The Spring Between Us

Chapter 50: Ruth Takes the Seat

Wren did not get far.

She got through the side door and out into the yard and Berik went after her with two warriors and they brought her back in four minutes. She came in with her grey jacket torn and her hair down and her hands behind her back, and she did not look at me. She looked at Silas.

The hall was on its feet. The town was shouting. The Kızıltaş wolves were shouting. The Çöl wolves were standing with their hands on their belts and Nora was at the front of them with her white hair and her face like a stone.

Silas struck the table with his own hand. It was the first time I had seen him do anything with force and the sound of it went through the hall and the hall went quiet.

"Sit down," he said. "All of you. Sit down or I will have the hall cleared and I will hold this hearing in a locked room with the Council clerk and the healer and nobody else."

They sat. Slowly. Wren was put on a bench at the front with Berik on one side and a Çöl warrior on the other.

"The Luna of the Kızıltaş pack has made a statement," Silas said. "The Omega of the Kızıltaş pack has made a statement. And a warrior of the Kızıltaş pack has been accused of poisoning a wolf of her own pack." He looked at Wren. "Stand up."

Wren stood up.

"Did you put wolfsbane in a barrel of water in the Kızıltaş pack house?"

Wren looked at him for a long moment. Then she said, "I want to speak to the Council man alone."

"You will speak to the Council man in front of the hall."

"Then I will say nothing." Wren's voice was steady. "I will say nothing in front of a hall that has already decided what I am. I want a Council hearing in a closed room with the clerk and the healer and the Council man and no wolves of either pack. That is what the law allows a warrior who is accused. I know it is, because the Beta read it to me." She looked at me. "Ruth read it to me the week before she died. She said a wolf who is accused of a thing in a hall can ask for a closed hearing and the Council has to give it."

The hall stirred. Silas looked at the clerk. The clerk looked at his papers and said something to Silas in a low voice.

Silas's jaw worked. Then he said, "The request is in order. The hearing on the matter of the poisoning will be held in a closed room after this hearing is concluded. The warrior will be held in Council custody until then." He turned to the clerk. "Take her out."

They took her out. The hall sat back down.

"Now," Silas said. "The matter of the Kızıltaş succession and the matter of the bond."

I stood up again. My heart was going and the mark on my arm was warm and I had a pact on the table and two rings beside it and a town in the yard and the whole of the hall looking at me.

"The pact is read," I said. "The mark is proven. The rings are on the table. The town is in the yard. The creek is running again. The spring answers to the pair, and the pair is standing in this hall. Under the law of this canyon that is older than the Council, the seat is mine and the bond is lawful."

Silas looked at me. Then he said, "The pact is not a Council document and this is a Council hearing. The Council of Alphas does not recognize a pact that was never filed with it. The Council recognizes the truce law, and the truce law says that a bond between rival packs is void until it is recorded and consented to by both packs." He turned to the hall. "The Council has heard the evidence. The Council has heard the Luna's own admission that the bond is real and unrecorded. The Council has heard no consent from either pack, because no vote has been taken by either pack." He put his hat on the table. "So the Council will take one now. The Kızıltaş pack will vote on whether it consents to a bond between its Luna and the Alpha of the Çöl pack. And the Çöl pack will vote on the same question. And the Council will record the votes and rule accordingly."

The hall went quiet.

"Vote?" I said. "You are going to put my bond to a vote."

"The law does not ask whether a Luna likes a thing. It asks whether the packs consent." Silas looked at the hall. "Kızıltaş wolves. Stand up and be counted. Those who consent to the bond, stand on the left. Those who do not, stand on the right."

The hall did not move for a long moment. Then Sten stood up at the back and walked to the right. And behind him a warrior stood and went to the right and another and another, and then Inge stood and went to the right, and then a woman from the kitchen and then a young wolf from the stable.

I stood at the table and watched them go.

The left filled slowly. Cal went left. Berik went left. Old Tomas went left. The Çöl wolves went left almost to a wolf, and Nora went left with her chin up. But the right filled faster. By the time the last wolf had moved, there were thirty one on the right and twenty eight on the left, and the Kızıltaş pack had voted against its own Luna.

The hall was silent.

"The Kızıltaş pack does not consent," Silas said. "The clerk will record it. Now the Çöl pack. Stand up and be counted."

The Çöl pack went left, almost all of them. But eight went right, and one of them was Ryland, the former Beta, standing at the back with his hat in his hands.

"The Çöl pack consents," Silas said. "The Kızıltaş pack does not. Under the truce law, a bond requires the consent of both packs. The bond is void." He looked at me. "The Council rules that the mark on the Luna's arm is not a lawful bond. The Council further rules that the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack is unfit to hold the seat, having concealed a bond and having failed to hold the consent of her own pack." He picked up his hat. "The seat of the Kızıltaş pack is held in trust by the Council of Alphas until a suitable wolf is found to hold it. The Council names the Beta of the Kızıltaş pack as trustee."

The hall went loud again. I stood at the table with the pact under my hand and the rings beside it and I said, "Ruth is dead."

The hall went quiet.

Silas looked at me and his pleasant face was very calm. "The Council has a second Beta. The Council named a wolf to stand beside the Beta of the Kızıltaş pack four weeks ago and that wolf has been serving in the pack house since the funeral. The Council names her as trustee." He turned. "Wren. Come forward."

Wren came forward. She had not left the hall. She had been standing by the side door with Berik's hand on her arm and she came forward now with her grey jacket torn and her hair down, and she stood at the front of the hall beside Silas and looked out at the pack.

"The Council of Alphas names Wren, Beta of the Kızıltaş pack, as interim Luna and trustee of the seat until the inquiry is complete."

I stood there with my hand on the pact and the rings on the table and the mark on my arm and I said, "You cannot do this. She is accused of poisoning a warrior of her own pack."

"She is accused," Silas said. "She has not been tried. And under the law of the Council a wolf who is accused is presumed innocent until the Council rules. She will stand her trial in a closed room and if she is found guilty she will be removed from the seat. Until then she is the trustee." He put his hat on. "The hearing is concluded. The Council thanks the hall for its attendance. The town may go home."

The hall did not go home. The hall stood where it was and looked at Wren standing at the front with her grey jacket torn and her chin up, and Wren looked back at them and said, "I did not poison Arne. I will prove it in the closed room. And I will hold this seat until the Council finds a wolf who can hold it better than the girl who let a rogue walk out of a hall."

The hall did not cheer. But it did not argue either.

Silas went out through the side door. The clerk gathered his papers. The soldiers cleared the yard. And I stood at the long table with the pact under my hand and the rings beside it and my pack around me with their faces turned away, and I said, very quietly, to nobody in particular, "I need to see the lease."

Hank was beside me.

"What?"

"The land lease. The south section. The one Ruth signed the morning she died." I looked at him. "Silas did not want the bond. He did not want the seat. He has been coming to this canyon for nine years and he has never once asked about a bond. He wants the quarry. He has always wanted the quarry. And this morning he got it, because the trustee of the Kızıltaş pack is a wolf who signed his lease." I picked up the pact and rolled it. "We have to get that lease back."