The Spring Between Us

Chapter 65: The Mark on His Chest

I read the letter twice more in the yard with the whole pack watching.

It was short. The Council of Alphas had received the envoy's report and the petition of the Kızıltaş pack and the complaint of the town, and it had ordered the envoy suspended and confined to the canyon, and it had ordered the two packs to appear before the autumn gathering with every paper and every witness they had. It was signed by the Chancellor and it had the seal on it and it was not a trick. Silas had written to the Council himself and the Council had answered him and the answer had been worse for him than anything we could have done.

Sten came up beside me and read it over my shoulder.

"The Council has suspended him," he said. "The Council." He looked at me. "Luna. He wrote to the Council and the Council turned on him."

"He wrote to the Council because he thought he had won," I said. "He thought the Council would rule the bond void and the seat void and the pact void and he would be finished with this canyon and he would go back to the capital with the water rights in his pocket. And then he sat down and wrote his report and his report had to explain the tank and the doctor and the mine and the stone and the spring, and the Council read it and the Council saw that a canyon had come apart under one envoy." I folded the letter. "The Council is not on our side. The Council is frightened of what it has been doing in this canyon for forty years and it is going to put the whole of it on Silas and call that justice."

"That is not justice."

"No. But it is what we have." I turned to the yard. "Sten. Take ten warriors and go down that mesa road to the Council hall and put a guard on the envoy. He is confined to this canyon by order of the Council and the two packs are his guard. Do not let him leave and do not let him send a rider and do not let him burn a paper. If he gives you trouble, tell him the Council has ordered it and show him the seal."

Sten put his hand on his sword. "And if he will not be guarded?"

"Then he will not be guarded and the Council will hear about it." I looked at him. "But Sten. He is a wolf who has run out of papers and he has a rogue in a cell and four soldiers and a clerk who knows too much. Do not let him get near the rogue and do not let him get near the clerk. And if he tries to leave, you stop him. With your hands if you have to and with your sword if you must."

Sten went. He took ten warriors and four horses and the letter and went down the mesa road at a trot.

The yard emptied slowly. The wagon was loaded and the horses were saddled and the stone was in the wagon bed and the packs were waiting to go to the capital, and I stood in the middle of the yard with the letter in my hand and the mark on my arm bright and did not get on my horse.

Hank came and stood beside me.

"You are not going to the capital today," he said.

"No."

"You want to stay in this canyon and finish it here."

"I want to stay in this canyon and finish it here." I turned to him. "Hank. The Council has suspended Silas. But the Council has not ruled on the seat and it has not ruled on the bond and it has not ruled on the pact. It has ordered us to the capital in three weeks and it will hear the whole of it there and it will do what Councils do, which is to find a way to keep the water and hang one man and call it justice." I put my hand on his chest over the mark. "But there is a thing I have been thinking about since the spring last night. The pact says the pair shall be known by the marks on their arms and the rings on their hands. It does not say the pair has to wait for a Council to say so. It says the pair shall guard the spring and read the pact at the change of the moon. We did that. The spring answered. The stone came up out of the water." I looked at him. "So the bond is not void and it is not frozen and it is not waiting for a Council. It is sworn. It is sworn in front of both packs and the town and the spring itself and there is not a Council in the world that can unswear it."

Hank looked at me for a long moment.

"The pack law," he said. "The old law. A bond is sworn when the pair declare it in front of the pack and the pack consents and the marks are shown and the names are written in the pack book. It does not need a Council. It never needed a Council. The Council added the recording because the Council wanted to be able to say no." He put his hand over mine. "Derya. We can swear it here. Today. In the hall. In front of both packs. And the Council can write whatever it likes in its book and it will not matter, because the pack book is older than the Council book."

"Then we swear it."

We went into the hall and I stood at the head of the long table with my mother's chair behind me and the stone on the table and the pact unrolled beside it, and Sten's second, a woman named Ingrid, called the pack in. The Kızıltaş came in and the Çöl came in and the town came in, and the hall was full to the walls.

Hank stood beside me and took off his coat and his shirt and stood in front of the whole hall with the mark on his chest bare.

"This is the mark of the pair," he said. "It came to me the night I touched the Luna at the spring house and it has grown since. It is a bond mark and it is the mark the pact names. I am the Alpha of the Çöl pack and I am bonded to the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack and I am declaring it here in front of both packs and the town and the spring."

I pushed up my sleeve and held out my arm.

"This is the mark of the pair," I said. "It came to me the same night and it has grown since. I am the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack and I am bonded to the Alpha of the Çöl pack and I am declaring it here in front of both packs and the town and the spring."

The hall was silent.

Then Sten's second, Ingrid, came forward with the pack book. It was a great leather book with the Kızıltaş mark on the cover and it had been in the record room for a hundred years and every bond and every birth and every death in the pack was written in it. She opened it at the last page and put it on the table and said, "Who writes the names?"

"I will write them," Nora said.

She came forward with the pen and wrote Hank's name and then mine, and under the two names she wrote the date and the words sworn at the spring in front of both packs, and then she put the pen down and stepped back.

"Now the pack consents," she said. "Kızıltaş. Say yes or say no."

The Kızıltaş pack said yes. It was not a cheer. It was a low sound, a rumble, the sound a pack makes when it is agreeing with something it has decided.

"Çöl," Nora said. "Say yes or say no."

The Çöl pack said yes.

The hall was quiet. The pack book was on the table with the two names in it and the stone beside it and the pact unrolled beside the stone and the two iron rings on the pact, and I stood at the head of the table with my mark bare and Hank's mark bare and the whole of the canyon looking at us.

"Then it is sworn," I said. "Under the old law of the canyon, which is older than the Council. And the Council can write whatever it likes in its book."

The hall made a sound that went up to the roof.

And then a voice from the door said, "How very moving."

Silas was standing in the doorway with Sten behind him and two warriors behind Sten. He had his hat in his hand and his coat was dusty and his silver hair was not neat and his pleasant face was not pleasant at all. He looked at the pack book on the table and the stone and the marks on our arms and he smiled.

"The old law," he said. "The old law of this canyon. I have read the old law of this canyon. It is in the third volume of the Council records and it says that a bond sworn in front of a pack is a pack matter and not a Council matter, and that the Council shall not interfere in a pack matter." He came into the hall. "But it also says that a bond between the Alphas of two packs is a matter of the whole canyon and not of one pack, and that the whole canyon shall be heard before the bond is sworn." He looked at the pack book. "You have heard the Kızıltaş and you have heard the Çöl. You have not heard the town. And I am told the town has a great deal to say."

The hall went silent.

"The town is in this hall," I said.

"The town is in this hall and the town has not voted." Silas turned. "So I am asking the town of the canyon, in the presence of both packs and the Council's seal, whether it consents to a bond between the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack and the Alpha of the Çöl pack."

The hall turned. Owen was on the front bench with his cap in his hands and the doctor was beside him and the wife of the sick man was behind them and there were forty men of the town along the wall.

Owen stood up.

"The town," he said, "has been drinking the water of this canyon for twenty years and has been told it was the wolves. The town has been lied to by the Council and by the company and by me." He looked at Silas. "And the town has seen the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack open a valve and put a radium tank in a yard and hold a beam up with her shoulder so a Kızıltaş wolf could get out of a mine. So the town is going to vote." He turned to the men along the wall. "All in favour?"

The town said aye. It was not a rumble. It was a shout.