Joan of Arc stood, looking up at the stake. Don’t start screaming, she begged Girl X, please don’t scream. I want to do it without screaming.
The executioner stood her up against it. It was hard, rough. Hurt her back—that didn’t matter anymore, she realized, even if it cut her.
He put a fool’s cap on her head, with writing on it. Bad words, she knew—“Heretic, schismatic, apostate,” something like that. That was all right. She couldn’t read it. Hardly anyone there could. Anyway, it was meaningless now, just more lies. Someone touched her arm. She turned—an English soldier.
He held out a small cross, two pieces of wood that he’d tied together. She hesitated—was it a joke? Some last insult?
But his blue eyes were filled with tears. He wasn’t much more than a boy. The battle was over between them. Around the stake, there seemed to be a lake of peace.
She took the cross, kissed it with passion, and put it under her clothes, right next to her skin.
“Jesus,” she whispered. Jesus alone, in the wilderness. A wandering monk had told them about it, back in Domrémy—how Jesus had faced down three dreadful monsters, the lion of anger, the goat of lust, and the seraph of fear, but had been defeated by the fourth, the white bull of haste.
She, too, it came to her now. She had been hasty, that day at Compiègne, when she was captured. If she had been patient—but Joan of Arc wasn’t patient. She was brave and strong and bold, and she acted. Others would be patient. Their lives would be long. Hers would be short.
A short life, but not a bad one, all told. She had been born an obscure shepherd girl. She was dying with a thousand people at her feet. In between, she had commanded kings and dukes. Maybe it always ended this way—for her, for Jesus, for Saint Catherine, Saint Margaret. The executioner started tying her to the stake. More tightly than usual, he knew. For this one would be worse.
Why? he wondered. There were all the priests who’d wanted her burned, crying, and slipping away, one by one, leaving, they couldn’t watch—why do it, then?
He took her hands now. “Please.” She was just a girl. “Show all her secrets,” the English had commanded him. What did they expect to see? Her courage? What they’d run from in battle?
At least she wouldn’t know. “Please.” He had to climb over the wood to tie her hands. She wasn’t screaming yet. Most of them scream. Well, he’d get it over with as soon as he could for her, throw on the extra pitch he’d brought. He glanced around, almost prayerfully, for some sign of saints or angels—nothing. “Forgive me,” he whispered, as he climbed back down and picked up his torch.
Isambart climbed up on top of the wood next to her, with the big cross. “Make sure I can see it till the end!” she begged him. The wood was high around her legs, scratching her feet, cutting them. The executioner must have lit the fire. She knew it, she could hear it.
And now feel it—it was bad, worse than she’d thought. Much worse, much, much worse—Massieu was still here, and Isambart, with the cross. “Get down!” she cried to them. “Don’t get burned!”
For it was rising faster than she’d expected. All that pitch—“Water!” suddenly screamed Girl X.
“Holy water!” cried Joan of Arc. The fire was burning her feet. The smell came through the crowd.
“Jesus!” cried Joan of Arc loudly. That’s how she’d do it—she saw it now. It would be all right. Every time Girl X was going to scream, No! or Help me! or I was betrayed! She would cry, “Jesus!”
She could burn, she saw. She could do it. “Jesus!” Suddenly she wasn’t afraid any longer—of anything, she realized. She could burn, like they could, the great saints—was she one of them? When her saints had said they’d save her, did they mean for this?
She coughed. “Holy water!” The smoke was rising. A soldier came running toward her—my God, the fire! He was shouting, angry—didn’t he know that it was over?
What harm did he think he could do her now? He had a pile of sticks—he shouted that he was going to throw them on the fire, make it worse.
But it wouldn’t be worse. It would be better, faster. He spat at her as he threw his sticks on the fire. She smiled at him.
He froze. What was the matter? He stood, staring at her. “A dove!” he cried. “A dove flew out of her mouth! It’s flying toward Paris—” He fainted.
A dove? That was nice. “Help him,” she murmured, though whether anyone could hear her any longer, she didn’t know.
