Summer 924, Somewhere in the North Sea

"Where are we going under false colours?" Osthryth called to her brother, who was at the prow, looking out into the clear day's view. He glanced acro to Osthryth, who was busy staring at the water at stern of Trinity where she had sat when Domnall had taken her back to Berric, she looked at Sparrowhawk, Uhtred's ship, being sailed by Berg and Sihtric, looked at the sea, she was called Wachilt, the sea goddess.

"A rescue mission," he called back to Osthryth. "And to sail in hostile waters, I fly the flag of my enemy to fool my enemy."

Osthryth turned her head. She should have run, - she could have. But she would have left young Finan, and something in her then had told her to stay by her son, stay with him. Not that she had had a lot of time to choose in any case before they were under way, and the deep North Sea beneath them.

At least his uncle was intent on being with hm, showing him the ship, pointing things out in the horizon. They seemed amiable, Osthryth thought; her son had spent nearly four years, on and off, at Bebbanburg.

She turned back to the sea and looked at the blue-green, smoothing her hand over her . She had seen his cock before of course and it had been on the night she had beaten Domnall's man, Brin. He had tried to rape her. She remembered her fear but not his cock. Domnall had looked back to Trinity several times, Osthryth had held up Buaidh. A reminder, she hoped, that she was his friend, a message that she had not been a part of this.

Osthryth smoothed her hair. It ws shoulder length now, a sign of the Gaels of a proud warrior; shorn hair was a sign of punishment. He and Donnchada had tried to shame her that way, too.

A creak in the planks of the Trinity made Osthryth look up. Her brother was standing in her view.

"You wanted to be one of my men's wives," he told. "And they come with us, so you are coming with us."

"I see no others," Osthryth said, sourly. For effect, she looked back to Sparrowhawk, Uhtred's own ship, and at his warriors, Roric and Berg, who were yet to be married, Osferth - whose wife, Ingulfrid, had been her other brother's wife. She was not aboard, nor was there sign of Aelfburh, Sihtric's wife.

"Because no others are disobedient like you," he told her.

Anger flared in Osthryth. Obedient? To whom? Finan? As her husband, had given her no other instruction than to visit Bebbanburg, which she had done. It was not as if he lived at Berric with her - she could count on one hand the times he had spent a reasonable of period of time with her at the estate in the last four years. How could she have known she would be there at a time the Norse were to attack -

- oh, Osthryth thought, and narrowed her eyes. He needed a friendly banner to rescue a queen, or so he said. And Constantine was thought to be in alliance with Aethelhelm. This was no rogue accident - her brother would have organised it, organised it well enough that no crew were lost, and said crew were now with them, sailing Trinity.

"Eadith will be compasionate," Osthryth told him. "She would not leave a warrior unclad." Uhtred's face clouded, as had been her intention.

"Eadith will not open my gates to a bastard dog of Constantine's."

"Except, she may like what she sees," Osthryth smiled, "And before you get back from your little jaunt to the south coast and the rescue mission for the queen, Bebbanburg will be a key fortress in King Constantine's restoration of Alba." That got him. Uhtred looked furious. He looked as if he were about to hit her, but instead, clenched his fists.

"Sit down and stay silent," he told her, and stalked back to Finan, and young Finan,

She had to admit that using Domnall's banner was making their journey suprisingly uneventful - Aethelhelm's ships were not harrying their passage, and she looked at their sails, with leaping stag, and wondered whether her brother was right - had he an arrangement with the Scots to protect their interests in the east as long as it brought Wessex closer to the throne under Aelfweard?

Osthryth looked back to the sea again. If she was Wachilt, the pagan sea goddess that the Frisians worshipped, could she not control the sea? Could a wave not come over the ship and take him overboard?"

From the prow, Finan looked back from his wife's face to that of his lord. "You can be a bastard sometimes you know that?" Finan told him, which was the nearest his friend ever came to disapproving of him, but there was a flash of pain in his eyes.

"I need her to be here; you know why," Uhtred told him. Finan nodded, and fixed a look on his son for a moment.

"I know why," he told Uhtred.

Osthryth did not move from Trinity's stern until the Alba sailors were ready to tie up the ship for the night. It was too light to look at the stars yet, so she looked at the men of the land which had adopted her, bright, rounded, some with fair hair, some with dark back, like Domnall's and Constantine's and Finan's. All had keen, piercing eyes of people who spent six months staring out with the wind whipping around their faces, and those that she made eye contact with, who she had met, in passing, at Dunnottar, gave her small nods of their heads. They trusted her being there, Osthryth realised. So she needed to step up, for them.

