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 he 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.”