If William owned to any fault for ignoring the majority who urged him to wait, it would not compare with what he heaped on the man who ought to be better acquainted with Hereward and the Fens than any others here.
Guy shifted his cramping jaw where he stood alongside Maxen who was more bloodied than most for what had been required of him and his men to defend the path kept open for fleeing Normans. Though hundreds and hundreds of lives had been lost to fire and pursuing rebels, many had been saved by his efforts and foresight, among the latter his release of horses stabled around the camp. Having fled encroaching fire, beasts seized by those in retreat had sooner delivered their riders distant from that shore.
“Almighty!” William barked and ceased pacing the dais side to side. The hand kneading the back of his neck stilling, he stared at the floor. Then he pivoted, lunged back the way he had come, and halted so near Taillebois surely every odor of his filthy, perspiring body singed the nostrils. “You said we were ready! You assured your king that as we were tenfold better prepared than before, we would prevail against that outlaw and his wretches. We were not prepared! What say you now, Taillebois?”
The warrior pressed his shoulders back. “We were prepared. Even had those miscreants infiltrated and learned of our plans—”
William gripped the front of his tunic. “You think they did not come into our camp—move amongst us in the guise of workers?”
So they had, Guy recalled when Vilda exposed the chain between her ankles, revealing to someone the state of her captivity. As suspected then, now more he believed she had lied about that.
Considering all the Normans slain on the night past, it so angered he sent heavenward, Dear Lord, the lies of women. Just like Elan, she—
He stopped there. In comparing her to his former betrothed, he wronged and dishonored her. And in begrudging her that lie and others, he made a hypocrite of himself. Were he in her position and Maxen had infiltrated the resistance, he would have protected his friend just as she had protected one of her own. Regardless of what he felt for Vilda—and now was not the time to think on exactly what had twice made him kiss her as if she were as desirable as once he found Elan—still they stood opposite sides. It might feel betrayal, but it was not.
At last Taillebois found words. The soles of his boots remaining in contact with the floor, though likely he strained to keep from being yanked to his toes, he said, “It is possible they infiltrated our camp. But even if they did, what happened on the day past should not have. We were prepared.” His heels came off the floor.
“Then why were my forces defeated?”
“Divine intervention, my liege!”
The king jerked. “You say I have displeased the Lord, and this His punishment?”
“Would that God made known His plans, but His ways are—”
“You preach what you have heard, not what you believe!” William thrust him back, once more strode the floor, halted, pondered, and with great strides returned. “If I have displeased the Lord, it is because you sowed, fertilized, and watered the seed.”
“Never, my king!”
“Never?” William laughed bitterly, then in a voice that had to strain the throat for how high the pitch, he said, “A witch to curse and denounce them. And look, already she is here, ready to rouse fear and superstition so sooner victory is yours.” A growl returning his voice to its natural depth, he continued, “Victory? Still they came. Still they burned. Still they slew. Still they laugh at me. And still I am here when I am needed elsewhere.”
He drew back a hand, but this time it was no fist he landed. He delivered a slap as if Ivo were a rebellious boy. And possibly for that humiliation, the warrior’s feet went out from under him and he landed hard on the dais.
Leaning down, William jabbed a finger in his face. “For making use of your witch, my conscience is battered, God’s displeasure earned, and I am made to look as if luck gained me England’s crown. You did this, and I will not soon forget it!”
He straightened and turned to others against whom he might now rage. Face livid, his mouth was twisted as if with disgust at seeing them in such disarray though he looked no better, having put his sword through many so he could live to fight another day—which already he was doing in his head, no doubt.
“Torquay!”
Guy stepped forward.
“Hereward’s cousin? Dead the same as the witch, or did she escape?”
“I know not, my king,” Guy risked a lie, aware some of his men—and certainly his squire—might suspect he had gone in search of her when he left them under Maxen’s command.
William cursed. “Though she was of little use, and less so after displaying her with the witch so she appear but another traitorous Saxon—” He snapped his chin around. “Your advice again, Taillebois!” When the man did not respond, the king returned to Guy. “Still, I would have liked to keep hold of her.”
To vent his anger upon? Guy wondered. Or merely in the hope of finding some means of using her against her cousin? Either way, it was good she had gone upriver. God willing—or was it Vilda willing?—she would remain out of William’s reach.
And yours, said a voice within.
“De Warenne!” the king called forth he whose advice should have been taken well ahead of Taillebois’.
That leader among leaders who, of all those here, did not stand at attention, straightened from alongside the hearth and strode forward. Halting before William, he said, “Under such circumstances as these, how might I aid my liege?”
“Find me another way onto Ely. And quickly!” The king pivoted.
“I believe I have one, Your Majesty.”
William came back
