Gwen smiled, as she was sure he meant her to, but then sobered, looking over her shoulder at the men strewn along the road. “Nearly two dozen men, all dead, all put to the sword either in battle or once they lay stunned on the ground. All except Anarawd, who was killed with a knife.”
Gareth crouched low to the ground. “Here.” He brushed away a few fallen leaves to reveal a man’s footprints, clearly embedded in the soft earth. Further on were more footprints, and then more again.
“How many men in the party, do you think?” Gwen said, glad they could talk about something else, even if it was murder.
“More than enough to surprise Anarawd’s troop,” Gareth said. “Anarawd and his men stood little chance, taken unawares as it appears they were.” He eyed the road and the woods beyond. “The attackers waited here—probably here and in the trees opposite—for Anarawd’s company to ride past. King Anarawd and his men would have been unconcerned and unsuspecting of danger. They were well within the confines of King Owain’s territory and only an hour out of Dolwyddelan. They’d gone—what?— four miles at most?”
“Something like that.” Gwen and her family had ridden that distance at a walk, which was all the horse who drew the cart could manage most days. They’d left two hours after Anarawd and his men. That meant the ambush had occurred at least two hours before this moment and more likely three, which made sense since the bodies were still warm, but stiff. Unmolested, the company would have nearly reached Aber by now. Gwen pursed her lips as she studied the footprints. “You knew what to look for,” she said. “You’ve seen this type of thing before?”
“Ambushes are the easiest way to eliminate a rival,” Gareth said. “And like yours, my tenure with Hywel has been—” Gareth paused to glance up at Gwen, an actual smile hovering around his lips as he sought for the proper word, “—irregular.”
“My father told me that you’d hired yourself out to the highest bidder,” Gwen said. At the renewal of Gareth’s uncanny stillness, she kicked herself for not keeping that question to herself, but she had to know. “You fought as a mercenary.”
Gareth took in a breath that was almost a curse. Throughout their conversation, Gwen had found it difficult to look into his face because she was afraid of what she might see there, but now it was impossible. She scuffled at the fallen leaves and dirt that made up the floor of the forest. No glint of metal or other indication of men appeared, other than their trampling footprints.
“That’s true as far as it goes,” he said. “When I left Prince Cadwaladr’s service, I had nowhere to go. I was skilled with a sword and such men are always needed in Wales, with the Vikings, the Irish, and the ever-present English hemming us in on every side.”
“I wasn’t criticizing you.” Gwen’s voice went soft. “Just asking. How long have you worked for Hywel?”
“Almost four years,” he said. “Despite what your father might think, I’m good at what I do and those for whom I fought recognized it. Hywel was one of several lords who offered me a permanent place in their teulu.”
“You wear a fine ring,” Gwen said.
“A gift.” Gareth fisted the hand that wore it. “It was given to me along with my horse when I joined Hywel’s band. Prince Hywel’s brother, Rhun, knighted me six months ago after a skirmish with the Normans near Chester.”
Six months. He’s been a knight for six months, and yet … Gwen shook herself and held her tongue. Five years was a long time to carry the memory of someone in your heart—someone you’d not seen and had no reason to think still loved you. It wasn’t surprising that he’d not bothered to find her.
The sharp twang of an untuned note carried through the heavy air. With his legs swinging nearly to the ground, Meilyr sat in the bed of the cart, holding a lyre. He could always find comfort with an instrument in his hands.
“I would have brought more bowmen than the attackers did.” Gareth turned back to their task. “I find it odd they had so few. It seems shortsighted to me. It makes the success of an ambush less certain.”
“Maybe none of the men our murderer trusted were archers,” Gwen said.
“Yet he found enough men to do his dirty work,” Gareth said. “That sounds like a man with noble blood—with power and reach.”
“It doesn’t sound very noble to me,” Gwen said.
“You and I both know that many ignoble men inspire fierce loyalty in those who serve them,” Gareth said.
“Or fear.”
