not know as much about military tactics as your uncles, but that is one I do recognize-divide and conquer, no?” Henry grinned at being caught out, and she beckoned him forward. “Fortunately for you, your uncle Ranulf has been pleading your case, and he would have made a worthy lawyer, for he convinced me that Harry is a fitting name for an English king.”
“Thank you, Mama! And you, too, Uncle Ranulf!” Henry beamed at them both. “But you’d best write and tell Uncle Robert that you agree. I asked him last week, and he looked at me like I’d lost my wits!”
Henry had no time to savor his triumph, for a sudden commotion had erupted out in the bailey, demanding investigation. Darting across the chamber, he knelt on the window seat and leaned recklessly out the window. “Armed riders,” he reported breathlessly, “lots of them! And one of them is your friend, Uncle Ranulf-Gilbert Fitz John!”
Gilbert bore an urgent summons for Ranulf and Maude’s household knights. “You know, my lady, how Stephen tried to recapture Wareham Castle, but backed off once he saw how well defended it was. He has since moved into Wiltshire, and he is now at Wilton.”
Ranulf and Maude exchanged glances, for Wilton was only twenty-one miles from Devizes. “What does Robert think he has in mind? An attack on us?”
“Possibly. Earl Robert’s spies have warned him that Stephen has sent out writs, summoning his lords and vassals to Wilton. In the meantime, he has taken over the nunnery, is using it as an outpost whilst he builds a castle. He could then isolate Salisbury, since the river crossing is at Wilton, and threaten all our holdings in the west. But he has made a grievous mistake, madame, for Wilton cannot withstand a siege, not yet.”
“Robert means to take him by surprise?”
Gilbert nodded. “He sent me to fetch you, Ranulf, and as many men as Lady Maude can spare. He wants us to ride on to Marlborough and alert John Marshal. He and Lord Miles will join us there, and then swoop down upon Wilton without warning.” Gilbert smiled grimly. “God Willing,” he said, “it will be another Lincoln.”
Wilton was situated at the conflux of the Rivers Nadder and Wylye. It had a prestigious past, for it had once been a royal borough of the Saxon princes. It was still an important town, with a thriving market, the wealthy and renowned abbey of St Mary, which regularly drew pilgrims to its shrine of St Edith, and the hospital of St Giles, founded by a queen, the old king’s Adeliza.
But Stephen’s arrival had shattered the security and threatened the prosperity of its citizens. The market had attracted customers from all the neighboring villages, but no more, for few were willing to visit a town occupied by soldiers. The local tradesmen suffered, too, and their shops remained shuttered. The town’s Jews had been the first to flee, for they knew from bitter experience that they were the most vulnerable in times of upheaval. Some of the citizens-those with daughters or young wives-had sent their families to the greater safety of Salisbury. The dispossessed nuns had found shelter at the nearby nunnery in Amesbury. Most of the townspeople, though, had nowhere to go.
And so they kept indoors as much as possible, watched the slow progress of Stephen’s castle, and prayed that once it was done, he and his men would ride off and leave them in peace. But as soured as their luck seemed to them that June, it was about to get far worse.
The first day of July got off to a bumpy start for Stephen; he had an uncomfortable audience with the abbess of St Mary’s Abbey, and his charm and promises had not placated her in the least. Then one of their scouts reported that armed riders had been spotted to the north. Since the three closest castles in that direction-Ludgershall, Marlborough, and Devizes-were all hostile, Stephen dispatched the Earl of Northampton and a contingent of Ypres’s Flemings to investigate and engage the enemy if need be. He was just sitting down to dinner with his brother the bishop in the abbey’s great hall when a bleeding youth burst in, breathlessly gasping out his bad news as he stumbled toward them. The Earl of Northampton had run into trouble, for the force was larger than they’d expected. They’d skirmished with the enemy and were attempting to retreat back toward the town, but they needed help, and fast. By then chairs were being shoved back, trenchers pushed aside. Within moments, the hall had been emptied of all save the bishop, his clerics, and servants. The other men were already out the door, shouting for their horses.
