Shadowkin

by MrsRJLupin

Aedre has been surviving as a companion to the King of the Picts' son, having escaped from Bebbanburg and saving the boy's life. Always knowing he had a famous warrior brother, she's heartbroken that he never came back for her. When she is threatened she decides to get herself to Wessex to find him. Based on the Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell and Last Kingdom TV Series

17. Gisela

A/N: Not long now til Series 5 of TLK - I am so excited! The trailer looks amazing. I won't drop any spoilers here, but it does seem like the majority of the series will stick closely to the books up to "The Flamebearer", which to me, is a natural end (if you have read it, you will see what I mean).

And a film! So this will concentrate on getting Aethelstan around England and consolidating power, then pressing in on Alba, and making demands, as Bretwalda, leading up to Brunanburh. "Seven Kings Must Die" is the title, and that is going to be epic, even more so as so little has ever been written about that battle. It's only been recently that archaeological evidence has placed it at the Wirral, near Chester. The historian Michael Wood, using twelfth century documentation, places it near Doncaster, south of York. It's going to be epic, regardless.

The Battle of Tettenhall, or Wodensfield (modern day Wednesfield, in the West Midlands)has never fully been excavated either. But, given that a lot of heavy industry went on in the 18th and 19th centuries, a lot of land was used for that. In fact, there is now an IKEA in the place Michael Wood walks, near a canal path in Wednesfield in his "In Search of" series (it has been uploaded to youtube - check out the late 70s and early 80s fashions). So I think that a lot of it couldn't be excavated properly now, anyway.

17

He had been buried in Mercia, at least, Osthryth thought, as they lay on dry ferns on the border of Waetling Street. Aelfgar, who had so often in that last year been beside her, ready at a call to go off to skirmish. It was dark tonight, she thought, and a black moon was conspicuous by its absence. A good day to protect the villages along it, and south west of it, as Seashes was, and Osthryth's mind drifted to her second-in-command, with whom she had often wiled nights like this, further north, in his beloved home kingdom. Osthryth was pleased he would be going back to Aylesbury, and Merewalh had said he would see to his burial himself. A great honour for a man who had fought with bravery and skill, whi had once been banished for debt to be in Lord Odda's service.

And that stung too, Osthryth thought. Odda, once her kindly, benevolent lord, had taken his own life rather than undergo a trial, where half of Wessex would find his disobedience to Alfred an insult, and the other a triumph. By raising the Devonshire fyrd of non-trained men to go to war against the Danes and Noese at Beamfleot, he had saved his kingdom and committed treachery in the process.

Osthryth knew which option she would have gone for and her mind also suspected that the king had not decreed Odda's actions as welcome, or better, as necessary, for a good reason: Edward had to be married to a lady with connections, and Odda's land, forefeited, now fell into the hands of the very Lord who had a daughter of marriageable age: Lord Aethelhelm owned Devonshire now, and his daughter was Edward's wife.

Not his first wife, Osthryth knew, and she had been appalled to hear that the girl that Edward had enthused his love for to Osthryth had been sent to a nunnery and his twin children taken from her, to be brought up away from Winchester.

She drove her mind away from the filthy politics of the south, and counted herself fortunate that she served Mercia and Lord Aethelred. Osthryth, with her men, were now his emissary guard in Wessex, but for the fact that Aethelred was not in Winchester currently, Osthryth had volunteered her division to work as guards, as they had ever done, alongside Steapa's men.

"They need to practise, and keep their hand in. Know who their enemy is," Osthryth had explained to Aelffrith, who had taken Aelfgar's place beside her as deputy for her men, and her friend, told her he could not disagree.

"If you grow fat in Winchester, you will die at the blades of Danes and Norse!" Osthryth had told them. Oshere, Aeglfrith and Aelfkin had stared at her wide eyed as she spoke to them, while her two men of near veteran age folded their arms in mock obsequence as they listened, something which Osthryth had taken a while to interpret: it was their way, as if to say, "Come on then, tell us something we don't know", and were always first in the field, full of battle-rage, demostrating not only that they had listened to her but were doing their utmost to carry it out. "And worse, West Saxons will kill more bastard Norsemen than us - do you want that?" They hadn't, and bellowed in agreement with Osthryth.

She had found out later that Falkburg had been a convicted murderer, and this was his chance to redeem himself for Mercia rather than be put to death when his muscle could be put to defending the kingdom. Leofstan, was merely a man who had been taken into Lord Ceowulf's service at the age of eleven and had not yet succumbed to an enemy's attack: he was skilled and benevolent to the younger warriors, always willing to show them what he knew, and Osthryth was grateful for his experience. She had also found out that Leofstan was an enemy of Steapa, for he had courted the woman who was now Steapa's wife whenever he had been in Winchester with the late lord of Mercia, and the head of Alfred's guard, who matched Leofstan for breadth and height, had never forgotten or forgiven him.

An owl hooted, and dragged Osthryth's mind from her thoughts as a foot appeared beside her, and her heart sank as Aelfkin tried to find a comfortable spot. He was a worry to her, though she made an effort to ensure it didn't show.

Thirteen, and he had not yet the muscle mass to be able to wield a sword. Osthryth, as a twelve-year-old-female, had been taller and broader than him, and had been able to thrust Faedersword towards the enemy, to defend the life of Constantine. She made sure the boy had good enough meat and milk, for Steapa had told her once that boys fed this grew strong, but there was no sign of it yet in the lad.

Instead, Aelfkin, who was indeed as if he were kin to elves, held fast to his seax, and could use it to good effect: had used it to good effect when he had threatened Haesten on her behalf in the kitchens at Beamfleot, and helped hack at the ropes which held fast the gates of the fortress when it was aflame, and they had escaped. She had not shared her worries with Aelffrith yet, and she wondered if she did worry overmuch, like a mother worrying over a child. But she wanted the best for her men, not just for their own sakes but for herself, as their captain.

She wanted no-one to give an excuse that she could not be their captain: Osthryth had no doubt in her mind that her position was secure as far as Mercia went but, ever since she had been "promoted" to Mercia by way of a summons to King Alfred who had, in effect, aired her shortcomings by way of back-handed gratitude for her bravery trying to save the aethling from drowning (not Edward, but the child in the water had been presumed to be), Osthryth had a sliver of suspicion about how she was perceived in Wessex.

But not by Steapa, who had willingly send her and her company out night by night with his other divisions. There was always help needed on the borders to prevent skirmishes, hit-and-run thefts of both goods and people and generally peace-keeping. Her warriors liked it, for the villages and towns were always grateful to them of a morning and they were well rewarded with food and praise.

Further, they were good at it, and the raids were far softer than those further up Waetling Street. Osthryth remembered one night, when they had been at a village not far from Caestre, Oshere suffering from three armed Danes, or Norse running at him, with a blow to the shoulder from an axe which might have killed him if it had landed at a more acute angle. Instead, he had come off with a flesh wound, which had healed well but, like Osthryth, meant that holding anything tightly with his left hand was difficult.

Here, in the south, the more comfortable climate and abundant crops meant the Danes-turned-farmers had little need to steal from their neighbours and raids, though ever a threat, were nowhere near as intense. So they had an advantage, and had never yet failed to drive back skirmishers.

"A light." The words were whispered to her by Falkberg, who was lying to her left. Osthryth pushed herself up onto her elbows to look from the ridge that sat above the town of ?. It was a good position, not far from where they were guarding, but far enough away to prevent detection, and Osthryth regularly volunteered for it with her men, for the reasoned that by knowing the place well, its streets and its houses and its industry, where its drains were, where its stream flowed, they were more likely to be able to respond quickly, and effectively.

"Look!" Falkberg nudged Osthryth again. Ordinarily she would challenge the man over this, but she would have to do it later: the light was indeed disappearing and then reappearing at regular intervals.

"We wait," Osthryth commanded in a lowered voice, hissing out her command to her men. They had not seen anything like this before in this town and Osthryth wanted to get the measure of it before she moved. It seemed to be being shone from the west, and was moving as if along the main street, a dim, yellow light, which Osthryth knew would be spooking some, if not all, of her men. They had a very definite view, being Mercians, of "Shadow-walkers" as they called them, a concept it had taken Osthryth some time to grasp, but in essence, these spirits were something like the Sidhe made real, which showed themselves throughout the land.

To Osthryth, though, this land of Mercia and Wessex felt spiritless, so she did not fear such lights. What she did know, for Aelffrith had told her, was that there had once been a marsh not too far west of the town, and Osthryth knew that marshes sometimes made lights. Marsh lights, made on their own in this time of the summer, or lights made, somehow, by Danes raiding the town of Seashes, which was far from Waetling Street, inside Wessex.

"When I say, we are to surround the town," Osthryth instructed. "Leofstan, take Oshere and Aelfkin; head east - don't move yet," she added, as a rustling began of knees shuffling bodies in the dry undergrowth. "Falkberg, go with Aeglfrith. Go between the Shire-Reeve's house and the church." That was the centre of the town. "Aelffrith and I will go west, and we will meet on the green. Challenge any who get in your way; if they prove to be Danes, kill them."

And at that, Osthryth hurried with Aelffrith down the slope towards Seashes, Buaidh's hilt in her hand. She could hear her deputy's breath to her right, and knew they were nearing the culvert, which brought drinking water into the town. The land swept further down where the marsh once was, and her boots were indeed soon muddied despite the fact the summer had brought little rain for weeks.

"There, did you see?" Aelffrith huffed, near her shoulder, as he caught his breath. Osthryth had not, and she pulled up fast not far from the church. Had there been a moon shape at all, she might not have caught the little bursts of light over the dark ground, and felt a little relief ease a tension in her mind. She sensed, too, that Aelffrith was relieved to find the lights were some sort of phenomenon connected with the marsh - he was as much of a Saxon believer in shadow walkers than any of Osthryth's warriors.

So, at least, it was not Danes using candles or lanterns to find their way around. But a clash of metalware brought her attention east, and she and Aelffrith ran to the centre of the town, where Falkberg was standing, tall and silent, with a dead body at his feet.

"A Dane," the man told Osthryth, but with no light to confirm it, she could not be sure. It could be a Dane, or it could be a very unlucky townsperson who had decided to use the black moon for nefarious purposes, cursing Falkberg for his impetuosity. "Should prove to be a Dane", she had told them - how much care had her eldest warrior shown before attacking? How much could he have, in the still darkness?

It was such misjudgment which had caused him to take the life of a ceorl in his home town, when he captained warriors there under Aldhelm's father, and had led to his conviction, for he could not afford the wergild. Yet, Osthryth clapped the man on the back: he had done what she had instructed him to do, and he had judged the man to be Dane. When dawn came, they would soon know.

"We wait," Osthryth instructed, and her men sank down onto the dry grass that was, in effect, the village green. After a while staring at the dark shape that was the dead body, Osthryth joined them.

"Be alert; there may be more," she instructed, hoping her words conveyed that she expected the man to be a Dane. After a few moments, she relaxed further: anyone out at night should expect Wessex warriors to be about, they had been for months. So they took the risk. A flimsy justificaton, she knew, but justification nonetheless, and Osthryth would take that line with Steapa, should it come to it, and the Wessex treasury would pay the compensation. If it came to it.

"Do you have more of that story, Aelffrith?" Osthryth asked, when their sitting in silence was getting to be more than she could bear. "About the two Mercian men who were travelling to meet the elves?" and she fiddled in the darkness with the pearl clip in her hair that Eirik Thurgilson had given to her, adding, "Who were going to destroy a powerful jewel?" The story had got to the part where, hidden in a forest was the hall of an Elvish kingdom, and the hero, Freodas, had wondered at its magnificence.

And, as dawn replaced night, with a clear, warm promise, Osthryth's mind was soothed with the words of her deputy, as he told the story of the evil jewel, and felt the satisfaction of success, success with her men, that she had proved she could lead them as well as any other captain, Mercian or West Saxon, and her care to find and ingratiate herself with her brother had long since waned.

Too, she had occasioned to visit Beocca's wife, Thyra, who had welcomed her to their home and spoke to her of her happiness with her husband, though Osthryth had felt the conversation stilted and trying: Thyra knew she was Uhtred's sister, and would gladly share that with him, Osthryth felt, and indeed, she felt more pressure adding to this when Beocca had, on her last visit, taken her aside and implored her to give up the army.

Which is why border guarding suited Osthryth, for she needn't be in Winchester - unless her company were needed by Lord Aethelred - which they hadn't been, up til then, and she could drill her men with the luxury of time, and they gained confidence and prestige in their little wins each time they were lauded by the towns grateful for their presence.

The dead man was indeed a Dane, and the Shire-Reeve by the name of Osbald came out to Osthryth and her men to personally thank them. He, and possibly other Danes, had been stealing farmware and livestock. Osbald suspected that the disappearance of three children one night three months before had been at his hand. Osthryth had examined the Danish man's face, looking to see if she recognised him, but she didn't, and she took Osbald to one side and advised him to burn the body.

"Burn him?" Osbald scoffed, looking to the Dane, and then back to Osthryth. "We will hack him to pieces and string him up by the roadside.

"Then, our presence will be known; it will be known that you are garrisoned; it will be seen as a challenge if, as you say, he had accomplices, and may have already carried off children for slaves. Burn him, and his kin will not know what happened to him, and, it will make them weaker." But the middle-aged Shire-Reeve scratched his chin, and his face closed down.

"It might be what you do in the north of Mercia, or wherever it is you are from, speaking like that, Captain," he scorned, "But here in decent parts, we want to know our enemy has been defeated."

And so, against Osthryth's advice, the Shire-Reeve went about happily dismembering the body of the Dane as his townsfolk watched on, cheering and yelling in triumph - she could not blame them, really - and Osthryth returned with her men to Winchester, as Aelfgar continued with his story, which involved a stunted, ferocious race of men who raided borders and attacked good lands, driven on by a sorcerer, who had bred them for that purpose, and how the plucky kingdom, like Mercia, which stood on the border of this terrible place, suffered, and fought and avenged its people. They liked the story, and it sped the miles under their feet, until at last the Ridgeway was in sight, and they were a day from the capital of Wessex.

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Steapa was pleased, and announced that they would return to Seashes after harvest was in. They had some rest time with good weather being early August, which pleased the men, and she had Aelffrith warn Leofstan that she wanted him alive, and to avoid Steapa as much as he could. And Osthryth returned to the place she slept.

The room she had, which was stone-built and near the east of the city of Winchester, belonged to an elderly widow with a good deal of sourness and who required a high price of rental. Silver had been provided, generously, by Aethelred, for her to sleep away from the men, and that was all she did in the room, whose rent she had to supplement with her own, to the widow, who took it meanly from her, as if she were doing Osthryth a favour.

So she would go there to sleep, rise, cross down through the marketplace and across to the palace each morning, meeting with Aelffrith as the men woke, and they ate at the kitchens before training until noon. This had been the arrangement since they had returned to Winchester, and between border guard duty and sword training, where her men fought with the Wessex warriors, and were bringing on the young boys sent to the palace that year, Osthryth was at the palace with her men, so she could be seen, and see.

And she was pleased Aelffrith was with her, pleased to see Steapa, who praised her loudly when next they were on combat practise with the new men for their defense of Seashes, and she was brought forward to drill the boys, just a bit younger than Aelfkin, who stood, shivering with a blade in their hands, though it was hot in the summer's morning and watched her show them how to stand, and how to parry, how to push up with their blades, and swing back, to aim at the underside of arms, and backs of legs, skills which might be what made the difference between death and life.

And Alffrith showed all them all the "Two Cranes", though they did not need encouragement. Osthryth advised Aeglfrith to guide his little brother towards milk if they chose to go there, and explained that it would help develop his strength. She was gladdened when the boy stood by the bar and ordered from Aelfburh milk for both his brother and himself, so Aelfkin did not have to drink it alone, and so drinks togther in the early evening after dinner but before night guard duty became a habit, and time for singing and sharing stories, not least Aelffrith's story of giants who were in pursuit of the travellers in his story and who, on finding elves, became enchanted in their realm and were lulled to sleep.

They all laughed when Aelffrith brought his hand down hard on the table, when he told of the travellers falling out of the branches of the elven trees and into a river, as Aelfkin started so violently that he knocked over his own drink as well as those of Oshere and Leofstan. Life was peaceful.

It was good, at Winchester that summer of Osthryth's seventeenth year. Balmy, high summer days were on their way and all life busied itself working towards harvest as if one person's role intertwined with another unconsciously, symbiotically, as plants growing beside one another depend on one another for light, for soil, for nutrients. People prepared ground, cleared store houses, sharpened scythes, for many of the people who lived in Winchester would double up to work on the land. If they were not, everyone had much reduced food that winter, and risked starving.

It was peaceful without Aethelflaed at the palace, had seen nothing of Aethelwold, and Osthryth was gladdened that Edward was growing strong with Steapa's training. He stood by Osthryth one morning, when she was going through the training routine with the youngsters, and surprised her by meeting her sword blade. But only for a moment: teaching did not mean Osthryth switched off from danger, and she managed to unbalanced Edward's sword, before making to throw herself at his legs to bring him down. Even her men, even her older men, turned to watch, and they bore silence for longer than they usually gave her as Edward fell backwards, and Osthryth positioned Buaidh at his heart.

She put out a hand for him, and Edward, genial, sunny young man that he was, took it with happy grace and let Osthryth help him up, laughing at his fate. "How glad I am to be on the same side as Lackland," he told her, while telling the warriors, smiling at them all and then flashing a smile towards Osthryth, "Because I have seen her fight the enemy, and she is terrifying!"

Then, to the astonishment of them all, Edward went to stand with the Mercians, as they stepped forward one at a time as they fought one another, one single file facing another single file, which simulated a small section of shield wall conditions, the new young boys joining them widening their eyes as they discovered she was not a man.

But, while life was settled for Osthryth in her work and her home, there was one part which concerned her and, a week after returning from Seashes, instead of making for the palace as dawn was breaking one morning, she pulled out a small linen bag containing silver and pushed it inside her jerkin.

Osthryth had been filling it, a bit at a time, over the course of the week with silver from the stables - which had hardly made a dent in the quantity that she had originally stolen from Uhtred, and now she took it north, towards Crepelgatye, to seek Ula, the healer Briton, and to buy lily root, to reduce her bleeding. Shadows crept from her as the sun rose, and Osthryth looked about the narrow shacks as subtle movements drew her eye. She was being watched by the Britons who lived here - she was foreign to them, even if she did come to trade.

Ula was shaking open her door when Osthryth trod through the dried dust, which was usually mud, only it had been so warm over the past few weeks. The Briton narrowed her eyes as she pushed open her shack door, made from what looked like beach driftwood from a wrecked ship yet if it was, they were rather inland for her to have collected it herself. It creaked on iron hinges as the woman leaned on it, and peered at Osthryth through dark blue eyes.

"Come," she ushered, as if to get Osthryth out of the road, and she pressed open the door so that Osthryth could stride past her.

"I have silver," Osthryth began handing over the bag at once to Ula. The woman grasped it with thin fingers, then looked back at her as she thrust it into a pocket hung at her hip and fastened with a cord around hips, which she drew together and covered with an overskirt.

"So I see." Beside her, a pot was on the simmer, and the wood looked fresh laid. A back door was being propped open by wedges of wood so that most of the heat could be drawn out. The woman was in a hurry to prepare something - probably she always was, for maybe her supplies came sporadically and demand might be higher at different times of the year. In a summer, Osthryth speculated, desperate farmers' wives might seek her out for sun-stroke remedies or something for scything accidents. Winters might bring similar women, as mothers, for mustards for childrens' chests to ward off the cold.

"The usual," Osthryth pressed. "Lily root; tansy." Ula looked at her carefully, as a thump from behind her drew Osthryth's attention. Ignoring her, Ula turned, and pulled aside a cloth which hung from the main beam of the hovel, separating the main living section from the side, and something which Osthryth had not noticed in previous visits. A pair of legs stuck out onto the ground, dirty feet, no shoes.

It took some time for the legs to disappear, and though Ula did not strain and grunt, it was clear from the shuffling of her own feet that she was manoeuvring a person from the floor. A few minutes later, Osthryth saw the top of a grey head as the person it belonged to lay on a low bed. But it was over in a moment, as Ula flung the cloth back behind her.

"You may have the lily," Ula conceded, her hand drifting to her hip, where she had stowed the silver Osthryth had given to her moments ago. "But - " she put up a hand. "I will give you coin back, if you prefer."

"Tansy," Osthryth insisted. But the Briton shook her head.

"It can be a danger," she counselled. "Should you imbibe too much. You are not with child; it appears you do not wish to be with child, so you are taking the necessary physical precautions - "

"Physical precautions?"

"You are saying "No", and keeping your legs closed!" Ula shot back. "Some of these treatments draw a fine line between efficacy and toxicity - if you do not need it, I will not sell it." Instead, she drew from a jar some twigs, thin shavings, which she passed to Osthryth.

"What is this?"

"Willow bark. It will keep the pain from you, at your time." Osthryth pushed it away, folding her arms.

"Keep the silver," Osthryth replied, curtly. "I do wish to buy tansy, and if you will not sell it to me, then please tell me who will!" And she saw Ula hesitate. There were no doubt other Britons who would sell tansy root to Osthryth, and it was gratifying to see that the woman did indeed care about what she sold - she had to, Osthryth supposed, if she were going to live an unobtrusive life in a poorer part of Winchester.

"Return to me, in a fortnight," Ula conceded. "You may have tansy root. But," she reached for Osthryth's arm. "I will supply this to you if you give your word you will only use it in direst need." Osthryth felt herself nodding. "For it has many uses, not just that which you intend. It contracts the organ which holds the child in the mother; it speeds up birth - it can be used on ewes to great effect."

"I shall remember that, come lambing season," Osthryth replied, brusquely, but nodded her head. "I will use it only in the direst need." And thanked Ula for supplying her with lily root, before striding out into what could be called the main street of the Britons' ghetto if only because it was marginally wider than the arm's width gaps between all of the other houses.

There was a gap between where the houses of the Britons finished and the main inner palisade of the city began, Britons still thriving still after cebturues of persecution from Saxon kings lived. She was to pass through was the thoroughfare, guarded, although Osthryth avoided any unnecessary discussion about her business by scaling the roof of a storage hut belonging to the Britons and making her way across the inner section, in the opposite direction to where she had been half an hour before, then dropping down into the Crepelgate road.

This time, when Osthryth landed, she did not land on dry mud. Instead, it was at the feet of a person who had, moments before, been arguing with a guard about opening the palisade gate.

"I am a Lady!" the voice insisted, and added, "I have the right to pass here!"

"And we have the right to ask you why!" The voice was whiny, and high pitched, with an air of condescention. Aldred, one of Steapa's younger guards, who thought his abilities matched his high opinion of his own skill. Osthryth turned to see who she had nearly jumped on.

"My lady," Osthryth stepped back, and bowed a little to Gisela. Her round stomach, heavy with child now, took a second or two longer to follow her, as she drew her haughty expression around to Osthryth, who had withdrawn Buaidh. She swung her sword towards Aldred, who recognised Osthryth at once. His expresssion became fixed and his eyes protruded a little.

"Captain!"

"The lady Gisela has told you that she has business beyond this gate!" Osthryth snarled the words. But Aldred was too stupid not to keep his mouth closed, and he looked back to Gisela.

"But, why?" Osthryth stamped over to him, and let the sword blade touch the skin of his neck.

