Theyhad been on the march an hour next morning, following the winding forest ways under Guicheaux’s guidance, when Hopart and several others who held the van came plump upon a couple of peasants squatting beside a miserable fire. In the centre of a clearing stood a rude hut built of logs and thatched with whin and heather. The grass was all trampled and muddy about the place, as though a number of horses had been tethered for the night.
At the first glimpse of the free lances and Hopart’s red face under its iron war-hat, the men by the fire skipped up like rabbits and bolted for the woods. The free companions gave chase, hallooing to the peasants to stop, and spattering them with maledictions as they still continued to run. The slimmer of the two gained the undergrowth and dived into it like a bird into a bush. Hopart, however, came thundering down on the other, who was lumbering along on a lame leg, toppled him over by thrusting his spear between his knees, and, rolling from the saddle, had the gentleman in hand. He was a stupid, hairy-faced clod, with a pendulous lower lip and a scar across one cheek. They brought him to Bertrand, who had ridden in with Arletta, and set him in the midst before the captain’s horse.
Bertrand, who had been struggling with his conscience since the rising of the sun, looked round the clearing, noticed the trampled grass, and promptly fell to questioning the lame boor Hopart had brought to earth.
“Hallo, Jacques Bonhomme, whose hut is that?”
The peasant indicated his own person with his thumb.
“Yours, eh? And who have you been lodging? A large party by the look of the grass. Speak up! We are Breton men, and we are not here to steal.”
The man’s face brightened a little as he scratched his chin and looked cunning.
“Maybe you are of the Montfort party, lording?”
“Maybe we are, maybe we are not. Who have you had camped here for the night?”
“Monk Hanotin, Croquart’s bully.”
“Who? Say that again.”
“Monk Hanotin, lording, and twenty men. They’ve thove my old sow, bad blood to them, burned my sticks of furniture, and taken all the meal I had in the tub.”
Bertrand was frowning at the man, while Hopart and the rest listened in silence.
“Thank the saints, Jacques, that they took nothing else. Croquart’s men! The devil! And how long have they been gone?”
The man pulled the hairs in his shaggy beard.
“Maybe an hour, maybe less.”
“We saw nothing of them. They are ahead of us, eh?”
“No, lording, they went west.”
“And we rode east. Well, what do you know, anything?”
There was more hair-pulling, more screwing up of the peasant’s sleepy but cunning eyes, as though he were trying to tune his wits to Bertrand’s temper.
“I heard something, lording, of the business they have in hand.”
“You did! Tell us.”
“When they were kicking me and making me burn my own stools and table I heard Monk Hanotin talking. They are for the Vicomte de Bellière’s tower, the Aspen Tower we call it in these parts. I reckon they mean to pluck it as they plucked my poor hens.”
Bertrand straightened in the saddle, a flash of fierceness crossing his face, as though one of his men had called him a coward. Bending forward, he held his poniard at the peasant’s throat, while Hopart and another gripped him by the arms and shoulders.
“Swear, Jacques Bonhomme! Swear, swear!”
The man looked stupidly into Bertrand’s eyes as though fascinated.
“Swear, lording?”
“That you have spoken the truth.”
The fellow shook off Hopart’s grip and crossed himself.
“By Holy Jesu, Our Lady, and St. Ives,” he said, “I swear!”
Bertrand clapped his poniard back into its sheath.
“Good,” he said. “God see to it, for your throat’s sake, that you are not a liar. How many men had Hanotin with him?”
“Twenty, I should say, lording—English, Flemings, Gascons—cut-purses enough.”
Bertrand’s upper lip tightened. He was alive again to the last sinew.
“Jacques, you know the forest ways?”
“Yes, lording.”
“Bring us to the Vicomte de Bellière’s tower before Hanotin and his rogues break in.”
“Lording, I will do my best if you will bring back my old sow.”
Bertrand stood in the stirrups and called his men round him.
“Come, who is for robbing a brother thief? Shout, all of you, for Bertrand du Guesclin and Brittany!”
And shout they did, ready as Bertrand to strike a blow at Hanotin, Croquart the Fleming’s man. Guicheaux gave tongue to the common will.
“Lead on, lording, we will follow.”
“Well said, comrade,” quoth Hopart, “I’d give a knight’s ransom to stick my poniard in Hanotin’s belly.”
There was stir and ardor everywhere. The men were down tightening up girths and looking to each other’s armor. Guicheaux and Hopart were unlading one of the pack-horses and hoisting up the peasant onto the beast’s back. Bertrand had drawn his sword and was feeling the edge thereof. Of a truth, God had given him his opportunity. He would save Tiphaïne—yes, or lose his life in the adventure.
A hand touched his bridle. It was Arletta’s. She was looking up wistfully, jealously, into Bertrand’s face.
“Take me with you, lording.”
“No, no, Letta, this is no woman’s business.”
“I can ride with the best—”
“Yes, you have spirit, child; but we shall have our stomachs full of fighting before night. Stay with Gwen and Barbe. You will be safe here.”
Arletta went white under her black hair, and then red as fire. Her eyes flashed, her bosom heaved.
“Lording, I will go with you—yes, yes, though you ride to save madame. I know your heart, I know your heart!”
A wave of color swept over Bertrand’s face. He looked hard at Arletta, who was clinging to his bridle with both hands.
“What! Jealous, Letta? For shame, for shame!”
She burst out weeping of a sudden, all her woman’s nature rushing out in tears.
“Take me, lording, I am your servant. No, I’ll not stay while you are fighting. Lording, lording!”
She leaned against his horse’s shoulder, and tried to clasp him with her arms. Bertrand was frowning and gnawing at his lip. His mood had changed; the sullen repinings of the night were past. He felt his sword sharp, his arm mighty.
“Well, you shall come,” he said.
“Lording, I am your servant.”