Someone carried the soldier off. She looked up at the cross that Massieu and Isambart kept in front of her. “Thank you,” she whispered to them. “Saint Margaret! Saint Catherine!”
Her head felt light now. There was beautiful light all around her. “Water! Holy water!” The sky was as blue as water, as the sea, which she’d never seen. She imagined it blue, like the sky, though someone had told her it was gray.
Rouen was close enough—a giant wave could come up, right now, a holy wave. Cool, cold. Wet. “Jesus!” She looked at the people, all standing silently, weeping. So they did love her! And so much—she loved them, too. She looked over to Cauchon, but he was fleeing, his head down, weeping, from the platform. Winchester, Bedford, and Warwick, too—all running.
From her. “The English run from Joan of Arc,” she murmured, smiling now. In the light. Funny, how long they’d worked to burn her, Cauchon, Winchester, Warwick, and now they ran from her.
Winchester’s secretary came up to the base of the stake, staring strangely. “Go on, throw more wood if you’d like,” she tried to say, but he stood, transfixed.
“We are lost!” he cried. “We have burned a saint!” He, too, turned and ran.
“We have burned a saint—”
Is that how they see me? she wondered. She looked for Massieu—too much smoke now, to see anyone. But there was the sky.
Deep blue. She remembered once as a child, when she, and all of them, had had to flee from marauding soldiers to the castle at Neufchâteau, and there’d been a storyteller there.
Who’d told them of a princess, in a castle, who was allowed anything her heart desired, except to look into one room, which became the only thing her heart desired. She looked, and came to a very bad end.
“Life’s like that,” her mother had said. “She shouldn’t have looked”—but Joan of Arc had looked. She’d looked into all the rooms. The king’s rooms, the priests’ rooms—and yes, look what had happened to her. She was burning.
But no! she wanted to say. That is, yes, she was burning, but we all die. And Joan of Arc had worn pants and looked men straight in the eye. She hadn’t cast down her eye to anyone, and had looked in all the rooms.
And she’d come to a very bad end, they might say. But only because they didn’t know. She could still see the sky. The perfect sky!
They didn’t know that she had been granted transformation, one last time. She looked out at the English—she could hardly see them. Her life as Joan of Arc was over. It shouldn’t have been. Her king should have fought on with her, but he didn’t, he was finished fighting, and her mission there was finished—though not for the English. The English had actually believed in her longer than the French.
That was funny, too. She wanted to shout to everyone, to the girls, Don’t be afraid! You can cast down your eyes for seventy years, keep out of all forbidden rooms, wear the skirt, and you’ll still die in the end.
We’re born to die. But she had the people at her feet, calling her name, praying for her. All the kings and queens, good or bad, true or false, all the French, all the English. The horse that carried her to Orléans, Cauchon, Warwick, d’Estivet who’d tormented her. He would die badly. She could see that, drawn in the flames, just as he’d lived. A cruel death.
But hers? Glorious! she tried to say. There was no more air, but her death was glorious. She could climb it like a ladder straight up to the deep blue sky, climb it like a stairway. She would go straight where they went, those who died gloriously.
And she’d be where she wanted to be, then—among the bold ones. The fact that she’d been so scared last week just made it better now.
There couldn’t be more than another breath or two. It had to be nearly over, this death she’d been so dreading. Nearly over.
So you see? she whispered to Girl X. I could burn.
“Jesus!” cried Joan of Arc, for the seventh time, and then her head fell forward. She was dead.
The people of Rouen rioted that afternoon. The English soldiers stayed inside Rouen Castle, knowing to a man that it was over. No one went out, except the executioner. He had to find a priest. He was in mortal fear for his soul. He had burned Joan of Arc’s body, as commanded, and her bones, but he hadn’t been able to burn her heart. No matter how much pitch and sulfur he had poured on it—her heart wouldn’t burn.
He had panicked, and thrown it into the Seine. Now he feared eternal damnation. He, too, was quite sure that he had burned a saint.