ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (38 page)

She frowned, trying to make sense of a memory that was flooding her mind. She had sent
Zena
away, but then she had heard her voice, not here, but before....

Zena
took
the old wise woman
’s
hand
and spoke loudly
, intent on making her understand.
“
Yes, it is me,
Zena
. I too am safe. All of us are safe. They are gone, Korg and the Leader. Korg took the Leader away, and then we saw the water take them both.
”

Runor
shook her head.
“
The Leader is dead,
”
she croaked, and put her hand to her throat again.
“
The dart, it was the dart.
”

“
I do not know about a dart,
”
Zena
explained patiently.
“
The Leader is dead because he drank the mead - not the mead you gave him,
which was fresh,
”
she amended quickly,
“
but the mead from their
old
hut. It had been there
for
many
seasons and it
was rotten.
Korg said that; I heard him.

“
The Leader tried to choke me, as he had choked you,
”
she
went on
.
“
He did not succeed because Korg came and pulled him
off
. He took the Leader away then, and later, we saw him give his brother to the water and leap after him.
That is how
t
he
Leader
died
, because of the rotten mead and the water.
”

Runor
’s
eyes opened wide in disbelief
;
then
they
close
d
again as she tried
to make sense of her whirling thoughts.
Could it be so?
Was that
why the Leader had seemed so ill when he arrived
?
Had it been
the mead from
his
old hut
?

But
if the
old
mead had killed him,
and the water,
that meant she had not.

A sudden shock of understanding followed. H
er dart could not have pierced his skin
. He
had attacked
Zena
later. He could not have done that if the sedative had worked
, especially if he was already ill from the mead
.

So she had not killed, after all. Runor
shook her head weakly,
unable to believe. For so long she been sure she must kill
and
must pay the price; now, suddenly, there was no need.

The Goddess,
she thought, and wonder flooded her
.
The Goddess had prevented her from killing, just as She had prevented Mara.
How merciful She was.

T
ear
s
gathered
in the corners of
Runor
’s
ey
es and rolled down her furrowed cheeks.
“
The Goddess is merciful,
”
she whispered aloud, and felt the
anxiety that had tormented her
melt away. Now, after all, she did not have to die.
Even better, they were safe. All of them were safe, Mara, and
Zena
, all of the people she loved. The Goddess had given her this gift.

Runor
’s body
stiffened again. More than that, she
must
not die, not yet. First, she must make amends to the Goddess
.
After all, her intent had been to make certain the Leader died, and that was wrong even if she had not killed him
.
She must thank the Goddess too, make sure She knew how much Her gift was appreciated.

Another thought came
that brought an unexpected spurt of pleasure.
All of this would take much time,
time she had
not
expected
to
have.
S
ince the
smell of milk
had
c
o
me
from Mara
, she
might be able to hold the
new infant
soon
.
Runor smiled to herself.
Now she would be able to
watch
both Mara-Sun and
the little one
as they grew.
There would be time to train Mara to be the
next
wise one for the tribe as well.
Mara could come here to live
here
with
the children
,
now that the danger was gone.
Perhaps Hular would come too.
That would be good indeed.

“
Yes,
”
she whispered again,
“
the Goddess is
indeed
merciful.
”
Opening her eyes for a moment, she regarded the faces around her gravely. She could not see them very well, but she knew they were there. The knowledge was comforting. She sighed
again
, a deep sigh of contentment and even more of gratitude for the Goddess, the Great Mother who nurtured them all
. T
hen she closed her eyes and slept.

Mar
a and
Zena
watched
the
tension drain out of
Runor
’s
body, saw her face relax into sleep.
“S
he will be all right now,
”
Zena
whispered.

Still struggling to understand the meaning of the words
her mother
had uttered
, Mara did not answer
.
Sedative,
Runor had said, and
dart.
But of course!

“S
he meant to sedate
the Leader
with the dart
until the water came and took him away,”
Mara
exclaimed, looking up at
Zena
.
“She must have known all the time that the Leader was the real threat.”

“But
the dar
t did not penetrate,”
Zena
replied thoughtfully.

“The Goddess made sure it did not,” Mara replied with a bemused shake of her head, “just as She made certain I did not kill. And so there was no need for Runor to die. As she said, the Goddess is merciful.”

