III
When they return to Domrémy in late summer, a sad procession of hanging heads, she is surprised by how wrong she was. She had thought, What could the English take from a place like this? We have nothing. We are poor. A few tallow candles? The bowl called Joan’s bowl? A woman’s linen apron? We have no golden altarpieces, no statues with emerald eyes and ruby-stone lips, no secret treasury spilling over with coins. But these men, so gifted in destruction, have kicked up the herb gardens and set fire to heads of cabbage and tender bulbs of fennel; they have broken whole pieces off cottages and torched the thatched roofs; they have snatched up the chickens, whose feathers litter the ground, like a panicked trail, and entered people’s homes, it seems, for the sole purpose of shattering cups and axing stools, disfiguring cupboards and battering cauldrons. They have decapitated the statue of Saint Margaret that stood outside the church and toppled it, so the woman who crawled out of the belly of Satan now lies on her stomach, her head thrown several feet away, facedown in the dirt. Whole fields have been burned, along with the meadows, which the livestock need for grazing. It isn’t the longbow that is the secret weapon of the English, Joan thinks; it’s fire.
But the church is intact. And like a testimony to his strength, his relentless nature: Jacques d’Arc’s house of stone remains, too.
She tells her uncle when they are alone, “I hate this, this feeling of living as though I am waiting for another attack. What’s to stop them from coming a second time? And then we shall all be flattened.” Durand, who has an answer to everything, is silent.
Often she thinks of the three men. She pictures them: the dark grizzle of their chins, their lightless eyes, their giant fists. She has seen the bruises they left on Catherine’s body and memorized their shape and breadth, created from them what these men’s hands must look like. If it had been her and not Catherine, Joan wonders, would she have escaped?
“They wouldn’t stand in the same room as you, Joan,” her uncle says, trying to smile and failing. “You’d scoop them up and shake the teeth out of their heads. They’d take one look at you and run.”
She doesn’t think this is true. Anyone is fair game in war. So why not her? She clenches and unclenches a fist. It isn’t beauty the enemy wants but power.
A month passes. One morning, Catherine comes to her, says nothing, but her face tells Joan everything. A cold sweat washes through her, like the day when she fell ill. She had asked Catherine to forget, but forgetting is no longer an option. When their father is told, he is speechless; he stumbles into a chair to sit and stare at his own feet. Their mother prays, weeps, prays again. Durand covers his face. Joan watches as his free hand floats to his chest, to the place where his heart is, and hovers there, senseless. She learns that the body cannot distinguish between a laughing tumble in a feather bed with what is taken by force. The result is the same.
She watches Catherine grow weaker and confine herself to their room. “Keep the shutters closed,” Catherine says. Light pains her, and she wants to keep the sounds, the chatter and noise of the village, outside. And there are girls, Catherine’s former friends, who gather beneath the window and think it funny to ask when the wedding feast will be. Joan’s response: she collects a bucket of pig feces and empties it over their heads.
“I feel you are growing smaller,” Joan says.
Catherine’s mouth twitches. She looks as if she would like to tuck herself away into oblivion. “Will you take me to the shrine?” she asks in reply. The Virgin’s shrine is on top of a hill, and the weather is growing cool. But Catherine wants to make an offering. Joan just stops herself from saying, “Still?”
“We will go when it is dark and take Jacquemin with us,” Catherine says. She is ashamed.
“We will go when it is light,” Joan answers. “And we will walk the roads as if we own them.”
At the shrine, Catherine prays while Joan stands outside. The shrine is small, and confined spaces make Joan feel cornered. Someone must keep a lookout. Also, what is the point of prayers now? Her body is strong, but she is tired. She is also angry. These days, she is of a temper to put her shoulder into anyone who walks too close, just for the chance to exchange a scowl and a crude word.
But she also wants to tell her uncle, I know what you meant when you covered your face and your hand rested over your heart. There is a pain here, just here, in my chest. It is like someone is pushing down with a bar of iron, and I am waiting for the bone to cave in.
When Catherine steps out of the shrine, it appears she has taken a lesson from the Virgin. Her face is as hard and placid as the carved expressions of the saints.
Around them is the glory of autumn, leaves stained vermilion and gold, the sky a shifting dome of blue-gray. It is the kind of landscape that invites the eyes to linger and to rest, a waking dream that feels better than sleep.
Catherine rubs an eye; she looks so young, like a child rising from her bed. “I said a prayer for you,” she tells Joan. But Joan doesn’t answer, only slides a hand over her sister’s belly.
