927, Eamont Bridge
"There is going to be a treaty," Osthryth's son told her.
"And we are farmers whose interests are uncoupled from war." Finan beag looked at her doubtfully. Just after midsummer he had come back from Alba, back to Berric after travelling with Aedre back to Dunnottar. It was now a month since he had arrived back, and it had taken him this long to come to his parents with news.
Caltigar had gone to see who the rider had been, and was less concerned about the identity of the person than if he had come from the south. Osthryth had no men from Dunnottar now - her warriors guarded her land and those that Constantine had brought had gone to Eoforwic. Osthryth neither knew or wanted to know what had happened, and young Finan had joined in with the preparations for harvests and the guarding of his mother's borders.
"You were threatened by Uhtred's men," he said to her, plaintively. From the polishing of his sword, Finan's head rose.
"Your uncle sought to secure Berric, for what is to come," Finan told their son.
"And what is to come, father?" young Finan asked, belligerently. "For Constantine's warriors have been beaten at Eoforwic. What is to come is peace, for Aethelstan has forced his hand. Along with Hywel and Cynddylan, Owain, Anlaf and Guthfrith, Constantine must go bend the knee, pledge that he is overlord of Brittanium and accept he is a sub-king." Osthryth raised her head from her audit of bridles.
"Truly?" she asked. Young Finan stared at her for a moment, and then nodded.
"The mormaers too, representing the Picts and Dal Riata. Uhtred has been called," he added, giving his father a long look. Osthryth saw the look in Finan's eye. Young Finan had been cocky and he could tell that Finan wanted to say something back. Cutting, or sarcastic. Instead, Finan looked at Osthryth.
"I have hammered my sword into a ploughshare and manage this neutral piece of land," she told her son. "And not literally, Finan beag," she added, when her son's eye drifted to her sword belt, for they both knew Buaidh was in her bed chamber with her armour.
Osthryth had been sworn to Mercia, once, and centuries before, her namesake had married a king of Mercia, Peada, and that Osthryth had betrayed him for Northumbria, suffering assassination for it. And before Mercia, she had sworn to Domhnall, to Alba. She took a step to Finan beag.
"So you must go with your lord, and I must go with mine," Oshtryth told him. At this, Finan turned and took two hasty steps to her, fear in his eyes as young Finan added, "There is about to be a big meeting with Aethelstan.
"Osthryth, you will not leave Berric, I'm begging yer!" he pleaded, in a manner that suprised her. But before Osthryth had a time to answer, young Finan stepped in front of his father.
"She can come with me - I'm going," young Finan told Finan. "What? You don't trust I can protect my mother?" He withdrew his blade. Osthryth had seen it before - it was Faedersword. From what her son had told her, Bishop Oswald, Osthryth's nephew and so young Finan's cousin, had given it to him.
"Yer'ar sixteen years old!" Finan told him. "If yer come across any big bastards like Norse - "
"Like the Norse who are allies to Constantine?" young Finan retorted. Osthryth could see from Finan's face he was doing his best not to strike him. "Then, she can protect me," he added, "Although, I know you recall that I outwitted Berg and Roric before I left, and I have bettered my uncle." Finan beag looked at his mother. "If you are intent on going."
"Help your mother in the fields today, and I will think about it," Finan told her. Young Finan looked as if he was about to put in a comeback, something about not needing his permission but, for everyone's sake, thought better of it.
"Yes," Osthryth told him. "The harvest will not gather itself. But I will be going, Finan," she told her husband. "If the lords and kings have been called, I will not have it said that Berric slighted Aethelstan. I will not have him use it as a reason to invade.
"Then I will come with yer," Finan told her, decisively. "I do not want you going off by yourself. Now," he said to their son, "Go to Caltigar and see what's to be done."
88888888
That had been two weeks before Saint Bartholomew's Day, the day on which Aethelstan had decreed that the kings and lords would meet to offer deference to him. It would be at Burgham - Eamont Bridge, the place which Bishop Oswald had pointed out to her when they had gone south, to Gloucester.
Had he known? Osthryth did not know. But what she did know was that Aethelstan would have made it very clear the Mercian-Wessex camp had been made on the southern bank - Northumbria - and that the North Cymric with Prince Cynddylan and the rest of Cymru, with Hywel, Constantine and the Norse, were camped to the north of the Lowther. Rheged. The land which had, until Aedre's wedding, been hers by Brehon law right, and was now her daughter's.
Which meant that Aethelstan would have to show as much humility as any man, let alone a king, on entering a kingdom which was not his own.
Aedre would not have been there, of course, and so he had turned to Osthryth, who had been there, and asked her, instead.
Thousands of people would watch as Aethelstan spoke to her; thousands of people seeing how the king of Englaland had spoken to the Lady of Berric. In this act, Osthryth determined, Aethelstan had recognised Brehon law - the law that said property passed from mother to daughter. And in doing so, Osthryth would been made the centre of attention. So, of course she had to cross the bridge; of course she had to accompany Aethelstan and the other nobles to the stone circle on the northern bank and stand with them while they made their oaths of deference, one by one.
