At Pontivy, Croquart the Fleming had established himself in the best hostel the town could boast, his free lances and adventurers swarming in the streets and quartering themselves at will on the townsfolk, who dared not grumble. Half the mercenaries in Brittany seemed to have poured into the place, drawn thither by the high pay Croquart offered. The Fleming had sworn to avenge the fight at Mivoie, boasting that he would wipe out Breton treachery with the spoil of Breton towns. He had offered a hundred gold-pieces to any man who would bring William de Montauban to him alive, threatening to strangle the esquire and set up his head over one of the gates of Pontivy.

To the townsfolk it might well appear that the Sieur de Beaumanoir had only wounded and not scotched the devil, and made him madder than of yore. Bamborough of Ploermel was dead, and the rabble of English, Gascons, and Flemings were not likely to abide by the shadowy oaths that Bamborough had sworn before the fight at Mivoie. All the sweat and strife of the struggle at the Oak had not bettered the prospects of the Breton poor. The Sieur de Beaumanoir was still at Josselin, wroth at the thought that Breton blood had been spilled for nothing, knowing too well that they of the Blois party were not strong enough to drive Montfort’s English into the sea.

Pontivy was at Croquart’s mercy, a truth that the townsfolk took bitterly to heart. The little place was like a sponge in the Fleming’s hand; he could squeeze what he would from it, till every hole and purse were dry. And the mercy of a captain of free lances meant also the mercy of his men, and what such mercy meant a hundred towns in France learned to their cost through those grim English wars so full of “chivalry.” After the Poitiers fight the Black Prince served King John as cupbearer at Bordeaux, yet for the picturesque princeliness of that single deed there were a thousand miseries hidden from the pages of romance. A king may pick up a lady’s garter at a dance, and great fame come of it, and live in the pageant of the world. Yet behind the dawn-flash of some such splendid trifle a multitude of the dead lift their white hands in the night of the unknown. The blood of the common folk sinks down into the earth they tilled, but the froth from a prince’s wine-cup clings to the lips of men.

It was late one April day when Bertrand rode towards Pontivy, meeting many who had turned their backs on the place rather than live at Croquart’s mercy. The gates were well guarded, for the Fleming was no fool, and knew that he was as well hated as any man in Brittany. Bertrand, who rode as a common free-lance, and looked the part, with his rusty harness and battered shield, was suffered to pass with a few questions, and directed to the hostel where Croquart’s captains were enlisting men. Bertrand, knowing Pontivy well, made his way up a narrow street to the house of a merchant named Pierre Gomon, but found the gate barred and all the windows closely shuttered.

After thundering at the door awhile, he heard the sound of footsteps in the passage and the harsh grating of the rusty grill. A face showed behind the iron-work, peering at him suspiciously, for it was growing dark, and the narrow street caught but little light.

“Who’s there? What may you want?”

Bertrand asked for Pierre Gomon, and discovered that it was Pierre Gomon himself who looked at him through the iron lattice.

“Hello, sir, have you a quiet attic for Bertrand du Guesclin?”

The voice was familiar to the merchant, but, like his neighbors, he lived in perpetual terror of Croquart’s men. Anything that walked the streets with a clank of steel made the burghers of Pontivy shiver behind their bolted doors.

“I will wager, sir, that Messire Bertrand du Guesclin is not within ten miles of Pontivy.”

“How, Pierre Gomon, will you tell me I am not myself? Come, I am here on my own errand, and heed a quiet hole to sleep in. Here is my hand, with the ring I had from you two years ago.”

He put his hand close to the grill, but Master Pierre Gomon was not to be satisfied with any such cursory inspection. He left Bertrand standing outside the gate, and, bringing a lantern, flashed the light upon the ring Du Guesclin wore.

“Yes, it is the same. And your face, messire?”

Bertrand had put his visor up.

“Ugly enough to be remembered,” he said, with a laugh. “Come, Pierre Gomon, we are both Breton men. Do you think I am here in Pontivy to screw money out of you with Croquart and his rabble?”

The merchant’s face betrayed ineffable relief. He unbarred the gate and let Bertrand in, shooting back the bolts again with the feverish haste of a man shutting out some wild beast.

“Pardon, messire,” he said, taking the bridle of Bertrand’s horse; “we are being bled to death by these English barbers. Twice that devil Croquart has sent men to me for food and money. They broke open my strongbox and half emptied my cellars. God bless the day when we of Pontivy see the last of them!”

