The Maid (19 page)

Along the banks of the gray, wind-roughed river sat two dozen motley wood boats and barges, bobbing and tipping in the water like corks. Jehanne stood at the top of the bank, watching the wind. It was blowing directly at them, hard from the north. After a moment the Baron de Rais came and stood beside her. "Idiots," he said. He nodded at the herds of pigs and sheep and cows they'd brought, the wagons piled high with wheat and dried herring and beans. "Of course they can't go anywhere in this wind." He opened his mouth, showed his teeth like a horse. "If it makes you feel any better, I wanted to fight today too," he said. "My blood was up too."

Jehanne walked blindly away from Rais, struggling against the rain and wind as she made her way down the muddy riverbank to the edge of the water. She stood there for maybe half an hour, studying the water, the dark violet sky, the trees blowing toward her.
Make it change,
she thought, closing her eyes.
Make it change.

"Why's she in such a temper?" said Raoul de Gaucourt. He was the Captain of Orléans—a barrel-chested, ginger-haired man with thin, crooked legs who had joined Rais on the upper bank. He stood watching the girl, his thick, furred hands planted on his hips, long tufts of ginger fur sprouting from the collar of his chain mail.

"Her blood was up," said Rais. "She was ready to fight."

Gaucourt looked at him. "Forgive me, Baron, but is she not here as more of an inspiration for our men? A restorer of the spirit?"

"She thinks she's our leader."

The man laughed, looked over at Jehanne, who was crouched on her heels with her hands in the mud, staring at the river. Frowned. "Uppity little bitch, isn't she?"

Rais's head swiveled around slowly, like an owl's. His voice was soft. "You speak that way about her again, I'll cut your head off."

"Fuck you," said Gaucourt. He stared at Rais. "Are you crazy?"

Rais smiled. "Oh yes," he said. "I am crazy."

The change, when it came, was abrupt. One moment the water was pushing toward Jehanne on the riverbank, slapping loudly at the dock's wooden legs, the next moment it was pushing away, rows of stiff silver waves suddenly turning toward the opposite shore, as if a great hand had tugged at the surface of the river from a distance. Jehanne looked around her with wide eyes at the trees, the fields, the poppies, the flags all leaning suddenly toward Orléans. Above her, on the hill, she heard the men begin to shout. She saw people running toward her, laughing and shouting and cheering, skidding in the mud.

Flashes then, pictures like lightning. Rais running along the sandy flats toward her, sinking to his knees, saying "My God" as the boats' sails swelled full as moons. Alençon turning, staring at Jehanne as if she'd sprouted wings. Pierrelot and Jean, who'd been loading up the boats, turning in unison to look at her, white faced, as if they were carved from soap. "Holy Christ," shouted the Bastard, laughing. "You little genius!" The wind was full upon him now, blowing his dark hair back, blowing the trees back, lifting the corners of the tarpaulins in the caravan, making them flap in the wind. On the hill beyond, a shepherd boy ran slowly against the wind toward a barn, moving in slow motion, his black hat clapped to his head. A few moments later the pack of boats set off across the river with their white sails unfurled like a flock of enormous birds. The Bastard came skidding down the muddy bank toward Jehanne. Shaking his head, smiling. He extended his arm to her, shouted "Come here!" and pulled her up the bank with him to stand before the vast army. "Behold, the Maid!" he shouted, throwing his arm out, and the cheering was so loud that for a time it was impossible to speak.

He wanted to take her immediately into Orléans. "The people are wild to see you," he said.

She refused. She did not want to be separated from her army. She was afraid that if she left them, it would all fall apart. "What about my men?"

"I don't have enough boats to get them all across today," the Bastard said. "They'll have to go back and camp in the woods. They can't stay here. It's almost dark; the Goddons will be out patrolling soon. It's too dangerous."

Jehanne's jaw knotted. "I can't leave my men," she said. "I can't."

He did not understand. He looked at Jehanne with his big excited face, his warm brown eyes, eager to carry this sign of hope to his people. "They'll be fine, dear Maid. You'll see them in a few days. Please, let us give you a proper bed for the night, a good hot meal."

"I can't leave them, Bastard. I won't."

The Baron walked up then, smiling calmly, his eyes very bright. "If I might speak to the Maid alone for a moment," he said. He walked Jehanne away from the Bastard, smiled tenderly. "I know you don't want to leave them. I understand. But they can't stay here; it's too dangerous."

"I'll go with them, then."

"Do you really think that's a good idea? You're exhausted. You almost fell off your horse this afternoon you were so tired. Why not get some rest? Save your strength for the battle?"

"They'll go straight to the whores if I'm not there."

"No, they won't."

"Why not? I'm not such a fool to think that a week of Christian living has turned four thousand soldiers into saints."

