The Spring Between Us

Chapter 43: My Beta's Bargain

The wolves came out of the rocks on the western side of the ore track and there were six of them, and they were Council soldiers in dark coats with the seal on the shoulder, and they did not attack.

Their leader was a lean man with a grey moustache who walked out onto the track with his hands open and empty and stopped ten paces from us. He looked at the forty wolves behind me and at the two ledgers in the sack and at the mark on my arm, and he said, "Luna. I am not here to fight you. I am here to give you a message."

"Say it," I said.

"The envoy has the wagon and the body. The wagon went down the quarry road four hours ago and it is in the Council hall now, and the hall has been made ready for the inquiry." The soldier's grey eyes were flat. "He has also the Omega of your pack under guard. She has been singing since midnight, Luna. She has been telling the clerk everything she knows. The envoy would like you to know that if you come down that road with your wolves and your ledgers and your pact, he will hear you. He will hear you in the hall at sundown in front of both packs. And if what you bring is true, the Council will rule on it."

"And if what I bring is true, what happens to the Omega?"

The soldier did not answer for a moment. Then he said, "The envoy is a man of the law, Luna. He does not punish a wolf for telling the truth. He said to tell you that."

I stood on the dark ore track with the wind coming up the canyon and the mark on my arm warm and open and the forty wolves behind me.

"Go back to your envoy," I said, "and tell him the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack will be in that hall at sundown with her ledgers and her pact and her pack. And tell him that the Omega of the Kızıltaş pack is under his guard and that if she is harmed before the inquiry, there will be no hall and no hearing and no law. There will be two packs and a canyon and a spring, and the Council can explain to the Council why the water stopped."

The soldier looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded and turned and went back into the rocks and the six of them went down the western slope and were gone.

Hank let out a breath. "That was a threat."

"It was a promise." I gathered my reins. "Come on. We have four hours to the quarry and a hall to fill."

We came down the ore track as the sky went grey, and we came into the quarry from the north and found the Council hall with its long stone walls and its high roof and its great iron doors, and the doors were shut and there were soldiers on them and there was a wagon standing in the yard with a wet canvas over it.

We did not go in. Hank took us round the back of the quarry to the pump house, and the pump house was empty and the hatch was locked, and we put the horses in the shed behind it and the wolves in the sheds and the old powder store, and we sat down in the dark and waited.

The sun came up. The quarry woke. The men came down to the pit and the crusher started and the soldiers changed shifts at the hall doors. At noon a cart came down the mesa road with the Council clerk in it and a guard, and at one o'clock a rider went out and at two o'clock two more riders came in.

At three o'clock Cal came into the pump house with his face white.

"Luna," he said. "The Beta is alive."

I was on my feet before he finished.

"What?"

"The Beta. Ruth. The Council soldiers have been saying she is dead since last night and she is not dead. She is in the hall and she is alive and she has been talking to the envoy all morning." Cal caught his breath. "One of the soldiers on the door is a Çöl wolf by marriage. He told our scout. He said the Beta walked into the hall yesterday morning of her own accord and she sat down with the envoy and she talked for three hours, and then the envoy put her in a room at the back of the hall and she has been there since. She is not hanged and she was never hanged. The story that she was hanged was a story."

The pump house was very quiet.

"She is alive," Hank said. "Then Silas lied to us in my own hall."

"He lied about the confession and he lied about the hanging and he has been lying since the spring house." I sat down on an empty crate. "He told us Ruth confessed to my mother's murder and was hanged for it, and he told us Mira had signed a statement against me, and he has been telling the packs one story and the hall another and he has been keeping Ruth in a room at the back of the hall the whole time." I looked up. "Why? Why would he keep her alive and tell us she was dead?"

"Because a dead Beta is a martyr and a living Beta is a witness," Nora said from the door. "He is keeping her alive because she is the only wolf in this canyon who knows enough about the lease and the money and the company to hang him. And he is telling you she is dead so that you will walk into that hall tomorrow with a story about a hanged Beta that the hall will know is a lie, and he will be able to say the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack came into the Council hall with a false accusation and no evidence."

"Then we go and get her," Hank said. "Tonight. Before the inquiry."

"No." I got up. "We do not. If we go into that hall tonight with forty wolves and break Ruth out of a room, Silas will have exactly what he wants. He will say the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack stormed a Council hall with an armed pack and took a prisoner, and the Council will rule before sundown and we will all be in a cell."

"Then what do we do?"

"We do what he does not expect." I picked up the sack with the ledgers in it. "We go into that hall at sundown and we do not say a word about Ruth being dead. We do not say a word about the hanging. We let him tell his story about the confession and the hanging and we sit there and we listen and we let the whole hall hear him say it. And then, when he has finished, we call for the Beta to be brought into the hall. Not the soldiers. The Council. The clerk. We say the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack demands that the Beta be brought before the inquiry to give her evidence in person, as the law allows, and the clerk will look at the law and the clerk will have to say yes." I looked at Hank. "And when Ruth walks into that hall alive, Silas will have to explain why he told us she was dead."

Hank looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "You have become very good at this."

"I have had a good teacher." I turned to the door. "Now sit down and eat something and get some sleep. At sundown we go into that hall."

The afternoon went slowly. I slept for two hours on a blanket in the corner of the pump house with my boots off and my coat under my head and the mark on my arm warm and steady, and when I woke the sun was low and the quarry was throwing long shadows and the wolves were up and moving.

At five o'clock a scout came in. His name was Wren and he was one of the Çöl wolves and he had been on the western rim all afternoon.

"Luna," he said. "There is a thing coming up the canyon road. Not the mesa road. The canyon road from the town. It is a cart and there are four men with it and there is a crate on the cart, and the crate has the company mark on it."

"What is in the crate?"

"I do not know. But they are taking it to the Council hall and the envoy has come out of the hall to meet it himself, and he has brought six soldiers with him and he is smiling."