by Ali Alizadeh
And I felt it wasn’t only me. Piérrone too seeks out any opportunity for them to be alone, to speak to Jeanne with sincerity, to enjoy Jeanne’s company. You somehow found a backgammon board, wooden pieces and ivory dice. You showed me how to advance my pieces and how to gather them on my side of the board. I adored the gentle, joyful sounds you made when one of us struck the other’s pieces. Piéronne teaches Jeanne how to defeat her in the game, and tells her that a simple mystic is no match for a powerful military captain in a game of strategy. I agreed with you that Brother Richard was wrong, that backgammon isn’t a corrupt game of chance that turns the mind away from God’s truths. I don’t believe in chance. I believe in fate. And that is why we met, Piéronne, isn’t it?
I asked Saint Catherine time and again to talk to me about you. This girl, so much like me and so cheerful and kind, she who keeps company with unhinged fanatics, she who has suddenly appeared in my life from a place I have never heard of, is she not the woman you’ve told me about, Sister?
And Jeanne’s Voices remain silent or counsel her about the war, the king and the English. Saint Catherine had stopped speaking to me about love. I understood why. I asked her if I will be damned, if I could touch you, if God hates women like me. She would not respond. I understood what I had to do. I had to end the war completely. Jeanne the Maid must liberate her entire nation before she can allow herself to be loved. Or else the Almighty may not forgive her unnatural desires.
But how extraordinary, their early intimacy. The month following the coronation. When something ails Jeanne, and no matter how she tries to conceal her displeasure, Piéronne senses her condition. And you’d come to me privately, ask me if there was something I wished to speak to you about. And I’d try to hold back the force of my tears, the sensation of having at last found you, you who cared for me. And these were the tears of happiness, and also of alarm. The fear of what was beyond my control and comprehension.
Talk to me, Jeanne. Why are you so upset?
Piéronne the Breton supplicates. The Maid answers with despondence.
The grand chamberlain says I’m being bellicose. But I’m not. On the very morning of the coronation I sent a letter to the Duke of Burgundy. I said the king would forgive him. I promised him, by God, I begged him for peace! I had my scribe write I beg you with clasped hands to make no more war on us. And he instead had the English send him reinforcements, Piéronne, and put guns in the walls of Paris…
Don’t cry, Jeanne. It makes me sad to see you like this.
Your body leant forward, your elbows were bent on your knees. Your bright eyes were fixed on me, and I felt so lucky and so distressed. Jeanne the Maid seethes on her bed, and Piéronne sits on a stool draped with light blue fabric.
The war was supposed to end with the king’s coronation, Piéronne. I don’t want this anymore. My Voices…they’re not happy with me.
What have they told you, Jeanne?
Saint Catherine wants me to end this horrible war. But all that interests the king and his dimwitted advisors is negotiating a truce that will give more time to the duke to strengthen his forces.
You’ve spoken to the king about this?
Of course I have. And he tells me fighting is costly and we need to wait. As though the English will simply get bored and leave France and the duke will send us the keys to Paris as a gift! By God, Piéronne. I want peace now.
We were in my bedchamber, only us two, and I was speaking to you without inhibition, with my longing to put my arms around you the only secret I kept from you. How quickly your presence had become a part of my life. You spoke with a little trepidation and much sympathy.
I hate this war too, Jeanne. But if the king doesn’t want to fight anymore then maybe you could have a respite. Your parents and brothers came to see you at Reims for the coronation and they were so proud of you. You should’ve seen them! Maybe you could return to Lorraine with them for a little while, and…Jeanne, why are you looking at me like that?
Jeanne’s already large brown eyes are now dry and larger still, her distinct eyebrows have firmed. I was appalled to hear you tell me to leave you. But were you testing me?
No, Piéronne. I’m not leaving you and the army and the king. My parents are not proud of me. They despise me. My father once threatened to drown me. All they want is to take advantage of my fame and have the king ennoble them. All they’ve ever coveted has been titles and property. But that’s not what I want, Piéronne. Not at all what I want.
So what is it that you want, Jeanne?
I closed my eyes and held my breath. And then I felt the soft tips of your fingers on my tensed hands. Jeanne’s body is filled with an intensity and stifled movement and she struggles to swallow the words love and you.
Peace, Piéronne. A firm and lasting peace is what I want.
You smiled, my love, or maybe you beamed, as though you had looked into my soul, as though you had understood that I wanted you. As though you were pleased by my yearning. Your dimples, Piéronne, I’d seen them before in the face of my angel, in the images of saints.
Dear Jeanne. Some people think being famous, being close to the king of France is what makes you happy, but they don’t know you. Can I tell you a secret? Madame Catherine de la Rochelle has asked me to fake sickness so that you’d send for her instead of me. She showed me how to make myself sneeze! Promise me you won’t tell her I said that. She’s dying to tell you all about her visions. She admires you too.
Jeanne is obviously displeased to hear about that woman. She speaks candidly, makes no attempt at hiding her contempt.
She’s dying to have me recommend her to Queen Marie. She knows the queen is fond of wasting money on swindlers like her.