Her brother had once said of Alfred, "The bastard thinks." But, of Aethelstan, this so-called bastard was more cunning than anyone she had ever met. He had no immediate family to consider; he had no wife or children to concern himself with that she may die in childbirth, or that they might be captured and held hostage, or killed. Were he to die himself, Edmund, his younger brother, who was being protected in Wessex, would become king. He was just six years old, but he was well guarded, and had advisors in Aethelstan's pay.
Englaland was secure, and yet Aethelstan was determined to secure more, not least on that bright, hot, sunny day in Cumbraland where, one after another, the Norse, Anlaf and Guthfrith, then Prince Cynddylan of the Aberffrau, then Hywel and finally Constantine bent down on one knee at the ancient stone circle, put there by the ancestors of the Cymric, and confirmed to Aethelstan that he was their overlord.
And finally, Osthryth. Aethelstan would dismisssed the kings, for he was waiting for other lords to arrive to hear their words of fealty, and had dispersed the onlookers.
"I know this was your land, and is now your daughter's," Aethelstan said to Osthryth, when he asked her to walk beside him. "Anlaf will, I trust, convey what has happened here today?"
It was a question, and Osthryth bit back the urge to tell him that, indeed, Anlaf would be telling her, and immediately would be meeting with Constantine and Cynddylan again to re-state their own alliance. It was an insult, a crushing humiliation after Guthfrith's, Anlaf's and Constantine's defeat in Eoforwic.
And Aethelstan would tell Osthryth that he knew she had met with Cynddylan at Gloucester Cathedral, and would ask who Gwythelth was. She would later meet with Hywel, and -
- and make a very big mistake.
But this was in the future...
...she had havest to prepare for, lest Berric starve...
88888888
It was a hot year that summer. Hay bales were smaller to prevent the risk of fire and the young boys of the lands were visiting them with buckets of river water while the cattle ate them. Some would be stored for autumn food before the slaughter at the end of October. And Osthryth was determined they would lose none to rievers.
Young Finan had gone to visit Munadd and his family across the Tuide that night, for the old man's even older father was unwell. Their son had visited the old man often, to hear stories and learn songs and poems, and Osthryth bade him take cheese and bread.
"I've made a bath in the pantry," Rhia told her, when Osthryth eventually came back in. Her wonderful housekeeper had even brought in the leaves Osthryth used to remove the dirt, docc, but she was almost too exhausted to strip off and get into the copper.
When she did, however, the waters soothed her aching joints and Osthryth relaxed a little, before dressing in a fresh shirt and breeches, tipping away the water for Rhia who, she suspected, was pregnant again.
And then, going up to their room, Osthryth took off her clothes again and looked at her body. Not lean tight skin any more, her small breasts, though bound for many decades in her shirt sagged and her buttocks were flat. Her stomach had a small pouch. She saw how Uhtred looked at women; Finan must see her body too.
Osthryth did not hear Finan come in, but he too had washed, his hair was damp and he looked at Osthryth's naked body in amusement.
"Please, leave me," Osthryth told her husband, glancing at the ravages of time on her form. "If you want another woman, just - " But Finan closed the door behind them and crossed to her.
"What's brought this on?" he asked, concerned. "I mean, there's no harm in looking - I see how you look at the young farmer over at Weatherall when he comes with tribute -
"My body is not as it once was," Osthryth told him, and turned, striding to their bed and pulled back covers, getting in. Finan followed her and pulled them from her and looked at her all over, already straining in his own breeches.
"What would you do?" asked Finan of her, afterwards.
"If I were...who?" It had been a waste of time washing. Osthryth had worked up a sweat as she worked Finan's cock inside herself. It was not wonder it was called "riding" for the movement was indeed as if she were on a horse. Her cunt lips pressed down and splayed out marvellously over his mound, and the pressure had built up in her clit just by being on top. But Finan knew exactly how to accelerate her pleasure and had reached up early on, kneading her tits, pinching and pulling her nipples as she ground down onto him. Learned with Constantine - perfected with Finan.
"If you were king," he clarified, as he held Osthryth in his arms.
"Invade at the end of the fighting season, take every ally you could. Go with a show of force, every ally." She turned over to look at him. "I was born Anglish but in my heart I am of the original people of these lands, the Britons, Picts, Scots, the Irish. Drive out the West Saxons, at least from Northimbria. Establish a king in Eoferwic again."
"Egil says the same," Finan told her. "And there has been talk of another candidate." Osthryth knew - everyone knew. Egil, who had travelled to Norway and been imprisoned by Harald Finehair - to be released only when he had told a story that lasted one whole night, had made friends with his son, Eirik, with the fearsome nickname of Bloodaxe. It was well known that Harald wanted the throne of Eoforwic and, if not for himself, for his son.
