maiden

Marguerite van Male is fourteen and a half. She is the heiress of Flanders. She dreams of a white knight who will take her to a castle in the clouds. But the knights she meets are all fools who cannot withstand her feisty character and her hot temper. One day her father decides who she will marry that summer ...
In her own words, Marguerite tells of her terrible fox hair that never stays in shape, of Willem, who is a master of the art of kissing, of Roderick, from whose jawbone she has knocked a tooth, of the monk Zannekin, who stinks like a pigsty, of the free city of Bruges with its creaking shop signs, of her mother's books with their yearning love stories, of the red sores on her future husband's face and of the black hatred she feels for her own father.