Chapter 63: The Challenger's Name

I did not sit down. I stood in the doorway of the harbor office with the village in the road behind me and the paper in Declan's hand and the whole of it going round in my head.

“Say the last part again,” I said.

“The record says Eileen was banished for the murder of a wolf called Deirdre in 1981.” Declan put the paper down. “My mother did not step off that cliff. She was pushed. And the wolf who pushed her was my sister, and the co-op banished her for it in 1988, and the man who signed the ban is Korkut, and Korkut is my brother, and the whole of it has been in a file in Galway since 1994 and no one in this village has ever seen it.”

Ahern was at the window with his hands behind his back.

“I have seen it,” he said. “I saw it this morning. It is in the file with the claim your sister made in March and the sentence of the headland and the deed of gift from 1961. The file is eleven pages long and it is a record of thirty six years of a pack being taken apart by a family that has been doing it since before any wolf in this village was born.” He turned round. “And there is a thing in the file that I have not told either of you and that I am going to tell you now because in twenty minutes we are going to be in that hall and after that there will be no time. The name Korkut is not the name he was born with. The name in the parish record is the name of the boy who was born in 1975 and taken out of this village in the same year. The name is Cormac.”

The office went very quiet.

“Cormac,” Declan said.

“Cormac,” Ahern said. “He was given to a family in the south and the family were called Korkut and he took their name when he was eighteen. And he is forty two years old and he is the enforcer of this region and he is the son of Fionn and Deirdre and he is your brother and he has been sitting in this village for a week with his hands folded and his notebook open and he has been taking money from the Alpha and signing the sentence of the headland in March.” He looked at Declan. “And there is a thing that matters more than any of that. He is the blood of the line of Fionn and he has a claim on this seat. A blood claim. And under the bloodline clause a wolf who has a blood claim and who is not banished and who has not taken a life can be heard by the co-op in the hall and the co-op shall vote upon it.”

I sat down in the chair by the door.

“Then there are four claimants,” I said. “My sister. Eileen. Korkut. And the boy who is sitting in this office with his father and who is the son of Declan and the grandson of Fionn and who has been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen.” I looked at Declan. “Your son is a claimant. Your son is a blood claimant and the whole of it has been in front of us since the first night and we have not seen it because he is twenty two years old and he has been told his whole life that he is nothing.”

Declan was on his feet.

“He is not going to be a claimant,” he said. “He is a boy who has been used by a woman for eight years and who signed a statement yesterday and who has not slept since and I am not going to put him in front of the co-op and tell him he is a claimant.”

“He is a claimant whether you tell him or not,” Ahern said. “The bloodline clause does not ask whether a wolf is ready. It asks whether a wolf is of the blood.” He picked up his case. “The hall is at nine. The Alpha is going to resign the seat. The seat will be vacant. And when it is vacant the co-op will hear every claimant in the room and it will vote. That is the law and I am not going to bend it for a boy or for a father or for the woman from Dublin.”

We went up to the hall at five to nine and the whole village was in the lane.

The green door was open and the long table was at the top of the room with four chairs behind it and Ahern sat down in the middle chair and put his case on the table. Mairéad was in her chair at the head of the table with her silver hair down and her black coat on and her hands folded and her pale green eyes on the door. Declan stood by the wall with his hands at his sides. Cormac was beside him with his face white.

Eileen was at the back of the hall with six wolves behind her and her grey hair down and her shoulder bandaged and her grey eyes on me.

And there was a woman standing in the doorway with the light behind her.

She was in a grey coat that had seen weather and her hair was gold and loose and there was grey in it at the temples, and her face was the face in the photograph in the tin box under the peat, and she came into the hall without a word and walked up the floor and stopped in front of the table and put a package wrapped in oilcloth on the wood.

“I am Siobhan,” she said. “I am the daughter of Maeve’s daughter and I am the claimant of the line of Maeve and I have come to put my claim on the table in front of the enforcer and the co-op.”

The whole hall went quiet.

Mairéad stood up. She stood up slowly and put her hands flat on the table and looked at my sister and then at me and then at the whole hall.

“Then there is a thing I am going to say before any claim is heard,” she said. “I am Mairéad and I have been the Alpha of this pack since 1983 and I am going to resign the seat this morning. But before I resign it I am going to do the one thing that is left to me under the charter and I am going to do it in front of the enforcer and the whole co-op.” She looked at me. “Niamh of the line of Maeve. You came into this village a week ago and you swore an oath in a garden and you pulled a safe out of a well and you have been in the hall and in the church and on the headland with a wolf who is not of this pack. And there is a thing in the charter that says a wolf who is not of this pack and who has been in the territory for less than a year may be named a challenger by the Alpha, and a challenger may not be heard by the co-op until the challenge is answered.” She put her hand in her coat and took out a weight and put it on the table. It was a fishing weight with a fish on the face and a number on the side of the fish and the number was forty one. “I name you a challenger. And I answer the challenge myself.”

The hall went up. The whole of it, forty wolves on their feet and shouting at once, and Ahern was on his feet with his hand up and Declan was shouting a thing I could not hear and my sister had her hand on the table and her face white.

And then a voice from the back of the hall said, “She cannot name a challenger.”

It was Cormac. He was standing by the wall with his hands at his sides and his face white and his voice was not loud and the hall went quiet to hear it.

“She cannot name a challenger,” he said again. “I have read the charter. I read it in the church with the priest. A wolf who is not of this pack may be named a challenger by the Alpha, but only if there is no claimant of the blood in the territory. And there is a claimant of the blood in the territory.” He looked at his father and then at me and then at the whole hall. “There is me.”