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royal
brothers, Lionel felt himself slighted and overlooked.
    “Damn them!” Lionel threw his wine cup across
the room, barely missing Isabel, who sat at the fireside with her
embroidery. Lionel flung himself into a chair across the hearth
from her and gave her a petulant look from under his thick
golden-brown eyebrows. “After all the things I have done for
William, for him to treat me so coldly now! How dare he?”
    Guy fitz Lionel calmly picked up Lionel’s cup
and returned it to the table, where he refilled it before handing
it to the sulky older man.
    “Brothers should be on good terms,” Guy said
quietly. “As you and I have always been.”
    Lionel snorted, gulping at his wine.
    Isabel turned speculative eyes on her
brother-in-law. Guy had gone to Normandy in the king’s company and
had returned much changed. She knew he was not yet quite fifteen
years old, but he had begun to look more like a man than a boy. His
face was harder, his jaw firmer than when she had first known him.
The resemblance to Lionel was striking, but there were already
indications that Guy would be even more handsome, his features more
finely modeled.
    “Guy is right,” Isabel observed. “Lionel, I
would advise you not to interfere between princes. Besides, you
know how changeable William is. He’ll tire of Henry and quarrel
with Robert again soon, and then his affection will light on you
once more.”
    “I don’t need your advice,” Lionel shouted at
her. “Stupid woman!” And he stormed out of the room.
    “Surely,” Guy said to Isabel, “You do not
approve of the…the … ah … friendship , between Lionel and
King William?”
    “No, of course not.” Isabel met Guy’s blue
eyes, so like Lionel’s yet so innocent and troubled in their
expression. “I don’t like it at all, Guy, but what can I do? Lionel
behaves as he pleases.” To her mortified astonishment, large tears
began to run down her cheeks. She was so accustomed to hiding her
emotions that she did not know what to do at first, but her
confusion lasted only a moment or two. She had learned during her
months at court to think quickly and to take advantage of every
opportunity, and she could not help noticing Guy’s distressed
reaction to her tears.
    “Please don’t cry,” he begged. “I didn’t mean
to pain you. Is there anything I can do to help you, Isabel?”
    “There is nothing anyone can do. He is angry
at the king for not paying more attention to him, but he cannot
express his rage to William so he spends it on me. Any day now I
will say or do something to make him so furious he will banish me
to Adderbury to make himself feel better. Then what will become of
me?” Pleased at the effect her tears were having on the young man,
Isabel blinked, letting a few more spill over her lids and down her
face while she tried to look suitably mournful.
    “Adderbury is not so bad,” Guy said. “I
rather liked growing up there.”
    “It is not the royal court,” Isabel sniffed.
She finally wiped away the remaining tears. As she looked at Guy,
it occurred to her that there was something he could do for her,
but if she told him what it was, he would run from her in horror,
and if Lionel ever found out it would not mean just banishment from
court but her death.
    “Whatever needs to be done,” Isabel said, “I
will have to do alone.”

Chapter 6
     
     
    Lionel was very drunk. He had been working at
it since noon and Guy was worried about him. Lionel in his cups
tended toward indiscreet speech. Near midnight Guy half-dragged,
half-carried his brother to Isabel’s room.
    “He was saying the most awful things.” Guy
dumped the nearly unconscious man onto Isabel’s bed and began
pulling off his shoes. “Lionel has made a powerful enemy tonight.
He called Ralph Flambard a mincing caitiff. He would have insulted
the king next, so I got him away from the banquet hall and brought
him here. I thought if he were in your bedroom, even if he did keep
talking that