Gloucester, Summer 927
The ride took nearly a week, the way that Osthryth's nephew took her. Down to the western hills, they avoided Bebbanburg and followed the Roman wall to the outskirts of Caer Ligualid, before taking a track to the east which led down to a settlement of Britons at Penrith.
"The land to the river Louther was Rheged," Bishop Oswald told her, nodding to the ford. "Over there is Eamont Bridge, where Britons of old plotted circles in stone."
The limit of her land, if the documents she owned were to be believed, Osthryth thought, and she asked whether he knew where Rhieinmelth, the second wife of king Oswy, King - and Saint - Oswald's brother, had come from. For these were her lands, given through the female line through to Osthryth's mother, Gwythelth, and then to Osthryth.
"Not for sure," her nephew laughed. "But I do have time when I work through monastery libraries to find out more about our family. I like it that you take an interest." By their family, Osthryth knew he meant their Anglish, their Saxon family, through hers and Uhtred's father, all the way back to the Flamebearer.
And Osthryth did take an interest, not least because her uncle Aelfric detested anything literary, but because knowing about their family, their land around them, was important to the people who lived there now. Ask anyone in Berric who their king was, and they would not say Aethelstan, even though he had invaded Northumbria when he had told Uhtred he would not.
"Constantine," they would tell her. It was what Caltigar had told her, as had Beann. They stopped at a small settlement just south of Eamont, and when she asked the question, the man of the tenant farm told her, "Guthfrith the Norseman!" then bent her head to Osthryth and added, "That is what we are supposed to say. Perhaps Aethelstan of Mercia? Pah!" He spat on the ground. "Mercia! We are not Mercia!"
"Owain, then? Of Strathclyde?" The man eyed Osthryth with suspicion, but shook his head.
"It is the lord at Caer Ligualid to whom we pay our tithes." Who was his lord? The man couldn't say. He had been certain who was not his lord.
And Osthryth saw the vacuum, the space where kingship was missing. A place where her deeds told her she owned the land.
"Are the lands Cymric?" Osthryth pressed on, in Cymric? "Are they of the Hen Ogledd?" And the man gave her such a sad look that Osthryth wished she had not.
"We had our king once, but he is gone. The land was taken by the Saxons." At this, he spat again.
"King Owain of Strathclyde is of the Hen Ogledd, the Old North," she told him, and fought the urge to add, "As am I." And she gave him a silver piece for his time and got back on her horse, glancing back to the farm, and at the land, flatter to the east, rising to mountains in the west. As they descended down the country Osthryth asked the same question: Who is your king?
And the answer got more and more definite that it was Aethelstan, Aethelstan, once just king of Mercia, now king of Wessex and Cent and East Anglia, who had taken the throne at Eoforwic and claimed Northumbria.
"This land is now called Englaland," one man told her as they approached Runcorn. "Now that will take some getting used to." He glanced at his wife. "We are of Northumbria, are we not, wife?" And his wife agreed, as she brought Osthryth and Bishop Oswald some food.
And Osthryth continued with her questioning as they travelled down the western Roman road, past places she knew, Caestre, Wem, Bridgnorth, Saltwic, Worcester, a road that would take them, eventually, to Gloucester: What country is this? Which is your king?
Some answers came that their king was Edward or Aethelred, although that was an old man with clearly an old memory, but invariably the answers she got were "Aethelstan". "Deria" and "Mercia" figured as much as "Englaland", so clearly Aethelstan's policy of being seen by his people was working.
Gloucester was as Osthryth remembered. Large, laid out in a grid plan, it had a burh arrangement with gates around the city in times of war or siege. Osthryth recalled going there with the Alba mormaers, when she was pregnant with young Finan, and wondered whether Pyrlig and his wafe still had the alehouse, and if Cymric rebels still met there.
Crowds were gathering, and Osthryth looked at the direction in which they were travelling. The cathedral. And Bishop Oswald was heading there too.
"No swords," her nephew told her, and they walked to the outbuildings at the back of the cathedral, Oswald waving a hand to the guards as he passed.
"A perk," he told her, and led Osthryth into the vestry, where the ecclesiastical vestments and rite artefacts had a home, the cross, the chalice, an incense box. In locked cupboards Osthryth reasoned that the cathedral's relics were housed, various saints would be reckoned there. But, of course, there was only one that was most important to Mercia, and more so, to Osthryth and her nephew.
"Our ancestor, King, Saint Oswald, is buried in the transept," Bishop Oswald told her. "Lord Aethelstan had him interred there in a service before Teotenhalgh." He glanced at the side galleries. "There is where he is buried, Aethelred, that is, and beyond, Aethelflaed, beside him."
"I remember when he died," Osthryth told her nephew. "Murdered. Aethelred, that is," she added, with a smile. But the smile was not for her clarification, but for the black pleasure to know that Aethelflaed was to be spending the rest of her physical days beside the man she had hated.
And Osthryth would never have known why. Aethelred was bold and bossy and stern, brave and stupid. But Aethelflaed was spoiled, and believed her marriage should be a fairy tale in which her actions played no part: happiness would roll up to meet her. When it did not, it was everyone else's fault, beginning with Aethelred.
"We are in time, God's fortune," Bishop Oswald told Osthryth. "Come, we will watch from the first floor - bishops may invite guests to these restricted viewing positions. Others will be with us," he nodded, as bishops from other parts of the country were ascending a flight of stairs. To hear a king speak to his people was a privileged event, and it meant they got any informatuon, any decrees or proclamations immediately - knowledge, of course, being power. So they grew more powerful. As would Osthryth.
Into the centre of the cathedral, hurrying up the nave, was a man dressed in the new red livery of Aethelstan, the golden dragon emblazoned on his chest. Chairs were being assembled, and the cathedra, the bishop's throne, was being brought into position. It would become Aethelstan's throne, and even now red carpeting was being laid over the stone floor.
"No, no Bishop Dunstan!" Osthryth heard one bishop say to another, sniffily.
"Who's Bishop Dunstan?" Osthryth asked her nephew. Oswald turned his head to look at his aunt.
"Bishop of Winchester," he told her. "He hates Aethelstan because Aethelstan had him expelled from the church for practising sorcery." Oswald lowered his voice, "But it is more likely that it was because Dunstan declaimed Aethelstan as a usurper and a bastard, even when all the lords in Wessex, give or take a minor handful, had accepted Aethelstan, had bent the knee to him. In the cathedral. On Easter Sunday," Oswald added, with a wry smile.
When everyone would have been there to hear it, Osthryth thought. So there was not entire unity in the south, either, her thoughts reminded her, although there were more pressing matters to the west and to the north.
And it was because of the west, because of Cymru - Hywel, of course - that Aethelstan was in Gloucester. It was here that was the gateway to the Welsh kingdoms, here generations of Mercian kings had met their counterparts from Cymru, from Powys, Gwent, Deheubarth. Gwent saw to itself, or had seen to itself, at Ceastre, under King Anarawd.
But he had sent his last surviving heir off with Osthryth to become Owain of Strathclyde, and Hywel had assumed the kingship of the north Cymric kingdom, the last bastion of the Hen Ogledd, the Old Northern kings, who the old man at Eamont had been recalling, although that had been decades, centuries before.
Beside her, Bishop Oswald of Ceastre leaned forward, for there were more lords entering the cathedral. Mercia, obviously, was represented, although Osthryth could not make out the nobility - she was searching for Aldhelm, but all she could see were flaxen-haired Norse and Danes.
Wessex was there - Aethelhelm the Younger, the grandson of Edward's second wife, power restricted to that of an alderman when Aethelstan siezed the lands of Devonshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, the western-most lands from Winchester, between the West Saxon capital and Cornwalum, who had been atomised into discrete groups across the peninsula, no more of the Brittonic kingship rule in that land for Aethelstan.
Their kings had knelt before the new king of the Angles and Saxons at Mieneon, a place where, ironically, one of the last independent kings, Doniert, had had his lands before Egbert, Alfred's grandfather, had deposed him and incorporated Cornwalum - technically - into Wessex. At Exeter, a large garrison had been placed and trusted Mercians to command it. The Welsh kings, under Hywel, had submitted at Hereford, where Hywel had mounted an attack on the Mercian border as Aethelstan had been travelling up the western road.
They had wished to claim back the land to Liccefeld, where even to that day Cymric words were spoken. Land had been gifted back to them, Hywel had told Aethelstan, and he was claiming this land. This would include Teotenhalgh, Aethelstan told them and the land in this area was Saxon.
"Just look at the names of the places, King Hywel," King Aethelstan had told him. "No Cymric lord would ever have named settlements as "Wodensfield" or "Wodensbyrig".
