Autumn 918, Berric

It was a few weeks before Osthryth set out from Dunnottar, heading east and then south towards Berric. Life had become much different since she had married, and she had moved out of the tower room, much to young Finan's displeasure, and into the armoury room with Ceinid.

It was only temporary, and it took some getting used to that she was now not on duty to train the mormaer sons, or even to talk very much to the men. There was a gap between them now, a gap borne of her marriage and the respect that they were showing to her, being their general's wife.

"I am not to come with you, so says Athair," young Finan told his mother one morning. "I am to stay here, to learn to fight, to learn to read."

"Who told you that?" Osthryth asked him. It had been a bright, cold morning, close to Aedre's birthday. Not long before the end of the battle season, where warriors, where armies, would be lost if they attempted siege in the winter. No word had come from Wihtgar about any attack on Bebbanburg, either, though he had sent a message of congratulations for her wedding.

"Aedre," young Finan said, showing his mother his illumnated letter. Constantine, as indulgent as ever to Osthryth's children, as well as his own, had allowed him to go to Culdees and use the precious pigments. "It is going to be used in a gospel book," he went on. "Look at the gold, and the purpaidh!"

"Yes," Osthryth nodded, misfooted now at her son's assertion. Stay here? But, she was going with him now to Berric?

Did it look like it, Osthryth then told herself. The child did not think so. And then a panic grew over her, at the thought of not seeing her son, not standing beside him in the farm grounds where she was to be, and teach him sword craft.

"Constantine considers the best place for the boy is here," Ceinid told her, when she had gone to him, agitated and upset. "And it is, don't you think, Cailean? He can continue to study; Oengus or Aeswi even can teach him the sword, and - " And her face had become so morose that her husband held her in his arms. "I will return to the king, and insist he see that this is an unnecessary hardship to you," Ceinid told Osthryth, kissing the top of her head.

And he did so, extracting the detail that, once Osthryth was settled, young Finan would go to her, to Berric. To their home.

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It took a lot of the winter to establish herself at the farm, land not at frorm the sea, and with a trusted land manager who Ceinid had known all his life, Munadd, who took her through the farming year, with his young son, a strapping lad of eighteen, Celtigar. life became routine, and winter turned to Christmas, and then Candlemas, and then Easter, which became a tricky time, for several families of tenants still kept ColmCille's - Oswald's - church's calculation of Easter.

"We let them get on with it, and they give us loyalty for leaving them to their beliefs," Munadd told Osthryth, when she found out. "They do no harm, probably work harder for it," he added.

"Then see they are properly accommodated," Osthryth told them. "If they have their own priest, let him be welcomed. If they keep the fasting and the feast days, we shall host them in the tithing shed."

Ceinid had told her that night that he thought he loved her the most he ever could when they had married, but it wasn't matched by how he felt now, how much pride he had in her for her skilful management of the estate, how she had listened to advice to take the sheep and cows high and low, in the Briton style, and had rotated crops for the maximum yields of oats and rye, barley and wheat, and her care for the farmers, some of whose families had worked the land since before even Oswald had Christianised them.

And young Finan never did come, but Osthryth visited in the summer, as Ceinid returned to Dunnottar. And two years after she had become the manager of Ceinid's lands, he recieved a letter, in the spring of the year 920.

So Osthryth rode out every day from the day he had gone, to look for his return, to ease her empty heart. For there was no Berric farm without Ceinid beside her, and while she managed it well with Munadd, her heart was sorely missing him. Climbing to the roof of the stables was a soothing ritual, and she looked west every day for glimpse of him over the low lying land.

Until one day. One day, what Osthryth saw shocked her, and she watched as men, men of Alba, marched like a grey ribbon to the south. And on the water a fleet of ships were heading south with equal determination. Ceinid had gone to Dunnottar so that would be his army, either on the sea or on the land.

But, on the third day after Whitsun, Osthryth saw something more, another fleet of ships. Skirting the coast north.

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"How long ago was it he left?" Osthryth had insisted Aeswi tell her, who had ridden to see her and tell her formally of the support being given to her brother at Bebbanburg, take refreshment with her. The farm hall was nowhere near as grand as Dunnottar, but as there was only herself to keep up the standards, the parlour was very spacious. Aeswi sipped his ale stiffly.

