Chapter XI: Book III: “the Oak of Mivoie” (5)

His mouth was open, the lips a red oval, empty for the instant of more words. It was not Harduin under the tree, but the man in the black harness who had stricken down Guymon in the woods. Croquart looked staggered, like some fat grandee charged in the pit of the stomach by a small boy’s head.

The repulse was but momentary. He leaped full six feet from where he stood, sweeping his gadded fist forward with good intent for the stranger’s head. Bertrand, every muscle on the alert, was quicker far than Croquart. The Fleming’s fist smashed the bark from the tree, leaving him bloody knuckles despite his glove.

“Good-day, Brother Croquart”—and a sword came to the salute—“they have offered five thousand crowns for your head at Josselin.”

The Fleming began tying the laces of his bassinet.

“And who are you, sir, that you are such a fool to think of earning the Sieur de Beaumanoir’s money?”

“I am a Breton, Brother Croquart, and that is the reason why I am going to have your head.”

XXXIII

TINTENIAC was still asleep upon his straw, nor did Tiphaïne wake him, but stood at the window and watched the drama that was taking shape under the apple boughs. The man in the black harness was leaning on his sword, waiting for Croquart, whose fingers fumbled at the laces of his bassinet. There was something familiar to Tiphaïne in this attitude of his, the attitude of a man whose heart beat steadily and whose eyes were quick and on the alert.

Croquart’s sword was out. He looked at the window where Tiphaïne stood, and guessed by her face that she did not wish him great success.

“Guard, Breton.”

They sprang to it with great good-will, Bertrand keeping careful guard, and never shifting his eyes from the Fleming’s face. He had learned his lesson off by heart, to let Croquart think that he had an easy bargain and that a few heavy blows would end the tussle. The butcher-boy of Flanders fell to the trick; he had met so few men who could match him in arms that he had grown rash in his methods, forgetting that guile is often more deadly than muscle and address. He had seen that Bertrand was a head shorter than himself; he soon suspected that he was clumsy, and not the master of his sword.

Bertrand gave ground, puffing and laboring like a man hard pressed. He let the Fleming’s blows rattle about his body harness, half parrying them with a concealed adroitness, continually retreating, or dodging to right and left. He was playing for an opening in Croquart’s attack, luring him into rashness, tempting him to hammer at him without thought of a dangerous counter in return. Croquart would soon stretch himself for the _coup de grâce_, thinking his man tired, and that he had trifled with him over-long.

Still Bertrand bided his time. He faltered suddenly, made a pretended stumble, tempted Croquart with an unguarded flank. Down came the Fleming’s open blow, given with the rash vigor of a man imagining the victim at his mercy. Bertrand bent from it like a supple osier, rallied, and struck out with a swiftness that caught Messire Croquart off his balance and off his guard. Steel met steel on the vambrace of the Fleming’s sword-arm. Tiphaïne had a vision of a lopped limb swinging by its tendons, of a falling sword, of a second blow heaved home on the Fleming’s thigh.

The loss of his right hand sent Croquart mad. He picked up the fallen sword, and flew at Bertrand like any Baersark, the one lust left in him to wound, to mutilate, and to kill.

The din of their fighting had wakened Tinteniac, and he had dragged himself from the straw to join Tiphaïne at the window. They stood shoulder to shoulder, silent, and half awed by the fury of these two men, who neither desired nor craved for mercy. Tinteniac had seen such battles before, but to the woman there was something horrible and repulsive in its animal frenzy, a reversion to the brutal past, when the lusts of man made him an ape or a bull. She shuddered at Croquart’s dangling hand, and at the mad biting of his breath as he lashed at Bertrand with his sword. Shocked by the brute violence, the physical distortions of the scene, she turned back into the room, unwilling to watch the ordeal to the end.

Soon she heard a hoarse cry from Tinteniac. The men had closed and gone to earth, and were struggling together in the long grass. Croquart was losing blood and strength, and in such a death-grapple under the trees the cunning of the wrestler gave Bertrand the advantage. Though the lighter man, he was tougher and more sinewy than the Fleming, and fit in the matter of condition as a lean hound who has worked for his food.

“By God, he has the fellow down!”

Tinteniac was biting his lips in his excitement, and shivering like a dog on leash waiting to be let loose upon the quarry. Bertrand, with a twist of the leg and a hug of the Fleming’s body, had turned Croquart under him and won the upper hand. The Breton’s fist flew to his poniard. Croquart, who knew the meaning of the act, kicked like a mad horse, twisting and turning under Bertrand’s body. With a heave of the arm he rolled half over, and, lifting Bertrand, struggled to his knees. Before he could shake the Breton off the misericord was splitting the plates of his gorget. Croquart, with a great cry, fell forward upon his face, dragging Bertrand with him into the grass, as a sinking ship drags down the enemy it has grappled hulk to hulk. Slowly the black figure disentangled itself from the red, rose up, and leaned for a moment against the trunk of a tree.

“An end to Croquart!”

The words came from Tinteniac in a half whisper, but Tiphaïne heard them where she stood in the deep shadow against the wall.

Croquart dead! And she seemed to feel the great breath of gratitude the Breton folk would draw for such a death. Guymon, Tête Bois, Harduin, and the Fleming, all had fallen to the sword of this one man who had dogged them through the woods past Loudeac. Tinteniac had taken his shield, and was holding it from the window so that the hero of the orchard should see the blazonings. Tiphaïne still leaned against the wall, watching Tinteniac and the blur of green woodland and blue sky above his head.

Bertrand was bending over Croquart and unlacing the bassinet that still bore the fox’s brush. He saw Tiphaïne’s face beside Tinteniac at the window. Her presence did not hinder him, but rather urged him to despatch the work in hand.

