The Maid (11 page)

There was darkness within the group too. The darkness of the Honnecourt brothers, freckled and defiant, elbowing each other behind Jehanne's back, laughing at her. On the first night of their journey, they had ridden through the Saulx-Noire forest, and Colet and Richard had been very upset about this. "Place is full of witches," Colet said, his face pale as chalk.

Jehanne said that there were no such things as witches, and that they should not be afraid, for God was protecting them.

Julian scoffed. "God my ass," he said.

His brother giggled, then pretended to be coughing.

Jehanne stared at him very hard and said that no man in her party was to blaspheme the Lord. "You do it again, I'll stick my sword in your heart, understand?"

Julian made a girlish face and fluttered his hands in the air, a mockery of fear. Then Metz looked sharply at him and his brother until they both stopped smiling, and the group continued through the forest and down into a deep, wooded ravine.

The muddy track lead steeply downhill through a tunnel of crooked beech trees, and soon the riding grew difficult. Jehanne's horse began to slip and stumble in the mud and rocks, the animal snorting and panting and pawing the earth, desperate to find purchase. A sharp wind had come up, a cruel hand on her back, forcing her downward into the mouth of the ravine. "Look, let me ride ahead of you," said Colet at last. "Watch how I do it."

But as he moved his horse ahead of hers, Jehanne saw that Julian was waiting behind Colet, leering at her. He rode close behind her as they continued down the hill, snickering whenever her horse stumbled. And the forest seemed an evil place then. The bare black trees blocked out the night sky, and the wind made the branches creak and moan, and when the others were far enough ahead, Julian drew his horse up almost beside Jehanne's and spoke quietly, so only she could hear: "You ought to feel right at home in here," he said in a soft, ugly voice, "being a witch and all."

Jehanne gripped her reins. "If you think I'm a witch, you shouldn't be here."

"Don't have much choice though, do I? Got to go where the boss goes."

"I'm not a witch."

Julian smiled innocently. But as Jehanne rode ahead of him, she heard him hiss once more, "Witch."

Other kinds of darkness too. Darkness of a sweeter kind with Metz. One night, when they were deep into the Goddon lands, they stopped at the abbey of Saint-Urbain. A famous place. A known refuge for anyone in need of shelter—criminals, pilgrims, wandering monks, runaways. It stood in black silhouette against the gray night sky, a tall stone fortress with a bell tower, perched high on a cliff above the Marne River. On the way up to the gate, Metz rode alongside Jehanne and smiled gently. "No sense anyone knowing you're a girl, right?" She nodded and let him pull her hood up over her head, her ears blushing as he did, the base of her spine glowing with pleasure.

She knew he wanted her. She knew it and liked it. In spite of herself, she liked it. The heat of his adoring eyes on her skin. His warm hand on her waist, helping her off her horse. When a monk appeared at the abbey gate to let them in, she kept her head down as Metz had instructed her to and stared at the brown rain-pocked puddles on the ground as Colet showed the monk their letter of introduction from Sir Robert. It was very cold. She could not feel her hands. She made fists and hit them hard against her legs, but it made no difference. As soon as the monk had turned away, Metz smiled shyly and handed her his fur-lined gloves.

The monk led them through the big wooden gate and across a wet cobbled courtyard, into a dormitory where there was a large, long room with a big fire blazing at one end. It was all she could do not to run at the fire. There was hardly any furniture in the room: a small wooden table and two little rough-hewn wooden chairs by the window. Also a bed. One big bed pulled up close to the fireplace, piled high with blankets. Jehanne went and held her hands in front of the fire. She tried not to look at the bed, but she knew everyone else was looking.

"Well now, this isn't half bad," said Bertrand, dropping his satchel onto the floor and stretching his arms over his head.

Julian and his brother smiled at each other. Then they smiled horribly at Jehanne.

When the monk left to get them some food, the younger Honnecourt bolted the door behind him. A sharp electricity took over the room. Jehanne looked up at the six men who stood around her, their wet faces flickering in the torchlight, and for a moment they all saw it: her body naked and spread wide on the mattress, her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts, the men taking their turns with her, cheering one another on, leaping onto her like dogs, bucking and howling in the firelight.

