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

26. Hywel

A/N: The remaining chapters I plotted out before S5 and so are based, loosely, around the books.

The division into North Wales (Anarawd's kingdom of Gwynedd) and South (or West Wales - Deheubarth, Hywel's) is still very apparent today. The north coast of Wales looks to Cumbria and the south to Cornwall, so it is easy to see that Wales as one landmass was not united, but Hywel tried and succeeded in nearly every region, in the same way that Constantine was trying in Alba and Edward and Aethelflaed were trying in England.

Thank you, Loyal Follower - this chapter is now just for you!

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"What you fail to appreciate, Pictlander," Oengus, the mormaer of Strathclyde uttered, as a thermal picked at the waves, "Is that your ancestors were heathen sun-worshippers when our ancestors came down to Gwynedd and brought peace and unity."

Feilim looked at the island they were passing. A day and a night of sailing between the three warriors and they had got a little south of the Elann Vannin, the Isle of Man, ruled, now by the Norse who were using it as a staging post for the incursions they were making into Cumbraland and the Mercian west coast.

Osthryth had watched the water as it changed from blue green, to deepest blue, as they sailed down the Clyde and into the open water. She had watched, too, the warriors on the ship, Oengus clearly a skilled sailor, hauling the tackle, rowing the straits between Arran and Largs, before unfurling the sail with Feilim and Aeswi's help as they got to open water.

"And what you fail to appreciate, Strathclyder," Feilim retorted, as he put his full weight on the tiller, so the current out of the Sodor sound did not sweep them west to Dubh Llyn, "Is that, whether the Cymric came from Caerleul or from Gododdin to do this - " Osthryth watched as the warrior looked over his shoulder with a grin to Aeswi, " - none of our forebears were Gaelish!"

Waves lapped over the sides of the clinker-built boat, and Osthryth, between bouts of sickness and dry-heaving, being held by Finnolai's brother lest she was swept overboard, felt the man laugh.

"None were Gaelish," he confirmed, happily, and brought Osthryth up against him. "Any better?" He asked, and Osthryth nodded, before leaning over the side again. Behind them, she noticed, fish were following them. At least her regurgitated breakfast was benefit to some living creatures.

Their journey had been long, from Osthryth's point of view, though they had been under way for just over a day. It had really seemed as if Dyfnwal had intended to let the three men go in the small, once-Norse ship tied outside his fortress, for it was stocked with provision and skins of fresh water. And Osthryth had not felt sick until they had passed Stranraer, the Ulaid coast of Ireland shimmering milkily to the west and they had got into the open water of the Irish sea.

"We will stop at the Holy Island," Aeswi said, as Osthryth strained to throw up again. "Ynys Enlli. The monks and nuns there will be able to give you something for this, I am sure."

Perhaps, thought Osthryth, or perhaps it was the child not liking the motion of the boat. Or perhaps it was the sea, for she was no seafarer. The last time she had travelled on this western sea was when Taghd had captained the curragh that had taken her, Finnolai, Feargus and Griogair to Caer Ligualid. Before that, they had sailed from Doire to Rathlin to Iona. None of those journeys she wanted to repeat, and here she was, sailing out into the open sea, to Waeleas, to meet Hywel Dda, of the southern kingdom of Deheubarth.

But not immediately. First, they would circumnavigate Waeleas and travel up the Saeferne river to Gloucester, to Aethelflaed's witan, for she intended to confer something on Aethelstan. What that was, Osthryth and the warriors had been sent to establish.

Caer Ligualid. Or Caerleul, as Dyfnwal had called it. Osthryth did not truly understand the importance of that city in her cousin's heart, how it mattered to him, but she had been trying to equate it to the loss of any city from a land. Northumbria - Bernicia specifically, had held it, out of Strathclyde's reach, and became more distant when it was granted to Guthred Harthacnutsson who had, to make it worse for Dyfnwal, once been his father, Eochaid's slave. From slave to king in the space of a few years, and king, too, so desperately absent from the land where it had once been its bright sparkling capital.

But Osthryth had changed all that, if Dyfnwal was to be believed, and he had been overjoyed that the city was now his. Though their marriage had never been consummated, it was written in the manuscripts and that had been copied into every annal and every chronicle and every register these British Isles over. It meant, ultimately, Constantine ruled there.

"How do you feel?" Aeswi asked, handing her a skin of water.

"Sick," Osthryth replied, dully, and hauled herself up and was sick over thre edge again. Yet, she had gone to see Guthred and said there were no hard feelings, had he known they were still married? Something did not tally, for Constantine could not offer for her to marry again.

"Do you know the story, then, of how the Cymric came to Gwynedd?" Oengus asked, happily, trimming the sails to catch as much of the westerly wind as he could. "As king of Strathclyde and Rheged - " he glanced at Osthryth, who was not at that moment, being sick, and winked, "The poor inhabitants of the land were being ravished by the Gaels, so they sent for help from their kin, to restore order. The Hen Ogledd, the men of the old North. King Coel sent the first man. Cunedda was his name - "

"Ha!" Feilim scoffed. "Cunedda was of Manaw Gododdin - that makes him Pictish." But Oengus ignored him.

"I also know, that Morgant Bwlch's betrayal of Urien meant we lost Caerleul to begin with, that beautiful, para-Rome, Christianity encapsulated. None of this, "Irish church", nonsense - which kingdom do you think took Christianity to Eireann? Patrick's, that's whose, and those heathens took him, and enslaved him, and he had in his heart enough of God's will to teach them! It took years before it came back and Pictland saw the light."

"Well perhaps," Feilim replied, "Had Urien's kin decided to look east, they could have saved ColmCille the bother, and converted Pictland. Had they not decided on the easy pickings of Gwynedd for their raidings..."

And so it went on, old, ancient squabbles from centuries past, before the coming of ColmCille to Iona, before Augustine in Cent. Before, even, the Angles had established a foothold in Bernicia and Mercia and the East, or the Saxons on the south coast. And Osthryth felt heartened that she belonged to this, these ancient traditions, more deep rooted than any other epthet she had been given: Osthryth of Rheged was becoming the one of which she was most proud.

"So, who rules Gwynedd now?" Osthryth asked, as a calmer sea became them, and the boat glided south - with a bit of west - skimming the water as the October sun warmed them all.

"Anarawd, of the House of Aberffraw," Oengus replied, proudly. "Direct descendant of Urien's brother, Llywarch Hen, through Merfyn Frych. They called him, "The Foreigner" because he came from Mon, but he was of Alt Clut, and directly descended from Llywarch himself. Another of your kin," Oengus added, looking to Osthryth, smiling as if imparting that knowledge was a gift to her.

"Which means Hywel, who is his nephew, is also your kin," Aeswi pointed out. "For he is Anarawd's nephew. As was the brave Cadafael Cadomedd," he added. Oengus sucked disapprovingly through his teeth.

"Not brave?" Osthryth asked.

"Cadomedd means "battle decliner," Feilim pointed out, happily, as Oengus scowleg at him.

"The kingdoms failed," Oengus interrupted, glaring at him. "The bastard Picts, who let the Angles win at Catraech, through their betrayal, meant all our houses were overthrown, and there was great disruption throughout all the kingdoms of the Men of the North."

That killed it. Silence descended like a cloud over the ship, as Oengus looked south, at the wide, open sea. Nothing seemed to be around at all, and Osthryth wondered if they were heading to any land at all, or whether this really was, as the old legends her mother had told her were, the way to the little people.

Her mind drifted to something else, too. Hywel was her kin. So that was why Constantine wanted her to deliver the message with the idea of a potential uprising, some time in the future. If she were kin, he was obliged to hear her out, at least. Let's hope this girl growing inside me lets me stop throwing up some time in the near future then, Osthryth thought, as another wave of nausea churned her stomach.

"Mon, now," Oengus continued, "That was Merfyn's before the Norse took it," he added. "Though getting that back would be an impossible task, even if Dyfnwal were to try."

"But he is favouring the Western Isles' Norse, is he not?" Feilim pointed out, relaxing in the tiller as the wind skimmed them faster still.

"Yes," Oengus replied, grimly. "I can, as you can, only see that Alba is the future, not separate kingdoms, or we will all be eaten by the Norse."

"Agreed," Feilim nodded. For once, Osthryth thought, for the two warriors had bickered almost non-stop since leaving the Clut esturay.

"Under a Gael," Aeswi said, after a time that had been full of refreshing silence, and it started off again, with Feilim pointing out that, though Ceinid mac Alpin had married a Gael, he had been Pictish, and Aeswi pointing out more Gaelish ancestry by way of Dal Riata and, if Aed had not wanted Constantine and Domhnall to be brought up in the Gaelish way, then perhaps he should not have sent them to Eireann.

"And if Eochaid had not sided with Giric," Feilim dug back, "We would have a culturally Pictish king on the throne of Alba, not a culturally Gaelish one."

"Nothing to do with me; my father fought for Domhnall, against Griogair," Oengus replied, defensively. "However, you have to admit, Flann Sinna's regain of territory is now our loss."

Osthryth closed her eyes. The noise of the men's moderate arguments faded in her mind and she curled up in her cloak and slept.

And was awoken several hours later by the lapping of water around the hull of the ship. Osthryth sat up, stiffly.

"We are here," Aeswi said, as Osthryth yawned and rubbed at her face.

"Where is "here"?" she asked.

"Bardsey. Holy Island. Ynys Enlli." He leaned across, and Osthryth could see, in the growing gloom, that a monastery was sitting on a hill on an island. Somewhat smaller than Iona, there were people outside, and they were waiting.

"Waiting for you," Aeswi told her, when Osthryth asked, but she was too tired to ask why, or fully appreciate the welcome. "Are you fit? Will you be able to get to the refectory for supper?"

With help, Osthryth managed to disembark, and Aeswi held her arm as monks walked with them, Feilim and Oengus waiting at the door, its inside lit by candles.

"We knew you were coming, but were expecting you sooner," one of the monks told her. "I am Nennius, named after the famous scriptwriter of our culture, and I am the abbot."

"Osthryth," she told him, shortly, and let Nennius take them into the hall, where food and drink of all kinds waited for them. "Oengus tells me you will manage a little milk?" Nennius told her, noting her bump. "And there is whatever food you can manage?"

"My thanks," said Osthryth, and was pleased to find her stomach had settled and she actully felt awake. Yet, something did not feel quite right. The monks looked uneasy, hurried.

"It is the air," Aeswi assured her. "You are not used to it. You have spent nearly two days being sick, and our food, well, it is not as good as this?" He looked around the tables again.

"All this, for us?" Osthryth wondered, for the monks had left them alone. "There is enough here for fifty men."

"There is enough here for a royal court," Aeswi said, carefully. And then he told her that, indeed, the royal court, Anarawd and his son, Idwal, and others were shortly to arrive. "In the next day or two," Oengus told her, when he had spoken to Nennius.

"Though they are our cousins, we will be gone by then," Oengus told her. "We are under strict instructions to see Hywel ap Cadell only, his nephew. Hywel Dda. We were expected earlier than this, and must not be here when the royal family of Gwynedd arrive."

But there was something more, Osthryth could sense it. No use could come of worrying what that was, she told herself, enjoying fish, and a green, gelatinous substance with bread, that was, though strong and tasted of the sea, delicious, and she found she was wanting more, though she could not eat a single bite more.

"We will sleep here," Oengus told them, "And under way at dawn. The monks have very generously let us rest here," he added. Nennius, who seemed to have been lingering nearby.

"Let us tell you a tale," he said to them, in Cymric, and as they listened, they heard the tale of Branwen and Bran and the wicked Efnysien, who at the wedding of Matholwch and Branwen, mutilated the Irish King's horses, causing him to mistreat Branwen, and making her call for Bran to bring her back to Ynys Mon, the island they had passed, the capital of Gwynedd.

And Osthryth slept well in new sheets and in the morning, before they left, nuns came and asked her whether she wanted to bathe, which she did, and offered her food which she did not. Except for the green substance she had eaten the night before, and the abbess told her it was boiled seaweed called lavr.

"No," Osthryth insisted, as the nuns tried to take her old clothes and give her an under and over dress. "I am a warrior." So they brought her new breeches, shirt and jerkin, and the abbess gave Osthryth a good deal of lavr, wrapped well in thick linen. The last thing to do was retrieve the letter for Hywel, which she put inside her jerkin again.

They were underway at dawn, indeed, and Osthryth was all the better for a good sleep and good food. But the ship did not sail far; there was a cove just around the corner, and Oengus pulled the ship about to they could watch the harbour. After an hour, there was indeed a ship pulling into the quay. Nennius was out to greet the ship, and several people got off first. Osthryth could just make out pale golden hair, like Dyfnwal's, on the biggest of the two figures. Two men, similar in height disembarked next followed by what looked to be a woman. Guards followed them, and there was indeed about forty altogether.

"That is Anarawd," Oengus explained, when Osthryth asked about them. "Idwal Foel is his son. "The bald." No hair ever grew on his head. It was a curse from the Mercians, from Aethelred when he lost his campaign in Gwynedd."

"He planned to come from Aberffraw, the captial, to meet you. It was meant to be a "chance encounter." This was Aeswi.

"Why?" Osthryth asked, turning to look at him, before unwrapping the lawr and taking a nibble.

"Because you are supposed to be meeting Hywel," Oengus explained, and then nodded to the linen. "How you can eat that, though," Oengus teased her, when she paired some lavr with bread. "We feed it to the horses."

"Which is why the horses at Glaschu were all so content," Osthryth quipped back, and noticed the absence of sickness in her stomach, and that she was able to sit upright in the ship now without wanting to throw up again. "This chance encounter?" Osthryth persisted, noticing that Feilim's and Aeswi's faces indicated they knew, too.

"Because Anarawd and Hywel hate one another, that's why," Oengus explained. "Hywel has already annexed Seisylwg and joined Dyfed and Ceredigion to make Deheubarth. We shall see where the kingdom begins as we turn south."

"So Anarawd wants to know why I'm meeting Hywel?" Oengus glanced at Aeswi, who looked to Osthryth.

"Hywel will not speak to you if he knows you have spoken to Anarawd," Aeswi said, darkly. "Anarawd is almost at war with Hywel for what he considers incursions on Gwynedd. Yet, he will not live long and Idwal will be king. He is less at odds with Hywel, shall we say. So," Aeswi summed up, "Whatever is contained within your letter, Lady Osthryth, will be irrelevant, for he will assume Anarawd has come to some prior agreement with Constantine."

Lady, Osthryth laughed to herself. She had given up asking them to drop it, for he had no land, or had any connecyin to it at all

And Feilim jumped out into the cove's shallows, pushing the ship off the bank before leaping back in, the wind whipping up quickly and favourably. As the day wore on a bay curved to the east, long and wide and, as they sailed ever further south, and for an autumn day it was warm, another peninsula projected out into the sea.

"Tyddewi," Aeswi told her. "I trained here, though my years there were few," he added. "Hywel's capital."

"Then we are nearly there," Osthryth said, her voice hopeful. Deliver the letter that Constantine wrote, which she had kept safe even from the nuns who just wanted to tidy everything belonging to Osthryth and she had had to call one of the nuns back to return it to her.

"No, you forget," Aeswi said, gently. "We are going around Waeleas, and will be in Gloucester first."

He was right, so Osthryth curled her blanket around her when the surprising heat from the sun in late October was replaced by a set-in sea breeze.

"Lady Osthryth," Aeswi said to her, as he sat beside her, on the hull of the ship, where the motion of the boat was less dynamic. "Finnolai...Findal, can you tell me about him? Tell me what he was like when he was in Domhnall's service with you."

