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Purchase a book by Kathleen Cunningham Guler at Off the Beaten Path's online Bookstore!

Kathleen Guler is the author of the four-part Macsen's Treasure series of historical spy thrillers set in fifth century Britain. In addition, she has published numerous articles, essays, short stories, reviews and poems. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the International Arthurian Society and is working on her Masters degree in history. The author has been recognized with numerous writing awards and her most recent book, *A Land Beyond Ravens*, placed second in fiction in the 2010 Colorado Independent Publisher Association’s Book Awards, was a finalist in the National Best Books 2009 Awards sponsored by USA Book News, and has been nominated for several other awards, including the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award and the Colorado Book Award.

Her website is: http://kathleenguler.com , and her blog, Lighting up Britain's Dark Ages is: http://kathleenguler.blogspot.com.

A Land Beyond Ravens
Chapter 1
Bod-ys-gollen, Rhôs, Gwynedd
Summer, AD 486

Copyright 2009 Kathleen Cunningham Guler

Sometimes a king just has to be jarred loose.

Marcus ap Iorwerth, slouched in a chair padded with thick sheepskin, shook his head at the thought. Not an easy task to break stubborn thinking. It could be done—if he could discover the right incentive.

He continued to assess Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd, seated on the other side of his low-roofed private chamber that stank of damp earth and mold. “Prove it,” Marcus said. “Prove to me the war band you levied for the high king won’t be sent to take Decanglian lands instead.” Tired of arguing, he folded his arms and settled into a caustic glare.

Cadwallon’s face, though solemn, remained otherwise unchanged. Marcus knew he could break the cold return stare. He’d done it—how many times now? It wasn’t that Cadwallon was stupid, not at all. He could sound reasonable, even clear minded. But reasonable for the king of Gwynedd amounted to words that said one thing and meant another, not quite a lie, but rather a twist of the meaning so that truth and lie could almost be the same.

Almost.

Marcus knew better. He had long come to expect nothing different. Cadwallon would never learn. So few of Britain’s many kings ever did. Not the hard way, not in any way. Not in all the six-and-twenty years he’d spent wheedling, manipulating, cajoling them, all in the hope to make them understand. Gods of the earth, perhaps they were all just stupid. Regardless, he had to find new ways to jar them loose from their near-sighted thinking, and in the last few months this man had become one of the most stubborn.

With a mild grunt, Cadwallon leaned back in his chair. He dropped his gaze to his fingertips, now spread out and tapping together.

Ah, notch off another broken stare. Marcus’s mouth flattened into a line beneath his thick moustache. “Prove it,” he repeated.

Cadwallon’s dull brown eyes lifted again. “How? Shall I swear to you? I’m supposed to be your king.”

Marcus released a sardonic grin he’d been holding back. “Swear to me, swear to the high king. Swear to all your mistresses if you like. Makes no difference. You’ll break the oath.”

“Never—”

“Always.”

“You want to tell me I lie?”

Marcus slid out of the chair and crossed the dim chamber’s hard earthen floor. On a trestle where a map had been spread out, daylight streamed from a short wide window. He pushed the parchment into the rectangle of light and traced a fingertip along the line that represented the River Clwyd and the center of Decanglian lands, a region bordering Gwynedd to the east. He aimed another smoldering glare at Cadwallon. “Prove it.”

The king picked a piece of lint from his tunic and flicked it aside to float among the dust.

Deliberate silence, Marcus knew. He straightened and ran a hand through his black hair from hairline to the ends that fell past his shoulders. At one-and-forty winters—five years older than Cadwallon—he knew the casual gesture would needle the king’s vanity. Salted moderately with grey, his copious mane contrasted sharply with Cadwallon’s thinning dark brown hair, coated with beeswax in the hope of keeping a shiny pate from peering through. It was so stiff that Marcus wondered whether it would shatter if touched.

Cadwallon’s eyes narrowed and contempt hinted on his lips. “Why are you here, Marcus ap Iorwerth? In the open? Not in one of your infernal disguises? Or have you run out of people to spy on?” His voice took on a whispery huskiness that Marcus always likened to the rustling of old dust-filled thatch.

