October 899
If Ula had been shocked by Osthryth's presence as the proto-light of dawn dared tell tales on the events of the night, a hand scrabbling over the edge of the door of her mean house, she did not show it.
The body thumped outside, blocking the door, and the British healer left her pot and moved through the mud to find Osthryth lying beside it.
The woman helped her up, scooping her arm over her shoulder and the cloak around Osthryth slipped from her shoulders.
In her hand, a bag of silver. Ula inhaled. The woman was lucky, she thought, lucky or cunning enough to have this amount to hand. It wasn't hers; she did not earn it.
That had never concerned Ula - all wealth had once been in the ground of the Britons, before the Romans invaded and stole most of it.
She could walk, at least, with help. Osthryth's legs dragged in the soft ground of Ula's home, falling against the wooden bed frame as she stumbled.
But she was shocked. The ferocity of the damage to the woman's body meant that she had been abused by someone who had wanted to cause her real harm, and Ula suspected she knew where it came from.
The silver was meaningless, then, for it meant she had not betrayed Ula and the Britons. She looked at the woman again, who was trembling and shaking, as every position of rest was agony for her. But she could not be sure - she could never be sure, now.
And the plan, inevitable, as it was always inevitable, was going to have to begin. Though the king was dying, a seed of doubt about their Cymric neighbours was planted in the minds of the Saxons. Twenty generations of Ula's community had lived on this land, which was now called Wessex. Now they, too, would have to move. West, ever the push west by the Saxons, who now, themselves, were being pressed.
"Sira!" Ula called, through the door. Her eleven year old daughter appeared at the door, black hair, pale face.
"Yes, mamma?" Ula bent her head to her daughter.
"Take these coins, take them to every woman here. They are to prepare.
"Yes, mamma." The girl took the bag, hiding it in her shawl.
But not yet. Not at once, not as a collective. One or two families would go, unnoticed, unnoticeable, as they always were, until no Cymric lived in Winchester any more.
Ula looked back to Osthryth, another Saxon with little sense. Even after last time she thought the young woman knew to look after herself.
She inhaled. Ula would give her the time, and be one of the last to leave. But the question was, where to begin?
With the outer wounds, deeply scored and gouged and flayed. Warm, pre-boiled water was the start, the many soothing balms the woman had bought with the silver next.
Ula looked at Osthryth again, and thought of the man who had refused to leave Ula's house the when she had stemmed the bleeding caused by the cumulative effects of the roots the woman had been misusing.
Osthryth flinched as Ula began to help her injuries. Her inner wounds were a different matter. She could not help her mind, the healer thought. But perhaps she would take Ula's advice this time.
All this is in the future. Osthryth could change her fate. Couldn't she? Or had the path already been laid? Is fate unchangeable?
Wyrd bith ful araed.
88888888
That was a day in the future. A day, or maybe two more three. Osthryth knew no of the time she was held captive as she did as to how she had got there, hanging by her wrists in a dungeon.
It was not one of the usual prisons, which were behind the armoury. The damp smell made Osthryth think they were below ground level. But there was light, of a sort,which she could tell behind her blindfold.
The first Osthryth realised she was in trouble was the pain in her arms - whatever this place was it seemed to be built for someone taller than she was.
The silence was broken by a voice near her ear.
"You have one chance to tell me the truth.". It was her brother.
What truth? Osthryth did not know. And besides, she was gagged - even if she did know what truth to speak.
"The lord Uhtred demands you speak!" That was Aethelwold. A chill stole over Osthryth: if Uhtred and Aethelwold were together, keeping her prisoner, then this was a terrible sign.
There had been other signs: being called a witch by people in the street, asked her business at Crepelgate. Edward's questioning of her.
But to have both men there, who she has crossed more than once in the past - that was not good news.
Osthryth struggled with her wrists, to try to get them looser, but was only rewarded with a punch to the stomach. Then, the cord was removed from her mouth.
"I came to you to pay the price of my debt owed," Osthryth spat, her mouth dry as she spoke into the blackness. "You have the payment?" Neither Aethelwold nor Uhtred replied.
"Lord Aethelwold - " Osthryth made to continue. But another punch to her gut silenced her.
"The lord Aethelwold will let you go," Aethelwold replied, mocking her for her use of his title, "When you give me the name of the person who caused the death of the lord Uhtred's wife."
"I do not need to know." Uhtred was standing just behind Aethelwold, and he was pulling at his bearded chin, as if considering something
"Then what are we doing here?" Osthryth heard Aethelwold ask, "Playing tafl?" A thump beside her caused Osthryth to turn.
"Shut your mouth Aethelwold," Uhtred"s voice.
"He can't," Osthryth shot back. "A perfectly good arse was ruined when someone stuck teeth in his."
"Tell me, what did you bring to pay for your crime?"
"Silver. Or at least, I had it in my hand before the lord Uhtred assaulted me."
