A/N: Another one from S5 rewatch - Aelfwynn and Cynalef kissing, and then the second shot of them kissing, Stiorra looking on, sadly.
88888888
Before she had left with Aeswi to go to Gloucester, Osthryth had sought out Sula, the daughter of Bach, the British healer who lived beyond the walls of Dunnottar. Sula had helped her with lily and tansy roots and with the consequences once before. That had been Constantine's child, conceived at Glen Orchy, and her second ending, and she had warned Osthryth, as Bheatha in Doire had warned her, that it was a dark road she was treading by intervening with fate as she was doing.
Yet, silver had influenced Sula, as it had influenced Bach and Ula and Bheatha to supply her with herbs, and it was the catalyst that had finally caused Sula to open her door to Osthryth, although she had not wished to admit her.
Constantine was more tolerant than Domhnall, and Aed about the Britons, yet it had been Griogair who had herded most of them into a church before setting fire to it. Taghd had died that day too, and Osthryth was understanding of Sula's reluctance to even admit she was at her door.
She did not have to introduce herself, for the healer recognised her still, and Sula ushered her inside her home, which had once been her mothers, and stood there with her arms folded, staring at Osthryth. Then Osthryth moved her arms.
"Come here, when it is your time," Sula said immediately, glancing at the small heap of silver in her hands. "Because I can see above all things, you are terrified, girl.
And Osthryth was. She had been through many things that would terrify many people. But the loss of control of her body, control whih may never come back again, was what she feared most. She had thought a lot of Ailie, the girl at Doire, who had suffered so much to bring forth Domnall a bastard, and she was not even twenty. How would Osthryth even be able to contemplate surviving this in her advanced years? She had had no root, and yet she had slept with Finan with abandon in St. Cuthbert's cave, below Bebbanburg.
"When it is your time, is there a way you can tell the father?" Sula asked.
"None," Osthryth told her. For Finan was lost to her.
"When did you lie with him?" And she told Sula. It was springtime - that had been when Constantine had sent ships to aid Wihtgar, and had repelled Uhtred in the process. It had to be Finan's child, it was the right time; the last time with Constantine too distant; Edward too close.
"There is nothing I can do for you more than you can do for yourself," Sula reassured her, smoothing her fingers through her long, greying hair. "You are healthy and strong."
"Sometimes the strong die, and the weak live on," Osthryth said.
"Sometimes," Sula had agreed, "But most of the time, a healthy mother will have an easy time of it. I can birth you," she added. "You have passed me enough silver, Osthryth Lackland."
That had been four months before. Before she had left with Aeswi, Oengus and Feilim. And in the meantime, Ealasaid, who had birthed even Aed, Constantine's father, had been arranged.
"I thank you," Osthryth had said, graciously, "I find that I am a fellow Briton to you, of the line of the Hen Ogledd." Sula laughed.
"Then, we are enemies, for I am of Morcant Bwlch's line." But the Briton had laughed in her telling to Osthryth and added. "We are Britons; we are of the peoples who came here after the time of ice."
"The time of ice?" Osthryth had not known what Sula had meant.
"Do you not know the stories?" She made her way over to the cooking pot, closing the rear door of her house a little for a wind had got up. "My mother used to sing a song. I remember sitting with her and my cousins, listening to her sing it when she made certain recipes. It told of a bare land, and coldness, and how the peoples left, but some came back when a green shoot sprang up and warmth came to this island."
"We coverd the whole island; we travelled. Everyone could talk to everyone else. "e had settlements on islands out in the sea, north of here. Now the wicked Sais and the wicked Northmen have overrun the land and has made it into one of misery and bloodshed and death. Your majesty," Sula added, and bowed, and Osthryth had laughed.
"Don't be afeared of the pain," Sula told her, "For childbirth is painful. Pains will come to your hips and the insides of your legs - do not let the woman get you lying down...stand," Sula continued, "And it will be easier. Do not let them treat you with anything except cool boiled water and mint leaves." She passed across to Osthryth, signalling with her hands to lift up her shirt.
Osthryth flinched a little when Sula put her hands around her bump, much as Eadith had done, and looked at Osthryth as she felt. "
"Your boy will be a poet, a song-knower, a senchai, a sgeulaiche," she told Osthryth. "He is of Eireann and will learn the stories of his culture and that of the Gaelish culture and of the Angles and the Cymric, and he will be loved for his mastery of the poem and the ballad and the magic that when transported to the other side."
"The other side?" Sula gave a hearty laugh.
"Where the Sidhe live, of course!" she laughed. "Did you not know, when the fay folk left these islands and went underground, they took all story and song and poetry with them? Only a few can harness the power, and it utterly changes them, every time, when they share it with the great and the good, the noble and the humble." She lowered Osthryth's shirt.
"It is how the sidhe ensnare the mind; whole communities of people can walk in a trance to their death, to be with the sidhe while listening to music being played or a story being told, did you not know?" Osthryth had managed to shake her head as Sula told her this. "But the sgeulaiche knows just what to say, what to do, and understands more than anyone the responsiblity he has. He must be kind, just. He must be humane to his listeners, and not lead anyone beyond." Osthryth put her hands to her stomach. A balach. Not a caileag?
"A sgeulaiche is always a boy," Sula told her. "He will resemble his father, and have his mother's wit and strength and courage. He will need it."
That had been then, and this was now.
88888888
It was Ceinid in whose arms Osthryth was being carried, and the man took her as if she were no more than a leaf in through Dunnottar's castle gates, calling to the guards to bring the drawbridge down. Osthryth flinched in his arms as a pain came to her, the same pain that had come to her when he had run to meet her.
"Go! Go!" He had called, "Tell Ealasaid!" And he carried her into the guard room and laid her onto his own bed.
Ealasaid had come as Osthryth was trying to get up, and she was firm with her and made her lie back down again.
"Aedre!" Osthryth demanded. "Where is my daughter?"
"I will send for someone to fetch her," the elderly servant assured Osthryth, "But you will indulge me, caileag, and lie here for a while? You will recover your strength - you will need it. I know you wish to stand, and believe me, I will let you when you need to."