"That is her business. As you can see, the lady is great with child. Now," Osthryth rounded on the young man, whose comrade had taken a step back, and was staring at the hapless guard. "I do not suppose you wish me to take you to the lord Uhtred to explain why it is his wife cannot pass to gain, clearly, comfort in her condition?" The man shook his head. Osthryth edged Aldred back with the flat of her blade, and nodded towards the other guard, who unlatched the gate. She noticed that Gisela's stern expression had a glimmer of humour in it, and she upturned the corners of her lips slightly as Osthryth held the gate open for her.

"My thanks, Captain," Gisela nodded, holding up her skirts as she trod the mud-dust, as Osthryth had done half an hour before.

"Now," Osthryth said, resheathing Buaidh. "You will let the lady pass back into the town when she is ready." But Aldred's face turned to one of indignation, and he bore down on Osthryth.

"Who do you think you are, whelp!" he demanded, raising an arm. Beside him, the other man breathed heavily - it was clear he knew who Osthryth was, and knew that there was about to be trouble if Aldred did not close his mouth. He swung, but Osthryth ducked low, then jumped to his middle, dashing him into the dirt.

One foot, firmly on his chest, and with the persuasion of Buaidh's point at his throat again, Aldred got the message.

"Who I think I am is the household emissary guard for Lord Aethelred of Mercia. I answer to Steapa - you know who that is, I take it?" On the floor, the man shook his dusty head up and down. Osthryth turned her eyes to the other man.

"And I not know your name?"

"Ecgred, captain," the man said, desperation darting in his eyes. "Please, let it be known to Steapa and to the lord Uhtred that I tried to stop him stop the lady!" Osthryth has seen no evidence of this when she had dropped beside them, but she decided to be compassionate.

"I believe you, Ecgred," Osthryth nodded, and removed her foot from Aldred's chest, and looked down at him. "And, I believe in second chances. You were right to challenge people," she added, as Aldred scrambled to his feet, "But, as I am not known to you, you clearly are new to your position - "

"But - " Aldred was about to protest, but Osthryth held a hand, palm out towards him, and he broke off.

"And you never challenge the lady Gisela," she finished, as if she were back teaching in the monastery at Doire to the Ui Neill children, going through a Bible lesson. She took a step back, and Aldred returned to his position on one side of the gate, Ecgred, the other side, giving nervous glances over to Osthryth every so often.

"You are still here," Aldred observed, when Osthryth hadn't left. Instead, she had leaned against the palisade, with her arms folded, and turned her head, nonchalantly, when he spoke.

"Hm? Yes? Oh, yes," she agreed. When he continued to stare at her, Osthryth leaned up from the defensive structure and trod, casually towards him. "As opposed to leaving, you mean?" The man stared back at her, as she stood in front of him.

"Well, you see, I take it you are a keen young fellow, keen to follow the instructions that Steapa gave you, yes?" Osthryth did not wait for Aldred to respond. "And, so, I am assuming that, when the lady Gisela returns to this gate, your instinct will be to challenge her again. And yet, I know, that if you were to give her grief, that the lady will return to her husband - the lord Uhtred - and tell him. And, he will come looking for you, the lord Uhtred will."

Osthryth looked over towards Ecgred again. "Have you heard of the lord Uhtred, Ecgred?" The man said nothing, but nodded his head, slowly.

"The last time someone upset his wife, Aldred, the man was spitting his teeth out all over the road. And that was for not saying, "Good Morning," to the lady Gisela. Now," she continued, noticing the young man had grown pale. "Just imagine what he will do if he finds out you impeded her progress in her legitimite business - Ecgred?" The man just nodded again, and had grown as pale as Aldred, and it was all Osthryth could do to stop herself from exploding into laughter.

"So, as I know Steapa needs every single one of yous to guard the city, I'm just going to wait here, and see that the lady Gisela comes back again, and see that she is not impeded."

It was worth it to watch the two young guards sweat it out. It was a matter of moments when a knock came at the gate, but to them, it must have felt like hours. Before the woman had finished banging, the latch was being drawn. Aldred bowed low as she passed. Ecgred was looking at his feet.

"My lady," Osthryth nodded, as she saw the amused look on Gisela's face. "May I escort you back to the palace?"

"I am going back to my home," Gisela said, nodding in the direction of the west gate. "You may escort me to the market place."

So Osthryth walked with her sister-in-law the few minutes to the square where stalls were already being set up, and she asked after Gisela's health and the health of her daughter and son.

"We are all quite well," Gisela agreed, gripping a wrap of cloth in her hand, Osthryth noticed.

"I will report them to Steapa," Osthryth said, but this drew Gisela to a halt and she looked at Osthryth intently.

"I needed to visit the Britons for my own needs," she said, her voice low. "Though my husband accepts I need help beyond Christian medicine," she added, "if he believes I have gone for myself, he may worry unnecessarily." The look on her face, brow wrinkled and creasing at her eyes, matched her worried tone, and Osthryth laid a hand on her forearm.

"I will say nothing," Osthryth said, then saw a look of realisation pass behind Gisela's eyes. "I went there for similar reasons." But, it wasn't that which Gisela meant, and she bent her head towards Osthryth.

"I know you...I think? Yes...I think I do!"

And I you, Lady Gisela, sister of King Guthred, wife of Lord Uhtred, Osthryth replied, silently, in her own head. I am sister-in-law to you twice over.

"At the palace, my lady, I am a guard, a warrior."

"A woman warrior," Gisela mused, her voice louder as the conversation became much more legitimate again. "We have - had - many in my own country. Few here, in the Saxon lands."

"Many in Eireann," Osthryth noted.

"And this is whence you come?" Gisela asked. "Eireann?"

"Amongst other places," she replied, opaquely. "I am Lackland; I earn my living by my sword. But yes, women warriors are more common in Eireann and Alba."

"And you like to fight?" Gisela asked, as they began walking again. The market was just in view, and already traders were getting their boards raised up and flat, ready to fill with goods: food, meat, ironware - everything needed to run a city.

"I grew to it," Osthryth replied, truthfully. "I became good at it. I would not make a good wife nor a good mother." She looked at Gisela's stomach. "Does your baby come soon?" she added, glad to be able to change the subject.

"Within the next month; probably within the next two weeks - he wriggles so," she added, laughing lightly. "My thanks, captain - "

"Osthryth," Osthryth replied, then nodded to the lady, before striding off briskly towards the palace. Enough time to get some food into her, while talking with Aelffrith before the day's training.

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And it had been a tough training that day. Osthryth had taken herself away for half an hour before supper to imbibe the lily root she had bought, wondering if she should have taken the willow bark as well. Not that she needed the tansy; she had no intention of being with a man - her work as a captain was going well and Osthryth felt that if she never saw a man again like that it would suit her well.

As she sipped the broth, she overheard Steapa speaking to Aelffrith, and made herself known in the armoury.

"We are to march north, to challenge the Danes," Steapa told her. "They have attacked Alton, north of here. We move tomorrow, so you should make ready."

And from him, Osthryth learned that Haesten was leading men, once commanded by Eirik and Siegfried, and another Dane - there was always another Dane - by the name of Sigurd Bloodhair was impinging into East Anglia.

"Does the Lord Aethelred come, then?" Osthryth clarified. For they were, technically, his guard, not Steapa's to command, directly. The big man inclined his head towards her, and nodded.

Osthryth's heart glowed as she heard that: another opportunity to lead her men in victory, to have them fight for their beloved Mercia, and she put her hand to the Thor's hammer at her neck, one she had used to perfect her disguise when going about her subterfuge at Beamfleot, though she wore no cross, wondering again why it was she kept it. Taking it off had felt like a loss, and it was a constant reminder, when she was called out as a woman by the West Saxon men as part of the practising the battle drills, that she had achieves something. Her men around her reminded Osthryth of that, too, and thought at how quickly the Thurgilsons had been replaced, like water from a hole in the sand on a beach - remove what is there and more comes flooding in to replace it

She caught up with Aelffrith, and told him she needed the men in the training ground that night, and spoke to them, briefly, that they would be fighting in Wessex and to be prepared for they would be likely marching at dawn, and Osthryth was gratified to see that not one of them, not even Aelfkin, shrunk from her words. Indeed, after she had announced that the alehouse was where they would repair, while waiting for further instructions, and the men were positively exuberant at marching out.

Osthryth stood them drinks - three milks and three ales, and they found seats near the door, entertaining themselves with their usual, "Guess the next man in" game, which was very silly, and involved in trying to guess whether the man would be fair or dark haired, tall or short, stocky, or thin, and so on, and resulted in laughter as they argued their point. It was innocuous. Until Steapa came in.

The head of Alfred's guard had his attention drawn to Osthryth and her men when raucous laughter came from their table. Leofstan, who was already laughing about a comment Falkberg had said three people ago, laughed again when Oshere added, "very tall", and Aeglfrith continued with, "cloud-bruiser", both of the younger men grasping control of themselves as Steapa strode over to them.

"Captain Osthryth, you are to report to the king," he told her, eyeing the Mercian warriors again. Immediately, Osthryth made to get up, but he stayed his hand. "Finish your drink, with your...men," his eye caught Leofstan's for a brief moment, "the king is at prayer; come after the prayer bell has rung."

"Understood," Osthryth replied, as her heart soared with the anticipated instructions and she waited for Steapa to turn, which he did so, before turning back to them, as a poorly-disguised titter drew his attention. "Good evening," he added, when he couldn't work out what the joke was, or even, who to challenge over it. The door pushed open and more men came in, Uhtred, with his warriors, and one or two more of the Wessex guards, Aldred and Ecgred with them.

"Cloud-bruiser," Oshere repeated the comment, beginning to laugh again, but Aeglfrith nudged him, as Uhtred surveyed the pub, and noted them.

"Not him," Aeglfrith corrected his friend, "not tall. Thor-lover?" Osthryth gripped his shoulder, forcefully. "Duin do bheul, idiot!" she shouted, pushing him back, and growling by his ear, hissed "We all need you tomorrow, understand? I do not want him to give you back to me in pieces! Understand?" Aeglfrith nodded, and Osthryth let him go. Aelffrith picked up her milk pot and sniffed it.

"No, just goat's milk," he said, grinning, and Osthryth relaxed, and smiled, giving them all permission to laugh as her deputy broke the tension. Then, he pointed over to the door, which was propped open now by two more West Saxons, as two maids from the palace walked by. "And, if they came in, Oshere, what would you say then?"

This made the young man blush, and he took up his ale, and they laughed again, and they talked about the women in the palace, as the older men teased the younger men. Aelffrith held up his hands, defensively, whenever the subject of boasting about women came up, protesting that Aethel, his wife, would find out.

"But, no harm in looking," he commented, and Osthryth realised that she had been glancing over to Uhtred's table. Finan caught her eye, and she looked over to Falkbald, who was chatting quietly to Leofstan.

"No harm," Leofstan agreed, his own eye on Steapa, who had gone to join Uhtred, sitting with his ale pot next to Sihtric, "But not for you, eh captain?" Falkburg nodded towards the two women, who were standing on a balcony, whores showing themselves to begin their night's work.

"Not at all," Osthryth said, firmly.

"You do keep looking at the table over there, where Lord Uhtred is sitting," Aelffrith teased, "You realise he is married."

"Yes, he was married before, was he not, Aelffrith, when we had to guard the woman he threw over?" Her deputy fell silent, she hadn't meant to be sharp, but she felt a hot guilt on her face- she had been looking at Finan, and she wished now that she had managed to keep her feelings to herself, "And I met his wife this morning, as those two," she pointed out Aldred and Ecgred, "Were making life difficult for her." She picked up her milk, and shrugged. " If I married I could not fight' life does not allow for that, not here, anyway."

"Women fight where you're from?" Falkberg asked, putting down his ale pot hoping that she would stand another round. Osthryth nodded to Leofstan, and handed him a silver coin, feeling generous. "Go and get them," she said, and stood aside so the younger men could approach the bar.

"Women can die by a sword, so she learns to defend herself," she said, quietly to Aelffrith. "Many women, ferocious Eireann women, fought Norse there, and were successful. Better to fight than to be raped and die; better to fight than to die in childbirth. Believe me, I would make a poor wife and mother. I make a better warrior. And," she sipped her milk again, as Oshere approached the table and took up her pot, "I've got to report to the king tonight, for orders. I can fight, at least."

"You can," Aelffrith agreed. "We all saw you, you are as good as any man I have known - better than many. I think - "

But, whatever Aelffrith thought, Osthryth never found out, as a shout went up to the bar. Steapa was leaning over Falkberg, trying to get at Leofstan, spilling their drinks onto the earth and straw as he tried.

"He has done nothing, Steapa!" Osthryth exclaimed, hurrying over. The head of Alfred's guard looked to her, and loosed Leofstan's jerkin. He nodded, once, and stood back, and five fixed-faced men went with her back to the table, Aelffrith staring at them.

"Did you say anything?" Osthryth asked, warningly. Leofstan shook his head.

"No, captain, he did not," Falkberg replied. And then Aelfkin spoke.

"It was me. I repeated the joke."

"The joke?" Osthryth asked, and Aelfkin's face fell.

"What Aeglfrith said," he replied, and Osthryth sighed inwardly. Cloud-bruiser. It was funny, for about two seconds. After that, it was tiresome. But, Aelfkin was only a young boy and that was the funniest it got for someone who was twelve.

"And he found it funny, did he? Steapa?" Aelfkin shook his head.

"Drink your milk, then," she urged, and they talked quietly amongst themselves, about battle and the northern part of Wessex, and the two women, who were now hanging over the balcony, trying to get the attention of the men. Oshere grinned at one of them, and Aeglfrith laughed, before saying one name to him, "Ecgberg."

Then, as Osthryth stood yet another round, which Aelffrith and Falkberg went to collect, she noticed a man leaning down towards Aldred, looking at Osthryth, then grinned. They were not discreet about it - and hadn't meant to be: it was an insult to her, directly.

Worse, however, Leofstan saw it, and got to his feet immediately.

"No!" Osthryth urged, but Leofstan pulled from her hand, his chair falling over behind him.

"That man was insulting you," Leofstan complained. And Osthryth knew that was not tolerated: captains stood by you; you stood by captains.

"He was not!" Osthryth insisted, for Steapa had instinctively stood beside his warriors, glancing down to Aldred, who was still grinning a little at the corners of his mouth.

"He was - " said a voice beside Steapa, a sing-song voice belonging to the man who had just bent over to Aldred and whispered to him: Aethelwold. Osthryth's heart sank.

"He said that while you may be able to tell him what to do in a morning, if it were night, it would be him doing the telling." Silence exploded for a moment, then Finan put his arm on his friend's arm, but Uhtred pulled away as Osthryth said to Aelffrith, "The lady Gisela!"

"The lady Gisela what?" Uhtred demanded, but Osthryth did not reply. Instead she pulled Leofstan back as Aldred pushed back his own chair and got up, standing beside Steapa. Osthryth's heart fell as Steapa trod towards Leofstan, standing with his arms folded beside him.

"This man insulted her," Osthryth snapped the qualifiying information to her brother as she urged Falkberg to his feet. "Leofstan!" she yelled, as her oldest warrior barrelled across the pub's floor, striking Aldred in the face as he launched himself at Steapa. Behind him, Uhtred glanced at Osthryth, before stepping past the two fighting men, to haul Aldred to his feet.

"Can you help!" Osthryth screamed at Uhtred's men, as Falkberg pulled back Leofstan's fist, only for it to swing into his own face. Steapa was, to be fair, not on the offensive, and where he was fighting he was defending himself.

"Steapa! Big man!" Finan shouted, as he and Falkberg took an arm each of Leofstan, and pulled him back, dodging as he nearly got a punch to his temple, Aelffrith dragged Leofstan off him, and pushed him in the direction of Osthryth's company, and her heart sank as she saw Aethelwold, back to the wall of the pub and leaning nonchalantly on it, arms folded.

"This ends!" Osthryth declared, standing between Leofstan and Steapa again, holding a hand, palm towards each man. "Are we not going to fight the bastard Danes tomorrow? Don't let them win by killing one another tonight!" Then, she turned to her men. "Come on!" she urged, as Oshere took some more sips of his milk, some of it spilling as Aeglfrith pulled at his friend's arm.

"Come on!" Osthryth urged, as the evening bell signalling prayer's end filled the air around the chapel. "Leofstan! What did I tell you?" None of her men answered her, and Osthryth leaned over to Aelffrith: I have to go to the king's meeting now; get him back," she looked at the intoxicated Leofstan, "get them all back Aelffrith, and I will talk to him in the morning." And watched her warriors walk, stagger, lope, towards the guardroom, and sighed. She hoped the king would not take too long, and touched her cheek, which had been bruised when she had intervened between Leofstan and Steapa.

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But, to her surprise, Steapa was standing before the palace guards on the outside of the throneroom's doors, a bruise to his own face far worse than Osthryth's. If that is what Leofstan can do when he was drunk, she told herself, then these Danes ravaging Alton would not know what was coming.

"Osthryth," Steapa acknowledged, but shook his head and raised a hand when Osthryth tried to speak to him about her elder warrior.

"It is nothing, compared to what we do tomorrow," Steapa said, ominously, and suddenly Osthryth's mind was taken to a time, nearly a year ago, when she had been summoned to speak to Alfred about her rescue of the person everyone presumed was Edward.

"There will be war," Steapa added, as they waited for the door to open.

"Mercia will be there," Osthryth added, brightly, and realised clearly for the first time, she would be at war with her men again. But, she would have to deal with them first; Leofstan must know he couldn't get away with it, no matter if even he thought Steapa might have provoked him.

"I have dealt with Aldred," Steapa added, as they waited, "Although Lord Uhtred taught him his own displeasure." Osthryth set her jaw and nodded, grimly. She had not wanted Uhtred to know, but she knew he would have demanded it of her if she had not said it out as she ha done, and this would have allowed her men time to fight with Aldred, and Leofstan with Steapa. And then the door opened.

Late summer meant that it was now growing dark, and the king sat in the middle of the hall, candles all around him, giving the impression he was raised up in the light, the most important man in the room.

Around them, there were a lot of men there, all leaders of companies, and Osthryth looked back to the king again, seeing for the first time how ill Alfred looked.

"I have called you here because there has been an incursion into Wessex, at a place called Alton, and thereby broken the Peace. A great, heathen army, it has been called." Osthryth watched as Alfred moved his head from one captain to another. "I will not be driven back to the marshes; we are stronger than that. Mercia is coming from the north, and we to the south."

Then, Steapa was called to his side, and he detailed the plan for them: that they were to leave at sunrise to march to Alton, and with Mercia, take and refortify the walls. Then, Steapa dismissed the captains, but placed a hand on Osthryth's shoulder when she turned. He nodded in the direction of King Alfred.

"I understand an altercation took place at the "Two Cranes" this evening?" Osthryth bowed her head a little.

"Your grace." She stood back up, continuing. "It was a misunderstanding, I do believe, between the lord Uhtred and a warrior in the Wessex army."

"Indeed? It was news to him. "No," he said, deliberately, "The one which took place between the head of my household guard and one of your men." Osthryth looked across for a moment to Steapa's impassive face. "Leofstan, I understand his name to be." Osthryth felt her heart sink.

"It will be resolved, your grace," Osthryth promised. "When we have accompanied the Wessex army and - " But the king held up a hand.

"Not by you, Osthryth Lackland," Alfred told her, his face showing a brief flash of pain. "The matter is not your jurisdiction..."

"Your grace!" she exclaimed, but Alfred held up his hand again. "You are not, and never were, Mercian; I sent you there for training only; you swore to me, and to the aethling, a prior oath."

"My company...!" Osthryth exclaimed again, as the king's words swam past Osthryth's head, and she listened to them in her immediate memory as an anger kindled in her stomach. Had he not ordered her to be taken her over to the border of Mercia by Steapa, expelled from the kingdon like a criminal? Was he trying to do so again? Well, she was Aethelred's guard, not Alfred's. And what did he mean, "prior oath?" Beside him, she saw a figure shift, and Beocca looked at her, severely.

"As for your company," Alfred spoke low and steadily, not taking his eyes off Osthryth. "I have appointed your deputy, Aelffrith, to take charge of the lord Aethelred's men with the Wessex men."

Beside Steapa, Osthryth realised that Aelffrith stood there, and Steapa brought him forward, praised him for his loyalty with the lord Offa, and asked whether Aelffrith freely gave his oath, by proxy, in the circumstance of the absence of the lord Aethelred. Aelffrith did, and he knelt to the king.

As he got up, Osthryth saw Aelffrith's face. He wanted to look pleased - he did look pleased - but he knew what it meant to her, to lose the men she had trained, whose loyalty she had earned. And Beocca? Had he had a hand in this? To tell the king? Or advise she should no longer be in the army? Osthryth kept her eyes fixed forward, until the king waved her to him.

"My son still requires a guard," Alfred continued, "until his marriage." Osthryth nodded again, confusion in her mind. Was Edward not already married? Had he not become a father? But it was the lady Aelswith who interjected with additional information.

"He is to marry the daughter of Lord Aethelhelm," the lady explained. Aethelhelm, Osthryth thought, dully, rewarded for his wealth with more wealth, having been given the lord Odda's confiscated lands.

"He has said he will only accept you, as you guarded him before."

"Your grace, I will not lead my company? I will not defend my lord?" Osthryth sounded pitiful, and she knew it. But she wanted to make sure that it had been said.

"You will not, if you believe your lord to be Lord Aethelred." Alfred's words were heavy. "I knelt to him, and swore to him. I believed you to be discharging me from my oath."

"And now you know you are mistaken," Alfred replied. "The lord Aethelred will understand that I have your prior word." It was useless, and everyone in the throne room knew it.

"Your grace," Osthryth conceded, refusing to take her eyes off the king. "And what is my other choice?"

"Rather than guarding my son, you mean?" A little play of amusement enlivened the corners of his lips. "Cleaning the stables, tending the pigs - they are valuable, of course, and the latrines."

"I'll take the livestock," Osthryth replied, then nodded her head, acquiescently, then dropped to her knees, bending her head. Canny. This king really was canny - head-intelligent, and Osthryth had been caught in it, again.

"I accept your reinstatement, Osthryth Lackland. "You have until the army leave to hand over your dutes to the most excellent new captain of your company."

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Once out of the throne room, Osthryth ran to catch up with Aelffrith. She saw the look on his face, and waved her arm towards him.

"I am angry, I am," Osthryth agreed, when Aelffrith told her he was sorry for the situation, "and for a misunderstanding in the fine print of my exile," she added, caustically. Then, her face softened. "Apart from Aelfgar, I would not have the men left in better hands, Aelffrith," and pulled him closer to clap him on the back.

Then, they made their way to the armoury and talked about the men, who was best placed; which of them needed what support. Who could hold ground, who needed a different strategy, and Osthryth was pleased to find that Aelffrith broadly agreed with her.

"Aelfkin, keep him fed; he will grow." Aelffrith nodded as she spoke to them. "Falkberg needs instructrion; Leofstan can lead the initiative, and Oshere is growing in his confidence and will learn a lot from Leofstan."

"Osthryth, I know," Aelffrith said to her, eventually, when she had begun to repeat herself, "I know you have to tell me, but, I do know." Osthryth stopped, and nodded her head silently, before making their way to the stables, to where the men slept.

"Can you tell Merewalh, if he is there? And Aldhelm?"

"I will," Aelffrith assured her. "They will be confident that you would not willingly have given up the company."

"So, I want to hear that they have all returned, then," Osthryth added, determined to get the last word in. A cold breeze, hinting of autumn, tousled little bits of her hair as they crossed the courtyard. "At least Aethel does not need to move again, to a different palace," she added. Aelffrith grinned, and then they went to break it to the men.

"Leofstan! Falkberg!" Osthryth called, who were talking quietly at the back of the upper sleeping mezzanine, and Aelffrith woke Aeglfrith, Oshere and Aelfkin. Osthryth's men formed an arc around her, but were astonished when Osthryth fell to her knees before them. In front of her, little Aelfkin dropped to his knees, too.