"It is here," Uhtred said. "Which explains your role perfectly."
"Then, if I have paid the wergild," Osthryth pointed out, "There is no reason for you to be keeping me here.". She heard Uhtred's boots on the stone floor before her. He did not jump on her words immediately, and Osthryth sensed Aethelwold was waiting for Uhtred's lead.
"Britons came to practise magic on her," Uhtred proposed. "At a time most vulnerable."
"Your wife went to Britons to ease her pain near the end of her time, yes," Osthryth replied.
"No! She would never do that!" Uhtred protested and Osthryth found herself laughing scornfully.
"You do not know women," Osthryth proposed. "You know how to seduce them, yes,but when the time comes, when there are life or deaths situations, women will do what they can. And so I went to the healer, when the abbess could go no more."
"I have spoken to the abbess!" Uhtred shot back, angrily. "She did not order this!"
"I saved your son," Osthryth replied. "I went to the British healer, and begged her to come, paid her to come, to help Gisela. She would not. But she told me what I could do to ease your son into the world."
There was a crackle of stone and wood beside her and her words seemed to settle around them like snow.
"So you admit you used heathen magic on my wife?" Uhtred's voice sounded strained.
"Yes."
"The name of this healer?" This was a different voice, Aethelwold's, coming near her right ear.
"I will not say."
"Is that your final word?" This time, Uhtred. If she told them, the Britons were all condemned. She at least, might get whipped, but if questioned after being released, she could deny it, say she was forced to say something.
Yet, there was a fundamental truth to it all. She had gone to Ula; she had listened to her.
"My final word us this, Uhtred of Bebbanburg," Osthryth cautioned. "My first instinct was to help your wife, and my second to help your son. Would you not have done anything to help them?"
"I have heard enough!" But Osthryth was not ready to be silenced. An anger was glowing in her, and his dismissal of it all oxygenated it. Though she should not have, Osthryth opened her mouth once more.
"You think you know everything? You think you can control the people around you? If Gisela chose the Britons to help her, there was a reason. No-one goes to the Britons lightly - they are the last resort. Gisela probably knew the birth was going to be difficult, which is why I let her through the gates to them."
"You...let her through?"
"Or leave her this side, in Winchester," Osthryth told him. "For you and your stupid pride? Oh, you'll go to Christians right enough, when you want something fixing, or doing for you, and your Danish Paganism isn't enough? How arrogant!". The words were catching in her throat now, and Osthryth should probably have got the hint to stop.
But her words flowed, born from rage and anger at her brother, choosing Danes and their gods over the family he left, over the name of his home, which he was so arrogantly desperate to cling to, regardless.
It was Oswald's home; Oswy's. All their ancestors, Christian, who had enlightened Bernicia and Deria with the word of God. And he wanted to ignore all that, pick and choose what he wanted, like a banquet feast?
"If you say that by helping your wife I killed her with heathen witchcraft, then I did. But do not believe for one second I did act out of anything other than a desire to help a woman in huge distress."
Another silence, which was eventually filled by Aethelwold's feet on the dusty stone floor.
"Remember, I came here to tell you, and to pay penance," Osthryth prompted, when neither men said anything.
"I will remember," her brother's voice came, "that you arrived at the palace because you could not live with the thought of what your witchcraft did to my wife! You came to confess to Aethelwold, and he to dispense justice."
Behind her a crack came, like the shaking if a horse rein. Osthryth felt the blood drawing back under her skin, for she suspected she knew what had caused it. Steapa owned a flaying whip which sounded exactly like that, and she shuddered as she remembered the state of the prisoners who last were given it - they could barely walk to the scaffold.
"You heard this warrior admit she was practising witchcraft, Lord Aethelwold?" Uhtred summarised, and in doing so killed my wife?"
"I did indeed, Lord Uhtred.". There was a humour in Aethelwold's voice that made Osthryth feel sick - he wanted to do this, he wanted to hurt her. And, just as she was about to struggle, a hand containing the gag rope shoved it back into Osthryth's mouth, blocking her voice, preventing her from crying out.
She was still clothed, Osthryth realised, when Aethelwold beat her. Not that it mattered much, her shirt would be rags within the first few strokes.
And that was all she felt, as Aethelwold's arm swiped through the air, the sound of the blows echoing in the dungeon. Sooner than Osthryth expected, the blows came no more.
"That is for lying to the crown," Aethelwold hissed by her ear. "For betraying your position as a guard. However, you have not paid for your treachery..." Osthryth felt Aethelwold's breath move from her face and continue, "...has she, Lord Uhtred?"
"She has not."
Osthryth inhaled deeply, painfully, as the two men talked, the conversation designed to inform her of what was coming next.
"If she were a man, I would suggest hanging, and quartering."
"She is no better than a piece of filth - I say, do it." That was Uhtred again.