"Ceinid has left," Aeswi confirmed. "A week ago. He has taken the household army to join Oengus's and Feilim's company."

"And who are they?" Osthryth asked, pointing east. The foreign fleet, who had tracked the coast north, had anchored about a mile from the coast of Berric.

"Aethelhelm of Wessex, and Uhtred we think," Aeswi told her.

"Where are you going? The army and our navy?"

"To see Wihtgar," Aeswi told her. "If he has decided to treat with Aethelhelm, then he has, by fact, broken the treaty between himself and Constantine, and it his business to make Alba the enemy."

"Thus it goes," Osthryth told him. "There is always war between Pictland and Bernicia - peace just seems to be an interlude where more wealth and sons can be accrued."

"Indeed," Aeswi told her, then, as he rose, kissed her on her cheek. "You would do better to stay out of it all," he told her. And Osthryth was still holding his words in her head when she watched her friend ride south and out of sight. I would always do better to stay out of it all.

But it was her business too. Bebbanburg. She had a claim on the lands just as much as both her brothers, both Uhtreds had. Bebbanburg's lands abutted Ceinid's. What a coup it would be to unite them.

Osthryth readied her horse, and told Munadd that she was going away for some time. "What did you do when Ceinid was not here?" she asked.

And he told her, that he had carried on, but it was good that she was there to take an interest in the people. Osthryth told him she would be back to do that again.

Then she strapped Buaidh to her hip, Taghd's seax to the other, and was off, riding south as fast as the horse would take her. To Bebbanburg, to claim her lands.

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If Osthryth could imagine the worst that might be happening around the fortress that had once been her home, the sight that met her eyes was worse, far worse.

Every army she could imagine was crowding around her former home. At the north Alba's army joined with Dyfnwal's banner - men from Glaschu, from Caer Ligualid, Owain's army. To the south, the West Saxons, going by the gold dragon on the red field. No sign of the Mercian banner - Mercia was absorbed into Wessex now.

But no, as she looked, Osthryth noticed the white dragon, that ancient terror against the Welsh red, Mercia's own beast on a blue field. And where were the Northumbrians? Or were they Norse? Osthryth was looking for the eight striped purple and gold standard, a design of which had been placed over her ancestor Oswald's coffin.

And who was down there? Oengus and Feilim, of course, with Ceinid. Aeswi would be with them. She looked to the white dragon. It was Aelfkin who carried one of the standards of Mercia at Teotenhalgh. Aeglfrith, Oshere and Falkbald would be there, Merewah too, she supposed, and her heart ached as she thought of Aelffrith, her old friend, who had given his life for hers at Eoferwic.

No time to look, although a wolf's head banner caught her eye, near the front of the rampart. Uhtred was there - Uhtred was giving his all to gain Bebbanburg. But he would not be at the front, gaining entry there - Uhtred would have a different plan. She needed to be down in the chaos, the chaos that had resulted in many scores of men, fallen from the ramparts, indistinguishable now from being crushed and mangled on the rocky outcrops. What fool of a commander led his men too close to the cliffs? What imebcile made them climb on the rocks to their death?

Arrows shot past Osthryth as she scrambled to the north rampart of the fortress. Wihtgar's men, of course, ranging the ramparts, expert shots with the bow, but with so many targets the choice was clearly causing lack of urgency: they were not firig as one, but laughing and jostling - they were at ease, enjoying the battle.

St. Oswald's steps were before her, but these were too risky - arrowfall was too intense, and Osthryth clenched her left hand, a ghost of a memory of her old injury fleeting across her mind. She turned, and looked out to sea. The ships she recognised - Aethelhelm's ships as Aeswi had confirmed to her, had been destroyed - they had allowed themselves to be herded together on the water like sheep, and it had taken one spark for sails and gibbooms and masts to catch, the sheepdogs still surrounding them killing the men as they tried to escape - the Scottish fleet.

This was Domnall's domain, an Eireannman as used to the sea as walking on the land - he had indeed been given the admiralcy: each ship was flying either a red or blue flag and the one nearest the shore was flying his standard - the red hand clutching cross fluttered at the main mast, men injured being rowed to the ship were being taken aboard.