“Ah, let me consider this.” Marcus lifted his hands, palms upward. “Could it be you think that you need that land?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Cadwallon sniffed, his thin mouth and wide squat bovine nose forming a momentary sneer.

Marcus sat on the trestle’s edge. “The only people who need that land are the Decangli who’ve claimed it under Powys’s kings for a thousand years and more. They’re our own people. Not the Irish outsiders you and your father and grandfather expelled out of necessity over the years.”

He reached back and picked up a small pouch of soft leather. Uther Pendragon’s insignia marked it as the daily news dispatch. He shook it at Cadwallon. “Don’t you read these from the high king? How close the Saxons are? Powys is our eastern frontier now. It’s only two or three days’ hard march to reach—”

“I demand respect from you,” Cadwallon interrupted. “Do not forget that I’ve waived the tribute from your lands in return for your…services.” He leaned forward in his chair. “How many years since you were released from exile? Ten or so by now? And you were gone five years—five long years? How would you like to be sent into exile once more?”

“And I remind you—with respect…” Marcus opened his throat to let his voice drop into its fullest depth, “…as I have reminded you often, the high king’s war bands are stretched thinner every year. You would gain more by standing with him, not against him. Without Uther you’ll be swearing to the Saxons—if they allow you to live.”

Cadwallon sat back and seemed to ponder this. Marcus studied him. They had always been at odds and though he had been able to keep the king in check for the most part, Marcus faced more difficulty each time. This would worsen. Cadwallon had often threatened forms of punishment as now but had never carried out any of them. To lose a valuable and reliable spy would gain him nothing. And because Marcus was considered Uther’s spy first, to punish him could earn Cadwallon the high king’s discipline as well.

Cadwallon stretched out his arms sideways. “Why do you care?” he asked. “You’re a prince—however minor—but a prince regardless.”

A prince. Marcus squinted at the king. Being a prince meant little, an inherited title that held no power, no wealth. If anything, it had been an obstacle. The only true power he had came from his talent as a spy.

A ram’s horn called outside. Marcus recognized it as an announcement of an arrival at the stronghold’s front gates. Must be someone of rank, he reckoned from the commotion that followed. He watched Cadwallon rise, pick off another bit of lint but not go to the window. Nor did his face offer any indication of an expected guest. Marcus mused, as he did each time he saw the king, that although the man was not inordinately tall, his arms were so long his fingertips almost reached his knees. This had earned him the epithet of Lawhir—Cadwallon Long Hand. Should have been Cadwallon Short Mind.

“I think…in truth,” Marcus went on, “you’re afraid the high king will take control of Powys if its king dies in battle. And then he’ll come after Gwynedd. So you want to step a bit closer, to fill the void, am I right?”

Cadwallon whirled around and slammed a hand down on the trestle. “You pay me no respect! What do you want from me?”

“An answer! Prove those men—”

“There are no men of mine in the land of the Decangli.”

“Gah!” Marcus spit. “You twist the words every time.”

Cadwallon turned away from him. The room went silent except for voices that murmured outside the chamber doors. Marcus recognized one from a bishop of the new religion he had seen lurking a number of times in the court. The man probably waited for permission to enter the chambers. In that instant it struck Marcus that over the years the bishops had learned to gain land for their graveyards and religious houses in return for paying tribute. That payment was bled from their growing number of followers. How convenient.

Marcus folded his arms again. “Or is it that you’ve given away too much land to those simpering monks out there,” he tested, “and that bull of a bishop who leads them around like so many lapdogs? Aye, I’ve seen them in the court. And I know you don’t give a bloody fart for their god any more than those of our own.”

The king turned back to him, his face hard.

That stung a nerve, Marcus noted. Cadwallon, looking for a way to raise payment for additional war bands to take the fertile lands between Gwynedd and Powys, just might have cooperated with the bishop. Give a little land in one place in return for a portion of tribute enough to pay warriors to take a far bigger piece of land elsewhere. But Marcus also knew the Christian religious houses stockpiled wealth in secret while vowing poverty, and wealth meant power. The tribute paid out was little next to that coming in. Over time, who—in truth—would be in control?

