The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  And then she slept, awaiting his return, as did her daughter, already so many miles away from all who loved her.

  What a frenzied dream came to Jehanne that night, camped beside the great river opposite the Grande Isle aux Boeufs, within sight of the besieged city of Orleans. What tormented thoughts could have been in her sleeping mind that she saw herself deserted, leading the assault against the English alone, her only companion Gilles de Rais, who rode stark naked beside her.

  The dream changed, the battle over, and she and Gilles, laurel wreaths crowning their heads, played chess, the board representing the world and the pieces all of humanity. Jehanne drew off her gauntlets and moved the first pawn, standing to see the board better, noticing that Gilles was surrounded by children whom he fondled intimately.

  “You disgust me,” she said.

  “But still fascinate you.”

  And he spoke the truth. He, the most depraved creature alive, the epitome of wickedness and cruelty, aroused unspeakable emotions within her undefiled and innocent breast.

  “I shall fight you until time runs out.”

  “That is our destiny, Jehanne. Good and evil inextricably linked, one unable to exist without the other. That is why we, the two opposing ends of the scale, must be lovers.”

  “But we hate one another.”

  “What difference? Those emotions are so akin that they are almost indistinguishable.”

  They played on, a brilliant cruel game, the outcome of which lay in the balance.

  Gilles laughed as he took Jehanne’s bishop. “A churchman! Could you not guess that he would be the first to topple?”

  “God will protect me,” answered La Pucelle.

  “He did not save His own Son,” said Gilles and once more smiled that terrible beautiful smile of his. “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

  It was then that Jehanne knew real fear. Her great faith was under attack.

  “Love me,” whispered her adversary, “love me and I will relinquish my claim on the world.” and de Rais kissed her naked feet.

  “No, I can never be yours.”

  But even as she said it, Jehanne knew that she must give herself to him to save mankind, that only by her sacrifice could evil be put to flight. She flung herself down upon his bed, seeing her own flesh, white as milk, raked by the strands of her long ebony hair, the scarlet of her spilled blood fresh upon the linen sheets.

  “I am La Pucelle no more,” she cried, and wondered as she woke why Gilles wept for her instead of laughed.

  Richemont arrived in the dawning of the appointed day, covered with dust and somewhat disgruntled. He had been lying low at his estates in Parthenay, not far from Poitiers, and had ridden by night in order not to attract attention. Now the Earl crossed the bridge leading to the Quartier des Ponts fully masked, a fact that made Yolande, who was watching from the window of the high tower, smile to herself.

  And then, unbidden and most certainly unwanted, the Queen suddenly felt her customary self-confidence vanish. It occurred to her harshly that soon she would be in her fiftieth year while Richemont was still in his thirties, and she wondered, frighteningly, if she had gone too far in demanding his presence when he was officially exiled. Flying to her mirror, she rapidly applied paints and brushes then, as an afterthought, fixed the great emerald that matched her eyes to her head-dress before she went downstairs.

  The Earl looked tired, she thought, and somewhat older, grey streaks showing in his dark hair and lines visible round his eyes that had not been there eighteen months earlier.

  “You are well, Monsieur?” she asked formally.

  “Aye, but bored to the bone. What I would not give to be going to Orleans with the rest of the soldiers.”

  “Then perhaps you should go,” she answered quietly.

  The Earl looked at her wryly. “And risk imprisonment? No, I could not endure that again.”

  “I don’t think, believe, such a thing would happen. They are desperate for help, for leaders and for men. Nobody would make a move against you, especially if you took orders signed by myself.”

  “You carry so much weight there?”

  “I paid for the army.”

  He grinned, some of his old look returning to his face. “I might have guessed. You haven’t changed, have you baggage? Come and kiss me.”

  She rushed into his arms, helter skelter. “Oh, thank goodness. A moment ago I thought you no longer loved me.”

  “Why, in the name of God?” said Richemont, holding her at arm’s length, looking into her face.

  “Because I am getting old, not in my head but in my body. My flux is leaving me, I have got wrinkles, I have to peer to see things clearly.”

