"What did you do this time?" Father Beocca crouched down to Aedre's level and looked with care at her face. She looked up to him, with the hope that children display when they are in desperate need for a comforting word, but she did not cry. If she were to cry she was no warrior defending her home from the Danes.
Nevertheless, she bit her lip, her patience rewarded as she lingered at the priest's door, waiting for Beocca to leave, having watched him press on the parchment with his quill, shaping the letters into the words of God.
"I called my aunt "mother" ", Aedre said, looking directly at him, owning her guilt. "My Lord uncle hit me." She turned, showing the back of her legs, which were red hot where her uncle Aefric, usurper of her father's position, usurper of Uhtred's had thrashed her across her legs, bottom and back.
"I have come to ask for penance, Father. My Lord uncle told me that I should." Beocca smiled, holding out a hand.
"Come," he said, extending an arm. "Let us discuss this in the chapel." Whereupon Beocca told Aedre that admitting her guilt so bravely to him was penance enough, and she should focus on her letters, on being a good lady and not to fight too much with the stable hands.
"Will Uhtred return?" She asked brightly, her blue eyed brimming with hope? "My Lord uncle says he is dead."
"Your Lord uncle means," Beocca said, carefully, that he has been captured by the Danes, and no longer lives a Christian life, for he cannot. Your Lord uncle says a lot of things which may have a double meaning."
Yes, Aedre thought, like denying mother, my true mother, who was married to my father - Uhtred's father, also Uhtred - and insisting I call her "Aunt". For her Uncle Aelfric had married her on the death of her father, and produced Osbert, her baby brother. Aelfric was Lord now.
"I am a lady and a warrior," Aedre declared loudly, looking up determinedly to Beocca. "That is a double meaning. I am defending Bebbanburg and I am Uhtredsdottir!"
And Beocca had taken her gently by the shoulder and embraced her, paternally. Aedre did not cry, but instead, closed her eyes and painted a picture of her brother in her mind.
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"That damned Uhtred will come back, and when he does, I will be ready! He will curse the day he tries to retake Bebbanburg!"
It was an epithet Aedre had heard from time immemorial, from the time that she knew her name and knew her sea-home of Bebbanburg. She would hear him scoff to Seobhridht, his Strathclydian general that he could not marry his neice to secure Bebbanburg for she was more valuable in trade. Then, with the passimg of her mother - her aunt - Aedre did not realise the look of her uncle on her was one of desire; that if the church would permit it then she would be put to his bed and, yes, married to him.
But power and money reckoned higher in Aelfric's priorities: Kjartan had proposed the match to his son, nine years older than her. She would, at the age of ten, be bride to a pagan as a land settlement between her uncle and the Danes.
Beocca had been the only light in her dark life at Bebbanburg. Her earliest memory had been sitting on a step listening to him speaking to the small communitry of servants warriors and slaves the gospel, how he spoke about God as the wind and rain and sun, that He leaves the best parts of himself and just enough for us.
She remembered how the congregation listened in rapt silence, and how he had been the same in confessions, thiugh she could not understand what was being said. Aedre would listen, perched on walls, behind walls, in rafters and cupboards, listening to the life of the castle and she would hear her aunt lament her lot; she had married Aelfric rather than be murdered, and Aedre too. And had produced a son for the new Lord, which had won her small favour.
But she had died two years before. Aedre, whose life before that time had been rather more free and unlimited, had been reined in by the brute force of her uncle's will to be the lady that he expected her to be.
Up to then, she had been neglected, and this neglect had manifest itself into freedom. Aedre had learned that fighting was the way of life, fighting and letters. For reading and writing meant the power to know more than an enemy who could do neither. And she had learned the history of her Saxon line: Esa, King of the Idings had sailed to Northumbria and taken the land of the Britons.
There had been warrior kings ever since, Ida, of the Idings, Oswald, Oswi, who had killed Penda the Great of Mercia, the prefix "Os", Beocca had told me, was royal. But Osberht had lost Northumbria to Lordships when the Danes arrived until Uhtred's family were the last landholders in Northumbria.
It had struck Aedre that there was little difference between her family line invading Northumbria and displacing the Britons to the Danes displacing both the Saxons and the tiny Briton settlements that still clung on.
In tiny recess in the outer wall of the castle opposite Beocca's room she would sit, watching him patiently ink down strange markings on parchment, pausing from time to time to pray, to hear confession, to eat. She had been free to hear Father Beocca pray to God, and to preach. Not only free, she had thrived on it, following him round unseen, captivated by what she had heard about God, about heaven, about life everlasting.
And she had watched one night as he had welcomed the voyaging monks who had come to bring St Cuthbert's remains for veneration as they kept it on the move for safety.
The monks had been warriors too, battle-ready to defend their saint from desecration. St. Cuthbert certainly held power. Though she had been denied the chance to venerate the saint, she had watched his awe-some power on the ordinary people within Bebbanburg's walls. Even Seobhridht had staggered from the chapel, weak from his experience in the presence of the saint.
Aedre liked Seobhridht, who had taught her swordsmanship. The Strathclydian had laughed as she fought, roaring around the courtyard, telling her that she couldn't be a lady without knowing how to protect herself.