"Very loyal," Osthryth told him. And she told Aeswi all she could remember, from the first day, when he had taught her to ride, on the road between Dunnottar and Stirling, of the night when he had taken her by the hand so they could flee Glaschu, of her time training and working with him and his disappearance at Tara. Of the four of them, all easy in each other's company, Finnolai carefree and a carer of others. Feargus, as long as he was fed, everything else came to him. Taghd...it hurt to remember her to-be husband, the soulful man who was as tough as weathered willow.

"He is at Caerleul now," Aeswi said. "I went back to see him, very briefly. He is a priest, now, like I am. He said you did him the greatest of service."

But Osthryth did not elaborate on her service, of giving the last of her silver so he could escape the slavers. Instead, she asked Aeswi about their childhood together, on Arran, educated by the monks from Iona, and she closed her eyes shortly afterwards, as a sea eagle circled over them, making the "caa-caa" call of their species as they look for their roost.

Feilim and Oengus had been taking turns to get them past the end of Waeleas and turn east under the cover of night to minimise potential attacks by Norse acting as raiders wanting a quick wealth fix, and Osthryth had woken to the ship bobbing at a rude harbour on the south coast of Deheubarth, with Oengus in close conversation with two people on beach.

Aeswi was with them too, as Feilim slept at the other end of the ship, and when he saw Osthryth stand up, gave her a wide wave. Osthryth waved back, but might have stretched too far, because she felt the familar nausea in her stomach and was sick all down the side of the ship, reaching for a skin to rinse her mouth.

When she looked to the two warriors again, she saw Oengus bring two women to the ship, and he called Osthryth to them. One of the women, on seeing her pregnant stomach, said something to the other, and pulled out of a basket a large brown/grey loaf, and a wooden bowl containing what Osthryth knew to be lawr.

"They say, I think," Oengus told her, "That you can have the bread and seaweed. I have paid them. They are of Dyfed," he added, as if this was important. And the women helped Osthryth down onto the sand and sat by her, pressing the food to her, and saying words which, though she could not understand. In the end, the younger woman mimed eating it, and the strong, rich lawr flavour tasted good with the soft, new-baked bread.

"They speak Cymric here, too," Oengus told them, "But a changed Cymric, like one which was originally spoken in the lands that are now Wessex. And in West Waeleas, Cornwalum. Cornwalum folk speak it too, and, they say, those people living just over the water." And Oengus went on to tell them that the Cymric of this coast had always been at odds with the Cymric who had come from the Hen Ogledd, the Old North, and settled in Gwynedd and Osthryth found she was not surprised at the folk memory, that must have been over four hundred years old, was still persistent.

"They prefer the Gaels," Aeswi told her, and Osthryth noticed the satisfaction in his voice, and looked when he pointed out a huge island, named after the species of bird that most densely populated it. "Lundi," he told her.

"Do they mark Samhain?" Osthryth asked him, for it was close to that Gaelish festival.

"No," replied Oengus. "Not down here. Do you feel the sidhe, still?"

"If I do, it is not strongly," Osthryth replied, truthfully, and it was true that, when she was in Alba, whether Pictiand, or Strathclyde, their presence seemed almost overhwelming at times.

Feilim took the helm now, as Aeswi took the tiller, and it was Oengus's turn to sleep. Osthryth watched the gradual convergence of coasts as they made their way east following the Cymric coast, and Feilim, whether to mark Samhain or not, began a soft song, of a wanderer from his cold mountains who was travelling to the land of his kin and chanced upon a fay of the Sidhe one night of Samhain, moonlight and starlight making jewels in her hair and on her dress, and he was enchanted to watch her dance, and there fell in love with her, and she him.

"Of course, it is always the fay who has to give up something for the man," Aeswi remarked, caustically. "She had given up her immortality to live a mortal life with him, when she hardly knows him."

Such is the way of things, Osthryth thought. A woman's life is never her own, it is her father's, her brother's, her husband's which she must follow. Or her king's.

Osthryth was sick once more, as the coasts narrowed again, and suddenly, there was a jolt as Feilim drew the ship to one side, looking out across the estuary of the river.

"Saeferne," he told Aeswi, when the warrior asked, and Osthryth looked back to the land, knowing it to the same river that she had her Mercian warriors had followed in pursuit of Uhtred and the children Aethelstan and Aelfwynn, and the one they had taken back to Saltwic a few days later, in a more dignified manner.

Had that been only a few months before? It was now nearly November, and that had been August. Her bump had barely rounded her stomach then, but now it was difficult to hide. And there was something else, too, something Osthryth knew was not quite right, but before she could set her mind to discovering what that was, the wave came.

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Not a wave that the sea might give, a regular, stormy bump thay broke on the hull and passed you up over it; this wave was more a continuous swell, which gathered in the estuary and grew and grew.

Whether Feilim or Aeswi or the now awake Oengus understood what it really was, none said, and Aeswi screamed for Osthryth to hang onto the ropes that were used for tying up, and he stumbled towards her, tying her arms to them.

The wave hit, and did not break, and the ship travelled with it up the river, the swell seeming to pull them up in the wrong direction of the Saeferne's flow. Feilim fought to draw in the sail, which was making the effect worse, and Oengus's arms as thick as adolescent trees, held the sail inwards to lessen the effect.

Osthryth closed her eyes.

She opened them when she felt a hand on her shoulder and a soft voice calling her name.

"Aeswi," she managed, as the spy's black hair fell over either side of his shoulders, and his pale blue-grey eyes looked at her intently.

"Are you hurt?" He asked, and Osthryth blinked several times, trying to get her bearings. There had been a wave, she knew.

"I, I don't think so," she replied, and he helped her up. "It's called a tidal bore," he explained to Osthryth as Feilim caught her other hand and helped her up onto the dockside. "We expected a swell, for we are later than we anticipated. But it is a spring tide, which made the effect more. And we are here."

Here, was Gloucester. As Osthryth looked around, she could see a neat, well-used harbour which someone had gone to the trouble to bring rocks to the river bank, to make the constant landing of merchant ships more durable. Beyond the harbour, stakes were driven into the ground, where eel traps were set. They would be bountiful that evening, no doubt, Osthryth thought, with such a force of tide.

"Perhaps," Oengus said, as they pulled their belongings from the ship. "Or the power drove straight through them and broke them." He looked up, at the buildings which began the city of Gloucester. "We are here in time, though," he added, "And it is indeed Samhain. Tomorrow, Aethelflaed will be addressing the witan after the Cathedral service for All Saints' Day."

"And we must be there," Osthryth replied, for she was decided. Whatever it was they were in Gloucester for, there was something she had to do, to make a wrong right.

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And, it was over to Osthryth, too, to make arrangements for the night. The city, with wide, green fields around it, was densely packed, arranged in a grid-like system, planned and executed by the Lady herself. So was the boast of the landlord of the "Swan" when Osthryth asked about lodgings.

"Not herself surely?" Osthryth asked, and the landlord squinted at her, Osthryth's accent throwing him a little, as she imagined the woman marking out the gridlines, handling and hauling the stone. She came out of the image as the man rapped on the counter.

"Eireann," Osthryth said. "My companions have difficulty with the Anglish and the Saxon tongue." It was at this point, the landlord switched to the Cymric that the Dyfed women had been using, which was even more difficult for Osthryth to understand than his sprawling Saxon dialect.

"He says two rooms," Osthryth translated, making out that Oengus was their leader and was struggling with the man's words in any language. "We are here for the witan." The man frowned.

"Come to make your plea to the lady?" He asked, sniffing a bit of mucus back up his large, red nose. "Land, is it? Or pirates?"

"Norse," Osthryth said, as the man continued to pour ale. Though they had not asked for it, Osthryth's silver seemed to imply it was part of the bargain, and there were no complaints from Aeswi, Oengus and Feilim.

"You are out of luck," the landlord told her. "You would never get rooms here if there was going to be a witan; the Lady is not here."

"Not here on All Saints' Day?" Osthryth asked. The man shook his head.

"She is up country, at Caestre. Norse, as you say," he told her, and Osthryth relayed this back to the warriors.

They took their drinks to the back of the alehouse and began to talk about what to do next, as more customers piled in through the narrow door.

"We go there still," Osthryth proposed. "We were told to come to the witan in Gloucester; Contantine did not say it was to do with Aethelflaed, he mentioned Aethelstan." None of the three men with her could think of a better alternative and agreed to be up at dawn, the three of them keeping watch over them all in the two room, which smelled of horse, for it was indeed an animal loft.

Sick again, and Osthryth was up far before dawn and got herself down from the loft and spoke softly to Aeswi, who seemed to be away in his own thoughts when she got to alehouse door. The noise from within suggested that even in these early hours the prostitutes of Gloucester were busy touting for trade.

"I have been here before," Aeswi told Osthryth, as he stared across the stableyard to the conical tower of the cathedral. "My mentor at Tyddewi thought it would be...good for me...to experience the Augustine church. I lasted three weeks." Osthryth paused in her action of pushing open the misshapen oak door.

"So you know the city?" she asked.

"I know the city," Aeswi said, and there was a sadness to his voice. "I know the city, knew the priests, the monks..." He shook his head, and then focused on Osthryth. "You are up early?"

"I need to pee," Osthryth said, "And some water. Sick," she added, held her stomach as a wave of nausea passed.

"Try the other side of the stable for a private corner; I'll get some...boiled water? Milk?"

"Water," Osthryth agreed, gratefully, and when he brought it back, sat next to Aeswi as he looked across to the city's streets again.

"Oswald is here," Osthryth said. "My ancestor. Aethelred sent him here, to give good blessings to Mercia."

"If the object was to turn the tide on Norse incursions, to smash their generals and make sure that they did not fix themselves in Mercia, then his saintliness worked," Aeswi said, smiling wryly. "Of course, he was your kin," he added. "A person in life. Our Angle; ColmCille's angel of the north, bringing his Christianity to Lindisfarne and stubborn people."

This was true enough, Osthryth thought. After his victory over his uncle, Edwin, at Heavenfield, that is just what he had done, wearing out at least two monks from Iona before Aidan managed to adhere Christianity to a animistic community. And yet, the Irish church was still linked to this: the circle in the Irish cross was the sun; offerings of flowers in spring at wells. Osthryth rested a hand on Aeswi's forearm.

"Was she beautiful?" She smiled when Aeswi turned to her. "Something like that?"

"Something like that," he agreed, and turned when he saw Feilim come down the steps out of the loft too. Proto-dawn underscored the blackness when Osthryth turned to look a him, and he nodded to her.

"You're here," he said. "Oengus is snoring like he's slaughtering a pig," he added. "Woke me up; you were gone."

"I was here," Osthryth replied, "Aeswi getting me water; getting ready to go to the Cathedral."

It took another hour for Oengus to get down to them. To be fair, he had took more than his share of sailing hours, and he stripped to the waist and thrust his head and torso into one of the horse's water butts, his long hair dripping down his back as he massaged his face.

"Have you eaten?" He asked them all, noticing Osthryth, Feilim and Aeswi watching him.

"I gave enough silver for breakfast," Osthryth told him. "The landlord is around; he should be able to find you something."

A handful of bread and meat, after downing a jar of ale, and Oengus carried his breakfast as they all walked to the cathedral.

A lot of other people were crowding by the door, many of them old, but some of them younger and well dressed. A several children darted between legs, inventing their own entertainment while, every so often, parents pulled them back towrds them.

"They clearly think there's something happening," Osthryth remarked, and they stood in the queue, as the doors stood firmly closed against them. They were merely bystanders, interested in the judgment of the lord or the lady, who would be sitting to hear cases that day, and Osthryth wondered who it could be, for surely Aethelstan, only a little older than twelve-year-old Aedre, and someone who, for the interest of everyone, had been elusive for most of his life, would not be sitting in the chair to hear the people.

It did not take long for the doors to open, however, and behind them, Osthryth noticed, more people had joined the queue. Those at the front crossed the stone floor, where, unusually, glazed windows filtered the light through into the nave. Ahead of the queue a large chair sat, at the centre of the cross-shape of the cathedral. A man sat in it.

"Can you see who?" Osthryth asked of Aeswi, but he shook his head.

"I have never seen the child," he replied, and Osthryth realised, of the three of them, only she had.

"We need to get closer; we need a cover story," she added, and Aeswi told this to Oengus and Feilim. They were robbed, by the Norse, and seek repairs to the ship until they could get under way, Oengus suggested. It was good enough, and Osthryth agreed. Then, as some of the people peeled away from the front of the queue, Osthryth saw in the light, a lord of Wessex.

Aethelhelm.

Panic gripped her stomach - if he recognised her, she knew, Aethelhelm would know she had locked the door on Edward, and would know of Eardwulf's murder.

"We need to go, now!" Osthryth hissed to Aeswi, and he took her shoulder, making a play that there was a problem with a pregnant woman in the queue, turning her back on the judgment meeting, Feilim to her left, Oengus to her right.

She managed three steps before a hand clamped her shoulder. A voice came to her ear, the first instruction being not to talk, and the second to walk as quickly as she was able towards the cathedral's doors. Osthryth did both, and was greeted by the sun, on this first day of November, shining merrily down onto Gloucester's commercial streets.

"Fancy finding you here!" The voice continued. Osthryth turned slowly and looked into the face of the man arresting her. Father Pyrlig was grinning his affable grin to her, and she relaxed. Beside her, Feilim and Oengus had withdrawn their swords. Later, Osthryth would have cause to remember, that Aeswi did not.

"I last saw you in Aylesbury," Pyrlig told her, happily. "It is good to see you, Osthryth!"

"Pyrlig!" She exclaimed. Osthryth did not know the priest well, but he was a regular feature beside Beocca when Alfred was alive, and when Beocca had died, beside Edward.

"You are fancying your chances, aren't you?" He asked, eyes darting to her companions. "Come," Pyrlig added, and nodded to the warriors, his look lingering for a second longer on Aeswi's face. "I know a place we can go, where we won't be understood."

The alehouse they ended up in was a good two miles walk from the city. A thin, black-haired woman seemed to be in charge and Pyrlig greeted her with a kiss. She held out her hands to him, and he kissed them, saying something low to her, which made her smile.

"God in heaven, my wife," Pyrlig told the four of them, as a girl brought ales across to them. "I have no doubt she would be better off in another man's company, but she won't have it and insists on remaining married to me." He broke off so he could sip on the ale. Hesistatingly, Oengus and Feilim did the same. Osthryth did not, and Aeswi got to his feet.

"She needs milk, or water," he explained, as Pyrlig raised his eyes to Aeswi, and he strode away to the bar. Osthryth watched him go, and then looked back to Oengus, who had switched to Gaelish to ask Osthryth what was going on, and who this man was. His hand was on his sword, as was Feilim's.

And then Osthryth realised why it was Aeswi was able to get a drink for her, and that she could understand the people around them, in Pyrlig's alehouse: the customers were all talking in Cymric.

"Cymric," Osthryth said aloud, and Pyrlig smiled.

"I have a lot of exiles needing a place to meet," he told them, and slapped the table. But Oengus was still looking at Osthryth.

"Pyrlig is an ally," she told Oengus and Feilim in Gaelish, although Osthryth wondered whether she believed it. But they were here, weren't they? She then repeated it in Cymric.

"We don't speak that Cymric here," Pyrlig told her. "Would you prefer Anglish? Although I am not sure I am totally competent. Saxon, yes, and South Waelean."

