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

by Thomas Keneally

  The stag hung bleeding from a triangle of stakes behind the English. It looked almost as if this were the just and holy thing they would die defending.

  Talbot: Make a line now, make a line.

  Talbot was taken prisoner but all the other English were beheaded while running, or spiked, or cut open.

  La Hire took his cavalry straight on over the bodies towards Lignerolles. Through two woods they found Fastolf’s column spread out on the Paris road and not yet safely in place. Only a token flank of English knights rode on its left rear.

  Fastolf left the column and galloped for Lignerolles. So too anyone else with a horse.

  But two thousand men were caught and all killed.

  When the men behind the wagons at Lignerolles saw Fastolf and other knights riding without any pride towards them they began running themselves, up through the forests, up the Paris road.

  La Hire’s men caught eight hundred Goddam peasant-bowmen at Lignerolles alone and cut up every one of them.

  Fifteen hundred negotiable prisoners were taken. La Hire thought that was wonderful.

  All up and down the Paris road from Patay to Janville Englishmen were caught and killed.

  The common militia-men even killed English knights, for reasons of class and to spite their betters and to show that the nature of the world was changing, that it was God’s will.

  Jehanne, in the French rear-guard, rode fast but a mile behind all the killing. The cut-open dead crowding village streets had already lost their individual features by the time she got to them. She had forgotten even in the little while since Jargeau how terrible the nameless dead were.

  When she rode into the wide but unwalled town of Patay with Gilles and d’Aulon at six o’clock militia-men were slowly pole-axing a contingent of Englishmen in front of the market-cross. In the name of these severed English we O Christ adore you. That could have been their prayer. Pasquerel anointed a few still alive and the ones still in line he sent off to a Benedictine monastery near Patay where they all swore not to fight for a year.

  Jehanne was becoming an authentic general and found it possible to dine that night without thinking too much of the daily dead. She stayed with Alençon, who arranged a celebration dinner. Talbot had been invited. He was middle-aged with a firm but not humourless face. He spoke good French. He would not speak to Jehanne, but she watched him closely. Now and then she put her hand in under the shoulder of her loose shirt and slowly scratched her wound scar.

  D’Alençon was dizzy with triumph. Therefore he wanted to say memorable things for his historiographer, Cagny, to polish up for the record.

  Alençon: My Lord Talbot, this morning you didn’t think you’d eat with us tonight.

  Talbot: It’s the fortunes of war.

  He was the first soldier to use the phrase and it was applauded by all around, including the Bastard who was a grammar scholar.

  Bastard: Wouldn’t you say this is the worst thing that’s happened to your people for many years?

  My Lord Talbot looked at his hands.

  Talbot: Yes. However, I think you ought to consider the means it was done by.

  All at table, except Talbot, looked at Jehanne. It occurred to her the best thing was to smile vividly back at them.

  A letter from Bedford to the Royal Council at Westminster. Everything prospered for Your Highness until the June when, God knows by whose advice, the siege of Orleans was instituted. It was after the tragedy that struck so unexpectedly at my cousin Salisbury that an immense mischief fell on your soldiers who gathered in large numbers in front of Orleans. This mischief was, in my opinion, the result of an intermingling of false belief with the insensate fear they had of that limb of Satan called the Girl, or the Pucelle, who used enchantments and spells against them. Not only have great numbers of your people been killed but also those who survived have lost their morale to a startling degree. So your opponents and enemies have plenty of encouragement to gather together again in vast numbers.

  She got ready to leave Patay the next morning, but so did many others, wanting to rush their picture of the battle to Charles. They lunched at Beaugency – d’Alençon, Gilles, de Richemont, Poton, la Hire, Jehanne.

  Richemont cornered Jehanne.

  Richemont: Do you feel no guilt for all the dead?

  Jehanne: It’s a fact of war: that there’ll be dead. I had to understand that or go mad.

  Richemont: So you feel no grief?

  Jehanne: Now, Monsieur, grief is a different question … a different question.

  But where was the king? Like him not to show himself even to get good news!

  After three days it was discovered he was staying at the château de St Benoît, twenty miles up river from Orleans.

  De Boussac: Hasn’t he any bloody consideration for us?

