Blood Red, Sister Rose: A Novel of the Maid of Orleans

by Thomas Keneally

  A little later still Poton suggested that the army and the convoy could travel along the south bank as far as the ford near Clery, well past Meung. Then the army – or most of it – could cross to face the English forts and the convoy could continue far inland on the south bank until Checy, some miles upstream from Orleans, there barges would meet it and take the supplies downriver to the Tour Neuve wharf in the south-east corner of the city. Would this satisfy the young lady’s counsel?

  She looked at la Hire for signs either way. The troubled blue eyes looked fair back at her. There was no message in them.

  She stared down the table at de Rais. He slept still, his superb head nearly upright but tending to his left shoulder. He was very, very tired.

  Jehanne: Will you all vote on your honour?

  De Gaucourt: I’ll certainly vote on mine.

  So they voted to do that: to travel on the south side but cross the army in time to run up against the English positions on the west of Orleans. De Gaucourt voted against it, Boussac wouldn’t make up his mind.

  The plan which, it appeared, the war council had decided on can be indicated by a simple map:

  On those numbers the rite was consummated at two o’clock. Alençon said that subject to Royal Council assent, the wagons would begin to move out of the south-bank suburb of Vienne after dawn. They would all be told their positions in the column before evening. The camp would be struck at seven o’clock following a solemn blessing of the army by the Chancellor of France, Monsieur Archbishop Regnault de Chartres. He thanked them for their time.

  In a corner, Boussac, Poton and Culant soothed de Gaucourt. It seemed very curative talk. His old brows unknotted. They took him out by the elbows.

  Jehanne got up from table feeling unreal.

  I ought to be grateful, she thought. They’re doing what I want and here I am frowning about it.

  Alençon saw her, bowed quickly with a painful grin, and began to rush out.

  Jehanne: Why are you so nervous, my sweet duke?

  Alençon: War. War.

  Jehanne: Is that all?

  Alençon: Jehanne, I don’t know the river. I don’t know the country north or south of the river. I was ten years old the last time I went to Orleans and I didn’t look at it with a soldier’s eye.

  Jehanne: Why are you saying this?

  Alençon: Don’t blame me for whatever happens …

  Jehanne: Happens? Nothing will happen.

  Alençon: Jehanne … don’t stop having special … affection for me.

  He went out before she could give any guarantees. There was Marshal de Rais still asleep. She tiptoed to him and touched his shoulder very gently. Instantly he woke. His weird lovely eyes jumped to her face.

  Gilles: Tell me, Mademoiselle. Are you any good at interpreting dreams?

  BOOK THREE

  Brother Jesus’ Garden of Vengeance

  To my honoured etc.

  Dated 29 April 1429

  As I informed you in my last letter,* having discovered in the Marshal de Rais a greatly wealthy man who wishes to assist his king’s cause by large monetary embursements, I now find it necessary to put on armour and follow him towards Orleans so that I might complete my business with him.

  The march to Orleans began yesterday morning from Vienne, the suburb of Blois that lies on the south bank of the Loire. The army was to march with the supply column and the herds of cattle, sheep and pigs, but the Marshal himself and the girl were to lead, so that I too was in the leading party. Although General Poton had sent scouts ahead of us, my honoured principal can understand that a banker would not treasure being at the head of an army column. The supplies gathered were all larger than the largest city market, the herds and wagons had been concentrating for two months. Now wagoners’ boys ran along the sides of the wagons hitting them with sticks to drive the rats out of the grain.

  Besides the road were the Marshal’s choristers in black cassocks and ruffs. Then his Breton knights, very handsome soldiers indeed. There were seven hundred priests round about, tucking up their cassocks for the long walk.

  Jehanne, the girl, joined us before dawn, in her armour but wearing a cap on her head. She has a few knights and pages and such people to travel with her. Trumpets began talking to each other up and down the lines and north towards Blois where much of the army still waited to cross the bridge and join us.

