Chapter 170: The Pack United

The singing went on all night.

I woke at dawn with the quilt over me and Ronan's arm under my head and the window open and the sound of the square coming up through it. It was not the old song. It was something slower and it had a lot of voices in it and I did not know the words.

I got up and went to the window.

The square was full.

It had been full the night before and it was fuller now. There were Blackthorn wolves in it and rogues and highland wolves and Council guards and wolves from every pack on the coast who had come north in the night. There were carts and horses and fires and there was a wolf on a cart with a fiddle and there were wolves round the fire passing a jug.

And at the top of the square, on the steps of the northern seat, there were two wolves standing side by side.

One of them was Bran.

The other one was Maeve.

Ronan came and stood behind me.

"They have been out there all night," he said.

"Both of them?"

"Both of them. Maeve came out at midnight and stood on the steps and Bran came out an hour later and they have been standing there since." He put his hand on my shoulder. "They have not said a word to each other. They have just been standing there."

I looked down at the square.

"Maeve is standing on the steps of the northern seat beside a rogue king," I said. "And the whole of the north is in the square and nobody has thrown anything."

"Nobody has thrown anything."

I turned round.

"Ronan," I said. "Get your coat. We are going down."

We went down.

The square went quiet when we came out of the house of the north. It went quiet the way a square goes quiet when the wolves in it have been waiting for a thing and the thing has come.

I went up the steps and stood between Maeve and Bran.

"The trial is at noon," I said. "And before the trial there is a thing I have to say to the whole of this square and I am going to say it once and then I am not going to say it again."

The square was silent.

"There are rogues in this square and there are Blackthorn wolves and there are highland wolves and there are Council guards," I said. "There are wolves in this square who have raided each other's lands since before I was born and there are wolves in this square who have been on opposite sides of every fight on this coast for thirty years. And last night they held a square together and this morning they are passing a jug round a fire."

The square was silent.

"I am not going to stand on these steps and tell you that the past did not happen," I said. "It happened. There are wolves dead and there are wolves burned out of their houses and there is a coast that has been forgotten for a hundred years. And I am standing here with a rogue king on one side of me and a Beta on the other who both did things I have not forgiven and will not forget."

Maeve's jaw worked. Bran looked at the ground.

"And I am going to stand in that chamber at noon and I am going to answer for the chain and the three deaths and the whole of it," I said. "And I am going to do it with the whole of the north behind me. Not because the north has forgiven me. Because the north has come."

The square went up.

It went up in a roar that filled the whole of the north and went out through the gate and down the hill to the harbour, and it went on for a long time.

And when it came down, Bran turned round.

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

"Say it."

Bran looked at the square.

"My name is Bran and I have been a rogue for thirty years," he said. "And I have been buying wolves and boats and I have been waiting for a seat. And there is a wolf on this coast who lost a brother to a rogue raid in the year before last and there is a storehouse that was burned in the spring and there is a boat that was taken in the summer."

The square was silent.

"I did not burn the storehouse and I did not take the boat," Bran said. "But I was their king and I let it happen because a rogue who raids is a rogue who eats. And I am standing on these steps this morning and I am telling the whole of the north that I am sorry for it."

The square was silent.

And then a wolf came out of the crowd.

He was an old wolf with a grey face and a limp and he came up the steps and stood in front of Bran.

"My name is Padraig of the Blackthorn Pack," he said, "and my brother was killed in a rogue raid in the year before last."

Bran looked at him.

"I am sorry for it," he said.

The old wolf looked at him for a long moment.

And then he put his hand out.

Bran looked at the hand.

And then he took it.

The square went up.

It went up in a roar that went on and on and it did not come down for a very long time, and I stood on the steps of the northern seat between a rogue king and a Beta and the whole of the north was in the square and the whole of the north was shouting.

And when it came down, Maeve turned round.

"Luna," she said. "There is a thing I have to say and I have been putting it off since the bothy."

"Say it."

Maeve looked at the square.

"My name is Maeve and I have been Beta of the Blackthorn Pack for nine years," she said. "And there is a thing I did in the north that I have not told the whole of it."

The square was silent.

"I told a keeper where the second pool is," she said. "And I did it because he asked me a question and I answered it and I did not know what it was. And then I worked out what I had done and I have been carrying it since."

The square was silent.

"And I am going to stand in that chamber at noon and I am going to say it in front of the Council," Maeve said. "And whatever they decide to do with me, I am going to take it."

The square was silent.

And then a wolf at the back of the square began to clap.

And down in the harbour, a horn sounded.