  He swung her in the air. “You will never change, my Queen. You will remain a girl until the day you die. As for me, my opponent at Azincourt did me an enormous favour.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He aged me so rapidly that I can never look worse, except perhaps to add a few minor rivers to the map of France!”

  She laughed at him. “I have missed you very much.”

  “And I you.”

  “Then why not earn Charles’s gratitude and go to fight at Orleans? I will take full responsibility.”

  Richemont stretched himself like a weary cat then, sitting down, began to pull off his riding boots. “I’ll think about it when I’ve had some sleep. It’s been a long hard ride.”

  “I’m sure it has. Will you go to bed straight away?”

  “If you’ll come with me.”

  She laughed again, very happy now. “You may go but I will not join you for a while. There is something I must do.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Write to you.”

  “What are you talking about, sweet and senseless creature? I am here with you. There is no need.”

  “There is every need. This is a letter I should have written eighteen years ago.”

  The Earl shook his head, frowning. “Eighteen years?”

  “Don’t puzzle over it. I will put the parchment on your pillow while you sleep. When you are fully awake read it, then call for me.”

  He smiled at her lazily. “You need never worry about getting old, you know.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You are so utterly intriguing, so full of surprises, that time will be far too daunted to cross your threshold.”

  “I hope so,” answered Yolande and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  Thirty-Two

  When the Duke of Bedford had first besieged the city of Orleans, he had intended that the affair would be quick and bloody, forcing the Orleanists into rapid surrender, but in that his hopes had been dashed. Jean the Bastard, a brilliant soldier, commanded the French troops in a town which was almost impregnable, protected on the south by the mighty river, and on the north, east and west by a series of moats and walls. Unfortunately, at the start of their campaign, the English had taken the suburb of Portereau on the south bank, together with the monastery of the Augustinians and the twin towers of the bridge, Les Tourelles. With the English encamped on the far end, the governor, Raoul de Gaucourt, in conference with the Bastard, had been forced to cut the bridge in half, thus stopping the Angloys-Françoys from simply swarming across.

  The Earl of Salisbury, leading the English attack, had been mortally wounded by a shell splinter, fatefully thrown across the river by a boy playing a prank, and the Earl of Suffolk, who had stepped into the command, had decided to reverse Bedford’s decision and starve the Orleanists out slowly rather than go into headlong attack. So in that harsh winter as Jehannette Dare had trudged through the snows to Vaucouleurs, Suffolk’s troops had spent the time building gigantic forts round Orleans, all connected to one another by trenches and walls.

  But now the snows had gone, it was the spring of 1429, and the relieving force had been at Orleans seven days, having arrived on the south bank of the Loire opposite the city on the morning of 28th April.

  At first,
Jehanne had been furious to discover that the river lay between her and the main English camp, which stood firmly entrenched outside the city walls. Her voices, most irritatingly as far as the great captains were concerned, had advised her that it was the camp that should be attacked first and, moreover, from the north, an almost impossible feat as the French army was drawn up on the south. That night she had gone to sleep in a terrible mood which had been slightly mollified when the Bastard of Orleans, risking his life beneath English arrow fire, had crossed the Loire by boat especially to meet her.

  “Why didn’t you let me get straight at Talbot?” La Pucelle had said to him without preamble. “We haven’t come here to mess about. We should go straight into battle.”

  “We can’t,” he had answered shortly. “We would be wiped out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our army is too small. No, what is far more important at this stage is that we get the supplies you brought with you into the city.”

  Jehanne had agreed with bad grace but the following night as soon as darkness fell she had boarded one of the craft in the flotilla that was standing by to take the provisions across the river, determined to see the city at first hand. But fate was against her. A strong north-east wind had made it impossible for the boats to cast off and they had remained stuck fast to the south bank.

  In the middle of the tempest, standing wind-blown in the prow of the craft, staring across at the lights of Orleans, Jehanne had suffered the strangest experience. She had imagined that she and de Rais were already there, their souls having flown over the water in the darkness. Together they wandered the streets of the city, watching the gallant occupants going about their business. They walked handfast, his wicked eyes turning on her violent looks of adoration. And then he had bent his lips towards hers.

