Into the Path of Gods

By Kathleen Guler

In the war-torn fifth century, after the end of Roman rule and before King Arthur's rise to power, blunt-talking spy and master of disguise Marcus ap Iorwerth works for a clandestine alliance of British nobles set to depose the inept and hated high king. His efforts lead him to Claerwen, an ethereal woman with "fire in the head"--the gift of visions--and to whom he is inescapably drawn.

He quickly realizes she has unwittingly become ensnared in a lethal conspiracy involving a broken marriage contract, a buildup of foreign mercenaries and a brutal warrior called the Iron Hawk who leaves atrocities and scorched earth in his wake. All appear connected to a hunt for an unnamed treasure supposedly in Claerwen's possession. She knows nothing of this treasure and though Marcus struggles to protect her, he is betrayed and disappears. Alone and homeless, Claerwen must decide whether to believe what everyone tells her, that Marcus is dead and she should go into hiding. But when a vision shows her the dreaded Iron Hawk in pursuit of Marcus, she is also challenged to journey into the path of gods—to trust the destiny laid out before her. Defying all common sense, she embarks alone on a daunting journey to find him before the warrior does. Has she truly understood the vision’s message? Or will each die alone, lost and forgotten at the edge of the Iron Hawk’s sword? And will the alliance survive without Marcus—perhaps dooming Britain’s future as well?

Into the Path of Gods blends Dark Age Britain’s history with its Celtic roots and Arthurian legend. The story introduces the spectacular four-part Macsen’s Treasure Series set in the fifth century. Other books in the multi-award winning series include In the Shadow of Dragons, The Anvil Stone and A Land Beyond Ravens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Guler
• Release date: Jan 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458032362

Kathleen Guler

Novelist Kathleen Cunningham Guler is the author of the multi-award winning Macsen’s Treasure Series that includes Into the Path of Gods, In the Shadow of Dragons, The Anvil Stone and A Land Beyond Ravens. Drawing from her Welsh and Scottish heritage as well as a long background in literature and history, she has also published numerous articles, essays, reviews, short stories and poetry. The author is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the International Arthurian Society, and participates in various writing organizations.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Cynwyd Clanholding, Kingdom of Powys

Spring, AD 459

In the long, long ago, down the wandering wind…

The man’s bold and robust voice soared in song across the green fields. His young daughter’s ethereal harmony glided over the smooth pebbles of his melody. Sad old song, its story as ancient as the surrounding hills. Like a dream the music carried their imaginations away with the storyteller’s skill and soothed endless hours of toil with their hands and backs and strong wills.

From cloud to moonlit cloud, above a fortress sacked and passed to new kings…

Blow me down, down a wandering wind, all is lost, all is lost…

They sang until the words scattered away like feathers on the breeze. In the gathering quiet father and daughter reluctantly eased once more into the present, the song a lifetime that had run its course, a soul passing through its next turning point, the treasured memory left behind.

Of the dream that died in the long, long ago…

A burst of air spit past the girl’s ear. She jerked aside, froze, stared at a vibrating arrow shaft a short distance off, its head buried in the earth.

Her father screamed the alarm as dozens more arrows strafed the small field. Men crashed out of the trees along the river and raced up the embankment, swords, knives, clubs in hand, full-lunged yells in their throats, an indecipherable language in their screams.

Get back! Down, down! Hide yourself! the girl heard her father yell. His arm swept aside, backhanded her off her feet and she rolled down a marshy slope into a stream. Soaked and muddy, she pulled herself up and peered through the reeds and marsh grass.

She had never seen warriors so close. Hulking men raced among the clanholding’s small round houses, chasing down everyone, every creature that moved. Unprepared, the clansmen of Cynwyd rallied with hoes and picks meant to cultivate turnips and onions, not rip the flesh of barbarians.

Her father swung a pick at a massive man with a heavy sword and thick, metal-studded leather armor. The tool crashed against the blade, the tough wooden handle splintered like fragile glass.

Though only twelve summers, the girl felt her blood surge with rage, the same rage she knew every generation of her people had felt when watching their own die. She scrambled up, fists balled, ready to pummel the nearest attacker. Tawny-brown hair streaming behind her in wet ribbons, she sailed across the turf straight for her father.