Which is why she did not run. Instead she sat, still, like a stubborn child who would rather make a point. Eventually, Finan came over and sat down next to her, offering her meat that Osferth and Sihtric had acquired in the little port by where they had moored.

"Where are we?" she asked him, giving way, eventually.

"An island, off the coast of Cent, called Sheppey," Finan told her. She lowered the meat, and looked out to sea.

"I am your wife Finan," she told him, in Gaelish. "And I do not wish to shame you." She turned her head away when he bent to kiss her. Finan got up and moved round to sit on the other side of her, and put his cloak around the two of them, his arms around her waist, where Domnall had sat, holding her hand a week before.

"Shamed me," he repeated. "Uhtred, God knows I love that man, he has shamed himself. I swear I knew nothing of this." But Osthryth was unfazed.

"And I am not obedient enough?"

"You are so," he assured her. "Where would you go if you left this ship?"

"Go back to Berric," she told him. And then anger compelled her on, and she leaned back from Finan and narrowed her brows.

"I never went to Bebbanburg to collect information or indulge in gossip," Osthryth went on. "When Constantine asked me to spy at Ceastre I told him I would never use you for information." She made to look away, but Finan pulled her to him. What Osthryth wouldn't give for them to be back at the farm, in their bedroom. She still desired Finan, even when her brother had abducted her and stolen Domnall's ship.

"Well, know this," Finan told her. "We are to protect Eadgifu and her two children, Edward's children." Osthryth turned to him in astonishment. "Uhtred told me not to tell his his sister. So I'm telling my wife."

One foot in, one foot out. It had been a story, a legend that young Finan had heard. A nobleman had to tell his king something that the king needed to know, otherwise he would be defeated in battle by his rival. However, his king told him that if he ever set his feet inside his castle, he would be killed. So to give loyalty to his monarch but not cast himself down to death, he only placed one foot into the palace.

"What do you know of Brehon law?" she continued in Gaelish, noticing the resentful glances that she was getting from her brother.

"It's the law," he told her, with a mirthless chuckle. "Were I in Eireann, that would be the law I would be obeying. That would be the law I would be upholding if I were king of the Ulaid." Osthryth smiled.

"So, do you know if Brehon law was followed, such as in Cumbraland, or in Deheubarth?" He shook his head.

"Monks know that kind of thing." Monks did, Osthryth reassured him, in her own mind. "Why do you want to know?" Osthryth leaned forward and pulled from her shirt a piece of paper, the same paper that Aedre had given to her.

"I cannot read a lot, I don't read Cymric very well," he admitted. Osthryth pointed out the letters.

"So you have a small piece of land in Cumbraland, because it was your mother's," Finan said, smiling. "It is yours, of course, not Uhtred's. Or Uhtred's because it was once Wihtgar's, so to speak." He kissed her head. "So you will be leaving Berric to your other lands?"

"If they are mine," Osthryth told him. "But there was something else." And Osthryth told him about her marriage to Guthred, and that, because of this, she could backdate her claim to the land all the way back to Urien."

"Yer have evidence for this?" Finan asked.

"Ask any poet to tell you Taliesin," she told him. "I bet our son knows them all. What?" she asked, for her husband was staring at her with a big smile on his face.

"So you are queen of Rheged...you told me that once, do you remember?" he said, pulling her to him.

"I think so, I always think how you remember everything. You are king of the Ulaid. Could there be something in it, what Aedre says?" she added.

"You you are not serious?" Finan asked her.

"Not serious with only a dozen warriors from Berric and may be two dozen landsmen to my cause," Osthryth said. From the prow, with his warriors having tied Sparrowhawk to Trinity, and climbed over the rails from one to the other, Uhtred called to Finan. He froze.

"Go on," Osthryth said, moving away from her husband. "I will not be accused of coming between a lord and his oathman." Finan shook his head.

"I wish that could - "

"No," Osthryth said. "You must treat me as if I am a captive, and you are the same as when you ride with Uhtred," she told him. "It is unfair to make him make you choose."

And Finan pulled his wife to his chest, and whispered by her ear, "You, are my prisoner, bound and unable to escape," he told her softly. "And you have been a very naughty woman. I am your guard, and I need to punish you." The punishment got as far as, pulling her close to him and sliding a hand up her shirt and closing a hand over her breast, his agile fingers finding her nipple.

