The Maid (10 page)

Sir Robert had heard about the defeat of the French troops at Rouvray. The Battle of the Herrings, they were calling it. And it was as Jehanne had dreamed the night before she left for Nancy. A disaster. Three thousand French noblemen defeated by a small convoy bound for the English troops at Orléans. Three thousand of France's most famous warriors against three hundred English wagons full of dried fish.

All the most highly decorated generals had volunteered to march upon Rouvray: La Hire, Poton de Xaintrailles, the Bastard of Orléans, and the King's own army, led by young Comte de Clermont. It should have been an easy victory, a joke. But no, it was as she had dreamed: a slaughter. Poton, La Hire, the Bastard, and their men riding in from Orléans in a thunder of horses and armor, their bright flags snapping in the winter wind as they arrived outside Rouvray with their men, hot to fight—only to find Clermont and the King's army nowhere in sight. "Clermont, that ass," Sir Robert said, shaking his head. "While he and his idiots were busy plundering Rouvray's cellars, the English convoy arrived, caught sight of the Orléans men lying in wait, and started digging themselves in for a fight." The Orléans men had requested permission to attack the convoy without Clermont, but he refused. Clermont had been so greedy to see his first big battle that he made them all wait for him while the English got themselves beautifully entrenched, circling their wagons and planting sharp spikes that stuck out on all sides, so when at last the French forces attacked, they charged straight at the spikes in a great crush, impaling themselves row after row after row. "A massacre," Sir Robert said, his jaw set, eyes lowered as if he were watching the battle unfold as he spoke. "Another pathetic massacre."

He raised his eyes to look at Jehanne, who stood before him. "How did you know?" he said. There was a difference in him that day. He still looked like an old bull, but something had changed. The doors in his eyes had opened. "How did you know that would happen?"

"A dream."

He nodded, rubbed his lip with his index finger. "Tell me about this dream. Did God speak to you in it?"

"I'm forbidden to say more."

The governor squinted at her for a long moment, his finger pressed against the hollow in the center of his top lip. "You are something, Jehannette from Domrémy, I'll give you that."

"I am the Maid of Lorraine, sir. I was born for this."

Sir Robert shook his head. "Whatever you are, you've gotten a lot of people in this town very excited. You'd better hope you don't disappoint them."

Jehanne's heart bounced in her chest. "Does that mean you'll send me to Chinon, sir?"

"I'm considering it."

That afternoon Thérèse came to Jehanne where she knelt, praying in the church, and begged her to return to the house. "I was wrong to doubt you," she said, gripping her apron as she spoke. "It's just been so strange—all this."

Jehanne was silent.
You heard about Rouvray. About my meeting with Sir Robert. That's the only reason you're here.

"You know," she continued, "the way I was raised, it's a sin worthy of hanging for a woman to go around in boy's clothes ... it's just ... not done."

"God Himself has instructed me to do it, and I will continue."

Thérèse nodded. Her eyes were bright with tears. "Of course," she said. "Of course you should, but won't you come home now, please? I hate seeing you here in the cold like this."

People are terrible, weak as sheep,
thought Jehanne. But eventually she allowed Thérèse to throw a shawl over her shoulders and they walked out of the church and down the long hill to the house.

The curate, Jean Fournier, said they needed to exorcise her. Make certain that she was not a fiend of the Devil. He'd appeared, frowning in the Le Royers' doorway, that evening, rain splashing on his hat, staining his black houppelande. On one side of him stood Sir Robert, Sir Robert with his eyes bright and strange. On the other side stood a boy, thin and wrecked with pimples. A long triangular face, eyes on either side of his skull, like a goat. Jehanne dropped her bowl of porridge on the floor when she saw them. A cold rush shot through her bowels. "Father!" cried Thérèse, jumping up. "What an honor!" But Jehanne knew it was no honor they'd come to do her.

Jehanne knew the curate. She'd confessed to him every morning for the last two months. She knew his thick, pale hands with the swollen red knuckles, knew the sight of them placing the wafer,
Body of Christ,
on her tongue, holding the silver communion cup as she drank,
Blood of Christ,
wiping the rim with the white linen cloth afterward. But the curate did not seem to know her now. He looked at her with cold, righteous eyes. As if he were looking down upon her from a very great distance. As if he had never seen her before in his life.

"We have business with Jehanne," Sir Robert said to Thérèse. "Leave us, this is private."

The curate turned to the boy, spoke quietly, words she could not hear. The boy set his sack down on the table and took out a gold bowl wrapped in flannel and a small glass bottle of water. He set the bowl down on the table, poured some water into it, and lifted it toward the curate with both hands.

