Speaker for the Gods, week 20

Hale Waimanalo, part 2

Finding Staves was easy, as a white man wearing bright red grabbed the public’s attention. “Haole komo ‘ula kahiko” was enough to elicit a pointing response from anyone in Waimanalo. My sometime commander sat on a broad stone by the sea, on the bluff’s far slope where the firelight couldn’t reach, staring blankly into black water. The red jacket was folded next to him with rapiers crossed atop; a short-sleeved grey shirt clung to his wiry frame. His hands kneaded one another, sinews labored beneath sunburned skin.

“Have you eaten?” I called out to announce myself.

“Fuck’s it to you?” he responded. It was half-hearted, lacking his usual venom.

“It’s been a long day. The food’s good.” He didn’t respond, so I sighed and continued, “Ienith wants your advice. We’re picking our next move.”

“The High Speaker,” he corrected, finally mustering some real irritation. “She pays me, she gives the orders. What I think’s up to me. Privilege of the position.”

“Her position, not yours. And she’s asking for military advice. Isn’t that why they call you ‘Colonel?’”

“Who calls me that?” he asked rhetorically. “Near every one of ‘em dead and buried on this muggy pit of an island. An officer’s only called that because he leads men. Men die and the title’s just…” Staves trailed off, waving his hand at the surf.

“I’m sorry for the Tigers. Good lads from what little I saw. We’ve all lost friends, one time or another.”

“Not like that. Stabbed, shot, lanced or what-have-you. Combat, plague and everything else. But a mountain Pulled down right on your head by some barbarian’s magic? With nothing to do about it but run and hide? It was never like that.”

At a better time I’d have understood, or from a better man. Instead I felt only a stab of resentment. How could this man—likely the second-worst human being on To’mea until he slew the fire-breathing first—carry on this way? Like he hadn’t cut men down that very day and enjoyed it. Bile rose in my throat.

“Look, Colonel—Colonel Staves of the Royal Red Tigers—let’s think a moment about your trade. You’re a mercenary. You bet your blood against the blood of others, and that’s fine. I’ve dabbled. I wasn’t any good, didn’t have any fun, and so I picked an easier trade. That’s called a choice and you chose that red jacket, you fussy son of a bitch. You picked out those flashy swords, right? You trained with them, for weeks and months and years, until you could kill with an eyeblink, right? Or did your mother push them out with the afterbirth?”

The Colonel’s face was an intriguing shade of red. “You’re very good,” I continued. “Sometimes you even seem like you’re having fun. But you don’t get to wear that jacket and fight like a red devil, then sit on a rock and pout later. You’re an evil man, Colonel. I don’t hold it against you. She doesn’t. But we both expect you to own it.” I leaned in close, enduring a twinge of nerves as I expected he might hit me, and spoke deliberately. “You’re a mercenary drawing pay. Your paymaster is calling. Hop to it, or throw those swords in the goddamned sea.” Heel turn; walk away. I was very proud of myself.

Staves materialized at Ienith’s fire just minutes later, striding into our midst with his jacket on and his rapiers shrouded in burlap to keep the keiki from bothering him. Ienith and her brothers were cackling like crows, telling each other childhood stories they already knew. The village Speaker had gone to bed.

“What’s the question? Ashur said you couldn’t answer your own,” he groused. I’d never heard him so sharp with Ienith.

“Laura, kaikua’ana, this is Colonel Staves: a mercenary in my service.” She smiled pleasantly, refusing to meet his eyes for long moments. “Colonel, I wish to march north towards Hoku’e, and re-unite with the rest of our army.”

“So do it. I’ll follow where I’m led.”

“You speak but do not advise. Shall I ask again?” She was all smiles, refusing to engage him.

“All right. If it were me, I’d take a boat, paddle my bleeding way to the next island, and sail across the sea away from this place. There might be two thousand men between us and the capitol. You want to cut through burning, bloody fields? I’ll do it and that’s no bluff because I’ve done it before. I’ll make it even if you don’t. I’ll tag along, but we’re making a new deal.”

“Within reason, my dear Colonel.” Ienith knew she’d agree but wanted to patronize him first.

“I want a ship. Hundred-mile range at least, along with my gold. Gold, not shells. My boys died, you pay their lives in specie. Shells I can get from the fucking sea.”