Bertrand could have laughed at Pierre Gomon’s lugubrious face had he not known what war was and what manner of wolves herded round Croquart in the town.

“Lend me one of your attics, friend,” he said, “and give my horse a stall in your stable.”

“They’ll take the beast, messire, as sure as I’m a ruined man.”

“Let well alone,” said Bertrand, unbuckling his sword.

When night had fallen, Bertrand found himself in one of Pierre Gomon’s attics, with food and a flask of wine on a table near him. The moon’s light shone full upon the dormer-window, so that he had no need of the candle the merchant had brought him. Bertrand stripped off his harness and made a meal, and then, drawing the stool up to the window, sat leaning his arms on the low sill and looking out over the little town.

From amid the jumble of roofs, sharp-peaked, like waves in a choppy sea, Bertrand could hear the shouting of the soldiery who idled in the streets. In the east a full moon was rising, a huge buckler of burnished bronze, its light glimmering on the little river that wound about the town, and making the roofs and steeples white like glass. Between two houses Bertrand could get a glimpse of the market square and of the hostel where Croquart had his quarters. The fretted windows were red with torchlight, and Bertrand could see figures moving to and fro in the rooms within. Croquart and his comrades in arms were making merry, while in the market square a crowd of soldiery drank and warmed themselves about two great fires.

Bertrand’s thoughts went back from Pontivy, lighted by the moonlight, to his home and to La BelliÈre by the northern sea. He was wondering whether Jeanne, his mother, had heard the news of Mivoie. How Olivier would curl his dainty mustachios, shrug those padded shoulders of his, and dismiss his brother from all creditable remembrance with a sneer! Bertrand’s thoughts turned from his own home, where they loved him little, to La BelliÈre and to Robin. They would know now that he had failed to keep troth at Mivoie, and he would have given much to learn whether TiphaÏne believed him worthless and without honor. Unconsciously Bertrand had come to set much store on the girl’s goodwill. He judged his thoughts by the fearless purity of her face, and kept her words locked in his heart.

Bertrand heard loud shouts and a burst of laughter as a knot of half-drunken English came staggering and shouldering along the street. They were shouting a catch-cry that Croquart had given them, and singing some doggerel that had the Sieur de Beaumanoir for its victim. Bertrand leaned out and watched them pass, lusting greatly to throw the stool down on their heads.

One fellow gave a loud screech, jumped on to a comrade’s back, and began to thump him with his heels.

The men took up the snatch and went bawling down the street, the mock horse prancing and curvetting with the rhymester on his back. Such peace-loving people as were abroad went scuttling down alleys, and into corners like mice running from a cat. Bertrand watched the gentry disappear down a passage that led into the market square. Their drunken shouting had given him a cud to chew, for, if Croquart struck a blow at Josselin, he—Bertrand du Guesclin—might yet have a part to play.

---

At La BelliÈre the Sieur de Tinteniac sat at the window of the great solar, looking out upon the orchard-trees, whose boughs were white against the blue. He had ridden in about noon from Dinan, to find an atmosphere of tragic awe filling the house, a sadness that seemed strange when the woods and meadows blazed with the spring. Dinner had been set for him at the high table, yet to his questions the old major-domo had given short and vague replies: “The Vicomte kept his bed, and Madame TiphaÏne was anxious for her father. Craving the seigneur’s patience, she would speak with him in the solar when he had dined. No, Messire Robin was not at home.” Tinteniac had forborne to question the old man further, for there were tears in the man’s eyes, and the very servants looked like mutes, going about their work as though death were in the place. Tinteniac had finished his meal in silence, feeling the shadow of some great sorrow over the house. Stephen of Lehon had been at La BelliÈre that morning, and had ridden back on his white mule to the abbey, shocked at heart by what he had seen and heard.

The curtain of green cloth, embroidered with gold martlets, that covered the door leading to the Vicomte’s bedchamber was swept aside by the white curve of a woman’s hand and wrist. Tinteniac, drumming on the window-ledge with his fingers, turned with a start and rose to make a very stately kissing of madame’s hands. TiphaÏne, upon whom the brunt of the day’s bitterness had fallen, looked white of face and shadowy about the eyes.

