He looked at her steadfastly a moment, noting her queenliness and the sadness of her eyes.
“I am what I am; the how, or why, neither mends—nor matters. Give me your commands.”
She turned to the altar, and, lifting the silver swan, held it out to him with both her hands.
“Take it, messire.”
He glanced up at her and frowned.
“Not that!”
“And yet you remember Rennes?”
He caught her meaning, and understood—to his own cost—the significance of the thing she wished.
“You strike hard, but the blows are true,” he said. “I have lost what once was mine; I acknowledge it; a man can do no more.”
He sheathed his sword and took the swan from Tiphaïne, looking at her hands and nothing else. For Bertrand there was a bitter symbolism in the scene. The few pure memories he had given to the past were flung back to him like the dry petals of a cherished flower.