Chapter III: Book II: “how a Man May Find His Soul Again” (1)

VI

AN autumn evening, with a flare of red and gold in the west, white mists rising in the hollows, and a sky above streaked and banded with burning clouds. On every hand the rust-red slopes of a wild moor, gilded with dwarf gorse and splashed with knots of tawny bracken. Everywhere emptiness and silence, a raw and pungent solitude that seemed to welcome the coming of the night.

Straggling along a ridge of the moor and outlined against the sky-line came a company of “spears,” with one solitary rider twenty paces in the van. The sunlight glittered on their shoulder-plates and bassinets, and beamed a last benediction on their baggage-cattle hobbling in the rear. They were rough gentlemen, shaggy and none too clean, with an air of devil’s philosophy about them that spoke of rough living and of rougher speaking.

Several pack-horses followed the main body, and a couple of peasants, who trudged along as though they lived in constant fear of a whip or a spear-staff falling across their shoulders. Many of the riders carried sacks slung across their saddle-bows, one the carcass of a dead pig, a second a couple of stone bottles, another some half-dozen loaves of rye bread, strung together on a cord like beads. Last of all came three tired hacks, stumping along over the tough heather and ridden by three gaudily dressed women, who were laughing and chattering like starlings on a chimney. One, black of hair and black of eye, with a red mouth and a patch of color on either cheek, wore a garland of bracken, and seemed to consider herself of more worth than the others. She wore a red cloak, and a green tunic laced loosely over her plump bosom. A girdle of leather covered with gold filigree work ran about her hips, with a poniard buckled to it in a silver sheath. She was a Norman, Arletta, a smith’s daughter, and had run away from Ancenis when the French army had passed through it seven years before on the march for Nantes.

Some twenty paces ahead of this company of vagabonds rode their captain, a man with immense shoulders, long arms, and an ugly and dogged face. His bassinet hung at his saddle-bow, his spear was slung behind him, and the shabbiness of his blue surcoat and the rust on his armor suggested that personal vanity had no great hold on him. He had a hunch of brown bread in his hand, and was munching it solemnly as he rode along, keeping an alert watch upon the darkening moor. He had thrust the last corner of the loaf into his mouth, when an outrider came cantering back towards the troop, bawling a tavern song, as though to keep himself in humor on such a raw and hungry evening. He drew near over the heather, and, saluting the man in the blue surcoat, broke at once into petulant cursing.

“Pest on it, captain, I can see no stick of a house and not the trail of a chimney; nothing but the moor and thickets of Broceliande.”

The man in the rusty harness received the news sullenly.

“Ives swore he knew these parts,” he said.

“He knows them, Messire Bertrand, about as well as he knows the inside of a missal.”

“Then have him hided for being a liar.”

“With a good grace, captain.”

And, cantering off, he joined the main company, their spears black against the evening sky; and, pouncing upon one of the wretched peasants, drubbed him mercilessly till the fellow lay flat and would not move.

Bertrand gave no heed to the serf’s cries, but rode on alone under the flaming sky towards the thickets of Broceliande, flashing with misty and autumnal gold. He felt miserable that night, savage and sour, disgusted with his lot. Seven years he had been serving in the wars, and here he trotted at the head of thirty thieves, called by pure courtesy free riders for the rights of Charles of Blois. He had done no great deed since the siege of Vannes, and it was bitterness to Bertrand to be reminded of that day. He had hoped much from that exploit at the siege of Vannes. It had lifted him up in the sight of all men, for, like a young falcon, he had flown his first flight into the welkin of war.

Then, what had followed? Had Bertrand been questioned he would have pointed to his rusty harness and the plundering vagabonds who rode at his heels over the moor. He would have smiled grimly and very bitterly, spoken of the ingratitude of princes and the jealousy of men better born and more richly circumstanced than a round legged-fellow who trusted only to the strength of his own right arm. He had fought at Vannes, at Nantes, at Hennebon, a hundred and one places, but no great captain had ever cared to mark his deeds. Young squires had been honored before him, mere boys whom Bertrand could have killed with a single blow. Fortune and the favor of the great ones had been against him. He would cringe to no seigneur, say soft things to no man, or lure fame to him with a courteous lie.

Then had come the last trying of Bertrand’s temper, for it is a rare prince who can take the truth from an inferior and not feel the twinge of malice in return. It had happened at the siege of Guy la Foret, a strong castle towards Nantes. Bertrand had been set to lead a storming party that was to assault at the breach while the main strength of the leaguers skirmished at the gate. A hundred men had been given him, a mere handful, insufficient for the forcing of the broken wall. Bertrand had stood forward and spoken the truth to Lord Luis of Spain, who commanded the besiegers.

“Sire,” he had said, “fivescore men cannot make good their footing in the breach. If I am to lead—then I must lead at my own price.”

Luis of Spain, sensitive as to the dignity of his own discretion, had rallied Bertrand upon his courage.

“God see to it, sire,” the Breton had answered him, “I am no coward, but I tell you the assault will fail.”

And fail it did with the loss of thirty of Lord Luis’s best men. Bertrand had been taken up for dead out of the ditch and dragged back to the camp, under the very spears of the English when they made their sally. As for the Spaniard, he had been the more savage at the repulse, since he himself had staked his three best horses in a wager on the success thereof. And, like many a captain, he had taken to abusing those who served him, and in shaming the men who had risked their lives at his command.