And she called to Ceinid to call for boiling water from Glymrie in the kitchen and to tell him it was for the caileag.
"Here is not the place for you to be," Ealasaid told Osthryth. "You need to be above."
"I have no chamber," Osthryth told her. "I sleep in the back of the kitchens!"
"And now, you will go into confinement. The balach will mind me when I tell him where you will go!". And she put a stout arm out for Osthryth to grab on to, and brought her up to a standing position. "Ceinid!" Ealasaid called again. "Ceinid!" After a moment the head of the household guard got to the door, and peered around.
"Nothing to be shy of here!" Ealasaid told him, firmly. "The caileag needs to go up to Mistress Eira's room!" Osthryth started at the name: Eira had been Domhnall's wife, who had come with Mairi across from Doire when they were to marry the two princes. MaelColm's mother, she had died in childbirth, as was the lot of many women, and Osthryth shook her head determinedly.
"Dinnae fash!" Ealasaid told her, firmly. "It was Mistress Jeannie's room afore Eira's, the mother of the balach, and Mistress Sionna's afore her's. All the aons of the Alpin family were brought to the world there."
And Osthryth relented. Jeannie had been Constantine's mother; Sionna had been Aed's. Clearly, Ealasaid had made arrangements for her there through a lng tradition of births, though what exactly confinement meant she did not know.
The room had been adorned with many soft furnishings on the bed, on the walls, a long, thin square room with shutters to cover the window. There were two doors into the room, and Ealasaid had made Ceinid put her down onto her feet beside the door, shooing the man away when he had tried to linger.
Ealasaid had taken off a layer of her own clothing, before washing her own hands in the hot water and herbs which had arrived by Glymrie's own efforts, following Ceinid up the stairs, and Ealasaid had demanded more be brought, and the whitest Irish linen as they has, before shooing Glymrie away as well. But Ceinid returned within a few minutes and was watching Ealasaid and Osthryth.
"Everything has to come off," she told Osthryth, who glanced towards Ceinid. The man's thin, angular face looked firm, which Osthryth knew meant he was worried.
"Ceinid!" she called to him. "Take Buaidh! Taghd's seax! Look after them for me." With a glance to Ealasaid, who was, without question, in charge, he waited for a nod, which he received, and scooped up her blades.
"Osthryth," he began, and his sharp blue-grey eyes looked piercingly into her own. If he was about to say something to her, Osthryth would never know, for she was bustled through the first door, the second in front of her, with the midwife closing the first and, pulling at her clothes.
"And bring more boiling water and cloth, ye wee aon while yer about it!" Ealasaid called over her shoulder to Ceinid as he descended the stairs before shutting the outer door.
"You must leave them here, and I must clean ye." Ealasaid nodded to the low bed. "I have made ye a birthing gown these last months," she added, and Osthryth looked at the plain gown with ties at the front, and then glanced back sadly to her breeches and her shirt, boot and jerkin.
"First, I must bathe ye all over, and once I have done that, you will be ready for whatever God has in store for ye."
So Osthryth was standing naked, her stomach protruding more than ever it had done in her life thus far, her foreign breasts rounded, her nippled dark and big, ready for the child's nourishment, Osthryth supposed.
But she was not ready for what came next. Bathed, and dressed in a garment with sleeves and ties down the front, a quantity of clear fluid flowed from between her legs with her next muscle contraction, which Ealasaid was clearly waiting for and was ready with a linen.
"Glymrie!" Ealasaid called, but then there came a banging on the door. "Who?"
"Aedre!"
"Wait!" Ealasaid told her, and crossed to the door, turning the handle. "Turn it," she told Aedre, "And wash your arms up to your elbows." She pointed to a herb-infused bowl of water whose steam coiled rapidly into the air.
There was little time for Osthryth to think of anything much after that, for the pains came rapidly and Ealasaid helped her to her feet, making Osthryth stand, her hands on Aedre's shoulders. The elderly midwife put her hands to Osthryth's stomach and felt.
"Your child is turned, and is ready," she told her. "You are coming along." But as time went on, hours and hours of muscle contractions, the evidence was to the contrary: the baby was not coming along; he was not coming out of her at all.
"Aedre," Ealasaid said, and Osthryth could tell that something was wrong, despite the woman's efforts to hide it. "I need you to do something for me. You are going to need to give your mother's stomach a push, to give the child some help. Can you do that?"
Osthryth heard Aedre agree, and she saw a flash of gold-red hair in her line of vision.
"Osthryth," Ealasaid told her. Aedre is going to come behind you and pull your stomach in. You need to tell me when the next ache is coming, for she must do it at the right time. Your baby is ready to come; your birth canal is ready for him to come. He just needs some help."
Help. That was what Ealasaid called it. And it had helped, in the end. Finan Beag was born within ten minutes. But those ten minutes were the most agonising Osthryth had ever felt. Osthryth bore down on Aedre's arm at the time of the next contraction, but Aedre did nothing and Ealasaid had to reassure her that everything was going to be all right.
On the next one, Aedre pulled. Her hands were roughly on the baby's bottom, and in pulling, it caused crowning. Osthryth gritted her teeth, for she her cervix was now being forced to accommodate a head. One more - pull, and another, until Osthryth's body was doing it on her own.
"Aedre, you must catch the child!" Ealasaid told her, as she lay down layers of linen between Osthryth's legs, replacing the blood-soaked ones. "Get your hands into the boiling water, quickly now!" Ealasaid insisted.
Just in time. Osthryth's body, which had not known contractions until encouraged to do so with Aedre's help, felt agonised, as more and more contractions pushed the child out from her. She felt the child pass out of her, and a thin cord by her leg, and she recalled Ailia's child's cord. But that was all she remembered, for Osthryth had left and Mairi had taken charge of that birth while Osthryth had thrown up outside.
Some mumbling came from Ealasaid not long afterwards, and Aedre said, "You're biting it!" What exactly the servant was biting, Osthryth did not know, but she felt a second pushing with muscles aflame again. A second child?
"Another?" Osthryth managed, but she heard Ealasaid laugh. Surely not twins!