“Or the lord who ordered this made promises his men thought he could keep. Damn it.” Gareth spun on one heel to look back to the road. “We need answers now. Owain Gwynedd won’t want to wait until some lord’s men are curiously richer or rewarded more than their due. We will be bringing King Anarawd’s body to him at Aber today.”
Gwen’s heart turned cold at the memory of King Owain’s temper, and then even colder still as another thought struck her. “What if the man who ordered King Anarawd’s death is Owain Gwynedd?”
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*
Anne R. Allen
A Kinky Adventure in Anglophilia
When I started writing funny women’s fiction fifteen years ago, if anybody had given me a realistic idea of my chances for publication, I’d have chosen a less stressful hobby, like do-it-yourself brain surgery, professional frog herding, or maybe staging an all-Ayatollah drag revue in downtown Tehran.
As a California actress with years of experience of cattle-drive auditions, greenroom catfights and vitriolic reviewers, I thought I had built up enough soul-calluses to go the distance. But nothing had prepared me for the glacial waiting periods; the bogus, indifferent and/or suddenly-out-of-business agents; and the heartbreaking, close-but-no-cigar reads from big-time editors—all the rejection horrors that make the American publishing industry the impenetrable fortress it has become.
But some of us are too writing-crazed to stop ourselves. I was then, as now, sick in love with the English language.
I had three novels completed. A fourth had run as a serial in a California entertainment weekly. One of my stories had been shortlisted for an international prize, and a play had been produced to good reviews. I was bringing in a few bucks—mostly with short pieces for local magazines and freelance editing.
But meantime, my savings had evaporated along with my abandoned acting career; my boyfriend had ridden his Harley into the Big Sur sunset; my agent was hammering me to write formula romance; and I was contemplating a move to one of the less fashionable neighborhoods of the rust belt.
Even acceptances turned into rejections: a UK zine that had accepted one of my stories folded. But when the editor sent the bad news, he mentioned he’d taken a job with a small UK book publisher—and did I have any novels?
I sent him one my agent had rejected as “too over the top.” Within weeks, I was offered a contract by my new editor—a former BBC comedy writer—for FOOD OF LOVE. Included was an invitation to come over the pond to do some promotion.
So I rented out my beach house, packed my bags and bought a ticket to Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where my new publishers had recently moved into a 19th century former textile mill on the banks of the river Trent—the river George Eliot fictionalized as “the Floss.”
George Eliot. I was going to be working and living only a few hundred yards from the ruins of the house where she wrote her classic novel about the 19th century folk who lived and died by the power of Lincolnshire’s great tidal river. Maybe some of that greatness would rub off on me.
At the age of… well, I’m not telling…I was about to have the adventure of my life.
I knew the company published mostly erotica, but was branching into mainstream and literary fiction. They had already published the first novel of a distinguished poet, and a famous Chicago newspaper columnist was in residence, awaiting the launch of his new book.
But whe
n I arrived, I found the great Chicagoan had left in a mysterious fit of pique, the “erotica” was seriously hard core kink, and the old building on the Trent was more of the William Blake Dark Satanic variety than George Elliot’s bucolic “Mill on the Floss.”
Some of my fears subsided when I was greeted by a friendly group of unwashed, fiercely intellectual young men who presented me with generous quantities of warm beer, cold meat pies and galleys to proof. After a beer or two, I found myself almost comprehending their northern accents.
I held it together until I saw my new digs: a grimy futon and an old metal desk, hidden behind stacks of book pallets in the corner of an unheated warehouse, about a half a block from the nearest loo. My only modern convenience was an ancient radio abandoned by a long-ago factory girl.
I have to admit to some tears of despair.
Until, from the radio, Big Ben chimed six o’clock.
That’s six pm, GMT.
Greenwich Mean Time. The words hit me with all the sonorous power of Big Ben itself. I had arrived at the mean, the middle, the center that still holds—no matter what rough beasts might slouch through the cultural deserts of the former empire. This was where my language, my instrument, was born.