“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, the fault was yours—”

Bertrand, with his head in bandages and his face white as a sick girl’s, had tottered into Lord Luis’s tent to hear the whole blame laid to his lack of spirit.

“Sire,” he had said, “did I not warn you?”

“Too well, messire. I think my own thoughts and hold to my own reasons. When the hawk flies ill the quarry need not take the air.”

Bertrand had sworn a great oath, red with shame at such curt handling.

“Before God, sire, do you accuse me of cowardice?”

Lord Luis had shrugged his shoulders.

“I will not twist your words, messire, into their true meaning. You may know that I shall place my commands elsewhere in the future. It has been said that the hands of half our captains smell of English gold.”

What more could Bertrand have done than march grimly out of Lord Luis’s tent, cursing his own luck and the malice of the man whose meanness had dishonored him. His good name had seemed torn from him, and, like a rough and angry boy, he had been ready to take Fortune at her word. Why should he strive after an empty shadow when there was work enough for the free lance and the adventurer? Had not Croquart the Fleming made the land murmur at the audacity of his forays and the daring of his captures? Half the castles in the dukedom had paid ransom to the Flemish freebooter. He fought for De Montfort and the English, but he fought for his own hand and plundered all.

They were sad days for Brittany, with her seigneurs and gentlemen divided among themselves, some standing for Montfort, others for Charles of Blois. The English and the French burned and plundered against each other. The peasants fled to the woods, leaving their crops to the foragers, their poor hamlets to the fire. The burghers kept close within their walls and barriers, ready to surrender and resurrender to the party whose banners blew more bravely for the moment. No strong place was safe from surprise and treachery. The whole land shuddered, from the granite west to marshy Dol, from the White Wood by Dinan even to the Loire. It was a war of sieges and of counter-sieges, plunderings, fierce tussles on the bleeding moors, ruin and misery untold. No man could rest even in the deeps of dark Broceliande or in the islands set in the foam of the sea.

Bertrand, bitter and savage at heart, had ridden from Guy la Foret, knowing not whither fate might lead him. When some such temper as this had been upon him, he had fallen in near Josslin with a company of mercenaries who had lost their captain in a skirmish. Bertrand had met the chief among them in a roadside tavern, taken them as his men, and promised them three-quarters of all the plunder that they gathered. To prove his spirit, wounded as he was, he had fought the best fellow at his weapons among them, and thrashed him soundly, to the delight of his brother thieves. Bertrand had been their cock and captain from that moment, and thus it was that he rode that autumn evening over the moors with thirty free companions and three harlots at his back.

Bertrand drew in his horse suddenly, and, standing in the stirrups, looked under his hand towards the woods rising in the east to touch the coming night. Yonder, amid the outstanding thickets of Broceliande, he saw a light gleam out, a faint spark in the black unknown. Bertrand and his men were tired and hungry, and for three nights they had slept under the open sky.

The “free companions” had seen it also, and were shouting and calling to one another. The three women on the hacks had mingled with the main troop, their tired faces lighting up at the thought of a fire and supper. The one with the bracken in her hair was pulling her nag through the press towards Bertrand, when the man with the pig slung across his saddle-bow reached out and caught her bridle.

“Come, sirs, Letta laid me a fair wager.”

The girl tugged at her bridle, and cast a fierce look into the fellow’s grinning face.

“Let me be, you fool!”

“There—she disowns it! I call Lame Jean to witness—”

“Yes, yes, three kisses—I’ll swear she promised them.”

There was much loud laughter from the rest. The woman Arletta had plucked out her knife and made a stab at the man’s wrist. He let go the bridle to avoid the blow, cursing her for a spitfire as she drew clear.

“Keep your pig,” she said, viciously.

“Gaston can kiss the pig,” shouted a facetious comrade, and they all laughed and twitted the pig-bearer till he lost his temper and threatened to let blood.

Arletta, smoothing out the petulance from her face, heeled her hackney forward and approached Bertrand, who had halted his horse on the brow of a slope. He was staring morosely at the light shining amid the thickets, but turned his head as Arletta joined him.

“The saints send us a good lodging to-night, lording,” she said, with a giggle and a toss of the head.

Bertrand looked at her, but did not smile.

“We must beat the bushes first,” he answered, sullenly.

Arletta, shirking his surliness, threw him a bold look out of her black eyes and touched her bosom with her hand.

“Ah, lording, I am tired,” she said; “I should like to sleep in a bed once more. As for that pig Gaston, I’ll give him the knife if he makes a mock of me.”

She was watching Bertrand, her sharp lips parted over her teeth.

“Am I not your servant, lording?” she asked.

“Confound you, then, be quiet!”

“Messire is tired and out of temper.”

“You should know—” and he rode on down the slope with the rest following him.

Bertrand sent some of his light-riding gentlemen in advance to reconnoitre, for it was the duty of a captain of free lances to treat every strange place as the harbor of an enemy. He and his men were ready to plunder even their own friends, but they took shrewd care not to be caught and fleeced by rivals in the grim maze of war. Bertrand’s riders went trotting cautiously over the moor, avoiding the sky-line and heading for the scattered thickets that fringed the forest.

The woman Arletta still kept close to Bertrand, throwing sharp glances from time to time into his face. It was as though she watched to read his humor, even as a dog watches the face of her master, and fawns for a caress or cringes from a blow. Bertrand seemed surly and reticent that night. He rode along with his chin on his chest, wrapped in his own thoughts, forgetful of the woman at his side.

