Chapter 141: Fiadh's Last Secret

The ram hit the front door at dusk and the whole house shook.

I was in the corridor with the keeper and the priestess and Oisin and the four Council wolves, and the seven children were in the room at the end of it with a woman of fifty who had been their keeper since they were small, and every one of them was crying.

The door held.

It was a good door. It was older than the Council and it was oak and iron and it had been built to keep wolves out.

But it would not hold forever.

"Oisin," I said. "The window at the back of the room at the top. Can a wolf get out of it?"

"It is barred," the keeper said. "It has been barred since I came on this door."

"Then get the bars off."

The ram hit the door again and a hinge squealed.

We went up.

The house of the north was four floors and a cellar and we went up the stairs two at a time with the keeper in front and the priestess behind me and Oisin at the back.

The room at the top of the house was small. It had a bed and a chair and a window that did not open and a lamp on the table and there was a woman in the bed.

She was ninety one years old and she was very thin and her hair was white and her eyes were open and she was looking at the ceiling.

"Mairi," I said.

She did not turn her head.

"Grandmother," I said.

She did not turn her head.

The keeper came and stood at the foot of the bed.

"She has not spoken in seventy years," he said. "She does not know her own name and she does not know this house and she has not been out of this room since before I was born."

I sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

It was light and it was dry and it was cold.

"Grandmother," I said. "My name is Fiadh and I am your daughter's daughter and I have come to take you out of this house."

Her hand moved in mine.

It was small. It was the smallest movement and it was not a squeeze and it was not a grip. It was the way a hand moves when a wolf is trying to hold on to something and does not know how.

The ram hit the door again and the whole house shook.

"Luna," Oisin said. "The window is barred and the bars are iron and they are set in the stone."

"Then we do not go out of the window." I stood up. "We go out of the front door."

"Luna. There are twenty wolves at the front door."

"There are twenty wolves at the front door and there are four Council wolves in this house and a priestess and a smuggler and a keeper." I looked at the keeper. "How many doors does this house have?"

"Three. The front door and the cellar and the door at the back of the kitchen."

"And the door at the back of the kitchen?"

"It is bolted and it is old and it has not been opened in twenty years."

"Then we open it." I picked up the lamp. "We take the seven children and my grandmother and we go out of the door at the back of the kitchen and we go down the hill to the northern seat."

The keeper looked at me.

"Luna," he said. "There is a thing I have to tell you and I should have told you when you came through the cellar door."

"Tell me."

"The woman in this bed is not Mairi." He looked at me. "The woman in this bed is called Ailsa and she was a keeper's daughter and she was put in this room sixty years ago because she knew what the house was for and she would not be quiet."

I stood at the foot of the bed.

"What?"

"The real Mairi died in this house forty years ago. She was thirty one years old and she died in the cellar and she is buried under the floor of the room at the bottom of the stair." The keeper's face was grey. "I have been on this door for twenty years and I have been told that the woman in this bed is Mairi and I have believed it because I was told it. And then last night a priestess broke the chain and a keeper called Eamon came up the stair and he told me everything before he went down to the spring."

The house shook with the ram.

"Where is Mairi buried?" I said.

"Under the floor of the cellar at the bottom of the stair."

I turned round.

"Oisin," I said. "The cellar floor."

"Fiadh."

"Oisin. Get the children to the kitchen door and get the wolves on it and get them out. I am going down to the cellar."

And the front door gave way.

We heard it. It went with a sound like a tree coming down and then there was shouting in the hall below and the keeper had his knife out and the priestess had her staff up.

"Luna," the keeper said. "Go down. I will hold the stair."

And in the back of my head, in the bond, Ronan said, Fiadh. The northern seat is full of wolves. Callum is not at the house of the north. Callum is here.

I stood on the top of the stair of the house of the north.

"Ronan," I said out loud. "What do you mean he is here?"

He is here. He came in through the market with forty wolves and he is standing in the square and he is asking for you.

And down in the hall of the house of the north, a voice I knew came up the stair.

"Founder," Callum shouted. "I have your mate in the square and I have twenty wolves on this stair. Come down and I will not burn the house."