“HOW A MAN MAY FIND HIS SOUL AGAIN”
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.”
Brunet was following them, growling and ruffling up his collar as the
sound of the men battering at the gate echoed through every gallery and
room. Tiphaïne half dragged Jehanot to the chapel, and hid him behind
the hangings beside the altar. Then she ran back into the solar, took a
burning brand from the fire with the iron tongs, and, returning, lit the
candles on the altar and threw the flaming wood upon the floor. Beside
the chalice, on the white altar cloth, stood the silver swan that
Bertrand had given her at Rennes.
The great gate was down, and half a dozen sweating fellows were prising
up the portcullis with spear-staves and the trunks of young trees. Inch
by inch the great grid went up till Bertrand and two others had their
shoulders under the teeth and held it till the rest wedged it up with
timber. Shouting and swearing, they crowded pellmell like a drove of
swine through the tower arch. Some turned into the guard-room, to find
it empty. Others made for the hall across the court, expecting
resistance and finding none.
The man Guicheaux was at the head of those who made for the hall. With
them were the two women, as wild and keen as any of the men. They found
the hall empty, but spread this way and that, some towards the screens,
others towards the high table and the place where the buffet stood.
A brisk shout startled the whole rabble. Guicheaux, who had been turning
over the straw with the truncheon of a spear he had broken under the
grid, had started back and stood pointing at the straw, white and
abashed, like a man who has found a snake curled in the grass.
The rest crowded round him, querulous and wondering. Then a blank
silence fell. They stood staring at one another and at the blackened
body Guicheaux had uncovered with his spear. One of the women, who had
been peering over a man’s shoulder, clapped her hands over her face and
broke into hysterical screaming.
“The murrain, the black murrain! We shall all die of it!”
Guicheaux cursed her, tossed the straw back over the body, and looked at
his companions. They were huddling away from the spot like a pack of
sheep, the lust of plunder out of them for the moment.
“Let us be off!” quoth a young Poitevin, holding a hand over his nose
and mouth.
“Quiet, you fool!” and the big fellow Hopart, with the red beard and
angry eyes, cuffed the lad with his gadded glove. “Out with you,
milksop! We have taken our chance, and the devil’s with us. Let us have
our spoil. Who’s afraid of a dirty corpse?”
He strode up, kicked the body under the straw, and turned a bloated face
to Guicheaux and the rest.
“To the chambers first, sirs, and then for the wine.”
Hopart’s recklessness persuaded them in a moment. They broke away, all
the fiercer for the fright, and raced for the stairway leading to the
solar and the chapel. Bertrand joined them as they reached the dais,
Arletta hanging on his arm, her face flushed, her eyes shining.
The men were jostling and crowding on the stairs, pulling one another
back in the scramble, cursing and shouting—a mad crew. Guicheaux was
the first to reach the solar. He ran to the hutch at the bottom of the
Vicomte’s bed, beat his spear-staff through the lid, and wrenched up the
splintered panels. They were all scrambling over the hutch like pigs
over a trough. One man pulled out a silver mug, another a bag of money,
a third an ivory crucifix set with stones.
“To the chapel!”
It was the big fellow, Hopart, who had kicked the dead body in the hall
who gave the cry. A dozen men followed him, leaving Guicheaux and the
rest to plunder the ambreys on either side of the fireplace, while
Arletta unlaced Bertrand’s bassinet, laughing all the while at the way
the men showed their greed.
They had forced the doorway of the chapel, when there was a sudden
scuffle, a swaying back of the press, the loud bay of a dog. Hopart was
rolling on the floor, stabbing at Brunet, who had him by the throat. The
men who had fallen back rushed in and slashed at the dog with their
swords and poniards. Hopart freed himself, hurled the hound aside, and
began to kick the beast as it lay dying upon the floor.
“Cowards!”
Hopart and his comrades were crowding together and staring at the lady
in the red tunic who stood upon the altar steps. The candles flickered
above her, their light glimmering on the silver upon the altar and on
the golden sheen in Tiphaïne’s hair. She was white and furious, moved to
the depths by Brunet’s death.
“Cowards!”
It would have been difficult to compress more scorn in one single word.
The rough thieves held back before her, even the great blackguard of a
Hopart looking clumsy and abashed. It needed another woman, and one of a
coarser type, to break the spell this white-faced madame had cast upon
the men.