“Messire is troubled?”

She spoke almost humbly, insinuatingly, yet with a glint in her black eyes and a jealous alertness sharpening her face. Bertrand growled. Her persistence only annoyed him.

“Well, what now? Haven’t I given you enough spoil of late? You would not be content with all the crown jewels in your lap!”

Arletta’s mouth hardened viciously for the moment, but the expression passed and her face softened.

“Lording, am I not your servant?”

“Ten thousand devils, what is it now?”

“Gaston—”

“Well, what of Gaston? Must I cut the fellow’s throat for your sake?”

Arletta’s eyes glittered; she breathed rapidly and hung her head.

“Lording, am I not your servant?”

“Well, child, well?”

“Gaston—”

“Curse the fool! What are you at, Arletta?”

Suddenly and without reasonable warning she broke into passionate weeping, clinching her fingers over her face and bending her head down over her breast. Bertrand stared at her in honest wonder. The ways of women were beyond his ken.

“Come, come, child, what is it?” he asked, more gently.

Arletta rocked to and fro in the saddle.

“I am nothing—I am a mere drab. Men may mock at me; I am nothing—I have no honor.”

Bertrand grimaced.

“Am I not your servant, lording? Yet, but who cares what Gaston says to me?”

“Letta—”

“No, no; you only laugh at me, you do not care. I am a drab, a tavern woman.”

Bertrand looked at her and stroked his chin. Women were strange creatures, and their whims puzzled him, but he caught a glimpse of Arletta’s meaning. How much was artifice he could not tell. She wished to see him jealous; he was quick enough to gather that.

“Gaston shall have his tongue clipped,” he said at last.

“Ah, lording, you do not care!”

“Curses, wench, will you drive me silly!”

They had ridden down from the moorland and were nearing the beech thickets, the bluff headlands of Broceliande, old Merlin’s forest. The light was twinkling brightly through the trees, and the outline of a window stood black and clear about the glow. Bertrand’s scouts had reached the place. He heard them shouting and laughing, and saw several dark figures move across the lighted window. Then a shrill squeal rose, a frightened squeaking like that of a rat caught in a dog’s mouth. Bertrand frowned and clapped his heels into his horse’s flanks. He cantered forward towards the thickets, and saw a low, pitched roof and a ruined tower rising from a dark cleft in the woods. It looked like a manor, with the walls and out-houses in ruins, nothing but the hall and the low tower left.

The voice was still pleading, rising now and again into a trembling screech. Bertrand guessed what was happening within. He tumbled out of the saddle and, crossing the grass-grown court, made his entry into the hall.

The place was in an evil plight—plaster falling from the walls, the windows broken and shutterless, holes in the roof where the tiles had tumbled through. In one corner towards the screens an old sow was penned behind wood-work that had once wainscoted the walls. The floor was littered with rubbish, and in more than one spot a puddle testified to the leakiness of the roof, while there were green patches of damp upon the walls. A wood fire burned on the great hearth-stone in the centre of the hall, and round it Bertrand’s “free companions” were gathered, two of them holding up an old man by the arms, while another prodded him in the legs with a glowing fagot from the fire. A stench of singed wool arose from the old fellow’s stockings, and he was squirming to and fro, hopping and squealing, a look of grotesque terror upon his face.

“What devil’s game are you at now, you rogues? Guicheaux, drop that stick or I’ll break your head for you.”

The men gave back before Bertrand’s roar, and grinned sheepishly at one another.

“The old fool has money hidden somewhere, I’ll wager,” said Guicheaux, who had handled the fagot.

“That’s as it may be. I tell you I’ll have no torturing. Grandfather, hither. I’ll keep the dogs from biting you.”

And a poor, weak-eyed, wet-nosed thing it was that came cringing forward, pulling its gray forelock and looking up piteously into Bertrand’s face.

“What manor is this?”

The ragged creature cocked an ear and fingered a lower lip that was blue and drooping with age.

“If you please, lording, it is no man’s manor.”

“Nonsense; speak up; they shall not touch you.”

Arletta, the two women, and the rest of the troop came streaming in at the moment. Bertrand waved them back and kept his eyes on the old man’s veined and weathered face.

“If you please, lording, this was Yvon de Beaulieu’s house. But he is dead, messire, and all his people.”

“Well, and you?”

The grotesque head shook on its skinny neck.

“I was his pantler, lording, but they were all killed. Sir Yvon and his son, Jehan the falconer, and ten more. It was Croquart the Fleming who did it. Madame Gwen he took away with him, because she still had her looks, or might fetch a ransom. Ah, lording, they took everything, even the fowls out of the yard.”

Bertrand stroked his chin, looked steadfastly at the old man, turning over in his heart the brutalities of war.

“Give him a stool,” he said, suddenly. “Now, grandfather, sit you down; we’ll not disturb you. A lodging for the night—that is our need. And, men, mark me, Croquart has swept the place clean; we have food of our own; let no one thieve a crust or I’ll have my word with him. A bundle of sticks; grandfather, I’ll pay you for them out of my own purse.”