More arrows whistled past Osthryth's head as judged her ancestor's entrance to her old home. The times she had skipped down them and climbed the ramparts, balancing precariously over the cliff edge with no thought to the danger had been countless.

But now she must find another way and, from ducking back against the steps, Osthryth's eyes went down instead of up. She could see culvert that she had used when she was a child, equipped with oars and silver by her uncle's man Seobridht to get away from Bebbanburg that she had used for her own escape, and she made her way down, hand-holding over the rocks covered in birds' nests and guano, muscle memory aiding her descent. Few arrows came her way - her brother's men could find easier prey on the field before the fortress, and it was likely that she could not be seen.

Was it here, Osthryth thought. Had Aelfric, her uncle, filled it in? Or Wihtgar?

Neither, it turned out, though the water gap was almost buried but managed to squeeze between the rocks, sea-weed encrusted, unused. It had been this way she had told Aethelstan about, when they had met at Corbridge, when he had encouraged her to trust Edward to care for young Finan while she found the Mercian army with him. It had been barely two years ago, but so much had happened, Osthryth thought, that it felt like a dozen. He would be here, she knew, leading the Mercians - who else? Idly she had told him, as if remembering a dream, for Osthryth never did think then that she would ever use it again.

Further into the gap Osthryth worked her way. She was not as agile as she had been as a child but was fit enough to climb upwards from the water level, into the foundations of the fortress. Her only trouble would be if there was any opposition above, any rocks or wood which would prevent her getting to the inside part of the sea gate.

There was not. Light shone through the cracks in the woodwork, getting more intense as she neared the ground level of Bebbanburg, on which the hall and the chapel and the inner ramparts had been built. It was an ideal place to site a fortress, Osthryth long knew - three quarters of the circuit was treacherous cliff, and the other quarter needed few men to defend it, being ditched and walled twice. An Uhtred in their past had been taking no chances, Osthryth knew. They were in sight of Lindisfarne, and would have known of the slaughter in 793.

Behind the sea gate, the water swirled, and she pulled herself level with the rock that acted as a quay. Osthryth sat, and breathed. She was home. Or rather, she had arrived back at the home she had been born, where her mother had lived. Where she had spent the first ten years of her life. It might have occurred to her, had not a battle been raging around her, that she had covertly slipped away in the same way as she had broken back in.

Up on the stairs there was little opposition. One guard whom Osthryth recognised as Wihtgar's had his back to the sea gate; it had been assumed, then, that this was not a priority to defend: her little brother did not think the sea gate would be vunerable.

Little did he know, Osthryth thought, as she tipped the plank of wood off the hinges. The doors, thick as they were, were still holding against the mighty North Sea wind, but a good shove would have them open. She placed the plank down and turned, walking lightly up the steps.

There was no time to hide when the guard turned, however, and Osthryth was caught in the middle of the steps, and he turned and fixed his eyes on her.

"I know you," he told her, and held his sword lower. "My Lord's sister." Not low enough, however. Ceinid would be heading the army below, and he was supposed to be on Wihtgar's side, because of the alliance. Constantine had formed a new alliance with Aethelflaed, which nullified that with Wihtgar - technically, because of Wessex's ambition. Yet, after her death, he had sent men to Corbridge. She understood why the man might be confused.

"I have come home," she told him, sword firmly in scabbard. "I have come home, to be with my brother."

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"Did you bring food? Ieremias is bringing food. We are existing on fish!" Wihtgar, irascible and annoyed, was shouting at another of the guards. He, apparently, had forayed as far as Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, and by the sounds of it, the Norseman turned priest had promised her brother food relief in exchange. He didn't seem to see Osthryth at first, shoulder to shoulder with one of his men, and was berating two others for their lack of failure.

In the courtyard, there were already many corpses being put into coffins, ready for burial. But this seemed to be slow work for men were needed on the ramparts. Coils of nascent smoke were coming off at intervals - boiling pitch, a terrible weapon, was being prepared. Osthryth tried not to think of her men, neither Alba or Mercians, or Wessexers, or anyone she might know, or have ever fought beside being caught underneath those cruel traps.

Wihtgar looked exhausted. Brown haired like her mother, he also looked washed out like her, as if clinging to the remnants of hope. If she had only known that their mother had been Gwythelth, most beloved of Cumbraland, of the line of the Hen Ogledd, perhaps she might have fled west to Caer Ligualid, to beg for help. Then again, considering the place, it was a good idea that she had not.