"Cumbric," Oengus told him, and he laid his sword onto the table.

"No need for that," Pyrlig told him. "We are kin, are we not? We are not Saxon?" He laughed. Oengus did not.

"How did you know I was there?" Osthryth told him. "I mean, we were supposed to meet Aethelstan?"

"Aethelstan is not in Gloucester, and if he is to be kept safe, he will never be in Gloucester." Osthryth looked up as Aeswi put a jar of cooled boiled water in front of Osthryth, and glanced at Pyrlig, grimly.

"Then, why are we here?" asked Feilim. "If there is no purpose for us being in Gloucester."

"There is a purpose, my Pictish friend," Pyrlig replied, placing his ale on the table, then looked across to Osthryth. "You nearly ended up in a good deal of hot water - if Aethelhelm had seen you...Edward was furious when he was finally released - he missed Uhtred's coronation and his abdication in favour of Aethelflaed, because you locked him in." Oengus looked across to Osthryth, raising his eyebrows. Osthryth stared back.

"I was trying to get back home," Osthryth told him. "I was about to be...delayed. So I delayed Edward." And Pyrlig slapped the table loudly with his hand and burst into a booming laugh.

"Well, well now!" He chortled. "You got away alright, and got back to Alba, yes, yes," he nodded to Feilim and Oengus. Then, Pyrlig looked at Aeswi. "You look well, my friend." Osthryth looked across to Aeswi. Pyrlig knew him?

"Aethelstan," Pyrlig told him. "He is the key to Hywel. Aethelstan is to whom Hywel swore, as a child, here in Gloucester. He travelled all the way here from Tyddewi to bow to the potentially bastard child of Alfred's son. Can you not think why?"

"Money?" Oengus suggested. "Land?"

"Could be, my Cumbric friend," Pyrlig replied. "But more than that. Alliance. Hywel wishes to gain the whole of Waeleas under his own rule, when his uncle dies. And Alfred and Edward have sworn to do this, in perpetuity. In perpetuity!" Pyrlig replied. "Every generation, Alfred's line, Hywel's line..." Osthryth watched Aeswi glance to Pyrlig.

"And what has this to do with Aethelstan?" Osthryth asked the obvious question. "Why have we come all this way, with a wave pushing us directly to the city, to find out something that we could find out by letter?"

"Because letters, merch, are compromisable. Any letter travelling from any monarch has been read at least half a dozen times before it reaches its intended destination. No," Pyrlig added. "You needed to find me, and the only way you could would be to attend a public event at a known time."

"So, not Aethelstan?" Osthryth felt like she was losing the thread of the conversation.

"Not directly. But, as I said, Hywel has already sworn to the boy, despite Edward having other children; despite Aethelstan's legitimacy being in question. Why?"

I have no idea, Osthryth thought.

"Anarawd." Oengus replied. "Anarawd, and his fundamental hatred of everything Saxon."

"Exactly, my friend, exactly!" Pyrlig replied. "Hywel has spent his life engineering conditions so he can take kingdom after kingdom in Waeleas, conquering by popularity, naturally, with compassion. With justice. And his prize, my friends - "

"Gwynedd." It was Feilim, now. The quietest of the warriors, who used this reserved part of his nature to deadly effect on the battlefield, the Pictish lord suggested just what Osthryth was thinking.

"Gwynedd, my friends," Pyrlig laughed. "This kingdom, unwilling to make alliances except, perhaps, with the Norse, is Hywel's aim. And Anarawd knows it. He encourages the North of Dubh Llyn to raid into Deheubarth. But there is one thing the king of the Hen Ogledd has in his favour."

"And that is?" It was Aeswi who spoke now. But Pyrlig shook his head.

"You came by ship? Ha-ha!" He laughed, as Osthryth nodded. "The tidal bore. I was expecting you sooner."

"We failed to take the spring tide into account; it did no harm, except, perhaps to Osthryth!" Aeswi gently teased. "A little sick," he added. Pyrlig nodded.

"And you went home, merch, back to Alba? To have your child?" Osthryth nodded. "You are in your bloom!" Pyrlig declared, taking up her hand and kissing the back of it. "Women are most beautiful when they are great with child." He looked across to the bar, where his wife was serving ale. "I always loved it when Haf was pregnant. She was so beautiful when - " He gave a growling laugh, which he curtailed quickly when he realised he wasn't in wholly male company.

"So," Osthryth attempted to summarise, as the name "Haf" stirred a memory in her mind. "We have come to Gloucester in a clandestine manner, to meet you, Father Pyrlig. And we are here, in your very pleasant alehouse." She leaned towards the priest, "Why?" Pyrlig leaned towards her, and smiled.

"To meet Hywel, of course," he replied. "To deliver your message to him from your king Constantine and take his reply back."

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Osthryth wondered whether it was just her who was feeling more than a little lacklustre about her mission so far. They had sailed away from Strathclyde, it was true, in a ship with very Norse-like features - which probably explained why they had had no trouble from the Norse - expecting to gain intelligence in Gloucester for Constantine. The most they could take back was the news that Aethelhelm had been allowed to preside the witan for, presumably, Mercia, and that Aethelstan and Aethelflaed were campaigning in Caestre.

"This land used to be Cymric," Pyrlig told them, after they had finished their drinks in the alehouse and were now walking in the open plain which opened out to the south ofnthe Saeferne. The sun was high now, and it irradiated them all with an unseasonal warmth. A flock of sparrows swooped past them, as Pyrlig nodded forward .

"Somerset. All the way down into Devonshire and Cornwalum, far away. I grew up just over there. When I was a child, all of the land here was owned by Britons. Britons farmed; Britons fished. Britons traded. Then Wessex campaigned west and added British lands to their country, giving it to strong lords to rule."

"Are we here for a sightseeing tour?" grumbled Oengus, unhappily in Gaelish to Osthryth as he stumped behind her. Osthryth turned and smiled at him.

"We might be. He promises us Hywel," she conceded.

"There can be no enemy spies in this country to hear what we discuss," Pyrlig replied, catching Oengus's gist, and Osthryth translated it back to him. The huge Strathclydian mormaer looked at Pyrlig, as if he were growing to hate the priest, then shrugged, and nodded to Osthryth.

"We have come a long way for you to tell us Hywel is bonded by treaty to Wessex," she told him. "I was at Teotenhalgh; he came and honoured his alliance. So does this mean Wessex is about to supply men to Deheubarth for him to attack Aberffraw?" Pyrlig threw back his head and laughed.

"No, no," he qualified. "Hywel wants something much more than that." He fell suddenly silent, before And, if you noticed, though you may not have known, Anarawd was not at Teotenhalgh. He hates the Mercians. Aethelred, Ceowulf, right back to Offa, have incurred in the north of Waeleas and raided so often that all of Gwynedd kill any man on sight suspected of being of Mercia."

Pyrlig stopped walking suddenly and turned to Osthryth, then put his hands out to her jerkin, patting over her chest. A "shrmm" of three blades leaving scabbards made him step back as Osthryth pushed his arms away.

"Forgive me, but the last spies I dealt with had concealed weapons," Pyrlig told her. "And I wanted to make sure that - " But Osthryth was pulling up her shirt, so her baby bump benefited from the weak November sunlight. Pyrlig stared at her stomach and then back to Osthryth, as she stared defiantly at the priest.

"Ddim sgian!" Osthryth shouted back, harshly, mixing up her languages. She was tired, and to her, the trip seemed pointless. Pyrlig who had got a quick glimpse of large teats on rounded breasts fought away images of spread-eagling a woman who once looked as Osthryth did, holding onto her her firm roundness and plunging himself into her ripe folds.

"Forgive me," he said again, ignoring the brief twitch under his cassock and he backed away from Osthryth, who was pulling her shirt over her stomach and tucking what she could into her breeches. "Er, h-hm," he cleared his throat, and looked to Aeswi. "As I was saying, Hywel," he continued. "He wants something more." He looked across to Oengus. "I am guessing you are the Strathclyder? Dyfnwal's man?"

"Constantine's man!" Oengus replied fiercely. "Dyfnwal is a little shit who is trying to ally with the Norse in exchange for rebellion. My king seeks to quickly end his ambitions."

"Oh, yes," Pyrlig replied. "Eochaid's son. The throne of Alba. I do remember now," he added, as if it was some long ago memory. "The heir?" Pyrlig glanced back to Osthryth.

"Do you mean me or my child?" Osthryth asked.

"What does Dyfnwal think?" Pyrlig asked her.

"He knows my mother was of Rheged, so I am a Strathclyder, to him. He says I am the last of Coel Hen's line." And she found that Pyrlig was bowing to her.

"I am glad to be amongst royalty," he said. But Osthryth shook her head.

"Not me," she said, then glanced at Oengus and Feilim. "Though Dyfnwal seems desperate enough. His line ends with him, he tells me." She sighed, and Aeswi took her hand. "Can you get to the point, Father? You can help us reach Hywel?"

"I can," Pyrlig conceded. "But it isn't that simple. Not only does Hywel desire Gwynedd, to unify the Cymric tongue, he also desires an influence in Strathclyde." He glanced at Oengus. "Pictland too, if he can. A return traverse where once his - your - ancestors came." But Osthryth was still none the wiser. A quick look at Oengus's face, though, made her think that someone knew - him, possibly. But she was too tired to think, and she was hungry.

"So, you can take us to Hywel, back to Waeleas," Osthryth made an attempt to conclude.

"Indeed, lady," Pyrlig replied. "Tomorrow. Dawn. On your ship. We board separately, you, your warriors, me. If spies are on us, and there will be, firstly, there will be none in my alehouse. Secondly, there will be nothing to report: Pyrlig met with warriors. Pyrlig drank with warriors. Pyrlig boarded a ship."

So, she would have to be patient. And the generous priest invited them back to the alehouse for the remainder of the day and the evening, promising beds, promising food.

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Osthryth was glad to be sitting with Pyrlig's wife that evening, as their two elder children, both in their young adulthood, kept the bar. Feilim, Oengus and Aeswi sat with Pyrlig on more comfortable chairs than in the main alehouse, beside a newly stoked wood fire by a hearth and they sat at the other side.

Haf, a little younger than Pyrlig, and probably no more than ten years older than Osthryth, combed through Osthryth's short, stubby hair and styled what she could with Eirik's jewel. She spoke to her in Cymric, but Osthryth could not discern a lot. It seemed that some of the words were silmilar to the Cumbric she had learned, but the words seemed to be in a different order, and occasionally completely different.

But they managed to get by, and Haf, who was nothing like the beautiful, little blonde-haired servant she had met with the same name in Caer Ligualid, looked at Osthryth with chestnut-brown eyes, her long black hair, greying in places, plaited down her back.

"Plant," Haf said, and made to touch Osthryth's stomach.

"Balach, no caileag?" Osthryth asked, forgetting the language she was speaking in. "Mab y ferch?" Haf laughed. Of course it was a boy or a girl, but that was not what Osthryth meant.

"Mab," Haf said, touching her stomach. "Pedwar mab, y dau merch," she told Osthryth: she and Pyrlig had four sins and two daughters. Grown up now, Osthryth noticed, as some of them were working in the bar. And these were, presumably, some of their grandchildren, sitting with one another, two very small ones under a fur. A bigger girl invading Haf's lap between her and Osthryth, giving her a look of challenge: this is my grandmother: go away!

Osthryth laughed, and then winced, holding her side. The day had been tiring and the bed in the alehouse had been very uncomfortable.

"She is a beauty is she not?" Pyrlig asked, as the men, on their third ale, were more amiable with one another than they had been that morning. He liked plump women: Haf had been like that once, until the care of the alehouse and of their children and grandchildren burned the flesh from her and she was now thin and pale. He clutched the air in front of him, imitating holding breasts. Oengus and Feilim roared with approval. Aeswi smiled, glanced at Osthryth, and then back at his ale.

"I would have had her on her back by now," Oengus boasted, "Those tits in my hands, working them, my sword pushed right up onto her scabbard - "

"No you wouldn't!" Feilim scoffed. "She would have gutted you before you even laid a hand on her!"

"There, my Pictish friend, we agree to disagree, but - " he took a sip of the ale. It was good, sweet, softly bitter, a good flavour even if it was Mercian beer, " - as you know, she is our king's...always has been Constantine's."

"And the child?" Pyrlig asked. "Constantine's also?"

"She says not," Aeswi replied, quietly, but firmly. "I can attest she has not been near the king for nearly a year." Pyrlig looked across to the Gael, then nodded. "However, a common assumption."

"He thinks it is," Feilim added, flexing his fingers around his ale, before drinking deeply.

"Understandably!" Oengus put in, snorting into his drink. "He nailed her when she was just...let me see...eleven? Twelve? Huhh!" he added, thinking about a girl of a similar age that he had taken, all taut and firm under his eager fingers and tight-cunted, which drew his foreskin backwards and forwards in an unbelievably toe-curling manner, and caused him to lose his load into her in a very short time. Whatever had happened to her, he wondered, idly.

"Then," Pyrlig concluded, "It would do Osthryth well to allow that common assumption to be...commonly assumed." He bent his head. "Do you confirm, Oengus na Alt Clut, that you did see King Anarawd with...the child, at Bardney?" Oengus, whose thoughts had still been on the filthy side, shifted his mind to Pyrlig and the priest's question, the ultimate question, he supposed.

"Aye," he replied. "Ow- he was there, all right, with his grandfather, his uncle Idwal. Going in for the feast. We just about managed to avoid them, despite the king's best efforts."

"They did not see Osthryth?" Oengus shook his head. "We were asail by then," he confirmed, and Feilim and Aeswi nodded.

"You see that man over there?" Pyrlig said, keeping his eyes determinedly in the other direction. "The one by the door?" Feilim turned to Pyrlig, and narrowed his eyes.

"You said we could talk freely here!" He challenged, putting down his jar of ale, firmly. As a distraction, Pyrlig beckoned to a young man, and pointed to the ale pot.

"Idris, my son, another, for this good man here!" Pyrlig clapped Feilim on the back, and drew him to him. The young man, dark hair to his shoulders and the same features and all-encompassing grin as his father, took up Feilim's jar, and Oengus's too. Aeswi was making long work of his own, and Pyrlig glanced to him, a flash of discomfort on his features.

"Hywel's man. He is meant to see us; I want him to see us. I want him to know we are all here, together in Gloucester, preparing to meet the king of Deheubarth." He glanced to Oengus, and then to Aeswi. "He will see what I want him to see. And in the morning, when we sail the place once called Dyfed, we can speak more freely - " Pyrlig broke off, as his wife approached. Osthryth, wrapped in her cloak, stood beside her, her face pale and pallid.

"Osthryth will remain here," Haf told Pyrlig. "You, and the men can sleep in stables while I take care of her."

"What's wrong?" asked Aeswi, reaching for Osthryth. She smiled at him, weakly and reached out a hand for a moment.

"Just...sickness," she replied.

"A good night's rest and she will be much better," Haf concluded, a big, comforting smile for Osthryth as she put her arm around her and escorted her to the stairs at the back of the alehouse's bar. Aeswi got up, and thanked Pyrlig for his hospitality.

"Going with the lady," Aeswi answered Pyrlig's unasked question, nodding to Oengus and Feilim, adding in Gaelish, "If she is at risk, I need to be with her."

Before dawn, Osthryth rose from the bed that Haf had shown her to. Outside the shuttered windows a soft drifting of snow was coming. The woman was asleep, her black hair on the pillow, and Osthryth pulled on her jerkin and boots.