Soon the dusk had deepened into night, and men had thrown aside their arms and harness, picketed their horses, and piled up a large fire in the centre of the hall. They crowded round it, squatting on the floor and frizzling pieces of meat on their sword-points, the light playing upon their hard and weather-worn faces, the smoke curling upward to escape by the louvre in the roof. The man Gaston had brought in his pig with him, and was skinning it in a corner, with the help of two of his companions. They thrust a spear through the carcass for a spit, and, carrying it to the fire, set it upon two pronged stakes that they had driven into the floor. Their bloody hands did not prevent them from handling the stone flasks of wine that were passing from man to man. A devil-may-care spirit possessed them all. With war and the Black Death stalking the land, none knew when the end might come and when the worms and the earth would be taking dust from dust.

Bertrand, in no mood for their rough pleasantries, had drawn apart towards what had been the dais. The hall was full of smoke and the stench of cooking, while through the shutterless windows the bats flew squeaking in and out. He sat on a worm-eaten bench, bread and dried meat from a wallet on his knees, a pilgrim’s bottle, with a strap through the handles, hanging from a peg in the wall. He had his sword lying naked on the bench beside him, for he was ever forearmed against the fellows who followed him. Any one of them when drunk would have used his poniard against the pope.

Bertrand was under a cloud that night. He looked grim and heavy about the eyes as he watched the fellows at their food, tearing the meat with their knives and stuffing their fingers into their mouths. What rough beasts they were! Bertrand was no courtier, but even he discovered some disgust at the men who called him “brother.” Arletta sat alone against the wall, crumbling a piece of bread and watching Bertrand with her restless eyes. The other two women were of the same temper as the men. They chattered, gobbled, wiped their mouths on the backs of their hands, hiccoughed, drank, and swore. Presently one of them stood up to sing. She was hot in the head, and her gown had been slit from the neck by the hand of one of the rough fellows who had been romping with her by the fire. She stood up, giggling and leering, a streak of grease upon one cheek. It was a low and bawdry ballad that she sang, one of the loose catches popular with the begging musicians who bawled in the common taverns. She felt no shame in the singing of it, and the men applauded her, hardly ceasing masticating to shout for more.

Bertrand grew weary of the scene—this poor drab with a dirty kirtle showing under her red gown, her face flushed and coarsened, her cheap trinkets shining in the light of the fire. He picked himself up from the bench, took his sword with him, and went out into the darkness of the yard. The men would probably be drunk before midnight; it was useless to meddle with them, and some one must needs keep guard.

A young moon was sinking in the west, and all about the ruined house rose the outstanding beech-trees of Broceliande. Their autumn panoply of gold was masked under the thousand stars, and even, the black slopes of the moor spread like a strange and night-wrapped sea. No wind was moving. In the manor court grass was growing ankle deep, and weeds and brambles flourished everywhere. The night air was sweet and pure after the sweat and beat of the crowded hall.

Bertrand stood leaning on his sword, his eyes fixed on the dim outline of the moor. A savage discontent was at work in him that night, a fierce melancholy that lay heavy upon his shoulders. The past rose up and spoke to him, spoke to him like some fair girl who had known neither sin nor shame. Purity and honor, what was he that he should think of such things? Had he not lost all the pride of life, that emulative madness that turns men into heroes? He was a thief, a bully, the lover of loose women, and for months he had been content to be nothing more. And yet the old youth cried in him at times, and a child’s face haunted him, half lost in a mist of shimmering gold. He remembered the pride he had taken in his armor, the nobleness he had striven for, the brave creed he had cherished. Great God, how he had changed since he had plucked Tiphaïne a white May-bough in the meadows at Motte Broon! She would be a woman now, and a great lady, and no doubt she had forgotten him, even as he had almost forgotten her.

There was a rustling of feet in the rank grass growing about the door. A hand touched Bertrand on the shoulder. He started, glanced round, and saw the girl Arletta standing by him.

“Lording,” she said, still touching him with her hands, “I am tired, and the beasts are drunk; they frighten me.”

Bertrand frowned and put away her hands.

“Let me be, Letta,” he said.

The girl was peering at him, her eyes dark and questioning; but there was no smell of wine upon her breath.

“See, lording, I have not touched the bottle. There is a room above; I have been there; there is dry bracken to make a bed.”

She tried to lay one hand upon his shoulder and to lean against him, but Bertrand shook her off and would not look into her face.

“I must keep watch,” he said. “Go up, child, and sleep.”

“You are wrath with me?”

“No, no; let me be, Arletta. I tell you I have the black-dog on my shoulders.”

She drew away from him, half fierce, half humbled, and, sitting down on the threshold, drew her skirts about her and curled herself against the door-post. Bertrand still leaned upon his sword. He paid no heed to the girl as she lay and watched him, jealously, yet with some of the homage of a dog within her eyes.

Bertrand turned on her at last, almost with an oath.

“Go up and sleep.”

She shivered, but did not stir.

“Lording, what is good enough for you is good enough for your servant.”

Bertrand tore his cloak from his shoulders and threw it to her, peevishly.

“Take it; cover yourself up.”

“But, lording—”

“Cover yourself up, I say! Am I to let you catch your death cold because you are a little fool?”

Arletta took the cloak and wrapped it about her body. Bertrand began to pace the court, his steel clogs ringing on the stones, his sword slanting over his shoulder. And thus they passed the night together, Bertrand on guard, the girl sleeping upon the threshold.