“Sieur de Tinteniac,” he shouted, “make me one promise and I give you back your liberty.”

The aristocrat made the man in the black harness a very flattering bow.

“The conqueror of Croquart can ask what he pleases.”

Bertrand, with Tiphaïne’s face looking down on him like lost love’s face out of heaven, broke the laces of Croquart’s bassinet.

“Sire”—and his voice needed no disguising—“I ask you and madame, your wife, not to leave that room till I have made an end.”

Tinteniac gave the promise, turning with a smile to Tiphaïne, who promised nothing.

“Granted, sir. And in return, will you trust us with your name?”

Bertrand had turned his back on them and was bending over the body.

“Sire, you ask me what I cannot answer.”

“We will hold it sacred.”

Bertrand shook his head.

Tinteniac pressed him no further, and Bertrand, forcing off Croquart’s bassinet, broke away the plates of the gorget from the bleeding throat. Picking up his poniard he slit the Fleming’s surcoat from breast to knee, dragged it from the body, and spread the stuff upon the grass. Two sharp sweeps of the sword served to sever the neck. The dead thing was wrapped up in the red surcoat, and the ends of the cloth knotted together.

Tinteniac watched all this from the window, mystified in measure as to what the man in the black harness purposed next. He had not noticed that Tiphaïne had left him, had lifted the bar from the staples, and was hurrying down the stone stairway into the hall.

Bertrand ran the blade of his sword under the knotted ends of the surcoat, slung it over his shoulder like a bundle, and picked up his shield. He gave a last look at the window, saluted Tinteniac, and marched off briskly into the orchard. His black harness had already disappeared beyond the apple-trees before Tiphaïne’s gray gown swept the grass.

She looked round her with a slight knitting of the brows, seeing only Tinteniac at the window, the white domes of the trees, and the headless body in its gaudy harness lying prone in the long grass.

“Where?” and her eyes questioned Tinteniac, who stroked his chin and appeared puzzled.

“Our Breton champion has left us with our liberty.”

“Gone?”

“Like a beggar with a bundle. Let the man alone. He has his reasons and the advantage of us.”

“And yet—”

Tinteniac laughed.

“The woman in you is inquisitive,” he said.

Tiphaïne went a few steps nearer to Croquart’s body. It seemed difficult to believe that this lifeless, weltering thing had raised in her but an hour ago all the passionate hatred that great love of her home land could inspire. Now that it was mere carrion she conceived a scornful pity for the thing as she recalled the man’s arrogance, his bombast, his supreme and coarse self-adoration. Truly this was the proper rounding of such a life, to be bred a butcher, fattened with the blood of a noble province, and left a mere carcass for the crows and wolves. She turned from Croquart’s body with a sigh half of pity, half of disgust.

Tinteniac watched her from the window, his mind moved by the same reflections, the religious instinct in him pointing a moral. In the distance he had seen a figure on a horse pass through the morning mists in the meadows and vanish into the sun-touched woods.

“Our Breton has gone,” and he lifted up his shield, “I would have given half that ransom to have had a glimpse of his face.”

Tiphaïne looked at him with eyes that mused.

“Why should he have deserted us?”

“I am no reader of riddles. And our plans? What are they to be?”

“I am thinking of your wounds,” she answered.

“They are nothing. This fellow has given me new strength. Shall we still say, ‘to Josselin’?”

“Thanks, sire. I remember that I have the truth to tell.”

XXXIV

NOT a league from the Breton homestead, where Croquart the Fleming had made his end, the gyron of Geoffroi Dubois, vert, a bend between two buckles argent, came dancing along the road from Loudeac. With Dubois were Carro de Bodegat and some score more who had sworn on the crosses of their swords to overtake Croquart before he could find sanctuary with an English garrison in the west. By luck they had struck upon his trail near Loudeac where the fox’s brush and the red surcoat had been seen, and recognized; and at Loudeac, also, Dubois had found Tinteniac’s men-at-arms and the La Bellière servants, ready to affirm on oath that the Fleming could muster at least a hundred men. Dubois and his gentlemen had wasted no time scouring the country towards Morlaix, and doubtless they would have won the credit of taking the Fleming’s head had not the man in the black harness been more forward in the adventure.

Geoffroi Dubois and Carro de Bodegat were pushing on with their troop at a brisk trot that morning, when the very fellow who had cheated them of the prize loomed up against the sky-line, on the crest of a moor. The morning sun shone in Bertrand’s eyes, and he was seen by Dubois’s men before he caught the flutter of their pennons down in the hollow where the moorland touched the woods. Half a dozen riders had broken away to right and left, and were cantering over the heather to make a capture certain.

Bertrand showed no concern at the measures taken to secure the pleasure of a parley with him. He reined in his horse to a walk, and approached Dubois’s troop, reading their pennons and the devices upon their shields. If the green gyron of Dubois did not please him hugely, the tawny and blue of De Bodegat’s pennon was even less welcome to Bertrand’s eyes. These two Breton knights had been no friends to him in the Montfort wars. Dubois was a man jealous for his dignity, a good hater, and not over magnanimous or honest where his own interests were concerned. Carro de Bodegat had a grudge against Du Guesclin, an old wound, and an unpaid score. They would be ready to throw the troth-breaking at Mivoie in his face, the more so he thought now that he had forestalled them in the taking of Croquart’s head.

Bertrand, on his raw-boned horse, looked for all the world like a needy free lance riding from town to town in search of hire. The green gyron came to a halt on a hillock, Dubois, gentleman of distinction that he was, refusing to drag his dignity aside to catechise a fellow who made so indifferent a show. The humble rush-light should approach the baronial torch, and Bertrand, knowing Dubois’s nature, kept his visor down, and prepared to be hectored by the noble.

“Hallo, my man, you are on the road early.”

