The Maid Page 24

  Jehanne remained calm, expressionless even, when they reached Gien several weeks later and the King announced that the army would be disbanded. And she remained calm in a private meeting in his castle, where he informed Jehanne and Alençon that they were dangerous influences on each other and were forbidden from ever fighting together again. "Separate now and let me never hear that you have reunited lest you face certain death," he said, looking not into Jehanne's eyes, but at her forehead, as he did with his servants.

  Even at these words, Jehanne flinched only slightly. Then the stone face returned. A stone face that remained as she and Alençon stood together outside the castle while his carriage was packed by the servants. Remained until the driver was in his seat and the horses were pawing the earth, and at last Jehanne brought herself to look him in the eye. "I'm sorry," she said.

  Alençon shook his head, smiled. "There is nothing to be sorry for."

  "Well." Jehanne said, looking off at the trees. "It's all over now."

  "Only for a little while," Alençon said, touching her cheek. "Just until Charles gets over his temper."

  Jehanne understood. Saw that he could not bear to admit otherwise. So she forced herself to smile. "Until next time, then."

  The Duke flinched. "Let us hold you at least," he said, pulling her against him. He held her there for a long time, breathing in the scent of her hair, clutching her to him tightly. "Jehanne," he said, as she pulled away from him.

  She smiled. "Until next time," she said again. And she stood and watched as the carriage drove away, growing smaller and smaller in the afternoon light until it vanished completely, and only then did she permit herself to weep.

  26

  She spent the rest of the fall with the King and his court, wandering from castle to castle, waiting for her wounds to heal. Pierrelot and Aulon remained with her through that aimless season. Loches, Meung-sur-Yèvre, Bourges, Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier. They stayed only a week or two in each place, until the stench of shit and sweat and rotting food overwhelmed them, and then they moved on. Leaving their green watermelon rinds and mutton bones on the floor for the animals that would inevitably take up residence there in their absence. The King was polite, but kept his distance. No longer did they pray together in the Rose Chapel. No longer did they ride their horses along the river.

  Jehanne slept badly, awkwardly, in her fine soft bed. She had terrible nightmares, fought a thousand losing battles in her sleep, saw Bertrand and Mugot die again and again, saw Gilles in all his monstrosity, rode through fields of the dead in her sleep, woke screaming in the night. In the daytime, she let servants bathe and tend to her wound with clean hot water and fresh linen bandages. She accepted visits from various noble well-wishers and gawkers. She smiled grimly through countless royal ceremonies and rituals, biting down hard on her cheek to keep herself from falling asleep.

  In Bourges she stayed for several weeks as the guest of Marguerite La Tourolde and her husband, Rene de Pouligny, the King's treasurer. She went to church each morning with her hostess, listened numbly to the sermon. The words sliding past her like water, sounds without meaning. Afterward, crowds of women came and gathered around her, smiling hungrily. When they spoke, they stuttered and blushed and trembled and begged her to bless their rosaries. "An honor, dear Maid." "A joy," they said, kissing her hands, the hem of her skirt. "Marguerite has told us so much about you," one said, falling to her knees. "Would you touch my beads, Maid?"

  "Touch them yourself," she said. "God will heed your prayers better than mine."

  One afternoon Marguerite took her to the bathhouse in town. "I dare say it's a spiritual experience," Marguerite said. Jehanne sat naked and sweating in that strange, steaming cave until she thought her lungs would burst. Then she stood, reached into a bucket, and splashed cold water on her face. A feeling like lightning cracking in her brain. Jehanne gasped, blinked at the icy water, shaking it off her face. When she opened her eyes, Madame Tourolde was staring at her backside. "What happened to you?"

  The girl looked over her shoulder at her own buttocks, which were pale as flour and covered with an angry red riot of sores and blisters and dark purple scars from past offenses. Jehanne blushed and touched her left buttock. "From the armor," she said, sitting down quickly. "And the saddles."

  The woman frowned. "But why hasn't anyone tended these for you?"