“I am glad, Sieur de Tinteniac, that you have come, for you can help me more than any man on earth.”

She was looking straight into Tinteniac’s eyes, liking their quiet braveness and the almost ascetic refinement of his face. He was verging on middle age, and carried himself with that simple stateliness that comes to men who have moved in high places and taken the measure of the world.

“Madame, I have been reproaching myself for burdening you at such a time. Your father is ill; yet you say that I can help you; good. I had ordered my horses out for Dinan, but if you would have me stay—”

“Stay, sire,” she said; “I have such a tangle to unravel that I shall need your wisdom to help me through.”

Tinteniac, grave and restrained, put a chair for her before the window and turned the shutter so as to keep the sun from shining on her face.

“You do me honor,” he said; “if I can help you, show me how.”

He moved back to the cushioned seat in the broad window, the sunlight shining on the richness of his dress and showing the silver in his hair. He was a man who a woman would come to when in trouble, for, of all the knights of Brittany, Tinteniac held the noblest record.

“Sire, let me tell the truth to you: my father lies half dead in the room beyond us, and my brother Robin has hid himself in the cloisters of Lehon.”

She was looking steadily at Tinteniac, trying to read how much he knew, but his face was a sympathetic blank to her, devoid of subtlety or pretended innocence.

“Pardon me, madame, you seem to think me wiser than I am.”

“You fought, sir, at Mivoie.”

“True, and your brother Robin saved my life.”

“It was not my brother, sire.”

Tinteniac started.

“No, but Bertrand du Guesclin, who fought in my brother’s arms.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment, each trying to shadow forth the other’s thoughts. To Tinteniac there was a magnetic strength shining in the eyes of the girl before him. He felt that each word meant a stab of the heart to her, and that she suffered, though pain was hidden by her pride.

“Madame, what are you telling me?”

“Telling you the truth of this great sorrow that has come upon us. My brother Robin played the coward, God help the lad! for the shame of it has driven him to take the vows. Bertrand du Guesclin had promised me to care for the lad. He took Robin’s arms and fought at Mivoie in his stead, bearing the shame to save a coward.”

She confessed the truth with a strength that mingled pride with pathos. Tinteniac had risen, and stood leaning against the window-jamb, conscious of the trust she was laying upon his manhood. Her words had astonished him, yet he showed no fluster over her confession, respecting her pride too much to wound her with useless questions.

“Madame,” he said, gravely, “what can I say to you but that I am here to help you—if it is possible.”

Her heart went out to him for the delicate courtesy of his restraint.

“Sire, the truth must be told.”

Tinteniac turned away his head.

“We are too proud, pray God, to let a brave man suffer for one we love. Bertrand has done for us what few men would ever do. I know the bitterness of the sacrifice to him, and those who would slander him shall have the truth.”

Tinteniac’s eyes flashed as she spoke.

“Madame, I am glad,” he said, “that I stood out for Du Guesclin at the Oak of Mivoie, and you are right in telling me the truth. Both men were friends to me, and I know not how to place my pity.”

“Sire, Robin is dead to us, poor lad! God has taken him; he will not see the scorn that Bertrand might have borne.”

Even her great strength failed her for the moment, and she rose, turning aside, with one hand covering her face. Tinteniac, touched to the heart, remained by the window, suffering her bitterness to pass in silence. The pathos of life seemed very keen to him, held as it was in the proud walls of this noble house. He thought of Robin as he had known the lad of old, and pictured him now, cowering in the cloisters of Lehon.

“Sire, I have one more thing to ask of you.”

She had mastered her weakness, and her eyes shone out on him from the determined pallor of her face.

“Take me to Beaumanoir; let there be no delay. Bertrand du Guesclin shall be cleared from shame.”

Tinteniac went to her and took her hands.

“Child,” he said, “you have chosen the nobler part. Would to God that I could mend this sorrow.”

He kissed her hands and stood back, looking sadly into her face.

“The marshal is at Josselin,” he said.

“Then, sire, I shall ride to Josselin. I shall not rest until the truth is told.”

The next dawn saw them on the road, while at La BelliÈre an old man sat before the fire, dazed and stricken, muttering the name of his only son. And amid the aspens on the Lehon lands young Yeolande wept at the window of her room, looking towards the tall towers of the abbey, and wondering why God had stricken Robin’s heart and taken his love from her to make of him a priest.