CHAPTER XXV

A Case of Conscience

The duke’s herald was at once admitted by the old commandant, to whom he announced himself as the bearer of a message to Du Guesclin from the Duke of Lancaster.

“Thou wouldst speak with Messire Bertrand thyself?” asked De Penhoën, with the ghost of a smile flickering over his iron face.

“Even so,” said the herald, with a dignity befitting his office, then one of the most important in existence.

“Go down there and thou wilt find him,” said the old Breton, pointing to the courtyard with a grin that puckered his hard visage till it looked like the carved spout of a cathedral.

Down went the herald, to find himself amid a throng of rough-looking, bare-armed fellows, who were chopping up one of the captured carts to replenish their scanty stock of firewood. After looking in vain for any sign of Du Guesclin among the ragged, dirty gang, he was fain to apply to a short, sturdy, phenomenally ugly man in a greasy leathern jerkin (with his head and left arm bandaged), who, while directing the labours of the rest, seemed himself to work as hard as any one.

“I pray thee, good fellow,” said he condescendingly, “tell me where I may find Sir Bertrand du Guesclin; I have to speak with him.”

“Speak on, then,” said the wood-chopper, wiping his face; “I am he.”

“Thou?” echoed the herald, recoiling. “Thou the great Du Guesclin? So help me St. George, thou look’st more like a robber!”

“Dar’st thou call our Bertrand a robber, malapert knave?” roared one of the wood-cutters. “Say it again, and we will strip off those gay plumes of thine, and thy own jackass hide to boot.”

“Hold, lads! a herald is sacred,” said Bertrand, with a jovial laugh. “And, in sooth, he has hit the mark in calling me robber, since I plundered his master’s camp last night. If thou believe me not, Sir Herald, look if this be like one of Du Guesclin’s blows.”

And one blow of his axe cut in two, as easily as if slicing a ripe pear, a log as thick as the herald’s own thigh.

Convinced at last that this ugly, clumsy, grimy dwarf was really the great leader he sought, the crestfallen herald gave his message (to which Bertrand replied with a knightly courtesy that, with all his soldier-like bluntness, never failed him on occasion), and retired much abashed, and not a little scandalized, to find the greatest captain of an age famous for ostentatious splendour dressed worse than a scarecrow.

Then Du Guesclin, having arrayed himself for his call on the duke, went to ask after his wounded comrades, Huon and the Wolf; for, as to his own hurts, even the entreaties of his gentle and beautiful wife (to whom he had thus cut his way through an army) could only prevail on him to bandage them hastily, though most men would have thought them serious enough.

Finding his cousin better, though still weak, Bertrand next inquired after the Wolf, who was being nursed by Lady Tiphaine du Guesclin herself. She met her husband at the door of the sick-room with her finger on her lips.

“How fares he?” whispered Bertrand.

“He sleeps, thank Heaven; and if the sleep last and he wake refreshed, he shall do well, please God, though he is sore stricken. But thou, my Bertrand, whither goest thou?”

“To the English camp,” said her lord, with a boyish grin. “His highness of Lancaster is so gracious as to hold my ugly visage an ornament to his table. Methinks he had gone nearer the mark had he bidden thee in my stead.”

“To the English camp?” echoed Tiphaine, with a slight tremor in her sweet voice. “Promise me, then, my own true knight, that thou wilt fight no combat with their champions, even if they provoke thee to it. Bethink thee” (and she laid her soft hand fondly on the grim warrior’s mighty arm) “that thy life belongs to the whole realm, and may not be lightly perilled against every hothead who would win renown by crossing steel with the great Du Guesclin.”

“Why, what is this that thou say’st, lady mine?” quoth Bertrand, with an air of innocent surprise. “Think’st thou that I, of all men, am one to seek causeless quarrels?”

In fact, it was good Bertrand’s firm belief that he was by nature a very peaceable man, and that his countless duels were forced on him by others, and in no way due to his own love of fighting.

“Be that as it may,” said his wife, turning aside her beautiful face to hide the arch smile that flitted over it, “I have thy promise, have I not?”

“Thou hast it, sweetheart,” said Bertrand, kissing her. “Adieu till evening. I say not, ‘God be with thee,’ for He is with thee evermore.”

Tiphaine’s precaution came just in time; for though John of Gaunt and most of his knights welcomed Bertrand with the courtesy due to their noblest foe, there was one who bent on him a grim and lowering look, boding ill for the peace of the banquet.

This uncourteous knight was a tall, strong, bulky man (evidently a practised warrior), who bore himself with the haughtiness of one bent on exacting from every man the deference he deemed his due. He was presented to Du Guesclin as Sir Thomas of Canterbury, a name that Bertrand had not heard before, though history has now linked it inseparably with his own.

The moment the Breton met Canterbury’s defiant look he saw that this man meant to pick a quarrel with him, nor did the Englishman lose any time in setting about it.

