Chapter 59: Lorcan's Trap

Ronan stepped out of the pen and stood in front of me.

"Take the paper back to the Council," he said. "You are not taking her."

Lorcan looked at him with the paper still in his hand and something in his face that I had not seen before. It was not the smile. It was something older and tireder.

"Alpha," he said. "You are not in a position to refuse me. You have no pack and no seat and no standing. You lost a challenge in your own hall and you left. There is a Beta in the Blackthorn house who has asked the Council for a hearing and a Council guard on your pier and a bounty on your healer's head that every hunter from here to Rathlin is out looking for." He folded the paper. "You have four wolves with you and a head wound and a smuggler with a bad arm. I have a hundred in the camp and eight behind me and a warrant with a seal on it."

"You have eight behind you," Ronan said. "And I have a founder wolf."

Lorcan's horse shifted under him.

"That is an interesting thing to say," he said. "A founder wolf. There has not been a founder wolf on this coast in a hundred years." He looked past Ronan at me. "Healer. Is that true? Did the little grey wolf in the heather see what it thought it saw?"

I came out of the pen and stood beside Ronan.

"Ask me in the hearing," I said.

"I am asking you now."

"Then yes. It is true." I looked at him. "I shifted last night for the first time in twenty two years and I am a gold wolf and there has not been one of those on this coast in a hundred years. And you knew, Envoy. You knew before I did. That is why the bounty said dead or alive and that is why there are highland wolves on the water asking for me alive and not dead. Somebody wants a founder wolf and it is not you."

Lorcan sat on his horse and looked at me for a long moment.

Then he did a thing I did not expect.

He got down off the horse.

He got down and handed the reins to one of the wolves behind him and walked forward on foot with the paper in his hand, and stopped ten feet away.

"You are right," he said. "It is not me. I am an envoy and I have been an envoy for twenty years and I do what I am told and I write it down. But I am not a fool and I have been watching this coast for six months and I have seen things I did not like." He held up the paper. "This is a warrant. It is real and it has a seal on it and if I do not serve it I will be replaced by somebody who will. So I am going to serve it. But I am going to serve it in the town and not on a mountain, and I am going to serve it in front of the elders and not in front of eight wolves, and I am going to give you one day to walk into that town on your own feet."

"Why?"

"Because I have been an envoy for twenty years and I have never once seen a founder wolf, and because if I drag you into that town in irons I will never find out what you are." He held out the paper. "One day. Walk into the northern seat by noon tomorrow and present yourself at the Council house and I will serve the warrant there. If you do not, I will hunt you and I will find you and it will not be pleasant for anyone."

I took the paper.

It was heavy and the seal was warm from his hand.

"One day," I said.

"One day." Lorcan turned and went back to his horse. He got up and gathered the reins and looked down at us. "And healer. The Alpha's Beta is in the town. She came in yesterday with a wolf from your pack and she has been talking to the elders all morning. I would find out what she has said before you walk into that chamber."

He rode away. The two wolves went after him and the eight behind him went after them, and we stood in the heather and watched them go down the valley.

"He let us go," Oisin said.

"He did not let us go. He gave us a day." Ronan was looking after the horses. "He wants to know what I am going to do with it."

"He wants to know what I am," I said. "He said so."

Padraig came out of the pen holding his head.

"There is a thing I do not like," he said. "Lorcan is a man who does what he is told and writes it down. He has been doing it for twenty years. And in twenty years he has never once given a wolf a day."

We went down into the town at dusk.

Not through the river gate. Oisin took us down the east side of the valley to a farm with a byre and a farmer who owed him a favour, and we waited there until the light went and then we went in through the mill.

The mill was a great stone building on the river with a wheel that had not turned in years, and the woman who kept it was old and deaf and took one look at Oisin and let us in.

She put us in the loft above the mill floor with a lamp and a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and she said something to Oisin in a language I did not know and he nodded and she went down the ladder.

"She says there is a hearing at noon," Oisin said. "And she says there is a wolf in the town who has been telling everyone that the Blackthorn healer is a witch."

"Maeve," I said.

"Maeve. And she has not come alone." Oisin sat down on the floorboards. "She has brought Colm."

Ronan's head came up.

"Colm?"

"Colm. He came in with her yesterday and he has been standing behind her all morning while she talks to the elders." Oisin looked at him. "And he does not look like a wolf who is there by choice."

I sat in the loft above the mill with the lamp between us and the river going under the floor.

"Tomorrow at noon," I said. "We walk into the Council house and we put the box and the page and the ledger on the table and we tell them what we know."

"And if Maeve tells them a different story?"

"Then they will listen to both," Ronan said, "and they will decide."

He did not sound sure of it.

Down below us, in the dark, the mill door opened and there were boots on the stone floor.