ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (48 page)

“
We
were on our way to visit you, and we
heard a woman
screaming
Durak’s name,”
Wulf
explained
. “I
t was Pila
.
She had
found
him
with an arrow in his chest
up by the lake.
They were living in the old hut near there. Durak
was not
dead
though, and is recovering
,” Wulf added quickly, seeing Runor’s shock.

“Do they know who shot the arrow?” Runor asked, and wondered if it was the same person who had shot Lief.

“Pila
believes
it was the man who
abducted
her
,” Wulf answered. “She calls
him
the hooded man because he always has a hood over his face.
That is because it is badly scarred,
Durak says
. The hooded man does not want anyone to see it.
”

Runor felt a shock go through her body, as if she had been hit by lightning.
The man whose face she had maimed
was the man who
had shot at Durak.
Had he shot at Lief too, fired the arrow into his back that had killed him?

The certainty that it was so thudded into Runor. And that meant that she was the true cause of Lief’s tragic death. If she had not thrown the boiling liquid at Gurd
,
he might never have
killed Lief or
abducted Pila
.
Those tragedies had happened because of her, because of what she had done in that one unguarded moment.

Runor felt as if she had been punched hard in the belly.
“Great Mother,”
she
murmured
as
an
agony
of remorse
filled her,
“
h
ow can one act, an act of
rage and
desperation, reap such
unbearable
consequences so many years later?”

Wulf
knelt beside Runor,
concerned
by her sudden pallor
. “Shall I get Mara?” he asked. “You are very pale.”

Runor
looked
first at her hand, the hand that had thrown the
hot food
; then she raised her eyes to
the young man
beside her. He looked so innocent, so free of the
weighty burdens that lay so heavily on her shoulders
.
Once, she had been like that.
Now, all she could feel was
desolation
, and bleak
despair.

“I am all right,” she told
Wulf
wearily. “Tell me
the rest of your story.”

“We helped Pila nurse Durak,” Wulf continued, “and he is recovering well. Pila is a healer, though none of us knew that when she was with us.”

Another shock pummeled Runor
.
Was it possible?
For
a woman so young
to
be a healer was
unusual
. She had known only one other
, and that was Teran. Niva had said that Pila did not remember where she had come from, had been called Pila because she did not know her name…

Runor
closed her eyes and w
anted never to open them again. She was not just responsible for Lief’s death
and the attempt on Durak’s life
;
it was because of her that Teran, beloved sister of Zena, had disappeared.
Truly, it was not just Gurd to whom she must make amends; she must beg forgiveness from everyone, all the people she knew, but especially from
Zena
. What
could she say to
Zena
, who had suffered
two terrible losses because of her?

But was she right? She had to know. Runor
forced a question through stiff lips. “Can you tell me what Pila looks like?”

Wulf answered readily. “She has large brown eyes and brown hair, and she is very determined, the most determined young woman I have ever known.”

Feeling as if the last of her strength had been drained from her,
Runor nodded. She had expected the answer. It was as she had thought.

She forced her
self to look at Wulf
again.
“W
hen you return to
the old hut,”
she instructed
,
“
ask
Niva to
come to
me as soon as she can leave.
”

Niva arrived some days later, and when they had greeted each other and Niva had received food and drink, Runor fired questions at her.

“What does Pila look like?” she asked first
, wanting to be certain
.

Obediently, Niva described Pila, not just the way she looked but her
courage and
determination
.
“She is a
remarkably brave
young woman,” Niva said. “No matter what happens to her she stays calm and makes it right again. And how she loves that child - and Durak.
They are very happy together, those two.
”

“Does P
i
la
remember anything of her
past?”
Runor
asked.

Niva shook her head. “She
still
cannot remember her past, but sometimes there is a look on her face, as if she has suddenly become someone else. I saw it when she was nursing Durak. Pila is a talented healer. She does not know where she learned the skills, but her hands, her mind, seem to know them still. When I asked her how she had learned such things, she was very confused.”

