Brunanburh, Autumn 914

Miles behind them battle began. A ridge before them afforded Osthryth time and position to finally turn west, to see what she had left behind. The joke was on her now. She saw her shoulder. Was Aldhelm right? Had her brother borne her insults though she was in the wrong.

"Men have come with the Norse, from Eireann," Aeswi pointed out, and many black-haired warriors were amongst the men still heading east, in trudging, effortful lines towards, well, Osthryth could believe of no other place they could be heading than Eadsbyrig. Voices travelled over the ground. Osthryth could pick up words, words she understood, not of Leinster nor wild Munster, nor Connacht. These words were Gaelish, easily understandable by all of the Alba lords. Osthryth looked along the line. Men from Ulster? Flann's men? Or enemies who had sided with the Norse and had been expelled?

"We go on," Osthryth told them all, "We go east, and we go silent. I want you to hear everything you can." She said that to Feilim and Oengus; Aeswi had already become silent, turning a little to the ribbon of slow-moving warriors.

Over on the peninsula chaos ensued. Boats that had once contined Norse were ash, the fire was already licking the inner boundary of the fortification. Aethelflaed, flanked by Aldhelm, surveyed the damage as her warriors burst forth. To find, not an army waiting to battle past the Mercians to Caestre, but the tail end of warriors left behind to complete the foil.

Irishmen, mainly, and some fair-haired Norse, in disperate groups thrusting forward and then pulling back.

"What are they doing?" asked Sihtric, looking at their opponents. "Where are they all?"

"Over there," Aldhelm told him, casting a long look up at the higher ground. It was obvious from their position that the incoming Norse had managed to get around Caestre and the mighty Mercian army.

But there was one contingent of the army ready still to fight. As Ragnall Ivarsson, the self-proclaimed Sea King, led most of his army on into Mercia, on the banks of the Maerse stood one Dane who was always ready to fight any Saxons in his path. It was Haesten.

"What are you thinking?" Aeswi asked Osthryth, as they took a fork that led them away from the large army. If they went south, and then back round to the other side of the Eadsbyrig fortress, there was less chance that Ragnall might think that they were any credible force.

"That if Ragnall can establish himself in Eoferwic the Western Isles will be emptier," Osthryth replied, in clear, articulate Gaelish. Then, she turned to the Mercians.

"Why does he come here? Ragnall Ivarsson? Does anyone know?" Because I seem to have been kept in the dark about nearly everything.

"It is said he has given up his Irish land and fate has granted him Britain, the whole island." It was Merewalh that spoke. Aelffrith nodded too, and Osthryth breathed in the cool mid-morning air. Why could no-one have told her this yesterday?

"Given up?" Osthryth scoffed. "Flann Sinna will have given him a not a moment of peace. And nor shall we. Alfred's children have six of the seven kingdoms: Cornwalum, Wessex, Cent, East Anglia, Lindsay and Mercia. But Northumbria is out of their reach for now, when Norse flood east from Dubh Llyn. It is a war of attrition that Aethelflaed and Edward need to play. They would do well to install a Norse king in Eoferwic who is an ally to Mercia and Wessex." But Merewalh's face was inanimate, as was Aelffrith's.

"I did not say Wessex ruled Mercia; I...I am not choosing my words well, old friends," she said, nodding to them, Aelfkin and her other three Mercian warriors. I meant the six kingdoms, ruled by Edward and Aethelflaed between them would do well to install an ally."

"No, that is not what I meant - did you not know?" Merewalh asked. "Flann Sinna is dead."

"Dead?" Osthryth echoed, as they rode slower now, as if they were not warriors, but simpler folk, tradespeople perhaps, fleeing Caeste at the sight of Norse.

"His son, Donnchada, is now High King," Aelffrith told her.

"How do you know this?" Osthryth demanded, turning her horse about and facing them. "Aethelflaed?" And then she knew. She knew all about why she was in that situation. Aethelflaed must have told them to remain silent and keep as much from her as possible. Now they were far enough away to be able to tell their captain.

