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"Why warn the Danes that we're coming?" Finan questioned Uhtred as they walked to their horses. Althea and her sons trailed behind them, she felt guilty for them losing their father. She didn't think she could take care of them, their unborn children, and herself. She knew that her sister and the guys would help, but it wasn't the same. They would be as good as bastards in the eyes of Saxons and Danes and she felt sick at the thought.
"Who asks? Them or you?" Uhtred asked.
"I'm asking, but the men would like to know."
"To worry them. They know that I am coming but they do not know when. It will give them sleepless nights, and when they do sleep, I want them to dream of a cold, cold hell." Uhtred said with a grin as he grabbed the reins of his horse. His grin slipped from his face when Althea walked past them quietly, her usual smile and cheerful personality erased and replaced with sadness and tears.
"Hell is a place of fire, lord." Osferth said as he walked past them with bags.
"Uh, what are you doing?" Finan questioned.
"Did you believe you were leaving without me? Not a chance." Osferth said with a smirk and they gathered their things and rode out. They eventually arrive in a small village called Crowland and Finan grows weary of it.
"I'm noticing this village is different from the others we've passed." Finan said and glanced at her with a sad frown, he reached out to squeeze her hand softly. The betrayal of Sihtric hurt them all but nowhere near what she must be feeling.
"It prospers." Osferth answered.
"In the heart of Danelaw, it prospers." Finan spoke with suspicion.
"I have a thirst, my friends."
"Everyone here is as fat as a buttered bishop." Finan says as they walk through the town. Osferth holds Arthur's hand as Hvitserk glares at the filthy and ugly men who leer at his mother.
"A buttered bishop?" Osferth repeats.
"A buttered bishop. Do you have a problem with that?" Finan said as he looked lustfully at a village woman and grinned when Osferth shoved him.
"You! Who are you?" A man shouts at them as they go to enter the alehouse.
"Who are you?" Uhtred asked in amusement.
"I am Guthlac, thegn of this place."
"I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg." He said as he looked around.
"Never heard of it."
"We serve the lady Aethelflæd and thus, Mercia. We do you, no doubt." Uhtred says with a bored expression.
"We are Mercians, yes." Guthlac glanced at Althea and paled at the sight. Everyone knew not to harm her. The last man that spoke of such a thing was found with no tongue or cock as Sihtric made an example of his decaying body.
