Chapter 118: The Council's Price

The woman with black hair did not raise her voice. She put her hand flat on the table and said, "The court is going to sit in that room in ten minutes and it is going to read its decision. And there is a thing about a decision that is read out loud in a room with a gallery full of wolves. It is a decision that a village can hear. And there is a thing about a village that hears a decision from Galway. It does not put a village back together. So the court is going to make a price and the price is this. The woman Niamh is going to produce the whole of the proof in that room in ten minutes. Not a part of it. The whole of it. The second charter and the parish page and the healer's book and the ring and the page out of the locker and the black book of the woman who took children out of that village. Every page of it on that table in ten minutes. And if she does it, the court is going to hear the claim and it is going to declare the heir and it is going to set aside the seat and the whole of it is going to be in a file with every name in it."

The corridor was silent.

"And if she does not?" I said.

"Then the court is going to declare her a rogue," the woman with black hair said. "A rogue in a territory that is not her own and a rogue in a court of Galway and a wolf who has been declared a rogue by a Court of Alphas is a wolf who is banished from every territory on this island. And there is a thing about a wolf who is banished from every territory on this island. She has nowhere to go and there is not a pack in the west of Ireland that is going to take her in."

Declan was beside me with his hand on my arm.

"The proof is in the case," he said. "The case is in the corridor of this building and it has the whole of it and it came out of a burning boat this morning. We have ten minutes and the whole of it is in the case and the case is in the corridor."

"The case is not the whole of it," I said.

The whole corridor turned round.

"There is a thing I have not said to the court and that I have not said to a living soul and that I am going to say now," I said. "The case has the second charter and the parish page and the healer's book and the ring and the page out of the locker and the black book of the woman who took children out of that village. It does not have my mother's journal. My mother's journal is in the cottage on the shore road in Dún Aonghasa and it has the whole of it in it and it has the note in her hand that says the deed was never voted on and the note that says the child is in Killybegs and the note that says the woman who went off the cliff in 1981 was not Deirdre. And there is a thing about my mother's journal that the whole of this corridor is going to hear. It is the only paper in the whole of it that was written by a wolf who was in that village on the night of the fire and who was not a coward and who was not a thief and who was not a wolf who took money. It is the whole of it in a dead woman's hand and there is not a wolf in Galway who can say it is a forgery."

The corridor was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," Mairéad said. "And I am going to say it in front of the whole of this corridor and then I am going to go and sit in that room and hear the decision. The cottage on the shore road is in Dún Aonghasa and Dún Aonghasa is a day's sail away and the court is going to sit in ten minutes. There is not a boat in Galway that is going to get a wolf to that coast before the evening."

And then, from the back of the corridor, a voice I had not heard since the quay said, "There is a boat."

It was the man in the hood. He was sitting on a chair with his face black and his hands bandaged and his coat gone and he said, "There is a boat at the wall and she is called the Star of the Sea and she is out of Donegal and she is not burned. The boat that burned this morning was the Star of the Sea out of Galway and she was a different boat with the same name and she was put at that wall to be burned. My boat is at the other end of the quay and she is not burned and she is fuelled and she is fast and I know the coast from here to Dún Aonghasa in the dark."

The corridor went up.

"There is a thing about the coast in the dark," Declan said. "It is eight hours and there is a storm coming up from the southwest and the court is going to sit in ten minutes."

"Then I am not going to be in the room when it sits," I said. "I am going to be on that boat." I turned round. "And there is a thing I have to say to the whole of this corridor before I go. I am not going to Galway to fetch a paper for a court. I am going to Galway to fetch a paper for a village. And there is a thing about a village that has been lied to for thirty six years. It is not going to be put back together by nine wolves in a room in Galway. It is going to be put back together by a co-op in a hall with the whole of the file read out loud and a vote." I put my hand on the table. "So I am going to do the thing the healer asked me to do. I am going to the village. And there is a thing about the court that I am going to ask and that I am going to ask in front of the whole of you. Give me until the fourteenth. Not ten minutes. Two weeks. And if I am not in that room on the fourteenth with the whole of the proof and the whole of the village behind me, then I am a rogue and I will take the ban."

The corridor was silent.

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

"The court is going to say a thing," she said, "and it is not a thing that a court says often. The fourteenth of July is a full moon and it is the day the co-op of Dún Aonghasa is going to be in that room and the whole of the file is going to be read out loud. And there is a thing about a court that sits on a full moon with a village in the room. It is not a court. It is a co-op and a court and a village in the same room on the same night with the same moon over it. And there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who has seen that since 1901." She put her hand flat on the table. "The court is going to give the woman Niamh until the fourteenth. And there is a thing about that which the whole of this corridor is going to hear. It is not a kindness. It is a price. She is going to produce the whole of it on the fourteenth or she is a rogue and there is not a wolf in this building who is going to be able to say the court did not warn her."

I turned round.

"Cormac," I said.

"He is on the rocks at the cove," Mairéad said. "And there is a thing about the rocks at the cove that I am going to say before the court and then I am going to go into that room and sit down. The men who took him are not the men of Sligo and they are not the Kelleher men and they are not hunters. They are three men from this building who have been paid by a woman in a room in Galway and they have been told to put a boy on the rocks and leave him there and come back on the evening tide. And there is a thing about a boy on the rocks at the cove. He is twenty two years old and he has been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen and he is going to be found on the morning of the fourteenth by a co-op with the whole of the file in front of it." She put her hand in her coat. "And there is a thing about the paper that I have not said. It is not a claim in the name of Cormac. It is a claim in the name of the wolf who is going to be found on those rocks with a broken mark and a secret and no wolf in the world who is going to say he is not a claimant."

She put the paper on the table and went into the court.

I stood in the corridor with the whole of it going round.

"Declan," I said. "There is a thing about the boat. It is eight hours to the coast and there is a storm coming up from the southwest and the cove is on the north side with a slip that is cut into the rock. And there is a thing about a boy on those rocks. He is going to be there for two weeks."

"There is a boat at the wall," Declan said. "And there is a man in a hood with bandaged hands who knows the coast. And there is a thing about the two of us that I have been thinking about since the church. We are not going to be able to do it alone." He put his hand on my arm. "There are nine wolves on that quay who were banished from that village for a thing they did not do. And there is a woman with a grey plait and a man with a wooden leg and an old man with a walnut face and a pair of boots from the north."

I put my coat on.

"Then there is a thing I have to say to the nine of them," I said, "and I am going to say it on the quay and not in a corridor. The ban is lifted and the boat is at the wall and there is a boy on the rocks at the cove. And there is a thing about a pack of nine wolves who have been waiting thirty eight years for a reason to go home. They are going to get one tonight."