"Aelfkin," she said, taking his hands. "I thank you for my life, back there at Beamfleot," she began, and looked into his little sparkling chestnut eyes. "I know that I have done a good job with you all because you acted with courage, and intelligence, and - " Osthryth took his shoulders in both hands, "You will make a fine, fine, warrior."

Then, she got to her feet. "And, I mean that for all of you." She looked at their astonished faces. "King Alfred, in his wisdom, has ordered me to my old role. In my place, he had given you - " she pushed Aelffrith towards them, and smiled what she hoped was a reassuring smile, "Your deputy." All eyes were fixed on him, and Osthryth knew then that they all would be alright. "I will see you all when you get back, and I want to hear all about your victories!" And then, the men were smiling, and Osthryth was gratified that they were accepting this last minute, vital change to their leadership.

She stood back, and gave her men one last strutinous eye. "It has, it has been a joy, a joy and an honour, to fight beside each and every one of you. All of you can stand beside the men of Mercia and fight, with your heads held high." And one last look, before she said something which would be shameful for a leader to say, about defying the king, and joining her, outlawed. They had done nothing at all to be tempted to by her.

"It has been nothing short of an honour to be your captain."

And they cheered her. Osthryth would long remember the roar of her men, who she had led, and was proud of, but never really knew how they had really felt of her as their leader. She knew now.

"Now rest," Osthryth said, her last order for her company of warriors, knowing that if she did not go, she would never go, and would give in to the temptation of marching out with them, anyway. "Rest, or you will be too tired to butcher those bastard Danes!"

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Osthryrth did not want to go to her bed, over at the other side of the city that night. For one thing, it meant she would hear the army leaving, for their route to Alton would pass near her rooms. For another, if she met that little shit Aldred, or even Aethelwold, she might just do something regrettable. She may even track down Beocca and confront him.

Instead, she made her way down to the sleeping rooms of the nobles, and round the corner to where Edward slept. It was gone midnight - indeed, it must have been into the early hours of the next morning, for the matin bell was already being sounded. But Osthryth would not look, and instead, tapped at the door. If she was to guard the aethling, guard him she would, beginning immediately.

It took some time for the door to open, as a sleepy young man, though only a couple of years younger than her, definitely no longer a child now, and he rumpled his pale hair as his nightshirt fell to his ankles. He blinked sleepily at Osthryth.

"Your father has sent me," Osthryth said, "And I am to guard you again." And Edward's face opened into a sunny smile, despite the hour, and clapped her on the shoulder.

"You are most welcome, Osthryth," he welcomed, holding the door open for her.

Edward had definitely grown. His face, easy going and sunny, matched his character. She peered past him, tentatively, looking for a sign he might have company, but his room seemed empty, as did his bed, which he threw himself into, pulling up the covers. It was most confusing, unless his wife was in confinement with their children: Uhtred had seen him married to Ecgwynn, yet, the queen had definitely said he was to marry Aethelhelm's daughter.

"Over there," Edward pointed, to a stool on which lay folded a blanket. Osthryth expressed her thanks, and took it, making for the door to settle down beside it. The one candle by Edward guttered, and Osthryth turned towards him, and to her surprise, instead of going back to sleep, Edward was sitting up in bed.

"I know that you wish to leave with your men," the aethling said, "and I sm sorry for you."

"My thanks, lord prince," Osthryth replied, but Edward was now up, and had come to sit next to her on the stone floor, and she shuffled up next to him.

"I can't believe how you've grown," she replied, despite her luggardly feelings. Edward smiled at her words. "And you are a father?"

"What do you know of it?" Edward jerked back, as if hit by something, and his face flashed darkly for a moment.

"Nothing at all," she replied, sorry to have mentioned it, then she turned away, adding, "If that is all?" But Edward did not move. Instead, he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Osthryth, we will get nowhere if we are like this with one another." He got to his feet, and reahced for her hand. "Come, sit by me." Osthryth came and sat. And all at once, the eager faced young man smiled his sunny smile, and all felt right with the world.

"You told me of her," Osthryth ventured, as he told her how much he had learned in training, and she had reminded him of what he had said to her before the diplomacy to Beamfleot to negotiate a ransom for Aethelflaed.

"She is so beautiful," he enthused, "And my children, both dark-haired, like their mother; both little bundles of happiness." Then, his face clouded over, and he whispered conspiratorially, "It has to be done, I can see that." Osthryth patted the outside of his hand.

"It does not stop you loving her." The aethling looked at her, curiously, as Osthryth's voice choked on the words.

"It did not stop me loving him, when he turned from me." And she drew her seax close to Edward's thigh, and laid it in her lap, telling him of Taghd, and that she had agreed to marry him, and their lives were about to be complete, just one battle away, and that he had gone into a burning church to rescue a dozen innocent people. And he hadn't come back out again.

When she'd finished, Osthryth continued to stare at Taghd's seax, before looking across to Edward, when she realised he had touched the small of her back.

"I had no idea," Edward said, childishly.

"Why should you?" Osthryth snapped, but then, more softly, added, "Time helps. And your chldren will be cared for?" It wasn't a statement, and the aethling knew it.

"My mother will see that they are." And, when Edward had not removed his hand from her, Osthryth got to her feet.

"I sleep at another place, across the market square. Your father provides the silver for this - well, Steapa provides the silver, and it comes from the treasury. Aethelred arranged it.

"Then, stay there, at night, Osthryth, if it makes you more comfortable. Come here, at dawn, and we can begin again."

"It is nearly dawn now," Osthryth said, pointing to the window, as shards of daylight had begin to press through the gaps.

"What is her name? The girl you must marry?" Edward looked at Osthryth sharply, saying nothing for a good few moments.

"Aelfflaed," he answered, stiffly. Osthryth smiled.

"Elf-beauty," she replied, and Edward nodded, with grace.

"Do you wish me to begin sleeping there tomorrow night?" Osthryth asked, ever lenient when it came to Edward of Wessex. He nodded. "Perhaps I could sleep as I did?" He handed her the blanket back, and she crossed to the door. Edward turned, and got back into bed.

And in the morning, Osthryth Lackland began to guard the aethling once again.

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And she soon settled into her old role, but this time, it was better than it had been. Edward was much taller, just a little higher than Osthryth's own head, and he had strength but he did not fully use it, nor had he been trained to think, to anticipate. If only she could have trained him, herself, Osthryth thought, if Alfred had not sent her away. He needed experience in battle, certainly, and his mother was keeping Edward close at hand.

So, failing battlefield understanding, Osthryth brought it back to basics, and showed him the foundations of the four moves that were hand-to-hand shield wall positions - how to kill in four moves, then back again, and Edward was coming on, save for two things. One, he did not want to attack her properly. Instead of throwing his full weight behind the moves, to bear down and knock Osthryth off her feet, he stopped at the last moment and gave some sort of feeble attack that a child might give.

Saving that some of the other guards were around, Osthryth might have thought it was because he was not willing to make the last, killing stroke, which was a feigned one when warriors trained, but when Steapa found him other opponents, Osthryth saw that he was well able to dominate them.

Secondly, her training meant that they were in the orbit of the king's nephew, who came to watch training sessions and gave commentary every so often, which put him off. Osthryth complained to Steapa, who had taken these to the king, but it did not seem to put Aethelwold off.

"Come on, cousin of mine, put her on her back," Aethelwold shouted, to Edward, "If you haven't already!" At once, Edward threw down his sword, and pushed his cousin off the low wall of the gardens, where he had been sitting, lazily, mocking both their efforts. Osthryth crossed over to the aethlong, who was glaring angrily at Aethelwold, as he got himself out of one of the bushes and leaned to his ear.

"Ignore him, lord prince," she instructed, and in the end explained to Edward that a battlefield was a noisy, dangerous, difficult place, where three or four screams, all conflicting one another might be heard at the same time, and he should trust and act on his own instinct.

"I am so glad you are here, in the palace," Beocca said to her one evening, as she was leaving the chapel. Osthryth hadn't realised he had been there, and she nodded, graciously, as she thought uncharitable thoughts as to whether he had scuppered her captaincy.

And Edward said the same that evening, as she waited with the aethling at dinner with his family, when they were walking back to his room.

"You are not the same."

No, Osthryth thought I am not the same, I have been tricked by your father, for one, and possibly a person who I thought I could trust.

"It is nothing," she replied, forcing herself to brighten. "I just wished for a moment I was with my men." She waved her hand as they walked back to his room. "It has passed." But it hadn't, and Osthryth's mind drifted to the stable, specifically the silver still buried there, and wondered where, as a landless person, it could take her.

She could go back to Mercia, where she was respected for what she did, and all the while Danes raided across the border again, and Osthryth wanted to take men, any men, even those clowns Aldred and Ecgred, to the border again and she had Aelfgar had done.

"I know how the battle went, at Farnham," Edward said, suddenly. "If you like, I can tell you."

And Osthryth was back, as his guard again and felt the crushing sense of victory, a Phyrric victory, as Edward told her with joy that Aelffrith and all her men had come through it well.

"And the victory was ours alone, the Saxons; Wessex."

"And Mercia," Osthryth added, and Edward's face dropped a little.

"Lord Aethelred chose not to come; he looks instead to the east, for spiritual help."

No Aethelred? No Mercians?

"The Lady Aethelflaed, my sister, led the kingdom," Edward added, "and the men will returning.

Of course she did, Osthryth thought. Anything to draw attention to herself; sees a conflict and worms the best deal for herself and leaves a trail of damage that she stirs herself in her wake.

And then she thought of the silver in the stable again, and how Domhnall might forgive her running away as long as she brought him enough wealth. Oh, to be in Alba again, that was a dream, a beautiful dream.

When she had formally said good night to the aethling and left the palace, Osthryth made her way to the, "Two Cranes Inn", ordering herself goats milk, for she knew she would not settle to sleep. This astonished the barmaid, who turned out to be Aelfburh, and looked at Osthryth with the same desire as she had done two years before. Why was she working here? Hadn't she married Uhtred's man?

It did not take Osthryth long for her to drink the milk, and she left shortly after placing the tankard on the bar. She felt uneasy, unsettled, and could not determine the cause. In any case, she could not sleep, and determined instead to visit the armoury and volunteer her services to Steapa until sleep came to her.

Crossing the marketplace, Osthryth nodded her way through the gates, as a tired Ecgred came to his senses and saluted to him, and crossed the gardens and to the courtyard, meaning to slip into the little door which led into the armoury storerooms. That was when she felt two hands take her shoulders and throw her against the wall. Osthryth struggled, as the face that went with the hands leered close to her.

"I know you, and you are no warrior," Aethelwold smoozed, as he breathed into her neck. "All that, with my cousin? You are nothing more than the little girl that used to guard Edward." He pushed his body against Osthryth and clenched both of her wrists into one of his own. "You didn't let me have you then." Aethelwold's free hand made to fondle the outside of her shirt, as Osthryth struggled. He was stronger than her, and they both knew it. But still, Osthryth shook him away.

"If you will not yield to me," he growled, slamming her body hard against the stone wall, "I will find out where you live and beat you until you do, I will take - " he pressed his lips to her mouth, and laughed at her indignation, " - your skin off your body oh yes." And this time his hands had got past her shirt, and under her bindings, and he rolled the flesh of her breast in his hand while holding her fast, running a thumb over her nipple several times.

"Ooh, oooh, and out it pops..." his voice oozed, continuing to annoy her by fiddling with it, before making to move his mouth to it, tongue as if to lick nub, now alert from his attention, and laughed at her indignation. He then made the mistake of letting go his hand holding her wrists, snaking it down and pressing over her trousers, dry-fingering her. "We will see how much you can take..."

And then Osthryth drew back her head, and slammed her forehead into his nose. Aethelwold stopped sexually assaulting her, and froze for a second, before staggering back, blood streaming from it.

Osthryth did not know what it was she was screaming, though she knew it was not Saxon, nor Anglish, and Buaidh was before her, as he looked back at Osthryth, a terrible expression on her face, as she made herself decent.

When she realised she was being watched, by Ecgred, of all guards, and one or two other younger ones, Osthryth levelled her sword to Aethelwold. He made to get up, but Osthryth kicked his legs away, and he fell, awkwardly, onto the flagstone floor.

The guards laughed, but not for long as Steapa roared at them to get away. Osthryth, meanwhile, was standing over her abuser, one foot on his chest, and Buaidh's spear point at his groin. Steapa put a hand firmly to her stomach and moved Osthryth off Aethelwold.

"I'm afraid I can't let you kill him," Steapa told Osthryth, who was glaring with everything she had at the king's nephew.

"Can I castrate him then?" Osthryth asked, not taking her eyes off Aethelwold. "I have done it before. Alfred will no more fear of succession."

"That is funny," Steapa said, his face looking anything but amused, then took her left arm, forcing her away. But, though Osthryth did back away from Aethelwold, she did not sheathe Buaidh. Instead she gripped the hilt of her blade tighter.

"I need you, Lackland," Steapa insisted. For a moment, Osthryth, when Alfred's guard let go of her arm, she thought she was going to fly at Aethelwold. Instead, she turned and stalked past Steapa and up towards the armoury.

"Do not go back to your room tonight," Steapa advised. "Stay here. You can lock the door."

"If I lock the door," Osthryth growled, bitterly angry at what had gone on, "I admit I cannot defend the aethling." Steapa held out some bread to her, which Osthryth shook her head at, but she did concede to a half-jar of ale, which she stipped deeply from.

"Everyone knows you could have killed the king's nephew tonight, Osthryth," Steapa said, "And no-one doubts your abilities." Then, he passed her a mostly clean cloth, nodding towards her face. Osthryth touched her forehead. Her fingers were damp with blood, presumably from breaking Aethelwold's nose. She dabbed at her face, nodding back, gratefully.

Enough money in the stables, Osthryth thought to herself, again, as the plan began to play out in her mind again, find a way north, find as many ships north. She sipped the ale as Steapa began to polish a spear shaft. Or walk, join another army. Join the Danes if they head north - she could speak Norse; Danish was not that much different. And, they accepted women. She could be "Krieger-kvind" again.

Or just go, humbly - and monetarily endowed - to Domhnall. Osthryth drained the pot, and handed it back to Steapa, nodding gratefully to him.

"I do appreciate what you did," she nodded. "Otherwise, is it hanging for killing a member of the royal family?"

"Oh, at least," Steapa replied, his dry humour showing through. "Although in my case a beating first. I probably only broke his nose." She looked at Steapa, and narrowed her eyes. "I was protecting my guards, and he was sneaking around," Steapa explained, explained what the story was going to be. "He will not remember; he was drunk, as always - "

He was not, Osthryth thought, but said nothing.

"My thanks, Steapa." The big man peered at her, then nodded his head.

"No need to thank me, you are one of my warriors, are you not." He watched as she pushed her chair away and got to her feer.

"And you are going?"

"To guard the aethling," Osthryth replied, feeling that sleeping behind the thick, oak door of Edward's room was infinitely preferable to finding her way back in the dark to her room, and her shrewish landlady.

And that, if Osthryth thought about it at all, in the future, was, more or less, the place where everything began to go wrong.

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Edward stirred when she stepped through his door, dismissing one of Steapa's Wessex guards with a nod. The grateful guard hurried down the passage and Osthryth bolted the door behind her. Dampness was on her cheek, though it was probably Aethelwold's blood congealing on the sides of her face.

She was not quiet enough to settle down without disturbing the aethling, though, and Osthryth sighed at her indiscretion.

"I apologise, Lord Prince," she said, but Edward was out of his bed, bringing his candle with him. He was still dressed, and it looked as if he had just been lying on his bed. Brooding, perhaps? Thinking on his wedding, where his heart lay somewhere else.

"I am just going to guard you and your door tonight, if that is preferable? I - " But Edward had come over to her, and was looking at her face, holding the candle high.

"Osthryth," he said, his voice full of concern. "You aren't making any sense - " He looked at her face, then touched her cheek. "You've got blood on you! You're trembling."

"It is nothing, Lord Prince," Osthryth replied, trying to sound braver than she felt.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing I can't handle," Osthryth replied, and it was true - she would have handled it, if she could have. Did that make her more a Dane than a warrior in service?

"Come," Edward said, hand on her shoulder. "You need someone to speak to this night." But he did not take send her from his room, instead, he bolted the door behind Osthryth and led her over to his bed. He made to bring her to sit next to him, but Osthryth shook him from her shoulders.

"I swore an oath to you once, Lord Prince, that I needed to be more powerful than you; I needed to overcome you." Osthryth's hand moved to Buaidh, and she had got her half way out of her scabbard when Edward sprang back up, staying her hand as he put his over hers and she withdrew her sword, holding it high. She saw a strange look pass over his face.

"It is resolved," Osthryth confirmed, and Edward lowered her sword arm. Buaidh resheathed, he stopped her from making her way to the door by placing his hand back onto her shoulder then, supporting her back, the aethling leaned into her neck, his lips skimming the surface of her flesh.

"Edward!" Osthryth exclaimed in shock, and tried to push him away. But he carried on, working his lips up her neck, and began to kiss her ear. Osthryth managed to push him away, then.

"No, Edward, it's wrong!" She exclaimed, as he put his hand to her braided hair, seeing Eirik's jewel, and pulling it out. Osthryth's hair trickled down her back as he traced a hand down her face.

"Does it feel wrong?" he whispered, as he kissed deeply behind Osthryth's ear, and into her hair. It didn't, but Osthryth still stepped away.

"I always - wanted to - help you, because - you helped - me," Edward continued, breaking off every so often as he kissed her neck again. "You guarded me once, and I saw you, I followed you, because I wanted to guard you." He pulled away, and examined her face. "I saw you go to the river, I watched you when you bathed." Osthryth felt her mouth fall open. Then, he leaned into her neck again, his hands on her face, but Osthryth pushed him away more forcefully this time.

"No, Edward!"

"You had no clothes on," he told her, "And when I looked at your body..." He followed Osthryth slowly, as she backed towards the door.

"No!" she protested, covering her ears with her hands. "I don't want to hear it!" When her back was to the oak planks, Edward brought his hands up to her own, and slowly drew them down.

"You were in the Itchen," Edward told her, his voice low, as Osthryth's mind raced. It must have been some weeks before, upriver, under a wide bridge. She had been discreet, or so she had thought, and she had been cleaning herself of her monthly blood. Now, it felt wrong, knowing Edward had seen her unclothed. Again. He had seen her in the stables, too, she remembered.

"I looked and saw your beautiful body," Edward continued, as Osthryth stared, silently at the aethling. "I saw you, your scars on your skin," he traced over her jerkin where these injuries lay, just below the surface, "From your victories...those times when you thought you were on your own, in the alcove and you thought no-one was there..." You would put your hand just here." Just a small touch to her cunt, because his hands were at her chest.

"Yet," Edward continued, his voice still low, "You tied a cloth around your chest..." Osthryth tried to duck under his arm, but he had anticipated her, as she had taught him to anticipate things, when fighting. In fighting, yes, but not such as now...

"I want to see your cloth," he commanded, trailing a hand over her flattened chest.

"Lord Prince!" Osthryth protested, but Edward smiled his sunny smile at her, and he traced his fingers over the cord fastening at the front.

"I just wish to look on you again, Osthryth," he explained, his hand pulling the leather cord, and the linen lace at her chest. Osthryth gave no protest as he threw her jerkin onto the floor and lifted her shirt.

"Why do you do this?" But Osthryth pulled her shirt down.

"No, Edward!"

But the aethling had lost interest in her chest, for Osthryth felt him creep his hand lightly, almost timidly, up Osthryth's leg, his palm warm and tender. When he reached the top he moved his fingers over to the centre pressing down a little, and made Osthryth betray a sigh and shudder a little. But then, she moved aside from Edward, and grabbed her clothes, beginning to pull on her clothing again.

"I could see your breath on that cold morning, when I followed you." Edward no attempt to stop her, instead began to talk to Osthryth again. "You took your hand and placed it here," he trailed his own hand before himself, as if she were still, there, then stepped towards Osthryth and was now touching her cunt again, "And you crossed them, and you went up and down with your hand - " he mimicked the gesture, pressing just hard enough for Osthryth to sigh, the familiar feeling of pleasure hinting at its arrival around her hips. Then leant close to her ear.

"I would have gone to you if I had understood." With his other hand traced hand over her stomach, breast and neck.

"My Lord Prince!" Osthryth took a step from him in ptotest, but Edward gripped her arm, it was firm, but not harsh; it was commanding.

"You are under oath to me, you must do as I say," he whispered, by her ear. It was untrue; she had been, once, under oath to his father. His hands were enticing, his eyes soft, but his timidity of youth was still there, adding to the discourse, an air of vulnerability around him, so that Osthryth was not wholly being seduced and she could turn from the situation if she wanted.

She didn't want. But Osthryth's mind fought to remind the aethling of his duties.

"You are married, Edward, that beautiful girl." She backed away, and began to lace her jerkin. "Ecgwynn." If the name stirred anything in him, he did not show it. Instead, he held out a conciliatory hand, and Osthryth, like a fool, took it.

"Let us not talk about her," murmured Edward, looking at her face. "Let us talk about you." He leaned towards her ear once more, and whispered, "But I don't command you, Osthryth Lackland." Then, he kissed her neck, just once, as if he were afraid of her, breaking off immediately, and shyly hanging his head. "I want to see you throw your head back and cry out, like you did that morning."

Osthtyth thought back. She had wanked many a morning in the shallows of the river, where the current could not have taken her away. It could have been after glancing Finan, and her hand had strayed to clitoris. Before she had known what she was doing to herself, she had placed two fingers, one either side of that bump and had been squeezing them together, rhythmically. It was the quickest way to get herself off, and it had felt good, refreshing.

Or, maybe two mornings before, when she had pulled her breeches up and bore down into them, folding her legs in, to get that tingling release from the friction. Or maybe the time she had ridden the thumb knuckle of her hand. Could it have been when she had pulled the dry moss between her cunt lips? That had been a good technique, but had left her a little sore, though it had been a very fast way to orgasm.

But, she had been careful: she knew it. Edward really must have been determined to see her if he had seen her masturbate. He escorted Osthryth by the elbow until she was closer to him, and smiled at her, as if he had just received the biggest birthday present in the world.

The world seemed dreamlike as she pulled back from him, the firelight glittering in his fair hair as he moved her to him. Her fate was certain, Osthryth knew, and she gave in to his will. Her fingers brushing against his skin as she kissed the aethling, and she smiled softly at Edward, before he took her face in her hands, parting her lips wih his own, tonguing her mouth.

Then, Edward broke away. He did nothing at first, looking at her all over, betraying a heavy breath near her neck. Then, he gently lifted the fastenings of her leather jerkin, which he took from her body, before undoing the the ties of her shirt, opening them gently and full of wonder, breathing heavily as he pushed away Thor's hammer, which Osthryth saw he had noticed.

Then, the prince felt around Osthryth's chest for the end of the cloth. It was tucked in and, when he found it, let it cascade around her, falling to her feet as it liberated her breasts, which perked up in front of her, her nipples soft, flattened by the material, as they usually were, and the aethling looked at them, but did not touch any part of her.

Osthryth felt short of breath as Edward lowered his head towards her - he was tall, as Aethelflaed was tall and at first, and a flicker of feelings towards him made her tremble a little. Her nipples hardened as a cool breeze flitted about the room from the tiny gaps in the wooden shutters. Osthryth watched as Edward made to touch her breasts, his hand quivering with uncertainty as he closed on one, then the other, feeling them, rounded, in his palm.

