Chapter 57: The Bloodline Clause

We did not go to Galway in the Cormorant.

Ronan stopped us at the top of the shore road with a lamp in his hand and his coat over his nightshirt and he stood in the middle of the road and would not move.

"The Cormorant has a cracked stern gland," he said. "She has been taking water since the diving and Declan has been bailing her twice a day and not telling anyone. If you take her out of this harbor in a southwest wind she will be on the rocks before you reach the point and there will be two bodies in the water in the morning and no one to stand in that hall."

Declan opened his mouth and Ronan put his hand up.

"There is a car at the top of the lane," he said. "It is Padraig's car and it has a full tank and Padraig is in the shop with Nora and he has been on the telephone to a man in Galway for an hour. The bus from Athlone comes into Galway at four in the morning and there is a woman who drives the night mail van from Galway to Athlone and she is a wolf and she owes me a favor from 1979 and she will take you." He looked at me. "You cannot go to Athlone. If you go to Athlone the woman in the north will be in that hall before you are back and the co-op will have heard her story and the whole of it will be lost. Your sister has been in that cottage since April and she will be in it tomorrow morning. What she needs is a wolf in the hall who can hold the seat until she gets there."

I stood in the road with the wind and the lamp.

"Then what do I do?" I said.

"You come back to my cottage and you read the charter." Ronan turned and started up the lane. "Because there is a thing in it that your sister read in February and that I have been trying to remember since the church and that I found an hour ago. There is a clause about the bloodline and it is the clause that is going to decide tomorrow morning."

We went up to the cottage and Ronan put the green charter on the table and opened it to the middle and put his finger on a page.

"The bloodline clause," he said. "It is not in the charter in the hall. It was struck out of the copy in the hall in 1961 by the same hand that struck out the clause about the land and forged the enforcer's signature in the margin. But it is in this copy and it was never struck out of this copy because this copy was in the ground." He pushed the book toward me. "Read it aloud. It should be read aloud."

I read it.

"If the seat is vacant and there is more than one wolf of the blood of the pack who claims it, the claim shall be heard by the co-op in the hall and not on the headland, and the co-op shall choose between the claimants by vote. And if one of the claimants is a wolf who has been banished from the territory, that wolf shall not be heard until the ban is lifted by the vote of the co-op. And if one of the claimants is a wolf who has taken the life of a wolf of this pack outside the law, that wolf shall not be heard at all, and the co-op shall hear the claim of the other claimant and shall vote upon it."

I read it twice.

"Eileen killed a wolf in this village in 1959," I said. "Maire told us. She was seventeen and she killed a wolf with her hands and her mother sent her to Galway to keep her out of the co-op's reach. And she has been banished from this territory since 1988. So she has two things against her under this clause. She is a banished wolf and she is a wolf who has taken a life outside the law."

"She has two things against her and a third thing that no one has looked at," Ronan said. "She was banished in 1988 by the co-op and the ban has never been lifted. And a banished wolf cannot be heard until the ban is lifted by a vote of the co-op. So tomorrow morning, when she comes down that shore road with her pack at her back, she cannot walk into that hall and make a claim. She has to stand at the door and wait for the co-op to vote on whether to lift the ban, and the co-op will not lift it, because the co-op has been told for nine years that she is a rogue." He tapped the page. "And there is the thing that matters more than any of it. Your sister is not banished and she has not taken a life and she is a wolf of the blood of Maeve. If she is in that hall, the clause says the co-op shall hear her claim and shall vote upon it. Not a fight. A vote. In the hall. With the whole co-op counting."

I sat at the table with the charter open in front of me.

"Then we do not need to beat Eileen on the headland," I said. "We need to be in the hall before she gets there and we need to put my sister's claim on the table and we need to read this clause out loud."

"There is one thing more," Ronan said. "The clause says if the seat is vacant. The seat is not vacant. Mairéad is sitting in it. And a seat that is not vacant cannot be claimed." He looked at me. "Unless Mairéad resigns it. Which she has told you she is going to do at nine o'clock in the morning."

The wind came up and the little window rattled.

"Then the whole of it comes down to the order of things," I said. "At nine o'clock Mairéad stands up in that hall and resigns the seat in front of Ahern and the co-op. The seat is vacant. Then my sister's claim goes on the table. Then Eileen comes down that shore road with her pack and she cannot be heard because she is banished and because she has taken a life. And the co-op votes on my sister and my sister takes the seat."

"And there is a thing that will happen between the resignation and the claim," Ronan said. "The moment Mairéad stands up and says she is resigning, the seat is vacant and the Beta holds it until a new Alpha is chosen. And the Beta is Declan. And Declan is going to have to stand up in that hall and hold the seat and call the vote and count it and declare it, and he is going to do it with his son in the room and his mate in the room and the woman who broke his bond in the room and a pack of banished wolves at the door." He looked at Declan. "Can you do it?"

Declan had been standing by the fire and had not said a word since the shore road.

"I can do it," he said.

"Then there is one thing more and it is the thing that is going to decide whether the co-op votes for your sister or against her." Ronan closed the charter. "The co-op will not vote for a wolf they have never seen. Your sister has been in the north and in Athlone since April and there is not a wolf in this village who has set eyes on her in a year. And there is a woman coming down that shore road tomorrow morning with a pack at her back who has been telling the co-op for nine years that she is the true heir and that her sister is a thief. The co-op is going to look at the both of them and it is going to choose the one it believes."

I stood up and put my coat on.

"Then I am going to Athlone," I said. "Not in the Cormorant. In Padraig's car with the night mail van behind me. I am going to be at that cottage before the sun is up and I am going to bring my sister back down that shore road in the morning and she is going to walk into that hall on her own two feet and the co-op is going to look at her and it is going to know what it is looking at." I looked at Declan. "And you are going to hold the seat until I get back."

Declan looked at me for a long moment.

"The road to Athlone is forty miles and the night mail van does not go fast and the woman in the north is on that road already," he said.

"Then I had better go now."