Before she could reach him, one of the invaders loomed into her path. He grinned in amusement. Oblivious to the bloody sword he held, the girl rammed into him; the force knocked him back two paces. Catching himself, he scooped her up and laughed at her attempts to claw and kick. He carried his prize towards the woods.

No, lass! No! another shout roared. Big and burly, her uncle had just freed the soul of a fourth invader and charged up the incline, dagger in hand. "You’re not going to have her, filthy Saeson!" With sheer brute force, he drove the knife between the barbarian’s ribs, all the way to the hilt.

The soldier bellowed shock, blood dribbling from his mouth. The girl recoiled at his foul breath that dampened her face before he dropped her. Still on his feet, he turned and his arm whipped out, smacked her across the face. Flung back against a tree, she slid down, stunned but alert enough to witness him produce a dagger. It struck home in her uncle’s belly. The blade twisted with the sickening sound of tearing flesh. Too horrified to scream she watched them fall, first into each other’s arms like lovers, then past one another into a heap.

The girl crawled into the woods. For hours she lay beneath a thick cover of bracken. Numb, she waited, listened to the men ransack the buildings. Voices muttered in their odd tongue. Darkness fell, quiet descended.

At length two voices drew closer, their words vehement in a dialect of Cymraeg, the language of the Cynwyd. One, heavily accented, had a cold, irritating slur that reminded the girl of a slug creeping across a stone. She shuddered. He was the instigator, the other a war leader. Every house and barn, rock and reed had been examined, the second man claimed. Then the ugly voice gave the order to burn everything, down to the last stick.

While the fires grew and consumed the buildings, the girl crawled farther into the woods. From the underbrush she watched with stark wide eyes at the depth of loss. The mutilated corpses of her people were thrown to the flames—her father, uncle, three brothers, her young sister, the oldest woman, a newborn child, everyone, even those soldiers who had been killed. Only her mother and a cousin were missing—visiting another clanholding downriver. Please the gods, she prayed, don’t let them return yet.

After the last body had been given to the fire, the warriors gathered and milled for several more minutes. Then as suddenly as they had come, they crossed the river and disappeared into the trees.

Silence descended again. Soon only charred bones and ash would remain of her clanholding. It had never been a village, only a loose confederation of homes and lands farmed and protected under her father’s leadership.

A night bird flew across the river in search of prey elsewhere. Its wings beat softly, steadily in the cold night air. Like the souls, she thought, so many passing to Annwn, the Otherworld. At least they would all go together.

Time passed, the fires subsided. The acrid smell of burnt wood and flesh clung to the air. A relentless chill seeped into the girl’s core with a fear that utterly claimed her mind. Her homeland was dead.

Down, down a wandering wind, she whispered. All is lost, all is lost. Of the dream that died in the long, long ago…

The song had come true.

CHAPTER 1

Dun Breatann, Kingdom of Strathclyde

Autumn, AD 463

They were coming. Every last one of them.

Marcus ap Iorwerth watched the warrior princes and high-ranking clanlords begin to assemble in Dun Breatann’s great hall. Extraordinary. All nine-and-twenty had obeyed the summons. That showed how Ceredig, lord of the large northern kingdom of Strathclyde, had a fine iron hold on all that happened within his lands, that in autumn fighting men could spare a few days’ travel for a rare gathering like this.

Aye, time to celebrate a good year of warlording. So they had been told. Please the gods they won’t have all cut each other’s throats by midnight.

Marcus suppressed a sardonic smile and let his thick black hair fall closely around his face. Dressed in the simple dark brown tunic and breeches of Dun Breatann’s slaves, he stalked to the hearth, a brick of dried peat across his arms. He imitated the empty-eyed gaze of the other slaves, stood with their slack-shouldered stance and dumped the new brick among the coals.

The rising rumble of voices, music from a small band of players and squeals from slave girls being pinched drowned out the hiss of the fire. Slowly he circuited the smoldering hearth, a large circular fire pit half-sunk into the center of the hall’s floor. Stones high enough to sit on encircled it. He poked at the coals, counting the men. Four-and-twenty so far. And like the leather drapes hung against the walls to cut draughts, Ceredig’s house guards ringed the hall, watching the men for trouble with aloof, cold eyes.