He stepped closer now, his eyes between her breasts and her face, like a man who had seen a true wonder and was not sure what to do about the sight. Osthryth did nothing, but waited. Perhaps the boy would get tired of it, and she could curl up bythe door and guard him like she used to.

But he was a boy no longer. He had his hand to her face, taking a hand to trace the axe-mark, which so nearly took her ear or more, outside Dunnottar, as she defended the younger brother, Eirik, as she had sworn to do, then placed his lips on the diagonal scar made by Giric, as Griogair, when he hd come to defile her for her resistanace to matrimony to Guthred.

Then, Edward changed tack, and brought his mouth to her face, working his it across her cheek, a rough stubble of a first beard irritating her skin, then to her lips, then drew her close to him, enveloping her next to his chest, as if his arms were the protection of the world.

Working his way down from her ear, he got to her shoulder, kissing delicately into her collarbone, something which made Osthryth sigh unexpectedly: she had never felt that before, and it felt good.

Edward continued kissing Osthryth, past the indentation of her collarbone, then further south, before going back to her breasts, this time using his mouth to kiss between them, then slowly running his tongue up her neck. It was good, the softness, the uncertainty of his touch; it was heightening her pleasure. Osthryth had never felt like this before.

The aethling's hands gently caressed Osthryth's back, her waist and hips, her arms, her shoulders, and she felt their heated bodies press together, with just his shirt separating their naked bodies.

And then Osthryth took the lead. Slipping to her knees, it was she herself who pulled down his breeches, guiding her mouth to his cock, Osthryth was to remind herself later, when she fought to recall in her own mind how it had all begun with the prince. The firm, rigid shaft, muscles under her tongue gave resistance as she moved her head in and out; her choice this time, not like the forced, choked act of the Ulaid warrior, Ninefingers, hand on her chest, the wet terminus of his shaft forcing itself into the back of her throat onto the hard sand, his hairs catching in her teeth, like a furry, hot snake, until it emitted its potent venom.

With Edward, Osthryth found that her mouth was changing his hardness, and his breathing changed as she deep-throated him, stopping before his balls started to harden, a sure sign that if she carried on she would be making a meal of his ejaculate. Instead, Osthryth moved his hands to her breeches, as he sought to unbutton them whilst still maintaining control of his orgasm.

Had he done this before, Osthryth thought, as he put his hand between her legs, palm upwards so his fingertips could explore her cunt, experimenting with her hole, then bringing her juice forward and working it around her tender clitoris, softly at first and then, when she could tell she was feeling pleasure, pressed a little harder, probed his fingers deeper into her flesh. Osthryth gasped with unalloyed pleasure and Edward sighed into her neck.

Then, the prince shifted Osthryth to the edge of his bed, kneeling before her, as if she were the queen and he the servant. Maybe if the house of Ida had thrived two hundred years more, this mock role-reversal may have existed in reality. Northumbria would edge closer to ruling the whole island of the Britons, and Wessex in the descendancy. And she might have been betrothed to Edward of Wessex as he sought to take the northern lands as its king, and she its queen, and -

Edward rested his against the inner of her knees just to look at the flesh between her legs, as all thoughts raced from Osthryth's mind as she wondered what he intended. For a moment, she thought that look was all he was going to do.

Then, gently, Edward moved her legs apart, smoothing both hands down her thighs starting from her knees, using his thumbs to massage her labia, his head still, as if truly fascinated with what he had found. Then, he lowered his head to her cunt, pressing his lips to hers, his tongue replacing where his fingers had just been and Osthryth opened her arms wide as she lay on the bed, feeling a dozen feelings that she had never achieved alone. Was this was it was like, then? Constantine had never done this to her, though Osthryth did have some idea that it could happen, for she had seen a glimpse of a servant girl at Doire letting a warrior do that to her. But, up until now, she had never known why.

Now she knew, and Osthryth arched her back, and he readjusted his position, his nose touching the top bumps within the folds that gave Osthryth such pleasure. But those folds of her vulva were not open yet and Osthryth shuffled backwards, parting her knees, the soles of her feet pressed down. Her will was fighting back, but her sexuality was winning, and now Edward must have full sight of her womanliness, apart like a flower in full bloom, available to his will.

Maybe it was; he seemed very natural in what he was doing, proficient. Yet, the aethling gave the impression of vulnerability, of a path not yet trodden, one which he was very willing to explore.

No. Osthryth had gone to Edward, the aethling, of her own free will. she had wanted him to pleasure her and, in turn, she wanted to please him.

She gasped deeply as now as he drew his head away, shuffling her up his bed, craning over her and kissing her body, his erection proudly out in front of him. Edward never lost eye contact with her, his gaze one of teasing, challenging Osthryth to look away first.

Then, elegantly, he moved her legs apart still further, and this time shuffled down her to use his tongue to rub across her most prominent bump, manipulating it so she exhaled sharply, before offering her cunt up to his mouth, tonguing her.

Edwards hands worked up her body as he gave Osthryth oral sex his hands moving up her body until so lightly she barely realised they were there until strong fingers reached her breasts and he was softly moving her nipples between his fingers, tightly, then gently, never stopping until she came.

Osthryth arching her back as pleasure flooded through her, and Edward retreated from her, his lips moist from her cum, only to reposition his body so that he could push his cock pushed inside her, mounting her efficiently and riding her to his pleasure as he interlaced his fingers through hers, his eyes never leaving her own.

Osthyrth had been commanded to look after the aethling, and he had made a toy of her body. Osthryth could have merely withdrawn, to dress, to leave, but she chose to lie next to the aethling when he rubbed himself inside her until he came, not even moving to wipe away his cum as its viscosity coated her thighs.

This was her first time since her only lover, Constantine, at Glen Orchy, and it could not have been more different. Constantine demanded; Edward worshipped. Constantine argued and shouted and forced; Edward whispered and suggested and encouraged and adored. Yes, Osthryth felt like she had been adored by him, like it had been an honour to fuck her.

It was not to be the only time she would be seduced by the heir to the throne of Wessex. Osthryth would always attend him with a will of ice, determined that she would not give in, but Edward knew how to melt her.

She would tell herself it was a duty, nothing more, like a battle. But she felt a battle as she felt Edward loving her. It was a duty, but her heart beat faster at clash of steel on wood; adrenaline coursed through her like a river of heat, making her want to shout with adulation at the energy of it all. It would begin slowly, and he would always have the measure of her, and get her unclothed no matter her resistance. He was stronger than she was now, but the aethling never used his strength.

Except once. Once, on a day so far in the future that Osthryth could not imagine it ever happening, and a chain of events similar to ones which were about to happen because of that night, would be put into place.

But, after that first night, Osthryth did not know that then. Guilt hung heavy in her chest for the wrong she had done her brother and she would be leaving. As the sun rose she left the aethling asleep in a warm bundle of sweat and cunt-juice and seed, taking a good deal of it with her on her own legs, as she contemplated her plan, her plan to go north.

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And she went north at sunrise that morning, but not quite as far as Alba. Leaving the aethling asleep, Osthryth pulled a cover over his body, then sought her own clothes that Edward had discarded, and she looked back at the prince, realising full well the truth in the stories that his father had seduced many women at Edward's age. It was hard to imagine now, for Alfred's body seemed wracked with an illness that it could not shake off.

She could not blame Alfred for demoting her, Osthryth thought, and then she glanced back to Edward. Had that really happened, Osthryth thought, the tightness of her nerves pressed around her clothing telling her so, when her brain was having trouble accepting it. What would Edward think when she was not beside him that morning?

But she had to have the tansy root now; it was unquestionable that she might conceive a child, and terabinth too, if Ula the Briton had that, too. And, once she had got back to the palace, and taken it, Osthryth would be by his side again, or before him, training him. She need not let that happen again, she told herself, firmly.

Osthryth pushed past two guards at the gate, neither of whom she knew, but who stood aside to let her pass. This time, Osthryth foung Ula much more gregarious and, after locating a wrap of cloth, pushed it into Osthryth's hands.

"Terabinth; tansy," she explained, as the steam rose from a cooking pot near the back of the woman's home. "I trust you know what to do with it, as you have come here asking for it?"

"I do," Osthryth replied, and handed Ula silver. The Briton healer looked at it, before pushing two coins back into Osthryth's fingers.

"I will only take a fair price; you must not give me to much." And Ula folded her arms when she sensed that Osthryth was going to try to give it back to her.

"My thanks," Osthryth said, and left the healer's house, treading the dusty road back to the Crepelgate. She needed to hurrry, for it was close to the time Edward would need his traning, and she knocked on the slatted wooden gate, which opened immediately.

As Osthryth stepped through, she was surprised to see a figure approaching the palisade wall, two children, one at each hand, walking with her.

"Lady Gisela, good morning," Osthryth called, waving a hand, and the woman stopped walking, turning to her. Pain was etched onto her features so that, when Gisela tried to smile, the corners of her mouth only did so very briefly as to satisfy social convention.

"It is a good morning," Gisela replied, her genial smile disintegrated by a sharp pain and she clutched at her lower stomach. When she thought Osthryth was trying to step forward to help, she raised a hand.

"I sorry to hear that," Osthryth said, stopping, and watching her. She let go of her children's hands, and Osthryth smiled down to them. The boy shied away from her, but girl didn't, instead the child stared at her seax, raising a hand to look at the etched pattern along its leather scabbard.

"I hope you get what you're looking for," Osthryth said to her, nodding towards the British settlement.

"I am missing my husband," Gisela admitted, and Osthryth could tell she looked less than comfortable.

"He is being unruly?" Osthryth asked. Gisela smiled, her eyes now interested, as every expectant mother is when a person is taking an interest in her unborn child.

"You know it's a him?" Gisela's eyes watched Osthryth carefully.

"You said so, before," Osthryth explained.

"Do you not think so?" Gisela drew her hands to her distended stomach, before wincing again at a pain. Osthryth gave her a look of what she hoped was sympathy. If the woman thought Osthryth knew anything about pregnancies, other than how to end them, she would have to think again.

"I have no children," Osthryth said, quickly, "And know little of childbrth." She had been there at the labour pains of the maid, Aila, at Doire, who claimed she was birthing Domnall's child. But it had turned Osthryth's stomach, and it had taken the level-headed Mairi to instruct what should be done. That had drawn her and the haughty Irish princess together, and Osthryth's mind flashed to Alba: she would be there now, in Dunnottar, and Eira with her, so they could marry Constantine and Domhnall.

"I hope you get what you need," Osthryth said again, as she looked at the Crepelgate and she stepped aside so the guards could open it immediately for the lord Uhtred's wife.

As the children were about to step through after their mother, Osthryth felt the two silver coins that Ula had insisted she take back, and she pressed the coind into both children's hand, catching Gisela's hand and pressing one into hers, too.

"For him," she qualified, "for good fortune." They were her blood, after all, these children, Osthryth reasoned, and turned quickly from her sister-in-law and made her way to the palace, specifically, the palace kitchens.

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The draught was bitter, like Osthryth remembered, and she had drained the cup she had made, trying not to regurgitate it, before stowing away in her bindings the remainder, for it could do in a future event. Even thought she had promised herself it must never happen again, Osthryth reminded herself, sharply.

She caught up with Edward in the courtyard of the palace, the late summer's morning illuminating the ground. Around them, the palace guards not distributed on duty were beginning to warm up, and Osthryth stood before Edward, as she had always done when training.

And they trained. Edward was his usual self, humble, wlling to learn, self-confident and willing to try her suggestions, at one moment managing to outwit her stroke-for-stroke. He was learning by the day, as his mother had so clearly put it one of the days she and the king had been watching. But today, no-one was watching, not even Aethelwold, and Osthryth remembered the prelude to the night before - she had headbutted him, and he had been injured.

It was nearing midday when Steapa intervened to call Edward for his studies. He passed Osthryth, who nodded to the aethling, and then slipped something into her hand, holding onto her palm and glancing at it for a moment.

"Come to the hall to guard me for supper," he instructed, which was routine guarding for Osthryth, and he nodded his thanks to her, as he always did, before leaving with Steapa, without another glance. Again, normal. But, what was not normal was for Edward to give her something, and when she looked at her hand, she founf it was her jewel, the one Eirik had given to her. Moreover, the hand he was inspecting was her left hand, where he prominent white scar was, from an arrow from the Bebbanburg guards as she fled in a rowing boat to Lindisfarne.

It could not go on, Osthryth thought, as she noticed an ache in her stomach. She knew it, knew what had caused it. The last time, she had been in Alba; the time before, Doire. The lily root was doing its job and expelling the contents of her uterus. With luck, she would be able to walk around the city without being summoned before she was expected, suppertime.

Osthryth began in the west, looking out to the Wessex countryside. A watermill sat on a ridge out towards the north-east, it being fed by a tributary of the Itchen. She was too far away to hear the gush of the water which would be turning the wooden paddles and grinding the harvest grain and, as she turned south, another lay on the Hamptun road.

South east brought her in sight of another road to Hamptun, but this climbed towards a wide hill of chalkland, over which many sheep were dotted. In the afternoon sun they were a pleasant sight, little white specks against Mercian green, and Osthryth's mind drifted to the battle over at Alton, further away from that hill of land. Were the men victorious against the Great Heathen Army? Had they arrested their passage? No sign of raiding was coming in that direction: indeed, Wessex looked as peaceful as ever it did, with merchants and tradespeople going about their business.

Osthryth took a turn to the left again, which brought her towards the north east. Winchester city itself rose to a greater height here and the palisade wall dropped down into a man-made ditch, making it impossible for enemies to attempt to climb this even if they had breached the outer wall. She was coming to Crepelgate now, and thanked God that she knew about British medicine, and what to ask for from the Briton healer.

And now, as she got to the northen part of the city, wherein the monastery on land given to the Abbess Hild stood. Osthryth knew the abbess, and knew she had once been a warrior with her brother. She had founded a monastery in Uhtred's town of Cookham, but spent a lot of her time at the monastery at Winchester training women who were to be sent to this northern Wessex town, when it had been built, to form her convent.

So it was not surprising when Osthryth heard the abbess's voice on the other side of the monastery wall. What was more surprising was its shrillness, which brought Osthryth up sharply.

"What's happening?" she heard someone else saying.

"No! No!" Someone else shouted. "Look, take the children, for pity's sake, and - " There was a scream, possibly from the children being discussed, and another voice in lower tones making a poor job of trying to soothe them.

"What can be done?"

"I have done what I can - "

"There will be more! There must be!" This was Hild again, and when the abbess started her next sentence with, "Gisela, look at me. Can you hear me?" A pause. "I want you to try to turn - no, gently - gently I said," Hild's voice snapped at someone else, then back to the calming tone, "to one side. Your baby is - "

And Osthryth heard no more. The abbey would not be open to her even if she did try to gain entry, so instead, she scaled the outbuilding to the right, and made a jump to the masonry, scrambling up the wall, which had, conveniently for her, mossy tussocks growing in the cracks. At the top, she swung her legs over, and was lowering herself down, to make the last fall shorter, but found she was being pulled down by both legs roughly, and she landed in a heap on straw that covered the courtyard of the monastery.

"What - !" demanded the older woman, who had pulled her down with force, but Osthryth shoved her hard in the shoulder to get her out of the way. To Hild's absolute credit to the situation, she had ignored the commotion as the older nun gained her feet and flew at Osthryth, and continued to talk, soothingly, to Gisela.

Who was, in this three-sided room, doors open to the lovely summer afternoon, wrist deep in the woman's blood. And, had not the abbess Hild said her name, Osthryth would never have recognised Uhtred's wife. Her hair was plastered to her pale, exhausted face and was wet, a young nun was standing by, cloth and bucket in hand, clearly her job had been superceded when it was clear Gisela needed much more than cooling by springwater. How changed from the woman, full of life and happiness beside her husband at Aethelflaed's wedding. Beside Hild, another nun was supporting Gisela's body.

"You can't go in there!" The woman who had pulled Osthryth down dictated, but Osthryth flashed her seax, a very useful entry-pass at times, and ignored her, getting to Hild's side.

And there was a a foot. And an ankle. Tiny, and bright red, it was clear what was wrong: the baby tried to be born without turning, and was trying to be born feet first. It was no wonder the birthing room looked like a battlefield, but unlike a field of war, this place was trying to bring forth life, not take life away. Although, life might soon be ebbing. Gisela'a face, despite the effort she must have already been through to push her child that far, was pale, her pale brown hair was tangled and stuck to her face.

"Hild, what can I do?" The words were from Osthryth's lips before she even knew she had spoken them, as a spray of blood burst forth from Gisela's birth canal, and out came globules of tissue.

"The birth sac!" The woman who had tried to stop Osthryth now had bigger concerns and had shouldered her aside to stand beside the nun holding Gisela. Hild glanced to Osthryth, then pulled at her shoulder as another contraction wave made the woman's body shudder.

"Nothing, nothing for the mother," Hild said. "We may be able to save the child."

"Nothing?" demanded Osthryth. Hild looked at her, implacably.

"Pray. She will be with God before suppertime," Hild added, then winced and turned as Gisela's mouth sighed in pain. "She has no strength left to birth him; she has lost too much blood."

"Pray!" Osthryth scorned. "She needs help!"

"There is none," Hild replied, sadly. But Osthryth shook her head.

"You are wrong." Osthryth pointed to the gates of the monastery. "I will get her the help she needs - open the gates to us when I bang on them."

"Where...?"

"Just do it, abbess!" Osthryth demanded, pushing past the older nun who had pulled her down, and scaled the monastery wall.

Ula did not seem surprised when Osthryth tore across to her house not long afterwards. Indeed, to Osthryth's eyes, the Briton looked as if she expected to be called on to Gisela. But then, Osthryth reasoned, Ula has seen Gisela that morning, and anyone who had seen Gisela that morning would have seen that she had been in a great deal of discomfort.

Osthryth had not the Cymric words to explain, but she managed to convey that Gisela had lost a deal of blood and the baby was breech. She strode from Ula's house as soon as she had told her, but after a few steps, Osthryth realised that Ula had not followed her.

"Come on!" she urged, but Ula shook her head.

"If I go to the monastery, I will be seen; I will be hanged."

"No!"

"Not today, not now. But in the future."

"You can't leave her there to die! I know you can help her!" Osthryth screamed, her hope at being able to offer her sister-in-law a chance withering in her chest. "What do you need? Silver? Money?" But Ula shook her head.

"The tansy I sold you this morning," Ula said, far too calmly for Osthryth's liking, and she pulled it from her bindings, still in its cloth."

"Now, make sure they use all of this," Ula continued, before Osthryth's mind could catch up. "Grind it first, mix in this - " she handed Osthryth the willow bark. "Hot water, not a lot, make it into a paste."

"She will not be able to swallow it!" Osthryth insisted, trying to pull at Ula, who needed to come immedately herself. But the dark-haired woman shook her head, and shook Osthryth off.

"You have used some of this?"

"Yes, but - "

"It may still be enough," Ula mused, looking at the pale-wooded root. "Put the paste under her lips; she will absorb the goodness; she will relax. It may be too late to save her, but the baby will have an easier time." Ula looked back to Osthryth. "Take your hand - no," she corrected herself, "Someone who's hand is smaller - they need to turn the baby - and - " Ula broke off when she saw Osthryth's blade. But she did not move.

"I will not come with you to expose my people to danger; I cannot come if you run me through. Quick," she urged. "You are wasting time."

And Osthryth knew it. Seizing the willow bark, she tore from Ula's sight, back through into the city and to the monastery. She was raising her fist for a second thump to its outer gate when it was flung open, and Osthryth pushed her way past two nuns who were foolishly trying to stop her.

"Take these!" She thrust the tansy and willow bark into the hands of the woman who had pulled her from the wall. "It needs to be a paste." Osthryth looked across to the trainee nun, who shrunk to the wall of the room. "You - "

But Osthryth's instruction faded to nothing. Because there was nothing. No sound was coming from Gisela now, as she lay in the arms of the nun who had been supporting her. Further, there was little life from the child trying to make his way into the world, just a wriggling sensation in the region of Gisela's uterus.

"There is no hope," Hild said, softly.

"Gisela had been seeking help from the Britons," Osthryth shot back, baldly. "And I have brought this from the Britons."

"Look - "

"No time!" Osthryth snapped at Hild. "If she is dead anyway, if the child is, there will be no harm in trying pagan healing, will there?" She practically yanked the wooden bowl from the nun's hands, who had returned with the poultice - it was hot, and thick, like a herb-mud, and Osthryth handed it to the nun supporting Gisela's frame.

"The baby is breech?" Hild nodded.

"Then, she needs to turn the baby!" Osthryth pointed to the young nun, who shrank from her, but Hild's calm, reassuring tone encouraged her forward, and she instructed her on what she needed to do.

Gisela shifted in her unconscousness when the girl put her hand inside, catching the baby's feet with her hand, and pushing him back inside. A gush of blood slipped down her arm, but the young girl did not flinch, and instead, followed Hild's instructions.

More blood came, and Gisela moved as her lips stuck out, the paste behind them, on her gums.

"Carefully," Hild cautioned, as the girl moved the boy around, and she instructed her to make sure she looped the umbilical cord around her thumb to keep it out of the way. Gisela jerked, and more blood came down the girl's arm, dripping onto the straw beneath the bed, and for some reason Osthryth could not explain, she began to speak to Gisela in the Danish she knew, talking about Northumbria, rivers and streams, Jul, and her battle, and she was sure that the woman's eyes flickered, but it could easily have been the medicine that Ula had supplied that was taking effect.

And effect it had for, just as the young nun had moved her hand around again, Gisela's body gave a mighty jerk, and she pulled out her arm. With it, a piece of tissue, as large as a child, but gelatinous, which Osthryth recognised as the same thing which Ailie had passed after her child had been born. And then Gisela's body jerked once more, and the fluid between the Danish woman's legs was enough for the baby boy to slither out, being caught by utter surprise by the young nun.

Swiftly, Hild wrapped the child in a clean, pale cloth, and was slapping him on the back. Osthryth looked stunned as she did this, but only for a second, for the slapping brought life to the infant. Which was more than could be said for Gisela. Osthryth turned to her. But her eyes were firmly closed.

"She is gone," Hild said, gently, as the child was placed to his mother's nipple, and Osthryth watched the sad, sorry sight of the baby, full of life, taking his first gulps of food as the life left his mother.

Osthryth sat with Gisela for some time when the boy had been given to a wet nurse, and her brother's wife was cleaned and dressed.

"Ready for a pyre," Osthryth said, softly, as she slipped her Thor's hammer from her neck and placed it, discreetly, around Gisela's.

"Ready for a grave; she was a Christian, after all," Hild cautioned. And she had been married to Uhtred in a church by Beocca, Osthryth learned, but it still seemed wrong that, that night, Gisela would be lying cold, underground, rather than in comfort with her three children.

Her own discomfort caused her to leave without acknowledgement. There was something other than dull grief in her own chest that caused Osthryth to slip away, and she made her way as far north up the river as she could, away from the city walls, away from the last houses, until she could bear her own pain no longer.

Removing her breeches, Osthryth immersed herself in the coolness, feeling clods of her own tissue leave her, and float off in the cleansing water, dipping down into the river, until she felt as clean as she possibly could get. Clearly, the tansy had cleared something away, and Osthryth resolved to steel herself to any ideas the aethling might have for a repeat of the previous night, however good Osthryth had felt with Edward's hands on her.

It was nearly the end of the day when she returned to the palace, and there was bustle going on, from the kitchens, in the stables.

"Word is that the army is returning," a kitchen boy told Osthryth, as he scuttled past her carrying two jugs of ale, one in each hand, almost as big as himself. Osthryth caught his arm.

"The army?"