VII

IN the deeps of the forest of Broceliande stood a castle known in those parts as the Aspen Tower, from the trees that grew about the moat. The Lord of Tinteniac, who had held it long in fee, had surrendered it to the Sieur de Rohan in exchange for a manor near the western sea. The Sieur de Rohan had used the castle as a hunting-tower till some grim thing had happened in the place and a woman’s blood had dyed the flagstones of the chapel. The chattering aspens, the black moat, the rolling leagues of dark Broceliande had worked upon De Rohan’s conscience and smitten him with a dread of the lonely place. He had offered it to Stephen Raguenel, to whom he owed a certain favor. The Vicomte had taken it gladly, and garrisoned and regarnished the Aspen Tower when the Blois and Montfort wars began.

The aspen leaves were turning to gold, and their melancholy whisperings seemed to fill the valley, as though all the ghosts within Broceliande were flitting and shivering about the tower. The broad moat lay black and stagnant, reflecting the tall trees, streaked here and there with sunlight and dappled with showers of falling leaves. Though the sun was at noon, mists were hanging about the forest, a haze of faint gold dimming the red splendor of the beeches and the tawny magnificence of the oaks. A damp and melancholy stillness weighed upon the valley; even the trees seemed cold, as their gorgeous samites fluttered to decay.

There was something that suggested tragedy in the loneliness of the castle with its walls reflected in the black water and the woods rising like flame beyond its battlements. The spirit of autumn seemed to breathe in it, the spirit of sadness and of death, of mystery and of shadow. The gate was closed, the bridge up, the great grid, with its iron teeth, resting on the stones. No life stirred in the place. Nothing told that there were folk within save one thin plume of smoke that climbed feebly into the air.

Sadness and the sighing of the aspen-trees! Black water, mist-drenched grass, towering woodlands desolate under the blue! A melancholy that might have seemed beautiful had not the place been cursed with something more than sorrow! Such silence, such emptiness! The Black Death had supped in the Aspen Tower. That was why the place seemed terrible.

Many years had passed since the tournament at Rennes, and as for Tiphaïne of the May-bough—well, Bertrand would hardly have remembered her as she bent over the fire in the lord’s solar and stirred some concoction of herbs and wine that was steaming in a brazen pot. Tall, slim, yet broad across the bosom, her body seemed to take the wine-red tunic that she wore and mould it into curves that were rich in their simplicity. As for her face, it was not beautiful in the easy meaning, save for the blush of rose through the olive skin and the earnestness of the liquid eyes. The mouth was too large, the chin too prominent, the bones too massive. In repose, there was a sternness about it, a maturity of strength strange in one so young. It was as though the spirit had triumphed over matter, and that mere sensuousness could not flood forth the glow of the soul within.

A restless spirit possessed her as she bent over the wood fire, with no living thing save a wolf-hound to keep her company. With a deep intake of her breath she thrust her hands above her head and leaned against the stone hood that projected over the hearth. It was not the hysterical weakness of a girl that spoke in that one gesture, but the restrained anguish of a woman, a woman who felt the terror of the unseen strong about her in that lonely tower.

The dog whimpered and thrust his nose against Tiphaïne’s knee. She bent suddenly, with a melting of her whole figure into tenderness, the hard, staring misery gone from her face.

“Ah, ah, Brunet, how will it end? how will it end?”

The beast licked her hands and put up a huge paw.

“How you would bark, Brunet, if your master came! Yes. I would give my all to see his banner at the gate. They do not know how the Black Death serves us.”

She leaned again against the hood, staring into the fire, her hand still fondling the dog’s ears. It seemed to comfort her to touch something that was warm and real, something in which the blood flowed. She had seen man after man sicken and surrender to the pestilence. She still heard their delirious cries, the chattering terror of the women who had crowded round her clamoring to be let loose to starve in the woods. Was it all a dream? Were the graves in the garden real, the smell of death in the place nothing but a grim illusion? She remembered the swollen and disfigured faces, the cries for water, the sordid horror of each hour of the day. Yet it was all true, so true that she wondered why the pest had spared her.

Rousing herself at last, as though casting cowardice fiercely out of her heart, she set her teeth and took up a cup that stood on a stool before the fire.

“There are Jehanot and Guy,” she said, talking to the dog as though he understood her; “they are at work; we must remember them, Brunet; and poor Enid, who used to give you sops.”

She was ladling the posset from the brass pot into the cup, the dog watching her with his ears cocked, his tail beating the floor. When she had filled the cup she threw a gray cloak over her shoulders and passed out from the solar to the stairs that led into the hall. The great room was deserted, and had a cold, damp look. There were ashes and charred sticks upon the hearth, a pile of straw against one wall, and from one corner of the heap protruded a human foot. Tiphaïne saw it and gave a shudder. Loose straw littered the hall, and even in the court, where the sun streamed down as though something had been dragged out through the door.

From the court an open wicket led through a wall into the garden bounded on the far side by the palisades above the moat. Tiphaïne went in under the autumn trees, fruit and leaves rotting together on the grass, a few ghost flowers still blooming in the beds. Two men were at work in the far corner, flinging up earth out of a hole. Ten paces away a row of newly turfed mounds showed where Death had his autumn store.

Near the grave the men were digging lay a figure covered with a sheet. The two diggers had strips of cloth tied over their mouths and nostrils. They stood up and ceased work as Tiphaïne approached, carrying the silver cup, the dog following at her heels.

“Who is that, Jehanot?”

She was pointing to the sheet. Jehanot, an old cripple with a round back, wiped his forehead with his hand.