"Because I'll go with them," Rais said. "I'll take them back into the forest to make camp for a few days. I'll make sure that Mass is said and that they all confess. I'll have my men keep the whores away. We can keep them in line."

Jehanne looked at him, her eyes fearful. "I want your word."

"You have it. I'll bring them back as soon as I can."

She believed him. She knew he would do as she asked.

Through the deep blue twilight they rode, Jehanne, the Bastard, Alençon, La Hire, Gaucourt, and Poton, followed by their attendants and a company of nobles, marching along the long winding dirt road that led up from the river where they'd docked and across the dim fields to the high-walled city, the black cameo of its fortress towers thrown against the evening sky, the long funnels of siege smoke rising behind them. They entered through the Burgundy Gate, the Maid appearing before the people of that long-besieged city like an apparition on her great white charger, her white banner held high, the words
JESU MARIA
emblazoned across it. Below, the image of Christ, two angels, and the lilies of France. Beside her, the Bastard, and behind, a crowd of knights, squires, captains, soldiers, and citizens carrying torches, shouting her name. "The Maid!" they cried. "The Maid!" Women weeping and reaching out to touch the girl, men with wide-eyed children on their shoulders, buckled old women waving, sobbing, from their balconies, youths shoving through the crowd, howling, their frenzy to feel the holiness so great that one of the torches tipped and set fire to the long white pennant. An orange flame climbing quickly up the silken fringe. The crowd let out a collective gasp. "Fire," shouted someone. Calmly Jehanne turned toward the flame. Then she spurred her horse forward and in a single deft move twirled the banner around its pole, extinguishing it easily, gracefully. She stared, astonished at her own dexterity. A wild cheer went up around her, people gazing with crazed eyes, as if God Himself rode among them, performing miracles. She looked at the Bastard. Eyes wide. Terrified. The Bastard smiled. "Get used to it."

An uproar so enormous that it swept beyond the walls of the city, out across the dark Loire to the forts of Les Tourelles and Les Augustins on the southern bank, where the cold and huddled English soldiers looked at one another in silence, crossed themselves, and prayed that God would deliver them from the rage of the French witch.

All through the town they followed her, cheering and singing as they went past the Regnard Gate and up through leaning narrow buildings until they arrived at the Rue des Tameliers. Here they turned and funneled down the narrow cobbled street until at last Jehanne and her escorts came to the tall half-timber house of the town's treasurer, Monsieur Boucher. The Bastard had apologized for not being able to host her at his château, which, he explained, had been blasted so many times by English cannons that the roof now let more rain in than it kept out. And so it was Boucher's fine house—a leaning redbrick behemoth of five stories with dark beams crisscrossed in great Xs across its face and a high, steep, red-shingled roof. Their host stood next to his wife in the doorway, both of them wide-eyed, nervous, beside themselves with excitement. "Such an honor," shouted Clothilde Boucher above the noise, stumbling over herself as her guests, pushed by the wild crowd behind them, nearly fell inside. The husband bolted the door fast behind them, the crowd outside still roaring, shouting her name.

Jehanne stood inside the treasurer's freshly swept hall, pale and trembling slightly. Clutching Pierrelot's shoulder for support. "I can't hear anything," she shouted. "From all the screaming. I can't hear anything."

Madame Boucher led her toward the hearth with a motherly smile. "That's all right. We'll take care of you now, dear."

Jehanne sank down on a bench by the fire. Closed her eyes, let her shoulders sag. "I could use some bread."

In the hearth a goat was turning on a spit, roasting in celebration of the Maid's arrival. "We've prepared a fine supper for you," said Madame Boucher, nodding at the black, slim-ankled beast gleaming in the hearth, its charred eyes popped and raised to Heaven, its limbs stretched gracefully above the red flames. "Our last goat," she said proudly. "We saved it especially."

"Just some bread, please," Jehanne said. "And a cup of wine."

A powerful glance passed between Monsieur and Madame Boucher. "You've got to eat more than that, my dear. Got to keep your strength up."

Jehanne sat on the bench with her cheeks sunk in her hands. Limp. Her eyes off somewhere inside the hearth.

"She doesn't have the stomach," Pierrelot said. "The rest of us can help with that goat though."

Madame Boucher stopped staring at her guest, remembered her merchant-lady manners. "Of course," she said. "Let me fetch some bread."

They sat around a great wood table in the firelight with the black goat before them. Jehanne and her escorts, Monsieur and Madame Boucher, and their child, Charlotte. All devouring the goat, hands and faces shining with grease. "Wonderful meat, mam," said Jean d'Aulon, licking his chin. Jehanne sat small and owl-eyed between the great beefy shoulders of Aulon and Pierrelot, silent, saying nothing and hearing very little. The child stared at her throughout the meal. Finally she asked, "Are you a girl or a boy?"