"Aethelflaed." It was Aelffrith who told Osthryth, and Aeswi translated for the Alba warriors. "She has regular intelligence from Éireann - it is in her interest to know what her enemies are doing, and for many years her enemies are the Norse.

Donnchada, Osthryth thought, as she glanced at the lines of warriors, their pace quickening, their steps deliberate. They were going to Eadsbyrig; the fortress was their intended target.

And Osthryth recalled how he and Domnall had plotted to overthrow Flann. She had overheard them when she climbed a tree at the monastery site of Ar Macha. So, Donnchada Ui Neill had the throne now, and her mind drifted to Niall. What of little Niall? If she would go to Éireann again she would want to see little Grubbyknees, a grown, kindly lord, protector of poor Gormlaith, sister of Dyfnwal, who had been much maligned by noblemen in her life. She hoped that Niall and Donnchada were allies.

"I fear we are being more and more encroached upon," Merewalh told Osthryth. "Aelffrith feels it more, if he does not mind my saying so." He glanced to his comrade, who nodded, permissively. "Why must we give up our identity? We are not Wessex, nor ever shall be. They say we can't support ourselves and point to the Norse invasions as evidence. But could Wessex? We sent Mercians to Ethandun; Wessex was not alone fighting the Danes; Alfred was not alone."

Osthryth turned, and began to lead the men again. "I cannot tell you the answer," she told Merewalh, "Apart from mountains."

"Mountains?"

"Waeleas has mountains, does it not, Owain?" She looked across to the heir to the Strathclydian throne, and repeated it in north Cymric. The young man nodded. "Dal Riata, Pictland, Strathclyde all have huge mountains. Mountains save kingdoms from invasions and the indigenous hide in them and fight a slow, long war." Merewalh nodded in agreement.

Down on the peninsula, the fight had become a skirmish. Danes taunted Mercian troops, goading them to fight. Aldhelm shouted for prisoners.

"There will be no prisoners from us, Uhtred the Daneslayer," came Haesten's twisted, whiny voice.

"How is Haesten is commanding the Norse, Lord?" asked Finan, but it was answered by Aldhelm when Sihtric yelled the same question.

"He does not," Haesten replied, clearly relishing being the messenger to the clueless Mercians. "Ragnall Ivarsson, brother of your son-in-law, Uhtred. He has taken his men into Mercia. And there you were, with not a stitch of defence to cover your stupid little arses."

"So he was trying to sail inland hoping he would come across Eoferwic?" Uhtred shouted back. "Does he not know of the middle mountains?" He moved his horse further forward, so he was level with his one-time lover. Aethelflaed looked at Uhtred, not moving her head.

"Why Eoferwic, do you think?" asked Oengus, as Eadsbyrig loomed into view.

"They cannot get to Eoferwic from the west in longboats; we have the Pennines," Merewalh pointed out, and smiled, realising that there were some mountains in Mercia after all.

"They burned them," Aeswi pointed out. "The Norse are going on foot." Osthryth nodded her head. And, if Ragnall Ivarsson were to claim Eoferwic, this meant, by defauly, he made claim to be king of the whole of Northumbria.

Wihtgar, Osthryth thought. He would never give up Bebbanburg. So if Ragnall did succeed, there would be a tiny chip of sandstone on which Ida's fortress stood, indominatable but isolated. It was why Aethelflaed kept Uhtred to hand, of course, a natural claimant to Bebbanburg as an ally would give her untrammelled claim - Alfred's dream of uniting the Anglish and Saxon kingdoms.

"And does that include your land?" Aeswi asked, beadily.

"My land?" Osthryth echoed watching her brother's men claim prisoners far below them.

"Caer Ligualid," he clarified. "Cumbraland." My family's homeland. Saint Patrick's dwelling place. Your kingdom."

Osthryth was flattered for a moment, as she realised that was indeed true. But Constantine had ceded that land, and it was Strathclyde's now, Dyfnwal's. It had been why he had conceived the plan when Domhnall had asked for it all those years ago at Glen Orchy, before Domhnall's coronation at Dunadd, but Constantine had never once thought that Domhnall would send Osthryth to marry Guthred.