"Finan, come on," Uhtred called. She felt her husband sigh, resignedly.

And anyway, there would be no chance for that, Osthryth thought, because she was going to escape and she do not want him to have told her the plan.

"Come on!" Uhtred insisted, waving his closed fist towards his friend. It was a handful of dice. Osthryth nodded, and Finan kissed her, and went over to their game, catching one another's eye every so often.

Osthryth looked up to the stars, making up patterns from them, until she heard the sound of a voice, telling a story. It was young Finan, and he was telling the story of Edwin, king of Deria, who had made the king of Bernicia, Oswald, and their family, flee to shelter to Iona.

He told of Edwin's marriage in Cent, and the stranger who told him of Christianity, who had gone with Edwin to Ad Gefrin to convert him on his accession to the joint Northumbrian thrones. Paulinus, the man's name was, and young Finan told of the peace that was in the whole of the land, where a mother and infant could move across it without harm, and where cups had been left out by good, fast-flowing rivers for travellers.

Finan sat for some time by his wife's sleeping form, pulling a fleece over her shoulders as he looked across to his son, sitting patiently by his own uncle. He hoped, no, he prayed, that Osthryth would forgive them for what they were about to do. Then he rested a tender kiss on her forehead before returning to watch the Alba sailors.

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She had been going to shrine of Saint Bertha but then, by way of accident, ended up there, in a convent, on the island of Sheppey. The "she" was queen Eadgifu, and the "accident" was meeting Aethelhelm's men. They were guarding the convent and were the men of Aethelhelm junior, working on behalf of his father. That was the situation, Osthryth had learned from Finan, but not the plan. The plan was whatever Uhtred wanted it to be. In the meantime, Osthryth had plenty of time to devise one of her own, more out of amusement than anything else.

The red cloaked men of Aethlhelm were guarding the convent. They stood in pairs and seemed to change watch every so often - hourly, Osthryth estimated, from the rising of the moon and the movement of the evening star.

"Glad to be out of the North," she heard one of them say. "A plague is in the north." Osthryth's heart froze. A plague.

"Where is the plague?" Osthryth watched, and realised that the person who had shouted was herself. She was glad she had remembered to effect a Wiltunscir accent.

"Who goes there?"

"Aldred," Osthryth lied, using the name of the West Saxon guard she had once killed.

"Were you with us at Bebbanburg, at the siege?"

What siege? Osthryth thought. Did he mean when Uhtred took the fortress? "Yes," she called back, vaguely.

"Lindcolnscir," they told her. Osthryth felt herself breathe again. To them, southerners, everywhere was north. But Lindcolnscir was as far away from Cent as it was from Eoferwic, even further away from Berric.

There was more talking, and she heard the guards talk of the Centish rebellion, under Sigulf, Eadgifu's brother, and how Edward had made the decision to give Mercia to Aethelstan, whilst Aelfweard would be king of Cent, East Anglia and Wessex.

"Stop gossiping and change guard," Osthryth heard a commander call. She heard a creak of the planks of Trinity, and looked up, seeing Sihtric glance down to her, and give her a brief smile, before looking back to the nunnery.

And now she knew how she would do it, and she would use a trick that Uhtred had once boasted of using, when he had been in what should have been the privacy of his own house, in Winchester. Osthryth had been up on the roof, having run from something or other, or had been following them to look at Finan.

She had, ever since she had heard about it, sewn silver pieces into her jerkin seams. While Uhtred had relieved her of her small purse of silver, making a good show of giving it to Finan. She would be seen, too, of course, but if she got out after Uhtred had begun his plan, then she shuld be able to get away with it.

"You will stay here," Uhtred told her, when the sun had risen enough that the time of day could no longer be called night. "We are taking the queen and her sons, and we are leaving," he told Osthryth, bossily.

It was only when he was halfway across the small stretch of water to the jetty of the convent, that Osthryth called back, "Bring me back some lavendar!"

"Finan!" he declared, turning to his friend. But he shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Osthryth. But it had not been Finan who had told her that Eadgifu infused lavendar oil with lanolin onto her cleavage as a fragrance.

"Women talk!" she called back to her brother. "Eadith has told me a lot of things! A good deal of a lot of things." It was disappointing that Uhtred had now rounded a small bend for she could not tell his reaction.

