Читать книгу Bertrand of Brittany - Warwick Deeping - Страница 12

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An autumn evening, with a flare of red and gold in the west, white mists rising in the hollows, and a sky above streaked and banded with burning clouds. On every hand the rust-red slopes of a wild moor, gilded with dwarf gorse and splashed with knots of tawny bracken. Everywhere emptiness and silence, a raw and pungent solitude that seemed to welcome the coming of the night.

Straggling along a ridge of the moor and outlined against the sky-line came a company of “spears,” with one solitary rider twenty paces in the van. The sunlight glittered on their shoulder-plates and bassinets, and beamed a last benediction on their baggage-cattle hobbling in the rear. They were rough gentlemen, shaggy and none too clean, with an air of devil’s philosophy about them that spoke of rough living and of rougher speaking.

Several pack-horses followed the main body, and a couple of peasants, who trudged along as though they lived in constant fear of a whip or a spear-staff falling across their shoulders. Many of the riders carried sacks slung across their saddle-bows, one the carcass of a dead pig, a second a couple of stone bottles, another some half-dozen loaves of rye bread, strung together on a cord like beads. Last of all came three tired hacks, stumping along over the tough heather and ridden by three gaudily dressed women, who were laughing and chattering like starlings on a chimney. One, black of hair and black of eye, with a red mouth and a patch of color on either cheek, wore a garland of bracken, and seemed to consider herself of more worth than the others. She wore a red cloak, and a green tunic laced loosely over her plump bosom. A girdle of leather covered with gold filigree work ran about her hips, with a poniard buckled to it in a silver sheath. She was a Norman, Arletta, a smith’s daughter, and had run away from Ancenis when the French army had passed through it seven years before on the march for Nantes.

Some twenty paces ahead of this company of vagabonds rode their captain, a man with immense shoulders, long arms, and an ugly and dogged face. His bassinet hung at his saddle-bow, his spear was slung behind him, and the shabbiness of his blue surcoat and the rust on his armor suggested that personal vanity had no great hold on him. He had a hunch of brown bread in his hand, and was munching it solemnly as he rode along, keeping an alert watch upon the darkening moor. He had thrust the last corner of the loaf into his mouth, when an outrider came cantering back towards the troop, bawling a tavern song, as though to keep himself in humor on such a raw and hungry evening. He drew near over the heather, and, saluting the man in the blue surcoat, broke at once into petulant cursing.

“Pest on it, captain, I can see no stick of a house and not the trail of a chimney; nothing but the moor and thickets of Broceliande.”

The man in the rusty harness received the news sullenly.

“Ives swore he knew these parts,” he said.

“He knows them, Messire Bertrand, about as well as he knows the inside of a missal.”

“Then have him hided for being a liar.”

“With a good grace, captain.”

And, cantering off, he joined the main company, their spears black against the evening sky; and, pouncing upon one of the wretched peasants, drubbed him mercilessly till the fellow lay flat and would not move.

Bertrand gave no heed to the serf’s cries, but rode on alone under the flaming sky towards the thickets of Broceliande, flashing with misty and autumnal gold. He felt miserable that night, savage and sour, disgusted with his lot. Seven years he had been serving in the wars, and here he trotted at the head of thirty thieves, called by pure courtesy free riders for the rights of Charles of Blois. He had done no great deed since the siege of Vannes, and it was bitterness to Bertrand to be reminded of that day. He had hoped much from that exploit at the siege of Vannes. It had lifted him up in the sight of all men, for, like a young falcon, he had flown his first flight into the welkin of war.

Then, what had followed? Had Bertrand been questioned he would have pointed to his rusty harness and the plundering vagabonds who rode at his heels over the moor. He would have smiled grimly and very bitterly, spoken of the ingratitude of princes and the jealousy of men better born and more richly circumstanced than a round legged-fellow who trusted only to the strength of his own right arm. He had fought at Vannes, at Nantes, at Hennebon, a hundred and one places, but no great captain had ever cared to mark his deeds. Young squires had been honored before him, mere boys whom Bertrand could have killed with a single blow. Fortune and the favor of the great ones had been against him. He would cringe to no seigneur, say soft things to no man, or lure fame to him with a courteous lie.

