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.”

Guicheaux trotted away, and the men were seen off-saddling under the trees—huge spreading beeches that stood on a low ridge between two valleys. The free companions piled their arms about the tree-trunks, and used the boughs as pegs to hang their harness on. Some of them picketed the horses, after watering them at a stagnant pool, some fifty yards down the slope. Others cut down bracken with their swords, and gathered dead-wood to make a fire. The two women, Gwen and Barbe, chattered and bandied their coarse jests with the men as they looked to the serving of the evening meal.

Bertrand had unsaddled his horse, tethered the beast, and sat himself down at the foot of one of the trees with his shoulders resting against the trunk. He let Arletta look to her own nag, and did not rouse himself to give her a helping hand. His morose mood was selfish in its obstinate self-pity. He hardly heeded the girl as she came and knelt beside him on the beech leaves and began to search her wallet for food.

Presently Guicheaux approached with an armful of sticks. He kicked the dry leaves together and began to build a fire, looking curiously at Bertrand from time to time, and smiling mischievously at Arletta. Crouching, he struck sparks with his flint and steel, and blew on the tinder till it flared up and set the dry leaves blazing. Guicheaux rubbed his hands before the flames with comfortable unction, and looked at the two women who were slinging a cooking-pot over the other fire. The men were trooping in with bundles of bracken, which they began to spread as bedding for the night.

Guicheaux glanced round at Bertrand moping against the tree. “Some of Gaston’s pig is to fatten us, lording,” he said.

Bertrand did not seem to hear him.

“Bread, boiled pork, and a mug of cider. Consult your stomach, messire, whether it be not hungry.”

Arletta darted an impatient look at the quipster, and ordered him away with a wave of the hand. The captain had the black-dog on his shoulders, and it was better for all that he should be left alone.

Presently she crept close to Bertrand and offered to unlace his bassinet. Her brown hands were quickly at their work, Bertrand letting her disarm him, piece by piece, staring sullenly into the fire, and not guessing how much he resembled a sour and surly child. Arletta gave him all her patience, keeping her lips shut and pestering him with no more questions. She took the rusty bassinet and laid it amid the beech leaves, and soon shoulder-plates, demi-brassarts, and greaves were lying beside it.

Arletta’s fingers were on the buckle of his sword-belt.

“Ha! what are you at? Let it be!”

He pushed her hands away, looking at her searchingly.

“Lording!”

“I trust no one with my sword; no one shall play tricks with it. Are you for treachery?”

The taunt was a mean one, and Arletta winced.

“Your sword is a true sword,” she said, “and do you not trust me also?”

She put her hands out to him as she knelt with a pleading tenderness on her face. Bertrand looked in her eyes, and hated his own soul. Poor, honorless wench that she was, she shamed him, and gave him a loyalty that he did not deserve.

“I trust you, Letta,” he said, touching her cheek.

Her sharp face mellowed, and seemed to catch warmth and color from the fire. Her black eyes glistened, and she looked handsome and desirable, with her nut-brown skin and raven hair, red lips pouting over her small teeth.

“Lording, I am only a woman.”

Guicheaux approached them again, carrying a slice of steaming pork on his poniard, a loaf of bread, and a stone flask of cider. Arletta took the food from him and nodded him back towards the fire, where the free companions were making a brave battle over their meal. She knelt down again beside Bertrand, and pressed him to eat, coaxing him half-playfully, half-wistfully, till she won her way. Food, drink, and the cheerfulness of the fire worked their spell on Bertrand’s spirits. He began to feel comforted in the inner man, warmer about the body, less befogged about the brain. Life had its satisfactions, after all, and what were glory and the frail fancies of chivalry compared with good food and a hale hunger? He began to smile at Arletta as she lay curled in the beech leaves, her green tunic tight about her figure, and held the stone bottle in her brown and rough-skinned hands.

“Drink deep, lording,” and she laughed; “it will keep the damp out. See how bravely the fire burns.”

She began to eat in turn, now that Bertrand had taken his fill, cutting the meat and bread with the knife she carried at her girdle. Her eyes caught the light from the fire, and her black hair enhanced the pale charm of her peevish face. Bertrand slouched lazily against the tree. He was content for the moment with Arletta’s comeliness.

Night had settled over Broceliande; leagues of darkness and of mystery wrapped them round, while the flames tongued the gloom and Guicheaux and his gossips drank and laughed about their fire.

Bertrand stretched his arms and yawned.

“Food puts new courage into a man.”

She bent towards him with a sinuous gliding of the body, pouted out her lips, and put her face close to his.

“You are yourself again, lording.”

Bertrand kissed her, thinking of TiphaÏne, and swearing stoutly in his heart that he was beyond her scorn and pity. Arletta, red and happy, started up, and began to pile leaves and bracken into a bed beneath the tree. She made a pillow by rolling leaves up in an old tunic, and threw more wood upon the fire.

“There, lording, I have made a bed.”

She took him by the hands and dragged him playfully from the tree.

