“We have him, Papa,” Cole said as he walked up on the pair. “He’s back in camp with Essien as guard. Addax and Essien captured him quite ably.”
Jax and Atreus turned to him. “He is unharmed?” Jax asked.
Cole nodded. “Not a scratch,” he said. “Shall I take him straight to The Keld?”
Jax pondered that question for a moment. He’d gone through a lot of trouble today simply to rush his captive off to another man’s castle. “Tomorrow,” he finally said. “I intend to interrogate the man myself tonight. I realize that the Alastor de Bourne is involved in this situation more than I am, but I am still part of it. We are under threat, too, and we are much closer to the Scots army should they decide to march, so I want to know what this Alpin Canmore knows. If I must protect myself, thenI want to know when hell is coming before de Bourne and The Marshal have their way with him. There may be nothing left by the time they are finished.”
“You know everything I know to this point,” Cole said, lowering his voice. “You know everything I’ve been gathering over the past two years. Unfortunately, my position next to the king only gave me partial information. There were certain things I did not know that Canmore can hopefully provide. But what we know is this– the Scots, supported by the Norse Earls of Orkney and Shetland, intend to invade England and Alpin Canmore has been sending missives to the House of de Bourne on behalf of William the Lion, as the descendants of the Kings of Northumbria, because the Scots want de Bourne to join their rebellion. They need a strong house inside of Northumberland if they are to succeed.”
“But de Bourne has refused them.”
“He has, but William the Lion does not yet know that,” Cole stressed. “As far as I know, de Bourne has not yet sent a reply to his offer. He sent word to The Marshal first. Therefore, if the Scots army comes…whenthey come… Pelinom is in their path.”
Jax nodded patiently. “I understand that,” he said. “That is why The Marshal gave me permission to send a message to the Scots and the Earls of Orkney on behalf of all of England in the form of my army. I have shown them what will happen should they carry out this scheme. But what I want to know iswhen. When do they plan on coming?”
Cole lifted his eyebrows. “That is why we have captured Alpin,” he said. “That is the only thing we do not know– the time for such things. We do not know when and we do not know from where. For all we know, the Norsemen will come in through Berwick tomorrow. They can bring their longships down the River Tweed and destroy a great deal. This is what Alpin must tell us, Papa. I’m sure he knows.”
Jax simply nodded, returning his attention to an entirely new row of impaled men going up along the western side of the road. Most were already dead, but they were going up nonetheless. Cole turned to watch the poles go up, his thoughts shifting from the prisoner they’d captured to the dirty deeds his father was engaging in. The Scots weren’t going down without a fight. They’d resisted as much as they could, but the de Velt army was too big and quickly overwhelmed any struggle. The Scots were, therefore, being as noisy as they could, bellowing and screaming as they were put on poles.
It made for a loud and disturbing chorus.
“I’ve not had to use tactics like this since before you were born, Cole,” Jax said as if reading Cole’s thoughts. “Something that was a means to an end, as this is. Your mother… she is not happy about what I am doing this day. But, as I told her, it is necessary.”
Cole looked at him. “Never did I question your tactics,” he said. “You need not explain yourself to me. I understand completely why you must do this.”
Jax glanced at him. “Then explain it to me,” he said, a warm glimmer in his eyes. “Tell me why I have done this, lad.”
Jax wanted to see if his son truly understood and Cole was aware of that. It was important for the father-son relationship that Cole understood that his father wasn’t being brutal for brutality’s sake. He was doing it with an end result in mind, to protect those they loved and lands they’d worked hard for. Therefore, Cole’s gaze lingered on his father a moment before turning to the screaming, writhing men.
“They are a threat,” he said simply. “Threats against Mother and my sisters, Effie and Addie. If you do not kill them, they may have the chance to kill my mothers and sisters.”
“And not you?”
Cole shook his head. “I can defend myself. What you are doing is defending my mother and sisters. It is defending what belongs to you and what you love, the life you have built. Your family.”
As Jax mulled over his son’s answer, Atreus spoke up. A wise old man, and strangely gentle given the fact that he was as much of a barbarian twenty-five years ago as Jax ever was.
His blue-eyed gaze fixed on Cole.
“Well put, Coleby,” he said, perhaps one of the only people who called Cole by his full name, which was his mother’s maiden name. “The methods of elimination are the same, but back in the day when your father was bent on conquest, the reasons behind these actions differed.”
Cole cocked his head curiously. “How so?”
Atreus gestured to a big, hairy Scotsman who was resisting about a dozen soldiers who were trying to impale him. “See that man there?” he said. “Twenty-five years ago, your father would have destroyed him because he wanted what that man had. It was a method of eliminating a threat to his greed. But now… now he does it to eliminate the threat to what he has. Do you not think that Scots bastard would kill your mother and sisters given the chance? Of course he would. Every man who is part of Fountainhall’s army was already preparing to do just that. Therefore, your father is protecting what he has and, in that aspect, this is not a barbaric end for these fools. It is a just ending to the plans they were preparing to follow.”
Cole nodded faintly. “I’ve spent the past two years learning about these men, sitting side by side with them at a feasting table and listening to them,” he said. Then, he gestured to Addax. “Ad has heard as much as I have, if not more. Truthfully, when The Marshal tasked me with spying on the Scots royal court, it was with the intention of keeping watch over their activities. I did not have any particular directive other than to observe and report.The alliance with the Earls of Orkney… that was a surprise. I thank God every day that I was in the right place at the right time to learn of something that would directly affect my family.”
Jax put a hand on his son’s very big shoulder. “As am I,” he said. “You have saved us, Cole. I am proud of you. I am proud of you all.”
He meant Addax and Essien, something that made Addax smile modestly. “It has been an honor, my lord,” he said.
“What will you do now?” Atreus asked. “Now that your days of infiltrating the royal court are finished, surely you must have a plan for your future. It is not as if you can return to William the Lion. He’ll hang you both if he sees you.”
Cole and Addax grinned. “I do not know,” Cole said honestly. “I assumed I would return to my father’s army to be used whenever The Marshal had the need.”
“And me,” Addax said. “I have found my home with Cole and the House of de Velt, and I do not wish to leave it. My brother and I rather like England.”
Atreus looked to the man with eyes as black as night. “Someone told me that you had spent some time on the Flemish tournament circuit,” he said. “You do not wish to go back to that foolery? It can make you quite rich.”