  Our journey began stylishly. The Marshal’s boys and the monks sang Vent Creator Spiritus, a touching anthem for that time of morning and in that light. The Marshal is passionate about choirs. He kept raising his armoured fore-arm in time to their chant, or in praise or disapprobation. All his knights were around him, unhelmeted. I heard the girl ask him ingenuously were all Bretons so handsome?

  If the road was level it was very churned from the winter rains, yet the boys and the priests didn’t stop singing till nearly nine o’clock. One of the songs the boys sang was a chant in praise of love between males. It struck the priests dumb. And although the girl did not understand the Latin wording it made her uneasy. The Marshal claimed it was arranged from an old chant his choirmaster had found in the library of St Julien de Vouvantes. Jehanne said, strange monasteries they have in your part of the country. The Marshal replied softly, strange monasteries they have everywhere, Mademoiselle.

  By noon the boys were all lying exhausted on the wagons. The road was uphill. Everyone was quiet, dealing with horseflies. Everyone except the Marshal and the girl. The Marshal spoke endlessly about prophecy and divination, as if the girl would be amused by talk of her own trade. He told a story about King Hal Monmouth, who had learned astronomy at the English University of Oxford. Everywhere King Hal went he took two astrolabes with him. One horoscope he cast by means of them indicated that his son should not be born at Windsor, the Goddam castle of which one hears. The reading of the astrolabes suggested that what had been won in France by Monmouth would be lost by Windsor. He sent urgent messages to his queen, Catherine, ordering her to keep to other castles than Windsor, but before they reached her she went into labour at that very castle.

  The girl told the Marshal that it wouldn’t have mattered where the child was dropped (her word). It was all going to happen anyhow.

  That night we camped in empty fields. It is only when you get into open country and find the earth idle everywhere that you understand the monstrous nature of this war.

  I had six blankets but was still uncomfortable. The girl insisted on sleeping in her armour, I cannot think why. Her short-sighted page called Raymond took off only her garde-reins and pansière which together make a bell-shape at the waist.

  This morning she was therefore very stiff. When the priests said Mass thousands of soldiers and wagoners milled to see the consecrated hosts, because they thought they might have to fight the English today. The soldiers often crackle as they walk, because they have periapts wrapped around them beneath their shirts – parchments on which incantations are written to protect them against being wounded.

  We all breakfasted with the Marshal. The Bretons ate smoked fish, bacon, cheeses, glacé fruits, and they drank hypocras. But still they complained about how harsh it was, soldiering.

  It became a warm day. All this morning we were amongst hills, where it was time for someone to see to the vines. But there was not a soul there with fork or shears to do it.

  Rain started to fall early this afternoon. The Marshal chattered away at the girl. He has two astrolabes himself and says that Sagittarius has wandered deep into the house of night. Sagittarius is apparently England’s star.

  About four o’clock this afternoon, a contretemps arose between the girl Jehanne and the army leaders who, apart from Gilles de Rais, were well back in the column. At that hour the sun got under a cloudbank and lit up the far-off Loire and what at first sight looked like a vast walled barge afloat on it. It was in fact the city of Orleans.

  Now it seemed that the war leaders had told Jehanne that the army would leave the supply column in plenty of tim
e to cross the Loire and take on Talbot’s fortresses on the west of the city. The Marshal de Rais knew nothing about this undertaking, since he slept through the entire meeting. On seeing the city to the left and a little behind where she now rode she began to shout and heave herself upright in her stirrups. She said her counsel had told her the army had to attack the Goddams in la Beauce, that that was where the army should be now. Monsieur Gilles said her counsel was probably right but he didn’t think the Royal Council would easily commit the army to a hit-or-miss onslaught against Talbot. He was highly apologetic for the fact that Royal Councils were not as well informed as she was. Or even as he with his astrolabes.

  She called out, ‘They put us here. Two simple-minded people to lead the army by the wrong road!’

