Ares looked at him as if he were expecting more. His eyebrows lifted. “You are going to get him drunk?”
“At Cole’s suggestion. He says it loosens the man’s tongue.”
“In vino veritas, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
Ares glanced over at Cole de Velt, standing near the hearth. He was an absolutely enormous knight, with dark blond hair and eyes that almost had a reptilian appearance because of the strange coloring. Ares knew the of the man’s family, of course. Everyone in the north did. Cole had distinguished himself in a some of the baron’s wars against the king a few years ago, but he hadn’t heard of the man for the past couple of years. Still, here he was, in the middle of a serious situation. He’d captured a prisoner that was important to the de Bourne cause, and the cause of all of northern England.
Because the directives to his father were coming from a de Velt, Ares shut his mouth. The family’s reputation was beyond contestation and he wasn’t going to argue about it.
In fact, he wanted to see where it went.
Backing off, Ares and Atlas headed over to a corner of the chamber where Anteaus was leaning against the wall.
Watching… and waiting…
They were willing to see just how far a little drink would take them.
“My father asked for what?”
The question came from Corisande as she faced the servant her father had sent to the kitchens. The servant was the man who shadowed her father at The Keld, an older man with missing teeth and a round form, but humbly obedient.
“Drink, my lady,” the servant said. “He asked for the frost wine from Saxony.”
She frowned. “That is our most expensive wine,” she said. “It will also get a man drunk after only one cup. It is very strong.”
“He asked for it, my lady.
Corisande had come to the kitchens to make sure food was prepared for their visitors and she thought the servant’s request for the very sweet, very strong “frost” wine was a strange one. They didn’t have very much of it because it was expensive, and when there was a gathering, her father and brothers favored apple ale from York that had been brewed by the same family for two hundred years. They bought it by the wagon loads.
But her father wasn’t asking for the apple cider ale this time.
He was asking for the strong wine.
“Is someone ill and needs reviving?” she asked curiously. “That wine is so strong that I have given it to my father and my brothers when they do not feel well. It is medicinal.”
The servant shook his head, his jowls quivering. “No one is ill that I am aware of, my lady,” he said. “Although… although one of the men does not look very well.”
“The man sitting by the hearth?”
“Aye. Mayhap it is for him.”
That only made her more curious. Her father had specifically sent her away, telling her that the Scotsman didn’t need assistance, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. Her dedication to duty demanded she return to that room – and the ill visitor.
“I will bring it,” she said. “Go about your business.”
The servant obeyed. Corisande went to the vault beneath the kitchens where they stored things like meat and butter and anything that did well in cold storage, including the frost wine, which was made from frozen grapes and prized for its sweetness. She found three dusty earthenware bottles, sealed with wax, and brought them up to the kitchens.
Between her and the cook, they managed to dislodge the wax on all three bottles and pour the contents into two big pitchers. With the pitchers and cups on a tray, Corisande headed for her father’s solar once again, grimly determined to be of help. When she reached the chamber door, she didn’t bother to knock.
She walked right in.
The men in the room turned to her, surprised she had made a reappearance, but she ignored them. Anteaus, always the good brother, rushed to help her set the heavy tray upon the table that contained the things their father needed to manage the de Bourne empire. Vellum, quill, and maps were pushed away to make room. A cup with a little ale left at the bottom, old, spilled when Anteaus accidentally knocked it over in his haste.
He wiped it off with his hand.
“My thanks, Cori,” Alastor said, though he didn’t sound pleased. “You did not have to bring this yourself.
Corisande brushed off her hands after having wiped up the remnants of Anteaus’ spill. “I know,” she said, her focus drifting over to the man seated before the hearth. “But this wine is quite… strong. Mayhap our guest should be aware.”
Alastor suspected that she knew it was for the Scotsman. She was obvious about that, and he knew she only wanted to help a man that was clearly in distress, but her presence was starting to annoy him.
“Go, now,” he said. “You may leave us.”
Corisande ignored him. She poured a full measure of the wine into the cup and went to the man on the chair before her father could stop her.
“Here,” she said. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”
Canmore eyed her, eyed the drink, and his thirst won out over his stubborn pride. Refusal had been written all over his face, but he wanted the drink. He needed it. He snatched it from her with quivering hands and downed nearly half the cup in two big swallows. Licking his lips, he eyed her again.
“There’s no poison in this, is there?” he asked suspiciously.
Corisande cocked an eyebrow. “’Tis a little late to be asking,” she said wryly. “But I will answer your question – of course there is no poison in it. That is a very fine wine from Saxony. It is quite strong, so be cautious.”
Canmore’s gaze lingered on her and took another gulp. “It is a woman’s drink.”
He said it as if that were a bad thing. “I notice that has not stopped you from drinking it,” she said. “Drink it all down. It will help warm and calm you.”
He obeyed and downed the rest of the sweet, tart wine. He seemed quite normal about it until Corisande reached out to take the empty cup. Instead of handing it to her, he grabbed her hand and yanked her hard against him. The cup clattered to the ground and, in an instant, his hairy arm was across her neck.