"It is called the afterbirth," Ealasaid told her. "Your son was living within it when he was inside you, it protected him from bumps. And beneath her legs fell a gelatious mass of matter.
"What is to be done with that?" Osthryth asked, when Ealasaid had folded it away carefully.
"Why I will get Glymrie to cook it, of course!"
"For the animals?" Aedre asked, suspiciously.
"For us!" Ealasaid laughed. "It will go well in a broth."
And Ealasaid folded up a clean linen cloth between Osthryth's legs before calling for yet more water and washing down her thighs. Aedre helped her to the bed. But she had no eyes for her adopted daughter just then: Osthryth's eyes were on her son, her beautiful, black-haired son, whose hands were curled up tightly, and who wriggled over her chest to find her nipple as Ealasaid eased the dress back to her shoulders.
For Osthryth, time could have stopped still for her there, in this perfect little moment of transquility, just her son and her, his little warm body lying directly on her own skin as he suckled, and she did not see Ceinid bridle at the quantity of blood-soaked linen that Ealasaid had piled together and Aedre was helping take downstairs, nor the waterfall of red-brown water falling from the second storey window.
She dozed, and so did the child. Osthryth's son.
88888888
"What will you call him, mhathair?" Aedre asked her, when next Osthryth opened her eyes. It was growing dark outside. Big flakes of snow were flying past the window. Yet, Osthryth felt hot and would have stood, naked, by it if she could.
"Finan, Finan Beag," Osthryth said.
"Little Finan," Aedre translated, and looked down with loving eyes to her brother.
"Have him take your teat again,"encouraged Ealasaid, who had wiped away the mess at the back end of the child with a clean linen. "Put his nose near; he will root and find it." There was such a peace in it, a satisfaction that she was feeding her child and Finan Beag went to sleep in her arms.
"Now, this is what you must do," Ealasaid told her, matter of factly. "Now, wrap a cloth here, about his bottom, and absorbent moss, and for yourself." She drew Osthryth's hand down to between her legs. "This bleeding will occur for the next fifty days, and while you bleed, you may not leave the room, except for the privy." Ealasaid indicated the wall beside Osthryth. She stared at it and back to Ealasaid.
"Privy?"
"It is behind the tapestry, which I will take down shortly. It is important you pass waste yourself now, pace around while an aon Beag sleeps; you must now try to mend your own body."
"An aon Beag," Osthryth repeated. She liked it. "The little one." It suited him well, although at the moment he looked as Aedre had looked when just born, like a skinned rabbit. He would fill out, she knew.
And she thought the contractions were painful, Osthryth told herself, when she went to the privy closet and began to pace, hoping for, encouraging a bowel movement to come. Hours, it took, for anything to move in her guts, and she had gone back to feed Young Finan twice before anything shifted. And by God it shifted. How did women do this? How did they do this multiple times?
Osthryth cleaned herself and sterilised her hands, closing the closet door and, with a brief glance at Young Finan, took herself to the window. It was winter, in Alba, and it was snowing. Yet Osthryth felt as hot as if it were high summer.
And more of the same happened over the next week, night and day, hour and hour:
...Young Finan murmured in his sleep...
...a serving woman came to replace the boiled herb-water and remove the closet bucket...
...Aedre kept up her unrelenting attention by bringing her food to eat and cooled, boiled water to drink...
While she loved Glymrie's food, he was wont to bring her blood sausage, which Osthryth did not like, but suffered because she knew it was making her strength return, as did the milk brought to her by Ealasaid, who took Young Finan in her arms, nodding at his "coming on".
However, Osthryth had not mentioned her hot spells, until one night when Aedre had come to see her mother and found her faint by the window. Ealasaid was called, and Osthryth returned to bed.
"Has anyone except for the servants, or Aedre or myself been here, Osthryth?" And she had told her that they had not.
"There is a condition, which can happen much after a birth," Ealasaid told her, "Where a mother can get ill if where they are is unclean. Has anyone been to see you, other than the servant girl, or Aedre, or me?"
"No-one," Osthryth told her, and it had taken for Osthryth to drawn a chair up to the window that night to cool her hot limbs and face to make her change her story. Below, climbing up the wall of the castle, gripping effortlessly over the uneven stonework was the king.
88888888
Ealasaid had barred the way when Constantine had tried to enter the confinement room a few days after Osthryth had birthed Finan Beag.
"If you want to see her alive you will leave her be when I tell ye, balach!" Ealasaid told Constantine, sternly. "You cannot go in!"
But he had been climbing the walls every night since that night, he told Osthryth, just to see her, and the child.
"I stopped coming all the way over to ye," Constantine told her, "When mhathair Ealasaid told me not to." That was good, Osthryth thought, for there had been times when her nursing dress had been off all the way at the front and she would have been totally on display, with Young Finan asleep on her stomach having had a feed, though he had seen it all before.
"So I've been checking in ye, from the window ledge here." Constantine looked over to the blankets shaped with an indentation in them, where Young Finan was now sleeping. "He always looks so calm," Constantine added, and Osthryth pushed the chair back and paced over to her child, nestling him up into her arms. He stirred a little, but went back to sleep at her movement. Constantine watched without saying anything, and Young Finan gave a little "grr-grr" in his sleep.
"He seems so content," Constantine said, and Osthryth realised that the king had not taken his eyes from Young Finan's little face. "Have you decided on a name?"
"Finan," Osthryth said at once, seeing Constantine bristle. "I need him to be with me until he is old enough." Constantine's eyes drifted across to the bundle in her arms again.
"Was this how it was with Mairi?" Osthryth asked him. "Were Cellach and Ildubh like this?"
"I was away," Constantine told her. "At Scone, at Dal Riata. At Dunadd. I never knew her being like this."
"She probably wasn't, not for this long," Osthryth told him. "She had a wet nurse for them both."
"And you have not?" Osthryth shook her head.
"I can arrange for - " But Osthryth shook her head again.
"It is quite alright," she told him quickly. "I am only glad I made it back home for his birth."
A bell rang, and Osthryth noticed a line of light on the horizon.
"Christmas Day," Constantine told her. "I am to be at the chapel."