Trestles had been spread with platters of beef and venison, roast boar, bread, apples, pears, dried figs from the continent, jars of drink. Several slaves had spent the day preparing the feast and were setting out the last of it. Marcus eyed the row of drinking horns, his tongue curling with thirst. Wouldn’t one filled with Ceredig’s good imported Roman wine taste fine indeed?

Soon the warlords would stalk the trestles like wolves and the drink would flow faster than the vast River Clyde that skirted the south side of the stronghold. Then the boasting would begin along with the stench of pissing contests behind the hall when so many inebriated men grew too lazy to walk all the way down to the latrine pits.

Eh, Marcus heaved a rough sigh. His craving for wine could wait for a more appetizing time.

He glanced up at the sound of a woman’s voice, its softness out-of-place against the rough speech of the female slaves. Then he remembered—Ceredig had spoken of a distant relation, a woman who lived on one of his many farmsteads. Her daughter was to be handfasted to one of the warlords. Or was it to be a true marriage? Odd to hold the ceremony at such a gathering.

Marcus gazed across the hall, spotted the woman. Three, in truth, and coming towards him, talking amongst themselves, eyes serious. A private debate they strove to keep private, with a subtle volatility that threatened to explode very publicly, very quickly.

The oldest woman faced towards him when they paused on the opposite side of the fire pit. White-haired, frail and finely wrinkled skin—must be the mother. The second woman, thin and dressed in a plain cream-colored overtunic and mantle, held her face downcast. The youngest, in blue, wore her copious wavy dark red hair loose.

The mother’s pale blue-grey eyes held no warmth and gave him the sense of contrived oppression. The cheerless grey of her clothing contributed to it. She spoke steadily to the woman in cream. The daughter to be handfasted?

This younger woman, her tawny-brown hair loose around her shoulders, stared into the fire pit, brows arched down, lips in a stubborn line. Close to crying, her eyes flicked up and Marcus caught a glimpse of green-blue irises before she turned away in embarrassment.

A betrothal to one of those brutes? He glanced across at the range of men. Most looked at least twice her age and she looked to be a year or two younger than he was himself at eight-and-ten winters. Can’t blame her for a few tears. But choice in marriage was a matter of alliance and the passage of property.

Marcus grunted and turned back to the fire pit. The women were not why he was here. He gave the new brick a poke. Flames swam up around it, thick smoke floated into the high roof. Another layer of soot on the blackened beams and thatch. He shrugged an eyebrow at it. Fine enough.

He withdrew. Near the rear doors he slipped behind the leather drapes. Motionless, he waited. Shortly the last few men arrived and quickly mingled in, each sizing up the other. Who could drink the most? Who had led more raids, stolen more cattle that summer? Who had bedded the most women? Arrogance. Gah, they could hardly bear each other’s presence. Nor could they resist their curiosity of each other.

The entire collection in one place. Anger surged in Marcus’s gut. He knew the names and faces of each warlord, but he did not know whether one had a connection to an Irishman called Eachan, a broker who had been recruiting Saxon mercenaries for Vortigern, the cursed nobleman who called himself high king.

Marcus grunted in contempt. Vortigern had claimed that title for twenty years now. The last true high king Custennin had left Britain decades earlier. Custennin—or Constantine as the more Roman-like people in the southern kingdoms called him—had taken the remnants of the Roman legions to Gaul to fight for the Empire. In the void Vortigern had wrested control without any council’s approval.

Marcus agreed with the consensus that the king had brought more trouble than he’d solved and kept digging himself in deeper by the day. With no Roman soldiers left to guard the coasts, Vortigern had taken to hiring Germanic mercenaries from the continent, trading their fighting capabilities for land in Britain’s southeast. Over time the soldiers brought in their kinfolk, multiplied, and in turn took more land by force. Confrontations had escalated into a steady stream of dead clanlords and displaced people.

Native resistance increased and as land grew more difficult to obtain, Eachan had turned to the western coastline. His mercenaries had wiped out several smallholdings to gain a foothold, first in Gwynedd, the kingdom several days’ travel to the south, then here in Strathclyde. Alerted, Ceredig had organized his warriors to quell the problem, but the mercenaries continued to infiltrate and Eachan remained elusive.

Marcus stared stonily at the crowd of men. Who was the traitor?

