him so late in life. If he were God, he’d look askance, too, at deathbed conversions. No matter what the priests might tell him, piety must lose some of its lustre when it was not altogether voluntary.
It was Will who eventually brought Ypres the news that had set the camp in such an uproar. “Malmesbury Castle is under siege,” he reported breathlessly. “The castellan sent my father an urgent plea for aid, saying the town has fallen to Henry Fitz Empress, and the castle is like to fall, too, unless the king comes to their rescue.”
Ypres showed no surprise; he’d been half expecting something like this. “I see,” he said laconically, and Will looked at him in bemusement.
“Well, I do not,” the youth admitted. “It sounds to me like Papa and the others are going to abandon the siege, and I do not understand why. I thought Wallingford mattered!”
“It does. Its fall would be a severe blow to the Angevins. The trouble is, lad, that Malmesbury’s fall would be a great setback, too-for us. It is the only royal stronghold of note left to Stephen in the west. Losing it would hurt us fully as much as Wallingford’s loss would hurt Henry Fitz Empress.”
Will frowned. “Well…would not the loss of the one offset the other? We take Wallingford, let them take Malmesbury…check and mate.”
“Unfortunately, it is not that simple. You see, the king cannot afford to ignore a challenge to his authority, lest others see that as weakness. If he did, he’d risk losing more than Malmesbury.”
“But that is not fair! If Henry makes Papa come to him, we’ll forfeit all the advantages we would have had at Wallingford.” When Ypres nodded, Will edged closer.
“My lord Ypres…do you think my father is a good battle commander?”
“Indeed he is,” Ypres agreed, reassuring Will by how readily he answered. “He is one of the best I’ve seen.” Leaving unsaid his private conviction that if Stephen were not, his kingship would never have survived this long, given how inept he’d proved to be at statecraft.
Will hesitated. “What of Henry Fitz Empress? Is he a good battle commander, too?”
“Yes, lad,” Ypres said grimly. “It is beginning to look as if he is.”
Despite the wet, frigid weather and the washed-out roads, Stephen responded to Malmesbury’s peril with commendable speed. Accompanied by those barons still loyal to him, he approached Malmesbury from the north, along the Cirencester Road. His scouts had warned Stephen that the River Avon was running high, but by the time his army made camp, darkness had fallen over the frozen Wiltshire countryside, and it was not until the morning that he discovered the full extent of the flooding.
The February dawn was storm-darkened, sleet and gusting winds assailing the king’s men with unrelenting ferocity as Stephen rode out to inspect the River Avon.
The Tetbury branch of the Avon narrowed as it flowed around Malmesbury, and was usually as easily forded as any stream. Despite the warning by his scouts, Stephen was unprepared for the sight that now met his eyes. The heavy rains had transformed the placid Avon into a churning cauldron, wide and deep and dangerous. Spilling over its banks, it swallowed up adjoining fields, sweeping uprooted trees along on its current as if they were twigs. Occasionally the men glimpsed a half-submerged body: drowned rabbits and badgers, an exhausted, foundering deer, a dog’s bloated corpse.
Stephen reined in his stallion, gazing out upon the floodwaters with consternation. Beside him, he heard men cursing. The wind was stinging, iced with sleet, and they soon turned back toward their camp.
Fortunately, the wind muffled the sounds of altercation coming from Stephen’s tent, for he would not have wanted this dissension to be overheard by his soldiers. He was stunned by the resistance he was encountering; it had never occurred to him that he might have to battle Henry Fitz Empress, Nature’s fury, and his own barons, too.
But that was proving to be the case. Led by Robert Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, they were arguing against launching an attack upon Malmesbury. The Earls of Derby and Arundel were most vocal in Beaumont’s support, but the Earls of Oxford and Warwick were murmuring muted agreement, too. Only Eustace and the Earl of Northampton showed any zeal for the upcoming battle. William de Martel and Stephen’s younger son took no active part in the discussion; they would do whatever Stephen willed. And in the shadows, William de Ypres listened in silence to the discord swirling about him.