“You’ll have it. I need your blades like this island needs my voice.” She rose, unfolding long legs to rise and face the Colonel. “Like it needs Kapono’s strength. Like it needs Ashur’s wisdom. We will save To’mea together, over a thousand bodies. Ten thousand if we need to. And you’ll have your reward, Colonel. Everything you want.” Guilt still gnawed at me. I was a thief, an iwa who meant to swoop in for his prize and fly at the first chance. Los Angeles was the goal. To’mea could burn, but I had to admit to myself that Ienith had become important. Would I die for her? No. But it hadn’t come to that.

Waimanalo had given us a grand ‘aha’aina, but with time the sickened villagers flagged. Just as well; our own party was battered, bruised and exhausted. A painful knot stood on my forehead. Kapono had long since retired to an infirmary hut. I felt passing waves of nausea, five minutes at a time and manageable. My throat felt parched but I couldn’t do more than sip at the water offered me.

“Just drink it,” Ienith advised. “You’re useless without water. A hurting stomach isn’t so bad when it’s full of good food.”

“You don’t seem to be suffering,” I replied.

“It hurts a little. Not so bad. We grew up with the water, in bad seasons when the ponds dried up and we had no fish to sell. No cowries, you got the bad wai.”

“Ponds? Is that what Akela meant by loko i’a?”

“I’ll show you when it’s light.” She kissed my cheek. “My brothers cleaned the house. The first time in years, I’m sure. They’ve welcomed us.”

“Both of us,” I said skeptically.

“I am the High Speaker. If I want a man, I take him to bed.”

“You know I’d like to, but I’m a guest here. I don’t want to upset anyone,” I imagined Laura judgmental Lutherite glare.

“Ahh, but who’s really your host, Ashur?”

“She Who Cracks The Earth,” I delivered in a stage whisper.

“That’s right, ipo.” We kissed. “Now to bed. I’ll dress the puka in your leg.”

Ienith’s family home stood a short walk away, isolated somewhat from the others on the edge of town. Surf rumbled invisibly as we approached. Torches were sunk in the ground, lighting up a one-story hut with a simple angled roof. Made from the ever-present wood and reeds of Kane construction, the villagers had draped thousands of flowers draped across the home that assailed our eyes with bright colors even in the dark. I knew many from Friar Waldman’s drawings: red hibiscus with gold pollen, birds-of-paradise, plumeria both white and purple, even pink bougainvillea from the monastery gardens of my youth. Moonlight shone on still water behind the home—the family pond, I supposed. Akela and Ke’iwa had hauled woven sleeping mats out the front door and laid them down by the path. I felt bad for displacing them even on a mild night, but knew Ienith would tease me for whining.

Once inside I set down my satchel, removed my vest and shirt and sunk gingerly to the woven grass mats. I slid off my blood-spattered pants and checked the binding. The wound was clean, though a bit of dark fluid had stained the thin kapa. Ienith knelt beside me and gently pushed my hands away. She stripped everything off—the bandages’ last remnants peeled stickily away from the wound. Ienith spooled the soiled cloth in her hands, turning them over and over again as I lay waiting. Clean strips waited on the floor by her knees, but she stared right through them and out the other side of the world.

“Ienith,” I said raising up from my back to my elbows, “what’s wrong?”

She came back to Earth, meeting my gaze. She thought for a long time before replying. “I’m treating your wounds.”

“I’ll do it if you’d rather not play nurse. Give me the bandages.”

“Just today, this nurse let hundreds die.”

I’d wondered when this would come; she’d worn a mask for Waimanalo’s benefit. She had convinced even Staves but now the disguise dissolved. Everyone loses friends, but children and charges hit someplace you can’t find until it hurts.

“It was a brilliant trap,” I told her. “Using hai’oleo, no less! How could you have seen that coming? How could you possibly have stopped it?”

“I don’t know. There must have been a way to save some. If I had surrendered—but to whom? There was nothing said, just a pause and then the mountain coming down. I’ll be blamed for that, too.”

“If Hoku’e won’t believe Keone’s a Speaker, they’ll lose anyway.”

“He’s not a Speaker,” she corrected. “But he wields our greatest weapons, and Ku’s favor.”

“With an army at his back. And the high ground,” I added. “And likely a detailed list of our fears.”