  Jehanne shrugged. "Nothing to do for saddle sores but wait for them to heal."

  "But you must rub oil on the ones that have closed up. Otherwise you'll get awful scars."

  She regarded the woman bleakly. "Madame, aside from you, no one's ever seen that part of me naked. I don't expect anyone ever will."

  "But your husband. Surely one day ..."

  Jehanne set her jaw and stood up. "I'm hot," she said. "I need some air."

  A strange, unreal time for Jehanne. And stranger still when she returned to Charles's castle at Loches. Every day hundreds of visitors lined up outside the castle walls to meet Jehanne, begged her to kiss their ailing infants, their blind eyes, their crippled legs. Others appeared at the castle, claiming to be holy women and vision-seeing daughters of God with messages for the King.

  One cold day in October, a woman named Catherine de La Rochelle came to see Jehanne. She bore a letter from the King, asking the Maid to speak to her and see if she was legitimate. A strange-looking creature—long-necked and heavy-hipped, like a gourd, with wide, hectic green-gold eyes and a slight tremble when she spoke. Jehanne sensed immediately that she was a liar. The woman claimed to have been visited every night for the last six months by an angel in white who instructed her to go to the King and tell him of a secret cave filled with gold that God intended for him to pay his army. Jehanne's eyes flickered at the mention of money for further battles. "You say she comes every night?"

  "Oh yes!" the woman said.

  So, for two nights Jehanne sat in a little chair beside the woman's bed, forcing herself to stay awake, but the angel in white did not appear. On the second night, the woman awoke around midnight and raised herself up on her elbow, smiling a sly little smile. She smelled like rotten mushrooms. "You must be awfully cold out there. Would you not like to come and share the bed with me? 'Tis nice and warm."

  "I'm fine here."

  She gazed at Jehanne with beseeching eyes. "Maybe if you told me of one of your visions ..."

  Jehanne looked at her.

  "I am so longing to hear what it was like for you. The saints, the angels coming to you in the night, whispering in your ear." The green-gold eyes were shining, a desperate, hungry light in them. "Won't you tell me? Won't you come get warm in bed and tell me?"

  Jehanne stood up. "You're a filthy liar."

  A gasp from the woman. "Oh no, never! I just hoped you might say a little bit. I just—" A sob coming in her throat then. "Oh, God forgive me. I wanted to meet you so badly, to talk to you, to hear—"

  "Get out of here," said Jehanne, her heart suddenly furious, insulted, that she should be reduced to this, interviewing false prophets while France so desperately needed her help. She walked to the door and slammed it shut behind her.

  Increasingly, as the wound healed, the blessed numbness that had tranquilized Jehanne's heart diminished. She began to feel restless, to dream of riding in the hills and sleeping outside under her blanket with the cold, fresh night air on her face and the enormous swirling night world of stars and darkness overhead. Sometimes, when she could not sleep, she stood by her window and looked out at the sky and the dim, humped, blue-black countryside, and it amazed her how much smaller the night sky seemed when seen through a window. And though she knew it was the same sky she'd known when she'd slept with her men outside in the fields, it did not seem to her like the same sky at all. She did not feel a part of this sky, as she felt when she slept out in the open beneath its enormous dark shoulders. She did not feel it pulsing in her blood the way it had the night before a battle when she knew it might be the last night, the last stars, she ever saw. And s
he understood the strange beauty of war then, the way it brings the world to life for its participants, makes each moment shimmer simply because it exists, makes each blade of grass a marvel, makes the humblest bread seem a delicacy, the dash of a squirrel up a tree trunk, an adventure, a thing of wonder. And she saw then that she missed the war, that she'd felt at home in it, among the filthy soldiers and the horses and the fires and the trees, in a way she'd never felt anywhere else. In war, she'd had a purpose. She had belonged. She'd known why she was alive. In court, she was just a curiosity, one of the King's collectibles, sitting on a shelf.

  27

  By November she could walk without pain or assistance, so she began to sit in the opulent, chilly little limestone chapel three or four hours at a time, praying and confessing to the priest and begging her voices to come to her. For so long now they'd been silent. Since Patay.

