The Maid (27 page)

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.

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.

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.

"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 his 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.

For a long time she'd had hope. She was certain she'd escape or be rescued. As soon as Charles heard she'd been captured, he'd pay her ransom. Or else he'd send his men up north to storm the castle and set her and Pierrelot and Aulon free, return them to the safety of the Loire. La Trémöille, she knew, would let her rot, but not the King. "Charles will have us out of here in a week," Aulon whispered from the cell he and Pierrelot shared next to hers. "We'll be back in the Loire by Midsummer's Eve, mark my words."

Her first night in captivity Jehanne was so sure of this she fairly glowed with arrogance when the Duke of Burgundy came to see her in the tower at Beaulieu Castle. "Finally got yourself caught," he said, smiling over Jehanne, who lay on the floor, her face a swollen landscape of purple and black bruises, her hands and ankles bound up with rope.

She looked up at him, her lip curled. "Not that you had anything to do with it."

A broader smile from the Duke now, his eyes glittering, feverish. "Nevertheless, here you are, the invincible Maid, fallen at last."

Jehanne regarded him with cold eyes. "The King will ransom me soon enough."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. From what I hear, the Dauphin will be quite delighted to let you stay where you are."

"Liar," she said. She was certain that he was just bluffing, trying to make her squirm.

The Duke squatted down by the bars, peered through them at Jehanne. "You're just a little runt of a thing, aren't you? Just a cocky little peasant with a head full of crazy ideas."

Jehanne looked at him. "The people of France think me none too crazy."

"The people of France are a bunch of ignorant fools." He cocked his head, smiled. Spoke in a crooning voice. "Imagine so much trouble from a mad little cowgirl dressed up in a suit of armor ..." He stroked her plump, still-childish cheek with his finger.

Jehanne flinched. "Don't touch me."

"Well, you had a good run, I'll give you that," he said. "Put up a hell of a fight for a while there."

"Hardly a fight at all. Your men ran screaming like chickens."

The Duke laughed. "Need I remind you of all the defeats you've suffered in the last year?"

"Chickens are chickens," Jehanne said. "They'll run again soon enough."

"You think so?" said the Duke. "Let's see what you say after you've been locked up for another month or two. After the guards have had a chance to play with you a little bit. Shall we?"

She held his gaze, smiled. Then she sucked in her cheeks and spat a gob of phlegm squarely onto the toe of the Duke's gleaming left boot.

He regarded it. Took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it off. Then regarded Jehanne calmly. "You'll regret that."

"I doubt it."

The next day Jean de Luxembourg stood outside her cell. He was a tall, thin man with a narrow, quizzical face, a blond wedge of hair. His eyes were very bright green, his head cocked slightly to one side. It was his land she'd been captured on. She was his prisoner. "You've made the Duke of Burgundy very angry, you know," he said. His voice was elegant, calm as a priest's. "What on earth did you say to him?"

"Maybe you should ask what he said to me."

Luxembourg smiled. "Oh, I'm sure he was horrible. He hates you as much as the English do. If it were up to him, you'd be boiled in oil and served up on his breakfast platter tomorrow morning."

Jehanne was silent, waiting for the waves in her stomach to subside. "And you?" she said at last. "What do you plan to do with me?"

Luxembourg looked at her, pursed his lips. "I don't know yet. Burgundy wants me to sell you off to the English as soon as possible, but that seems a bit rash to me. Perhaps your King will be willing to pay more."

"I know he will," Jehanne said, her eyes lighting up.

But there had been no word from the King. The kind, rabbit-eyed woman who brought Jehanne her food each day told her that people were marching all over France with lit candles, demanding the Maid's release, but still Charles was silent. His silence growing heavier and heavier each day until Jehanne could not help but remember her first meeting with him.
He'll be the death of you.
The certainty in her bones. There were no more visits from Luxembourg. Just days and days alone in the dark cell, wondering, begging the saints to come to her, praying, trying to find her way back to the secret room of her childhood, the
bois chenu,
where she'd been safe.

One morning toward the end of summer, when the air was very hot and wet, two guards came and opened up the door to Aulon and Pierrelot's cell. "Looks like you cunts are free to go," one said as he led the two men out into the corridor. But when Pierrelot said, "What about my sister?" the guards just laughed. "That one's not going anywhere." And so they'd had to shout their good-byes as the guards dragged them down the hallway. "We'll be back, Jehanne!" Aulon had shouted. Which made the guards laugh even harder.

The next day, as the rabbit-eyed woman set Jehanne's porridge on the floor, she glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in close and whispered, "You must try to escape from here. The Duke is planning to sell you to the English."

Jehanne stared at her. "But that can't be," she said. "Has he heard nothing from the King? He said he would wait and see what the King offered."

The woman looked at the girl, her eyes bright with pity. "I heard him say it myself, child."