“It would be folly to attempt an assault upon Malmesbury under these circumstances,” Robert Beaumont insisted calmly. He had none of his twin’s flamboyance, had always been overshadowed by Waleran, and had seemed content that it was so. But in the years since Waleran’s self-imposed exile from England, Robert had come into his own, and his sober, reasoned argument was falling on receptive ears.
Sensing that, Eustace focused his energies and his anger upon Beaumont, saying scornfully, “Just why do you think we marched on Malmesbury, my lord? To admire the winter countryside?”
That would have provoked a heated retort from Waleran. But Robert retained his composure, even his manners. “We had no way of knowing that the river would be impassable,” he pointed out coolly. “Now that we do, it behooves us to reconsider. I do not see how it will advance the king’s cause to lose half our army in the Avon.”
“If Robert Fitz Roy had been so leery of getting his feet wet in the Fossedyke,” Eustace riposted, “there’d have been no Battle of Lincoln, now would there?”
“Would that not have been for the best?” his brother asked, not meaning to be sarcastic, blushing when several of the men snickered and Eustace glared at him.
William d’Aubigny interceded before Eustace could turn upon his discomfited brother. “I do not believe this is a battle we can win,” he confessed, glancing apologetically toward Stephen. “Even if we get across the Avon, the wind is coming from the south. They’d have it at their backs, whilst we’d be getting hit in the face with sleet and icy rain. It is asking a lot of men to fight under conditions like that. Would it not be wiser to wait for-”
“Wait for what-the spring thaw?” Eustace raged. “Or for some of you to find your misplaced manhood? That much time we cannot spare!”
Robert Beaumont remained coldly impassive, but the hot-tempered Earl of Derby took immediate offense, and Stephen was forced to intervene. “It is obvious that we’ll do no fighting this day. If we must wait upon the weather, so be it.”
The squabbling subsided, but the ill will remained. And nothing had been resolved. Stephen was shaken by what he’d witnessed. Eustace’s gibes to the contrary, these men were not craven. But neither were they eager to do battle on his behalf. Was it truly just the vile weather that daunted them?
“My liege.” William de Ypres had risen to his feet, groping for his cane. “These old bones stiffen up in cold like this. May I ask you to summon my attendants, so they can escort me back to my own tent?”
Stephen was astonished, unable to believe he’d just heard William de Ypres, of all men, complaining of his infirmities and asking for help. After a moment’s reflection, he realized what the Fleming was up to. “It’ll be easier,” he said, “to take you myself,” brushing aside other offers, for he knew that Ypres wanted an opportunity to confer with him alone.
Sleet was bombarding the camp, the wind tearing at the tents, making life miserable for men and horses alike. Stephen gripped the Fleming’s arm tightly, steering him around the worst of the muddy sloughs. But Ypres stopped just before they reached his tent. “My men are within,” he said, “and what I have to tell you cannot be overheard.”
“We’ve braved worse perils together than winter weather,” Stephen said. “What is it, Will?”
“I can no longer wield a sword for you. But I can still be your ears, my liege. That is the real reason I asked to accompany you on this march, so that my men might listen and watch and learn. They’re quite good at it, as well they ought to be, for that was what I hired them for. And what they have told me is that you dare not fight on the morrow. You have more to fear than a flooded river.”
“What are you saying, Will? That I ought to fear treachery?”
“No, I’d not go that far. Your camp is rife with rumors, though. Supposedly, some of your barons have been in secret communication with Henry Fitz Empress. There is no proof to speak of, but I’d not dismiss these stories out of hand.”
“Who?” Stephen demanded, and Ypres shrugged.
“I would that I had evidence to offer, but I do not. Should you mistrust Beaumont because he keeps aloof from your court? Or because he wed his daughter to the Earl of Gloucester? Was he seeking a wealthy husband for his girl? Or a link to the Angevin camp for himself? Or both? And what of that private peace made between the
