The Maid Page 15

"It's very good that he's here," Alençon said. "He left Orléans for a while after the disaster at Rouvray. We were afraid we'd lost him for good."

  As La Hire drew closer, Jehanne recognized his shaved head and brown, leathery face, the light web of scars all over his cheeks and neck. Bright, intense blue eyes, like chips of sky. "He says the bells let the enemy know Death is coming," said Alençon, smiling and nodding at the warrior.

  "Hail to the Maid," La Hire shouted. He was always shouting. "God fucking bless you, child."

  She nodded, ground her sharp upper tooth against the one below it. Heard it squeak. Wait until you can tell them all at once, she thought.

  "And you, General."

  The man's eyebrows went up and he grinned a white, snapping grin, as if he'd taken a bite out of the air. "Ready to go kill some English?"

  Her blood shouted Yes! but she said something different. "If it comes to that," she said. "I hope it won't."

  "Pssh," said La Hire, blowing air out of his cheeks. "If you can make 'em go away just by asking, you're no bloody saint, you're the fucking Almighty Himself!"

  This time she could not hold her tongue. "I won't have swearing like that in my army," she said. "If we are going to ask for God's help, we must abide by His rules."

  La Hire laughed—a short, sharp bark. "Clearly you've never spent much time around soldiers," he said.

  "Clearly you've never fought with God on your side," she said.

  The man looked at her then, his eyes cold. "You know nothing about what I've done," he said.

  Jehanne was silent. "Fair enough," she said. "You understand that I need to address the men immediately. Is there a place where I can do that?"

  La Hire continued looking at her with his sharp blue eyes. "Sure, sure," he said, recovering, turning his horse. "But let's go get you settled up at the château first, then you can speak to the men first thing in the morning."

  Jehanne did not move.

  "Come on, then."

  "I need to address them now."

  The warrior studied her. She felt the fury in him, on a tight leash at the moment but there just below the surface, waiting. He rubbed his lips, squinted. "They're off duty, half of them drunk by now, you know."

  "All the more reason for me to speak to them."

  The man's mouth curled up on one side. "You're a fierce little thing, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  The other side of his mouth curling up now. "Ha!" he shouted, wheeling his horse. "I like it! Follow me, Fierce Virgin!"

  3

  She stood in the gathering twilight, surrounded by six bright torches on a wooden stage that had been erected at one end of the camp. Dusk was falling and the campfires were being lit in the dim fields. Huge orange blooms pulsing up in the darkness, and around them thousands of French and Scottish and Spanish soldiers standing and sitting and cheering at the sight of the small, bright-eyed girl with her glinting steel suit and her dark cap of boy's hair, and among them in the twilight, she saw flashes of danger, the long hair and gleaming shoulders of the whores with their red skirts and filthy bare feet, the dice games and card games, men staggering, reeling with drink. The air smelled of smoke and fresh straw and roasting meat, and Jehanne could feel the wildness in the men rising as the night drew down, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise up, and wondered if she was, in fact, mad to believe they would listen to her.

  It was a while before they were silent. Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes of cheering, wild shouts, and roars just at the sight of her—Jehanne standing before them in her shining armor, her round face beaming, her eyes promising silently: Yes, friends, help has arrived. God's love has arrived. Now we will triumph. The strangeness of the image, the sheer fact of this impossible creature was enough to transfix them, stir them into a frenzy of joy and rage. By the time they were silent, there was hardly need for words.

  In her bones, Jehanne understood this. Understood that much of her power lay in the outrageous picture she presented, the unspoiled peasant virgin—almost a child—riding down out of the fields of Lorraine to drag France up out of Hell, to restore France to her former glory. It stopped them in their tracks. And so she stood silently before them, beaming, loving them, and she could see their faces transforming before her, the jeers giving way to fascination, hope, doubts trampled by a rush of wonder as they gazed upon her, roaring and screaming her name, the men so moved that it was as if Christ Himself stood before them.