A scream come up, and another. Osthryth slipped from her horse. From here, with the ever-moving line of Irish and Norse to their right, she could see into Caestre. A figure had come through the western gate. A flash of auburn-red hair in the sunligh told Osthryth who it was who was tearing over the battlefield.

Eadith.

Osthryth could see how the woman brought comfort to her brother, and satisfaction that Aethelflaed was envious of her when she had appeared in the hall the evening before. It was clear she was running to Uhtred. But they were too far away to discern anything.

"Go on, or go back?" asked Aelfkin, as Oshere, Falkberg and Aelgfrith stood beside him. "It is your decision, captain." The Alba lords nodded in agreement.

"We go on, and do what we can at Eadsbyrig. For Mercia," she added, lowering her voice, hoping that the men would not raise a cheer for their homeland. Hint taken, and the faux traders were off again, onto a higher route towards the vulnerable fortress.

88888888

Down on the Wiralum peninsula, and an argument was going on in Gaelish. And then, Finan stopped talking, much to Uhtred's relief, and started to piss on the warrior with whom he had argued with, and pushed to the ground..

"Later," Finan told Uhtred, as the Lord of Bebbanburg stood stunned as his best friend told him he had just killed his kin. "Son, nephew..." He shrugged. "But he is here."

Conall. But Uhtred would not find out about Conall until much later. Instead, he had more important matters to deal with, not least his one-time lover, who was standing beside Haesten.

Brida. Uhtred had not seen her yet, nor seen Father Oswald. He would. He really would.

"The Ui Neill raped her?" Uhtred asked Finan, who was recounting a tale, in pieces. "Who? Ethne? But she was on a slaver?" Had Finan known her before? In Ireland? He was, if the Ulaid -

"That was long ago, and she was the woman I loved more than anyone in the world," Finan told him bitterly, as they sat on the ground, anything that might have been called a battle over, the fire out. "No, not Ethne. Domnall was her brother. In exchange for Donnchada's support, he sold his sister into slavery," Finan told him, as weary men quit the field, and dead men lay in the mud. "Ethne had to be cleared away for Flann Sinna to be High King. Marry the Gaelish princess Muire..." He sighed, the anticipated exertion of a battle now a weary burden.

"But you are Ulaid," Uhtred told Finan, as if he didn't know. "Why were you so interested in what went on with your enemy?"

"You are not interested in your enemy?" Finan asked Uhtred, baldly. "And then one day, my enemy brought two women to my father's land, as a peace bargain." Finan turned an ugly face to his friend while around them, men staggered away from the fight that had been no more than a skirmish. "Two princesses for two princes. Father agreed, and Flann Sinna became an ally for my father. For what?" Finan declared. "For what! Years of our kin dying, decomposing in the soil of Ulaid land..." He broke off, and shook his head. "So the Ui Neill took exception when I repudiated Gormlaith and ran off with my lover. The slaver came to Strangford Loch...Conall, he - " Finan broke off, finally unable to carry on. Perhaps if he had not seen his kin; perhaps if there had been enough of a fight for him to whet his blade and exorcise the ghosts of his mind.

"Gormlaith? Was that your wife? Your Ui Neill wife?" When Finan did not turn to look at him, Uhtred added, more gently, "It sounds like a sad story."

"A sad story," Finan repeated. And then he turned to Uhtred, and cried, "She was not wearing my coin!"

"Your coin?" Uhtred stared at him in bewilderment. "Gormlaith?"

"Osthryth!" Finan hissed her name, and turned away again, playing with the hilt of Soul Stealer. Then, he turned his head slowly back to Uhtred.

"I have a son - we have a son. Lord knows, she has done what any mother would do, and put him out of danger."

"Osthryth's child?" But Finan did not answer, instead, gripped Uhtred on the arm.

"Lord, I swore to follow you, I swore to follow you for all my days. Do you know why?" Uhtred didn't. But he figured, on this warfield prematurely evacuated, he was about to find out.

