“Might such a thing be, the Lady Tiphaine were the very dame to do it,” cried Alured. “I trust the noble lady lives and thrives?”
“Alas, no!” said Clisson, with a passing cloud on his rugged face. “She died some years agone, and it well-nigh brake Bertrand’s heart; but men say that at the last she foretold to him that he should follow her ere long, and that comforted him somewhat.”
Once launched on this favourite topic, Olivier poured forth all his enthusiasm for his chosen hero.
“It seems but yester-eve that our Bertrand was in prison at Bordeaux after the fight of Navaretta; and when there was question of his ransom, the Black Prince sent me and Sir Eustace d’Ambreticourt to bring Bertrand to his presence, for to speak with him thereon. And when we came to the prison, lo! there sat Bertrand amid the gaoler’s children, with a chubby boy on each knee, and on his shoulder a little lass of three years old, plucking at his black beard with a hand no bigger than an oak-leaf, and chirruping to him like any bird! Then laughed Sir Eustace (he was ever a merry man) and thus he spake: ‘So help me St. Michael, men call Sir Bertrand the terror of the English, but methinks here be some English who fear him not a whit!’”
“It was ever his wont,” said Alured, “to be debonair to children and ladies, though no man may abide his stroke. Men say that when he was ransomed yon time thou speak’st of, he got back to his home like a beggar, having given all he had to certain poor folk that he met wandering on the highway in distress.”
“And they say truth; our Bertrand had ever an open hand and kind heart, and therefore is he loved of the poor. Marry, ’twas a sight to see how all Paris was moved when he rode into it on the day when the king made him Constable of France!”
“Thou sawest it thyself, then?” cried both brothers at once.
“That did I, and I would not have missed the sight for a thousand crowns. Into the town rode Bertrand, plainly habited as a simple burgher, with but one follower at his back. But, even in such guise, the people knew him—in truth, his face is not to be lightly forgotten—and out into the streets they swarmed by hundreds and by thousands, shouting till the air rang, ‘Long live our Bertrand! To Bertrand the Constable’s sword! None else is so worthy of it!’”
“There they spake but truth,” said Alured, with sparkling eyes.
“But not so thought Bertrand himself; for on the morrow, when the king proffered him the Constable’s sword before the whole court, he drew back abashed, and said, ‘Dear lord and noble king, it fits me not to gainsay your pleasure; but this is too much honour for a poor knight like me, since there be many in your realm far more worthy of it. Moreover, in the hosts of France fight many of your kin, yea, and your own brothers. How should I, a simple Breton knight, lay my commands on them as on my soldiers? I pray you, my good lord, give so great a charge to some better man.’