She kissed his hands and sprang away, smiling dimly through her tears. Yet her heart was not quiet despite her victory. Why was Bertrand so fierce and eager to fly at Hanotin’s throat? Was it because he was of the English party, or because—And Arletta clinched her fists and shivered.
So Bertrand and his men turned back towards the Aspen Tower, leaving the two women in the hut, with Simon and the Poitevin to guard them and the baggage-cattle. Bertrand took the lead once more, and loitered no longer like a sick stag behind the herd. Guicheaux had Jacques Bonhomme on a horse beside him, keeping a fast hold on the bridle, and improving the fellow’s loyalty by grimly reminding him that some one’s back would be the worse for their stirrup-straps if the Aspen Tower were not reached before night. The men were blithe and full of fettle. Monk Hanotin and his free lances were gentlemen of parts—brilliant rogues, so far as devilry could carry them. They did not ride with empty saddles. The peasant swore that they had the spoil of half a dozen castles and manors on their pack-horses.
As for Bertrand, the whole tone of life was changed in him since he had turned back from that patch of open land in Broceliande’s heart. The mopes had fallen away; he had a deed in view; the day was justified by its endeavor. Some strange stroke of chance had beaten him back towards the woman who had shown him his own soul. He was riding to save Tiphaïne—Tiphaïne, the child who had made a man of him at Rennes. He recalled her as he had known her then—sweet, winsome, passionate, generous in her championing of his ugliness. He saw her as she had stood but yesterday on the altar steps, brave, scornful, haloed round with a lustre of gold. All the deep pathos of the scene smote home to him—dead Brunet’s body, the pest-stricken home, old Jehanot shivering behind the hangings. Why, he had been no better then than this bully of Croquart’s, this Hanotin whom he was thirsting to slay! Great God, how a man might discover his true self in the likeness of another!
Bertrand awoke over the peril of the child he had loved of old. He was as hot to save her as though he were still her champion at Rennes. Tiphaïne in Hanotin’s ruffian hands! Bertrand set his teeth and raged at the thought of it. He must reach the Aspen Tower before the patched gate fell.
Arletta rode at Bertrand’s side that morning, biting her red lips, and tasting the bitterness of her own reflections. A woman is quick in the telling of a man’s moods, and his actions speak for him in lieu of words. With Arletta jealousy was an ever-smouldering passion. It lurked at all times behind her pale and sinful face, and in the restless deeps of her troubled eyes. She had been known to stab fat Gwen in the arm because the woman had dared to laugh at Bertrand before his men. Arletta could brook no rivalry in this poor, honorless conceit of hers. She loved Bertrand, loved him like a mother, a mistress, and a slave—was proud of his great strength and of the truth that he belonged to her.
Yet Arletta had kept a vision of madame of the Aspen Tower, concerning whom her lord had been so glum and silent. She hated Tiphaïne with her whole soul. A woman soon grasps the character of a sister woman, and to Arletta Tiphaïne stood for every contrast that could make Bertrand see her as she was. Untarnished pride and haughty purity! The thin, white-faced light of love, with her jet-black hair and sinuous ways, knew how steep was the slope between Tiphaïne and herself. She had seen her but for a moment, but that moment was sufficient. Bertrand, her master, had humbled himself before this lady of the tower, and to Arletta there had been a reflected bitterness in Bertrand’s homage. She was but a poor sparrow-hawk compared to this gerfalcon, whose splendid pinions had never been imped by the hand of man.
About noon they halted by a stream to water the horses and make a meal. Arletta could see how Bertrand chafed and fretted at the delay, how hot and fierce he was to come up with Hanotin and his free lances, whose tracks showed in the wet grass. Arletta would have rejoiced if half the horses had fallen lame; but no, there was to be no slackening of the chase that day. Bertrand was in the saddle, inexorably eager, and shouting to his men:
“Forward! forward!”
The brown thickets swam by them as they cantered on through shadow and through sunlight. The sun sank low, hurling his slanting showers of gold over the bosom of Broceliande. Every forest monarch seemed afire, touched with a glory that was not of earth. The pungent scent of the rotting leaves rose up like invisible incense before the reddening altar of the west. Another league and they would be on the brink of the valley, and near the tower that Arletta hated.
Bertrand called a halt. He was a man who never racked his wits for strategy or battle craft. Like a good hawk, he “waited on” till the quarry rose in view; courage and strength of pinion did the rest. The horses steamed in the frosty air. The men sat silent, images in steel, listening for any sound that might break the silence. They were close on the valley, close on Monk Hanotin and his scum of Gascons, English, and Flemings.
From afar came the faint crying of a horn, wild and wailing, like the voice of the dying day.
“Hear them, hear them, brave dogs!”
Hopart was biting at his beard and setting back his shoulders, as though to feel their weight.
“Blow, brother Hanotin!” he growled. “We will be with thee before dark.”
They drew together under the trees, their eyes on Bertrand, who was holding his breath and listening. The rough fellows had confidence in him. There would be no bungling where Bertrand led.
“Ready, sirs?”
A growl and a loosening of swords came in response.
“Good. Keep your tongues quiet. We must hold to the trees till we have the tower in sight.”
He was spurring on his horse when he remembered Arletta, and drew rein again with an impatient frown.
“Here, one of you look after the girl. Keep her safe in the woods till we have finished.”
Arletta, jealous and very miserable, held out her hands to him with a sharp cry.
“Lording, I am not afraid—”
“What devil’s nonsense now! Back, I say! Am I to be obeyed?”
Arletta looked at Bertrand’s face, and slunk away as though he had smitten her. Tiphaïne of the tower had all his tenderness. She only cumbered him, and his passionate impatience hurt her heart.
“Off! I can look to myself,” she said, as one of the men came to take her bridle. “Go forward and fight; I’ll be a clog on none of you.”
Another furlong and they neared the valley, pushing on cautiously under the trees. Bertrand and Guicheaux rode ahead, speaking not a word, but keeping their eyes fixed on the woodways before them. Soon the sky broadened into a pillared arch of gold. The great trees gave back, showing the valley and the aspens glimmering about the tower.
