The princess must wait

The rotunda beneath 'Iolani Palace, where Kaneloa had spent his life until just a few days ago, was spacious -- a ceiling 60 feet high, perhaps 150 feet across. But the Royal Rotunda of King Kavawai ... it was immense! Scaffolded altars draped with kapa rose toward the ceiling, perhaps 200 feet above the floor. And it was 300 feet across, and he couldn't see to the other end.

"What a rube," Kaneloa heard another young chief say in passing as he gawked with mouth agape at the fabulousness of King Kavawai's abode.

Well, he was a rube. This was the first time Kaneloa had traveled past the Tuber resort at Bellows. And he was a chief of very lowly status, a simple man who tried only to walk with the gods. So he didn't hold much hope of winning the hand of the sacred Princess Tuberosa La'a.

Awed not just by the size of this cavern, but also by its grandeur and the bustle of activity as scores of Tubers prepared for the royal wedding and the coming of Tokelani, goddess of whoopee, Kaneloa was still trying to get his bearings when he heard Ola say "Pssst, the king's over here!"

Kaneloa was about to ask more specific directions from workmen draping two 50-foot maile lei from one of the altar towers, when he saw the tuberose plantation foremen he'd met earlier hurrying toward him, an elderly Kane priest in breathless tow.

"There, that's the one!" the foreman said excitedly. "That's the one who suddenly arrived in the plantation, not by The Tube, but by Ola! And on the day foretold by To'o!"

"It is as he described?" the old priest said, catching his breath.

Yes, Kaneloa replied, and when the priest asked his name, he answered.

"Kaneloa," the old priest repeated, looking this would-be prince up and down, "the long man. Yes, you are. Bonus points, probably, but that part's up to the princess. Now come, we must begin your testing immediately."

"Wait," Kaneloa said. "First, I must visit the Great King."

"That comes later."

"No, the Great King is why I came. The princess must wait."

The priest and the foreman exchanged glances. Every other young chief who'd arrived here could hardly wait to begin their testing and meet the princess. This one wished first to venerate the bones of Kamehameha.

"Well," the priest said, "it's on the way, sort of. Foreman, please hurry and tell To'o the news, and ask him to join us in the Chapel of the Iwi. And thank you for your service."

"Your name," the old priest said as they walked, "is it typical Tuber propensity for illustrative names?"

"It's actually an old family name, so I was told, from here on the Big island."

"Oh my. Did you know that ... ? Well, let's hurry. To'o can tell you."