Chapter 114: The Night Cormac Ran

They laid Ronan out in the room at the back of the court with a sheet over him and a candle at his head and the whole of the building came and stood in the door and looked and went away again.

The hearing was put back to three. The Court of Alphas sat in a room down the corridor with the door shut and the nine of them did not come out and the whole of the quay was quiet and the Star of the Sea was a black shell at the wall with the smoke still coming off her.

I was in the corridor at half past two with the healer's book in my hands and the case at my feet when I turned round and Cormac was not there.

He had been standing at the window with his back to the corridor and his hands in his pockets. And then he was not.

I went down the stairs and along the corridor and into the yard and there was a gate in the wall of the yard that was open and there was a lane behind it and there were wet footprints on the stones.

Declan came out of the building behind me.

“He has gone,” I said. “He has gone out of the yard and up the lane and he has not taken his coat.”

We went up the lane and into the street and the whole of Galway was grey and quiet and the shops were shut for the afternoon and there was a bus at the corner and a woman with a pram and a dog. We went along the street to the corner and there was a man in a good coat at the corner with his hands in his pockets and it was Korkut.

“There is a thing about the boy,” he said. “He went past me four minutes ago and he was running and he did not look at me and I did not stop him. And there is a thing about that which I have to say and then I am going to go back to the room with the wolf on the door. He was not running to the hunters. He was running from the enforcer of this region and the enforcer of this region is me.” He put his hand out. “There is a thing about me that the whole of that court is going to hear this afternoon and that the boy has known since 1994 and that no wolf in that village has ever known. I made a false bond on him when he was nineteen years old and I broke it and I told him that if he said a word the whole co-op would know that the Beta's son had been in the north with a banished woman. And there is a thing about a boy who has been told that. He has been carrying it for three years and he has been carrying it alone.”

The street was quiet.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” I said. “And I am going to say it in the street and then I am going to go and find him. You made a false bond on a boy of nineteen and you broke it and you told him a lie and he has been in the hand of the Alpha ever since because a boy with a broken mark and a secret does what he is told.” I put my hand on my chest. “And there is a thing about the bond you made. It was not a false bond. It was a true bond and you broke it with a false marking and the wolf at the other end of it was Mary Flannery and she is in a room in that building and she has shifted for the first time in her life on a stone floor with a wolf on the door.”

Korkut looked at me.

“I know,” he said. “I have known since Friday. And there is a thing about that which I am going to say to the court this afternoon and then I am going to go to a room in a prison in Galway and I am not going to come out of it. A true bond that is broken with a false marking can be mended. It takes a healer and a wolf of the blood and a night of a full moon. And there is not a healer in that village now and there is not going to be one for a year.” He put his hand down. “And there is a thing about the boy that I have to say before you go. He is not running to the hunters and he is not running from his father. He is running because he has been told his whole life that he is a thing that was broken in 1994 and that a broken thing does not stand in a court and does not stand beside a woman and does not stand in a hall. And a boy who believes that is a boy who runs.”

I went along the street at a run.

We found him at the end of the quay where the wall goes out into the water and the boats are tied and the gulls are on the posts. He was sitting on the wall with his feet hanging over the water and his coat off and his shoulders up and he was not crying.

“Cormac,” I said.

“There is a thing about this afternoon,” he said, without turning round. “The whole of it is going to be read out loud. The false bond and the boy in the hall with his hands over his ears and the boathouse and the rope and the water. And there is going to be a room full of wolves and nine of them behind a table and a woman with black hair and a man with a red beard and they are going to look at me and they are going to see a boy who was in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen and who did what he was told.” He put his hands on the wall. “And there is a thing about me that I have not said to a living soul and that I am going to say to you now because there is not a wolf in that building I can say it to. I am not afraid of the court. I am not afraid of the hunters and I am not afraid of the woman in Galway and I am not afraid of my father. I am afraid of the enforcer.”

“Korkut.”

“Korkut.” He turned round. His grey eyes were red. “He made a bond on me when I was nineteen years old and he broke it and he told me that if I said a word the whole co-op would know. And there is a thing about that which is worse than a broken mark. I believed him. I believed that a boy who had been in the north with a banished woman was a boy who had done a thing that could not be forgiven and I have been believing it for three years.” He put his hand up to his throat. “And there is a thing I have known since Friday and that I have not said out loud. The woman in the north was Mary. She was not a banished woman and she was not a rogue and she was not a thing I should be ashamed of. She was a fisherman's wife in Killybegs and she was kind to me and she is the heir of Maeve and I have been carrying a broken mark for three years for a thing that was not a sin.”

I sat down on the wall beside him.

“There is a thing about a broken mark,” I said. “Ronan told me on the shore that a false bond can be mended and that it takes a healer and a wolf of the blood and a night of a full moon. And there is not a healer in that village now and there is not going to be one for a year.” I put my hand on his arm. “But there is a healer in this city and he is a wolf called Korkut and he is going to be in a prison in Galway by the evening and he is going to say the whole of it to a court this afternoon. And there is a wolf of the blood in a room in that building and she has shifted for the first time in her life and she is called Mary and she has been asking for you since Friday.”

Cormac looked at me.

“She has been asking for me.”

“She has been asking for you since Friday and there is not a wolf in that building who has been able to tell her what you are to her because there is not a wolf in it who knows.” I stood up off the wall. “So there is a thing you have to decide and you have to decide it now. You can sit on this wall and be a boy who was broken in 1994. Or you can come up those steps with me and stand in that court and let the whole of it be read out loud and let a woman called Mary see what a boy who was broken in 1994 looks like when he stands up.”

Cormac sat on the wall with his feet over the water and did not say anything for a long moment.

And then he got down off the wall and put his coat on.

“There is a thing about my father,” he said. “He is going to be in that room and he is going to hear the whole of it and he is going to hear the thing about the false bond and the thing about the letters in the drawer. And there is a thing about a man who has been a coward for twenty years and who hears the whole of it read out loud in front of nine wolves.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I am not going to sit on this wall and let him hear it alone.”

We went up the quay and up the steps and into the building and the whole of the corridor was full of wolves. The door of the court was open and the nine of them were behind the table and the gallery was full and there was a woman with gold hair going grey at the temples in the front row and a man with auburn hair beside her.

And there was a woman in a grey coat at the back of the room with her hair in a plait and her hands in her lap and she was looking at the door.

Cormac stopped in the doorway.

Mary stood up.