Speaker for the Gods, week 24

King Keone, part 2

I slept in fits and starts on cool hard ground. The sound of distant singing woke me for moments at a time, the torches searing my eyes before reality poured like cold water into my skull. Throbbing, aching pain in every joint and fiber accounted for the last day. Staves wailed and thrashed through the night, growing worse when the rain started up again. Drops fell and hissed on the torches without a canopy to break them. Soft steady drops didn’t much bother me. The earth drank them easily, softening without turning to mud. The water slowly and haphazardly cleaned the blood from the Colonel’s face. A fresh pair of surly Kane arrived to relieve our guards. Crickets rasped so loudly I knew the forest must be close; Keone held us at the edge of town.

The revelry wound down and sunlight built in the sky soon after. I couldn’t sleep anymore, though my exhaustion remained. The next shift of guards brought breakfast: skins of water and a dollop of poi on a smooth wooden shingle. Hunger made even the purple goop appealing. The water was gone too quickly; it tasted no different from the toxic lowland stuff, but just knowing it was clean made the drinking sweeter. The guards gnawed on hunks of crispy pork. I took in big wafts of its salty smell before lapping up the sickly-sweet taro with my tongue. Staves woke, slurped his water, poked his fingers in the poi. They went to his mouth and I saw a puzzled look on his face. He sat back staring at the sky with fingers laced, neglecting his meal. We sat in silence all through the morning.

Men bearing spears and the crested helms of koali’icame for me; they left the Colonel, who was still in no shape to walk or speak. I expected mayhem in the streets—garbage, wine skins, dogs picking at food on the ground next to drunkards’ snoring hulks. But there was barely a trace of the night before, just dead fire pits and overturned dirt. Families began the day’s chores late, and only now, near noon, could I hear the women beating kapa. Soldiers loaded wrapped bundles into parked oxcarts while the beasts hung their heads and snorted contentedly. The escorts turned left towards the ridge’s rim and led me down a long path ending in well-masoned stone steps. We climbed, strong hands holding my unbound arms to restrain me and ward off a fall. Tall trees blocked any view to the left of the stairs—what I surmised was south.

To the right stretched perhaps a dozen homes in a row, lavish by Kane standards: two-story affairs with stone foundations, finer than any in Kaleikaumaka. I glanced back for an elevated view of Noio Koha and noted wells dotting the town’s open spaces. A ten-foot basalt wall encrusted with moss and vines ringed the settlement on three sides. The fourth side was open, trusting the steep western ridge for protection and allowing stilted homes to stretch down into the awawa below. Beyond the north wall, through a wide-open arched gateway, Keone’s army sat encamped.

White kapa tents clustered as close as the trees allowed. They’d felled only the smaller trees—a sign they didn’t plan to stay long. Fire pits were dug to roast chicken and fish, judging from the smell. Men trafficked between the tents, doing the menial work that fills so many soldiering days. I took note of the docile mood in Noio Koha, despite the occupation. If the people seethed under Keone’s yoke, I saw no sign of it.

At the stairs’ summit waited a wider set of smaller steps, climbing up a slab of foundation stone to wall out ground termites. This was the biggest home in town: a three-story house held up by four tree-trunk posts at its corners, framing the structure from the foundation to the second level. The third story was smaller, allowing for a small balcony ringed by a wood rail and facing out over To’mea’s western expanse. A sloping roof of red stucco tiles likely imported from across the sea funneled rain from gutters into a black stone cistern on the building’s flank. Symmetrical windows with iron hinges and beautiful sandalwood siding gave it a palatial appearance by Kane standards. Two crest-helmed soldiers with gold-and-black feathered cloaks framed a wooden door ornately inlayed with corroded green copper. Through the door, polished wooden walls and fine woven mats felt warm and elegant. I cringed tromping my dirty boots over them where the barefoot Kane padded quietly along. A tightly turning staircase at the end of the entry hall led us higher and deposited us at a landing facing back towards the entrance.