Then had come the last trying of Bertrand’s temper, for it is a rare prince who can take the truth from an inferior and not feel the twinge of malice in return. It had happened at the siege of Guy la Foret, a strong castle towards Nantes. Bertrand had been set to lead a storming party that was to assault at the breach while the main strength of the leaguers skirmished at the gate. A hundred men had been given him, a mere handful, insufficient for the forcing of the broken wall. Bertrand had stood forward and spoken the truth to Lord Luis of Spain, who commanded the besiegers.

“Sire,” he had said, “fivescore men cannot make good their footing in the breach. If I am to lead—then I must lead at my own price.”

Luis of Spain, sensitive as to the dignity of his own discretion, had rallied Bertrand upon his courage.

“God see to it, sire,” the Breton had answered him, “I am no coward, but I tell you the assault will fail.”

And fail it did with the loss of thirty of Lord Luis’s best men. Bertrand had been taken up for dead out of the ditch and dragged back to the camp, under the very spears of the English when they made their sally. As for the Spaniard, he had been the more savage at the repulse, since he himself had staked his three best horses in a wager on the success thereof. And, like many a captain, he had taken to abusing those who served him, and in shaming the men who had risked their lives at his command.

“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, the fault was yours—”

Bertrand, with his head in bandages and his face white as a sick girl’s, had tottered into Lord Luis’s tent to hear the whole blame laid to his lack of spirit.

“Sire,” he had said, “did I not warn you?”

“Too well, messire. I think my own thoughts and hold to my own reasons. When the hawk flies ill the quarry need not take the air.”

Bertrand had sworn a great oath, red with shame at such curt handling.

“Before God, sire, do you accuse me of cowardice?”

Lord Luis had shrugged his shoulders.

“I will not twist your words, messire, into their true meaning. You may know that I shall place my commands elsewhere in the future. It has been said that the hands of half our captains smell of English gold.”

What more could Bertrand have done than march grimly out of Lord Luis’s tent, cursing his own luck and the malice of the man whose meanness had dishonored him. His good name had seemed torn from him, and, like a rough and angry boy, he had been ready to take Fortune at her word. Why should he strive after an empty shadow when there was work enough for the free lance and the adventurer? Had not Croquart the Fleming made the land murmur at the audacity of his forays and the daring of his captures? Half the castles in the dukedom had paid ransom to the Flemish freebooter. He fought for De Montfort and the English, but he fought for his own hand and plundered all.

They were sad days for Brittany, with her seigneurs and gentlemen divided among themselves, some standing for Montfort, others for Charles of Blois. The English and the French burned and plundered against each other. The peasants fled to the woods, leaving their crops to the foragers, their poor hamlets to the fire. The burghers kept close within their walls and barriers, ready to surrender and resurrender to the party whose banners blew more bravely for the moment. No strong place was safe from surprise and treachery. The whole land shuddered, from the granite west to marshy Dol, from the White Wood by Dinan even to the Loire. It was a war of sieges and of counter-sieges, plunderings, fierce tussles on the bleeding moors, ruin and misery untold. No man could rest even in the deeps of dark Broceliande or in the islands set in the foam of the sea.

Bertrand, bitter and savage at heart, had ridden from Guy la Foret, knowing not whither fate might lead him. When some such temper as this had been upon him, he had fallen in near Josslin with a company of mercenaries who had lost their captain in a skirmish. Bertrand had met the chief among them in a roadside tavern, taken them as his men, and promised them three-quarters of all the plunder that they gathered. To prove his spirit, wounded as he was, he had fought the best fellow at his weapons among them, and thrashed him soundly, to the delight of his brother thieves. Bertrand had been their cock and captain from that moment, and thus it was that he rode that autumn evening over the moors with thirty free companions and three harlots at his back.

Bertrand drew in his horse suddenly, and, standing in the stirrups, looked under his hand towards the woods rising in the east to touch the coming night. Yonder, amid the outstanding thickets of Broceliande, he saw a light gleam out, a faint spark in the black unknown. Bertrand and his men were tired and hungry, and for three nights they had slept under the open sky.

The “free companions” had seen it also, and were shouting and calling to one another. The three women on the hacks had mingled with the main troop, their tired faces lighting up at the thought of a fire and supper. The one with the bracken in her hair was pulling her nag through the press towards Bertrand, when the man with the pig slung across his saddle-bow reached out and caught her bridle.

