Chapter 85: Lorcan's Offer

Lorcan stood in the hall with the paper in his hand.

"Say it plainly," I said. "All of it. Not the version you would put in a notebook."

He looked at me for a moment.

"Very well," he said. "Plainly. I will go north with you and I will stand in that house and I will give you every name I know and every order I signed and every wolf who ever paid for a binding. I will give you Soren. And in exchange you will not tell the elders that I signed the orders and you will let me keep my pension and my house and my name and walk away from this coast and not come back."

"You signed thirty one orders."

"I signed thirty one orders."

"And thirty one wolves died of them."

Lorcan's jaw worked.

"Yes," he said. "They did."

I stood in the hall of the Council house and looked at him.

"You want me to let you walk away," I said. "You want me to let you keep a pension and a house in the north and a name that does not have thirty one dead wolves under it, and you want me to do it because you are going to give me Soren."

"That is the deal."

"That is not a deal. That is a purchase." I came down the last two steps. "You came to this coast in the spring and you sat in a grey house and you wrote down everything the pack did and you watched a man die slowly and you did not say a word. And now you are standing in a hall offering me the truth as though it were a thing you had a right to sell."

"I have the truth. Nobody else has it. The ledgers are gone north with your Beta and the papers under the chamber are Soren's and the binders are scattered and frightened and they will not talk." Lorcan held up the paper. "I am the only wolf alive who can put Soren in a cell. You need me."

"I do not need you. I have a stone in my pocket and a box on a table and a Council that has lost its head and a pack in the market." I took the paper out of his hand. "What I need is for you to write down everything you know and give it to Ilsa under seal and then stand in that chamber and read it out loud with the doors open. And then I need you to stand in front of a court and answer for the thirty one."

Lorcan's face changed.

"Then I will not give you the names," he said.

"Then you will be tried as a binder's clerk who signed the orders and refused to help the investigation." I folded the paper and put it in my coat. "And I will find the names myself. I have a founder wolf in my chest and a ledger in the north and a pack that has been in this fight longer than you have."

Lorcan stood in the hall.

"You are making a mistake," he said.

"I have made a great many mistakes in the last month and every one of them was made by trusting a wolf who was not worth trusting." I looked at him. "You are not the first Council wolf to offer me a deal and you will not be the last. Get out of my way."

He stepped aside.

I went back up the stairs.

Ronan was sitting on the edge of the bed with the blanket round his shoulders.

"Well?" he said.

"He offered me Soren in exchange for his pension."

"And you told him no."

"I told him no."

Ronan laughed. It was a tired laugh but it was a real one.

"Good," he said.

"He is going to be a problem," Padraig said, from his chair. "A wolf who has been refused a deal is a wolf who will look for another one."

"Let him look."

The door opened and Ilsa came in.

"Healer," she said. "The chamber is still in session and there is a thing I have to ask you."

"Ask it."

"Lorcan has given me a written statement under seal and it names Soren and it names himself and it names the binders. I have read it." She stood in the doorway with her lamp. "It is enough to open an investigation. It is not enough to try a wolf who has been on this Council for forty years. I need the ledger and the ledger has gone north with your Beta and I need the papers under the chamber and they have been taken."

"Taken by who?"

"By the clerk. He went down to the archive an hour ago and came up without them and he has locked the door and he will not open it." Ilsa looked at me. "The clerk's name is Padraig's grandson."

Padraig stood up out of his chair.

"What?" he said.

"His mother was your daughter and he has been a clerk in this house for six years and he has been Soren's clerk for two." Ilsa looked at him. "He went down to the archive an hour ago and he has not come up."

Padraig stood in the middle of the room with his stick in his hand.

"I have a grandson," he said. "I have not spoken to him in four years. He is called Rónán and he is twenty six and he is a clerk and I did not know he was in this house."

"Then you had better come down and speak to him," Ilsa said. "Because he is sitting in the archive with the door locked and he says he will burn the papers before he lets anyone in."

Padraig was at the door before she had finished.

I went after him.

Down the stairs and along the corridor to the archive door and the door was shut and there was a light under it and the smell of smoke.

Padraig put his hand on the door.

"Rónán," he said. "It is your grandfather. Open the door."

There was no answer.

"Rónán. I know you can hear me. Open the door before you do something you cannot undo."

The smell of smoke got stronger.

And then a voice came through the door.

"Go away, Grandad," it said. "I am busy."