"This should be interesting," said Julian, raising his eyebrows.

Metz slapped the back of his head very hard, and Julian stumbled a few exaggerated steps forward. "You say another word you'll sleep in the bottom of that river."

Jehanne walked over to the bed and crossed her arms over her chest and looked at it. After a moment, she turned toward Metz and Bertrand. "Can I trust you two to protect me in the night?"

The two men glanced at each other. Bertrand nodded quickly, a sharp soldier's nod. "Of course," he said.

Metz looked at Jehanne. He nodded, but his eyes said something else.

"All right then, you and Bertrand and I will take the bed," she said, her breath coming out in long white banners. "The rest of you can bunk down by the hearth."

Deep in the night she awoke tumbling inside a wave of desire. She was aware of only the feeling at first. Just the hunger rinsing through her half-asleep body, the splendid heat of another body pressed up against hers ... whose body?
God's,
she thought, only God could make her feel this way. Only gradually did she realize that it was Metz who was pressed against her beneath the heavy woolen cloak, breathing quietly into her hair, his thick erection pressed into her back.

And it was not so much that she was disappointed to realize it was Metz, as she was disappointed to realize that because it was not God or any of the saints, she must stop it. It couldn't go further. By the hearth, a tall black figure moved back and forth quietly, throwing logs onto the crackling red flames. And she knew that no one else knew what was happening to her. It was a secret. She lay still and closed her eyes, breathing, unwilling to let go of the sensation just yet—the hardness of him against her back, pressing gently, the smell of wood smoke and damp stone and skin in the air. She could tell by Metz's breathing that he was awake. On the other side of her, Bertrand was snoring lightly. Curled on his side with his fist pressed against his cheek like a child.

Abruptly she turned her body so that she lay flat on her back, her face very close to Metz's face. When she spoke, her voice was hard, low, emotionless. "If you go further, it will be the end of everything. Do you hear me?"

For several moments there was silence. Jehanne felt like weeping.
Ignore me, ignore me. I didn't mean it.
But at last, Metz too shifted and lay on his back. His voice came through the darkness. "I hear you."

My angel,
the voice said.
My brave little angel. No one is as brave as you are. No one is as pure.

She knelt by the river in a small cove, surrounded by bare brown willows. She could see the abbey up above on the bluff, the black church spire rising up like a knife against the pale gray sky, and she knelt there among the trees and the dark, rushing water and held out her arms to embrace the air, lifted her face to drink the sky.

Michael was there with her, the golden light rinsing through her, his enormous voice melting her bones.
My darling, my brave, perfect little angel.

It's very hard,
she said.
So much temptation.

Yes, but you resisted. You were so strong.
He held her closely in his arms and gazed down at her with his stern lion's face, his sad ancient eyes.
My love. My strong, brave little love.

Yes. I am yours. Only yours.

You must hurry now, little one. There isn't much time.
He stroked her cheek tenderly, and then he held her very close and whispered,
You'll be dead in two years.

They rode on toward Chinon that evening in the frigid blue dusk. A silent single file, led by torchlight. Jehanne slumped over her horse, staring listlessly at the ground as they moved over the frozen fields and toward the high black hills, each of the riders silent for different reasons.

Dead. Dead in two years.
At first she had thought she must have misunderstood.
What?
she had said, terror roaring in her ears.
What?
And then,
Oh no.
All the strength had gone out of her. She fell to the ground.

For a long time she wept. Let the terror wash over her, carry her out to sea. Everything finished. No husband. No children. No home. Ever. She had never wanted these things before, had thought she would never want them, but now she did want them. Desperately. She lay curled on the riverbank, clutching her womb. As if someone had stabbed her there.

Never allowed to know love, to grow beyond a girl, a child.

Later came questions.
How will I die? Will I be killed in battle? In my bed? Will I suffer greatly? Oh God, please let me not suffer greatly.
But he would not say more. He just kept holding her, pouring his sunlight into her, spinning the golden web around her.

But for the first time, Jehanne did not want the light. Would not allow it to soothe her, make her forget. She wanted only the salt blue water of sorrow, its low, broken voice singing, rocking her as she wept.

