by Karen Harper
The private solar he entered now was richly appointed with blue Persian carpets and green tapestry depicting forests of the hunt. A large table, cushioned heavy chairs, a massive red canopied feather bed, and huge storage chests were the only furniture in the vast room.
“My Lord Prince, you wished a song?” Hankin, his lutenist, was asking. The slender, brown-haired man stood ready, his full-blown, pear-shaped instrument in his hands. No qualms of insignificance held his servants back from their love of rich colorings in their garments, Edward noted grimly to himself, eyeing Hankin’s fine tunic and hose of gold and scarlet, albeit covered with road dust. St. George, what did it matter? He paid them well to keep them richly clothed. He cared for them well enough, too, whenever he had not fallen into the mire of one of these dark moods.
Mire—Sir Mud and Mire, the saucy, little blonde had dared to call him. He could not wait to see that pert look turn to surprise when she learned who it was she had rudely scolded. Damn, but he would like to be the one to tell her himself, and yet, would that not turn her meek and mild and simpering like the rest of them? He felt a slight, unbidden stirring in his strong loins. By the blessed saints, his mere thoughts of the little witch were breaking down his body’s usual stony reserve.
He smiled again, the look lighting his grim face so that the waiting Hankin marveled at the change which came over his handsome, often austere, young lord’s countenance. Hankin cleared his throat.
“Aye, Hankin. If you are not too tired from that jaunt, tell the steward to fetch me some food and hot water for a bath. And, except for Lord Dagworth, have the others go on home. I will have no need for them until the morrow early. Then come back in and play me something to lighten this foul mood!”
Hankin’s eyes widened and he gripped the neck of his lute tightly. “Aye, Your Grace. At once.”
The door was left ajar as he hurried out, for Edward could hear the voices of his men below. Always, always their voices just beyond some door. At times he wanted, needed them, but not today. He leaned his powerful shoulder against the recessed windowsill and glanced down at his puffy right wrist. It had almost fully healed, although the swelling and stiffness were still with him. Next month at midsummer’s tournament, he would be ready.
“My liege lord, Hankin said you wished to see me.”
“Nick, aye, come in.” The prince’s shrewd eye appraised Nickolas Dagworth as he came across the wide stretch of solar to join him at the street window. A powerful man, a great fighter, and irresistible to the ladies. But Nick was older, almost twenty and six, and had already earned his spurs both in skirmishes with the fierce Scots and in a crusade with the Teutonic knights in Poland. It was ludicrous, really, that he, Edward, who had never really proved himself to his father or his people in anything but in being born Prince of Wales, should dare to command all these proved fighters, these true knights. And now the king had seen fit to send men of proved mettle like Dagworth or Calveley or Sir Thomas Holland on foreign missions to Flanders, while the prince of the realm rode here and there and here again and waited!
“Nick, I have changed my mind about the backgammon and dicing tonight. I need time to be alone.”
“Aye, Your Grace. Hankin said as much. But only until the morrow early, he said.” A battle scar on Nick Dagworth’s handsome face shone white against his brown cheek when he talked, as if flaunting itself, his scar of honor in battle.
“And then tomorrow, I have changed my mind about staying here for a few days,” Prince Edward went on. “We are off for Windsor. When I went to see the queen a week ago she still was not well from childbed fever. I intend to visit her again, I know not for how long.”
Nick Dagworth’s expression was properly compliant. All the prince’s men knew he favored visiting at his own castles and manors to the busy, demanding life on the fringes of his royal parents’ labyrinthine household. Since the prince had been an infant, he had been reared in households of his own, as were his two royal brothers after him.
“Aye, Your Grace. I shall tell them,” he said. “Windsor on the morrow. ’Twill be a lot of action there over the next few weeks with spring carryings-on and the summer jousting, eh?”
“Exactly. I mean to get this hand and arm back in perfect fighting trim to be ready when we need to teach the French their long-awaited lesson. St. George, I pray it shall be soon.”
“Soon enough, my lord prince. The peace treaty has but two years left. And in the respite all England grows stronger, even like your broken arm.”