“Yonder are their horses.”
Guicheaux was pointing with his spear, his thin face working with excitement.
“We have them, lording! We have them on the hip!”
Bertrand peered down the valley under his hand. He saw some thirty horses picketed on the edge of the aspen wood. Only two men were guarding them. Where were the rest?
He gave a shout, and drew his sword.
“Listen, they are breaking in!”
From the valley came the confused cries of men hurrying to the assault, and Bertrand could hear the dull crash of blows given upon the gate. A confused shimmer of steel showed under the black bulk of the tower as Hanotin’s men thronged across the causeway.
“On—on!”
Bertrand was already galloping down the slope into the gold mist that drowned the meadows.
Hanotin’smen had already broken down the gate when Bertrand came galloping through the aspen wood. He had halted but a moment to cut down the two fellows who had been left to guard the horses, and who had drawn their swords on him and tried to give the alarm to their comrades on the causeway. Thanks to the din his own men were making, Hanotin had no warning of the rescue that was at hand.
Tiphaïne, who had climbed the tower with Jehanot when Hanotin’s horn had blown the first challenge, stood looking down in a species of stupor through the machicolations of the battlements at the mob of men struggling through the wreck of the twice-broken gate. They had forced up the portcullis, and were shouting with savage triumph, their shouts coming up to Tiphaïne like the snarling of wild beasts. She could see their bassinets and shoulder-plates and their thrust-out heels as they struggled to be first in through the entry.
The last men were still in view when she saw one of them clap his hand to the back of his neck, turn, and stare in astonishment across the moat. Tiphaïne, vividly receptive of all details in her dull terror, noticed a red patch of blood between the rim of the man’s steel cap and the edge of his gorget. He had been hit in the neck by a cross-bow bolt, and was shouting and gesticulating, calling back his comrades, who were crowding through the gate.
Tiphaïne was startled by a cry from old Jehanot. He was hopping from foot to foot, brandishing his cross-bow, his eyes shining out curiously above the bandage over his mouth and chin.
“Look! look!”
Tiphaïne followed the pointing of his hand, and understood whence the cross-bow bolt had flown. Through the aspen wood, with its last yellow leaves flickering in the sunlight, came Bertrand’s men, pressing forward on foot behind their captain, whose sword flashed as he cantered down on his great black horse. They came on in good order with their shields up, spears bristling, steady and silent.
Tiphaïne recognized the blue surcoat.
“It is Bertrand!” she said—“Bertrand du Guesclin!”
Jehanot was waving his cross-bow above his head.
“A rescue! a rescue! To the chapel, madame. There will be bloody work. Shut yourself in. I’ll bide here and watch.”
Hanotin’s men were crowding back under the arch of the gate, jostling each other, taken by surprise. Some were for meeting Bertrand upon the causeway, others for holding the tower and letting the portcullis fall. Hanotin, a giant with a face like raw meat, came pushing through the press, cursing his men, and shouldering them aside as a ship shoulders the waves.
“Out of the way! Out of the way! Let me get a glimpse at these gentlemen.”
He pushed through and had his desire—a vision of a wedge of shields and spears thrusting forward across the causeway.
Hanotin sprang back, brandishing his mace.
“Down with the grid! Curse these foul trees, the bridge is jammed.”
He swept his men back, and stood alone to hold the entry till they should have time to lower the portcullis. Bertrand saw that the need was imminent.
“St. Ives!—Du Guesclin!”
Hanotin snarled and swung his mace.
“Out, fools, out!”
There was a squeal of delight from the battlements above. Old Jehanot had toppled a loose stone over. It brushed Hanotin’s body, made him stagger, and broke in fragments at his feet. Before the free lance could recover Bertrand rushed on him, and knocked him over with a blow of the fist. Shouting, cursing, heaving, the whole rout went in over Hanotin as he struggled to rise. They drove the Monk’s men through the tower arch by sheer weight of numbers, burst into the court, and stood shouting and cheering as though gone mad.
Hanotin had picked himself up and was rallying his men. Furious at the way he had been wrested and trampled under foot, he stormed at his fellows, taunting them with having given way before a mob of footpads and boys. Bertrand’s free companions in their rush had carried the court-yard, but they had left the tower gate and guard-room in Hanotin’s hands.
The Monk, who was an inspired bully, and knew how to make the most of a situation, ordered the portcullis to be lowered—a piece of ostentatious bravado that he was soon to regret. The great grid came jerking down; they were to fight it out like cats in a cage. Hanotin bluffed beyond his powers when he thought to frighten Bertrand into a surrender.
“Steady, steady. Keep close together, and follow when I give the word. Let them drop the grid. They are stopping their own bolting-hole.”
Bertrand’s coolness heartened his men on the instant. They could see that he was smiling—smiling one of those grim and quiet smiles they had learned to treasure. Messire Bertrand knew his business. Guicheaux and Hopart watched him in silence, ready for the spring they knew was coming.
“Good-evening, brother. How is it to be—your mace against my sword?”
Hanotin ran his eyes over Bertrand’s figure, and shirked the challenge.
“Not so fast, sir,” he said; “I am too big for thee, and the game is ours. Throw down your arms, or—” And he drew the edge of his hand across his throat.
Bertrand laughed. His men were grinning and nudging one another, gloating at the way the free lance had shirked the challenge. Bertrand spoke a few words to them over his shoulder.
“As you will, brother,” he said, setting his sword swinging. “In, sirs, in! Notre Dame du Guesclin! Follow me!”