And now she must act, and quickly if she wanted to get to the convent and to Eadgifu before her brother. Osthryth called over the Gaelish captain, a man by the name of Cillin.

"You know me," she told him in Gaelish, and Cillin smiled.

"Yes," he agreed. "You and Prince Domnall are allies." He smiled at Osthryth, and added, "I know some Anglish, and I know that you are in no way involved. I have told the men." Osthryth looked up to the half-dozen Gaels, Picts and Strathclydians and they nodded to her.

"Cillin," Osthryth asked, "When you were attacked by the Norse ships, can you tell me, did the Norse seem surprised in any way that you were there?" For she had her own hypothesis there, which was confirmed when Cillin, after a moment's thought, said, "No, I do not believe they were surprised. They seem to be attacking us for no good reason, the ship, as you can see," he gestured with his hand, "Survived, as did we all. And the lord Uhtred came out with a boat to drag us all out of the sea."

"And does it strike you as odd that Norse, who are not famed for their clemency, should fail to destroy either you or your ship?"

"Not only that," Cillin added, grimly, "That the lord Uhtred was so prompt in his rescue. He must have had a man watching out to sea unflinchingly and the boat ready so promptly that he should get to us and we all survive. Fancy that!"

Osthryth shook her head. How dare he, she thought. To save a queen, whose children are babies and are never going to have an impact on the potential ruler of Wessex and the current ruler of Mercia?

"What do you need of us, Lady of Berric?" Cillin asked. "I believe you have a plan?"

"Lord Uhtred wants to rescue King Edward's wife, queen Eadgifu and her children," Osthryth told him. "He will take them back to Bebbanburg, and to safety. But I want to talk to them first. And I do not want you to get the blame when I go," she added, glancing behind her, to Berg, who was standing stoically in the prow. He was clearly there to watch the crew and her.

Just then, a cry went up from one of the sailors. He pointed over the water and became agitated.

"What is it they shout about?" Berg demanded of Osthryth. "Answer me!"

Skallargrimmrson, Osthryth thought. Was he as bad as his brother? Or as good as his other? Did he know she was Skoll's murderer?

"Answer me!" he demanded of the Scots, but Osthryth told him they did not speak or understand English.

"Then you tell me, damned woman!" he declared, and Osthryth found out then that he did know about Skoll because he hit her in the face. She reeled, but he found his way blocked by Cillin.

"Do you know the lament of the Cooley Mountains?" Cillin asked, in Anglish. "It is a very sad song, one of a traitrous usurper who steals the land from a lord when they are out on a pilgrimage. Just as Egil did."

"Egil?" Osthryth echoed, accepting the help of three of the crew. They stood in front of her, protectively.

"Oh yes," Cillin told Osthryth. "I know far more Anglish than that fool of a brother - no offence meant - " he added, his words dripping with sarcasm, "Ever did think. Did you know that in exchange for Berg here setting up the Norse attack, the land north of his up to king Constantine's border has been given to him?"

Osthryth stopped, and looked between Berg and Cillin, giving an intermittent, stuttering laugh. "The land north of his," Cillin told her.

"But, that's my land! Berric! I inherited that land from my husband!"

"Ceinid ui Alpin," Cillin said. "Gifted to you by king Constantine; gifted to Egil by Earldorman Uhtred," he added. "And you are here, brought away from your lands while Egil goes about getting comfortable. Osthryth felt herself getting angry. Take her? From her land? And give it away?

He hadn't known she would be at Bebbanburg. So he would have sent Egil when she would have been there? To defend her home from an attack of hundreds of men with her fledgling standing army of, yes, about three dozen? It would be a massacre.

Suddenly a sickness came to Osthryth's mind. She gave Cillin a quick glance, and then said, in Gaelish, "Hold him!" And she hit the young Norse warrior hard on the head with the flat of her blade. He staggered, but did not give in.

"Now you can help!" she told them, and within a minute, Berg was unconscious at the bottom of Trinity.

"Get him over to Sparrowhawk," she asked, and four of them moved him, a limb each, and tossed him into Uhtred's ship.

"Cillin," she told him. "I wish you to go back to Alba, find Domnall, tell him Trinity is safe. I am going to follow, and take Sparrowhawk after my brother."

"But, lady, you can't do it alone. This is a tidal estuary, the ship will be swept out to sea." Cillin inhaled. "Let us take you back to your lands, Lord Ceinid's lands, where you will be safe amongst your people," he suggested. "Oppose this Norseman who had been offered them."

