Summer 920
It did not take long for Osthryth to catch up with the Alba army. Smaller now in number, they had crossed the Tuide and were slowly making their way around the coast of what was once Bernicia under King Oswald. Osthryth sensed that Ceinid was keeping the army in sight of the fleet, still flying the red hand of the Ulaid with many smaller boats behind.
He had kept as many as he could safe, had Domnall, Osthryth thought to herself. Constantine's scheme, but he had not been there. That told to Edward, that told to Uhtred and to Aethelstan that, though big, the fight was not big enough for him to make his presence known himself. A family war. Even though he was acutely interested in the politics of anything that happened north of the Roman wall.
They were close to Ceinid's farm now when she got within sight of the generals, allowing their horses to drink in the shallows of Berric's estuary. She could not see her husband however, but did see Aeswi.
Has he gone ahead, Osthryth wanted to know, or home? Aeswi got down from his horse as steadily as he could, and bade her get down too.
"Uhtred won," Osthryth told him. "Uhtred the Dane, my elder brother."
"And you came all this way to see it happen?"
"I can see Bebbanburg from our farm," Osthryth told him. "That and the castle on Lindisfarena. I needed to know once and for all who would be my neighbour." She glanced west, and then a little south. All of Ceinid's lands encircled the settlement of Berric, green fields in autumn, brown in winter, and crops aplenty in spring and summer, high yields from the low lying lands of the south. Sheep in the hills on the northern fall of land, cows in the valleys. Fishing, untithed, to support the people, as had been done since the days of Breidi. Osthryth had guilt to assuage; she just wanted to be with Ceinid now.
"So?" she asked, noticing Oengus's eyes on her. "Where is he?"
"Osthryth," Aeswi said to her, hand on her shoulder. "Do you not know?" And when she did not answer, her comrade, her friend, continued. "He was killed, in the fighting, on the beach. At Bebbanburg."
"Killed," Osthryth repeated. It was just a word, then. It was a mechanism to deliver informaton. She did not feel its meaning. "Killed."
"He fell, at the battle," Aeswi told her, and now Oengus was behind their temporary commander, and looked sorrowfully at Osthryth.
"He fell defending two Strathclydians who were being backed into the cliff," Oengus told him. "He turned and fought both of them; they escaped and supported the Mercians to gain entry at the front of the fortress by drawing the attack away. He was unlucky."
Unlucky. Ill luck had killed Ceinid, who she loved, and who she had spent poor time showing that she did.
"So, you will come back to Dunnottar with us," Aeswi said, seeing her face. "See your son?"
But Osthryth said nothing. She was not going to Constantine, to Aedre or young Finan. She was going home, back home, to her farm just beyond to her farms and her fields.
"Osthryth!" Aeswi called, scrambling back onto his horse and making to ride after her. But after a few horse-hoofs into the flat of the river, Osthryth was too far away to try to catch her. She was going home, to try to make sense of everything.
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"Beremar, go and see who it is," Oengus instructed one of their watchers. They were close to Dunnottar now, the Forth estuary before them. But, like riding through the Disputed Lands, there was now someone following them. "Take Eamis with you!"
As with Osthryth, who could ride faster than the embattered army, and the mormaer, who had been on watch the night before, rubbed his weary eyes.
"Look for me, Aeswi," he asked the captain. "That is someone coming our way?" Aeswi brought his horse about, and looked south. The white horse was bright in the early morning sunlight.
"Unmistakeable," he told him. "I do not think it is Osthryth," he added, answering his own question in his mind.
"We halt!" cried Oengus, and, looking across to Feilim, at the end of their line, called, "Across!" Immediately, the horsed warriors formed a barrier with their foot soldiers between them. Swords were raised, because now, it was clear, that there was indeed a rider approaching them but that he, too, was armed.