Through the weave of the blindfold Osthryth saw a shadow cross a torchlight and the figure, presumably Uhtred, stop. He was blind to women, Osthryth raged, silently, their worth to him in being fed or have a comfortable household, or wanting them to hump them. Or deriding those to whom he wad not attracted dismissed them as worthless.
Even Abbess Hild he could not appreciate for her piety. In no part of her brother's mind did a dimension to allow him to comprehend an intelligent woman like the abbess and with it that she was entirely unconnected to him in any erotic way. Even this, with his own sister, and Osthryth admitted that he didn't know that she was his sister, had to come to this. This was no trial; this was no justice, it was one Dane's chosen revenge.
Osthryth used her tongue to manipulate the rope in her mouth and spat it out onto the floor.
"Lord Aethelwold," Osthryth petitioned. "I came to you with wergild. I expect to be brought to trial, as you were, to hear the king's justice.". His reply,however, made Osthryth gasp, as Aethelwold tore the blindfold from Osthryth's face.
"I am the king!" He snarled. "The king above...Alfred...he us not long for this world. He cannot deal with this now. So he dispenses such roles to his other lords. Now, we, his lords take the strain."
"And what is that?". He leaned close to her ear.
"Whatever I choose it to be."
"I attempt to save your wife's life and I am treated in this way?". These words Osthryth spat towards her brother. And for once, Uhtred had no answer.
But Aethelwold had. Raising the whip, he brought it down between her shoulder blades. Pain like fire spread out from the wound. Three more, and she was panting at the agony.
"Then...I wish I hadn't, Uhtred...of Bebbanburg," Osthryth breathed, the words heavy. "That means your son would have died too, and if I had known about this injustice..." And, as more flaying came to her thighs and her brother laughed. Osthryth's mind drifted to the time, with Skade, and how sorry he had felt for him. He had heard her say that he would soon be in need of a woman...
"I wish that seer had ended your life." It was not a short, rather, a cold statement and, when Uhtred had not moved his head, Osthryth wondered whether he had heard her.
"What?" Uhtred's reply was slow in coming, but he still did not move in the shadows.
"Maybe her curse endures. You have no land, your family are taken to be Christian, and you are bound by oath to a land you despise. I do not hate you, Uhtred, I pity you."
There was a pause of a heartbeat and then Uhtred did turn and, in the darkness, glared at her with a kind of mania on his face. Then he turned away.
"Do as you will, Aethelwold," Uhtred said, strode away without turning his head, and she heard the king's nephew shuffle his feet in anticipation. And Osthryth inhaled as deeply as she could.
"Uhtred of Bebbanburg!". Osthryth screamed, with all the force she could manage. "Go fuck yourself!"
88888888
And Aethelwold cut down her hanging arms, which was a great relief. What was not was the aching sensation still all over her body. Osthryth sought to fold her arms round herself when Aethelwold began to pace around her, the candle light shining off his pale orange hair, his beard, his lascivious eyes.
"No," Aethelwold said, shaking his head, after he had looked over her body, scrutinising it as if Osthryth were a horse he was considering buying. "No, no, no no no," he continued, folding his arms, and resting his chin between a thumb and forefinger.
"No, that won't do at all. Turn around." Osthryth turned. Perhaps if she did as he asked, she might get out of this situation. But another part of her mind told her that she was in deep trouble, and if he asked again and Osthryth told him of the Britons, Ula would be hanged anyway.
Instead, Osthryth let Aethelwold touch her waist, and pull her tightly to him. He reached to her back, his fingers playing in the pulpy mess that he had caused, then ran his hands all over her, as if lovers, frantically trying to touch one another.
"The wergild!" Osthryth demanded. But Aethelwold shook his head.
"As far as I know, you brought none."
A trap, cursed Osthryth, as she thought about her abduction. Aethelwold, meanwhile, was fondling the curves of her body.
"Ih, I have thought about your body," Aethelwold continued, running his hands down her arms. "Strong as a man, your muscles tight, your body firm..." His voice trailed off and he stepped past Osthryth. "Now, I wonder, what would you look like showing yourself off in a dress?"
Osthryth turned and watched Aethelwold walk over to a chest, which was by the wall of the windowless cell - yes, Osthryth noticed, windowless, a chest, a wooden door set in between stone walls, damp, so below ground level.
Osthryth watched as Aethelwold shook out a dress, and Osthryth inhaled. It was beautiful. Candlelight caught the fibres which glowed blue. Like Domhnall's cloak, Osthryth thought, when he sat in splendour on his ancient oak throne at Iona, with the traitor Griogair by his side, Constantine and Domnall flanking the other. She would rather be trying to outwit Griogair rather than Aethelwold, Osthryth thought to herself.
"Take off your clothes!"
"What?" Aethelwold's command came quietly, but with a streak of menace.
"Take - them - off!" He repeated.
"But..." But Aethelwold was bearing down on her, the dress thrown onto the floor.