Christmas? Thought Osthryth, in wonder. It only seemed like five minutes since Aedre was handing her son to her. Night and day seemed to blend into one.
"I am to be at the chapel," Constantine repeated, though he seemed reluctant to go, nor take his eyes of Young Finan. Then he turned his eyes to her, and said, in a voice that seemed half-strangled, "You took my place once, Osthryth, and I could never forget it. How I wished I could have taken your place in this!"
"It is what I had to bear," Osthryth told Constantine, kindly. "I have had the best treatment, and the best care. There is no reason I should die." And she watched her dearest friend shudder for a moment, and knew then that had been his dread.
"Have you given consideration to the proposal, to my kinsman?"
Osthryth started; she had not even thought of it, nor even spoken to Constantine of all that had happened in Mercia and Waeleas, although by now he would have spoken to Aeswi and Oengus and Feilim.
"Who is it you speak of?" Osthryth asked. But Constantine shook his head.
"Another time," he told her, before passing her something. "A gift for the new mother," he told her. Osthryth looked for an object, but Constantine smiled widely - it would amuse him her looking for it, but he did not keep her long and said, "Land. At Berric. If you choose to marry my kinsman, his land is worth a hundred acres. I would gift you another two hundred."
Three hundred acres? A good area of land. A farmer could do well there, as well as anyone could with border armies marauding over it. And Osthryth thought, she would know both armies; she would know Constantine's men, and Wihtgar's. She could settle for that arrangement; she could settle for the kinsman.
"I owe Mercia two years," Osthryth told him. "You know this now, do you not?" Constantine paused for a moment, then his eyes crinkled at the corners.
"Aye," Constantine agreed. "You erred and you admitted your crime. You stood, in order for a queen to have judgment passed."
"It was a matter of honour," Osthryth told him.
"You could have fled, come back home?" Constantine suggested.
"No, I could not." And Constantine took her hands and told her Aeswi, Oengus and Feilim had had nothing but praise for her conduct.
"And to think I could esteem you no higher, Osthryth, then you do this, of course you couldnae come back. You are worthy, so worthy of Domhnall's name for yer."
Gael-warrior, Osthryth remembered. He had drawn her close, though not in the way Constantine did, for men were what interested Domhnall, and told her that her actions in saving the princes and princesses in the Norse raid at Doire were worthy of their highest honour.
"Hywel has agreed," Constantine confided, "That, if at some time in the future the Sais get too strong, he will hold one end of the net and I the other, and we will pull very hard, Osthryth to protect our ancient lands. What word did you give Dyfnwal?"
"Only that, if I was ever in a position to vow to Strathclyde I would." Constantine paused, considering her words.
""Strathclyde? You swore to Strathclyde not Dyfnwal?"
"Strathclyde, as it is my mother's country. I am Rheged."
"Your marriage - " Constantine began.
"We have just discussed that," Osthryth told him. "Once I have served Mercia."
"No," Constantine said. "Your marriage to Guthred Harthacnutsson. It has brought Dyfnwal land, and now all of Cumbraland is Strathclyde land, and that means it is the land of Alba. I am beyond the wall, the dream of my father." But Osthryth's brow wrinkled and her heart sank. Guthred's marriage to her still held?
"How is it then that I can marry your kinsman, if I am still married to Guthred?" But Constantine had thrown back his head and was laughing.
"Did ye not know?" he said, almost choking on the words. "Guthred is dead! I had a message from the monastery last week at Caer Ligualid - they recognise Dyfnwal's claim of land, and have already sent the Abbot to Glaschu."
"Good," Osthryth said, closing her eyes for a moment. And then opened them. Was it -
"Finnolai," Constantine confirmed. "Abbot Findal."
A splendid Christmas gift, to find out then, Osthryth thought.
"Then I will marry your kinsman," Osthryth told him. "But, only after I have served Mercia. I will marry him and become a farmer, and Young Finan can have a home." Constantine made to lean over to touch Finan Beag's cheek, but withdrew it slowly when the baby shuffled in his wrap. He looked to Osthryth.
"Truly you will do this?"
"I will," Osthryth agreed. "I will work the land and I will accept your gift, Constantine, with all my heart."
A strange look passed over Constantine's face for a moment, and he reached for her hands, before pulling her to him. They two were one again, as they were when the world was quiet, and even the borders of their flesh felt liminal and they were one heart, one mind, and Osthryth was kissing him back, as she always did, his warm face close to hers.
It was only when he reached for her in a way Osthryth knew of old, which led to, well, which led ultimately, to the creation of more of these - she glanced down at Young Finan - that she pulled away. But she hadn't wanted to. Is that what it would have been like if she had kept their child, twenty years before?
It would not be the last time the king of the Scots would kiss Osthryth - the last time would be on that fateful day when both stalking away from a warrior-carpeted battlefield heavy with grievous loss.
That was far in the future, but a future whose destination had begun with Osthryth, with Hywel and Dyfnwal and Constantine. And Aethelstan, who would wonder what lay beyond Bebbanburg,
Constantine was looking at Young Finan again, his eyes seemingly unable to look at anything else.
"Stay here, of course stay here until your confinement is over, till he has grown a little. I may still need your advice, and I wish to speak to you about other matters." The bell rang again, and Constantine let her hand go at last, before hand-holding down the stonework as he had done before, adjusting his clothing and crown, and striding sedately towards the chapel.
Young Finan moved slightly in his wrappings, and Osthryth moved from the window, pulling the shutter, lying her child next to her as he slept.
Advice, Osthryth thought, as she replayed the kiss in her mind. You want me work for you still. And while she could be outraged at being put upon, delaying her marriage, becoming a warrior again, it suited her too.
88888888
After the service, and Constantine had feasted and seen his mormaers and lords to their beds he fell to his own, pushing his hand down his breeches and feeling for his cock. It had been stiff for most of the time through the church service and even copious amounts of ale had not dampened its enthusiam.
He had crept in to see her so many times. She had been cradling the babe, or asleep curled up. But once he had climbed up to find Osthryth all laid out, all beautiful, breasts soft and round, nipples hard from the babe's interest. Her stomach was crinkled from her greatness, but it had shimmered in the moonlight, when he had spied her. Her legs were closed, but how he wished he could pry them open no - better yet - that she would open them for him, willingly, as she had done many times before.