You lowered your eyebrows and face, angled your eyes away from mine.
Jeanne, we too hear heavenly Voices. Does that make us swindlers?
No, Piéronne, you were not fake. You were brilliantly true. I sat up, touched you on the shoulder, or did I stroke you on the shoulder, to apologise, to take back my meanness, to show you I was not careless.
No, Piéronne, we’re not like that. We’re here because we’re not like others. I don’t care about the queen’s coffers or ennoblement or fine garments or fine horses. I truly don’t. I’m here because my Voices have promised me much greater things.
You raised your lovely face. Piéronne the Breton exhales and the air of her lungs tickles the skin on the back of Jeanne’s hand on her shoulder. You spoke with curiosity, with nervousness.
Things greater than being the most admired woman in all Christendom?
Jeanne stands up and walks to the window of the chamber. She has been assigned this room in the castle of the town where the king is evading a final confrontation with France’s remaining enemies. I had to divert my eyes from you. Jeanne is able to curb the longing to tell Piéronne that renown is nothing compared to love. And now that I had met you I no longer wished to continue with a loveless life. The Maid looks at the towers, the church spires and the blue banners of her soldiers camping outside the walls. She envisages attacking an English stronghold, running head-on at a line of enemy men-at-arms, to conjure the courage to reveal her volitions.
When the war is over, Piéronne, when we’ve liberated Paris, I wish to visit the great city. With you. I want to ask the king to reward me for all I’ve done for him, by leasing a small dwelling for me. Not a castle. A timber-framed house. The citizens of Orléans have already offered me such an abode. I could move there. I wish to study, learn letters and perhaps write poetry. I had a friend who was a poetess. I may even go on pilgrimage to Rome. Will you come with me?
My dearest Piéronne. Your eyes, already larger than any I had seen, expanded even more and your eyebrows lifted and your smile was wondrous.
Oh Jeanne, I’ll tell you all about the romances of Brittany, and you can write about our famous tales of love, Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseult. Would you, Jeanne, would you take me with you? I’d tell you all I remember of
these stories and I could also be your maidservant, or stable-girl, or I could…I’m sorry Jeanne, I don’t know what I’m saying. You must forgive me. I should go now. I just remembered that I should be, I think, helping Brother Richard with distributing alms. I have to go.
Jeanne does not stare at Piéronne’s blushing face for fear of embarrassing her, and the Maid wonders if her companion senses the frenzy of her own heart as they embrace before Piéronne leaves the room. I truly felt at that moment, Piéronne, that the promise of my Voices would be fulfilled. That I would be loved by you. And I’m sure Saint Catherine had told me this love was not a sin, even if it could only exist as a secret between us. But I had to end the war first. If I did this for God, then God would let me be loved.
11
August 1429
A most calamitous development. A new English army has landed in Calais, led in person by the grim regent of England. The king of France’s rotund grand chamberlain entertains the Burgundian traitors in his castle, and the English invaders are fast approaching France’s good towns. Burning with revenge and the urge to burn the heretical bitch, Joan of Arc. Jeanne the Holy Maid is publicly anxious. Could it be that the saints are raising their voices in her ears? She is committed to convincing the king to let her counter the new English force. She reminds the king of her great victory in the fields of Patay. She boasts that she now has more than ten thousand battle-hardened fighters. (Which is frankly an overstatement.) The king says little. Jeanne doesn’t understand his reluctance. For once all the other French captains, even the conceited Constable Richemont and the morbidly sleazy Baron de Rais, support her position. The king is most unquestionably distant and unresponsive, but finally coughs and nods.
13 August
Jeanne does not lose any time after receiving the king’s consent to set forth to defeat the English once and for all. She bids Piéronne farewell, is not tearful. She’s confident that she’ll beat the English as she has done before, that Burgundy will return Paris to France and the war will end. She will then be happy. She will then be allowed to find happiness in love. And when I hugged you before mounting my horse, Piéronne, I’m sure I saw the glint of tears in your eyes. The Breton is compassionate, solemn, soulful.
Jeanne, you won’t get hurt, will you?
Jeanne shakes her head, smiles and gallops to the vanguard. Fierce, energetic, uncompromising. Does she know that she’s no longer leading an army only for herself, for her Voices, for France? She does. I was fighting for us too, Piéronne, for the two of us.
14 August
In the evening the brave damsel of Heaven intercepts the brutal English outside the town of Montépilloy. She calls to her captains. She informs them that giving the wretched foe time to dig ditches and prepare its bowmen would be a disastrous error. She is restless and orders her agile page Raymond to arm her immediately. She mounts her steed, raises her victorious standard, couches her lance, and a company of knights join her. Their skirmish catches the enemy by surprise. The female warrior, steel-coated, her armour glowing, personally unhorses two of the invaders with her lance. But she does not kill any with her own hallowed hands. (Or does she?) A seething English captain says an utterly puerile thing and fires his crossbow at the female knight. He misses and his sweaty neck meets the sword of the Maid’s squire. The Englishman’s head tumbles before her. She is no longer unnerved by the sight of bloody death. She has no time for squeamishness. She has to have this war finished. The English withdraw but the French do not give chase. Night falls and the Maid’s men are tired from the march.
