Joan of Arc waited all that Tuesday. No one came. She thought of Massieu, outside, or had he gone home? Did priests have homes? She did—but she wasn’t going to think of that anymore. She’d thought it up and down, into every last corner, under every bed and cupboard already, and there was nothing left there to think.
About anything, really. She’d thought it all. Thought childhood, thought the king, thought Orléans, thought Reims. Thought her saints—hadn’t figured it out, but was done thinking about it.
Anyway, it was all very far away now, all of it, even her captivity, even her trial. All part of her life on the other side of the river. She saw it now in a sort of golden light, the light of late sunsets on the hills in high summer. Beautiful, but she wasn’t there anymore.
She’d crossed that river, away from her whole life—not, as she’d thought at first, when she stood there at the stake on Thursday and denied her past, for she’d still believed then. Believed just as she had before, though the details were different. She’d gone to the stake believing in saints and angels, and come back believing in priests and Church prisons. But when she stood here and lied to Cauchon about the pants, that’s when everything changed.
And though it had been better there, much better, in that golden place where she’d been young and innocent enough to do all that she’d somehow managed to do, what was interesting to her was where she was now. Strange, too—she was glad Massieu hadn’t gotten in. It was good to be alone for a bit.
Though she wasn’t entirely alone—that was the puzzling part. Her saints had come back. She was trying to sort out exactly when, and even why. She’d told Cauchon that they’d come before she took the pants, that that was why she took them, but that wasn’t true. Or was it that it wasn’t quite true?
She wouldn’t have taken them, granted, herself. She wanted to live, of course, but once she’d been forced to do it by the guards—surely the angels had never used less likely agents—then, gradually, by steps, her saints were there again, saying exactly what she’d told Cauchon they’d said.
God sends you forgiveness, through us, daughter of God. But you damn your soul if you deny your holy mission. . . .
Girl X wanted her to ask them what happened to the escape they’d promised.
But that, too, was back there, behind her. History. She was studying something else right now. The meaning of life.
Since we all die, she reminded Girl X.
Girl X: But to die like this? To burn? Why not to have died, then, in battle, or at the tower, or even here, in bed, from the poison? It would have been better! Much better!
I’m not sure. This week has been enlightening—
Girl X: For what? The beatings? The attacks?
—and, I think, important.
Girl X: You should have stood there and taken it the first time, then! It would have been simpler, and over by now!
Yes, there’s that, but I would have died on that side of life. Not knowing what I know now.
Because she was glad for this chance to see beyond. It was different here, on the other side now, and quiet, and a strange thing had happened with time. There had, this week, been time for everything, time to grow old, and wise. A thousand days in May, she’d had this week—two thousand. Her whole “threescore and ten’s” worth of Mays.
You mean this whole endless nightmare! said Girl X. You’re just saying it seems like a lifetime and you’ve grown old in one week—like the man in Domrémy whose hair turned white overnight when his wife ran off with the fiddler. Do you remember?
No—that is, yes, she remembered him. He wore a blue cap then, and tried to dye his hair afterward with some red mud.
But no, she didn’t mean time seeming endless, days dragging out. Just the opposite, really. When she was sleeping, half sleeping, she saw them all—what might be called all her natural Mays. First the flowery Mays, then the fighting Mays, and the court Mays, the captive Mays—
Girl X: But that’s just memory! You just lay there and reminisced!
—and then the Mays, all the ones that would have come after, as if they were granted.
Girl X: When?
Last night, this morning. . . .
Girl X: Where? Here? A thousand Mays in the dungeon?
Not here.
Girl X: Where, then? If you’re so free, what are you doing here?
I am so free—and I’m here.
Girl X: You say that here, now. Alone, chained to the bed—but you’d run so fast if you could, from the stake!
Yes, who wouldn’t, though where? she’d been thinking. Domrémy? The court? The red skirt or the armor? She couldn’t see how either of them would fit her now, though she’d give much for one more night in her mother’s house. Or a talk with the king, for that matter, if it could be honest, and face-to-face.
But both were over for her now. Life had carried her along.
And life had been good, her own life extraordinary.
Beg them to save you still! Call on Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret! Tell them to take you away, or send the army as they promised! a voice, Girl X, was still pleading.
Joan of Arc sat up in her chains, shook her head. She no longer thought that was how it happened.
You did!
Yes, but I’m thinking now that that was childish, to think that escape meant leaving this place, or that victory meant a real battle, with men at arms, like something from a child’s tale. Since now she had grown up and put away childish things.
But the glass is still dark!
Unless maybe the saints were granting her both, escape and great victory. Do you see? she asked Girl X.
Who was silent for a while. Then, finally, There are better ways to die than burning.
My saints didn’t choose that for me, any more than God chose the cross for his son. It’s just the way it is, and it won’t last forever. It will start, and it will happen, and it will end. And then, if I’m right, if I’m hearing my saints correctly now, I’ll be free and victorious.
What if you’re not?
Then it will be something else. Something I don’t know now, but will know then.
What if you’re wrong?
I can’t be.
Joan of Arc was calm that night, on her knees, eyes closed, when the compline rang, the last bells of the evening. That’s when she always heard her saints best. The guards came in to chain her to her bed, and then paused.
They knew it was her last night. Funny, they seemed almost regretful now, around her. Like they’d lost the will, or maybe they no longer believed the same way, either. They’d done what they’d been called to do—treated her with all the cruelty and hatred they could muster, for king and country. They’d hit her, called her names, subjected her to whatever degradation was at hand—watched her piss, helped that drunken lord attack her, and for what, in the end? Their king was a stuttering boy who’d never notch an Agincourt, and they were still them, guards in a dungeon. Poor forever. Stuck in France.
And she was going to die in the morning, and they knew now, after all this time of wanting it badly, that that wouldn’t help any of it, either. And now they were supposed to chain her to the bed.
“Let it be,” one of them muttered to the other. For once. They turned and walked out.