Bertrand of Brittany. Warwick Deeping

Clissons were not popular with the citizens of Rennes. More brave work followed. Bertrand saw his own cousin, young Olivier de Manny, whom he recognized by the white hart upon his shield, run three courses without a fall, and then ride back towards the town to disarm at his hostelry. It was then that a lull came over the lists, the Sieur de Beaumanoir having stopped the tilting for a moment to speak with Godamar du Fay of France, who had been wounded by De Manny in the shoulder.

      Bertrand, in his eagerness, had edged his horse closer and closer to the crowd. Just as the break came in the tilting Yellow Thomas set his fore foot on the heel of a butcher, who was leaning forward with his elbows on the shoulders of two friends. The man gave a yelp, clapped his hand to his foot, and turned a furious red face on Bertrand, cursing him with butcher-like and whole-hearted gusto.

      “The devil strike you dead, boy! Keep your ugly beast off honest men’s heels!”

      Bertrand was every whit as ready to quarrel as was the butcher.

      “Boy! Keep your tongue civil to a gentleman, you sticker of pigs. If my horse trod on your toe it was because he could not abide the villainous reek of your blouse.”

      There was an immediate stir among the crowd. All the gossips were agog, and a pavement of grinning faces seemed turned to Bertrand on his sorry nag. He became the centre of interest for the moment. The butcher had a dozen friends about him, and they were soon wagging their tongues, much to Bertrand’s discomfort.

      “Why, look ye, John, the lad’s stolen his master’s old surcoat. I’ll warrant his hose are patched. How much did you give for that noble horse, boy?”

      “Tell you, neighbor, he’s stolen the miller’s nag.”

      “And pulled off its tail—for a disguise!”

      “The skin is rather a tight fit, Stephen. D’ye feed him on saffron, most noble baron?”

      “Baron forsooth,” said a fat woman with a red kerchief tied over her black hair. “Why, it is one of the Sieur de Rohan’s grooms. Look at his legs, sirs; they are as round as though they taught him to straddle a cask when he was a baby.”

      Bertrand, white with fury, glared from one to another as they laughed and jeered at him. He could not fight the whole crowd, much less the women, who were more malicious than the men. Ridicule is not an easy yoke to be borne by the shoulders of youth, and more so when the victim has learned to hate his own grotesqueness with the sensitive fierceness of a proud nature. Bertrand ground his teeth, and fumbled with the dagger that hung at his girdle, tempted to let blood in answer to their insolence.

      The whole squabble had been overheard by the gentry in the gallery above. Olivier, who had taken a peep over the balustrading, turned with a grin to his mother, and shrugged his shoulders.

      “Bertrand—of course,” he said.

      Dame du Guesclin bit her lip.

      “Why did the fool come with us? I knew how it would be.”

      She glanced round towards where Tiphaïne had been seated, but the child had slipped away from her father’s side, and was on the top step of the stairway leading to the grassland at the back of the lists.

      “Olivier, the child! Stop her! She is mad!”

      Olivier sprang towards Tiphaïne, but her flashing eyes sobered him. She went slowly down the stairs, keeping her face towards him, her toy poniard naked in her hand, a sting that Olivier did not relish. He laughed, and turned back to the Vicomte and Dame Jeanne.

      “The lady will have her way,” he said, setting his cap a little more jauntily on his head, and affecting surprise when Stephen de Bellière frowned at him.

      “Leave the child alone, lad,” said her father, quietly, “she has more wit than most wenches of twenty.”

      Bertrand, ready to weep with wrath and vexation, was backing Yellow Thomas out of the crowd, when he felt a hand laid upon his bridle. Glancing down, he saw Tiphaïne standing beside him, looking up with deep color on her brown-skinned face, her eyes shining under their dark lashes.

      “Tiphaïne!”

      She held out her hands to him.

      “Take me up upon your saddle.”

      In a moment Bertrand had lifted her with his long arms, and had seated her before him. The townsfolk had fallen back in silence. The child had her father’s arms emblazoned upon her dress, and it was easy to see that she was of gentle birth.

      “Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, why do you quarrel with these wretches?”

      She looked down upon the rough townsfolk with a scorn that was marvellous in its vividness on the face of one so young. No one mocked at her. Even the women held their tongues when her shrill voice carried over the heads of the people.

      “Tiphaïne,” said the lad, “I was a great fool to come to Rennes.”

      She put her small hand over his mouth.

      “You are unkind,” she said; “was it not I who brought you hither?”

      Bertrand had drawn Yellow Thomas free of the crowd. The trumpets were sounding again, and the fickle faces of the people were turned once more towards the lists. In a moment Tiphaïne, Bertrand, and his yellow horse were forgotten.

      “Tiphaïne.” He colored to the stubble of his coarse, black hair.

      “Yes, Bertrand.”

      “You have saved me from cutting a butcher’s throat. You must go back, child, and see the tilting.”

      She looked at him steadily, and her eyes were within a cubit’s breadth of his.

      “What will you do?” she asked.

      He was sitting round-shouldered in the saddle, staring sullenly towards the lists. Suddenly his eyes brightened. He gave a short cry. Tiphaïne felt his right arm tighten about her.

      “I have it; I have it.”

      She looked at him questioningly.

      “Well?”

      “Wait, and you shall see.”

      He put her gently from him, and, swinging her to one side, let her drop lightly on the grass.

      “Go back, child,” he said, looking older and more sure of himself of a sudden. “I have a plan. Go back, and God bless you.”

      He smote his heels into Yellow Thomas’s ribs, and, waving his hand to Tiphaïne, went cantering over the meadows towards the town. The child watched him till he had almost reached the walls, and then, turning, she went back slowly up the stairway, and creeping close to her father, clasped her hands about his arm.

      “Well, what of Bertrand?”

      “Wait and see,” quoth Tiphaïne, with an air of mystery, gazing defiantly at Dame Jeanne.

      Bertrand rode into the nearest gate, and, meeting two esquires with fresh horses for Sir Ives de Cadoudal and Sir Geoffrey de Spinefort, hailed them and inquired whether they knew where Olivier de Manny lodged. Bertrand’s rough exterior seemed to amuse the young gentlemen not a little. They gave him the news he needed, however, and disappeared under the arch of the gate, laughing together at “the black brigand on the yellow horse.”

      Olivier de Manny’s hostel stood in a narrow street branching from the cathedral close. Bertrand recognized the sign the two esquires had described to him, a large gilt buckle on the end of a beam. Dismounting and hitching Yellow Thomas’s bridle over a hook in the door-post, he plunged into the guest-room on the ground floor, and found his cousin sitting in a carved chair with a cup of Muscadel beside him on the table. Olivier de Manny was using the empty guest-room as his robing-chamber. His heavy tilting bassinet and vambraces lay on the table, and a servant was kneeling and unbuckling the greaves from off his master’s legs.