I know I told you about that day.
Despite all that she has seen in her previous combats, Jeanne the Maid, the champion of France, is not prepared for what lies before her eyes. The field of the Battle of Patay. Tens and hundreds and thousands of English corpses strewn amid grass and barley as far as the eye can see. And she does not wish to be weak, to show remorse for the deaths of her deadly enemies. These violators, who have terrorised the peasants and bombarded the cities for almost a hundred years. But why do the captains never listen to her? They take so few prisoners. Now that they are winning the war and the English are being expelled from the most Christian kingdom, must the French behave like the bloodthirsty aggressors?
I remember telling you about what happened, Piéronne.
The Maid has handed her standard to her squire and has dismounted her horse. She lifts back the visor of her helmet and hopes that her eyes are not reddened with tears. She steps over a dead Englishman whose stomach has been spilled. She diverts her eyes from his moist innards. I wanted to end the war. I did not want to cause massacres. And she sees a person run towards her, a young man in the red surcoat of the English. He is disarmed and in great fear for his life. He is frail. He throws himself on the ground near Jeanne when she tells him to stop and surrender. You said it was my female voice that made him surrender to me. His believing that a woman would be more merciful than men.
But when she stands over him and he sees her face, the breathless youth recognises the Maid. He uttered a word in his tongue similar to our sorceress. Yet another Englishman deceived by the English regent’s lies, made to see the Holy Maid as a witch. I wanted him to know that he was safe now, as my prisoner of war.
Not a sorceress. A commander.
He recoils, utterly horrified by her. Jeanne extends a hand but he withdraws. He rises to his feet and begins to run again. And then she feels the ground quiver as she sees one of her captains, the loutish La Hire, charge towards them on a galloping horse. The silver glow of his armour is tinged with red. He shouts joyfully, his sword drawn and directed at the fleeing Englishman.
Dog! Where to, you fucking dog?
The Maid orders La Hire to halt as loudly as she can but her command is ignored. He rides past his target with furious speed. Jeanne sees the glint of his sword flash over the Englishman’s head. A burst of blood. La Hire laughs and rides away. Jeanne sees that the collapsed victim is wriggling and moaning. She makes haste towards him. She kneels and sees that his head has been cut open and a dark red matter of membrane and foam oozes over his face. I breathed deeply and held his hands. His eyes are roving and his mouth is moving soundlessly.
Confess, man. Your sins.
But he dies, in a state of dread and darkness. He has had no chance to relieve his soul of the burden of an evil life. She strokes his hands until they are motionless, and makes no more attempt to hide her tears. And I cried again when I related this to you, and you stroked my hands, you relieved me of my own burden. But this was before we met. On this day she only has her confessor Brother Pasquerel, who listens to her and watches her weep behind a tree and gives her his blessings. She offers prayers for the souls of her own dead, and the souls of so many dead enemies.
Irrespective of the tendentious interpretations of future experts, it should be known that Jeanne the Maid is not religious in the same manner as monks or nuns or other medieval mystics. Yes, she believes in salvation, and although theologians and lawyers will accuse her of heresy and disobedience during her Trial of Condemnation, she believes that her Voices speak to her to save her. Is she naïve? Does she understand God? Can one not believe in Heaven and yet doubt the clergy? The twisted bishops and priests who will be conniving to send her to the fire will enlighten her that there are two churches, Church Triumphant and Church Militant. But why can’t there be one, she will wonder. And I wonder why it was a sin for us to be in love, Piéronne.
And she has barely dried her eyes amid the bodies of the butchered English when she receives a herald who informs her that King Charles VII of France – soon to assume the fitting sobriquet, the Victorious – wishes to see her and the other French captains immediately. They ride to the place of Gien where the king has been stationed. She is still shaken but rides calmly across the long stone bridge over the Loire and walks up the steps of the town’s castle ahead of the others. She takes off her helmet upon entering the audience hall and marches towards the king. He is standing by an empty fireplace, staring at the blackened wall within the hearth. He turns, smiles and motions for the Maid to approach him.