  She insisted on riding back down the column until she found the generals, who were all together at the head of a great force of cavalry. We didn’t see her again at the front of the column until an hour passed. She was still raging. The Royal Council and the Bastard had both forbidden a head-on attack in la Beauce. The army was to remain at the side of the convoy. The girl had asked them what had been the use of the meeting the generals had held two days ago at which it was decided the army should cross to la Beauce and charge at Talbot. The Duke of Alençon and de Boussac had both told her the generals had decided that way out of politeness to her, knowing the Royal Council would never allow it. De Gaucourt also told her that strictly d’Alençon shouldn’t be with the army, not yet having bought back the prisoners he left standing in for him at the English fortress of le Crotoy.

  She came back to Marshal de Rais damning the ransom system and the small minds of the Royal Council. All the flags were sodden and the choir-boys and knights coughing, but she was a sharp, bright point to the army.

  In the end we came down to a temporary encampment some distance upstream past Orleans. It is to the east of Orleans that the English fortresses are weakest and so supplies can best enter Orleans from that direction. The girl’s rage is, in human terms, unreasonable.

  This letter is being written under shelter of a wagon. It is a miserable evening, with a strong wind from the east …

  Bernardo Massimo

  Jehanne, daughter of Jacques of Sermaize, sat trapped at the point of an antic army that hadn’t taken the right direction. As they waited there was a shift of wind, squalls first, then a gale. All the great men lifted their cloaks against the west-bound downpour.

  There was a tent out there, on the river, or rather a tent on a barge. It nosed in through the haze and moored below them by a a crude wharf, in what should have been deep water. Nonetheless those who came ashore waded across the silt. They wore furtrimmed cloaks over their armour.

  A very tall man with a fringe of black beard led them. He kissed de Gaucourt on both cheeks. His wet boots creaked. Yet he had the delicacy of moving that Alençon had been trained to have and could in fact do well enough but which only people like Gilles and this man were good at.

  Jehanne: Are you the Bastard?

  She could hear de Gaucourt grumble. She’d cut across his reunion, which should have been given more time.

  She skidded down the river bank towards the newcomer. His eyes were soft, but to the point of authority. There were no possible eccentric vices there, as there might be in Gilles. You could bet, too, he didn’t keep astrolabes.

  Jehanne: It was your order to do it this way?

  Behind the Bastard, Culant, de Loré, de Rais turned their faces into the wet gale, discussing its omens like fishermen.

  Bastard: I gave the order. And others wiser gave it.

  Jehanne: Does it appeal to you, the idea that it could have been all over by tonight?

  Bastard: Yes.

  Jehanne: You’ve heard of my counsel?

  He spoke very softly, yawning now and then.

  Bastard: Of course I have. I’m not being rude: perhaps though your counsel hadn’t heard that an English column under John Fastolf has left Paris for Orleans.

  Jehanne: I’ve been told all that, Monsieur.

  Bastard: By your Voice?

  Jehanne: Voices! No, by Monsieur d’Alençon.

  Bastard: Please, Mademoiselle Jehanne, we must work hand in glove.

  She was sure at once only the Bastard would understand her anger. She got close to his left shoulder by means of tiptoe.

  Jehanne: The Voices said la Beauce. La Beauce, la Beauce!

  Bastard: I’m sorry. How was I to know? If I’d known …

  Talking to him was nearly as pleasant as flirtation. But she couldn’t let him honey her down like this. If it worked, he’d try it every time.

  Jehanne: Don’t absolve yourself so easily, Monsieur. You managed to mislead me. But not half as much as you misled yourself.

  The army leaders were all around them now.

  Gilles: How can you get barges up here against this wind?

  Bastard: We can’t. Not even by tacking. Also the river’s too low. If Talbot knew he could come up from les Augustins and bundle us all up while we’re waiting.

  Alençon immediately had scouts send out to the west to see if any such illuminations had struck Talbot.

  The Bastard said it was a pity they weren’t there half an hour earlier, when the wind had been fair. The water had fallen right away in the last half hour too. The tides were very tricky around here – it might have something to do with the islands in midstream. She could see at once the fear in him. Of the loss of the city perhaps, the city so personal to him.