The second floor was dominated by a single large room, its wide open space broken only by a ladder to the third floor loft. A single black-and-gold guard stood by it, bare-headed on account of the low ceiling. A tight black braid fell down his back and he carried a short spear with a bronze head. Two more men with the same equipment stood alongside an empty chair, high-backed but unadorned. This was a throne room of sorts. A large wooden birdcage held a glowering black crow. Nobody said a word.

Down the ladder came a pair of feet, then calves, then knees and all the rest of a tall man in loose-fitting black robes. He descended quickly but kept his gaze focused on the rungs. Keone set his feet on the floor and turned to face me.

“Your absent friend is Colonel William Staves.” Keone’s speaking voice was strong, his accent up-and-down in tone, clipping some vowels and ballooning others like the English-speaking haoles of the far south Pacific. Similar in some ways to Staves’ manner but more jovial and less soothing to the ear. He slid into the throne with a natural grace and accepted a gourd of water from an attendant who clambered up the stairs behind me. “Lately of the Royal Red Tigers fighting outfit. What’s your name, son?”

He couldn’t be many years past thirty. “Ashur.”

“Asher with an E?”

“It’s spelled with a U, highness.”

“I prefer ‘milord.’” Servants brought a short table like a stool, and a plate of fish and fruit. “Are you a soldier, Ashur? One of the Colonel’s bunch, if I had to guess.”

“No, milord. Just a pauper and wanderer, caught up in this war through bad luck.”

Keone cocked his head and smirked. “Where’s his weapon?” he asked his men in Kane. One left the room. “Caught up, you say. Not a fighter?”

“Not to speak of, milord. Only in dire need,” I humbly bowed my head. A guard approached the throne. My machete dangled from his hand and Keone took it to admire.

“Not a fighter. And yet you kill my men with a trophy like this.”

“A gift from the High Speaker. I needed something to get by, running her errands. There’s a war on, you know.” I instantly regretted the sass, feeling my stomach turn.

Keone focused on the etched whale. “Well, I’m keeping it. Excellent steel!”

“Enjoy it, milord. It saved my life in the Ho’o’aui mountains.”

“You pronounce it well,” he declared. And then in Kane, “But I wonder how well.”

“I’ve learned some things,” I replied in the same tongue.

“You’re an interesting fellow.” He surprised me by switching back to English. “Let’s talk about those errands. How’s a fellow like you—nothing much to commend you at a look—fall in with To’mea’s golden goose?”

“You mean the High Speaker.”

“She’s the one. I’d have broke their walls down already if she weren’t skulking over my shoulder.” His tone was easy, friendly, trusting. It made me suspicious and I remembered how Ienith singled me out on the beach. Could he “see” me the way she had?

“I fell in with Staves’ group out of convenience. It was the only way to get past the harbor guards. Didn’t mean to, didn’t sign a contract or even get paid, but I ended up fighting your men on a beach. Somewhere on the northwest shore.”

“Keneke beach,” Keone nodded. “I took a risk, bringing my own fleet around south and hoping whatever fearsome creature they stashed at Kia’i Ku’ao took the smaller bait. I landed my men and struck out from there—well, I don’t need to tell you the blow-by-blow. Clever fellow like you, been around a while,” he let that line hang, stroking the birdcage’s bars and clucking at the crow. It ground its beak affectionately against his fingertips before snapping suddenly, growing aggressive for no obvious reason. Keone yanked his hand back quick as lightning and chuckled.

I was nervous and resisted the impulse to run my mouth as I often do. Keone picked a chunk of golden pineapple off the plate and gestured quickly between us. A guard took the clay disc and handed it to me. “Eat, Ashur. I welcome you into my adopted home, with all spirit of aloha.” His vowel-warping accent vanished for the last word.

“So accept my generosity and tell me a story,” he continued. “Tell me your path from Keneke Beach, through war and death to my very doorstep.” The self-styled king sat back and steepled his fingers. I started from the beginning.

It was the truth, mostly, told between mouthfuls of food and swigs of cold crisp water that bought time when I needed it to think of credible lies. Details I cut out in places: the nights with Ienith, the lies to Iokepa on our way to meeting Kimo and back. Stories run cleaner without the mud.

“I can believe most of that,” Keone declared at the end.

