The Spring Between Us

Chapter 76: The Vote to Strip Me

We did not get to the graveyard.

We got as far as the Kızıltaş pack house and there was a crowd in the yard.

I knew something was wrong before I got off my horse. The gate was open and there were wolves in the yard who should have been on the fence line and wolves on the porch who should have been in the kitchen, and they were all standing in a ring around the steps with their faces turned toward the hall.

Sten was off his horse before I was. "What is this?"

Nobody answered him. The ring parted and a woman came out of it and stood at the bottom of the steps. It was Inge. She had her apron on and her hands folded and her face set.

"Luna," she said. "The pack has called a vote."

I got down off my horse.

"The pack has called a vote," I said. "On what?"

"On the seat." Inge looked at the ring of wolves behind her. "There are wolves in this pack who say that you have been Luna for one month and in that month the Beta was hanged and a warrior was poisoned and the pack was divided and a Council man was arrested and the whole canyon was dragged into a Council inquiry. There are wolves who say you have brought a bond into this pack that the Council will not recognize and a pair that the Council will rule against, and that at the autumn gathering the Council will take the seat and give it to a trustee and the pack will have nothing. And there are wolves who say that a Luna who cannot hold her own pack in a hall should not be going to the capital to speak for it."

The yard was silent.

I looked at the ring of wolves. There were about twenty of them and they were standing together and their faces were set.

"Who called this vote?" I said.

"I did."

The voice came from the hall. The door opened and Wren came out onto the porch.

She was wearing the grey jacket. She had her hair pinned up and her chin up and she came down the steps and stood beside Inge and looked at me.

"The Council named me trustee of this seat," she said. "The Council has not un-named me. The envoy is in irons and the clerk is writing his record and the Council in the capital has not yet ruled. So I am still the trustee and I am calling the vote."

The yard made a sound.

"You are accused of poisoning a warrior of this pack," I said.

"I am accused and I have not been tried and the Council's own clerk has not ruled on it and the Council's own healer has not signed a paper on it. I am still the trustee until the Council says otherwise." Wren put her hands on her hips. "And the pack has the right to vote on its own seat. It is in the old law and the old law is older than the Council. So we are going to vote. Tonight. In this yard. And if the pack votes against you, Luna, then you are not the Luna anymore and you will not go to the capital and you will not read the first volume and you will not declare the bond in the open hall."

The yard was silent.

Sten came up beside me.

"Luna," he said quietly. "Twenty wolves. Maybe more. They have been working on this since the quarry and I did not see it."

"You could not see it. You were at the quarry with me."

"I am the Beta and I should have seen it."

I put my hand on his arm and then I went up the steps and stood on the porch and looked at the whole of the pack.

"All right," I said. "You want a vote. Then you will have a vote and you will have it in this yard with the whole pack present and the doors open. But before you vote I am going to say three things and then I will sit down and let you decide."

I held up my hand.

"The first is that Wren has been in Ruth's quarters since the funeral and she has been at the gate at night talking to Council soldiers and she is the wolf Inge named when she stood up in the Council hall and said who put the wolfsbane in the barrel." I looked at the ring. "The second is that the man who has been running this canyon for twenty years is in irons and the Council's own clerk has written down that he is guilty, and the Council's own healer has found wolfsbane in two graves, and the Council's own record has been shown to be a lie. That is what has happened in one month. Not the hanging and not the poisoning. The truth. One month and the truth has come out of the ground and out of the water and out of the graves and it is in a clerk's book and it is going to the capital."

I looked at them.

"The third is that I am not going to stand here and argue with Wren about a seat. If the pack votes me out tonight, I will go. I will go down that mesa road and I will not be Luna and I will not read the first volume. But I will tell you this before you vote. The pair is sworn and the bond is declared and the first volume is in this pack house and the spring is running and the Council has a clerk's record that says it owes this canyon a debt. If you vote me out tonight, that record goes to the capital with a Kızıltaş pack that has no Luna and a Council trustee in the chair, and the Council will read the record and it will say the canyon cannot govern itself and it will put a trustee over the whole of it and it will keep the water." I looked at the yard. "That is what is on the table tonight. Not my seat. The canyon."

The yard was silent.

"Vote," I said. "I will wait."

I sat down on the porch step and the whole pack stood in the yard and Inge called the vote.

It went slowly. Wren stood at the bottom of the steps with her arms folded and counted, and the wolves came forward one by one and said aye or nay. The first ten were aye. Then the next five were aye and it was fifteen to nothing and the ring of wolves behind Wren were smiling.

Then a woman from the kitchen came forward and said nay. And then old Tomas came forward on his bad hip and said nay and spat on the ground. And then Berik said nay. And then Arne's wife came forward with her children behind her and said nay and looked at Wren while she said it.

It was fifteen to five and then fifteen to ten and then fifteen to fifteen and the yard was quiet.

The next one was a young warrior named Halvard's brother, a boy of seventeen with his father's face, and he stood in front of Inge for a long time and did not say anything. Then he said, "Nay," and went to stand behind me.

Sixteen to fifteen.

And then Cal came forward.

He was the last of them. He stood in front of Inge with his sandy hair standing up and his freckled face set and his arm still bandaged from the mine, and he said, "I am not going to say aye and I am not going to say nay. I am going to say a thing first and then I will vote." He turned to the yard. "I was in a mine tunnel two weeks ago and the roof came down on me and I was not breathing. The Alpha of the Çöl pack put his mouth on my mouth and his hands on my chest and brought me back. And then the Luna held a beam up with her shoulder so I could get out. And then I shifted for the first time in front of the whole canyon. And when I woke up I was lying by a fire in the hall and there was a blanket over me and the Luna had put it there herself." He looked at Wren. "Where were you that night, Wren? You were in the Luna's mother's room with your feet up and the door shut."

The yard was silent.

"I vote nay," Cal said.

Seventeen to fifteen.

Inge looked at the yard and then at Wren and then at me, and she said, "The vote is seventeen to fifteen against the motion. The Luna keeps the seat."

The yard made a sound that was not a cheer. It was quieter than a cheer and it went on longer.

Wren stood at the bottom of the steps with her arms folded and her face white.

"The Council will hear of this," she said.

"The Council will hear of all of it," I said. "Now get out of my mother's room and get out of this yard and go and stand at the gate if you want to talk to soldiers, because you are not sleeping under this roof tonight."

She went. She went out through the gate with her chin up and her grey jacket on and she did not look back.

And Inge stood in the yard with her apron on and her hands folded and her face grey, and she said, "Luna. I voted aye. I have been a fool and I have been a Council wolf for six years and I have been frightened since the day the Council man put the first envelope in my hand. So I am going to say the rest of it now in front of the pack, and then I will go and pack my things and leave this canyon."

"What rest of it?" I said.

Inge looked at me.

"The wolfsbane," she said. "I did not put it in the barrel. But I know who did. And it is not Wren."

The yard was silent.

"Who?" I said.

Inge put her hand over her mouth and then took it away.

"Mira," she said.