Free The First Princess of Wales by Karen Harper

that was the name, was it not?”
    Dagworth’s face lit in a grin as though the mere mention of desire for a woman would clear all the unexplained moodiness from his prince. “Oh, aye, by the saints! The red-haired mercer’s daughter from near the Fleet with green eyes and full breasts. The one who cries out ‘more, more!’ at her last moment.” Dagworth’s face broke into an even broader grin. “I did not know you even thought on her, my lord, as I recall you said she was a wild one and scratched your back all up.”
    “That is the one, Nick. But I am just in the mood for wildness, by St. George. These meek little maids my mother favors are enough to cool any knight’s blood. The mood I am in—aye, see if you can get the sharp-nailed wench for me.” For Dagworth he forced an answering smile he hardly felt. Let the knaves think a mere roll with one little hoyden would cure him. He would slake his thirst on this one, then send her away for good as he did the others.
    Nick was nearly out the door when the house steward, John Macklyn, bustled in directing servants lugging a steaming tub of shallow water. Without waiting for their help, Edward stripped off his dust-laden garments and sat bent-legged in the small tub with water just over his hips while they poured more heated buckets in over him. A servant scrubbed him with lint dipped in essence of bergamot and toweled him dry when he stepped out. He donned a soft black robe while they scurried to set up his solitary table. All the while, Hankin played lively music from a chair in the corner.
    Edward ate a hearty supper of stewed partridge with saffron on bread flavored by clove, mace, and pepper and sprinkled with chopped egg yolks—a favorite dish when he dined alone. And, at the thought of the outraged look he would see on the stunning maid’s face at Windsor when she learned whom she had insulted at the quintain last week, he downed a pigeon pie and two nutmeg custards. Perhaps he could even entice some kisses from her in some sort of teasing retribution, he mused, as he polished off roast chestnuts, Brie cheese, plums imported from Syria, and liberal amounts of his favorite Bordeaux wine.
    Daylight fled from the windows as Hankin played on. The children’s voices from the street below finally faded, then ceased after they had last been heard shouting and playing follow the leader. Aye, that was indeed the great dynastic game he had his heart sore set on, Edward admitted to himself: he would be their leader and they must follow on, eternally, to great glories to win back their rightful realm of France and even, perhaps, beyond. Then he would wear bright Plantagenet king’s colors of gold and azure sprinkled with the
fluers-de-lis
of France and the three proud couchant leopards of his own royal house. Then, he would feel content and whole, and would choose some strong and worthy woman to fill his heart with love and his palaces with children, a woman wild and stunning like the blond one at Windsor, young and strong with a sweet body—
    “Hankin?” The man’s fingers ceased their strumming and the belly of the lute reechoed their last notes.
    “Aye, Your Grace? Does the
chanson de geste
not please you?”
    “Do you recall that French song, Hankin,
‘Li dous’
something or other about the lady’s sweet body?”
    “Oh, aye, milord. But you said lively tunes and that one is full of love-longing which hardly suits the mood your lordship has shown these last few days when—”
    “I will be judge of that, Hankin. Just sing it, man, and I shall be judge of my own moods.”
    “Aye, of course, Your Grace.”
    Hankin strummed a few running notes as if to recall the beginning. A song of love-longing, he had said. Aye, that would keep the glory-longing away, mayhap. A merry chase after a new doe by a chivalrous hunter. That would arouse the royal concern, no doubt, for his parents had even bargained and hawked to find a suitable royal princess for their beloved