With Wales having fallen irrevocably to England, and fearful of trusting anyone within the English court of King Edward, Catrin and Rhys join forces against the treachery and intrigue rife within the half-built Caernarfon Castle. And when the murderer strikes again, the task before them becomes increasingly clear: catch the killer, certainly, but also protect their people from a future that is becoming more dangerous and uncertain with every day that passes.
Crouchback is the first book in The Welsh Guard Mysteries.
Keep reading for a sample from another series by Sarah Woodbury, this set in the time of King Arthur: Cold My Heart, available for free! at all retailers.
https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/coldmyheart/
Sample: Cold My Heart
By the autumn of 537 AD, all who are loyal to King Arthur have retreated to a small parcel of land in north Wales. They are surrounded on all sides, heavily outnumbered, and facing near certain defeat.
But Myrddin and Nell, two of the king’s companions, have a secret that neither has ever been able to face: each has seen that on a cold and snowy day in December, Saxon soldiers sent by Modred will ambush and kill King Arthur.
And together, they must decide what they are willing to do, and to sacrifice, to avert that fate.
It wasn’t just a dream.
Myrddin focused on the leaves above his head. Who was he to see like this? He was a nobody. His mother, the orphaned daughter of a landless knight, had lived as a lady-in-waiting in the household of a minor Welsh lordling. She’d birthed him out of wedlock. The Welsh ignored illegitimacy provided a father acknowledged his offspring but Myrddin’s mother had died at his birth before she revealed his father’s identity. Consequently, he grew up an orphan in the lord’s house, living off the scraps of the high table and grateful to have received even that.
At the same time, Myrddin was Welsh. It was in his blood to see. Didn’t the priests speak often of the native saints, whose visions had led them on despite the death and despair that surrounded them? Myrddin snorted under his breath at that thought. He might be many things, but a saint wasn’t one of them.
Myrddin might have lain beside the road the whole night, his limbs growing stiff from the cold ground despite the warmth of his wool cloak, if a woman’s scream hadn’t split the air and forced him back to life. The depth of fear in her cry carried her panic through the trees to where he lay. Myrddin was on his feet in an instant. He threw himself onto Cadfarch’s back, turned him in the direction from which the sound had come, and urged him forward.
Myrddin couldn’t see a damned thing in the dark, but Cadfarch’s eyes were more capable than his at night. The horse raced unerringly along the road at a gallop, his head pushed forward and his tail streaming behind him while Myrddin pressed his cheek against the horse’s neck.
Ahead, off the road in a cleared, grassy patch, a torch flickered, revealing the shapes of three people hovering over the prone figure of a fourth. The woman hadn’t screamed again, but she writhed on the ground before them and managed to lash out with her foot at one of the men, who cursed aloud. “St. Dewy’s arse! I’ll teach y—”
But he didn’t finish his sentence. As Cadfarch’s hooves pounded on the stones of the road, the three men rose to their feet and turned to look at Myrddin, although only one reached for his sword. The other two men had removed theirs, strapping them to their saddlebags in preparation for molesting the woman. Now that they’d trained their attention on Myrddin, she rolled into a hollow at the edge of the clearing while Myrddin raised his sword and swung it at the armed man. He stupidly chose to stand his ground.
He caught Myrddin’s sword against his but the force of the blow threw him backwards. Seeing that he’d gone down, Myrddin flung himself off Cadfarch, landing hard in the grass beside the man. Myrddin thrust his sword through the knight’s midsection, under his ribs, before he could recover. The blade slid in easily. The man may have worn a sword, indicating his high status, but he’d neglected his armor this evening, perhaps thinking he’d have little need of it and it would only hinder him in his carousing.
Myrddin pulled the sword from the man’s belly and looked around for more men to fight, but the other two were already away. Well-horsed themselves, and in train with the third, now masterless, they raced north along the road to Rhuddlan, preferring an ignominious departure to facing an armed and angry knight. The woman crouched in a ditch where she’d come to rest, her hands in front of her mouth and her eyes wide and staring. The dress she wore might once have been fine but the men had ripped the fabric from neck to waist, revealing her shift. At least no blood marred the front. Her eyes were shadowed but Myrddin didn’t know if the cause of that was the torchlight or men’s fists.
“It’s all right,” he said, in Welsh, guessing at her nationality. “You’re safe.”