Bertrand saluted the Breton gentlemen as their tall spears gathered about him like the striding masts of as many ships. He had the red bundle before him on the saddle, and answered Dubois in broad Breton patois, posing as the common soldier in search of pay.

“God’s grace to you, sire, I ride towards Josselin; they tell me men are needed under the Marshal’s banner.”

Dubois studied him with the leisurely impertinence of a great lord criticising the patched clothes of a servant.

“So you go to Josselin, my little fellow, eh? Have you had news hereabouts of Croquart the Fleming?”

Bertrand looked stupidly at Dubois’s green plume.

“Croquart! To be sure, sire, Croquart is dead.”

“How! Croquart dead!”

There was a slight swaying of the spears like the swaying of tall ash-trees in a wind.

“Sire, if it please you I saw Croquart’s body lying unburied in the orchard of a farm-house not three miles farther west.”

Dubois was not pleased; nor were De Bodegat and the rest.

“Be careful, my friend, how you tamper with the truth. How did you know that it was Croquart you saw dead?”

Bertrand did not hesitate.

“Sire, by the fox’s brush.”

“Yes.”

“And the ugliness of the Fleming’s face.”

Carro de Bodegat, tempted to quarrel with the nature of the news, leaned towards Dubois, and pointed out the red bundle Bertrand carried on his saddle.

“I’ll swear the fellow is playing tricks with us.”

“Well, try him.”

“Let him open that bundle.”

Carro de Bodegat’s sharp eyes had picked out the gold thread-work on the scarlet cloth, and a patch of purplish ooze on the under side thereof.

“Friend, do you carry your food there?”

“Where, sir?”

“There, in that bundle.”

Bertrand held the thing up by its knotted ends.

“Devil take it, the cider bottle has had a knock!”

Bodegat pouted his lips, and sniffed.

“Do you carry your brown bread in ciclaton and your cider bottles in silk?” he asked.

“God’s mercy, sirs, what’s there to quarrel with in the stuff?”

Dubois exchanged a glance with Bodegat.

“Let us see what you have in that cloth.”

Bertrand made a show of hesitation.

“Open it, I say.”

“But, sirs—”

“Open it, or—” and at a sign from Dubois half a dozen spears were slanted at Bertrand’s body.

Persuaded, he fumbled at the knots, flung out his arm suddenly, holding the surcoat by a corner.

“Have your way, Messire Geoffroi Dubois. Look and see whether this is Croquart’s head.”

That which but an hour ago had held the conscious soul of a man was tossed from the red surcoat at the feet of Dubois’s horse. The beast reared and backed some paces. Twenty figures were craning forward in their saddles to get a glimpse of the thing that had half hidden itself in a clump of heather.

Carro de Bodegat was the first to earth. He threw his bridle to a trooper, and, picking up the Fleming’s head by the hair, looked at the face, with its closed lids and gaping mouth, and, turning with a sharp, inarticulate cry, held up the head before Dubois.

“It is Croquart’s.”

“Should I not know it?”

“Who killed him?”

“Bertrand du Guesclin.”

Bodegat turned sharply on the man in the black harness.

“And you?”

“I am Bertrand du Guesclin, Messire Carro de Bodegat. Has my face changed since I fought with you at Quimperlé?”

He put up his visor and let Dubois and the Bretons see his face. Many of them knew him; but there was no comradely cheering, no out-stretching of the hand.

Dubois had touched Bodegat on the shoulder with his spear, and they were speaking together in low tones, glancing from time to time at the man who had robbed them of Croquart’s head. Bertrand liked neither their looks nor their whisperings; the hedge of spears about his horse raised his impatience and filled him with distrust.

“Messire Dubois, I am waiting for that head.”

The pair ignored him, and still chattered together, their faces nearly touching, like a pair of lovers poking confidences into each other’s ears. Bertrand was spreading the red surcoat for the return of Croquart the Fleming’s head, watching the two whisperers with gathering impatience.

“We make a virtue of waiting,” he said to the three Bretons nearest to him; “these two gentlemen seem very enamoured of each other’s tongues.”

Dubois’s figure straightened suddenly in the saddle. Carro de Bodegat turned, with an unpleasant smirk hovering about his mouth.

“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, we have not finished with you yet.”

“So!”

“There is a matter which concerns us all.”

“Messire, I ask you to give me back that head.”

“Gentlemen, close round; I order you to arrest a traitor.”

Bertrand’s hand went to his sword. Carro de Bodegat had already seized his bridle.

“Bertrand du Guesclin, surrender.”

“Surrender! In God’s name, no!” and he struck at Bodegat with his fist, broke loose, and made a plunge forward to be free. Half a dozen men closed round him like Saracen galleys about a sturdy ship. His sword was struck down, the shaft of a spear thrust between the hind legs of his horse, bringing the beast to earth, with Bertrand pinned by the right knee. Before he could break loose De Bodegat and four others heaped themselves on him and soon had him helpless and flat upon his back.

“Off, fools!—I surrender.”

“Let him up, sirs!” and Dubois bent forward in the saddle, still holding Croquart’s head by the hair.

The men rose from him, and Bertrand, sullen and angry, scrambled slowly to his feet.

“Which of you calls me a traitor?” and he swung round and looked from man to man. “Answer me; I am to be heard. You, De Bodegat? By Heaven, you have not the courage!”

Dubois’s mounted figure, haughty and splendid with its opulence of armor and sweeping plume, moved forward and overtopped Bertrand with an air of towering and seigniorial strength.

“Messire du Guesclin, what of the Oak of Mivoie?”

Dubois’s horse overshadowed him, but Bertrand held his ground.

“Well, what of Mivoie?”

“You broke troth, sir.”

“And if I did?”