"I said -" he tore at her clothes, most of her shirt falling away after tearing under his earlier blows. When the ruined shirt was on the floor, Aethelwold stopped. Where he was expecting her breasts to be he found her bindings. Most had got shredded with the whip but, Osthryth thought, they had absorbed a lot of its force.
"Now then, that's not playing fair..." And from his belt Aethelwold took a dagger. Osthryth gasped as he pushed the blade by her stomach and cut away the cloth, rewarded with her breasts bobbing in front of him. She shivered as the heat from her body escaped into the room. Aethelwold smirked
...he has a dagger, Osthryth thought, in his belt...no sword...
"Well now, that is much better, do you not think so, Lord Uhtred?". As Osthryth strained to see whether her brother really was there, Aethelwold thumped her in the face.
"Put it on."
Aethelwold threw it to her and Osthryth slipped it over her head and naked upper part of her body. It slipped over her breeches, it was too big for her, and her breasts floated inside the satin rather than the fabric envelope her figure, as it would do if it fitted.
"Oh, my lady!" Aethelwold, bowed, mockingly, "May I take your hand?". He held out his hand. "I am to be king, soon, you know, I will need a queen." Osthryth watched as he reached out, palm upturned while Osthryth refused to move her arm.
"Give me your hand!" He demanded, but did not wait for her to comply, instead he grabbed her wrist and forced her hand into his.
"Take down your hair." Osthryth pulled out Eirik's jewel...she would not lose it; it's point was still sharp... and it flowed to her shoulders. It had grown back paler, Osthryth had noticed, the last time she had washed it the light from Aethelwold's candles reflected off it making her head shine.
He approached her, looking at her head as if he had never seen hair before, then began to touch it as if it were fragile.
And then she realised that Aethelwold's face was close to hers, his one eye searching hers. With the hand he still held, he pushed Osthryth towards his eye.
"Touch it!" He demanded. But Osthryth recoiled. A hole in his head, because of his treachery. Treachery there on his face for all to see for the rest of your life.
Then Osthryth saw how she could turn this to her advantage. She placed her hand to his face, and smoothed his beard.
"What did you learn about the Danes when you were with them?" Osthryth asked. "Did not Odin gain the knowledge of the would when he lost one eye?.
Aethelwold showed astonished for a moment, and he gave Osthryth a strange look. Good, she thought, he was responding to her advances. For now.
"I know that," Aethelwold confirmed. "But I am Christian; I did not become a Dane, like Uhtred, when I spent time with them. Unlike the lord Uhtred."
...vanity, Osthryth thought...pride...an unshakeable belief in his right to the Wessex throne...
"Pity it didn't work for you!"
And Osthryth ran, kicking over one of the candles. The bars were locked, but she threw herself at them, fumbling for any sign of exit.
Too slow, and Aethelwold pressed her against the stone wall next to it.
"Careful," he warned, pressing the blade into her ledt breast, its metal indenting the fabric rounded skin, its point peicking her flesh, "You do not want me to slip." And, still holding her, Aethelwold manoeuvred her to the bed knife still pressed painfully to her breast.
"Touch it, I said," Aethelwold said, and Osthryth reached for his empty eye socket. But he dragged her hand away, meaning something else, and she realised his breeches were open. He forced her hand down onto his cock which had erupted from his breeches. Osthryth looked down and he laugh.
"Expecting an acorn?" Aethelwold sneered. "On your knees!" And he pushed Osthryth down towards the floor, not expecting resistance.
"Only when I am praying," Osthryth retorted, which resulted in Aethelwold gripping her hair and thrusting her down, his own hand to his cock, encouraging its erection. It moved as if dancing to its own rhythm.
"Good, good!" he exclaimed, anticipating the feeling, but when Osthryth got the shaft into her mouth, she bit, at the same time gathering his legs behind with her hands, knocked him to the ground. The knife fell away. Osthryth scrambled to her feet.
But Aethelwold had caught her hair: classic mistake, long hair in a battle, and pulled Osthryth over, thumped her face, broken her nose, bleeding, pulled her to the bed with her hair and saut on her chest, then dangled his big cock into her mouth. It was suck or choke.
It was hot, as Aethelwold worked his cock inside Osthryth's mouth, and the fluid was tangy, and a panic overcame Osthryth as a memory from long ago, Ninefingers spilling his in her mouth as the sun died.
Then he pulled Osthryth by the hair, down to her knees, where she finished sucking him off, but he restrained himself from coming, and backed away.
"Is this the only way you can get a woman?" Osthryth sneered. "Rape? Or do you hump so infrequently you visit the sheep?" To be fair, if she had been Aethelwold, she would have thumped her in the stomach too, and Osthryth staggered bac.
"Be compliant or I will tell Alfred you tried to bribe me with the silver to prevent me from telling him," he warned. "Never suffer a witch to live..." And Aethelwold backed Osthryth onto his bed, rolling the blue dress up her body, tugged at her breeches, then threw them behind him.