Brace logic against temper, he told himself and choked down the anger. A little patience could remedy this. Eachan, the bastard, had found someone here to pay off. Rumor had it that he might even attempt to meet the traitor during this feasting, a rumor started that morning. Practical tool, gossip could be, Marcus thought. War bands were not the only way to draw out and trap a rogue.

From a small deerskin pouch hung on his hip, Marcus withdrew a ring of bronze and slipped it onto his left hand’s smallest finger. Not worth much, but its distinctive pattern and that it had once belonged to Eachan made it a token as useful as gossip.

He moved out of the shadows and picked up a large serving jar of wine, his left hand placed so the ring could not be readily seen. Sullen of face, he wove through the hall with piercing vigilance, pouring wine into drinking horns. Who was sweating more than necessary? Which one watched a little too carefully? Who was a bit too unsociable? With each man he approached, he turned his wrist enough to display the ring for an instant before he pivoted away. Just a glimpse should suffice to mark him as a go-between. Anything more might look like flaunting—a sure way to expose his ruse. A slave would never be allowed to possess any kind of personal adornment and if one of these overly proud men took offense, or if another slave had a fit of jealousy, he could fall to their wrath.

Hours passed. Near midnight and not one of them had reacted. Not even a lingering glance at the ring. Too drunk to notice even their own fingers, let be a ring on someone else’s hand.

A row of woven drapes blocked off several small partitioned sections at one end of the hall, creating private spaces. As Marcus passed them on his way from the trestles with another jar of wine, one drape whisked aside. Ceredig walked out. Tall, craggy-faced, robust and rusty-haired, the king in his late forties still presented an imposing figure in his simple robes, tunic and breeches of fine slate-colored wool. His brown eyes ranged over the crowded hall.

Marcus paused and glanced into the space behind the king. The mother and daughter sat at a small trestle. The woman in blue stood in the back next to a druid.

You will not ruin this, he heard the mother argue. At three-and-ten summers, even Grania has more sense. She swished a hand towards the young red-haired woman.

I’m not trying to be contrary, the daughter said. But how can you—?

It will have to be enough, her mother cut in. Why should you be any different than any other woman?

But—

Enough. It is time for you to marry. Past time. It must be done before I die.

Their voices ceased. Ready to move on, Marcus bowed to the king. Ceredig’s eyes skimmed over him and held for an instant. Marcus gave a faint shake of his head, disappointed he lacked news. Irritation twitched the king’s beard and he turned away.

Drakar! Ceredig’s voice boomed above the din.

Marcus scanned the hall and caught sight of the massive, fleshy-faced man who belonged to the name. Must be time for the handfasting. So it was Drakar, eh? That made sense. He was the only one who was not a prince or clanlord. Ceredig had taken him on as a minor war commander and he had proven capable. Belonging to no clan and landless, he could only settle for a minimal bride-price.

Come, lass, Ceredig coaxed the woman in the cream gown to come forward. Men whistled and gestured lewdly at her, slapped Drakar on the back as he shouldered his way towards her. She froze, her hand gripping the drape to the partition’s entrance, her eyes fixed on the man who would become her husband. White as limewash, Marcus thought. And so thin, even fragile. Gah, Drakar’s bulk will crush her like a bird.

Shaking back his frazzled mass of flaming red curls, the warlord stopped a few paces short of the king. In one hand he held the last of a greasy chunk of boar meat impaled on a large eating knife. Juice dripped along his arm and into his sleeve. He shoved the last bit of fatty meat into his mouth, grabbed a drinking horn from one of the other men and swallowed two long gulps of wine to wash it down.

Ceredig’s eyes narrowed. Are you ready for this or would you care to clean up first?

Drakar wiped the back of a hand across his thick beard that was several shades darker than his hair. His indifferent, nearly colorless blue eyes passed over the woman. On their way back up, they snapped towards the row of curtained-off spaces. His brows constricted and he looked back at the king, mouth open.

No, the young woman moaned against the hall’s noise. No, I won’t do this.

Facing away, Marcus heard her steps pad across the plank floor and fade as rumbles of astonishment grew in her wake. He watched the warlord. The man was too stiff. Angling, Marcus approached Drakar, offered to refill the drinking horn. In the same moment he caught a glimpse of a slave peering at them from the last private space—one he didn’t recognize. The man swiftly averted his face and let the drape fall.