  One day, as she sat in the dim, silent nave with her eyes closed and her face raised like a plate to the sky, Michael appeared. The great lion's face gazing down on her, the sunlight rinsing through her as if he'd never been gone. It's almost over now, my love. The Burgundians will take you prisoner before Midsummer.

  What? Jehanne said, blinking. Then weeping. What?

  By Midsummer it will be over. Be not afraid, but go willingly. God will help you.

  Oh, no, she said, folding her hands in her lap.

  After a moment she said: Please let them kill me straightaway when I'm taken. Please don't let them torture me.

  Go willingly, my love. Trust in God and He will help you.

  28

  They sent me out to fight several times that winter, but it was a set-up. I see that now. La Trémöille was just trying to get rid of me. We had a few victories; we managed to take back some of the Burgundian-held towns along the Loire. Saint Pierre, Lagny, Melun. But then, when I would send word to La Trémöille that we needed supplies—more men, more weapons, saltpeter, sulfur, arrows—nothing would happen. He'd write back, promising to send everything we needed, but nothing ever arrived. "I can't imagine what happened," La Trémöille said later, barely hiding his smile. So we lost. Of course we lost. "Don't worry," Charles said. "It was a good attempt." But his eyes were cold. He barely looked at me when he spoke.

  At Christmastime they made me a knight. A grand ceremony at La Trémöille's château in Sully-sur-Loire. La Trémöille grinning at me like a jackal as they named me Jehanne du Lys. That was my name now. Charles passed a law saying that no one in Domrémy would have to pay taxes ever again. He gave me a mink cape. A splendid thing lined in crimson satin. Also a coat of arms with a sword holding up a golden crown. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. That was the worst Christmas of my life. I wished I were dead that Christmas.

  Finally, in the middle of May, I received word that Burgundy had surrounded the town of Compiègne with a couple hundred soldiers. This was two days after the people of Compiègne had held a feast in my honor. A beautiful feast. Dozens of pigs roasting over open fires. Lilacs frothing everywhere. Someone in the town had written a song in my honor, and all the children got together and sang it for me after dinner. I loved the people of Compiègne. Anyway, Burgundy had already taken the little village of Margny, which lay right across the river from Compiègne. He was closing in fast. So I decided to fight. I knew it was crazy. I knew I would lose. I had hardly any men with me, hardly any artillery, but I thought, Better to fall while fighting than to waste away in La Trémöille's castle. Anything is better than that.

  29

  They rode single file through the forest—a dark ride, just a sliver of moon overhead in the sky. Their torches bobbed up and down as they galloped alongside the river, a long string of yellow flames smeared across the dark water. It was still dark when they sneaked into the town. They went directly to the château of the commander there, Guillaume de Flavy, and Jehanne's men slept for a few hours on the floor in his great hall. Jehanne prayed. Jehanne paced. In the morning they planned to join up with the soldiers of Compiègne and attack Margny on horseback.

  Shortly before she met up with her men, she went to church and prayed for several hours. Once more the voices did not come, but when she opened her eyes, a little girl was standing in front of her, blinking. She was perhaps seven or eight. Thick auburn helmet of hair, knobby knees, eyes like green apples. She said her name was Catherine. "Are you the Maid?"

  Jehanne nodded, said that she was.

  "Are you going to save us from evil Burgundy?"

  "I'm going to try," said Jehanne.

  "When you come back, you can come to my house for dinner," the girl said. "My mother said it's all right."

  Jehanne smiled. "I don't think I'll be coming back," she said.

  Her eyes were very bright that morning as she addressed her men, her voice loud and clear. She rode before them in her armor and her splendid doublet of red and gold silk, and as she looked into their sunburned faces, the fire rose up inside her once more, and she shouted, "Today is the day we take back Margny, men. Today is the day we secure the bridge to keep the Goddons out of our beloved Compiègne. Fight boldly with me now, Men of God, and I promise you, we will triumph!"