  She held up her hand and waited for silence. Prayed silently, Help me, Father ... And she could feel the golden light pouring through her then, could feel the night open itself like a dark flower around her, could feel herself dissolving into the sea of people, into the white moon overhead and the black rustling forest behind and the blue hills rolling in the distance, and when she spoke, her voice was loud and clear, and it seemed that God Himself was whispering in her ear.

  "I bring you great news, my friends, my brave and noble soldiers of France," she began. "After so many years of suffering, God has come to our aid." A huge storm of cheering forced her to pause. When it died down, she continued. "He has sent me to tell you that now is the time for us to defeat the English, and He has promised to help us in our fight. Those of you who ride to Orléans and fight with me will fight with all of God's might and love behind us, and victory will be ours, provided ..." More wild cheering now. "Provided we obey His conditions ..."

  Again she was forced to stop. Again the roaring from the crowd grew so loud she could not continue. The men were wild with excitement, pressing up against the stage, shouting, cheering. Her words did not matter. They wanted simply to stand before her, to drink in her light. Hope had bubbled up like a spring inside of them, and they felt that there was nothing they could not do so long as she was there to guide them.

  This ended as soon as Jehanne began to shout her conditions. "For we must become God's warriors now, men, and to become God's warriors, we must make our hearts pure as snow. And so there will be no swearing, no betting, no drunkenness, no whores, no looting, no ransoms in God's army," she said. "And every man must hear Mass and make his confession before battle."

  Abrupt silence. Silence for what seemed like an eternity. Followed by a galloping chorus of boos.

  "What about killing? Can we do that?" someone shouted.

  "That's crazy," called another.

  "Or what?" shouted a boy with small, shiny black eyes. A face like a weasel.

  "Or we will be defeated!" Jehanne shouted. "The English will destroy us and France will be lost forever."

  More silence.

  She let the words sink in, smiled gently. "We cannot expect God's help unless we show our love and respect for Him at all times. We are God's soldiers now, and we must behave as such," she said. Again she did not know where the words came from. She listened, amazed, as they came out of her, clear and strong and sensible—words, it seemed, that no man could argue with.

  4

  Later that evening, as Jehanne was walking through the darkness toward her tent, she heard men talking by a fire. "Don't see why I should confess, I'm going to Hell anyway," said a general she'd met briefly at dinner, Poton de Xaintrailles. A thick, stubborn-looking man with fluffy yellow hair like chick feathers and narrow pea-green eyes. Cheeks red as a sunset. He was sitting with La Hire and several other captains, poking at the fire with a long stick. She knew he did not like her. He'd refused to look her in the eyes when they were introduced, and when the girl referred to the men as "my army," he gave a great ugly snort.

  "Good point," said La Hire. "If I start confessing now, I'll be talking for all eternity."

  She stepped forward into the firelight. "You'll confess before battle. It's what God demands."

  Poton looked at her, his eyes flat, inscrutable—like a cat's. "You know how many men I've killed?"

  "No, and I don't want to know," she said calmly. "What I do know is that confession will be held before every battle from here on out. And if you don't like it,
you can find another army to fight for."

  A ripple of delight went through the men. They liked her toughness. It made them feel safe. But Poton, she saw, was not won over. Poton remained with his obstinate red face, staring at the girl as if he wished her dead. And it was some time too before the others began to behave. Several days, in which they tested her constantly, in which she had to be stern as a bishop. "Fucking Christ," La Hire shouted one night when he sliced his thumb open while cutting into a sausage. Blood plushing out as if from a spigot. "Uh!"

  Jehanne shouted back, one index finger up, eyebrows raised. "What was that?"

  La Hire scowled, muttered. "Sorry."

  Or Alençon, losing a game of cards one night after dinner. "Cocksucker!" he cried, then he blushed deeply. "Sorry, Jehanne."

  La Hire jumped up then. "No, it's fucking impossible." He stomped around the campfire, his face knotted up, ugly in the light. "You don't understand what kind of men you're dealing with here. A fine swear word is life's blood with us; you can't pretend we're choirboys, for fuck's sake!"

  "I am under no illusions that you're a choirboy, La Hire," she said, "but if you don't follow my orders, we will lose this war. It's as simple as that."