"Yes, very good," he murmured, as he fingered her, pushing her legs wider to get the most of her around his digits. Osthryth scrabbled back, but Aethelwold grabbed the dress, which tore and Osthryth scrambled up, watching Aethelwold eye her up, with an expression of anticipation on her face.
Pushing Osthryth flat on tbe bed, Aethelwold knelt astride her, and Osthryth screamed as he tied her wrists with rope to the frame, her arms above her head, her flayed back taking all of her weight.
"There now," Aethelwold said, savouring her body. "Lord Uhtred, my prisoner looks ripe for fucking. Do you wish to do the deed first? Then I can watch an expert at work." Osthryth felt her face redden as she listened for a reply. When none came, however, he prised her knees apart. Osthryth spat at him, and earned a slap about the face.
"Oh yes indeed," Aethelwold said, feeling her soft, cunt bumps, "You are enjoying this; I knew you would." And with her dampness on his hand, Aethelwold reached for her face.
"Oh, look at you, warrior lady," he mocked. "A scar on your cheek - how did you get that? And this...he trailed his hand diwn her face, breast, stomach...she had got it in a prison not too dissimilar this...Griogair..."And here..." Aethelwold touched her stomach..."This is no body of a maid!"
Then suddenly, Aethelwold's hands were on her cunt again, trying her hole out for size with all of his fingers.
"Are you enjoying this?" A voice came from beyond the cell. So he was there, Osthryth thought, outraged. How dare he?
"Oh I am," Aethelwold replied, withdrawing his hand, a fluid like uncooked egg white coating his fingers. He wiped it over her tits, gleefully, flicking first one nipple as he grabbed one bresst, then worked on another. Osthryth couldn't help but throw her head back a little and arch her nack at the unwanted pleasure.
The shock of Aethelwold pushing himself inside her made Osthryth rear back at the effort and it wasn't long before he was vigorously humping her, his cock broad, pushing the walls of her cunt with too much friction. She wasn't ready, and it hurt. He knew it, because of the smirk on his face.
Osthryth turned her head away as she sought to think of something else...what could help her escape? Could she fight back enough?
Aethelwold was slowing down now, he hadn't come, yet his cock remained stiff. Edward had learned to do that, hold off, then ride her hard and fast - he seemed to orgasm deep and long if he did that - maybe Aethelwold was doing that.
He seemed to be looking at her face, curiously, as if expected to find a certain expression upon it.
"Am I not appalling you?" he asked. "Clearly, a million years has passed, for that is when you said I would hump you. And you don't appear to be learning your lesson, he added, as he wrenched her down the bed with her hips.
He wanted her to cry, Osthryth knew, but she would not. Even if she might, his enjoyment if her treatment of her kept her anger well in control of tears.
Without warning, Aethelwold reached over to his knife, his slowly drooping cock dripping their pre-cum onto the flagstones. But the destroyed dress was in rags, preventing Osthryth from coordination as he pulled her up and she fell backwards onto the bed as Aethelwold crawled quckly over her, knife to her ribs and blood trickled down her thorax, soaking onto her ruined dress.
"I learned a lot with the Dames, he said, bringing his blood-stained hand to his lips as he worked her other nipple with his left hand until it stood pruod from her breast, throbbing from Aethelwold's deliberate crushing of it between his fingers.
Then took the knife, pushing it into the areola of her breast, twising it into the flesh, then the other, laughing as Osthryth screamed. Aethelwold clamped hand over mouth as he gouged out a portion of flesh, bending his head to lick the fluid from her body before throwing a handful of something onto her chest, some of the powder spraying into her mouth. It was salt, and Aethelwold took his hand and rubed it all over the wound. She screamed, and was rewarded with more of the irritant.
"The witch does not like that, Uhtred," mused Aethelwold. There was a faint tapping near the bars, but Uhtred, if he was actually there, said nothing. Osthryth turned her head, nevertheless.
"Do you not see lord Uhtred?" Aethelwold encouraged, "This is how we treat witches in Winchester."
"I do see," Osthryth heard her brother say, and those words would live long, very long, in Osthryth's memory. It was then, Osthryth realised, he was playing with her cunt again.
"Relax and you might enjoy this," Aethelwold laughed "I have never had any complaimts before." But Osthryth did not relax. Instead, her foot caught his face and Aethelwold reeled.
Saying nothing, Aethelwold kicked her back, before beating her around the face and punching her in the stomach. Then brought his hands to her throat.
He was going to kill her! Osthryth fought under his weight, kicking and flailiing as both hands pressed on her neck, but this seemed to excite him more and Aethelwold thrust deeper inside her, as if pinning her to his bed as he pressed her throat tighter.
Osthryth felt her head grow fuzzy, the choke on her throat was making her light headed, ad if she was away from the body that Prince Aethelwold was raping.
Just then, as he loosened his grip, Osthryth had tried to move, panting in order to breathe, but the weight of the man on her hips was too great.