“You stand to be judged by any two of those whom you deserted; so run the Marshal’s orders. As for this head—well, it is Croquart’s, and it has been noised abroad that you were Croquart’s man.”

“I Croquart’s man! By Heaven, a lie!”

His sturdy scorn flew full in the face of Geoffroi Dubois. It was then that Carro de Bodegat stood forward, precise, courteous, and insolently suave.

“By your leave, gentlemen, I will ask Messire Bertrand du Guesclin a few questions.”

“Ask on.” And Bertrand held his head high and squared his shoulders.

“Come, sweet sir, why should we quarrel? You were not at Mivoie; good; and why?”

Bertrand looked Bodegat straight in the face.

“That is my affair.”

“You will not answer?”

“No.”

“Then we can conclude the reason—some slight sickness, a seductive soul in a tavern on the road. But wait, you have been at Pontivy, eh, with the Fleming’s men?”

Bertrand felt the coils of Bodegat’s cunning, but he was far too stubborn to slip through them with a lie.

“True; I was at Pontivy. Does that make me Croquart’s man?”

Bodegat smiled and gave a shrug of the shoulders.

“Oh, we had our spies there, messire; we are not fools. But bear with me; another question: Why have you beaten out the eagle from your shield?”

Bertrand’s sturdy figure quivered under the unruffled insolence of Bodegat’s pleased cleverness.

“That also is my affair.”

“Of course; these gentlemen will understand. You choose to ride abroad unrecognized. And, doubtless, messire, you were at the fight before Josselin town?”

Bertrand bent his head.

“You did not fight for us.”

“I fought for neither side.”

Bodegat and the listeners laughed aloud.

“Messire du Guesclin, you are a prudent soldier. And yet you had heard that Beaumanoir had offered five thousand crowns for the Fleming’s head.”

“I had heard it.”

“Five thousand crowns, good money, for striking off a Fleming’s head, perhaps while he was asleep.”

This last taunt brought Bertrand’s patience down. He sprang at Bodegat, only to be dragged back and to find a couple of spear-points at his throat.

“Messire Carro de Bodegat”—and he grappled with his wrath and conquered it—“these words of yours shall not be writ in sand. Ask the Sieur de Tinteniac whether Croquart the Fleming was murdered in his sleep.”

Bodegat bowed.

“The Sieur de Tinteniac and the Vicomte de Bellière’s daughter—the Lady Tiphaïne—where are they?”

“Where Croquart’s body lies.”

“And they know that Bertrand du Guesclin killed him?”

“No, messire, they do not.”

Bodegat made a pitying gesture with his hands. There was a grim yet ironical exchange of confidences among the esquires and troopers. Carro de Bodegat had entangled Bertrand in what appeared to them a web of treachery, greed, and double-dealing. They showed no surprise when Dubois ordered Du Guesclin’s hands to be bound behind his back, that he should be set upon his horse, and his feet tied under the beast’s belly.

He suffered the shame of it without a murmur, ignoring the derision and looking steadily at Croquart’s head, that Dubois still carried.

“Forward, gentlemen!”

And, getting to horse, they pushed on for the homestead where Croquart and his prisoners had passed the night.

XXXV

BERTRAND, bound hand and foot, rode between Dubois and Carro de Bodegat, a figure of flint. His eyes seemed to see nothing but the monotonous banking of the clouds across the western sky. Dubois and Carro de Bodegat had never a word from him. They thought him savage and sulky, a rough fellow with a temper of the more sinister sort, who was furious at having been brought so suddenly to book.

Carro de Bodegat and Dubois knew nothing of the agony of loneliness that wounded Bertrand’s heart, nor did they imagine that they were dragging him to a humiliation that he dreaded more than death. Bertrand had a foreshadowing of the ignominies that would soon ensue. In thought he saw himself standing before Tiphaïne, a disgraced man, a traitor, a breaker of solemn promises. He felt death in his heart at the thought of meeting those eyes of hers. What a hypocrite he would appear, what a mean, dastardly fool, whose honor was a mere drab to be debauched shamelessly for the sake of gold! Bertrand du Guesclin, bribed by the English not to fight at Mivoie! Inferences and facts were against him on every side. Robin, poor coward, had confessed nothing; of that Bertrand felt assured.

And now Tiphaïne was Tinteniac’s wife. Had he not seen them whispering together, lying on one bed, passing before him as lover and beloved? The bitterness of his predicament gave jealousy a second opening into Bertrand’s heart. Why should he bear all this for Tiphaïne and for Robin Raguenel, her brother, and what was Bertrand du Guesclin to the Sieur de Tinteniac’s wife, that he should die dangling on a rope to save her and her kinsmen from the humiliation of the truth? Surely his passion for self-sacrifice had made him mad, and he was throwing life and honor away for the sake of an imaginary duty.

Yet of such stubborn stuff was Bertrand’s soul that the fight was fought and won in him before his black horse had carried him a furlong. Like some old pagan martyr, he would rather drink the poison than confess himself a fool and recant from a philosophy that the world might class as madness. He had chosen his part, and it should serve him to the bitter end. Every child in Brittany might be taught to curse him as a traitor, but confess himself beaten—that, before God, he would not do.

Bertrand could meet death, but to meet Tiphaïne—that was another matter. The infinite refinement of such a humiliation, the pitiful injustice of it, modified his pride in that respect alone. What need was there for Dubois and De Bodegat to make a mock of him before her face? If they had any pity, any touch of chivalry nearer their knightliness than the tinctures on their shields, they would spare him this ordeal and let him make his end in peace. At least he could ask them this last favor. They could but refuse it, and then he would know the worst.

“Messire Dubois,” and he opened his lips for the first time since they had bound him upon his horse, “you have called me a traitor. Is my treachery so great that I cannot speak to you as man to man?”