If only he had been able marry her, Constantine told himself, as he had always wanted to. But it was impossible - being a member of the royal family precluded nearly every female, unless they were a Gaelish royal, which left few choices. His father would have sent Osthryth away had Constantine even thought about asking.
But she was his, in his heart. And - his hand worked himself, almost automatically, feeling the ghost of a feeling that he knew pushing his cock inside Osthryth would produce - more than that...she was a Gaelish princess in his eyes; she had been his since she had stood, magnificent, before a Norseman, swinging her sword high, to defend him.
His hand was her cunt; his hand were the walls of her, pushing back on him, as it gripped the sides of it as he worked his foreskin up and down, causing those brief shocks of pleasure that he always got at the start of humping.
Constantine had not quite known what he had been doing with her all those years ago when he had tricked her into coming to his room, and pushed inside her, only that he had seen his father do it with a serving girl and he wanted to do the same to this strange girl who had turned up at his home.
Once he had taken her he discovered why men did this, and after he had done this a few times with Osthryth, Constantine realised that if he let himself go a little further he could allow himself to let go of his seed.
And once he had learned that, Osthryth seemed to give in to him more and more. He had been disgusted that Domhnall had used his plan of marrying someone to Guthred with Osthryth as the bride, and he had spent many a frustrated night wanking himself off with hatred in his heart. To know that she had let herself be had by that Saxon bastard Edward was almost too much to bear. And now this man, Finan? He had been hideously foul to Osthryth - when Constantine had found out about him, but had she known who he really was? If she had, she had forgiven him quickly enough.
Forgiveness was not easy to find in Osthryth though, Constantine thought, as he pulled his hand backwards and forwards, getting broader and longer as his orgasm built. It was more than likely Osthryth did not know who he was at all.
It had taken a lot of time for Constantine to learn that being grumpy and domineering to Osthryth was not the way to get her to open her legs for him. Instead, he had to trust her, and she had delivered.
The question was, would he be able to be restrained enough with her when Osthryth married with his consent? His hand was working faster and faster now: it was her hand, it was her making him feel...incredible...
And Constantine felt incredible too, for she was within reach, vulnerable, at his mercy, with large red lumps of teats that needed pinching here...pressing there...a hand of his could work its way up her leg, and find those uneven lumps between her cunt lips which made her yield to his touch when he gently moved his fingers over them...
Constantine came, and then worked himself up and came once more. Beyond him the bells rung again, and he used the rhythm to get stiff again. Touching her breasts...kneading her nipples so they grew from pale, flat nubs to deep red, mounds from his attenton...thusting deep between her legs and having her bear down and riding him...
He had better get used to just the memories now, Constantine told himself, as his cock spurted out the last of what was in his balls, and he sighed and sighed to regain his breath. Once she was another man's wife, he knew Osthryth would never yield to him as a mistress. He could find whores, yes, Constantine knew many. But they would not be the same under him as Osthryth's pliable body.
But he could keep her here, within his grasp - he grasped his cock again, but his body was empty of semen for now, and he could bring no more arousal forth...except the satisfaction in his own mind...
...and it was not only physical pleasure he garnered from Osthryth, sometimes he missed her presence, just lying next to him, talking, being with him...they had done that far more often than they had humped...
...and...
...Osthryth had borne him a son - that child was his...his own. Despite what she believed, the boy was their son, not the son of that Ulaid bastard...after everything he had done to Gormlaith...no...the child was hers and his own. Young Finan was their son, together.
88888888
Constantine returned two days later, climbing the wall with expert speed. Osthryth first noticed that someone might be outside when two sparrows twittered away in annoyance at having been disturbed from their resting place. Constantine lifted a lean leg over the windowsill, bright winter sunlight shining on his black hair, his pale skin illuminated in the fierceness of its intensity.
But it was still bitterly cold and Osthryth, though hot, pulled a boiled fleece around her shoulders.
Constantine sat with his back to the window, his feet inside and spoke to Osthryth over at the bed.
"Who came, to the Christmas feast?" Osthryth asked, feeling a vague disconnection to even Aedre, as Constantine detailed the young adults in his court getting on well, with plans and hopes of their own.
"Dyfnwal came, and the mormaers," Constantine tld her. "He was delighted to know of Owain, and Owain confided to me that he was pleased that his father had got on with him. He will be sending for him in the summer, to live at Glaschu."
"Will he come back?" Osthryth asked, "I feel I did not get a chance to know him properly." She had guessed the answer, or rather Aeswi had, but she wanted to see if Constantine would tell her anyway.
"Did you notice how desperate Dyfnwal was to keep you in Glaschu?" Constantine told her, snowflakes catching in his long hair. "He believed your child was the last true heir to the Hen Ogledd, the old north of King Coel, but he is wrong. Eochaid had sanctions put upon him by Domhnall, one of which - "
Exile Osthryth guessed, of his son, and she said as much to Constantine.
"Just so," Constantine replied. "And he knows, too, that his own father is not Eochaid." Osthryth said nothing. Hopefully the subject of Griogair would not come up again. Instead, Osthryth changed the subject.
"And Anarawd has a daughter?" Constantine laughed.
"Osthryth, will you let me tell the story?" he chuckled. "But yes, her name was Angharad, and she gave her life when hers and Dyfnwal's son was born. He did not know about him, and now Dyfnwal has his heir. Now, I hope, he will act less irrationally as regards to the Norse in my traditional lands."
"Are they getting on?" Osthryth asked, noticing Constantine's eyes drifting over to Young Finan again.
"I believe so. Since you stopped Aedre from going marauding in the woods with Ildubh, he has found Owain a suitable scabbereen in her place," Constantine explained. "Aedre still goes fishing with them; Cellach stands aloof, wishing he was young enough to join them, but trains hard with MaelColm.
Osthryth smiled. The next generation of Alba, all together, carefree, making bonds that would last a lifetime.
"MaelColm looks like Domhnall," she told Constantine. Osthryth had noticed the lithe, stocky young man in the courtyard one day, and had had to look twice, so resembled he his father.