"I was in despair - three months on Sverri's ship. I wanted to give up; I had nothing to live for. And then," he broke off, his eyes filling with the light of the sun overhead, "You came aboard. You, from the land of the Cymric, of the blessed Saint Patrick. You, like a saint, like Colmcille himself come to row with me, to give me hope again, to give me strength. And I thought, when I had run that bastard through, and I had my freedom once more, what else could I do than to serve you, Lord?" He shook his head, and spoke to Uhtred as if his presence on the ship was divine intervention.

"Finan," laughed Uhtred, for there was nothing more that could be done at such a preposterous notion, "I know you are a Christian, but - "

"Lord!" Interrupted Finan. "You may be pagan, but your family is not! Look, you even have Saint Oswald as kin, a most beloved saint, that even the Mercians who killed him, pagan Mercians, Penda himself, now revere him!"

"Ha, so I am a saint now, Finan?" laughed Uhtred, and he turned to Sihtric, and called, "Finan thinks I am a saint!" Laughter grew, for what else could they do, battle deprived as they were. "Saint Uhtred!"

"Osbert," Finan said, softly. "Saint Osbert. It has a nice ring to it." He sighed, and turned away. "And we have a son. But it is true, she will not wait for me."

"Wait for you for what?" Uhtred asked, leaning towards Finan.

"To get Bebbanburg, of course," Finan groaned. "I promised her that when you took Bebbanburg, I would come for her. And she said she would wait." He shook his head. "She had the coin, on a chain. It was twisted, having been hit by a blade in battle. Where was it?" he demanded. "She had the pearl jewel in her hair, as always - who gave her that? Someone more dear to her than me?"

"Perhaps the boy has it?" Uhtred suggested, his heart softening to Finan after all he had heard.

"Yes, yes," Finan agreed. "Perhaps Finan beag has it."

"Beag?"

"It means little," Finan told him.

"It's no wonder Gaelish is so hard to understand."

"Little Finan, she's called him," Finan pressed on. "He will have the coin, to be sure. The only thing I brought with me from my homeland. I kept it safe, all those years, Uhtred, and now it belongs to my son."

"So she's put it round the neck of Constantine's child to pretend to you he's yours?" Uhtred told him, darkly. Finan looked at Uhtred sharply, and then laughed.

"Ha! Ha!" Finan's laugh punctuated the mid-morning air. "You will have your joke, Lord. Next, you will say she has named him after me for that very reason."

A hush was descending on the field now. Smoke drifted up from the northern section of Brunanburh fort, as the last of its flames were blotted out from the channel of riverwater that had been diverted to it by some of Aldhelm's men.

"So, because I am a saint, you won't go to her, even when we have Bebbanburg?" Uhtred asked him, understanding his friend for the first time in the thirty years they had known one another.

And then that was all he said. For, staggering over the battlefield, through the dead and the dying, was Father Judas, his name snatched away from him by an angry father, no longer to be called by the family name. Uhtred's son.

88888888

Father Oswald, once Uhtred, the first son of Uhtred of Bebbanburg and Gisela Harthacnutsdottir, had brightened Osthryth's evening the night before. A mere five minutes, and he had thrown his arms around his aunt, and brought her in from the cold and her endless watching so they could be reacquainted.

He was delighted when Osthryth told him he had a healthy cousin living in safety in Alba. He was also with news, that there was a new bishop at Caestre, Leofstan.

"Is his wife of the name Gomer?" Osthryth asked Oswald, and his eyes lit up, and told her that she was right. So Osthryth shared Gomer's other name, and her occupation, to her astounded nephew.

"No!" Oswald told Osthryth. "No..." He looked from the walls of his room, to the window and back to Osthryth. "Gomer? But she is..."

"Mus, yes," Osthryth told him.

"No!" he declared.

"Yes," Osthryth had smiled. "You mark my words."

And where there was "Sister Gomer" there was gold, and Osthryth would be in favour with Constantine if she brought it back.

But treasure-acquistion was for the future. Now, Osthryth and her company had reached within a hundred yards of Eadsbyrig fortress and its few yet determined guards. She was not to know what horror had unfolded for her nephew on the land below, away to the river, not feel, until much later a true guilt for something she had done.

