That was the signal for the executioner to pull up his hood. Joan of Arc fell to her knees. She was surprised to hear herself calling out, “Forgive me,” to Cauchon, “as I forgive you.”
No! cried Girl X.
He’s just a rat, Joan of Arc told her. She cast her eye over the rest of the judges. All rats.
“Forgive any wrong that I did. I meant no harm. And I forgive you all. And you, Rouen”—the people. There were hundreds of them, thousands. At her feet. She looked around.
And saw the stake, higher than she’d remembered.
“Ah, Rouen, Rouen!” broke out Girl X. “I fear you will suffer for my death!”
Silence! Joan of Arc commanded her. To the townspeople, she called, “I forgive you all! Pray for me!”
“We will!” they shouted. Tears began to roll down French faces, sobs to break from French breasts.
“Dear God, and dear Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret, Saint Michael, help me today! Be here with me now! Don’t forsake me!”
She turned to Massieu. “Is there a cross?” she asked him. “A big one, that I can see till the end?”
Isambart came up. “I’ll see if they’ll give me one, from the cathedral.”
“Beg them!” Massieu said. “Take it by force if you have to!”
Massieu was worried that the executioner would take her before Isambart came back with the cross, but the man seemed to be waiting for something, too. Joan of Arc was kneeling, praying, forgiving.
“Holy Jesus, who died on the cross! And Holy Mother—”
The English soldiers were muttering, stamping. They’d been told eight o’clock this morning: “Without delay.”
“Hey, you priests!” one of them shouted. “Do you want us to have dinner here today?”
They tightened their hold on their pikes and their swords. They were greatly outnumbered by the weeping French crowd.
Isambart came back with a cross six feet high—perfect, big enough for her to see across the heads, should the priests be pushed back. Massieu took it up to her—she threw her arms around it, hugged it, kissed it. Wouldn’t let go.
“Come on, priests!” the English soldiers were shouting. “Get on with it!” they cried to the executioner.
But he was waiting for the bailiff to pronounce the secular sentence to burn her. The Church had formally cast her off; now the state, to which it fell to burn the Church’s prisoners, had to formally sentence her. Only then could he burn her legally.
The executioner was a formalist. It was how he justified his work. He relied on procedure to turn what he did from torture and murder to law. He had taken this profession, following his father, who hadn’t much liked it, either. His father used to cry out in the night. He’d died young, from drink.
This executioner didn’t drink, and he understood, better than his father, that the law was complicated. There was a need for his work. Someone had to do it. He accepted his role, that it had fallen to him to flay his fellows, break their backs, even burn them, for the law.
But since he enjoyed none of these activities, he relied on certain consolations. The legal formulas, for example, soothed his soul and quieted his heart, always pounding right before, always beating to him, Run! Don’t do it! But the ancient words of condemnation, sounding biblical, and intoned always so solemnly, so dispassionately before what were surely the least dispassionate of events, gave him a profound reassurance, every time, that what he was about to commit was necessary, and even for the good.
For the law, which he revered and served. Just like Joan of Arc, it occurred to him. With her march to Reims to have her king crowned legally. Turned from man to king.
Now he, the executioner, was waiting.
“Hey, priests!” The soldiers were shouting louder now.
The executioner turned back to the bailiff. He didn’t like any of it today. First of all, the stake was too high. How was he supposed to reach her, to smother her, put her out of her misery before the flames reached her, as was customary? The way he always did it, always—didn’t the English know this?
Or worse, did they actually want the girl to burn alive? Why else would they have built it like this? It wasn’t right. He’d never had to burn anyone alive before.
And then there was the strange order he’d received in writing from the English—to pull the clothes off her body as she burned, so that everyone could see her naked. One of the priests had read it to him: “Her woman’s body, and all the secrets it contains,” it said.
He didn’t like it. Everyone knew she was a virgin—it was unseemly. And what did they think they’d see? He’d nearly cheered the other day, when she recanted. And in the torture room, too, he’d gone to church afterward and thanked God that he hadn’t had to torture her, though he would have. It was his job.
She’d smiled at him then, that day. Said her saints were going to save her. Well, he wished they would. Right now. He truly wished it, more than anyone here, probably, except maybe her.
“Hey, you priests!” Two English soldiers mounted the scaffold and pulled her to her feet. That was clearly out of order.
She was praying, clinging to the cross. The executioner turned back to the bailiff. What about the sentence? The words that would turn her from a flesh-and-blood girl to the condemned? As good as dead?
One of the English lords said something, and the bailiff then shrugged and muttered to the executioner, “Just do your job.”
The English soldiers pulled her off the scaffold, pushed her toward him. He turned, shocked, to Cauchon. “There was no sentence!”
But Cauchon just waved his hand. “Take her away, take her away!”
The executioner went, unconsoled, up to Joan of Arc. Good that he’d poured so much pitch on the wood. It had been hard work, but it would make it go faster.
He took her hand. “Forgive me,” he said. He always asked forgiveness, and they always gave it, no one ever blamed him. Well, sometimes in the torture chamber, where there was still passion, but there was never passion here. “Forgive me.”
Yes, of course, she forgave him, she forgave them all. He led her to the stake. Girl X started crying again. Sobbing aloud—well, let her, decided Joan of Arc. They were all crying now. She looked back—even Winchester. Even Cauchon.
Holy God, it was high! He led her up to it. No! No! No! No! Girl X was going to start screaming.
But Joan of Arc didn’t want to die screaming.
“The cross!” She turned to Massieu, who was right there, weeping as well. “Keep it where I can see it!”
“Yes,” whispered Massieu.
“Don’t leave me!”
“Never!” he cried.