“And wise,”
Zena
agreed. There was justice in the solution
, she mused.
In the end,
Mordor’s
craving had killed him.
And w
ithout the Leader, Korg
knew he ha
d nothing, so he had leaped.

Mara nodded, but her thoughts were still troubled. She could not stop thinking of the Great Spirit, who was neither man nor beast. She thought she understood now who he had been, and she did not like the solution. Perhaps, though, she was wrong. She looked into her tiny daughter’s face, saw the dark brown eyes, the soft hair already darker than Mara-Sun’s
golden curls
, and knew she was not. What else might be different about them?

Zena
saw her friend’s mouth tighten in distress and guessed the reason. “It is hard to accept, I know,” she said quietly. “But remember the intelligence that was there, the courage in trying to help his brother, in rescuing me. He told me Teran was alive, too, and that was a gesture of kindness.
Korg
did not like killing
, either,
and stopped his brother when he could. He must have hated me because I was destroying everything he had built, but still he saved me from the Leader. That was brave. To give his brother to the water and then leap himself was brave as well. Truly, had he not been born into a village where violence was a way of life, Korg might have been a leader of the people or a healer, with his great knowledge of herbs. Instead, he
was forced to
use all his skills
, his
determination
and courage
to deal with the madness of his brother.”

“S
o I
am
right. Korg was the Great Spirit.” Mara’s voice was flat.

“Yes. It must have been Korg. It had to be. The Leader truly believed that the Great Spirit existed, because the Great Spirit came to some of the women, just as Korg said he would. If Korg had allowed the Leader to be the Great Spirit
,
The Leader would not have believed in its existence
as fervently he did. Korg could not take that chance, and so he used the bear skins to become the Great Spirit himself.”

The furs might explain another puzzle, she realized
:
the identity of the huge creature she and Mara had seen stumbling through the woods. Perhaps the Leader had found the furs that night and draped them around him. Made insensible by mead, he would not have understood what they meant.

“But why did
t
he
Great Spirit
come to both Rofina and myself?
” Mara wailed. “
That was so cruel!” The words were full of pain.

“
I suspect it was Korg’s way of taking Runor’s power away,
”
Zena
explained grimly. “Korg was afraid of Runor, afraid that the people would continue to listen to her when she spoke of the Goddess. He had to make her stop, had to force her to obey. To have the Great Spirit come to both her daughters was a harsh lesson, one she could not ignore.”

“That is evil!” Mara burst out, almost weeping now. “How can I live knowing that the father of my child was evil?”

“Because your child is not,”
Zena
answered firmly. “That the father may be evil does not mean the child will be evil
.
Mara-Sun is
o
ne of the happiest and most loving children I have ever known. And I do not believe that any child becomes evil unless he is forced to be. We do not know what happened to Korg to make him that way.”

“I suppose that is true,” Mara conceded.
“S
till, it is hard. I did not like the Leader, but I hated Korg. Even though he saved your life, I still cannot help but hate him for what he did to my mother, to my people.”

“I am certain something happened to both of them when they were young that made them as they were,”
Zena
repeated. “That does not excuse Korg’s cruelty, but it may help to explain it. Perhaps that will help you to accept what has happened.”

“I am not sure I will ever accept,” Mara answered bitterly.

Zena
took Mara’s hand and forced her to look up. “Mara-Sun is not like Korg at all and never will be,” she insisted. “That is what you must remember. What is in his character is not the same, what has happened to him is not the same.”

“I will try to remember,” Mara agreed with a sigh. “And you are right. Mara-Sun is Mara-Sun and no one else. Perhaps if I think only of that, to accept will be easier.”

Zena
hugged her. “Do not rush,” she advised. “Acceptance only comes with time. Soon, you will hardly think of it.”

Mara’s face relaxed a little. “Mara-Sun has certainly shown no ability to dance, that is certain,” she commented wryly. “He is even rather clumsy.”

Zena
grinned. “Nor does he show any ability to tell one plant from another,” she rejoined. “All of us watch him constantly because he tries to eat everything he picks up or plucks.”

Reluctantly, Mara smiled. “That is very true. I have found him with stones in his mouth, and mud, as well as strange plants!”