Eventually, when she was worn out from crying, when the sobs had stopped and she lay exhausted and calm on the riverbank, a voice rose up inside of her.
Of course, death. Did you think you were going to get out of this alive?

Oh, but knowing,
Jehanne thought.
Knowing is different. Knowing changes everything.

Metz and Bertrand and the others had seen it happen. They saw her kneeling there by the flooded brown river, praying. They had been standing outside the abbey, readying their horses for the journey, when Metz looked idly down toward the water and saw Jehanne there, kneeling on the bank with her arms outstretched, her face shining, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What the hell, Metz?" said Bertrand a few minutes later, for Metz had dropped his pack on the ground and let his horse wander off. He was standing at the edge of the bluff, staring down at the girl, and soon Bertrand was beside him. Eventually the other men came too. They watched Jehanne speaking silently to the heavens, the strange radiant tears going down her face, and they watched too when her face crumpled suddenly, as if she'd been hit, and she collapsed to the ground.

"Should we help her?" Bertrand had whispered, but Metz shook his head. They kept watching, watching her slim back heaving as she sobbed, her hands clawing at the sand, her face turning up to the sky from time to time, raging at the sky until at last the sobs quieted and she grew still. Slowly she wiped her eyes and sat up. She stayed there, holding her knees and watching the river, and when at last she stood and began walking back up the hill, Julian de Honnecourt had cried out, "Oh dear Jesus, forgive me!" and ran stumbling down the road to meet her. He knelt down before her, clutched her hand very tightly and gazed up at her with his strange pale green eyes and sobbed, "Please forgive me for doubting you, holy Virgin. Forgive me, please, I beg you."

Jehanne wiped her cheek and looked down at him with her swollen eyes. "I forgive you, but you are an idiot," she said.

The men were different with her after that. The Honnecourts did not mock her anymore. Metz stopped looking at her with lustful eyes. The day by the river frightened him, she saw. Killed his desire. But in its place came awe. Awe and tenderness. When they ran out of food one afternoon, Richard the archer went out into the forest and came back holding up two dead squirrels by the tails. Bertrand roasted them over the fire on a stick and brought them to Jehanne. "What about you?" she said. "We're fine," said Julian, all of them nodding, insisting until at last she ate. Another day, when she went to go to sleep, she found that Colet had rolled up his fine brown woolen tunic and left it beside her cloak to use as a pillow.

Often, as they rode, the men remembered what they'd seen that day by the river at Saint-Urbain. They thought to themselves,
She is sent by God! She is going to save France!
And the world seemed to pulse with magic then. Each man felt that he knew his purpose in the world, felt that it was his sacred duty to deliver the Maid safely to the King in Chinon, and they felt honored to have been chosen for such a task.

For Jehanne, it was love that changed. Love shed its enchantment, its perfume. It stood naked before her now in a bright cold light, showing all of its ugliness, its cruelty. The terrible sacrifice it would require. The blood.

And because love changed, her world changed too. The world became a stark place, very simple. There was the mission, and there were two years to complete it. That was all. Everything else arranged itself around these two facts. It was still beautiful, the world—in some ways it was more beautiful than before—but death stood behind the blue sky now. Death stood among the flowers. And when the saints sang, a cold snake slithered through her stomach. The hairs on her neck stood up.

No time.

I never saw them again, once we reached Chinon. Not really. Not the way I saw them when we were together on our journey, riding through the wilderness, close as brothers. Riding together, eating together, sleeping together, curled up against the freezing wind, hearing one another snore and cough and sigh, shout out in our nightmares. Whisper our prayers. I never knew their breath again, their tenderness, their jokes, their bravery. The wooly sheep smell of Metz's hair when it was wet. The way Bertrand would start blinking very quickly when he got excited in conversation. Occasionally I would see them. I saw Metz on the street once in Tours, saw Bertrand from time to time during the fighting, but it was never the same. We were different people by then. Different people in different worlds, waving at each other from opposite shores.

I tried to keep them with me in Chinon, tried to bring them with me to the castle. I said they were my men, my protectors, my family. I could not be without them. But the King's messenger would not listen. "Just the Maid," he said. "If you are what you say, you won't need protectors." So I went alone up the hill to see the King. I left my family behind.

I was always leaving my family behind.