“Thou art well mounted, friend,” said Bertrand, eyeing the man’s splendid horse admiringly. “Hast ridden him far to-day?”
“From Chateau Raguenel, my lord, since I broke my fast; and he hath borne me well, too, for, having charge to make speed, I let not grass grow under his hoofs, I trow.”
“Chateau Raguenel!” cried the boy. “A good ride, in sooth! and, as thou say’st, he hath borne thee well, for few steeds would have carried a man of thy inches so far, and shown as smooth a coat when ’twas over.”
He patted the gallant beast’s smooth, shining neck; and it pricked its ears at the caress, and rubbed its velvety muzzle against his shoulder.
“Now I bethink me,” resumed Bertrand, “is not the Sire de Raguenel he who hath a daughter that is a fairy?”
“Say rather a saint,” cried the man-at-arms warmly; “for, were the Lady Epiphanie to be taken up to heaven this very day, like the blessed St. Eloi (Elijah) of old, the angels would find little to mend in her, to fit her for their company!”
“I meant no slur on the lady—Heaven forbid!” said Du Guesclin, quickly. “But methinks I have heard men call her ‘Tiphaine la Fée’.”
“It may not be denied that she has strange power, though she has ever used it for good,” replied the spearman, sinking his voice to an impressive whisper. “Without doubt she can read the future as I would the face of the sky; and there is such might in her lightest word that none may say her nay. In truth, had she not had power to make me break a vow that I had made (and that, too, when she was but a child) by this time my body had been feeding the ravens on a gallows-tree, and my soul in a worse place still.”
“Say’st thou so?” cried Bertrand, eyeing him keenly. “Tell me the tale, then, for it must needs be worth hearing.”
The soldier, visibly pleased at finding so attentive a listener to a story that he was evidently burning to tell, began as follows—