Jehanne stood up. "Don't do that. I won't be part of it."

Metz had warned her that an exorcism was likely, but she had not believed it.
They wouldn't,
she thought.
Not to me.

But the curate was walking toward her now, holding the bowl out in front of him, murmuring Latin. "
Ecce Crucem Domini, fugite partes adversae ...
"

Jehanne stepped backward. "Father, do not do this," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

"Can't be sending a witch to meet the King, can we?" said Sir Robert.

Her pride rose up then, a spiky black animal waking inside her, screeching. That they could think she was from the Devil, that anyone might imagine her a witch ... she started toward the priest. "You know I'm not a witch, Father. I've confessed to you every day for the last two months."

"Witches are often excellent liars," said Sir Robert.

The curate continued. "I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God—"

"Please, Father," said Jehanne, kneeling down at the curate's feet, pressing her face against his shins, her heart roaring in her chest. "You know there is no unclean spirit in me."

But the curate was in a trance, chanting his holy words. "By the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, that you tell me by some sign of your name, and the day and hour of your departure. I command you, moreover, to obey me to the letter, I who am minister of God despite my unworthiness—"

"Father!"

"... nor shall you be emboldened to harm in any way this creature of God, or the bystanders, or any of their possessions."

She was clutching the curate's legs now, sobbing as she looked up at him. She knew what happened to those who were exorcised. Whether they found you to be a witch or not didn't matter. You were marked for life. A freak. An outcast. "I beg you."

Sir Robert stood with his lips pursed, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his chest. "Throw some water on her, Father. See what happens."

The curate lifted the gold bowl and dipped his fingers in the water. "We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders ..." He lifted his hand and flicked the water onto Jehanne. All eyes in the room, watching, waiting for her to go up in smoke.

But she did not go up in smoke. She only wept. "Oh, Jesus," she cried. "Help me, Jesus."

"Thus cursed dragon and you, diabolical legions—"

"All right, that's enough," said Sir Robert. "She's not a witch."

"I began to fear the Church that day," she says to Massieu in the monstrous darkness of the tower. "I still loved it, but I began to fear it too." A shadow went over her heart when she thought of it. The curate coming toward her in his purple robe. The red look in his eyes.
They wanted to kill you,
she thought.
They wanted your blood.

Quickly now,
the voices were saying.
Go quickly, little one. No one can touch you!
So she rode with her men across the cold yellow fields and the gray hills outside Vaucouleurs, toward the King in Chinon.

A large crowd had gathered in Vaucouleurs to see her off that afternoon. It was a miserable day, freezing and rainy, fog creeping down the streets and swallowing up the rooftops. But still they'd come—hundreds of them, gathered together at the Porte de France, gaping and cheering and shoving each other, lifting children on their shoulders to see the Maid, the holy peasant on the black horse, possibly mad, dressed up as a boy, on her way to save France.

The townspeople had bought her a new set of clothes for her journey. Once word had gotten around that Sir Robert was supporting Jehanne's mission, they'd pooled money to have an outfit made that actually fit her. A simple thing, an outfit any young man in her village might have worn: a thick black wool tunic with sleeves that did not hang below her fingers, some good brown woolen hose without holes in the feet, and snug leggings that laced up the front. Also, tall leather boots with spurs, a heavy gray cape, and a black felt cap with her name stitched crookedly in the back in red thread:
JEHANNE, THE MAID
.
Every day I become more real,
she thought as she looked at her new clothes.
Every day I go further from my father. Further from the fury and the mud of Domrémy.

As she rode through the crowds, Jehanne saw the Le Royers and Durand and Marie standing off to one side, huddled together in the rain, waving and weeping and smiling, their noses red with cold. Durand and Marie had come to the Le Royers' house earlier that morning to say their proper good-byes, Marie with a squalling, pink-faced infant in her arms, looking exhausted but satisfied. A look on her face as she nursed the child that said,
Until you do this, you'll never know what real love is.
Durand had been a wreck. Durand laughing, then weeping, when he saw Jehanne come down the stairs with her short hair and her boy's clothes. "God help you," he sobbed into her neck. "I hope I've done the right thing, helping you."

Jehanne hugged him, thanked him for all he'd done, but she felt stiff, awkward, as if she were performing a pantomime. She did not like saying good-bye to him in front of so many people.

"God bless you, darling," Thérèse screamed now as Jehanne rode past. "God bless the Maid of Lorraine!" And the crowds around her cheered and cried, "God bless the Maid of Lorraine!"

