The men and women were crowding the far end of the chapel, grinning and giggling, and not a little astonished at the way that Bertrand had his tail between his legs. It was a new thing for them to see their captain bearded, and bearded successfully, by a mere woman.
The truth was plain to Tiphaïne as she looked at the man’s sullen and silent face, and at the rough plunderers who called him leader. She had no fear either of Bertrand or his men. The plague had taught her to look on death without a tremor.
“Then you are no longer of the Blois party, Messire Bertrand du Guesclin.”
“I—madame?”
“Yes.”
He gnawed his lip, with the air of a man wishing himself saved from some merciless scourging.
“The Sieur de Rohan is for the Count of Blois.”
“It is so.”
“Therefore, messire”—and she looked down at him from her full height—“therefore—I do not understand.”
The woman Gwen, who had torn her skirts on the trunk of the tree, began to laugh and declaim: