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

by Thomas Keneally

  The English army lifted swords and pikes and lances towards the sky once. Then they began to leave west by north-west. Their rear-guard stayed firm on the Blois road till after eleven, then turned its back and vanished down the plain.

  The Orleanais militia couldn’t stand up for joy. They fell over, embracing or singly. They clutched their thighs or knees and giggled at the sky.

  Jehanne had to find the Bastard and remind him she had promised the English they could leave Orleans with their lives. Already Bretons, Scots, Gascons were saddling up to go chasing profit on the Goddam flanks.

  The Bastard bent down and cried in joy on her good shoulder. He forbade any mad pursuits. But la Hire went after them to track where they were going.

  He got back in mid-afternoon and said Meung, the garrison town down-river.

  In the ruins of St Lorent they found Guyenne the herald lying chained amongst the English sick. He seemed hysterical and took them to the far-west corner where a heap of faggots had been piled around a stake for his burning. General Talbot himself, Guyenne said, had taken him to the stake and spoken to him. As soon as consent came from the Faculty of Paris, Guyenne was to burn.

  It was a golden summer noon in spring and Orleans that day. From Solemn Mass in the Cathedral she had to ride a round-about two miles to Boucher’s house. Old women touched her stirrups gently, men kissed the thews and chest of her grey warhorse. After a mile she grew terrified at how addicted she’d become to adoration. In rue des Hôteliers, leading up towards Boucher’s from the Chatelet and the bridge, she began to wonder why she shouldn’t enjoy it simply, the way a drunk enjoys being drunk without reference to gods of wine or any of that. Perhaps she was god, goddess, sibyl, sister Jesus, and her body for its own sake deserved to be touched in worship. The veins in her head creaked and expanded, the blood galloped into her chest, and she felt her kingship billow madly above the city.

  This lasted only twenty seconds but afterwards she was terrified of herself in a new way.

  Back at Boucher’s she found Monsieur Boucher signing authorizations for payment. He let Jehanne look over his shoulder.

  Forty sols for a heavy piece of wood obtained from Jean Bazin when les Tourelles was won from the English, to put across one of the broken arches of the bridge.

  Authorized: J. Boucher

  To Jean Poitevin, fisherman, eight sols for beaching a barge which was put under the bridge between les Tourelles fort and les Tourelles themselves to set fire to it.

  Authorized J. Boucher

  To Boudon, nine sols for two S-shaped irons weighing four pounds and a half, attached to the barge which was kindled under the bridge of les Tourelles.

  Authorized: J. Boucher

  To Champeaux and other carpenters, sixteen sols for liquor on the day les Tourelles was taken …

  Authorized: J. Boucher

  It settled her to watch him do his books on this vast day.

  At mid-afternoon the boozy city was delighted by the sight of a French knight riding an English monk piggy-back up to the walls. The monk was General Talbot’s confessor and the knight had been General Talbot’s prisoner. According to him, the English were in a strange insane despair about the girl. They were certain God would make her suffer some day but she was permitted certain powers first and they were unhappy grist to her power. A lot had by noon deserted Talbot to go back to their garrisons in Goddam Normandy.

  She kept remembering Talbot, how fearsomely he’d threatened Guyenne. What threats would he use on her? Were there worse threats than to say to a tenor we’re going to make ashes of your song.

  Then, about ten o’clock, at the worst time of night, when she closed her eyes and jaundiced faces sped towards her out of the dark, she was told how the body of Glasdale, even in its armour, had risen to the top of the water and been gaffed and brought ashore. It had been punitively cut in four, boiled, then embalmed and laid in front of the crypt of St-Merry. The word was that it ought to be consigned to its own country. But Jehanne had little idea of how this could be done, or how it could be expected to console him for his black journey to the bottom of the Loire.

  * Not quoted in this account.

  BOOK FOUR

  Make Pale Charles a King

  Messire: Holy Rheims, little he-nun …

  Margaret: Holy Rheims, little she-soldier …

  Catherine: Anointing for the king …

  Messire: Little rose.