Milk and bread she found in the kitchen at the back of Pyrlig's bar, and she found Pyrlig's son, who was clearing out the closed fireplace as beside him a woman was kneading bread. She turned when Osthryth poured herself a drink and the man got up, and moved to her.

"Here," Osthryth said, and handed silver to the man. "I am grateful." He narrowed his eyes as he tried to understand what she was saying, and the woman turned to him and spoke to him quickly.

"You do not need to give me silver," the man replied in Anglish, and placed the coins back in front of her. "My father tells me you are a guest." He nodded towards the stables. "Wait here; when the men wake, you may meet them. My father says I am to show you the way back to your ship.

And Osthryth waited, as the man and the woman went out into the alehouse front room and began to clean and tidy.

She could not wait, though, despite what Pyrlig said. They were to be aboard at dawn, to travel west along the Waeleas coast, and so she parcelled up the bread - and a dollop of lawr that she had spied in a linen-covered bowl, draining the milk, before pushing open the back door into a very crisp and chilly back yard. A pair of hens "cearc'd" at Osthryth as she trod her way over to the stables, and pushed open the door.

Two horses puffed at the change in temperature and she pushed the door closed behind her, flexing her hands in the equine warmth of the animals, and closed her eyes for a moment and listened. Apart from the dull clomping of hooves about her, the loft sounded empty.

They must have already gone, Osthryth considered, and turned, making to go back out into the stableyard. Should she wait for Pyrlig's son? She could get back to the river herself. In fact, if they had already left, they would be waiting for her, and -

- a noise above her made her stop, and Osthryth let the stable door swing closed on its hinges. A huffing noise, huffing and panting. She looked across to the horses. No, they were asleep, shifting a little as they stood almost rigid. More huffing, getting more urgent, ad Osthryth moved to the ladder, and looked up.

Above, a skylight betrayed dawn's light, a grey, sludgy morning light, so different to the morning before. More huffing, and more, as if a speed was increasing. Men's voices, deep, low. Panting, huffing, exertion.

"A-ahhh!" A cry came from someone, a release of somekind. Osthryth movved up the ladder, and then shrunk back. Long, hair tumbled over the face of one man, while another held onto his hips, sinking his cock into the man's arse, while his hand was round at the front, covered in ejaculate. T

"God - forgive - me!" The man being done had come first, and Osthryth saw, that it was Aeswi. Aeswi, hiding the manhood of another man in his arse -

- like Finnolai, Osthryth thought, as she climbed back down the steps, scurrying to the bridles, and hid down, sitting behind a pile of three saddles. Findal. His brother. Finnolao, who was not excited by her body, not excited by any woman's body, and who had set his sights on, and won, the body of Domhnall mac Caustin Ui Alpin. Both priests, at some time in their lives, too.

A man was coming down, and he stopped near the door and was looking back up to the loft.

It was Pyrlig. Pyrlig's eyes were on the steps and, eventually, Aeswi descended, pulling his robe about him. Aeswi had been guarding the door behind which Osthryth had slept, hadn't he? Clearly for not the whole night.

"You can come out, Osthryth," Aeswi called softly, when Pyrlig had left the stables. Osthryth got up.

"That puke-inducing lawr," he explained, before Osthryth had asked. "I would have thought it would make you worse."

"We are to go now?" Osthryth asked. "Oengus and Feilim are already there?" Aeswi nodded. "Here," he said, taking the small package of Osthryth's and pointed upwards. "We need to go across the roof and down, so we are not seen." Osthryth felt her eyes widening. Aeswi turned back to her slowly in his pursuit of the stairs.

"Three months I was here, training, in the cathedral," Aeswi confessed. "I ran away from Tyddewi, where I was supposed to be and where I met - Pyrlig." Aeswi sighed the man's name, as if it was heavy weight within him that he had just unoaded. "I escaped several times over his father's stables roof when we were nearly caught. Before I was sent to Strathclyde, as punishment." He began to climb the stairs, Osthryth following. "We have not lost our closeness."

"And we have to climb the roof?" Osthryth asked. But it was not as Osthryth imagined. The stable roof was flat and there was a raised walkway which led to an iron ladder. Aeswi helped Osthryth down, and they walked at speed through the city centre of Gloucester, along the grid-laid streets, and beyond the cathedral, as the land dropped gradually to the river.

Osthryth could see that there were two figures on their boat, and as they neared, she found they were indeed Feilim and Oengus. When he saw them, Feilim waved a greeting, his butter-blonde hair blowing in the breeze.

"We have enough provisions for a week," he told them cheerfully. "That priest you know, Aeswi," he added, "Was very generous."

"That is because I am expecting something good when I put a few planks of tree between myself and the Cymrian sea!" The voice came behind them, and Osthryth had no need to turn to know it was Father Pyrlig.

As Feilim helped Osthryth aboard, she looked between Aeswi and Pyrlig, who made very brief, solemn eye contact.

"Here's your lawr," Aeswi said, "And some water. Will you do us a favour and wait until we are out into the open sea before you open it?"

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They followed the same coast along which they had come a few days before, but not at all as quickly. The wind, bringing flurries of snow, was pushing on them relentlessly, and Aeswi and Feilim used all their strength to press on the tiller as Oengus tacked starboard and then port to inch their way along.

A night, and then another aboard was making Osthryth very stiff, and it took the men, when they were not fighing the wind with the ship, to sit close to her to stop her shivering.

"Please tell me Hywel's palace is warm," Osthryth asked Pyrlig, when, for a moment, the wind had ceased its howling. "That it has thick walls and a fire."

"It does, that," Pyrlig agreed, as he held Osthryth's cloak close to her body, and she bent her head, not in sickness but to get the wind out of her face. "A place where two people, a strong man and a soft woman, could sit together and place tender hands on one another unseen."

Osthryth laughed, at the weak chat-up line, and at the knowledge that he had re-ignited a liaison with a lover. Two more days and she would know what Hywel's palace would be like. And Osthryth would, on some of the worst days, wish she was back on the ship with Pyrlig trying out his flimsy flirtation with her, as they were soaked with icy winter brine.

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As four mariners battled a storm in what would, at some stage in the future be called the Bristol Channel, a fire burned wood in a grate beside which five people sat.

"Was he there, who we suspected?" asked one, draining an ale cup. He put it next to his comrade's and turned to listen to his lord.

"Yes." The man nodded, looking greedily to the man's form, looking for any sign of a money bag. "I made a good show to make sure I was seen. I did not linger."

"Good," the lord nodded, then broke into a coughing fit. Rancid ooze flowed out of a gut wound in sporadic gulps. The woman leaned forward, not reacting at all to the foul stench. "And you know where this blade is?"

"Ice spite," the Dane replied. He was there for the silver, nothing more. "It is in a wild, place, full of savage people," he added, licking his lips. The lord leaned forward and hacked his cough again. "I know this, because it was mine," the Dane said, "Stolen from me, used on you. And when you have found it, and used it," he added, looking at the healer woman.

Gods, he would have her, have her stretch her arms open wide for him, so he could look at her teats, engulf them in his mouth, suck them to engorgement. Stretch her legs open, inspect her cunt, have her widen her eyes while he pleasured her. Hump her to satisfaction. He looked back to the lord, who was clearly well on the path to death. Yet, the man did believe in the curse of the blade. As did he, himself.

"Destroy it. Break it into pieces and throw it into a lake - do no get it reforged, or the misfortune will be bound to the new piece. Listen!" He bellowed, as the lord bent double.

But Uhtred was in too much of a coughing fit to either speak or to listen; pain had caused his pallid complexion to be sheened in perspiration.

"Leave him," Eadith told Haesten, who backed away, but only an inch.

"My money?" he prompted.

"Take it!" Snapped Finan, who hoicked it out of Uhtred's pocket, his eyes returning quickly to his lord. Haesten did not linger, and he soon pushed open the door of the "Swan".

"Keep it closed!" Sihtric ordered, when the door swung open again, and Finan crossed the straw-lined floor, taking up a chair and wedging it under the latch.

"Get him upstairs!" Eadith called, as Uhtred swooned, but then he waved off Osferth and Sihtric, trying to stand by himself. She turned to Finan who, even now, after all the time that had elapsed, still made her catch her breath. He softened his features, which confessed his fears.

"He is getting worse!" Finan declared, pacing on the spot, which is what he did when he was really scared. "Really!" Eadith made to put an arm on his, but then thought better of it.

"We need to get to this place, in Waeleas," Eadith told them. "Ship would be favourite, a covered ship? Can you get one?" Finan stopped pacing, and then looked at her.

"Yes, there are many we can steal." He had his eye on a Norse one, sitting in the harbour, seemingly abandoned. She caught his eye, and Finan, caught off-guard, softened to her.

"I will be with Uhtred; he will need me," Eadith murmured, as Sihtric called for her from the stairs. "You know now where we need to be."

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The palace was not so much big as weather-proofed. On the cliff overlooking the confluence of the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, with a wharf protected by a large harbour wall, Osthryth looked approvingly at King Hywel's palace.

Tyddewi.

The house of Saint David, where the relics of Wales's most beloved holy man were reputed to lie, in the foundations of the cathedral beyond the river, which separated it from the palace and both rose into view as the salt-caked mariners climbed the rock-hewn steps.

Osthryth's legs failed near the top, and it had taken Oengus and Aeswi caught her arms and helped her to the cliff top. She inhaled, the sea air fresher here, as she stumbled behind Feilim and Pyrlig. Who had stopped dead.

For, instead of a welcome that they had enjoyed on Bardsey Island, Osthryth saw that they were surrounded. Soldiers of Deheubarth, dressed in the red of the Ddraig Coch, the red dragon, ancient symbol of the Cymric, stood in a tight arc around them, spears in their hands. There was nowhere to go, except back down the cliff steps, and Osthryth looked through dry hair strands that she had not even had the strength to pull off her face, as half a dozen Cymric closed the gap. They were surrounded, and the men were closing in around them.

"Llydoch!" A call came from in front of them, and Osthryth saw Pyrlig had stepped in front of Oengus, and was calling above the heads of the men. "Llydoch! It is me! Pyrlig! I have come with what you want!" And from his waistcoat he pulled a knife, a little shorter than Taghd's seax, which Osthryth fingered. Oengus pulled her hand away.

"Hywel!" Pyrlig called again, glancing back to Osthryth. "I have brought it for you, what you commissioned me for!" He thrust the blade into the air. Osthryth was expecting a flash of lightning from the grey cumulonimbus clouds piling up on the horizon, and laughed a quick "Ha!" when nothing happened.

"Come on, Lord King," Pyrlig called, his voice low, almost threatening. "I have come a long way - I have guests for you who have travelled longer...!"

But still the red wall did not move, and Osthryth felt her legs begin to shake, the intemperate weather getting to her legs. She wanted to move, but a dozen spear points were within six inches of her face.

And then they retreated. Osthryth planted her feet firmly onto the ground, as willing herself to stand strong against the men, who she felt were about to lunge at them, forcing them towards the steps in the cliff, or over it, and felt the ogham lines on Buaid's hilt. She had scratched them onto it herself, just the first five letters of the alphabet. But they always made her feel steadied, the strength of her former self, at the prime of her life, winning combat after combat in battle, having the heart and the stomach for the stench and the mud and the blood.

Though the Waeleas were her kin, her Strathclydian kin, Osthryth would have no hesistation in attacking them back if they threatened her or her men...

...and she stepped forward, the muscle memory of so many battles being felt in her arms, in her legs. Osthryth's eyes scanned the foe, watching for their weakness, for a boy not quite ready, for an ailment badly concealed. She would fight them, and she would win.

She turned, Buaidh swiping past Aeswi's ear, taking a few strands of his long black hair with the stroke. He grasped her wrist and she resheathed Buaidh.

"There is no need," he said to her, in Gaelish. "This is Hywel's...welcome to us all, look." And he pointed to a fissure in the circle of Cymric, where stood a tall, robust man, dressed in the same scarlet as his men, a circlet across his brow. Hywell the Good, he was known as, for his justice to the poorest people of his lands, an epithet known far from his lands. And his lands were virtually impenetrable by road, though these were few, due to the mountains. Mountains which could not be held by the foreigners, the Sais, the Saxons.

All attempts had resulted in bloody guerilla warfare, hit and run attacks, as the Romans had found, though the Latins had merely wanted Waeleas for its gold and copper and other natural resources, to plunder it, rather than live in it. But the Saxons, and the Angles too, had both coveted Waeleas, and in Aethelred's last attempt, he had made many inroads into the northern kingdom of Gwynedd, which was also coveted by Hywel. And this was made easier by the alliance in perpetuity, to not only defend one another's lands, but to fight for one another, when either called.

"Guests," Hywel said, and the circle of his men widened. "Croeso y Deheubarth. My home is your home, for the duration of your time with us." And to Osthryth's astonishment, Hywel took her hand, and lowered his lips to it, softly. "My lady," he said, stepping back, before holding out an arm which pointed in the direction of his fortress at Tyddewi.

"For this," Hywel continued, waving at his army, "I apologise," he looked to Aeswi, Oengus and Feilim, and gestured to his fortress. "I have, currently, Norse camped at my port of Abergwaun, to the north. They raid, they rob and kill my people. So we are prepared."

And Hywel led them on, into his fortress at Tyddewi.

What Osthryth noticed first, as well as the well-banked fire, for which she was deeply grateful, was that Hywel did not speak the Cymric of the South Waelean, not that of Haf, Pyrlig's wife, or of the women they had met when Oengus had pulled ashore, seeking food, on their way to Gloucester. His voice sounded the Cymric words like Oengus did, like, even, the Britons far east in Alba, at Dunnottar.

Food was laid, and while it was possible they were expected, Osthryth considered that their number was only five, where there were three score Waeleas in the hall, tables full of food, jugs full of ale.

"My guests, you are welcome," Hywel gestured, to benches to his left, and Aeswi took Osthryth"s arm and guided her over, noticing her paleness in the sheep fat candlelight. "Please sit! Eat with us! Our land has provided us rich bounty, for God is ever merciful to us in this land of Waeleas."

"My lady." A young man, same golden red hair as Hywel, approached the table. Osthryth gave him a smile as he laid a board of meat before her. "My mother believes you would benefit: pwdin gwaed, she says, and will have a servant bring it to you." Beside Hywel, a woman swathed in woollen shawls nodded to her, two other young men sitting beside her. Osthryth recognised them as having led the men in a tight circle, that might have maneouvred them over the cliff. With Norse camped nearby, it was a good strategy. "Edwin, dwy i," he added.

"Diloch rydych chi, Edwin," Osthryth replied, and the young man burst into hearty laughter. "Syd dych chi," he corrected her, glancing over her form. "My father said our guests spoke Cymraeg differently, but...anyone would think you have spent your life growling Cymbric in one of those semi-tame lands in the north!"

"That is because we are from one of those semi-tame lands in the north!" Oengus replied. "Not like those who speak Bryttonic in the lands across the sea - not even of the British Island!" he scorned. Edwin put a hand to his hip. Oengus scraped back the bench and towered over him.

"Sit down, please!" implored Pyrlig, as he got up, addressing them in Cymbric, then turned back to Hywel. "The lady is grateful for your attention, and does, indeed, speak the tongue of our nothern cousins."

"Indeed," Hywel replied, standing before them all. "Cymric one and all," he told them. "You are most welcome, our friends in the north, speaking the language of my uncle and my cousins. Edwin welcomes you too." Before Oengus, Edwin lowered his head, an arrogant grin on his long face, Osthryth noticed, which dissolved away when he stood upright again. "My lady," he added. "My mother welcomes you as a sister." And he turned, and sat back by the other two young men who, like their brother and father had a long broad face and deep-set features. Beside them, a man with darker red hair, almost mahogany in colour, sat in silence, watching the people in the hall.