When she awoke ot was dark. Aethelwold was snoring heavily next to her, cum shimmering in the candlelight on his now flaccid cock.
Where was Buaidh? Of course, he would have no edged weapons here. Uhtred must have taken her, or Aethelwold. He snorted as Osthryth disturbed his sleep, trying to move herself from the destroyed dress on which Arthelwold lay.
Leave. She had to leave, and she stepped out of the rags which had once been expensive silk, and knelt to the prison gate lock, using the hair jewel to try to ease it open. It had worked once. But, even after a few attempts, Osthryth could not shift the bolt.
As the sun rose Osthryth felt vengeful pleasure. She hated that man, who had tried to drown her, rape her, regularly humiliate her then blackmailed her. He was asleep, just there, and Osthryth would dearly like to strangle him, press every part of her anger into his throat. But, it would be game over, then. She would hang, as would the Britons.
And this time it was for her own incautuon, heading back from Crepelgate too late with hearhen herbs. He had laughed at her, with her petty offer, of silver for silence before pushing Osthryth onto her knees in the street, head cock-height, describing exactly what payment he would accept. Then he had whispered something in her ear which made her blood run cold, all this was for nothing.
He was whispering it now. "Aelfred knows you are a witch."
"You lie!" Osthryth turned to face him, as she stood, bloody, and naked before her torturer. "Or why am I here?" Her mouth was sore, thinking of how, when she had come round from his strangulation of her, Osthryth had been on her back, her legs wide as he pushed his saliva-wet cock in and out of her mough, then her cunt, then her mouth again, enjoying her humiliation. Enjoying her.
"You came, literally, and figuratively," Aethelwold replied. "You didn't want to but I made your body shiver with pleasure...amd you arrived here for this?" He was lying up on his bed, a wistful look in his eye. "Shall I make you come again?"
"I will leave now," Osthryth declared, scrabbling on the floor, in search of her clothes, and managed to put most of them on. "You've had your fun, you have your silver..." She nodded towards the gate. "Now I will leave." But Aethelwold sat further up, his hand under the thin blanket covering him, moving the blankets with his hand, clearly playing with himself.
"Do you not know?" He scorned her. "One thing about blackmail? The blackmailer will always come back demanding more..." And he sprang from the bed, knife in hand, took her clothes off in pieces before tracing the blade over her body. A line of blood was left in is wake, scoring deep into her skin, the metallic odour filling the air as he dug the tip deeply to the under side of Osthryth's breast. She screamed, as more blood ran over the cuts he had made earlier.
"Where shal I cut next?" Aethelwold asked, pushing her wrists over her head with one hand, and securing them again, before gagging her with a thick leather strap so she could not talk, kneeing her still on her thigh, and Osthryth trembled when he kneed her legs apaet and began to run the blade up her leg, investigting her cunt bumps with the tip.
But he dropped the blade almost as quickly as he had siezed it, and pressed her against the bed again. Without waiting, Aethelwold had pushed her legs open, and was forxing himelf i to her, mauling her naked breasts, her blood smearing over her chest. She could feel herself wetting as his mouth closed over one nipple as Aethelwold was rewarded with a mouth full of milk as he bit hard into it.
Aethelwold was not, it seemed, repulsed by the experience, rather, he swallowed, then licked his lips as a trail of milk expelled from the other. It had not yet dried up from her last abortion.
"And where is the babe?" he scorned, then added, mockingly, "Oh I know whar you went to the Britons for...no, you have had it destoryed...but your body had betrayed your secret..." He bent to her ear, and whispered, "Give me a name, any name, and I will stop this, and we can concentrate on pleasure for you, instead." But Osthryth shook her head.
Aethelwold examined her face then, when she did not react, bent his lips to the other, sucking deliberately as his teeth caused shivers to pass throigh her as he swallowed all that her breasts produced. He broke off for a second, adding, "What will Alfred say when he learns that your tits give forth blood and milk yet you have no baby? Will he dismiss Lord Uhtred's claim as fantasy?"
Then, Aethelwold ground her vulnerable teats between his jaws as if he were chewing hazelnuts, breaking the delicate skin with his teeth, more blood mingling with sweat and trickled over body joining the weals he had carved from her flesh. Then, using a hand, Aethelwold he snapped the something metal, some sort of clips, first onto one nipple and then the other.
Osthryth writhed her hips in pain; the pressure was too much, too intense, and Aethelwold chuckled mockingly to her. He knew it was hurting her more than pleasuring her, and he added to the pain by twisting the metal begween his fingers.
"I know...it hurts...you have been a bad girl...you deserve it..." And then, when Osthryth thought that her nipples would finally come away from her breasts, Aethelwold leaned to her ear and whispered, "It was Uhtred's idea...all of this was Uhtred's idea..."