And why not a Norseman? And why not this Eirik Haraldson, if Guthfrith could not take it back, and Anlaf was only interested in Mon and the Isles and Eireann? Osthryth's thoughts broke off as she realised that Finan was kissing her body, his hand stroking her neck and hair. She shivered.
"It carried my son," Finan told her, answering her question from at least an hour ago. "I know this body," he continued, kissing her shoulder, "I know every inch of it," he added, kissing down stomach, then up to breasts, taking her left nipple in his mouth.
It carried his son, Osthryth thought, as Finan reached her navel, then she jerked his hand donw, and then upwards, as he put his hand, fingers wide, to her cunt, brushing her already semi-aroused clit, giving her another shiver.
And then stopped. Osthryth looked up.
"Osthryth you are wonderful to me because you are you," he told her. Osthryth narrowed her eyes.
"Have you been drinking?" she asked, at the corny line. Eadith was no longer alive, Osthryth thought, and she wasn't even sorry that the woman was gone. Whatever her husband said, there had been an attraction there, and she added, "I don't look at Gyann in any way."
"However long I get to be with you will never be enough - all I want is you," he continued, his mouth on her collarbone, his fingers at her clit. Oh, he knew how to do that, all right, and Osthryth's breath began to grow uneven as her nipples hardened.
After he had made her come, and Osthryth had blown Finan, they were back in one another's arms again.
"I will ask you to put away Buaidh," Finan told her, seriously. "I don't ask much of yer, but as your husband, I'm tellin' yer." And Osthryth didn't protest, but instead listened as her husband shared her fears with her.
"I do not want you to fight because there's going to be a battle, a big one. The First Peoples, as you call them, intend to rid the land of the Angles and the Saxons." Osthryth breathed. It had been her plan, thrown frivolously to Constantine and Anlaf on Eileann Vannin, on the day Aedre had married.
"Between who?" Osthryth asked. Finan turned to her, his brow creasing.
"Who do you think?" he asked. Osthryth played along. Or part-played, for she knew little, really, of any solid plan.
"Constantine? He us a Gael! He is not of the first people. It is only through his mother's line he can claim to be Pictish."
"As you," Finan told her, kissing her head. "It is his land - by denying it, and fighting it, by having Uhtred repel the warriors Constantine still sends, tells everyone who watches that they know, too: that Constantine's claim to the wall is legitimate. But there is a counter-claim: Aethelstan wants to claim to the Northern sea."
"And I am in the middle, in Northern Bernicia. Gododdyn."
"I know you dream of an independent Northumbria but this land is in the centre of a potential battlefield," Finan told his wife.
"I was gifted this land - I wed Ceinid," Osthryth replied, softly.
"By Constantine." Finan broke off, almost spitting the name. "Let us not talk of him." Instead, Finan tongued the skin under her breast, working his way down her scar, his hand feeling up her leg. Osthryth obliged him by parting her knees. "Where were we?" he asked, before fingering her clitoris and inside her cunt again.
They clung to one another for a long time afterwards, talking quietly between themselves until the short night was over and dawn arrived.
And so they gathered the harvest by day throughout most of July, and had sex with one another at night as if they were recently-met teenagers.
Until the day their son told them that Constantine was heading to Eamont Bridge, and that he was riding out.
"I will come with you," Osthryth told Finan, who was preparing to ride back to Bebbanburg. Then, she saw his face.
"He said none of our women were to come, not even Benedetta." It was the first time Osthryth remembered Finan using Uhtred's woman's name, and the message surprised her. His mens' wives and women were to stay at Bebbanburg?
"He fears a battle resulting from oathsaying at Burgham?" Osthryth asked, using the Cumbraland name of the settlement to which they were all, imminently, going.
"So you can't come with us," he told her, his words deliberate. Osthryth shifted in Finan's embrace. "Please Osthryth, for me, don't try. We can't take the women."
"I am not a woman, I am a warrior," she declared, sitting up.
"You feel like a woman to me," Finan replied, and showed her what that meant, arosing her with just a touch to her hip, his fingers around her buttocks, whick made her well-attended cunt tingle.
"Is it because of Constantine you don't want me at Burgham?" she pressed.
"How do you know where we are going?"
"Because I have been summoned too," Osthryth said, and sat up, the covers falling from her body, the candlelight picking out the shape of her breasts, nipples hard from Finan's interest. Next to Osthryth, her husband's cock began to harden again. But she reached over to her breeches and pulled out something.
"Look," she said, holding out the parchment. "Aethelstan's seal on it. Osthryth Lackland of Berric." But she soon dropped it as Finan leaped towards her, kissing her neck and making her laugh at his suddenness, before hauling her onto her back and kneeling astride her.
Nothing more was said about them leaving - they honoured the tried and tested method of not discussing either of one another's business outside Berric.