"Ignorant turds," Oengus grumbled as he sat down, and nodded as a woman brought out a tray of meat and cheese, which she put down on the table in front of them, and, indeed, the blood pudding, black sausage, made of the blood from the autumn kill. More boards appeared on the wide and thick tables, made of hard, old oak, ancient as the land itself. Whole pigs' heads stuffed with jellies, bread, pears and apples, and rich crumbly cheese.

"Lawr," he asked, of a passing maid. And cheese. Boiled water, he added, and Osthryth nodded, trying to keep the nausea down. Her eyes were fixed on Pyrlig, and the conversation he was having with Hywel, the blade he had been brandishing when they all thought they were going to be attacked he set in front of the king of Deheubarth, its cold steel seeming to steal the light from the room and entrap it in its numerous smith-folds.

"Aeswi, stay beside me," Osthryth said, suddenly. Quite why, she did not know, except that there was an awful feeling, like a black cloud surrounding fortress, ready to move in through the walls and drown them all in its wicked waves.

"I will, Lady," Aeswi assured her, and she gave him a grateful look before turning back to the food. The lawr was gummy and moved when she put a knife to it, but it spread like butter when she put a skerrick onto a piece of bread, the flavour rich but delicious. The black pudding, as with any time Osthryth had ever eaten it, was like a rich, heavy sausage, and she could eat no more than a few bites, putting it back down on her platter as a movement before them caught her eye. Osthryth sat up, her eyes drawn to Pyrlig, who was still holding the knife. Hywel got to his feet and Pyrig offered it forward, placing the knife so it resting over both of his palms, like an offering.

"And now, has our brother Pyrlig, at great personal cost, managed to recover the blade long lost to my grandfather, Rhodri Mawr, taken in the first raids by the Norse to our shores. Iâ gwaethaf, dw i!" There was rigorous applause around the hall, with several of the Cymric getting to their feet and cheering. Hywel placed the blade down on the table in front of him so that it could be seen by everyone.

"It is evil," Osthryth said, no conviction firmer in her mind. "What did he call it?" Oengus leaned across to her.

"Ice Spite," he replied. "It was stolen in a raid by a Norseman called Cnut, before he went across the sea to Eireann. It is imbued with the magic of the Sidhe. And it is back."

"Back to where it belongs!" This was Llydoch, Hywel's brother, who got to his feet, and it was then that Osthryth realised that beside his feet ran a chain, over the full length of the floor. She followed it with her eyes and found it led to a circular hole with a fitted lid. The chain ran into it. And, as she looked, Llydoch pulled on it, which caused a faint groaning in the far distance.

"I know who will be first our blade will gut, the bitch!" the man declared.

"Llydoch!" reproved Hywel. "The lady may be averse to your show of...domination." Llydoch stopped pulling on the chain. The groaning stopped, but a curse sounded, and another, words, foul curses, Osthryth had heard before. In Danish. If translated, they would approximate to the person hurling the insults questioning the parentage of Llydoch.

"Shut your hole, you Danish bitch!" Llydoch roared, then turned away from the chain, and looked back to the table spread, and Osthryth felt a chill run over her as she saw Hywel's wife quietly get to her feet and silently leave the hall. Danish bitch? A woman was down there?

"It will remain here, beside me," Hywel instructed, hovering a hand over the blade as a priest might hold a hand over a suppliant's head. "Iâ gwaethaf, grefydd hynafol o'n plethiad, yn ffafrio eu gwlad; ffafrio i'w gwlad, dw i!"

A loud bang came to her right, and Osthryth jumped. It was followed by another, and another, and Osthryth recalled the banging and bumping she had witnessed on the night of Samhain, when Domhnall, King of Alba, had grown terrified and begged her to remain with him. Yes, he was old. Yes, he was losing his mind. But it did not explain why her king had been found, naked, face down in the mud, covered in moisture from the morning mist, his sword withdrawn, as if defending his fortress time last time.

Another bang brought Osthryth back to the present, and she jerked her head to the inner hall doors: the noise was getting closer, and she felt herself grip Aeswi's arm as they burst open.

"I claim it!" A man stumbled through the doors, holding his stomach, other men, and a woman, Osthryth noticed. "I claim it, for the evil it has done to me!"

And he stumbled to the ground, collapsing in agony. Osthryth looked to KIng Hywel, and then back to the man. A warrior, blades at his hips, leather clothing, the tell-tale signs of mail indentations around his face and his wrists. She inhaled sharply, but could not look away. It was her brother.

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"Take the lord Uhtred to the hospitallers' rooms!" King Hywel declared, when the man's identity, through Father Pyrlig had been established. Osthryth, who had not taken her eyes off her brother, who was being carried carefully between the tables by three men, the woman, her red hair betraying her identity as Eadith. She drew her mind away from Uhtred's warriors: there was no space in her head for their identity.

"Sit, Osthryth," Aeswi encouraged, and she realised that she had stood up. So had everyone else, including the king.

"My lady," Hywel called over, and Osthryth looked at the king. "Please, calm yourself. My sons can sit with you, and teach you our dialect of Cymric?" He turned to the young men beside him. "Owain, Rhodri," he told them, "Go, sit with the lady. Try to undo the damage your brother has done." And he turned and glowered at Edwin, before adding, "I would speak with your men."

Beside Osthryth, the young men sat, and Aeswi, Oengus and Feilim got to their feet and walked to the king, who was beckoning them over to where the fire was burning.

"Edwin did not offend me," Osthryth said at once. "I speak many languages; Cymbric only one."

"He's a turd!" laughed one of the boys. Osthryth smiled.

"Our father says you are a cousin to us?" asked Rhodri.

"So I am given to understand."

"We are invading our cousins," Owain told her, and got a nudge from Rhodri hard in the ribs.

"Our father said we might need to do some persuading of our uncle, in the north."

Anarawd, Osthryth guessed. As Edward, through his father, coveted a unified Anglo-Saxon land and Constantine claimed the land to the wall, Hywel wanted a unified Waeleas. Which would ensure Gwynedd, with its Cumbric, mocked here in the south as barbaric.

"Who is the woman in the pit?" Osthryth asked, another hunch coming to her.

"Her?" Rhodri scoffed. "A leader of a warband, the warband who has invaded Abergwaun." He kicked at the chain, and Osthryth made herself hold her reaction to this and not skewer the jumped up kingling with Taghd's seax. It ebbed when Owain said, "She killed nearly a hundred women; dismemembered men's...members...before allowing her warriors to make the...eryr gwaed...on them. She is their prize and she wants them back.

It sounded like who Osthryth imagined, and her eyes drifted over to the pit, clenching her fit around Buaidh as she watched Llydoch take a piss over it. Then, she glanced over to Hywel. He was taking a brave risk with three warriors around him. But he had three sons, one of which would inherit Deheubarth if he was murdered, and two others would take neighbouring kingdoms - Gwent, for example. He was holding "Ice Spite", the blade which Pyrlig had just gifted to the king, which her brother had just claimed from him.

"What is it with this blade? Sgian ofnadwy?"

"Ofnadwy," Rhodri agreed. "Terrible. What does "sgian" mean?" Osthryth shook her head.

"My apologies, boys," she admitted. "That is the Gaelish word. Blade, I mean," she said in English, accepting the frowns they gave her. Cyllell?"

"Cyllell ofnadwy," Rhodri tried, nodding. "Terrible blade. And it is terrible," he reiterated.

"Why does that man want it so much? The man who was dying?"

"He was injured, at the Battle of Teotenhalgh," Rhodri replied. "Our father, and our uncle Llydoch, all our cousins, went east to fight the war against the Norse. Had it been Saxons an Saxons, my father said the Sais could destroy one another with his blessing." They turned as the door from the dormitory rooms swung open and Osthryth recognised Sihtric and Osferth come back into the hall, taking up boards and filling them with food. F - Finan must be with her brother, Osthryth thought, as must Eadith. He would not have come all this way to find a knife, when he was so ill, for nothing."

"Tell me, cousin," Osthryth asked of the boys. "I know little of my heritage, it coming from my mother, who was of Rheged," she told them. A little frown, and a whisper from Rhodri to Owain, and the younger boy nodded. "What is so special about the cyllell?"

"It was made when Cymru was made," Rhodri told her. "The fey breathed life upon the rocks that brought forth iron, and the ddraig - the dragons - breathed their hot flames upon it so the metal poured down the mountainsides." He mimicked a flow of liquid in the air with his fingers.

"The fey caught the first streams of iron, and forged it, with the help of the dragons, folded it over and over, and the dwarves hammered it and heated it and hammered it again, until it became the hard and firm and indescribably dense - "

" - dwysedd yw'r cyfan!" quipped Owain, and was nudged hard by his brother. "And it was left for the Cymric people to find. All wars were won with that blade. But there was a darkness to it," Rhodri carried on. "Whenever it was used, it cut into the soul of the owner. Wars were perpetrated with it, for the effect was always victory." Osthryth felt herself lean down and touch the handle of her own Buaidh. "Do you know the story of Branwen?" Rhodri asked. Osthryth nodded, having been acquainted with it when Owain told them of it on their sailing to Gloucester.

"Efnysien owned the knife, used it to mutilate Matholwch, the king of Ireland's horses. That resulted in years and years of bloody conflict and the near destruction of three kingdoms. It is called the "cyllell cymryd a rhoi": the give and take knife, it gives victory, it takes all goodness. It has to be used twice to undo the evil it does."

"And a warrior from Dubh Lynn stole it from us," Owain told her, eagerly, ruffling his hair. "Cnut. And he has been using it ever since. Until it was found on the battlefield, and given back to our father tonight, as you saw. That man you saw, he must have been attacked by it. He needs to use it again to cure his injury."

So that was it. Ice spite was the blade's name, and Cnut, who had perished at Teotenhalgh, had stolen it from the Cymric and used it, an enchanted blade, to fight his battles.

"Of course, you would not know of battles, lady," Rhodri continued, folding his arms. "We won a great victory at Teotenhalgh, with Edward, of Wessex."

"You came when the Saxons needed you," Osthryth replied, remembering the day. "Had you not, I would not be here to speak to you, this I am sure." The looks on their faces were, of course, predictable; she had been handling this attitude since she was younger than these two princes.

"Yes, I am a woman; yes I fought at Teotenhalgh."

"And whose side were you on?" asked Owain. "Did you wear the red, or the blue?"

"The yellow and green," Osthryth told them, watching their looks of horror as she saw them click that she was declaring herself as a Mercian that day. "Mercia dw i," she added. "Tha mi a' Mercia." And then the boys laughed, for the lady's words were a joke, and she laughed too, noticing the boy, Edwin, approaching them.

"Father says you are to say goodnight to the lady," he told them. Both looked at Osthryth as if it was she who were going to bed, but their elder brother caught them, a shoulder each in his huge hands. "You," he clarified.

"Nos dda," they chorused, miffed at having been sent to bed by their big brother, and Osthryth looked at the prince's face.

"Lady Osthryth," Edwin continued, glancing at the poorly eaten food. "My father wishes to speak to you, to clarify whether you say the same as your companions, I would estimate." He lowered his head to her. "You are of Northumbria, are you not?" Her shock must have shown on her face, but Edwin nodded rather than relished triumph.

"The tradition of naming of the first born prince in Wales as Edwin has happened since King Edwin of Deria. He fled to Cadwallon's court, and married a daughter of his. One of those began the Dyfed dynasty. He has never been forgotten in Deheubarth." He bent his head to her again. "I know my history, and I know a Northumbrian name - Osthryth," he emphasised, and Osthryth wondered whether he knew he had another direct descendant of Edwin's in his home, come to his father for want of an enchanted blade.

"Then I am pleased to find you kin in more ways than blood," Osthryth told him, in Anglish, and Edwin replied, "The thanks of mine." He held out an arm, a wide sweep as Hywel had done when he had welcomed them to his fortress, and Osthryth got up slowly, her head spinning a little from having sat at length, and Edwin glanced at her pregnancy bump.

"This way," he told her, and Osthryth followed, but not until she had draped a clean linen cloth onto the table and scooped a generous helping of lawr into it, and securing it with bread. She would be needing it later, and deposited surrepticiously behind one of the large wall sconces.

But it was not to an ante-room that Edwin took Osthryth, but a room well away from the hall, whose wide windows, she noticed as she approached the king of Deheubarth, was all that was keeping them from dropping down the sheer cliffs and into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Osthryth of Strathclyde!" Hywel greeted her with a warm smile and a turn of the head. "How good it is to meet you, at last. I have long heard of you, of course."

"I would that I could say the same," Osthryth replied. "Of course, I knew of the Welsh kingdoms; Domhnall and Constantine would learn of Britain and had to know the islands and landmass. Dda, you are called." The king threw his head back, and laughed.

"Both by enemies and my people call me that," he told her, and leaned to her ear, "Hywel the Good at defeating us, they mean," he chuckled. "Now, Osthryth of Strathclyde," he continued, "Kin and cousin, you come to me with a message from the king of Alba, do you not?"

"I do," Osthryth nodded, and removed the long-travelled letter from her jerkin, and passed it to him. She could just make out some of the words, in Latin, and wondered whether Constantine, whose had had composed the missive, had used the language of the church to make a point: they were Christian kings, and although Hywel had adopted the Augustine, Roman church and Alba's church was firmly of ColmCille, they were, ultimately, Christian kings ruling Christian lands, and trying to keep Norse and Danes from said lands. It was what she would do, Osthryth thought, if she were Constantine.

She watched as Hywel read the letter, his eyes fluttering from word to word. When he had got to the end, he nodded, and then looked at Osthryth.

"Now, Osthryth, tell me why it is you are here." She glanced at the letter. "No," he clarified, "Why you are here, why no other messenger?"

"Lord king," Osthryth said, and inclined her head, so she was bowing to Hywel. "I am Cymric, I have always been Cymric, despite having been raised by my father's Anglish family. Constantine tells me we are kin, and as such, feels the message he sends would be given more weight by kin." Hywel seemed to consider this.

"And what does he say - no, tell me what he told you is therein contained," Hywel cautioned, moving the letter away from Osthryth.

"That you are a king who feels the land to your eastern borders is lost, has been stolen. Constantine believes you may feel akin to him. That the Angles and the Saxons should be driven into the Eastern sea." At this, Hywel threw back his head again.

"To repel the Saxons? Tell him, we have been doing that for years!" Hywel was not as flippant as he was trying to sound, another king with head-wisdom. And Osthryth could tell that Constantine's proposal intrigued him, for he had not diminished the proposal. And she realised something.

"We met across the battlefield, at Teotenhalgh," Osthryth told him. "You pulled me out of the way of a Northman that was about to cleave my head a'twain with his axe." Hywel laughed again.

"Well, don't let that get around; it would do my reputation no good at all if it gets around that I spared a Saxon!" He leaned closer to Osthryth, "Or two." And he placed a hand over her ever-swelling bump for a moment. "I am reconquesting my own way, merch," he told her. "As well as spoils, we were given lands, west of Teotenhalgh, though restored would be a better word, and more, up at the lady Aethelflaed's town of Stafford. Cymric people live in those lands once again." She smiled, and made to go. He had the letter, and her side of things.

"Osthryth," he said, softly, and she turned back.

