Finan the Agile Fanfic: Shadowkin LAST KINGDOM Fanfiction COMPLETE

Chapter 44: In-Laws and Outlaws

Summer 924

"Lady." The knock on her door on a fine summer morning woke Osthryth up sharply. It was Caltigar, and he was more than a little agitated.

Little had changed since she had arrived back from Tamworth, or, if it had, Osthryth was unaware of it. She kept herself isolated from politics, welcomed visitors and offered them hospitality, showed gratitide to Constantine that Domnall commanded the ships to guard her coast when Norse seemed to be more prevalent.

Other than that, she was the lord of the land, presiding over planting and ploughing and harvesting, lambing and slaughter, food preparation for the long winters, and dispenser of justice. She had also been the person both Caltigar and Rhia had come to see when they had wanted to wed.

Osthryth could not think of a better match than her estate manager and her kitchen manager. Caltigar was loyal and quiet, who prayed to God in the secluded manner of the Irish church. Rhia, more lively, attended to her prayers with good spirits, and it was quite clear they loved one another. Two babies had already been born to them, and another was on the way.

And Osthryth kept to her schedule of rising at dawn and patrolling her estate. Except for this morning, it seemed, where she had overslept and Caltigar had had to knock.

"Lady," Caltigar called again, and Osthryth asked him to wait for a moment. When she was dressed for the day, she called him in and he stood, gravely, by the door.

"A man was seen, by Beann, crossing your land late last night," he told her. "And again this morning." This wasn't unusual. They had been lucky with reiver raids in recent years, she supposed they were due one.

"This man, do we know anything about him?"

"Only - " Caltigar hesitated, "That he terrified the cowherds and made them hide in the bothy." Osthryth felt her stomach harden. Some bastard come to cause trouble, then.

"Increase the guard," Osthryth told him. "I will come on watch tonight." But, as she was speaking, a figure on a horse rode down from the higher ground in the south west towards the farm's hall. Osthryth went downstairs and waited at the threshold.

It was not Finan. If it had been Finan, her heart would have lifted with joy. If he had been with young Finan, her heart would be higher still.

"Why are you here?" Osthryth asked him, the barriers of defensiveness rising in her mind. She couldn't help it - she had to be on her guard with Uhtred around. And now he had come onto her land, whereas before he had made a point of stopping at the boundary, and not just crossing her land. Uhtred had come to her very door.

"You scared off my cowherds," Osthryth told him, hand on the door frame.

"Your fences were broken," Uhtred replied.

"They were not. Perhaps a trespasser broke them."

"Perhaps," Uhtred conceded, indifferently. "I have news."

"What news?" Now she felt anxious. Was it Finan? Her son? Osthryth noticed that Uhtred had paused to let her think that, to worry her.

"You should know that Edward of Wessex is dead," Uhtred told her.

And that was that. He had ridden nearly thirty miles to tell her that to her face.

"Hold on," Osthryth called back to her brother. "You come into my land, destroyed my fences, scare my people, refuse my hospitality, to tell me this?"

But, Uhtred simply turned his horse around and began to ride away, accelerating as he got to the higher ground, before going over the ridge, without even looking back.