“Ho, ho! the fine she-leopard. See—she has jewels on her! What, sirs,
are you afraid of a fine lady? Let me pass; I’ll show ye how to pull out
hair.”
It was Gwen, the broad-hipped wench who had caught her clothes on the
stump of the tree. She was shaking her fists and urging on the men with
the instinctive hatred of a veritable drab for a sister whose face was
as clean as her clothes. The men swayed forward towards the altar.
Hopart, his throat bloody from Brunet’s fangs, had his eyes on the
jewelled girdle that Tiphaïne wore. He shouldered the rest aside only to
be plucked back by a strong hand from the altar steps and sent
staggering against the wall.
“Back! back!”
Bertrand was before them, his sword out, his hair bristling, a look on
his face that the men had learned to fear. They gave ground as the white
blade whistled to and fro, huddling together, each man trying to get
behind his neighbor.
Bertrand drove them back towards the door, and then turned to the altar,
where Tiphaïne still stood. His bassinet was off, for Arletta had
unlaced it in the solar, and the light from the candles fell full upon
his face.
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin!”
Tiphaïne’s hands were at her bosom. She was staring at the man before
her, incredulous scorn blazing in her eyes. Bertrand went back three
full paces and stood looking at Tiphaïne with his mouth agape.
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin!”
“Madame, who are you?”
For answer she took up the silver swan and held it in her hands before
them all.
“Who was it who gave me this, messire, at the tournament at Rennes?”
IX
THE one pure thing in that little chapel, Tiphaïne, stood there on the
altar steps, looking down on Bertrand, the swan of silver in her hands.
Behind her burned the candles, above rose the eastern window with its
painted glass: azure, purple, and green. She seemed strangely high above
them all, a being apart, one in whom no selfish cowardice dimmed the
glow of her woman’s scorn. For the common herd, the mere pawns in the
game of plunder and of war, she had no remembrance for the moment. It
was at Bertrand that she looked, sternly, wonderingly, yet with a
sadness that shadowed her whole face.
As for Bertrand, he stood with his sword held crosswise in his hands,
his head bowed down a little, his brows contracted like a man facing a
cloud of dust. He looked at Tiphaïne as though confident that he had no
cause for shame, but failed in the deceit, as a man who was not utterly
a blackguard should. The girl’s eyes made him feel hot from head to
heel. She was so calm, so proud, so uncompromising, so pure. To Bertrand
she was as a being who had stepped by magic out of a golden past. He
found himself shuddering at the thought of what might have befallen her
had Hopart and the rest laid their rough hands upon her body.
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, have you nothing to say to me?”
Bertrand was squaring his shoulders and trying to look her frankly in
the face.
“We took this for the Sieur de Rohan’s place,” he said.
Tiphaïne’s eyes held his.
“How much honor is there in the excuse, messire?”
“Honor?”
“To take the castles of one’s friends, castles that have no garrisons,
where the Black Death conquered before you came?”
The men and women were crowding the far end of the chapel, grinning and
giggling, and not a little astonished at the way that Bertrand had his
tail between his legs. It was a new thing for them to see their captain
bearded, and bearded successfully, by a mere woman.
The truth was plain to Tiphaïne as she looked at the man’s sullen and
silent face, and at the rough plunderers who called him leader. She had
no fear either of Bertrand or his men. The plague had taught her to look
on death without a tremor.
“Then you are no longer of the Blois party, Messire Bertrand du
Guesclin.”
“I—madame?”
“Yes.”
He gnawed his lip, with the air of a man wishing himself saved from some
merciless scourging.
“The Sieur de Rohan is for the Count of Blois.”
“It is so.”
“Therefore, messire”—and she looked down at him from her full
height—“therefore—I do not understand.”
The woman Gwen, who had torn her skirts on the trunk of the tree, began
to laugh and declaim:
“Lord help us, what has come to the captain? Did ye ever see such a meek
gentleman?”
The men chuckled. Bertrand whipped round with a devil’s look in his
eyes, and made at them, making mighty sweeps with his sword.
“Out! out!”
His wrath sobered them. There was something terrible in it, something so
grim that they quailed and went back before him, pushing one against
another. Few of the men were cowards, but none wished to tempt the
whistling fierceness of Bertrand’s sword.
“Out! out!”
They crowded through the doorway, flinching, and covering their faces
with their arms. In a minute the chapel was empty, but Bertrand still
followed them. He drove them through the solar and down the stairway
into the hall, thrusting Arletta out last, and barring the door.