Now Hywel was bringing himself and the other petty kings to Gloucester, with the tribute agreed at Hereford, and there he was, entering the cathedral, his sons, Edwin, Rhodri and Owain with him. Osthryth had met the sons before, when she had gone to Deheubarth. Edwin, named after the Derian king, Osthryth's ancestor, was named as per tradition had held it, recognising the long alliance between the southern Cymric and the Northumbrians, against their common enemy of Mercia.
But now, Mercia was here, Aethelstan was here, or would be, eventually, and Cymru and Northumbria would bow to the King of the Angles and the Saxons. The king, reputedly, calling himself "Monarchus Totalus Britanniae" - the monarch of all Britain. It was outrageous, but well within his grasp if he could play the politics well, and use his alliances. And if politics and alliances failed Aethelstan, there would be war, and the war had to be won if he were to achieve this.
A sick feeling began to dwell in Osthryth's stomach, a kind of panic that was making her uneasy. Alba was strong, especially with the Norse. But the Norse only fought for themselves, although they might be more faithful if they were allowed to keep the lands they had claimed in the west of Owain's Strathclyde, and if Guthfrith, who her brother had prevented from reaching Constantine, was given Eoforwic - Jorvik - back.
But there needed to be more for Constantine - what would she do? If she were queen of somewhere, say, the lands that she had titles for, what would she do?
Osthryth thought, as more men came into the cathedral. Ally with the Cymric too - there would be sufficient number then to face Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia But Hywel was too suspicious of Constantine, untrusting because of Osthryth's involvement in springing Owain from his grandfather's nothern Cymric lands to be reunited with his father, Dyfnwal, in Strathclyde.
And then he entered, this supposed bastard of Edward, swathed in red, with the crown of Englaland upon his head, fair hair in ringlets with metal entwined within them.
Aethelstan, looking like a king ought to look, looking like Charlemagne looked, so was reputed, in glory and light and all the riches of Frankia. All the riches of Christendom seemed to be with the grandson of Alfred. And he was brave in battle. All he needed was a queen and offspring. Yet, he was thirty years old now, and no woman had ever been spoken of as a prospective wife and when Aethelstan was asked about the succession, he merely emphasised that he had two younger brothers.
"He does look glorious," Oswald said to Osthryth.
"Like a king put down on this earth from God in heaven," Osthryth replued, and she watched how, before the king, bishops from the land - the bishops beside them craned down to loo who had been favoured - Mercian bishops, Osthryth could see - Liccefeld was one, as was Worcester and Oxford, all places well loved by Aethelstan, and who well-loved him.
"Shouldn't you be down there?" Osthryth asked. Her nephew turned to her and gave a small chuckle.
"Oh no," he replied, "I am here with you. You came all this way from Berric to see the king, and, perhaps, to offer your own tribute? Words of fealty?" Osthryth turned her head, taking in the long-faced features of Gisela and the bright, piercing eyes of his uncle, Guthred, who Osthryth had once - technically - been married to. He had carefully, jovially, good-humouredy brought her south so she could bow to Aethelstan?
"So that is it? You rescue a lamb fallen by the wayside and take it back to its shepherd?" But she couldn't make her words sound cross, only bemused, and her nephew smiled again.
"He is Monarchus Totalus Britanniae," Oswald said simply, looking down to his king.
"He claims he wishes to be so," Osthryth replied. "But there are other kings. Constantine will never bow to Aethelstan, will never acknowledge the title he claims." But she did not add, "Neither will I." Because that was catalytic. Giving defining answers to things, Osthryth had learned, brought trouble later, and the uneasiness in her stomach told her that there were bigger things here than Osthryth of Berric declaring for one king or another.
Yet, there were people in the north, people who, by deed, were her people too, who could name no king that was there but could remember the Old North, and the Cymric kings who had ruled there, who had brought peace and prosperity there. It had been hundreds of years before, as the Saxons and Angles were just discovering this country called Brittonum.
And yet, why shouldn't they remember it? Ula could remember tales passed down of a whiteness, an everlasting winter and huge animals roaming the land. Where other peoples had ebbed away but they had clung on, roaming with the animals that roamed the white, barren wilderness, with the ever-hope that green would come again.
Osthryth glanced down again and paid attention to Aethelstan again. Beside him was, presumably, the bishop of Gloucester, whose cathedra was being used by the king. He was giving proclamations to the people who were coming to him for judgments. Two men were just retreating, ushered out by guards as two more were bringing another. Osthryth craned forward to hear what was being said.
"This is Alfforth, earldoman of the Deene Forest," Osthryth heard. "He brings the case of the son of a farmer, who was hanged by the priest for theft."
What of it, thought Osthryth. Men were hanged for theft. But, as she listened, she saw Aethelstan twitch in his seat, and caught that the age of the son was twelve. He was a boy, and tried by the law of the country, he was guilty of theft of a loaf of bread, and was summarily hanged. Aethestan got to his feet. He surveyed the people before him. Osthryth looked at the people before him, nobles, ceorls, peasants, all there to look upon him, and to hear his justice. And he paused, just long enough for Osthryth to be convinced that he was touched by the harshness that he had heard.
"While the priest acted within the law," Aethelstan told his people, "I am here to declare that no-one under fifteen should be killed by the law." He turned to the priest beside him, and instructed it to be noted in the record of the day. That record would be transcribed by all of the bishops present and sent to the parishes throughout the land. Aethelstan had commanded, and those who dealt the law would now enforce his word.
The earldorman bowed to Aethelstan and departed, under the hand of the two guards who had brought him, but then the crowd parted and another guard took their place. He walked to the centre of the nave and bowed his head to Aethelstan. Was it Aldhelm? It looked like him. If it were, Aldhelm was wearing the green and gold of Mercia.
"If it please the lord, King Aethelstan of Englaland," Aldhelm began, "The kings Hywel Dda of Deheubarth and Owain of Glywysing & Gwent, here to kneel to your grace and submit to the overlordship of your grace, by God!"
Osthryth exhaled, realising only then that she had been holding her breath. Gloucester was, she knew, close to the border between England and Wales, and Aethelstan had, by decree, set at the River Wye, which took presumed land away from Gwent and Powys.
And she watched as Hywel bent low to Aethelstan, his three sons, two of whom were kings in their own right, knelt to him, there in the great cathedral built by Lord Aethelstan. What could she believe less, Osthryth wondered, that Aethelstan had asked it, or that Hywel had done it? Owain was Constantine's sub-king, had never, or had never been asked to kneel to the king of Alba. She could still not believe this of the Hywel of Deheubarth that she knew.
"King Aethelstan accepts your tribute, of a thousand hides and the same of cattle," Aldhelm continued. "And your pledge to suppress paganism and promote Christianity in Norse and Danish settlers."
Hywel glanced upwards before he turned, and caught Osthryth's eye. If he recognised her, the king they called "Hywel the Good" did not show it. Instead, he walked proudly out of the cathedral, past all of the people there, his sons behind him.
"Rhodri is king now of Gwynedd," Bishop Oswald commented.
"Anarawd's kingdom?" Osthryth asked. She remembered the king, who had kept his grandson safe until Osthryth could spirit him away to Alba and his future kingdom Strathclyde. For his father had been Dyfnwal, king of the Strathclyde Cymric and whose mother was Anarawd's daughter,
"Yes," her nephew confirmed. "As far as Hywel is concerned. As far as Aethestan and the world is concerned. But - "
"But?" Osthryth repeated, but Oswald was looking past her and down towards the steps where the rest of the bishops were going, spilling out onto the ground floor and circulating around the other bishops who were there.
"What does Hywel see?"
"I would imagine he sees his old enemy being strengthened and himself being put in his place," Osthryth continued. "Because west after Deheubarth, it is the Irish Sea, and then Leinster, and then Munster and then Tir nan Og." Oswald laughed again, the corners of his mouth turning up again.
"Which enemy?"
"Mercia," Osthryth replied. "Wessex. Englaland, if that's what it is to be called." A silly name, when most of the nobles were Saxons. But Mercia was mostly Anglish, and what better way to underline his own loyalty but to name the whole country consisting of the old heptarcy by the name of the Mercian Angles.
"But there is another enemy," Bishop Oswald told her. "One north of Deheubarth." He glanced towards the steps, and the behind himself, before leaning towards Osthryth. "Gwynedd."
Osthryth pulled back and stared at her nephew. Only a few minutes ago he had told her that Hywel's son had Anarawd's old kingship.
