Chapter 26: The Ward Clause

Nobody in the yard breathed.

Hamish Gault looked at my mother with mild reproach.

She smiled back at him with her gloved hand on her chest.

"Judith," he said. "You're my guest. Let the Alpha speak for himself."

"I know what it does," Ewan said.

He did not raise his voice.

He stepped out from the head table and took my elbow, lightly, and waited to see if I would let him.

"She'll hear it from me," he told Hamish. "Not from you, and not from her."

"Of course," said Hamish. "It's only fair."

Ewan walked me out of the yard.

Four hundred wolves watched us go, and the lanterns swung in the wind.

He took me up four flights of stone stairs to the room at the top of the east wing.

It held his maps, his books and one wide chair.

He shut the door and stood with his back to it.

"If I lose the ring," he said, "everything on this hill becomes Hamish Gault's. The chair, the land, the wolves."

"I know that part."

"The Standing Right has a second clause. It's old.

"It was written for conquered houses, so the winner could keep the loser's guests from running to a rival."

"Guests."

"Every wolf under the roof who has never sworn to the Keep. They become the winner's wards for a year and a day."

"Wards."

"They can't leave his land. They can't refuse his table. They can't marry, or be mated, without his word."

I sat down on the arm of the wide chair.

"I never swore to the Keep."

"No."

"You never asked me."

"I promised I wouldn't," Ewan said. "I haven't."

I thought about it. I made myself think about all of it, slowly, with my hands flat on my knees.

"So I'm the prize," I said.

"You're the whole point. He doesn't need the Keep. He's got a lake and three hundred wolves of his own."

His voice dropped.

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