Huddling together like a flock of silly sheep, they stood gaping at the
blank wall and the closed door.
Bertrand lingered a moment in the solar, listening, one hand gripping
the handle of his sword, the other stroking his strong chin. It was even
as though this great, grim-faced fellow, who had driven twenty men
before him by sheer strength of will, shrank from facing the woman
waiting for him in the chapel. After pacing the solar, he shook himself
and recrossed the threshold. Tiphaïne was standing where he had left
her. Her eyes looked straight at Bertrand as he moved towards her,
trying not to slouch or shirk her gaze.
“Well, messire?”
She challenged him curtly with those two words. It was no mere question,
but the call to an ordeal that he could not shirk.
“I am sorry—” he began.
“Sorry! That is generous—indeed! See, there lies my best friend, my dog
Brunet, slashed to death by the swords of your men. My castle gate has
been broken by you, my father’s house pillaged!”
Her words came quickly, yet with the clear ring of an armorer’s hammer
upon steel. She was still wroth with him, and, with good reason, grieved
also by the falling of his manhood into such a life.
Bertrand could not meet her eyes.
“What can I say to you, madame?”
She dropped her arm and looked at him in silence, her face aglow, her
breath drawn deeply.
“Messire Bertrand! Messire Bertrand!”
The change of tone was wonderful, piercing through to the man’s heart.
He hung his head, knowing too well what was passing in her mind.
“I am what I am,” he said, sullenly.
“Yet—you remember Rennes?”
“What good is it, madame, to remember what one cannot keep.”
“What good, messire! Have you, then, fallen so much from your own
heart?”
He flung back his head suddenly and looked her in the face.
“Why should I shirk it?” he said. “I am what I am—a captain of free
companions, a beast, a ruffian—God knows what! Where is my honor? Ask
those great lords who made me what I am.”
He seemed to recover his dignity of a sudden, a dignity that, though
bitter and rebellious, boasted sincerity and truth. He rested his
sword-point on the floor, crossed his two hands on the pommel, and
waited like a man who has thrown down the gage.
Tiphaïne stood above him on the altar steps.
“Then you have forgotten Rennes?” she said.
“I—madame?”
“How, then, should Bertrand du Guesclin have fallen to leading these
poor fools to the plunder of Breton homes? I should not have dreamed it
when—I was a child—at Rennes.”
Her words moved him, and he bent his head.
“Men fail—sometimes,” he said, sullenly.
“Sometimes; but you—”
“I?”
“You—who were so strong, messire; you—who feared nothing!”
He stretched out his arms before her, the sword sweeping the air.
“Before God—the whole fault was not mine!”
“And why not yours, Bertrand du Guesclin?”
“They were against me—those great captains; what was I to them?—a dog
to be kicked when the meat scorched on the spit.”
“And then?”
“They took my honor from me. Was not that enough?”
“No man need lose his honor, even though the whole world calls him
liar.”
He looked at her steadfastly a moment, noting her queenliness and the
sadness of her eyes.
“I am what I am; the how, or why, neither mends—nor matters. Give me
your commands.”
She turned to the altar, and, lifting the silver swan, held it out to
him with both her hands.
“Take it, messire.”
He glanced up at her and frowned.
“Not that!”
“And yet you remember Rennes?”
He caught her meaning, and understood—to his own cost—the significance
of the thing she wished.
“You strike hard, but the blows are true,” he said. “I have lost what
once was mine; I acknowledge it; a man can do no more.”
He sheathed his sword and took the swan from Tiphaïne, looking at her
hands and nothing else. For Bertrand there was a bitter symbolism in the
scene. The few pure memories he had given to the past were flung back to
him like the dry petals of a cherished flower.
He thrust the silver swan under his surcoat, so that it was held there
by his belt.
“And now?”
She stood silent a moment, as though considering.
“Am I to be obeyed?”
He crossed himself.
“Before God, yes.”
He looked up at her and waited.
“These are my commands,” she said: “return your plunder; bury the two
dead men—in the hall. Mend the gate that you have broken; then leave us
to our liberty.”
“Here—alone?”
“I have said it.”
“But—madame!”
“Madness—you would say?”
“Only command me, and I will see you safe to Rennes, or Josselin, or
Dinan.”
She was calm and determined, for she had made her plans.
“Messire, I have said it. I am not alone,” and she drew back the
hangings and showed him Jehanot, cowering against the wall.