"Do you think that the northern Cymric have forgotten their shared heritage with Strathclyde and Cumbraland?" Oswald asked her. "Do you think that Hywel's taking of the throne and passing it to his son was unopposed?" Oswald shook his head. "And I did not bring you here to bow to Aethelstan - I would never dream of compelling you. I did bring you to meet someone else."
"Who?" Osthryth demanded.
"A distant relative, who has Pictish - Cymric lands. He knows of the land left to you by Gwythelth - your mother."
"Your father's step mother who had him baptised again when our father changed his name to Uhtred," Osthryth told he nephew.
"A Brittonic tradition," Oswald replied.
"How do you know so much about this?" she asked her nephew.
"I am at a a crossroads in Ceastre, and I hear things. I hear that there are kin of Anarawd who wish to be independent of Hywel's overlordship, who put their hopes in Owain of Strathclyde and believe - believed - that he would instigate rebellion leading to their reunification with the other Cymric in the old North. You are all Coel Hen's people," Bishop Oswald added. "So, who better to appeal to than the bishop of Ceastre, whose lands his father and his uncles fought to protect when the burh was being built, with whose blood Mercia was bought and freed?"
Oswald nodded, and held out a hand to a door. It wasn't the way they had ascended, it was a door that was at the opposite end of the gallery, almost unseen in the darkness.
The ground floor beneath them was lit but the stairs downwards were dark, and once or twice Osthryth lost her footing on the damp stone.
"This way is rarely used," her nephew told her and answered her next question by adding, "And because of who you are about to meet Hywel makes a show of defeence, a promise of tribute to his enemy. Because Cymru is not united, rather, it is in rebellion. Gwynedd would fight to theend than yied to the sourthern Cymric. It looks north. So Hywel pledges to his vstronger neighbour so his stronger neighbour will return the favour."
"And you think he should not?" Osthryth managed, her foot sliding on yet another damp step. Oswald stopped and turned to look at her.
"It's not what I think that matters," her nephew told her, and put out a hand to her wrist, guiding Osthryth diwn the last few steps.
At the bottom, the weak torchlight that had guided their passage flickered in a draught that was being caused by gaps in a door at the bottom, which swung open. A priest in a long cassock almost too big for him gave Bishop Oswald a nervous nod.
"Thank you, Father Faneald," Oswald said, and took the torch from the man's hand. "Please tell Father Derebrand that we are here." A nod and a quick turn sent the man from Oswald, and Osthryth followed him into the room, a cellar of sorts, but what turned out to be a mausoleum.
"Not just a shrine," said Osthryth's nephew, as he strode further in. "Here are the relics of the blessed Saint of our line."
"Saint Oswald?" Osthryth breathed, and she looked where he was gesturing, to an oak box decorated with stylised animal decoration, which looked like the gospel book that was now with Cuthbert at the cathedral in Durham. It was large, about three feet by one and a half, and it was lit by a torch which made the carvings look as if the animals were moving.
Saint Oswald. The man who had brought the Irish church from Iona to Lindisfarne, who had defeated his uncle, Edwin, king of Deria, at Heavenfield to become the king of both Deria and Bernicia - Northumbria. Who successfully repelled the Mercians and Gwyneddians, until, one summer, where he had brought Northumbria south, not far from the Saeferne river, and was caught out by King Penda of Mercia, and hacked to pieces.
It took his niece Osthryth, married to Aethelred of Mercia, instructed Oswald's remains tobe interred in Lindsay, at the monastery at Bardsey. It took another Aethelred, Aethelflaed's husband, brought back the relics and to Gloiucester out of Danish territory. Aelfric was reputed to have the head - Osthryth had seen a skull in the ;oft above the chapel at Bebbanburg - it could have been the saint's head, she thought.
Osthryth noticed another door at the other end of the crypt and that her nephew had moved towards it. A figure was standing in the doorway.
"Did anyone see you?" he asked the figure. Osthryth craned forward to hear as her nephew added, "Father Theodren, did anyone see you?"
A muffled reply came and, after a moment,Bishop Oswald stepped into the doorway. Dozens of men then stepped past him, and into the crypt, filling the space, standing row after row, and looking at Osthryth. Her hand drifted to her belt and onto Buaidh's hilt, watching as the last man entered, Oswald closing the door behind him. He watched Osthryth's face look at the men, medium height and not much different in features, most had pale golden hair, some fairer than Osthryth was herself, some darker.
"They came to me, because they wish independence of Hywel, and they knew of a warrior queen, daughter of Gwythelth," Oswald said, baldly.
Who? Osthryth wondered as she looked on their faces, her eyes resting on the man at the front. Who could be the daugter of a Briton called Gwythelth?
And the man who had been looking at her, suddenly withdrew his sword, and in a heartbeat, he was kneeling, one leg on the stone floor of the crypt, both hands holding the hilt of his sword which he had thrust out before her.
"Daughter of Gwythelth," the man declared, and the men behind him, as one, all knelt to her too. "My name is Cynddylan, grandson of Anarawd, the last king of Gwynedd."
And memories flooded back as the man continued to speak, Osthryth remembered nearly twenty years before, after the battle of Teotenhalgh, going to take Cnut's blade ice spite with Father Pyrlig to Hywel. She did not know it, but she was taking it to be used as a treatment for her brother, who had had infected wounds from his part in the battle. Eadith had used her skill, and cobwebs and honey, to bring him back from his delusional fevers.
He had been treated at Hywel's fortress of Deheubarth, but that wasn't the reason that she had been there. No, Osthryth was there because she was, again unbeknownst to her, she was to liberate Owain, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde's son, the same Owain who had travelled to Goucester and bent the knee to Aethelstan.
There was a conflict in him, Osthryth thought. He had been with Osthryth when she had travelled with the mormaer warriors to Ceastre when it came under the invasion from Norse fleeing Eireann. She had noticed at the time the two young men, both raised away from their fathers, both with heavy birthrights, had got on with one another very well. Owain had also been with them at Corbridge, again allies with Mercia under Aethelflaed's treaty with Constantine.
But now, with Hywel claiming north Cymru as well as south, Aethelstan had thought he had found an ally in Owain against Constantine. But Owain, with his kingdom next to Constantine's, to whom he had formally given his oath now he was King of the Strathclyde Cymru, he had been hesistant. Was this where the north Cymru had come from? Had Owain instigated it, to declare independence for Strathclyde, drawn Osthryth into an independence plot without actually being involved himself?
If so, then he was giving up a third of his land, if Osthryth were to take the land that was formerly the "Hen Ogledd", the old North. They had been a people as well as a land; Rheged had covered the land that was Strathclyde to the Clyde river, and down to the river Luna.
Owain had been taken by King Anarawd to Ynys Enlli, the island holy to the people of Gwynedd, in line with Aberffau, Anarawd's capital, in a plan he had arranged with Constantine and Dyfnwal.
He had wanted to return Owain to Strathclyde, not keep him here to be a constant foe to the king in southern Cymru, Hywel. Anarawd had seen enough that Hywel was stronger, and he was old and did not wish to be the instrument that meant more lives were lost in a battle that he believed Hywel would easily win.
So Anarawd of Gywnedd had yielded to the idea of making Cymru one, and returning Owain, Urien's kin, back to Strathclyde, which was more or less Rheged, King Urien's land.
But there were plenty in Gwynedd who still saw themselves as Hen Ogledd, and dreamed of times gone where their land was centred around the river Idunn, and Caer Ligualid. Some who knew also that Osthryth was descended from
Osthryth shuddered at the thought of her time long ago at that city, and the cruelty that was done to her by Griogair. And blinked. She realised that fifty warriors were staring at her.
"We call on you to honour the land gift of your mother, Gwythelth," Cynddylan went on. "All hail the queen of the Hen Ogledd!"
"All hail the queen of the Hen Ogledd!" came the reply. Osthryth looked to her nephew. Was this real? Descendents of the original Britons wished her to be their queen?" She waited for a moment to see if anything else was going to happen, and then stepped towards Prince Cynddylan, naming him so.
"I am honoured that you call me your queen," Osthryth told them. "That you have come to me shows thart, even over the distance of centuries, blood still bonds us. I will be your queen," she told them.
The Morrigan. It could only have been the great queen if the Sidhe. Because the sensible thing would be to turn around and leave, pooh-pooh the suggestion and ask Bishop Oswald to take her above, and to her horse so she could return to Berric. But, Osthryth did not. Nor could she be called, to her northern Cymric by the name of a Saxon princess.
"My mother called me Aedre," Osthryth told the warriors, "And I bestowed that name on my adopted daughter. I am Osthryth of the Idings, but I am also Hen Ogledd - I am the Old North."
"And what do we call you, queen of the Old North?" Prince Cynddylan asked her.
