Chapter 151: The Wolf in the Hall

Kern stood in the door of the hall with his case in his hand and his spectacles on the end of his nose and the whole of the pack turned round and looked at him.

There was a wolf on the door. He was one of the nine and he was a big grey wolf with his shoulders up and his head down and he was standing between Kern and the whole of the pack.

“There is a thing about a hall,” Kern said, “that I have been in since six o’clock this morning. It has a long table and a lamp and a fire and the whole of a pack in it. And there is a thing about a pack that has been in a hall all day. It has shifted and it has said the whole of it and it has put a ring on a finger and it has a mate bond in it that the whole of the room can smell. And there is a thing about a hall with a mate bond in it. It is a hall that a court in Galway is going to be able to say was not a court. It was a pack.”

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Mairéad came down the gallery steps.

She had been sitting at the back of the gallery since the vote and she had not said a word and she came down the steps now with her silver hair down and her black coat and her face grey.

“There is a thing about a man in a good coat,” she said, “that I have known since 1961 and that I am going to say in front of the whole of this pack before the wolf on that door does a thing. He is not a Keeper of the Rolls. He is a man who has been in a house on a road and in a room in Galway and in a hall in Dublin and he has been the whole of it since 1961 and there is not a wolf in this village who has ever seen his face.” She came down the floor. “And there is a thing about a man like that. He does not come into a hall with two men and a case unless he has a paper in the case that he thinks is going to be believed.”

The whole of the hall was silent.

Kern put the case on the table and opened it.

“There is a thing about this paper,” he said. “It is a judgment of the High Court of Ireland and it was signed this morning in Dublin by a judge who is a man and who has been told the whole of it by a woman in a good coat. It says that the pack of Dún Aonghasa is a pack that has been in a hall without the leave of the Council and that the whole of it is to be put out of the village before the morning and that the wolf who is leading it is to be taken into custody.”

The whole of the pack went up.

And then I shifted back.

It was the ninth time and it came up through me fast and hard and I was a woman in a hall with the ring on my finger and the whole of the pack around me and the whole of it was forty wolves and a woman with a paper in her hand.

“There is a thing about a paper,” 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 morning. The paper is a judgment and a judgment is a thing that a judge signs. But there is a thing about a judgment that has been signed in Dublin this morning by a judge who has been told the whole of it by a woman in a good coat. It is not a judgment. It is a page out of a case that has been built on a lie.” I put my hand on the table. “And there is a thing about the whole of it that I am going to say in front of the whole of the pack and the whole of the nine. The woman in the good coat has said the whole of it to a sergeant in a barracks in Galway and she has named a judge and she has named this man and she has named me. And there is a thing about a woman who has said the whole of it and who is going to be in a court in Dublin. She is going to be in it and she is going to say the name of the judge who signed that paper.”

The whole of the hall was silent.

Kern looked at me.

“There is a thing about the woman in the good coat,” he said, “that the whole of this hall is going to hear and then I am going to put this paper back in the case and go out of this door. She is not going to be in a court in Dublin. She is in a room in Galway and she has been in a room in Galway since Monday and there is not a wolf in Ireland who is going to be able to get her out of it.” He put his hand on the case. “And there is a thing about a woman in a room in Galway who has said the whole of it to a sergeant. She has said it because a woman in a room has nothing left but a paper and a pen and a thing she wants to say before she dies. And there is a thing about a woman like that. She is not a witness. She is a thing that a lawyer is going to take apart in a court in Dublin in six months.”

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then the wolf on the door moved.

He came into the hall and stood beside the table and he was a big grey wolf and he was one of the nine and he had been in that hall since six o’clock in the morning and he had not said a word.

And then he shifted.

He was a man somewhere in his sixties with a grey beard and a face like a walnut and he put his hand on the table.

“There is a thing about a Court of Alphas,” he said, “that I have been on since 1981 and that I have never once said out loud in a hall. It is nine wolves from nine territories and it has the power to set aside a seat and to declare an heir and to banish a wolf from every territory on this island. And there is a thing about a court that has that power and that sits in a hall in a village on the fourteenth of July. It is a court that a paper from Dublin is not going to be able to put out of a hall.” He put his hand flat on the table. “The paper is a judgment and it is going to be in a file and it is going to be argued about by a lawyer. But there is a thing about a judgment that has been signed by a judge who is named in a statement in a barracks in Galway. It is a judgment that is going to be in a court in Dublin before the year is out.”

Kern looked at him.

“And there is a thing about the whole of it,” the grey bearded man said, “that I am going to say in front of the whole of this pack and then I am going to sit down. The court has heard the whole of the file and the whole of the co-op and the whole of the ring and the whole of the healer’s book. The seat is vacant and the heir is declared and the woman Niamh is of the blood and her claim is lawful and the co-op has voted and there is not a wolf in this hall who is going to be able to say the whole of it was not lawful.” He put his hand out. “So there is a thing the court is going to do before the morning. It is going to put the whole of it in a file and it is going to put the file in the hands of a wolf who is not in this village and not in Galway and not in Dublin. And there is a thing about a file that is in the hands of a wolf like that. It is a file that a man in a good coat is not going to be able to burn.”

The whole of the hall went up.

And then the whole of the pack turned round and looked at Kern.

Kern stood at the table with his case in his hand and his spectacles on the end of his nose and his face was grey and he did not move.

And then he said a thing that no wolf in that hall had expected.

“There is a thing about the whole of it,” he said, “that I have been trying to say since the first night in the shop in Galway and that I am going to say now in front of the whole of this pack and the whole of the nine. I am not the man who has been doing the whole of it. I am the man who has been keeping the file and signing the receipts and taking the tenth. And there is a thing about a man who has been keeping a file for thirty six years. He has read it. He has read the whole of it and he has known the whole of it since 1961 and he has not said a word.” He put the case down on the table. “So I am going to do the thing that a man who has kept a file for thirty six years does when he is standing in a hall with the whole of it in front of him. I am going to give the whole of it to the wolf who is going to be in that chair.”

He put his hand in his coat and took out a key.

“This is the key to the press in the office in Galway,” he said. “It has the whole of the file in it and the whole of it has not been in a court and the whole of it has not been in a paper. It is the whole of the dealings of the woman in the good coat since 1961 and it has the name of every wolf in it.”