  They began riding up river in a heat wave. All the good news went dry in their throats.

  Messire: No grief for the dead. No grief, my rose.

  Jehanne: Those dead? In Jesus’ garden of vengeance?

  Messire: Jesus died for them.

  Margaret: Jesus squealed when the iron went in.

  Catherine: I squealed when the iron went in.

  Margaret: There is no consolation at the time.

  Catherine: But that hell has no eternity, that hell ends.

  Messire: No grief my little she-soldier.

  Catherine: Our little he-nun.

  Margaret: Our red rose.

  Yolande, of course, rode out of St Benoît to meet her on the road and talk to her. These conferences as always disturbed Jehanne, giving her the painful conviction that Council members wove patterns of self-interest she had no chance of reading. Yet some of Yolande’s information was helpful.

  Yolande (on Regnault): He wants to anoint Charles in his own city. That’ll make a great bond between Charles and him.

  Yolande (on Charles): He wants it, that sacred oil, he knows what it means to people. And he thinks he can have it. The Duke of Burgundy’s forces are off, re-occupying Flanders. In any case, the Duke doesn’t really want the English so strong that their six-year-old gets the double crown in Rheims.

  Yolande (on the road to Rheims): Most of all, Charles has had secret delegations from citizens in Auxerre, Troyes, Rheims. Saying he’s well loved, that they want to open the gates to him. They have to cover themselves by putting up resistance, but if the French army comes they’ll try to talk the garrisons round from inside the walls.

  Charles let her in to see him in the great hall of St Benoît. He had become more ceremonious, his chair was draped and canopied. Fat Georges was well off on the right, at a seemly distance, signing papers on an oak table. Regnault and Machet were at other tables in the room. My God, she thought, he’s given up closets, he’s occupying a kingly space.

  Rising, Regnault got between the king and her. His sick skin snowed on her as she kissed his True-Cross ring. She could smell disease in his clothes. But he wanted to see his city before he died.

  Regnault stepped back to let her go to Charles.

  Charles’s face recurred to her on sight, the features were like a memory planted in her womb in the days when she was in Zabillet’s. She felt again the features had the force of law, and what the law was was that she must lose her blood for him.

  She hugged his knobby knees.

  His hands touched the tips of the basin-crop behind her ears.

  Jehanne: I’m glad to see you’ve come out of tiny rooms.

  Charles: Have I? It’s just a matter of convenience.

  Jehanne: Don’t have any doubts, you’ll get all your kingdom, you’ll be crowned and anointed.

  Charles: Is there anything I can do for you?

  It sounded as if her promises gave him heartburn. He’d rather give her a present than listen.

  Jehanne: There isn’t anything. Just that the Constable de Richemont asked me to ask you to pardon him.

  Charles: Oh?

  Jehanne: He’ll take oaths. And I think he wants Chin
on back. And to prove I’m a dangerous witch.

  Regnault chuckled quite roundly, like an ordinary person.

  Charles: When I wrote to the good towns about the great triumph at Patay …

  Jehanne: Yes?

  Charles: I said the girl and d’Alençon were the ones who did it.

  Jehanne: I was stuck right at the back with Gilles. I kept riding over terrible corpses.

  Charles: It was done by your virtue.

  He was always trying to buy her off by saying he’d written praising letters.

  Jehanne: Dauphin?

  He knew what she would ask.

  Charles: Oh God, what?

  She spoke in a small cajoling voice, a courtesan voice, foreign to her.

  Jehanne: Rheims! Rheims!

  That night she sat at her window in St Benoit. She watched the Loire viscid as lead under a vast moon rising out of the vineyards on the north. Minguet had been sent to bed, Pasquerel read by the empty fireplace and d’Aulon had gone to a finance conference with the Master of Requests.

  At nine o’clock the door opened and four tall men in crimson and yellow with hands on their sword hilts stamped into her apartments.

  Intruder: Mademoiselle, I am the Monsieur de Beaumont. You have to come with me to meet a friend.

  Jehanne: What friend?

  Intruder: Monsieur de Richemont.

  Jehanne: No. I’ve done enough for him.

  Intruder: You’ve got to come now. You can’t knock us back.

