Chapter 135: The Edge of the Hunt

Korkut came into the room with two men behind him and a paper in his hand and the whole of the pack turned round.

"There is a thing about a room in this building on a night in July," he said. "It has a fire and a table and forty wolves in it and it is the only room in Galway that I have not been able to get into since Monday morning. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been on the outside of a door for four days. He has been thinking about the thing he is going to say when he gets in." He put the paper on the table. "This is a warrant. Not for a wolf. For a pack. It was signed in Dublin this afternoon by a judge who is a man and who has been told a thing by a woman in a room with a wolf on the door. It says the pack of Dún Aonghasa is a pack that has been in a city without the leave of the Council and that the whole of it is to be put out of the city before the fourteenth of July and that the wolf who is leading it is to be taken into custody."

The whole of the room went up.

The woman with black hair was on her feet with her hand up.

"Give me that paper," she said.

Korkut gave it to her. She read it twice and then she put it down on the table and said, "It is a warrant and it is signed by a judge of the High Court and it is not a thing that a Court of Alphas can set aside. The Court of Alphas is nine wolves from nine territories and it has no authority over a judge of the High Court of Ireland." She put her hand flat on the paper. "But there is a thing about this warrant that the whole of this room is going to hear. It was signed this afternoon. And there is a thing about a warrant that is signed in the afternoon and put in the hand of a man who is at the edge of a territory on the same night. It has been carried from Dublin to Galway in four hours and there is not a post in Ireland that goes that fast."

The whole room was silent.

"Who carried it?" I said.

Korkut looked at me.

"I did," he said. "I have been in Dublin since Monday. I have been in a room with a lawyer and a woman in a good coat and I have been doing the thing I have been doing since 1961. And there is a thing about a man who has been doing the thing he has been doing since 1961 and who is standing in a room in Galway with the whole of a pack in front of him. He has been told his whole life that he is a wolf who is doing what has to be done. And he is not. He is a wolf who has been carrying papers from a woman in a house to a judge and from a judge to a woman in a house." He put his hand in his coat and took out a second paper. "So I am going to do the thing that a wolf in that position does when there is a fire and a table and the whole of a pack in the room. I am going to give the whole of it to the pack."

He put the second paper on the table.

It was a list. It was a long list and it had dates and names and sums and it went back to 1961 and it had the name of every wolf in Dún Aonghasa on it and the name of every wolf in Galway who had taken money out of that coast.

"There is a thing about this list," Korkut said. "It was kept by the woman in the house on the road and it was kept by the Keeper of the Rolls and it was kept by me. And there is a thing about a list that has been kept by three wolves for thirty six years. It has the name of every wolf who has been a part of it and it has the name of every wolf who has been paid." He put his hand on the table. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have to say before any wolf in this room says another word. It has the name of a judge of the High Court on it."

The whole room went silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it in front of the whole of this pack and then we are going to do the thing that has to be done before the morning. The warrant is a paper that was signed by a judge who is on that list. And there is a thing about a judge who is on a list. He is not a judge. He is a wolf who has been paid and who has put his name on a paper to put a pack out of a city." I put my hand on the table. "So we are not going to be put out of this city. We are going to stay in it and we are going to be in that room on the fourteenth and we are going to put that list in front of the Court of Alphas and the whole of it is going to be read out loud with the name of the judge at the top of it."

The whole room went up.

And then Ahern said, "There is a thing about a list and a judge that I have to say and then I am going to go down to the telephone. A list is a paper and a paper that is put in front of a court is a paper that a lawyer can argue about. But there is a thing about a list that has been kept by three wolves for thirty six years and that has the name of a judge on it. It is a thing that a newspaper in Dublin is going to be interested in." He picked up his coat. "And there is a thing about a pack that is on the edge of a hunt and that has a list in its hand. It is a pack that is not going to be put out of a city by a paper."

He went out.

And then Korkut said, "There is a thing about me that the whole of this pack is going to hear and then I am going to sit down on that chair and not say another word. I made a false bond on a boy of nineteen in 1994 and I broke it and I told him a lie. And there is a thing about a wolf who has done that and who is standing in a room with the whole of a pack and the boy in it." He looked at Cormac. "I am sorry. It is not a word that pays for it. It is the only word I have."

Cormac did not say anything.

And then Cormac said, "There is a thing about a false bond that was broken with a false marking. It can be mended. It takes a healer and a wolf of the blood and a night of a full moon." He put his hand on the table. "And there is a thing about a healer. There is not one in that village. But there is a wolf in this room who has been a healer for fifty years and who is dead and whose book is in a case in this building." He looked at Korkut. "You are not a healer. But you are the wolf who made the false marking and there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who knows more about how it was made."

Korkut looked at him.

"There is a thing about a false marking," he said. "It is made with the scent of a willing wolf and a great deal of power and it leaves a mark that is wrong. And there is a thing about a false marking that is made by a wolf who has been told to make it by a woman in a house on a road. It is a marking that is not complete. There is a thing that a wolf has to do to make it hold and I did not do it." He put his hand on the table. "I did not do it because I was frightened of what it would do to the boy. And there is a thing about a false marking that is not complete. It can be mended in a night with a wolf of the blood and a healer and a moon. And there is a thing about a healer. The healer is not in this room. But the healer's book is."

The whole room was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said. "And I am going to say it before the morning because the morning is going to be a hard thing. The whole of it has come down to a room in Galway on the fourteenth and a list and a judge and a warrant and a woman in a room in Dublin. And there is a thing about a pack that has been in a city for a week and that has been on a boat and on a shore and on a pier. It has been running since June and it has not stopped." I put my hand on the table. "And there is a thing about a pack that does not stop. It comes to the edge of a territory and it has to decide what it is going to do when it gets there."

The fire was going down and the lamp was low and the whole of the pack was in the room.

And then, from the corridor, there was a sound.

It was a door and it was a boot and it was a voice I had not heard since the harbor at Dún Aonghasa.

"There is a thing about the fourteenth," Mairéad said from the door, "that no wolf in this room has said out loud."

She was standing in the door with her silver hair down and her black coat on and a paper in her hand and her face was grey and she was not in Dublin and she had not been in Dublin since Friday.

"The woman in the room in Dublin is not me," she said. "It is my sister. And there is a thing about my sister that the whole of this room is going to hear. She is not in a room with a wolf on the door. She walked out of that room on Monday morning with a paper that was signed by Kern and she has been in a house on a road since and there is not a wolf in Galway who has been looking for her." She came into the room. "And there is a thing about me that the whole of this pack is going to hear and then I am going to sit down on that chair. I am not in Dublin. I have been on the road since Friday and I have been in a car and on a boat and I have been at the edge of this territory since last night. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been at the edge of a territory since last night. She has been deciding whether to come in."

The whole room was silent.

"Say it," I said.

"I am Mairéad and I have been the Alpha of Dún Aonghasa since 1983 and I have done a thing that no wolf in this room knows." She put the paper on the table. "I have signed a challenge. Not a resignation. A challenge. And it is in the hand of a lawyer in Galway and it has a date on it and it says the woman Niamh is a claimant and that I am the Alpha and that the challenge is on the headland at Dún Aonghasa at dawn on the fourteenth of July with the whole of the co-op on the shore."