Bertrand the Brigand

Bertrand the Brigand is the most famous of the Herrimaults, the masked outlaws of Bretonnia who take to the greenwood to defend the common folk against the cruelty and corruption of wicked nobles. Once a yeoman wronged by a tyrannical lord, Bertrand turned brigand rather than suffer injustice, and gathered about him a band of loyal outlaws (the giant Hugo, the sharp-eyed archer Gilles, and others) who share his creed. From hidden camps in the forests he wages a private war upon the venal and the cruel, robbing greedy barons, ambushing tax-collectors, and turning up unlooked-for to save a village from monster or marauder. To the peasantry he is a hero and a legend whispered by firelight; to the lords whose strongboxes he empties he is a hunted criminal with a price on his head. Yet even his enemies among the nobility grudgingly concede his courage, and in Bretonnia's hour of need Bertrand and his Herrimaults have marched openly to war, proving that honour is no monopoly of the highborn, a lesson the dukes would very much prefer their peasants never learned.