Chapter 58: The Handwriting Changes

I was at the door with my coat on when Ronan said, "Wait."

He was standing at the table with the green charter open and his finger on the page and his old face had gone the colour of the ash in the grate.

"There is a thing I have not looked at properly in fifty years," he said. "I have read this book a hundred times and I have never once looked at the hand."

"What hand?"

"The hand that wrote the charter." He turned the book round. "Come back from the door and look at this and then you can go to Athlone."

I came back. He put the lamp closer and turned the pages to the beginning and put his finger on the first line of the first page.

"Read the first line," he said.

"Whereas the wolves of Dún Aonghasa, in the county of Galway, being of one pack and one blood, do set down these laws for the keeping of the peace and the choosing of the Alpha."

"Now read the last line of the same page."

I read it. It was a line about the moorings and the catch and the season and it was in the same cramped legal hand as the first line.

"Now turn to the middle of the book," Ronan said. "To the clause about the seat. The one you read aloud."

I turned to the middle. The clause about the bloodline was there and it was in the same cramped legal hand.

"Now turn to the clause about the land. The one that was struck out in 1961."

I turned. The clause about the land was there and the line through it was there and the note in the margin was there, and the hand of the clause about the land was the same cramped legal hand as the rest of the book.

"Now turn to the back," Ronan said. "To the page with the names of the Alphas."

I turned to the back. The list of the Alphas went from 1789 to 1921 and the last name on it was Maeve and the date beside it was 1921 and the space beside it for the death was empty. And the hand of the list was the same cramped legal hand as the rest of the book.

"Now look at the note at the bottom of the page," Ronan said. "The one in a different ink."

I looked. The note at the bottom of the page said: "Number 41 was given in 1921 to the family of Maeve, Alpha, and was surrendered by her daughter in 1961. It has not been given since. The weight of 41 is held by the Alpha and is not to be used."

And the hand of that note was not the cramped legal hand. It was thin and elegant and sloping to the right.

"That is Korkut's hand," I said.

"That is the hand of a man who has been writing in the margins of this book for thirty six years," Ronan said. "Now turn to the front. To the inside of the cover."

I turned to the inside of the cover. There was a bookplate there, a printed thing with a border of oak leaves round it, and in the middle of the bookplate there was a name written in ink.

"Read the name," Ronan said.

I read it. "Siobhan Mac Carthaigh, 1901."

"The bookplate says the book belonged to a woman called Siobhan in 1901. And the hand of the bookplate is a lady's hand, round and sloping and neat. And the hand of the charter is a clerk's hand, cramped and legal and hard." Ronan turned the book round and put his finger on the first page and then on the last page and then on the middle. "Now look at the hand of the charter again. All of it. Every page. And tell me if it is one hand or more than one."

I looked. I looked for a long time. And then I saw it.

The first page was a clerk's hand. The second page was a clerk's hand. But on the third page, in the middle of a line about the borders of the territory, the hand changed. It was small and it was cramped and it was legal, and it was not the same hand as the first page. It was a very good imitation of the first page. And on the seventh page the hand changed again, and on the eleventh page it changed again, and on the page with the bloodline clause the hand was the same as the first page and on the page with the clause about the land the hand was the same as the seventh page.

"There are two hands in this book," I said.

"There are two hands in this book and they have been in it for a hundred years." Ronan sat down slowly in his chair. "The bookplate says the book belonged to Siobhan Mac Carthaigh in 1901. And the charter was written in 1901. And there is a thing I have never been able to explain in fifty years. The clause about the land and the clause about the bloodline are not in the copy in the hall. The copy in the hall has the clause about the land and it has the strike through it and it has the note in the margin. But it does not have the bloodline clause at all. It has never had it. It was not struck out. It was never written."

I stood at the table with the lamp in my hand.

"Then the copy in the hall is a different book," I said. "It is not a copy of this one. It is a different book with the same title and the same date and two hands in it."

"It is a different book and it was written by a clerk who was paid to write a book that did not have the bloodline clause in it and did not have the clause about the land in the form that a co-op could use." Ronan looked at me. "And there is a thing I have not told you. In 1901 there was a dispute in this village about the seat. There was a woman called Siobhan and there was a man called Ahern and there was a clerk from Galway who came down to write the charter. And there is a page in the parish records for 1901 that has the three of them on it and there is a note in my grandfather's hand that says the dispute was settled and the book was written and the village went back to its boats." He put his hand on the green book. "And there is a thing about your sister that I have not told you and that I have been sitting on since the church. Her hand changed across the charter."

"What?"

"Your sister's hand. In the letters she wrote and in the notebook and in the statement she gave the men from Galway. It changed. In April her hand was the hand of a woman who was frightened and pressing hard on the paper. In the statement she gave the men from Galway it was the hand of a woman who had decided what she was going to do. And in the letter she wrote to me in February and that I have in my pocket it is the hand of a woman who was writing to a man she had known all her life and who was not frightened at all." He took a letter out of his coat. "I have been carrying this since February and I have not read it to you and I am going to read it now. She wrote, Ronan, I have found the second book. It was in the press behind the frame with the ring and it has two hands in it and the hand that wrote the bloodline clause is not the hand that wrote the rest of it. The clerk who wrote the book in 1901 wrote two books. One for the hall and one for the press. And the one in the press has the bloodline clause in it and the one in the hall does not. And I am going to take the one in the press to Galway in the spring and put it in front of the Council and there will not be a wolf in this village who can argue with it."

The wind came up and the window rattled.

"Then there is a second book," I said. "In the press behind the frame in the hall. And my sister found it in February and it is there now and it has the bloodline clause in it and it has the land clause in the form that a co-op can use."

"There is a second book and it is in the press and the press is opened with the key that opens the frame and the key is in your pocket." Ronan stood up. "So before you go to Athlone, you are going into that hall and you are taking the second book out of the press. And you are taking it to Ahern tonight and he is going to read the bloodline clause with his own eyes and sign a note that says he has read it. And then in the morning when the seat is vacant and the woman in the north is at the door, the co-op will have the law in its hand and not a story."