Chapter 117: A Meeting on the Headland

We went down the back stairs to the basement and the basement was a long passage with pipes on the ceiling and a door at the end of it with an iron bar across it and a lock the size of a fist.

The bar was not across the door. It was leaning against the wall.

The door was open.

There was a lamp on the floor inside and it was lit and there was nobody in the room. The room was about ten feet by twelve and it had a stone floor and a drain in the middle of it and a bench along one wall and a bucket in the corner. There was a mark on the wall where something had been scratched and there was a name in the mark and the name was Mary.

And there was a thing on the bench that had not been there long.

It was a paper. It was folded and it had a wax seal on it and the seal was a crescent moon, and I broke it with my thumb and opened it in the lamplight.

It was in the hand of the woman in Galway and it was four lines long.

“There is a thing about a hold in a basement that no one in Galway has thought of. It is the only room in this building that a court has never looked in and that a court is never going to look in. The wolf who is in it is not in it because he is a witness. He is in it because he is a wolf of the blood and a wolf of the blood who is in a hold in a basement on the day a court is sitting is a wolf who is going to be a claimant when the court has finished. You have until the evening bus. E.”

Declan read it over my shoulder and then he put his hand flat on the wall.

“She is not going to keep him in a hold,” he said. “She is going to make a claimant out of him. Not a witness. A claimant. And a claimant who has been in a hold in a basement of the Council building on the day the Court of Alphas sat is a claimant who is going to be heard.”

I turned the paper over. The back of it was blank and there was nothing on it but the fold and a mark in the corner.

“There is a thing about this paper,” I said. “She has been in this building since Friday and she has had a key since this morning and she has had a wolf on the door since Friday. And there is a thing about a woman who has had all of that and who has left a paper on a bench in a basement for the woman from Dublin to find.” I put the paper in my coat. “She did not leave it for me. She left it for the court. She is telling the court what she is going to do and she is doing it because she wants the court to know she is not afraid of it.”

“Then where is Cormac?”

“He is not in the hold. He has never been in the hold. He is somewhere in this building with a woman in a black coat and there is a thing about a woman in a black coat that I have been getting wrong since the pier.” I went out of the hold and up the passage. “She has been telling the truth since the boathouse. Not the whole of it. But every time she has said a thing that sounded like a lie it has turned out to be a thing that was true in the way that hurt. She told the court she had put Declan on trial and she had. She told the whole co-op that my sister was a claimant and she was. And now she has told the woman in Galway that the boy is going to be a claimant and there is not a wolf in this building who is going to be able to say she did not say it out loud.”

We came up into the corridor and the corridor was full of wolves and the whole of the court was standing in it.

The woman with black hair was at the front of them with her hands at her sides and her face like a blade.

“There is a thing about this afternoon,” she said, “that the court is going to say before any wolf in this corridor says another word. The Court of Alphas has been in a room for two hours and it has heard the whole of the file and the whole of the healer’s book and the last page of it. And it has made a decision and the decision is going to be read out in that room in ten minutes in front of the whole of the gallery and the whole of the co-op.” She looked at me. “But there is a thing that has happened this afternoon that is not in the file and that the court is going to hear before the decision. A hunt was called on the quay of Galway by a wolf who does not have the right to call it. And there is a thing about a hunt that is called on a city quay in front of a court. It is not a hunt. It is a performance. And the court has been watching it.”

The corridor was silent.

“There is a thing about the performance,” she said, “that the court is going to say and then it is going to go into that room and read its decision. A performance is a thing that is done to make a court look at the wrong wolf. And there is only one wolf in this building who has a reason to make a court look at the wrong wolf today. She is standing at the back of this corridor in a black coat and she has been in this building since Friday and she has had a key since this morning and she has a wolf in a basement who is going to be a claimant.” She put her hand out. “Bring her forward.”

The whole corridor turned round.

Mairéad was standing at the back of it with her silver hair down and her black coat on and her hands at her sides.

“There is a thing about the Court of Alphas,” she said, “that I have been waiting thirty six years to hear and that I am going to hear this afternoon. It is not a court of the Council and it is not a court of Galway and it is not a court of a village on the west coast. It is nine wolves from nine territories and it has the power to set aside a seat and to declare an Alpha and to banish a wolf from every territory on this island.” She came down the corridor. “And there is a thing about a wolf who is banished from every territory on this island. She is not a wolf who goes home. She is a wolf who goes into the sea. And I have been that wolf since Friday and I have known it since Friday and I have been doing the only thing a wolf in that position can do. I have been making the court look at the wrong wolf.”

The corridor went up.

“There is a thing about Cormac,” I said. “Where is he?”

Mairéad looked at me.

“He is on the headland,” she said. “Not the headland in Galway. The headland at Dún Aonghasa. He is on a boat with three men and they left the quay at two o’clock and they are going down the coast and they are going to put him on the rocks at the cove and they are going to leave him there.” She put her hand in her coat and took out a paper. “And there is a thing about the paper that I am going to say before the court. It is a claim. A claim on the seat of Dún Aonghasa in the name of Cormac the son of Declan and the grandson of Fionn. And it is signed by me and it is witnessed by the Keeper of the Rolls and it is dated this morning.” She put it on the table. “He is not going to be a witness. He is going to be a claimant. And there is a thing about a claimant who has been taken out of a hold in a basement and put on a boat and put on the rocks at a cove. He is a claimant who is going to be found by the co-op on the morning of the fourteenth of July with the whole of the file read out loud and no wolf in the village who is going to be able to say a word against him.”

Declan stood in the corridor with his hands at his sides and his face the colour of the wall.

“There is a thing about my son,” he said. “He is twenty two years old and he has been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen and he has been on a boat since two o’clock with three men and he is going to be put on the rocks at the cove.” He turned round. “Where is the boat?”

“It is called the Star of the Sea,” Mairéad said. “And there is a thing about that boat that the whole of this corridor is going to hear. It is not my boat and it is not a boat I hired. It is the boat that was burned this morning and it is at the wall and it is not going anywhere.”