Osthryth had freed Brida. In doing so, she had freed a want of revenge stronger than any winter storm. And so, taking her vengeance out on Uhtred through his son, Brida had stormed.

88888888

Osthryth had heard the name of a man named Cynalef, for Aldhelm had shared some brief - and clearly permitted - words with her on the ramparts of just before dawn. One of the words was of this Dane, whose company it was who was guarding Eadsbyrig. He was a Mercian.

"You have met them before, Mormaer Oengus UI Caimbeulaith of Strathclyde, Feilim UI Breidi of Pictland, Lord Aeswi - " Osthryth had replied, listing the Alba warriors.

" - of Dal Riata, Osthryth," Aeswi told her.

Dal Riata? Osthryth did not know that. But she did know, now, that her friend Finnolai - Abbot Findal was who he was now in Caer Ligualid - was Aeswi's brother along with Uunst, and therefore of Dal Riata too.

But, while Aldhelm held the mormaers at Osthryth's word, on the word of Aethelflaed's alliance, how was it he had chosen to trust a Dane, or at least a second generation Dane, to be in charge of a guard-poor fortress, just when the Norse were trailing in its direction?

Osthryth's mind tirned, in that grey light before dawn, to Ceinid. Keep your blade low, at an angle, she remembered him saying, and instinctively, she pulled Buaidh close to her, thinking.

But not of the battle strategy. This Cynlaef could wait. Would he be leading men now against Norse? Would he be tentatively guardig the border of Lothian, a place best to establish a border patrol, better to orientate the army to the ever-changing local politics? Constantine wanted at least to the wall, more if he could. And that meant, eventually, war with Bebbanburg.

And she had thought of a plan.

Aelfkin slipped away; Osthryth knew he was the fastest and least observable of them all, with the exception of Owian, who did not know the land. He was to alert the guard at the eastern gate of Caestre and mobilise the Mercians to the potential threat up at Eadsbyrih.

Meanwhile, Merewalh and Aelffrith would make a big show of the Gaels being there, making Ragnall see that the fortress's men were being added to under his nose. If he chose to attack then, it would be because it was better than there being even more Mercians joining them. It would work.

88888888

It hadn't worked. Or rather, it might well have worked as a dererrent. Half of Mercia's army came at Aelfkin's command, to flank, at least, the line of Norse.

From inside the fortress, Osthryth watched as the Norse made a detour around Eadsbyrig and took the path that headed north east.

"We have a rearguard, now at least," Cynlaef commented.

"They are on their way to Eoferwic," Aldhelm, who had led the Mercians on Osthryth's word, "And not here at all."

"Not here because you came," Osthryth told him.

"We could never tell," Aldhelm reassured Osthryth, clapping her on the shoulder. "You did well, Osthryth. The Norse did not even attempt a raid here."

Half-armour. That was what she had used. Disguise the men on the ramparts in half their armour, the other half use strategically in between, and it had made it seem like they were double their number. Now he and Osthryth were striding the battlements, Aldhelm smiling approvingly at her plan.

"The Irish that have been pushed out, those who displeased new UI Neill king - many Ulaid sided with Norse to try to gain land...regain land...whatever war there was there, it had been going on for a long time."

"Did you find that out from the tail end of them, whoever were left behind?" Osthryth asked, nodding towards the battle near the Brunanburh fortress.

"I saw an execution," Aldhelm told her. "We were just turning away at that point. A few Norse, a few Dane leaders were laggarding by the burned ships."

"Execution?" Below them, shouts of happiness could be heard through the fortress's wooden ceiling. The mormaers and the Mercians were clearly celebrating.

"A Dane...Haesten," Aldhelm told her, slowly. "The Prince Aethelstan was given the job. By your brother."

By my brother, Osthryth echoed in her mind. She looked back to the west, to the hammer-shaped spit of land called Wiralum that thrust itself in the direction of Dubh Llyn. Haesten was a nasty piece of work, that was true. He had boarded the fishing boat that Gert had agreed Osthryth use as passage to Hamptun, to seek Uhtred in the first place. The man could be terrifying, but his luck had held all those years. Until that day. Until Aethelstan was shown the responsibility of execution.