And he slowed. At the barrier, which had done its job, the white horse skipped on the spot as the rider brought its reins towards him, and it reared at the speed at which it had had to slow. The rider brought the horse around on the spot, then
"What is it you want?" Aeswi asked, in Anglish, and then tried in Cymric. There was a slight ripple in the left flank of the foot soldiers, for he used several choice swear words when he spoke in the Strathclydian language, and a few warriors laughed. Little had they had to liven their days since the battle at Bebbanburg.
"It is one person who rides with you," Finan, for it was indeed he who had caught up with them, addressed Aeswi in Gaelish. "I seek that person." Beside Aeswi, Oengus broke the line and rode out past the captain, his sword still raised. He noticed a second sword at the man's hip. Why would a man be riding with two swords.
"Irish bastard," Oengus called. "Who are you to demand my men?" He turned in his saddle. "Is there any Irish here who recognises this cunt?" Several people laughed. Finan said nothing, but held fast in his own saddle. But he did not lower his sword.
"Is she here?" Finan asked, speaking in Gaelish still and then lowered his sword, replacing it in his scabbard and withdrew the other. In the bright morning's sunlight Buaidh sat happily in his hand. "She left behind her sword." Oengus peered forward, then looked across to Aeswi. "Osthryth," he clarified, curring through the posturing. "She rode north - is she with you? Has she gone on to your king's fortress?"
Finan's eyes were bright, his heart open. His heart was vulnerable. So many instincts made him want to ride away, or pull the bastard mormaer from his horse and skewering him into the heathland.
"I am here to fulfil an oath I once made to her," he added, and at this, looked at Aeswi. Finan had often seen the man at her side, leaning in as they discussed strategy, as they discussed warfare. He was to whom Osthryth looked in the army of Alba.
"We are not far from the fortress of Dunnottar," Aeswi told Finan of the Ulaid, and lowered his sword. "It is better you come with us. And bring her sword."
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And so, in the feted fortress of which Finan had long heard, of it formidibility, of its size and might, all of which was true Finan thought, as he rode his mount at the back of the officers as they crossed the plain before here it.
Here, many Norse had been slaughtered under Aed mac Caustin Ui Alpin, Constantine's father, including the fabled Ivarr the Boneless. It was galling, but Domhnall was able to establish rule here and unite the kingdoms. Unlike Eireann, or so Finan had heard, where the Ui Neill empire had begun to fail on the death of Flann Sinna. Norse had returned and were pressing Niall Glundubh, Donnchada mac Flann, and whoever was ruling his own father's land.
"Wait here," Oengus told him, allowing his horse to be stabled, and threw himself onto therough stone cobbles that was Dunnottar's courtyard. Aeswi walked by him, glancing to Finan, who also relieved his horse of its burden, and stood where it had once stood, in the courtyard, within the rampart, the gate closed behind him and in front.
And there he stood, as the day wore on, Finan stood there, waiting for his audience with the king, as the sun rose to its highest zenith, before beginning its slow descent over the castle's crenulations. Eventually Aeswi came out.
"I should take the sword," Aeswi told Finan, approaching the warrior, but Finan gripped Buaidh's hilt and gave Aeswi a stern look. "I will return this to Osthryth herself," he told her. But Aeswi shook his head.
"I fear we have led you astray," Aeswi told him. "Osthryth has returned to the lands that she has farmed back down the coast at Berric, as a widow." The look on Finan's face told Contantine's spy that this was not news to the warrior. The opposite, in fact: that was why he was here. "The king has asked me to bear to you his refreshment and that you should wait in the hall to speak to him."
And Finan followed Aeswi across the courtyard, where Osthryth had once torn, pursued by Constantine, where warriors had assembled time after time to defend their land. Where Domhnall, in his madness, had risen from his bed at the call of the Sidhe and had died in the cold one winter's morning. Now the mortal enemy of the Ailech, an Ulaid warrior, was crossing the threshold into the Ui Alpin fortress.
It seemed like an age before Constantine came into the hall. Dressed in his blue cloak and his crown, he walked like Flann Sinna walked, as if the ground was lucky to have its feet upon him. Beside him was his son, Cellach. Finan smiled. He knew Cellach, for he had been given up as hostage twice, once to Alfred and the second to Edward. Both times Uhtred brokered the arrangement and both times it was Uhtred who had let him go. He nodded to Finan.
