It was his father.
With the last of his strength, Conall grabbed the rope and held on for dear life as he was pulled in and dragged onto the deck of the ship. Once there, he collapsed onto his back on the hard boards, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to catch his breath.
In the next instant, he flipped onto his knees and climbed to his feet. He staggered, put a hand onto the railing to support himself, as his father strode over.
“By God, boy!” his father thundered. “That was close! What did ye think ye were doing?”
“I could ask the same of ye,” Conall growled, flicking the wet hair out of his eyes. He pushed away from the rail and straightened. “Care to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” his father snapped. “Saving yer bloody arse! Will ye never learn, boy? Ye could have ruined everything!”
Conall looked over his father’s shoulder. Snarlsson’s ship was getting further away. “I have to go,” he muttered.
But as he walked off, his father grabbed his arm, swinging him around to face him. “Ye aren’t going anywhere.”
“And how are ye going to stop me? Throw me in jail again?”
His father winced. “That was for yer own good.”
“My own good?” Conall snarled. He was taller than his father now. He’d never noticed that before. “Throwing me in a cell and keeping me from Molly was for my own good?”
“If ye had stayed there, neither ye nor Molly would be in this mess right now!”
That gave him pause. Before he could answer, one of his father’s sailors came running up. “They’re flying the white flag, sir,” he panted. “They’re offering to surrender.”
“And the ship with Snarlsson and Brewer on board?”
“Not that one. They’re making a run for it.”
Earl Sinclair growled under his breath. “Accept the fleet’s surrender but keep the cannons trained on them. I wouldnae trust any of these bastards as far as I could throw them. Blockade the approach to the harbor. We dinna want any more trying to escape.”
“Aye, sir.” The sailor dashed off.
The cannons fell silent and Conall raked his gaze across Snarlsson’s fleet. “So ye’ve won,” he said to his father. “What now? Ye’ll turn those cannons on Thurso?”
“Egad, boy!” his father bellowed, whirling on him. “Are ye being deliberately blind or doing it just to get at me?”
“Call me ‘boy’ again, Father,” Conall replied, his fists clenching. “And by God, I swear I’ll throw ye overboard.”
His father faced up to him. His fists were clenched too, his lips pulled back in a snarl. He had that look on his face that had filled Conall with fear when he was a boy, but now it had no power over him.
“I will stop calling ye boy, when ye stop acting like one! Dear God, Conall, if ye dinna wish to believe my words, then look around ye! Believe the evidence of yer own eyes! Does it look like I’m planning on attacking Thurso? Or does it look like I’ve ended the threat of Snarlsson’s fleet like I was planning to do all along?”
Conall peered around. Snarlsson’s ships were all surrendering but the Sinclair ships still had their guns trained on them. Trained on them and not on Fiona’s boats or on the settlement of Thurso.
“I...I dinna understand,” he said hesitantly. “Are ye saying this was all a...trap?”
“Good Lord, I think he’s got it! Aye, it was a trap. And ye nearly bloody ruined everything with yer meddling!”
“But...but...ye gave him weapons. Ye made an alliance with Snarlsson.”
“Aye, I gave him weapons. Weapons that were sabotaged from the start. Or didnae ye not notice that none of his cannons fired?” He sighed and all the fight seemed to go out of him. Now he looked old and tired. He wiped a hand across his face. “And as for the alliance, how else could I lure him out? How else could I get the spider to leave his web so I could trap him? Ye wouldnae believe how hard Adaira and I worked to make contact with Alice Brewer and by extension, Leif Snarlsson. That’s why she wasnae here when ye arrived. She was making final preparations after months of work. Then ye turned up. Yer timing is impeccable, lad. Do ye know how close ye came to ruining it all?”
Conall blinked, struggling to catch up. “But if ye weren’t in league with him, why all the subterfuge? Why not just tell the Order of the Osprey, or the king?”
“Because Leif Snarlsson has spies everywhere, that’s why! The only way to be sure he didnae find out was to tell nobody. Only Adaira and I knew the full extent of our plan.”
Conall felt the world shifting beneath his feet and it wasn’t just the swaying motion of the ship. All this time he’d thought the worst of his father. He’d thought him a ruthless, uncaring monster. But now?
