ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (31 page)

Zena
was contrite. Runor must indeed be tired. They should not have stayed so long. Despite the strength of her mind, Runor was old and frail, and there was an air of waiting about her which probably meant she
knew she would soon join
the Mother. This could be their last visit together, and she was glad now that they had come.

They started up the hillside, intent now on their destination, but with every step she took, the sense that something was wrong seemed to become stronger in
Zena
’s mind, as if some invisible cord wanted to hold her back, keep her from going.

Impatiently, she thrust the feeling away and strode on. Runor was all right; she had seen th
at
with her own eyes. Except it was not just Runor now who worried her,
she realized suddenly. I
t was the whole village.

Lief watched her face and saw her fear, and wished he could reassure her. But he could not. He felt it too, as if some unknown danger was gathering around them; he could feel it, taste it, but until he knew from whence it came, there was little he could do to help.
As if to reinforce
his sense
of oppression, the skies filled with heavy dark clouds as they approached the lakes below the pass, and rain
began to
pelt down
with
such ferocity they could hardly see. There was no opportunity to
l
inger as they had before and
certainly they could not
fly
together
in Akat, as Lief had hoped. They could not even search for Durak. The rain
quickly
erased footprints and all else.
They would have to look on their way back instead.

Lief looked longingly at the lakes where he and
Zena
had lain as they passed them and scrambled on, wondering if they would ever again feel that wondrous sense of awakening together to a new future, or even if they would ever again find the peace they had enjoyed during the
winter.
That time was gone now; the torrential rains seemed to push the knowledge at him relentlessly, unsparingly.

His sense of foreboding increased
. All through their visit
it remained just beneath the surface of his mind, and
Zena
’s, as if waiting for them to respond.

*********************

The changes in Brulet’s old village were astonishing. Despite the driving rain, the people ran out to greet
Zena
and Lief, their faces alight with smiles of welcome.

“
Zena
is here again,” the
y
called out to the others. “
Zena
has come back! And Lief has come with her! They have both come.”

Zena and Lief
looked at each other in amazement. What had happened to make the villagers accept them like this?

Wulf, t
he young man who had encouraged
Zena
to speak of the Goddess
,
came up to them. “We have changed since you were here. We are Mother People now,” he
told them
proudly.

“That I can see,”
Zena
replied
, and felt her throat close with pleasure
. Despite
her inexperience, her fears, she might have helped.

Another shock of surprise came
when
Niva
approached them.
She did not smile, but neither did she look angry as she had before. “We welcome you
in the name of the Mother,”
she
said. “To have the
woman
called
Zena
here is an honor.

“
To have you is a further honor,” she added, turning to Lief.
Left speechless
by the unexpectedly courteous greeting,
he
could only nod
politely.

“You must come in out of the rain,” Niva said
graciously
, and let them into her hut
, where a small fire had been lit.

“Thank you,” Zena mumbled, struggling to contain her bewilderment.
Lief trailed behind without a word, shaking his head in perplexity.
Niva was
welcoming them? Still, it felt good to
be in the hut.
He had never known it to rain so hard.
Even
from
here, he could hear its ceaseless drumming and the sound of water rushing down the hillsides as it created streams where none had existed before.

Niva turned to
a
wom
a
n
who had come in with them
. “Food and drink for our honored guests,” she said, and Lief thought he saw amusement in her dark eyes at the astonishment he knew must show in their own.

“
I have heard that you go together to all the villages to speak of the Goddess,” Niva remarked when they were seated. “That is good. All
of them need help to return to the Goddess, as we did.”

She seemed very much in charge, Zena noted.
Was it possible that this bossy woman, who
had been so furious
when
she had come
to speak of the Mother
, was now the wise one for the village? Was that was Runor had
hinted
at?

Niva was looking at her expectantly. “That you are Mother People again is wonderful news,” Zena said sincerely. “How did that happen?”

Niva hesitated, as if unsure how to answer, and Lief tried a less direct approach.
“
Zena
has spoken of you
often
since the time we were here
. She said that you know
the village
and its people
very well,” he told Niva
.

Again, he saw the flash of amusement
in Niva’s eyes.
“That is kind,”
she
replied, “but I
am not sure I knew
as much as I thought at the time. We are often blinder than we think.”

Lief was taken aback by the unexpected confession, and Zena almost laughed at his expression. Her
amusement vanished when she saw that Niva’s
face had become serious
, almost tragic
, and when she spoke her voice was full of regret.