15 August
The valiant French awake very early in the morning. They hear mass and chant along with the Maid’s confessor and some mumble and struggle to remember the words about their daily bread and about being delivered from evil. They then mount their horses and advance on the English camp to annihilate the godless enemy. The English have spent the night building tall barricades and planting a forest of sharp pikes in front of their palisades, and now after saying their own prayers (no doubt very poorly) they are hiding from the righteous French. Jeanne does not have time to assemble a body of culverins and hand-gunners to batter her opponents’ hideout. She rides forth and howls in a wonderfully youthful and passionate screech.
By God, Englishmen! Have courage. Come out and fight me.
These English cowards, they imagine that the Maid is a bloodthirsty witch with demonic powers. Some who have not understood her French have soiled their breeches. (And a handful would be captured and hanged that night by the order of the regent of England for desertion and for their unpardonable, unmanly fear of a tiny, despicable French slut.) The divine Maid shouts and tells her men to withdraw a little to give the English room to emerge from behind their fences to form a fighting party, but the enemy do not give them battle. The sun is setting and the Maid promises to unleash her artillery upon the doomed Englishmen as soon as her main body has been assembled – but the king of France summons her and the other captains the next morning.
16 August
The English are contained, and it is our wish to return to our loyal towns and strongholds in the south. The campaign to have us crowned has been a tremendous success, and we declare the expedition at an end.
I wish to speak, Your Royal Highness.
The king does not permit her to speak in the council of war, and after the other captains have left in disbelief and disappointment, Jeanne walks towards the king’s throne and kneels before him.
My good king. What in God’s name is this?
Politics, my good warrior. Diplomacy.
Give me three more days, sire. I’ll rout the English before your diplomats have drafted a single page of their treaty.
The Duke of Burgundy’s envoy has promised the grand chamberlain that the English will retreat to Normandy once a peace accord has been concluded between us and the duke. Is peace not what God or Saint Michel or whoever wants, Jeanne?
The English are here now, my king. We could destroy them entirely in two days, and capture their regent. Have I not already captured Talbot and Suffolk for you?
The king shakes his head.
Before the coronation it was you, Jeanne, who favoured giving the adversary the prospect of surrendering peacefully. Is there a reason for your current impatience?
I kept quiet, Piéronne.
Thrashing the English is one thing, Jeanne, and it is something you’re obviously rather good at, but compelling a prince as vindictive as the Duke of Burgundy to submit to me is another matter entirely. I assume that you have heard that long ago, when I too was an impetuous youth, I allegedly had the duke’s father assassinated. If I did commit this crime, then it was my gravest mistake. Let us be cautious this time, shall we?
The French abandon the assault on the English and return to the city of Compiègne. I missed you with all my being but I did not send for you. Her Voices are not being kind to her and again imply that she end the war before she and Piéronne can be together. She is therefore thrilled when the king tells her, in confidence, that the discussions with the Duke of Burgundy’s emissaries have stalled. The duke is making too many demands. The king wishes to coerce the duke into being more cooperative, and the audacious Maid responds, perhaps impulsively, that the army of France should do what it should have done weeks ago.
Paris? Directly?
Yes, my king.
The greatest city in Christendom, perhaps the most strongly fortified. Jeanne, you do realise that it has never been taken in battle?
Did the English not take it from you when you were a crown prince?
Not quite. There was a mutiny led by the previous Duke of Burgundy within the city, and we had to flee from the Louvre. I was only a youth then. Thousands of my good subjects were butchered by the duke’s militias before the gates were opened to Henry of Lancaster. But that is all history now. No, I do not think it feasible to breach the walls of Paris, but I do like the concept of persuading the duke to seek fewer concessions from me.
Threatening Paris may be a good strategy.
I can take Paris, good king.
King Charles smiles ambiguously, perhaps condescendingly, and asks the Maid how long it would take for she and Duke d’Alençon to mobilise their forces again. They are marching towards Paris two days later, and reach the town of Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of the city, in three days.
26 August
We camped in Saint-Denis. The Maid rides out to inspect Paris’s famous defence works. The stone walls are indeed formidable but the Maid has been informed that many of the civilians in the city wish to become her king’s loyal French subjects. I had more soldiers than the Duke of Burgundy. She reminds herself of how many castles and cities she has taken since the start of her vocation as a soldier. And my Voices have told me many times this victory would be the true end of my mission. With the French regaining Paris, the invaders would be utterly repulsed and all disobedient dukes humbled into submission to her king. France will become united and peaceful. And she could then take off her armour and put aside her standard and her sword. She rests very little and works furiously to prepare the siege. D’Alençon joins her and they plan their assault immediately. The Maid has seen a great windmill on a hill near the place of La Chapelle, overlooking the Saint-Denis gate of Paris. She decides that they will install their strongest projectiles there, to fire missiles at the gate from that position. Inside Paris, sinister politicians, in thrall to the Duke of Burgundy’s excessive wealth, hold a public meeting and renew their allegiance to England. They issue orders to strengthen the city’s defences against the Sorceress.
