Chapter 147: The Healer's Gift

The whole of the hall got up off the flagstones and the whole of it sat down on the benches and the whole of it was quiet.

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

"The court is going to hear the claim," she said. "And there is a thing about a claim that is heard in a hall with the whole of the co-op in it. It is not a claim that is going to be heard by nine wolves. It is a claim that is going to be heard by the whole of the pack and the nine wolves are going to be the thing that puts it in a file." She looked at the whole of the hall. "So there is a thing the court is going to ask before it hears a word of it. Is there a wolf in this hall who is of the blood of the Alpha and who has a record of it that is not in a file in Galway and not in a charter and not in a box under a slip?"

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Arthur stood up at the back.

"There is a thing about the healer of this pack," he said. "He died in a room in Galway on Monday and he was a wolf called Ronan and he was the healer for fifty years. And there is a thing about a healer who dies in a room in Galway. He left a bag and the bag was brought down from Galway on the evening bus and it is in my workshop and I have not opened it." He put his hand on the bench. "He said a thing to me on the boat from the cove. He said, Arthur, if I do not come back there is a thing in my bag and it is not for a court and it is not for a file. It is for the wolf who is going to be in that chair and it is a thing that a healer has been keeping since 1921."

The whole of the hall was silent.

"Go and get it," I said.

Arthur went out of the hall with his stick and the whole of the hall waited and the whole of it was the sound of the sea and the gulls on the pier and the clock on the wall.

He came back with a bag.

It was a canvas bag and it was old and it had a strap and a buckle and it had been mended at the corner. He put it on the table and opened it and took out a book.

It was not a charter and it was not a ledger and it was not the book of the children. It was a book bound in brown leather and it was smaller than the others and the spine was cracked and the pages were foxed with damp and there was a ribbon in it.

"The healer's book," Arthur said. "Not the one that went to the court. The one he kept in his own cottage. The one with the whole of the births and the deaths and the first shifts since 1901." He put it on the table. "And there is a thing about this book that I have to say before you open it. It has a page in it that is not a healer's page. It is a page that Ronan wrote in the winter of 1996 and it is in his own hand and it is a thing he has been carrying since 1921."

I opened the book at the ribbon.

The page was a record of a birth. It was in the hand of the healer of 1921 and it said: "The twenty second of March 1921. To Maeve, Alpha, a daughter. The child is called Siobhan and she is of the blood and she is entered in this book on the day of her birth."

And under it, in the hand of Ronan the elder, the healer of 1961: "The fifteenth of November 1953. To Siobhan, daughter of Maeve, a daughter. The child is called Siobhan and she is of the blood and she is entered in this book on the day of her birth."

And under it, in the hand of Ronan, the healer of 1996: "The fourth of October 1955. To Siobhan, daughter of Maeve, a daughter. The child is called Niamh and she is of the blood and she is entered in this book on the day of her birth. And there is a thing about this child that I have to write down and that I have never said out loud. She was born in this village and she was entered in this book and she is of the blood and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say she is not."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then there was a thing on the page that was not in a hand.

It was a lock of hair. It was a small lock of hair and it was gold and it was tied with a thread and it had been pressed into the page and it had been there since 1955.

I put my hand on the page.

"There is a thing about a healer," I said, "that the whole of this hall is going to hear and then the whole of it is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening. He was a coward for sixty years and he wrote a false charter and he kept a secret and he did not say a word when a woman was put in a boathouse. And there is a thing about a wolf who is a coward for sixty years and who keeps a book in a bag and who puts a lock of hair in it in 1955 and who carries it until he dies in a room in Galway." I put my hand on the book. "He was not a coward at the end. He was a healer and he kept the whole of it and he gave it to a wolf who was going to be in that chair."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then the woman with black hair stood up.

"There is a thing about this morning," she said, "that the court is going to say and then it is going to do the thing that a court does. The healer's book has a record of the birth of the woman Niamh in this village in 1955 and it is in the hand of the healer who was the healer of this pack and it has a lock of her hair in it and it is dated. The second charter has a clause that says every wolf of the blood of the Alpha shall be known to the co-op by name and by the hand of the healer. And there is a thing about a name that has been in a book since 1955 and that no wolf in this village has read. It is a name that is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening."

She put her hand flat on the table.

"The court has heard the claim and the court has heard the whole of the file and the whole of the co-op on its knees on the flagstones. And there is a thing about a claim that is heard in a hall with the whole of a pack in it. It is not a claim that a court decides. It is a claim that the pack decides and the court puts it in a file." She looked at the whole of the hall. "The court finds that the woman Niamh is of the blood of Maeve and that she has been entered in the healer's book since 1955 and that her claim is lawful and that the whole of it is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening. And there is a thing about a claim that is lawful. It is not a seat. It is the right to be heard in this hall by the whole of the co-op."

The whole of the hall was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it and then I am going to sit down on that bench and let the co-op do the thing a co-op does. The whole of it has been in a file and a court and a hall and a box and a boot and a book. And there is a thing about a claim that is lawful and a seat that is vacant and a co-op that is on its feet in its own hall. It is not a thing that a woman from Dublin can decide. It is a thing that the co-op decides." I put my hand on the table. "So I am going to ask the co-op for the thing I have been asking for since the garden. A vote. Not on a claim. Not on a challenge. A vote on the wolf who is going to hold that seat until the heir is ready. And there is a thing about a vote that is taken in a hall with the whole of the file on the table. It is not a vote that a lawyer in Dublin is going to be able to argue about."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then the green door of the hall opened and a wolf came in with a paper in his hand and his cap in the other and his face grey.

It was the sergeant from Galway.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that the whole of this hall is going to hear before it votes on anything. I have been in Galway since Monday and I have been in the barracks and I have been in a room with a woman in a good coat and a wolf in a cap and a notebook. And there is a thing about a woman in a good coat who has said the whole of it. She has named a wolf. She has named a judge of the High Court and she has named a man in Galway and she has named a woman in a black coat and she has named a wolf who is standing in this hall this morning." He put the paper on the table. "The wolf she has named is the woman Niamh. And the thing she has said is that the woman Niamh came to this village in June and that she came on the instruction of a man in Galway and that she has been working for the Keeper of the Rolls since the first night."

The whole of the hall was silent.