The next morning, Kinara took the longest walk of his life. Busara’s cave was a shrine of peace for Metutu, but Kinara found it a monument to his crushing guilt.
“Kima, are you there?”
“Where else would I be?” She stepped out and looked at him with icy reserve.
“I wondered if you were all right. Have enough food?”
“My needs are met. Sorry about your wife.”
“Sorry about your husband,” Kinara said with a catch in his throat. “You could never imagine how sorry.”
“Maybe not.”
“What I mean is....” Kinara scratched his chin nervously. “What I mean is, it’s very sad he didn’t live to see an age when hearts will be free to worship God as they see fit.”
“It IS a shame.”
“You’re not making this very easy. Not that I blame you. Chiefs come and go, and are soon forgotten. Busara had a different kind of greatness. When I die, I’d be flattered--no, extremely lucky if Busara even lets me bring his breakfast or run his errands.”
Kima looked at Kinara. "You killed him, didn't you?" she asked quietly.
"No! My bodyguards...." he stopped and looks at the ground for a moment. Sighs. "They acted on my command. I must pay for what I have done."
She took a digging stick and shoved him back against the wall, the point pressing against his throat. "Oh, you’ll pay, all right!”
“Please, hear me out!”
“If you were REALLY repentant, why not admit your guilt to the council and be punished? Give me one good reason why I should let you live.”
“For my son’s sake. Metutu would give up all that Busara taught him to support you and your daughter. Servants are not hard to find, but my son has a power and a calling I don’t understand. I must free him to do the work that Aiheu requires. Busara would have wanted it.”
She let the stick drop a little. “So if you cared what Busara wanted, why did you kill him? He was a kindly old graybeard who never hurt a soul.” She jabbed him lightly with the point of the stick. Clearly, she wanted to do worse.
“I thought he was corrupting my son. I love my son, and I would kill for him. You would have killed me to protect Busara. Even now you hold that stick like a lioness ready to strike. I can feel your rage, so akin to mine.”
“How could you know how I feel? How could you possibly know what I feel?”
“My Neema,” he said. Tears began to stream down his face. “If your husband had been alive, he could have saved her. I’ve done much mischief in my life, but I gave my family the same love you give your God. Now your God is all I have left.”
She wavered for a moment, then threw away the stick. “Very well. I will tolerate you, but I don’t have to like you.”
She got a basket for herself and one for Kinara. “Come with me. Be silent and see that we are not followed.”
She took him by a long, winding route toward the place where her husband used to gather Tiko root. She paused for a moment at the edge of the forest and looked down in the grass. She was very quiet and contemplative, so that Kinara’s curiosity was aroused.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. It’s just that her presence is very strong here.”
“Whose?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“The lioness, isn’t it. The stories were true, weren’t they?”
“Yes. She killed your two bodyguards. The one that stopped my husband and the one that hit him with the rock.”
The red patches on Kinara’s face were flushed. “So you knew all along.”
“Had you not come to see me, she would have killed you too. She loved him, in her own way as much as I did. She loved Asumini and I, but he was her special joy. When you had him....” She stopped herself. She felt of the spot in the grass and started to cry. “Damn you, Kinara for the pain you brought this family! We never hurt anyone--we were healers and teachers of the young!”
He touched her shoulder. “I’d give anything if I could bring him back.”
She jerked back. “You can’t! You will have to fill the hole yourself. You have been a taker all your life. Now you must be a giver like my husband, or Aiheu will ask for a reckoning. That is your one chance, and you’d do well not to trample it the way you trampled my heart!”
Together they went into the cool of the forest and sought out the rare mint.