DON PEDRO'S CAPTAIN

Don Pedro's ""captain"" is none other than Edward, the Black Prince of England--the joke (ha ha) being that this noble fellow is reduced to military work-for-hire, needing money from Pedro the Cruel of Castile to underwrite the quest for his rightful throne. Edward is, we hasten to add, motivated not only by lucre but also by a firm belief in Divine Right and love of a good scrap with France, which is hacking Don Pedro's opposite number. Money talks, however, and the main concern of Edward & Co. soon becomes not who will win the war but when they will get paid, if ever, by the despicable Don. All of which is enlivened, though not much, by the love of Edward's friend Ashley de Lisle for Linnet, young English wife of Pedro's nasty henchman Ferdinand de Lara, acquired by rape at the age of 14. As you will have by now discerned from the absence of lurid asides, La Bennetts' latest, like its young heroine, is slim, clean, and hovering just this side of young-adulthood.