Hanotin’s men were the better armed, but Bertrand, who had the advantage of numbers, kept his fellows together, and broke Hanotin’s ranks at the first charge. It was rough-and-ready scrimmaging enough in the gathering darkness of the narrow court. Men shortened their swords, used poniards and gadded fists, grappling together, squirming and wriggling on the stones. Bertrand hunted out Hanotin, and hammered him while the sparks flew. The bully labored with his mace, puffing and grunting as he gave each blow. Twice wounded, he closed with Bertrand and tried to bear him down beneath his weight. Hanotin would have been wiser had he shirked the bear’s grip that had given Bertrand many a victory over the Breton wrestlers as a lad. The Monk went down with a crash that startled even the men who were struggling in the death grips round him. He lay still a moment, and then, heaving himself upon his hands and knees, wriggled away like a huge lizard into the thick of the press.
Bertrand sprang after him, but a sudden rush of his own men and a weakening of the Montfort party threw him sideways against the wall. Hopart, who was close at hand, helped Bertrand to his feet.
“Hurt, lording?”
“Hurt? Not a bit of it! On; they are losing heart!”
They were losing ground also, and had been driven back under the tower gateway. With the grid down there was no escape save into the guard-room, or up the newel stairway leading to the lesser solar, and by the gallery to the lord’s solar and the chapel. Hanotin, who had recovered his feet and picked up a fallen sword, shouted to his men to take to the stairway. There was a rush for the narrow entry, Hanotin and three others holding their ground while the rest tumbled pellmell up the stairs.
This was the very move Bertrand had dreaded, for he knew that Tiphaïne must be hidden somewhere in the rooms above. He had seen her head on the tower for an instant when he and his men had first charged for the gate. Hanotin’s free lances would be like wild beasts brought to bay in the place. They might kill the girl, or harm might come to her with men hunting one another through the darkening rooms. Calling off ten of his own fellows, he left Hopart and the rest to force the stairs, and doubled across the court-yard for the hall.
It had grown so dark that the great room was like a cavern. Bertrand groped through it, and climbed the stairs towards the solar. The door was slammed against him from within, and his shout of “Tiphaïne!” answered with curses. Setting his teeth, he threw his weight against the door, broke it, and went sprawling, with rattling harness, into the blackness of the room.
In an instant two of Hanotin’s men were on him, trying to stab him in the dark. Bertrand kicked out right and left, caught one gentleman by the ankle and brought him down backward with a crash. There was a rush and a great shouting of “Lights!—lights!” The room seemed full of tumbling, struggling shapes. Furniture was overturned, whirled away, and broken. Men were grappling and stabbing haphazard in the gloom, cursing the darkness and calling to one another.
Light streamed in suddenly. The chapel door had been burst open by two men who had fallen against it, and were now wrestling together on the floor. Bertrand, scrambling up, with a poniard wound in his forearm, stood back against the wall and looked round him. Three men were struggling on the bed, a confused tangle of arms and legs, while at the far end of the solar Guicheaux and several more were holding back the fellows whom they had driven into the gallery leading to the tower. Bertrand could hear Hopart and the rest fighting their way up the stairway to the lesser solar above the gate.
A den of horror, brute force, and death the place seemed as Bertrand leaned against the wall and recovered his breath. He turned and saw the two men struggling by the chapel door. The bigger of the pair had the other under him, and was driving his dagger into the agonized wretch’s throat. The victor scrambled up from the body, shook himself, and looked round with his teeth a-gleam like a dog at bay. Bertrand recognized Hanotin by the beard.
“Hallo, brother—you are there! Good!”
Hanotin snarled and darted through the chapel doorway, swinging the door to after him. Bertrand dashed it open, and stepped over the body of the man the Monk had stabbed. A woman’s cry rang out through the chapel. Before the altar stood Hanotin, holding Tiphaïne by the bosom with one great paw, and brandishing his poniard with the other.
“Off, dog, off!”
Hanotin spat like a cat, and forced Tiphaïne down across his thigh.
“A truce, or the knife goes home.”
Bertrand faltered in his fury and stood looking at Tiphaïne, Hanotin’s hand gripping her bosom, her hair falling down in disorder as he held her across his knee. Bertrand could not see her face. She was struggling a little, her bosom heaving under the man’s paw, her hands stretched out to catch the blow.
“Loose your hold!”
Hanotin showed his teeth and grinned. The ruse was a desperate one, but he had Bertrand baffled for the moment.
“No, no, messire. You see my terms. Curse you!—she-dog—”
Tiphaïne had seized her chance and twisted herself free from Hanotin’s grip. She slipped and fell upon the altar steps, and rolled down them to the floor. Hanotin sprang forward, but Bertrand was too quick for him. There was the whistling of a sword, the clang of a helmet, and the Monk’s bassinet ran blood. He staggered and fell, with Tiphaïne beneath him, and in his blind death agony tried to stab her as he lay. Bertrand, throwing down his sword, seized Hanotin by the sword-belt. He lifted him from Tiphaïne and swung him away upon the floor, and in the fury of his vengeance dashed his mailed heel again and again into the man’s face. Life was over for Hanotin. He had given his last blow.
Bertrand turned towards Tiphaïne, who was half lying below the steps, supporting herself upon her hands. She was dazed, shocked out of her senses for the moment, with the Monk’s blood dyeing her hair and clothes. She looked at Bertrand and gave a little gasp of pain.
He was bending over her on the instant, the distorting anger gone from his face. He took her in his arms and felt the quivering of her body. She clung to him for a moment like a frightened child, staring in his face, her eyes full of the horror of Hanotin’s death.
“Bertrand, my God! oh—let me breathe—air, air—”
He let her lean against the altar, all the savagery gone out of him, his face twitching.
“Are you hurt? Tiphaïne—”
She shook her head, and then pressed her hands over her ears as though to shut out the brutal babel that came from the dark rooms and passage-ways. Bertrand could hear Hopart shouting in the solar, “Kill! Kill!”
“Bertrand, Bertrand, for God’s sake, tell them to spare the wretches!”
She sank to her knees and laid her head against the cold stone-work of the altar, pressing her hands in horror over her ears.
Bertrand lifted a strand of her hair, kissed it, and then turned to end the slaughter.