  She saw that knives had arrived in their hands somehow.

  Pasquerel came away from the fireplace and so was between Jehanne and Beaumont and the others.

  Pasquerel: You’ll be excommunicated if you touch me.

  Intruder: God almighty, will we?

  It worried them so little that one of them forced Pasquerel back against the hearth and put the knife-edge to his neck.

  They took her downstairs and across the outer court. By the barbican gate stood a soldier minding seven or eight horses. The impassive moon lit their rumps. Jehanne was shivering and felt sick. Someone called out behind her.

  The men twitched and were all at once less masterly.

  Gilles and his squire walked up. D’Aulon came forward through the barbican.

  Gilles: Where are you going, Jehanne?

  Jehanne: To Monsieur de Richemont. That’s what they tell me.

  Gilles: Did you especially want to go, dear lady?

  Jehanne: No.

  Beaumont: Mademoiselle, you know you had an appointment.

  Jehanne: Gilles, his name is Beaumont. He’s a liar.

  Gilles: I know of a Beaumont. One day a captain of the guards called Camus was cut to pieces on the riverbank outside Poitiers. Weren’t you there then, Monsieur Beaumont?

  Beaumont: You aren’t properly informed.

  Gilles: It must have been your putative father.

  Beaumont: You can’t talk like that to a knight banneret.

  Gilles: Richemont wants to examine her for witchcraft, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?

  Beaumont: I don’t know. Is it so bad to be troubled about witchcraft close to the king? Am I to report that you object, Monsieur de Rais?

  Gilles: Richemont’s been pardoned and given back his title to Parthenay. Tell him his nephew said he ought to be happy with that much, he oughtn’t to want burnt flesh as well.

  Beaumont: You with your choir-boys aren’t clean.

  Gilles: Who is?

  Beaumont made a dismissive squeak with the corners of his mouth and went and mounted his horse. He and his party rode out of the barbican at a walk.

  The girl sought about for a plinth to sit on.

  Gilles: Don’t ever do any more favours for my uncle de Richemont.

  She admitted she wouldn’t.

  At Gien which Jehanne had come to in the rain with Colet and Bertrand and Jean de Metz four months ago, four lifetimes, another great army gathered quickly in the river meadows. A week after Patay there were more than twenty thousand men there. Their mounts were poor, they were self-equipped. All they got in pay was an advance of three francs a head. Grain cost twelve francs a bushel, for there wasn’t much of a planting this year. In every district only areas close to the walls were being farmed. Vegetable gardens had been made in knocked-down suburbs, but even beets and beans were rich man’s food in mid-summer 1429.

  By 27 June another ten thousand men had come to Gien. The camp was full of whores dressed as soldiers. For a franc they let their hose down at the back and soldiers took them that way. Food was too expensive and could be stolen anyhow. The one commodity of steady price and sure satisfaction were the booted whores who dropped their hose when the priests weren’t looking.

  On that day the forward party left Gien. De Boussac was in command, la Hire, Poton, Gilles and the girl were with him. They probed for nice Burgundian cities of hazy loyalty and by midday the direction they took was towards Auxerre rather than Sens.

  Four days later they rode down through vineyards and cornfields to the city of Auxerre. Jehanne had been here too in the rain of early March. On the first day of July, the breeze blowing grit from the wastelands to the west, it looked a different town.

  They camped round its walls, in burnt-out suburbs and cornfields. They shot hares and rats and caught tench and shads in the Yonne. But still they were hungry, and the whores went about in their jerkins and breeks.

  No one told Jehanne.

  The king arrived. All Auxerre, even the Burgundian and Goddam soldiers, were on the walls to see him.

  Ambassadors came out from the town. Georges de la Tremoille rode in and didn’t ride out again for thirty-six hours.

  Gilles: They say he’s been given two thousand pounds by the town Council to act as mediator.

  Jehanne: Two thousand?

  Gilles: He’ll keep it without a blush, dear lady.

  Near the Gien Road they had put up a blue marquee with saffron silk fringes. Charles lived there – without his queen, for it had been decided the journey would be too harsh and risky for that sallow lady.

