“And who are you, sir, that you are such a fool to think of earning the Sieur de Beaumanoir’s money?”
“I am a Breton, Brother Croquart, and that is the reason why I am going to have your head.”
XXXIII
Tinteniac was still asleep upon his straw, nor did Tiphaïne wake him, but stood at the window and watched the drama that was taking shape under the apple boughs. The man in the black harness was leaning on his sword, waiting for Croquart, whose fingers fumbled at the laces of his bassinet. There was something familiar to Tiphaïne in this attitude of his, the attitude of a man whose heart beat steadily and whose eyes were quick and on the alert.
Croquart’s sword was out. He looked at the window where Tiphaïne stood, and guessed by her face that she did not wish him great success.
“Guard, Breton.”
They sprang to it with great good-will, Bertrand keeping careful guard, and never shifting his eyes from the Fleming’s face. He had learned his lesson off by heart, to let Croquart think that he had an easy bargain and that a few heavy blows would end the tussle. The butcher-boy of Flanders fell to the trick; he had met so few men who could match him in arms that he had grown rash in his methods, forgetting that guile is often more deadly than muscle and address. He had seen that Bertrand was a head shorter than himself; he soon suspected that he was clumsy, and not the master of his sword.
Bertrand gave ground, puffing and laboring like a man hard pressed. He let the Fleming’s blows rattle about his body harness, half parrying them with a concealed adroitness, continually retreating, or dodging to right and left. He was playing for an opening in Croquart’s attack, luring him into rashness, tempting him to hammer at him without thought of a dangerous counter in return. Croquart would soon stretch himself for the coup de grâce, thinking his man tired, and that he had trifled with him over-long.
Still Bertrand bided his time. He faltered suddenly, made a pretended stumble, tempted Croquart with an unguarded flank. Down came the Fleming’s open blow, given with the rash vigor of a man imagining the victim at his mercy. Bertrand bent from it like a supple osier, rallied, and struck out with a swiftness that caught Messire Croquart off his balance and off his guard. Steel met steel on the vambrace of the Fleming’s sword-arm. Tiphaïne had a vision of a lopped limb swinging by its tendons, of a falling sword, of a second blow heaved home on the Fleming’s thigh.
The loss of his right hand sent Croquart mad. He picked up the fallen sword, and flew at Bertrand like any Baersark, the one lust left in him to wound, to mutilate, and to kill.