A warrior lady, she had told Beocca. I'll be a good warrior lady. As equal to the stories of her faith Aedre fought with the squires and groom-boys. She was liked; never shied away from a fair battle; never cried like a maid.
And once, one thing that she had taken to heart, and never left it was, when a young squire just taken a grounding from her. An older knight, who had held the wall against the Danes with their father declared that she had the figure and form of her brother.
Even now, it was a warming, cheering memory that kept her going on days which seemed bleak outside and in her mind. Like the memories of her uncle thrashing her for being wild. Like when Aelfric had expelled him.
She had heard her uncle curse at the priest at his downright refusal to marry Aedre to him. She had spent the night in her draughty room being good, being the lady expected of her by her uncle praying to God for Beocca. Her uncle was in such a rage Aedre feared he may put the priest to death.
And the tales Beocca had then told her about her brothers, both Uhtred, both warriors, both defending Bebbanburg from viking Danes flooded her mind, and had soothed her.
Had Aedre ever believed she would have found him? Not then. Aedre was nothing but a girl growing up in a castle while her adult uncle made all the decisions, decisions like murdering any loyal to her father, buying off the Danes and, the thing she hated him for the most, repelling the gentle, Godly Beocca.
For his was the voice, unknown to the priest, that soothed her childish fears as she listened to him speak quietly to the castle's occupants in prayer and comfort, her aunt more often than anyone else, who worried for Osbert. Even at the worst of times to come Aedre would transport herself in her mind to him speaking, God's messenger on Earth.
It was from Seobhridt that Aedre had first heard that Sven One-Eye kept a woman like an animal, in a cage at Dunholm. The general, usually delighting in such tales told his men this in unusually hushed tones.
Aedre, concealed in the gap between the inner and outer walls of the castle had been shocked. A pagan like them, a woman kept like that? For it had been that day Aelfric had told Aedre his plans for her: to be married to the son as a land agreement.
If they treated their own women so foully what then would be her fate in this trade deal so carefully explained to her by her uncle as if she were no more than cattle. And Kjartan was already called, "the Cruel". She could bet there would be no kindness shown to her, traded as she would be for land or alliances.
"You are to travel to Dunholm the day after tomorrow and marry Sven Kjartansson." Aelfric had told her. Bald words, as if telling her the weather or what was for dinner.
And on the day she was to travel, a lone warrior appeared on the drawbridge before the keep. Hushed voices, murmurs, shours brought Aedre to the parapet. And that had been the moment, the fleeting glimpse, when the rider had brought down his hood, holding aloft the head of Seobhridht.
He did not speak, instead, withdrawing a severed head from his cloaks, casting her uncle's general's head onto the ground. Aedre had been behind the weaponry store the previous night and had heard the household guard discussing the news that Uhtred was indeed alive and had rebelled against the Danish family he had been enslaved to, killing them.
Uhtred. He was nothing like her mind had imagined. Tall, well built, but sprightly, her brother held himself like a Lord. He looked old to me then, like a man, but he could only have been around nineteen. As she watched him ride away a feeling of hope flooded her whole body like the warm tides at the coast in the summer.
After he had departed, the castle's archers failing to despach him as he retreated, despite her uncle's fury. He noticed Aedre, and realised she must hahe seen her brother. He took her arm savagely, then demanded that she go to her room and prepare to travel next morning.
As she lay there as night drew in, Aedre decided to act. Tomorrow she was to go to be married to a Dane and would never see Bebbanburgh again. Never being at Bebbanburg was no bad thing. But, with cruel Danes? No measure of distaste or disagreement equalled that in her mind.
Aedre had concealed all she could about her oerson when she climbed through her chamber window. Under her cloak she wore everything she owned and now, with a rope that she had concealed weeks before, attached it to her bedframe.
Below her, lethal jagged rocks had been built tall to make Bebbanburg impenetrable. But there was a tiny harbour just below and in it, Aedre knew, would be a boat, all ready to row.
Maybe his plan had been to get away soon? For the gate to the hidden cove had been left ajar, and in it, in the moonlight, Aedre could see the stern of the skiff bobbing on the water.
Dangling on the rope as she bounced her feet off the volcanic stones used to build Bebbanburg's impenetrable walls.
A shout went up amd the rope twisted above her. She had been seen. Shouts of caution, calling, instruction all came from above her people, no doubt urging her to stop.
An arrow whistled by her hair, then another. Aedre could barely hear the noise below as she looked at the ground below her, now in shadow.
A "crack" above her indicated more archers, from the stonerail above and were firing down on her and Aedre knew in her heart that she had to act, or be shot to pieces.
Then she heard him. Her repugnant uncle, her lifelong tormentor, calling for his archers to rain down arrows onto her, to strike her down, to kill her.
She let go of the rope. It wasn't an accidental plunge; the ground looked impossibly far away but the skiff, though moving, looked like a target for which she could aim.
Aedre threw herself down the twenty feet drop as yet more arrows whistled past her, bracing herself for the crack of her bones on the basalt below.