“Come, sirs, Letta laid me a fair wager.”

The girl tugged at her bridle, and cast a fierce look into the fellow’s grinning face.

“Let me be, you fool!”

“There—she disowns it! I call Lame Jean to witness—”

“Yes, yes, three kisses—I’ll swear she promised them.”

There was much loud laughter from the rest. The woman Arletta had plucked out her knife and made a stab at the man’s wrist. He let go the bridle to avoid the blow, cursing her for a spitfire as she drew clear.

“Keep your pig,” she said, viciously.

“Gaston can kiss the pig,” shouted a facetious comrade, and they all laughed and twitted the pig-bearer till he lost his temper and threatened to let blood.

Arletta, smoothing out the petulance from her face, heeled her hackney forward and approached Bertrand, who had halted his horse on the brow of a slope. He was staring morosely at the light shining amid the thickets, but turned his head as Arletta joined him.

“The saints send us a good lodging to-night, lording,” she said, with a giggle and a toss of the head.

Bertrand looked at her, but did not smile.

“We must beat the bushes first,” he answered, sullenly.

Arletta, shirking his surliness, threw him a bold look out of her black eyes and touched her bosom with her hand.

“Ah, lording, I am tired,” she said; “I should like to sleep in a bed once more. As for that pig Gaston, I’ll give him the knife if he makes a mock of me.”

She was watching Bertrand, her sharp lips parted over her teeth.

“Am I not your servant, lording?” she asked.

“Confound you, then, be quiet!”

“Messire is tired and out of temper.”

“You should know—” and he rode on down the slope with the rest following him.

Bertrand sent some of his light-riding gentlemen in advance to reconnoitre, for it was the duty of a captain of free lances to treat every strange place as the harbor of an enemy. He and his men were ready to plunder even their own friends, but they took shrewd care not to be caught and fleeced by rivals in the grim maze of war. Bertrand’s riders went trotting cautiously over the moor, avoiding the sky-line and heading for the scattered thickets that fringed the forest.

The woman Arletta still kept close to Bertrand, throwing sharp glances from time to time into his face. It was as though she watched to read his humor, even as a dog watches the face of her master, and fawns for a caress or cringes from a blow. Bertrand seemed surly and reticent that night. He rode along with his chin on his chest, wrapped in his own thoughts, forgetful of the woman at his side.

“Messire is troubled?”

She spoke almost humbly, insinuatingly, yet with a glint in her black eyes and a jealous alertness sharpening her face. Bertrand growled. Her persistence only annoyed him.

“Well, what now? Haven’t I given you enough spoil of late? You would not be content with all the crown jewels in your lap!”

Arletta’s mouth hardened viciously for the moment, but the expression passed and her face softened.

“Lording, am I not your servant?”

“Ten thousand devils, what is it now?”

“Gaston—”

“Well, what of Gaston? Must I cut the fellow’s throat for your sake?”

Arletta’s eyes glittered; she breathed rapidly and hung her head.

“Lording, am I not your servant?”

“Well, child, well?”

“Gaston—”

“Curse the fool! What are you at, Arletta?”

Suddenly and without reasonable warning she broke into passionate weeping, clinching her fingers over her face and bending her head down over her breast. Bertrand stared at her in honest wonder. The ways of women were beyond his ken.

“Come, come, child, what is it?” he asked, more gently.

Arletta rocked to and fro in the saddle.

“I am nothing—I am a mere drab. Men may mock at me; I am nothing—I have no honor.”

Bertrand grimaced.

“Am I not your servant, lording? Yet, but who cares what Gaston says to me?”

“Letta—”

“No, no; you only laugh at me, you do not care. I am a drab, a tavern woman.”

Bertrand looked at her and stroked his chin. Women were strange creatures, and their whims puzzled him, but he caught a glimpse of Arletta’s meaning. How much was artifice he could not tell. She wished to see him jealous; he was quick enough to gather that.

“Gaston shall have his tongue clipped,” he said at last.

“Ah, lording, you do not care!”

“Curses, wench, will you drive me silly!”

