interested in tournament-style tilting. They wanted victory and vengeance and blood, and they spurred their stallions forward with wild yells, eager to sheathe their swords in enemy flesh, slamming into Stephen’s knights with enough force to send horses back on their haunches.
Lances were useless in close quarters, and were hastily flung aside as men struggled to draw their swords, to defend themselves against this murderous onslaught. The Disinherited knights bore in with savage single- mindedness, not seeking to take prisoners or collect ransoms, just to slay as many of their foes as they could, and Stephen’s astonished earls found themselves fighting for their lives.
It was not a fair match, men with nothing to lose against those with little to gain, and it was over with shocking abruptness. As Miles charged at a knight on a bay destrier, the horse shied away, and when it bolted, the rider let it go. And as suddenly as that, Stephen’s vanguard broke and ran. The earls made no attempt to halt the flight. Instead, they joined it, and within moments, the muddy slope was emptied of all but dropped weapons and sprawling bodies. As both armies looked on in amazement, Stephen’s men spurred their horses away from the field, racing toward the north with the Disinherited in triumphant pursuit.
Stephen was stunned; four of the five fugitive earls owed their earldoms to him. He could not believe they’d betray his trust like this, kept watching for them to rally their men and return to the field. But they were not coming back, Waleran and Northampton and Surrey, men of proven courage, fleeing like cravens, abandoning their king. All around him, he saw dismayed and distraught faces. Baldwin de Clare, flushed with shame on his brother Pembroke’s behalf. Gilbert de Gant, wax-white and wide-eyed, looking much too young to die on this Candlemas battlefield. William Peverel, whose loyalty Stephen had once doubted, and the citizens of Lincoln, who had as much to lose as Stephen did. He read the fear in their eyes, and said reassuringly, “The battle is not over yet.” Swinging about toward the distant forces of his left wing, he signaled them to the attack.
Ranulf’s ears were ringing, for men were shouting and cheering as if they were spectators at a rousing game of camp-ball. He was just as jubilant, but he also felt a small, unwelcome pinch of sympathy for Stephen, deserted by the very men whom he had most reason to trust. And then the shouting changed, and he soon saw why, for Stephen’s left wing was in motion, galloping straight toward them.
Ranulf unsheathed his sword, looked to Robert for guidance. But between them and William de Ypres’s oncoming knights were the Welsh. They were so poorly armed that Ranulf winced as they ran to meet the attack, and felt a sudden flare of anger at Chester and Robert, for putting them in a position of such peril. He wore a chain-mail hauberk that protected him from neck to knees, and a steel helmet with nose guard. The Welsh had padded leather tunics, legs and arms bared to enemy blows, small shields, and spears to deflect sword thrusts. If he feared for them, though, they did not seem to fear for themselves, charging forward with the same beguiling, mad bravado that had sent them splashing into the icy waters of the Fossedyke.
What happened next was horrifying to Ranulf, for William de Ypres and the Earl of York and their men rode the Welsh down. It looked like a slaughter, swords flashing and bodies going under the flailing hooves, men crying out to God in three tongues: Welsh, French, and Flemish. But as the knights and Flemings raced on, many of the downed Welsh were stumbling to their feet, apparently neither mortally hurt nor much disheartened, for instead of fleeing the field like Stephen’s defeated vanguard, some of them heeded Cadwaladr and Madog ap Maredudd and sprinted toward the Earl of Chester’s wind-whipped banner.
It did not occur to Ranulf to wonder why he was so concerned about the safety of these alien Welsh mercenaries. He had time only for a heartfelt hope that Gwern was among those hastening to join Chester’s center, not one of the bodies trampled underfoot by those battle-maddened war-horses. And then Ypres and York and their Flemings were upon them.
It was Ranulf’s first encounter with hand-to-hand combat, and it changed forever his view of war as a gallant, glorious adventure. This was an ugly, desperate, deadly brawl, a drunken alehouse free-for-all, except that he faced swords, not fists, with far more to fear than bruises or a bloodied nose. He’d been trained in the use of weapons, knew how to dodge and parry blows and keep his shield close against his unprotected left side. But so did the enemy.
