A pitiful face met the abbot’s astonished eyes. It was sharp and sallow, like the face of a man who had come through some great sickness. Before he could prevent him the lad had clasped Stephen by the knees.
“Father, take me in, I will take the vows, I—”
He sank down in a dead faint, his hands still clutching the hem of the old man’s robe. Some of the brothers who were in the cloisters came when the abbot called them. Together they lifted Robin up, and, wondering, carried him from the church.
XXV
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?”