The bishop spoke again. Marcus strained to understand the words but they were indistinguishable.

Cadwallon listened as well. His eyes lifted, a smirk in them.

Deadly, Marcus observed. And intriguing.

“I’ll stay out of the Decangli, if you think that’s what I’m doing,” Cadwallon said. A long pause followed.

“If…?” Marcus prompted.

“You know something about Uther.”

“Oh, I do?”

“Tell me of his son.”

Marcus lifted an eyebrow. “Uther has no son.”

“Now you lie.”

“Prove it.”

“His son lives. You tell me where, I stay out of the Decangli.”

Marcus smoothed his moustache and snorted a laugh. Bloody bastard. “You’re wasting your time if you believe that,” he said.

“No one knows more than you of all that goes on in Britain,” Cadwallon countered. “Deny it.”

Silence choked the room. Even the air seemed to wait for an answer. In the corridor the bishop had gone silent as well. Aye, Marcus thought, wouldn’t he like to know as much as Cadwallon or any of the other kings who believed the rumors that Uther had fathered a son and had kept the child hidden since his birth? Cadwallon, like those other kings of the same rank, coveted the high kingship. To them, the possible existence of an heir must be removed before Uther’s death. Marcus imagined the Saxons licking their lips in anticipation as well. And then the increasing power of the Christian church loomed. In some places it had emerged with the strength of a warrior king. Gods, when Uther passed, the fight for control of Britain would be hideous.

“You know the boy exists.” Cadwallon’s voice, though soft, pierced the quiet with its clarity.

“I know nothing,” Marcus said through his teeth.

“Out of my way!” a shout roared from the corridor outside. Cadwallon stiffened and stared at the double doors to his chambers. Shuffling rustled beyond them, then the bishop spoke, his tone apologetic. The latch rattled without releasing. More shuffling and an expletive followed.

Uther’s voice, cold, hostile.

Marcus lifted his gaze to the ceiling, winced and backed past an upright timber beam where he had hung the baldric that held his sword. A moment later the latch gave and the doors swung in. Both slammed aside, one wobbled back partway.

Trailing muddy footprints, the high king tramped straight to Cadwallon. From the stiff, stooped way he moved, he was clearly exhausted. He removed his helmet and threw it into the sheepskin-covered chair.

“Where are the men you were to send to me?” he shouted at Cadwallon. “Answer!”

Marcus stared. He had not seen the king in years, though he had passed information on to him through secret channels almost monthly during that time. By the gods, he thought, Uther had grown old. He had no notion of the king’s actual age, but he seemed far older than he should be. And he wheezed with every breath. The rumors of chronic illness were true.

“Well? Cadwallon of Gwynedd?” Uther raged on. “I’ve come from Powys, near Caer Guricon. Do you remember—Cadell’s stronghold? You should have sent three hundred men there more than a month ago. A full war band!”

Marcus held motionless in the shadows. In spite of the high king’s decline, he was still formidable. Speechless, Cadwallon merely stared.

Uther thumped the younger man’s chest with the pommel of his sword. “I know you levied them in spring. That information was reported to me. The source was reliable.”

Cadwallon’s glare shifted past the beam, the stinging desire for retaliation in his eyes.

Uther saw it and swung around. The surprise in his face swiftly changed to suspicion. Caught in the light, his eyes were as blue as ever.

Vivid blue—like those of the son that dared not be acknowledged.

Marcus lifted down his sword and stepped from behind the beam. “Perhaps you will be more convincing. He won’t listen to me.” He spoke with thick deference and hoped his tone would defuse Uther’s anger, but the suspicion deepened in the saggy, seamed face, the ragged grey brows plunged downward. Marcus remembered how exhaustion often led the high king to be ill-humored and unreasonable. Advancing age and illness would make this worse than ever. Let him vent it on Cadwallon.

With one last blistering glare, Marcus turned to the king of Gwynedd. “You’ve been warned. Think on it.” He nodded at Uther and strode out.

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