  She was to meet Charles in Tours. It would be like the country fairs, where the magician broke an apple irreparably in two, then passed his hand over it and it was whole. So Charles and she, meeting.

  But Yolande arrived before Charles in that square-walled city. She wanted to see Jehanne.

  The Queen of Sicily had her usual look of unsurprised permanence. Surrounded by three sewing ladies-in-waiting and a monk reciting the Matins of the next day, she sat close to the fire. She was from some warm south and Tours was the cold north for her, even in summer.

  Yolande: You made the Bastard-Royal jealous?

  Jehanne didn’t understand the question.

  Jehanne: Jealous, my queen?

  Yolande: He seems to want to outshine you. He and la Hire attacked Jargeau the other day.

  Jehanne: Oh?

  Yolande: The earthworks all round Jargeau were flooded by last week’s rain. That’s their story anyhow. They had no success.

  Jehanne: Did men die?

  Yolande: Men got their feet wet. But these little adventures all cost money. A lot of the Bretons went home because no cash award was made to them for what they did at Orleans. That’s how short money is.

  Jehanne: It doesn’t matter what things cost. If you get what you’re paying for.

  Yolande: Peasant wisdom. What I want to talk about: everyone will start making suggestions to you now. About what ought to be done next.

  Jehanne: Everyone has begun.

  Yolande: Be firm for Rheims.

  Jehanne: Of course.

  Yolande: Has anyone told you? Bedford’s written to the Privy Council in England asking them to send the boy-king to be crowned in France.

  Jehanne: You don’t have to stir me up. I’ll be firm.

  Yolande: I don’t just mean against Fat Georges. I mean against your friends too. Against d’Alençon.

  Jehanne: I know, I know.

  Yolande: The Duke of Burgundy will let us through to Rheims to crown Charles. He wants to keep things balanced and it suits his idea of what the balance is if he lets our king be crowned and not Bedford’s. That’s my information anyhow. My information is good information.

  Jehanne asked who gave her information. Fat Georges?

  Yolande said people in Dijon. Machet was going off to Dijon as her embassador. Machet would arrange it.

  Yolande: The point is it will happen. The Rheims journey.

  Jehanne: I know. It’ll happen.

  Yolande: My information is the English still on the Loire are sleeping poorly and having bad dreams.

  Yolande had no bad dreams. Jehanne was again fascinated by the way Yolande thought the whole world was amenable to being arranged by Yolande. There were no unaccountable bolts of lightning in Yolande’s world. What a different world that was from her own. What lonely strength was needed to live in it.

  Yolande’s last instructions to Jehanne that night were in the spirit of her picture of the universe.

  Yolande: Pester Charles without stop!

  They met on the road a little south-west of Tours. She had ridden out to meet him. He had heard in Chinon during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday that the English had been lifted off Orleans. He had started out to meet and review the girl immediately. Some of his staff had been surprised. For at most times he moved quickly only out of some erratic need to prove he was alive by finding yet another city where people still called him king.

  As soon as he met the girl he was strangely unhappy he’d come. Her eyes were full of the brightest, widest demands.

  Amidst the snuffli
ng of horses he spoke to her.

  Charles: How’s your wound, Jehanne?

  He knew she could see it was a nothing question. She didn’t answer it. She was on a palfrey with a low pommel. She took her hat off. Her forehead bent to the horse’s dusty mane. So she imposed her frantic reverence on him. Seeing her brown hair he thought: that funny creature has managed it. And bled for me. He found his hand was out, caressing the line of her jaw. His glove smelt of spices. She thought: that’s an improvement in manner, in style.

  Jehanne: Will you come to Rheims now?

  Charles: It isn’t as easy as that.

  Jehanne: When I went to Baudricourt and asked to be sent to you he said it isn’t as easy as that. When I asked if I could see you they said it isn’t as easy as that. When I asked you to send me to Orleans you said it isn’t as easy as that. Yet we’re here and it’s all been done. What wasn’t easy about any of it?

  Charles: It all cost one hundred and twenty thousand livres – that’s one of the things that wasn’t easy.

  Jehanne: You got value for cash, dauphin.