“Your child will be loved,” Joan says. “And you know, it will be pleasant to see our mother fall to her knees and pray to Saint Agnes when your baby is teething and won’t stop crying. It will drive our father mad, too, and our brothers; they’ll have to stuff wool into their ears. Won’t that be a pretty sight? But our uncle will teach the child tricks, and I’ll hold the baby on my knee and bounce it up and down to make it laugh and teach it, whether it is a boy or a girl, to climb trees and to run. We shall hear the sound of little feet in the house again. And though you will deny it and pretend to be modest, you are beautiful enough that one day, a prosperous farmer or a wealthy tradesman will catch your eye and want you for his wife. So, whatever happens, there is no way we can lose.”
She feels lighter, having laid out all her plans, but Catherine does not look at her. She moves away, and Joan’s hand slips off her stomach. “Wouldn’t you have left?” Catherine asks quietly. “If it weren’t for me?”
Joan shakes her head. That’s just dreaming, she doesn’t say. “Where could I possibly go?”
Catherine smiles. “The better question is, Where wouldn’t you go? You have stayed here too long, and I know you stay because of me.”
It seems the only things impervious to the destruction of the English are those that have an element of magic to them. The Faerie Tree is scarred—a brute has attempted to set fire to its roots and to cleave its bark—but it still stands, home to the invisible winged people who play tricks, bestow curses, or grant wishes. And another survivor, the spirit in the shape of a cat, is Matagot. Older, gray fur each year a lighter shade, the cat is often found these days in a tree, though never the same one twice. This spirit is not a creature of habit. If you look up and think something has just blinked at you, you would probably be right. Camouflaged in a covering of yellow foliage, Matagot watches over the village. Leaves stir. A spine stretches, and a paw, hanging casually off a branch, flexes claws sharp as any whetted knife.
In the morning, Catherine wakes, and she is smiling. Perhaps the prayers, the visit to the Holy Virgin’s shrine, the walk in brisk air have done her good? She blushes as she motions Joan to come closer. “I want to ask a favor. Will you do something for me? But I am a little shy to speak of it.
“You know how women with child are,” her sister says, though she hasn’t been so talkative in months, “how they get it into their heads they want something particular to eat? Well, I have heard of a dish, and I would like to taste it. I have no appetite for pottage or bread, not even for meat.”
Joan bends, so that Catherine can whisper in her ear.
“I have never heard of this dish,” Joan says. “What is it?”
“They make it in Vaucouleurs,” Catherine replies, dipping her head. “It is a very special food. Our uncle told me about it.”
“Vaucouleurs?” Joan repeats.
“Will you go? For me?”
There is no need to say more. Joan counts the money she has: six pennies. What worries her is that her father has taken the cart, so she must walk. The distance is nearly twelve miles. It will take her four hours to reach the town and four hours to come back.
She pockets her money and her knife, and she is ready.
“Don’t tell Uncle,” Catherine says. “Let it be our secret. Promise. I am afraid he will think you are indulging me or that I am being silly.”
Once she promises, her sister closes her eyes, smiling. She relaxes; for the first time since they returned from Neufchâteau, Catherine appears content. She takes Joan’s hand.
“It may be a long wait,” Joan says.
“I will be waiting.” Catherine hesitates before releasing her. “Now go, Joan.”
She feels like a knight on a quest: a prince given an impossible task, the princess waiting in the locked turret for his return. When she reaches Vaucouleurs, it is nearly noon. She stops passersby. “Pardon,” she says to each person, “do you know where I can find this dish?” But most ignore her, and the rest shake their heads and claim they have never heard of it.
“It is a special dish,” she explains patiently when they stare. “And it is made here, in Vaucouleurs.”
“Well,” one woman replies, “it must be special, if it doesn’t exist.”
Most would rest after walking such a distance on the doorstep of an inn or beg to catch their breath on a tradesman’s board stool. But Joan hurries to the street of bakers’ stalls. They have heard of the dish, yes, but they still treat her as if she is a simpleton. “Who is it for, did you say?” they ask. “You won’t find that anywhere here.”
“It’s for my sister.”
“Ah, well, your sister has been dining lately with the lords and ladies, I suppose?” And they shoo her away while laughter shakes their bodies from head to foot.
But this gives Joan an idea, and she waits outside one of the gates of the royal garrison. She sees, some distance away, a cart led by a slow mule, barrels and sacks swaying in the back. She times its progress, and when the moment comes she slips behind the cart. Her hands snatch two of the sacks, balancing them on her shoulders. At the gates, the guards assume she is another laborer carrying in extra bags of flour.
The flour still on her shoulders, she asks the driver of the cart where the kitchen is. He studies her with his one good eye, the other bleared a milky white.
“New, are you?” he asks.
She nods. “Now quickly,” she says, her voice rising. “I need to get these delivered so I am paid on time.”
The kitchen is busy, but she searches out the cook and manages to corner him. “This dish, have you heard of it, do you have it here?”