A sunnymorning, with white clouds banding the blue of the autumn sky, Broceliande, a sea of gold, glimmering over the silent hills. A sparkle of frost in the air, rime on the grass, brown leaves falling everywhere, the aspen leaves murmuring feebly about the black waters of the moat.
Grimness and horror still lingered about the place, despite the blue sky and the golden woods. Even the water in the moat seemed to hide within its depths dim visions of death that would make the eyes that gazed thereon dilate and harden. Memories haunted the Aspen Tower—memories of men hunting one another through dark passage-ways and chambers. Every black squint and window seemed to gape and whisper as though trying to tell of what had passed within.
Fires were burning in the aspen wood, horses cropping the grass, men building rude huts with boughs cut from the forest. Southward of the moat, in a hollow, where thorn-trees grew, three fellows, stripped half naked, were shovelling earth back into a long and shallow trench. Ever and again there was a splashing of something into the moat and a rush of water from the stone shoots draining the hall and tower. The guard-room door was barred, and two men with grounded spears were standing on duty under the arch of the gate. In the court lay piles of broken or blood-stained furniture, scraps of armor, trampled rushes. Men were going to and fro, carrying buckets which they filled at the moat.
Water in a miniature cascade was running down the stairway leading to the lord’s solar, to be sluiced about the hall with mops and brooms and swept out again into the court. In the solar itself, Bertrand, barelegged, his tunic turned up over his belt, was throwing water against the walls and swilling the floor. The whole place had a damp and sodden smell, like a house that has lain empty long after the masons and plasterers have done their work. From the gallery and the lesser solar above the gate came the sound of voices, the plash of water, the swishing of brooms.
Perched on the bed, that had been dragged into the middle of the room and stripped of coverlet and sheets, sat Arletta watching Bertrand with her restless eyes. She had her cloak over her shoulders, because of the cold, and her fingers were picking at the gaudy embroidery on her gown, as though she were brooding over some hidden grievance. There was something forlorn and pathetic in the bright colors of her clothes, the reds and greens, their superficial brilliancy. She was very miserable, was Arletta. Her heart ached as dully as her head, and her hands were blue and numb with cold. Bertrand paid no heed to her presence as he used his broom, strange weapon for his hands, and took the buckets Guicheaux and Hopart brought him.
He sluiced the last ripple of water down the stairs, stood up and stretched himself, as though cramped in the back. A strip of blood-stained linen was wrapped round his left forearm. Beside Arletta, on the bed, lay piled his armor, his shield, sword, and surcoat hanging from a peg near to the window.
Arletta opened her mouth and yawned.
“Lording,” she said.
She spoke almost in a whisper, her face pinched, her teeth ready to chatter.
“Lording!”
The appeal was a little louder, bringing Bertrand round upon his heel, to stare at her vacantly, as though his thoughts were far away.
“Yes, child, yes.”
“May I make a fire?”
Bertrand glanced at the wet hearth and the gloom of the great chimney.
“It would be as well,” he said; “the place is damp as a cellar. It is not fit—” and he halted, stroking his chin.
Arletta gave a little shiver, and a twinge of pain swept across her face. She shook her black hair, climbed down from the bed, and went and stood close by Bertrand.
“Lording, you are tired.”
She touched his arm and tried to slip her hand in his. Almost imperceptibly Bertrand shrank from her, yet with an instinctiveness she could not miss. He was listening, and glancing restlessly towards the chapel door.
“You will find wood in the shed by the kitchen.”
“Yes, lording.”
“Hopart will light a fire in the room over the gate. Gwen and Barbe can share it with you when they return. This is madame’s chamber—”
“Yes, lording,” she said, sullenly, ready to weep.
“And, Letta”—he looked guiltily shy of her, despite his courage—“madame is much troubled; she would see no one—as yet. The men will camp in the aspen wood, because of the Black Death. If you are afraid—”
“Afraid, lording?”
“Yes, of the plague.”
She flashed an indescribable look at him, her mouth quivering.
“No, lording, I am not afraid.”
Bertrand frowned, but said no more to her. The girl’s strained face troubled him. Everything was coming to Arletta, slowly, and by degrees. Bertrand was beginning to be ashamed of her; he would have her away while Tiphaïne was near.
She went out from the solar and stood shivering on the stairs, leaning her weight against the wall. Her knees felt weak under her, dread heavy on her shoulders, dread of this great lady and of the slipping away of her one poor pride. She beat her hand across her mouth, and went slowly and unsteadily down the stairway into the hall. Pools of water still covered the floor, and the damp emptiness of the place seemed to echo the beatings of her heart. Crossing the court in the quivering sunlight, and threading her way between dead men’s armor and broken wood, she came to the kitchen, where Hopart had already built a fire. He looked at Arletta and grinned, gave her the stuff she asked for, but held his banter, for the girl’s face sobered him. Returning, she climbed slowly to the solar and found it empty, Bertrand gone.
Throwing the wood down petulantly upon the hearth, she looked round the room, pressing her face between her hands. Bertrand’s surcoat had been taken from the peg beside his shield and sword. She guessed what drew him, and why he had wished to be rid of her for a while. Sullenly and with effort she knelt down and began to build a fire. There would be no warmth for her in its red, prophetic blaze. Her heart was cold—cold as the stone hearth she knelt upon.
When Arletta had left him, Bertrand had taken down his blue surcoat from the peg where his sword and shield were hanging, the blue surcoat that had once been blazoned over with eagles of gold, but was now wofully dim and threadbare. He had slipped into it, pulled on his hose and shoes, and felt the stubble on his chin, that had not been barbered for two days. Opening the chapel door, he found the place empty and the sun making a glorious mosaic of light of the eastern window above the altar. The Virgin’s robes gleamed like amber wine; the greens and purples were richer than the colors of the sea. Bertrand closed the chapel door, and, leaning against it, stood looking towards the altar and at the steps where Hanotin had fallen the night before.