Zena
laughed and then her face sobered. “Remember this, too,” she told Mara. “It is because of Mara-Sun that the Mother People can finally return to the Goddess. Had he not been born when he was, I am not sure any of this would have happened. Surely, that is a fine beginning for any child.”

Mara’s face lit up, but tears blurred her eyes. “I thank you,” she whispered. “To think that could be so is the greatest help of all.”

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Gurd
plunged through the woods, all his senses alert. He had been traveling for days, looking for the Leader. The Leader needed him; he was certain of it. There was wrongness around him, and he knew what that meant. It meant the Leader was in
trouble
. He had felt it many times before and
had
always managed to make it right. Korg did not matter, only the Leader.

Despite his haste
, Gurd’s
steps were as unerring as those of an animal, and he knew instinctively which way to go to find their old home. On and on he ran,
but when he finally came
near
his
destination
he stopped
. The sounds were wrong.
He listened, trying to understand, but his ears had not heard these
noises
before.

Cautious now, he crept closer to the sounds. They were loud, terrifying, as if the mountains were falling and all the water with them. And then he saw that they were. Water and ice were raging down from the mountains taking everything with them, the trees, the rocks, the land itself. How was he to get to the hut? The raging water and ice were
too ferocious
. Until they s
lowed
, he could not go closer.

Frowning in perplexity, he sat down to wait
for the
torrent
to
cease
.
He sat for a long time, as patient and still as a rabbit that sensed danger and knew stillness was its best defense. Finally, when he
concluded
that the ice and water would not s
low down,
he clambered
further up the hill to find a safer wa
y
to get to the hut
.
When he found a likely place, he
made his way across the drenched hillside
, one
cautious step at a time
.
Finally he came to a
n area
where the trees were thinner and he could see down the ravine. He knew immediately that the hut w
as
gone. All else was gone, so th
e hut
must be
gone too
. Where then would the Leader go? He would go up, away from the water. That too
Gurd
knew without question. He would go up as well.

He wiped the wetness from his face, his fingers lingering on the scarred side. It was no longer painful, but he had grown accustomed to trying to soothe the hurt that way. Then he pulled his hood close around his head again, and started up the hill.

The smell of a fire stopped him again. People were here.
They might know where the Leader had gone.
He crept close so he could see who they were but took care to stay hidden from them, as he always did. No one ever saw him or knew he was there. He liked it that way.

An old woman lay by the fire, twitching and writhing as if in pain. Her head rolled in his direction and
Gurd
caught a glimpse of her face. He stiffened. He knew that face
well
, for it had burned itself into his memory
in the same way that
the boiling liquid had burned itself into his flesh. She was old now, but still he
recognized
her. His fingers itched t
o get at her as they always did,
but Korg had forbidden that. He saw, too, that the old woman was well guarded by others and that the younger woman who had once lived in her hut watched her anxiously.

The woman who had stolen the infant meant for the Great Spirit was sleeping nearby, and the man who had helped her slept beside her. Rage came into
Gurd’s face
. That man had seen him once, and that was wrong. He did not like to be seen. No other man
except for Korg and the Leader
had ever seen him, not since…

He did not finish the thought.

He surveyed the faces around the fire, looking for the man who had taken the girl who belonged to the Leader. He was not there. Gurd’s face darkened with rage. That was the man he most wanted to find, and when he did, he would kill him.

He knew some of the others by the fire, too, by their faces but also by the way they moved.
Others
he did not know; they had no meaning in his mind, and he ignored them
.

Yawning, he
looked up at the sky. Darkness w
ould come soon,
so he settled down where he was to
watch and
see what he could learn
about the Leader
.
His
eyes
were
intent, as if by staring hard enough he could discern the thoughts of the people on whom he focused.
He
watched
long into the night,
unaware of time passing. He would wait as long as
necessary
to discover what he wanted to know.

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

Lief
woke suddenly when Mara came to get
Zena
, irritated at himself for falling asleep. He had meant to check the flooding every few hours to see if it was easing or getting
worse.
If the water rose still higher, they might have to leave.

He rose
stiffly,
rubbing his legs
to ease their soreness
.
His knees
had been stiff ever since he had gone into the icy lake to rescue Durak, and his recent immersion in the cold water of the flooding stream had made them stiffer than ever.

