Excerpt

EXCERPT FROM ABDUCTION OF GUENIVERE
COPYRIGHT © TRACY COOPER-POSEY 2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The first time she had ever seen Gawaine was when she was ten years old, the year her mother, Princess Maeve of Ireland, had died.  Her father had brought her and Cadoc to Arthur’s court. At the time, Arthur’s official headquarters was no more than an armed encampment for his army and senior soldiers, and the support cadres which travelled everywhere with him.

Gawain had been barely a man himself, then, although to Tegan’s eyes, he was a giant with a loud voice and fast, strong movements, an easy laugh and blue eyes which glittered with merriment more often than not.

He had fought his first battle for Arthur, who had only been Britain’s War Duke back then—oh, the details were so very clear in her mind!  She doubted Gawain even remembered the battle or the day, but she did. Or rather, she remembered what came after the battle.

She had been hiding in the trees which sheltered the rough-and-ready camps where the soldiers rested, for the loud voices slurred by wine and the big bodies, the harsh clash of iron and the carousing had frightened her.  It was her first experience with an army camp of any sort, let alone one releasing tension after a hard day of fighting.

Tegan saw Gawain emerge from deeper inside the trees running along the other side of the rough track where she had found herself.  Gawain was with a man who Tegan guessed was his brother, judging by their similarity of appearance.  Later, Tegan had learned the man was Gaheris, the future king of Lothian.

Tegan ignored the men.  Her gaze and all her attention was caught by the woman with them.  The woman had long dark hair, so unlike Tegan’s wheat-colored curls, and a firm chin.  Like Gawain and Gaheris, she wore trews and armor and a sword strapped to her hip.  A knife jutted from her boot.  The woman was beautiful in a dark, intense way, but the quality that had caught Tegan’s attention that day and had lingered with her ever since, was that of power.  The woman looked as strong and as competent as either of the two men she stood with.  She was shorter, of course, but that did not in any way diminish her power.

Tegan had only been ten, but even then, she sensed that this woman would not quail before anything.  She would not be pushed hither and yon by men or enemies.  She would hew her own path, her chin lifted and her hands held in fists.

Tegan half-hid herself behind a slender tree and drank in every detail about the woman.  Her hair, her clothes, the armor she wore.  The way she stood and moved her hands.  The hilt of her sword and the length of it—which looked impossibly long to Tegan’s young eyes.

The three warriors had spoken for a moment as they stood upon the worn path they had stepped out onto, their voices low.  Then the woman had smiled at the two men and walked swiftly along the road, away from the white tent that was Arthur’s and from Tegan’s hiding spot.

Gawain watched her go, a strange expression on his face.  “If you do not court and marry her, brother, I will,” he told Gaheris, still watching her walk away.

“Arthur’s sister?  You’re mad,” Gaheris said.  “Don’t let our father’s delusions of grandeur infect you.  She is not for us.”

“More’s the pity,” Gawain replied with a deep sigh.  “For that is a woman worth fighting for.”

Tegan caught her breath.  Gawain had been captured by the woman’s qualities, just as she had been!

The two of them turned and walked down the road in the other direction, passing Tegan where she stood by the tree.  As they passed, Gawain spotted her.  He winked as he went by.

Tegan was struck with instant, innocent adoration.  In that moment, in her childish heart, she loved Gawain with an obsession that a merely adult heart could not possibly contain.

From that moment on, Tegan dedicated herself to becoming the type of woman Gawain would find worthy of courting and marrying—a woman like the one she had watched. A woman like the one Gawain had admired.

She learned everything she could about Rhiannon, the future king’s step-sister, and determined to become just like her—for Rhiannon was a mighty warrior in the Queen’s Cohort.

Many years later, Tegan had earned her own place in the Queen’s Cohort, but by then, Rhiannon had become Queen Rhiannon of Strathclyde, and lived in the northern reaches with Idris, the Slayer King.

It was at that time Tegan learned that a warrior wasn’t the type of woman Gawain was drawn to at all, but by then, it was too late—the metal had been cast and cooled.  She could no more change her nature than a plowshare could.