From the Sketchbook:Scene 2

This chapter of Courting Trouble tells us why the people of Wessex do not like their King. A power hungry and resentful prince sets his warriors against the legitimate king, killing him while he is visiting his mistress. All who are eligible and of age to take the king's place are killed in the skirmish. The mistress is burned for infidelity, and her husband remarries a very young girl. Wessex's enemy, Mercia, takes over the kingdom by installing the puppet king Beorhtric.

Meet Egbert

The heroine, who has climbed a tree looking for her lost dog, sees a strange encampment hidden in the forest. This is her first impression of Egbert, a character in Courting Trouble.

. . . a tall warrior stepped out. I don’t know what it was about him, but I think I stopped breathing. The servants went about their tasks with increased diligence. There was nothing soft about the man. His muscular frame was covered from shoulder to waist by a shirt made of shiny metal rings. Below that you could see the points of the leather shirt he wore beneath. He wore no helmet. The angles of his cheekbones seemed to provide their own protection. Were his eyes narrow, or was he squinting in the sun? The light glinted off the gold hilt of his sword, and I sensed danger in a primordial way, like a hare smelling a fox. I wondered how many women he had ravished, how many men he had killed.