Our dear Jeanne. No, do not kneel. What extraordinary news. The main body of the English adversary has been decimated. France’s greatest victory in a century.
Jeanne does not speak.
We should take part in a combat ourselves sometime, to witness your miraculous effect on our men.
He then stops smiling and lowers his voice so that the other knights, standing apart from them around a table decked with carafes of wine and trays of meat, cannot hear their discourse.
But I do wish, Jeanne, that God had also revealed the whereabouts of a great secret treasure or suchlike to you. You have no idea how much feeding and arming our men and paying the mercenaries is costing me. I am so exercised by being indebted to my wife’s officious mother. Say, did you take many noble prisoners that could be ransomed for a high price?
Jeanne shakes her head.
Your captains, gentle crown prince, do not take many prisoners.
He grimaces.
Damn rogues. But why do you insist on calling me crown prince, Jeanne? You must refer to me as the king, you understand.
Your Majesty is not a king in the eyes of ordinary people until he has been consecrated in the Cathedral of Reims.
Indeed. And we are working towards that end but, as you know, the road to Reims is long, and the towns on the way are loyal to the Duke of Burgundy and the English. How am I to feed and pay an entire army without the townspeople’s support?
I take no account of your finances, noble crown prince. We shall make our way to Reims and God will see to our success. The people will assist us.
One of the captains – it was Duke d’Alençon, if Jeanne remembers it well – has eavesdropped on their conversation and he proposes that they next attack Normandy. Jeanne believes that all he and the other men want is more violence. She says that d’Alençon and others can do as they please, but she shall lead the king – and she did refer to him as that – to Reims so that he may be crowned as true ruler, so that the English are forced to abandon their claim to France and end the war. Constable Richemont laughs.
Indeed, virtuous Maid? And then you will go back to your idyllic village to herd goats, far from the unpleasant business of war? We noble knights shan’t rest for as long there’s a living English soul on French soil.
I’m not a killer, dear constable.
So why are you here? Don’t you miss your adorable goats?
The king and Duke d’Alençon are clearly displeased with this remark but they do not defend her. Jeanne is enraged. I thought d’Alençon was my comrade. She refuses to lodge in the castle with men of noble birth who have so little respect for her, a common woman. She and her entourage set up tents in the fields outside of the town and she spends the night thinking, despite herself, about the constable’s question. Why has she come all this way into France, to be exposed to so much danger and terror, so far away from her native village? Is it only the apocryphal prophecy about the warrior maiden of Lorraine? I wanted to end England’s cruelty, and bring happiness to our land. And there was my other yearning. My desires, Piéronne. Your eyes, my love, and the texture of your cheeks. The unbelievable softness of your skin.
She twice awakens Brother Pasquerel, who is sleeping with the other men in the tent next to hers, and pleads that he hear her confess what she cannot tell him openly. She tells him about the wrath that possessed her heart when she argued with the noblemen. She then bemoans her vanity for purchasing a fine cloak of dyed wool with soft cotton lining from a tailor in the town. The confessor yawns.
A little luxury does not amount to the vice of pride.
Brother, the mantle was fashioned for men. Does the Bible not forbid us women from wearing men’s attire?
Well, correct me if I’m mistaken, mademoiselle, but is it not the case that you appear as a man due to the demands of your profession – that if you were garbed in a feminine manner your men could have lustful thoughts for you?
She nods, and the monk asks to be allowed to return to bed. Jeanne tightens the cords of her leggings after returning to her tent. It is no doubt far more practical for her not to look the part of a young woman among boorish male fighters. And she knows that her heart yearns for something other than commanding men and life as a soldier. I had not met you yet, Piéronne. But she yearns to be soothed by a loving other. And I felt ashamed and cried but convinced myself not to pester the brother again. She forces herself to fall asleep and accept, once again, that the likes of she may never be loved in this world.