Their parting was less abrupt. Finan held Osthryth in his arms, and she let him, feeling the warmth of him in the warm early morning.
"I want you to look after yerself, take as many warriors as you think you can spare now harvest is upon us. Just - get back here, alive."
"I am not alive unless I am with you," she murmured, and he bent to Osthryth then, and kissed her deeply, holding her back with his hands as he pressed harder, his tongue in her mouth, his cock twitching.
It had done that in his sleep in the peaceful nights that even now Osthryth was thinking about with sadness, sadness that it might be the last time for peace. When she had wondered what it was about her hair that Finan liked so much, and whether it was just because Uhtred had claimed Eadith that Finan had not taken his chance.
"Ar, yer'll have me back indoors if I don't go now," Finan whispered in her ear, and with a final kiss to her lips, he turned and headed to the stables. Within minutes he was on his white horse, and with a brief glance to his wife, hied his horse south.
At dawn, Finan left their estate, waving her goodbye as he rode through his land, and Osthryth wondered whether it would still be their land after Burgham. The question of her answering Aethelstan's call was not resolved, but she suspected that if Finan knew she attended the meeting in a different role he would not be put in a difficult position.
Osthryth looked down the coast, past Lindisfarne and to Bebbanburg in the distance. Uhtred had tried to give her land up to the river to Egil Skallargrimmrson, who got on famously with young Finan when he had trained with his uncle. Egil, and that he had once tried to speak to Benedetta in Latin, were the only two things her son had shared about all of his years training at her brother's fortress. But she was not prepared to pry - it was best not to know and young Finan was not indentured to any one lord - he could choose for himself where his loyalties lay, Osthryth would not get involved.
Where were her own loyalties? Englaland? Or Alba?
Neither, Osthryth thought, as she saddled up her horse beside her son. Berric. Berric was her land and she was going to defend it with every breath she had in her body. Aethelstan had called for the lady of Berric to meet him.
Osthryth would answer.
88888888
After the oaths on this hot day in the summer of the year 927, a calm descended upon Burgham. Eamont was what the Cymric of the Old North had called the settlement, and the bridge was vital to the lord - whoever that was who took tribute from the people who worked the land - because the first ford was twenty miles to the east.
And Osthryth watched as a wolf's head banner moved from east to west. Uhtred was coming, and he had come late, too late to witness the Cymric and Gaelish and Norse oaths, to join the other banners around the nearby land.
It really had been humiliation, Osthryth thought, as she anticipated Uhtred' arrival. Young Finan, by contrast, had made his way to the nothern bank, in the direction of Constantine's standard which, had, next to it, the red hand of Ulster beside it, Domnall's standard. It felt bitter, and Osthryth hadn't even done any bowing or oath-taking.
But she had hope, hope that whatever plan Constantine may have instigated, there would be resistance. If there was resistance, there would also be war, not peace.
"Mhathair, come to join us," young Finan asked his mother. He was going over the river and was joining Constantine's camp. They had travelled together, Osthryth thought, and had arrived on the morning of the oaths. And she had planned to return the same day. But day was becoming evening, and it would be ridiculous to set off at night. Besides, her horse was on the northern bank, in Cumbraland, so she followed him over the bridge and across to where the warriors were camping.
"Captain!" exclaimed Dubhcan, as she approached, and other warriors moved aside so she could sit and eat some of the food they were cooking, then listened to the boastings of battle, and a story that Ceansie was telling them about a huge monster in a lake in the lands to the north.
When the singing began, Osthryth realised tha she should have been relaxed, should be thinking where she should be throwing her oiled leather skin under which she would sleep before returning to Berric in the morning. But a nagging feeling was in her stomach, something which would not let her rest. Uhtred had come. Was he about to kneel to Aethelstan, too? Was there to be another round of oaths the next day?
So she made the leather, and it looked as if she were inside, piled her packs to look like her sleeping form.
But Osthryth did not head across the river immediately. Instead,she neared Constantine camp, and stood at the edge of the circle, listening. A fire was going, and he, with the mormaers and Domnall were sitting, watching it, talking and eating. Beside Constantine was his elder son, Cellach, who had been hostage not once but twice under Alfred and then Edward to offer surety of peace. He was a similar age to Aedre, having been born just before Domhnall had died, just before Osthryth returned with the girl in ignominy, from Wessex.
Beside him, sat young Finan, and they were talking merrily together, his old, old friend, almost like a brother to him, Constantine's son had been and Osthryth's heart moved to see it. No matter how she tried to include him in an idea of a family of herself and Finan at Berric, their son had his upbringing in Alba, and he could not hide it, no matter how much he tried.
Yet, Finan had told him, young Finan and young Uhtred, her brother's younger son, as cousins, had bonded. Young Uhtred was older than young Finan, but it had been he who had taught him skills that he did not know, that Osthryth, nor Cinead had ever taught him. Young Finan could hold himself in battle thanks to his cousin. Yet, to young Uhtred, young Finan would be of Alba, would speak Anglish with a Gaelish accent, had affections and customs different to those practised at Bebbanburg, not least his faith, which was like all the Gaels, that of the Irish church.