The Breton lord regarded him with the serenity of conscious virtue.

“Courtesy is part of our religion, Messire du Guesclin,” and his sufferance made Bertrand long to smite him across the mouth.

“I ask no great favor.”

“Let us hear it, messire.”

“Quick judging, a long rope, and no witnesses.”

Dubois elevated his eyebrows and returned Carro de Bodegat’s significant smile.

“You do not appear to expect an acquittal from us,” he said.

“I expect nothing, messire, and ask for nothing, save this one thing.”

“Well, and that?”

“That the Sieur de Tinteniac and madame his wife may neither hear my name nor see my face.”

Dubois looked curiously at Bertrand, as though considering what his motives were.

“You have a reason for this.”

“Be easy,” and Bertrand grimaced like a man in pain; “they have had no wrong from me. I tell you, sir, that it is a mere whim of the heart. The Lady Tiphaïne would not rejoice to see me as I am, and for myself I would rather shirk the meeting.”

Carro de Bodegat laughed maliciously.

“Messire du Guesclin, I feel for the lady.”

“Ascribe nothing to her, sir, but sorrow at seeing me condemned as a hypocrite.”

“True chivalry, messire; we can serve a petticoat when we cannot serve a country. What is your judgment, Brother Dubois?”

The elder man reflected before committing himself to an opinion.

“The thing seems reasonable, since it shows consideration for a lady. Then you ask this in all seriousness, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin?”

“Hang me as high as Haman, only grant this favor.”

Dubois smiled, like a man not sorry to avail himself of an advantage. Neither he nor De Bodegat had any love for Du Guesclin, and Tinteniac, more scrupulous, might seize the authority and spoil their retaliation.

“Well, sir, how would you contrive it?”

“Messire Dubois, here are plenty of trees.”

“Trees! But we have to try you first.”

“Try me!” and Bertrand gave a grim laugh; “please dispense with such a formality.”

“We are honorable men, messire.”

“I do not doubt it. Well, if you must drag me to this place you need not have me thrown like a bundle at Madame Tiphaïne’s feet.”

Dubois watched him narrowly.

“In the orchard, hidden by the trees, there is a little hovel that the farm-folk use for tools and wood. Throw me in there, and say nothing. I assure you that for this consideration I will speak well of you in heaven.”

Bertrand’s grim quaintness had its effect upon Dubois.

“Let it be as you wish,” he said; “the Sieur de Tinteniac and his wife need not be told that we have a prisoner.”

“Nor who that prisoner is. My heart’s thanks to you. One last word.”

“Well?”

“I am not a kneeling creature. I shall be ready to be hanged at your earliest chance.”

And Bertrand, having won his point, shut his mouth obdurately and said no more.

Before long they rode down into the valley and saw the apple-trees shining like spray blown from the green billowing hill-side. To Bertrand, who had ceased to look for good in life, those Breton apple-trees seemed to pile their blossoms as for a bridal about the place where Tiphaïne had slept. Great deeps of thought were uncovered in him as he remembered her as a child, taking his part against Dame Jeanne and young Olivier. The sinuous glitter of her hair seemed to have flashed through the strange darkness of his life like some magic river casting a spell through the heart of some mysterious land. He recalled his old hopes and desires, the ambitions that he had thrown aside, his pride of strength and pride of sinew, the ill-luck that had dogged him even to the last. Well, he had kept troth and played the man, even though Tiphaïne might never learn the truth and think of him as a worthless beast whom in her youth she had been foolish enough to pity.

Hardly two hours had passed since Croquart’s death when Geoffroi Dubois crossed the meadows and saw the dark thatch of the homestead sweeping above the orchard trees. True to his promise, he sent Carro de Bodegat forward with the main troop, while he loitered to lodge Bertrand in the hovel that he had chosen for his prison. The rough door was closed on Du Guesclin, and three men-at-arms left on guard to prevent an escape. Bertrand, _sans_ sword and dagger, with roped wrists and a heavy heart, sat down on some fagots in a dark corner and set himself to face the last renunciation he would make in dying to complete a lie.

Up at the homestead Tiphaïne was leading her palfrey to drink at the pool when the thudding of hoofs sounded over the meadows. Carro de Bodegat and his men came into view. Tinteniac, who was in the goodman’s parlor, stripped to the waist and washing his wounds with water Tiphaïne had brought him in a great earthen pitcher, had heard the sound of armed men riding, and, going to the window, recognized De Bodegat by his pennon.

Covering himself with his surcoat, he waved to Tiphaïne, whom he could see standing beside the pool.

“Friends!” he shouted; “have no fear!”

Carro de Bodegat and his Bretons tossed their spears to her as they rounded the orchard at a trot. Two and two they streamed into the deserted yard, De Bodegat riding forward to where Tiphaïne stood under the green boughs of a willow.

“Madame,” and he bent his plume to her, “we had the good news on the road this morning.”

“Croquart is dead, messire.”

“Thank God for Brittany—we have seen his head.”

XXXVI

WHILE Dubois, Bodegat, and the rest poured into the orchard to gaze at Croquart’s headless body, Tiphaïne led back her palfrey to the house, where the horses of the dead Fleming and his men still waited in the hall to be fed and watered. The beasts turned their heads to look at her, their eyes seeming to ask what had befallen their masters in the night. Croquart’s own horse was strangely restless and uneasy, ears laid low, the whites of the eyes showing, and an inclination to kick very evident in his heels.

Leaving her palfrey stalled in the dirty hall, where the embers of the fire, harness, and baggage littered the floor, she mounted the stairs to the room in the gable, meeting Tinteniac at the open door. His wounded shoulder had given him a ludicrous but painful contest with his clothes, and he appealed to a woman’s hands for the righting of his wrongs. There was a characteristic distinction in the way the pale and imperturbable patrician stood to be brooched and buckled without squandering a fragment of his dignity. Head held high, the sunlight touching the silver in his hair, a sensitive smile softening his mouth, he felt a youth’s tremor at the nearness of her hands, and feared to look at her because she seemed so fair.

