Chapter 156: Fiadh's Exile

The rider was still standing in the yard when the second rider came down the hill.

The second rider had a Council flag on his saddle and a writ in his hand and he did not get off his horse. The horse was lathered and the rider's face was grey with dust and he had ridden hard from the north.

"Fiadh, healer, of the Blackthorn Pack," he called. "By the order of the Council of Alphas, you are declared a rogue and you are to leave the territory of the Blackthorn Pack before sundown. If you are found within the borders after sundown you will be taken into custody and held for trial."

The yard went up.

"Silence," Ronan said.

The yard went silent.

The rider looked at his writ.

"The order is signed by three elders and countersigned by the keeper of the seal," he said. "It is not a request."

I stood in the yard.

"Then I will go," I said.

The yard went up again.

"Fiadh," Ronan said.

"Ronan. I have been declared a rogue by a Council and there is a rider on a horse with a writ in his hand and there are four wolves in this yard who would not stand and a whole town in the lane outside." I looked at him. "If I stay past sundown the Council will send wolves and there will be a fight in this yard and there are eleven wolves in this house still burned from the fire."

"Then let them come."

"Ronan."

"I am not letting you walk to a border on your own."

"You are not letting me. I am going." I put my hand on his face. "And I am not going on my own. I am taking Padraig and I am taking Oisin and I am taking the box and the book and the salve and the stone. And I am going north to the trial and I am going to stand in that chamber as a rogue and I am going to answer for the chain."

Ronan looked at me.

"Then I am coming with you."

"You cannot come with me. You are the Alpha of this pack and there is a hole in the roof and a border to hold and thirty wolves in this yard who have just stood against a Council for me." I looked at him. "If you leave this coast now there is no pack and there is no territory and there is nothing for me to come back to."

He stood very still.

"That is a very good argument," he said.

"I know."

"I hate it."

"I know."

He put his hands on my face.

"Come back," he said.

"I will come back."

"Say it properly."

"I will come back to this coast and this pack and this house and I will stand on that slip and you will be standing on it and there will be a bond between us that has not faded." I looked at him. "And I will not be a rogue and I will not be a founder and I will not be a wolf in a room at the top of a house in the north. I will be the Luna of the Blackthorn Pack and I will be your mate and I will be a healer with a case of tins."

Ronan put his forehead against mine.

"Come back," he said again.

I went at noon.

I packed my case in the room at the top of the stairs and I put the tins in it in the order I like them and the book and the salve and the stone and the letter from my mother and the knife with the spiral on the blade. And then I stood in the middle of the room with my hand on the quilt and I did not move for a while.

Padraig was waiting in the corridor with his bag.

"Healer," he said. "Are you ready?"

"No."

"Good. A wolf who is ready for a thing like this has not understood it." He picked up his bag. "Come on. The tide is going out."

I walked down the hill with Padraig on one side and Oisin on the other and the whole of the pack behind me to the gate.

At the gate I stopped.

The whole of the coast was there. There were Blackthorn wolves and rogues and highland wolves and two Ravenscar wolves and the twelve who had come out of the house of the north and the seven who had come out at midnight and there were wolves from every pack on the coast and there was a woman of ninety one in a chair.

And there was a wolf with a scarred ear standing at the front of them.

Bran.

"Luna," he said.

"Bran."

"I have been on the coast road for a fortnight and I have been holding a border and I have been putting out fires." He looked at me. "And I have heard that the Council has declared you a rogue and ordered you out of the territory."

"You have heard correctly."

"Then I am coming with you."

I looked at him.

"Bran," I said. "You are a rogue king with a hundred wolves and a grievance and a seat you have not been given. If you walk into the northern seat with a founder who has been declared a rogue, you will lose the seat."

Bran looked at me.

"I have been a rogue for thirty years," he said. "And I have been trying to buy a seat with money and hunters and I have been doing it since before you were born. And then a healer from Galway got off a bus and told me she would not give a rogue king a war and I have been holding a coast for her ever since."

"Bran."

"I am coming with you," he said. "And I am bringing forty wolves and I am not going to ask for a seat and I am not going to ask for a coast and I am not going to ask for anything at all."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"Then come," I said.

We went north.

I walked to the border of the Blackthorn territory with the whole of the coast behind me and the sun going down on my right, and when I got to the border stone I stopped and turned round.

Ronan was standing on the hill above the pack house with his hands at his sides.

I could not see his face. He was too far away and the light was going and there was a mist coming up off the harbour.

But through the bond, faint and far away and clear as a bell, I heard him.

I will be standing on that slip, he said. And I will be counting the days.

I turned round and walked north.

And behind me, in the harbour, a horn sounded.