“What’s pilikia mean?”
“Trouble. More what we get into than what she gives me.” He paused, looking at the saddle—Western, with the high pommel and the big stirrups with leather guards to protect the rider’s feet when going through thick brush—and then back at me, or rather, at my skirt. “Will you be comfortable on the saddle? We can walk if you’d prefer.”
“No,” I said firmly. “We’ll go farther on horseback.”
He knelt, cupping his palms down near my knees. I stepped into his hands and sprang onto the saddle, sitting with my legs both over Pilikia’s left side. I had a brief sensation of vertigo—the height was intimidating—but then Blake swung up behind me, steadying me with his arms on either side of my body.
“What would you like to see most?” he asked.
I considered all the places I’d been, most of them long gone. “Something I can only see here and now.”
Blake glanced up at the sun; it was high in the sky. “All right. We just barely have time.”
He put his heels to Pilikia’s flanks, and we set off through town, traveling atop our shadow. It took me a few minutes to get used to the motion of the horse, so different from the rocking of the ship. As we passed by, Blake pointed out landmarks—here, the Kamehameha Post Office, Hawaii’s only connection to the world beyond the shore; there, a grassy square where the king gave free concerts on nights of the full moon.
“He’s even revived the hula, and they dance on the grass while the missionaries avert their eyes.” His lips were just behind my ear as though it was a secret, and I heard the amusement in his voice. “What do you mean, revived?”
“It had been banned for many years before Kalakaua took power.”
“Too licentious for past rulers?”
“It scandalized the foreigners, who only saw what they were looking for. The hula tells a story, but they weren’t listening.”
“You admire the king?”
“You’re surprised?”
I bit my lip. Earlier, I had been nearly certain Mr. D had sent him to test me, but now I was not so sure. Unless, of course, it was just a ruse? Or perhaps this was only conversation, and my own involvement was making me paranoid.
“He has his faults,” Blake continued. “But love of his own culture is not among them.”
As we traveled south on King Street, a keening cry on the wind, like hungry gulls, resolved into the high, sobbing song of professional mourners. The smell of thousands of cut flowers was carried toward us on the humid breeze. “Iolani Palace,” Blake said.
“I had guessed.”
The palace was draped in swathes of black bunting that hung over the wide windows. Beneath the somber trappings, Iolani Palace was a grand structure: two tall stories with four corner turrets connected by wide verandas and lined with delicate columns.
“It’s very European.”
“The king toured Europe before he had Iolani built. Some foreigners expected a hovel, so he spared no expense. That was going to be the palace, over there,” he said, pointing across the street to a smaller—though still lovely—building across the street. “The Ali’iolani Hale. But he put the government offices there instead.”
“Ah.” I licked my lips; my mouth was dry. “The treasury and so forth.”
“Yes.”
Beyond the palace, we passed rich town houses, including the black-draped windows of the home of the banker Mr. Bishop, Princess Pauahi’s widower. “This is the wealthiest block on the island,” Blake said. “Many of these families will be attending the ball, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“The comings and goings of high society.” I couldn’t see his face, but in his voice—was it a hint of scorn?
“Oh. Not generally.” Then I frowned. “Your father is . . . an important man?”
Blake paused before answering. “He has important friends.”
Traveling north, away from the sea, we emerged into cooler air as we climbed out of the city. The shops gave way to the mansions and manicured gardens; the breeze shivered in the leaves of lush ferns by the side of the road. “This is Nu’uanu Valley,” he said.
I sat up straighter. “My father once hoped to make a home here.”
“Why did he decide against it?”
“My mother died before he could.”
“Ah, is that why he took you to sea? If things had been but a little different, we would have been neighbors. That’s our house, there, on the left.”