“Teran,” Runor said
, trying not to let her pain show in her face.
“All the time she was there
, with you
.”

Niva nodded.
“Durak believes that,”
she
agreed. “But he does not press her to remember. Recently, though, I
think
she is trying.”

“Does
Pila
know what happened to her after she was taken?” Runor asked.

“Yes. She remembers well what happened after Gurd - she calls him the hooded man - hit her over the head and brought her to the Leader. He ini
ti
ated her, though she was barely conscious. Then Gurd raped her, she said. Korg was very angry with them and made Gurd bring the girl to me. We
gave her the name of
Pila, since she
had no other.
”

Runor’s body slumped.
So Gurd
as well as the Leader
had
assaulted the girl
.
The knowledge pierced her.
That, too, had happened because of her.

Niva
’s voice interrupted.
“When I realized
Pila would have
a child
,
I told
the villagers that the
Great Spirit had come to
her
. I did not want to say that both Gurd and the Leader had raped her
.
Korg did not want that either. The Leader had been so intoxicated that he did not remember what he had done, so he, too,
believed
the Great Spirit had come to Pila. And s
o we arranged the ceremony.
”

Niva felt the familiar shame come into her
.
“
Had
Zena
not save
d
the
infant
, I would have sacrifice
d
the
child of her twin sister, and all because of my pride
,” she mourned
.
“
Truly, the sin of pride is the worst, and we who presume to lead are the worst sinners.
It is a hard burden to bear.”

Niva’s words sank into Runor like hot stones from the fire. They seared
her
,
revealing
a truth she had not
permitted herself to see until now:
that
pride was the
real
reason she had never spoken of what she had done all those years ago.
It was true that she had
been afraid
for Rofina, but
she had been even more afraid for
her
r
eputation
, had feared what others would think of her if they knew
about Mordor, about
how she had desired him,
loved him,
ignored
all else because of that…

Runor felt her body bend, as if this final burden had broken it. She tried not to weep with its
pain.
“
Great
Mother,”
she said in her mind, so Niva would not hear or know how deep was her agony, “Great Mother, must
I reveal all that
I had buried
in my heart,
tell of faults I h
ave never dared to admit even to myself?”
The Goddess made no answer, but Runor knew what She would say.

Gathering her remaining
strength,
she
called for Mara and a
sked
her
to summon
Zena
and Larak
and Brulet
,
Pila and Durak too. Then she
spoke words she had hoped
she would never be for
c
ed to
utter.

“
It is time for me to tell
them
the tru
th about
my past.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Pila and Durak set off with Niva and Wulf for Runor’s village
.
Mara had sent word that Runor wanted all
of them to come as soon as
possible.

“Everyone does as Runor tells them,”
Wulf
informed Pila cheerfully. “So as soon as we
are
ready, we
must
go.”

Pila nodded. She hated the thought of leaving the
secluded
hut where she and Durak had discovered such happiness, but her need to know about herself was more important. She had also developed a strong feeling that
Zena
needed her in some way she could not imagine. She was sure now that she and
Zena
had once been close to each other, much closer than other people, and that
Zena
was struggling and needed her - which meant she really must be Teran.

Pila shook her head, frustrated. She wanted to
know
deep inside
that
she was Teran
,
not just convince herself she must be Teran, or
fantasize
about being Teran because she liked the idea. She needed to be practical, not dream about things that might not be true.
Zena
was the one who dreamed.

Mystified by the unexpected insight, Pila shook her head again. She walked on, caught between trepidation and exhilaration
. Soon, she would see Zena, speak to her.
Would she
finally know
then
who she really was
?

When they arrived at Runor’s
, however,
a new message
drove
Pila’s
worries about who she was out of her mind. Lief had been killed. Lief, who had been closer to
Zena
than any other person, had been killed. It was a tragedy of such proportions that no other concern meant anything.
Whether or not she was Teran,
Pila knew how
Zena
must be suffering. She felt the
pain
as if it were her own
, a
nd all she wanted
to do
now was to comfort Zena.