There could be only one name, Osthryth knew. In the flickering torchlight she smiled.
"Gwythelth," Osthryth told them. "You should call me Queen Gwythelth."
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They slept that night in an inn, not far from where Osthryth reckoned Pyrlig to have his own inn, before setting off to Ceastre as dawn broke. The moment with the Gwynnedians had been on her mind and, as they passed through the northern gate of the city and onto the Roman road that led them first to Twekesbury, then Worcester, Saltwic, Wem and then Ceastre, the ludicrosity of the situation began to sink in to Osthryth. She could not rule a kingdom, even if there was one to rule, which there wasn't. She was the lady of Berric, and she was relied upon to manage the farmland with the help of Caltigar and Munadd and Beann, and the Alba warriors, when they were not training the Berric household guard.
"I have to admit, I did not think you would take it so well." Bishop Oswald said, as they left the cathedral at the back. Well rested and fed, they got back onto their horses and left past the bishop's palace and onto the old Roman road that would lead them north, the direction they had come.
"Well?" Osthryth told him. "I have effectively become the figurehead for a rebellion." She watched as her nephew turned to look at her, and smiled. "But there can never be a rebellion - there is no land to take, no land to rule. Rheged, the Old North belongs to Strathclyde, Cumbraland and Northumbria now."
"Is that why you said it?" Bishop Oswald asked, his voice accusatory. He also looked a little disappointed.
"If there was any land to lead them to, I would," Osthryth told him. "I would leave Berric and be their queen. But I cannot see where that land is, can you?" Her nephew did not answer. "So, I can be queen in my mother's name for them, queen in spirit, to give them the culture they need."
But Osthryth's view of what Bishop Oswald meant was about to change, as he reminded her that the land documents were, of course, real to the Cymric and the Gaels. The Norse might well honour them, as long as the could gain Eoforwic, or Jorvik as they called it. But, as far as Osthryth could see, Rheged was right in between southern Northumbria, where Eoforwic lay, and the North Sea, where the Norse patrolled, moving about their lands. It would be too tempting not to try to take it.
It was about to change for, when they got to Ceastre, and to Bishop Oswald's own cathedral, a letter was pushed into his hand by one of the guards at the gate before they had even alighted from their horses.
"Norse have fled Alba," he told her, reading a letter as he walked down the galleries towards the back of the cathedral. Oswald looked at Osthryth. "Guthfrith, Anlaf. Aedre with them."
"Aedre?" Osthryth asked, concerned, following her nephew. "Fled Alba?"
"Taken by Constantine to a land of yours."
A land of mine, Osthryth thought. Berric? Constantine had taken Aedre to be with Anlaf to her at the farm? What would he say when he found she was not there?
"Berric?"
"No, Osthryth," a voice came, and she looked up. Next to Bishop Oswald, at the door of her nephew's office, was Aeswi, Constantine's spymaster and her long time friend. "Not your Berric lands, your Northern Cymric lands." And when she looked at Aeswi, and then at Oswald, saying nothing, Aeswi clarified, "Mon, Elann Vannin."
Mon, Osthryth thought. The island off the western shore of Northumbria. Aethelstan's lands, or so he claimed. Mon, inhabited by the Norse...
...of course, of course...
They were going to Anlaf's stronghold, and her darling daughter, Thyra and Beocca's child, was to be wed, Constantine with her.
"You have come to take me to my daughter's wedding?" Osthryth said to Aeswi, hopefully.
"Your nephew cannot very well, seeing as he is one of Aethelstan's bishops and advisors," Bishop Oswald told her, speaking to her in the third person, and breaking the tension. She looked at Aeswi, and nodded to Oswald.
"Before we leave, then," she said to her friend, "I need five minutes with my nephew."
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Bishop Oswald took Osthryth into the back rooms of the cathedral, closing the door behind her. Before she could ask anything her nephew said, "Are you know what you are doing with the Gwyneddians?"
"No," Osthryth replied. "But there is little for them to claim. I am, or rather, Queen Gwythelth is a queen of nothing." She glanced at the door. "Could you not come? Meet Constantine? Aedre? My family?" But her nephew shook his head.
"Go, Osthryth, and when we next meet, tell me what Mon is like. I have heard it is like Alba."
"You should come to Alba," Osthryth told him, her voice dropping in amplitude. "I am sure your niece and nephew would be pleased to see you."
"My niece and nephew?" Oswald repeated. Osthryth glanced to the door to make sure it was closed. Then, she told him how they had survived the plague of three years before, and had been rescued, ere they fell into the hands of Guthfrith. Though he was Sygtryggr's brother, he would see the boy and the girl as rivals for the throne which he believed was his by right.
"They are safe, safe and happy at Dunnottar," Osthryth told him. "Ealasaid speaks Norse, as well as Anglish, and Gaelish and Pictish, of course. They will be well looked after." And Osthryth jumped when her nephew stepped to her and closed his hands around hers.
"God willed it that my niece and nephew did not die!" he exclaimed. "And they aree safe, and being brought up as Christian!" His last statement was more a question than a fact, and Osthryth nodded.
"Not the Roman church, but the Irish church," she told him. But Oswald did not react, other than to smile and nod in agreement.
"Then I surely will visit Alba," he told Osthryth, "To see my kin - all of my kin!" And he drew his aunt close.
"You should stay, stay here in my room, aunt, for the day has been long, and you could leave in the morning." But Osthryth shook her head.
"My thanks, Oswald," she said to her nephew. "If Aeswi has been searching for me because of Aedre then I must got with him."
A pause followed, and then Bishop Oswald walked towards the door and, holding it open, stepped through it with Osthryth and walking with her back to his office, where Aeswi still waited. Faedersword had been above the doorframe, Osthryth noticed, as they left Oswald's chambers - he did not forget his family, then.
"The Norse will prevent him from coming anywhere near Mon," Aeswi told Osthryth when she once again asked Bishop Oswald to accompany them, so she sadly said goodbye to he nephew and followed her friend to the riverside where several ships were tied to posts along its bank. Aeswi helped her into it and, as they casted off, and headed back out onto the Dee, which would become the Maerse, and then the sea of Eireann.
She crossed to the back of the boat and watched as Aeswi directed the boat, back to the city which Aethelflaed had refortified. Burh-making worked - Ceastre, and many other towns saw that.
But what then? What when burhs could no longer be attacked? Would there be a stalemate? A stand off? Would larger and larger armies need to be involved? Would factions become larger until the small details that set region from region apart were lost and societies eaten up into larger countries? It was what was happening with Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia. At what point would the people of Mercia begin to stop thinking of themselves as Mercian, but as Englalandish?
Out into the wide Irish sea, and Osthryth remembered why she didn't like to sail. A wind was whipping around the little craft, which was being sailed by three Norse and three Alba warriors, whether Gaels or Picts, Osthryth could not tell. The midday was calm, but the waves were rough, and she felt seasick, very seasick.
She sat at the back of the ship, and looked intently at the planks. It had been a trick Taghd had told her of, which meant that the choppiness of the seas did not affect her as much. After a while, Aeswi sat next to her.
"I did not expect you to be with your nephew," he told her. "But I did expect you to meet the North Cymric. Cynddylan has been trying to get to Berric many times to see you, but has been held back from crossing into Mercia by Aethelstan's men. Clearly he found a way."
"Yes," Osthryth agreed, and said, as she had said to Bishop Oswald, "To what end, I do not know. The land cannot be mine, for it is Northumbrian and Cumbraland and Strathclyde, and I do not propose to fight Aethelstan, nor my brother, nor Owain, nor Constantine for the rights to any of it." But she opened her eyes wider when she saw Aeswi smile.
"What?" Osthryth asked.
"Nothing," Aeswi told her. "Except that, were you to do so, three of those four people would merely stand aside and allow you to have it."
"But that would leave Aethelstan," Osthryth told him. "Or Uhtred, who has just let Aethelstan claim Bebbanburg as a matter of course. He has put up no resistance," she added, when Aeswi's face did not change.
"What?" she repeated, when Aeswi said nothing. "What am I missing? What are you not telling me?"
"Nothing, Osthryth," he replied. "As you said, you cannot act on becoming their queen."
"What's Mon like?" Osthryth asked Aeswi, as the boat sailed further north. "Is it green, like Cumbraland?"
"I do not know," Aeswi replied. "We have always avoided the place, sailed round it. This is the first time a king of Alba has ever visited there."
Of course, Osthryth thought, a little cynically, when Aeswi went over to one of the warriors and pointed in the direction where the boat was going. Because, until Domhnall, there had never been a king of all Alba. Aethelstan, had he not a mind to subdue Alba under a kingdom called Britanniae, might well garner advice from Constantine as to how to keep disparate groups of peoples together in one kingdom.
