De Bourne had betrayed him.
It was a sickening realization.
Jax could see that he had the man off-balance and he planned to continue that interrogation tactic. The more he could rattle Alpin, the better.
“I have a family to protect, Canmore,” he said. “You have seen what I am capable of, yet you refuse to tell me what I wish to know? I will stop putting your men on poles this very minute if you tell me what I wish to know. So in a sense, you are responsible for their deaths. Stop killing them, Canmore. The power is yours.”
They could hear the distant screams of agony as more of Canmore’s men were impaled on spikes. Jax knew that it must have been excruciating for Canmore to hear those ghastly sounds, so he backed off his interrogation. He wanted Canmore to ponder his question, and his statement, with those cries of pain searing into his brain.
In truth, he was waiting for the wife to appear.
Then things would get interesting.
As Alpin sat on the cold ground and shivered, Jax had soldiers bring in a brazier and food. They brought glowing coals for the bronze brazier, heating up the metal and staving off the chill in the tent as Jax sat in a comfortable chair and ate a meal right in front of his prisoner. He drank wine, ate cheese and boiled beef, and generally acted as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
But he was biding his time.
More time passed. The screams and cries grew weaker as the afternoon progressed, but in its place grew a silence that was ghastly and deafening. The wind shifted and the smell of blood was on the air. Jax had eaten his fill of is meal, sitting with Alpin in complete silence, listening to the world go on around them outside the tent. Jax had no idea where Essien had gone, but he was thinking about looking outside of the tent flap to see if he could spy Essien, or even Cole or Addax at that point, when the tent flap flew back and knights appeared.
Cole, Addax, and Essien entered the tent with a man and woman between the three of them. Jax stood up as Addax and Essien shoved the pair to their knees.
“Meet Alpin’s wife,” Cole said. “This is Margit. The man next to her is someone we found cowering in the stables before we burned them to the ground. His name is Baloch, he says.”
The woman took one look at Alpin, bound to a pole, and burst into tears. The man next to her was only slightly more composed.
“Mercy, m’laird!” he cried. “Show mercy, please! I take care of my mother and I’m all she has! Please dunna kill me!”
Jax gazed at the pair quite unemotionally before turning to Alpin.
“Do you know this man?” he asked.
Alpin was looking at the two captives as if he were going to become sick. “Aye,” he muttered, barely above a whisper.
“Who is he to you?”
“A cousin.”
Jax’s focus lingered on him a moment before he turned to his son. “Restrain him,” he said quietly. “Expose one hand upon the tabletop.”
Cole and Addax lifted the pleading man to his feet, dragging him over to the only table in the tent, the one that Jax had eaten his meal from. As the man cried and begged for his life, they slammed him down onto the chair and extended his right arm onto the table, holding it down. When everything was in position, Jax turned to Alpin.
“I am going to ask you a question,” he said. “And for every question you refuse to answer, your cousin is going to lose a finger. When all of his fingers are gone, he’ll lose a hand. When the hands are gone, he’ll lose the lower part of an arm. When those are gone, I will start on his toes and repeat the process. You will slowly watch him hacked to death and when I am finished with him, I will do the same thing to your wife. Do you understand what I am telling you so far?”
Alpin was pale with terror. “Ye wouldna do such a thing,” he said. “’Tis barbaric and un-Christian. Ye canna do such a thing tae a man!”
“I can and I will.”
“’Tis uncivilized!”
“It is the way of things,” Jax said simply. “Now, I asked you a question earlier, one you refused to answer. I shall ask you again, just once. If you do not answer me, your cousin shall have one less finger. Is this in any way unclear?”
“I –!”
“When does William and Orkney expect to execute their intentions?”
Alpin’s mouth worked as if he were going to answer swiftly but, ultimately, he groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “Ye dunna know… I… why would ye ask me such a question?” he stammered. “Do ye think the king himself takes me intae his confidence? I’m no’ a great laird!”
Jax looked over at Cole, who took the hint. He gave a short nod to Addax, who produced an enormous dagger with a serrated edge. It was a beautiful weapon, made from Damascus steel. Quicker than the blink of an eye, Addax cut off the captive’s smallest finger on his right hand. As the man screamed in agony, Addax picked up the digit and walked it over to Alpin, taking the freshly cut side of it and smearing it on the side of his cheek.
Alpin vomited all down the front of his tunic.
Addax tossed the finger onto his lap.
Between the screaming of the cousin, the shrieking of the wife, and Alpin’s gasps of terror, the tent had quickly become a chaotic place. Jax, completely unruffled in the face of such upheaval, continued to face Alpin.
“When do William and Orkney expect to execute their intentions?” he asked again.
Alpin was beginning to grow hysterical as his cousin screamed and wept, his arm still stretched out on the table and bleeding profusely. No one was making any attempt to stop the blood flow.
“I dunna know!” Alpin cried.
Jax looked at Addax, who immediately hacked off the next finger. Alpin’s wife began screaming at the top of her lungs, wildly, as Alpin’s cousin bellowed in agony and begged for mercy. Addax picked up the finger he’d just cut off and dropped it down Alpin’s tunic. The man gagged again as the finger got caught up in the folds of his tunic, holding it against the flesh of his belly.
“Their intentions, Canmore,” Jax said quite emotionlessly. “I want to know what they are planning. Your cousin only has eight fingers left.”
“Tell him!” the wife screamed. “For the love of God, Alpin, tell him!”
Jax looked at Cole and then to the wife, silently relaying the command. Cole went over to the old woman with the red hair and unsheathed his dagger. The wife screamed at the top of her lungs, knowing her death was at hand, and Alpin began to scream as well.
“No more!” he cried. “Dunna touch her! I’ll tell ye, ye Sassenach bastards, but dunna touch her. Cut her and I’ll take everything ye want tae know tae my grave!”
Jax called off Cole, who immediately moved away from the woman as she collapsed in a dead faint. He then collected a chair and pulled it up in front of Alpin, looking at the man seriously.
“Excellent,” he said. “That was a wise decision. When is William planning to execute his plans?”
Alpin glared him, a look of pure hatred, but his hatred was tempered by his sense of self-preservation. “What assurances do I have that ye’ll no’ kill my wife after I’ve told ye want ye want tae know?”
Jax shook his head. “You have none,” he said. “But I will give you my word. Answer my questions and I will spare you and your wife and your cousin.”