The free companions were rolling themselves in their cloaks about their fire and half burying their bodies in the litter of bracken. Only one man stood to his arms, to take his watch while the others slept. One by one the voices died down and surrendered to the silence of the forest. The clouds had broken overhead, and a young moon was shining through and through, a patch of celestial silver above the black and half-leafless branches of the trees. The sentinel, after yawning for an hour, and rubbing his heavy eyes with his knuckles, looked cautiously at Bertrand, and slunk from his post to crawl into the bracken about the fire. Under the beech-trees there was naught but a tangle of bodies, arms, legs, and snoring faces crowded close about the flames. Broceliande’s stillness was supreme. Like some forest of dreams, she seemed to hold these sleepers in her magic power.

Three hours or more had passed when Arletta started awake with a low cry and sat up in terror, her hands on Bertrand’s chest. She had been dreaming, and had thought that in her sleep strange shapes had been crowding round her in the dark. She shivered, and crouched rigid and motionless, staring as though bewitched into the depths of the gloom about the fire.

“Bertrand, lording, wake—wake!”

She tugged in terror at Bertrand’s arms as he lay beside her on the leaves and bracken. The horses were whinnying, stamping, and snorting under the trees where the men had tethered them. Arletta’s eyes were fixed on two dots of light that stared eerily at her out of the dark.

Bertrand awoke, grumbling and yawning, and clutching at Arletta with his arms.

“What, the dawn already?”

“No, no! Look yonder; see—in the dark—there!”

Bertrand heard the horses screaming, started up, and found Arletta quivering beside him, her face white as linen, her eyes great with fear. The moon was behind a cloud, and as Bertrand followed the pointing of Arletta’s hand he understood in an instant the meaning of her terror. Out of the blackness of the forest circles of red crystal were shining on them, two by two. There was a padding and rustling of feet in the dead leaves, the vague flitting of dark figures to and fro, a forward movement of the blood-red eyes.

“Wolves, by God!”

There was a great plunging and screaming amid the horses as Bertrand sprang up, kicked the fire into a blaze, and, snatching a burning branch from it, made at the circle of eyes, roaring like a roused lion. The dark shapes swerved and scampered over the leaves, snarling and snapping their jaws, but flinching from Bertrand and his burning brand. The free companions were scrambling up from the litter of bracken. They saw Bertrand beating the darkness with his fiery flail, vague shadows flying before him like the evil spirits of the forest.

The moon came from behind the cloud at the same instant, showing the struggling, sweating horses, squealing and kicking, and ready to break loose.

“Wolves! wolves!”

They picked up brands from the fire, and charged this way and that, the beasts scattering before them and slinking away into the darkness. Hopart, Guicheaux, and several others ran to quiet the horses and to prevent them from breaking loose. The tumult ceased in due course, and the men came crowding back about the fire.

Bertrand strode towards them, carrying his burning branch.

“Guicheaux, Hopart, Simon, whose watch was it? Who the devil let these brutes up so near the fires?”

The free companions were jostling one another, trying to discover in the dusk the fellow who had stood on guard when they had lain down to sleep. It was the Poitevin lad who had shown such terror when the Black Death had startled them in the hall of the Aspen Tower. He was skulking behind a tree, ready to take to his heels had he not feared the wolves and the darkness. Hopart discovered him, and dragged him towards Bertrand before the fire.

“Pierre, is it? So, lad, you fell asleep. We’ll read thee a lesson.”

The Poitevin, scared to death, cringed as his comrades hustled and cuffed him. They were furious with the lad for having deserted his post and left them unguarded against the perils of the night.

“Mercy! Mercy! Messire Bertrand, Messire Bertrand, they are tearing my arms off!”

Hopart smote Pierre on the mouth with the back of his hand.

“Scullion! Crybaby! Jackass!”

“Let him be, men.”

They left him grudgingly, as though they had caught some of the savagery of Broceliande’s wolves. Pierre stood shaking before Bertrand. Then he dropped on his knees and began to snivel, his poltrooning drawing laughter and taunts from Hopart and the rest.

“Get up, man, get up!”

By way of being wisely foolish, the Poitevin grovelled the more, and tried to take Bertrand by the knees.

“Mercy, lording, mercy! I was tired, devilish tired—”

Bertrand looked at him, and then rolled the fellow backward with a thrust of the foot.

“Stand up, fool!” he said, sharply. “Stand up—like a man! Guicheaux, give him twenty cuts with your belt. We will let him off easily. Next time it shall be the rope.”

They took Pierre, stripped his back, and trounced him till the blood flowed. It was Arletta who pleaded with Bertrand for the lad, and saved him ten strokes out of the twenty, for Guicheaux would have beaten him till he fainted. They piled wood on the fires and retethered the horses, for there would be no more sleep for the free companions that night. Squatting round the fire, they talked and gossiped together, and shouted songs to frighten the wolves.

As for Bertrand, he lay his head on Arletta’s knees, staring at the flames, and listening to the howling of the beasts as they still padded round them in the darkness. He was thinking again of TiphaÏne, of the counsel she had given him, and of the cross he had cut on the high table with his poniard. What would she make of his remorse if she could see him lying with his head in Arletta’s lap? And yet the girl was as loyal as a dog, patient and gentle when her jealousy had no prick of passion.

Bertrand, as he lay, felt her hands upon his forehead.

“Sleep, lording,” she said, as she bent over him. “Nothing can harm you while I am watching.”