The Reckoning - 3 by Sharon Kay Penman

sessions tended to be turbulent. The men with Edward were well-
Lu°Wn to him: Thomas de Clare, Erard de Valery, and William de
'gnan, Earl of Pembroke. The first was a friend, the younger and
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more amenable brother of the Earl of Gloucester. The second was a French knight who had the dubious distinction of having once saved Guy de Montfort's life. And the third was a kinsman, Henry's halfbrother and their uncle, a man detested by virtually every Englishman who'd had the bad fortune to cross paths with him.
They were all arguing with Edward, each in his own fashion Thomas reasoning, Erard joking, and William de Lusignan blustering
4 but Edmund knew none were likely to prevail. His brother might not ^et have a king's crown, but he did have a king's will. So imperial was his bearing, so regal and forceful his demeanor, that people sometimes forgot he was a king-in-waiting, forgot the frail, aging shadow who blocked Edward's emergence into the sun. It saddened Edmund that their father's last days should be so meaningless, that he should be reduced to the status of a caretaker king, or worse, a ghost lingering beyond his time. Despite his manifest failings as a monarch, Henry had been a loving father, and Edmund ached for his twilight impotence, while understanding why England yearned for Edward's reign.
Not that it had always been so. Edmund knew there'd been a time when men dreaded the day that Edward would be King. Edmund had no memories himself of his brother's lawless youth; he'd been just a child. But he'd heard the stories. Edward's escapades had gone far beyond the usual hell-raising expected of young men of rank. Galloping through villages at midnight, making enough clamor to awaken the dead. Appropriating wagons and abandoning them in cemeteries. Playing cat-and-mouse with the City Watch, getting drunk in
Southwark whorehouses. Edward had done it all. But then his games took on darker tones. The brawling was no longer in sport. There was an ugly incident at Wallingford Priory, where monks were beaten and wine casks looted. There were reports of women being molested. And then a young man who'd somehow incurred Edward's displeasure was cruelly mutilated by Edward's servants, at
Edward's command. And as these accounts were bruited about, people began to cross themselves and shiver at the thought of Edward wielding the manifold powers of kingship.
But such fears had beenfor the most partlaid to rest during those tumultuous months between the battle of Lewes, in which Simon de Montfort scored a stunning victory over the forces of the Crown, and the battle of Evesham. Held hostage while Simon vainly sought to win him as ally, Edward had contrived a daring escape, and brought Simon to bay after a campaign brilliant in conception, flawless in execution. Men had called Simon de Montfort the
"greatest soldier in Christendom." After Evesham, they began to say the same of Edward. It was Edmund's belief that the civil war had been for Edward a crucible, a trial by fire in which the sins of youth were burned away and his true
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manhood emerged from the ashes, as it was meant to be. For others, coward's renowned skill with a sword was enough; much could be overlooked in a battle commander of Edward's caliber.
As Edmund stepped forward, Edward was the first to glance up. "Well, now," he said, "if it is not the prodigal sheep!" The other men looked understandably baffled, for that was an old family joke, the result of Edmund's childish confusion between the biblical prodigal son and the proverbial lost sheep.
Edmund was not surprised that Edward had remembered; his memory was as sharp as his sword. He grinned, moved to embrace his brother.
Edward's bear hug took his breath. He was five feet, nine inches, the same height as their father, but Edward stood several fingers above six feet, so tall that men called him "longshanks." They were as unlike in appearance as they were in temperament. In childhood, Edward's hair had been as fair