Chapter 11: The Moot

The pack infirmary was a white clapboard house behind the Hall, with herbs drying from every beam.

Maud Aske put me in a chair, gave me tea that tasted of bark, and shut the door.

"The Law of the Thousand has two sentences," she said. "Everyone knows the first."

"The Alpha stands with the mate or yields the seat."

"The second one is never spoken."

"What does it say?"

She folded her hands.

"If the Alpha names his mate before the pack, in the Hall, before the page is read," she said.

"And if she answers him there of her own will, he is bound to no page."

I put down the cup.

"The book doesn't decide," I said.

"The book lists. The two of you decide."

"Then why doesn't Gunnar know?"

"He never read the Law," Maud said.

"I never told him, because he walked out of the hall at thirty-one."

"He wouldn't speak to anyone for sixty years."

"You could have written to him."

"I did. He burned the letters."

I let out a short laugh.

"Oskar cut that page out of the ledger," I said.

"So that you wouldn't find it. And so that no one would have time to use it."

"Then it needs both of us."

"It needs him to choose you in front of everyone," she said, "with nothing to lean on.

And it needs you to answer."

"Answer what?"

"Whatever he asks," said Maud. "In his own words."

I looked at the wall, where a bundle of lavender hung upside down.

"He doesn't know it yet," I said.

"No."

"And if I tell him, he'll say it too soon, and it'll sound like he's reading it off a card."

"Yes," said Maud. "It's why I'm telling you, and not him."

The Moot was called for Wednesday night.

I went to it with Edna Clavering, who wore a navy dress and her pearls and carried a thermos.

"For courage," she said.

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