Chapter 125: Lorcan's Mistake

The horn was a Council horn and it came from the gate.

I went down to the yard.

Lorcan was standing at the gate with a white flag in one hand and a paper in the other and two Council guards behind him, and he looked older than he had in the north. His coat was not brushed and his boots were wet and there was a cut on his lip.

"Luna," he said.

"Envoy."

"I have read the writ." He held it up. "The smuggler gave it to me at the gate an hour ago and I have read it three times."

"And?"

"And it is the most reasonable thing I have read in twenty years." He folded it. "The Council will take it. The ledger and the list and the letters and the claim in exchange for a writ of protection and a healer and a surgeon and the spring. They will take it because they have no choice. The north has been in an uproar since the chamber and the elders have been sitting all night and there is a crowd in the square that has not gone home."

"Then take it north and have it sealed."

"I will." Lorcan looked at me. "But there is a thing in it that you have not written down and I want to know what it is."

"What?"

"The claim." He came a step closer. "You are giving the Council the founder's claim. The whole of it. The book and the seal and the pact and the four generations. And a wolf does not give away a thing like that for a writ and a healer and a spring."

"Then you do not know what a coast is worth."

"I know what a coast is worth and it is not worth a founder's claim." Lorcan looked at me. "You have been three steps ahead of me since the first night in the pack house. You were three steps ahead of Soren and you were three steps ahead of the keepers and you were three steps ahead of your own Beta. So I am asking you plainly, in a yard, with two guards behind me and a white flag in my hand. What are you doing?"

I looked at him.

"I am going to the spring," I said.

Lorcan's face did not change.

"The spring is under the northern seat and it is sealed and it has been sealed for a hundred years."

"Then it will be opened." I came down the step. "You have a false bond in my chest and a silver wound in my mate's shoulder and a writ in your hand that says the Council will open the spring for the healing of a silver wound. That is the whole of it. We go north and we open the spring and we put the silver in the water and the false bond in the water and we see what is left."

Lorcan looked at me for a long moment.

"That will kill you," he said.

"It might."

"Healer." Lorcan's voice had gone quiet. "I have been an envoy for twenty years and I have written down a great many things and I have never once written down a thing that surprised me. And then a healer from Galway got off a bus in the rain and told me she would not give me her silence." He looked at the paper in his hand. "I am going to tell you a thing I should not tell you and I am telling you because I am fifty one years old and I am tired and I have been a coward for twenty years."

"Tell me."

"The spring is not sealed." Lorcan looked at me. "It has not been sealed for two years. There is a keeper who goes down to it every month with a lamp and a pot and he does not come up for an hour."

"Which keeper?"

"Eamon." Lorcan's jaw worked. "And there is a thing under the northern seat that is older than the spring and it is not a spring. It is a room and there is a chair in it and there is a wolf in the chair and he has been in it since the spring."

The yard was very quiet.

"Soren," I said.

"Soren." Lorcan looked at me. "He did not run north two weeks ago. He went north and he went down and he has been sitting in that chair ever since and Eamon has been going down to him with a lamp and a pot."

"And you knew."

"I did not know until last night." Lorcan's voice was flat. "I have been in the north for a week and I have been writing down everything the elders say and last night I heard a thing I was not meant to hear. Eamon was in the corridor with one of the guards and he said, the old man wants the founder brought down before the trial opens and he does not want her walking."

The yard was silent.

"Then he is still directing it," I said.

"He is still directing it and he has been directing it since the spring and he has been directing it from a chair under the northern seat with a keeper and a lamp." Lorcan looked at me. "And he has a wolf in this pack. He has had a wolf in this pack since the spring and he has been getting word from this coast the whole time."

"Who?"

"I do not know." Lorcan looked at the paper in his hand. "But there is a thing in this writ that nobody has noticed. It is a list of the wolves who will be sent to the coast if the Council agrees. A healer and a surgeon and two guards."

"And?"

"And the surgeon is a wolf called Rannoch's nephew and he has been in the northern seat for six years and he has never once been to a coast."

I stood in the yard.

"Then the surgeon is the wolf who will come down to the spring with a lamp and a pot," I said.

Lorcan did not answer.

"Envoy," I said. "You have made a mistake."

"I know."

"You have told a healer with a false bond in her chest and a mate with a silver wound that the wolf who has been running this coast for a hundred years is sitting under the northern seat and directing it and has a wolf in this pack." I looked at him. "And you have told me in a yard with two guards behind you and a white flag in your hand."

Lorcan looked at his guards.

"Fiadh," he said. "What are you going to do?"

I turned round.

"Oisin," I said. "Take the envoy's guards."

Oisin came out of the door of the pack house with four wolves behind him.

"You cannot do this," Lorcan said.

"I can and I am doing it." I came and stood in front of him. "You are not going back to the north. You are going to sit in this house with a guard on the door until the writ is sealed and the spring is open and the wolf under the northern seat is out of his chair."

Lorcan looked at me.

"You are making an enemy of the Council," he said.

"I have been making an enemy of the Council since the day I got off the bus." I took the writ out of his hand. "Get him inside."