It was here that Tiphaïne prayed, and yonder stood her prie-dieu, with a missal on the book-ledge. How quiet the chapel seemed, how full of sunlight and of peace after the brutal violence of yesterday! Bertrand went and stood by the prayer-desk, and, looking like a boy half fearful of being caught in mischief, opened the missal and turned over the pages. The book was beautifully illuminated, the vermilions, golds, and greens glowing with the freshness of young flowers, the quaint pictures and grotesque letters making the book a thing of beauty and of strangeness. Bertrand knew naught of Latin, save the few prayers he had been taught by Father Isidore at Motte Broon. In truth, he hardly knew his letters, and it was curious to see him running his finger under a word and trying to come to grips with the profundities of a pronoun.
But if Bertrand could not read its Latin, the missal itself spoke to him in a language of the heart that he could understand. How often had Tiphaïne’s hands turned these pages! How pure she was, how utterly unlike the poor drabs upon whom he had wasted his manhood! Bertrand stood fingering his unshaven chin and staring at the missal, with his brows wrinkled up in thought. He had come face to face with one of those barriers in life that mark off beauty from ugliness and deformity. Was character worth the building, worth every careful chisel-mark on the stone? Bertrand looked round the chapel; it was oracular to him that morning, eloquent of those higher truths he had lost in the rough petulance of his distemper. He felt himself a prodigal, an interloper, a foolish boy who had thrown away his birthright in a moment of peevish irritation.
There was much boyish simplicity in Bertrand still. He touched Tiphaïne’s missal with his great hands, and then knelt at the prie-dieu as though trying to experience some new sensation. He crossed himself, fixed his eyes on the book, and, great, broad-backed sworder that he was, tried to imagine how Tiphaïne felt when she knelt to pray before the Virgin. It seemed quite natural to Bertrand that Tiphaïne should pray. He would like to watch her fair, strong face turned up in adoration to the cross. It would do him good to look at her, drive the evil out of his heart, and perhaps teach him to pray in turn. What, Bertrand du Guesclin praying! He stumbled up with a rough and ingenuous burst of self-contempt. He was a fool to be kneeling at Tiphaïne’s prie-dieu. He had forgotten how to pray, and his one religious inspiration was the dread of ever playing the hypocrite.
“Bertrand!”
He started as though one of his own rough fellows had caught him on his knees. The door of Tiphaïne’s bedchamber had opened while Bertrand was kneeling before the missal. She was standing on the threshold, wearing her wine-red gown.
Bertrand faced her sheepishly.
“I was only looking at the missal,” he explained, bent on thoroughness and sincerity.
They stood considering each other, with something of the cautious coyness of a couple of strange children brought suddenly face to face. Both were embarrassed, both conscious of a sense of antagonism and discomfort, as though troubled by the thoughts imagined in the heart of the other.
“Bertrand, I have not thanked you—yet.”
He glanced at her keenly a moment, and rested one hand on the prie-dieu.
“It is nothing. We crossed Hanotin’s tracks, that was all. Besides, we owed them a grudge.”
Tiphaïne was struck by his dogged air of self-restraint, and yet there was something in his voice that touched her. The long, wakeful hours of the night had changed her mood towards him. She seemed to have been given sudden insight into the heart of this strong and rebellious man, whose arm had saved her from a thing that she dared not picture.
“We each have something to forgive,” she said.
“I disobeyed you in that one thing.”
“Yes.”
“I did it that I might still have the memory of Rennes.”
She was gazing at the altar steps, as though recalling how Hanotin had held her across his knee. She shuddered a little. It was something, after all, for a man to be grim and mighty in battle.
Bertrand stood by the prie-dieu, watching her.
“Do you remember, Tiphaïne, that night when you came to us at Motte Broon?”
She looked up at him and smiled.
“I was just such a rough dog then; it was sympathy I wanted, and the sympathy you gave me won me the prize at Rennes.”
If he had read her thoughts his words could not have touched the woman in her more.
“You are right in reproaching me,” she said.
“I? What reproach have I to make? You showed me my true self two days ago. I have learned to take hard blows—when they are given honestly.”
Their eyes met.
“Yet—there is the other self.”
He steadied himself against the prie-dieu.
“Let me tell you the whole truth, as I blurted it out to you at Motte Broon. I’ll not spare myself; it would do me good.”
She met him bravely with her eyes.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
And she knelt at the prayer-desk, her chin upon her hands, while Bertrand, leaning against the wall, told her the whole tale—all that had befallen him since the siege of Vannes.
There was silence between them when he had finished. Tiphaïne’s eyes were turned towards the altar, with no self-righteous pride upon her face.
“I can understand, Bertrand,” she said.
“Be rough with me.”
“Rough!”
He flushed and spread his arms.
“I am what I am; but, before God, I believe that there is something in me—yet. Do not flatter me; flattery did no man any good.”
She set herself to match his sincerity with equal truth.
“What right have I to preach to you? And yet—”
“Say what you will.”
“There is a courage above the mere courage of a man swinging a sword—the courage to suffer, to be patient, and to bide by one’s true self.”
He looked at her steadfastly, and bent his head.
“That is where I failed,” he said, slowly; “I see it now as plainly as I see your face.”
At the chapel door Arletta stood listening, her mouth twisted with jealousy and hate. She had heard all that had passed between the two. The great lady was taking away her one poor pride, her love. And Arletta shivered, gripping her bosom till her nails bruised the skin.
Jealousyis as the dark under world to the warm day of a woman’s love. It is peopled with phantoms and with shadows—a land of credulity, of whisperings, and of gloom.