Drakar, Ceredig warned. You’re not acting like a man about to be handfasted.

Aye, and here was a test. Marcus adjusted his fingers on the jar and let the ring click against the clay surface before he pulled it back and poured wine into the horn. He drilled his gaze into Drakar’s face.

The big man met Marcus’s stare. The pale eyes turned cold.

Marcus nodded faintly.

Out of my way, the warlord spit, handed off the drinking horn and shoved past. The hall reverberated with confused chatter as he strode first towards the rear doors then seemed to have an abrupt change of mind. He circled around and left through the front.

Marcus set the horn and jar on the nearest trestle. He swept his gaze across the draped private spaces. All motionless. Had the strange slave already gone? Or—

No, the slave—or whatever he was—emerged from the last one at the opposite end. Thin and agile, he must have squeezed through behind the partitions. He slithered into the mass of people.

Marcus hissed an oath. Two traitors, not one. Which one should he follow?

CHAPTER 2

Dun Breatann, Strathclyde

Autumn, AD 4631

Hang Drakar. For now he would have to wait. The false slave had to be a go-between for Eachan, a real one. Marcus shoved into the crowd. He guessed at the man’s path from gaps left between the feasters who had given way to him and not moved back. The trail looked like it led to the kitchen house, a smaller building next to the hall and accessed through a short passageway. As Marcus slipped through this and entered the bustling kitchen, a loud crash erupted.

A wide platter lay in the middle of the floor.

Idiot! Get out of here! the kitchen master howled between expletives.

Halting, Marcus glimpsed the lean figure disappear out the kitchen’s rear door. This opened onto a narrow ledge-like path that ran straight back along behind the hall. Better to retreat and head him off there—the man had to pass that way, unless he wanted to leap to his death down the sheer vertical rock on which the fortress perched. Not likely.

Marcus turned back. In the hall he quickly skirted the crowd, reached the rear doors, but before he could touch the latch, it shifted and one door gave in. He backed and watched Eachan’s intermediary stride in like he had belonged here all of his life, straight into the first partitioned space he had occupied earlier.

And someone was waiting there. Before the drape settled, Marcus caught a hint of wild red hair. Drakar. Clever. Too public to get close enough to eavesdrop, private enough for the passage of secrets. Then Eachan’s man would disappear into the night, change his appearance, never to be seen again. Drakar would return to his handfasting.

Annoyed at the all-pervasive din, Marcus swore under his breath. Well, at least he could pass on to Ceredig which warlord was the traitor then follow this go-between and with luck be drawn into Eachan’s vast network of contacts.

Marcus pressed his lips in a flat line, his thoughts racing on. What if this man was only a hired messenger used solely to exchange information with Drakar? A waste of time and effort to track him, time that could not be spared if this meeting meant imminent landings of new mercenaries.

Marcus scanned the hall for another solution. And stopped. Windows. Of course. He slipped through the rear doors.

Outside, pitch black beyond the single sputtering torch next to the doors. After the stale smoky heat inside, the cold autumn night struck like a stinging hand. Felt damn good. He groped along the back of the building, followed the dip of the ground to a dry stone wall enclosure low enough to step over. A few paces past, the window he sought appeared as a faint square of light, shutters open. Not enough light to show him his footing, but he had spent his years of fosterage in the stronghold and knew it well. In summer this small plot of ground within the enclosure served as a garden. Since the first killing frost, it harbored only dead stubble, leaves and weeds.

He crept in farther. Though muffled here, the sound of voices, music and squealing slave women continued. And two men spoke softly just inside the opening.

Marcus squinted up at the casement, its lower edge at the height of an upraised hand. Three years now he had trailed Eachan’s mercenaries as they slipped into uninhabited coves along the west coast. Three years he had broken these attempts at new footholds. Please, he hoped, let this finally lead to more than just another pack of raiders. Let it lead to the seizure of the untouchable Eachan himself and let his bloody neck be wrung at last.

The intermediary spoke in terse lumps of speech with long gaps of silence in between. Drakar said little more than an occasional grunt. Acknowledgement? Listening? Testing each other?

