“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