But, Aeswi had a point. A Gaelish kingdom had sprouted from a Cymric one at Mon - Ellan Vannin, it had been called. But the Norse had claimed the land nearly a century before and had established rule there, their genocidal tactics leaving a land which once farmed and prayed to the Brythomic gods and transformed it into wholly Norse settlements, with not even a Briton remaining on the island, even to manage it. It was a fortress as well as a settlement, and Osthryth could see, from the striped-sailed, animal-eaded ships before them it defended its borders fiercely.
As they drew nearer, two boats were despatched, their captains callng up the boat in which Osthryth was travelling. The three Norse spoke back, and Aeswi signalled down to them - clearly the boats who had approached them knew the Norse in her boat and they flanked it, until they got to an inlet, a shallow harbour of yellow sand and pale green sea-grass.
Night was drawing in, and Aeswi helped Osthryth out of the boat. Her legs were quaking and she was indeed tired, but her senses were alert to the torches that had welcomed them to the harbour.
Before them, in the growing dusklight, a fortress stood, two-storeyed and again, guarded as they walked the short distance from the beach.
"This is Tynwald," Aeswi told her, "Anlaf's fortress. The Norse use the land as a stopping -off point between Eireann and Northumbria, and when they sail down from the Western Isles." And it indeed seem a place for warriors to congregate. If it was indeed Anlaf's fortress, did she want Aedre living there.
"Where is she? Aedre?" Osthryth asked urgently of Aeswi. "Is she here?" Aeswi stopped and turned to her, switching to Cymric for some reason - because the Norse understood Gaelish, perhaps?
"She is," Aeswi told her. "She has come with Constantine, and with his consent. Ealasaid caught her trying to flee Dunnottar and brought her to see the king. He summoned Anlaf, as well. But Constantine told Aedre that she could not marry unless Anlaf sought permission from you, as her mother. I had tried to find you," he added, "And then Constantine told me to search in Mercia, and that he was going to accompany Anlaf and Guthfrith to Mon."
"They are his allies," Osthryth exclaimed, in Cymric. "I knew they were!" And she strode to the door of Tynwald, expecting it to be open to her.
"And you are...?" scoffed the Norsemen on guard duty. "A pathetic little old woman in leather pretending to be a warrior!"
"I'd watch it," warned one of the Norse who had sailed the boat from Ceastre, "This is the Kriegerkvinde, of whom the legends speak."
Legends? wondered Osthryth. But she kept her face ferocious and began to draw Buaidh. One of the Norse made a move, but Osthryth was quicker, and instead pulled Taghd's seax, and within seconds, she had strong-armed the man and was holding the blade to his neck.
"One move, and you are dead," she told the Norseman in his own tongue. "I am Kriegerkvinde; Eirik Thurgilson told me so." And she enjoyed watching the fear fill his eyes, beginning to wave his arms in protest. She glanced to the second guard.
"A little old woman in leather pretending to be a warrior?" she parroted back to him. He also had fallen silent, and Osthryth glanced to Aeswi. "That was what he called me, did he not, Aeswi?"
"A pathetic little old woman," Aeswi emphasised, but then stopped, and Osthryth loosened her grip of the Norse guard briefly when a great peal of laughter came from behind the doors, which were flung open. A tall, barrel-chested Norse warrior stalked out of the fortress, and laughed at Aeswi again.
"Kriegerkvinde!" he exclaimed. "I have heard it." But Osthryth was not about to release the guard in a hurry. She eyed the man suspiciously.
"I am Guthfrith, your king's ally," the man introduced himself, and as Osthryth stared at him, he did seem to share the features of Sygtryggr. "I am pleased to meet the woman who has killed so many of my kin."
"As did your grandfather, in his time," Osthryth told Guthfrith. "Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia. Even Wessex, nearly."
"Wessex, yes, nearly," he repeated.
"And I had the pleasure of killing one of Ivarr's guards while King Domhnall ended your grandfather's life," Osthryth continued, recalling a similar conversation she had had with Anlaf, once. It was not bragging, nor was it bitterness - the Norse seemed to navigate their relationships battle-wise.
"But we are allies now," Guthfrith exclaimed, heartily. "Your king is the ally of my king."
"Your king?" Osthryth asked. "But, I thought you were the king of Eoforwic. Of Jorvik?" Guthfrith looked at her with beady eyes for a moment, and then smiled.
"Come, come," Guthfrith encouraged, waving his hand in the direction of the open gates. "We do not need to discuss this on the doorstep." And Osthryth followed him inside the well-built hall, two-storeyed, with many antechambers and galleries and passages. Clearly the man who lived here, Anlaf, could command a good deal of honour through his fortress, and Osthryth was not surprised to see a channel a little way off which seemed to be adapted from the strandline where a Norse ship might be brought inside the fortress, its keel still wet.
"Alas," continued Guthfrith, as he led the way along a passage that was taking them away from the gates. "Even with King Constantine's help, I could not hold Eoforwic. No, I talk about the king of Mon, Anlaf Guthfrithsson."
"Your son?" Osthryth asked, but Guthfrith laughed, and waved a hand of dismissal.
"No, indeed," he told Osthryth. "There are many Guthfriths. In fact I was named after his father, a cousin to my mother," he added.
And so, Osthryth thought, as the inner hall door opened, they were here to see the king of Mon.
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Anlaf was as Osthryth remembered. He was sitting on a chair near the back of his hall, food spread before him. When he saw that he had company, he got up immediately and strode over to the door where Aeswi and Osthryth were standing. Anlaf broke into a big smile.
"Come in, come in!" he beckoned, and the doors closed behind them. "It would seem that King Constantine's man has found you, at last."
"At last, lord king?" Osthryth asked, and bowed at the neck. But Anlaf waved away her gesture and beckined them further in.
"Have you eaten? Of course you wouldn't've," he added. "Let me give you meat, and bread. And ale too?" He blinked for a minute, but before Osthryth could say anything, he turned to one of the guards by his throne and added, "Bring boiled water for the Lady Osthryth." Then he turned back to look at her, gesturing towards the table.
"The Lady Aeswi has told me you do not drink ale," he added, and took some steps to the bench at the back of the hall. "Please do, eat," he repeated, looking between the food and Osthryth, his words running into one another in their haste. He seemed excited. And nervous.
"Aedre, she is here?" Osthryth asked, getting to the point immediately.
"Yes, she is here, and unharmed, and untouched," Anlaf added, gesturing to Guthfrith to close the door. "You may have heard she fled Alba," he added. "It was unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?" Osthryth asked, not giving the man an inch. "What was unfortunate?"
"That I left Dunnottar earlier than I expected to. Constantine's man," and here Anlaf nodded to Aeswi, "Had gone to you farm at Berric to bring you to Alba, but could not find you. I heard of trouble in the west, and, unfortunately, did not choose my words carefully when I spoke to Aedre about this. There she was," Anlaf added, his words still full of nervous energy, "Expecting you to come to Dunnottar for her wedding, and you could not be found."
"I left word," Osthryth replied, coolly. "My men knew where I was. Or I would not have been discovered and brought to Ellan Vannin."
"Ah, ah, yes, of course, the land," Anlaf added, again still nervously talking to her, and glancing every so often to Aeswi. "Your lord king is here," Anlaf added, nodding to him. "And there has been a tentative proposal of marriage; I have already received gifts from Constantine. But," he looked back to Osthryth, "It is her mother's approval, and dowry which I seek."
Getting to the point, Osthryth told him, and wondered what gifts Anlaf had been given by Constantine.
"Before you speak," Guthfrith interrupted, "I would ask the lady of Berric a more pressing question."
"More pressing than my marriage negotiations?" Anlaf asked, snapping back. Guthfrith fell silent, glancing to Osthryth and she turned to the ex-king of Northumbria, looking back to Anlaf for a second before addressing the man.
"You are asking for support," Osthryth told him, "Like when you came to Berric," she added, and felt a rush of exhilaration to discover that Aeswi did not know about Guthfrith's visit.
"I cannot authorise Alba men, and the Bernicians support my lands," she told him. "But - "
But Guthfrith was striding down towards her, angrily. Both Aeswi and Anlaf stepped in front of him. The king of Mon turned to Osthryth.
"Do you think that not supporting the independence of Eoferwic means that Aethelstan will leave you alone? He wants the whole country, Alba too." Anlaf's words. So true. And yet, she could never act faithlessly towards the families who had depended on Ceinid's support and love, and that of his family through countless generations. Osthryth swallowed down a pang of guilt.
