“A common thief we picked up on the road from Loudeac. Messire Dubois will give him the rope anon.”
Tiphaïne passed on, and yet the soldier’s curt and casual words had robbed the meadows of half their restfulness. She found herself repeating those same words: “A common thief. Messire Dubois will give him the rope anon.” It was as though her sorrow had opened the heart of pity to all the world. Death and the pathos of it seemed everywhere—in the woods and fields, in the monk’s cell, and in the castles of the great. Tiphaïne’s heart was full of that deep tenderness that dowers the meanest life with significance and the power of awaking pity. She seemed to hear the whimpering of this poor wretch, caged like an animal awaiting the butcher’s knife. What though he was “a common thief,” a rogue, an outcast, her soul had found something on which to pour the divine dew that God gives to those who suffer. The purpose came to her as she wandered slowly over the fields. One man’s life should be spared that day; she would beg it of Dubois before the sword could spill more blood.
As for Bertrand, he had heard Tiphaïne’s voice, and sat shaking as with an ague, his eyes staring vacantly at the wattled wall of the hovel. It seemed to him of a sudden that he was less strong than he had believed, for the soul in him cried out for life and the joy of being. In a day he would have followed Croquart to the awe of the unknown, the woman for whom he had suffered knowing nothing of his end. The loneliness and the bitter smart of it made him for the moment like a forgotten child. Great tears were wet upon his cheeks, and for once no angry hand dashed them impatiently away.
XXXVII
In a green corner of the orchard, shaded towards the west by a bank of brushwood, Bertrand stood for his last trial before those Bretons who had hunted Croquart from the walls of Josselin. Behind him the brown gold of the meadows rippled like water at sunset, to touch the gnarled trunks of the flowering apple-trees. A pile of faggots had been thrown down to give Messires Geoffroi Dubois and Carro de Bodegat a seat; their esquires were grouped behind them, bearing their masters’ shields and spears.
Bertrand watched the faces of these two knights; Dubois, brawny, ponderous, black faced and round shouldered as a bear, less to be feared than his sleek and mercurial brother in arms. Carro de Bodegat’s face, narrow and aggressive, with its sharp brown beard and rapid eyes, reminded Du Guesclin of the face of some velvet-capped merchant who had learned to deal with all the greedy littleness of the great. Bertrand hated the man for his high-nostrilled unction, for his insinuating smoothness that was most treacherous when most suave. He knew Carro de Bodegat’s nature too well to hope much from him in the way of magnanimity. He was a creature of courtly astuteness and polished persiflage, who would use a dagger where an honest man would have used a sword.
Carro de Bodegat assumed the authority, Dubois lolling on the faggots, and nursing the arm that Croquart’s horse had bitten.
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin. Stand aside, gentlemen, and let our friend have room.”
To Bertrand the circle of steel-clad figures seemed like as many pillars of gray granite set up by the folk of old upon the wind-swept Breton moors. The faces were as so many masks, curious and distrustful, crowding upon him like the threatening faces of a dream. He felt as though they kept the air from him, and confused his thoughts with the intentness of their many eyes.
From this mist of faces the countenance of Carro de Bodegat disentangled itself, keen and thin—an axe shining among so many billets of wood. It was with De Bodegat that the ordeal lay, and Bertrand braced himself for the touch of the glowing metal.