“That is Le Petit de Fougeres,” he said.

“Ah, ah; and he is dead?”

“This morning,” and the man sniffed. “There are Richard and the lad Berart in the hall. We have covered them up with straw.”

Tiphaïne called sharply to Brunet, who was snuffing at the sheet, and stood looking at the grave and the two diggers. They were all that the Black Death had left to her in the Aspen Tower out of a garrison of twenty men. She had had four women to serve her when the Vicomte had ridden out two months ago. Now but one was left, and she sick to death in the room above the gate.

“How are you, Jehanot, and you, Guy?” she asked.

The two men looked at each other as though to detect the first flush of fever on the other’s face. They smiled grimly. The intense silence of the castle, the mist lying stagnant over the valley, seemed to accord with the invisible horror that lurked in the air.

“I am sound, madame.”

“And I—as yet.”

They crossed themselves and muttered a prayer and the names of several saints. Tiphaïne held out the cup to them, her eyes wandering to the figure under the sheet.

“I have brought you a hot posset,” she said; “it will keep out the damp.”

Jehanot drank first, and then passed the cup to his comrade. The man drained it, and then gave it back to Tiphaïne with a crook of the knee.

“I am going to sit with Enid,” she said.

Jehanot, the cripple, looked at her through half-closed lids, for the misty sunlight was in his eyes.

“Leave her to me, madame?” he asked.

“No, no.”

“I have taken my chance; nothing more can matter.”

Her face lighted up of a sudden, and became beautiful as she gave the old man one of her smiles.

“The Holy Mother remember you, Jehanot,” she said; “you are a good fellow, and I have prayed for you, but Enid is in my hands.”

She turned and walked slowly back towards the court, holding the cup pressed against her bosom, the men looking after her in silence. Her gray cloak vanished under the brown domes of the fruit trees. Jehanot plunged his spade into the ground with an oath.

“The saints defend her!” he said, “How she drives the devil out of one with a look!”

His companion grunted and went on with his work.

“I would run for it, but—”

Jehanot glanced at him quickly over his shoulder.

“But for madame?”

“Yes.”

“That would be a coward’s trick. We should be shamed, even by her dog. God send the Vicomte back, I say, and keep all plundering devils from breaking down the gate.”

Tiphaïne crossed the court, shuddering inwardly as she thought of the dead men lying bloated and stiff under the straw in the hall. It was with an effort that she went in out of the sunlight and climbed the stairway to the lord’s solar. There was still the woman Enid to be looked to; and, refilling the cup from the brass pot on the hook, and ordering Brunet to lie down before the fire, she unlatched a small door in the wall that opened on a short gallery leading to the tower. At the back of the portcullis cell was a room known as the lesser solar, hung with red cloth, its windows opening upon the court. Books were ranged on a shelf beside the chimney and bundles of herbs dangled from the beams of the ceiling. In one corner stood a bed, with a water-pot and a crucifix on a stool beside it.

Tiphaïne set the cup down on the table, and, stealing across the room, drew the hangings back along the bed-rail. On the bed, under a coarse green quilt, lay the woman Enid, her sweet name belying her as she moaned and panted and plucked with her fingers at the clothes. Her face was as hideous as the face of a leper, blotched and swollen, the lips covered with brown scabs. Tiphaïne looked at her and shivered, remembering how she had kissed her as a child. The woman was wandering, thrusting out her dry tongue, blood on the quilt, her black hair in a noisome tangle.

“She will die to-night,” thought Tiphaïne, trying not to shrink from the bed and the tainted air of the room.

She took up the cup from the table, and, holding her breath, she bent over the bed, while the thing on it coughed and whimpered. She tried to pour some of the posset between the cracked lips, but the woman only choked, and the red wine dribbled down her chin. Tiphaïne put the cup back upon the table, and turned to the window-seat as though to wait and watch.

“What is the use,” she said to herself, fingering the rosary that hung about her neck. “I can do nothing, and I have prayed.”

Moved by some such simple thought as this, she left the woman to her moanings, hoping for pity’s sake that she might make a speedy end. It was more terrible to look on life than death, when life boasted so much horror. Lonely, very miserable, and sick at heart, she went to the little chapel beyond the solar and knelt down at the altar steps. Prayer was inarticulate in her, a blind up-rushing of the soul, a passionate desire for deliverance from the end. The sunlight had left the painted window, and everything was dim and indistinct and cold; the breath of the unseen seemed to fill the place and to chill her as she knelt before the cross.

“Ah, I cannot pray.”

She started up, half in petulance, half in despair, and went to her own bower that lay beyond the chapel. A hawk moped on the perch by the window, and even the bright colors on the walls seemed cold. Tiphaïne stood before the window and tried to remember how many days had passed since her father and Robin had ridden out. She strove to count them, taking her rosary and dropping a carved bead for each day. When would they return? And when they came they might find the Aspen Tower filled with the dead. Geoffrey the castellan and fifteen of the garrison lay buried with the three women under the apple-trees in the garden. Who would go next? Only crippled Jehanot, the man Guy, and the dog were left.

Mad with the silence of the place, she picked up a lute from the bed and tried to sing. Anything, even mockery, was better than this accursed stillness—

“When the thorns are white, and the larks sing
High in the blue sky over the fields.”

