Hawaii by James A. Michener, Steve Berry Read Free Book Online

think not the king?"
    "No, the queenly young woman reasoned. "Your brother is well loved by the kings of Tahiti and Moorea, and such a bold step might turn not only those kings but people in general against the new god."
    "But offering me to Oro would be permitted?" Teroro pursued.
    "Yes. Kings are always willing to believe the worst of younger brothers."
    Teroro turned on the log to study his beautiful wife and thought to himself: "I don't appreciate her good sense. She's a lot like her father." Aloud he said, "I hadn't reasoned it out the way you have, Marama. All I knew was that this time there was special danger."
    "It is because you, the brother of the king, still worship Tane,"
    "Only in my heart do I do that."
    "But if I can read your heart," Marama said, "so can the priests."
    HAWAII
    22
    Teroro's comment on this was forestalled by an agitated messenger, his arm banded by a circle of yellow feathers to indicate that he belonged to the king. "We have been looking for you," he told Teroro. "I've been studying the canoe," the young chief growled. "The king wants you."
    Teroro rose from the log, banged his feet on the grass to knock away the water, and nodded an impersonal farewell to his wife. Following the messenger, he reported to the palace, a large, low building held up by coconut-tree pillars, each carved with figures of gods and highly polished so that white flecks in the wood gleamed. The roof consisted of plaited palm fronds, and there were no floors or windows or side walls, just rolled-up lengths of matting which could be dropped for either secrecy or protection from rain. The principal room contained many signs of royalty: feather gods, carved shark's teeth, and huge Tridacna shells from the south. The building had two beautiful features: it overlooked the lagoon, on whose outer reef high clouds of spray broke constantly; and all parts of the structure were held together by thin, strong strands of golden brown sennit, the marvelous island rope woven from fibers that filled the husks of coconuts. Nearly two miles of it had been used in construction; wherever one piece of timber touched another, pliant golden sennit held the parts together. A man could sit in a room tied with sennit and revel in its intricate patterns the way a navigator studies stars at night or a child tirelessly watches waves on sand.
    Beneath the sennit-tied roof sat King Tamatoa, his big broad face deeply perturbed. "Why has a convocation been called?" he asked peremptorily. Then, as if fearing the answer, he quickly dismissed all who might be spies. Drawing closer on the tightly woven mat that formed the floor, he placed his two hands on his knees and asked, "What does it mean?"
    Teroro, who did not see things quickly himself, was not above reciting his wife's analyses as his own, and now explained, "It looks to me as if our High Priest must be seeking promotion to the temple in Havaiki, but in order to be eligible he has to do something dramatic." He paused ominously.
    "Like what?" the king asked.
    "Like eliminating the last signs of Tane worship in Bora Bora. Like sacrificing you ... at the height of the convocation."
    "I'm fearful of just such a plot," Tamatoa confessed. "If he waits till we're in convocation, he could suddenly point at me the way they pointed at our father, and . . ." The troubled king made a slashing swipe at his brother's head, adding dolefully, And my murder would be sanctified because Oro had ordained it."
    "More likely the High Priest," Teroro corrected.
    Tamatoa hesitated, as if probing his younger brother's mind, and then added petulantly, "And my death would go unavenged."
    Self-pity was so alien to Tamatoa, whose warlike capacities and prudent leadership had kept little Bora Bora free from invasion by
    FROM THE SUN-SWEPT LAGOON23
    its larger neighbors, that Teroro suspected his brother of laving some kind of trap, so the younger man fought down his inclination to confess his own plans for the convocation and