  Jehanne: Don’t worry. We haven’t come all this way to be stopped by wind and low water.

  He took hold of her elbow.

  Bastard: It’s the little things, Mademoiselle. Always the little things that ruin one’s chances.

  Jehanne: That’s why my counsel said la Beauce.

  Bastard: Indeed.

  But at dusk the rain stopped, the wind turned north-west and moderate and the water level rose, sucking at the piers of the dock.

  The barges came up from Orleans in the twilight, their blatant square-rigs shielded from English gunners in St Loup by a vast island close to the north bank. All the knights along the levée clapped and called Noël. But as if they too were in the wrong-side plot, the barges moored on the north bank of the river.

  Jehanne: Why that side? Why in holy Christ’s name?

  La Hire told her in his remote way. If the barges moored on this side and they spent the night loading they couldn’t spare the men to watch out for the English who might move soldiers over the river in the dark or might send a raiding party from Jargeau in the east or might do both … or might, or might. This ogre of her girlhood stood beside her with all the cool reasons.

  The Bastard whispered to her that it was time for her to cross the river.

  Bastard: We have a nice place for you in Checy. A fire. And supper.

  She remembered there was a weight of steel on her and pain in her kidneys.

  Jehanne: If a farmer ran his herds the way you run this army, he’d starve and deserve to.

  Bastard: Perhaps, Mademoiselle.

  Raymond and Minguet blindfolded the horses, even their own. There was clapping as she limped forward with Pasquerel and d’Aulon over the silt. The barge had come close in, ignoring the wharf, so that horses could be loaded. She had taken her armour off and waded in kidskin boots.

  There were shouts of goodwill along the embankment of happy voyage. La Hire had two hundred lancers who were also to cross to Checy that night. In the drizzle she saw Jean de Metz in his old-fashioned mail, his man de Honnecourt from whom she’d once stolen clothes. Bertrand was there, bare-headed for some reason, wet hair slicked around his ears. With him his three men – Julien, and Jehan and Pierrolot, her brothers-in-Jacques.

  Jehanne: All right Bertrand, Sir de Metz. And bring your men.

  In the morning, the barges were loaded and cattle and corn sent down river. The Orleans garrison went skirmishing around the English fort of St Loup, so that the barges would not
be troubled by the firing of bombards, mortars, culverins. All the fleet found safe moorage in the moat under the east walls.

  At noon that day, at the pleasant château of Checy, a meeting was called. When Jehanne came in they were all around a long table. Alençon, the Bastard, de Gaucourt, the Marshals de Boussac and de Rais, La Hire – all of them. She caught the sense of established lunacy in all the minds around her. Because they were all talking about an improbable proposition that had been given standing amongst them: that the army would go back to Blois. It was as if they had spent all morning convincing themselves this should happen.

  Jehanne: Why?

  Bastard: I don’t have the boats to bring them over to Orleans. If I tried to bring those barges up-river again, the English wouldn’t let it happen, not a second time.

  Jehanne: Do you mean that you told the army to come this side, knowing they couldn’t cross?

  Bastard: That’s so. I had the convoy in mind. The convoy was more important.

  Jehanne: So you’ve got food now. To feed your fright on. And that satisfies you.

  Bastard: One can’t play around with the English. Did you know they’ve kept your herald Guyenne?

  Jehanne: Guyenne …

  The singer!

  Bastard: Ambleville they sent back to Orleans. They’re threatening to burn Guyenne.

  Jehanne: Why?

  Bastard: For carrying messages for a witch and heretic. I think it’s only a bluff.

  Jehanne: Witch and heretic …

  La Hire: I don’t think we should leave. I think we ought to cross no matter how long it takes. The soldiers all feel right, they’ve been to confession, they want to be with girls. They want to die in the next day or so if they have to.

  Bastard: I’m sorry. I’d take you down to Orleans if I could.

  De Boussac: They’d rather have the girl and the supplies than just another army.