Chapter 133: The Sixth Love Scene

We did not go to the chamber.

Ilsa came back down the corridor at a run with her shawl half off and her face white and she said, "The wolf in the chamber is called Mairi and she is nineteen and she has been in the house of the north since she was four. She has walked out of it tonight with eleven others and they are standing in the square and the whole of the town is out."

"Eleven others," I said.

"Twelve of the nineteen. The other seven are still in the house and the house has a keeper on the door and he will not open it." Ilsa looked at me. "Luna. The elders are in the chamber and the square is full and there is a mob in it that has been singing since midnight."

"Singing what?"

"The old song," Ilsa said. "The one about the founder and the gold wolf and the moon."

I stood in the corridor of the northern seat with the box in my coat and my mate beside me.

"Then I am going to go and see the twelve," I said.

"Fiadh," Ronan said.

"Ronan. There are twelve wolves in that square who have been in a house since they were four years old and one of them has walked out tonight and told a Council who she is." I looked at him. "I am the founder of that line. I am going to go and stand in the square with them."

"Then I am coming with you."

"You have been stabbed twice."

"I have been stabbed twice and I have been in a pool of black water and I am still standing." He took my hand. "I am coming with you."

We went out through the great doors of the northern seat into the square.

It was full.

It was fuller than it had been for the trial. There were wolves on the steps and wolves on the wall and wolves in the square as far back as the harbour, and there were lanterns and there were fires and there were wolves standing on carts to see over the heads in front.

And in the middle of the square there were twelve wolves in keeper's coats.

They were young. The oldest was maybe twenty five and the youngest was a girl of fourteen with her hair in a braid and her hands in her sleeves. And the one at the front of them was a woman of nineteen with a plain face and a strong jaw and she was standing with her shoulders back and her chin up and she was looking at the northern seat.

"Mairi," I said.

She turned round.

"Are you the founder?" she said.

"I am."

"You are the gold wolf."

"I am the gold wolf."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"I have been in that house since I was four years old," she said. "I have been recorded and I have been kept and I have never once been outside the wall. And tonight a keeper came down to the cellar and left the door open and I walked out and I have been walking ever since."

The square was silent.

"What is your name?" I said.

"Mairi."

"Mairi. I am Fiadh and I have been in nine packs and I have never once had a home." I put my hand out. "You are of my blood and you have been kept in a house for fifteen years and I am sorry for it and I am going to spend the rest of my life making it right."

Mairi looked at my hand.

And then she took it.

The square went up.

It went up in a roar that filled the whole of the town and went out over the roofs and down to the harbour and the wolves on the carts were shouting and the wolves on the steps were shouting and somebody started to sing the old song again and this time the whole square took it up.

I stood in the middle of it with a nineteen year old girl's hand in mine.

And then Ronan took my other hand.

And I turned round and looked at him.

"Fiadh," he said. "There is a thing I want to do and I want to do it in this square in front of the whole of the north."

"What?"

"I want to mark you again." He looked at me. "Not in a yard. Not in a bothy. Not in a Council chamber with a knife and a bowl of water. In a square with twelve wolves of your blood behind you and the whole of the north watching and a song going on that has not been sung on this coast in a hundred years."

I stood in the square.

"Ronan," I said. "You are standing in a square with a hole in your shoulder and a pack on the other side of the coast and a Council in an uproar."

"I know."

"And you want to mark me in front of the whole of the north."

"I do."

I looked at him.

"Right then," I said.

He marked me in the square.

There was no knife and there was no bowl of water. He put his hand on the silver crescent on my chest and he said the old words and the whole square went quiet to hear them, and when he had finished the crescent was warm and it was bright and the twelve wolves behind me made a sound that I have never heard before.

And then I marked him.

We went back to the northern seat at three in the morning with the twelve and the square still singing.

They gave us a room at the top of the east stair. The same room. The fire was lit and there was a bed and a jug of water and a basin and a door that shut.

Ronan shut it.

"Fiadh," he said.

"Come here," I said.

He came.

I do not have the words for the rest of it. I have been a healer for ten years and I have spent my life writing things down plainly and this is the one thing I cannot write plainly. What I can say is that it was the first time since the bothy that there was nothing between us at all. No false bond and no silver mark and no Council and no exile and no doubt. There was a room at the top of a stair and a fire and a mate with a shoulder that had closed and a square outside the window that was still singing.

He kept saying my name. I kept saying his.

And when it was over we lay in the dark with the quilt over us and his arm under my head and the song coming up faintly from the square below.

"Ronan," I said.

"Hm."

"The bond is stronger."

"I know." He turned his head. "I can feel it. It is like a rope that has been tied twice."

"It is like a rope that has been tied twice." I put my hand on his chest. "I have never had anything tied twice in my life."

"You have now."

I lay in the dark and listened to the singing.

And then, around four in the morning, there was a knock at the door.

Ronan got up and opened it.

Colm was standing there with a lamp in his hand.

"Luna," he said. "There is a wolf at the gate of the northern seat and she is asking for you. She has a green scarf and she says her name is Elara."

I sat up in the bed.

"Elara," I said.

"She says she has come to tell you the truth about the false mate," Colm said. "And she says she is not going to leave until you have heard it."