by Ali Alizadeh
It’s a traveller or a possible boarder. If so, why has she asked to speak to the abbess? They meet in the doorway of the cloister. The abbess is a little surprised by the visitor. A small, young woman on her own, on foot, who kneels and crosses herself before the guarded matriarch. She’s coated in an elegant blue cloak. Locks of light orange hair hang over her face, over her iridescent blue eyes.
Why do you wish to see me, my daughter?
I must join you, Mother. I have nowhere else to go.
The abbess sighs. But she has no desire to interrogate the woman. No doubt a prostitute or a knight’s mistress. The forces of the Valois king’s infamous female warrior are marching through this area to make war on the Burgundians laying siege to Compiègne, to the north of Corbeil. This wretched woman could be a camp follower, brought here by French soldiers and abandoned by them. The abbess closes her eyes and nods.
Is that a Breton accent, my daughter?
Yes, Mother. Please, Mother. I’ll learn Latin if you teach me, and I’ll become a good nun. I can cook Breton food and brew beer, and I’m very pious. I used to be a follower of a Franciscan friar. I pray every day, Mother.
There is no need for her to plead. The abbess herself was born in Brittany, and there’s always room in her house of God for an unfortunate female outcast. The nuns operate a small infirmary, and the stranger may sleep there. In the coming days, the newcomer works with exceptional diligence, tending to the sick and aiding the servants. She is soon viewed favourably by most of the nuns. She is invited to the abbess’s bedchamber for a conversation.
Piéronne, my child. It would be most unusual to waive an entry fee, and you do not own your own habit and bedding. But I have seen you pray and you are most conscientious. We may begin your probationary period, and you may be professed by the end of the year.
Thank you, Mother.
You must take your vows, of course, and while I have not inquired into your past, my child, I trust that you would have already told me if you are wanted for a crime, or if your past actions could bring us harm.
That night, as the abbess’s self-contented smile fades and she starts to snore, Piéronne is kept awake by her recollections. She tosses restlessly on the mattress laid for her on the cobbled floor of the infirmary. She tries to force her mind to surrender to sleep. She speaks to God and listens for His voice. She instead hears a sick man cough, retch and spit a dollop of phlegm not far from her. Outside the abbey, nocturnal beasts are unsettled by the humanly indiscernible quivering of the ground. The almost inaudible commotion of the armies of the Duke of Burgundy and their English allies. Their cavalry, siege engines and their determination to ensnare, defeat and destroy their French adversary, Jeanne the Maid.
5
It is suppertime. Most nuns and novices are eating quietly at the refectory of the Abbey of Corbeil. Except for a chatty middle-aged sister who relates the day’s sensational news. She’s heard it with her own ears. Jeanne the Maid has been pulled off her horse. Captured by an archer fighting for a knight loyal to the Duke of Burgundy outside the walls of the city of Compiègne. The newcomer, Piéronne, tries to continue eating. She is clearly, immediately unwell.
At night she shivers and clasps her hands. When God finally speaks to her, He recalls the encounter in the city of Troyes, less than a year ago. He is severe. Trained to trick and charm the powerful. Brother Richard had told her to approach the French king’s famed female champion. Piéronne can’t dispel the memory of Jeanne’s brown eyes. Such large, firm eyes. Their seriousness, their loneliness. It wasn’t her fault, was it? She had been expected to play the part of a devotee, to endear herself to the king’s favourite captain. To advance Brother Richard’s ambitions. Her deviousness, and Jeanne’s strong, beautiful eyebrows.
Piéronne lies awake in the dank infirmary.
And she remembers Jeanne’s undeniable joy. Joy at being approached by a kindly other. And, again, the deception. And then, Jeanne’s forbidden yearning. Piéronne opens her eyes and stares into the room’s great darkness. Jeanne’s unyielding confidence and sincerity. The heroine’s immediate attraction to Piéronne. Piéronne’s impulse to exploit this. Jeanne’s growing warmth, their intimacy. Their games of backgammon and chess.
