Chapter 146: The Hidden Pact

The horn was a Council horn and it came from the northern seat, and Ilsa went up the steps at a run and came back down with a paper in her hand.

"Luna," she said. "The Council has heard what the old man said in this square and it has voted."

"Say it."

"The claim cannot be surrendered and the trial cannot be held on a claim that cannot be surrendered." Ilsa looked at me. "The Council has voted to adjourn the trial and to hold the claim in abeyance until the pact is broken or the founder gives it up of her own accord."

The square went up.

"And the price for peace?" I said.

"The price for peace is the pact." Ilsa's old face was grey. "The Council will confirm the truce and the coast trade and the Blackthorn Pack in its territory when the pact is broken. Not before."

The square went up and this time it did not come down for a long time.

I took Padraig by the arm and walked him out of the square.

"Padraig," I said. "The pact. All of it. Now."

We went up to the room at the top of the west stair and I shut the door and Padraig sat down on the chair by the fire and put his stick across his knees. The room was small and the fire was low and the window looked out over the square where the noise was still going on.

"The pact was made two hundred years ago," he said. "Five wolves signed it. The founder's line and the four founding families. And there was a clause in it that nobody read because it was written in the old script at the bottom of the page and the old script was not taught after the Council was made."

"Tell me the clause."

"The pact holds the ritual network together. Every binding and every breaking and every rite that was ever made with the water of the spring is tied to the pact." Padraig looked at the fire. "And the pact can only be broken by a mark."

"A mark."

"A willing founder's mark. Not a knife and not a bowl of water. A mark made by a founder of her own free will in the place where the pact was signed." Padraig looked at me. "And the place where the pact was signed is the house of the north."

I stood in the room.

"The house of the north," I said.

"The house of the north." Padraig wiped his mouth. "The pact was signed in the cellar and it was signed over the floor where your grandmother is buried."

I sat down on the bed.

"Then I have to go back to that house," I said.

"You have to go back to that house and you have to go down to the cellar and you have to make a mark in the place where the pact was signed." Padraig looked at me. "And there is a thing I have not told you."

"Tell me."

"A willing founder's mark is not a thing you make with a knife." Padraig's old voice was quiet. "It is a thing you make with your own blood and your own name and your own word. And when it is made the founder gives something up."

"What does she give up?"

"The books do not say." Padraig looked at me. "The books say only that the founder who breaks the pact does not come out of the cellar the same wolf who went in."

The room was quiet. The fire cracked and the noise in the square went on and on.

"Padraig," I said. "You have been carrying this since the mill."

"I have been carrying it since the mill and I have been a coward about it and I am sorry." He looked at me. "Healer. I have been a healer for forty years and I have done a great many things and I have never once been brave. I was brave for one day in the north when I stood in a chamber and said what I had done and then I went back to being a coward the day after."

"You are not a coward."

"I am a coward and I have been one since I was a boy and I am not going to be one now." He got up out of the chair. "I am going down to that cellar with you. And I am going to be standing beside you when you make the mark."

I looked at him.

"Padraig," I said.

"Do not argue with me, healer. I am sixty eight years old and I have been arguing with you since the first night and I am not going to lose the last one."

The door opened and Ronan came in.

"Fiadh," he said. "The Council has adjourned and the square is emptying and Ilsa has sent word that the trial is suspended." He looked at Padraig and then at me. "What is it?"

"The pact," I said. "It can only be broken by a willing founder's mark in the house of the north."

Ronan stood in the doorway.

"Then we go to the house of the north," he said.

"Ronan."

"Fiadh. I have been in a Council chamber and a square and a cellar and a passage under a hill. I have been stabbed twice and I have been declared a rogue Alpha and I have been in a pool of black water. And I am not going to stand in a room at the top of a west stair while my mate goes down to a cellar to break a pact that nobody has broken in two hundred years."

I looked at him.

"Right then," I said. "We go to the house of the north."

And down in the corridor, a guard came running.

"Luna," he said. "The Beta has escaped. Maeve has escaped from the cellar and there were two Ravenscar wolves at the back door and she has gone."

I stood in the room.

"Gone where?" I said.

The guard looked at me.

"North," he said. "She has gone north on a horse."