She greeted the people she saw in Runor’s village politely, spoke to them of what had happened to her, but every part of her body was waiting now for
Zena
.
That was all that mattered.

Zena
was on her way, accompanied by
Larak and Brulet, as Runor had requested. Sorlin came too. She was overjoyed that Durak had been found, and eager to see her old friend again.
The news had
also
cheered Zena, but in another way it hurt. Durak had also been shot with an arrow, but he had lived and was recovering, while Lief was dead. Why did such things happen? Zena knew perfectly well that there was no answer for such questions, but she could not keep from asking.

“It will be so good to see Durak again!” Sorlin exclaimed as they s
trode
along the familiar path. “Imagine, all that time he was in the old hut he and Runor fixed up when they tried to wean Rofina from the poppies.”

“It will be wonderful,” Zena agreed sincerely, and vowed to think of that pleasure instead of brooding on her loss.

Her companions were also determined to keep her from brooding. Brulet was especially good at that, Larak reflected. The girl had been a faithful companion to Zena
during her long struggle to recover from Lief’s death, seeming to grasp her grief instinctively. It was almost as if they had reversed roles, Larak thought. Brulet watched over Zena as Zena had once watched over her.

When they stopped to rest and eat some grains, Brulet pulled an amulet out of her pack.
“
I made one of these for Pila and gave it to her when I left,
”
the girl
said
. “This one is for you.” She handed
Zena
a stone amulet she had made.
Zena
looked at it and felt a spasm of grief constrict her heart.

She had made one just like
it
for Lief
many years ago
- a circular piece of stone with a hole in its center. The polished circlets signified the wisdom of the circles, the endless connected rhythms of all life, and many Mother People wore them around their necks on leather strings
, or at
their waists
. Lief had made long leather tassels t
hat went
through the hole in the center of his. One for each full moon we have seen together, he had told her.

It must be under him even now,
Zena
thought, and for a moment the grief was so strong she wanted only to sink back into desolation, to give up and simply mourn again. Brulet’s eager face, waiting expectantly for a response, did not let her.

“That is very beautiful, Brulet,”
Zena
murmured, as soon as she felt able to speak. “
I will be happy to have it. It will bring me great comfort.
”

She
put the
amulet carefully
around her neck. Each time she looked at it, felt it, she would be reminded of Lief, but in a good way, remembering the love they had shared together.

As they walked on, Brulet entertained all of them with stories she made up in her mind, which seemed to be full of them, and also stories the old wise one in Niva’s village had told her. Larak listened with interest to the one she was telling now.

“Krone told me that Korg and the Leader, only he was called Mordor then, played nasty tricks on the people of their village when they were young,” Brulet began. “Another boy helped them, she said, and sometimes the people blamed him even though the Leader, Mordor I mean, had thought of the tricks.

“Krone did not tell me what the tricks were
,
” Brulet added, “but she said the Leader made them seem good and right even when they were not.”

“I am not surprised,” Zena replied. “The Leader could make almost anything seem good. But tell me more about the other boy. I never knew of him.”

“Krone told me that
he
could not speak,” Brulet answered. “When he was small he did not want to talk, and that made the man who was his father so angry that he beat him on the throat, many times. After that, the boy
could
not speak, no matter how hard he tried. He has never spoken, Krone said.

“That is a terrible story!” Larak exclaimed. “That poor child. I wonder what became of him.”

“He
left his village with
Korg and the Leader,” Brulet explained. “He helped them build their hut in the woods when they came to Niva’s village, but no one knew he was there. He does not like to be seen.
Even Niva never saw him, though she went there often. Krone said he made the mead that the Leader drank all the time.

“
Krone also said that the three of them were forced from their village because they killed a woman
.
Some
people
said it was the mother of Korg and Mordor. Some young girls were
also
killed, Krone said.”