  Charles: Going to Rheims isn’t the only thing available to do. Princes talk to each other through diplomats. I could talk to the Duke of Burgundy. He’d be impressed. Because now I have Orleans safe.

  Jehanne: People say that won’t be good enough.

  Charles: People?

  Jehanne: The Queen of Sicily.

  The king’s somnolent face tightened.

  There was no rightness about this meeting. It wasn’t like the magic apple. They were just bickering, no better at it than Jacques or Zabillet. She thought it was a mistake to mention Rheims straight off. What else was there to mention?

  He rode right up beside her. They faced in different directions and his left knee bumped her right. He spoke more softly still.

  Charles: You’ve behaved royally and like a god, I know. I’ve had the reports. You were wounded. When les Augustins fell it was when some people had given up. Likewise at les Tourelles.

  She waited to see why he was talking. It wasn’t altogether praise, in fact there didn’t seem to be much praise in him at all.

  Charles: I applauded you in letters to all my cities. La Rochelle, Narbonne, Montpellier …

  Jehanne: I thank my dauphin.

  Charles: Châteaudun, Toulouse … I know you were moved by divine forces … I send you off with an army. Two weeks … just two weeks later, I meet you and the city of Orleans has been saved. I’ve been saved …

  But the corners of his eyes cringed. He was faced again with all the cruel work bound up in being saved in part and never in full. All the new documentation, all the new embassies to Dijon, Rouen, Nantes, the Germans, the Pope.

  Charles: You shouldn’t be too influenced by my mother-in-law. She’s beyond herself with happiness.

  Jehanne: She’s right to be. It’s all going to happen.

  The long face looked even more menaced. He coughed.

  Charles: Is it easy to give up your blood?

  Jehanne: No, I yelled a lot. I wanted to be absolved. It’s as bad as for anyone, I suppose.

  Charles: Why does it have to happen? Why is it I’m not allowed strength and sundry other virtues? Eh?

  Jehanne: You’d die of pride. Being king and all that as well.

  He laughed, the creaky laugh she’d forgotten.

  Charles: I’d risk it.

  She couldn’t help telling him. She hoped it was as safe as telling a husband.

  Jehanne: It’s terrible. I’ve been worshipped in the streets. Women grab my stirrup to be cured of things. Of issues of blood, that sort of thing – just like Brother Jesus. No hope of it with me, no hope of cure, but they do it. I don’t blaspheme, I can’t stop them.

  He sounded light-headed.

  Charles: Let’s ride in together. You’ll be adored, I’ll be adored, God will be adored. There’ll be enough for all parties.

  That night there was a dinner in the town hall and he broke the rules of precedence to put her on his right. D’Alençon and his dark loving wife Marie were also there. Seeing her, Jehanne could not forget the occult noblewoman d’Alençon had ridden raving a month ago in this same city.

  Both the duke and his wife had sought her out in the lobby.

  Alençon: It’s all settled. I’ve bought my stand-ins back from the English. Now I can certainly go to war. On the Loire. And northwards.

  Marie: That part is over, you see, all the money’s raised. We can even pay it back if Jean takes lots of prisoners.

  Alençon: Lots of prisoners isn’t the best way. The best way is to get Normandy back. Best for the king. Best for us.

  She could tell they’d rehearsed the suggestions they were now making.

  Jehanne: I’m sorry. My advice tells me Rheims, not Normandy.

  Alençon: Normandy’s where the English live. Rouen is Bedford’s city.

  Jehanne: My advice is Rheims.

  Marie: You might think of Normandy, Jehanne.

  Alençon: You will if you love us.

  There was a half-bitter grin on his thin mouth. But he was also a little wary of trying that kind of pressure on her.

  Jehanne: I hope that isn’t the test, my handsome duke.

  Marie: The test?

  Jehanne: Of whether I love you both.

  She stared at the duke, to remind him of his night of crazy adultery.

  Marie: One thing we know: you do what you promise to do.