Gradually the voices rose, spoke more steadily. More ships on the way, Marcus caught the fragment. That was expected. Between the islands. West of Dun Breatann this time, more snippets came. Moving southerly. Another pause. More, say where, exactly where.

Footsteps scratched and stopped.

Told you before, get out of here, Drakar snapped. More steps, moving away. Damn stupid boy. Bat-brain.

Another pause and the talk started again. Not until the end of the month, the go-between said, a little louder, clearer. Before winter sets in.

A sharp intake of breath drew in the shadows off to Marcus’s right. He jerked around, saw nothing in the black corner, reached for a sword hilt—damn—absent for the ruse.

He lunged and caught an arm, yanked. A figure stumbled into him. Hair cascaded against his face and he caught a whiff of lavender.

Lavender? He held on, steadied the intruder. Behind him, light flared mildly and he glanced over his shoulder. The torch by the hall’s rear doors had burnt out. A slave was replacing it with a fresh one.

The light was enough to show him he had caught a woman—to his astonishment, the one to be handfasted. Her eyes jolted up. Drakar stood close to the casement, muttering. The other man’s voice rose again in a sharp response. The woman recoiled, her light-colored clothing like a beacon in the dark.

Before they see you, Marcus whispered. He pushed her against the wall below the window, clamped a hand over her mouth. Off-balance, slipping, she grabbed hold of his tunic. Don’t scream, he willed her. Don’t move.

When he thought she would hold still, he looked up. No more voices and an empty window. Damn, the one piece of knowledge he needed most—the landing’s location—was walking away into the night.

He pushed away. Forgive me, mistress, I mean no harm. Turning, he coiled to sprint for the stone wall.

She clutched his arm.

I must go. He pulled away.

She clung. "Why do you listen to them?"

Scowling, Marcus glanced at the window, then to the door into the hall.

The man who spoke last, she persisted. Why do you listen to him?

Her fingers, digging into his flesh, trembled. Sweat gleamed on her pale brow. Was she going to faint? He glanced again and grimaced. Probably gone out the front or through the kitchen house. Too late now.

The woman released her grip as if suddenly remembering her manners.

Muttering a steamy oath, Marcus raked his fingers through his hair. He frightens you. Why?

Her eyes followed his dropping hand. You’re not a slave, are you?

The bronze ring. She seemed not to recognize it, but the understanding that it marked him as something other than he presented showed in her confusion, her fear.

She pulled the mantle tighter around her shoulders. His voice—I recognize it. It’s the kind you can never forget. Her gaze lifted again and bored into him. Why is he here?

Her eyes looked like shimmering green-blue water. He lifted his hand, reached with an unexpected want to touch her cheek. No. Once done here, he’d be gone. He shoved his thumbs into his belt. What do you know about him?

Another pause, a shiver. She walked back into the dark corner.

He followed. Please, mistress.

It was a long time ago. A raid— She stopped, drew breath. No, worse than a raid. Then she told him the story of how her family’s clanholding had been attacked with a ferocity that far outweighed any resistance that ever could have been offered. She outlined the worst of it. Details were not necessary, it was enough to hear the struggle in her voice, no more than a strained whisper. And it was enough to remember the savage butchery he had seen himself through the years.

Every living thing was slaughtered. She turned away, her face in her hands. There were so many soldiers, so big…

And you were the only one left for your mother to find? he said. And one cousin? By the light… No wonder an ugly brute like Drakar frightened her, Marcus thought. This time he touched her shoulder. And this man, talking here—he was one of them?

She wiped a hand across her mouth, sniffled, nodded. He gave all the orders. I had thought the soldiers were Saxon. I didn’t understand their language. Someone from a neighboring clanholding found evidence they were Irish and told my mother before we fled here to Strathclyde. She turned around. "Why is he here? Why do you listen to him?"

Have you ever told this to anyone else?

She shook her head. I don’t know why I’ve told you. I don’t even know who you are.

When her eyes lifted again, she held his gaze as if she were drowning and he was offering her a lifeline. If this man knows Drakar… she began. Was Drakar involved then as well? And now, why marriage? All we have is the land and it’s of no value. It was given to my mother only because she’s a distant relation to Lord Ceredig.

Given? Marcus frowned. Is that what she had been told? Ceredig owned that land, always had. This woman didn’t even know she had no bride-price to offer.