Bertrand looked at her, baffled, yet realizing that she wished to be
obeyed.
“I would have had it otherwise, madame.”
“And I—had it been different.”
He turned and pointed towards Brunet’s body.
“And the hound?”
“Ah, poor Brunet, leave him; Jehanot and I will bury him. But for the
rest—”
“You shall be obeyed.”
She turned suddenly, as though she had ended her meeting with him, and
knelt down before the altar, her hands folded over her bosom. Jehanot
was kneeling also, while from poor Brunet’s body the blood still curled
across the stones. Bertrand stood motionless for a moment at the chapel
door, looking at Tiphaïne as though he were being banished from light
and warmth into the night. Perhaps she did not trust him. Why should
she? Had he not broken the child’s faith she had kept for him from the
past?
He went out into the solar and closed the chapel door. A fierce gloom
had fallen on him, the gloom of a proud man who has had the cold truth
flung in his face. Great God, was he so vile a fellow that Tiphaïne held
the Black Death’s terror to be more merciful than his kindness? Yes, he
was a beast, a bully, a common thief. Bertrand humbled himself with all
the passionate thoroughness of his nature.
Tiphaïne had given him her commands. Good! He would at least show her
that he could obey. Striding through the solar and down the stairs, he
found his fellows still loitering in the hall. They were whispering
together with the restless air of men vaguely afraid of the days before
them. Some were counting money on one of the long tables, others
gloating over the spoil they had taken, and making coarse jests at
Bertrand’s lingering in the chapel.
Bertrand came down into the hall, his naked sword over one shoulder, his
mouth set. He looked the men over with that searching stare that seemed
to fix itself on every one in turn. Bertrand was in one of his silent,
tight-lipped moods. The men waited, watching him and wondering what was
to follow.
“Guicheaux, hither!”
The words were sharp and vicious. Guicheaux started, colored, and came
forward nimbly.
“You have a silver mug under your surcoat.”
The quipster would have lied had he dared, but Bertrand’s eyes were on
him.
“Come, do you hear me? Disgorge, all of you. Guicheaux, put your mug
down on the floor at my feet.”
They began to murmur, to grumble, to nudge one another. Guicheaux
hesitated. Bertrand’s lion’s roar set the rafters ringing.
“Come, all of you; let me have no grumbling! Hopart, you have money on
you. Bring it here, I say, or, by God, I will break your neck!”
The men had seen him fierce, but never in such a mood as this before.
They obeyed, grudgingly, sullenly, each man knowing Bertrand for his
master, and fearing to be the first to feel his wrath. Cups, money,
ewers, a silver “ship,” a rich girdle or two were lying in a heap at
Bertrand’s feet. His face softened as he took the swan of silver from
under his surcoat and added it to the pile of spoil.
“Men,” he said, with a keen look.
They stood watching him; no grumbling was to be heard.
“I have sought a favor from you, and you have obeyed me. I give you
thanks.”
Guicheaux grinned at the coolness of the speech. He had an inveterate
love of insolent address, and he could have licked Bertrand’s shoes for
homage at that moment.
“Men, I have some share of plunder on the pack-horses. Divide it among
yourselves. I make a gift of it.”
The change that swept over the rough faces was significant. Satisfaction
succeeded surliness, and they cheered him as though he had won some
great fight and driven the English into the sea.
Bertrand, who knew their hearts, held up his sword for silence. How
different the applause of the fellows seemed to him from what it would
have seemed an hour ago.
“Guicheaux, take ten men, find tools and timber, and repair the gate.”
Guicheaux grimaced, but prepared to see the whim obeyed.
“The rest of you go out over the moat and pile your arms in the aspen
wood. We shall march as soon as the gate is mended.”
Never had Bertrand’s free companions met with such strange strategy
before. To take plunder—only to return it; to break down a gate—only
to rear it up again! They could make nothing of the riddle, save that
the lady in the chapel had bearded Bertrand as though she had been a
queen of France. They poured out from the hall, leaving Bertrand
standing before the pile of metal, the silver swan glistening in the
sunlight that slanted from one of the narrow windows. He stood there a
long while, leaning on his sword, his face dark and expressionless, his
eyes sad. At last he turned to the penance he had taken upon himself,
the burying of the bodies that lay stiff under the straw.
