The din of their fighting had wakened Tinteniac, and he had dragged himself from the straw to join Tiphaïne at the window. They stood shoulder to shoulder, silent, and half awed by the fury of these two men, who neither desired nor craved for mercy. Tinteniac had seen such battles before, but to the woman there was something horrible and repulsive in its animal frenzy, a reversion to the brutal past, when the lusts of man made him an ape or a bull. She shuddered at Croquart’s dangling hand, and at the mad biting of his breath as he lashed at Bertrand with his sword. Shocked by the brute violence, the physical distortions of the scene, she turned back into the room, unwilling to watch the ordeal to the end.
Soon she heard a hoarse cry from Tinteniac. The men had closed and gone to earth, and were struggling together in the long grass. Croquart was losing blood and strength, and in such a death-grapple under the trees the cunning of the wrestler gave Bertrand the advantage. Though the lighter man, he was tougher and more sinewy than the Fleming, and fit in the matter of condition as a lean hound who has worked for his food.
“By God, he has the fellow down!”
Tinteniac was biting his lips in his excitement, and shivering like a dog on leash waiting to be let loose upon the quarry. Bertrand, with a twist of the leg and a hug of the Fleming’s body, had turned Croquart under him and won the upper hand. The Breton’s fist flew to his poniard. Croquart, who knew the meaning of the act, kicked like a mad horse, twisting and turning under Bertrand’s body. With a heave of the arm he rolled half over, and, lifting Bertrand, struggled to his knees. Before he could shake the Breton off the misericord was splitting the plates of his gorget. Croquart, with a great cry, fell forward upon his face, dragging Bertrand with him into the grass, as a sinking ship drags down the enemy it has grappled hulk to hulk. Slowly the black figure disentangled itself from the red, rose up, and leaned for a moment against the trunk of a tree.
“An end to Croquart!”
The words came from Tinteniac in a half whisper, but Tiphaïne heard them where she stood in the deep shadow against the wall.
Croquart dead! And she seemed to feel the great breath of gratitude the Breton folk would draw for such a death. Guymon, Tête Bois, Harduin, and the Fleming, all had fallen to the sword of this one man who had dogged them through the woods past Loudeac. Tinteniac had taken his shield, and was holding it from the window so that the hero of the orchard should see the blazonings. Tiphaïne still leaned against the wall, watching Tinteniac and the blur of green woodland and blue sky above his head.
Bertrand was bending over Croquart and unlacing the bassinet that still bore the fox’s brush. He saw Tiphaïne’s face beside Tinteniac at the window. Her presence did not hinder him, but rather urged him to despatch the work in hand.
“Sieur de Tinteniac,” he shouted, “make me one promise and I give you back your liberty.”
The aristocrat made the man in the black harness a very flattering bow.