Galloping out of the abbey precincts, Stephen led his men up East Street and onto the road north. It was a hot day, the sun at its zenith, for it was almost noon, and their horses kicked up clouds of dry, choking dust. Stephen could feel sweat trickling down his ribs, and even before the town receded into the distance, his head had begun to throb under the weight of his helmet. Fighting in the heat of high summer was almost as debilitating as a winter campaign. But he was usually impervious to the discomforts of weather, and he wondered if he was beginning to feel the aches and woes of age; after all, he was forty-seven now, and his youth was long gone.
“I’m getting too old for all this excitement,” he said wryly to William de Ypres. But the Fleming, who seemed as ageless to Stephen as Wiltshire’s eternal oaks, merely glanced over at him with a bemused frown, his every thought already focused upon the coming conflict. And then they heard it, the clamor of fighting up ahead. Spurring their horses, they charged forward.
They came upon a scene of chaos and impending catastrophe. Northampton and his men were in retreat, with their foes in close pursuit. “Holy Christ,” Stephen breathed, for he knew at once what he was seeing. This was no foray into hostile territory, no scouting expedition to test Wilton’s defenses. He was facing an enemy army, and even before he saw it, he knew whose banner they were flying. Only one man could have assembled a large fighting force with such deadly speed and accuracy-just as he’d done at Lincoln.
Ypres had come to the same appalled conclusion. “God smite him,” he swore, “it is that misbegotten hellspawn, Gloucester!”
Stephen hastily unsheathed his sword. By now Northampton’s men were almost upon them. Within moments, they’d been sucked into the battle. There was so much confusion that men struck down their own comrades by mistake, for it was no easy task, identifying the enemy in the midst of a maelstrom. Dust clogged their throats, stung their eyes, and the glare of the sun on the metal of chain mail and swords was blinding. Horses reared up, savaged one another as they collided, and when they fell, dragged their riders down with them. Stephen was soon splattered with blood. So far none of it was his…yet. But they were outnumbered, off balance, and if defeat was still inconceivable, it was also inevitable.
“My liege, you’ve got to get away whilst you still can!” William Martel had fought his way to Stephen’s side. “You cannot let them take you-not again!”
“He is right!” Although Ypres was close enough to grab Stephen’s arm, he had to shout to make himself heard. Knowing Stephen’s stubborn streak was apt to surface at the most inconvenient times, he was already anticipating opposition, and rapidly assessing the arguments most likely to convince. Scorning appeals to common sense or safety, he chose to remind Stephen, instead, that “You promised your queen! You vowed no more Lincolns!”
Stephen realized the truth in their entreaties, but flight was an alien instinct, for his code of chivalry had always been long on gallantry, short on realism. His hesitation was almost fatal; a shout went up, one of recognition. “Jesu, the king! There, on the roan stallion!” Ypres seemed almost ready to snatch at his reins, and the other man’s urgency prevailed over Stephen’s own doubts. Swinging his destrier about, he gave the command to retreat.
As Stephen raced his qualms and his enemies back toward Wilton, his steward flung himself into the breach, fighting a desperate rearguard action to save his king from capture, just as Robert had done for Maude at the Le Strete crossing. Because of William Martel’s courageous, doomed stand, Stephen and Ypres and the others were able to reach Wilton. By the time Robert had fought his way into the town, it was too late. Wilton was afire and Stephen was gone.
Robert refused to believe it. At his urging, his men fanned out through Wilton’s narrow streets and lanes, forcing their way into homes, shops, and churches. They concentrated their search upon the commandeered nunnery, and soon flushed out fugitives from the battle. They dragged out sanctuary seekers from the town’s eight churches, infuriating the parish priests. And they discovered coffers and chests for the plundering at the abbey, belongings left behind by Stephen and his men. But they could only confirm the worst of Robert’s fears, that Stephen had indeed escaped.
At the guildhall, Robert was timidly accosted by Wilton’s leading merchants, seeking to deter him from taking out his anger upon their town, in case he was so inclined. They were much relieved to find that he was not, although the damage done-deliberate or not-was already considerable; a number of the houses were in flames and his soldiers had engaged in some selective looting even as they pursued the hunt for Stephen.