“That is interesting,” Zena said. “Girls have been killed here, too. Even in the beginning, the Leader must have done things like that. Perhaps the man who cannot speak helped him.” She shuddered, imagining the terror those girls must have felt.

“Let us talk of other things,” Larak begged. “The Leader is dead, and Korg, and probably the man who traveled with him that Brulet spoke of.”

“Tell me more of Pila,” Zena suggested instead. “I never met her.”

“She is brave, very brave,” Brulet said immediately. “She was given many potions to keep her quiet, but when she realized that a child was growing inside her, I saw her spit them out when no one else was watching. If Korg had seen that, he would have been angry.

“Pila was brave when the baby came, too,” Brulet continued. “She was too young to have a child, the women said, but she did not cry out. I could see how it pained her only in her eyes. They are large and brown and they filled with tears that made them shine in the lamplight, but she did not shed them. I felt very sorry for her, but I admired her too.”

But Zena’s attention had stopped at the words
large brown eyes
, and she did not hear the last sentence. “Tell me what Pila looks like,” she said cautiously. Surely, though, it was not possible…

“She has brown hair, quite thick, large brown eyes and a round face,” Brulet answered. “She is about as tall as you are, Zena.”

Larak examined Zena’s face and saw the hope that had leaped into it. “Why is she called Pila?” she asked Brulet.

“She did not know her name, so Niva called her Pila,” Brulet replied. “I suppose it was the first name she thought of. Pila did not seem to mind.”

Zena wanted to weep with frustration. Why had she not thought to ask about Pila before? Niva had not permitted her to see Pila, but she could have asked Brulet about her. All these months, she had never thought to ask.

Her
whole body
felt
frozen
with
tension
as they approached Runor’
s village, and her mind reeled with questions.
Would Pila be there?
Could she possibly be Teran?
Had Runor summoned her because she knew Teran had been found? But if that was so, why had Runor not told her before this?

The answer
s
came
from
Durak
, who
ran
ahead to intercept them
. Before giving her the news about Pila, he wanted to tell Zena how sad he was
about Lief and to see for himself if she really was all right after such a
momentous
tragedy.
He also wanted to warn her
ahead of time
, so she would not be too shocked when she saw Pila
,
who was Teran but
did
not
know that.

After he had greeted her and spoken to her of Lief,
and they had shared tears together,
he broke the news
.

“Pila is Teran
; Runor and I are certain of it, but Pila does not remember that,
” he said
bluntly
. “She remembers
almost nothing
of her past
,
though
I think
her memory
is beginning to come back
, a little at a time.

“I am so sorry I could not tell you this before now,
”
he went on. “
Runor sends that message too. She did not know until we came
and she saw Pila for herself
.
It would have comforted you
to know
earlier
,
but first Pila twisted her ankle and could not walk and then I was shot and could not walk and so we had no way of reaching you. But you can hear our story later. Now, the others are coming.
”

Zena
looked down the path. Mara and Hular were there, and so was another young woman.
She carried a child in her arms, and she
was dark-haired, familiar
, unmistakably Teran
…

Zena
’s
heart began to pound
.
“Teran!” she whispered through
the
tears
that had choked her throat
. “Teran
,
is it really you?”

C
onflicting emotions poured into
her
-
wild, overwhelming
joy that Teran was alive,
desolation that
she was no longer
the sister who had once been Teran.
She had Teran back, but woul
d she ever be Teran again?

She must not think of that.
Teran
was
alive, just as she had always thought
, and that was all that mattered.
A happiness she had not felt since Lief’s death
poured
into
Zena
.
At least she still had Teran
, even if she was not the Teran she had lost
.

She had something else, too, she reminded herself, something she had not realized until recently, had told no one else about…

Taking a deep breath,
Zena
brushed away her tears
and hugged Durak warmly.
“I am
so
glad to see you again
, Durak
! We were
very
worried
about you
. And t
hank you for
warning me about
Teran
.
To know that she is alive
…”