"Osthryth of Northumbria." Hywel's words were considered, and he had a faraway look in his eys. "So, Constantine thinks he has found Urien's heir? The last of the Hen Ogledd?" He looked at her stomach. "Not quite last, it would seem, please, rest," he added. "Your men are in the stables; the man Aeswi - ?"

" - Aeswi, who would not leave your side I have granted leave to sleep outside your door, with firm instructions he must not find his priest-friend."

He knew?! Osthryth was shocked. She had not spoken to Aeswi about the Pyrlig incident, yet Hywel seemed to know. Yet, she thought, Aeswi had said he had trained, or at least partly trained, in Tyddewi.

"And you were married?" Hywel's question felt too beguiling to leave unanswered. It would be much later that she would remember that the king had used the past tense, but in her defense, Osthryth was trying to navigate an entirely different dialect of Cymric. A chill was creeping over her, and she felt sick. For, in her hand, Hywel was holding a second parchment.

"Yes." Her eyes were fixed on it. There was only one way it could have got from Caer Ligualid to Dunnottar: Guthred. What deal had Constantine made for this? What had he promised that involved her? Dread pooled in her stomach, was he the man Constantine meant when he said she was to marry a lord who was his kinsman? Did he count Guthred as "kin"?

Yet, to Osthryth's knowledge, Guthred did not own lands near Bebbanburg. Or, at least, Osthryth did not think so.

"Her name was Gwythelth", Osthryth told him. "She married my father, and then my uncle. Gytha, in the Anglish language."

"I do know her name," Hywel mused. "A legend tells of a lost princess, feted to be last Cymric ruler of Rheged." He paced from the window, and folded the parchments in on themselves. "You are her daughter; you could fight to rule there, should you so wish. Or your child," he added.

"I think there are enough people fighting for that land, other claimants, Saxons. And the Norse incur more and more often."

"Flann Sinna's hold is weakening," Hywel told her. "Sygtryggr Ivarson comnands Norse in Dubh Llyn." He tucked away the parchments. "I will consider it. While I do, you will avail yourself of my hospitality?" Osthryth nodded.

"Then, I will have one of my men escort you to a guest bed. We are lucky to have visitors at such a time of year; winter is nearly upon us, but the weather has been clement." Osthryth turned to go, but then stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I am sorry for my son's rudeness," Hywel told her. "He should not make fun of the people who are our northern kin." Whose land you covet, to make a consolidated land, as Edward consolidates, as Constantine consolidates.

A guard came when summoned by his king and Hywel gave him a brief instruction, pointing down a passageway to the left. From Osthryth's sketchy geography of the palace, she concluded it was in the same direction the men has taken Uhtred.

They turned a corner, the guard, whose robe flashed red in the torchlight striding on, Osthryth paused, a pain in her stomach. She slowed. Stitch, she thought, and felt a cramping in the back of her thighs. Osthryth rested a hand on one of the stone walls, drawing herself back to it when a figure, hooded, in a black cloak hurried past her. The hood slipped, and she realised she was looking at Finan, a terrified, but determined, look on his face.

Osthryth shrunk back, and Finan did not turn. He hadn't seen her, Osthryth considered, and she slipped forward, onto the flagstones, to watch her lover turn left, and down the passage to where she had left Hywel.

There were no other guards in the passageway, as she approached the door. Finan had already gone through the door to the right, where she and Hywel had talked, rattling the handle and thrusting the oak door back hard against the stone. Osthryth crept closer. The door was not closed completely, but eniough so that she could not make every word heard.

And her heart began to feel as if it were breaking. Finan, on a knee before the king, was asking - no - begging Hywel for the knife, for Ice Spite, to save the life of the lord he loved most dear. Before his eyes, Hywel tempted Finan, holding it flat on his palms as he had done when he had received it from Pyrlig.

A hand, and a soft word from the king, but Finan was not yet up, and it looked as if he were pleading again, and Osthryth wanted to push open the door and help Finan up, cradle him in her arms, he looked that morose.

Eventually, Hywel stepped to one side, and Finan slowly got to his feet, his head hanging low, and Osthryth scuttled from the door like a scalded cat. She watched him stop as the door closed on the king, and place his hand on it, breathing deeply and hanging his head, and Osthryth knew then that she would never be competition for her brother: Finan would never leave Uhtred to marry her, and now, Osthryth promised herself, the agreement they had made was void.

When Finan had made it down the passageway, Osthryth turned to go, too, though to where, she did not know, for the guard had stridden down the corridor and away as Osthryth had turned back.

But she could ask, find a guard, or better yet, go out into the stables and find Oengus and Feilim. She could -

"You may come back in, Osthryth." Hywel's voice called through the ajar door and Osthryth moved to it, and then stepped through. He was looking at the knife, and out of the window to the night-darkened sea, but when Osthryth's boots scraped on the stone floor, he looked up.

"This is an evil blade," Hywel explained, and raised an arm. "And the sea should have it. Shall I throw it now?"

Osthryth felt her scream of, "No!" before she even realised she was going to say it, and she caught the king's arm. Hywel lowered it, and looked at her, keeping his eyes fixed on Osthryth until she let him go

"No," Osthryth heard herself saying in more conciliatory tones. "Whatever you wish, lord king, then do it. But there is a man in your palace who has need of it beforehand." She saw Hywel's eyes look upon her, on her face, down to her stomach and then back to the knife, and for a split second, Osthryth thought he was going to plunge it into her. Instead, he let the weapon fall onto the floor.

"You want him to live?" Hywel demanded.

"I want him to live," Osthryth confirmed. There had been times she had wanted him to have died, fallen in battle, at the hand of an enemy within hazel branches. At her own hand. But that had gone, the feeling, like a wisp of cloud overhead. The dream of a brother called Uhtred, a life with him, over. She could feel no more resentment for him than she could grass for being green or the sky for leaking rain. What she could do was make sure that she kept him alive, for being dead absolved him of everything. It would also break Finan's heart to the point of it never, ever being mended again in his lifetime, and that would kill Osthryth too.

"You are his sister," Hywel concluded, after a significant pause, and he nodded his head slowly backwards and forwards as if he had just worked something out. His reaction was genuine too, the the first Osthryth considered she had seen since they had arrived at Tyddewi."

"You beg the use of the knife for your brother? Was the letter from Constantine merely a cover for you to be here?" Osthryth shook her head.

"I did not know my brother was going to come here," Osthryth said. "I came in good faith for Constantine."

"And you want him to live?" Osthryth considered the question.

"I do not wish him to die, if his life can be saved." For Finan. "Not Uhtred, not anyone. Though he does not believe in God, I do believe God believes in him." Hywel laughed at this.

"So, heathen, as all my priests have told me," Hywel nodded as if Osthryth's news was no surprise. "No more than the Lady Aethelflaed has told me. So." He took a step to Osthryth. "What can you give me? If I allow the healer woman who is with Uhtred to borrow my prized possession? I have already lost it once. Your time, perhaps? In my company? Discussing our shared kinship?"

When Osthryth nodded, and agreed with Hywel, she did not realise the implications of her agreement. Soon, she would. Very soon.

"Do you have an answer for Constantine?" Osthryth was keen to bring the subject round to her actual reason for being before him.

"Let me think on it, Osthryth," he told her. "And now, to show you your room."

As Hywel left the woman with Aeswi, at the guest chambers, he turned and, at the next corner crashed into Pyrlig. The man seemed ill at ease about something, and he walked with Hywel back to the throne room.

"When I said I had brought you what you wanted, lord king," Pyrlig concluded by saying, "The knife was not what I meant."

"And you are prepared to carry this out, Pyrlig?" Hywel asked. "Aeswi was sent away from us in ignimony, after your...relationship. It is very difficult, I would imagine, to deceive - "

"Yes," replied Pyrlig, sharply, nodding his head when he realised the tone he had used to his king. "Yes, I do."

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Osthryth awoke. A vigorous sea was crashing at a rock near the fortress's foundations, its waves rhythmic, soothing. So it was not the waters. Maybe - hunger. She thought to her stomach, and there was a growling. But it would wait until morning.

No. Osthryth listened. It was not Aeswi - she knew his breathing-snoring. It was tears. Forlorn tears of someone who was losing hope. Osthryth's heart fluttered as she listened, and before she knew what she was doing her boots were on the stone floor and picking her way lightly across it.

Her trail took her back to the hall, where no-one was to be found, and Osthryth's heart both rose and fell when she realised where the gentle sobbing was coming from. Retrieving the food she had wrapped behind a torch holding, she padded across the floor.

"Who is there!" The woman in the hole demanded rather than asked, and added, "I will kill anyone who touches me!"

"Even a friend?" Osthryth asked, in Danish. There was a silence, which she felt in her bones. The woman was listening.

"I have no friends," Brida told her, in Danish, and huffed in indignation when Osthryth pulled the chain aside. How to get this off, she wondered. How to get down to the woman?

"Nor had I, when I found myself in Dunholm," Osthryth replied. "The Welsh took you prisoner? After Teotenhalgh?"

"Obviously." Brida's bitterness was palpable, but she was no longer crying. "There is a door, a gate, into here. I cannot get to it. The lid, above me, where you are, needs three men to lift it."

"So, how do I get to the door?" Osthryth asked. "I will try to free you, Brida." But the conciliatory mood had changed and Brida was defensive.

"Why are you in the castle of Hywel the bastard Welshman?" she asked.

"That is a complicated question to answer," Osthryth conceded. "Look, I have food for you, I can get you water. How can I help you, as you once helped me?"

"The way in is behind the steps." The voice was not Brida's, but it was behind her. It was one Osthryth knew so, so well. Ula.

"You made it!" Osthryth declared, as she turned round, to see the British woman, late of Winchester, standing with a dim torch. "I hoped, I prayed you would."

"We did," nodded Ula. "And now, it seems, God has brought us back together." She glanced at the lidded hole. "I have been trying to help her, but she refuses, most of the time."

"I do," put in Brida. "They are trying to poison me."

"She is a slave now," Ula said. "A prisoner of war."

"Then, as it is your duty to keep her as a slave, it is Brida's duty to try to escape." Osthryth clutched the wrap of lawr and bread. It would give her a chance. But there was no promise she could accept from Brida as part of any bargain, for she knew the woman would not keep. But, Osthryth's eye was drawn to Ula's own, and the British woman was examining her stomach.

"It is wanted," Osthryth told her. "I am not the person you once knew."

"I am glad to hear it. Although, you are creeping about your hosts' fortress in the middle of the night planning to free his slave."

"His slave will have escaped by her own guile through a badly closed door in her cell, which leads to - "

"The cliffs," Brida volunteered. "When the tide is low, there is a precarious cliff path. When it is not - "

"That is when the prisoner will drown," finished Ula.

"And the Welsh are the meant to be the custodians of Christianity in this land," Osthryth told her. "Nothing cruel, no torture. Souls to heavenly paradise."

"Yes," Ula nodded, and she noticed, in the glimmering torchlight, a cross about her neck, small, made of base metal - iron, perhaps. And Osthryth scrolled back into her mind, and recalled what the British woman had said, she had said, "God", not "gods".

"Hywel?" Ula asked. "It is Llydoch. The Danish woman attacked him and keeps her prisoner. They starve her, piss on her. She led the attack on many villages from here to Offa's Dyke. I have tried to keep her alive, though she is not grateful."

"Lawr," Osthryth said to Ula, in Cymric. "Dwr. Leine. Briogais." Ula looked at her strangely, and Osthryth realised she had slipped into Gaelish again. "Shirt, trousers. Not for me," she added, and slipped Ula some silver. The woman looked at it, before pushing it back towards Osthryth.

"I am Christian now," she told her. "I do not need reward for a good deed done. But you must make it look as if Llydoch did not close his own gate, and that the woman escaped by her own wit."

"Brida," Osthryth told Ula, and there was a shuffling below in the grimy pit, as Brida shuffled in response to her own name. And she was gone. Osthryth had to trust that, for the sake of freeing a prisoner, who was not hers to free, Ula was going to do what she asked.

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The door was easy to find, behins a set of stone-hewn steps that felt as if they were the heart of the cliff. Creakings and grindings of rock tension and stress seemed much louder down here and Osthryth jumped as a groaning came from the rock to her right as she felt her way along a high but narrow passage. It was not a long one, and Osthryth managed to reach the gate which Brida had described, and pushed it open, for it was not locked.

"Brida?" Osthryth called, flashing a torch she had taken from the hall. "Brida?"

"I am here, Christian," she heard back.

"Osthryth," Osthryth told her.

"Uhtred's sister," she scorned. "And where would he be, I wonder? Cosy in his bed with a whore while I rot here?"

Osthryth sighed. She knew the hatred, knew the loathing. It only served to damage her self. If she did manage to get Brida free, could the woman not see a way to help her own self?

When she got to the small, oval cell, Osthryth gasped. The figure standing there did not look human, and gave off a ghastly smell, so much so that she wondered whether it was human. She was. And Brida turned to Osthryth, rage, bitterness, and sadness in her eyes.

Osthryth looked down, and saw something else. The woman was pregnant. How could a man claiming to be of God treat anyone so?

"Stand back," Osthryth told her, looking above. There was enough height to the cell to wield Buaidh to give the force needed, and Osthryth struck at the bolt on the cuff around her neck. Brida gave a scream through her teeth, the energy huffing from her mouth as Osthryth tried once more.

And the metal fell to the floor. Brida looked at it, and then back to Osthryth.

"My...thanks," she told Osthryth.

"We are even," Osthryth replied. "And to answer your question, Uhtred is above, having suffered much agony, it would seem, from a blade called, "Ice Spite", that Cnut stole once from Hywel. He seeks to use it to cure the evil that the blade caused in him. He did not look well," Osthryth added, watching the woman's face crease into a grin.

"The passage leads into the hall; there is a woman I know who is bringing you food, bringing you clothing." But she would need something roomy, Osthryth thought, and a vague memory pricked in her mind: Brida, the woman tormented by her barrenness, was with child.

"There is a hidden waterfall," Brida told her. "Just down here. If you will...allow me...a few moments..."

And when she returned, Osthryth realised that she must entirely trust her word, for Brida had shed all of her clothes, and was walking back to her completely naked, her stomach protruding as Osthryth's did now, her nipples dark and full against dark areolas.

"I will take yours, if your woman has not brought me anything!" Brida told her, and Osthryth smiled. "If she has brought you nothing, I agree," Osthryth told her, and reached out to her own cloak tie and swung it over her shoulders.

"You are with child too," she murmured. Osthryth nodded, hoping to end it there, but Brida reached to her neck. "I recognise this...?"

"He is lost to me," Osthryth replied, and to prevent any more talk on the subject, turned to the hard steps that would lead them to the feasting hall, above.

The hall was deserted when Osthryth and Brida ascended the stairs. Osthryth repositioned the torch, and crossed to her parcel of bread and lawr. And, sure enough, beside it, was a jar of ale and meat, and a folded shirt and trousers. And a sword.

"My sword," Brida told her. "Surely, this woman owes you a great deal?" Osthryth shrugged as the woman ate hungrily.

"If she thinks so, she did not tell me so. She refused my silver - she is a Christian now." Brida laughed, almost choking on a bite of lamb.

"No Christian refuses silver." She glanced at Osthryth's stomach again. "I know this man - he spoke for you, at Dunholm. A man of Uhtred." Osthryth closed her eyes deliberately and then opened them.

"Finan. His name is Finan," Osthryth confirmed.

"He returned with Uhtred from slavery," Brida recounted. "They kept one another alive."

"And he is here, with Uhtred, to help him now. But to me, he is lost."