How did she truly feel about the famous Maid of Lorraine when she first met her? In Jeanne’s tent that night, when she presented the knight with a plate of food. Had the would-be opportunist not been moved by Jeanne’s open kindness? And months later, had Piéronne not exceeded Brother Richard’s plan by kissing Jeanne, caressing the warrior, pleasuring her body? She had succumbed to lust, the thrills of clandestine romance. She hears God again. Truth shall overcome the obscurity of delusion. Shall it? Where is Jeanne now? In chains, being beaten by vile English soldiers?
Piéronne sits up. Why did you let them get their hands on you, Jeanne? And why hadn’t Piéronne abided by Brother Richard’s plan? The memory of their shared moments is too vivid, too tangible. Jeanne’s bedchamber in the grand chamberlain’s castle. Jeanne’s timid hands, gradually losing their trepidation upon contact with Piéronne’s skin. The open softness, the lusciousness of the fighter’s lips. Their intensity. The urgency of their bodily connection. The rhythm of their tears and shame and gratitude and sin. Piéronne stifles her crying. Why did you go to Compiègne, Jeanne? Why do you want them to hurt you?
She can’t rise in the morning. Her eyes are open but they lack wakefulness. She must be feverish. Weeks pass. Then, fists clobber at the doors of the abbey and three armed men enter the chapel. The abbess orders the nuns out of the chapel. She receives the men of the Magistrate of Paris with apprehension.
A woman by the name of Piéronne, known as the Breton.
What of her, squire?
She stands accused of the crime of blasphemy.
The abbess fidgets and asks the men to control their voices. She has the listless girl brought to her and fearfully repeats the allegation. Is it true?
No, Mother.
The men’s leader observes the women indifferently.
We have sworn testimony by a lady who was the Breton’s companion. They were both followers of the wayward Franciscan friar Richard. The accused is known to have claimed to hear the voice of God. She is said to claim to see Him wear a long white robe with a crimson tunic underneath.
The abbess sighs and sits on a pew. The man continues.
It has also been stated that the accused requested to be administered the Eucharist twice on the same day. That is zealotry, possibly sacrilege. And it is claimed that she did this in the company of Jeanne the Maid, the disgraced enemy and prisoner of my lord, Phillip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy.
The abbess flinches at hearing the name of the realm’s most notorious woman. She fixes Piéronne with a fierce gaze. Piéronne’s painstakingly expressionless face.
The two women – Piéronne and the abbess, arrested on the charge of harbouring a blasphemer – are escorted out of the abbey. They are ordered to sit in a small cart and are driven to Paris, to be interned in a run-down church. They are brought before the magistrate a week later. An echoing, overcrowded hall. Clerics and priests occupy the dais and a party of spearmen takes up the rear of the room. The accused are seated below the platform, flanked by columns of chattering spectators. Piéronne is mortified and silent. She is not surprised to find Catherine de la Rochelle among the accused. But Catherine is not anxious. Despite the quantity of rosaries and crosses adorning her large figure, she springs to her feet energetically and approaches Piéronne before the hearing begins. She places a hand on the girl’s head of tangled hair.
Fear not, my poor little child. I too have been charged with blasphemy. But this is procedure. They are gathering accounts against that wretched travesty. The English want to burn her for sorcery and vice.
Piéronne recoils, shakes Catherine’s hand off her head.
Why did you tell them about my visions, Catherine? Why did you tell them about me?
The older woman sm
iles compassionately.
They will free us once we give them the truth about that repulsive wench, my darling. We shall help them find her guilty of all sorts of wickedness. We shall then find a new community together, Piéronne. I shall take care of you as before.
Piéronne closes her eyes. She presses her lips and eyelids with fear and confusion. Her cheeks are moist, tremulous.