They had ridden down from the moorland and were nearing the beech thickets, the bluff headlands of Broceliande, old Merlin’s forest. The light was twinkling brightly through the trees, and the outline of a window stood black and clear about the glow. Bertrand’s scouts had reached the place. He heard them shouting and laughing, and saw several dark figures move across the lighted window. Then a shrill squeal rose, a frightened squeaking like that of a rat caught in a dog’s mouth. Bertrand frowned and clapped his heels into his horse’s flanks. He cantered forward towards the thickets, and saw a low, pitched roof and a ruined tower rising from a dark cleft in the woods. It looked like a manor, with the walls and out-houses in ruins, nothing but the hall and the low tower left.

The voice was still pleading, rising now and again into a trembling screech. Bertrand guessed what was happening within. He tumbled out of the saddle and, crossing the grass-grown court, made his entry into the hall.

The place was in an evil plight—plaster falling from the walls, the windows broken and shutterless, holes in the roof where the tiles had tumbled through. In one corner towards the screens an old sow was penned behind wood-work that had once wainscoted the walls. The floor was littered with rubbish, and in more than one spot a puddle testified to the leakiness of the roof, while there were green patches of damp upon the walls. A wood fire burned on the great hearth-stone in the centre of the hall, and round it Bertrand’s “free companions” were gathered, two of them holding up an old man by the arms, while another prodded him in the legs with a glowing fagot from the fire. A stench of singed wool arose from the old fellow’s stockings, and he was squirming to and fro, hopping and squealing, a look of grotesque terror upon his face.

“What devil’s game are you at now, you rogues? Guicheaux, drop that stick or I’ll break your head for you.”

The men gave back before Bertrand’s roar, and grinned sheepishly at one another.

“The old fool has money hidden somewhere, I’ll wager,” said Guicheaux, who had handled the fagot.

“That’s as it may be. I tell you I’ll have no torturing. Grandfather, hither. I’ll keep the dogs from biting you.”

And a poor, weak-eyed, wet-nosed thing it was that came cringing forward, pulling its gray forelock and looking up piteously into Bertrand’s face.

“What manor is this?”

The ragged creature cocked an ear and fingered a lower lip that was blue and drooping with age.

“If you please, lording, it is no man’s manor.”

“Nonsense; speak up; they shall not touch you.”

Arletta, the two women, and the rest of the troop came streaming in at the moment. Bertrand waved them back and kept his eyes on the old man’s veined and weathered face.

“If you please, lording, this was Yvon de Beaulieu’s house. But he is dead, messire, and all his people.”

“Well, and you?”

The grotesque head shook on its skinny neck.

“I was his pantler, lording, but they were all killed. Sir Yvon and his son, Jehan the falconer, and ten more. It was Croquart the Fleming who did it. Madame Gwen he took away with him, because she still had her looks, or might fetch a ransom. Ah, lording, they took everything, even the fowls out of the yard.”

Bertrand stroked his chin, looked steadfastly at the old man, turning over in his heart the brutalities of war.

“Give him a stool,” he said, suddenly. “Now, grandfather, sit you down; we’ll not disturb you. A lodging for the night—that is our need. And, men, mark me, Croquart has swept the place clean; we have food of our own; let no one thieve a crust or I’ll have my word with him. A bundle of sticks; grandfather, I’ll pay you for them out of my own purse.”

Soon the dusk had deepened into night, and men had thrown aside their arms and harness, picketed their horses, and piled up a large fire in the centre of the hall. They crowded round it, squatting on the floor and frizzling pieces of meat on their sword-points, the light playing upon their hard and weather-worn faces, the smoke curling upward to escape by the louvre in the roof. The man Gaston had brought in his pig with him, and was skinning it in a corner, with the help of two of his companions. They thrust a spear through the carcass for a spit, and, carrying it to the fire, set it upon two pronged stakes that they had driven into the floor. Their bloody hands did not prevent them from handling the stone flasks of wine that were passing from man to man. A devil-may-care spirit possessed them all. With war and the Black Death stalking the land, none knew when the end might come and when the worms and the earth would be taking dust from dust.

Bertrand, in no mood for their rough pleasantries, had drawn apart towards what had been the dais. The hall was full of smoke and the stench of cooking, while through the shutterless windows the bats flew squeaking in and out. He sat on a worm-eaten bench, bread and dried meat from a wallet on his knees, a pilgrim’s bottle, with a strap through the handles, hanging from a peg in the wall. He had his sword lying naked on the bench beside him, for he was ever forearmed against the fellows who followed him. Any one of them when drunk would have used his poniard against the pope.

