Chapter 18: Stripped of the Title

"Firstborn," my father said again, and this time the whole hall heard it.

My mother rose from her chair so fast it fell over behind her.

"Bram, no. It is a trick. Look at the register."

She snatched the ledger from the clerk's hands and held it over her head.

"Eleven forty-eight, Odette Hallam. Eleven fifty-nine, Katja. In the Luna's own hand, in the Alpha's own house. Every pack in this room can read it."

"Let the Council read it," the envoy said.

He took the book and turned the page under the lamp.

"The ink on the second line is fresher than the first," he said. "By several days."

"The page was damp."

"Luna. I can smell it from here. This ink was laid down this week."

A rumble went round the Alphas on the benches.

The midwife stood up from the back of the hall.

She walked up the center aisle on Corwin's arm, leaning on her cane, in her old shawl.

"I am the woman who caught both of them," she said, in her dry steady voice. "I kept my own ledger. Hand it up, young man."

Corwin passed it to the envoy.

The envoy laid the two books open side by side.

"The old ledger is bound in cloth and spotted with age," he said. "Water damage and handling, forty years of it. It records the births in order."

He lifted the folded note.

"And this is a note in the Luna's hand. Compare it, Alpha Hallam."

My father took the paper with a hand I could see shaking.

He read the line aloud, slowly.

"Write Odette down as the firstborn. She will be the heir. You will say nothing, ever."

He lowered it.

"That is your hand, Luna."

"It's a forgery."

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