Finally she smiled, setting down the soiled bandages and taking up the fresh ones. “Your wit makes you worthwhile. Even the worst jokes. I’d ask one favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Please don’t ever joke about Mahoe Kahu. Don’t even speak of it, because I won’t be reminded. I refuse, until the war is over and I consecrate their memories in Hoku’e’s catacombs.”

“As you wish, ipo. I might hurt you someday but I’ll never mean to.”

“I know. You’re better than most men. Better than my brothers.”

“If I’d had a sister, I’d have been awful to her.”

She finished dressing my wound, and threw one leg over me. Put her hands on my shoulders, leaned into my chest, and pushed me gently to the mat. We kissed. “When I was a girl I liked a village boy very much,” she said, nose inches from mine. What remained of the day’s sweat shone in oil-lamp light. “We’d meet just under a cliff by the sea, when the tide was low and the rocks were safe. We’d kiss, do the things keiki do when they’re not quite keiki any more.” She tugged at my sleeves and shifted her weight back, letting my back off the mat to free my shirt and remove it.

“Akela saw us from his boat one day,” she continued, “My boy knew what he had coming—your girl’s got brothers, they bust you up once and you‘ve paid the toll.”

“Just once?” I feigned outrage. “I get beaten up for you every day.”

“You do much for me, ku’apu, you can’t know it all. Anyway, talking story. My brothers are…competive. Com-pet-it-tive,” she sounded out, getting it right the second time and shaking her head at the flurry of hard sounds. “They took it too far and broke his arm. I can still hear the crack. Laura made sure it mended, ka whipped my brothers with a reed. But the boy didn’t want me anymore. Said it made the bone hurt just to see me.”

“He missed out. What a little shit.” I kissed her and bit at her lip.

“Boys are stupid,” Ienith flicked the dress’s white straps from her shoulders. She gripped the bust and abruptly pulled it off. “But that day, I decided something: when I was grown and stronger than anyone, my bird-brained brothers would never deny me anything I wanted.”

“Everyone likes feeling wanted,” was my nonsense reply, wanting her so badly I couldn’t think straight. Her fingers traced the rough scars on my chest. “That one’s older than Hoku’e,” I bragged.

She laughed and dug her fingernails into it, hurting almost enough to complain.

I slept badly, tossing and turning and waking from stomach pangs. Feverish dreams wound through my head, starting familiar and warping into twisted shadows. I’d wake in a sweat, heart pounding, unable to remember the details. Echoes of feeling ebbed away only to return once I lay back and closed my eyes. All night my body raged against the poison I’d drunk and at last light grew between the wall’s planks. I held Ienith, enjoying her warmth and eager to delay the day’s work. Seabirds whistled above the surf’s bassy churn. A steady rhythm like wood striking wood thumped in the background: the women of Waimanalo up early to beat the mulberry left soaking overnight into kapa.

“How’d you sleep?” I asked, when at last she rolled over and opened her eyes.

“Better than you. You couldn’t stay still.”

“Sorry, I’m still feeling the water. I guess you’re used to it.”

“I feel it too. Pain in your opu fades, but you’re always tired and the dreams make it worse.”

“Does it get better inland?”

“Some places, but you still need to get high up. The farmland’s all bad. We’re lucky the plants and animals don’t mind it. Even Laura doesn’t know why.” She rose from the mat to dress. “The the way we’re going, the wai only gets worse.”

I kissed her, stood and looked around the hut in daylight. Fresh clothes had been laid out for me the night before. Ienith waited for me by the door and I carried the vest rather than spend the time to lace it. Outside the sky was overcast, the air humid and oppressively still. Akela still slept on his mat; Ke’iwa was gone. “He can only get he’e in the morning,” Ienith explained. Behind the hut just yards from the sea sat a pond ringed by large stones. Green vegetation glistened on the rocks, the water level currently three feet beneath the plant line. Apparently this pond felt tides.

A large wooden assembly stood on the lip closest: a platform with a large wheel and a crank, attached to thick rough ropes that ran up and over polished wooden pulleys before plunging down to anchor a heavy sluice gate. I could see gaps in the gate below the surface; this pond was salt water.

“This is the family loko i’a. My ka raised fish here and now my brothers do. They go out for more, but this provides even when you get unlucky.”

I peered into the murky water. “Don’t see any fish.”