I clutched my galley-proof to my heart. I might still be a rejected nobody in the land of my birth—but I’d landed on the home planet: England. And there, I was a published novelist. Just like George Eliot.
Three years later, I returned to California, older, fatter (the English may not have the best food, but their BEER is another story) and a lot wiser. That Chicagoan’s fit of pique turned out to be more than justified. The company was swamped in debt. They never managed to get me US distribution. Shortly before my second book THE BEST REVENGE was to launch, the managing partner withdrew his capital, sailed away and mysteriously disappeared off his yacht—his body never found. The company sputtered and died.
And I was back in the slush pile again.
But I had a great plot for my next novel.
Unfortunately, nobody wanted it. I was now tainted with the “published-to-low-sales-numbers label and my chances were even worse than before.
So I wrote two more novels. Nobody wanted them either.
Then I started a blog. I figured I could at least let other writers benefit from my mistakes. My blog followers grew. And grew. The blog won some awards. My Alexa and Klout ratings got better and better. Finally, publishers started approaching ME. (There’s a moral for writers here—social networking works.)
And finally, six years later, another publisher, Popcorn Press, fell in love with FOOD OF LOVE and sent me a contract. Soon after, they contracted to publish THE BEST REVENGE, too.
And this September, a brand new indie ebook publisher called Mark Williams International Digital Publishing asked if I had anything else ready to publish.
Just happen to have a few unpubbed titles handy, said I.
He liked them.
So in October and November of 2011, those three new comic mysteries will appear as ebooks: THE GATSBY GAME, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, and SHERWOOD, LTD (that’s the novel inspired by my English adventures.) Popcorn Press will publish paper versions about a month later. THE BEST REVENGE should debut in December.
A fifteen-year journey finally seems to be paying off.
Did I make some mistakes? Oh yeah—a full set of them. But would I wish away my English adventures?
Not a chance.
About the Chick
Anne R. Allen is a California writer and editor and the author of five romantic comedy/mysteries debuting in the fall of 2011 with Popcorn Press and MWiDP: FOOD OF LOVE, THE GATSBY GAME, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, SHERWOOD, LTD and THE BEST REVENGE. Anne has a popular blog (with blog partner, NYT bestseller and former Big Six editor-turned indie: Ruth Harris). Anne teaches social networking at the Central Coast Writers Conference in San Luis Obispo, CA. In a former life she was a stage and film actress and the artistic director of the Patio Playhouse in Escondido, CA.
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Food of Love
Anne R. Allen
An Excerpt
Chapter 1—The Smile of the Spoon
Her Royal Highness Regina Saxi-Cadenti, Princess of San Montinaro, backed out of the bathroom stall on her knees, pulling the scrub bucket.
She felt her backside collide with something.
Or someone.
She froze. So the assassins had found her, even here at the Recovery Clinic, half a world away from the palace and its intrigues. They were back to finish last night’s botched job.
She knew the falling oven hood in the kitchen had been no accident, any more than the other “mishaps” back in San Montinaro. Through the thin silk of her Dolce and Gabbana skirt, she felt human flesh: bony and death-cold.
“You could watch where you’re going, your Highness.”
False alarm. Regina unclamped her hand from the bucket and turned to give a polite smile to the sour-faced woman who spoke. She recognized her from the Clinic’s orientation meeting last Friday—a former child actress, addicted to cocaine. She’d been one of TV’s Partridge Bunch or Diff’rent Spoons or something. The poor dear did look like a spoon, her skeletal body supporting a moon-shaped face that must have been adorable at age eight.
“Sorry. I’m still a bit clumsy with this.” Regina nodded at her cast, the result of last night’s “accident” that had left her with several shattered bones in her foot—and come so close to smashing her skull.
“It’s not your foot that’s a menace.” The Spoon gave a venomous glance at
Regina’s ample derriere as she stomped into a stall.