Was he watching still, Osthryth thought, as the pain in her teats pulsed around her chest. If she kept still, it wasn't so bad. But her complacency was a mistake as Aethelwold went down between her legs, finding her clitoris, with his tongue and rubbing it up and down, before grinding it his teeth.
Then, he tongued it again, expertly turning her on despite the pain in her breasts, before snapping a clip onto that as well. Osthryth arched her back, as pain and pleasure competed for her attention.
She did not want to enjoy it. She had chosen to be with Finan, chosen, to some extent to be with Edward, and even this was torture, there was no compliance on her part; Aethelwold was merely filling her cunt with his cock while the metal's holding teeth bit cruelly into her tender nipples and her delicate cunt flesh.
"Oh, if he could see what you've become," Aethelwold sneered, gripping her ruined back in order to get his own rhythm going. "But, alas, even Uhtred could not stay to see what became of his own sister." Osthryth said nothing, which told Aethelwold everything.
"He doesn't know does he?" Aethelwold proposed, then continued to ride her, knowing every stroke was causing her agony. "But...he will..." And he reached up to her tits and pressed the metal clips between thumb and forefinger, as he rode her harder. "It's amazing what you can find out from the Danes."
Then, he withdrew himself, and pushed her legs apart again. A coldness touched her skin. "You are a witch; you are Uhtred's sister." He reached for his knife again. "Do you know what is done to a witch, before she is put to death?" Beside her clitoris, underneath whatever he had clipped into it, Aethelwold touched the blade. "You start with her privy parts, and..." But he suddenly dropped the blade onto the bed, and pulled the clip from her parts. They were as painful in their removal as it had been when Aethelwold had put them on her, and blood began to leak from her cunt and her nipples, which Aethelwold seemed to approve of, because he put his mouth to her teats and began to suck on them again, blood running over his lips.
"But I must stop this talking...you haven't reached your own pleasure yet, so I expect I will have to just keep humping you, and - " Aethelwold held her hips as Osthryth's cunt was impaled by his generous cock, and he rode her vigorously, until Osthryth was sure she could take no more. Then, Aethelwold broke off, as if pretending he had remembered something.
"Don't you like...this...?" Hepulled out his cock and put his hand between her legs. "Don't you like...this...?" Between his first and second fingers, he found the top bump of Osthryth's cunt and massaged it around in circles, pinching them together at intervals traapping her soft folds between them and rubbing his digits together. Osthryth could not escape the pleasure he was inducing in her body and she sighed, unvoluntarily.
"Don't you like...this?" Aethelwold took her breasts, one in each hand now, rolling her tender nipples between his fingers, compressing them and drawing them outwatds, flattening them between his thumb and forefinger, before pinching as hard as the clips had done and rolling them again, causing agony in her chest, and more blood from her crushed, delicate teat-flesh.
That was painful, but as he rubbed harder she felt the pain be replaced with pleasure, and a flush of pink irradiated the skin of her chest. And somehow, she recognised what he was doing to her...these were things that Edward did to her...Aethelwold knew what Edward did to her to please her, so much so that he had copied every single movement. Disgust welled in Osthryth's stomach at the thought of Aethelwold watching her and Edward have sex.
Then he let go of her left tit, taking up the knife again and, with the tip of the knife, he ran the blade down the underside of her other breast, cutting it in to her flesh and making her cry out, tracing it down her stomach, scoring a line through her skin, before leaning down to her skin and licking it away. Then, he raised her legs to her shoulders. Osthryth wriggled as Aethelwold tongued her again, pushing right into her hole as he pulled her cunt directly into his face, his beard rubbing her arse cheeks
"I know all your secrets, bitch," Aethelwold said, breaking off from licking her out, and replacing his tongue with fingers. "I have seen what you let Edward do...I have watched...you like him fingering you, oh yes..." And he pushed his fingers around her damp cunt, pressing down onto her clit again.
"Twice a week, here," Aethelwold told her, as Osthryth's orgasm began to grow. "No call for you to go from my cousin and then come back, just turn left and make your way here. But, if you do anything, I will cut you into pieces.
Osthryth pushed her hands back, fingers open, as the pleasure began to build, Aethelwold's rhythm of his fingers intensifying in her cunt . She wanted to cry out to stop, but even Aethelwold, clearly skilled in masturbating women, his fingers splayed her wide as he massaged all of her folds, was getting her built up, she hated that she was liking the touch of such an odious man.
Then something cold was rammed inside her. Aethelwold was watching her face.
"I think a good stretch in the cunt department my dear," he told Osthryth, as he rhythmically rode her with the hilt of his sheathed dagger. It was ridged, to add grip to the hilt. Aethelwold knew how good it was for her and he was looking at Osthryth's expressions of pleasure.
Then, as suddenly as it had penetrated her, the blade handle was gone, and instead warm fingers filled her, as two, now three fingers were inside Osthryth, and he curled them over inside her. Osthryth had never felt that before, and it hastened her pleasure.
