Chapter 139: The Rival Alpha

The horn was a Ravenscar horn and it came from the bottom of the square.

Callum was on the steps with his grey coat and his face white and he had a hand up and there were wolves coming through the crowd toward him. Not Council wolves. Ravenscar wolves, in their own colours, and there were twenty of them at least and they had come in from the coast road in the night.

The square went up.

"Callum," I said. "Call them off."

Callum came down the steps.

"Luna," he said. "I have been in this town for a fortnight and I have been given a paper by an elder of the Council that says the Blackthorn territory is vacant and that I am the steward. And last night a priestess broke the chain in a cellar and every false bond in the north came undone and there are three wolves dead in this town and there will be more by morning." He looked at me. "And I am standing in a square with twenty wolves behind me and a paper in my hand and I am going to ask for a thing."

"Ask it."

"The Blackthorn territory," Callum said. "Give it to me and I will take my wolves off this square and go back to the coast and hold the border for the Council. Refuse and I will take it and there will be a fight in this square in front of the whole of the north."

The square was silent.

"Lord Callum," Soren said.

Callum turned round.

"Elder."

"You have a paper that I gave you and you have twenty wolves that I paid for and you are standing in a square in front of the whole of the north and asking for a territory that is not yours to ask for." Soren's old voice carried to every corner of the square. "I gave you the paper because I needed a wolf on that coast while I dealt with the founder. I did not give you the territory."

The square went up.

Callum's face changed.

"You gave me the paper," he said.

"I gave you a paper that said the territory was vacant and that a steward would be appointed. I did not give you a paper that said the steward was you." Soren put his hands together. "You have been in this town a fortnight and you have been sitting at the table and you have been speaking to the elders and you have been telling them that the founder's claim was a Ravenscar matter. And I have let you do it because a wolf who is talking is a wolf who is not looking at what is behind him."

Callum stood in the middle of the square.

"You have been using me," he said.

"I have been using you since the spring." Soren looked at him. "You are a founding family and you have a claim on the founder's line and you have been waiting forty years for a seat. And I have been sitting in a chair in a cellar and letting you buy hunters and wolves and flags on my money and telling myself that when the time came I would put you back in your box."

The square was completely silent.

"And now the time has come," Soren said. "Put your wolves down, Callum. There is no territory and there is no steward and there is no paper. There is a founder in this square and a Council in that building and a north that has been in an uproar for a fortnight. And you are standing in the middle of it with twenty wolves and no ground under your feet."

Callum stood in the square.

And then he did a thing I had been half expecting since the mill.

He turned round and looked at me.

"Luna," he said. "There is a thing I can give you that the elder cannot."

"What?"

"The house of the north." Callum's jaw worked. "I have had four wolves in that house since the spring. I know the door and the keeper and the room at the top. And I will give it to you and every wolf in it if you give me the coast."

The square went up.

"You would trade children for a territory," I said.

"I would trade a house I do not own for a coast I have been promised." Callum looked at me. "Luna. I have been a founding family for forty years and I have been given nothing and I have been promised everything and I have been used by an old man in a cellar. And I am standing in a square with twenty wolves and no ground under my feet and I am going to make one last offer."

I looked at him.

"Get out of this square," I said.

"Luna."

"Get out of this square and take your twenty wolves and go back to the coast. And if you go now and you do not come back I will not tell the Council that you took the Blackthorn patrol routes and gave them to a keeper." I came down the steps. "And if you stay in this square for one more minute I will tell them everything."

Callum looked at me for a long moment.

Then he turned round and walked out of the square.

The twenty went with him.

The square was silent.

And Soren stood on the steps of the northern seat with his hands folded.

"Luna," he said. "There is a thing I have to say and I am going to say it in front of the whole of the north."

"Say it."

"I gave the order for the house of the north," Soren said. "I gave the order for the bindings and the records and the debt. I have been in that chair for forty years and I have done a great many things and I am not going to stand in this square and pretend that I did not." He looked at me. "I am going to stand in front of a Council and answer for it. And I am going to do it in the morning."

The square was silent.

"Then you will be in a cell tonight," I said.

"I will be in a cell tonight."

And down at the bottom of the square, a horn sounded.