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“Gather the men,” he told Brock. “We’ll leave as soon as I have the location of their camp.”
“Ye’ll speak to him?”
“Aye.”
Chrisdean usually left the interrogations to Brock. He wasn’t the kind of man who could inflict pain on someone else outside of battle without his stomach churning. He wasn’t as hardened as Brock. But when Nimue was involved, there was no limit to what Chrisdean might do.
The cells were damp and dark when he got there, drops of water falling down from the ceiling in rhythmic taps. Chrisdean saw the Englishman in the second cell, curled up into himself in the corner, sitting quietly and looking out of the barred window that only showed the grey sky. He approached him slowly, and though he knew that the other man had heard him, he never once turned to look at him.
With a sigh, Chrisdean stopped right in front of the bars. He looked at the man and realized that he was young, much younger than him, and for a moment, he wondered what Brock had done to him already.
“What’s yer name?” he asked him.
The man finally turned to look at him. “William,” he said. His voice was rough and hoarse, as though he had been shouting. Chrisdean remained silent for a few moments, but so did the Englishman, and soon it became clear that he wouldn’t speak again on his own.
“Brock came to see ye, did he na?” Chrisdean asked, and at the mention of Brock’s name, the boy cowered even more in the corner, seemingly trying to make himself as small and as unnoticeable as possible. “I suppose ye didna enjoy his visit.”
“What do you want from me?” the man asked, his tone demanding.
“Ye ken what I want,” Chrisdean said, trying to keep his own tone as level and calm as he could. He didn’t want to show any of his panic to the other man.
But he got no response. William averted his gaze, once more looking out of the window at the dark clouds that were quickly gathering over the castle.
“I dinna ken what Brock did to ye, but it couldna have been pleasant,” Chrisdean said. “And I’m sure ye already ken that if ye dinna tell me where the camp is, I’ll bring him back here, and he’s lost all his patience. So, if ye want to spare yerself the pain, I’d suggest ye give me the location.”
William didn’t speak, and Chrisdean cursed quietly under his breath. He had barely said two words ever since Brock had brought him to the cells, and nothing they did to him seemed to pull any words out of him.
“Didna ye tell Brock, when he had ye up against the castle wall, that ye would tell us everythin’?” Chrisdean asked, reminding him of the last words he had said before Brock had almost killed him. “But noo . . . ye dinna want to speak noo?”
With a sigh, William shook his head. “I was scared,” he admitted. “Is that what you wish to hear? I was scared, and that’s the truth. How could I not be? That man was about to kill me, and I didn’t want to die. I still don’t. But I realized that it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’d rather protect my country, I think.”
“It’s a noble thing to do, die for yer country, but we’ll find the camp either way,” Chrisdean continued. “This is our land, ye see. I’m sure they’re na far from here . . . perhaps close to where the ambush was?”
That seemed to catch the boy’s attention, and Chrisdean knew from the way that he glanced at him that he was right. It significantly narrowed down the area that they would have to search, but it would still take them a while to find the Englishmen and Nimue.
“I’ll die anyway, won’t I?” the boy asked. He sounded so sorrowful that Chrisdean couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, despite him being the enemy. “You’ll either have me hanged, or you’ll let that brute finish what he started. So why would I give you the location if I am to die anyway?”
Chrisdean didn’t have a good argument against that. That was why he always let Brock handle interrogations, he reminded himself. Then again, he didn’t know if he had the heart to order the boy’s execution.
“How old are ye?” Chrisdean asked, and that seemed to take William by surprise.
“Seventeen,” he said.
“Doesna yer maither miss ye noo that ye’re in the army?”
“I’m sure she’ll miss me when I’m dead,” William said with a small shrug. He seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, and Chrisdean couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t more upset about it.
“What if I didna kill ye?” Chrisdean asked. “Weel . . . what if I na have ye hanged? I canna promise that I willna kill ye in battle, but that day may never come.”
William looked at him quizzically, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “If you’re offering me my life in exchange for information, then don’t waste your breath. If you don’t kill me, the Earl will when he finds out that I betrayed him.”
“Ye’ve already betrayed him, lad,” Chrisdean pointed out. “The moment ye told Brock that he has Nimue.”
“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t betray the Earl or my country,” William said. “He figured it out on his own.”
“Aye, and ye think that the Earl will believe ye? Or if he believes ye, do ye think he’ll care?”
William fell silent once more, and then it was Chrisdean’s turn to glance out of the cell’s tiny window. The sky was getting darker, and though the sun wouldn’t set for several more hours, he wanted to leave as soon as possible.