"Like Bishop Oswald explained," young Finan once told her. "Young Uhtred was pleased to hear of the church connection." Though, apparently, young Uhtred, when he did attend chapel, was more like his father than he would like to admit, even though he had been raised on Lindisfarne with Abbess Hild.
Osthryth listened harder to what was being said, in Gaelish and sometimes Pictish, but there was nothng untoward there, Osthryth concluded just boasting and chatter, Domnall telling a story of Eireann, a well worn one of his ancestor Niall, but maybe, ust maybe, she heard the king of Alba say the name Ildubh. Aedre had told her a long time ago that Constantine had taken to calling young Finan by that name. At the time, she had thought he might be succumbing to the madness that had taken his cousin, King Domhnall, or that grief had overcome him. Now she wasn't too sure.
But she put it out of her mind when she heard the name, "Hywel". Constantine was confiding that, although the king of Deheubarth had sworn to the Cymric-Alba-Norse alliance, he had far too readily given his oath to Aethelstan.
"He has "Welshed" on us," Oengus declared, using the Anglish word for the Cymric. Had he picked it up in Mercia? Osthryth remembered hearing her warriors, Aelfkin, Oshere, Falkbald, Aeglfrith, even their commander Merewalh, even Lord Aldhelm refer to the Cymric like this, such was the trickery of the Cymric, such was the emptiness of their promises to the Mercians, to stop raiding, to stop claiming the land to the east which they called, "Lost Lands", "Lloegr."
Which is what Hywel ought to remember, Osthryth told herself, and surely he did. Surely it was the will of every Cymric person to want the Anglish and the Saxons gone from Brittaniae, so they could reclaim their lands.
She had to know, she had to find out, to speak to Hywel.
88888888
It was easy to find Hywel's camp. Whether the first sign was that the Ddraig Coch, banner of the red dragon, flew high from a tree, or the soft, Cymric tongue diffusing through the people. It was an atmosphere of easiness, the first easiness she had seen, and it was particularly noticeable, Osthryth thought, seeing as Hywel had supposedly deferred Cymru to Aethelstan.
Just beyond, under the banners of Englaland, would be the Mercians, her Mercians, to whom Osthryth's heart was drawn. She had led them well, and they had served her well, at a time when she had no other sanctuary in the country. How did they feel about Aethelstan's expansionism? Aldhelm was, of course, one of Aethelstan's advisors and Aethelstan himself, though nominally the king of Wessex, was culturally Mercian - he too had managed to survive in that land too, where few judged and what was valued was loyalty to the land, impoverished by a lack of king, by being surrounded by other kingdoms. Loyalty to other Mercians was shown in kind, and as such, one such as Aethelstan, born of Wessex, and another such as herself, born in Northumbria, could find sanctuary, and survive, and thrive.
So she turned from the Englaland settlement lest she hurry to her dear friends and comrades and went instead to the Cymric. Osthryth listened, so she could detect the West Cymric, rather than the North Cymric of Prince Cynddylan, and she headed in that direction.
An arrow shot through the air as she stepped out from one tent side heading towards where Osthryth assumed Hywel to be. Uhtred turned, the point of the arrow skimming the side of his head. She froze.
Was her brother seeking Hywel too? What other business did he have here? She looked at the arrow's wake - it had come across the water, and could not have come too far for it was large. Only a bow made of oak or yew, favoured of the west Mercians, or the Cymric could have used such an arrow. Yet the Cymric were here and Mercia was camped even further south.
Osthryth followed. And that was when it all went wrong.
88888888
Not much was said of value - Uhtred seemed to be off-hand, disengaged with the conversation. Hywel, too, was giving her brother vague answers, although he was definite about the fact that it was not a Cymric who had shot at him, despite the weapon.
"Gwythelth of the North Cymric!" Hywel's voice came, shortly after Uhtred had left - how he had known she was there Osthryth did not know, but she stopped, and turned, acknowledging the name she had given herself at the position given to her by Prince Cynddylan and the Northern Cymric warriors.
"We should talk," Hywel continued, making it altogether clear that Osthryth slipping back to her temporary abode for the night was not going to be on the cards. But Osthryth wanted to speak to him too, so she made sure Hywel Dda saw her bow her head to him, in deference to his claim to be king of all the Cymric, and followed him into his tent, where her brother had just been.
"King Hywel," Osthryth began. But the man held up a hand. He was old now, older than she remembered, long, white hair fell to his waist and his beard to his chest. Yet his circlet of bronze - seemingly of imitation of that of Aethelstan, for Osthryth could not remember Hywel wearing a symbol of kingship at Deheubarth - shone as if it were newly-polished, which it may well have been.