When
the
legs
loosened a little, he went to
the edge of the clearing to look down at the torrent below.
The water was still rising but it was not yet a threat to them.
For the moment, they were
s
afe.

As he turned,
the
back of his neck
began
to prickle
the way
it always did when he was being watched.
Lief walked casually toward the woods where the watcher must be hiding, so whoever it was
would not guess that he was aware
of
the
scrutiny
.

He frowned, perplexed.
It seemed odd that
t
he
person
had not come to the fire to greet them
, or perhaps
to ask for help.
Anyone who knew them would
certainly come to the fire, and after a disaster like this one even a stranger would feel free to approach them. Who then, could the watcher be, and why was he spying on them?

On
the pretext of gathering wood for the fire,
Lief
stepped
into
the
trees
and
bent down to pick up
some
fallen
branches
. At the same time, he
peered intently into the darkness. He saw a
dark lump, unmoving, behind a tree.
It was a man, not an animal, but it was too dark to see the man’s features.
Lief looked away again and
stretched casually, as if he had noticed nothing.
He would find a place where he could not be seen and
watch
to see what the
lump
did
.

Gurd
had seen
Lief’s
face in the firelight and
knew
immediately
that he was the man who had once seen him.
He also knew that the man was aware that he was being spied on from the trees.
He
could smell
his uneasiness in
the same way he smelled it in animals
. Nor was he fooled when the man disappeared.
He was just hiding where he could keep watching.

Anger rose in Gurd’s chest. He did not
like to be watched
any more than he liked being seen.
Twice, when Korg had not been there to stop him, he had tried to kill
that man
, as well as the man who had taken the girl who belonged to the Leader. He had not succeeded. The wind had been strong that day, and his
arrows had missed their
targets.
He would try again
soon but first he must
find
out what had happened to
the Leader.

The
people around the fire began to speak,
so
Gurd
concentrated on
their
words
.
Only the
ones
that spoke of
Korg and the Leader
had meaning for him, but when they came, they made little sense. They had left,
one
woman
said. But where had they gone? The
n
the
old woman said she had killed the Leader
,
but
an
old woman could not kill the Leader.
Next the woman who had taken the infant said
the mead had killed him, but that
was wrong, too.
Mead made the Leader insensible, but it did not kill him. After that they said Korg had taken
the Leader
away
. That
could be
true, but
w
hy
did they say
that
the water had taken them
both
?

Gurd shook his head, disgusted.
These people said too many different things about Korg and the Leader.
He would have to look for
them
himself. But where should he look?
A picture came into his mind of the village to the west, where the black-haired woman lived.
Perhaps
Korg and the Leader had gone there, where they would be safe from the flooding water. The
ridges between the two villages were too high for water to cross.

Th
e
girl he had found for the Leader
was in that village,
Gurd
remembered.
He had seen her by herself one day, and knowing that the Leader was looking for girls, he had hit her over the head to stun her, the same way he stunned animals, put her in his sack and taken her to the Leader
, who was pleased, and had
done to her what he always did, except he had not killed her this time. Perhaps she had not been a witch, or perhaps the Leader had taken too much mead to think about that.

Gurd
’s eyes glittered.
After the Leader was finished, he had done the same to
the girl
.
He remembered that well, too.
It
had felt good, very good. He would have done it again if Korg had not come
and seen him
still
lying with the girl
. Korg had been very angry
and had ordered him to take
her
to the black-haired woman. He had paid no attention
un
til the Leader had agreed.
Korg could not tell him what to do; only the Leader could do that. The Leader had always been kind to him, had not even seemed to see his scarred face when his hood fell away
. Sometimes he
had even let him share the girls
before he killed them. He had liked that.

Gurd
’s
lips contorted into a smile.
Korg had not known
about
that, nor had
Korg known
of the extra
mead
he made
for the Leader
. They had
hidden it in places Korg
did not know
about. He and the Leader had done these things together, without Korg. The memory brought satisfaction.

He would look in that village
first
,
Gurd
decided. Perhaps the girl was still there and he could
take
her to
the Leader
again
, and he might let him have
her
after he had finished
,
as before. T
his time he would not let Korg stop him. Korg had no right to do that.
But first he must get away without being followed.
Rising slowly, he ducked behind a thicker stand of trees and then stood perfectly still
, so the man who watched him would be fooled
.