Aethelwold was really building her up now, as he used two fingers at her cunt to push inside, while the other two caught her clitoris between them, and as he was riding his fingers in her, he was pulling her clitoris was away. The feelings were indescribable, and Osthryth moaned against the leather cord in her mouth as Aethelwold intensified the rhythm, the friction causing her pleasure-pain once again.
It was almost too much for Osthryth to take, but Aethelwold did not stop, instead he ripped her nub tighter between his two fingers, and twisted it around. Pleasure came to her cunt, and to her lips, which were beginning to engorge and redden, to her legs and around her hips and buttocks as he mauled her clitoris, pinching hard every tine Osthryth's pleasure built, causing her to wince with pain, her pleasure diminishing again. Aethelwold knew exactly what he was doing.
Waves began to build again, which his action caused to subside and to prevent her from coming. Then, he withdrew his ffingers a little, and massaged her labia again, causing the build-up of the waves of Osthryth's pre-orgasm to accelerate.
Timed with expert prevision as she was about to come, Aethelwold did sonething else: his turgid cock was pressing against her cunt, but instead of fucking her, Aethelwold lifted up her buttocks, one in each hand, pulling her arse open and upon his erection.
Tbe pain was unbearable and Osthryth threw her head back screaming a dull scream. It was as if he was ramming his stiffness through the base of her spine. He clearly was enjoying her pain, for he was examining her face as he pushed even harder into her rectum, smiling with pleasure as Osthryth turned her head away, tears prickling.
At last he came, her anus dripping with his very full contribution to her orifice. Osthryth gasped as he withdrew his cock, before thrusting it, to the balls, into her mouth. Her own excrement and his cum made her want to gag, but she refused him that weakness. He pulled away, only a traailll of viscous liquid xonnecting Osthryth's mouth to him.
Then he retreated, throwing her clothes at her, as he sat down on the bed, clearly shaking from his own orgasm, and watched Osthryth try to dress in whatever manner she could.
And when she was nearly dressed, Aethelwold flew to her, raising her arms above her head and fastening her wrists to the frame to which she had been tethered before.
Osthryth did not know how many lashes Aethelwold delivered to her; she stopped feeling anything after the first ten. It was only when he had stopped grunting with the effort of lashing her and began to speak that Osthryth realised he had stopped.
"I am still considering what I tell Alfred," Aethelwold concluded. If you are gone when I get back then Alfred will know everything. He looked at her quavering form, pleased with his handiwork. "Everything." Aethelwold paced around her naked, damaged body, inspecting it, analytically. "Oh, and, so you know, considering how many times my cousin has had you...and that feral swordsman belonging to Uhtred the Daneslayer... you are still delightfully tight." And to reinforce his assertion, he slid two fingers inside her cunt again.
Then, when he put his fingers covered in her wetness to his own lips, he pulled Osthryth closer. "My dear, just remember who orchestrated this..." Aethelwold shook his head at her as he let her down from the tethers attached to the frame in the ceiling. "Your dear brother."
And that had been several hours before. Osthryth, in agony, pretended to sit on the bed beside Aethelwold, who had lain down and was going to sleep. When she was certain he was asleep, Osthryth examined the room. There was little to help her, and she reached up for Eirik's jewel, pulling it out of her hair. After several minutes, and about to give up, Osthyth heard a, "click" in the mechanism, and gate swung open.
Not wishing to dwell in her luck, Osthryth found her boots and slipped them on, but her clothes, which were in pieces, would never be on her body again. That was when she spied Aethelwold's cloak. It was her only option, though a revolting one, and Osthryth slipped it gingerly over her body. It would have to do.
There didn't seem to be anyone about, and Osthryth stepped silently out of the cell, pushing the gate closed, and securing it again. But, to her astonishment, however, there was indeed someone, and when Osthryth stepped across, she saw that the man was drunk, a bottle of spirits and a jug of ale beside him.
It was Uhtred.
He lay with his head on his folded arms, clearly drunk. Up until then, Osthryth had hardly considered, truly, that everything Aethelwold had done to her had been planned by her brother. But he was there, entertained all night, by her torture and rape, enjoying himself with booze.
It was a cold rage that flowed through Osthryth now, and she picked up a spear from the wall, plunging it deep into Uhtred's left hand and pinning him to the table. Uhtred woke up, drink-mazed, but in agony, and roared in pain, which made Aethelwold, now imprisoned in his own cell, fall off his bed, before scrabbling to his feet.
"I will find you, and kill you, Uhtred of Bebbanburg!" Osthryth shouted, at his head, "And the world will be better for it!"
Then, taking up the silver she had brought with her, which Aethelwold had denied existed, Osthryth ran, out of the cells, out of the armoury, into the courtyard and beyond the outer limits of the palace, and did not stop until she had got to the Crepelgate door.
She would kill him, one day, Osthryth promised, before falling down at Ula the healer's door.