  Fat Georges sat at table with the thin sensuous wife who had to bear his weight, and Regnault scurfing into the dishes. They would not speak to her except for mumbles of congratulation but their spokesmen spoke to her. It seemed to her from the conversations at table that amongst the Council members the most admired policy for the coming month was to do nothing and hold talks with the Duke of Burgundy. Next most admired was to clear the English out of garrison towns on the Loire such as Beaugency, Meung, Jargeau, and then hold talks. Next most admired was to send armies into Normandy. It was Jehanne’s impression that least admired, most improbable and dangerous, was to go northeast to Rheims. For all that countryside was the Duke’s. You couldn’t do anything to create the risk of the Duke saying I won’t parley with you any more.

  All evening then Jehanne had to keep repeating it.

  Jehanne: I have no advice on Normandy.

  Also at the banquet was Maman Yolande. She sent a cup down the table for Jehanne to drink from and Jehanne did, sending it back. Yolande drained it, wiped her mouth and smiled slowly at Jehanne.

  She spent days waiting for the king outside his apartments in Tours. Every time he came out she strolled with him to chapel or council chambers and asked him about Rheims.

  Charles: Yes, yes.

  He said it as if he were acknowledging something in the weather: sleet, snow, undue heat.

  Jehanne: I won’t be here forever.

  Charles: None of us will.

  Jehanne: You know what I mean, dauphin.

  He whispered fiercely.

  Charles: Who will sacrifice you? No one will sacrifice you.

  Jehanne: Talbot, Fat Georges … I could give you a list.

  Charles: Rheims belongs to my cousin.

  Jehanne: To you.

  Charles: We’re not talking the same language.

  Jehanne: You say that too easily, dauphin.

  Charles: If I am king … kings aren’t meant to be back-chatted.

  Jehanne: The dauphin understands my respect for him.

  Charles: You’re an ingenuous girl. You don’t know the forces that are working against you …

  Jehanne: Ah!

  Charles: Why the all-knowing Ah?

  Jehanne: Forces to weaken me?

  Charles: Forces to …

  Jehanne: To?

  Charles: To … perhaps … perhaps put you in danger.

  Jehanne: Ah!

  He stopped. For a second, hope, pity, resentment, love, envy ran down his face.

  She went back singing to her apartments. She
let Guyenne sing all he wanted that day.

  What shape is heaven? (he sang)

  Heaven is nearly round but has pink elbows,

  Heaven is the elbowed circle of her arms.

  The dauphin returned to Chinon after a fortnight and she rode with him. Later in the month they moved to Loches, a sweet little city amongst vineyards in Touraine. In the river pastures, behind brown stone walls, stood a royal Château. The Bastard was waiting there to report to his king, and the king’s council. There were finance meetings every day, councils of state, reading of military reports and recommendations, supply conferences. Jehanne was invited to none of it.

  On a Friday she got a pair of iron-cuffs from the armoury of St Georges’s. The armourers naturally thought she wanted to chastise a servant. There was a key to each cuff and only a small length of chain connecting them. She locked her left wrist in one of the cuffs, put the key in the open right cuff, and carried the whole device hidden up the sleeve of her gown. (She had reverted briefly to women’s clothing supplied by Yolande.) She talked her way past guards into the great hall of the château where a series of little wainscoted cells had been set up for the king. She told two Augustinian secretaries she’d been sent for. While they explained how she was mistaken she knocked on the panelling where she could hear Charles’s voice and the Bastard’s.

  The king’s confessor, Maître Machet, just back from an embassy to the Duke of Burgundy, answered the door. There were five men inside, all looking knowledgeable, privileged to tell and be told royal things. She walked up to Charles, knelt and kissed his knees. The old blue cloth of his gown was acrid to the lips.

  When he put his hand on her shoulders she let the chain run down her sleeve and put the wristlet on him. The key turned. She removed it. She put it deep down her gown.

  Charles: What’s this, Jehanne?

  The Bastard looked at Machet. They didn’t know whether to laugh or go for a blacksmith.

  Jehanne: You know what it is.

  Charles: I don’t damn well know.

  Jehanne: Your commission asked for a sign. I said Orleans will be the sign. All right. The sign’s been given. Why would I say Rheims if it wasn’t the advice I get. And that’s the advice I get. Rheims, Rheims, Rheims.