The Spring Between Us

Chapter 87: The Spring Is Sacred

The Chancellor came in through the back of the hall at dawn and the whole gathering got to its feet.

She did not sit down at first. She stood behind the table with her hands on the back of her chair and looked out at the hall for a long moment, and the twelve Council wolves took their seats one by one and the clerk opened his book and wet his pen.

"Before the Council rules," she said, "there is a matter of old law that was raised with me in the night and it has to be settled first or every ruling after it will be built on sand. The spring of the Kızıltaş canyon is claimed as sacred ground under the old pact. The Council will hear the claim."

The murmur that ran through the hall was not friendly. Near the back a merchant said something to his neighbor and the neighbor laughed into his collar.

I stood up.

"The spring is sacred ground," I said. "The first volume says so and the pact says so. It says the spring is the heart of the canyon and the water belongs to the land and the packs and to no one else. It says the pair shall guard the spring and read the pact at every change of the moon. And it says that no wolf who is not of the pair may take the water or sit at the spring in their place."

The Chancellor's jaw was set. "And what does sacred ground mean, under the old law? Speak plainly. This hall is full of merchants and clerks and half of them have never read a word of it."

Nora stood up beside me. "It means the spring is held in common, Chancellor. Neither pack may take from it without the other. It means the pair guards it and that no Council, no envoy, no trustee and no company may pump it, sell it, cap it or plate it. It is not a resource. It is a trust. That is what the word meant when it was written and that is what it has meant for a hundred and forty years."

A Council wolf at the far end of the table, a heavy man with grey at his temples, leaned forward. "Chancellor, with respect, this is a claim brought by the very parties who stand to gain from it. The Council cannot rule on sacred ground on the word of the wolves who want the water."

"I can speak to that," said a voice from the front of the hall.

Every head turned. The old man was standing in irons between two soldiers with his silver hair flat and his coat gone and his wrists raw from the chains, and he had not been given leave to speak and he spoke anyway.

"Chancellor," he said. "I have a thing to say and then I will say nothing more for the rest of this hearing."

The Chancellor looked at him for a long moment. "Say it."

"The spring is sacred ground under the old law. It has been sacred ground for a hundred and forty years. This Council has known it for a hundred and forty years and has been pumping it anyway." He turned his head slowly and looked at the twelve. "I sat at this table for forty years. I signed every pumping order that came out of that canyon. I knew what I was signing and I knew what the word sacred meant and I signed it anyway, and there is not a wolf in this hall who can say I did not." He looked back at the Chancellor. "So rule. Rule that the spring is sacred and that the pair guards it and that this Council has no claim on the water of that canyon. I have no reason left to lie."

For a moment nobody in the hall made a sound. The heavy Council wolf looked at his hands on the table.

The Chancellor sat down.

"The Council rules," she said. "The spring of the Kızıltaş canyon is declared sacred ground under the old law. It is held in common by the two packs. It shall be guarded by the pair and read at every change of the moon. No wolf who is not of the pair may take from it and no Council, no envoy, no trustee and no company may pump it, cap it, plate it or sell it. The pumping orders of this Council are void. The Council's claim on the water of that canyon is void. And the Council will send a written apology to the two packs for forty years of theft."

The noise that came up from the yard was so loud that the doors shook in their frames. A pack wolf near the front put his fist in the air and half the benches came up with him.

The Chancellor struck the table four times and it did not quiet them and she struck it again and the twelve rose and the soldiers along the wall moved, and it took a full minute before the hall settled enough for her to be heard.

"That is the first ruling," she said. "Here is the second. The Council has heard the record of its own clerk and the record of the envoy and the record of the Beta and the confession of the old clerk who has just spoken in this hall. The Council finds that the first pair were murdered by the Council forty years ago and that the second pair were murdered by the Council nineteen years ago and that the Council wrote false reports to hide it. The Council finds that the envoy Silas and the old clerk Silas are guilty of the theft of water and ore from the Kızıltaş canyon and of the corruption of a pack and of the murder of two pairs and of the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack. They will be taken to the capital and held for trial. The Council finds that the Beta Ruth is guilty of the murder of the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack and of the corruption of a pack and that she shall be held for trial."

Ruth stood in her irons and did not move a muscle. Her grey eyes were on the Chancellor and her chin was up and there was a small, tired thing at the corner of her mouth that might have been relief.

"The Council finds that the rogue Nell is guilty of three murders at the direction of the Beta and the old clerk and that she shall be held for trial." The Chancellor looked down the hall at me. "And the Council finds that the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack is the lawful Luna and that her bond is lawful and that the pair is lawful and that the pair shall be declared in this hall."

The hall erupted. The benches went over and the packs roared from the yard and a woman near the door began to cry. I felt Hank's hand close round mine beneath the table where nobody could see it, and the mark on my arm was hot enough to warm the cloth over it.

Then the back door banged open and a wolf came through the crowd, pushing past the soldiers, and put a paper in front of the Chancellor and said, "Chancellor. A rider has come from the canyon. The spring has gone dry. The welling hole is dry and the creek has stopped and the cistern is empty and the town is out of water."

The hall did not go quiet all at once. It went quiet in pieces, from the front to the back, as the words were carried along.

The Chancellor read the paper. Then she lifted her head and looked down the hall at me.

"Luna," she said. "The spring is sacred ground and the pair guards it and you are of the pair. What is happening in that canyon?"

I stood with the ring on my hand and the mark on my arm gone cold and grey, and I said, "The pair is not at the spring. The pact says the pair shall guard it and read it at every change of the moon. We have not been there. We have been four hundred miles away in a Council hall, and the moon turned two nights ago, and the pair was not in that canyon to read it."

The heavy Council wolf said, "Then what happens if the pair does not go back?"

Nora answered him before I could. "The spring fails. The pact says so in the middle of the first volume, where nobody has read it in a hundred and forty years. If the pair is broken or the pair is absent, the spring shall fail and the water shall go and the canyon shall be no more."

The old man lifted his chained hands. "Chancellor. This is the thing I have been waiting forty years to see. The pair is not at the spring and the spring has failed. The only thing that can bring it back is the pair standing at the spring and reading the pact. The moon turned two nights ago. The next change is twenty eight days away."

The hall began to shout again and the Chancellor struck the table four times and this time she got her silence.

"Order," she said. "Here is the third ruling. The pair will go back to that canyon tonight. The Council will send soldiers and wagons and the clerk and the healer. And the pair will go to the spring and read the pact and we will see whether the spring answers." She looked at me. "Luna. Can the pair read the pact at the spring when it is not the change of the moon?"

I looked at Nora.

Nora said, "The pact says the pair shall read it at every change of the moon. It does not say the pair may not read it at other times. There is a line in the first volume that says the pair may call the spring at any time of need."

"Then the pair will go to the spring tonight and call it," the Chancellor said. "And the Council will be there to see it."

I stood in the middle of the Council hall with Hank beside me and the ring on my hand and the mark on my arm grey and cold, and I said, "Chancellor. Before the Council sends a single soldier into my canyon there is a thing this hall has not done. The pair has not been declared in the open hall."

The clerk's pen stopped moving.

The Chancellor looked at me.