Season 2 Rewatch Question(s)

I've watched this show so many times and I'm not sure if this just went over my head or I kept missing something or I'm just wrong about it now...but in Season 2 Episode 6, Steapa tells Aethelred he's "with Uhtred" when they go to London to face the Brothers, and he has a letter from Alfred saying so...we know in previous episodes that Steapa was ordered to kill Uhtred, but only IF he tried to either kill Guthred or tried to take Bebbanburg when they went to Cumberland, instead of doing exactly what Alfred said to do

In another scene, I believe in Episode 5, the prior episode, we also see Alfred speaking with Aelswith about whether or not he trusts Uhtred "wholly"...she then goes on to tell him to "be rid of him"

This has all now made me wonder, had Alfred directly and explicitly ordered Steapa to kill Uhtred? Meaning with no caveats and just a sort of straight up hit order? And maybe what happened with Aethelflaed being kidnapped just sort of superseded that order, so that Steapa had to reconsider and then decided he should hold off instead of following through on it? We see Uhtred tell them he's leaving them and going back to Cookham and Steapa obviously doesn't try anything or object

I can recall all these scenes from previous watches, but I never really considered all of them together and made this connection with it all, especially considering the end of the conversation between Alfred and Aelswith...I think in the past, I took her meaning as simply releasing him from Alfred's service and banishing him to Cookham (which he had already done), but now I'm thinking they were basically saying he should die and that Alfred really went through with it and made that call...which, if that was the case, actually changes some things for me, in terms of how I view some of the conversations and events that happen later in the series, as well as Alfred himself

Just curious if anyone else has any thoughts on this and if you agree, disagree, sort of agree or simply think I'm a complete idiot because it's all totally obvious and I should have had this epiphany years ago lol