The cook shakes his head, chuckling. He looks her up and down. “Sick of black bread, are you?” he says. “Well, I suppose you must be if you have such high standards.”
She wipes the sweat from her face with her palm. “It isn’t for me. Please, I have already asked all over town.”
A thick finger points at a pile of tablecloths in a corner. “Wash those,” he says. “Get the stains out, hang them up to dry. I’ll show you where. Then I will give you something if you do the work properly and don’t dally.”
So, she takes the tablecloths to a tub, which is already prepared with water and wood ash. She kneels, scrubbing, and then beats each long linen sheet. When she is done and the cloths hung up to dry, the cook returns. In his hands, he holds a small object wrapped in a napkin.
He checks the tablecloths, studying them as one would a finely woven tapestry. He turns to her with a smile. “Here,” he says. “It is not what you wanted, but we can’t afford to be choosy, not in these times, can we?”
She takes it, disappointed. She slips the object into her pocket beside the knife and six pennies.
The cook only laughs at her. There are few who are as tall or taller than she is, and he is one of them. He pats her cheek kindly. “You are a good worker,” he says as he follows her out. “If you come back, there will be a position here waiting for you, and you won’t just wash the towels and the tablecloths. If you are interested in good food, one day I’ll teach you how to make the dish you wanted. That’s a promise!”
She leaves, her prize swaying inside the pocket of her dress. It is already dark when she reaches the house of white stone. Before the door she stops to catch her breath.
The priest comes out as she slips in. She greets him, but he gives her a strange look; he does not speak, only glances away as if she has baffled him.
Her brothers are here, and her mother and father. In the gloom, she cannot make out their faces. At the top of the stairs, Durand emerges from the shadows and she goes up to him, more slowly than usual. The muscles of her legs are tight, and she is sore.
“Where were you?” he asks, though she barely hears him. His voice travels to her from somewhere far away.
She walks toward their room, a space now lit by candles. Surprisingly, her legs don’t give out. She feels she will faint, but she doesn’t. She is, despite herself, as solid as a wall.
There is a stool where her mother and father, the priest, her three brothers, and her uncle have already paid their respects. Now it is her turn.
From a distant place, her uncle’s voice travels to her, like whispers through a crack in the wall. “It was about noon,” he begins. “There was no one in the house but your sister and myself. Your father and brothers had gone to the market. Your mother was visiting Jehanne. She told me you had left for the Bois Chenu hours ago and had failed to return. She asked me to go and search for you; she was afraid you had met with some accident. So I left, and your sister was then alone in the house. When I returned, I found her at the bottom of the stairs. Where were you, Joan?”
She raises a hand without looking at him. Stop. Please.
She is too shocked, too tired to cry. She kneels, takes Catherine’s hand, and presses it flat to the space over her heart.
If you die, she thinks, all of my goodness dies with you, and this, here, this heart will become as hard as stone. I am afraid of what I will become. You hold my heart in your hand.
She waits for a response: a stir of the palm, a twitch of the finger. For hours, she keeps her eyes on Catherine, whose face is restored by candlelight to an amber-shaded, flickering beauty. But soon the pull of sleep is too strong for her to resist. She has walked over twenty-four miles, more than eight hours in a single day. She has cleaned a month’s worth of tablecloths. And she has still failed.
In the morning, the bells ring and she stirs. She looks down. Her sister’s hand is clutched in hers, but it is already cold.
In daylight, Joan steps out of the house. She heads for the burnt fields, ruined by Englishmen’s fire.
This morning is only deceptively warm; the ravaged furrows are lit by a shining, white-colored sun that gives off no heat.
She thinks of Catherine’s bed. After the first few hours, she had fallen asleep. But she thought—or was it her imagination?—she felt movement in her hand, and when she woke, that her sister’s head was turned toward her. The shadows of the room, the flames of the candles made Catherine’s eyes two points of light against a watery darkness, like twin stars. But when morning came, the position of the body was the same as when she had first entered the room. Her uncle said Catherine had never stirred, not once, before her breath gave out and she died. So, she thinks, it must have been a dream, and the memory of her own making.
She thinks, The priests don’t teach you to pray, at least not like this. It is always kneeling, back bent, head bowed, hands pressed in supplication, a stifled voice aware of its own lowness. They don’t instruct you to stand, feet apart, arms raised, human eye meeting the eye of heaven. They don’t tell you to bargain with your God, like you are trying to whittle down the price of a piece of mackerel with a fishmonger, to command the angels as if they were kitchen boys, and to treat the saints like servants who have forgotten to empty their masters’ chamber pots.
But she looks straight into the eye of her God. She spreads her arms and bares her new heart of stone.