6
What is known of Piéronne the Breton and her trial comes from a minor entry, one paragraph, in Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, an account of events of that time written by an anonymous Parisian. It is September 1430. The first person to be examined is the self-proclaimed mystic Catherine de la Rochelle. She is questioned by a University of Paris theologian about her claim to receive nightly visits from a White Lady of Heaven. Can she prove the veracity and divinity of this apparition to the court?
It is a private spiritual experience, sire. But I can assure you that it is wholly godly.
How can you aver it as a private matter, Madame, when it is known to many that you used this supposed experience as grounds for forging a vocation as a seer?
I have never sought to mislead my patrons, sire, and as a pious Christian, had I any suspicion about the innate goodness of my –
Madame. What interests us is the matter of your acquaintance with the woman known as Jeanne the Maid, a prisoner of my lord the Duke of Burgundy, charged with the heinous crimes of heresy and idolatry.
Catherine responds dramatically after an equally theatrical sigh.
I have indeed known the said woman, good sire.
Very well, then. Inform the court of her character. She claims to have been propelled by Heaven to champion the pretender to the throne of France, the bastard prince, Charles of Valois.
I sincerely believe that this Jeanne does hear Voices, honourable sire.
You do, Madame? Do you wish to defend her?
Nay, sire. Her Voices are not from Heaven. They are from Satan.
The examiners sit up, nod, and transcribe in earnest. Seated behind the self-important defendant, Piéronne creases the hem of her cloak in her fists, uncontrollably.
Do go on, Madame.
The so-called Maid herself told me, gentle sire, that she had lied to her so-called king. She’s a believer in fairies and ancient dark forces that roamed this land before the coming of the glorious light of our mother, the Holy Church. I had the misfortune of spending a night with this woman, during which I tried to persuade her to see the light of truth and renounce her sinful ways. But she told me, Catherine, I do not desire the love of your God. I have the protection of the spirits of the fountains, the demons of the forest, the lord of the underworld.
Piéronne shakes her head in disgust. The theologian smiles.
So, according to you, Madame de la Rochelle, this Jeanne is not only a heretic, an idolatress and a blasphemer, but she is also a witch?
Indeed, noble sire. She is a perverse creature, with unnatural desires, who draws her unwomanly, deviant, masculine powers from her devotion to the Fiend.
Unnatural desires, Madame? Could you elaborate on these for the court?
I was not sufficiently intimate with this woman to know of such unholy things, sire. But another witness here may be able to attest to these. I wish the court to record that, in my view, this Jeanne enjoys the suffrage of the Devil, and that she may summon demons to free her from prison. You must ensure that she is under strict surveillance at all times, and that she remains in shackles. The White Lady of Heaven has told me that Jeanne will attempt to escape justice by casting a spell –
The bishop presiding as judge over the hearing motions for the guards to approach the defendant.
That will do, Madame. I do not wish to hear any more about this phantasm of yours. The charge of blasphemy against you is hereby rescinded. You are free.
Historians know about the statements made by Catherine de la Rochelle since they are later cited to shore up the prosecutor’s case against Jeanne at her Trial of Condemnation in Rouen. Catherine disappears from history after these bizarre, embittered assertions. Or perhaps she now joins the audience in Paris’s town hall, proud and vindicated, eager to see the performance of the next defendant.
In a long threadbare dress and an oversized cloak, with bare feet and dishevelled long hair, Piéronne is made to stand and face the stern men perched upon the high platform.
Are you she who calls herself the Breton, who claims to hear the voice of God?
She lowers her eyes to the muddy stones of the floor and mumbles.
Repeat your answer, mademoiselle. Louder.
Yes.
Can you prove the veracity and divinity of this Voice which you attribute to God?
I can’t. I can’t do that.
Very well, then. What about your acquaintance with my lord’s prisoner, the so-called Maid. It has been brought to our attention that you were her companion for a period.
I wasn’t…her companion.
Do you deny that you knew her personally? Do you contest the truth of the testimony given to the magistrate, prior to your arrest, by Madame de la Rochelle?
Answer, mademoiselle.