"And a princess of the Ulaid may be waiting for him," Constantine told her, "Although it has been difficult with the unrest, and no Mael Muire to act as matchmaker. "MaelColm needs to marry to secure Domhnall's bloodline; daughters of the king of Leitrim I am the process of securing for Ildubh and Cellach."
None in England, Osthryth thought, nor Gwynedd nor Deheubarth. Not even Cornwalum, and Constantine had been patient, hoping the civil war amongst the UI Neill may end and another generation born with, preferably, females.
"It is a pity about Gormlaith," Constantine continued. "Two sons, her husband shaming her, remarrying the other brother, disowned, disowned again, then wandering as a destitute beggar around Ulster. Dyfnwal would have had her back in Strathclyde if he had known."
Poor Gormlaith, Osthryth thought again, but then asked, "Two sons?"
"Oh yes," Constantine went on. "When Flann Sinna sent her to Cineal Mac Conchobar, his elder son married her. They were blessed with twins. The other brother fell in love with a girl of low status and married her, much to his father's disapproval."
"So what happened to the sons?" Osthryth asked. She knew the very end of Gormlaith's story, with Niall Glundubh, and her beginning now, thanks to Dyfnwal, her brother. But this was a part of the girl's life Osthryth had never heard of before. "Do they live? Are they with her at Diore?" Constantine shrugged.
"Something happened with the low born girl, she ran away, or perhaps died. Domnall would know. The brother died too, or left somehow. Anyway," Constantine folded his arms, "Gormlaith married the other brother, and bore him sons too. But he repudiated her because she was of the UI Neill. Cineal began a rebellion, and Gormlaith was sent back to Flann, who arranged a match with the king of Munster."
So that was the middle of Gormlaith's tale, which seemed even sadder than the end or the beginning. Then horror stole over her: these were the brothers who had attacked her, Ninefingers and his brother.
"The sons?" Osthryth repeated, for something was clawing at her mind, trying to get her to listen. "What happened to them?"
"Have grown up as Conchobar's grandsons, as far as I know," Constantine told her. "Cineal and Flann Sinna are no longer convivial; Cineal had begun to ally with the Norse and send them to the UI Neill territory: there was plenty to choose from; Flann was sore to lose Dubh Llyn though - " He broke off.
"You look pale, Osthryth," Constantine told her, and moved closer to her, glancing at Young Finan's crib. "Do you have all you need?"
"I have all I need. Except - "
"Except?"
How was she to tell him? Except that she had no freedom now, she was here, keeping safe, with her son? Osthryth was infinitely grateful that Constantine had provided for her, yet, where was she around the Christmas table? Where where her eyes alighting onto the young princes, and Owain, who had travelled so far with them for the promise of a kingdom?
"I need to be your warrior again, Constantine," she told him, plainly. "I need to have my sword in my hand and my seax to my hip and fight for a cause I believe in."
"What do you believe in?" he asked her, his pale blue-grey eyes picking at the micro-expressions on her face.
"Alba," she told him. "The Gaelish and the Cymric kingdoms. That the Saxons and the Angles must remove expansionist ideas from their minds. That Wihtgar needs a purpose to hold Bebbanburg, one with more will than Uhtred has to take it back."
Constantine thought through her words again, and smiled, softly.
"It does my heart good to hear such passion, Osthryth," he told her. "Do you really wish to settle with my kinsman?" Osthryth flashed him a look. Was this a test?
"You offer me a man to settle for," she told him, "And land in a place with which I am familiar. I will be absolutely content with that," she told him, "But I must fulful my years to Aethelflaed. Nothing else will satisfy my soul. Then I can put aside my blades and bring forth life rather than take it."
Constantine reached for her hands and Osthryth allowed him to take them. Through the window snow began to sp-sp against the open shutters.
"Then, that is what you must do. Stay, until Young Finan is old enough that you can bear to leave him, and then serve your time - " he broke off, and put a finger to her lips, " - you do not have to make a decision about the marriage yet, either. You can wait until you return, and after that - "
"He will still want to marry me?" Osthryth asked Constantine. The king nodded.
"Yes, Osthryth, he will still want to marry you."
And then the baby stirred, and began a "haa-haa" cry of a child in want of food, and Constantine moved away slowly towards the window, watching his woman pull open her dress and dangle a red, swollen nipple towards the mouth of his son.
Constantine turned abruptly, and began the cold climb down to his own stableyard.
88888888
"We met on the ship, that took the Norse back to Eireann," Osthryth told Aedre, as she relieved her mother of her little tiny bundle. Washed in boiled water - twice - Aedre curled Finan Beag close to her, and Osthryth admitted, the image suited her adopted daughter.
"Anlaf was aboard, one of the Norse, and he mentioned that your father had invited him here." Aedre shook her golden head, as Young Finan opened his eyes and looked at her.
"I do not care," she told Osthryth. "I am content here. I can earn my keep, rather than marry him."
"Aedre, I will not begin an argument now," Osthryth told her. She was weary, and that morning her eyelids felt heavy. Ealasaid had closed the shutters, but she would have liked them open once more. "Listen to your father; at least meet the man. He was intelligent, he was good looking. He is of your heritage."
"Part of my heritage, mhathair," Aedre told Osthryth. "Like you, part of me is Anglish, part of me is also Gaelish." All of that was true, but Osthryth felt she couldn't put much of a sentence together.
"Aedre," she said at last, when tiredness overcame her. "Let me have Little Finan back again, and you need to do something for me." Alarm registered on Aedre's features. Osthryth must have come across as very serious, for her daughter got to her feet. She placed the back of her hand on Osthryth's forehead.
"Mhathair, you are hot," Aedre told her. "Ealasaid said I needed to make sure I checked. I will bring her - "
But before Osthryth could protest, she was sick, bringing back all of the lovely fish Glymrie had prepared for her. It was true, she had had a headache that morning, and was as hot as ever, but these feelings were accelerating quickly, and she laid back her head onto her pillow, panting.