How much of this was outward deference, Osthryth wondered, for the Cymric were nothing if they were not survivors, and apparent-makers to whoever may be more powerful, keeping their faith, like their holy wells and sacred landmarks close to them. So she was determined to listen, and not talk, not share what she wanted to say to the man, which was to challenge him over the supposed alliance with Constantine and the Norse, for she knew she would not get a straight answer.
And some time later, Hywel had spoken, and spoken of Cymru to Osthryth in northern Cymric, and extracted an agreement from her.
It was bold, and relied on Osthryth playing the long game. But it would prove to be a mistake. Osthryth was to be Gwythelth to the North Cymric, in order to cement Cymric unity - that was her part of the bargain and Hywel would never invade Alba lands.
"But what of the agreement you have with Constantine?" she asked. And there was the mistake.
"That is between kings, Gwythelth of the Hen Ogledd," Hywel told her. "Be the figurehead the Aberffrau Cymric need, worry not of Berric and be sure that the Cymric and the Gaels will unite, in the end.
88888888
It was only when she was leaving the Cymric area south of the river that Uhtred saw her. Osthryth was making to cross the Lowther, but had been held up by a group of Cymric. Northern Cymric, for it had been Prince Cynddylan who had hailed to her.
"Did you see that?" Uhtred said to Finan, pointing across the field. They had been strolling around the encampment, to get to grips with the locations of all of the factions. "The Cymric have bowed to my sister."
"That I did," Finan told him, then shook his head. "No, I am not telling ye. If yer find out another way, I didn't tell yer."
"I already know," Uhtred said, and put his hand to his temple. "If they are deferring to her as queen, was it one of those slippery bastards who fired that arrow?" Finan guessed that the question was rhetorical, and so said nothing.
"So what was she doing with the king of the Cymbric then?" Uhtred continued. Finan glanced back. It did indeed look as if Osthryth had come from the tent with the red dragon banner above it.
"I couldn't say," Finan told him. "It depends on what business she has with that priest there," he added. He nodded towards Bishop Oswald, who also greeted Osthryth with delight, and drew her to him.
"I will if you will," Uhtred told his friend.
"What?" Finan asked.
"Make peace with my eldest son if you make peace with yours." Finan turned his head and stopped walking.
"I am not at war with mine," Finan told him.
"Like hell you are not - he loathed being at Bebbanburg at the end, I was glad to see the back of him, little shit. Back in Alba is the best place for him." Uhtred saw his friend's expression at his words but did nothing to lessen their impact. Instead, he added, "What arrangement was made that allowed Constantine to have the guts to send Domnall to Gurhfrith in Eoforwic?"
Over with the Cymric and her nephew, Osthryth was also discussing Uhtred's relationship with his eldest son.
"He is here," Osthryth told Oswald. "You can make it up with your father, here. It is a good place with oaths having been said already, it clears the way.
"Believe me, aunt, I have tried," Oswald told her. "I went over to speak to him, but he refused to even look at me.
"Do you think that it might have been my sister who pulled the bow?" Uhtred asked Finan, as they neared the West Saxons.
"Probably, I would have in her position too," Finan told him. "Except, of course, we both know it was a Norseman, either Guthfrith or Anlaf."
"My money's on Guthfrith," Uhtred told him.
"Two pennies," Finan proposed and stuck out a hand.
"Done," he told him, as Uhtred shook it. Over from the Cymric, however, Osthryth was striding towards her brother, her nephew left behind her.
"Brother," she nodded, and looked at her husband. He nodded, as if they were acquaintances. He is married to Uhtred then, in his way, Osthryth thought. Prefers to offend me than my brother.
"Might have thought you'd be here," Uhtred told her, and turned to his friend. "I said to you, Finan, did I not, that I hope no bastard is trying to take Bebbanburg. But she is here."
"As is your son."
"The Christian?"
"Both your sons are Christian, as are most of your guard," Osthryth pointed out, "As your woman, Benedetta." At this, Uhtred bridled, and he turned his eye on her ferociously.
"Leave her out of it!" he snapped. But Osthryth had found a thread and was beginning to pull.
"Does she know how badly you treated Eadith in the end?"
"Oh no, Osthryth!" murmured Finan, looking at her, trying to encourage her to stop.
"You?" Uhtred spat back. "You have the gall to say that to me? After - "
"After what, brother?" Osthryth pressed, hand immediately on Buaidh, aware that people were gathering round them, watching, listening. "After all you've done? Don't say it was all for Bebbanburg!" But before she could withdraw her sword, Uhtred was up close and in her face, his own twisting in a vicious snarl.
"You think the Gaels are your friends? Domnall, went to Guthfrith!"
"And Aethelstan extracted payment for this failed alliance," Osthryth replied. "What is your point?"