Marriage would legitimize the theft of the land, Marcus hedged. Where is it?

Near the coast, southwest of here. About two days’ walk.

Marcus tilted his head back, his eyes lifted to the sky. She had told him exactly what he needed to know. But a marriage? Something more lay behind it.

I’ve spoiled what you were doing, haven’t I? she broke into his thoughts.

He shrugged. No matter. Bringing together men like these is like herding fish without a weir.

Her mouth opened and a hint of a smile crossed her face. She stepped around him. I will go to Lord Ceredig and tell him I refuse to handfast with Drakar.

No. Marcus caught her hand.

I will not handfast with him. Only the king can stop it. My mother won’t change her mind. ‘I don’t have time left to me,’ she says over and over. ‘You and your cousin must be taken care of before I am gone.’ Eh, even if she knew he was with Eachan and they were—

Eachan? Marcus blurted. His name is Eachan?

She nodded, alarm in her eyes once more. You know who he is?

Marcus straightened. This was Eachan? The same man he’d been chasing for years? Why on this earth would Eachan risk coming into Dun Breatann, the most powerful stronghold of the northern kingdoms?

Preparation, he answered himself silently. For a substantial landing, not a petty one this time. Only that would be reason enough. So close it could mean an attack on the stronghold. Glancing at the woman, he guessed she didn’t understand the purpose of Eachan’s meeting with Drakar.

Eachan’s Irish, he said. That would explain Irish raiders. But why? he asked himself. Why raid her clan? And Irish soldiers meant a personal force, not the Saxon mercenaries hired for Vortigern. And now an arranged marriage with Drakar?

Then I may as well go home, she said. I’ll refuse to marry Drakar and go home.

Refuse marriage, aye, but you can’t leave. Not yet.

"What point is there to stay here? And within reach of them?" She tipped her head towards the window.

The harsh ache in her voice disturbed him. I know, I understand, believe me, I know. I will tell Ceredig, but it has to be done so they don’t know who or where the information came from. I can do that. Then he can protect you from Drakar. The other man will have already left. Just wait a little.

Caught in his gaze, the woman seemed unable to move.

Marcus exhaled. Those eyes. He could not break from them. Nor did he want to. He realized he was still holding her hand. And she was squeezing his fingers. In trust.

What is your name? he whispered.

I am called Claerwen. Let me help you.

Surprise flashed through him, but he shook his head. You’re staying in the guesthouse?

She nodded.

I want you to go there and wait for news. Don’t talk to anyone of this, especially not your mother or cousin. The less anyone knows, the better. Not to mention, he thought, he dared not risk having his ruse revealed.

Who are you? she asked.

It would not be wise to know. Danger follows me. Again he shook his head. It’s late. They’ll be looking for you. And I should have long been on my way by now.

But he stayed. Why could he not look away, walk away? He traced his gaze along the length of her tawny-brown hair, from her temple to where it fell past her waist. Another whiff of lavender drifted from it.

It’s as if... He stalled. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

As if we’ve known each other from somewhere? No, for all time? she finished for him.

An involuntary shiver rippled across his skin. He had been thinking the same. Exactly the same. Mesmerized, he abruptly leaned and pressed his lips to her mouth.

What was he doing? Marcus backed a step. Forgive me, I couldn’t help myself. He wanted to hold her face between his hands, study every contour of her finely arched eyebrows, the perfect curves of her lips, cheeks, chin that put to shame the most elegant and classic features of female Roman sculptures he had ever seen.

Aye, and she had kissed him back. Willingly.

I want to know your name, she said.

Once more he shook his head. Just believe. And stay here until Ceredig brings you news.

Now, pull away and be gone, he told himself, before he caused her harm. And he had to do more than simply expose Drakar. Ceredig needed to raise a war band to repel Eachan’s landing. With a hall full of drunk warlords, it would take time.

The gods be with you always, he heard Claerwen say.

In a few strides he reached the low wall. Not daring to turn back, Marcus vaulted over, the image of her face ingrained in his mind.

CHAPTER 3

Dun Breatann, Strathclyde

Autumn, AD 463

The sad old song refused to go away. Claerwen shut her eyes. Make it stop this spinning, tangled path through her mind, she wished. She’d tried so hard to forget, ever