"Aedre," Osthryth said again. "You need to do something for me. At the back - of the kitchens near the stores - " Osthryth was sick once more. " - open the shutters, Aedre, please - " she begged. And her daughter did, passing Osthryth water before she sank back onto the bed.
"Aedre," Osthryth managed, "Near where I sleep, there is a stone which can me moved - press by the stable-side wall - " she coughed, " - repeat back to me?"
"A stone, on the western-side wall," Aedre said, but Osthryth caught her arm.
"Stable-side. Wrapped in leather and tied with a binding, are medicines I got from a healer in Mercia. Take them to Sula," she said, deliberately, making sure Aedre heard her. "She is a healer, beyond Dunnottar's walls - I know you know what I mean!" Osthryth shouted. "She may want silver; there is silver in the wrap. Give everything to her."
88888888
Osthryth awoke to noises around her. Light streamed in through the window and she felt cold. January was cold in Dunnottar, Domhnall had told Osthryth, when she had shivered through her first one.
"...Osthryth...?" She turned her head, and saw Ealasaid. Then a panic bit in her throat.
"Finan Beag...!"
"Perfectly fine," she heard the old woman say, and then caught a whisper in the air of her talking to someone else.
"...the king has given you leave to remain!" she insisted. There was someone else there. And Osthryth vaguely remembered a crunching of leather and a clink of silver.
88888888
"Some of these I have only ever heard about." Sula was sifting through the herbs forcibly purchased by Osthryth by Easith. "I do not have your words for what I think it is: child-bed-fever."
Osthryth was asleep, and Young Finan fussing for food, so she encouraged Aedre to hold the baby at his mother's breast to suck. Ealasaid groaned at the words.
"It is as I feared."
"Pack her with this fungus," she told Aedre. "Do not use it all; make a broth, bring me back in two days."
As Sula left, pushing on the outer door of the confinement room, she met the cold, blue-grey gaze of Constantine.
"My king," Sula acknowledged, bowing her grey head and keeping tight the roll of leather in her hands as tightly as she could.
"You will come back," Constantine demanded. "You will make her live!"
I will do all I can," Sula reassured the king, placing a delicate hand on his shoulder. "The Morrigan has her close at hand; she has the will of a she-bear."
88888888
"Is mother going to live?" Aedre. That was Aedre.
"We keep applying the fungus, as the healer told us." There was a pause and a "thup" of wood on wood. "Encourage as much of that as you can down her throat, caleag beag."
88888888
And when Osthryth was strong enough, and knew that Young Finan was well, and had been eating dry bread and mash and had been taken out in the bright sunshine in Aedre's arms, she got the strength together to get down four flights of narrow stairs in her own and, to Ealasaid's astonishment, accompanied Young Finan in his daily outing.
"He grows by the day!" Aedre said, delightedly. And Osthryth requested a chamber with Young Finan away from the confinement room, and her strength returned on Glymrie's food and the joy she saw in her son thriving.
The mormaers came to seek counsel or give it to Constantine, and that summer she spoke to Aeswi, who had not recognised her in a dress with lengthening hair, and Feilim and Oengus, who had both come to walk with her while Young Finan found his feet.
Ceinid, Osthryth learned, had been with Uunst on the east coast, for Harald Finehair threatened the shore, but had yet not been able to take hold of any land.
And Owain came, and Dyfnwal, and Wihtgar that summer, her brother sailing his fleet up the Forth, nodding in greeting to the king of Alba, and plotted the reinforcement of Bebbanburg in exchange for a favourable to extend Constantine's fleet guard.
And Finan Beag grew, and delighted and enchanted everyone who met him, and Osthryth forgot the feel of Buaidh in her hand and the still, aliveness she got from sleeping out of doors after day on day riding.
88888888
It was a year later, almost to the day of the beginning of harvest when Aedre came running to find Osthryth in absolute desolation the next summer when Young Finan could toddle-walk around, and did so at every opportunity, to cry into her lap that Ildubh had been drowned. He and Owain had been daing one another to swim between Dunnottar and Culdees, out playing as they had been, when a current had whipped him away, and he was dashed on the rocks on the southern bank.
The monks at Culdees had brought out his body and taken it tenderly to his fatherand Aedre sobbed that she had seen it all. Owain was devastated beyond anything, and Dyfnwal came at Constantine's request to be with his son, and a month of mourning was placed upon Dunnottar.
Osthryth spent two months sleeping next to her daughter, with Young Finan at her side and Aedre woke up screaming and crying, but these faded as time went on, until the night Aedre told her she needed Osthryth no longer.
And that had been the day Anlaf Guthfrithsson had arrived at Dunnottar with two of his men, and had charmed Aedre into silence. Challenged by a stubborn Ceinid, it took Osthryth to identify the Norseman, and that took some doing as it had been nearly two years before in the fog when she had last seen the man.
But he was Anlaf, and he remembered their flight over the Irish Sea and remembered Owain, and it was the same summer when she had finally sought Constantine, and spent the night with him, doing nothing more than lie next to him. Osthryth waited for him to talk about Ildubh, but Constantine did not. He said little of anything to her, just lay next to her and held her hand. He was more concerned about Cellach's return, from Domnall at Doire, and the words he would have to find to be the father his eldest son needed him to be, he told Osthryth.
Another year passed, and they began to heal, as the summer brought glorious weather and fewer Norse than Constantine's mormaers imagined. Dyfnwal was in his element teaching Owain all he could, with Cellach giving support to the future king of Strathclyde, and Osthryth was pleased the prince had settled in his new home with his father, though Osthryth guessed he must be missing his life in Gwynedd.
Then came the time, near the end of Young Finan's second year, when rhe mormaers came with news that the Norse had begun to make permanent settlements in Northumbran land.
Wihtgar visited, and suitably fussed Osthryth's son, before meeting with Constantine, and then feasting with the lords, before strengthening the alliance between Alba and Bebbanburg by offering a place for a seaborne army fixed at Bebbanburg in exchange for southern defenses beyond Eoferwic.
It was the first time Osthryth had heard the Norseman named Ragnall, but not the first with the name Sygtryggr. Constantine was leaving to ride south with Wihtgar.