“For many years,”
she
told them,
“I believed the Leader. I wished to believe him, wished to help him, to help Korg. But then I saw incidents that made me wonder if they were what they seemed to be. If the Leader was not what he appeared to be, then the Great Spirit was not either.”

She was silent for such a long
time th
at
Zena
could not contain her impatience. “What incidents did you see?”

Niva
’s
eyes dropped to the ground
, as if she could not bear to look at them.
“I saw that the Leader drank too much mead when he could, when Korg could not stop him,” she began
quietly
. “I saw that Korg made up transgressions against those he did not like or those who dared to cross him. I saw the crown of feathers, the crown you had used, first in old Krone’s hut, then in theirs.
”

Her voice dropped to a whisper
that was hard to hear over the drumming of rain
on the roof
.
“I knew then that one of them had taken it, that one of them had been in Krone’s hut. And I saw that Krone, who knew more about them than anyone else, was dead and could not speak.”
Niva stopped abruptly
, and Zena and Lief saw that her lips were
trembling
too much for speech.

Pulling
her mouth
into a tight line,
Niva
forced herself to go on
.
“I know now that one of them killed Krone and that I sent her to her death. Many years ago, Krone lived in the same village as Korg and the Leader. She
tried
to tell us what she knew of them but I stopped her, to protect them. Later, I told the Leader and Korg what she had said, thinking her words were
only t
he ramblings of an old woman
.
I was wrong. And so she was killed, to prevent her from speaking more.”

“That is harsh,”
Zena
said quietly, and felt her own body wilt with the horror of having to bear such knowledge. She glanced at Lief and saw that he had winced.

“Yes,” Niva agreed
. “
It was a hard judgment to make but I had to accept it. And I had to make up for it as best I could. This I have tried to do.”

“Were you able to help Pila,
the young woman whose infant
I
rescued
?” Zena asked.

Niva
shook her head.
“
Sadly, the
y left the village
before I could. I
think
Pila
was afraid we would take her child again, so she crept away with him when
we were not
watching. She was still very weak
. We
tried hard to find her
but we could not. If you should
hear anything of her, I would like to know
.
”

“We will ask about her, “
Zena
promised
, “and let you know if we find her.”

The woman arrived with food and drink. “Niva is a good wise one for us,” she remarked. “Once she was proud, but she is not any more. Not often, anyway.”

Niva looked irritated, but only for a moment. “It is a lesson I must learn many times,” she agreed, but she did not look c
owed.
Lief suspected Niva would not be easy to humble. And probably that was just as well. To be the wise one for a village took great confidence, as he had seen many times.

“Do you know what Krone wanted to say about the two men?”
he asked as they ate and drank.

“S
he said that Korg and the Leader were not always so fine and grand as they pretended to be now, that they were forced from their village, but she did not have time to say why. I pulled her away before she could speak.”

Niva’s face twisted with pain, and she took a deep breath before she went on. “After she was killed, I was determined to find the truth. I began to watch Korg and the Leader carefully, and I spoke to the others here to see what they knew, and to people in other villages. One man told me he had heard that Korg and the Leader had killed an old woman in their village. He thought it was their mother, but that was hard to believe. I also heard that they were blamed for the deaths of young girls in nearby villages. No one knew if this was true, but it was enough to disturb me badly. I told the others what I had learned and all of us agreed we did not want Korg or the Leader in our village any more. We did not know how we were going to force them to leave, but when we went to confront them they had already left.

“Once, they tried to return,” she added
. “They even tried to take a
girl
for the
Leader, but the women frightened them away. I was
visiting Runor at the time,
but the women
did not need my help
.
They are very strong now.
”
Niva
smiled proudly at the women’s courage.
“S
ince that time we have not seen
Korg or the Leader. I do not think they will come back, but if they do, we will be ready for them.
”

“You have seen Runor, spoken with her?”
Zena asked. Both astonishment and
curiosity
showed in her voice, and Niva responded with a faint smile.

“I went to see Runor when I realized what I had done,” she explained. “
She
is the
wisest woman I know
, and s
he helped me in many ways
. It was
Runor who suggested that I could make up for what I had done by helping my village return to the Goddess. She taught me many truths that I try to follow
, as do the villagers.
”

“We saw Runor just before we came, but she did not mention your visit,” Lief remarked. “She said we should come here and see for ourselves.”

“We did not like to leave her,” Zena added. “She seemed so tired and weak, and she could not speak with us for very long.”

Niva looked surprised. “I must visit her again soon,” she exclaimed. “When I was there a few days ago she seemed remarkably strong for one so old.”