The Spring Between Us

Chapter 40: The Envoy's Question

Hank was out of the bed and into his trousers before I had my feet on the floor.

"Stay here," he said.

"Not likely." I got the dry shirt over my head and pulled it down and found my trousers where I had dropped them and got them on. My boots were still wet and I put them on wet. "He is in your house and he has soldiers around it and he has hanged my Beta. I am not going to sit in a bedroom while you go and talk to him."

Hank looked at me for a moment. Then he picked up his coat and put it on over his bare chest and said, "Then stay behind me and keep your mouth shut until I give you a reason to open it."

We went out into the passage.

The hall was full. The Kızıltaş wolves were on their feet on one side of the fire and the Çöl wolves were on their feet on the other, and between them, in the middle of the floor with his hat in his hand and four soldiers behind him and rain still dripping off his coat, stood Silas.

He looked at Hank coming out of the passage with his coat on over his bare chest. He looked at me behind him with my hair down and my shirt untucked and my boots wet. And then he smiled.

"Alpha," he said. "Luna. I hope I have not disturbed you."

"You have disturbed my house," Hank said. "You have brought armed soldiers into a pack house in the middle of the night and you have woken forty wolves who have had a hard day. Say what you have come to say and say it fast and then get out."

"Very well." Silas put his hat on the table. "The Beta of the Kızıltaş pack is dead. I ruled on her this afternoon and the sentence was carried out this evening. She was charged with theft from the Council, with conspiracy to obstruct an inquiry, and with the murder of the Luna's mother."

The hall went very still.

"Ruth did not murder my mother," I said.

"The Beta confessed to the murder in front of two witnesses and a clerk." Silas's voice was patient. "She came down the mesa road this morning of her own accord and she sat in the Council hall and she told me everything. She told me she had taken money from the company for two years. She told me she had signed the lease on the south section in your name. And she told me that on the night your mother died she followed her up the south track and pushed her horse over the rim."

The hall stirred. Somebody behind me said, "No." Somebody else said, "The Beta?"

"She confessed," Silas said. "In her own words, in front of witnesses. And then she asked me for a quick death and I gave her one." He turned his head and looked at me. "So you see, Luna, the matter of your mother's death is closed. The Council has its killer and the killer has been punished and there is no need for any further inquiry into the south track or the skid marks or the rope on your mother's wrists."

The mark on my arm was cold and grey and I could not feel my wolf at all.

"She did not kill my mother," I said. "She told me in the yard two days ago that she saw the skid marks the day before my mother died and rode home and said nothing. She did not know who did it. She did not know any more than I did."

"Then why did she confess?"

"Because you offered her a bargain." I came out from behind Hank. "Because she was frightened and she had been taking money and she thought if she gave you what you wanted you would let the pack alone. What did you promise her? That the pack would keep its water? That the Council would not dissolve it? That her warriors would not be blamed?"

Silas looked at me for a long moment. His pleasant face did not change but something behind his pale blue eyes moved.

"You have a great deal of imagination, Luna," he said. "It is a pity it is not matched by evidence."

I went to the table and put my hand on it and looked at him.

"You have been coming to this canyon for nine years," I said. "You have been selling water out of the aquifer under the quarry to the company. You have kept a chamber under the pump house with a ledger in it and your letter S on every page. You paid the Çöl Beta for coordinates. You sent seven men into my creek bed to hold my warriors while a clerk sat in a wagon at the old wash with a decision in his pocket. You killed Elias in the well and you put a rope on Helle on the south rim and you have just hanged my Beta in your own hall and called it a confession." I stopped. "You did not kill my mother, did you? You have never put your own hands on anyone in this canyon. You have wolves for that. So tell me, Silas. Which wolf in my pack did you pay to put the rope on my mother's wrists?"

The hall was silent. Hank was beside me now with his shoulder near mine. Berik was at the fire with his bandaged arm. Nora was by the door with her hand on the chain around her neck.

Silas looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "Sit down, Luna."

"No."

"Then stand. It makes no difference to me." He put his hat back on. "You have asked me a question and I am going to answer it, because you will not be able to do anything with the answer and because I am tired of this canyon and this pack and this inquiry and I would like it finished." He came a step closer. "I did not kill your mother. I did not have her killed. I have been taking water from this canyon for twenty years and I have paid wolves to look the other way and I have signed papers that would make a Council judge weep. But I have never in my life ordered a wolf killed, and I did not order your mother killed, and I did not order the Beta killed either. I ruled on her this afternoon and the sentence was carried out this evening because she confessed to a murder in front of witnesses and the law of the Council is the law of the Council."

"She confessed to a murder she did not do."

"She confessed to a murder." Silas's pale blue eyes were steady. "And here is the thing you should be asking yourself, Luna. If she did not do it, why did she confess? She was the Beta of this pack for eleven years. She was not a fool. She knew what the Council would do to her. So why would a wolf who was not a fool walk down a mesa road and put her own neck in a rope?"

I stood at the table with my hand on it and did not answer.

"Because she was protecting something," Silas said. "Or someone. And I think you know who." He picked up his hat. "You have one day, Luna. The Council will hear the matter of the Kızıltaş succession at sundown tomorrow in the Council hall at the quarry. You may bring your ledgers and your letters and your pact and your rings and your pack. I will bring the healer and the clerk and the soldiers and the confession of your Beta. And at the end of it the Council will rule." He put his hat on. "One thing more. The Council has received a second complaint. It was lodged this evening by a wolf of your own pack, and it accuses you of the murder of your mother and of the Beta, and it asks the Council to rule on your fitness before any other matter is heard."

The hall made a sound.

"Who?" I said. "Who lodged it?"

Silas smiled. He put his hand into his coat and brought out a folded paper and held it up.

"The complaint is signed by the Omega of the Kızıltaş pack," he said. "A wolf named Mira."