Heavens! how cracked and shrill her voice sounded! She stopped as though the sound of it frightened her, and threw the lute aside in mute disgust. Ah, that something would happen, that a storm would come, anything but this autumn mist, this silence, these dripping trees! Why should she not take Fate by the throat and go forth into the darkness of Broceliande? There were wolves in the forest, but were they more horrible than the Black Death? There were thieves—and footpads. Yes, but even a knife would be better than the pest’s slow torture.

She turned suddenly to a table of carved oak that bore a small basin of black marble. The bowl was half filled with water, water that reflected the colored hangings and the beams and plaster-work of the ceiling. Tiphaïne bent over the bowl and looked into the spirit mirror. She knew something of magic, and had dabbled her white hands in the mysteries of the age. Muttering certain words that had some deep meaning according to the strange old book the girl kept locked in the chest at the bottom of her bed, and shading the water with her hands, she looked into it till the pupils of her eyes were wide as in the dark. For a long time she stood there gazing into the bowl, while it remained pictureless, showing nothing but her white face and her weary eyes. At last she seemed to be blessed with a vision, for her features sharpened and she breathed more rapidly, like one troubled by some sudden warning. In the bowl Tiphaïne could see the image of men riding, the glimmer of their armor like moonlight upon the sea.

VIII

“GUICHEAUX, you have ridden Broceliande before; is not that a tower yonder, rising above the trees?”

Guicheaux, a lean fellow with a face like a hatchet, heeled his horse forward and followed the pointing of Bertrand’s spear.

“It looks like stone, lording,” he said.

“Well, and what then?”

“Why, lording, it will be something to crack a nut upon,” and Guicheaux chuckled, unconverted ribald that he was and the quipster of the party.

Bertrand frowned at him.

“Come, leave your fooling. What place is it? Do you know this valley?”

“Pardon, lording,” and Guicheaux grinned till his creased face looked longer than ever; “I left a wife here once. I should know it.”

“Get on, get on.”

“It was the Sieur de Rohan’s hunting-tower, and many a good stag has he pulled down in these thickets. He loved the place, lording, and the ladies in it. I was a beater, and yet beaten in those days, for of all the washerwomen who ever handled a mop-stick my wife was the strongest in the arm.”

The men laughed; Guicheaux had flown his jest, and smirked as he gathered up the applause.

“Your servant, sires; and, seigneurs, you will not betray me if the woman is still alive?”

“No, no, Guicheaux; she has consoled herself, or swallowed her own stick.”

Bertrand had halted his company on the edge of the wood, the great trees towering above them in their amber and green. Before them grass-land sloped, even to the thousand aspens that stood crowded about the tower. It was a desolate scene, even for Broceliande. Three days had Bertrand and his men been wandering in the forest, till they chanced upon the path that led to the Valley of Aspens.

Bertrand was smiling and stroking his chin, as though tickled by some thought that had occurred to him. He half wheeled his horse and looked keenly at the brown and wind-tanned faces drawn up before him under the trees.

“Listen.”

Every eye was on him.

“Do you remember how the Sieur de Rohan cheated us out of our spoil at Guingamp?”

“Curse him, captain! Are we likely to forget it?”

Their vindictiveness was full of mischief. They guessed what Bertrand had to say to them.

“Well, gentlemen and free companions, why should we not have our share of the bargain? It is possible that we can plunder the place, and make a bonfire of it for the sake of the seigneur’s soul.”

The suggestion had been seized even before it had passed Bertrand’s lips, and the men caught their leader’s spirit. Bertrand was in one of his reckless moods, when he was ready to lead his fellows into any mischief under the sun. They cheered him, and began tightening up their harness and looking to their arms. Bertrand was as grim and strenuous as any. The game pleased him that day, and Arletta had his smiles as he came to her to lace his bassinet.

“Give me a kiss, wench,” he said.

She gave him three, and a brave hug, laughing wickedly as he chucked her chin.

“The black dog has a holiday, lording,” she said.

“Little mistress, your eyes have scared him. Wait till we have our hands in some of De Rohan’s coffers! You shall have the baubles in your pretty lap to play with. Guicheaux, remember the axes. Some of you cut a young tree down; we may need it to break the gate.”

They set to work, and had a young oak down in a twinkling, and cleared the branches from the bole. The two women who were standing by straddled the trunk and made the men carry them, laughing, chattering, and making fun, till Bertrand, turning martinet, ordered them down to mind their business. The shorter of the two caught her skirts on a lopped bough, and had to be rescued amid roars of laughter.

“How you alarmed me!” quoth Guicheaux, as he helped her up. “I feared your linen had not been washed for a month!”

* * * * *

Tiphaïne was brooding before the fire in the solar the day after Le Petit de Fougeres had been buried, when she heard a voice calling to her from the hall.

“Madame Tiphaïne! Madame Tiphaïne!”

Rising, with a rush of hope from her heart, she slipped back the panel in the wall above the dais, through which the lord could look down on his people from the solar, and found Jehanot peering up at her with a cross-bow in his hand. She could see that the man was trembling, whether with joy or fear she could not tell.

“Madame, there are riders in the valley; I have seen them from the tower.”

Tiphaïne remembered the mystic pageant that had been shown her in the basin of black marble.

“Well, Jehanot, well?”

“I could see no banner or pennon. Maybe—”

He hesitated, thumbing the string of his cross-bow and looking up into the corners of the roof. Tiphaïne guessed what was passing in his mind. She shot the panel back and went down from the solar into the hall.