"Both armies - the Mercians too," he told her, and slipped away onto his task as Osthryth's mind thought: Aldhelm; Merewalh. And a spark in the very depths of her brain illuminated a thought lurking at the back of her mind: if she appealed to Aldhelm could she not regain her position in the Mercian army again?

"You are late," Edward told her, as he got up from his seat in the hall. Dinner had been eaten, and he was about to retire. "You look awful," he added, as Osthryth flanked him to his room.

"Is it true the army is returning back?" Osthryth asked. Edward turned to her.

"Yes. We have secured a great victory at Farnham, and the Danes have retreated." He continued to walk, but then stopped when he realised Osthryth was not following him.

"The lord Uhtred, too?"

"I suppose so." He looked at her, narrowing his eyes, just as Alfred did when he was about to say something significant. "Does this relate to why you are so late?"

Osthryth strode past him, dismissing the Wessex guard outside his room, and opened the door, walking in. She waited for Edward to close it behind them.

"Where were you?" he asked again, this time his tone was softer, almost like he was pleading with her.

"Uhtred's wife," Osthryth said. And that was all she could say, because that was all she could manage. When he stood there and waited, Osthryth finally got her thoughts to synchronise with her speech, and she told Edward that Gisela was in labour, distressing labour, and how she had been helped by Hild, in the monastery.

"And he has a second son," Osthryth said, words unable to coalesce from the images of Gisela, Hild, the other nuns, all of them, covered in her blood. Edward smiled at her, and put his hands to her forearms.

"We have won a great victory," Edward explained. "Aethelred did not go to Farnham, but Aethelflaed led the Mercian troops." Osthryth looked up to his face, and she saw the reverence with which he spoke of his bitch of a sister. Not many years had passed and the aethling had his head buried in Osthryth's arms because of the latest cruel thing Alfred's favourite had done to him.

"And Uhtred will be able to see his wife now, and his son." But Osthryth shook her head, craning her head so her eyes met the floor.

"She died; the child lived." There it was, plainly, before him. "All that could be done for her was done for her." She felt Edward loose her arms, and step towards his bed, sitting on it, mind full of thoughts as he looked across the room, at the door. Then, he looked up to Osthryth.

"Will you sit with me?" Edward seemed like the scared childthat she once knew, but he was no child, Osthryth knew that very well, and she was in no mood for a repeat of the previous night. She shook her head.

"I advise you to rest," Osthryth replied. "I will guard you as I usually do," she told him, and took a blanket from the box beside his bed. Edward did not argue, instead, he stripped to his shirt, and got into bed.

Osthryth heard his breathing develop longer intervals as she huddled up in her blanket, and only when she was sure he was asleep did Osthryth close her eyes, succumbing to the feeling of sadness fathoming her heart. It was the same, familiar one she had known when she had lost Taghd, and she knew that, if Uhtred had arrived back that night, then he too would be feeling as she did now. For the first time since she had arrived in Wessex, Osthryth felt pity for her brother.

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And she did not stay by the door. It was the middle of the night when Osthryth woke and, folding her blanket, left the aethling's bedroom. She found Ecgred in the armoury, resting with another young guard, and he jumped to his feet when he saw Osthryth.

"You need to guard the aethling; I have an emergency to deal with," Osthryth explained, and pushed a spear into his hand. "I will not be long," she added, "and I will do your guard duty tomorrow afternoon." She could not leave him with nothing, and was gratified when Ecgred readily agreed. "For the rest of the week." No wandering the streets for her tomorrow; she needed to keep busy, Osthryth knew. If Merewalh and Aldhelm were in Winchester, she wanted to find them, too.

Tonight? Tonight, Osthryth knew, she needed to get totally wasted on as much ale as the "Two Cranes" would sell her.

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Despite the hour, the pub was thronging. The army had indeed returned to the city, and Osthryth was only one of many celebrating with copious amounts of alcohol. The general mood of the inn was a positive one: they had stuck it up the bastard Danes as everyone seeing the army off had compelled its soldiers to do, and boozy songs picked up, for a chorus or two around the bar-room.

Osthryth sat with her ale, as the joyful mood began to relax her, and he heard about a battle, where thr Danes had taken the burh, and the Wessex and Mercian armies had routed them. She heard of a warrior, whose hair was slicked with horse blood, who had driven Danes to the shield wall of the Saxons, and had to retreat, and that they had left both Farnham and Alton refortified.

What role had her company had, Osthryth thought. Had they been there? Had they all survived? She spied a man who had once been under Steapa's command, and got up to speak to him. He rcognised her, and toasted her jar, assuming Osthryth had been at the battle too, and she learned that the Mercians had been successful, and all had returned to Mercia with the lady Aethelflaed. So, she had been there, the bitch, Osthryth scorned, enviously.

Even Aethelred's emissary guard, Osthryth wondered, and she thought of her men, and what victories they had achieved. Had Aelffrith finished his story about the diminutive adventurers with a magic ring? Had they sat together and toasted their glory?

Another jar, and Osthryth found a seat by some Wessex guards she knew from the training ground, and let herself get swallowed into their story, her mind slipping to lethargy as the words rolled over her. After a time, the whores came over to their table, to ply their trade by sitting on laps, by stroking beards, by planting faux-coquettish kisses on cheeks.

One sex worker tried to sit on Osthryth's lap, but she pushed her away, much to the gentle chagrain of her companions, and instead, she sat with one of the older men who, after a few moments, got to his feet, adjusted his crotch, and paced across the inn floor to the stairs to one side.

The men with him roared with laughter as he made overt gestures from the top of the mezzanine, then disappeared behind a screen of curtain cloth.

"Do you want some company, darling?" A voice came to Osthryth's ear and, as she turned, her cheek connected with a pair of lips.

"No!" Osthryth exclaimed, and was more outraged when she saw that it was Aelfburh. The woman got away from Osthryth quickly, looking furtively around the inn. Clearly the money Sihtric earned was either not enough for his new wife's needs, or not enough for her wants.

"She was a good one," said one of the men next to Osthryth. She slugged back her ale, and looked at the man.

"I believe you."

"'ere, you aren't one of those men-lovers?" He asked, gripping Osthryth's arm.

"More like no-one's lover," Osthryth shot back, then pushed her chair back, elbowing her way to the bar as the men she had left behind made noises of disapproval in her wake.

Another ale, and Osthryth's head was beginning to feel warm. The air around her moved slowly, and she pushed past a couple of warriors as she went to hover near a table which had mentioned Mercia, and she strained to listen. But, the conversation was interrupted when the door was pushed open.

"They will have an ale," her brother said, "And so will she." Beside Uhtred was a woman, long, tangled white-blonde hair, whose eyes seemed to be on everything. He pushed his way across to a table he wanted and moved the occupants away. Like Osthryth, Uhtred clearly wanted to drink his sorrows away, and Osthryth crossed closer to her brother. Unlike him, she had only been there to witness the death of a woman in childbirth: for him, Gisela was his whole world.

Osthryth saw Sihtric, and wondered whether he knew his wife was busy working up above the bar. Was her brother really condoning one of his men to let his wife work on her back? But, she supposed, he had more important things on his mind tonight, and he slurred his words as he drank more ale, picked an argument with a man who happened to be doing nothing more than sitting next to them.

She could sit there no longer, and Osthryth pushed her way out of the inn, knowing if she did not stop now, that she never would, and she had to turn up and practise sword skill with the aethling in the morning.

If she had not paused to look back to Uhtred, Osthryth would never know that she was being followed out of the inn. As it was, she caught sight of a face she really rather would not see. The arm belonging to the face, nose still swollen from her smashing her head into it a few dats before pushed her towards the wooden wall outside the inn.

"I knew I would find you out, I said I would, didn't I?" He oiled, as his broken face came close to her ear. "I know where you were today, warrior girl, I know what you did. But, the question is: does he know?" With one hand, Athelwold jabbed a finger towards Uhtred. "Do you want me to tell him?"

"I did nothing!" Osthryth spat back, but her heart was telling her she was not as wholly innocent as she would like to convince herself: she had made Ula give her the tansy root, and she may not have had enough to give to Gisela. Yet the woman had said it was an impossble birth. But, Aethelwold was squaring up to Osthryth, and swung his fist to hit her. Osthryth ducked. It was not enough though, to avoid Aethelwold catching her by the throat, her head bangong onto the wood. It hurt, despie the alcohol, and now Aethelwold had her head by her hair, which hurt more than Osthryth expected it to.

"If only you had given yourself to me," Aethelwold sighed, sarcastically. "You could be Queen of Wessex."

"There are no queens in Wessex!" Osthryth retorted.

"When I am king, I can make it so." He brought Osthryth's face close to his. "Would you like to be my queen?"

But, Aethelold could say no more, as a "whish" of steel parted blade from scabbard, and Finan stepped between them.

"Yours then, Irishman?" Aethelwold blustered, stepping from Osthryth when Finan turned his back on her and began to bear down on Aethelwold, stepping slowly, deliberately towards him, his sword out half way, and held the tip towards the man. Then, Finan turned to Osthryth.

"My thanks," Osthryth managed to say, the strong ale still addling her head despite the cool night.

"The thanks is mine," Finan said. "I know what you did, I saw youn in Beamfleot, with the Danes, with Eirik Thurgilson." Under normal circumstances, where she hadn't deliberately set out to get drunk, she might have wondered how Finan knew the Norse brothers' name.

"I am no traitor," Osthryth protested.

"I never said you were," Finan replied, chuckling softly as he stood silently before Osthryth's imprecise outrage. The door to the inn creaked open, and in the doorway, a very inebriated Uhtred staggered.

"You!" He declared, pointing to Osthryth. "You will not defy me again!"

"You are no lord of mine!" Osthrtth declared, glaring at Uhtred as he stormed over to her. Her brain was trying tio catch onto an idea, but it was drowned out by shouting.

"Any lord of Alfred is a lord of yours," he reminded her. And Buaidh was out. Osthryth did not even remember unsheathing her blade, and ran at Uhtred, aiming for his shoulder. But Finan was quicker than her, and knocked her sword away with his own.

"Asal!" Osthryth spat at her brother, "An asal mor!" Beside her, Finan broke into uproarious laughter as a crowd of people began to gather round them, Uhtred's men - "Of course!" Osthryth scorned, - and others keen to see who was causing a commotion. Finan, meanwhile, had pushed Osthryth away, and was standing between her and Uhtred. He looked across to Sihtric and Osferth, who both flanked Uhtred. He was drunk, anyone could see that. Except Osthryth, who was also drunk, and Finan laughed again as if all of the hostility was part of one big joke.

"What dreadful language from such a lovely mouth!" He humoured, but Osthryth's mind did not pick up on the hint, and instead, she turned Buaidh on Finan. The Irishman held up his arms, as Buaidh's sword point touched his neck.

"Bad manners!" He scolded her, as his knee hit Osthryth's wrist, and dislodged Buaidh from her hand. She bent to find it, as Finan urged Uhtred's men to get him away, as he was about to join, struggling under the grip of Sihric and Osferth at his shoulders.

Finan's momentary lapse of concenrration was enough, it was all she needed to slam his arm back which was held out in front of her and sinking her teeth into his wrist.

"Very bad manners!" He shouted at Osthryth, and pushed her against the inn wall, as Aethelwold had done, not long before. But, unlike Aethelwold, Osthryth had no desire to fight him off as he held her shoulders.

"And get her out of here!" Finan shouted, as the tall, blonde woman who had been with Uhtred's company hovered behind his men. She was staring between Osthryth and Uhtred, but said nothing, and in Osthryth's mixed up thoughts, she wondered how it was that her brother had already taken a lover when his wife had died just that afternoon, and had been buried that evening.

Osthryth slipped from under Finan's hold as he directed the men to take Uhtred home, but he realised she was moving, and pushed her away again.

"No you don't, caileag," he warned her.

"Warrior," Osthryth corrected him, and the night air was enough to have allowed her to regain some coherence of thought, for she had pulled Buaidh towards her with her foot, and with one swift movement, bent, and was threatening Finan with it again.

"You lost there, Finan my friend!" A laugh came from his lord, and Uhtred continued to laugh as Finan shook his arm, where Osthryth had scored Buaidh along it.

"Like hell I did, he retorted, but Osthryth was faster and she darted out from under Finan's arm.

"Leave her!" Uhtred called after him, as Finan ran after Osthryth.

"Leave me!" Osthryth declared, as the man she had so often lusted after caught up with her. She pulled up sharply, the heavy soil under her boots, levelling Buaidh. Then she realised her way was blocked: she had run into a dead end.

A dozen different ways to escape ran through Osthryth's mind as Finan approached, holding Soul Stealer.

"I am not going to hurt you," Finan declared. But Osthryth believed that as much as she would believe her uncle Aelfric rescued orphaned kittens. She held her sword tighter. "I'm just helping you along," Finan continued. "You see, the lord Uhtred has suffered a grievous loss this day, and it would not help either of you if you got into bother with one another, would it?" Osthryth levelled Buaidh again. "I'm not going to hurt you," Finan reiterated.

"I have heard that line before," Osthryth scoffed. "I have learned to trust my blade, not the word of a man." Behind him, people had crowded.

"You fight well." This was the voice of her brother now, and Osthryth glanced past Finan's shoulder. He didn't seem angry now, sort of resigned. Yet, it was she who was standing with her back to the palace's inner wall, contemplating the best three ways to scale it.

"Right," she replied, curtly.

"Before you called me a weasel-cock."

"I called you a great donkey," Osthryth corrected him.

"Which you know I'm not," Uhtred continued. She could see he was mocking her, and she narrowed her eyes. She was not in the mood.

"I couldn't possibly say," Osthryth scorned, and couldn't help herself when she added, "Though rumour has it that, you know, acorn...?" It satisfied her childish side when Uhtred made a start towards her as she waggled her little finger at him. Osferth and Sihtric gripped his arms and held him fast, as Finan stood between them.

"And the honour that you speak of?" Osthryth continued, as she chided her brother. "Stand by and watch as a woman gets raped?"

"Women get raped every day," Uhtred shot back. Osthryth felt herself standing tall, Buaidh in both hands. Had Finan not been a physical presence between the two of them, Osthryth would have flown at him.

"Then they should be taught to fight, from birth, to support themselves, not rely on a man!" she scorned.

"Lord!" Finan shouted, trying to de-fuse the tension. But it was no use - Uhtred was spoiling for a fight, any fight, whether with his sword or with words.

"But you rely on men - the Wessex guard? The Mercians?" But it was not Uhtred who spoke, it was Finan. Osthryth felt her anger swell in her throat, as the Irishman added, "Prince Edward?"

"Pity you don't want your Lord Uhtred to come any closer," Osthryth threatened, clutching Buaidh, feeling the strength of the Gaels behind it. Domhnall would want her to pull it in this Gaelish turncoat. "For I can easily make him an orlach!"

"Lord, I will see this warrior away," Finan declared, as he brushed off Uhtred's ignorance at her words. Despite her tough talk, Osthryth let Finan guide her past Uhtred, but the moment she was out onto the main thoroughfare of the city, she bolted, towards the eastern road. Damn it, Osthryth thought, for she realised after a few minutes Finan was chasing after her.

"And there was me thinking Aethelwold has changed his tastes!" Finan's words were light, as if he were shaking off Aethelwold's attack of her in an explainable way. "For a bean, you fight well - " But Osthryth, now sobering up, turned on her heel.

"I don't need your company!" But that wasn't true: she did want his company, and she stopped, shaking, after a few moments when she realised Finan was still there, looking at her.

"You have a home do you not, at Crepelgate?"

"At Eastgate," Osthryth admitted, "But I am returning to the palace."

"Aethelwold is at the palace," Finan pointed out.

"He is always at the palace," Osthryth replied, then conceded, "If you are determined to follow me all the way home, I would not find that disagreeable."

"Then what?" Finan asked, and stepped closer to her. Osthryth stared back at him, eyes narrowing.

"Never mind!" She spat back, in Gaelish, "I'll manage just fine." When Finan stepped towards her again, she added, her hand dipping to Taghd's seax, "Does your man not need you? He who lost his wife today?" She jerked her head past Finan and he stopped too. Uhtred, with Sihtric trying to urge him away and Osferth pulled at his arm had followed them. But the alleged lord of Bebbanburg was having none of it, and he fought his warriors from him. Osthryth shook her head. Unbelievable.

"I would not find it disagreeable!" Uhtred mocked, then strode right up to Osthryth. "You, in the palace!" He scorned. "You are no better than the whores in the inn back there!" Osthryth saw Sihtric wince at his words, but held her face strong.

"Forget it! An drasta, Finan nan Eireann," she added. But, when she turned, Uhtred stood in her way.

"And we can guess but one purpose of a woman ingratiating herself with a group of men - call yourself a warrior?" He mocked.

"Yes!" Osthryth spat back, as her brother made to block her, before pulling her close to him, trying to kiss her. He was drunk and pained from Gisela, so he was taking his anger out on her. So caught up in trying to humiliate her, Uhtred did not anticipate the thump to his alleged acorn when her knee collided forcefully with his groin. Uhtred staggered back, in pain as Osthryth took up Buaidh, swinging it back into her shoulder.

"If I don't find where you sleep and kill you, it will be because I have decided not to waste my time." Osthryth turned back.

"And I did not bring back a whore when my wife was dying giving birth to your child!"

It took a moment for the words to settle, and settle they did, like persistent snow, all around them. She really shouldn't have said that, Osthryth knew. There was only one way to go after that, and that was to stand by herself.

But, perhaps, Uhtred hadn't heard her properly, or grapsed the full meaning. He did understand she had insulted her, and bore down on her. Osthryth, in turn, levelled Buaidh.

"Say it again," he warned, "And I don't care if you are a woman, I will fight you!"

"And I will win, Uhtred of Bebbanburg!" She retorted, and added in her mind, for my anger has turned to guilt and that runs deeper than your pride and sorrow.

"Fight me!" He challenged. The amber jewel in the hilt of his sword glimmered in the half-light.

"Like you tried to fight me at Beamfleot?"

"I didn't know you were a warrior!

"But you knew I was a woman," Osthryth accused. "I have known men of honour, Uhtred of Bebbanburg," she added, Finnolai in her mind now, Taghd, Domnall. Little Niall. Eirik Thurgilson. All had kept their word to her. "You may think you are one, but you are not!"

"Better that than a Gaelish bitch!"

"Cuatan, na mo? Tha thu muc, tha thu clag deireadh!" She shot back.

"Ooh!" Finan called, "That was terrible language, Lord Uhtred!" Finan was now back to deliberately making light of the situation. But neither Osthryth nor Uhtred were keen go with him.

"And what was it?"

"It wasn't very nice," Finan replied, suddenly vague. But Uhtred had already raised his sword. And then saw Osthryth had arranged a square before them. It was almost right, too, Uhtred's mind thought. She knew about that?

"Isn't that how it is done?" Osthryth challenged him. "Isn't that how you fought Kjartan's men, in King Guthred's court? The king of Haliwerfolkland?" My husband, she added silently.

"How do you know that?" Uhtred's voice betrayed his shock at her knowledge of something so specific, so far away in place and time.

"You would be surprised what I know!" But already, Uhtred was kicking the wood away. And Osthryth couldn't help herself.

"Uhtred of Bebbanburg, would not fight me?" She asked, scornfully.

"You are a woman, and I do not fight women."

"I am a Gaelish warrior!" Osthryth retorted.

"You have no lord!"

"My lord is silver, or gold. Or both. You know about wealth, do you not?" If Osthryth had been playing with fire before, this was diabolic. She knew that he guessed where his silver had gone to now, and also, she realised that she didn't care. He couldn't prove it, in any case. She was angry, guilt-ridden, hollow. What she needed now was to fight.

And he was too slow. Grief, alcohol had slowed his reflexes, which was to say, Uhtred's abilities were still excellent, but his edge was blunted. Buaidh made a slash to his arm, and he backed away.

"Apologies, my lord!" Osthryth said, in mock deference. "Gabh mo leisgeul!"

But the sarcasm was lost on Uhtred, for he stood still, and then turned from her, his face a mask of agonised torment.

"Now that was bad manners!" Finan chided her, and to Sihtric and Osferth said, "Get him away home. Her too," he added, nodding towards Skade.

"Now, you can just tell me what that was all about," Finan said, when Uhtred had gone, not very quietly, or gracefully, along the high street of Winchester.

"Hadn't you better go with him?" Osthryth asked, not yet in the mood to be conciliatory.

"You bettered Uhtred - he is the best warrior in the land. Alfred's man." Finan pointed out.

"I am afraid that is just not so, if you say that I bettered him." But the force had gone from her body, like the final, empty swirls of air after a wind storm.

"Why here?" Finan asked. "Why come all this way, to Wessex, from Alba?"

"Money. And now I have money, I intend to go home." She lowered her head. "And I have got in Aethelwold's way."

"Not a good move," Finan replied, but then persisted, "You look at him a lot, Uhtred, I mean. From the time you first came here. What is he to you?"

"A legend," Osthryth said.

"Your face says more to it than that," Finan remarked. "And it was you who took his silver?"

"He took it from me first," Osthryth lied. And they both knew it was a lie. But Osthryth had had enough, and began to walk eastwards. Finan began to walk, too.

"Go with your lord," she dismissed, resheathing Buaidh. "Report to him I took his silver; have me hanged, or burned, or branded, or whatever the punishment in Wessex is for theft." She shrugged her shoulders and made in the direction of Eastgate. But Finan wasn't about to give up that easily, and continued to walk next to her.

"You heard what I said?" she asked. "I took his silver!" But Finan acted as if he hadn't heard. Instead, he lowered his head towards her.

"I miss my home, too, sometimes. Eireann."

"Oh yes?" Osthryth asked, not reissting his walking next to her. It must have been obvious to everyone who met Finan that he was from Eirinn's Isle, "Where? Midhe? Coineacht?" She looked at his dark hair and pale eyes. "Uì Nèill?"

"Not on your life!" He protested.

Osthryth turned to him, "You aren't an Ulaid shit are you?" And Finan broke into a grin.

"You have me," he said, placed hand on her shoulder. Osthryth gave him a warning look, and shook him free, picking up the pace. He had the manner of speech of an Irishman, at any rate, charm of word, but she wasn't going to concede anything to him that might betray whence she had come, or who she might be.

"You know Ireland?" Finan persisted, as they got to the marketplace. Even at this late hour, a few stalls were standing, idling for custom. "Do you know Doire?" Osthryth shivered, as a flash of Ninefingers and his brother assaulting her, leaving her to drown tied to a rock in the northern sea, of Constantine, of Domnall.

"I know Doire; I was a servant there once," Osthryth replied, making her voice sound as light as Finan has his earlier that evening.

"And you wish to return to those bastards?" Finan's question exposed many strata of expresson, one of which was, clearly hatred, another, loathing. He must have known Flann Sinna, then, or King Aed, or possibly, Mael Muire? The desire to ask further was restrained by Osthryth's self-preservation: to ask this man of the royal Ui Neills was to make it clear who she might be, if her identity was known. And even if was not, it would not take a lot of investigation to find her out.

"I wish a simpler life, where things were what I thought them to be."

"Don't we all," Finan replied, and stopped when Osthryth pointed to the door that led into her brick-built room.

"Here," she indicated with her hand, and she waited for Finan to leave.

"Oidche mhath," she prompted, when he hadn't moved.

"An drasta," he replied, and only when Osthryth had closed the door behind her did she hear feet on the dry earth outside, suggesting Finan of the Ulaid had begun to leave.

Then, Osthryth flung herself onto her bed. How had it come to that? She had thrown her lot in, in Alba, to be with Uhtred. All she had imagined, her being greeted by him, being in his company, pledging loyalty to him, all those childish things. And then Gisela.