  Jehanne dined there most nights. The meals in a hungry camp and landscape could not be too opulent. Like her, he had a delicate stomach – thin stew and sopped bread with apple were all he ate most evenings. He was fasting in any case for his coronation and a safe trip.

  Charles: Jehanne, do you think it’s a good thing to come to terms with the people in Auxerre?

  Jehanne: Terms?

  She knew it was a diplomacy word. Her Voices never used it.

  Charles: If I take the city, and I can, there’ll be terrible thieving. There’ll be killing of the garrison. Women will be misused. I want to go to Rheims a merciful king.

  He was in the habit now of thinking of himself, as beyond argument, king.

  On terms that it victualled the army, Auxerre gave in to him. One hour its garrison rode out over the Yonne bridge, the next Charles rode in. His army made a sullen transit of the city only so that each man could receive a small measure of flour on leaving the St Pierre gate.

  The note of credit the city council made out in indemnity to its king was to the sum of twenty-thousand livres tournois. For royal mercy had a price. And it was high.

  Jehanne visited a fresco in St Etienne she had seen when crossing rainy France in February. Jesus, dressed as well as she was now, riding in a forest with four rich friends. Knowledge was in his eyes.

  On the fourth day of July St Florentin surrendered to Charles. That afternoon Jehanne was riding with the forward-guard in wild hills. War had let the forests grow close in towards the road. They crossed a fast stream and rode into a grey little village, perhaps fifty people living where two hundred had ten years ago. Jehanne could see the poor cornfields on the north, movements in the stooks where the few able men and pretty women were hiding.

  Above the village, on its own hill, was an ancient tower, said to be Burgundian and manned. Nothing but crows moved in its slit windows. The Troyes road ran around its base i
nto horse-chestnut and oak.

  Down the road ahead a Franciscan marched with a holy water pot and sprinkler. He dipped, and sprinkled the umber landscape. When he saw riders coming out of the village he stopped and crossed himself with the knob on the end of the sprinkler.

  Amongst the two hundred horsemen no one doubted what it was about: he’d come out of Troyes to drive devils out of Jehanne.

  He walked on. You could see he was very frightened, but he didn’t halt till he was close, no more than twenty paces.

  Franciscan: Brother Richard of Paris, come to destroy the anti-Christ.

  He had a dark bony face, like some Spaniards. He played about with the sprinkler. Jehanne felt consecrated water land on her upper lip. If it were necessary the friar would run. He had his weight back on his left foot.

  Jehanne: Come up bold as brass. I won’t fly away.

  After a vast sign of the cross he recited an exorcism. Down the line knights chatted about weather and war. Jehanne and General Poton tolerated the ritual. At last the priest came to its end.

  Jehanne: Does that always work?

  Brother Richard: Oh yes.

  Jehanne: Good.

  Brother Richard: Yes, you didn’t spit, fit or scream. You’re not anti-Christ.

  Jehanne: Or the devil.

  Brother Richard: That’s right. You’re not.

  Jehanne: Good.

  Brother Richard: I was sent by the city council of Troyes to test you out.

  He seemed pleased to have been used in such a high emergency.

  Jehanne: Why you, Brother?

  Brother Richard: They know I’m fortunate enough to be Christ’s friend. For example, I was expelled from Paris for preaching too well.

  Poton: You malign yourself, Brother.

  Brother Richard: I preached at Boulogne-la-Petite one day so well that people went away and started fires that burnt a day and a night. The heads of houses threw all their vanities on the fires: gaming clothes, draught-boards, dice-boxes, billiard cues. It was spectacular. But of course the University of Paris didn’t like it. They like a debased population. It’s easier to fool those types of people. Women burnt their hennins and pads and whalebone hoods, by the way. A great fire. That’s the sort of man I am. By Christ’s grace. I’m very pleased you’re from God, Mademoiselle. Everything is possible for the year 1430. The world has got at the most two years to go. Antichrist is coming in 1430. When I was in Palestine many years ago I met Syrian Jews making for Babylon. I asked them why. They said we’re going to see the Messiah born. Now their Messiah is our Antichrist, who shall be born in Babylon, brought up in Bethsaida and grow to manhood in Chorazim. You have to pardon me for thinking you might be his agent …