"I cannot support you, Guthfrith," Osthryth said again. "And if it is that you have come to me and not my brother, I am guessing Uhtred has said no?" Guthfrith shifted, almost imperceptbly, but he said nothing. Then, she turned to her future son-in-law, knowing then exactly what he should receive for Aedre's dowry.
"Anlaf, I know that you killed the Gaels, some of them were my dear friends. But, it is war. Constantine will support you, if you go north, and you have my blessing, such as it is, and if Aedre still wishes to marry you. She is not a young child any longer, she is twenty eight, and - " But it was Anlaf, this time, who was bearing down on Osthryth.
"I love her!" Anlaf blurted out in Norse, "I love her from the top of her sun-drenched head all the way down - !" He broke off, as if his effusive description was too much even for himself. "She is...I would never..."
"I know you would not," Osthryth replied, impatiently. "Nor would Constantine." And she felt her voice soften. "I am only sorry that I will not be there to see her in her finest. Give her this," she continued. "It was a piece of amber, it once belonged to her mother Thyra that she wore when she married her father, Beocca." Osthryth never knew why she had taken it with her from Dunnottar to Berric, only that seeing it reminded her of her daughter, and the right she had done going to the Briton healer, though it was against the law.
She held it out to Anlaf, who took the jewel and wrapped it in a leather cloth, putting it in his clothing as carefully as if he were wrapping a hen's egg.
And that was when she saw Aedre. She had been standing at the back of the hall, and was watching now as Osthryth looked back to her. Anlaf, too, had seen her, and had crossed the wooden floor to her, and they spoke in Norse. Osthryth then that it was what Constantine had planned for the daughter he had adopted, and spoiled, all along.
"The stallion is in the stable," Anlaf told Osthryth as Aedre stood beside her intended. "Anf the golden dish will hold our wedding drink."
But there was more. Osthryth withdrew from her waist a purse with her that she had brought. She had been prepared in case she had been forced into a situation where she had had to pay tribute to Constantine, and he hastened to Anlaf and pressed the silver into his hand.
"I earned this," Osthryth told Anlaf. "It is her dowry." Part of her dowry. For what better gift could she give Aedre than pass on from mother to daughter the Northern Brittonic lands to her?
"I want to make her queen of Eoferwic, reclaim my family's lands," Anlaf went on. Osthryth saw Aedre beam at him and she did not point out that the land had been Anglish before that, and of the Britons before that. But then, of course, she would be restoring it through the Brehon laws back to a Brittonic line, through Beocca, whose family had been borderland Pictish. He had been left on the monastery steps, however, and was Saxon in all other ways.
"Aedre," she told her, and her daughter came to her.
"Aedre, Anlaf," she said to them both, not caring whether Aeswi heard, for he would tell Constantine anyway. And Osthryth told them everything, from her mother giving them to her, her mother being Gwythelth of the Hen Ogledd, who had married Uhtred, her father, and had had her, before being forced into marriage to Aelfric.
She told them of the land, of Mon and that the mainland for her began just south of Glaschu, but had a more definite border with Northumbria at Eamont Bridge.
Anlaf could now claim, through his soon-to-be wife that he had deeds to the land at Eoforwic, the Norse could ride unimpeded through Cumbraland - as far as Alba and Strathclyde were concerned. But, most importantly, it sealed the bond of fellowship between the Norse and Alba. Whatever Constantine chose to do, when it came to it, against Aethelstan, the Norse and Alba wold be united, in deed, in blood, and in land.
For it was the only way that Osthryth could go back to face Finan.
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Aedre would marry that evening. It had all been arranged and so, ostensibly, all the things that would make for an Alba wedding had been brought by Constantine. It had been once said of Alfred that, "The bastard thinks". Whoever had said that surely would have applied to the king of Alba, too.
Because there was someone else, someone wilier, who had planned for this, even to where Osthryth had been and what she would do now. He may even have set up the Northern Cymric, Owain's kin, in order to oppose Hywel.
"How ideally placed you are?" Constantine asked, when the doors were shut and it was just the two of them. "You have the documents claiming the land, you have the blood of the Hen Ogledd, you are married to a Gael, have a Gaelish son, you married a Pictlander and gained Gododdyn - "
"Gododdyn?" It wasn't a question. She knew full well what Constantine meant. And what he was implying. That Berric was not in Bernicia, a place named by the incoming Saxons, but that Berric was in the Pictish land of Gododdyn, Urien's land. Which meant that, if she were to say so, she could claim the land from Lindisfarne to Eireann's northern sea, the land south of Alba and Strathclyde and north of the wall.
But they were Aedre's now, and so she asked, "Do you imagne me a queen then, a queen of the Hen Ogledd?"
"I imagine you as you have made yourself," Constantine told her. "Do the sidhe not speak to you?"
And they did. For she could see it all now, Urien's blood claiming her ancient lands; her father's Saxon blood giving her the land to Eoforwic, including Durham.
Including Catraech, the battle of Taliesin's poem, how the Cymric, having lost Urien to treachery, lost their leader before the battle had even begun, and the land was won by the Saxons. If she were to claim it, she would be openly declaring war on Uhtred, on Aethelstan. These men wanted war, they wanted a fight, and to fight under a leader.
But even if the Norse stood by them, and at tha moment, marrying Aedre to Anlaf helped that premise, she would be betraying...
...betraying whom? She had given no promise to anyone, no oath. Only Domhnall, in exchange for being a Gaelish warrior. A Cymric wishing to be a Gael - shameful! But she was also Kriegerkvinde, and mother to the ruling Norse chief's wife.
"I would be a queen," Osthryth said to Constantine, looking about the hall, out of the window, to the sea, and to the faint coast of Northumbria, and Cumbraland, and, further north, Stranraer, the hammer-shaped peninsula of lower Strathclyde. "I would be queen!" Osthryth said louder, "I would rule with justice and with might! I would repel the Anglish and the Saxons from my borders! I would unite the Cymric and the Gaels and force those who came from the sea back to it! And over it!"
Then she turned to Constantine, and realised that she was holding Buaidh. "All would honour me and, of my power, despair at my tyrannical brutality!" Osthryth had lowered her blade now.
"No, Constantine. Do not write me a position which I do not seek. Do not allow others to encourage this, or encourage it to be thought."
"It has been thought - it will be thought!" Constantine told her. "The Gwyneddians already think of you as your queen, whether you want them to or not. Whether you give away your deeds to your daughter or not. Queen Gwythelth."
"Then I will have to tell them not to," Osthryth told him, forcefully. For she was not Aethelflaed, she did not relish the power that leadership would give her. For Aethelflaed, it was also to do with vanity, as well as power. And for a moment, her mind flicked to Ceastre and her nephew. Where was Aelfflaed now, she wondered. "If you have brought me to Mon to mount a regency campaign, I will not do it."
"If I told you to do it, then you would do it," Constantine shot back. "You are under my protection; Berric is my land, and the people are my subjects! And you left them of your own will," he added. "Don't tell me you were not a little curious to see what would be offered to you." Osthryth made to pass him, but he grabbed her wrist. Same Constantine, force when reason will not allow.
"Constantine!" she scolded, but he pulled her to him, and she dropped Buaidh in its suddenness. Already his cock was hard - just like the days of their youth, when fighting with her, physically, verbally, would turn him on.
"I would have yer rule beside me," Constantine told her, his voice low. But he pushed himself away, as if some mental torture was upon him, and he was fighting something internal, some sort of struggle. And within a moment, he wore his mantle of kingship.
"It is yer will," he told her, plainly. "But yer cannot change their minds with a word. They believe you are the one to lead them to freedom."
"Then I will talk to Cynddylan," Osthryth told him. "I will talk to Cynddylan alone, and once I have done that, I will leave to return to Gododdyn - " she broke off, realising what she had said. The Morrigan took a step away, pleased at her handiwork. For Osthryth had, for the first time, referred to her lands of Berric by the Brittonic, the Cymric-Pictish name instead of the Saxon name of Bernicia.
"And just what would you say to the prince?" he asked her, giving a small chuckle of derision, as was his manner when she had offended him.
"Act together," Osthryth told Constantine. "Britons, Cymric, Gaels are more of a people than the Saxons and the Angles. Pay tribute, bow the knee when he calls. Prepare for war."
""War?"
"Aethelstan wants to rule every corner of this island - some places where he has never yet stepped foot. He will make it his business to step foot on it. He will turn every tribe to him, one by one, little by little, by charm, by resources, by stealth, just as Alfred did."