“But did you mark the sports the commons played on the outskirts as we came in today? Stick ball, bladder ball—the king may have forbidden all sports but archery under pain of death in hopes of having a ready army or archers set to take the soil of France, but the people listen not. Damn, it does not matter. All that running out there will make them fit to charge forward and rout the French off true English soil when the time comes. I only hope it comes soon so those children in the street out there will not be grown soldiers then.”
Nick Dagworth nodded his dark head. “Aye, Your Grace. Our king has rightly claimed the land of France through his mother’s inheritance from her brother, the King of France. King Philip knows his claim—being merely first cousin—is not half so strong. And when we go to fight, my lord, I am certain, with your sire, you shall stand as our leader.”
Edward’s intense blue eyes sought Dagworth’s brown, hooded ones. True, there was some intent to flatter there, his men’s instinctive attempts to assuage these dark moods that plagued him. But they were full loyal and eagerly desired the chance for him to lead, to earn his spurs and thereby their undying loyalty through deed as well as birth.
“I will depart then, my lord. Pipe and Calveley will stay should you need aught else.”
“There was one other thing, Nick. The Fletcher lass, Allison, you brought here once last winter. Fletcher, 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 heir, though he cared naught for any of their political matrimonial dealings or their choices so far.
He drank deeply of the rich, red Bordeaux wine again, and the face of the hot-tempered, muddy, and wet maid at the quintain drifted before his inner vision as his mind seized on the words of Hankin’s song:
“That pleasant fever
That love doth often bring,
Lady, doth ever
Attune the songs I sing.
Where I endeavor
To catch again
Your chaste, sweet body’s savor,
I crave but may not taste.”
He seemed to float off as the words began again. Why, of all the maids or more experienced ladies he had been offered and of those few he had deigned to taste since he began to know the delights of a woman’s body, did this one snag his eye and tempt his heart so for a week now? He had beheld her but a little while, a few brief teasing words, one quick touch of her rounded hip through her stained and damp traveling dress when he sent her away.
He had never been one for such foolish courtly love games or ensnarements of the heart and mind. There were too many other things to be accomplished, to be dared in order to earn his just approval from others and from himself. But now, while his fighting hand healed just a whit more, why not the chase for him to catch again her “chaste, sweet body’s savor” he craved but did not taste?
A rapping at the door startled him, and he sat bolt upright, sloshing the last of his ruby wine from his goblet onto the table. Hankin’s strumming stopped and the musician moved quickly to open the door. Nickolas Dagworth’s grinning face appeared, and with a slight turn, he pulled the red-haired, wide-eyed wench Allison into view. Her eyes darted to the prince as he rose from the table across the solar, and her pink tongue wet her red lips.
“The, ah, lady you sent for, Your Grace,” Nick Dagworth announced and winked at him over the maid’s red head.
“Damn, I had almost forgot.” Edward frowned without meaning to as the girl approached and Dagworth hovered near the door. “I suddenly feel out of sorts, Nick. I thank the lady for coming, but I shall just be giving her a bauble for her pains and asking you to deliver her back.”
The girl’s voice was rather shrill when she spoke. Why had he not remembered that? “Oh, my dearest liege lord, I could make you feel better. I was so honored to be sent for—I thought you had quite forgot me. I could just stay quiet as a mouse and any desire you should have, I would be more than ready to fulfill.”
Her ripe breasts pushed against the rose-hued bodice of her clinging kirtle as she leaned forward to plead. Even from several feet away, she emanated a musky aroma which tantalized his flared nostrils. But her coloring was too brazen, her voice too strident, her manner both meek and servile at the same time.
“I think not, Allison. I meant to be alone tonight and quite forgot myself. Nick—”
Nickolas Dagworth saw the lay of the land in one quick glint of the steely blue of his prince’s eyes and he nearly swept the disappointed girl from the room while carefully masking the surprise on his own face. He would see to it, he thought, that this ripe, little hussy had a place to lay that lush body of hers this eve, for his wife was at Windsor with the court and his own townhouse but three streets away. Ambitious, changeable of mood, and strong-willed though he was, the prince was one he would never feel loath to take the leavings from.
