“Our Bertrand’s name is now on the lips of every man in France,” said he with a heartiness which showed that envy, at least, was not among his many vices; “and the minstrels have made a romaunt concerning him and his lady, which men call ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ that tells how a fair damsel consented to wed a monster that dwelt all alone in an enchanted castle, and thereby she brake the spell that bound him, and he was changed to as goodly a prince as lady’s eye could rest on. Marry, ’twere beyond the power of magic,” added he, with a hoarse laugh, “to do as much for our Bertrand!”
“Might such a thing be, the Lady Tiphaine were the very dame to do it,” cried Alured. “I trust the noble lady lives and thrives?”
“Alas, no!” said Clisson, with a passing cloud on his rugged face. “She died some years agone, and it well-nigh brake Bertrand’s heart; but men say that at the last she foretold to him that he should follow her ere long, and that comforted him somewhat.”
Once launched on this favourite topic, Olivier poured forth all his enthusiasm for his chosen hero.
“It seems but yester-eve that our Bertrand was in prison at Bordeaux after the fight of Navaretta; and when there was question of his ransom, the Black Prince sent me and Sir Eustace d’Ambreticourt to bring Bertrand to his presence, for to speak with him thereon. And when we came to the prison, lo! there sat Bertrand amid the gaoler’s children, with a chubby boy on each knee, and on his shoulder a little lass of three years old, plucking at his black beard with a hand no bigger than an oak-leaf, and chirruping to him like any bird! Then laughed Sir Eustace (he was ever a merry man) and thus he spake: ‘So help me St. Michael, men call Sir Bertrand the terror of the English, but methinks here be some English who fear him not a whit!’”
“It was ever his wont,” said Alured, “to be debonair to children and ladies, though no man may abide his stroke. Men say that when he was ransomed yon time thou speak’st of, he got back to his home like a beggar, having given all he had to certain poor folk that he met wandering on the highway in distress.”
“And they say truth; our Bertrand had ever an open hand and kind heart, and therefore is he loved of the poor. Marry, ’twas a sight to see how all Paris was moved when he rode into it on the day when the king made him Constable of France!”