There was silence. Then there was nothing. No words between them, nothing. Then Constantine came to her, and put his arms around her, and pulled her to him. There was no lust now, but there was something, a connection that they had never felt before. Kinship. Then, he kissed her forehead.
"I have prayed, every day I have prayed that you were something you could never be," Constantine told her. Osthryth pulled herself free, but Constantine did not try to grab her back, and it was Aed mac Domhnall, Ui Alpin staring back at her, his father, who had welcomed Osthryth into Dunnottar, let her stay, after she had defended her son from the Norse attack when she had fled Bebbanburg.
"I have prayed," Constantine continued, "That you would become the Gael that I wanted you to be. We hate the Saxons, the Anglish. They have raided our lands for centuries, stolen our sheep, our stock, rieved, as we have done theirs. I wanted you to be a Gael, but you never were, no matter how angry I got with you, no matter how I treated you." Constantine shook his head, his eyes gazing at her wonder.
"But, it turns out, you are something else, something better. You are Cymric. You are of the people who held out, even when the Latins, those men of Rome, came to take the land south. They built the wall because they could not defeat us, Gaels in the Western Isles, Picts to the east. Cymric to the west. They stopped at Caer Liguel, and drove a wall all the way to the eastern sea in a straight line. Bernicia, as you know it, is north of the wall, the true home of the Picts, the true home of my people, my mother's people. Gododdyn, as you said it. And now," Constantine said to her, his voice still slow and steady, "Now, you offer a plan, a credible plan."
"I will speak with Cynddylan," Osthryth told Constantine. But he shook his head.
"No," he told her. "No, you will not speak to Cynddylan on this - " he raised a hand, as Osthryth was about to protest. "It is for kings to discuss, and at a time that is more conducive to a plan."
"You need Hywel," Osthryth told him. "It cannot work without the King of the Cymric. Hywel Dda, king of both Deheubarth and Aberffrau and the lands in between, west of Offa's Dyke. And he has just bent the knee to Aethelstan." She took a step towards him, but Constantine raised a hand.
"Return to Berric, go back to your lands. You came to Mon because your daughter was to be wed." If she was asked anything about a plot, Osthryth knew that was Constanrtine's meaning. "Don't - " he added, putting his hand between them. "You are the lady of the land, one of my mormaers. You must not - " And then Constantine turned, and strode out of the hall.
Osthryth waited for a long time, wondering what to do next. Wondering where the plan really had come from. From herself, of course, from her mind. But she had never had those thoughts all together - she had never taken it upon herself to think like this. But she was happy, she thought, her conscience more at ease. The Gaels and the Picts and the Cymric united against Aethelstan was more palatable than siding with Aethelstan with his insatiable hunger for every inch of the land. He would drive them all into the northern seas, if he could, to realise his grandfather's dream - no. Aethelstan's ambition went further than Alfred's ambition to unite the Saxon lands. He wanted to overlord every land.
Yet, not to exterminate the man, the crown of Wessex, was the key - the people in his new Englaland needed him, needed him to keep them together. Limit him was the key. But wars did not make politics neater - wars did not make happen that which made sense. Warmongers could not discern the subtlety.
Osthryth turned, and began to stride out of Anlaf's hall, when a figure appeared in the doorway. The door was closed, and they were alone, Cynddylan's face shimmering in the torchlight.
"My queen, I was told you wished to speak to me."
"They must not call me queen," Osthryth told him, at once. "You must not call me queen."
"Yes, my qu- " Cynddylan replied, breaking off.
"It is not so!" she declared
"it is so," he told her. And Cynddylan dropped to his knees before her, bowing his head - the grandson of the great King Anarawd. She was no worthier than any other descendant - they could have chosen Owain, or Gormlaith, even: Dyfnwal's sister, though she was likely to have died with little Niall Glundubh, who had married her out of pity after everything she had been through.
But, they had chosen her. Why?
"Why, because you are the oldest of our northern kin," Cynddylan told her. And he looked strangely at her when Osthryth dropped to her own knees, to be on the same level as th North Cymric prince.
"Aethelstan is strong," she explained, "You know this. But you should form an alliance, you, Hywel, Owain, Constantine. You should unite in a strategy to nullify Aethelstan's strength, prevent him from gaining more land." Cynddylan bowed his head.
"You are my queen, and as such - "
"No, I am not, I cannot be," Osthryth told him, and took his hands to make the man look at her. And when he did, Osthryth realised how alike he was to Owain. His manner, in the other hand, cool logic twined with the spirituality of the oldest Christians, exuded from him - he was, in that sense, his grandfather Angarawd. And she could feel a bond, a connection - Cymru was with her."
"What do you suggest?" He did not call her queen. Good. Very good. And Osthryth smiled to the prince.
"Bow to Aethelstan, pay tribute, make it seem yhat you are unted. Listen to Constantine, and if he talks about a united alliance between Alba, Strathclyde, Gwynedd, Deheubarth, the Norse, or any of those things, listen to him. Unite together all of the old peoples of this land, those here before the Saxons, before the Romans."
"Queen - " and here Cynddylan stumbled over her name. For Osthryth was the name she had chosen for herself from her father's family, her Anglish family back to Ida the Flamebearer. What would she have chosen if she had chosen a Cymric name. Rhieinmelth, perhaps, King Oswy's second wife?
"Gwythelth," Osthryth confirmed, the same name as she had given to him and his warriors in the crypt at Gloucester cathedral. "Your queen is called Gwythelth, like her mother. I will not deny you, I will not deny my position in the line of descent of Urien." She put our a hand to the young man againm no older, she reckoned,than late teens, no older than young Finan. "And I will hear no more of the title "queen", she warned him, "Or I will go to Aethelstan myself."
"Yes, Q - Gwythelth," Cynddylan told her. And being a good young man got to his feet and held out his hands to her, Osthryth getting to her feet and nodding in agreement with him.
Gwythelth, Osthryth thought. That was Aedre now. She supposed that Berric was far enough away from Mon when she found out what Osthryth's legacy had really left her.
88888888
She looked like Thyra was supposed to have looked, according to the family story, before Kjartan had attacked Ragnar's homestead in retaliation for the taking of the eye of his son Sven for attacking Thyra as a child. Uhtred had witnessed it, and had fled, ending up in Alfred's kingdom, with a bruised ego having tried and failed to intimidate or attack Aelfric, their uncle at Bebbanburg, and an even bigger grudge when he had ended up in the service of Alfred at Winchester.
"Mhathair!" Aedre called when she saw Osthryth.
"Did you know about this?"
"No," Osthryth admitted.
"It is to be a Christian wedding," Aedre told her. "The Norse are going to accept bishops to at least hear the message of God." Because, against all odds, the Danish girl that she was, Aedre was more devout than even her father, Beocca, though she wore it lightly, and never seemed to get in her way at all.
No, not a Roman Christian one, Osthryth thought, for though she was Christian, Aedre was of the Irish church.
"You look beautiful," she told her, as she dressed in clothes of sea green and blue, as if she had come out of the Eireann see itself, the water clinging to her. Osthryth touched the fabric. It was rich. In fact, the only other time she remembered seeing something so fine was the dress Mael Muire had worn when she had married Flann Sinna at Tara.
It was Constantine that came to her room to collect her to be delivered to Anlaf. He knocked, but Osthryth did not open it immediately. Instead, she took Aedre's hands in hers, and closed her eyes. The girl was so shocked that she jumped, so few times she had seen her mother praying.
But Osthryth said her prayers silently, and she sought for the people she wanted to talk to, in heaven, in her mind. First, her mother, Thyra, praying that what she had done for her daughter had been enough. Second, to her father, Beocca, that Osthryth had done the right thing to bring her to Winchester to see him.
Third was to God alone, that all would be well, and though she was to become a woman in her own right that day, that Aedre would never forget her.
Then Osthryth opened the door and watched Constantine, who only had eyes for his adopted daughter, offering her the crook of his arm before leading her out and along the passageway. Osthryth followed in their wake, and stood at the back entrance of the hall, as Aedre was led towards Anlaf.
It was then she caught sight, in the congregation, of Finnolai, Bishop Findal, Aeswi's brother. Osthryth's heart beat faster as she looked at him, and her mind drifed back to the time, long ago, when she was in Constantine's service, when he and Domhnall had fled to their aunt, Mael Muire, the queen of the Ui Neill king, Aed Findliath, to Doire, on the north coast of Eireann.
They had all fought the Norse then; now there was a tentative alliance, an alliance held together by the mutual distrust and suspicion of the Saxons and the Angles, Aethelstan, in other words.
"She looks beautiful," Aeswi said to Osthryth, crossing to her. "You must be proud today."