Almost at once, he found himself crossing swords with a yelling youth in bloodied armor. Welsh blood, Ranulf thought, and jerked back just in time, as the blade slashed past his ear. The Fleming had mottled skin, a bright- yellow beard. His mouth was contorted, his breath coming in grunts as he moved in to strike again. Their shields thudded together, and for a moment of odd intimacy, they were near enough to see into each other’s eyes. His enemy’s were green. Ranulf would remember those eyes and that face, for this was to be the first man he ever killed. The Fleming looked shocked as Ranulf’s sword thrust through his mail, up under his ribs. Ranulf was shocked, too. He wrenched his sword free, blade dark with blood, and found that he could not swallow, had not even enough saliva to spit. He’d noticed before the battle that many soldiers carried small flasks or wineskins on their belts, had not understood the significance. He did now. Men who went too often into battle had more need of wine than any drunkard.
Some knights had gone down, for there were riderless horses milling about on the field, terrified without the familiar feel of their riders upon their backs, yet still hovering near the fighting. Like horses who’d balk at leaving their stalls even if the stable were in flames, Ranulf thought, and then decided he must be going mad, else why be thinking of stable fires in the midst of Armageddon? He had another clash with an enemy knight, inconclusive but not unsatisfactory, for they both survived it. He had just two objectives-staying alive and finding Robert-and when he did spot his brother, it was as he’d feared. Robert was being hard pressed on all sides, a tempting target for any man hoping to curry favor with Stephen.
Ranulf began to fight his way over. But he was still yards from his brother when a knight on a lathered black stallion careened into him, knocking his horse to its knees. The knight rose in his stirrups, sword poised to strike, and Ranulf swung his shield up to deflect the blow. The impact rocked him back in the saddle, and suddenly his shield was gone, the strap breaking as his stallion lurched to its feet. By then the other knight was attacking again, and this time his sword’s tip caught and tore away metal rings from Ranulf’s hauberk. Pain seared down Ranulf’s arm. He ducked low in the saddle as the follow-through whizzed over his head. But the tide of battle shifted then, swept his foe away, and he turned again to look for Robert.
Robert’s danger was even greater now. He’d been unhorsed, was struggling to protect himself from three determined opponents, one on horseback, two on foot. He’d not been forsaken by his household knights, but they were in trouble themselves, for William de Ypres knew how devastating Robert’s death or capture would be, and his Flemings were jostling and cursing one another in their eagerness to get to the Earl of Gloucester.
Ranulf put his horse into a hard gallop, and the game animal plunged forward, crashing into the Flemings walling his brother in. He had no clear memory of the next moments, a blur of clashing swords and grappling bodies. His stallion, teeth bared like a huge, savage dog, raked open the neck of a screaming bay destrier, and then they were sliding in the mud, going down, and as Ranulf hit the ground, the truth hit him, too, that they were losing.
The Earl of Chester’s trumpets sounded, his banner took the wind, and his men began advancing up the muddy hillside toward the royal standard of the English king. The whole of the battlefield was open to view, for the few trees growing upon the slope had been stripped of all obscuring leaves, were now barren winter skeletons rising against the pale February sky. They had not covered much ground before it became apparent to them all that their right wing was laboring and might not be able to hold.
Chester called for a halt. He prided himself upon making decisions that were swift and spontaneous, that “came from the gut,” and he knew at once what he must do. He had the blackest eyes Brien Fitz Count had ever seen, and as his imagination caught fire, they glowed like smoldering coals.
“Stephen can wait,” he said. “If we do not come to Gloucester’s aid, that accursed Flemish whoreson might well prevail. But if we join the fray, we can trap his men between us, and his Flemings will scatter to the winds, intent only upon saving their own skins. Stephen does not pay them enough to die for him, now does he? Then we can turn upon Stephen at our ease, gaining so great a victory that men will be talking of nothing else for years to come!”
Brien glanced back at that seething mass of men and horses, his every instinct urging him to go to the rescue of their beleaguered right wing. How could he do nothing whilst Robert went down to defeat and mayhap death, Robert who was his friend and Maude’s brother? “But what if Stephen then attacks us from behind? We could be the ones entrapped, not Ypres.”
“He’ll not have the chance, for even now Miles Fitz Walter must be on his way back to the field.” Chester’s teeth flashed white in his dark face, in a wolfish, avid smile that could already taste victory. “That Devil’s whelp and
