Read Online The First Princess of Wales by Karen Harper - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karen Harper
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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,
“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,
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