“The flies are buzzing about the dead dog,” and he pointed to the Bretons who were crowding and elbowing about Croquart’s body.

“How pitiful his boastings seem to me now!”

“Yes, mine was the last notch he cut upon his spear.”

Tinteniac seemed the grand seigneur again—tall, gracious, a man whose face had the quality of command. Tiphaïne felt that his manner had changed towards her, as though he were too honorable to prolong their supposed intimacy, however pleasant the playing of the part might seem. And yet she discovered more than mere gentleness in his eyes towards her, a posture of his manhood that betrayed homage and desire.

She fastened the brooch at his throat, and stood back from him, looking aside towards the window, where the iron men trampled the long grass under the orchard trees.

“Sire, I have much to thank you for.”

“The thanks should come from the man whom you have trusted.”

“Well, we will exchange our gratitude.”

“And I can swear to being flattered by the bargain.”

He bowed to her, and for the moment she felt herself a mere ignorant girl, uneasy and half abashed under the eyes of a courtier whose manners were too splendid. Tinteniac’s stateliness made her sincerity seem incomplete. It was difficult to repulse a man whose methods were without aggression.

“Sire, I had almost forgotten that I have your ring.”

“My ring?”

“Yes,” and she slipped it from her finger and let the circle of gold lie in her white palm.

Tinteniac looked at her, yet without a stare, and was slow in the stretching out of his hand.

“Can you not keep it?”

Their eyes met, but Tiphaïne’s were the first to fall.

“Sire, I cannot.”

“As a remembrancer?”

“No, for it might be unjust.”

A man of forty may be fired with all the inspired impulses of youth. We live in circumstances and are as old as the freshness of our sensibility to music. The fine candor of Tinteniac’s face warmed to the feelings that his heart had cherished.

“I will not trade upon the trust that you have given me. Yet—these few days—”

“Sire,” and he saw that she was troubled, “I have not the heart to hear this from you now.”

“Then—I may wait?”

“I remember that my father waits for me. For his sake I promise nothing for myself.”

She still held the ring out to him, looking bravely in his face, half hating the sincerity that made her hurt him for the sake of truth.

“Your pardon,” and he took the ring.

“Sire, do not misjudge me.”

“You are too honest, child, to be misjudged.”

His fine spirit of chivalry and self-restraint rescued them both from the discomfort of the moment. He slipped the ring upon his finger, and seemed ready to forget what he had asked.

“There are other things to be remembered,” and he looked thoughtfully at the orchard trees. “What are your wishes as to the secret you have given me to share?”

His self-repression pleased her, with its immediate turning to interests that were hers alone.

“You seem to think for me. I feel my lips close when I see these men.”

“Such a truth is not easy in the telling.”

“It is not that I am afraid. But there are memories—and thoughts.”

“That the best of us hold sacred. Do I not understand? Let the truth wait till you meet Beaumanoir at Josselin.”

Her eyes thanked him, for she was loath to expose her pride to these grim men who were sating their blood-lust with staring at a carcass.

“You do not think me a coward?”

“No, God forbid! Who are Dubois and Carro de Bodegat that you should show your heart to them?”

To Tinteniac her reluctance was natural enough, for when a man loves, his sympathies are quickened till he can behold beauty in the simplest workings of the soul. He left Tiphaïne in the little solar, and went to greet Dubois and his brother Bretons, who were crowding from the orchard into the farm-house. So hot was the blood-hate in them that they had stripped Croquart’s body of its armor, hacked off his feet and hands, and driven a stake through the naked torso. The dead Fleming’s fingers were being treasured like ingots of gold, and some of the rougher spirits of the troop called for the slaughtering of Croquart’s horse.

“Down, you mad dogs!” and Dubois saved the animal from their swords, and had his arm badly bitten as he held the beast’s bridle.

The men laughed at their leader’s savage face, and at the way he abruptly reconsidered his opinion.

“The beast has the master’s devil in him,” and he suffered the rough troopers to have their way.

Tinteniac was seized on when he came down into the hall. The men kissed him like great children, for he had been the idol of the Breton soldiery since the combat at the Oak of Mivoie. He broke free from them at last and joined Dubois, who was sitting snarling on a saddle while one of his men rubbed ointment into the horse bite on his arm.

“The result of mistaken mercy, sire,” and he grimaced with the smart of it. “Steady, you fool, steady! you are not scrubbing the hall floor.”

Carro de Bodegat joined them, smiling ironically at Dubois’s oaths and distortions of the face.

“Courage, brother, courage; the son of a mare has as much gratitude as the son of a woman. Is it true, sire,” and he turned to Tinteniac, “that you do not know the name of the bully who pulled down the Fleming here in the orchard?”

Tinteniac confessed that he was as ignorant as the rest, nor did the two knights enlighten him, since the spirit of jealousy strengthened the promise they had made.

To Tinteniac the news of the rout at Josselin explained Croquart’s inordinate hurry to put twenty leagues between him and Pontivy. Dubois and De Bodegat were ready with many questions, and he in turn had much to hear from them. On neither side was Bertrand’s name mentioned; Tiphaïne’s wishes were tending towards his doom.

In a few minutes they had made their plans, Dubois still swearing at the teeth-marks in his arm. Tinteniac, who felt his wounds, desired them to let him rest for a day, and neither Dubois nor Carro de Bodegat demurred at the suggestion. The delay would enable them, in the name of Justice, to vent their ill-humor upon the traitor who had cheated them of Croquart’s head. Dubois had left the bloody trophy hidden in the hovel where Bertrand sat and brooded on the past. The three guards had been ordered to let no one pass, and the whole troop warned against divulging Bertrand’s name.