The father reached out and slapped the child on the head. The mother went pop-eyed with horror. "Charlotte! That's a rude question."

Jehanne smiled, coming back to them. Floating back to earth.

"I'm a girl," she told the child. "Like you."

"Why are you dressed like a boy, then?"

"Because I have a boy's job to do."

"Is that why your hair's gone too?"

Jehanne rubbed her bare neck, smiled. "Yes, it is. That's why my hair's gone too."

They shared a bed that night. She and the eight-year-old, Charlotte. A small, blond, biscuit-smelling child who, in the deep of the night, nestled up against Jehanne as if they were mother and daughter. Jehanne kept waking up in the darkness, her heart swelling in her chest for the warm, sleeping creature beside her. For the children she herself would never have. Her womb ached as she looked down at the plump white face in the dim light of early morning. The tiny freckles on her chin. Small hands curled in soft doughy fists. Small breaths coming in and out in the darkness. Jehanne ran her hand once over the child's head, smoothing the gold-white hair down at her temple, watching the little chest rise and fall. Then abruptly she blinked twice, pulled herself away from the child, and turned to face the wall.

In the morning she sent another letter to Lord Talbot, calling once more for the English to quit the siege, to surrender all the cities and territories in France that they had occupied, and return to England. If they refused, she promised, "Beware! I shall raise a war cry against you that will last for a thousand years."

Again they kept her herald. The reply came from an English herald instead, stating that they would burn her when they got hold of her, calling her a stupid cowgirl and a whore and a witch. When Jehanne heard it, her face flushed red. Tears brimmed in her eyes, the Godhead roared in fury. "Bastards," she said, wiping her face. She walked through the dim-shadowed room out into the sunlight and the cobblestones. Pierrelot followed her. "Where are you going?"

She did not reply. Instead she shouted at Aulon, who'd been a prisoner of the Goddons for two years and spoke good English. "I need to go to Les Tourelles right now."

They rode very fast through the city until they came to the ruined southern bridge that had once led across the river into the enormous fort of Les Tourelles. It rose up before them, its two thick towers crowded with English archers. Not so long ago Les Tourelles had been the pride of Orléans—an impenetrable fortress that guarded the city's main bridge. But Talbot and his men had captured the fort early on in the siege by digging a series of underground tunnels and attacking from below. And the outraged people of Orléans responded by destroying the bridge with a storm of fire and cannonballs to keep the English from crossing over into the city.

"Go on," Jehanne said, kicking her horse out onto the stone wreck of the bridge. The horse stepped daintily among the cobbles, then stopped when they came to the ruined edge of the bridge midway across the river. Below the dark green river water rushed and swirled in white eddies around the great stone legs of the bridge. Even from the opposite bank the two towers blocked out the sky. She raised her hands to her mouth: "Surrender to me, English! Surrender now, in the name of God."

Imagine this: a small, pink-cheeked peasant girl in men's clothes, seated atop an enormous courser and shouting at England's greatest generals, telling five thousand of England's fiercest warriors to give up and go home. "Go home or face your death." On top of the high crenellated towers of Les Tourelles the English soldiers perched like cats, enjoying the spectacle, smiling and laughing at her. Some pulled up their tunics and pissed high, shining arcs down into the river. Others preferred to shout slurs.

"Go home, whore."

"Stupid bloody slut."

Aulon translated. Then stopped, refused to continue. "You don't need to hear this."

She wept. Horrified. Weeping, furious at herself for weeping. Amazed how much the words hurt her. "How dare you?" she screamed. "How dare you say that to me?"

Laughter then. High-girl-voice mimicry. "How dare you say that to me?"

"Bloody fucking cowgirl."

"Crazy cunt."

Aulon took hold of her arm. "Let's go home," he said gently. Jehanne yanked her arm away and stared at him, her face a mask of hate.

Shortly before dawn they woke her. The room was aflame, as if the sun had suddenly risen from behind the hulking wardrobe. Jehanne lay pinned to her bed, eyes wide.
Attack soon, my love. Soon. It must be soon,
said Michael. Margaret was there too, Margaret with the wildfires in her eyes.
Armor your tender heart, cabbage,
she said.
Raise your sword and drive the Goddons out.

I wish they would listen to me,
Jehanne said.
I wish they would just leave ...

They will not leave until you make them leave. You must make them leave.

I'm scared. I don't want to fight.

God is with you. Lay down your fear and rest in His palm. Let Him carry you forward. Let Him show you what must be done.

I know what must be done,
the girl sobbed.

Silence then. A rustle of feathered sunlight in the high corner of the room.

Oh, don't go yet,
she cried.
Stay with me, please. Will you please stay with me tonight?

Already they were fading into the air.

Go soon, darling. Go soon.