“Health and long life to our honoured guest, Sir Bertrand du Guesclin!” cried the duke, standing up with a brimming goblet in his hand.

The rest cordially echoed the toast, but Sir Thomas’s voice was heard to add an unexpected postscript—

“Health and long life to Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, and may he ever have as dark a night to aid him to foray a camp!”

The sneering tone and insulting look left no doubt of the speaker’s meaning. The duke frowned slightly, and all faces clouded at so flagrant a breach of good breeding—all the more offensive because couched in terms so ambiguous as to make it difficult to resent. Only Bertrand was cool as ever.

“I thank thee for thy kind wish, good Sir Thomas,” said he; “and in truth, the dark night did me good service.”

So pleasant was his tone, so friendly his look, that even the quarrelsome Canterbury could find no offence in either; and the company, seeing a man of such proverbial courage bent on avoiding all dispute at their general’s table, admired his courtesy and self-command as much as they condemned their countryman’s rudeness.

But Sir Thomas, though foiled for once, was not to be so easily baulked; and, a few minutes later, he said pointedly to Du Guesclin himself—

“I pray thee, good Sir Bertrand, what men were they who followed thee yester-eve? Some of my archers saw among the dead certain men whom they held to belong to a gang of robbers that have long haunted these woods; but I can never believe that any true knight would hold fellowship with such thievish scum!”

This time the affront was too direct to be mistaken; and for a moment Du Guesclin’s eyes rested on his insulter with a look that made the swaggering Englishman, brave as he really was, tingle to his very finger-tips. But Bertrand controlled himself with a mighty effort, and replied as calmly as ever—

“Gramercy for thy care of my fair fame, Sir Thomas; but thine archers were in the right. The men that followed me yester-eve were the robbers of whom thou speak’st, whose chief pledged himself to me, when I had somewhat the better of him in single fight, to be at my command, he and his men, and do me masterful service in war, which they did all the more because—as one of them said with that discourtesy and rudeness of speech that is ever the mark of a common churl” (Sir Thomas winced visibly)—“in this land the English let no thieves thrive but themselves!”

The stifled laugh which ran around the board showed that, in the opinion of all present, the bully’s insolence had been well requited; but Canterbury’s sun-browned face glowed like heated iron, and he broke out fiercely—

“Whoso dares speak in the same breath of thieves and Englishmen, I defy him to——”

“Sir Thomas,” said the duke, sternly, “hast thou forgot at whose table thou sittest? Who gave thee leave to set thyself up as England’s champion, when thy king’s son is here in presence? I counsel thee to rein up thy brawling humour, lest I curb it for thee!”

“Nay,” said Du Guesclin, “let not your highness be wroth with this good knight, if he be minded to bid me to a friendly trial of manhood. It grieves me much that I cannot pleasure him, having promised my liege lady to fight no combat this day; and if any man hath a mind to think Bertrand Du Guesclin a coward for that cause, e’en let him.”

“If any man speak so of thee in my hearing, noble Sir Bertrand,” cried John of Gaunt, “I will myself challenge him to the combat, and will so deal with him that he shall never offend in such wise again.”

“I heartily thank your highness; but lest I be held a niggard by this good knight, in seeming to shun the cheer he offereth me, I will pray your courtesy to let each of us strike one blow on helm or mail in all good fellowship, that so we may in some sort prove each other’s might, even if we cannot do so blade to blade.”

The duke (to whose chivalrous spirit this offer was just suited) agreed at once. Two helmets, the strongest that could be found, were placed on two stout blocks at the tent door; and the whole party trooped out to watch the trial.

“Strike thou the first blow, good Sir Thomas,” said Bertrand; “it is what thou art ever wont to do.”

“I thank your courtesy, fair sir,” said the Englishman, who, finding himself treated with such studied courtesy after all his rudeness, was beginning to feel ashamed of it.

Down came his axe, cleaving the tempered steel like paper, and biting so deep into the hard block as well-nigh to hew it in twain. A shout of applause greeted the stroke, and Bertrand said with his usual frankness—

“Well stricken, gallant sir! He who would match thee runneth sore risk of being shamed; but, for the honour of Bretagne, I will e’en try my fortune.”

His wounded arm was sorely against him; but the thought of striking for his country’s honour in the presence of foes doubled his great strength, and the blow fell like a thunderbolt. The strong helmet flew in pieces like an egg-shell, and down went the terrible axe through steel and wood and all, burying itself a good foot in the hard earth below.

There was a pause of mute amazement (for never yet had the lookers-on, though bred where good blows were in plenty, seen such a stroke), and then broke forth a shout of hearty, manly admiration, to which the duke himself added the full might of his voice.

Sir Thomas himself, with all his bluster, was too brave a man not to admire such prowess even in a foe; and he said frankly enough—

“Thou art the better man, gentle sir; and, by St. George, I have good cause to be glad that my head was not in yon helm when thine axe smote it.”