Regina was used to the venom. Her newly matronly figure made some people feel it was their right, even their duty, to treat her with contempt. Last month’s Italian tabloid photos—taken by a hidden camera while she tried on an awful spandex thing in the dressing room at the House of Porfirio—probably fueled the girl’s scorn. The pictures had already been pirated into the U.S., in spite of the lawsuits. When she’d arrived at LAX last Friday, she’d caught sight of a tabloid headline touting:
“Secret Pix! Prince Max Sues over Heartbreaking Photos of Porky Princess.”
So much for escaping to safe obscurity in California. Still, the Recovery Clinic at Rancho Esperanza, much lower profile than nearby Betty Ford, seemed a fairly good place to wait for the paparazzi to settle down, although she could have done without the chores and insufficient meals. But, as Max pointed out, any lingering bad press could be put off with hints at a bit of fashionable substance abuse.
She hummed and fantasized about her favorite California foods as her unfed stomach growled in low counterpoint to the murmur of the Clinic’s New Age Muzak: Shrimp Louis, Cobb salad, Double Rainbow chocolate ice cream. Oh, yes, chocolate. What was that Shakespeare thing her mother used to quote?
“If music be the food of love; play on.”
If Mr. Shakespeare had spent more time with women, he would have known the food of love is not music but chocolate.
The promise of that sweet, soul-satisfying reward gave her the will to keep on. The nice London hairdresser with the heroin problem had promised to risk dire consequences to sneak her a Cadbury’s after group therapy. She’d confessed her craving to him last night when he caught her hobbling back from the infirmary, too late for dinner. Nigel, his name was. A sweet man. He’d loved her since her first Vogue layout in the ‘70s, he said.
Bless him. Gay men were such a comfort.
“I can’t deal with this. What have you done in here?” The Spoon banged her way out of the stall, her voice a grating mix of childishness and condescension. “Your Highness, the toilet water is pink!”
“I thought I’d let the cleanser soak in a while. The ring on that bowl was a bit stubborn. But please. No titles. Call me Regina.”
Even in such a heavil
y guarded facility, the wrong person might overhear a random “Your Highness” and drop a lucrative tip to the media.
“Addiction knows no class boundaries dear.” She gave what she hoped looked like a warm smile.
“Whatever,” said the Spoon. “But I cannot throw up into a bowl of toxic chemicals!” She disappeared into a different stall with the clang of a metal door.
Regina gave the bowl another scrub and pulled the chain of the old-fashioned toilet tank to flush. The ring hadn’t faded. She would have to ask Titiana about toilet rings when she got home. Titiana knew about things like that. Regina felt lucky to be blessed with a head chef who was also a wise and trusted friend. Her only friend, really. Life in a country with only as many inhabitants as Rodeo Drive during a good sale at Gucci made gossip the primary national sport.
Gossip, yes, and intrigue—but not murder. So why were these things happening? As the shrinks kept reminding her, she was one of the most beloved women in the world—the ordinary American girl whose fairy tale wedding to the fashion designer-monarch of the tiny Alpine kingdom of San Montinaro had defined the fantasies of every pre-pubescent girl on the planet. Even after twenty years and forty extra pounds, the public loved her.
And if Max wanted to be rid of her, he had only to say so. Divorce had always been legal in San Montinaro, a country so conservative it still followed the laws of ancient Rome rather than those of the Vatican.
She had dreamed of him last night—at his most handsome, in all his princely regalia: Prince Maximus Saxi-Cadenti, as he had looked when she married him.
When she had almost loved him.
In the dream, he had fed her noodle pudding, the sweet Hungarian dessert her father used to make—but somehow the food never reached her mouth. She watched Max’s silver spoon come toward her, tempting, luring, smiling at her with the seductive curve of a noodle nestled in glistening apricot sauce. But when it reached her mouth, she tasted nothing—nothing but air, empty and noodle-less.
She had waked to gnawing pains in her stomach.
But now her knees were causing more pain than the hunger. She needed something softer to kneel on. Spotting a newspaper stuffed in a trash basket, she retrieved several sections and smoothed them out to use as a cushion. But she stopped as a photograph caught her eye.
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 36