Arletta, poor wench, was dwelling on this black sphere of her troubled life. A child of the soil, quick in her passions, hot of blood, she had had no schooling in the higher patience, or learned that world-wise nonchalance that shrugs its bland shoulders at despair. Impulse was law to her, the blind instincts of her body her counsellors, her hands her ministers of justice. She loved Bertrand—loved him with the zeal of a wild thing for its mate. She loved him because he was stronger than other men, because his strength had made him her master. Many a night she had lain awake, smiling over some bold trick of his, the plunder he had taken, the devil-may-care courage dear to the heart of such a woman as Arletta. She had never thought that she was holding him back from nobler things, and that her hands were strangling the ambitions of his manhood. Arletta would have been content to have him the most feared and fearless swashbuckler in all the Breton lands, and she would have taken pride in the rough triumphs of such a life.
Little wonder that she awakened with a start of dread when this white-faced madame with the calm and quiet eyes came sweeping royally across her path. It was as though some saint had stepped down out of a painted window, touched Bertrand on the breast, and disenchanted him with the light of love who had ridden over the moors and through the woodlands at his side. Arletta understood all that Tiphaïne’s influence portended. Her woman’s instinct tore out the truth of her own dethronement. Bertrand would be the gentleman once more, ashamed of a bed of bracken and of a poor quean who had no honor.
Hate found the door of the girl’s heart open, with jealousy beckoning from within. She hated Tiphaïne—hated her with a reasonableness that had its justification in the truth. Who had the silkier skin, the finer clothes, the more sweeping grace, the longer hair? Even in the mere physical rivalry the lady outshone the poor woman of the smithy and the moors. But it was for her birth that Arletta hated Tiphaïne most of all, and for the superiorities that went therewith—the grace, the presence, the clear, quiet voice, the beauty of completeness, the habit of command. Even hatred fed on its own humiliation, and jealousy confessed with bitterness the justice of its cause.
Arletta’s dreads were quickly justified. The “free companions” were to camp in the aspen wood, for madame was to be guarded till her father’s banner should come dancing through the woods. Arletta herself was sent to the kitchen to cook and scour with Barbe and Gwen. The women began to jeer at her before her face, seeing how the wind blew, and that Messire Bertrand du Guesclin had changed his coat. He served and carved at madame’s table, acted as seneschal, took her commands, and saw them followed.
As for the Black Death, it seemed to have spent its fury in the place, for it laid no hands on Bertrand’s men. Perhaps their wild life saved them, the sun and storm that had tanned and hardened them against disease. There was work and enough for them in regarnishing the Aspen Tower under Bertrand’s orders. He sent them hunting in Broceliande to bring back food for Tiphaïne’s larder. To keep the rest busy he ordered the building of a new gate from timber stored in one of the out-houses, and the strengthening of the palisades closing the garden from the moat. The men worked willingly, for Bertrand had given them all the plunder they had taken from Hanotin. Not a sou would he touch; the days of his thieving were at an end. Then there were the prisoners to be looked to in the guard-room, wounded men to be cared for, bread to be baked, strayed cattle to be sought out in the woods. A lord’s house in those days was a little town within itself, fitted for every common craft, supplying its own needs by the labor of its inmates’ hands.
Bertrand went about his duties with a shut mouth and a purposeful reserve. Even his rough fellows felt that he had changed, for he no longer laughed with them and joined in their jesting. Like a masker he had thrown off his buffoon’s dress and taken to the habit that was his by right. The men whispered together over Bertrand’s transfiguration, but took no liberties in his presence. Messire Bertrand was still their hero; his slaying of Hanotin was like to become an epic deed among them; moreover, the generous squandering of his share of the plunder had made his whims and moods respected.
As for Arletta, she went sullenly about her work, wincing at the sneers she had from Gwen and Barbe, and hating to be stared at by the men. Often she would creep away into some quiet corner and brood bitterly over her lost power. Bertrand but rarely spoke to her, and then the careful kindness of his words stung her more sharply than a whip. He was no longer rough and tender by turns, and Arletta would have welcomed blows only to feel his strong arms once more about her body. Bertrand avoided her, kept his distance when there was no escape, and even spoke to her of Ancenis, where her father was growing prosperous on forging armor for the wars. How easy it all seemed to Messire Bertrand! It was a man’s way, she imagined, to be able to forget everything in three days, and to turn his back upon the past.
Tiphaïne and Bertrand seemed often together. They walked in the garden, rode hunting in the woods or in the fields to give Tiphaïne’s hawks a flutter. Bertrand served madame at her table in the hall, and slept across the chapel door at night. Arletta exaggerated all these happenings in her heart.
The fourth morning after the saving of the tower she saw Bertrand cross the court as she stood in the kitchen entry half hidden by the door. Bertrand was alone, and, slipping out, she followed him, driven to dare his displeasure by the bitterness of neglect. Bertrand’s foot was on the first step of the solar stairway when he heard the rustle of a woman’s skirt.
“Lording, lording.”
He turned, half angry, half ashamed, and stood looking down into her white and passionate face.
“Why, Letta”—and he tried to smile—“what is it, wench?”
His coolness stung her. Why, Bertrand had loved her once—had told her so with his own lips! Desperate in her dread, she flung out her arms and clung about his neck.
“Lording, lording, why do you turn from me? Dear God, what have I done?”
She was panting, quivering, looking up into his face. Bertrand, conscious of the straining arms about his neck and of the questioning wildness of her eyes, stood helpless for a moment, betrayed by his own conscience.
“Gently, child, gently,” he said, trying to unfasten her hands, and dreading lest Tiphaïne should hear them—“gently. What ails you? Come, come, be a good wench!”
Arletta clung to him the more, quivering, and pleading with him in passionate whispers. Bertrand began to lose patience.
“Letta, Letta!”
He spoke hoarsely, forcing down her hands.
“Listen, Letta, I have words to speak to you.”
Repulsed, she sprang away, thrusting him back with her hands, her eyes miserable yet full of fury.
“Yes, yes, I know—I’ll not bear it. You are ashamed of me; you hate me; I see it clear enough.”
Bertrand tried to soothe her, holding out his hands.
“Letta!”