“I never thought—” she began in the same language, and then stopped, swallowing hard. “I didn’t think anyone would come.”
“I heard you scream,” he said.
Myrddin took a step nearer and though the woman shrank from him, she didn’t run away. Moving slowly, more as if she were a wild animal rather than human, Myrddin put a hand under her elbow and urged her to stand. The top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. Then he stepped back, thinking to keep his distance so as not to frighten her.
“Let me take you home.” Myrddin checked the road. No sign remained of the men who’d run but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by, waiting for a second chance. It made sense to hurry.
The woman didn’t speak so he grasped her left arm and urged her towards Cadfarch. Her feet, thankfully still shod in well worn-boots, stuck to the earth at first, but he got her moving, glad that she wasn’t in such shock that she ran away screaming. Myrddin had lived a long and varied life, but even for him that would have been a first.
Myrddin wiped the blade of his sword on the tail of the dead man’s cloak and sheathed it. The torch the men had carried had almost burned out but he still needed it. He picked it up to hold it close enough to illumine both the woman’s face and his. He wanted her to see that he wouldn’t hurt her and he needed her to talk. “Tell me your name.” He lifted the torch high. “And where you’re from.”
The woman shivered. She pulled the ends of her torn dress together and crossed her arms across her chest. Myrddin loosened the ties that held his cloak closed at the neck, removed it, and swung it around her shoulders so that the fabric enveloped her. She clutched at it while Myrddin lifted the hood to hide her hair which had come loose from the chignon at the back of her head. He didn’t bother trying to find her linen coif.
Myrddin gazed at her and then swept his eyes up and down to take in her appearance from head to foot. The woman raised her eyes from the ground. They were a deep green that complemented her hair and Myrddin acknowledged that he was correct in his initial assessment: she was beautiful. Myrddin guessed that she was close in age to him, although she could have been younger. The events of the night had hollowed her cheeks and eyes but time and warmth could reveal her youth. Her diction, given the few words she’d spoken, was that of an educated woman.
“My name is Nell ferch Morgan. And I have no home.”
“But you must have once,” he said. “Did the Saxons turn you out of it?”
That garnered a response. To Myrddin’s relief, it wasn’t tears she expressed but anger. “I come from the convent at Llanfaes, on the Island of Anglesey. The Saxons burned the Abbey to the ground and defiled the grave of Queen Gwenhwyfar.” She spit out the words, her biting tone compressing all her hatred of the Saxons into one sentence.
“You’ve come far.” Myrddin didn’t even blink at the Saxon sacrilege. Their barbarity was well-practiced and well known among his people. “Where is your father? Your family?”
“Dead,” she said.
“And the rest of your sisters?”
“I don’t even want to say.” She looked away from Myrddin now, her sadness conquering her anger. “They�
��re dead too. I knew of what the Saxons were capable, but we were too vulnerable—too unprepared for when they came. I managed to hide a few of my sisters at first, but ...”
“But what?”
Nell gazed down at her shoes and a tear dropped onto the rough, brown leather covering her left foot. “I left them. I thought they would be safe in a nearby barn so I went to see what had become of the convent after we escaped. To find other survivors. In my absence, the Saxons found them. And—and—” Nell stuttered, swallowed hard, and finished, even if Myrddin already knew what she was going say, “—took them.”
Myrddin studied Nell’s down-turned head, going over her tale in his mind. The garrison at Garth Celyn had smelled smoke blowing across the Strait, but the fog and rain had been so unrelenting, they’d not known what was happening. Perhaps the king had received word of this today, in Myrddin’s absence. “You must come to Garth Celyn.”
Although she’d expressed no fear of him up until then, now Nell paled. She took a step back. “I don’t think so.” She shook her head.
“I saved you,” Myrddin said, nonplussed at this sudden reversal. He took a step towards her. “I won’t harm you.” Finding Nell here might be fate—might be one more nail in his coffin—but as the wind whipped the dead leaves from the trees, bringing the strong scent of the sea and the smell of winter, Myrddin felt a change in the air. By lying on the road for longer than he should have, he’d been given the chance to save one life out of all those that might be lost between now and December 11th. Whether by her choice or his, Nell was riding home with him, even if he had to tie her up and throw her across Cadfarch’s withers.