"Cellach, I thank you for coming with me to confirm the identity of this man," Constantine told his son, his eyes never leaving Finan's face. "Please, leave us. I am sure Aedre has things she wishes to discuss with you."
"Of course, athair," Cellach said to Constantine, and bowed his head. All was right and proper - they were before a guest, of course.
"It is a fine day," Constantine said to Finan, as he walked across the stones of the hall. "But I sense, warrior, this is not why you have come to see me. So tell me, why have you come?" He beckoned to Finan, and added, "Walk beside me."
If Finan had no time for this absurd show of kingliness from the man who had grown from the young, disrespectful pup he had known, he did not show it. Instead, he strode to be beside Constantine and walked with him along the passageway and into the courtyard. They headed across it and out through the postern gate into the land beyond Dunnottar before Constantine bade Finan speak.
"I am of your house," Finan told him.
"Yet you wear your hair short," Constantine replied, as bright meadow crunched drily underfoot. "What was your disgrace?"
"I betrayed my kin, Lord King," Finan replied.
"And your kin are?"
"Uí Conchobar of the Ulaid - " he broke off, biting at the words. They were still bitter with him, and he sensed that King Constantine knew that and was enjoying his discomfort.
"I know the Ulaid," Constantine interrupted, "And yet, you call me "Lord"?"
"Your line of Àlpin and mine are the same," Finan continued, with difficulty. Politics was not his strength. "Of Domangairt."
"There is much for us to discuss, Finan Mór mac Cineál," Constantine replied, and stopped walking, the forest behind, where Osthryth killed the Norsemen providing a glorious summer backdrop, if either men cared to notice. "You come here in search Osthryth Ui Alpin? Because her husband is dead?" Again, the words were painful, but Finan managed a, "Yes."
"And you have the consent of her brother?" Finan nodded.
"I do."
Then there was silence. Constantine walked the perimeter of Dunnottar, and then arrived, with Finan to his left, at the front of the fortress.
"We were here when she bowled over to me, sword in hand, facing down two Norsemen," Constantine told Finan, at last. "I was watching her. It was inevitable she would be killed, but she wasn't and chased me, defended me. I have cared for that woman since she was that girl,who stood before my father - my father - who could make me tremble at a look - and promise to fight for him! She was twelve." Constantine shook his head. "Look what she was fleeing - Bebbanburg, and her uncle. Fear gives you courage, she learned that young."
Finan had said nothing, instead went back into his own thoughts. She was clearly not at the fortress, or she would have come out to see him, or else tell him to go away.
"I take it she knows everything about you," Constantine went on.
"Everything," Finan agreed, touching his sword's hilt, and then Osthryth's.
"Including your part in your attack on her on the coast?"
They had followed her backwards and forwards between Doire and the coast, Conall had stolen her sword - Faedersword, Finan remembered, carrying it right up until Eoferwic. Osthryth had sliced off his finger, so they had attacked what they thought was a shit faced Gaelish boy who turned out to be a girl, he had held her down whike Conall had attacked her. Finan had done nothing when his big brother had stripped her naked; he had tied her to the rock to drown...he remembered the witchcraft, and his brother's assertion that by drowning the witch the sun would return.
Conall had fled but he, Finan, had watched Domnall mac Aed, the dead king's son, wading out into the blue-green sea and lift her head high out of the water, diving into the water to untie her bonds and then take her in his arms and carefully wrap her in his cloak.
Constantine had looked on, too petrified to do anything...Finan had run, then, and had seen that Constantine had done the same...how strange it as that within two years he would be on the same slave ship as Ethne, Domhnall's sister...she had been a child...how often he had lain there, looking at her, inches from him, not believing all that had happened since he had met Uhtred. Then, Finan told Constantine about the confrontation before Ninefingers.
"I slew him, at Eoferwic, and Osthryth helped me drive my sword into his gut. We were bonded, then."