“No, no,” and she thrust him off, “I am nothing—a mere drab. You hate me; you would like to see me dead. Ah, yes, messire, I am no fool. Madame is not as I am. She is a great lady. Ah—ah—how can she take you from me!”
She burst out weeping, covering her face with her arms, her passion sinking into despair. Bertrand looked at her. What could he say? He felt tongue-tied, helpless, and ashamed.
“Letta!”
She stood sobbing, her arms before her face.
“Letta!” And he went near to her.
“No, don’t touch me, messire.”
“Come, be sensible—”
She flashed up again, her passion working through her misery like flames through wet wood.
“No, no! Hold off, messire! I am a woman; I have my pride; I can give as well as take.”
Bertrand said nothing.
“Yes, you would be rid of me, you would throw me away like an old shoe!”
She turned suddenly, threw up her arms, and ran unsteadily towards the door. Bertrand sprang after her, and then halted. What was the use of it? The wrench must come, the reckoning be paid. Perhaps the girl was only trying her woman’s tricks on him. He strove to comfort himself with the suspicion, and let her go, weak and wounded, like a winged bird.
Tiphaïne supped in the solar that night, Bertrand serving her, and old Jehanot carrying the dishes from the kitchen. Two torches were burning, one on either side of the great hooded chimney, and freshly cut rushes were strewn upon the floor.
Tiphaïne was in a silent mood, engrossed in her own thoughts. By chance she had overheard Arletta’s pleadings with Bertrand in the hall. Her heart was sad in her for the girl’s sake, though she was but learning the rough methods of the world.
Old Jehanot had gone to the kitchen with the empty dishes, and Bertrand stood filling Tiphaïne’s glass with ypocrasse.
“Enough,” and she raised her hand.
He let the lid of the beaker fall, and moved towards the door, for Jehanot had left it ajar, and the draught from the hall came in like a winter wind. Bertrand’s hand was on the latch when he heard the rattling of the curtain-rings along the bed-rails, as though some one had stood hidden and bided their time to sweep the curtains back. Tiphaïne’s chair was drawn up before the fire, and Bertrand, turning on his heel, saw Arletta swoop towards her with one arm raised.
It was all done in the taking of a breath. Arletta had struck her blow, and in her flurry snapped the knife-blade on the oak head-rail of the chair. Bertrand, forgetting the past utterly in the moment’s wrath, took Arletta by the throat and hurled her back against the bed.
“Mad beast!—murderess!”
She cowered before him, choking from the grip he had given her throat, and hiding her face behind her arm. Bertrand stood over her, as though tempted to strike again.
“No, not that!”
Tiphaïne, unhurt, her face pale, her eyes full of pity, came between Bertrand and the girl.
“Be careful, the cat is mad!”
“You are too rough—and blind.”
Arletta still cowered against the bed, as though Bertrand’s hands had throttled her last hope. The lust for revenge had flowed from her like wine from a broken jar.
Tiphaïne bent over Arletta, waving Bertrand aside when he sought to interfere. The significance of the scene had flashed suddenly before her eyes, moving her not to anger but to a spasm of pity.
There was no need for her to question Arletta. The flare of passion had died out of her, and she looked like a frightened child, ashamed and humbled.
“Come!”
Arletta writhed from her touch and hid her face.
“Come; the blow’s forgiven; you did not think. The wine-cup, Bertrand.”
He brought it her, a man whose conscience was crying within his heart.
“Drink some of the wine, child.”
But the girl only broke into bitter weeping and hid her face in the coverlet of the bed. Tiphaïne stood looking at her, her lips quivering, her eyes compassionate.
She turned to Bertrand, and gave the cup back into his hands.
“She is better alone, perhaps. Take one of the torches and light me to the chapel.”
Bertrand obeyed her without a word. The whole scene had been a revelation to him, as though the last glimpse of Arletta crouching by the bed had been a vision betraying his own shame. Carrying the torch, he went before Tiphaïne into the chapel, feeling himself guilty of the blow that had been aimed by Arletta at her heart.
Bertrand set the torch in one of the iron brackets on the wall. Tiphaïne went to kneel at her prie-dieu, her chin upon her hands, her face lifted towards the altar. She knelt there awhile, silent, motionless, while Bertrand watched her, wondering what her woman’s mind would weave out of the tangle.
She spoke at last.
“How long has the child been with you?”
“Two years; perhaps less. Her father was an armorer at Ancenis; she left him when the French marched through. I did not take her from her home. Besides, she is no longer a child.”
Bertrand’s face seemed furrowed with recollections, or as though he were asking himself some question that he could not answer. Tiphaïne did not move.
“How a man stores judgments for himself! The girl cannot be left to a life like this. I feel I have some duty by her. And yet I could swear she would be ready to throw herself into the moat if I told her I would send her home.”
“There is one other way, Bertrand.”
“How?” And his face appealed to her.
“She is a woman; she could be your wife.”
Bertrand’s jaw dropped.
“Marry her!”
“So you are too proud for that?”
He remained silent, staring at Tiphaïne, his hands opening and shutting, his forehead a knot of wrinkles.
“It is not pride in me,” he said, at last.
“Not pride?”
“No. What could we hope for, she—and I? Would she be happy with me? No, by Heaven, for we should hate each other in a week! What good could there be in such a life, for us?—one long tavern brawl till we grew more brutal and besotted, each dragging each deeper into the mire. How could Letta, poor wench, help me to gain what I have sworn in my heart to win? How could I give her all my homage in return? No, we should both sink; perhaps—in the end—she would stab me—or I—her.”
He had spoken rapidly, almost with fierceness, feeling the inevitable destiny beating within his heart. At the end he drew breath and leaned against the wall, still watching Tiphaïne at the prie-dieu.
“Yes, you are right,” she said; “one cannot mend life with a make-believe. And then—”
“There is her home at Ancenis.”
Tiphaïne thought a moment.
“Let me talk to her—alone. Perhaps she may listen.”