"And you?" Wihtgar said, narrowing his eyes. "You want to rule here, that's why you've come? You have come to challenge me?"

"With what?" Osthryth asked him, hands out in front of her.

"The Scots army I hear, your lover Constantine's army?"

"I am married now, brother," Osthryth reminded him. "But, I could let them in," she mused aloud. "The king does want Bebbanburg's lands and all the land to the south."

"They are my land," Wihtgar growled back, but he remained in his chair, too tired, either physically, or mentally, to move. Siege warfare was brutal, especally if it had been persisting, as this one had.

"Yet you have tried to treat with Aethelhelm and have promised them to him instead." From his silence, her younger brother confirmed her assertion.

"He will never go, whatever he has told you," Osthryth went on. "Edward and Aethelstan will try to take the rest of Northumbria, but they will fail, and Aethelhelm will say he holds the key to success. But he wants his own grandson on the throne, the second son of Edward, and - " For a moment, Uhtred the younger looked at Osthryth, as if confirming something in his own mind.

"So that's it," he said to her, leaning forward in his chair. "You have come to turn me out, to hand over Bebbanburg to my cousin, your other brother?"

"Listen to me!" Osthryth snapped, pushing away the guard's arm which he had thrust out to block her from striding towards Wihtgar. "This was my home once! Your father, Aelfric - " and now Osthryth held up her left hand to his face, "Would bargain me off to the cruellest Dane, who stoned his servants to death if they so much as were late with meals, and had his men shoot at a ten year old girl! I love and hate this place. No. I do not want Bebbanburg, I want to stop him from gaining it!"

And there it was. Would he listen to her now?

And Wihtgar relaxed, gesturing to another chair beside him. Osthryth glanced at the guard who had, logically, been guarding, and sat down in it.

"The Scots should have freedom to try to take the lands; give them token support for peace. Take Aethelhelm's daughter so you can get yourself another heir, then when you gain strength, abandon him."

"You talk as if your brother is out there, trying to take my fortress!" Wihtgar shouted back, with equal vehemence. "Your brother - my cousin - has gone to Frisia, abandoned all hope of this place!" And Osthryth felt her heart sink. Why was everyone so willing to believe that?

"No," Osthryth shook her head. "He will come under Aethelhelm's colours. He has done that before, rode into battle against Danes pretending to be Aethelhelm's men. Domnall has burned Aethelhelm's ships, and Uhtred will know and will take up the flag!" And Wihtgar leaned forward, bloodshot eyes staring into Osthryth's. For one brief moment, she thought he believed her.

"What a lot of swill!" he told her, waving a hand in Osthryth's direction. "Remain this night then I want you gone."

"And the bodies of your men?" Osthryth looked sadly out of the window, at the pile. He wanted to hang onto his fortress when even hope faded. Could he not just abandon the fortress, and live a life on the seas? His men had followed him faithfully for so many years.

"Many I killed to preserve the food." And that shocked her, more than anything that she had encountered in a long time, more than Hywel's brother, more even than Aethelwold. Those men had served him, and he had killed them for the sake of keeping Bebbanburg? He was no better than Aelfric; he had chosen to fight because he saw no other way, What had happened the young, carefree man who she had known?

And so, Osthryth returned, ironically, to her own room, and a guard was posted outside. She stood, gazing out to sea, and watched the Trinity, Domnall's flagship, allow the Bishop Ieremias to land and relieve Bebbanburg with food.

But, they were too late. Osthryth never did regret having opened the sea gate. Guards fled as the men took over the castle just a few hours after she had got in herself.

Her door was open, and the guard who had been out there was absent. From the roof, which she climbed in haste, Osthryth could see many men fleeing across the beach, being hacked down by West Saxons or Mercians or Scots.

The bell was just within reach, and she rang it, the bell used to indicate a breach of the ramparts. It had been cast hundreds of years ago, bought from a trader, and never used, so the legend of Bebbanburg had it, for no-one had ever breached the ramparts.

But they were breached now, as her elder brother's men stormed from the lower levels up, from the east, and the Scots in the western land stirred into action. Ceinid would be there, Osthryth thought, and she glanced to sea.