Forty three enemy were executed. Afternoon came and Aldhelm thanked Osthryth and her company for their timely intervention.

"Returning to Caestre," Osthryth told him, when he asked her what her next move was to be. "Perhaps the Lady Aethelflaed has some role for me." But more likely not, Osthryth told herself as she rounded up her men. Well fed, she led them down Eadsbyrig hill and to Caestre, looking at the enemy heads, already on stakes at the riverside. Her brother's doing, no doubt. Beyond the river was the Northumbrian border, over which the tail end of Ragnall's company were trailing.

"They are going that way," Aelffrith told her, as they rounded the curve of the hill towards the city. "Into your kingdom." Osthryth turned her head northwards, then glanced back at her friend, and saw that more warriors from Eadsbyrig were joining Oshere and Aeglfrith at the back of their group.

"Not mine," Osthryth replied.

"Cumbraland is yours, if you chose to fight for it," Aelffrith reminded her, and Merewalh, on the other side of her, smiled broadly.

So that was it, Osthryth thought. An idea that they might be restoring a queen to her land, was it? She turned her head to see Owain smile at her too. He had all but said it could be her kingdom, when he inherited Dyfnwal's throne; Wihtgar would agree, for all he was interested in was Bebbanburg. Now that was an amusing idea - it would irk Aethelflaed, who, with Uhtred, was attempting to unite the Anglish and Saxons into one land. A separate Cymric kingdom? It could be done. There were mountains enough in Cumbraland's west, and Caer Ligualid was fortified enough to be its capital again.

But Osthryth knew could never hold it. Constantly it would be contested by Norse and Danes from Ireland, by Eireann's people, too. And if Constantine or Owain were overthrown, her northern neighbour might decide to mount an invasion on behalf of Strathclyde to the ancient boundary of Eamont Bridge. Should Uhtred regain Bebbanburg, he would never let her be.

And what of the people that she imagined to be in a recreated Rheged? They were not the people of her ancestors' time. Norse had come, Rheged had fragmented into Northumbrian rule, half claimed by Strathclyde. And if she had no people, whose interests she must protect, there was no point.

"What now?" came an irritated voice from the back of the group. " We are ordered back to Caestre, for what?" It was Cynlaef, the Dane left in charge of Eadsbyrig fortress.

"We are going there too," Osthryth told him. "Perhaps lead us in, Cynlaef?"

At this apparent deference, Cynlaef picked up his head, his horse's rising too as he urged his beast faster. Three men, also presumably from Eadsbyrig, rode close behind him, and he went down the hill first, eager to lead Osthryth's company from the victory, or rather, for there had been no battle - from the holding, of the fortress.

"And us?" Aelffrith asked. Aeswi had drawn his horse between her and Merewalh, and looked as if he were about to ask the same question. She slowed her horse, and all ten of her men surrounded her.

Noticing she was not with him, Cynlaef looked behind him, and then doubled back.

"Where do you think Ragnall is going?" she asked them. Most of them, the mormaers and the Mercians alike, looked north-east. The light of the sun could still be seen glinting off the armour of Ragnall's warriors.

"We go on," she told them.

"You can't do that!" Cynlaef spluttered, who had now positioned himself in front of Osthryth, clearly irritated that she had stopped to speak with her men, when she had gifted him the position of commander. "We have a treaty with Northumbria not to invade."

"They have," told him, giving him a sour look and pointing in Ragnall's direction.

"You are Mercian; you cannot follow them...the Lady - "

"This lady, our esteemed commander, is whom we follow, including all the Mercians you see before us," Merewalh told Cynalef, and Osthryth recognised the cynical, bitter Merewalh from years ago, having been displaced to serve a Wessex lord - Odda - deprived of his homeland and his family, who had all died when he was finally released from debt-servitude. "The men of Alba come in alliance with Osthryth; we no more command them than you command us. And so if we choose to go, we will go."

"Into Northumbria?" Cynlaef asked, and moved his eyes from the irate Merewalh to Osthryth. "You cannot!"

