“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?”