Nell must have heard his thoughts. Without warning, she turned on her heel and ran for the trees that lined the road. She dropped his cloak within two steps and hiked her skirts above her knees, to run flat out along a trail only she could see. Cursing, Myrddin started after her. Where she thought she was going to go in the middle of the night, in Saxon territory, with a torn dress, was beyond him.
“Stop!” Myrddin said. Goddamn it!
In the end, it was an unseen root that undid her. She tripped and fell, falling forward onto her hands. Myrddin was a few paces behind, unhindered by skirts and with longer legs. He came down on her back and pressed her to the earth, grasping each of her wrists and holding her arms out to either side, trying to contain her struggles.
“Get. Off. Me!” Nell rocked her hips back and forth.
At half again as large as she and with twenty years of fighting under his belt, she hadn’t a chance. “I won’t hurt you.” Myrddin repeated the words again and again until her movements calmed and she breathed heavily into the musty leaves. “My name is Myrddin. I serve Arthur ap Uther.”
Silence. Nell put her forehead into the dirt, arching her neck. Myrddin could practically hear her thinking, although he couldn’t discern her thoughts.
“If you were at Llanfaes Abbey, the king must hear of its burning,” he added. “He would have my head for setting you loose east of the Conwy River.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
Now it was Myrddin who had no answer. Finally, he said, “That I cannot do.”
Nell mumbled something into the muddy leaves, something Myrddin didn’t catch, other than the word ‘men’, which she spit into the earth. He eased off of her and then stood, taking a step to leave her free. She twisted onto her back and gazed up at Myrddin for a long twenty seconds. He held out his hand. After another pause, she grasped his fingers and he pulled her upright.
“Will you come with me or do I have to tie you up?” He released her hand before she threw it from her.
It was dark under the trees so Myrddin couldn’t read her expression, but the words came grudgingly, subdued at last—at least on the surface. “I’ll come.”
They walked back to Cadfarch, who was waiting where Myrddin had left him. Myrddin swathed Nell in his cloak once again, swung into the saddle, and pulled her up after him. Nell had to rest on the saddlebags. It wasn’t the most comfortable seat but would provide her a better cushion than the horn at the front of the saddle. Her hem rode up her legs, revealing the undyed leggings she wore underneath her dress. She tugged the skirt down before spreading his cloak wide for modesty. Myrddin waited for her to wrap her arms around his waist, which she eventually did, resting her small hands on his belt.
Cadfarch, of course, had no dreams of the future, good or ill, or any thought but when he might rest or next find his feed bag full. Uncomplaining, he pointed his nose west, in the direction of home.
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Also by Sarah Woodbury
The After Cilmeri Series
Daughter of Time
Footsteps in Time
Winds of Time
Prince of Time
Crossroads in Time
Children of Time
Exiles in Time
Castaways in Time
Ashes of Time
Warden of Time
Guardians of Time
Masters of Time
Outpost in Time
Shades of Time
Champions of Time
This Small Corner of Time
Refuge in Time
Footsteps in Time & Prince of Time
The After Cilmeri Series Boxed Set
The Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries
The Bard's Daughter
The Good Knight
The Uninvited Guest
The Fourth Horseman
The Fallen Princess
The Unlikely Spy
The Lost Brother
The Renegade Merchant
The Unexpected Ally
The Worthy Soldier
The Favored Son
The Viking Prince
The Irish Bride (Coming Soon)
The Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries Boxed Set
The Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries Books 1-7
The Last Pendragon Saga
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon's Blade
Song of the Pendragon
The Pendragon's Quest
The Pendragon's Champions
Rise of the Pendragon
The Pendragon's Challenge
Legend of the Pendragon
The Last Pendragon Saga: The Complete Series (Books 1-8)
The Last Pendragon Saga Boxed Set
The Last Pendragon Saga Volume 1
The Last Pendragon Saga Volume 2
The Last Pendragon Saga Volume 3
The Lion of Wales
Cold My Heart
The Oaken Door
Of Men and Dragons
A Long Cloud
Frost Against the Hilt
The Lion of Wales: The Complete Series (Books 1-5)
The Paradisi Chronicles
Erase Me Not
Standalone
Heroes of Medieval Wales
From Many Cultures, One Nation: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Belizean Children
Medieval to Modern: An Anthology of Historical Mystery Stories
Legends of Wales
Watch for more at Sarah Woodbury’s site.
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