"How so?" Brida lowered a bite of lawr-covered bread.

"He has chosen Uhtred. Perhaps he needs him, to give him a purpose. Uhtred is a strong leader."

"He is a coward!" Brida scoffed. "I begged him, pleaded with him to end my life rather than send me to slavery, and he turned from me. Did he do that to you too?" Osthryth shook her head, and narrowed her eyes. Nothing she could say would shock this woman.

"Uhtred gave me to Aethelwold...for his pleasure...and watched the man carry out his unnatural urges...believe me, I would fight you for the position at the front of the queue to kill my brother but I have long decided - "

" - that, because you are a Christian you will forgive him?" And Osthryth found herself laughing. "You know that there was a plan, which did away with Aethelwold, and freed Ragnar's soul?"

"I knew that," Osthryth agreed. "I barely imagine that man's hands on my body at all these days. And no, no. The Bible compels us to remember that vengeance is God's and he will repay, and it was hard to follow. Believe me, I have sought vengeance on my brother, but I when I stopped...he has caused himself more pain by his own decisions than by anything I could ever have thought of. So, I remain with the Scots."

"The Scots?" Brida, in the middle of another bite of meat, stopped, and looked at Osthryth.

"As Uhtred's home was with Ragnar the Fearless, I escaped Bebbanburg as a child and ended up at Dunnottar, in Alba. That is my home. And the king, Constantine, who I care for most dear, is prepared to ally with my other brother, Wihtgar, to prevent Uhtred claiming the lands. I need do nothing, but watch, and pray that Uhtred fails. For he deserves to live his life without his birthright, watch all he has connived for all these years come to naught."

"Then you have the right mind," Brida told her, and her hands moved to her stomach. "I am blessed...and cursed. Cnut...he was my daughter's father. And, as Teotenhalgh ended, he admitted to Uhtred that he had orchestrated Young Ragnar's death." Osthryth sighed, as Brida added, "He is lost to me, also."

"Yet, your child is innocent, as is mine. We can do what we can to bring them into this world as we would want them to be. They are like a blank piece of parchment waiting for their story to be written." Then Osthryth paused. "Daughter?"

"I believe so. She has a strong will. What are you smiling for?" Brida asked Osthryth, who had indeed broken into a grin.

"A healer, the healer Uhtred is with, told me I would have a girl. She said so, because I have been so dreadfully sick - "

A dull thud drew Osthryth's attention and she turned to the passageway outside the hall. Then another.

"We must go," she cautioned Brida. "Where did you say the passage was?" But Brida was on her feet, the sword she had been left, though blunt, looking as if she was about to hit her with it. Then, she turned, and went towards the steps they had come up.

"Down here. Back there." She stopped when Osthryth followed her. "You need not come. The tide is out, I can make it."

"And go where?"

"Rognvaldr. He has slaughtered many monks at a monastery further along the coast. His brother, Sigtryggr, is about to make an invasion, although from what I understand, Hywel has been paying the Norse to sail back and around Gwynedd, and attack Mercia down the Dee or the Maerse. Be aware, he is no friend to Saxons."

"But I am half Cymric," Osthryth told her. "And it is on that basis that I was sent to speak with Hywel - " A ferocious howl tore through the palace above them, followed by another. If people had been not awakened by Osthryth and Brida creeping around, they surely would be after that.

"Ice spite," Brida told her. "It takes and it gives. Cnut gave it to Uhtred just as he confessed to Ragnar's killing. He needs to take it, and use it in his treatment, and - " Another low howl, like a huge sea creature in agony.

"Tak," Brida said, as Osthryth held open the gate that led out to pathway to the rock hewn steps. The woman took it, and to freedom.

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Of all the places, her brother had to be there, Osthryth thought, as she crept across the feasting hall, Ula watching conspicuously in the shadows. She owed more than she could say to the British woman, for keeping her alive, for letting her help Brida.

"This way," Ula said. "Back to your chamber," and she opened a door that led to the kitchens, pointing to a passageway that Osthryth remembered Hywel escorting her through. That meant his men too - she had seen them, or rather, some of them. Sihtric...Osferth...that meant -

No, do not think of him, do not think of the man you love so dear in your heart. And a thought occurred to Osthryth, as she stepped over the sleeping form of Aeswi - had Constantine known?

Another low, agonised moan.

"I must go to help," Ula told her. "The healer will need the help of another." And the woman, who must have been in her sixties now, took off down another passage with the sprightliness of a twenty-year-old.

But how could he have? How could Constantine know her brother was looking for the blade that had done damage to him at Teotenhalgh? That Pyrlig brought back to Hywel? Maybe Pyrlig needed a fast escort; maybe Constantine had a spy that kept tracks on Uhtred.

She had to see him. She had to know he was there with her brother. It was clear the blade was being used to help Uhtred, and that Eadith, ever the professional, had travelled with them to find it.

The hospitaller rooms were beyond the kitchens and the light of the dim morning was reflecting off the low sea and into windows carved from the rock. Osthryth could see little at first, except figures outlined by the sun's reflected brilliance. And then details came to her, the shape of bodies, the position of swords.

"I have _," she heard Ula say, then tried in Saxon, "Honey. With the thread of the _ ...spiders."

Honey cobwebs, Osthryth thought. The honey was sterile, and would keep any badness out, and the spider's threads were enough to give it density, to fill the void which Eadith was draining over a bowl.

Osthryth turned. Medicine, bodily treatment, did not sit well with her constitution, and she waited, until moaning had subsided.

A flash of light from the sea caused Osthryth to look back and her heart flared with a bitter hopefulness: Finan was there, holding the hand of his lord. And what happened next, Osthryth neither planned or intended to do.

For, while an alarm had been raised to indicate a prisoner had escaped - long escaped, Osthryth thought as she imagined Brida haring over the ground, north, to get to her adopted kin - she headed back to her room, stepping over Aeswi, as if she had been in her bed the whole night.

When Aeswi went to the call, Osthryth got back to her feet and back to the hopitaller's rooms. Eadith was outside, her body sighing deeply as she stared at "Ice Spite", before handing it back to Hywel, who was outside the door, hand on the knob.

She watched as the king of Deheubarth crossed to the window of the room beside Uthred and drew back his arm, throwing it with all his might into the dark sea. Then, he turned to a man standing next to him, who seemed from what Osthryth could see, to be Edwin, the young man who had mocked her North Cymbric dialect.

"No more," Hywel told his son. "Llydoch has has his fun, and the woman has escaped. No more. See to it that the horns are quieted. His actions were shameful, and I was not a good enough king - no, I was not a good enough Christian man to stop him earlier." Hywel put a hand on his son's back and escorted him into the passageway. Then, in the darkness, he spoke to Osthryth.

"You came to see whether your brother would live," he told her, and Osthryth came out from her hiding place. "You came to see whether there was magic in that blade after all." Osthryth said nothing. There was no point arguing against a pre-made interpretation of events."

"You should rest," he told her. "I will come to you with my answer for Constantine, but - " There was a new alert this time, no longer a low, rhythmical blowing of a horn, but an insistent trumpeting. He stepped away from her.

"The Norse are coming," Hywel said, not to Osthryth, but to the air around them. "And we must be ready. Edwin!" He ran down the passageway after his sons. "Get Llydoch! Rouse Rhodri and Owain!" There was more, in South Cymric which Osthryth did not catch.

Her heart sank. So, immediately she help Brida, the woman turned round with an army of Norse to attack Tyddwei? Osthryth closed her eyes for a moment and let her mind settle, like stones in a disturbed stream.

No, she concluded. Brida could not have got to the Norse on foot so quickly and raised them. These had to be different Norse, using the Cymric trick of attacking at dawn.

Uhtred was going to live; his men would breathe easier. And Eadith? The woman who had done all the hard work? She saw her, still outside the hospitaller room, her back to the wall, her breathing steadier now.

And Osthryth knew what she needed to do. Her eye was drawn to the door, beyond which her brother lay, recovering from his injuries.

But she could not do it immediately. A hand caught Osthryth's shoulder and Aeswi brought her around to face him.

"You are not to fight, Osthryth!" he insisted. He must have followed her, but he did not say anything to the point. If he heard Hywel, he could think that, Osthryth reasoned. But the instruction overrode everything else and Osthryth struggled under his grasp.

"Please, be sensible now," Aeswi cautioned her. "You do not lead men here like you did in Teotenhalgh. Please. Let us fight for you...Oengus, Feilim." There was a slight pause, before Aeswi added, "Pyrlig."

And, for once, Osthryth listened. Not because she particularly wanted not to fight, but becaus there was something else she needed to do first.

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A blade called Taghd's seax scored at her neck. Though Eadith did not know the weapon, she knew its owner.

That was now. Ten minutes before, Finan had left the room, and had glanced down the passageway, and Osthryth had shrunk into the shadows again. The man looked left, and then right, and then had spied Eadith.

"Yer did well there," Finan said, as he put a hand high onto the passageway wall and leaned against it, resulting in his body curving towards Eadith. She looked up to him, before running her hands across her head, her fingers raking her scalp.

"Time will tell; he needs care for the next day, and then I will be able to tell."

"He knows we used the blade, though," Finan replied. "He will know its powers, whatever they might be, will take the evil away." He stooped closer to Eadith, and took up her hand. "In saving him, you have saved me," Finan told her, his heartbreaking vulnerability putting a brace around Osthryth's heart. And he bent to her and planted a kiss on her lips. Eadith reached to his face, her hand to his beard, and when they broke apart, she rested her head onto his shoulder.

"I should - " she began, and there was a shout down the passageway - Sihtric was calling him, and told him to bring Osferth.

"Norse!" Sihtric called again, clarifying the point, and Finan leaned into the hospitaller room.

"I'll stay with him," Eadith told Finan, as he hesistated in calling Osferth. And Finan leaned back and gripped the edge of the doorframe.

"Baby monk! We are needed! Now!"

A minute or two later, Osferth attended Finan's call and they tore off towards Sihtric. Eadith made to step into the room. But she did not make it. The blade nicked her skin, though it was not Osthryth's intention, and Eadith kept granite-still, noting her medicine case in Osthryth's other hand.

"Why do you want me? What is it you want?" the healer said, when Osthryth had led her back to the chamber she had spent, well, part of the night in. The dawn sunlight was filtering through the small hole in the rock, a window, if she was pushing the definition. Kicking the door closed, Osthryth pushed her inside.

She could see the woman trying to work out a way to escape, for she was looking about the room, and over to the window, exhaustion from the night hanging over her face.

"I had a fall," Osthryth told the healer, directly, and to the point. And she watched Eadith's face change as she recognised her. "Are you able to ascertain if this child is well?" Eadith looked at her, clearly not expecting this.

"I may," Eadith said, uncertainly, but did not move to Osthryth, instead looked across her stomach. "When was this fall?"

"Several weeks ago," Osthryth said.

"And do you know whether your bloom has grown?"

My bloom? Osthryth thought. "My stomach? Yes, yes it has." Eadith nodded, then moved to her, tentatively at first, half expecting Taghd's seax to be at her throat again, but Osthryth had repositioned it back into its scabbard.

"May I place my hands here?" Eadith asked, coming towards her, slowly. Osthryth nodded, and pulled up her shirt, her roundness surprising even herself as Aethelred's former lover pressed her palms around Osthryth's growing child. And then she laughed

"The child has just moved, under my hands!" she exclaimed, a wide smile of happiness on her lovely face, everything else falling from her.

"I felt," Osthryth replied, with not quite the same level of joy in return. If Eadith noticed, she said nothing, merely continued her examination.

"He or she is well," Eadith concluded.

"She, you told me before," Osthryth reminded her. But Eadith kept her hands where they were.

"How many moons now?" she asked Osthryth, and Osthryth thought, thought back to early June, the three milk month, where cattle could graze and produce three yields. She had been at Bebbanburg then, trying to prevent Uhtred gaining the fortress. She had been with Finan, and had never wanted to leave him.

"Nearly six," Osthryth replied, and Eadith nodded.

"Now is the time for care," Eadith counselled. "Those men guard you in your mission?" Osthryth nodded. "So let them, put yourself first, rest, don't fight," she added, as battle cries filtered through to them. She had not, she was here, wasn't she, and she gave Eadith a hollow laugh as she wondered how it would be when she had formulated a plan to take Eadith back with her, to ensure the child was birthed well.

"Have you birthed many women?" Osthryth asked.

"A few," Eadith conceded. She looked down to her medical case.

"Old women, like me?"

"Yes." And Osthryth wondered whether she would be able to sail the ship she had come in alone, with Eadith, back to Alba. She could not go round Strathclyde, so she would have to go south, east and then north. Osthryth darted back, holding out a hand as Eadith made to fly to her medicines, and opened the chest, weak morning light illuminating roots and stems and petals and seeds.

"I have stood in shield walls, cut down men bigger and smaller than me. I have fought in blizzards and crossed hudreds of miles of land for a lord or a king," she told her, turning the contents out systematically onto the floor, "And this, this - "Osthryth gripped her stomach. "The worst is this!"

And Eadith did not fly at her, instead, she sank onto Osthryth's bed.

"You feat the worst, because you know not what is to come," she soothed. But Osthryth bent her head and examined the healer's ingredients again.

"I need rue, I need lily root," Osthryth said, not to Eadith, more to remind her own self. "I need tansy root - "she glanced at Eadith, " - leaf if you have it. Terabinth."

"But I do not have those," Eadith replied, softly.

"Don't give me that!" Osthryth scoffed. "They are stock in trade for a healer - " she withdrew Taghd's seax, and rooted around inside the case again, before holding it up to Eadith. "I know what I am looking for." And Eadith got up, and knelt beside her, ignoring the blade.

"Why?" she asked. "You are too far gone; it will kill you. You do not know what you are doing - " Eadith tried to dash away the tansy root from her hands but Osthryth curled her fist over it.

"No!" Eadith protested, as Osthryth pushed her away. "I will not take this life from you! Nor will I allow you to do it for yourself!" Osthryth stalked to the window, better to examine the case contents. "You...are hostile to me for some reason," Eadith went on. "I remember you, you served at Mercia...you killed my brother." Osthryth turned back. Eardwulf.

"And I am sorry for that," she replied, and meant it. "And I remember you, on the run with Uhtred. I remember your face when I killed the wrong person...I gave you enough wergild?" she asked. Lily root. That was two of the four things she needed. Or three, if she could not find terabinth.

"More than enough," Eadith assured her. "The money...it has allowed me to establish myself, believe me I wanted my brother dead," she added, still watching Osthryth's hands, carefully taking apart her curated stash of herbals.

You wanted more than that from what I could see, Osthryth remembered, and thought, too, of not half an hour ago. They had kissed, Finan and Eadith. Was this their going forward time, or were they established lovers?

"Is there one warrior whose eye you caught? I noticed you talking to him often enough."

"Uhtred." The name came from her lips like a breath of air on a spring morning. Uhtred, Osthryth mused, and that made sense. Why live to such an extent like she had been doing, with warriors, to search for a cure for him, if she did not love him. Then, she looked at Eadith's face again.

"You see, if there was anyone I wanted dead more than your brother it would be mine. I chose the wrong person to murder that day." Osthryth enjoyed watching the change on Eadith's face.

"Do you know, as well as an eliminator of children, these can be used to help reduce blood fever in older mothers? Do you know that lily root can be used to ease the contractions of the mother and bring on a less traumatic birth?" She held out the roots for Eadith to examine. The woman did not snatch them back, and Osthryth added another root to the first two.