Domnall had now begun to fight against Aethelhelm's men, those who ahd made it to the shore. They had once been Constantine's allies. Now that truce was well and truly over.

"Come on, gather your men!" she heard, in West Saxon. On the beach, a shield wall ahd formed, which was preventing men from storming after the intruders. She had done this, Osthryth thought. Uhtred could not have got in so easily otherwise.

But they were blocking the passages now, and she could hear warriors on the lower levels, men sending other warriors to guard rooms, to seek survivors, those loyal to Wihtgar. All were being put to the sword. And Osthryth was at the top of Bebbanburg's tower with no way down.

"That bitch of a sister of mine, I might have guessed she would be involved!" Uhtred, with Finan and Sihtric on either side of him, charged through the main hall, gutting men as her went.

There was one chance. Osthryth withdrew Buaidh. Not two but three claimants to Bebbanburg - she was the third, hers was as valid as either of her brothers. As she got to the door, however, a warrior of Wihtgar's, one of her uncle's men, watched her descend, and he managed to throw himself on her.

"I shot you, I saw you row away!" he told Osthryth, pressing her against the wall. Osthryth's head banged against the wall, and she lost Buaidh in the impact. Her sword clattered onto the floor but there was no chance to retrieve it.

"Waldhere," Osthryth scorned, as he grabbed her shoulder again.

"Aedre," he said. "I have been waiting a long time to kill you." Into the hall he pulled her, interrupting a sword fight between both of her brothers. Finan stared at Osthryth who had a blade to her throat, and Uhtred mis-stepped, causing him to fall. Wihtgar stood over him, blade to throat. He was surrounded, as was Sihtric. They could fight, but they might well condemn their lord Uhtred.

"She has come to claim back her castle," the odious man told Wihtgar, oblivious to Uhtred the trying to kill his cousin. "You do know that?" Osthryth struggled, but Waldhere hit her hard around the face with his fist.

"That's true?" Wihtgar, the light of triumph on him, grinned at his man. "Then kill her." He turned back to his cousin, who had been trapped under the chair. Finan, at stalemate with Wihtgar's men and unable to help either Uhtred or Osthryth, simply stared.

"With pleasure!" Waldhere declared, and he raised his sword.

And Osthryth struck. Unguarded under arm, Osthryth still had Taghd's seax, and as he lifted his arm, she thrust it underneath, burying it deep into his armput. She ducked out th the way and pulled it back out, then attacked again.

"I will kill you myself!" screamed her younger brother, but Uhtred had caught Wihtgar's ankle and had unbalanced him. And Osthryth knew what to do, who to support. And she hated knowing that she was right, as she headed towards the front doors of the hall, and out to the rampart gates: she would take no part in the eventual death of one of her brothers. And she had figured the ruse. Someone was carrying Aethelhelm's banner, and it wasn't the man himself, nor any of his men. Someone had been quick-thinking enough to turn Aethelhelm's defeat in the sea to their advantage.

"The gates!" Osthryth told the remaining men, who were still guarding at the front. "Our Lord Wihtgar has demanded they be opened for the Lord Aethelhelm!"

There was confusion. Just enough confusion. Some men ignored her, some turned to one another and began to talk in loud whispers at what they had just heard. And there was one who was battle-trained enough to follow her orders without question. He was at the winding gear of the ropes and was just going down to the cranking gear when another of Wihtgar's men shouted a warning to him.

And in came Aethelhelm, with the remainder of his men. It wasn't over - the mighty lord of Wessex would now challenge Uhtred, whichever Uhtred had survived.

Osthryth looked down to the beach. Domnall had beem cautious, waiting to see how the battle was going, before he let the seaborne Scots out onto the beach. Behind her, however, Waldhere called them to surrender.

And he did not see Osthryth slip out of the gate as the West Saxons stormed in. Osthryth had seen the Mercian banner, and she knew what she needed to do: find Aethelstan, for it must be him who had contrived the feint.

But how? Where would she even start? Men of all banner come, were fighing one another. Alba was fighting Wessex, for they thought them to be Aethelhelm, but they were also fighting the men fleeing from Bebbanburg, Wihtgar's men, whose side they were meant to be on.

After a minute looking at the chaos, Osthryth edged herseld near the holy cave, using Taghd's seax to defend herself. And she nearly lost that as a hand came to her shoulder. It was Aethelstan.