Jehanne knew it wasn't about her, the love pouring out of the crowd. She knew it was about God—the thought of God alive inside of her, God here among them now—that made them all scream like that. But it was thrilling anyway. Every hair on her body stood up. She felt as if she were painted with light.

There were six men who escorted her to Chinon, circling her in a kind of protective horseshoe as they rode: Metz and Bertrand; the King's wiry little messenger, Colet de Vienne; the archer Richard; and the two freckled servant brothers, Julian and Jean de Honnecourt, who, Jehanne knew, hated her from the beginning. Their looks said so when she met them outside the Le Royers' house that morning. Bold, sneering looks, openly disrespectful. "How those breeches feel on you, mam?" the older one, Julian, said when no one was listening. His teeth were white and very large, and his hair was orange and bushy like sheep's wool. Everything about him repulsed her. "Nice and tight, eh?"

"They'll feel a lot better when we get to Chinon," she said dryly, as she climbed up onto the mounting stone and pulled her horse's girth tight.

"Bet they will," said the boy, his younger brother laughing behind a large freckled hand.

It took them eleven days to reach the King. A cold, treacherous ride through the worst of the Burgundian territory. Much of the countryside was flooded from the long winter rains—the pine forests turned into icy swamps, the rivers grown ferocious as lions. Crashing white rivers, very hard to cross. "One of them almost swallowed you up," Metz said later, although Jehanne knew it wouldn't. Yes, it snatched her off her horse and sucked her under with its freezing tongue, slammed her head against the rocky bottom, and rolled her over again and again, her lungs exploding in her chest, a red ribbon of blood rising from her skull. But she'd known the river would not be the end of her. She'd known Metz would dive down and rescue her, grab her under the arms, and drag her up onto the shore, both of them lying there, gasping like beached fish as Colet led their frightened horses toward the banks. So she let the river roll her, let it slam her and toss her along its jagged corridors, her face calm, her eyes open, watching the storm of silver bubbles raging around her, thinking,
Soon now,
God will pull me up. Very soon a hand will appear ...

They traveled mostly by night, in the dark, so they would not be seen. By day, they slept in caves and barns and ruined churches, curled up like dogs beneath their cloaks, their boots still on, hugging one another for warmth. Jehanne slept little. An hour, perhaps two, and then she was awake, her eyes wide open, the voices saying,
Go, darling, go!

She could feel the Godhead growing inside her now, growing and spreading like a secret plant. Feeding her and feeding off of her, its roots fusing with her bones, its delicate tendrils sprouting in her fingers. And as it grew, her wisdom grew, until she knew that the winds were with her and the stars in the night sky were with her, until she knew that holy rivers were coursing through her veins and ancient caves of knowledge were yawning open inside her skull, and she loved God then in a way she never would again, for her love was the naïve, untested love of a new bride—perfumed and dreamlike. Blind as a mole.

Rarely was she afraid. War had run wild through the lands they were crossing—war jumping from house to house, from village to village, with its enormous torch, laughing as it tore the world apart, but the more Jehanne saw of war, the more eager she became to fight. As she rode, images burned themselves into her brain: a family hung from the branches of an oak tree, their blue feet dangling above the ground like wax flowers. Their eyes black, popped out like a crab's eyes. Another day a herd of starving cows lay wailing in the road—their sad maiden's eyes raised to the sky, their bellies swollen up tight as drums. A parade of horrors shouting at her, pleading with her. One day Jehanne saw a naked woman on the steps of a burned-down church, eating dirt. Stuffing it in her mouth greedily, as if it were a butter tart, shrieking when Jehanne tried to approach her. Shrieking as they rode away. And later that same night, Burgundians. A pack of Burgundians riding right past Jehanne and her men as they hid in the forest. Bertrand had spotted them first—a string of yellow torch flames streaking through the darkness. "Christ!" he said, snuffing his own torch quickly and hustling the others off the road and into the woods. They waited there, still as statues, holding their breath in the dark, praying silently as the riders approached.
Please, Father. Help us.

Drunk and shouting the men came, laughing and swearing, their faces red with drink. As they rode past, Jehanne saw a lumpy burlap sack tied with rope to the back of one of the horses. A pair of bare pink feet at one end, bouncing terribly on the back of the horse. When a muffled shriek came, the rider laughed, shouted, "Not long now, darling! Not long now!"

After the men had passed, Jehanne and her little party waited for an hour before riding on. All of them trembling, too stunned to speak. "Jesus," said Bertrand, rubbing his hands over his face.

Jehanne looked at her hands. "God's wrath will be upon them soon enough," she said.