But Osthryth was far too angry. She could go, be where she wanted to be now was close to her brother, to humiliate him. Young Finan was with them, too, and she was not about to leave him.

"Take the Trinity," Osthryth told Cillin. "Ask Domnall to forgive anything on my part - "

"If I may say, you are too willing to accept blame for things that are not your fault, Lady of Berric. You have given your husband far too easy a time when his lord shames you." He shook his head. "If I allowed my wife to be treated in such a manner - " Then he stopped, and shook his head, for he had seen Osthryth's face. Angry, yes, betrayed, yes. Cheated from the life she had hoped to pursue. All the darning and crochet and needlepoint in the world was not going to persuade Finan Mor to spend more time with her if he didn't want to.

Had she made a mistake? She had accepted he was her brother's man. But, as Cillin said, he had stood by now so many times when Uhtred had treated her badly, that it didn't feel like love, and she couldn't make him love her.

"I am going to find the queen, and find out what is happening here," Osthryth told Cillin. "I want you to leave this place - you should find yourselves untroubled going north, so long as you fly Domnall's banner." Cillin nodded.

"Take care to find your son," he added, as he readied Trinity, and Osthryth climbed over into Sparrowhawk, past the still-unconscious Berg, and watched as Constantine's flagship sailed away from Sheppey and into the Thames Estuary until she could see it no longer.

And now, there would be no time to carry out any plan, even if she had even a half-formed one. Osthryth waited as the ship drifted north, away from the island before turning the wheel and jamming the rudder. The Norseman was beginning to make some noises in the bottom of the ship, and Osthryth glanced at him. Then, she took a pair of oars and guided herself, with a counter-current into an inlet on the north-eastern edge of the island.

With effort, she could get close to low, flat rocks. A post driven in between the rocks suggested that fishermen used the place, such as Gert and Ulf, as they travelled around the country selling their catch.

Then, she got out, hid and waited.

Osthryth watched as Uhtred demanded a search for Trinity and Sparrowhawk, with Sihtric guarding a group of people, presumably Queen Eadgifu, her children and what looked to be a slave girl. Then, when he must have felt time pressing, he looked around for something, anything, he could steal to get them away from the place. Guards of Aethelhelm were not chasing them yet, so whatever he had contrived must have worked, for time.

Then a shout went up: Sihtric had found Sparrowhawk, and had called Osferth over to the rocks. Berg, who was still mostly unconscious, moved when Sihtric, lithe like a mountain goat, climbed down and shook Berg.

"We'll bring her round," Sihtric said, and within minutes, Sparrowhawk was tied up at the quay in front of Uhtred. Berg, who had got to his feet, had got out of the ship and was explaining to Uhtred that he must have been ambushed, and Uhtred muttered that it must have been the Scots.

Behind them, however, Eadgifu's escape had been noticed and Uhtred and his men were forming a protective arc around the royal family, their backs to them as they began to fight Aethelhelm's men.

Osthryth shook her head as she knew she had been beaten, she could do nothing to prevent Queen Eadgifu from being rescued by Uhtred, and she turned, wondering now that she hadn't been a little hasty in turning down Cillan's offer to go back to Bebbanburg. She could use the silver to buy some passage north, Osthryth considered. Or -

Or.

Whether it was sunlight glinting off a blade or a helmet, or the light on the water in the harbour, Osthryth turned back to see the two children being put onto Sparrowhawk, and Queen Eadgifu making to climb in.

The slave seemed to be helping her, and at turns, looking back to Aethelhelm's men and offering animated retorts and rebukes. Now was her chance, and Osthryth climbed up over the rocks, and under the quay. Then, she climbed to the side of Sparrowhawk, unhooking the painter line as she did so, until the ship was drifting in the current as she had been not an hour before.

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They would be going out to sea, Osthryth knew, but it didn't bother her. When she had got far enough away, she could jam the wheel and at least stop the ship ending up in Frisia.

And they hadn't yet noticed. All that fighting and they hadn't noticed the treasure in human form that was Queen Eadgifu was floating away.

Osthryth's plan was not this: to get the woman to Cent and to her brother, who would gladly have his sister back, she presumed. Buy some crew, and sail back to Berric...

...somehow...

...what crew would want to do that...?

...maybe with the promise of the ship, at the end...