"We have an oath with the lady Osthryth," said Aelfkin, he told Cynlaef, "Every Mercian you see before you. We swore long before any agreement was arranged between Mercia and Northumbria that we would follow her." He smiled at Osthryth, knowing that every Mercian was now looking at her, remembering that oath, and that Cynlaef knew very well that Aelfkin was speaking the truth. "So if Osthryth says we will enter Northumbria in pursuit of Ragnall, then, we will enter Northumbria."

A few moments passed, and Cynlaef turned, his three men beside him. It was clear he knew he had been overruled, and as he got fifty yards from them all, turned back, and shouted, "Lady Aethelflaed will hear about this!"

"Good!" shouted back Merewalh. "Tell her, the lady Osthryth is doing her work for her."

"Merewalh!" Aelffrith declared. "The Lady might hear about this!"

"Oh, I doubt it," Merewalh replied, "I doubt that man will admit to the Lady of the Mercians that he failed to stop us crossing to Northumbria." He looked to Osthryth. "If that is what you decide."

"We are going," Osthryth told them, and in Anglish, Gaelish and Cymric outlined the plan. They would follow Ragnall as long as they possibly could, avoiding a fight unless they were pressed to one. And whatever nefarious action the Norseman was planning they could be there to oppose it.

"Northumbia!" she called, from the hillside, halfway between Caestre and Eadsbyrig. On the northern bank was Rumfcofa, coastal defensive town, which was now redundant, waiting if it were, still, for an invasion fleet that was a smouldering wreck on the north bank beside Brunanburh.

"Northumbria!" called her men.

Would it be the right decision Osthryth thought, as they set their horses on the nothern path along which Ragnall had led his men. Only time would tell.

88888888

"Why has he gone?" asked Aelffrith of Aeswi. The two men rode a little ahead of the men got on well, and that was no bad thing thought Osthryth.

"Easy." Aeswi leaned over his dark brown horse and wiped away some of the leaves that had fallen onto his horse's neck from an ash tree a little further up. "To build an army, take Eoferwic, take Caestre, take Mercia. Take the whole of the greater isle of Britain. Strathclyde and Pictland, too," he added, Owain bridling at the mention of his family's homeland. "And Cumbraland," Aelffrith told her.

"I know," Osthryth nodded. It was true. Because of Guthred's death, there was a void of rulership. "They don't recognise your father, Prince Owain, they don't see your brother, Osthryth," Aelffrith went on. "They see Cumbraland as a place where a Dane was once king, and there is no reason why another cannot take his place."

"Caer Ligualid instead of Eoferwic?" Osthryth replied. "I cannot see that. But, it is possible." If he did, he was a stupid fool, Osthryth thought to herself. Cumbraland had seen a a weak, ineffectual king, but Guthred has been king for about 30 years and his low key approach to governance had, remarkably, worked.

"Where are they?" Merewalh asked suddenly. They had travelled for several hours and covered about thirty miles. The line of shimmering armour which had been in front of them had now all but disappeared. Aelfkin looked up to the sky.

"It's not cloudy," he pointed out, which, had it been, would have accounted for a lack of shiny steelware.

From the back of the group, Oengus and Feilim came, and Falkberg next to them and Aeglfrith. All four rode out, looking down over the lower land of the Maerse. For the Norse had been following the river.

"No sign," Oengus told her. "None." And Osthryth went to look.

"They must be here, somewhere," she told the landscape in general. "How could Ragnall have hidden thousands of men?" There was nowhere, no hills or vales, nor here.

"Look!" came Aeswi's voice. "Look, there."

Behind them was Eadsbyrig, still visible in the further distance. Towards it, like a snake with shimmering scales, the line of Norse could be seen. Heading back towards the fortress.

That was it, then, was it? Osthryth thought, grimly. Very, very clever, to have planted groups of men as if asleep in the Northumbrian landscape waiting for their leader to come and waken them. And now they were heading back to the fortress they wanted to take, which was being guarded with even less of a defense than it had had with Cynlaef.

"We go!" called Osthryth to them, all. "We must help Aldhelm keep the fortress!" And then there were no more commands, just the hurrying of hooves over tussocks of grass and rocks, back to Eadsbyrig.