  The men let out a great roar. Jehanne kicked her horse, and they rode through the city gates, across the wooden bridge, and then up the long green hill toward Margny, and soon the church bells of Margny were ringing in wild alarm, and the Burgundians were shouting "Attack! Attack!" and they came charging out of the city in packs, still pulling on their helmets and shields. And the French fought very well until an enormous swarm of Burgundian reinforcements arrived suddenly, coming at them on foot from all sides, and swinging their axes and swords, and there seemed to be a vicious fury in the Burgundian soldiers that day as they ran out of the town toward the Frenchmen, driving their axes into the horses' chests and necks, laughing as the animals stumbled and knelt, screaming. "You're finished, witch," shouted one enormous man with a long white scar like lightning down his face, and as he shouted, he swung his ax into the face of Poton's page.

  Jehanne saw that her men and their horses were falling all around her, and they had begun to retreat, running downhill en masse toward the river. "No," she shouted as men ran by her down the banks and across the drawbridge into Compiègne. "Don't run! Stay and fight!" But even Aulon and Pierrelot had begun galloping back toward Compiègne, and Jehanne rode after them, shouting that they must keep fighting even as her horse stumbled over the bodies of so many dead horses and men, and soon a pack of Burgundians was closing in on her, chasing her onto a boggy field down by the river, and Pierrelot shouted, "Make for the drawbridge," and Jehanne wheeled her horse and made for the drawbridge where her men were flooding into the city, but before they could reach the bridge, the great iron lattice of the portcullis began to come clanking down, and though some men inside the city walls were shouting, "Hurry, Maid, for God's sake, hurry," others were shouting, "Forget that crazy bitch, she'll get us all killed," and so she watched as the drawbridge gate slammed down, turning her horse this way and that as the Burgundian soldiers closed in around her and Pierrelot and Aulon, leering and laughing and prodding, yanking first Pierrelot off his horse and then Aulon as Jehanne screamed and her horse reared up, and then one soldier took an ax to her horse's front leg, and the horse knelt screaming, and Pierrelot shouted, "Jehanne!" and then another soldier grabbed Jehanne's arm, and she fell to the ground, and the Burgundians closed in around her.

  PART V

  1

  "That's it," she says to Massieu. "You know the rest."

  Dawn is coming now. The cell has turned a softer shade of blue, a few pale strips of light falling in through the roof. Jehanne traces the rough weave of her wool dress with her fingertip. Smiles oddly.

  The priest blinks. "But why didn't Charles ransom you? How could he sit by and let you be sold to the English?"

  Jehanne is still staring at the floor. "I'm tired," she says suddenly. "We'll speak more tomorrow." She glances up at him, asking with her eyes for hi
s forgiveness, his understanding.

  "I should sleep myself. Those goons will be awake soon."

  Jehanne smiles a little. "The goons," she says. "Yes, they will."

  Massieu peers at her closely. "Are you all right, dear?"

  No, she thinks. I am not all right at all. But here Jehanne takes hold of herself. Takes herself in hand. There are things Massieu must not know. Things she cannot bear for him to know. "Yes," she says, her smile calm and firm. "I'm fine. Just tired."

  "You get some rest, then," he says, groaning and getting to his feet. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

  "Yes," Jehanne says. "See you then."

  And so she is alone once more with the snoring guards. Alone with Berwoit and his bandaged hand. Berwoit whom she bit like a dog the day before, breaking the skin, biting down through the tough muscle, drawing blood. A horrible taste, his blood in her mouth. She'd spat it out violently, as if it were poison.

  She had thought at first to frighten him. Had begun by growling low in her throat, baring her teeth like a dog as he came toward her in the cell. She thought if she frightened him, he might stop. Might be scared away. But they do not stop. They never stop. She squeezes her eyes closed, fumbles about in her mind for another memory. Something from the old days ...

  When it does not come, when nothing comes but the howling silence of her saints, God turning away from her, closing His eyes to her, Jehanne lies down on the floor of her cell and pulls her blanket over her shoulders, up tightly to her chin.