It was true, there was nothing she could have done to save the woman, no power on earth could have, with how far wrong the birth of her child had gone. Osthryth crunched up her eyes, the pressure behind her eyelids counteracting the pressure in her mind. And cried.

88888888

A week had gone by, and following the worst hangover Othryth had ever experienced, she resolved to do the duty she had been given by King Alfred. Mornings, up and fighting practise with Edward, and when he had been called to be with his father, before Ecgred's duty, she had gone to the chapel.

Kneeling, closed eyed, praying, or at least thinking about her sister-on-law as people got up, knelt, or sat, praying too, made her feel a little steadier. But Osthryth was none happier. She had heard that Uhtred had recovered Gisela's body and committed it to a funeral pyre the day afterwards. But he was insisting on carrying on with his duties.

That morning, Beocca had sat beside her. Osthryth had only noticed him when he had coughed, politely, near her ear, and she brought her face round to his. Then, wished she hadn't.

"I heard you fought with your brother," he began, with his usual directness.

"I have no brother," Osthryth said, and saw the pain flash over Beocca's face.

"Do not say that," he told her, pitifully. But Osthryth was not in the mood for coercion.

"I choose to say it, because I will not be forced into it, nor forced to stay in Winchester, if this is your plan." Beocca looked at her, and refused to break his gaze.

"It was not my doing that the king took you from the Mercian guard, though will not deny I am pleased you are close to us," he replied. And his look became one of astonishment, as Osthryth stood up and left him behind, in the seats neat the back of the chapel, without a word, to guard the aethling.

That night, Osthryth remembered sleeping by the door as Edward, brooding about his forthcoming wedding, went to sleep in his own bed. Osthryth had resisted the aethling up til then, and she was far in her own misery to be wanting to orgasm - not even Finan's face in her mind, which usually did for her after her fingers encouraged her clitoris into action - had stirred up any desire for her to wank herself.

However it was not the floor Osthryth found herself on the next morning. Strong arms were enveloping her, and she thought muzzily about the circumstances in which she found herself, with only her shirt and Eirik's hair jewel on.

It had begun with Edward trying to compel her to talk about her sadness and telling her she was not herself, and had continued with limbs and mouths and a hard-on and sucking and hot, wet fucking.

Now, morning, and Osthryth knew she would need her lily root, just to make sure, and this was back in her room. Once she got it, she could return to the kitchen and steep it in hot water, before getting on with the day, and she wriggled into her clothing before closing the door behind her.

Slipping under the kitchen window, then around to the stables, Osthryth's foot pressed on the wall as she leapt into Foregate Street, the quickest route to her lodging near the marketplace.

Was she being followed? Aethelwold has found her the last time she was at the palace - had he found her now, determined to do the same? Osthryth trod the stable yard with only the briefest of glances towards where the horses were sleeping. Soon, it had to be soon, and she would go to Hamptun and find Ulf and Gert, show them more wealth than they had ever seen in their lifetimes, and return to Alba.

The first time, he had pinned her against the wall of the postern doorway, pushing a hand past her hips while holding her hands above her had, a satisfied laugh passing his lips as his fingers became covered in Osthryth's and cousin's cum. He had begun to kiss her - that had been his mistake, for Osthryth kneed him in the crotch. The second time, he had pursued her across the stableyard, but had not caught up with her. She had learned to time her egress from Edward's room after that, and from then on had evaded him.

And yet, Aethelwold...last time Osthryth had seen him he had not challenged her. He was different, his manner had been...cryptic, mystifying... he had looked at her strangely rather than accuse her of Gisela's death. Apart from a few insults, he had said little to her. He had not even been to the training to idle his time away shouting vacuous comments to the warriors.

So, on that particular morning, Osthryth seemed not to be terrorised by Aethelwold. However, she was impeded by someone. As she leapt the palace wall her trajectory was terrupred as strong hands groped her waists. One had a rather ugly bite mark on it.

Osthryth looked up into the triumphant face of Uhtred's man, the Irishman, Finan. Osthryth struggled, but he pressed her body with his to the palisade wall.

"I think we have a score to settle." Osthryth pushed him aside, angry that her thoughts, and her way, had bee interrupted.

"I am on my way home, I do not seek trouble." But Finan was not letting go of her arm.

"Well, you are making trouble. looking after the Aethling like that." Osthruth felt her body stiffen. But she stared Finan down. He nodded in the direction of tbe window from which Osthryth knew Edward would be watching her leave.

"Like what?"

"Like that - overnight. He is no boy now." Osthryth said nothing as she turned to go, but then turned back. "I swore an oath, apparently, to Wessex. And the aethling commanded that I guard him last night." She saw Finan roll his eyes.

"Guard him? Is that what you wee aons are calling it these days?"

"Like it's any of your business."

"You know he is married," he said, accusingly.

"To be married, yes," Osthryth corrected him, to the official line, anyway. Rumour had it that Uhtred - so therefore Finan too - had witnessed the marriage of Edward to Ecgwynn, and paid for the priest who carried out the ceremony to live protected, secretly.

As are you - you said so to Uhtred, once, when I sat upon my brother's house. And I, come to think of it, Osthryth thought, but pushed Guthred's face from her mind so that her memory of Taghd could fill its place, and became more determined than ever to reach Alba now, and leave this wretched Wessex behind.

Taghd. Their year and the day were long gone, and the fact that they weren't together for a lot of that yeat implied what they always knew: hand fasted under the summer sun, will not make it to a year and one. But, perhaps, the Morrigan could have been appeased. Then again, it may have been her will to place him where his deep sense of honour meant he had no choice but to attempt to rescue those people in the burning church.

And Guthred, well - it had been Constantine's idea, ultimtely, Osthryth knew that now; the church records had it as such. And peversely, this now made her both sister-in-law d sister to Uhtred, for Guthred was Gisela's brother. Osthryth imagined for a moment the look on Uhtred's face if only he knew.

Osthryth's mind came back to the present. Finan's hands were still around her wrists and he was holding her tightly. She would gave to fight. He was agile, as much as Osthryth was. She did not want to fight him, she wanted to kiss him.

And then Finan let go his grip, stepping back from her and glanced to the flagstones, his head hanging a little. What had happened?

"I am, so," Finan replied, and Osthryth, to her horror, realised she must have said that aloud to him. "Married. Or I was. The Lord in His infinite wisdom chose to part me from my good wife last winter," he explained, and a sadness took over his features.

Osthryth stepped past him, for she knew if she did stay, something she would regret would happen, and there were plenty of candidates for that role. But then she stopped, and reached out a hand.

"You are Uhtred's man - " Osthryth restrained herself from saying, "hound", for he was not a blind instruction-follower like some warriors bonded to lords. "Why am I even talking to you?" she added, more to herself than anything. Finan turned his head.

"Because you like my sense of humour," he said, giving her a slight hint of a smile.

"I do like your sense of humour," Osthryth conceded, then strode away, without looking back.

North, then, Osthryth thought. To Constantine and King Domhnall and the wide Moray Firth and the green lands of Alba. And Pictland, and Dun Eidinn where all northern tongues mixed freely.

To where she had welcome. And she now had silver to live a life away from Uhtred Ragnarsson, to buy her a place beside the people she cared for most in the world. Her brother's silver, or at least, that stolen in battle. And, if she had to be married to someone, it was infintely better to be married to a distant Danish king in a land that was her birthright though her mother. Besides, when Domhnall saw the wealth she had brought to him, she may well be free of the so-called marriage to the so-called king of Haliwerfolkland. It might be enough for her to be a warrior in perpetuity. She was not a maid; Constantine had seen to that when she was twelve. So wealth it had to be.

That Uhtred had aligned himself with the Danes not the Saxons; apart from his desire to claim Bebbanburg, he rejected his family. Osthryth massaged her hand which had been hit square-on with the arrow.

She was sure she had seen the man who had fired it give a triumphant look as she continued to row to Lindisfarne, all those years ago, remembered the gleam of delight in his eyes. Osthryth had decided then, as the Holy Island was in sight, that she was going to find Uhtred and, well, here she was, and here she had.

She had taken so much trouble to find her brother. And now, Osthryth thought, she was taking a deal of trouble to leave Uhtred behind her again.

"I'll see you around then?" Osthryth turned, and saw that Finan was still watching her. And Osthryth turned, and nodded.

"See you around," she called, and meant it. For it would not be long before Osthryth would not see Finan around, and when she did not, she knew she would feel nothing but regret.

And the next morning was the same. Osthryth felt sore after Edward's attentions, and she had just had a wash in the spring at the back of the kitchens, which had soothed her soreness. He has been vigorous, and Osthryth had encouraged him, for while she fucked the aethling, the vacuum that hung about her heart was temporarily filled.

But she needed her lily root again, and was just wondering whether she would be back in time before meeting the aethling for training when a movement out of the corner of her eye made her jump and, automatically, Buaidh was out and up.

"Oh Finan," she breathed, seeing that it was someone she recognised.

"Guarding the aethling - again?" He looked at the point of her sword, inches from his face.

"It pays."

"And you need to go back to your home?" Finan looked beyond Osthryth: she was indeed going in the direction of Eastgate.

"Evidently. Or I would be walking around Winchester for my health." She lowered Buaidh. Why was he wandering around the city in the early hours of the morning?

"Why?" He asked.

"Why yourself?" Osthryth asked.

"To give Uhtred space for his grief," he replied. "And I asked first." Osthryth felt herself smiling a little.

"It's quiet, and I can think." Overhead, starlings were beginning to collect together on the rooftops. Others would be joining them, Osthryth supposed, the big assembly of birds, different species congregating at different times, before disappearing over winter, only to reappear in spring.

"And Aethelwold won't bother you?" And Osthryth was drawn to the face of the man who had not caused her any hassle at all the last time she had come across him, his features still mangled from her assault.

"He isn't bothering me much at the moment," she replied, but the confidence had gone from her voice. Aethelwold had a way of getting into her mind.

"Why do you want to go north?" he asked, as he began to walk next to Osthryth.

"Why are you following me?" Osthryth asked, sharply.

"I'm just walking along the road at the same time that you are," he replied, and the sparkle that would melt Osthryth's future self flickered in his eyes.

"And you want to go north, because...?" he rephrased the question as he glanced over her face, at her scar running north-east to south-west down the right hand side of her face, her short hair, long enough now for Osthryth to catch the colour of the ends of it in the edge of her vision, catching the morning sunlight.

"It is as close to home as I have," Osthryth said. She remembered they had had a similar conversation on the night Gisela had died. And a thought occurred to her: why not Mercia? There seemed to be enmity between Aethelred and Alfred, or on Aethelred's part, coveting the Wessex throne as he did. But he may well choose to honour the union of the two kingdoms by holding Osthryth to Alfred's oath, and she would end up back in Wessex again. Alba was much more preferable, to Osthryth's mind.

"I might know a way," Finan said, "But it will depend on Uhtred." Osthryth felt her heart sink: how much was her life going to depend on Uhtred? Even her journey back to Alba was going to depend on him?

"Osthryth Lackland," Finan mused. "From nowhere, eh? Yet Alba calls you home?" He said the last sentence in Gaelic, and Osthryth felt herself warming to the man.

"An army marches north?" Osthryth guessed. But her mind cautioned her, was she prepared to do as Uhtred asked, if he allowed her to go with them north? Finan nodded.

"I can pay," Osthryth said, the words from her mouth before she could stop herself, and she cursed inwardly. But Finan laughed.

"Reimburse the man with his own money? I dare say you won't be the first." But Osthryth was thinking aloud.

"And that is why you keep looking at him? Yer know him?" Osthryth shook her head.

"Know about him, yes. And it's true, his feats are well known. Tell me, is it because of the death of his wife...?" Osthryth trailed off, and shook her head. "But, I need to travel to Alba overland." It would be the cheapest way, to preserve the most silver for Domhnall, to give her case the most strength.

"The way guaranteed to get you killed," Finan replied, lowering his voice as Osthryth pulled herself up over a low wall, landing easily on the main street. Eastgate was before her.

"My purpose for being here is over," Osthryth concluded. "And I need to go home." To her annoyance, Finan strode with her, keeping step with her. She rounded a corner. A cart drove past collecting scraps put out by tbe peasants of the city.

"I don't know you would be safe with us, that is a hard thing to be in Eoferwic."

"And that is where the lord Uhtred is going?" Finan burst into a wide grin.

"You want to come - knew it!" He leaned towards her ear. "You called him "lord"," he confided.

"If your purpose waa to annoy me, you are achieving it," Osthryth replied, picking up speed and reaching towards her door.

"You can come, but it will be difficult," he warned. Osthryth paused her hand on its way to the latch, then turned to the man.

"I fought against a shield war in Alba," Osthryth retorted. "My Lord killed Ivarr Lothbrokson as I fought beside him, killing the man who would kill him. I have no fear."

"Now that I can believe," Finan replied, as Osthryth made to stride past him. She waited for him to leave. But, not only did he not leave, Finan followed her in. Before Osthryth could protest, Finan seized her forearms just beyond the doorway.

"You have to admit, you owe me something for that information." If his intention was blackmail, it evaporated to nothing. Rather than outrage, Osthryth crossed her floor and kissed him, a hand either side of his face. She broke off as suddenly as he had pressed her lips to his, but Finan put his hands onto her shoulder. Finan pulled her towards him. It was his turn. It was a good kiss, and Osthryth was disappointed it hadn't lasted longer.

"Why do you want to fight so badly? To be near Uhtred?" Finan asked, as they broke apart. "The way you look at him, there is more to it than his reputation. Osthryth looked away.

"I need information at..."she paused..."home. My family is now dead, they used to live in a place not far from Bebbanburg." She leaned closer to Finan. "I ended up in Alba quite by chance, and a family took me in. I heard your lord was of Bebbanburg," she embroidered, "But I did not undrstand the circumstances." The look on Finan's face told her he didn't believe a word.

"I have waited a long time in my life to be near him." Her second attempt was not much better, and Finan waited for her to continue.

"Maybe one day I will tell you," Osthryth said, finally.

"A lover?" Osthryth shook her head.

"Not a chance! I dislike him, the arrogant bastard." Finan tilted his head towards her.

"A jilted lover?" And Osthryth burst out laughing.

"He's lost the love of his life, hasn't he?" She thought about her brother, laughing at her expense the night Gisela had died. "But I know, if anyone can get me through Northumbria, Uhtred of Bebbanburg can." She dipped her head to Finan. "Clue's in the name."

And that was the end of it, Finan would go, she could take her lily root and tidy herself up, and go about her day. But there was no sign that the Irishman wanted to leave in a hurry.

"You live here alone?" He looked at the tall ceiling, vaulted with rushes to keep in the warmth. "I thought you lived at the palace and let the guards pass you round."

Osthryth's slap would have struck Finan's face with the full might of her arm, but he was anticipating it, and caught her wrist.

"I'm sorry," he said genially, "I was just joking. And, you...I can get Uhtred to take you, but it will cost you." Finan went to kiss her again, but Osthryth was cross with him and she pushed him towards the door of her room.

"Tuchdeen!" She shouted after him, as Constantine had screamed it at Domhnall that night at Glenorchy.

"You didn't say that earlier." He put a hand to his lips.

"Tha gràin agam thu!"

"No, I will not!" But Osthryth had bashed the door closed, barring it, and thrust her back to the planks. After a few moments, checking that Finan was not still out there, Osthryth crossed to her bed, lying on it, brooding.

And closed her eyes. When she opened them again, it was night. A crescent moon was curving in the sky, and horror was settling on her like a miasma. She had missed the whole day!

Scrambling to her feet, Osthryth pulled at her clothes, trying to make herself tidier. She would go to Steapa, tell him she was ill - no - not ill, that was what they perceived as weakness in a woman. No, delayed, someone needed her help - no, he would ask why. So...

A murmur of noise was infiltrating her ears through the walls outside, and Osthryth was momentarily distracted from making up her excuse, and she approached the door. What was causing the disturbance? If it was Aeethelwold, and he had discovered where she slept, Osthryth would kill him and take the consequences.

More noises, and a scraping, and Osthryth immediately withdrew Buaidh, but was nearly hit in the face as the door was kicked open. She flew at the intruder, struggling as he struggled. Then he stopped, and siezed her shoulder.

It was Finan. There was rain outside and it had dampened his hair.

"Tell me to go!" He instructed Osthryth, his voice sounded almost as if he were begging, pleading with her as he put two hands on her shoulders, holding her roughly, insistently. Osthryth struggled, but he held her fast.

"Tell me to go," he repeated, all humour of that morning gone from his voice and from his face, "And I will go, Osthryth, I will, if you tell me to..." His voice was insistent, forceful, as if desperate for Osthryth to believe him.

"Is toil leam agus tha mi ag iarraidh thu."

Osthryth stared. She felt back in Alba now, back in the lowlands of ever undulating pastureland; back in the land of the Eireann, where she soared with grace at the side of kings, where she was proclaimed one of them. Finan spoke as one of them, and made her forget the suppressive life here in Wessex where she had done what she had set out to do, and find Uhtred, only to find he was as tethered as she felt, like a bird of prey in captivity longing to stretch his wings.

And, with this man, the Irish warrior sworn, she felt, at last, freedom. He, not Cobstantine, nor Domhnall, was who she had known for years. He, Finan of the Ulaid, had been at the peripherals of her view in Wessex. But now, he was full view, engulfing her world, and Osthryth was only too willing to be consumed.

"Stay," Osthryth said, and almost before she finished saying the word, Finan was kissing her, more insistently, more lovingly than he had done that morning, interlacing his hands into her hair. The kiss was breathtaking, and he was good at it, pressing his lips just firmly enough to make her press her body towards him, and Osthryth needed no encouragement to do that.

Ever the practical, Finan pushed the door closed, and secured the broken latch with a chair, before pulling Osthryth to him, and she caressed his arms, his chest, his body. Soon, his naked chest was before her, and Osthryth stroked his back where he had been beaten. She would soon learn of his enslavement, and spend many nights holding him through his nightmares.

She would learn that he never gave up the will to leave the slavers in the same way as Uhtred never had. King Alfred was owed by Uhtred for the rescue attempt, Finan would later tell her. But did it have to be paid with by another oath?

Now, though, as Uhtred sat, holed up in his own home waiting to bolt to his brother, in Dunholm, having killed a priest for his disparaging comments of Gisela, and dragging Alfred from his hall and holding him at knifepoint, Finan was here, with Osthryth, and he was holding her close, his hands on hers.

"An bheil Gaeilge agat?" Osthryth frowned.

"An bheil Gàidhlig agat?" She asked of him. "An beag." He looked at her, and smiled.

"I cannot tell what it is to hear it," he told her, then pinched eyes with his fingers, sitting on the bed, and hunched over. Osthryth put her hand on his shoulder, suspecting a trick. But there was no trick, and Finan pulled her to him, hugging her as if she were an old friend, pulling her down next to him, smoothing her hair throuugh his fingers.

"Your hair is like warm gold," he murmured, before kissing her lips. Osthryth rolled her eyes.

"You want to learn some better lines," she told him. "My lord grew up in Ireland and tried to pull women with that?" Something in Finan bridled for a moment, but then he grinned at her.

"My lord!" He imitated, scoffing at her deference, then drew her up to him, his body close to hers. She smiled, as his hands, as firm and deft as in her imagination, held her, running them down her body, his hands down her sides, then kissed her neck, before returning his fingers to her waist. Osthryth bunched up and giggled when Finan tickled her. That night, there was nothing in the world except him and her.

"I still need information, is it necessary for me to be on my back?" She asked, when he had got her virtually naked - Osthryth still wore Eirik's jewel in her hair. If she had known what electricity was she might have compared his lips to a heart-jolting million volts as he pulled her body so close to his that she wondered if they would ever be parted.

"Would you like to be?"

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And Finan had made love to her with a grace and eagerness that matched her lone imaginings. He made her come, he had been slow, and tender, and while they were recovering their strength to love one another again, Finan held her and tickled her and made her laugh.

What made Osthryth know, in her bones throughout all of her life, that Finan was the man for her was that she had been equal to him, in that she had determined what they did as much as he did. Finan wasn't petulant, like Constantime, nor selfish like Edward: he wanted her for her, they lay arm in arm afterwards and talked.

"May I see you again?" Finan asked, as he reluctantly pulled himself off Osthryth and groped around to find his clothing.

"If Uhtred can spare you," Osthryth replied.

"Uhtred is not my lord," he reminded her, sternly.

"But you are bonded. Osthryth sat up, her body very much on display, which was unlike her experience with either Constantine or Edward, where she would have been diving for her clothes by now. "You his kinsman. He has lost his wife," she added.

"I would like to see you again Osthryth," he said, half way through putting one leg through his breeches and Osthryth noticed his words had changed slightly.

"And I would you, Finan Mór," she replied, not feeling the flush on her body that she usually felt when men examined her body with their eyes, as Finan was doing now.

"Mòr?" he asked, finding the other breeches leg. "Well, that is a boast."

But true, Osthryth thought. No acorn for the Irishman in his trousers, thank you very much. Her cunt certainly knew the greatness of Finan of the Ulaid.

And they pressed their lips to one another and kissed as if the world would stop if they didn't. Osthryth was needed at the palace, but she didn't care. But had to say so. Though she took her time over it, and the sun's morning rays were coming stronger through the gaps in the door.

"I have to go, I am needed," she said at last, as Finan moved in again to catch her lips with his own.

"You are needed," Osthryth insisted, her heart overspilling into her mouth, as his cock had done not half an hour before. When she was sure Finan had gone, Osthryth shut the door and then made an attempt to find all her clothes. She had agreed to meet Finan, with the money. And to do that, she had to attend the palace.

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But Osthryth had not even been missed, because of what had happened the night before. Few guards were occupying positions around the palace, which should have been the first clue. The second was that Steapa could not be found. Steapa could never not be found, and it took Osthryth a good while to find someone to tell her what had been going on.

That person was Aldred, the guard who had insulted Gisela by not letting her pass to Ula, in the British ghetto, and he was standing on the ramparts looking more than a little ill.

"Tell me what is happening!" Osthryth demanded of him, but she didn't have to persuade him to talk very much for the terrified young man told her everything. About the priest who had called Gisela a Danish whore, of Uhtred slapping him to the ground and killing him. Of Steapa, who had tried to arrest Uhtred, but instead the lord had taken up his seax and dragged the king into the corridor that led to the armoury and held the blade to his throat.

"He is holed up, they say, in his home," Aldred stuttered, "with a...a witch!"

A witch, thought Osthryth. He must mean that blonde haired woman who had been with Uhtred's company. She could not fathom what or who the woman was, only that she was Danish. Possibly a seer? A captive? A witch? All three? And what was Uhtred doing with her in his company.

"They say no-one has been able to get him out - she has put a curse on him! The witch!" And Aldred went on holding his spear as if his life depended on it, which it probably did.

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Osthryth took herself down to the kitchens after that, and ate some bread and cheese, removing some boiling water which was going to make the broth, and ground up some of the lily root with Taghd's seax. Stowing it away with the terabinth and tansy in the lining of her jerkin, Osthryth made her way to the chapel.

But Beocca was not there, and it would seem that he, too, was outside Uhtred's house, where the stand-off was taking place. When she could not find Edward, not the king or queen, Osthryth reasoned she wasn't needed to take the aethling through sword skill. So, she decided to see Thyra.

The house was not far from the palace, well kept, just beyond the "Two Cranes" and no sooner had Osthryth knocked than Thyra flung open the door. Clearly, it was not Osthryth she was expecting, and her face fell, but she invited Osthryth inn anyway, offering her goat's milk and a chair.