“Milord, I promise you—“

“The bit with the pua’a and the fight with Speaker Ka’ena, no.” It was still strange when his accent shifted. “I spoke to Kaleikaumaka’s wai kalepa emissary just last night. Killed the Speaker in his sleep, he said.” A finger crawled across his throat.

“You asked me the truth and I told it, milord. There may be several truths; I won’t press it. But if Speaker Ka’ena was killed by haole sellswords, they’d have every natural reason to leave that out.” I prised white flaky flesh off the crisped skin of a troutlike fish.

“You’ve come quite a ways, Mister Ashur,” he remarked. I could only shrug. A man took the near-empty plate from my lap; mahalo, I thanked him before speaking to the king again.

“Milord, what have you planned for me? And the Colonel? Not to be blunt, but if you’re going to have us killed I’d rather know it now.”

He waved off the notion. “What on Earth would I gain by it? For my purposes, the Colonel’s easy. Watch and wait, see if he comes ‘round. If that head wound did him in for good, I’ll cut him loose in the forest. If not, he’s in the same boat with you.” Keone smirked and waited for me to ask.

“What does that mean, milord, if I may?”

“It means you’re in the position of buying your lives. Which should be easy!” he clarified, a generous hand raised. “You spent days with High Speaker Ienith. You know her better than anyone here. I’m a generous king, or I try to be. I don’t ask much, but you’ve got to give me something. Can’t keep prisoners around for nothing.”

“That’s fair, milord. But I’ve told you most of it already, what she did and how she acted. If you want my ignorant opinion, she’s a fine general. Creative, aggressive, cares for her men. You saw what she could do on the battlefield.”

“And what she can do to her people’s own harbor. That had to upset the Mouth of Ku.” The crow in the cage ruffled its feathers suddenly and screeched for no apparent reason. “A’ole wala’au!” Keone snapped at it.

“The Speakerage took her men and had her sitting encamped just east of Hunakai. Fetching Ka’ena was her chore, that’s why she sent Colonel Staves.”

“I see! That fits with your story. For my part, after we hit the Great Road I expected an attack. But my enemy’s champion was absent, their resistance broken down. ‘Some larger plan,’ said I. It kept me up nights. The wai kalepa would turn easily, I thought, and that made the rest possible. But childish infighting among the Speakers themselves! I’m not used to being so lucky. Thank you, Ashur. That’s exactly the sort of thing’ll keep you ticking.”

“Much obliged, milord. I’ve no dog left in this fight. ”

“Then answer this, because your story left it out: you got off the boat, were denied entry for lack of business, and fell in with sellswords to get by. But why come to begin with? Why walk right into my war?”

“News travels slowly over the sea. I simply didn’t know,” I lied.

“A man doesn’t come so far without business. But you had no contact to meet you here. So what business have you, exactly?” Keone had been staring at his lap and now he lifted amber eyes to mine.

“Well, it’s embarrassing,” I said with a laugh and a scratch at my scalp. The room felt very warm and I settled on a close cousin of a lie that’d worked before. “I’m looking for a treasure. It’s a hobby of mine—an obsession, my friends would say. Been reading about this loot for years and I finally saved up the money for passage. I could never afford to make it back—for a second trip, I mean. So once here, I took a risk. It was a bad risk. I probably made a mistake.”

The king shrugged. “I’ve thought the same through years of war. More than a few times. And yet here we are on the cusp of victory. You never know what’ll happen.”

“Wise words, milord.”

He called up another water gourd for me. “You must feel awful after drinking that lowland swill. The water on this island, it’s a nightmare. I certainly don’t intend to stay once the fighting’s done.”

“Thank you, milord.” I took a pull. “For a few days, it’s manageable. Wouldn’t want to keep it up for long.” I thought about the children of Waimanalo but kept them to myself.

“It’s been the greatest challenge of this last campaign: how to get my men clean water, how to keep it from the Speakerage. Every island is its own riddle. This was the toughest. And speaking of riddles, Mister Ashur, I’d like to hear the end of yours. What’s the treasure? Gold and jewels? Haoles don’t care for cowries.”

I chuckled dutifully. The guards were stone-faced. “As I said, it’s a bit embarrassing. It’s a boat.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll need a bit more, mate.”