Give me strength, she prays, and not just the strength to endure but more, the strength of ten, fifty, a hundred men. Give me such gifts as the heroes of old were given: the gifts of slaughter and of victory. Give me a courage that is wild and uninhibited, one that will make men’s teeth rattle. Make my flesh, my heart, and my soul invulnerable to all pain.
She tells her God, Let me have my revenge on those who have hurt the one I loved most in the world. These are the people responsible. These are my enemies, who are France’s enemies, for if the war were not here, if it had taken place somewhere else, in another kingdom and country, then none of this would have happened. Not to me. These are their names. Remember them.
John, Duke of Bedford, regent of England
Henry, sixth of his name, future King of England
Philip, Duke of Burgundy
She hesitates only a moment before adding the Dauphin. It was your weakness, she thinks, your inaction, and your fear that brought us to this point, that kept the door wide open so these wolves could enter my village.
She repeats the names, as if God were a slow pupil in need of reminding and the angels scrambling for styluses and wax tablets to jot them down. She tastes the names in her mouth, each word a bitter seed: John, Duke of Bedford, regent of England. Henry, sixth of his name, future King of England. Philip, Duke of Burgundy.
And who can forget: the three men who hurt Catherine, who drove her to despair. Men who look like wolves. Men who do not speak French. Men with scars on their arms. God, direct my path to these men; guide me with Your divine hand. Before their souls go down to hell, let my face be the last they see on this earth. Let their deaths be full of pain. Let them repent, though they will receive no mercy.
His Majesty the Dauphin, Charles, seventh of his name. King of France. You don’t know my name. You don’t even know I exist, but I am coming for you.
The next day, before her uncle leaves, she asks him what blancmanger is. Is it real?
He used to work in kitchens. “Yes.” He nods. “Yes, it is real, but it is not a simple dish. You need meat finely chopped, which can be fresh capon or fish, and sugar of high quality. All this must be cooked in rice and almond milk until it is thick as a custard. And anise or saffron may be added, too. So as you can see, it is no commoner’s food.”
“My sister sent me to Vaucouleurs to fetch a dish of blancmanger for her,” she explains.
Her uncle lowers his eyes. He doesn’t say, Then Catherine knew full well what she planned to do that day.
The priest is satisfied that what happened was an accident, and Joan has lied to his face. “Before I left the house,” she told him, “I forgot to put a pitcher of water beside her bed. She was probably thirsty and took a fall.”
But God, she thinks, sees everything.
She has forgotten about the prize in her pocket, what the cook in Vaucouleurs gave her, which remains wrapped in a clean napkin. When she unfolds the cloth, a golden wafer rests in her palm like a miniature sun.
Her uncle bends until the tip of his nose hovers just over its surface. He inhales, smiling. “It is an unmistakable scent,” he says, “the smell of cinnamon.” She folds the wafer back into the napkin and gives it to him. As he takes it, he looks about to cry. She knows they are both thinking the same thing: This was not meant for you.
He is leaving, and she is aware he won’t come back. This is the longest he’s ever stayed in Domrémy. How many days had he sat with Catherine, held her hand, and tried to make her forget? But for the first time in his life, he has run out of stories to tell. The princess with the straw-colored hair who wears a brocaded gown and pairs of silver slippers is now a figure both comical and ridiculous. She is still happily married, in a kingdom far, far away, a new child in her belly each year and infants sighing sweetly as they roll inside their gilded cradles; but Catherine, she is already dead.
Invasion, death. He has seen these things before, just not so close, and they have taken their toll on him. This village, too, will never be the same again. His wanderer’s heart must move on.
When they reach the edge of Domrémy, Joan cries. She holds him to her, digging her chin into his shoulder. Her arms are like a death grip, and he is thinner than when he first came, wisps of white in his hair. She can feel every section of his spine. She holds him as if he were the cat Matagot.
He is patient. Only when her tears have run out, when her body shudders away from him and her arms fall to her sides, does he step back.
“We have known each other a long time, haven’t we?” he says, and she nods.
She thinks, as he smears her tears and snot away (who else would do such a thing, touch her tears and snot?): We are soldiers on a campaign that has come to an end, and though we are both alive, we have lost almost everything.
He smiles at her, his eyes shining, and she can’t tell what he feels: whether he is pleased to go or grieved. But his smile says, The world is large, yet it can also be small. Our paths may cross again. I am not worried about you, and you shouldn’t worry about me.
He turns from her, chewing on the wafer. It is his last lesson to Joan: how you should approach life when its fists are pummeling you. Head up. Shoulders back. Your heart may be breaking, but you don’t let it show, not on your face or in your eyes. You walk with a spring in your step toward a destination yet unknown. And your next warm meal may be hours or days away, your next bed in an inn or in a wet ditch, but in your mouth is the taste of cinnamon. The past is the past, and the dead, buried in their shrouds, must always be left behind.