"Terabitnth, to prevent infection and cot bed fever," she explained, before gently pushing Eadith's medical case back towards her. "You see, I have had a lot of experience with British healers, and one of those experiences brought me to the position I am now in with my brother, where he cannot prove and I cannot disprove my hand in his wife's death." She saw Eadith's intake of breath. "Even a woman - an abbess no less - could vouch for me."

Eadith looked at Osthryth for some time, fiddling with the chain on her box.

"Your child is Finan's isn't it?"

For a moment, Osthryth looked back to Eadith and blinked, wondering what she had said. Then her mind caught up with her ears where had that come from? Osthryth did not know.

"You see, he caught my eye, I confess," Eadith pressed on, "And you wished me well for the future, so I - "

"I wished that, if you pursued him, I would be able to find you and rip off your arms," Osthryth told her Eadith's mouth fell open.

"But he never looked at me, only with friendship." She pinked at the cheek. "There was always a barrier between us. He would tease me about Uhtred, and I liked it, because I like your...brother..." Eadith frowned. "Is it all true, what you said about those ingredients?" she asked.

"You should come to Alba, or find the Britons in Waeleas to teach you," Osthryth said, thinking where Ula might be at any one time. She would not need to kidnap Eadith now she had the ingredients she needed. She could go to see Sula, Bach's daughter, when the time came. There would be silver enough.

"But take care you are not accused of witchcraft, unless you are surrounded by very good friends to help you out. I was accused, and I had few. Which is why I was left to drown in the northern sea."

Eadith gave her a quick look, then knelt, finding out more of the same medicinal herbs.

"Be...careful with these," she said, then saw what Osthryth was offering her. Away in the distance a song had begun. Battle was ensuing: the Welsh were singing. "No," she declared. "I would not hear of it!" But Osthryth pressed the silver coins into her hand.

"And I would not hear that my child has been born with the help of medicine that I had not paid for. I am no thief." The woman nodded.

"Finan," Eadith mused, "Will you and he not...?"

"He is lost to me," Osthryth said, simply, as she tucked the herbs into her pack. "I had agreed to marry him if he comes for me, but I know he never will. The bond between him and Uhtred is far stronger than it can ever be with me. I cannot be a third party to his emotional dependence on my brother. But - " she nursed her stomach, "This child will be born in safety, in Alba, and brought up as a Gael. It is all I can ask from Constantine." Eadith bent her head towards Osthryth.

"King Constantine? Of Alba? I have heard of him," she told Osthryth. "Aethelflaed met him at the wall - "

"Heavenfield," Osthryth added, "Where my good ancestor won his battle against his uncle Edwin. She chose the place aptly. And a treaty was drawn up effectively solifidying claims around the wall. Yet, she omitted Bebbanburg, for reasons understandable, and therefore most of Bernicia. Constantine claims it all, in the name of the Gododdin." Osthryth glanced to the sea. It was calm. She should have Hywel's answer today, battle-depending, and they could leave. She did not want to spend another night under the same roof as Uhtred.

"The who?"

"The Gododdin," Osthryth repeated. "Should you continue to follow Uhtred now Aethelflaed has eschewed him and taken on chastity, your path will inevitably lead you north, to these lands, and you might be tending men who are disputing land which has been fought over for at least eight hundred years. It is not a war either Constantine nor Uhtred can win, yet both will try."

"Were that men could solve their disputes like women," Eadith chuckled, taking up her chest.

"Like the way women become intimately acquainted with one another only to undermine and blackmail them, deatroy their reputations, with repercussions rippling out for years at a time?" Osthryth laughed, scornfully. "Give me a sword any day."

"But, not on the day you give birth," Eadith replied, shrewdly, and at once, Osthryth knew her fears were now baldly on display to the healer, and she felt her own vulnerability. "Your sword will be no good on this day for you cannot fight for your child's life nor your own the way you know, you can't form a shield wall, you cannot challenge the hazards of childbirth to a duel. " Eadith smiled at her.

"Can I not?" Osthryth drew her close. "I was twelve years old when I removed my first life from inside me, standing on a beach in Eireann. The healer was a Briton; she told me I should not use it, but if I did how to use it safely." Osthryth looked to the horizon. "It happened so quickly, and then the sun died."

"The sun died?" Eadith echoed, confused.

"The sun died, and two men, warriors, princes, held me down, violated my body as it was extricating the...matter. I know that you know what I mean," she added.

"And then they tied me, to a rock in the sea, as the tide came in. The sun was dying but it was nothing to do with me. My friend, Domnall mac Aed Ui Neill, who is now the High King of Eireann, managed to get me out of the water before I drowned."

It was only a small lie; Domnall had indeed been the High King, for nearly a decade, and he had hated it, handing the kingship back to Flann Sinna.

"You may go," Osthryth added. But Eadith still stood there, looking shocked.

"That happened to you?" Osthryth nodded, shrugging. "I have had worse. That day was my first, there have been six others since then. I can never contemplate having a child for my life, the only thing that makes me what I am, a warrior, would be over. Except - " Osthryth touched her stomach again.

"They say a healer is one who hears every confession," Eadith told her, "And I admit you have me," she said to Osthryth.

"I lose a part of myself every day," Osthryth replied. "But, I am told, I will regain it. If I live. Hence - " she gestured to the herbs she had made Eadith sell to her. "Even now, day by day, it is a living death, part of me is wiped away and yet another part." A roar came from the distant battle. "I am told this is what happens."

"And yet," Osthryth went on, "At the time when I could have done away with this child, I found I could not; I find that I can only see a future with me in it and this child, no matter what happens in between. It - " she broke off, looking at Eadith's face. "You're crying!"

"Yes," Eadith agreed, wiping her face on the back of her hand, and her glistening eyes looked at Osthryth. "Because I know I will never love the way you love him, wholly, unconditionally." She wiped her face again, and inhaled deeply.

"He is fortunate to have your love," she added, and shook her head. "No, I do not and never have felt even a fraction of that for Finan; he was a friend when I needed one, nothing more. He was the one who teased me over Uhtred, where I could not see it. Finan," she mused.

"He has made his choice," Osthryth replied. "Do not tell him about my coming to you, it will only distract him from supporting Uhtred in supporting Aethelstan, though I beieve I will regret backing Edward's first born in the end." Osthryth went to grip her sword. "Tell him nothing," Osthryth reiterated.

"Agreed," Eadith nodded, standing taller. "And I think you are wrong to say he is lost to you - I believe he will come to you, Osthryth."

"Then we must agree to disagree," Osthryth replied, and she reminded herself that she cold not commit to her promise now anyway, if she was still married to Guthred. Constantine knew she could not marry again, so why suggest it?

"May we part as friends?" Eadith asked, reaching out a hand to Osthryth. She said nothing for a time, ignoring the woman's gesture.

Then she said, "If you decide to be with Uhtred, and he with you, please let me tell you, there will be no higher love in his mind than the one he has with Gisela. Even with the whisper of a rumour that I might have had a hand in her death, he left me hanging on to mine with no more than the fibre of a life. You have seen my body, you have seen its damage."

"I could not miss it," said Eadith, sombrely.

"Don't expect too much or you will be disappointed." Another cry. Were they winning, the Cymric, and Constantine's men? Osthryth's heart lurched, her body yearning to be with them.

"What makes me sad is that I am no Mercian, I have not submitted to justice for your brother."

"I will take that as a yes?" Eadith said, brightly, her tear-stained face grubby, tired.

"If you please," Osthryth conceded. "You are welcome, on my part, to Dunnottar, and in my own country. Alba." She might have said Strathclyde. But Dunnottar, Pictland, Dal Riata, all of Constantine's land was dear to her, and they were Alba. And she knew that, by declaring Alba as her land, it implied the land to the wall, all of it, Constantine's objective, his terrotory claim.

"So, you are Lackland no longer," Eadith commented. Osthryth stood before her, withdrawing Buaidh and standing with the blade close to her face.

"Tha mi a' Alba!" Osthryth declared. "Alba, gu brath!"

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It was Oengus who Osthryth found shaking her shoulder as Osthryth blinked, muzzily. She had slept, slept for a very long time, or so it would seem, for a whole day had passed, and the battle was over. A smile came over his face, and he hummed a few bars of a song that Osthryth vaguely recognised.

"We won, of course we won," Oengus told her, as she regained her senses. "We drove the Norse away from Abergwaun, and made another fleet of ships turn and flee."

"Good," Osthryth agreed, as she blinked, trying to orientate herself. In the fortress of Hywel, king of Deheubarth, not in a ship with Domhnall and Constantine and Finnolai, Taghd breaking into song as waves dashed around them. Behind him, Aeswi came into view.

"We thought you would never wake," he told her. "I thought that - " he added. "You were concerned for your brother."

"I wanted to see whether he would live," Osthryth admitted, swinging her legs to one side of the bed, trying to stand and then wobbling. Oengus helped her to a sitting position, and brought a tray to her lap.

"He lives," Aeswi told him. "And now it is well known that the blade Pyrlig took so much care to bring to Hywel, which the king committed to the sea, was in fact enchanted." Aeswi lowered his head to Osthryth. "We leave today, as does your brother. Hywel is pleased for his victory, and to recover the land Rognvaldr took from him."

"Tell me more," Osthryth asked, and the warriors did, in turn, as she ate and drank, her body feeling drained and overcome by hunger. Had she really slept for a whole day?

"It is a wonder the celebration feast did not rouse you," Aeswi told her. "It was rather raucous." He placed a hand gently on her shoulder. "Hywel told me to bring me when you are ready."

It did not take Osthryth long to be ready. A pee in the privacy of some sort of enclosed garderobe and she was walking with Oengus and Aeswi to the chamber of the king.

"Do not leave," Osthryth asked them. "And Feilim?"

"Readying the ship, acquiring provisions," Oengus told her. Osthryth nodded. That was like Feilim, to want to be organsied.

Before she had a chance to knock, Hywel opened the door. Osthryth smiled as the king welcomed her, and she strode in after him, leaving the two warriors behind her as Hywel closed the door.

"You wish, before you depart, for the answer to your king's request?" Of course; it was why she was here.

"So I will give you an honest answer, Osthryth," he said, in his direct, plain manner. "I do not wish to have anything to do wth the Saxons living to my east. I will not ally with them, nor will I give them any more favours. Teotehalgh was a one-off. And," he said, pacing to his window, "You will find no king in Waeleas will aid the Saxons."

Osthryth felt her heart rise. This was what Constantine wanted: a united enemy against the Saxons and the Angles, to drive them into the eastern sea.

"And now will I ally myself with a man whose ancestor did what the Saxons have done: push into the Western Isles and taken over the many kingdoms north of the Roman wall. Gaels have never ruled traditionally in those lands - they are Cymric lands, and have always been so." Hywel smiled, warmly. "Of course, you know that, Osthryth, of the line Urien, of Coel Hen. You are the last princess of our norther lands, the person whose ancestor controlled both Cumbraland and Strathclyde from the ancient kingdom of Rheged, who fought with other Cymric, the Gododdin." He took her hand. "Your kin were celebrated in Taleisin's poem - this was why Constantine, and Domhnall before him, have held you close."

"So, I am to tell him - "

"Tell him no, no, and never," Hywel reiterated. "I will never unite with Alba, and I will advise my sons not to, either. So," he said to Osthryth, "I thank you for your company. Shall I escort you, and your warriors to your ship?"

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"He was captured in battle," Pyrlig told Osthryth, as she pointed out a man, broad, blonde-haired, just out of youthhood, looking at a wide-hulled sailing ship at the other end of the quay. Osthryth turned to look at Pyrlig, still not entirely clear on the details of the battle that had raged, that she had not been a part of.

"And it seems as if Llydoch, Hywel's brother, was keeping captive the warrior Brida, who escaped her prison. She joined with Rognvaldr, and escaped with him. Uhtred traded Berg's life for the escape."

Typical Uhtred, Osthryth thought, and typical Brida. Osthryth looked north, as if she would still see the red-and-white square-rigged clinker-hulled Norse ships there still. Rognvaldr and Sygtryggr were long gone with her. Osthryth would never regret her part in helping Brida escape her cruel conditions. She glanced at her own ship, that they had liberated from the Clyde to come here in the first place. "Berg?" she asked, looking up to Pyrlig.

"Berg Skallagrimmsson," the priest offered. "He swore he had not been part of killing monks and Christians, and knelt and swore an oath to Lord Uhtred."

"Many do," Osthryth said, vaguely. She felt Pyrlig's eyes upon her. "Berg Skallagrimmsson," she echoed. It was a name Osthryth would recognise many years in the future in a place she was about to go to.

"And that was why you brought it? For Uhtred?" The priest shook his head.

"I did not know that he was going to be there. I was commissioned by Hywel to find it, so it could be disposed of properly." If properly was throwing it out into the sea, then Hywel had disposed of it properly, Osthryth thought. Keep talking Pyrlig, Osthryth thought, keep my mind occupied.

"I am sorry, for what it is worth," said Pyrlig. He gripped Osthryth tighter, and maneouvred her closer to the cliff top, a blade at her throat. Three warriors looked up to her, the south-westerly wind butted the ship along. They needed to see she was being held against her will.

"It was necessary that we tricked them. They know to meet you in the Dee estuary, if all goes well."

Osthryth had suspected something. Hywel had sent his sons to speak to Osthryth, talk about the land, about battles in which they had fought. At the currents that took them to Eireann. And the famous holy people who had been sent out into the world: Non, Dewi, Asser, Nennius. And it was at that point that Osthryth knew there was something wrong.

"Hywel wishes you to fulfil the promise you gave," Pyrlig told her, as if by reminding Osthryth of her vague agreement, that he should not cast out "Ice Spite" but let it be used on Uhtred, that he was absolved of his role. She had indeed made a promise, of sorts, to allow her brother to live.

"If all goes well?" Osthryth said, watching her boat get smaller and smaller.

"Have no fear, I am with you," Pyrlig assured her. "And I will be with you the whole way north."

"Up in the north?" Concern shaped her face, the steel still by her collarbone.

"Gwynedd, Anarawd's kingdom. And I assure you," Pyrlig was at pains to point out, "That both you and your child will come to no harm."

"As long as I do what?"

"Have no fear," Pyrlig reiterated. "Your warriors will meet you at Holywell."

"And that is in the north, in King Anarawd's kingdom?"

"Yes," Pyrlig nodded. But his knife was not going anywhere.

From the deck of the second boat which had just left the quay, Sihtric peered up into the mid-morning sun. Beside him, Eadith, her bag beside her, was sitting, rigid, her head not moving. She was staring solidly at the cliff.

"Who is that, at whom you stare?" Sihtric asked. Eadith said nothing, just carried on staring at Osthryth.

"I think...I think..." Osferth said, then called to Finan. "Finan, you have the best eyesight of all of us - who is it that Eadith is staring at?"

Finan turned, and looked. And took a step backwards, a booted foot clattering over the anchor painter.

"She is here and no-one told me?" he demanded, looking around at the warriors, glancing at Eadith and then over to Uhtred. Beside him, Uhtred stepped, and looked up. His sister, inches from the edge of the cliff, was being held at knifepoint by Father Pyrlig.

"I did not know," Uhtred said, shaking his head, and then turning to the sail. "Nor I," said Sihtric, and he clapped Finan on the back. Eadith said nothing, simply stared at the woman who had, she had been told, exchanged her freedom for her use of Ice Spite for the man she was growing to love.

"Why is she always apart from me?" Finan said vaguely, and continued to look in the direction of Tyddewi even the city was gone from his view.