Alone he buried them, digging a shallow grave in the orchard, while
Guicheaux and his comrades hammered at the gate. There was heroism in
the deed, but Bertrand hardly felt it at the moment. The responsibility
was his, and he took it, lest his men should suffer.
The gate was patched and firm upon its hinges, Richard and the lad
Berart stretched in their last resting-place under the apple-trees. The
“free companions” had built a fire in the aspen wood, and were cooking
meat and making a meal. They had joined their sagacities in unravelling
the mystery of their captain’s orders, but none save the women came near
discovering the truth.
“I will tell ye how it is,” and fat Gwen wiped her mouth and looked at
Arletta, of whom she was jealous: “madame, yonder, was once the
captain’s lady love; that is why the brave fellow looked so meek.”
Meanwhile Bertrand had passed once more into the empty hall, and was
standing staring at the swan of silver crowning the untaken spoil. No
sound came from the chapel, where Tiphaïne and old Jehanot kept
sanctuary till the troop had gone. Bertrand was smiling sorrowfully and
fingering his chin. Suddenly he took his poniard from its sheath and
went to the high table on the dais. Bending over it, he carved a rude
cross thereon, and, taking the swan of silver, set it on the board
beside the cross.
Then he saluted the closed door of the solar and went out of the Aspen
Tower to join his men.
X
A WIND had risen when Bertrand and his men rode forward into the
woodways of Broceliande. Falling leaves were flickering everywhere,
drifting in showers, dyeing the green grass bronze and gold. The forest
was full of the murmuring of the crisp foliage of autumn. Deep in the
inner gloom the rust-red masses of the dead beech leaves glowed like
metal at dull heat. The western sky had taken its winter tones, that
flush of orange and of maroon that backs the purple of the misty hills.
Bertrand loitered behind his men, slouching in the saddle and looking
straight before him into the forest. The emotions in him were complex
for the moment, so much so that they might have taken their temper from
Broceliande itself. The rustling of leaves, for falling memories; the
shrill piping of the wind, all human in its infinite anxiousness and
dread. Humiliation and gloom were heavy on Bertrand’s soul. He had been
shown his own likeness in the mirror of Tiphaïne’s honor, and the
ugliness thereof had made him consider what manner of man he was.
He awoke at last to find Arletta watching him as she trotted beside him
on her half-starved nag. There was a jealous look in the girl’s black
eyes, a sharp petulance about her face. Bertrand’s quixotry had puzzled
her not a little, and Gwen’s words were still sounding in her ears.
“Lording,” she said, “is the black dog back upon your shoulders?”
Bertrand frowned, and swore at his horse as the beast stumbled over a
piece of dead-wood. He was in no mood for Arletta’s questions.
“Mind your business, wench,” he said, “and I will mind my own.”
Arletta’s curiosity was aroused; moreover, it was not in her woman’s
nature to be driven from the truth with a snub.
“You have had these moods and whimsies of late, lording.”
“Ah, have I?”
“Yes, often and often, and to-night you look blacker than a Moor. Who is
the lady who scolded you in the chapel?”
She affected innocence, but the pretence could not hide the hardness of
her voice.
“What is that to you?” quoth Bertrand, digging his knees into his
horse’s flanks.
“Nothing, lording, nothing.”
“Nothing, eh? Then leave well alone.”
“Ah—ah—”
“What ails you now?”
“To-day you kissed me and were gay. What has happened?—what have I
done? Dear Heaven, I am always vexing you!”
Bertrand lost patience, and was turning on her with a snarl and a curse,
when something seemed to stay his temper. Tiphaïne’s face had risen
before him. She had told him the truth? Yes, he was a rough beast and a
bully.
“Let me be, child,” he said, even gently.
Arletta’s lips quivered, but she took his kindness into her heart and
looked less peevish and jealous about the eyes.
“Lording, maybe you are tired and hungry.”
She rummaged in the bag that hung on her saddle, and brought out a piece
of bread and a few olives.
“Take them, lording,” she said, holding out her hands.
Bertrand was touched. He took the food and ate it.
“Thanks, child,” he said, “you must put up with my rough temper, and
close your ears when I take to growling.”
* * * * *
In the Aspen Tower, Tiphaïne had come from the chapel, after covering
Brunet’s body with the cloth from the altar. She had made Jehanot sit by
the solar fire, for the pain of his broken jaw and the terror he had
borne had brought the old man near to a collapse. The pillaged chest,
the rifled ambreys, the scanty furniture, tossed pellmell into the
corners, made Tiphaïne wonder whether Bertrand had kept his vow.