Tinteniac, knowing nothing of the prisoner in the hovel, returned to the solar to rest on his bed of straw.

It was past noon, and Tinteniac lay asleep, when Tiphaïne, weary of the four walls of the room, went out alone into the orchard. Geoffroi Dubois and Carro de Bodegat were sitting as judges over a wrestling-match that the Breton soldiery had started in the yard. She slipped out almost unnoticed, catching a glimpse of two sturdy troopers hugging each other in the middle of the ring. The white-topped trees and the deep aloneness of the rich green grass were very pleasant to her, for with Croquart’s death and the return of freedom she had a great hunger for her home and for the face of her father, whom she had left in sorrow and unrest. The human consciousness, like the sky, is rarely untraversed by a cloud, the azure days serving only to part one gray noon from another. And to such a heart as Tiphaïne’s solitude called from the deeps of nature where the warm sap spread into the quiet faces of the flowers.

The Breton soldiers were shouting and exchanging wagers in the yard, their loud voices bringing discords where she sought for silence; nor was the orchard bereft of horror, seeing that Croquart’s body, naked and mutilated, lay near the house, with a stake trust through it. Tiphaïne could see the glint of the golden meadows sweeping towards the arches of the trees. It would be good, she thought, to wander away into the fields, to let her gown sweep the waving grass, to watch the larks soar, and to hear them sing.

The desire led her towards the hovel where Bertrand waited for the end, the three guards gossiping together and leaning on their spears. A mere passing curiosity stirred in her like a thought suggested to a wayfarer by some grotesque tree beside the road. She had no vision of Bertrand sitting upon the pile of faggots, his head bowed over his roped hands.

The three men saluted her, and she turned aside to ask why Messire Geoffroi Dubois took such trouble to guard a mere stack of sticks.

“A prisoner, madame,” said the tallest of the three.

“A prisoner?”

“A common thief we picked up on the road from Loudeac. Messire Dubois will give him the rope anon.”

Tiphaïne passed on, and yet the soldier’s curt and casual words had robbed the meadows of half their restfulness. She found herself repeating those same words: “A common thief. Messire Dubois will give him the rope anon.” It was as though her sorrow had opened the heart of pity to all the world. Death and the pathos of it seemed everywhere—in the woods and fields, in the monk’s cell, and in the castles of the great. Tiphaïne’s heart was full of that deep tenderness that dowers the meanest life with significance and the power of awaking pity. She seemed to hear the whimpering of this poor wretch, caged like an animal awaiting the butcher’s knife. What though he was “a common thief,” a rogue, an outcast, her soul had found something on which to pour the divine dew that God gives to those who suffer. The purpose came to her as she wandered slowly over the fields. One man’s life should be spared that day; she would beg it of Dubois before the sword could spill more blood.

As for Bertrand, he had heard Tiphaïne’s voice, and sat shaking as with an ague, his eyes staring vacantly at the wattled wall of the hovel. It seemed to him of a sudden that he was less strong than he had believed, for the soul in him cried out for life and the joy of being. In a day he would have followed Croquart to the awe of the unknown, the woman for whom he had suffered knowing nothing of his end. The loneliness and the bitter smart of it made him for the moment like a forgotten child. Great tears were wet upon his cheeks, and for once no angry hand dashed them impatiently away.

XXXVII

IN a green corner of the orchard, shaded towards the west by a bank of brushwood, Bertrand stood for his last trial before those Bretons who had hunted Croquart from the walls of Josselin. Behind him the brown gold of the meadows rippled like water at sunset, to touch the gnarled trunks of the flowering apple-trees. A pile of faggots had been thrown down to give Messires Geoffroi Dubois and Carro de Bodegat a seat; their esquires were grouped behind them, bearing their masters’ shields and spears.

Bertrand watched the faces of these two knights; Dubois, brawny, ponderous, black faced and round shouldered as a bear, less to be feared than his sleek and mercurial brother in arms. Carro de Bodegat’s face, narrow and aggressive, with its sharp brown beard and rapid eyes, reminded Du Guesclin of the face of some velvet-capped merchant who had learned to deal with all the greedy littleness of the great. Bertrand hated the man for his high-nostrilled unction, for his insinuating smoothness that was most treacherous when most suave. He knew Carro de Bodegat’s nature too well to hope much from him in the way of magnanimity. He was a creature of courtly astuteness and polished persiflage, who would use a dagger where an honest man would have used a sword.

Carro de Bodegat assumed the authority, Dubois lolling on the faggots, and nursing the arm that Croquart’s horse had bitten.

“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin. Stand aside, gentlemen, and let our friend have room.”

To Bertrand the circle of steel-clad figures seemed like as many pillars of gray granite set up by the folk of old upon the wind-swept Breton moors. The faces were as so many masks, curious and distrustful, crowding upon him like the threatening faces of a dream. He felt as though they kept the air from him, and confused his thoughts with the intentness of their many eyes.

From this mist of faces the countenance of Carro de Bodegat disentangled itself, keen and thin—an axe shining among so many billets of wood. It was with De Bodegat that the ordeal lay, and Bertrand braced himself for the touch of the glowing metal.

“Well, messire, what are we to say of the troth-breaking at Mivoie?”

“Why ask that question? It has been asked and answered.”

The half smile in the man’s eyes, the aggressive tilt of his peaked chin, made Bertrand hate him as he had never hated living thing before. The conviction weighed on him that he was like a sullen boy doomed to be outwitted by this shrewd and cold-brained man.

“Then Messire Bertrand du Guesclin will not accuse another gentleman of treachery?”

