Chapter 114: The Rogue Alliance

The chamber did not go quiet for a long time and when it did the herald had lost his voice and Ilsa had to strike the table herself.

"The trial of the elder Soren will begin tomorrow at nine," she said. "The chamber is closed."

The gallery did not move.

"The chamber is closed," Ilsa said again, and the guards came down the aisles and the wolves in the gallery began to go out, slowly, looking back over their shoulders.

I went out through the side door with Ronan behind me.

There was a wolf waiting in the corridor.

He was big and grey and his coat was mended and he had a scarred ear and he was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and he did not look pleased to see me.

"Bran," I said.

"Healer." Bran came off the wall. "I have been standing in that gallery for two hours and I have heard a great many things."

"Have you."

"I have heard that you have a book and a seal and a pact and a stone and a list of thirty one names. I have heard that the Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack has made a vow in front of the Council that he will defy its law. And I have heard that there is a trial tomorrow that will put Soren in a cell and the keepers on a boat and the whole of the north in a state of confusion." He looked at me. "And I have been standing there thinking, this is the moment. This is the moment I have been waiting thirty years for."

Ronan stepped in front of me.

"You will not have her," he said.

"I do not want her." Bran put his hands in his pockets. "I have been buying hunters to bring her north for a year and I am telling you now, in this corridor, in front of the Alpha, that I have stopped. I have called off the highland wolves and I have called off the Fintry and I have sent word to Ravenscar that I am not in the market any more."

"Why?"

"Because I have been in that gallery and I have heard her speak." Bran looked at me. "I have been trying to take a seat for thirty years and I have been doing it with money and hunters and a great deal of patience. And a healer from Galway walked into a chamber with a book and a seal and a stone in her pocket and stood there while the whole of the north roared and did not move a step." He shook his head. "I have been playing the wrong game for thirty years."

"What game are you playing now?" Ronan said.

"The one where I do not end up in a cell next to Soren." Bran took a paper out of his coat. "There are eleven packs on the western coast and four of them are mine. I can put forty wolves on the road to the northern seat by tomorrow morning and they will hold the square while the trial is on. And I can put a boat on the water that will take the keepers north when the trial is over and not let them come back."

"And what do you want?"

"I want a seat on the Council when it is reformed," Bran said. "Not Soren's. A new one. And I want it in writing that I got it for holding a square and not for buying hunters."

I looked at him.

"Write it yourself," I said. "Bring the paper to the chamber tomorrow and I will sign it in front of the elders and you will have your seat and your name and your forty wolves."

Bran looked at me for a long moment.

"Right then," he said, and went out.

Ronan stood in the corridor with his hands at his sides.

"You have just given a Council seat to the Rogue King," he said.

"I have given a Council seat to a wolf who has been waiting thirty years and has forty wolves and has just called off every hunter on this coast." I looked at him. "I have been in nine packs and I have learned one thing about a wolf who has been an enemy. You do not make him a friend by forgiving him. You make him a friend by giving him something to lose."

Oisin was at the bottom of the stair with his coat on and his face set.

"Healer," he said. "There is a thing I have to tell you and I have been putting it off since the mill."

"Oisin."

"It is about your mother." He came up the last step. "I told you she paid me to watch over you and I told you I took the purse and I told you I failed her once." He looked at me. "I have not told you what happened."

Ronan put his hand on my back.

"Tell me," I said.

"It was the year you were nineteen," Oisin said. "You were in a mining town in the north and there was a wolf there who had taken a liking to you and he was a Council wolf and he had written to the northern seat about a healer with golden hair." He wiped his mouth. "I found out and I went to the town and I got you out. I put you on a boat to Galway and I told your mother you were safe and she wrote back and said, thank you, and that was the last letter I ever had from her."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because the Council wolf who wrote to the northern seat is in this building," Oisin said. "He is one of the four keepers. And he has been sitting at that table for two days and he has been looking at you and he has not said a word."

I stood on the stairs of the northern seat.

"Which one?" I said.

"The one on the left with the red ring," Oisin said. "His name is Eamon and he is Cael's brother."

And down in the square, the singing stopped.