"We are going to make our claim to the Wall loud and clear once again," he told Osthryth, and Wihtgar's face came to light when he scooped up Young Finan and the boy babbled to him, pointing over the river and giggled in delight when his Uncle Wihtgar joked with him and tickled him, and Ceinid gave him a sword, and he "swooshed" it in the air to the delight of everybody.
88888888
And two more years passed, and Young Finan grew in the household of Constantine mac Aed Ui Alpin. And Osthryth was happy. Reasonably happy. But her sword and seax were idle in the armoury and she had to dare herself to find them and dare herself to make them battle worthy.
She had Young Finan, who would copy the tales Aedre told him, of elves and dragons and cities under blue seas, and she listen to her son as he managed incomplete words to carry the same magical message to ears, to senses. When Young Finan told a story, everyone was compelled by some hidden force to stop and to listen.
And she kissed and loved Finan Beag, for how could she bear to be apart from him for so long and this was what what she was giving up. Osthryth had not trained, she was out of shape. Since the fever, she was more tired, and felt her age.
And then one day, when Young Finan was four years old and had been taken off that day with Aedre and Cellach into the woods under strict instructions he was not to go off on his own, Osthryth stood in the armoury.
She and unlaced her dress, letting it fall to the cobbles and feeling the flesh of her body with her hands, ruined beyond original shape, and made a decision.
Binding her breasts as tightly as she could manage, Osthryth pulled on a pair of utility breeches, ones reserved for a guard when needed, and there was always a supply with the weapons. She found a shirt and jerkin and a pair of boots that were too big for her then took up Taghd's seax. Around her, strands of hair floated down to the floor. She was Osthryth again.
And she could now go with Aeswi, and meet with the Mercian guard. That was Constantine's request for her, of her time to be spent in his service. Finan Beag would be cared for, and Aedre had agreed while Osthryth was away that she would care for him. Anlaf had been agreed upon, and they were betrothed, but Constantine was not ready for his daughter to leave him yet?
Then she pushed open the door of the armoury and wakened a sleepy Ceinid, who sat up at once as she stood before him.
"Constantine said he wanted to give me Bebbanburg as my bride price," she grumbled to Constantine's head guard. Ceinid nodded in agreement.
"But I do not want it," she told him. "Bebbanburg is nothing to me." Osthryth watched as Ceinid sat up, his long, black hair swinging to either side of his face.
"Nor do I want a marriage with the implication that I am in need of a father for Young Finan," she added. But she was prepared to settle, for the sake of her son. And Osthryth wondered that she had never seen Ceinid properly before.
His hands had touched her body after the day of her first battle, when she had impersonated Constantine, and yet to be mature feelings in her body had remembered his soft, lithe touch to her skin as he saw to her wounds, but Osthryth remembered tender fingers on her body.
"He speaks of a lord, to whom I could marry," she told him. "I am no lady; I want no dress, not ladies to whirl about me. I am a warrior, and if I cannot be a warrior, I can be a farmer." She sank down next to him. "Can a lord want me, like this? Not a dress, but a sword?"
Ceinid took her hand, in the same way as he used to, when she was small.
"I cannot marry him yet; I owe time to Mercia, in exchange for Young Finan remaining safe here in Dunnottar." She turned a plaintive expression to Ceinid, who took her other hand.
"Osthryth," he said, softly, smiling softy. "Can - "
" - who is it, Ceinid?" Osthryth cried, sighing deeply. "I can never promise to love him; I can never promise to be a real wife to him..." She trailed off, and settled into her gloom. Then, she was aware that he was stroking the backs of her hands with his thumbs.
"Can you not guess?" Ceinid asked gently, his face breaking into a smile. "I could imagine no-one else managing my family's estate."
"You?" Osthryth could hear the shock in her own voice. And, yet, she recalled Ceinid once confessing that he had grown up by the sea, within sight of Lindisfarne.
"If you will, Osthryth," he said, sinking to his knees beside her. "I do not ask that you love me, or that you owe me anything, nor even that you will lie with me. Just that you accept my offer, turn your blade into a ploughshare."
But Osthryth withdrew her hands, folding them together, fiddling with them.
"You are...serious? " she asked, softly. And then, Osthryth could not imagine no-one else. She could see herself living with, being with Ceinid for the rest of her days, working a farm, being at peace. Osthryth had known him since she was eleven and trusted him more than she trusted anyone.
So, why not? Osthryth asked herself.
Why not?
She had said she would marry Finan, she reminded herself; she had told him so. Only when he came to her. Which might be tomorrow, or it might be never. It had been four years so far. Carefully, she took off the coin on its leather strip and folded it up and put it into her pocket.
"Osthryth, will you marry me?" Ceinid's voice brought her back to the present.
"What?"
"Allow me to be your husband; share in my land." Ceinid was still kneeling, still smiling.
"But - " But Ceinid placed a finger to her lips.
"You do not have to tell me now," he told her. "I would not expect you to marry me until you had been to Mercia and served your time there."
Mercia. She had to go to Mercia first.
"Osthryth," Ceinid continued. "I have no expectations of you. If you are unhappy, it will not be of my doing. I will ask nothing of you, Osthryth, the estate will be yours to manange as you see fit.
"Where is this land?"
"Berric," Ceinid repeated. It wasn't because she hadn't heard that Osthryth wanted him to repeat it, rather that she wanted to check. And her mind ran on to the tall cliffs with wide bays, blue-grey shallow sea. Constantine was clever, too clever. By putting her next to Bebbanburg, he was placing her neither in Alba nor Northumbria, yet simultaneously in both.
"Osthryth, I love you," Ceinid said, at last. "I have loved you from the moment I took you by the arm from that boat, just over there, and hauled you in front of King Aed. Impudent, stubborn, arorgant little bratling, you were, and you promised Aed you would fight for him and for Alba. And you did, you did, Osthryth."
"You are wrong," Osthryth told him, her mind made up. Ceinid's face betrayed confusion and he waited for her to continue.
"You are wrong - I do have to tell you now. Ask me again?"
Ceinid did not hesistate and reached for her hands.
"Osthryth, will you marry me?"
"Yes, Ceinid," Osthryth replied, "I will. I will marry you."