Sparrowhawk seemed to be drifting diagonally now, heading south east, with the Isle of Sheppey to their back, the Cent coast in front of them. She had litttle time, but she wanted to speak to Eadgifu first. An odour of lavendar permeated the air, and it was followed by the queen herself, the so-called queen, for Wessex did not recognise the title. Presumably Edward had used it as a lubricant in fixing the marriage after Aelfflaed's death. Small and slender, the woman came to the deck and cast her eyes on Osthryth.

"I told all the guards to go away," Eadgifu told Osthryth, her voice soft, but determined. In her arms, she held one child, a baby, and had a young boy who could walk holding her hand.

"II am not a guard. I am here to take you to safety." In the middle distance there was a hammering on the convent door could be heard.

"Oh," Eadgifu said, and in that one expression, she carried distain, disappointment but most of all derision. Osthryth's anger flared again.

"So you were Edward's ithird wife," Osthryth shook her head, as if she were the disappointment.

"I was the wife of King Edward of Wessex," Eadgifu replied officiously.

"I regret I was not there at his passing," Osthryth replied.

"I am not," the woman said. "Odious piece of shit."

But Osthryth said nothing, for she could feel the grief coming, grief borne of sentiment of a time long gone, when they were yoing at the beginning. He was like the younger brother who Osthryth had never had, and who had beguiled her into his bed so many times. She pulled out Buaid, and drove her into the deck.

"Who are you?" the woman asked.

"I remember his smile," Osthryth said, remembering. "I never knew a sunnier child." And then she smiled, "And then he stole Aethelflaed's necklace for he, pretending he'd found it, and I made him out it back. She caught him and burned his toy soldier army in the kitchen fireplace. He cried for a week after that."

And tears were forming in Osthryth's eyes now, as she remembered his face, his joy in life.

"I will not say it again," Eadgifu said, and there was a knife in her hand but Osthryth did not move.

"Then one day he told me to move from guarding his door to sleep in his bed, I thought -" she stopped, and thought, had she thought instead of him? Or had she always known that he was seducing her? It did not matter. Edward had a charm about him that made everyone think that what it was they were doing for him they were really doing for themselves.

"He was so happy when he met Ecgwynn, so happy when his children were born, there was not a happier father anywhere." And she looked at the young woman's defiant, arrogant face, and let the tears do as they liked.

"I never loved him, nor him me. But he loved his children, every single one of them." She looked at the child in her arms and at her side. From behind her, a shout had gone up. Someone had noticed Sparrowhawk had gone, and there was now a frantic scramble to retrieve her.

"If you are here to kill them, then - " Eadgifu held the flimsy blade out to Osthryth again. But flimsy blades could cut sharp and deeply.

"Why would I wish to kill them?" Osthryth asked.

"Why are you here?"

"To piss my brother off," she told her. "Uhtred of Bebbanburg. But I doubt you will know - "

"Osthryth," Eadgifu said softly, the light in her eyes changing as she said her name. "Yes I do know you." She glanced to the shore. A boat was now being put out to where Sparrowhawk was. "He remembered you, especially near the end, he said your name. You must have meant a good deal to him, too." She took a step towards Osthryth, who had not yet abandoned her senses - this woman had not lowered her blade and behind her a manner of curses were being thrown towards them.

"And you wish to piss your brother off because - "

"He's a piece of shit," Osthryth told her. "He has stolen my land, and my husband - " although, Osthryth admitted, a lot of that was Finan's choice. "I would be helping my people prepare for harvest now but he stole a ship, and forced me to come with him, to rescue you."

"Your people?"

"I have land Berric." There was a pause. Behind them, water lapped of a small boat coming nearer. She would have to release the wheel, and now, if she wanted the current to beat the oars of a rowing boat. She pushed the tiller, and there was a grinding noise. Wachilt, if she ever she needed the power of the goddess now, would take her south.

"So, what was your plan to rescue me?" Eadgifu asked.

"Get you to Cent," she told her. The woman smiled.

"A good plan," she told her. "My brother's estate is just over there." She nodded to the coast, where a large settlement rested at the water's edge.

"I can help you," she added, as the boat got nearer. Who would he send? Osthryth thought. Finan, no doubt. She looked back to Eadgifu, who had lowered her blade. "Pretend you have taken me hostage." The woman smiled to Osthryth, who smiled back. The ship was going south.

"Why not?"

"Look!" Sihtric said, pointing. Finan, beside Uhtred, shook his head.

"Oh no, no," he said, softly. Was there another way? Could they have not told his wife what they were doing?