"We won't catch them - " Aelffrith called over to her, as they galloped down the slope of the ridge they had clmbed. And he was right, for they were too far away.

But sense, utter sense, had brought the Mercians from Caestre to oppose them. And then, something else happened. The fighting body of Norse - and Irish, Osthryth supposed - circumvented the fortress that she was so convinced they wanted. It could only be her brother who had manufactured this, encouraged Ragnall that it would be a good idea to attack Caestre.

"...because father alway said it was a mistake to ever attack Caestre now the curtain wall has been built and the palisade wall refortified..."

That had been her nephew, Father Oswald, who had told Osthryth that the night before. She slowed back down.

"Are we not aiming to get to Eadsbyrig?" Aelffrith called over to her. Aeswi looked at Osthryth too, also wanting the answer to that question.

"They are not going to Eadsbyrig," she told them, and turned and told the rest of her men, the realisation falling to her. Of course! "They are not going to Eadsbyrig, they are going to Caestre. And they will not win there, whatever their plan is." Osthryth inhaled, exhaling carefully, to steady her thoughts.

"We go to Caestre," Osthryth told them, after a minute. "Aldhelm will have men holding Eadsbyrig." She looked at the fortified city at the beginning of the estuary. "Caestre!"

88888888

So they saw the Norse in the mud and the chaos, slowly picking themselves up after the battle. And they saw the Norse return under Ragnall, catching half of the Mercian army ambling towards their city.

It had taken them off their guard, but the Mercians, with their factional allies from Deheubarth to turn and fight the onslaught. The guard was tightened in the wall - Osthryth watched as more warriors joied those already on watch, angling their spears in combat position, blades, no doubt, not far from hand if Ragnall had intended a siege.

"Come on," Osthryth told her men. "We will join where we can, and fight the bastards!"

And fight they did, as Mercians peeled themselves off the ground, brishing away mud, looking for their companies, and Osthryth's warriors, back from their brief foray into forbidden Northumbria, charged at the line, over the unsteady landscape of stone and mud, swords drawn.

No men had she lost when the cry went up of victory, of Ragnall's men in retreat. Cynlaef strode across the field, his three men dead by the river. He saw Osthryth and bore down on her, angry that she seemed to have set him up.

But he didn't make it. From their conversation where Finan had told Uhtred his appearance in the slaver ship had been divine, from the south, where Ceilo, Hywel's general had been leading...all of them stopped.

From the north bank of the river came a shout, and then a screech as if a Bean Sidhe had come with the wretched Norse.

It was Brida.

Brida had come from Ireland, clearly, with Ragnar's men from Dunholm, and added her number to Ragnall's. But she had not gone with Ragnall into Northumbria. Had she hidden, as subterfuge? Osthryth looked, and wondered something else. Had she engineered the whole strategy?

"Who is that?" Aeswi asked, pointing in Brida's direction.

"Someone who hates my brother more than I do," Osthryth told him in Gaelish. There was no getting past the fact that she had helped the woman escape and, despite her now being in the thick of the attack, under the circumstances she was being held, Osthryth would do so again. To be so incarcerated by Llydoch, the brother of Hywel, was inhuman.

She glanced at Brida again, who looked as if she had just been loooking at Osthryth. Her child would be a similar age to young Finan, about four years' old. How she wished to ask the Danish woman that, and talk about motherhood for a moment. Osthryth hoped all had gone well for Brida, as all had gone well for Osthryth.

"Who is she?" Aelffrith asked now, on behalf of the Mercians. "Do you know her?"

"I let her go from pitiful circumstances, once," Osthryth replied, keeping Brida in her sight, "As she once gave me my liberty."

And they watched, silently, as Brida's army moved, holding the heads of the hostages by their hair, two dozen or more, and gave the order to cut their throats.

"She cannot win," Aelffrith told them. "Caestre is too well defended." He glanced back to the fortifications, as if proud of Alfred's burh conception, now made real.

But Osthryth was still looking directly at Brida, and was watching what she did next. And what she saw was her nephew, staggering bloodily over the battlefield.