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alive. Perhaps she could travel to meet him. But would he want to meet her? He'd abandoned them, after all. But still.. .her father was alive. And for years she
    had not known. Her emotions were tempered by the pain in her mother's eyes.
    "Why did you not tell me?" she asked at last.
    "At first you were too young to understand. And when you were old enough, I knew it would change the way you thought of me. What young girl wants to hear that her mother was a wanton?"
    "Mother! You are hardly a wanton! It doesn't change how I think of you." But even as she said the words, she knew they were not true. All these years of being lectured to, of the repeated demands that her behavior be above reproach, and now to discover that her mother had been.. .what? Foolish? Wanton? Surely her mother had never been a wanton, Isabel told herself. But she also knew that her mother never considered the consequences of her actions. Perhaps she'd been like that as a young girl, plunging into situations without heed to the results, her emotions flaring and dying, hot and cold, as they still did now. And now she was bitter. But all those years.. .and to discover now, just as she was about to be thrust into the court, that she herself was illegitimate. That she was, like her grandmother, a bastard.
    "It doesn't," she said again, knowing that, like her mother, she was capable of dissembling. It was an unquieting realization.
    Her mother's eyes blazed. "But of course it does! It should! You need to be more careful, less trusting, than I was. And your great-grandmother before me, though hers was the lesser sin, for how does one say no to a king? She had no choice and no family to protect her. But I did.. .1 should have known better, Isabel. I should never have believed him. I brought on my own ruin with my unseemly behavior. I was wanton."
    "You were young. You were foolish."
    "I was indeed young, and far more a fool. And that is why I warn you, why I have always warned you about men. They cannot be trusted."
    "Would you ever have told me if I'd not been chosen as one of the queen's ladies? If you were not fearful now that someone like Lady Dickleburough would have told me.. .would you ever have told me yourself?"
    "I always meant to tell you. When the time was right. When you were old enough. I meant to tell you. But..." Mother straightened her shoulders. "But perhaps not, Isabel. It's not something I ever wanted you to know."
    "Are you.. .does he.. .do you hear from him?"
    "Occasionally. At first he sent money, but in the last ten years...nothing."
    "He has a wife, you said. And children."
    "Seven, last I heard."
    "Seven." Isabel was dumbfounded. "I have sisters.. .or brothers."
    "Yes. He has two sons older than you. And a daughter.. .just your age. And younger ones. I know nothing of them other than how many there are. Isabel, can you forgive me?"
    "Oh, Mother!" Isabel rushed to embrace her, then stepped away and gave her a tremulous smile. "Of course, Mother. It changes nothing. Of course I understand."
    "No, you do not. You cannot. Until a man blinds you so completely that you forget yourself, you will never understand. My prayer for you is that that day never comes. Never let down your guard. Trust no one."
    The first three days that Isabel served Eleanor of Castile were grey and cold. The fourth was brighter and the fifth clear and brilliantly warm. Isabel's mood matched the weather—gloomy and uncertain at first, then eventually clearing as she became more familiar with her new life and learned the tasks required of her. She'd been chosen to serve the queen. Of course she was delighted. She told herself that daily. Her resentment against the king still burned within her, but she kept her silence, biding her time. When she had been at the court longer, when the queen, with whom she'd not yet had a private conversation, knew her, when she had proved her loyalty, then she would broach the subject of Rachel's people.
    In the meantime, she had enough