"That you should be with your husband, you should leave Berric to be with your family - "
"They are my family!" Osthryth shot back, continuing in Danish. "And I tried, Uhtred, I really did. You even sent away your own nephew, when I was trying to be family to you - "
"Well," Uhtred told her, belligerently, "Domnall promises Bebbanburg on behalf of Constantine, through you!"
Osthryth stood back, feeling her mouth fall open. She wanted to say it was a mistake, but Constantine would not make mistakes, he would surely know she would never agree to that.
"I manage the land that was once our ancestors," Osthryth told him with as much dignity as she could. "As do you. He could easily claim that I am doing the same on your behalf. Finan," she nodded, and made to step past her brother.
"I claim him," Uhtred told her, viciously, taking her arm. Osthryth turned, staring at Uhtred as he clung painfully to her arm.
"Who?" Osthryth asked.
"Your son," he told her. "You are my sister; my warrior has claimed him as his son. As Lord of Bebbanburg, he is tied to me until he is twenty one." If Osthryth had been shocked at Uhtred's claim of being used by Constantine, it was nothing to what she was hearing now.
"NO!" she exclaimed. "He has been with you enough, he - " But Uhtred grinned, with no humour in it. "What right do you have?"
"What right did you have to steal away Beocca and Thyra's daughter?" Uhtred challenged her. "What right did you have to make her Gaelish, to let her wed a Norseman?"
"The same right you gave yourself over others," Osthryth retorted, a pang of guilt in her mind. She had had none. But the girl would have died had she not fed her at her own breast, had she not taken her with her. "When you played the part of fate. You were not there," she added, "You were at the church at Alfred's funeral when fire was set. I got her out - she was alive when I rescued her, alive enough to deliver her daughter."
Uhtred was not expecting that. His face had withdrawn in shock, and paled. But he rallied quickly and reminded her, "Your son."
"Never!" Osthryth declared, though she knew it was fruitless. Uhtred had the right, because if she denied him, she told the world that Finan was not young Finan's father.
To that effect, Uhtred levelled his feet and took a step back, sheathing his sword and folding his arms. "So, you deny my warrior is the fatherof your son?" Too many people, Osthryth thought, there were too many people listening in to the conversation. And she yielded. Osthryth looked at Finan, and agreed.
"There!" said Uhtred, lightly to his friend, as if he had been doing Finan a favour all this time. "You have your son back with yer now." Osthryth turned, but Uhtred grabbed his arm.
"Until he is twenty one," Osthryth told him, and she wrestled her arm from Uhtred's grasp. She turned to leave, nodding to her husband, but the snort of derision had come from Uhtred's direction. Osthryth turned back, landing the mightiest kick she could into Uhtred's testicles. He staggered back at the pain, unable to breathe, let alone say anything.
"You'll be going back to Berric?" Finan asked, when he caught up with her, just before the bridge. "Osthryth?" She turned back to her husband, and saw on his face sadness instead of anger, regret instead of annoyance.
"Why after everything," he asked, "Can ye two not have a civil conversation? I thought, when I married yer, ye might have been able to put this behind you, and at least become civil."
"I?" Osthryth asked, "I? Is it me who is taking his son away? Is it me who chooses to behave as he does? When he has a choice, why does he choose the one which will make it worse for the people he calls family?" She exhaled, and stopped her self-defence. "Take young Finan," she told him, "Take your son, Finan Mòr, for I could not have asked for a better child, the best part of me, the best of you." She nodded to Uhtred who had now managed to get back on his feet. "But Berric? I will never leave my land. I cannot choose to be on the side of Alba any more than I can choose to be on the side of Aethelstan. I choose nothing, and I defend my lands accordingly."
But they both knew that wasn't true, they both knew which side Osthryth would fight on, in the end if it did come to war, and not only would she be facing her husband, but her brother and son as well. It was an impossible choice. No, she wax going home to Berric - it was both Northumbria and Pictland, it was Englaland and it was Alba. Which meant it was neither. It might well come off for the good if she continued to behave as if it were a neutral piece of land.
"Tell young Finan I love him, from the moment I knew he was coming, to now, and for all time."
And Finan took the few steps that got her to himself, and enclosed her in his arms, kissing her.
"If there is a battle I will take no part in it," Osthryth told him, when he placed a hand on her back and drew her to his shoulder.
"I am not asking -
"I am telling," she said,fiercely. "Because whatever the outcome, people I love are going to die."
"Then come back with us," Finan told her. But Osthryth shook her head.
"No, I am going back, will see you at home, Finan Mor," she told hm, and she kissed him back and kept kissing him until Finan chanced upon an empty tent and backed Osthryth into it, unclothing one another in practised seconds before Finan manoeuvred her down onto a warrior's bedding, hands on her body, one hand already down her leg until it found her cunt lips and pried them open with his fingers.
Finan turned her on by pressing and twisting his fingers around her clit, his wrist getting the full force of her wetness. It wasn't long before he was eating her out, and not long after that she had brought his cock to his mouth and they were blowing one another.