“They hide. See the limu on the rocks? Laura calls it al-jee, but you can see it’s healthy. Little fish swim in, grow fat on the limu and stay because the big fish can’t get in to eat them. Soon they’re too big to get out, and you take what you need when you need it.”

“That gate is some fine work.”

“Ka was a smart man, good with his hands. He built Akela’s canoe. You don’t need a gate if you just block the water with stones and keep some space between them. But the gate lets big ones in if you don’t have time for them to grow. If there’s a storm and the reef gets too cloudy to fish. Ka got our pond running in one season, opening the gate at dawn for the big i’aand closing it behind them.” She crossed her arms and sighed.

“Must have been strong to work it himself.”

“Pulleys make it easier, but yes it’s heavy. My brothers bet I’d never lift it. So I went to the beach, found the best shells, traded them for help. Six keiki was enough.”

“What did you win?”

“Oh, nothing. And ka beat all of us for messing with it. But it hurt me less for being right,” she finished with a grin.

“Did your dad name you? Or your mom? Ienith seems like a strange name for Kane. Most of ‘em can’t even say it: ‘Ienid.’”

“I never asked who. There were times I’d come home crying because the other children were teasing me over it. He’d say, ‘you can say it, ya? Then you know who you are. Even better, you know something they don’t. Let them tease.”

She looked wistful and beautiful. It was a loose moment; the best time to ask something you’d rather avoid. “Oh, speaking of keiki. I read once that the Speakers have no families. So what happens if you, uhh…” I trailed off, mortified, and pointed at her belly.

A new expression swept her face, a sweet sadness that passed like a To’mean shower. Ienith patted where I pointed. “Empty, ku’apu. Now and always.”

“Oh, I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing to be sorry for. Hai’oleo is a privilege with a cost, not a gift. Ku marks us invisibly. His breath scalds wahine and kane alike. It’s not a torment, just the price of devotion.”

“Every Speaker?”

“Every one. A few take spouses, late in life, but Ku takes all that we are.”

Staves and Kapono waited near the north gate, leaning against a mighty banyan tree. They stuffed supplies into packs the villagers had provided, exchanging neither words nor glances. The tree’s high branches covered fifty yards of ground, though with the Sun obscured there wasn’t shade to speak of. Others reached out horizontally, supported along their lengths by roots that had grown down to the Earth and ossified. Thicker buttresses stood closer to the central trunk, so twisted and knobbly that keiki had no trouble climbing twenty feet up it to watch us pack. On the ground we could shoo them away; in the air they felt invincible. Further out on the shade’s periphery dangled new roots, young and red-brown and still soft.

Staves pulled from a canteen, thirsty enough to suffer with the rest of us. “My Lady!” he exclaimed with a sneer as we approached. “Finished with your beach holiday? Rested and ready for the real world?”

“And a good morning to you, Colonel,” said Ienith, smiling sweetly and refusing, as before, to engage. Kapono looked up and noticed us. He still looked pale, but moved with purpose and clearly meant to come along. Typically shirtless, the Sun-darked Kane was wearing a short-sleeved shirt in a hand-dyed floral pattern to shield the bandages over his wound. Ienith embraced him and he squeezed her lovingly.

“He complains so much even I hear it,” the herald said in Kane, and broke out laughing.

“We’ll leave soon,” she told him. “I need a better bow. And to talk with my brothers.”

Staves sighed. “Daylight’s wasting, High Speaker.”

“I won’t be long. An hour, maybe. Have your kits ready and we’ll march right away.”

“Will there be another party to see us off?” I asked cheekily.

“There would be, if everyone knew. Be ready to march,” she repeated, and left.

“Hope she didn’t wear you out, Ashur,” Staves said drily as I spat on my vest and set to scrubbing the bloodstains.

Ienith worked quickly, returning in half the time she’d promised with a bow on her shoulder and a full quiver strapped to her hip. All showed fine craftsmanship, a league beyond yesterday’s scavenged weapons. Ke’iwa was with her, walking a step behind with his head slightly bowed and his own pack over one shoulder. A coil of rope dangled from his leather belt, its thick grip quickly hydra’ing into thee heads weighted with stones. Lousy weapon, I thought: the stones were too small. Still, I’d learned not to question the Kane martial arts. These people knew violence, and pursued it with the same passion they showed everything else.