"Dhi as Maihre Dhuit," she whispered quietly, thinking of the healer, for she had seen Thyra visit Ula too. And she told her of Gisela, from the door to the Britons, when she returned with the children, and then of the horrific, afternoon where Osthryth just could not save her life. Throughout, Thyra looked at her sympathetically, and when Osthryth had finished, she leaned over the kitchen table and placed her hand over Osthryth's.

"I know you did the right thing," the Danish woman soothed. "And, inside your heart, Osthryth, you must know it too."

And she did, Osthryth reassured her. But her mind was always flicking back to a thought of Aethelwold: not his words, but his presence. Especially his presence, his silence and reluctance to provoke her.

"He is ready to kill anyone," Thyra explained, when Osthryth asked about Uhtred, and confirmed what Aldred had told her, about the priest and the insult and the threat to the king.

"Don't be too long from us," Thyra urged Osthryth, when she got to her feet, and Osthryth promised not to be. Although, with what she had in mind, she might be.

All day, Osthryth roamed the palace, looking for answers. More importantly, she wanted to be seen to be looking, and in the end took up as guard on the opposite parapet. And from there she saw a crowd of people outside Uhtred's house. And stared. It was true. So how did her brother intend to deal with them? He could only stay in the until he was out of food. So she would be need to be ready, if she were going to be going with them.

As the autumn sun bent around the horizon, creating long shadows, one of Wessex's guards approached. Osthryth recognised him as having been at Beamfleot, for he had lost an arm.

"Prince Edward has requested your presence," he told her, but did not tell Osthryth where. This was her second day not leading his training, and it was important he had some explanation from her. But she found the aethling in his father's library, poring over some of the manuscripts, a worried expression on his face.

Osthryth made to explain, but Edward waved his hand at her, then looked back to her, uncertainty on his features.

"I have been busy - too busy," he explained, putting aside a paper, then sighing. "My father's expectations of my involvement in state have increased."

"As it should be," Osthryth nodded, and he gave her a small smile.

"And you were...?" He was no longer a child - Finan had reminded her of this.

"Incapacitated. The lord Uhtred's stand-off was concerning, and when I went to find you, and Steapa..." But Edward waved her explanation away. "I promise to do better," she concluded. Then, the aethling got to his feet.

"Come, I have something to show you," the prince said, but fell silent as they walked down the corridor to the hall, across it, and into the sleeping corridor.

"What?" Osthryth asked, when he pushed open his bedroom door.

"My wedding clothes," he told her. Osthryth's mouth fell open at the sheer luxury of the outfit. Silk and satin and brocade. None of this was insular; all of it must have been traded a good dozen times before reaching Britain. It reminded her of Mael Muire's outfit.

"You are going to look magnificent," she told him, without taking her eyes off the jerkin and shirt and breeches.

"Look closer," Edward urged, putting her hand on her shoulder, and then pointing into the corner.

"What, Edward?" Osthryth asked, confused. "I just don't see..."

There was the dresser, and his table which contained a comb and a mirror. Her distractred mind searched for his meaning, and she turned back round to him. Edward's face was close to hers. Without missing a beat, the aethling leaned towards her, pressing his lips on hers. Then, he broke away, moving to his bed, and turning away his head.

"What is the matter Edward?" she asked, and was shocked to see tears in his eyes.

"People have died to keep me alive," he replied, refusing to look at her. "A child's life was taken, when my father hid in the marshes. All to save my life..." His frame shuddered, and still the prince would not look at. All that pressure thought Osthryth, and she sat beside him, placing a hand on his. But he pushed her away. Then he turned back, grasping her shoulders.

"Edward!" she made to complain. But then he kissed her again, running his hands down her body, ignoring his wedding clothes, as the tips of his fingers left searing marks on her cold skin as he pressed them into her stomach, up her waist, until her breasts were level with his face. He looked at them as a starving man might look at a loaf of bread.

Osthryth's head knew she should mke him stop - she had been with Finan less than twelve hours before - but her body took over at his adept attentions, stroking here, kissing there, listening to her responses and responding to them, enjoying every touch as the aethling led the way. When, later, he had come in her, Osthryth's breasts red from his forceful grip, her cunt hot and nerve-sensitive from his rigorous thrusting, he rolled away, broodily.

"Can you tell me?" Osthryth began, and he turned to her. And he pulled away the covers that were over her body, shaking a hand away from him.

"That is all," he said, and looked away as Osthryth dressed.

When she had finished, Osthryth asked, "Do you wish me to stay or go?"

"Go," he said, flatly, turning away from her. But then he was on his feet, his spent cock glistening in the candlelight. "Stay," he then said, his eyes on Osthryth, his sunny demeanour back as he wrapped a linen robe around himself. He bent to offer Osthryth her cloak. She huddled up in it, and sat beside Edward, on the bed.

"I feel the weight of it all, kingship," he confessed, eventually.

"You willl make a good king," Osthryth reassured him.

"I am not my father." And he looked plaintively at her.

"No," Osthryth said, tracing a hand to his face, "You are you, Edward, with as much strategy and intellect and kenning and strength as your father. You would have been him if you'd have lived in the time he had. But you have lived in relative peace; you know what that is like, for all your people, to be able to live without war." She reached up, her touch soft towards his hair, "You have as much to fight for as Alfred did - more so, even."

And that caused Edward to draw her close, and he kissed her, holding her gently around the top of her back, as if she were a delicate ornament.

"Osthryth!" He broke away, then kissed her again, and he drew one of her hands to his groin. Already hard, she thought flatly. And it was because Osthryth now knew what it was like to Finan - better than she had ever imagined as she did herself solo - that she truly realised what love and sex together were like. This, with Edward, was a mere shadow. He was the lord prince, and she was paid for service to him.

Shortly afterwards, and it had been quick that time, Osthryth dressed. Edward seemed as fascinated with her putting on her clothes as he had been taking them off her again. He made to touch her flattened breasts as Osthryth turned to go.

"Will you stay?" But Osthryth shook her head.

"I was to be your guard until your wedding," she reminded him. "Tomorrow, you will be one, with Aelfflaed - your elf-beauty." Edward nodded, then leaned into her face, and pressed his lips to hers.

"My thanks," he said, looking at her face. "I have never been bothered by Aethelwold since you have been my guard."

I have, thought Osthryth, dully, and the same congnitive dissonance reverberated about in his head for a moment, at their last meeting. Edward leant down for another kiss, and Osthryth could feel him getting stiff again. So she broke off, and pecked him on the forehead, and left the priapric lord prince to sleep alone that night, as he hoped he would see her tomorrow.

Tomorrow Osthryth thought, bitterly, and she made to the kitchens to recover her linen bag, which she had topped up with portable food. Her riding boots and leather jerkin were exactly where she had left them earlier that day. But there would be no tomorrow for Osthryth now, not here in Wessex.

The horses were sighing softly in their sleep when she unthreaded the leather riding rein from the one she was least likely to fall off. Her well-used cunt stung from its use in the last day, and Osthryth's mind was drawn to Constantine. He may be King of Alba by now, that young man, so different to Edward in manner and demeanour, although few monastery records reported in detail on the throne of Alba. Domhnall was still king six weeks ago, which would have had the lag of six months as Alfred's spies got the message from Culdees to Winchester. Constantine's seduction technique was always inextricably linked to Dunnottar.

The first night that he had touched her, Constantine told her to do what she was told. She was to lie down, and the prince had run his hands up her thigh to her bottom, pulling on her trousers, then parting her legs, before drawing down her breehes and making his cock disappear inside her. That she was his special servant and she must she remember to smile. When Osthryth had refused, the next night, Constantine had locked her out of the palace all night on his room's wind-mauled balcony, refusing to let her in or feed her until she had complied.

But he had been a boy then. He would have changed, surely? Married to Mairi as he undoubtedly was, now. But then Edward hadn't changed. He had been the sunniest child when Osthryth had first met him, and had remained so, despite the emergency facing Wessex.

It was the trembling Aldred who let Osthryth pass through the main gate of the palace unchallenged. Why would he go to all that bother again of challenging her? He looked ill still, and Osthryth guessed that Uhtred might have remembered the young man's insult to Gisela and, if he had not already paid him a visit, Aldred might have reason to expect that he might.

And led the horse, its saddle bag containing Uhtred's silver, buried so long ago in the base of one of the stables' posts and stowed cleanly away, right up to Uhtred's house. Which was four-deep in people: one row of Uhtred's men, and three rows of the palace guards: it was no wonder that there were few palace guards when most of them seemed to be waiting in line, armed, waiting for Uhtred to come out. The challenge was being met by Uhtred's men, who were determined that their lord would not.

Osthryth remembered losing Taghd. She had decided to be a wife to him, hadn't loved him, didn't love anyone then, but was convinced that love would grow from their mutual respect. It was a puddle compared to the ocean of love that Uhtred clearly had felt for Gisela Harthacnutsdottir. All-consuming, as if losing limbs if they were parted. And they were parted by the veil of death, now.

Osthryth looked at the scene again, and looked further on. At the side of the house, horses were tied to a broken railing patched up with a rope. Uhtred's white mare patiently chewing on a hay bale. Hild, the abbess, then pushed past Uhtred's guards, with both of Uhtred's children, one of the older nuns from the monastery carrying a sleeping Stiorra as Young Uhtred called out for his father, but was soothed by Hild, her mouth to his ear.

And then Finan saw her, giving a grin and a nod of approval, presumably to her choice of horse, which he tempered very quickly down to a curl of the lips, before engaging with Steapa, who had chosen to challenge him again. He made his way over to her, through the throng of people.

"A good choice." Finan looked approvingly at the small bay horse that Osthryth was walking beside.

"You are about to leave." Osthryth's voice was low, and she had been accurate. The horses had been well fed and their reins were tethered loosely to the bar. No horse would be tied thusly if it was supposed to be there all night.

"Wait for me, here, in Wessex, so I can find you mo ghaol, kee me a rithist," he said to her, touching her forehead with his lips. "But if you must go north - " He took her scarred hnd, and pressed a silver piece into it, closing her fingers around it.

This was final, binding. The recipient could not refuse the gift now, and she remembered how she had done the same, when she had given him the last of her coins. Finan then bent his head to Osthryth and kissed her knee-quakingly on the lips before returning to his position outside Uhtred's house.

Things began to happen very quickly after that. The house door was flung open and, with the Danish woman in hand, Uhtred bolted for the horses and the rest of the men followed their lord.

And they rode to the north gate, which had been cleverly not been guarded, they were being followed by Steapa and the rest of the Mercian guard, making a pointless attempt to chase them. Gripping the coin Finan had given to her, Osthryth shook her own horse's reins, and she galloped behind them, past the perimeter wall of the palace.

No flames, this time, thought Osthryth, and no honest friend, as she had had wirh Eirik Thurgilson, to sit beside. And she chased her brother, the outlaw, out into open Wessex countryside.

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Summer 910

It had been some time before, many years before, when Osthryth had told the lord Aethelred about Saint Oswald's body. Her ancestor from many generations, he was revered in life as a godly man, who brought Irish Christianity to Bernicia (never mind that his uncle, Edwin, had brought Augustinian Christianity to Northumbria before him) and more so in death, when the last pagan king, the Mercian, Offa, killed and had dismemebered Oswald's body.

But the king's relics had begun to cause healing and even in the direst of cases his body, his arm, his hand, had caused kings and men to seek him out. So, in the reign of Aethelred of Mercia, his wife, Osthryth, had commissioned that her grandfather's body be entombed at Bardney abbey, in Lindsay - Lincolnshire - where it had carried on producing miracles.

It had been a long time ago when Osthryth had told Aethelred that story, and how it was dear to all who had lived in Northumbria. He had listened, and had allowed Oswald's cult to build over the years. And then responded to petitions that the blessed saint could not be left in Bardney any longer, for he would be despoiled, as had so many Christian sites and saintly burials been, by the Danes.

So now, here she was, Osthryth, with a procession of warriors and priests and, of course, Aethelred's man, Aldhelm, with the man's corpse leading the way back to Aylesbury. That he had never been associated with Aylesbury before was irrelevant - Saint Oswald, or most of his relics, at any rate, were destined to be interred at Gloucester, a place where Aethelflaed was re-establishing, and it was a show of unity that the saint should be re-interred there.

It was mere detail that Bebbanburg still had Oswald's head - the most important body part when it came to relics, especially relics from saints not long after the conversion of pagans to Christianity in Northunria. Two priests had been charged to ride north and retrieve them.

And no talk was given that they really should be in Teotenhalgh, to meet with Aethelflaed and, possibly, King Edward, to face the growing Norse and Danish threat in the north-west of Mercia.

All of that was detail to Osthryth. She could no more influence Aethelred than she could anyone else, despite what Aethelflaed thought. Instead, she let her mind drift to her companions - Merewalh, who was riding just before the carriage of Saint Oswald, and Oshere, who was commanding his own division now.

How her boys had grown now, Osthryth thought, with the delight that might only be matched by a mother. Oshere, a commander, and Aeglfrith were now men. Leofstan had been killed out on a skirmish at the Danish border, but Falkberg was still alive, and worked for Aethelred in the hall at Aylesbury.

But Osthryth's mind woud not still to thoughts of her immediate concern. She was still irked by Aethelflaed, and her manner with her at her encampment just north of Saltwic. Clearly, she had found out about her relationship to Uhtred, and it had never entered her head not to tell Stiorra, or her own daughter, or her nephew, narcisisstic bitch that she was.

By now, though, the Lady of the Mercians must know that her only dauther was the only person to secure an independent Mercia, and Osthryth had to give her credit for the sleight she had played, over a long period of time: convince Mercia they were indeed and independent kingdom, and fight and live as such while at the same time overarchingly behave that Mercia and Wessex were one. Teach Aelfwyn, Osthryth thoiught, teach your daughter to fight, so she may defend Mercia. And so Aethelflaed had, or at least, tried to.

And she remembered a conversation with Aethelflaed, before she left to recover Saint Oswald, where Osthryth thought they might be getting on in reasonable terms and she spoke about Aethelred, and fatherhood.

"Fatherhood?" Aethelflaed had scoffed. "Fathers don't want what's best for their children, they just want peace and quiet, being respected and status, and a chance to manipulate by approval and disapproval and need a woman to complete themselves." Both women knew Aethelflaed was speaking about Aedith, the woman who shared Aethelred's bed, of a household riddled with debt where she - and her brother - had to find means to repay it.

"And I am unacceptable because I don't want a man on their terms, designed for men's sexual aims, everything based on sex, eroticisation of women, everything to do with what a woman is, what she can be used for?" Aethelflaed had continued, shaking her head. "Men have set society up to give men a purpose of usefulness, to fill a void, and they don't have a meaningful life otherwise."

She then took up her sword, as if the Lady of the Mercians' words were the most profound things ever to have been uttered, and that before she had said them, no-one had ever thought those things. Osthryth had felt like wringing her neck at her arrogance: she had known these things at eleven - what had Aethelflaed known? To make herself feel better, spoil her brother's food, or hide his possessions?

Aethelflaed went on to explain her choice of chastity, of which Osthryth knew was a lie, and continued, "The female can condition away her sex drive to leave her free to do what she wants: chastity is a path to freedom. Man lures, and women conditioned to need to keep having sex with him."

And she had continued, lecturing Osthryth, as if her words would convince her that, as long as they came from Alfred's daughter, on the path to sainthood herself, that though women had been cursed by God from the time of the Eden, women's sexual desire is a punishment for Eve's temptation.

"And so you see, Osthryth," she had concluded, "When men hate something they want to intrude and violate it themselves, and can't understand why women would want to isolate themselves from a man: it is inconceivable to them. Can you not feel, when you have been chaste for some time that you can access higher things, men cannot help themselves in terms of women, I know this."

Osthryth had listened, and eventually, Aethelflaed had finished with a flourish, declaring her wish to pray. Instead of joining her, which Osthryth knew to be a slight, she went to the stables to collect her things. Aethelflaed had not known Aethelred had chosen her to ride into East Anglia with his men. Nor did she know that she was wrong: she had violated her own oath to never be with Finan again, and now...

"Buckfastleigh," Aldhelm called, pointing to a raised ridge, with a settlement over it, as Osthryth moved her hand over her stomach for a moment. "Not far to Aylesbury now, Osthryth," he grinned. If anyone knew how important this mission was to her, it was Aldhelm.

"And," he added, inclining his head towards her,"Please do not let the lord Aethelred know I told you, he had agreed for you to accompany your saint onwards, to Gloucester, for his re-interrment.

Osthryth smiled, happily, and Aldhelm nodded, to show that he knew she understood. Two things that Aethelflaed could not interfere with, and a third, perhaps, if she thought she could control her husband's troop movements. He would be there at Teotenhalgh, Osthryth knew it - it was Mercian territory after all. Just not at the beck and call of his wife.

Osthryth's mind drifted further back, to the time she had left Dunnottar, before she had gone to Caer Ligualid, to Bebbanburg, south to Saltwic, and then, south east to Aylesbury. There had been a time that she had so desperately wanted to be back with Domhnall and be in his service again. However, as Constantine had pointed out before she left Alba, the use he had been trying to put her to did not include any of her martial skills whatsoever.

"It was your marital skills he was interested in," Constantine had told her, laughing at the poor joke. Osthryth did not laugh. But the alliance through her marriage to Guthred was now useful to the king of Alba, for this gave him a hold over his weak cousin Dyfnwald, nominal king of Strathclyde, and access to the land he claimed in Bernicia, to the wall via Cumbraland.

"It has a kind of symmetry; your brother married his sister; her brother married to you."

"I will never marry!" Osthryth stormed. But Constantine was smiling one of his smiles, which was meant to reassure who he was talking to but meanwhile show he had the upper hnd.

"Those papers Abbott Eadred holds," Constantine mused, but Osthryth had interrupted, "I did not consent!"

"Not even for the safety of Aedre?" Constantine proposed, his mouth still smiling. But Osthryth knew better, and knew his weakness over the child.

"She is nearly ten; she may come with me!" She was right, and delighted to be so, for Constantine had stopped smiling, and now looked concerned.

"You would take her? From here?"

"I could!" Osthryth threatened. She had folded her arms. "Oh, do not fear for the money; I would never ask for silver to be paid!" And that was her consent. Osthryth had told Constantine she would indeed go to Guthred and negotiate an agreement, on the basis of a marriage she hadn't even realised was going happening, when she was fourteen.

It was only then that Constantine had looked satisfied. He had beckoned her over.

"He would be quietly killed before he even touched you, Osthryth," he has assured her. "In fact, you could for it yourself!"

"Me? A king killer?"Osthryth had shaken her head. "He may be a Dane, but he is the anointed king of Cumbraland and accepted by my uncle, and my brother."

"Did he not enslave Uhtred Ragnarsson?" Constantine was good at asking questions he thought others would find difficult to answer.

"He made his peace with him," Osthryth added. "I will not marry him, Constantine, or accept him as my husband if you choose to argue that we are already married. You need to find another way.

And there was another way.

"You need to go south, far south, to Edward," Constantine had explained, hand on her arm. "My spies, of which you are one, tell me Haesten and Cnut bring an army against Mercia; Aethelred has gone east in search of your ancestor, Oswald. Oh, the irony."

Osthryth had not replied, but let him say it anyway.

"The last pagan kingdom's present king seeks the Northumbrian king his ancestor slew as a pagan, whom Penda martyred near the border with the Cymric. His back is turned, Osthryth," Constantine pressed, when Osthryth had not replied. Become Aethelred's lover and find put all that is needed about the Danes." But Osthryth had folded her arms. Throw me out then, she challenged the king, silently, like you did when you were younger. I know you insulted Domhnall because he challenged you to come up with an answer, and the answer included sending me away.

"If you wish me to find out all the lord of Mercia knows," Osthryth replied, "Be assured that I willdo this my way." She took a step to Constantine. "Men only think of women as lovers and whores and skivvies to be lost in childbirth. Except me - I will be none of those things."

I knew my memory was true, Osthryth thought to herself, as the Mercian town where they were going to rest that night came closer. The horses pulling Saint Oswald's carriage splashed through the shallow, wide ford, refreshing them as the Mercian guard rode in the heat of the summer. Aethelflaed was not the first to decry men. How she hadn't murdered that bitch by now, Osthryth would never know.

And she remembered her guilt as she thought back to that day, as Constantine's face became fixed again at her words. She had realised then what she had said only after stalking from the throne room. She hadn't meant it. Mairi, Constantine's wife, had died giving birth to a daughter not two weels before. Constantine had, despite the cold beginning to their marriage, loved her.

Osthryth had loved her too, Mairi of the Ui Neill. She had loved the determined, haughty, imperious black-haired princess of who had been betrothed to Constamtine at Teamreach at the Uì Nèill moot. Constantine had said nothing to her as he watched her leave the throne room.

"I expect you will gain a great welcome from the lord Aethelred, when we return to Aylesbury," Aldhelm told her, tapping her arm. "Well done, by the way.

"Why?" Osthryth asked, hoping he wasn't going to say that he had informed their lord that it was Osthryth herself who had led the charge against the Danes who had put up, frankly, a half-hearted show, which hadn't really warranted a hundred warriors. But then, they hadn't known that, and the prestige in recovering their beloved saint was worth it.

"Because I have informed Lord Aethelred that you led the charge against the Danes."

Why, thought Osthryth, dully, as her horse lessened her speed, and she clung on, trying not to fall off as her hooves met stony ground. She would only have to go through a ceremony where he praised her, and sit and be congratulated. She knew she had done well. And she knew she would have to report all she knew of the Saxons battle strategies back to Constantine. Because that was the agreement.

But she would have to go back soon, Osthryth knew, sooner than she wanted. The road was no place for two, no place to go through what Osthryth knew would be inevitable, in about five or six months time. Although, if what she suspected was true, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

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Aethelred met them out of Aylesbury, battle-clad, no time to discuss glories and honours. Aldhelm was charged to get Oswald to Gloucester, quickly, and join them at Teotenhalgh. Behind him, Eadyth, his red-headed whore, was getting dressed as he directed Osthryth to Merewalh, and her heart soared. There was truly nothing more the lord of Mercia could have done to reward her - if reward was due - for anything she had done at Bardney, and that he had just treated her like any other captain was a joy to her.

"We do not know how we will form on the field," Merewalh had said. "You can take a section, to the middle. We will get there and the fighting will have already begun, so we will have to focus our forces." He looked at Osthryth. "This is acceptable to you?"

"You have to ask?" asked Osthryth.

"Osthryth, I do not doubt your heart," Merewalh replied, touching her shoulder. "Nor your ability to carry out battle strategy, and adapt it to effect on the field. I have to ask, as I ask all my captains."

"It is acceptable to me," Osthryth confirmed. And marched, with the rest of Aethelred's army, to the fields of Wodensfield, and to war.

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The battle was hard won. Many, many lives were lost that day, and had not Edward eventually fielded the West Saxons, and had not the stand-offish Cymric entered the field - on promise of battle spoils, the Danes and Norse would have one the day.

Osthryth saw a flash of wolf-head that told her that her brother had brought in his men, but she had made sure that she had not searched for Finan, or she might make a mistake in judgment. She was here for the Mercians, nothing more.

And when the battle was tight and the Danes had pressed them hard, who would ever have thought that Aldhelm, a Mercian through and through would have bellowed, "Thank God for the Blessed Welsh!"

"Diloch! Dw i!" Osthryth shouted, as a Cymric warrior saved her from a blow from a Danish war axe. He nodded his head, as his scarlet cloak swung around his shoulders.

"Nac ydw, Hwel Dda dw i!" He replied, and she repaid the favour by running through a Norseman, who had been trying to swing a sword into his neck.

