The Spring Between Us

Chapter 49: A Luna on Trial

We took her at the pump house door.

She did not run. Berik came out of the rocks behind her and put his hand on her shoulder and she turned and looked at him and then at me, and she said, "Luna. I can explain."

"You can explain at the hall," I said. "In front of the Council and both packs. Come up the road."

She came. We walked her up the mesa road at first light with four warriors around her and the lantern swinging, and she did not say a word the whole way. At the pack house I put her in the record room with Berik at the door, and I went and washed my face and put on my grey jacket with the crest on the pocket and took the ledgers out of my mother's room and the pact out of my jacket and the rings off the washstand.

Hank was in the yard when I came down. Nora was beside him.

"The hearing is at noon," he said. "The town is coming up the canyon road. Owen sent a rider at dawn to say there are eighty of them and they are bringing a cart with a cask on it and they have painted something on the cask."

"What have they painted on it?"

"I do not know. The rider said it was the word water and a line through it." Hank looked at me. "Derya. Inge."

"Inge was at the pump house last night with a lantern. She was in there for an hour." I looked at the record room door. "I have her in the record room and I am going to walk her down that road to the hall and put her in front of the Council and ask her what she was doing there. But first I am going to ask her something myself."

I went into the record room.

Inge was sitting at the table with her hands in her lap. She was fifty and she had worked in the kitchen for twenty years and her face was grey and her eyes were red, and she looked at me when I came in and did not look away.

"Why the pump house?" I said.

She did not answer.

"Inge. I have not slept in two days and I am not going to argue with you. You were in the pump house at midnight with a lantern. There is a chamber under that pump house and it has a hatch and a lock and a table in it. Did Silas send you to burn the ledger?"

Her hands moved in her lap. Then she said, "There was nothing in the chamber. It is empty. The table is gone and the pump is gone and the map is gone and there is nothing down there but a hole in the floor."

I sat down across from her.

"When did you go down there first?"

"Three nights ago. The Council man sent a soldier up the mesa road with a note and the note said to go down to the pump house and take what was in the chamber and bring it to him and he would pay me and my husband would keep his job at the quarry." She looked at me. "My husband has worked at that quarry for twenty two years. When the water went dry the company cut the shifts and he was on three days a week and we have a son in the town who cannot find work. The Council man knew that. He knows everything."

"And Arne?"

Inge's face did not change. "I did not poison Arne."

"You put the wolfsbane in the barrel."

"I did not."

"Inge."

"I did not put the wolfsbane in the barrel." Her voice had gone hard. "I took the wolfsbane out of Mira's box because the Council man told me to and I brought it to him and he gave me money. That is all. I did not put it in a barrel and I did not give an order to any warrior and I did not stand in a corridor and speak in the Beta's voice." She put her hand flat on the table. "And if you want to know who did, you should ask the wolf who has been living in Ruth's quarters since Ruth died and wearing Ruth's coat and standing at the gate in the evening talking to the Council soldiers."

I looked at her.

"Who?" I said.

"Sten's sister. Wren. She has been in Ruth's quarters since the funeral and she has been wearing Ruth's grey jacket and she has been at the gate every evening and I have seen her talking to the soldiers." Inge's hands were shaking now. "I did not want to say it. Wren is a warrior's sister and there are twenty two warriors who have turned their backs on you and if I say Wren's name they will say I am lying. But I am not lying. I have not lied to you except about the wolfsbane and I am telling you that now because I am frightened and because Arne is dead and because I did not know the Council man would kill anyone."

I sat in the record room with my hands on the table.

"Come with me," I said. "Down to the hall. And say all of that in front of the Council and both packs."

She came. We walked her down the mesa road at eleven in the morning with the wagon and the ledgers and the pact and the rings and the whole pack, and the town was in the yard of the Council hall with a cart and a cask when we got there, and the hall was full.

The clerk struck the table three times and read the order of proceedings and Silas stood up at the front with his hat in his hand and said, "The Council of Alphas will hear the matter of the Kızıltaş succession. The Luna will stand and be examined. The healer will examine the mark on her arm in front of the hall. The Alpha of the Çöl pack will stand and be examined. The Council will hear evidence as to the Luna's fitness and the consent of both packs, and it will rule."

I stood up.

"Before the healer is called," I said, "I have a thing to say to this hall."

Silas looked at me. "Luna. This is a Council hearing and there is an order of proceedings."

"I know. I have read it." I put the ledgers on the table. "Twenty years ago a Council envoy came to this canyon and told the packs that the water under the quarry belonged to the Council. It did not. It belonged to the two packs and to the land, and there is a pact in this canyon that is older than the Council of Alphas that says so. I have the pact. I have the ledgers. I have the rings the first pair wore. And I have a town in this yard and two packs in this hall who have been drinking water that was sold out from under them for twenty years." I put the pact on the table and unrolled it. "Before this hall rules on my seat, it will hear the pact read aloud. That is the law of this canyon and the law of this canyon is older than the Council."

The hall went quiet.

Silas looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "Read it."

I read it.

I read the top and the middle and the bottom. I read the part about the water and the part about the pair and the part about the rings and the part about the spring. I read the line that said the pair shall be known by the marks on their arms and the rings on their hands, and the line that said the spring shall fail if the pair is broken. And when I was done I put the two rings on the table beside the pact and I held up my arm where the mark was bare and bright and I said, "The healer may examine this arm now. It is a bond mark and it has been on my arm since the first night I crossed into Çöl territory. The wolf it belongs to is the Alpha of the Çöl pack and he is standing in this hall and he is not going to deny it."

Hank stood up. He pushed his sleeve up and held out his arm.

The hall made a sound.

Silas looked at the two of us standing there with the marks on our arms and the rings on the table and the pact unrolled, and his pleasant face did not change. He said, "The Council has heard the pact and the mark is proven. The bond is between a Luna and a rival Alpha and it has not been recorded and it has not been consented to by either pack. Under the law it is void, and the pair shall be separated and confined for a year, and the Luna's seat shall be held in trust."

The hall went loud.

And then Inge stood up in the middle of the hall and said, "I have a thing to say."

Silas turned and looked at her and his face changed for the first time.

Inge said, "I am the one who took the wolfsbane from the healer's box. The Council man paid me. And the wolf who put it in the barrel and who has been going down to the pump house at night and who has been talking to the soldiers at the gate is the wolf they call Wren."

The hall went very quiet.

Wren was standing at the back of the hall in a grey jacket with her hand on the door frame.

She turned and ran.