Dagworth hurried the still-protesting girl down the stairs, and Hankin, the fine lutenist the prince always kept in his entourage, quickly followed them down.
“What ails His Grace now, man?” Dagworth whispered to the lutenist at the bottom of the steps, careful the girl would overhear no tales to tell from her brief visit here.
“I hardly know, my lord,” Hankin shrugged. “With anyone else, I would ha’ said love-longing, but not our prince. Still, it is as though he wanted to be alone to think on some lady he cannot have.”
“Holy St. Michael and his angels! Now that would be a change,” Dagworth chortled as he darted the pouting, waiting girl across the hall a smile and a wink. “It cannot be, Hankin,” he went on in a low voice. “I have been with him for months with no such lady in sight, and besides, our prince only deals with females in one quick way if they are not members of his own family. He always gets anyone he favors in a wink. Damn, but that would be rich!”
Nickolas Dagworth’s laughter boomed through the house, and the front door slammed below where Edward lay on his feather bed staring at the ceiling.
He silently cursed his friend for being so boisterously happy. And it annoyed him mightily that his mind taunted him with thoughts and pictures of the innocent blonde newcomer to court at Windsor. He was deeply malcontented with this life of waiting for something grand or dangerous to begin. He longed to control his world, his mind, his rebellious body, which longed for so much he might never have.
And that, curse it, included the blonde at Windsor. He must see her again, but she would get no soft words from him that she might enjoy his ensnarement. He would find her, and she would know that he was master of himself—and mayhap of her too.
With a groan, he dragged himself off the bed and went to the door of his room to bellow for more wine and for Hankin to come back and play some brave, marching melodies of war.
The afternoon of Joan of Kent’s eighth day at Windsor began much as the others had. Her brother Edmund had gone back to Liddell four days ago to oversee the early fruit harvest, and old Morcar had disappeared into the depths of the king’s vast array of servants at court. Queen Philippa was still abed recovering from birthing fever, so Joan had not yet been summoned to meet her royal legal guardian.
To suit the style at court, she had taken up embroidering on a standing frame, an occupation she detested. But all of Isabella’s friends embroidered and it was a time in late morning when they met to gossip and exchange juicy tidbits, or bonbons as they termed any hint of scandal about love intrigues of the court. Much to her disappointment, Edmund had been entirely correct that ladies at court did not play the lute much and had their own musicians. Joan’s dreams of singing and playing for Isabella or the rest of the royal family went entirely unfulfilled. She was so busy darting here and there with the others, and her time on her own was always with others about—in short, she grieved that her beloved lute went quite untouched while her detested, intricate e
mbroidery scene of a hunter chasing a fleeing doe in the forest grew apace.
Today, however, would be different. She would escape them all for a little while to be free and alone and with her lute. Isabella would be called as she had been lately to spend time with her mother, the queen, and for once Joan was relieved that the queen felt too sickly to receive others besides her family.
The lovely, lively demoiselles of Isabella’s entourage would surely be occupied with their own fickle worlds. Those ladies still did not favor Joan fully; she knew that for a certainty from their stares and whispers, but she was trying to win them over. Isabella had also introduced her to the king at dinner in the Great Hall two nights ago and to the young Prince John of Ghent, the second royal son who was visiting his ill lady mother. The king’s eyes had gone over Joan with obvious approval more than once—more than twice—until Isabella had pulled her off to meet someone else. She was surprised the king had looked so young yet so vital. His handsome face was somehow vaguely familiar, and she later reasoned it must have been some sort of family resemblance to the portrait of her long-dead father which hung at Liddell.
Aye, today, she would escape them all for a forest respite at the very edge of Windsor Forest beyond the walls, beyond the nearest private pleasure gardens. No people from the town could intrude there to bother its great herds of red, fallow, and roe deer. Lyle Wingfield, whom she had taken to flirting with to satisfy her new friends, had told her there was a little pond just a short distance beyond the postern gate where he would take her for a lover’s tryst but, of course, she wanted no part of that. Alone, with her lute to remember the gentle forest pond at Liddell—alone in a self-made forest Eden—that was all she craved.