Finan came first and Osthryth tasted the first salty tang and then the mild sweetness of his cum, but Finan did not stop for Osthryth, and she felt the release within a few seconds, her nipples stiff, for Finan had her breasts in his hands and was twisting and compressing them for her, and when he got the taste of her wetness, drew her to her back and knelt astride Osthryth, plunging deep inside her before even her orgasms had waned, her erect clitoris rubbing roughly against the base of his cock.
More orgasms, more thrusting, more nipple play - from them both - until they had worked out their grievances on one another and they were exhausted.
"It's good to know I am humping a queen," Finan told her, when they lay next to one another, no more orgasms physically possible, Osthryth reckoned.
"I wish they would stop doing that," Osthryth told him. "But yes, Queen Gwythelth came to Aethelstan's call and bowed to him, on behalf of the Hen Ogledd Cymric, as did Prince Cynddylan."
"But not you?" Finan asked.
"No," she told him, moving herself closer to his naked body. "The Lady of Berric stands neutral, for it is not her land to promise to Aethelstan, it is my people's land. Aethelstan will have to come to Berric himself to ask them.
They did not pause long before they dressed and then parted, leaving their juices over this poor warriors belongings, Finan heading one way, and Osthryth the other. He was going to find young Finan and tell him what they had agreed. Osthryth had, for her part, promised she would leave in the morning and go directly home.
Osthryth crossed the bridge, first, and overheard a conversation, a conversation which, as it turned out, made her thank God that she had met Eirik Thurgilson, and he had taught her Norse.
88888888
"Mhathair!"
It took a good few minutes of brilliant morning sunshine to get through to Osthryth's brain that it was, indeed, the next day, and that she needed to get up. Another few seconds told her that she was hungry, and yet a few more told her that her son was standing in front of her. He seemed to be angry. Very angry.
"Finan beag?" she asked, sitting up, and rubbing her eyes. But there was no easy wake up on the cards as her son stood over her, pushing aside the leather covering which she had hung over the tree branch.
"Mhathair!" he protested. "Why? Why did you do it?" Osthryth knew what, of course, and she stood up, stamping her legs for a moment to wake herself up some more.
"Because I had no choice," Osthryth told her. "The law says that a lord has the rule over his dependents. As you are my son, and your father is a warrior in his service, he has rule over you until you are twenty one." She saw Finan's eyes widen, a hand go to his mouth.
"Five years?" he asked, gasping the words.
"Four years and four months," Osthryth told him. "He has the responsibility to care for you, nurture you, feed you," she added. They both knew she was on a losing path, argument-wise, but Osthryth had very little to say in her own defence. "You get on with Egil, do you not? And Berg? Young Uhtred?"
But, young Finan was not falling for that - it was a paltry excuse, and it was excusing Uhtred's blatant misuse of his power over them. And he was not finished yet.
"Mhathair!" young Finan exclaimed. "Why do you go to him? And Uhtred?"
"He is your father," Osthryth said, determinedly, "Uhtred is your uncle."
"After what they did? What my uncle did? The man you name as my father?" He shook his head. Osthryth had never kept anything from young Finan, but clearly he had found out.
"Your cousin? Oswald?" Osthryth guessed.
But young Finan did not answer. Instead he said, "I was sickened when I heard it, sickened with what he did to you - I woul kill him for what he got Aethelwold to do." Osthryth looked away. Not out of shame, but because she was sorry that she hadn't been the one to tell him.
"Finan is your father, Finan beag," she told her son, "It would make life so much easier if he was not. However much you call Constantine "athair", no matter how much you wish it, it is not so. So, it is my dearist wish that you try with Finan, that if I can put it aside, so can you."
"But - "
"Who told you?" Osthryth repeated, her last two words almost shouted at her son. Young Finan hesitated.
"Young Uhtred," young FInan told her. "I could stay not a moment longer, and so I conspired with Bishop Oswald to get as far away from Bebbanburg as I could."
So that was it. He was Alba. He would be fighting against his father in any war to come, and from what Osthryth could see, it would not be long, from the monstrously egotistical way Aethelstan had acted when he took the oaths from those he had vanquished.
But, of course, he would not. Young Finan would train under Uhtred and, as such, be part of a group of warriors who looked after one another no matter what. And Osthryth's heart lightened.
"One day," Osthryth said, taking young Finan's shoulders, "There will be a war, between the Cymric and Gaels, and the Anglish and Saxons. Learning to fight with the biggest turd in this land will make you as close to unbeatable as I could hope for."
It was then that young Finan's face changed, and she took a step from his mother. Then, he turned, and took her hand, kissing it.
"You are going?" Osthryth asked, his face lighter now.
"I will go, if it please you, mother," young Finan told her, and Osthryth nodded.
The last image she remembered of her son, that she had on horseback was riding away to the east, as he strode across the meadow to the wolf's head banner.