"Aye," Çonstantine mused, then looked at Finan, "Aye, she loves you right enough, and I think you were bonded long before Eoferwic." He nodded his head, as if it were the first time he had heard that piece of information when indeed, Aeswi and Oengus had told him everything. "And were it not for her brother slaying my cousin, she would be an Alpin not an Ailech."
That was a big admission. The Ulaid had owned all of the Ui Neill territory before Niall of the Nine Hostages grew the Ui Neill house, and pushed the Ulaid to the north, and east, of the territory, where they faced the worst of the Norse raids and settlements. That Constantine had admitted Finan's family were the legitimate ones was a big deal, not that Finan was in a position to capitalise on that information.
Constantine continued to walk, on the grass in front of Dunnottar, heading towards the ferry between there and the Culdees monastery. "Here is my proposal. I will agree that she continue to work the land at Berric, as a bulwark between Alba and Northumbria, fitting don't you think?" Finan said nothing. "I give you my consent, as her kinsman, for you to marry.
"And?" Finan prompted, his heart soaring in any case.
"Your son remains in my care." And then he told him of the final condition. It was serious, gravely serious.
Damn Uhtred, to put that idea in his head, Finan thought, yet he saw his own kin in young Finan, in the boy who he had met by the Tine river, who had stood next to his mother and spoken so brightly to him.
"Yes, your grace," Finan told King Constantine, changing the course of all of their lives with just a few words, "I agree."
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Ceinid was dead. Lurid, morose thoughts clouded Osthryth's mind that morning, as it did every morning. Flashes, scenes of her entering Bebbanburg, and trying to reason with Wihtgar crowded in.
She got up, and climbed to the top of the farm hall, sitting on the thatch. From there, Osthryth could see the monastery on Lindisfarne, and to the west, further away, Bebbanburg. She looked away. That hated place - it hurt her eyes just to see it.
"The cows have been milked and fed and the sheep are up in the hills," Caltigar told Osthryth when he came to the hall door that morning.
"Thank you," she told him, and nodded to the cook, who was making some sort of broth on the fire. Nodding, the young man stepped into the threshold, and received a bowl, steaming from the cooking pot, and a carved spoon with which to eat it.
Berric. The world turned, the seasons plodded on. Jobs were needed to be done. Berric was the dream Osthryth never knew she wanted. She had given it a chance, and had worked the land. It was only after abandoning it that she knew in her heard it would have been perfect for their future.
She could have farmed barley, with her son at her side, listened to one of the ale-wives about varieties that were once grown herebouts and acceded to her request to brew the local beer.
Osthryth put down the distaff next to her holey knitting attempt. No-one had ever shown her how to do these things: she had made herself a warrior. A girl or two could come from the estate and do them - keep them for all Osthryth cared, and stared out of the window.
Now, Ceinid's body in a corpse pile and, no doubt, a pyre beneath Benbanburg's reclaimed walls. At least she had silver enough for Constantine, which she had thrust into Aeswi's hand before she had ridden away, two days before. Although Aedre was now eighteen, she had shown no inclination to marry even though she liked Anlaf. Osthryth woukd have to keep her still until the girl decided what she would do.
And when, a week later, a summons came, from a rider who clearly had come in haste. She tore open the seal and looked across the words.
"It is from the king, for you to come to Dunnottar," the young messenger said.
"Then Constantine need not have bothered to write down what he wanted me to know if you were going to bourt it out," Osthryth scorned, thrusting the letter into her jerkin and turned her back on the man.
"Are you not going to answer the king?" the messenger demanded, his tone a little sharper than he intended. He closed his mouth when he saw Osthryth was holding Taghd's seax before her.
"I am a farmer, and if he wants to speak to me he can come here." And with that, Osthryth turned, waving a hand in the messenger's direction as a means of dismissing him, before throwing the door closed behind her.
Then, with her back to it, she pulled the letter from her clothing, scanning the words, before fuelling the kitchen fire with it. Constantine had summoned her Dunnottar. She would not be going.