“It’s a very old boat. Ancient. Hidden in a secret port, somewhere on the island. It may be wreckage by now. I just love the story. Have for years, as I’ve said.”

“Explain it.”

“Oh, I’m an awful storyteller. It’s just an adventure from an old book. I always wanted it to be true and I figured, even if it’s not there, I’d know the story better having seen the place.”

Keone frowned, leaned to his left and murmured in a guard’s ear. The armed man leaned his spear against the wall and bent down. He rummaged through a coarse sack sitting on the floor in a sickly lump. When the man stood, a white kapa bag dangled from his hand by its one strap. Through a mask of dust and blood I saw the murky red outline of a frigatebird. Keone reached inside it with a look of distaste and extracted Friar Waldman’s leatherbound tome. I wanted to leap for joy but couldn’t let him know how I prized it.

“Is this the book? God-Speakers of To’mea?”

“No, milord. That’s just a guide, to learn the island and pass time on the passage.”

“This, then?” he brandished the orange paper booklet.

“No, though it concerns the boat. Describes some of its components. Los Angeles, it’s called.”

“Odd name.”

“It’s Spanish. I bought this off a man in the port of San Diego, east across the sea. He claimed it’d let me sail the ship.”

“Will it, now?” Keone gently turned the brittle leaves.

“I can’t make sense of it. It’s doubtful, really. He likely swindled me, but not for much,” I shrugged sheepishly.

“I’d say so. Pictures and words that make no sense.”

“You’re well-read, milord. May I ask how?”

“An ‘Ozzie;’ that’s what he called himself. A white man from across the sea to the far southwest, hired to be my teacher. Lived eighty-two years to die in his sleep last Spring.”

“Sorry to hear it, milord.”

He waited to answer, staring into some space beyond the walls. “Everyone’s wrapped up in the blood and the guts. There’s a place for it. But there’s a place for people like Dempsey, too. For gentler souls, to soften the edges of hard men like me.”

“I’m sorry, milord, for your loss.”

“Just one thing more, about the High Speaker. I ask: is she beautiful? I only saw her from a distance.”

He struck me speechless, opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water. After a moment I recovered: “Very beautiful, milord. I’m sorry, your question was a surprise.”

He laughed. “It’s good to hear. Even the worst of enemies can make amends, when the conflict’s passed. You may go, Mister Ashur.”

“Sir?” Was I truly released? Given freedom?

“I meant to say you’re dismissed. Don’t mean to be rude, just the army’s business. I like you, Ashur. I’m sorry about the cages, but we’re lacking for room in town. We may find something better soon.”

“I’m no escape threat, milord.”

“I believe you. That’s why you’re not bound. But that fellow you came in with—Staves—he’s a bit much. You agree?”

“He’s hurt badly, milord. Doesn’t know who he is anymore.”

“Then we’re lucky for that,” Keone said with a raised eyebrow. “Because we both know he’s a dangerous man.” He waved me away; I was dismissed.

“You’re right, milord. Very dangerous. Until we meet again.” With that, the guards spirited me out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door. We passed by villagers hauling water in buckets, who stared at me the way all haoles seemed to get stares. Finally they put me back away in the unlocked wooden cages. My escorts left and only the two jailors remained. Maybe Staves—if sane and whole—could have wrought a miracle and slain them. I had to wait for an opportune opening, if one ever came.

“Cucumber,” declared the Colonel suddenly in the mid-afternoon. I perked up and turned to him. “Cucumber,” came the word again.

“You want a cucumber?” I asked. By this point the guards were used to his outbursts.

“I feel…” he said, trailing off and widening his eyes at some change of seasons inside his skull, shaken into snow like a glass Christmas bauble.

“Tell me. You feel what?”

“I feel something’s missing.” Staves stared at his hands, sticky with dirt and poi residue. He stood up and grasped the bars of his cage.

“That’s not it!” he yelled suddenly, shaking the bamboo with a great clatter that made the guards shout and run over to curse him and beat his knuckles with spearhafts. He fell back shrieking, covering his head like a badly beaten child. For hours he wouldn’t make a sound.