  Eventually they came to an agreement. She told them they could use any curse words they liked as long as they did not involve God or Christ or the Virgin Mary or sex. "Make them up," she said. "Like what?" said La Hire. "Give us an example." It took her a few minutes. "Son of a goat," she said finally. "That's ridiculous," said La Hire. But somehow it stuck. The whole next day Alençon and La Hire went around saying it. "Hello, you son of a goat!" "Nice day, eh, son of a goat?"

  Another day she took on the prostitutes. Early one morning, when the air was cool and the tents were still shrouded in mist, she rode through the camp with six soldiers behind her, shouting orders that startled her with their ferocity. "All whores must leave these premises immediately. Come out at the order of the Maid and depart now, or prepare to face God's wrath."

  Fifteen minutes later, when no women had emerged from the tents, Jehanne jumped down off her horse into the mud, shouted "Follow me" to her men, and began storming through the tent flaps, kicking at bedrolls and pulling up blankets. She found a great number of whores there, some still sleeping, their pale limbs entwined with their soldiers', some hiding in trunks, some in disguise, hastily dressed up like soldiers in tunics and leggings, with charcoal mustaches painted above their lips. When some of the men complained that the women were their fiancées and intendeds, women they dearly loved, Jehanne smiled and said, "Well, find a priest to marry you by sundown and they're welcome to stay."

  There were no weddings by sundown, but there were large packs of ragged painted women departing the camp that day, some of them weeping and waving and blowing kisses at their men as they went, others spitting and cursing the Maid as they walked, saying, "Goddamn righteous bitch. Who in the hell does she think she is?"

  5

  One afternoon two young men came into the main room of the Bear Inn in Blois, where Jehanne was going over a list of provisions with Aulon. Both of them carried heavy burlap sacks. They were filthy, their hair matted, streaks of dirt on their cheeks, their faces sagging with fatigue. Jehanne stood up, stared. "What are you doing here?"

  "Look at you now," said the older one, gaping at her short hair, her fine red woolen tunic, her high polished leather boots.

  The younger boy smiled shyly, revealing a chipped tooth. "Any room for your old brothers in the Maid's army?"

  Their father had sent them. "He stayed mad about you leaving all winter," said Pierrelot. "But as soon as he heard you'd be leading the mission to Orléans, he came around." Not a gradual shift. An abrupt one. Overnight Jacques decided that Jehanne was a saint and an angel and always had been. He walked through the streets of Domrémy and Vaucouleurs with his chest puffed out, bragging that he was the Maid's father. That he'd known she was destined for greatness from the moment she was born. If you had told him that he once hated his daughter and beat her black and blue, he would have stared at you, utterly baffled, as if he had no idea what you were talking about. "He said to tell you he's very proud," said Pierrelot.

  Jehanne nodded. "Now he is," she said, gazing bitterly at the ground.

  "You're quite the hero of the family these days," said Jean in a sour tone. "No one talks of anything else."

  Pierrelot stepped forward and hugged her hard. "It is so good to see you," he said. "Will you let us stay?"

  Jehanne hugged him back. Was surprised how good it felt to hug her own flesh. Her brother. "Of course," she said. "Of course you can stay."

  Yolande was next. Yolande coming across the ripening spring fields in her blue wooden carriage with gold fleurs-de-lis painted on the doors. The wagon rocking and jutting in the mud, the rocks, the fat Queen's face glazed with sweat as she hauled herself down the little wooden steps and onto the wet green field where Jehanne awaited her. "They say you've stopped the men from cursing, got them going to Mass twice a day," she said to Jehanne. "Kicked all the whores out of camp."

  It was a warm, breezy late April morning, and they were touring the provisions for Orléans together. Yolande had personally ordered five thousand pounds of beans and seventeen hundred pigs as her donation to the relief of Orléans, and now she stood at the entrance to a great fenced field, counting the pigs herself as farmers herded them inside in groups of ten.

  "Wasn't easy," Jehanne said. "I found a pack of them dressed up in leggings and boots like men, with beards and muttonchops drawn on their cheeks."

