The Spring Between Us

Chapter 95: Hank at the Border Line

I did not go to the porch.

I went to the gate and called Sten, and we went down the road to the border line where Hank was standing with his wolves around him, and I told them both what Ruth had said.

Sten's face went white and then red.

"The Council healer," he said. "She has been in this canyon with the Chancellor and the clerk and the whole of the autumn gathering and she is the old clerk's daughter."

"She is the old clerk's daughter and she has been her father's hand for twenty years." I looked up the road at the pack house. "And she is on that porch right now with her bag and her plain face and the Chancellor beside her."

Hank said, "Then we take her tonight."

"No." I put my hand on his arm. "If we take her tonight, the Chancellor will want to know why and the clerk will write it down and the wolves in the capital will hear that the Kızıltaş pack arrested the Council healer on the word of a chained Beta. They will say the pack has run mad and the Chancellor has lost control of it and the recall will go through before we reach the capital."

"Then what do we do?"

"We let her go to the capital with the Chancellor. And we go with her. And when we get there we put the first volume and the stone and the law book and the box of rulings in front of the Council and we put the healer in front of the Council with them." I looked at Sten. "But first I want a thing. I want her bag searched tonight. Not by us. By the clerk. The clerk is a Council clerk and he has been writing down the truth since the first hearing and he will search a Council healer's bag if the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack asks him to."

Sten said, "And if the bag is clean?"

"Then the bag is clean and we have lost nothing. And if it is not clean, then the clerk will write down what is in it and the Chancellor will read it and the healer will have a great deal to explain."

We went up the road to the pack house and I found the clerk in the hall with his book and his pen and I said, "Clerk. The Luna of the Kızıltaş pack asks the Council's clerk to search the bag of the Council's healer."

The clerk put his pen down.

"On what charge?"

"On the charge that she is the daughter of the old clerk and the sister of the envoy and that she gave the vial of wolfsbane to the Beta in the canyon and signed the paper that said a broken neck was a fall."

The clerk looked at me for a long moment.

"The Council healer is in the small room at the back of the hall with the Chancellor," he said. "I will ask her to give me her bag and I will search it in front of the Chancellor and the Luna and the clerk of the Kızıltaş pack and I will write down what I find."

We went to the small room. The Chancellor was at the table and the healer was beside her with her bag on the floor.

"Chancellor," the clerk said. "The Luna has asked me to search the healer's bag."

The Chancellor looked at me and then at the healer.

"Search it," she said.

The healer did not move. She looked at the bag on the floor and then at me and her plain face did not change.

"There is nothing in it," she said. "I am a healer. I carry bandages and tinctures and a small case of instruments."

The clerk opened the bag. He took out the bandages and the tinctures and the small case of instruments and put them on the table. And then he took out a leather folder and opened it.

There were papers in it. They were Council papers and they had the Council seal on them and they were letters, and the clerk read them one by one and wrote down what they said.

The first was a letter from the old clerk to his daughter and it was dated three months ago and it said: The third pair has come up in the Kızıltaş canyon. The daughter is the Luna and the son is the Alpha. You will go to the canyon as the Council healer and you will do what is necessary.

The second was a letter from the healer to her brother and it said: The Beta is willing and the vial is given and the Luna will be dead within the week.

The third was a letter from the healer to a wolf in the capital whose name I did not know and it said: The Chancellor is soft and the pack is divided and the pair can be broken if the Council recalls the Chancellor before the autumn gathering rules. Use the report.

The clerk put the papers down on the table.

The Chancellor picked up the first one and read it. Then she picked up the second and read it. Then she picked up the third and read it and put it down and looked at the healer.

"Council healer," she said. "You are under arrest for the murder of the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack and for the corruption of this Council and for conspiracy against the Chancellor of the Council of Alphas. You will be taken to the capital in irons and you will be tried with your father and your brother."

The healer looked at her.

"You are a fool," she said. "You have been a fool since the day you took the seal. The Council in the capital does not want the pair and it does not want the canyon and it does not want you. It wants the water and it will have the water and there is nothing you can do about it."

"Take her," the Chancellor said.

They took her out.

The Chancellor sat down at the table and put her hands flat on the wood and looked at the papers.

"Clerk," she said. "Write this down. The Council healer has confessed in front of the Chancellor and the clerk and the Luna. She will be tried in the capital. And there is a thing more." She looked up at me. "Luna. The healer said the Council in the capital wants the water and will have it. She is right. There are wolves in the capital who have been taking money from the company for twenty years and they will fight the ruling and they will fight the pair and they will use the report and the recall and anything else they can find. So we go to the capital at dawn and we go with the whole of the canyon and we do not stop until the Council in the capital has heard the whole of it."

We went out of the small room and into the hall and the yard and the whole of the pack was there and the whole of the autumn gathering was there.

And at the gate there was a line of wolves.

They were Çöl wolves and they were standing at the gate with their hands at their sides and their faces set, and there were twenty of them and Ryland was at the front.

Hank went to the gate.

"Ryland," he said. "What is this?"

"The Alpha's warriors," Ryland said. "We have come to stand at the border line and offer ourselves as witnesses." He looked at me. "Luna. The Alpha of the Çöl pack has been at your side since the spring. The pack has doubted him and the pack has doubted the bond and the pack has doubted the pair. And there is a thing we have not done. We have not stood at the border line and said in front of both packs that we are witnesses to the bond." He put his hand on his chest. "So we are here. Twenty of us. We will go to the capital with the canyon and we will stand in the open hall and we will say what we have seen. The mark on the Alpha's chest and the mark on the Luna's arm and the spring that answered when the pair called it."

The yard was silent.

Sten came forward. He looked at Ryland and then at the twenty wolves behind him.

"Beta," Sten said. "I am the Beta of the Kızıltaş pack and my father was killed at that border. And I have been standing in this yard for a month watching the Alpha of the Çöl pack fight for this canyon." He put his hand out. "I will stand beside you in the capital."

Ryland took his hand.

The yard made a sound.

And out on the ridge above the pack house a light went up. It was a small light at first and then it was not small, and the wind came down the ridge and brought the smell of smoke.

"Fire," Sten said. "On the ridge."

I turned and looked up. The ridge above the pack house was on fire and the fire was running down toward the border line and the wind was carrying it toward the Çöl side.

And a rider came down the mesa road at a gallop and pulled up in the yard and said, "Luna. The fire is on the ridge and it is between the two packs and it is burning toward the spring house."

The spring house.

I was on my horse before he finished.