Chapter 129: The Council's Judgment

The horn was Ilsa's and it was calling us back to the boat.

We went north that night.

The Council boat was bigger than Oisin's and slower than Oisin's and it had a cabin with a stove in it and a bench along the wall, and we put the wounded in the cabin and the rest of us on the deck. The wind came off the water cold enough to take the skin off your face and the sail was hard and the boat heeled all night.

Padraig sat in the bow with his stick across his knees and did not speak to anyone for the first day.

Maeve sat in the stern with her hands bound in front of her and a guard on either side and did not speak to anyone at all.

Ronan sat beside me with his arm in a sling and his shoulder bound and his face grey, and on the second night he fell asleep with his head on my shoulder and I sat very still and did not move for four hours.

We came into the northern harbour at dawn on the third day.

The town was full.

It was fuller than it had been for the trial. There were wolves in the square and wolves on the walls and wolves on the quay and there were carts and horses and tents and fires, and the smoke of the fires hung over the roofs in the grey light like a lid.

And above the northern seat there was a flag that was not the Council's.

It was Ravenscar.

"Callum has taken the seat," Ilsa said.

"He has not taken the seat," I said. "He has been given a chair at the table and a chair at the table is not the seat. But he has a flag on the roof and a flag on the roof is a claim."

We went up the hill.

The great chamber was full and the gallery was full and there were wolves standing in the aisles three deep.

The five elders were at the table and the four keepers were beside them and Eamon was in the middle of the four, and Callum of Ravenscar was in a chair at the end of the table with a Ravenscar wolf behind him.

And in the middle of the floor there was a wolf I had not seen before.

She was old and she was thin and she was in a keeper's coat and she had a paper in her hand.

"Elder," she said. "I am a keeper of the north and I have come to say what I know."

Ilsa looked at her.

"Say it."

"The founder's claim is a fraud," the woman said. "The book that was put on this table is a forgery and the seal is a forgery and the pact is a forgery. I have been a keeper for fifty years and I have never seen any of them in the keepers' house."

The chamber went up.

And Callum of Ravenscar stood up.

"Elders," he said. "I have been appointed steward of the Blackthorn territory by the Council and I have been in this town for a week and I have heard a great deal. And I am going to say a thing that nobody in this chamber has had the courage to say." He looked at me. "The founder's bloodline ended a hundred and twenty years ago with Mairead. There is no fourth generation. There is a wolf from Galway with golden hair and a debt and a book that nobody has ever seen before and a claim that has been withdrawn and reasserted twice in a month."

The chamber went up.

"Silence," Ilsa said. "The Luna will answer."

I came forward.

"Elders," I said. "I have a thing to say and I am going to say it in front of this chamber and the whole of the north." I put my hand into my coat and took out the writ. "This is a writ with the seal of the Council on it. It was sealed four days ago and it says that the Blackthorn territory is not vacant and that the Council will send a healer and a surgeon and open the spring for the healing of a silver wound. And it was sealed because the Council took a ledger and a list and a set of letters from me in exchange."

The chamber was silent.

"And there is a thing in that writ that nobody has read," I said. "It is a list of the wolves who will be sent to the coast. A healer and a surgeon and two guards. And the surgeon is a wolf called Rannoch's nephew who has been in the northern seat for six years and has never once been to a coast."

The chamber went up.

"Elder Rannoch," Ilsa said.

Rannoch stood up.

"That is my nephew," he said. "He is a surgeon and he has been in the north for six years and I put his name on the list because he is the best surgeon in this building."

"And why has he never been to a coast?" I said.

Rannoch looked at me.

"Because he has been in the northern seat for six years," he said.

"Because he has been going down to the spring every month with a lamp and a pot and a keeper called Eamon," I said. "And there is a room under the spring that is not a spring and there is a chair in it and there is a wolf in the chair."

The chamber went completely silent.

And Eamon stood up.

"Elder," he said. "The Luna is lying."

"No," I said. "The Luna has a letter."

I held up the letter that Maeve had brought.

It was a letter from Lorcan to Soren and it was dated the spring and it was in Lorcan's hand and it said everything.

I read it out loud.

The chamber went up.

And this time it did not come down for a very long time. The gallery was on its feet and the aisles were on their feet and the five elders were on their feet and the herald struck the floor and nobody listened to him.

I stood in the middle of it with the letter in my hand.

And then Ilsa did a thing I had not seen her do in all the weeks I had known her.

She came round the table and down the steps and stood beside me.

"The Council will vote," she said. "Not on the claim. On the envoy."

The chamber went quiet.

"Lorcan has been an envoy of this Council for twenty years and he has written down a thing that says the Beta of the Blackthorn Pack has been of great service and the Alpha is failing and the pack will be ready for a steward by autumn. He wrote it in the spring and he sent it to the elder Soren and it is in his hand and it is signed." Ilsa looked at the table. "I move that the envoy be stripped of his title and his seat and his pension and that he be held for trial."

"Second," said the grey wolf with the broken nose.

"All in favour," Ilsa said.

Four hands went up.

The fifth was Rannoch's and it did not go up.

"Elder Rannoch," Ilsa said. "The vote."

Rannoch sat at the table with his hands flat on it.

"I abstain," he said.

The chamber went up.

"The envoy is stripped," Ilsa said. "The vote is carried."

And Eamon stood up out of his chair and walked out of the chamber.

Nobody stopped him.

Nobody stopped him because every wolf in that chamber was watching the door at the back where the keeper's chair had been and where the keeper was not, and because there was a thing in the air that everybody could feel and nobody could name.

Ronan came and stood beside me.

"He is going down to the spring," he said.

"I know."

"Fiadh. He is going down to the spring and there is a wolf in a chair under it and he is going to tell him everything."

I turned round.

"Then we go down after him," I said.