She left Jehanot in the solar, and, going down into the hall, found the
pelf piled on the floor, even as Bertrand had promised. The straw had
been thrown aside, and the bodies of Richard and the lad Berart were no
longer there. Then Tiphaïne’s eyes fell upon the swan of silver,
swimming beside the rough cross cut by Bertrand on the high table.
However proud a woman may be, she can rarely cast past kindness wholly
from her heart. Her sweetness, if she be a good woman, persists in
trying to sanctify a friendship threatened by all the influences of
fate. Tiphaïne had tried her power on Bertrand that day. Her courage,
like a bold haggard, had flown at the man’s rough pride and brought it
tumbling out of the blue. Bertrand had obeyed her, save in one respect.
He had left the prize he had won for her at Rennes, and had cut a cross
beside it, to symbolize some thought that had been working in his heart.
Tiphaïne’s face softened as she stood looking at the swan. She was not
without vanity, the true vanity of the soul that cries out with joy when
some great deed has been inspired; some evil pass prevented. Bertrand
had disobeyed her in one thing, and she grasped the thought that had
made him carve the cross upon the table. Her words had gone home to the
man’s heart; he was not dead to scorn; he could react still to the cry
of his own conscience.
Would the mood last? Tiphaïne hung her head and wondered. There were so
many powers behind the man, dragging him back from the prouder life. He
had been wronged, perhaps treated unjustly, driven to recklessness by
some undeserved disgrace. She remembered Bertrand’s passionate nature as
a child. He was quickly wounded, and stubborn over the smart thereof.
“Ah, Bertrand du Guesclin,” she thought, “how long will my words ring
within your ears? Will you hate me when your humbleness has gone? Will
you hold to the old life, or break from it like a brave man, turning
shame to good account? Who knows?—who knows? Yet I will keep this gift
of yours, to prove or condemn you as the days may show. Will it be the
smelting-pot for the silver swan, messire, or God’s altar again, towards
which the hearts of true men turn?”
* * * * *
Bertrand was fighting out the same question in his heart as he rode with
Arletta through the darkening woodways of Broceliande. Dusk was falling,
and the heavy silence of the forest was broken only by the trampling of
hoofs and the voices of his men. Mist and gloom were everywhere. The
falling of the leaves was very ghostly in the twilight, and the piping
of the wind grew more plaintive as the red flush dwindled in the west.
A sense of loneliness and of nothingness had fallen on Bertrand, a
savage spirit of self-abasement that took him by the shoulders and
thrust him down into the deeps. Of what use were Tiphaïne’s words to
him? Defeat was heavy on him, fate against him, and wherefore should he
swim against the tide? How could a mere freebooter, a beggarly captain
among thieves, hope to retrieve the failures of the past? He had chosen
his part in life, and he must abide by it, without clutching at the
golden fruit that hung above his reach. The past was beyond him, with
its memories. Nothing could flush his soul once more with the boyish
ardor he had felt at Rennes.
It is strange to what poltroonery even a brave man will fall, and how
the stoutest heart can flag, the most strenuous spirit fall into the
mopes. Men are not demi-gods, and their very fibres are fashioned out of
clay. Physical starvation can bring the strutting hero low, while soul
hunger is the most paralytic misery of all. The truest courage is that
which meets fate in the mists of twilight, and passes the valley of
shadows with set mouth and dogged will. It is easy to be brave when
trumpets scream and the flush of fame burns upon the clouds. To defeat
defeat, alone, and with the bitterness of failure in the heart—then is
it that the iron in the man must prove its temper. As yet Bertrand had
not learned the highest courage. He was as a petulant boy who cries
“Shame! Shame!” when the world baffles his first venture.
The man Guicheaux came cantering back from the main company, for it was
growing dark, and they would have to lodge as best they might under the
autumn shelter of Broceliande.
“Shall I call a halt, captain?”
Bertrand glanced at him like a man waking unwillingly from sleep, and
nodded.
“Make me a fire apart, Guicheaux,” he said.
The quipster grinned, and glanced at Arletta.
“There are some big beeches yonder, lording,” he said, flourishing his
hand as a signal to the men to halt.
“The leaves are dry as shavings, and there is bracken waiting to be cut.
We shall find plenty of dead wood about, and a good beech-tree will make
Dame Arletta a fine bower.”