"Look!" Sihtric said again. For Osthryth was holding the queen at knife point.

"Lady Eadgifu, and her children are unharmed," Osthryth called out to her brother. "Unharmed," she added, and pushed Buaidh closer to Eadgifu and her eldest son. Edmund looked up to her, wide eyed. He looked exactly like his father, and it hurt Osthryth's eyes to look at him. She smiled, and gave him a tickle with her left hand.

"Put the knife to my throat," Eadgifu encouraged, and passed her the one she had been holding.

"She says if you let her go, she will let me go," Eadgifu called, piteously.

"Let the queen go!" Uhtred shouted to Osthryth angrily. But Osthryth shouted back in Danish that he was a piece of shit, that the rescue operation was going to fail, and she would never forgive him for sending Egil to her land.

But then, Uhtred did something she did not expect. Although she should have. Beside his father, young Finan stood. Uhtred grabbed the boy and took out his seax.

"I will take your son's life!" he threatened, and walked to the front of the rowing boat. Young Finan, to his credit, did not move, or cry out, and a pulse of pride crossed Osthryth's chest. She could be no prouder of her son.

"No God, Uhtred," said Finan, softly. But Uhtred had not finished yet, and he clapped his other hand on Finan's shoulder, smiling at his friend a smile with no humour in it.

"Everyone knows how good you are my friend to take on my whore of a sister's bastard," he told Finan. "Even more so when he's Constantine's. So now he dies for Alba," he looked back to Osthryth, "A sort of justice there, sister?"

"I think you have spoken the most words together in your life," Osthryth spat. But Uhtred ignored the insult, and held up her son's head so she could see his neck.

"But, I am thinking - "

"Is it a strange sensation?" Osthryth mocked.

"...is he not of Edward?"

There was a gasp. Eadgifu, beside her was looking carefully at Osthryth now. "I know that you visited the king before the battle of Teotenhalgh, you begged the West Saxons to help. With what did you pay for that help?" He glanced at young Finan? "Or did he give you something for your trouble?"

How did he know? Osthryth thought. How did he know she had gone there?

Then she thought, Aethelflaed, he must have told Aethelflaed that Osthryth had visited, and Aethelflaed must have told Uhtred. That was why they were with him, he wanted to isolate young Finan. He had his own heir, now.

"Kill him," she told Uhtred, praying, praying that God would tell young Finan that she was lying. "I tried to rid my body of him, but it was no use. He is Constntine's, and I have tried to love him - "

For a moment, Osthryth thought she was going to see her son die. the son she had fought so very long and hard to protect, given so much to be at Alba, see grow into a strong, intelligent, pleasant person. Uhtred narrowed his eyes, then thrust young Finan away towards Finan.

But he was not there. She inhaled. Of course. Of course Uhtred would send someone to stop her. It made sense to be her husband. Osthryth saw his black hair over the side of the taffrail, but did not lower her sword when he approached them and Finan saw the conspiratorial look between Osthryth and Eadgifu.

"She is well and unharmed," Osthryth called to her brother, "Although she will have trouble walking on her right leg because I've chopped off three of her toes."

"Oww," Eadgifu said, after a short delay. The comedic effect broke the tension, and Osthryth lowered Buaidh. Her anger was incandescent - how dare Uhtred use their son like that? When she finally got to young Finan, and got him on his own, she would ask him what it was he wanted to do with his life, even if she had to work as a sell-sword to make it happen for him. In Alba, she would recommend.

"I am sorry for your loss," Osthryth said to Eadgifu. The queen put her hand across Osthryth's as she made to push Buaidh back into her scabbard. Her hand was soft, and there was only just a faint smell of lavender now.

"And yours," Eadgifu told her. "Be sure, you brought happiness to Edward."

"Come on," Finan told Osthryth, and she looked to him, seeing in his face a look of unhappiness. She believed she was going to make it worse.

"What was that for?" she demanded to know of her brother, calling down to him as her brother's men climbed aboard, taking control of the ship, tightening her lines, putting her about. Young Finan glanced at his mother, but said nothing. She said nothing either - she felt they all should be lucky that she was not demanding to fight Uhtred there, on deck.

As her brother got aboard, Uhtred hit the back of her head like an older child might a younger, but it was hard and she stumbled. Eadgifu's knife fell from her hands, and the woman looked at it on the deck. He took a step back when he saw Finan looking between them. Then, he held up a rope.