“Jehanot,” she said, very earnestly.

The man waited.

“It is not the Vicomte—no—I can read that on your face. There is no banner or pennon; and that means a ‘free company.’”

She was standing with one fist to her chin, looking vacantly at the pile of straw that covered the dead bodies, for Richard and the lad Berart had not yet been buried.

“Jehanot, go up into the portcullis-room and watch.”

The cripple nodded.

“They will summon us. If they are strangers, learn from them who they are. If friends, say that I will come out to them.”

“Yes, madame.”

“You understand, Jehanot? We are of the Blois party. Be careful; look for enemies—”

“If they are a rough crew,” the old man answered, “I will preach the Black Death’s sermon to them.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And lie if needs be.”

“Should they be Croquart’s ruffians—”

Jehanot grimaced as he limped away.

“God give us better luck!” he said; and then, turning at the door: “Stay in the chapel, madame. If they are for plunder, they may grant you sanctuary.”

Jehanot climbed up to the portcullis-cell and looked out through one of the squints across the moat. A faint breeze stirred in the aspen boughs, and the trees were muttering as though feeling the presence of some peril in their midst. Leaves were falling in golden showers, and through the crowded alley-ways of the wood the wet grass glistened in the sunlight. What was that? Jehanot’s head was straining forward on its skinny neck, his eyes fixed in a hard stare. He had seen a dim figure flit across the main path to the moat and take cover behind a tree. Another and yet another followed it. Still all was silent save for the chattering of the aspen leaves. They were reconnoitring the place, and their stealth did not comfort Jehanot’s fears.

Then he heard a deep voice sounding over the water.

“Forward, sirs—forward!”

Instantly the aspen wood seemed alive with steel, and Jehanot saw men swarming down towards the moat. Several of them carried the trunk of a tree, and at the sight of it Jehanot sucked in his breath expressively and whistled. There was no doubt as to their purpose as they headed for the causeway with a man in full armor on a black horse leading them. Jehanot saw Bertrand dismount, fling his bridle to a follower, and come clanging along the causeway till he reached the gap left by the raised drawbridge.

“Sound your horn, Hopart; we will challenge them to surrender.”

The horn’s scream echoed through the valley, while the men crowded the causeway at Bertrand’s back. The fierce, wolfish faces were turned this way and that as they scanned every wall and window. A sudden thought seized Jehanot as he crouched behind his squint. He put his hands to his mouth and broke out into a wailing cry.

“’Ware the Black Death! ’ware the Black Death!”

He waited, watching the men crowding the causeway from the darkness of the cell. They were looking at one another, gesticulating and pointing towards the squints of the portcullis-room.

“’Ware the Black Death! The plague is heavy on us!”

Jehanot could see that they wavered and were wrangling together. Bertrand, who was watching the windows, caught sight of Jehanot and shook his sword.

“It is a trick, sirs!” he shouted. “Back! back! they are cheating us to gain time. How could the pest reach such a place as this?”

“True, captain, true,” came the response.

Jehanot, white and terrified, put his face close to the squint and shouted to Bertrand:

“It is no trick, messire; it is no trick.”

Bertrand swore at him.

“Silence, you old liar. We want the Sieur de Rohan’s treasure-chest. Back, lads! back! We must cut down more trees to bridge the gap. Guicheaux, take five men and cover the squints; they will be playing on us with their cross-bows in the winking of an eye.”

The cripple shouted to them again, but his cries were unheeded in the bustle and uproar. The men had herded back over the causeway, leaving Bertrand leaning on his sword, confident in his armor to defy both bolt and arrow. Axes were soon swinging and the white chips flying from the trunks of several young trees. Guicheaux and three others had wound their cross-bows and posted themselves along the moat, and were waiting for archers to show themselves at the squints or on the battlements.

Jehanot was still squealing, repeating the same words in his unreasoning fear.

“Keep back!—the Black Death is with us! Keep back, for the mercy of God!”

Bertrand waved to Guicheaux with his sword.

“Silence the old fool!” he shouted.

The soldier trained his cross-bow on the squint where he could see Jehanot moving to and fro, waving his hands to them and shouting, like one gone mad. The string twanged, and the quarrel, glancing from the stone jamb, struck the old man in the face.

He fell back, squeaking like a mouse, his hand over his mouth, for the bolt had knocked his teeth away and broken his lower jaw. Trembling and panic-stricken, he stumbled back into the lesser solar, where Enid lay dead upon the bed. A woman’s figure stood outlined against the window; it was Tiphaïne’s.

“Jehanot! Jehanot!”

The old man mumbled through his bloody fingers:

“To the chapel, for God’s sake, madame; have a care, they are shooting at the windows.”

Tiphaïne held Jehanot by the shoulder.

“Ah—ah, the cowards! they have hurt you, my poor Jehanot. Come, come with me; we will go to the chapel, and I will hide you behind the hangings. Where is Guy?”

The old man was sick and faint with pain. Tiphaïne dragged him along the gallery to the lord’s solar, gave him wine, and bound up his bleeding mouth. The man Guy had jumped into the moat an hour ago, swum across, and fled into the woods. Jehanot confessed as much, moaning, and holding his broken jaw between his hands.

“Whose company is it—not Croquart’s?”

Jehanot shook his head, turning his whole body with it.

“They seem bad enough,” he said, “whoever they may be.”