In an instant, the tables turned. The captive was now in control and the sounds of swords being unsheathed echoed against the walls.
But Canmore was prepared.
“I’ll kill the lass if ye dunna drop yer weapons!” he growled, backing up against the wall next to the hearth and dragging Corisande with him. “Do ye hear me, ye bloody Sassenachs? I’ll kill her if ye dunna do as I say!”
Corisande yelped as he gave her neck a good squeeze and she grasped his arm, trying to keep him from strangling her. All she could see was her father and brothers in front of her, various stages of outrage on their faces and weapons in their hands. Ares was positively red with fury. But her father forced them to back away and she found herself looking at Cole de Velt.
He moved to stand right in front of her, absolutely fearless.
“I did not think you were this stupid, Canmore,” he said in that deep, grumbling tone. “You disappoint me. My father still holds your wife. If you release Lady Corisande, I will not tell him of this, but if you refuse, I will send word to my father about your behavior. It will not go well for your wife.”
Canmore was trembling all over, his edgy gaze glaring at the man with the unusual eyes. “Ye’ll send word tae yer father tae release her or I’ll snap this lass’ neck and ye’ll no’ be able tae do a thing about it. Do as I say!”
Cole didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on Canmore like a hunter sighting prey – unblinking, unmoving. After a moment, he smiled, but it was humorless.
And terrifying.
“Give her to me and I will not tell my father what you have done,” he repeated. “If you do not, do you want me to describe what my father will do to your wife? And do you wish for me to describe what will happen to you? I hope pain is something you enjoy because you will have your fill of it. And
so will your wife.”
Canmore’s trembling seemed to grow worse and his grip on Corisande tightened. “Ye dirty, lying bastard,” he said. Then, he looked around the chamber at the faces gazing back at him, but he mostly focused on Alastor. “All of ye are dirty bastards. De Bourne, I made ye a fair offer and this is how ye repay me? Do ye no’ realize that the Northmen are coming tae reclaim their lands? If ye dunna stand with them, ye’ll die. All of ye will die.”
“You first,” Alastor growled.
Canmore sighed heavily, his nasty breath on Corisande’s neck. “Ye’re the descendants of the Bloodaxe,” he said as if the man were a dolt. “These lands belong tae ye. How can ye no’ want what is yer due? We’re offering tae help ye. Can ye no’ see that, ye fool?”
Alastor stepped forward, standing next to Cole. “’Tis you who are the fool, Canmore,” he said. “I do not know who has been feeding you tales of victory, but this is a battle you cannot win. There is a whole massive country to the south with thousands of men who will come north and drive you and your Northmen allies back into Scotland. They’ll drive you all back into the sea.”
“Tis our right!”
“’Tis madness.”
Canmore’s mouth was working furiously. “This was once the land of the Picts, long ago,” he said. “The Northmen came and took Lindisfarne and Berwick, and they ruled for many years in the north. They are willing tae share this land with us – and ye. Yer bloodlines come from the last King of Northumbria. Eric Bloodaxe was a bloody ruler, a strong ruler. Would he no’ want ye tae reclaim yer right?”
They were arguing the contents of Alpin’s missives to Alastor for all to hear. This was everything he’d sent to Alastor in those hastily scribbled missives he’d been sending over the past year. But Alastor was grateful for the opportunity to discuss them because he wanted to make it clear to Alpin, as well as his allies, where he stood.
He had no time for delusions of conquest.
“Do you know where our family name comes from?” he said. “A bourne is a stream, a brook that runs through the land. An ancestor took the name de Bourne because it was said that Eric Bloodaxe killed so many, and was such a vicious and evil ruler, that there were streams of blood running all throughout his land. I have no desire to continue his legacy as such. There will be no blood on my lands as long as I am head of the House of de Bourne, and I shall not rebel against the English, of which I am one. We are united, and the north is peaceful for the most part. I will not engage in a war I know I cannot win.”
Canmore shook his head as if the man were a complete idiot, but his trembling was growing worse. That wine he’d sucked down so rapidly was already filling his veins and going to his head, making him unsteady.
“Then ye’ll die a fool’s death,” he said. “There are others that dunna feel as ye do. They are prepared tae join us.”
Alastor was careful in his reply. “Other Englishmen?”
Canmore snorted, pulling tighter with his grip on Corisande, who had thus far remained silent and still. But she winced when he squeezed tighter, something that made Ares and Atlas lurch in her direction as Alastor held up a hand to stop them.
Not yet, lads…
“Answer me,” Alastor said. “There are other English? They must not be very powerful. There is no one in the north that I know of who would join you. The Normans rule here, Canmore.”
Canmore made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. “Ye know nothing,” he muttered. “Tha an fhìrinn ann am Bearaig.”
Alastor didn’t speak Gaelic, but he was coming to the end of his patience. He wanted his daughter back and it was clear that the wine Canmore had ingested was making him tipsy. The frost wine had that effect on even the strongest of men.
“De Velt,” he said to Cole, still looking at Canmore. “Send word to your father. If he holds this fool’s wife, tell him to do what he wishes with her. Hang her from the battlements if he chooses. Canmore is no longer of any value to us.”