"I am," Osthryth agreed. So when he returned to the congregation as words from Constantine began to fill the hall. Osthryth turned her back, instead, and made her way outside.
It wasn't because she didn't want it to happen, but she had seen so many weddings and they made her feel uncomfortable. It was a transaction between factions, too, and Osthryth did not feel like being spotted by Cynddylan and called, "Queen" again. She wouldn't be missed - this was Constantine's and Anlaf's alliance.
"You know he loves you," came a voice behind Osthryth, as she made her way to the perimeter of the fortress. She turned, and in the evening sun she saw her best friend.
"Domnall!" she exclaimed, and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. "And, what?"
"I heard what he told you today," Domnall went on . "You know that he has always loved you?" Osthryth was shocked.
"Love?" He had treated her little better than an object for most of their time together.
"And you him." Domnall gave her a look, somewhere between disappointment and sadness. "In your way. Don't shake your head at me," he told her severely. "He has treated you appallingly sometimes and you always had an excuse. No - " Domnall told her, as she tried to push past him. "He has always loved you, and has now had to accept that you are not his, never will be his. He takes instruction, religious instruction." He looked at the Norse. "As will they."
"What?"
"Why do you think Finnolai is here? Father Findal? The Norse have agreed to hear Christian instruction - "
"Never!" Osthryth shook her head. She had heard Aedre just say it, but she assumed that it was just for the record, so that Constantine's alliance with Anlaf could be palatable.
"Why never, Osrit?" Domnall seemed angry with her. "Why can you not think that the Norse and the Danes will not become Christianised? It benefits them, now that they have no more land they can take, that they will assimilate and need to trade. And Christians will trade with other Christians no matter their culture, their race."
"You talk like Alfred might," Osthryth said, and turned her head to Constantine, realising that, after everything, they were similar, they were shrewd, cunning, strategic, pragmatic. As was Aethelstan. He had eschewed a wife so that his two brothers could inherit the throne after him, so that the accusation of bastardy would not carry on to his children and civil war would arise. He had seen that, with Aethelwold, how pernicious the poison could be.
And Constantine had placed Osthryth exactly where he wanted her, not in his bed, but in his lands, lands he knew she had a claim to, lands which were culturally Cymric, like before the Anglish had come. The little shit thinks, Finan thought, and as Domnall looked at her, Osthryth heart grew cold - she was a Gael when she was with Gaels, and couldn't rememember.
She felt her eyes narrowing, looking back at the hall, to where she had last seen Constantine and shook her head.
"What?" Domnall asked her. But Osthryth had left the hall and was heading outside. It was darkening now, and the stars were coming out. She strode quickly away, over to the clifftop.
"Osrit!" Domnall called after her, and when he finally caught with her gripped Osthryth's forearm so tightly that she cried out.
"What?" Osthryth demanded to know, trying to struggle free, but Domnall held her fast.
"What?" Domnall repeated.
"You, for a start!" she berated him, her guilt driving her words. "How can you ally with these Norse who killed your kin! Who killed Donnchada! Who killed Niall, and Gormlaith?!" She tried to wrench her arm away, but Domnall held her by her other, his hand tight. A well-aimed kick, but he was anticipating her move.
"What, Domnall!" she shouted.
"You didn't know he loved you?" he asked her, and relaxed his grip. "All this time?"
"No!" Osthryth replied, indignantly. "It's preposterous! I don't love him - we have a bond, always have, since I saved his life. I don't, and I never have, loved him. What?"
"Walk with me," Domnall told her, then grabbed her arm when she made to turn away from him. "Walk with me!" Osthryth sighed, and then relented. They got as far as the low-lying land that led to the strandline. The stars glimmered off the flat, summer sea.
"He is further away from me now than ever he has been, and we are married," Osthryth said, her voice choking. "He goes from my side, honours his oath with my brother - " She broke off. It was that, or allowing the tears to come. "Constantine may be clever, thinking he can get my brother to side with him though my husband, but Finan will never leave Uhtred, who will never leave Bebbanburg, or his oath to Aethelflaed. And I will never leave Finan." And in the moonlight, she could see Domnall smile.
"He is not the only one who loves you, you know," Domnall told her. "You are closer to me than Ethne ever was. "It is honourable love, kinship love of which I speak." He pulled her close. "You are the sister I would have chosen, if I had a choice, and your words, of your marriage promise, makes me prouder still than I could ever believe I could be."
Domnall pulled her to him, and Osthryth put her arms around him. He was the brother she might have chosen, if a choice could be had.
"And you might feel differently if you know who else was at the wedding today," Domnall told her. Osthryth turned, and felt her face break into the widest smile. Her son was standing before her.
But before Osthryth could run to him, young Finan ran to her. He was taller, much taller than she remmbered him to be.
"I asked leave of Uhtred to come to my sister's wedding and the Tynwald, then, she will go back to Dunnottar with Domnall and I, he told her, and I will return to my father," he told his mother. And Osthryth recalled Uhtred saying something about young Finan doing something in Cumbraland with Bishop Oswald.
"So, this is your kingdom, mhathair," young Finan asked her.
"Not any longer," she told him, and explained about the land, and the inheritance through the female line. And how the female line now included Aedre.
And now Osthryth had discovered something else: Constantine was planning to talk to the kings here, then, at the Tynwald. Mon was safer than any place, and unless those at the council were to betray one another's trust, this island was the most secure in the world. Whatever Constantine discussed with whoever he discussed it with would never be overheard by spies for Aethelstan, or Hywel, or Owain for that matter. If Constantine had decided that a united front of the old British races was to take place, it would take time for Owain and Hywel to listen - they relied on Aethelstan's defences too heavily to turn - Constantine would have to be clever - he was clever.
In the distance, a cry came up, a cry of the post-wedding bed-ceremony. The men were being called to find Anlaf, and the women to find Aedre. Young Finan smiled, and scampered away from her.
"Come on," said Domnall, beginning to stride after him.
"Oh, no," Osthryth told him. "I remember mine only too well, and I will not - "
But her legs had not been given the message that her head was trying to tell them, and Osthryth ran with Domnall and young Finan back to the hill fort where Anlaf had his hall now, and joined in the hunt for the newlyweds, to unite them for their first night together.
Aedre would be in safe hands with young Finan, he was a formidable fighter thanks to his father and Uhtred, but she knew it would hard for him to go to back to Finan. Young Finan thought of Constantine as his father, he had lived so long in his company, and he was artistic, he sang, and drew, that was where his real passion lay, and Uhtred had laughed at him, she had found out, from Beann, who had gone as a trader to Bebbanburg, anonymous to Uhtred, and witnessed it.
"Young Finan," Osthryth said to her son, when it was all over, and Aedre was being carried by her husband into his fortress. "Your father will hear that the northern Cymric have called me queen," she told him.
"But - " young Finan began to protest. "But, this island is perfectly safe."
"This island is the safest in the world and Aedre will be the safest person in the world - I would not want anything more for your sister," she told him. "But he will find out, and if he speaks to you, do not deny it. He will know you are lying, and that is not what I want for you - " She broke off, seeing his face. "What?" she asked him.
"Nothing," young Finan told her. "Bebbanburg," he added.
"Bebbanburg?"
"Nothing," he repeated.
Nothing you want your mother to know, Osthryth thought. And he was planning to go back there, and not stay in Alba, so he wanted to go back. She hoped Uhtred was not being cruel to him - Finan would not let that happen, she was certain.
"When comes to it, I will tell your father. But our allegiances do not conflict, which is why we are still married," Osthryth added, though earlier that evening she might well have sworn that it was their allegiances that were driving them apart from one another.
"And you, will you come to Alba? With us, when Aedre returns?"
"Berric is in Alba now," she told him. Unless it was in Englaland. "I will come to see you," Osthryth promised. For she had thought that she would avoid the place forever, had Eadgifu, Aethestan's twin sister, once married to Sygtryggr and then disowned by him, been brought to Dunnottar in the plot she had once heard, about Constantine marrying her.
But it was Bishop Oswald, in the evening when they had stayed in the inn in Gloucester, who told Osthryth that the poor girl had died, in a monastery in Wessex. Even if Osthryth had tried to find her it would be too late, and Aedre was married now. So Aethelstan's plan had come to nothing.
However, like his grandfather Alfred, with whom she had seen Aethelstan kneel and pray, and have little gifts bestowed on him when Alfred thought no-one was looking, King Aethelstan of Englaland wanted to be Rex Totaus Brittaniae, and Constantine had now just taised the stakes.
Aethelstan would never give up.
And, a week after arriving back to Berric, to see the preparations for harvest being made, Finan came home.