Osthryth did not know how it was that she found herself facing the Dane Haesten. Aethelflaed, too far out of her depth through inexperience on any battlefield, had got herself into difficulty, and she and Aldhelm, who had pitched in to help her, were trying to fend off five enemy.

Osthryth was not so far away that she couldn't get closer and, bringing two Mercians with her, set them, with herself, on a rear attack on the Danes who were attacking the Lady.

And the man ran! He actually bent his head and fled the onslaught, choosing instead to follow the Dane Osthryth knew as Cnut, heading up into a spinney of trees up on a hill. No time to yell, "Did you see that!" to her neighbour, but Osthryth's mind was screaming it, as she plunged on.

The two Mercians with her had managed to clear away three of the Danes, and Osthryth shouted, "Guard her!" as a Northman struck to her right. Aldhelm should have managed him on his own, and he turned to do so, but he caught his ankle on his other foot, and tumbled to his knees.

Osthryth could not save him. As a model of devotion to his country, his cool collected self giving instructions, and on the field, he was good, a good man. His acceptance of her for what she was - a warrior in the pay of Mercia. Osthryth liked him. Which was why it was like a hand of ice closing around her heart when the Northman, triumphant, drew up his foot, driving Aldhelm's shield edge into his neck, partially decapitating him, as he drove a spear into his chest.

But she could attack him. Buaidh had her day, and the Northman had no time to savour his victory before a sword ran him through, Taghd's seax in the face for good measure.

And then hands grabbed her, and she found that she had a hand around her throat. It was Haesten.

"Do not struggle, Wachilt," he mocked, as Osthryth's hands, both holding her weapons, as tightly as possible. But it was impossible to get an advantage to use either.

"I have killed women," he growled, as he brought her round to show her Wodensfield from the Northmen's point of view, from the point of view of anyone who wanted to see Angle and Saxon, united for a common purpose, getting bloodily slaughtered before her eyes. "Does this not appall you?"

"Does it not appall you?" Osthryth replied, in Danish. Up to the spinney, she noticed, Brida was charging after her brother.

And then Haesten crumpled at her feet. Osthryth was surprised to see, and very pleased to see a face she knew.

"Aelfkin!" Osthryth exclaimed, her once young warrior saving her life again. "Go, now!" she added, as the surge of Mercians to the western flank indicated the press Aethelred had ordered, and Osthryth looked across, her heart thumping for sadness at Aldhelm's body. Aethelflaed, because to her, it was all about her, was acting as if she were fighting the remaining Danes who had not taken after the Mercians, which meant that the two men guarding her were doing the actual fighting.

She did actually kill one, Osthryth thought, forcing charitable thoughts into her brain. But, there was no time to think, as a group of Cymric, who assumed the fight was over, were already picking through the bodies of the dead over on the eastern side.

"Go with them!" She shouted, in Cymric. But neither moved again, as a Norseman, huge, with orange hair and beard, bore down on both of the men, and had hacked through their spinal columns with an axe held in each hand.

Cold control flooded Osthryth as she thought about the man before her. She knew him, Osthryth's hindbrain realised, but he had lowered his axes, and instead tried to be making to dive past her.

Easy, thought Osthryth, as her blade swished into the air, but the Norseman did not counter her attack. Instead, he pulled her around, and to himself, holding her tight as Buaidh sliced into his leg.

"You are the very woman I have been looking for," said Cnut, Brida's lover, Ragnar's cousin and murderer.

"I have heard better pick up lines," Osthryth replied, in Norse, and he roared with laughter.

"If I were going to kill you, you would be dead by now," Cnut continued, wrestling her away from the fighting. "You have fought well today, killed many of my kinsmen."

But then, suddenly, let her go. A group of Cymric were charging into the spinney. Osthryth swiped at the man as he made a run for it, and managed a deep cut into his leather trousers, and Osthryth staggered, off balance and she noticed the noise of the battle wane.

The Saxons - and Angles and Cymric - were gaining ground, and Osthryth stumbled towards the melee, with only a vague idea that she had a big cut to her arm.

And found herself on the edge of a group of nobles, Aethelflaed and Edward at the centre, surrounding a prone body.

It was Aethelred.

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Of course, she could not get close to the lord of Mercia. All were there with Aethelred, Edward too, and Merewalh stood in place for Aldhelm. This was his family, after all: she was not needed and a ripple of sadness crept across her stomach.

He looked awful, with a wide cut to the back of his skull. Aethelred was still breathing, but only just. Merewalh stood by his side, as Aldhelm used to, and it was only then that Osthryth realised that her friend, once Offa's brusque and cantankerous guard, who had regained favour in Mercia and his family's name, titles and lands, had actually been promoted.

"Leave, now, all of you!" The order came from her brother who was, predictably, accompanied by Finan. Osthryth gave Uhtred a sly smile, not caring whether he saw her or not. The last thing she had heard, Wihtgar still held Bebbanburg, and that was yet another joy that Osthryth knew Aethelflaed, supplicant wife, kneeling at her husband's bedside, head bowed in faux grief, could not get away from her.

As Osthryth made to leave, she caught Finan's eye. She had not intended to, and he bore his lips into a smile, just briefly.

Outside the field tent, Osthryth breathed deeply, before going to bathe her wound in boiled water. She would have to repair her shirt, there was no doubt about that. But, for several months at least, she wouldn't be wearing it at all. At least Ealasaid, Dunnottar's elderly house servant was excellent with a needle; Osthryth's sewing was worse than poor. In fact, garments were better when she hadn't begun on them at all.

She was smiling at Ealasaid's dry words, still with her after nearly thirty years, when the Pictish woman had taken a piece of repair-work from Osthryth and said those words to her. Ealasaid must be in her seventies by now; Glymrie too, though he cooked as well as she remembered him doing, when she had arrived at the fortress, shouldered in by Ceinid, and fed before a roaring fire by the cook, always unfailingly generous to Osthryth.

"What has amused you?" Finan's voice was by her shoulder and she turned to look at him. She told him. He looked down at her arm, and then back to her face.

"You probably sew better than you ride a horse," he replied, and he was her Finan again, making her laugh with his cutting sarcasm.

Then, her brother exited Aethelred's tent. Without looking at her, he turned and made his way over to Hywl Dda, who was regrouping his men. A good deal of battle-loot was in wooden boxes beside his feet.

"I will kill him, one day," Osthryth said to the figure of her retreating brother. But got no chance to say any more, for Finan was kissing her.

"Come," he said, taking her good hand and leading her from Aethelred's tent. "Look, I - " He began, clearly something to say, but Aethelflaed stepped from the tent. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Osthryth.

"Aethelflaed," she acknowledged.

"Osthryth." She glanced at Finan. "So, the Mercians have still not murdered you?" Osthryth turned, and faced the lady of the Mercians head on.

"You see, I chose my name. And I was not married to Aethelred 1st, and I did not murder the King of Mercia."

"No, just the King of Alba," Aethelflaed retorted. So, her reputation as some sort of witch had been conflated with Domhnall's death, then? But Osthryth buried her rising anger, and sunk it to icy coolness in her stomach.

"Should you decide to visit Dunnottar, should you wish to show your face, not a begging letter for aid; should the Strathclyde Cymric not murder you on the way, you will see King Constantine is in very good health."

Aethelflaed said nothing, for a moment, which was unusual for her. Normally, the lady of the Mercians had something aptly cutting to say, especially for someone, like Osthryth, whose reputation, knowledge or ability they wished to diminish.

"Lady," Finan nodded diplomatically.

"You see, my husband - " Aethelflaed began. The sympathy card, Osthryth thought, scornfully, and on a day other than that day, she would let her carry on and ignore her. But instead, she interrupted before the lady could get started.

"For the record, I like Aethelred," Osthryth told Aethelflaed's shocked face. "I am sorry he had to marry you when he could have been king in his own right. I pity Uhtred, I really do."

"I thought you hated him?" Aethelflaed stirred. So, she was back to accusations, now, when grief was getting her nowhere. Osthryth pulled herself to her feet, nodded at Finan, and began to walk away. Away, to the Mercian army, as the thoughts of the three stakeholders in the fate of Lord Aethelred ran through her mind.

If he were to die.

If Aethelred were to die, Edward would want to subsume Mercia. "For its own good, Osthryth," he had told her, post-coitially, when she had gone to do Aethelflaed's dirty work for her.

The lords of Mercia, they would naturally assume to the independence of their kingdom, although no direct line of kings still remained. Ludeca, for example, was married to a daughter of Ceowulf, and had a position by marriage.

Osthryth looked back to Aethelred's tent again. Oh, she hoped she had trained her daughter well, Osthryth thought. Aelfwyn. For she was the strongest by blood of any of them for Mercia, and also a girl barely old enough for marriage, and there were, as far as Osthryth could tell, no suitable matches for the girl.

But, he might live, yet. Aethelred.

Osthryth sank to the dry grass before a pair of war horses, who were placidly eating it, and held her arm. Osthryth's injury had made her addled, which wasn't like her, and she quickly shuffled her uncomfortable bindings down her body and, spying a pot boiling over the fire that a tanner was using to soften leather, put the fabric in.

"Can you hold this?" She asked of the tanner, who looked across from shaping the leather, at her exposed arm in her ripped sleeve, and put down the leather he was working on.

The heat was good, although Osthryth still felt a little dizzy, and she thanked the man as his hands, clean from the hot water, bound her wound.

"You could have said something to her. Lord," Finan added, as he and Uhtred ate soup prepared by the Wessex army. Well worn wooden bowls held harvest's delights, plus spring lamb, and both men ate the broth carefully as they surveyed the aftermath of the high-stakes slaughter.

But it had worked, for the Saxons at least. And the reticent, stand-offish Cymric had got battle spoils and, more importantly to Hywl Dda, knowledge that the Mercians and West Saxons were in his debt.

"What would you have me say?" Uhtred asked. "I am sorry that I left you behind when you were ten and I was nineteen and I came to Bebbanburg to swear death to my uncle when I never even knew you existed?" Finan said nothing. Battle had taken it out on all of them, and they were getting to be old men now.

"Look, she is coming over," Finan said, a few minutes later.

It took a long time for him to tell Osthryth the truth about where Uhtred had discovered he had a sister, for Osthryth believed Aethelflaed had told him. But that moment was not too far away, in the future, and everything would have changed for them.

Osthryth was carrying something, in her hand, Finan noticed, and his exceptional eyesight noticed, as she got nearer, that it was a silver coin.

Osthryth was turning it over and over to help her think. She had given it back to Finan, to break the implied symbol of a connection between them when she had left Dunholm after following the outlawed Uhtred.

But, he had slipped it into her hand before she left the cave at Bebbanburg that day, and Osthryth had found it as she was riding back with Oswald's body. Would she give it back to him again?

When she got close enough to stab Uhtred, Osthryth stared at him. After all this time simply did not know what to say.

But Uhtred did. Getting to his feet, he stood in front of her, and did not speak straight away. Instead, he stared at her for a few moments, shifting his weight from side to side.

"You're my sister?"

"You're my brother," she returned, distainfully. "One of them You have not gained Bebbanburg." Osthryth's delight was palpable.

"No," he replied, then glared at Finan. "You humped my sister?" The Irishman looked abashed.

"What do you care?" Osthryth shot back.

"Tis a matter of honour, of blood!"

"And the blood of the Scots is your altar!" Osthyth shouted back. "You didn't think about blood when you came back to Bebbanburg! I was ten years old! Ten! Aelfric had me all by on the road to Kjartan!" By now, several people were turning as Osthryth raged. But she had not pulled Buaidh. Not yet.

"I would be dead now had it not been for the king of the Picts! He gave me the chance to fight, and now I choose to use it to fight for my brother Wihtgar - " Uhtred bridled "- to retain it!"

"You may be the elder brother, but more nobles with vested interest choose. We are not yet a Frankish kingdom which follows primogeniture, nor Wessex, which seeks to follow. The the best noble for the land is Wihtgar Aelfricsson. He is loyal to his people, he is a Christian."

"And you would turn him heathen." It was not a question. As much as Osthryth knew about Uhtred, he knew something of her. And it was enough to stay her outrage.

"Gytha - our mother - was of Urien, the ancient ruler of Rheged. The Cymric were Christians far longer ago than the house of Ida. Wihtgar has the better claim!"

But already Uhtred's hand was on serpent breath. However, Osthryth had already withdrawn Buaidh. Then she turned, surveying the violated battlefield.

"I did what I agreed, Aethelflaed of Mercia!" Osthryth screamed, to the heavens. But the voice came from beside her.

"Kneel to me." Her voice came from behind Osthryth, and the glanced over her shoulder. Still battle-clad, Aethelflaed held her sword aloft.

"Ha!" Osthryth scorned, and put away Buaidh. She would not fight the bitch, not give her the satisfaction of the event.

"You swore to Mercia; I am the Lady of Mercia," Aethelflaed pointed out.

"You were not there when I knelt before your husband, and swore to Mercia its land, its earth, its rivers. You not the ruler to whom I swore. Poor Aldhem witnessed. Did he not tell you one night?" And she had her. Everyone saw Aethelflaed take a quick movement to Osthryth, which she quickly concealed. But it was too late. Osthryth, meanwhile, stood unmoved, unarmed.

"You chose Aethelred," Aethelflaed clarified.

"I chose Aethelred, yes," repeated Osthryth. "But I was too late. You can thank me later."

"You are as impertinent as your brother," Aethelflaed accused.

"Clearly a quality you find appealing," Osthryth spat back, then glanced back to Uhtred. "Even if you are war-wise as a mouse's cock."

"Shouldn't the trash talk begin before the battle?" Finan, ever quick to use black humour to quench hostilities spoke for everyone watching. "And, between us and the enemy?" They had all used every bit of their strength for many hours holding the field, and the conflict between the two women was not needed.

But that was the spectators' opinion. Between themselves, this conflict had been simmering for decades.

Osthryth ignored Finan, and she glanced at Uhtred, who was putting no effort into hiding his amusement.

"You were not at Bedford, or Chester," Aethelflaed accused.

"Nor you at St Andrew's; Dun Eidinn, Dunnottar - three times, Dunkeld, Stirling, Doire, Ar Macha, Benfleet...twice." Osthryth paused, playing up thoughtfulness. "Once, you were there. But not upright." Osthryth then turned her back to Aethelflaed and took a step towards Uhtred.

"Good to meet you brother, I am sure Aethelflaed was overwhelmed with excitement in telling you." She glanced at his leg. "I trust you regain your strength."

"Wait!" called Uhtred, his face confused, potent questions filling his mouth,.

But Osthryth was already stalking back through the war dead on the battlefield, over to the Mercians, who were greeting her as one of their own, as well they might. She had been one of their own, on and off, for the last twenty or so years.

Feeling the silver piece in her hand, her thoughts were drawn to Finan for a moment, and Osthryth dashed them away as she slipped the metal into her pocket.

And, now to Alba, Osthryth thought, as she trod the muddy, blood-stricken ground to the stores. Fires were already blazing, to heat water and treat the dead, to make food for injured and uninjured men.

Mercia will give me food this night, and I am owed a horse, Osthryth thought. Her heart wrenched when she thought again of Aldhelm being brought down - he had done so much to renew the spirit of the Mercians with Saint Oswald. Aethelred, should he recover, would sore miss his advisor.

And that was another situation, should he not.

An hour later, and Osthryth had found the brown mare which had carried her from Bardney. Better a beast she knew than another, and she made sure it was fed and saddled before looking north.

To leave now was the best thing, as the battle crossed that liminal frontier from ended into past, where clean-up and spoils collection became feasting and celebration. But there would be no feasting for the Mercians: Aethelred was critical, and would have to have divine intervention to recover.

North took her towards Aethelflaed's own town of Stafford, where the road would continue beyond Mercia and into, nominally, Northumbria. Osthryth had taken the road before, but in reverse, when she had come down from Bebbanburg. Now, she would travel roughly the same route back, and considered whether she should go back to Wihtgar and congratulate him for holding the fortress. No need to decide now, Osthryth thought. Just get to Manchester, to where Osbert, Alfred's firstborn, now released from Uhtred's service, held a garrison. With Wihtgar's wife living with him, she added grimly. Not her fight, she added, as she looked at the first river that she was to cross, the Tame

And then she turned. It could have been so much different, Osthryth thought. She could have -

But her thoughts came to a halt when she caught King Edward's eye. His temples rose as his eyes recognised her, but then he went back to discussion with his advisors. Aethelhelm, Osthryth thought, grimly. His wife's father. She really disliked the man, and Osthryth wondered whether it was because he had taken Odda'a lands. He had been a true lord, a gentleman, honourable. By contrast, Aethelhelm was scheming and self-serving.

Osthryth pulled at the reins of her horse as she turned her, but pulled up sharply when she saw a person running towards her. Finan. And beside him, her brother.

The mare shook its head in a defiant way as it expressed its displeasure at being halted.

"Where do you go?" Uhtred asked, when he finally got himself next to the horse. The leg injury would take some healing, Osthryth surmised.

"North. Young Aedre is there," she added. Uhtred stepped back, and she expected Finan, his shadow, to do so to. But instead he took her arm.

"You kept the silver," he pointed out, and this time it was Osthryth's turn to slip from the saddle and delay the horse's pleasure to ride. She reached down and held his hand. Then drew it to to her stomach.

"Your child," she said, smiling. The look on his face was worth the telling. But then the father of Osthryth's child glared at her, as realisation flooded his brain.

"And you fought in a battle?"

"And you will be figting another," Osthryth reassured him. "Aethelred will not be long for this world; Aelffaed will be married off and there will be a fight for Mercia. The lady of the Mercians will not step aside, and - "

It was Finan shaking his head that stayed her tongue, and he pulled her close.

"Tha mi air mo dhòigh," he told her, his fingers tracing her hairline.

"It can only be," she replied.

"Pòs mi, Osthryth, mo gaol," he asked, taking the hand in which Osthryth held his silver piece.

"I have only one home, Finan Mor," she told him. "Tha gaol agam ort. Thyra and Beocca's daughter lives there. Dunnottar. When you come to fetch me , then I will marry you, Irishman. But you have to want me more than you want Uhtred." She stepped back, and reached for her horse's reins.

Pain crossed his face. She didn't mean it, it was Uhtred she wanted to hurt, and Osthryth knew she was lashing out at the one person she loved the dearest in all the world.

"You have a life here," she added, softening her blunt words. He pressed her hand to his chest as he moved his to her lower stomach, as if checking his memory that she had actually said what she had.

And they parted, with no more words. When he felt his oath to Uhtred had been spent, Osthryth told herself, as the fields gave way to sandstone rocks on the road north, that will be when he comes. It could be tomorrow, or never.

"So that is your sister," Aethelflaed said, who had come to stand by her former lover.

"You knew?" Uhtred replied, shocked. "How long?"

"Perhaps six months." She smiled at him. "The question is, how could you not have guessed?" Uhtred looked across to Finan, who was watching Osthryth ride away, but got no back up there.

"She fights like you, behaves like you," Aethelflaed continued. "Nut she wasn't raised by Danes." Uhtred narrowed his eyes.

"Raised by Picts, which is worse. Or Gaels. Who can tell the difference?"

"I can," Finan said, vaguely, watching Osthryth go until she was a speck in the distance. When Aethelflaed excused herself, and returned to a council, which had become an informal witan, Uhtred turned to his friend as a memory surfaced.

"I wronged her," he told his friend. "At Aylesbury."

"I feel the same; she has just told me she is, well...she's riding away," Finan said, eyes still north. But he slapped his friend's shoulder to make him look at him.

"Finan, I wronged her," Uhtred said, his eyes burning into Finan's. "You know I went to see Hild? She lay dying. She said it was her wish that Osthryth and I were reunited." Uhtred laughed an ironic laugh.

"For all the gods, Finan!" Because the realisation was falling into place in Uhtred's mind.

"She hates you, for some reason," Finan said, obliquely.

"You know the reason?" Finan shook his head in the evening sunlight.

"I don't!" he insisted, when he saw Uhtred's face.

"So was told who it was who caused the death of Gisela." It wasn't a confession, as such, just Uhtred sharing his thoughts with the surroundings. Or, at least, that's what he told himself. "He told me she was a witch. So I dealt with her."

"You...what?" Finan looked at his friend. "Look, Uhtred, you gotta tell me that again; I don't think I heard you the first time."

"You heard me," Uhtred said, miserably. "I found out she was there, Hild confirmed it. She gave Gisela herbs during the birth. And she did not deny it."

"Births are tricky," Finan said, holding Uhtred's gaze. "Women take herbs, give herbs. God love them, they are not as strong as we are."

Uhtred said nothing for a moment, just watched his friend's face.

"You know she sought herbs from the Britons?" Finan said nothing

"You know Osthryth sought herbs from the Britons." It was not a question. Osthryth had been unconscious when Finan had carried her there, bloody and close to death. She had used herbs then.

Finan knew in his heart the child she had tried to eliminate had been Edward's, and he had begged, pleaded with Ula to keep her alive. And the British healer had. Now, she had assured him she was going to a place she thought of as safe, with the miracle that was his child, being carried by her, the woman he loved.

She had kept his silver piece.

Could he ride after her now, and tell her she was more important to him than her brother was? Because, it was true, it always had been.

"So I dealt with her." Uhtred had repeated his qualifying statement.

"You are just going to have to explain, Uhtred," Finan replied, shaking his head. "It's been a long, tiring day, and - "

"So I gace her to Aethelwold to punish on my behalf."

"You did what?" The usually locquatious Finan was lost for words.

"The day before we went to battle at Thundersley, before we faced Haesten with Edward's promised troops. Before I found out the bastard was Ragnar's murderer." But Finan was still processing Uhtred's words.

"You listened...to Aethelwold?" Finan shook his head, and looked north again.

"Hold on just a minute...this was when Alfred was ill...she disappeared...came back to Winchester, then disappeared again?" He looked back to Uhtred, willing his friend to take back what he had just been telling him, saying it was untrue. For Finan had seen the state of her on the morning before she disappeared.

"I told him what I wanted done with her." But Finan had had enough, and took his friend's shoulders.

"You should have seen her Uhtred!" he shouted at his lord. "Where her body was not black with bruises it was red from welts and cuts with a blade! He tortured her! He beat her." Finan let Uhtred go, and looked away. "I thought it was that shite Edward," he added, almost to himself.

Then Finan fell silent, remembering a time long ago, in a different land, when he had wronged her, too.

"I told him to; I was angry. She provoked me into it..."

"But then, Hild said that I had it false; she was there, with medicine, paid from her own money from the heathen healer to come, but she would not...for the nuns had done all they could for her...they saved my son...there never was much hope for Gisela..."

"My God, Uhtred!" And that was all Finan could manage, as he sank onto the damp ground, staring away into his own mind. Uhtred sat too.

"It was that, or be hanged," Uhtred said, quietly after a time. "She allowed us all to call her a witch to shield the Britons." But Finan had a look on his face more terrible even when they were at their greatest despair, enslaved.

"I was there," Finan murmured, "When she said it."

"What?"

More silence. Fire crackled.

"I just said it is funny how a lie told in one place could soread so quickly. And I suppose Aethelwold had spent a lot of time with the Danes. And there had been Danes and Norse in Eirinn."

Uhtred was at a loss. But the day had been long, and he was in no mood to untangle his friend's riddles. If, indeed, Finan was his friend now he had confessed his role in Osthryth's torture by Aethelwold.

"I promised I would help you get back Bebbanburg," Finan said, at last, "And, believe me, I will help you het back Bebbanburg." Uhtred watched him shake his head. "After that..."

And Finan trailed off to silence, and they both got drunk, and the matter was discussed no more.