But it didn't come. By chance Aedre had landed front down, cushioned by the clothes upon clothes she had dressed in.
In the skiff, both oars were carefully wedged under the central plank. When she pulled them out, to get them into the rowlocks, before untying the painter, Aedre found, too, a large linen bad stufded with food and, at the bottom, copious anounts of silver.
Aedre's luck held, for a time at least. She rowed out into the sea, little lights on the coast her guide that she was heading north. But even now arrows were flying and one hit her hand, lodging its evil, barbed point into the fleshy part of her wrist.
The pain subsided after a time as, in the waning sun, she passed the bird islands of the Farne, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne just beyond it. Aedre had managed to get the shaft away from the barb, but the arrow point was still buried into the base of her hand.
And then she landed, exhausted, unable to row on, the skiff beaching just off St. Cuthbert's Isle. Monks had waded out to get her.
"My parents left Saehuises this morning." False tears were easy to come by from her injured hand. "They thought I was with them! But.. I was...left behind..."
"And you rowed here?" One of the monks asked, having carried her, her large bag and her father's sword into the monastery with them. The second monk eyed her, dubiously.
"Aedre nodded."
"And you are injured?" The second monk said, testing the sword in his hands, balancing ut so as to find the balance point. Aedre false-she sobbed again.
"That boat went to Edinburgh then the pilgrims are going on to Iona," the first monk said, older, Aedre thought than the one looking suspiciously at her.
"Child," the first monk said. "A boat leaves in the morning with more pilgrims. Would you take it? Or," he looked down at the blood, staining on her left hand, "or, we could treat your hand and you could recuperate yere, until the next boat leaves, in a month."
"Tomorrow," Aedre whimpered. Her uncle would be searching by now and would get to Lindisfarne by the morning. It would be a close all.
"And you rowed this boat yourself, child?" The second monk said. Aedre wanted more than anything just now to give her bavk her father's sword, but instead the monk just turned it over and over, as if teasing her.
"No. A from our village helped me row. These are my father's things; he's a trader. But we had to stop at Bebbanburg. There were arrows flying." She held up her hand. "Ehbright, that was his name, was killed. They shouted that they would catch me and would give me to...to...the Danes!" At that part, she bent her gead and false-wept into her cloak. They were not real, Aedre told herself, despite damp, saline water clustering behind her eyes.
At least that part was true. And although the now-dead Seobhridht didn't know it, he had helped her escape. Sometimes, the man spoke in his drunken state of wild forests and cold deep lakes, sometimes in a language, mournful, yet merry. And sometimes he had spoken of a skiff waiting for him in the hidden harbour for the day he sailed one way home again.
A similar vessel to a viking longship, of which Aedre had seen many butting around the harbours around Bebbanburg, had been prepared to sail by the monks. The main difference was that the sails draped at an angle on both sides to hug the coast and catch all the breeze it could.
The other difference was that monks from Lindisfarne were travelling to Alba's sacred isle for pilgrimage and teaching. Way out on the horizon Aedre, clutching her bag and sword, spied a slave ship.
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He's a piece of shit," Finan laughed as he smoothed Osthryth's hair from her eyes. It was nearly morning and she needed to be back at the palace. Guarding the aethling had been the luck she had needed. No, not luck. God always had a plan, it was just sonetimes He hid the instructions and made you have to work out the purpose for yourself, blind alleys and all.
The warmth of the fire banked up well circulated around them. The house she rented was good value, and enough for her, who abided at the palace most days and nights.
When she had first caught the eye of King Alfred, who had seen her defending herself against three thieves with daggers and dirty tricks, besting all three, he told her she was wanted to guard young Prince Edward.
Guard against who, she'd asked.
Everyone, a man called Odda the Younger told her. Danes, rebels, assassins. Aethelwold. Especially Aethelwold. So she had done, and the wealth in her bag had grown. Tonight, though, she had chanced on Uhtred's men celebrating a battle win at a place called Aylesbury and Finan had chanced again on Osthryth.
"Truly. And I know Uhtred." Osthryth leaned up to kiss him, trailing her hand down his face. "Aethelred, Alfred's brother died. He refused to name Aethelwold as heir. He kerps Uhtred bound up with oaths. To be honest, considering the shit these oaths have brought us, I think the bugger likes making oaths to the King of Wessex."
Osthryth kissed his warm neck. He had told her once he had been a Prince of the Ulstermen. She had told him she was Queen of Bernicia and would take Deria back from the Danes. And they laughed again at their stories.
"Mo ghile mear," he whispered, hotly, near her ear. "My gallant darling."
"Finan mòr", Osthryth replied, trailing her fingers lightly, intentfully, down his leg. "Finan the Great."
"The agile, I was called," he said, sliding her down and pushing Osthryth's knees apart with his own.
Whoever would have known that on the morrow a king would have died? Whoever would have known she would have stormed a burning building to rescue the wife of the beloved Beocca and becone a mother to her baby?
Who would have thought that last night would be her last night with Finan?
Salt water adsorbed onto Osthryth's cheeks. The sea spray, she told herself, as little Aedre rooted for her breakfast.