Chapter 110: The Court of Alphas

The car came along the quay at a walk and stopped twenty feet from the wall and three men got out of it.

The first was the man from the street outside the hotel. The second was a man I had not seen before, thin and grey and carrying a leather case. The third was Korkut.

He was in a good town coat and his grey hair was combed and his face was the face of a retired schoolmaster and he came along the quay with his hands in his pockets and stopped in front of me.

“There is a thing I have to say before any wolf on this quay says another word,” he said. “I am not here as the enforcer of this region. The Council suspended me on Friday and I am here as a witness. There is a court sitting in Galway this morning and it has been called by the Council and it has been called to hear a thing that has not been heard in a hundred years and that the whole of you are going to want to be in that room for.” He took a paper out of his coat. “The court is called the Court of Alphas and it is not the Council. It is nine wolves from nine territories and it is called only when a pack has been taken by force and the title is defective and a claimant of the blood has asked for it. And there is a thing about it that the whole of you should know. It has the power to set aside the seat and to declare a new Alpha and to banish a wolf from every territory on this island.”

The quay was silent.

“Who called it?” I said.

“The woman Siobhan called it in March,” Korkut said. “She called it from Athlone and she put a paper in front of the Council in April and the paper has been in a press in Galway since April and nobody has looked at it. And there is a thing about that which is worse than a press. The paper was in the same press as the file and there is not a wolf in that building who has opened that press in thirty six years and there is a wolf in a room in Galway who has been writing letters on top of it.” He looked at my sister on the deck. “The court sits this morning at ten. Not the fourteenth. This morning. And there is a thing about it that I have to say and then I am going to put my hands behind my head and let the guards do what they like with me. The court has been called and the court has been given the file and the court has read the file and the court has asked for the woman Siobhan and the woman Niamh and the woman Mairéad and the Beta of Dún Aonghasa and the healer of Dún Aonghasa and every wolf whose name is in that file.” He put the paper away. “And there is a fourth thing. The court has asked for the man who was in the house on the high ground in 1961 with a can of paraffin in his hand.”

The whole quay turned and looked at Arthur.

Arthur was standing at the back of the nine with his boots in his hand and his walnut face grey.

“I am here,” he said.

Korkut looked at him for a long moment.

“Then there is a thing about this morning that I am going to say and then I am going to go and stand in a room and wait for the guards,” he said. “I have been the enforcer of this region for eighteen years and I have taken money from that pack and I have signed a sentence of the headland in the name of a woman who was not in the village and I have made a false bond on a boy of nineteen and broken it.” He looked at Cormac, who was standing at the top of the quay with his coat open. “And there is a thing about the boy that I have to say in front of the whole of you. The bond I made in 1994 was not a false bond. It was a true bond and I broke it with a false marking and I broke it because a true bond between the Beta's son and the heir of Maeve would have put the two of them in a hall together and the whole of it would have come out.” He put his hand out. “I am sorry. It is not a thing that a word pays for. But it is the truth and the truth is going to be read out loud in that court this morning.”

Cormac did not take his hand.

“Where is Mary?” he said.

“She is in Galway. She came down from Killybegs on the evening tide and she is in a room in the court building and she has been there since Friday.” Korkut put his hand down. “And there is a thing about her that the whole of you are going to want to hear before you go into that room. She has shifted. She shifted on the night of the full moon in a room in that building with a stone floor and a wolf on the door and there was not a wolf in Galway who expected it.”

The whole quay was silent.

And then my sister came down off the deck of the Star of the Sea and stood on the quay with her grey coat over her arm and her gold hair going grey at the temples and her face white.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” she said, “and I am going to say it in front of the whole of you and then I am going to go into that building and I am not going to come out of it until it is done. The Court of Alphas is sitting this morning and it has read the file and it has read the whole of it. And there is a thing about the court that no wolf on this quay knows. A Court of Alphas can set aside a seat and it can declare an Alpha and it can banish a wolf. But there is a thing it cannot do. It cannot put a village back together.” She looked at me. “So I am going to do the thing that a claimant does when a court is sitting. I am going to withdraw the claim.”

The whole quay went up. The whole of it, nine wolves and a man in a hood and a woman with a grey plait and Arthur with his boots in his hand, and Declan was beside me with his hand on my arm.

“You cannot withdraw the claim,” I said. “The whole of it is in that file and the whole of it has been paid for with a boathouse and a rope and four months in a cottage in Athlone.”

“I can withdraw the claim and I am going to withdraw it.” My sister put her hand on my arm. “Because there is a thing about a claim that has been made by a wolf who has been declared by the Council. It is a claim that a court can hear and it is a claim that a court can settle and when the court has settled it the whole of it is done and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to look at that village again.” She took her hand off my arm. “But there is a thing about a claim that is withdrawn. It leaves the seat vacant and it leaves the pack without an Alpha and it leaves the co-op with the whole of it in front of it and nothing between it and the thing it has to do.”

I stood on the quay with the ring on my finger and the paper in my coat and the whole of it in front of me.

“You want me to take it,” I said.

“I want you to take it. Not in a court. Not in front of nine wolves from nine territories. In front of the co-op in the hall in Dún Aonghasa with the whole of the file read out loud and the whole of the village in the room.” She put her hand out. “I have been a claimant since March and I have been a thing that a woman in Galway put in a hall and I have been in a boathouse with a rope round my neck. And there is a thing about me that I have known since April and that I have been carrying in a cottage in Athlone. I am not the Alpha of that village. I have never been the Alpha of that village. You are.”

The quay was silent.

And then, from the top of the quay, there was a sound that was not a gull and not a car. It was a woman’s voice and it was low and warm and musical and it said, “There is a thing about the two of you that the Court of Alphas is going to hear this morning and that neither of you is going to like.”

The whole quay turned round.

Mairéad was standing at the top of the steps with her silver hair pinned up and her black coat on and a wolf on either side of her.

“I have been in that building since Friday,” she said. “And there is a thing I have done that I did not want to do and that I am not going to apologise for. I have asked the court for a Luna trial. Not a claim. Not a vote. A Luna trial.” She came down the steps. “And there is a thing about a Luna trial that the whole of you should know. It is not about the seat. It is about the wolf who is standing beside the Alpha. And there is a wolf standing beside the woman from Dublin who has been the Beta of that pack for twenty years and who has signed every paper and who has been on the telephone to a man in Galway since April. And a Luna trial is a trial of the mate. It is a trial of the wolf who is going to stand beside the Alpha. And if the court finds that the mate is unfit then the mate is banished from every territory on this island and the Alpha who is bonded to him is banished with him.”

The whole quay was silent.

“You have done what?” I said.

“I have put Declan on trial,” Mairéad said. “And there is a thing about it that I am going to say in front of the whole of you and then I am going to go up those steps and be in that room when it starts. He is a good man and he has been a good man all along and the only thing wrong with him was that he was told he was not. And I have put him on trial because a good man who has been told he is not is a man who can be broken in a room in front of nine wolves and a woman with a pen. And if he breaks, then the woman from Dublin breaks with him.”