one broke into a chieftain’s house. So it could only be . . .

  Jane got up, lit a candle, and walked out of her bedroom. Her son was just making himself comfortable on his sleeping mat.

  “Where were you?” she asked sternly. “You scared me half to death!”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he said sheepishly, although he was secretly convinced that nothing in the world could scare his mother. “It’s just—I couldn’t sleep. It’s a full moon.”

  “So?” she said. “Since when has that bothered you? What’s going on, Eric, some kind of secret meeting? Is it one of the initiation rituals or warrior games, or something else I should know about?”

  Eric shook his head, annoyed. It was true, sometimes the tohunga called young warriors out. Jane always made it difficult for Eric when he was called. So far, Te Haitara had always stood up for him, but he hated having to fight for everything that his friends took for granted.

  “Nothing’s going on. I just needed a little fresh air.” He smiled. “I wanted to talk to the spirits.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. If there had been a missionary school in the area, she would have rather sent him there than expose him to the influences of Maori superstition. On the other hand, it hadn’t hurt Te Haitara to conjure a few spirits every now and then. As long as Eric didn’t overdo it.

  “What did they say?” she asked grumpily.

  “Um, I think I might want to go to college after all,” Eru murmured.

  Jane’s expression transformed completely. “Seriously, Eric? You’re thinking about it? Then there must finally be some sensible spirits around here! That’s wonderful, my son. You won’t regret it! But now you have to sleep. Tomorrow you have to select a few sheep to breed with Butler’s ram. And I need sleep now too. You’re not wrong about the full moon. It makes it hard to wind down.”

  Jane repressed the impulse to pull the covers up over her nearly full-grown son. She was indescribably relieved when she lay down next to her husband again. At least the problem with Eric was solved. Jane fell asleep peacefully as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  Eru lay awake longer. He was exhausted, too, but excited from the encounter with Mara—and distressed by the shock of nearly having been caught by his
mother. Finally, he fell asleep and dreamed of kisses in the moonlight, there in the village and maybe soon in Wellington . . .

  Mara could have slapped herself. She made the same mistake returning to Rata Station that she had when she’d left. She rushed passed the horse barn without caution, and this time she wasn’t as lucky. She ran directly into Chris, who was staggering a little. He had walked Karl to the stone house and then returned to the barn to pick up the bottle and put the lantern back on its hook. When the farmhands arrived in the morning, they would see no signs that anyone had been celebrating there. Chris was usually the first person in the barn, but after his overindulgence that night, it was better not to make any ambitious plans for the morning. But when he bumped into Mara, he seemed to sober up instantly.

  “Mara! What are you doing here? You were so tired you could barely keep your eyes open. I thought you were asleep a long time ago.”

  Mara bit her lip. “I—I was,” she said. “And then I woke up again and wanted to get a little fresh air. A moonlit night like this is so beautiful.”

  Chris regarded her skeptically. “You put on your riding habit and boots just to walk around the yard a little? And since when have you been interested in moonlit nights? Out with it, Mara! Where have you been?”

  Mara thought feverishly but came up empty. Chris was right, this was her home. If she had really wanted to step outside for some fresh air, she would have just wrapped a shawl over her nightgown.

  Chris took in her windblown hair and the wakeful expression on her face. Mara surely hadn’t been to bed. And as for her sudden appreciation of moonlit nights . . . Chris sighed. He had suspected something of the sort six months ago, before she’d left.

  “Were you in the village, Mara?” he asked. “Were you with Eru?”

  Mara shook her head defiantly, but her cheeks burned. “I was just—”