“I accuse no one, messire.”

“Nine-and-twenty of us fought at Mivoie, and Guillaume de Montauban took the vacant place.”

“You are well-informed, sir; you say I was not there. Why ask me all these questions?”

“Because,” and De Bodegat hugged his knee, “you cannot answer me, messire, and you show these gentlemen how to escape a lie.”

Bertrand angrily tightened one wrist against the other, so that the straining thongs twisted and bruised the sinews.

“Then, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, we can color our own conclusions?”

“Well?”

“That you took bribes from Bamborough and the English not to fight at Mivoie.”

Bertrand looked at the apple-boughs, and answered:

“That is a lie.”

The merest child could have seen that he was suffering, yet for De Bodegat there was an ungenerous gratification of the ego in prolonging the humiliation of a man who once worsted him in a duel.

“And yet, sir, you were with Croquart at Pontivy?”

“I have already answered that.”

“And you had battered the bearings from your shield.”

“Well, you have seen it.”

“So we may say that you loved the Fleming because of the blood-money that had been offered for his head.”

A few short, sharp laughs, like the yapping of dogs, betrayed the temper of those to whom Carro de Bodegat appealed. Bertrand looked round him with a defiant lifting of the head. His eyes gleamed out at these countrymen of his who seemed so ready to condemn and to disgrace.

“Messires, I tell no lies, neither do I ask for mercy. If I am a traitor—and God himself cannot prove that true—give me my quittance and make an end.”

Carro de Bodegat turned to Dubois, and made some pretence of deferring to his brother’s judgment, feeling perfectly assured that justice would meet with no obstruction in that quarter. It was sufficient for Messire Geoffroi Dubois that his authority had been consulted. A straightforward and rather savage soldier, he had no manner of doubt as to Bertrand’s guilt, and elected to have him hanged on the nearest tree.

Carro de Bodegat called one of his esquires forward.

“Gretry, where is this gentleman’s sword?”

A man-at-arms had taken charge of it, and delivered the sword to Gretry, who brought it to his master. Carro de Bodegat unsheathed the weapon, and held it before him, balanced by the blade across his palm.

“Here, gentlemen, you see the sword of a traitor—a sword that was to be bought and sold, and used for the winning of blood-money in these wars. Such swords must be broken with those who handle them. Come, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, have you anything to say?”

“Nothing, messire.”

His eyes were fixed wistfully upon the sword that had served him for many years—one of the few friends he had ever owned. It had memories for him, had that same sword, and now—like its master—it was to be broken for a lie.

“Gretry!” and De Bodegat called the esquire forward.

“Yes, sire.”

“Take this traitor’s sword and break it across your knee.”

Gretry received it from Carro de Bodegat’s hands, set one foot upon the point, and bent the blade up over his knee. But being a mere youngster and of fragile build, the steel proved too tough for such strength as he possessed.

Carro de Bodegat started from the pile of fagots, and, taking the sword from Gretry, looked insolently into Bertrand’s face.

“It is a pity that such a sword should have been wasted, sir,” he said.

“God knows that it was not wasted, Messire Carro de Bodegat.”

“And God knows that Bertrand du Guesclin has told the truth!”

There was a sharp movement among the crowded figures, a sudden turning of all faces towards the shadows cast by the apple-trees. De Bodegat, with Bertrand’s sword held crosswise across his thigh, swung round on his heel like a man who has been called a liar by some stranger in a crowd.

The circle of armed men broke and parted before his eyes, giving a glimpse of the dark trunks of the apple-trees and the green depths of the orchard grass.

Bertrand, looking like a man in Hades who beholds the shining figure of the risen Christ, saw Tiphaïne standing under the trees, where the sun poured through the white boughs, making her hair glow like a halo of gold.

XXXVIII

FOR the moment the figure in the black armor had ceased to be the centre about which the human interest of the scene revolved. All heads were turned towards that more imperious shape sweeping in its cloak of gray from the quiet shadows of the orchard trees.

Queenliness in a woman is the counterpart of courage in a man, and with Tiphaïne the very carriage of her head conveyed more magnetism than the choicest smiles of a woman of meaner presence and address. She walked as though these gentlemen of the sword would fall back before her, and fall back they did, leaving her a pathway through the trampled grass. Dubois, standing beside the pile of fagots, had his expectancy ignored as though his knightliness had no standing in the lady’s eyes. Tall as many of the men who watched her, fearless, and forgetful of all feebler issues, she swept on like one who walks towards God’s altar amid the blurred figures of an unseen crowd.

The fifty odd bassinets turned with the unanimity of so many weather-cocks veering with the wind. Their incontinent curiosity trailed at her heels as though she were St. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins following in her wake. Carro de Bodegat alone had the presence to obstruct the path she chose to tread, and to attempt a parley with this imperious perfection of a queen.

“Madame—”

She looked straight into De Bodegat’s sallow face like a red dawn refusing to be smothered by a cloud.

“Room, messire.”

And Bertrand, into whose heart the blood of life seemed bubbling up, saw Carro de Bodegat step back, hunch up his bony shoulders, and venture a side-thrust as she passed.

“I would ask madame her authority—”

“Have patience, messire, and I promise you you shall hear it,” and she left him grimacing in perplexity at Dubois.

To Bertrand the apple-boughs seemed more white against the blue, the grass more green, the gold of the meadows deeper than golden wine. She came near to him, halted, and looked into his face so steadily, and with such an outflashing of her woman’s soul, that he felt like one dazed by some bright light.

“Messires, it has been spread abroad that Bertrand du Guesclin did not fight at Mivoie.”

She spoke as though flinging a challenge at their feet, her voice slow but very quiet. The eyes of the whole company were fixed upon her face, for the strange stateliness of her manner seemed to promise some great confession.