He was trying to force Canmore into more of a confession, but it had the opposite effect. As the man began to tense, Corisande could feel what the men in the room couldn’t. She could feel the arm around her neck tightening and she was starting to see stars because of it. But there was one problem to Canmore’s grip. He had her at an awkward angle, his arm partially covering her chin, which was probably the only thing preventing him from genuinely strangling her. She had been listening to the odd conversation, coming to realize he was no ordinary visitor. In fact, he was a prisoner from what she could gather, obviously someone who had been trying to coerce her father into doing… something. She had no idea what it was and she didn’t care. All she knew was that she didn’t want to die.
Fear had her planning her own escape.
She wasn’t going to let the man break her neck.
Lowering her chin, she managed to get her mouth on the fleshy part of his arm without him really noticing because he was too focused on de Velt. Quick as a flash, she bit him, digging her teeth into his flesh as hard as she could.
The results were as she had hoped.
Canmore screamed and loosened his grip as Cole shot out a giant hand and grabbed her, pulling her away from Canmore as the man staggered sideways. It was just enough for Addax to step in and grab the man by the throat, but Canmore panicked and ended up pitching himself backwards as Addax lost his grip. His momentum took him straight into that roaring fire.
In seconds, he was consumed with flame.
Cole still had Corisande, but Alastor quickly reached out and pulled her against him, throwing her into a protective embrace as Addax and Ares tried to pull Canmore out of the hearth. But it was too late. His hair and clothing had gone up in an instant and he was already fully engulfed. His cries of agony filled the chamber as Alastor quickly ushered his daughter out while Anteaus and Atlas ran for buckets of water, their shouts to the servants echoing through the keep.
The entire situation disintegrated into chaos.
Alastor had taken Corisande out of the chamber, but only to the door before he released her and ran back into his solar as a man burned to death before his very eyes. Corisande stood in the entry, watching in utter horror as Canmore’s squirming lessened. He was mostly in the hearth except for his legs, but he was kicking so much that he was scattering big logs of burning wood onto the floor. He was risking burning down the entire chamber, so she watched as Cole and the knights who had come with him shoved Canmore back into the hearth and used a shovel and a fire poker to keep him there.
Gradually, he stopped moving.
After that, Corisande couldn’t watch anymore. She wandered over to the mural stairs as her brothers and several soldiers rushed back into the keep, into the solar to extinguish the burning body. She made it as far as the third step before plopping down and watching the activity, shocked and horrified by what she had just witnessed.
She’d never seen anything like it.
Even though Alastor had tried to remove her from the scene, she could still see what was happening. The door to the chamber was open and she could see men moving about, tossing water into the hearth and moving anything flammable away from the mess. Servants brought some of the chairs out of the solar along with the vellum that had been on the nearby table to keep it safe from the flames and water now being thrown around.
Corisande began to think that she had somehow contributed to the man’s horrible death by biting him. If she was honest with herself, this whole situation had started when she entered the chamber with the wine. Her father had told her to stay away, but she hadn’t listened. She’d wanted to help the Scotsman in defiance of her father, but she’d ended up making herself a target when the man grabbed her.
And now this.
Arms wrapped around her torso, she hung her head and tried not to weep.
“My lady?”
A deep voice startled her and she lifted her head to see Cole standing there. He was looking at her with concern.
“Is h
e dead?” she asked hoarsely.
He nodded. “Aye,” he said. “There was nothing we could do. Are you well? He did not injure you?”
She shook her head. “He did not injure me,” she said. “But… but I fear I killed him.”
His brows flickered with confusion. “How did you kill him?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but the tears started to come. “I let him grab me,” she said, trying not to openly weep. “I did not mean to, but I did. Had I not given him that wine, he would not have grabbed me. I would not have bitten him and he would not have fallen into the hearth.”
She sniffed and lowered her head, wiping at the tears that were trickling down her cheeks. Cole’s gaze lingered on her a moment before he took a seat on the step below where she was sitting. Since the stairs were wide, they were a few feet apart, a proper distance, as he faced her.
“I think you are looking at this the wrong way,” he said with a surprising amount of compassion. “Alpin Canmore was a man with free will. He made the choice to grab you. He was not coerced. Everything that happened was by his choice. You did nothing wrong.”
Her shaking hand continued to wipe away the tears that were falling. “You are kind to say so, but it is not the truth,” she said. “It would not have happened had I not been there. I did not mean to cause trouble.”
“You did not,” Cole said. “Any trouble was caused by Canmore alone. You were simply a victim of his bad decision, so you must not blame yourself for any of this, my lady, truly.”
Corisande could see that he was trying to comfort her, making sure she was tended to as her father and brothers dealt with the madness in the solar. Realizing that Cole had made a special effort to come to her when everyone else was occupied made her take a second look at the man. It was an inordinately kind gesture on his part and certainly not expected from a man who bore the name of the most brutal warlord in England.
The Dark Spawn (Battle Lords of de Velt Book 5) Page 8