I wasn’t Jeanne’s companion, sire. I was just…Brother Richard wanted me to get close to her, to make her help us curry favour with the king, I mean, the false king. I was just doing what the brother asked of me. I just wanted to make him happy, because I thought he was a good, devout man and he was very charitable –
The judge huffs.
We are not interested in him, mademoiselle. We demand to know your view of the woman, Jeanne. She has led men to fight against my lord the Duke of Burgundy in the name of God, in the name of the Archangel Michel. She now stands accused of the crimes of heresy, idolatry and blasphemy. She has sinned by donning clothes forbidden to her sex. What can you tell us, mademoiselle, with regards to this woman’s heretical, sinful nature and practices?
Her flushed cheeks twitch and she tugs at the ends of her thick locks. She bleats incoherently.
Speak up, mademoiselle. The scribe must be able to hear you clearly to record your words.
I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know anything about heresy and things of that nature, sire. I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry but I’m just…not feeling well. Please let me sit back down.
The judge squints at the young woman as she dries her eyes on her cloak. An examiner speaks.
Do you wish to collaborate with the court on the case of Jeanne the Maid, mademoiselle, or shall we return to the matter of your own very possibly blasphemous claim to hear the voice of God and to see him with the eyes of your body?
I’m not a sinner, sire. I’ve really believed that the Voice I hear is a good Voice, a holy Voice. And I’m really sure I’ve seen God. I’m so sorry if that’s upset anyone, but I just want to become a nun, in the convent of Corbeil. Please let me and the abbess go.
What about Jeanne the Maid, girl? Is she not a sinner? We wish to know what she told you, in private, about her wretched soul, her twisted, errant –
She’s not evil, sire. You must believe me. Jeanne is a good woman.
Piéronne startles herself by the force of her own voice. The bishops and clergymen, the soldiers and onlookers, Catherine de la Rochelle and the Abbess of Corbeil, all equally startled.
I beg your pardon, mademoiselle?
Piéronne hears her heart beat. She feels her nostrils and lungs fill with cool air and then exhale warmth. How is it that she suddenly feels so certain, so calm? She sees herself. She sees the pores of the skin on her own hands glow like shards of broken glass in sunlight. She hears herself speak these words, and the author of Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris records them for all eternity.
Jeanne’s a good woman, sire. All that she’s done has been good and according to God. She’s innocent.
7
The judge convenes with the examiners, finds Piéronne the Breton guilty of blasphemy.
She and her protector,
the Abbess of Corbeil, are immediately placed in chains by the guards. They’re hauled out of the Paris town hall. The scandal of a subject publicly defending the reviled Whore of France in Burgundian territory. It has agitated and enlivened the crowds. The judge orders silence and declares that the guilty will be sentenced tomorrow.
The chained women are taken to a hard, sunless room. Similar to the dungeon in the English territory where Jeanne will spend her last days over the coming months. Piéronne begs the abbess for forgiveness.
Why are you defending this doomed woman, my daughter?
You must denounce me, Mother. Please don’t let them punish you for what I’ve said.
They are given a small bowl of gruel for supper. The abbess prays and then addresses Piéronne.
You cannot save her, my child. You know that the English cannot forgive this friend of yours, or whatever it is that she is to you. They will burn her.
It’s not the English, Mother. It’s Jeanne herself. The last time I saw her, Mother, I didn’t know…She won’t forgive me, Mother. She won’t let herself live.
Piéronne breaks into tears.
Mother, please…You have to tell the judge you’re not sheltering me anymore. I don’t want that on my conscience. I have so much remorse, so much sorrow. Please, Mother.
The older Breton woman tries to console the youth. When it’s dark, the abbess withdraws to a corner of the cell and falls asleep. Piéronne curls up under the carapace of her cloak. But her eyes capture and shine back the minute hints of light that slip into the cell through a slit in the ceiling. Piéronne has stopped crying. She is now peaceful. As peaceful as the moment she stated Jeanne’s innocence in the courtroom. She smiles to herself, with relief, and with sadness.