  Yolande chortled, a juicy, rolling, fat woman's laugh. "I wish I'd seen that," she said, patting her forehead with a folded white handkerchief. She wore a faded black cotton dress that pulled at the seams, and there were dark ovals of sweat beneath her arms. But somehow, Jehanne thought, it didn't matter with Yolande the way it did with the Dauphin. Yolande looked like a queen anyway. "My, look at the size of that one there," she said, pointing to a gray-spotted pink beast that was nearly as tall as a cow.

  The girl smiled. "It's a generous donation you're making, your Highness."

  The Queen nodded.

  "I don't know if Alençon told you, but the army could use some more cannons. I don't suppose—"

  Yolande shook her head. Glanced at the sea of pigs milling in the mud and sunlight. "I used the last of my credit to buy those swine."

  "I see," Jehanne said.

  The Queen looked at her sharply. "We won't get a second chance here, you understand? We are too poor, and the men's hearts are too beaten down to face another defeat. If you don't succeed on the first go, it will be over. England will devour this country for good."

  "I know," Jehanne said. "There isn't time."

  The fat Queen peered at her for several moments. "What it must be like for you ... I cannot imagine."

  The girl smiled sadly at her. "Mostly, it's wonderful."

  6

  Next came Gilles. The Monster. Jehanne watched him ride into camp one morning with his splendid private army—his arrival alone, a spectacle. It was the singing she'd heard first. A choir of sunburnt little boys dressed in white robes with blue velvet trim had come walking up the muddy camp road, singing in Breton, their high, angelic voices flying above the camp. Behind them marched a glittering circus of people. First the musicians with their polished silver trumpets, then the churchmen, lead by a hunchbacked old Bishop in a tall, tear-shaped hat and a red houppelande with a squirrel-fur collar. Behind him, the Archdeacon and a flock of chaplains in black and gold robes. Jehanne glanced at Alençon as a skinny-necked juggler walked past, tossing golden balls. "Strange man, the Baron," Alençon said quietly. "Hell of a brave soldier, but there's something off about him."

  Jehanne nodded absently, continued staring.

  "He likes the battles too much," Alençon continued. "The blood."

  Jehanne laughed. "I'm not sure if that's a problem right now. We need all the men eager to spill Goddon blood that we can find
."

  Alençon glanced at her.

  Baron Gilles de Rais, Jehanne learned, had become famous as a great military hero thanks to his bravery in the Breton wars. He was fearless, it was said. Young and fearless and handsome. Thrillingly rich. Now she watched as his private army of three hundred knights rode through the camp—all of them seated atop tall chargers, their polished armor glittering in the morning sun, their doublets bearing the gold and black and blue Rais coat of arms, their lances pointing toward the sky. The Baron himself led them, dressed in black velvet and seated atop a splendid black stallion. He was a tall, thin man with shiny blue-black hair and full red lips, his shoulders thrown back like a dancer's. He looked beautiful and haughty and absurd, Jehanne thought. Like someone who thought his life was a play. But when the young Baron noticed her watching him, his dark eyes went wide, and there passed from him a look of such intense vulnerability that all of the pomp and frippery suddenly seemed sad and somehow desperate to her, and Jehanne found herself in the strange position of feeling sorry for the second-richest man in France.

  He invited them to his camp for dinner that night. Jehanne and the generals. Un petit diner, said the Baron's pretty, gold-haired page, his lips pink and shining, swollen like blisters. At sunset Jehanne and La Hire and Alençon walked up the hill together toward the city of gold-trimmed blue tents that the Rais camp had erected near the gates of Blois that afternoon. "Bloody peacock," scoffed La Hire as they walked among the billowing tents in the soft evening breeze. The sky overhead was streaked thickly with red clouds. The whole scene had the feel of a dream.

  "Have you seen him on the battlefield?" said Alençon.

  "Oh yes," said La Hire. "He's Hell's own demon with a knife. But all this," he said, waving a hand. "Who does he think he is? God?"

  "If only we had some of that money," Jehanne said, staring as a pair of servants wheeled an enormous organ past them in a cloud of dust, gold angels floating among the pipes, the jade and pearl knobs gleaming in the late-day sunlight.