Chapter 143: Ronan's Choice

We went down to the cell under the chamber at five in the morning.

It was not the room of the north. It was a small stone room off the keeper's stair with a door of iron bars and a bench and a bucket and a lamp on the wall, and Soren was sitting on the bench with his hands in his lap.

He looked very old. He had looked old in the chamber under the seat and he had looked old in the square but this was different. He had been ninety four years old and in a chair and then he had been ninety four years old and standing on the steps of the northern seat, and now he was ninety four years old and in a cell and he looked like a thing that had been left out in the rain.

The pack was there.

That is what he had asked for and that is what Ilsa had done. The fourteen who had stood on the harbour wall and the eight who had turned their backs and Maeve in the corner with a guard on either side and Colm and Nessa and Padraig and Oisin and the twelve children who had walked out of the house of the north and the seven who had come out of it at midnight.

The corridor was full.

"Elder," I said.

Soren lifted his head.

"Luna," he said. "Alpha. I have a thing to say and I am going to say it in front of the whole of this pack and the whole of this corridor."

"Say it."

"I am ninety four years old and I have been on the Council for forty years and I have done a great many things." Soren's voice was dry and quiet. "I have ordered the taking of nineteen children and the binding of thirty one wolves and the keeping of a house in the north for a hundred years. And I have done it because I believed the founder's line was a thing to be used and the Council was a thing to be kept and the north was a thing to be fed."

The corridor was silent.

"And there is a thing I can offer you," Soren said. "Alpha. I have a paper in my coat that was written before I came down to this cell and it is signed by three elders and it says that if the Luna surrenders her claim and goes north to the house of the north as a recorded wolf of the founder's line, then the Blackthorn territory will be confirmed and the pack will be restored and the tithe will be forgiven for a hundred years."

The corridor went up.

"Ronan," I said.

Ronan stood in front of the cell with his hands at his sides.

"Say that again," he said.

Soren looked at him.

"The Luna goes north and is recorded and the Blackthorn Pack is restored," he said. "It is a good bargain and it is the last one I have. Take it and your pack survives. Refuse it and the Council will declare you a rogue Alpha and the territory will be vacant again by morning."

The corridor was completely silent.

Ronan turned round and looked at me.

"Fiadh," he said.

"Ronan. Do not."

"Do not what?"

"Do not stand in a corridor at five in the morning and make a choice about my life." I came and stood beside him. "I am not a territory and I am not a tithe and I am not a bargain."

"I know," he said.

"Then say what you are going to say."

Ronan looked at me for a long moment.

And then he turned round and faced the cell.

"No," he said.

Soren's old face did not change.

"Alpha," he said. "Think about what you are refusing."

"I have thought about it. I have been thinking about it since the spring." Ronan's voice was quiet and it carried to every corner of that corridor. "I have been an Alpha for eleven years and I have made a great many mistakes and the worst of them was a vote in a chamber in the south when I voted with the law and watched silver go on my mate's wrist. I am not doing it again."

The corridor went up.

"Then the Council will declare you a rogue Alpha," Soren said.

"Let it."

"And the territory will be vacant."

"Let it be vacant." Ronan put his hand on my shoulder. "I have a pack of fourteen wolves and a mate and a hole in the roof of a house on a coast that has been forgotten for a hundred years. And I would rather be a rogue Alpha with a hole in the roof than an Alpha who gave his mate to a house in the north."

The corridor went up and this time it did not come down.

Soren sat on the bench in his cell and looked at us for a long moment.

"Then it is done," he said. "And I am sorry for it."

Ilsa came down the corridor.

"Elder," she said. "The Council has heard. The vote is taken."

"Say it," Soren said.

"The Council declares the Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack a rogue Alpha and the Blackthorn territory vacant." Ilsa looked at Ronan. "And there is a second vote that has been taken at the same time and it has nothing to do with the territory."

"What is it?"

Ilsa's old face was set.

"The Council votes to strip the elder Soren of his seat and his name and to hold him for trial for the taking of nineteen children and the binding of thirty one wolves." She looked at the cell. "The vote is four to one."

The corridor was silent.

Soren put his head back against the wall.

"Four to one," he said. "Who was the one?"

"Rannoch," Ilsa said.

Soren laughed. It was a dry quiet sound and there was no humour in it.

"Rannoch," he said. "Of course it was Rannoch."

And down in the square, a horn sounded.

It was not a Council horn. It was not a Ravenscar horn. It was a horn that I had heard once before on a slip on a coast in the south, and it was a smuggler's horn.

"Oisin," I said.

Oisin was at the end of the corridor with his coat on and his face set.

"Luna," he said. "There is a boat at the harbour and it is flying a Blackthorn flag. There are nine wolves on it and they have come from the coast and they are asking for the Alpha and the Luna."

Ronan turned round.

"Nine," he said.

"Nine." Oisin looked at him. "Alpha. They are the nine who turned their backs in the chamber. And they have come north to find you."