"In here!" Osthryth encouraged, as the Lord of Mercia stood before her. He stumbled after her and into the safery of the cave.

"You opened the sea-gate - I saw you up there," he told her.

"Over there is Inner Farne," Osthryth told him, when they got within the cave. "Saint Cuthbert spent the remainder of his days there."

"He was of the Irish church," Aethestan replied, "Solitude was godliness to him."

"You know a deal about the Irish church," she told him. And then she saw what was in his hand: not the Mercian standard, but that of the West Saxons, his fathers, gold dragon on a red field. Osthryth smiled. Uhtred had taught him well.

"You fled, though," Aethelstan said to Osthryth, watching her look across to the fortress.

"I left my younger brother fighting my elder brother," Osthryth told him. "One will kill the other in the end."

"Yet, you wanted your elder brother to win, or you would not have opened the sea-gate," he told her. Alfred, an Alfred hiding for most of his childhood, under the threat of being declared a bastard, and a practical grounding that came from lack of pretentiousness, stood before her. He was clever like his grandfather, had his look. Knew that God had chosen him to lead. It would not be the last time he would stand before Osthryth at Bebbanburg. And by then, she would have chosen a different alliegance entirely.

"If anyone asks, I ride north with Scots, who will be leaving as soon as "Aethelhelm" or whoever you have sent in place of "Aethelhelm" has subdued Bebbanburg," Osthryth told him. And then there was silence between them, as battle-noise grew from the concentration of the fortress. The real Aethelhelm, or at least his army, had been lost on the sea thanks to Domnall.

"I hope he wins," Osthryth murmured.

"Who?"

"Uhtred." Aethelstan stared at her.

"Which?"

From the moment she had entered her former home, Osthryth knew that she could not be the Lady of Bebbanburg that, if anywhere, her heart lay west, in Cumbraland's hills and mountains, lowlands and lakes. Or if not there, the land abutting Bebbanburg, Ceinid's land, or in Alba. Wherever her heart was, Osthryth knew she wanted the same outcome for her former home, she wanted her elder brother to reclaim it. He had wronged her so many times, and yet, it always was to her, that he was the lord of Bebbanburg. Osthryth clapped Aethelstan on the shoulder, a smile forming on her face. Yes, she had lost Buaidh, but she was going, going away from this place, and she would not be back now.

"Which?" Aethelstan repeated, in her wake.

"Uhtred the Dane Slayer!" Osthryth called back. "The Wicked! Your grandfather's warrior, his man!" And now she wanted to be where her heart yearned the most in all the world, not at Ceinid's farm, but Dunnottar, with her own son, young Finan, and Aedre. She would have to find a way to speak to Ceinid, come to some agreement about the place. She had let him down, and it hurt her to know that the kind, gentle man would smile and tell her it would be alright.

"Give my regards to Constantine!" Aethelstan called after her.

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It was the evening. Men were either dead, dying or had fled Bebbanburg. Wihtgar's head, along with those who had stayed with him to the last, were stuck on spikes at the entrance to Uhtred's stronghold.

Food had been brought, Ieremas's ill-fated fayre, the trick that had been employed by Domnall on behalf of Constantine, to send food, but also the Alba army - by removing the barricade Osthryth had simply made their plan to access to Bebbanburg by the sea-gate easier. Dead had been piled, and would be buried the next day. And Uhtred was now the undisputed Lord of Bebbanburg.

"Stiorra is at Lincoln; her children are in Eoferwic, still." That news had come to him from Aethelstan, who was sitting to Uhtred's right, in the same chair that Wihtgar had sat not half a day before.

"And the West Saxons?" he asked Aethelstan. "Your father's men?"

"Have gone north, chasing the Scots beyond Lindisfarne. Why?" asked Aethelstan. "What have Alba and Wessex got in common?"

"My sister," Uhtred replied. "The Scots intended an invasion, under the guise of peace. That's how tricky Constantine is," he told Mercia's lord. "I applaud you on your subterfuge. But you will need an army to hold it." Uhtred speared salt pork, and chewed it carefully.

"I will be needed Northumbria's army," Aethelstan told him. "Will you not hold the peace in the north?"