We five took off from Waimanalo’s north gate to scattered cheers from the villagers who’d turned out to see us off. Gaunt children trickled out from their parents’ huts to watch the spectacle. Birds sang from the trees and hopped between perches like merry elves. Cool wind blew in from the sea and whispered between the trees, breaking up the day’s mounting heat. My limp was nearly gone, though it’d hurt to run. Short coastal trees grew to towering columns as Ienith led us north, flanked at her shoulders by Ke’iwa and Kapono. Staves walked just behind them and I brought up the rear.

After an hour’s march we came upon the Great Road, at a crossroads where the big packed-earth artery ended and split into three smaller tributaries. South, the path to Waimanalo; east, which way was marked with glyphs I couldn’t read; and north, through To’mea’s farmland and ultimately to Hoku’e. We took the northern fork, hiking north through jungle and uphill. In time we came to a jagged cone of black rock that once had been a volcano: smaller than Mahoe Kahu, its barren head plumed by a stand of valiant trees whose seeds had somehow reached the summit. A huge hunk of rock had fallen from its flank in the distant past to form a shallow cleft through which the path ran. As we drew close, fresh dark stains appeared in the dirt. Birds massed in the air, black figures spinning and calling and diving.

“Somebody’s dead,” observed the Colonel. “A lot of somebodies.”

Our party emerged through the gap into an abattoir. Bodies and discarded weapons lay strewn on each side of the trail and often right across it. We stepped over hewn limbs, shredded flesh and spilt viscera. At least a day old, the bodies attracted pounds of flies on top of the birds. Mynahs stopped pecking at faces to observe us. Ke’iwa covered his nose and mouth with his hands, warding off the unbelievable stench. This from a man who spent his days elbow-deep in fish guts. Without much breeze the smell just hung before you like a leering skull.

“The ones on this side are all To’mean,” Ienith said, dazed.

“It was right to defend this place,” Kapono spoke in Kane. “They killed more than they lost, with the gap to protect them.”

“They lost a lot,” Ke’iwa replied, nasal and muffled through his hand. I stayed silent wading through the bodies, and not even the Colonel was cruel enough to point out the red frigatebirds on their satchels.

Beyond the battlefield, the trail wound downhill and leveled out into a vast farming plain. It had been burned—everything I could see for at least a mile ahead before the haze of ash and smoke became a wall. A large bird turned slow gyres overhead, a brown blot on the clear blue sky. A carrion bird, I thought, until its slow descent revealed a feathered head and hooked beak. It was an ‘Io, a Kane eagle, a rare sight even in the mountains and certainly so close to the ocean. Why did a hunter linger over the dead?

It kept falling as we made our way towards the cindered fields. Ienith saw it too, watching its approach. As talons swooped disturbingly low over our heads, the High Speaker raised her left hand straight up in the air. The big bird swooped down, braked with a draft from its four-foot wingspan and alighted on Ienith’s forearm. Smaller than eagles over the sea but just as proud, a strip of paper-thin bark had been tied to its left leg. Ienith lowered the bird—gingerly so as not to spook it—and loosen the string with her free hand. When the message was free she pushed up with the roosting arm, and the eagle took flight again. In an instant it was a speck again, far faster than it seemed before.

“Now Hoku’e will know our position. They will know I am alive.” she explained over her shoulder, holding up the message while her forearm dripped blood from the talons. Crude picture-glyphs had been branded—I could guess at the pictures themselves, but their larger meaning was a mystery.

“Battle ahead,” she sighed at last. “They’re fighting in the fields. I’m to help where I can, and make my way to the city.”

“All that in a couple glyphs?” I asked, incredulous. Kapono’s look suggested I was the stupidest man alive and Ienith was kind enough to ignore me.

“Say they’ve got the city under siege already,” posited Staves.

“They’d have shot the ‘Io as it left,” was her curt response.

“By the time we get there…” Staves began, before she cut him off.

“By then we’ll know more about the enemy. I’ll have matched my voice to Keone’s. And I’ll have put a thousand invaders in the ground, to nourish the cane when it grows again. ’A’ole hiki i ka i’a li’ili ke ale i ka i’a nui. A small fish cannot swallow a big one,” she declared, setting off down the path with purposeful strides. We followed towards desolation and death.