He had cause to remember those words two years later, when, in the famous single combat still commemorated by the conqueror’s statue in Dinan market-place, he was beaten to the earth by Du Guesclin’s resistless arm, and owed to the Duke of Lancaster’s intercession a life justly forfeited by a wanton breach of truce, as dishonouring to his own fame as to that of England.

Just then up came a single rider at full speed, and, bowing low to the duke, gave him a sealed letter, which Lancaster read with visible emotion.

“This letter, Sir Bertrand, brings me word of a truce betwixt France and England, and of my royal father’s command to raise this siege,” said he, not sorry, perhaps, to have so good an excuse for giving up his now hopeless enterprise. “I can claim no merit for obeying, for thou hast already made all my labours vain. But herein lieth my difficulty. I have vowed, as English prince and belted knight, not to turn from these walls till I plant my banner on them; and rather than break my word, I would bide here as long as Messire Agamemnon and his knights before Troy.”

To Du Guesclin, as to every man of that age, such a vow was sacred, and, once made, must be carried out to the letter. For a moment he looked staggered by this new dilemma; but his ready wit soon found a remedy.

“If that be all, let it not trouble your highness. What hinders you to come into the town in friendly wise, plant your banner on the wall, and then take it down again and go your way in peace? So is your vow fulfilled, and your honour has no stain.”

The duke laughed at the clever device, and lost no time in carrying it out. He came up to the gate with a few of his knights, was courteously received there by De Penhoën, planted his banner on the wall, solemnly took it down again, and went back to his camp quite satisfied!

Then Bertrand, seeing that the besiegers were really breaking up their camp and preparing to depart, went back to his quarters, at the door of which his stout seneschal met him with a very gloomy face.

“I have heavy news for thee, messire. Thou art about to lose a staunch comrade.”

“Not Huon?” cried the hero, clenching his hands till the joints cracked.

“No, thank God; the Sire de St. Yvon is mending apace. But he whom they call the Black Wolf——”

Bertrand waited to hear no more, but flew up the narrow stair, thrusting aside the strong soldier like a child.

“Lives he?” asked he of his wife, as she came forward to meet him.

“He lives as yet,” she replied sadly; “but his sickness hath taken an ill turn, and——”

“I could have better spared a better man,” said Du Guesclin, in the very words that Shakespeare has immortalized. “Must he die? Is there no hope?”

“None, unless God work a miracle to save him. But who are we, my Bertrand, to question the will of God? In mercy, it may be, hath this brave man been called hence while his heart was right and his purpose good, lest he should fall back into his former sins. God’s will be done!”

But the “Amen” that Bertrand strove to utter died on his lips, and he silently followed his lady into the chamber of death.

The Wolf’s grim features were already white and sunken, and his mighty frame lay helpless as a child; but his eyes glowed with a wild light, and words of terrible meaning broke from his lips.

“They are great, and rich, and powerful, and their life is full of pleasure. What know they of how a man feels who has had no pleasure in life from the birth-hour to the grave? They call me ‘Wolf;’ but who made me so? When a wolf tears and slays one of those who have hunted and wounded him, and driven him to lie cold and hungry in his darksome den, what doth he but what yourselves have taught him?”

“Hear’st thou, Tiphaine?” said Du Guesclin, drawing a quick breath as if in sudden pain. “And it is all true, too!”

“Not true of thee, Bertrand; thou hast ever been good to the poor.”

“But what of those who have not?” said he, gloomily. “Surely for all these things there will one day be a heavy reckoning.”

Tiphaine laid her cool, soft hand on the dying man’s fevered brow, and in the haggard eyes shone a sudden gleam of joyful recognition.

“God has sent an angel to receive my soul,” he murmured, “unworthy though I be of such grace; but ’tis a black soul for thy pure white hands to touch, holy one.”

“For such souls our Lord died on the cross,” she replied gently. “Peace be with thee.”

“And when thou meet’st my father yonder,” broke in Bertrand, vehemently, “tell him from me that never had man truer comrade than I have found in thee, and that——”

Here the brave man’s voice failed, and—for all emotions of that downright age, good or evil, worked as openly as those of children—the stern eyes, that had never blenched in the face of death, let fall tear after tear on the nerveless hand that he clasped in both his own.

“Lady,” said the dying bandit, straining his failing eyes towards Tiphaine’s face, “bind, I pray thee, thy sash around my neck, and let it be buried with me; for men say we shall be sore changed yonder, and I would fain have some token whereby God may know me for thy liegeman!”

And she, without a word, did as he asked.

An hour later all was over; but the rescued citizens did not forget what they owed to the man who had given his life to save them. All Rennes swelled the train that bore him to his last resting-place in the churchyard of Sainte-Melaine; and over his grave Du Guesclin set up, at his own cost, a fair tablet of hewn stone, inscribed with an epitaph that had indeed been fully earned—

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”