Chapter 111: The Wolf in the Witness Box

The Court of Alphas sat in a room on the second floor of the Council building with a long table and nine chairs and a gallery at the back that was full of wolves.

I had seen the Council chamber on Friday and it had been eight old wolves and a man with a file. This room was different. The nine wolves behind that table were not old and they were not from Galway. There was a woman with black hair and a face like a blade who sat in the middle chair, and there was a man with a red beard at the end of the table, and there was a wolf so old and so thin that he looked like a thing made of sticks. They had come from nine territories and they had been in that room since eight in the morning and they had read the file twice.

The woman with black hair put her hand flat on the table.

“The court has read the file,” she said. “It has read the note in the hand of Ahern the elder and the ledger of the rent and the record of the children who were taken out of that village since 1961. It has read the motion that was put to the Council on Friday and the paper that the woman Siobhan put in front of the Council in April and the paper that was found in the ring. And there is a thing about the whole of it that the court is going to say before any wolf in this room says another word. The pack of Dún Aonghasa was taken by force in 1961 and the title is defective and the claim of the line of Maeve is open. That is not in dispute and there is not a wolf in this room who is going to argue with it.”

The gallery stirred.

“But there is a thing before the court that is not the claim,” she said. “The woman Mairéad has asked for a Luna trial and a Luna trial is a thing the court cannot refuse. It is a trial of the mate of the claimant and it is heard before the claim and it is heard with the mate in the witness box and the claimant beside him.” She looked at the whole room. “The court is going to hear the Luna trial this morning. The wolf Declan is in the witness box and the woman Niamh is beside him and the whole of it is going to be read out loud.”

Declan stood up.

He went to the witness box at the side of the table and I went with him and stood beside him and put my hand on the rail. The box was a wooden thing about the size of a pulpit and it had a step up to it and there was a mark on the wood where a thousand hands had been.

“There is a thing about this trial,” the woman with black hair said, “that the wolf in that box should know before he says a word. A Luna trial is not a trial of a crime. It is a trial of fitness. The court is going to hear the whole of what the mate has done and the whole of what he has not done and it is going to decide whether he is fit to stand beside an Alpha. And there is a thing about the decision. If the court finds him unfit, he is banished from every territory on this island and the woman who is bonded to him is banished with him. And there is a third thing. The mate may answer the court as a wolf. Not as a man. As a wolf. And the court is going to ask him to do it.”

The whole room went quiet.

Declan put his hands on the rail.

“Then there is a thing I have to say before the court asks me a question,” he said. “I am not going to answer as a wolf to save myself. I am going to answer as a wolf because there is a thing about a wolf that a man cannot do. A man can stand in a box and choose his words. A wolf cannot. A wolf smells of what he is and the whole of this room is going to smell it and there is not a thing I can do about it.” He looked at the nine of them. “So I am going to answer as a wolf and the court is going to hear the whole of it and the whole of it is not a good thing.”

He shifted.

It was slow and it was quiet and the whole room watched it. There was the sound of bone and the tearing of cloth and then there was a grey brown wolf standing in the witness box with his shoulders up and his head down and his eyes on the nine of them.

And the smell came off him.

It came off him like weather. It was the smell of a man who had sat in an office for four months and let a woman grieve and it was the smell of the boathouse and the rope and the door with his hands on the frame. It was the smell of eleven letters in a drawer and a telephone in the harbor office and a boy who had been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen. And under all of it there was the smell of the sea and the harbor and the boats and the whole of a village that he had kept fed for twenty years.

The nine wolves behind the table smelled it and did not move.

The woman with black hair put her hand on the table.

“The court smells the whole of it,” she said. “And there is a thing about it that the court is going to say in front of the whole of this room. The wolf in that box is a wolf who did the wrong thing for four months and who did not say a word and who let a woman bury her sister. And there is a thing about a wolf who does the wrong thing and who knows it. He smells of the knowing.” She looked at the whole room. “The court is going to ask the wolf in the box one question and it is the only question that matters in a Luna trial. Not what he has done. What he is going to do.”

The whole room was silent.

And then I put my hand on the rail and said, “There is a thing about this trial that the court has not heard and that I am going to say before the question is put.”

The nine of them looked at me.

“The wolf in that box is my mate,” I said. “And there is a thing about a mate that a Luna trial has never asked. A mate is not a thing that stands beside an Alpha and agrees with her. A mate is a thing that tells her when she is wrong. And there is a thing about the two of us that this court should know before it decides whether he is fit. He has told me when I was wrong. He told me on the headland when I asked him to put his son on a boat and he said no and he was wrong to say no and I told him so. He told me on the pier when I was going to go into that building alone and he said no and he was right and I told him so.” I put my hand on the rail. “A mate is a wolf who says no. And there is not a wolf in this room who has ever had a wolf who said no to them.”

The woman with black hair looked at me for a long moment.

And then she said, “There is a thing about the woman in that box that the court has heard and that it is going to put to the whole of this room. The woman Niamh has been in that village for a month and she has pulled a safe out of a well and read a book in a cellar and stood in front of a Council and a court. And there is a thing about her that the court has not heard and that it is going to hear now.” She put her hand flat on the table. “The court has been told that there is a wolf in that box who is not a wolf of that village and who has been in it for a month. And there is a thing about a wolf who is not of a village and who has been in it for a month. She is a wolf who has nothing to lose and nothing to gain and there is not a wolf in this room who is going to be able to say that she has been bought.”

The whole gallery was silent.

“Then there is a thing I have to do,” I said. “And I am going to do it now and I am going to ask the court to let me do it. The wolf in that box is my mate and he is going to answer the question as a wolf and I am going to answer it with him. Not as a woman. As a wolf.” I put my hand on the rail. “Because there is a thing about a golden wolf that the whole of this room should see and that there is not a wolf in Galway who has seen since 1961.”

The woman with black hair looked at the eight wolves beside her and then at me.

“The court will allow it,” she said.

I shifted.

It came up through me fast and hard and it was the sixth time and it was the easiest. The heat and the sound and the pain and then the flagstones under my paws and the whole room so loud and so close that I could not tell where I ended and the walls began. I was a golden wolf in a court of Alphas and the whole of the room smelled of me and the whole of the room went quiet.

And then the smell came off me.

It came off me like the tide. It was the smell of the harbor and the boats and the cottage on the shore road and the ring on my finger and the paper in my coat. It was the smell of a woman who had come to a village to bury a sister and who had found a pack. And under all of it there was the smell that every wolf in that room lifted their head for.

The woman with black hair stood up.

“That is a golden wolf,” she said. “There has not been a golden wolf in that territory since Maeve and there has not been one in this building since 1901.” She put her hand on the table. “The court has heard the Luna trial and the court has made its decision. The wolf Declan is fit to stand beside the woman Niamh and there is not a wolf in this room who is going to say otherwise. And there is a thing about that decision that the whole of this room is going to hear. The Luna trial is dismissed and the claim of the line of Maeve is going to be heard this afternoon.”

The gallery went up. The whole of it, a hundred wolves on their feet at once, and the woman with black hair striking the table with the flat of her hand.

And then there was a sound from the street below. It was a fire engine and it was coming along the quay and there was a second one behind it and a third, and the whole of the room went to the windows.

The quay was full of smoke and the Star of the Sea was on fire.