"Uhtred, please, I am begging yer," Finan said, his voice low. "Do not toe her up. Take her sword but - "

"No," Osthryth said, insolence in her words, "Tie me up. I mean you, like to do that to people who are weaker than you, Aethelwold being dead now I suppose you will settle for beating me yourself." Uhtred took a step towards her, but then cast down the rope. Instead, he took her shoulder and threw her to the stern of the ship.

"Stay here," he told her. But still Osthryth was defiant. "And you may keep your sword; you won't be able to use it."

"Young Finan," Osthryth called to her son. "Get the rope, bind my hands."

"Mother!" her son exclaimed.

"Anything for his Lordship!" And she made to get the rope herself, when Finan stooped and picked it up. She stalked off to the back of the ship and sat on the planks, holding up her wrists, inviting the restraint.

"You don't have to do this," Finan told her as he knelt beside her. Osthryth was glad that he didn't try to kiss her because how she was feeling she might have turned away.

"I did not ask to be here," Osthryth reminded him.

Several hours later, and Sparrowhawk anchored not far off the north Centish coast. Osthryth watched as her brother, along with Finan and Berg, took the queen and her two children to her brother's estate.

Finan had tried to speak to her, and had sat by her. Osthryth conceded to ask whether he had heard about a plague in the north.

"A plague?" Finan asked.

"I overheard it was in Lindcolne." She pursed her lips. "Had I been at Berric - " He leaned over and took her hands.

"He has a plan, Osthryth," Finan told him, "And you did not want to know it. I have heard nothing about plague," he added.

"A plan involving our son, and bringing him into hostile land when he has a potential claim to the throne of Wessex and Mercia? When Uhtred fights, of course, for Aethelstan?"

"Potential claim?" Finan repeated. Osthryth hesitated. He knew that she had been with Edward, but that had been before she had fled with Aedre. This was new, and she had never discussed it. Now, it had been thrust upon them by her brother.

"I - " she began, but Finan held a finger to her lips.

"You cannot begin to know what I feel knowing that that bastard Edward, and that equally bastardous shit on the throne of Alba knew you," he told her. "But, Osthryth, if you tell me now that there is no chance - "

"Think about it," Osthryth asked.

"I do not want to think about it," Finan told her. "I want to kill the bastards in their sleep - I have often thought of that."

"The last time I saw Constantine," she emphasised, "It was almost a year before Teotenhalgh; Edward, I saw him, as my shithead brother points out, about a week before that battle." Finan was silent for a time, but reached over her body to her stomach, remembering the swell of her stomach of a several month's child.

Then, he reached over and pulled Osthryth close, and kissed her, as if it was the first time they had ever met, the first time when she had strayed a hand close to his, when she had put an arm on his, when he had put firm hands on her bare flesh.

"He is my kin," Finan told her, after breaking off reluctantly from their kiss. "Your brother has a plan."

"He has given away our land?!" Osthryth exclaimed. "I don't trust - "

"Trust me."

And that was what she chose to do. For, as he moved from her, he ran his hand down her leg, and brought out Ceinid's sgian, the little, sharp, needle of a knife that sat in a leather holder in her thigh, placing it in her hand and moving both her hand and the sgian under Osthryth's leg.

He did not back away and cast disparaging remarks to Osthryth about being a bad wife or an untrustworthy lover. In fact, he said nothing at all, but gave her a long look. He seemed happier. And Finan sealed the plot with a kiss to her forehead, and then got to his feet, falling in to Uhtred's side.

And she watched, as the little boat they had used to get to Sparrowhawk got to the strand, and three figures got out. They were about half a mile from the coast.

It was the work of a minute that Osthryth cut through the rope. She might even have been as easy to wriggle her bonds free, except that her movements would have alerted Sihtric and Osferth. She stayed down, as if still bound watching.

"Where is she?" Uhtred asked, when he returned to two embarrassed, bemused guards. Osferth pointed tobthe shorn ropes. Uhtred looked, then rested his eyes on the water, where a figure was swimming in the warm, afternon sunshine.

"And how did that happen?" When he got no reply, Uhtred of Bebbanburg took to the wheel, ordering his men to ready Sparrowhawk.

"My sister," he murmured bitterly, as they rounded Sheppey and headed up-tide towards Lundene.

"I let her go," Finan told him as the banks of the Thames narrowed and the stench of the city reached the ship. "God help me, I let her go."