"From what I understand, I need them to make a peace in the south." Because the south of Northumbria was claimed by Edward, Aethelstan's father, and if Uhtred went north, so would Edward. Finan smiled at the politics, thanking God his life did not involve playing at such a game. The salt pork was very good.

"Is it not a coincidence then that Constantine holds the land to the border of the Holy Island?" Aethelstan inconvenienrly pointed out. "Archbishop Hrothweard of Lindesfarne is not pleased about the Picts' raids there."

"They are of Alba now," Uhtred told him.

"What's the difference?" It seemed like a genuine question, Finan considered. Or it would to anyone who didn't know Aethelstan.

"The difference between Mercia and Wessex," Uhtred replied. "The Picts are part of Alba, as Mercia and Wessex are becoming your grandfather's dream of Englaland." And there was the unspoken post-script, thought Finan. Northumbria was not where Englaland was going to stop, it was what Englaland was going to annexe.

Finan, at length, excused himself. After some time, his lord and dearest friend found himseld sitting on a rocky outcrop on Bebbanburg's beach. Corpses still littered it, though they were beginning to be washed out to sea by the incoming tide.

"After you got Bebbanburg," he said vaguely.

"I did," Uhtred told him, sensing his assertion was not quite what he took it to be.

"I saw her today," Finan continued. By "her", he meant Osthryth, of course.

"Yes," agreed Uhtred. "It was probably her who opened the sea-gate."

"That means she chose you," Finan reminded him, and nodded to the rampart where even now two crows were fighting over Wihtgar's head. "Not her other brother." Uhtred said nothing.

"She had always chosen you," Finan told him, getting up.

"And where are you going?" Uhtred asked. Finan had sworn an oath to follow Uhtred, which Uhtred had removed from him. Finan had pretended he hadn't heard him. Now, he stood in front of his friend and nodded to the fortress.

"You said when you took Bebbanburg I could marry," Finan reminded him.

"Osthryth?" Uhtred asked, shock in his voice which he wasn't quick enough to disguise.

"Yes," Finan nodded, making his way to the cut steps in the sandstone.

"She"ll be halfway to Alba by now."

"Well then," Finan concluded, "'I'd better be taking a horse and ride all night then," he repled and began to ascend the rocks. And then he turned and walked back towards Uhtred.

"She turned you down already?" Uhtred jibed, but Finan kept on walking, towards the beach door, through which he had come.

"Tha gaol agam oirre," Finan replied, without breaking step or turning to his friend.

"What is that in your bastard tongue?" demanded Uhtred. "Finan!" Finan turned, his face completely fallen, dejected. So unhappy it hurt Uhtred to look at him.

"Tha mi airson a bhith air mo thiodhlacadh comhla ri mo dhaoine or tha i posta mu thrath!" Finan shouted back. "She is married!" he repeated, in Saxon. "I promised her once that when you got Bebbanburg I would go to fetch her.

"Married?"

"Ceinid his name is," Finan told him. "He is the one that owns the land that she has been farming, nothing to do with Constantine." He paused, then added, "That bastard Ailech, the Ui Neill told me." Domnall, Aed Findlaith's son. And what a delight he had taken in that, Finan thought to himself, bitterly, as he carried the ancient sigil of their land, the red hand, over his shoulder. Uhtred laughed.

"Ceinid?" Uhtred repeated.

"The general of the Alba army," Finan conceded, remembering the man's face at Corbridge when he asked for him to be pointed out.

"That old fart?" Uhtred scoffed. "I killed him on the beach this noontide." He nodded to the place. Finan took a few steps towards the corpse. Uhtred waited.

A few heartbeats passed between the old friends, and then Finan picked up the second sword that he had intended to give back to its owner.

"I'm taking the white horse," he told Uhtred, calling over his shoulder across the sand. Uhtred smiled a wide, delighted smile. If anything could have made him happier about this day it was seeing the rising hope in his friend.

"You have my blessing, Finan Mór to marry my sister!" Uhtred shouted deliberately to his friend, who was now standing on the rocky prominotary that sentried the valley entrance of his reclaimed home. Finan did not turn.

Instead, he held up his arm, Buaidh in hand and waved with his other hand, before jumping astride the white horse, one of which that had been rounded up after the battle. And with no time to spare, he urged it on. North.