Bertrand was under a cloud that night. He looked grim and heavy about the eyes as he watched the fellows at their food, tearing the meat with their knives and stuffing their fingers into their mouths. What rough beasts they were! Bertrand was no courtier, but even he discovered some disgust at the men who called him “brother.” Arletta sat alone against the wall, crumbling a piece of bread and watching Bertrand with her restless eyes. The other two women were of the same temper as the men. They chattered, gobbled, wiped their mouths on the backs of their hands, hiccoughed, drank, and swore. Presently one of them stood up to sing. She was hot in the head, and her gown had been slit from the neck by the hand of one of the rough fellows who had been romping with her by the fire. She stood up, giggling and leering, a streak of grease upon one cheek. It was a low and bawdry ballad that she sang, one of the loose catches popular with the begging musicians who bawled in the common taverns. She felt no shame in the singing of it, and the men applauded her, hardly ceasing masticating to shout for more.

Bertrand grew weary of the scene—this poor drab with a dirty kirtle showing under her red gown, her face flushed and coarsened, her cheap trinkets shining in the light of the fire. He picked himself up from the bench, took his sword with him, and went out into the darkness of the yard. The men would probably be drunk before midnight; it was useless to meddle with them, and some one must needs keep guard.

A young moon was sinking in the west, and all about the ruined house rose the outstanding beech-trees of Broceliande. Their autumn panoply of gold was masked under the thousand stars, and even, the black slopes of the moor spread like a strange and night-wrapped sea. No wind was moving. In the manor court grass was growing ankle deep, and weeds and brambles flourished everywhere. The night air was sweet and pure after the sweat and beat of the crowded hall.

Bertrand stood leaning on his sword, his eyes fixed on the dim outline of the moor. A savage discontent was at work in him that night, a fierce melancholy that lay heavy upon his shoulders. The past rose up and spoke to him, spoke to him like some fair girl who had known neither sin nor shame. Purity and honor, what was he that he should think of such things? Had he not lost all the pride of life, that emulative madness that turns men into heroes? He was a thief, a bully, the lover of loose women, and for months he had been content to be nothing more. And yet the old youth cried in him at times, and a child’s face haunted him, half lost in a mist of shimmering gold. He remembered the pride he had taken in his armor, the nobleness he had striven for, the brave creed he had cherished. Great God, how he had changed since he had plucked Tiphaïne a white May-bough in the meadows at Motte Broon! She would be a woman now, and a great lady, and no doubt she had forgotten him, even as he had almost forgotten her.

There was a rustling of feet in the rank grass growing about the door. A hand touched Bertrand on the shoulder. He started, glanced round, and saw the girl Arletta standing by him.

“Lording,” she said, still touching him with her hands, “I am tired, and the beasts are drunk; they frighten me.”

Bertrand frowned and put away her hands.

“Let me be, Letta,” he said.

The girl was peering at him, her eyes dark and questioning; but there was no smell of wine upon her breath.

“See, lording, I have not touched the bottle. There is a room above; I have been there; there is dry bracken to make a bed.”

She tried to lay one hand upon his shoulder and to lean against him, but Bertrand shook her off and would not look into her face.

“I must keep watch,” he said. “Go up, child, and sleep.”

“You are wrath with me?”

“No, no; let me be, Arletta. I tell you I have the black-dog on my shoulders.”

She drew away from him, half fierce, half humbled, and, sitting down on the threshold, drew her skirts about her and curled herself against the door-post. Bertrand still leaned upon his sword. He paid no heed to the girl as she lay and watched him, jealously, yet with some of the homage of a dog within her eyes.

Bertrand turned on her at last, almost with an oath.

“Go up and sleep.”

She shivered, but did not stir.

“Lording, what is good enough for you is good enough for your servant.”

Bertrand tore his cloak from his shoulders and threw it to her, peevishly.

“Take it; cover yourself up.”

“But, lording—”

“Cover yourself up, I say! Am I to let you catch your death cold because you are a little fool?”

Arletta took the cloak and wrapped it about her body. Bertrand began to pace the court, his steel clogs ringing on the stones, his sword slanting over his shoulder. And thus they passed the night together, Bertrand on guard, the girl sleeping upon the threshold.