  She had wanted to vanish beneath his sensuous mouth, to be sucked into him, to lie and languish in his rotten soul, but one of her voices had called out loudly and she came floundering back, the dream, the astral journey, whatever fantasy it had been, abruptly at an end.

  “Girl,” demanded the high shrill note, “girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “Remove your gauntlets. Whistle for the wind.”

  She knew at once what was meant, for how many times during her golden childhood, before the visitations came to alter her life so relentlessly, had she seen her father wet his finger and hold it up, whistling the while?

  “I’m calling the wind,” sweet uncomplicated Jacques Dare would say, and the children had laughed, not believing him.

  “Do it now,” the piercing voice said again, this time so forcefully that Jehanne had thought her head would burst open with the sound.

  Peeling off her gloves she had obeyed, holding a finger high, feeling the north-easter buffet her where she stood, as inconsequential and frail as straw. Behind her in the darkness she had heard the Bastard speak.

  “Is the wind going to change?”

  She had spun round. “Yes, by God’s great mercy, it is. Give it an hour and we’ll be across. Every supply will be in by morning.”

  Black though it was, she had seen his brilliant eyes twinkle. “Did your voices tell you this?”

  “Yes, Monsieur Bastard, they did. So do not mock me or them. You will learn that they are always right and are to be respected. Just as I have had to do.”

  There had been a bitter note in her voice and for the first time Jean had felt sorry for her, up till that moment considering her merely a cocky and bumptious little bitch, full of herself and her own importance.

  “They have chosen a hard road for you, these saints of yours.”

  “Aye,” she had answered. “There’ll be no peace for me until I go to join them.”

  “You shouldn’t say that.”

  “Perhaps not, yet it is true none the less.”

  But, just as she had said, in half an hour the wind had veered round to the west, filling the sails of the flotilla which sailed forthwith. By dawn the supplies had been landed and the city relieved of its immediate problem. Meanwhile the story of Jehanne, the miraculous virgin who could change the direction of the wind, had spread like forest fire but she, perhaps advised by her voices, perhaps knowing that it was sometimes advisable to be unavailable when urgently required, had not spent the night in Orleans but ridden on to Reuilly.

  By the next morning she had become a legend. Her continued plea that the army should be moved from the south bank so that the attack could be made from the north, as her saints had directed, had been finally heeded. The English had watched in amazement as the French forces struck camp and appeared to retreat.

  That evening, just as darkness was falling, Jehanne had made her entrance into Orleans, riding a white horse, her standard fluttering above her. La Hire had ridden at her side, her personal escort behind and, standing at the gate in order to welcome her, had been the Bastard himself. The English could only look on impotently from the garrison of Les Tourelles as the entire population had turned out, the streets lit by thousands of torches, to cheer the small figure who had ridden triumphantly through the huge crowd which had pressed round her, giving her no room, as they leant forward to touch her or held up their babies to be blessed, and cheered and shouted themselves hoarse.

  But that euphoria had abruptly ceased. Within days, Jehanne had been brought to the brink of despair by the constant refusal of the war council to allow her in to their meetings despite all she had done; by the shouted insults of the English soldiers, who told her in no uncertain terms exactly what they would like to do if they caught her, including explicit sexual details, and by the fact that the fight proper had not yet begun.

  The Bastard of Orleans, returning exultant from Blois having successfully arranged for the King’s private army to join their forces, had led the attack when the first hard skirmish had at last taken place. At midday, while the exhausted Pucelle had been sleeping, a party of citizens and mercenaries had left Orleans by the Burgundy Gate and made their way along the Autun road to the fortress of St. Loup, which lay under the command of the great lord, John Talbot, himself. Fierce fighting had broken out as the English defended their bastille as best they could.

  It was then that Jehanne had woken up abruptly, calling out to her page, Louis de Contes, who was in the room with her, “In God’s name! My voices have told me I’m about to get to know the English at last.” She had rounded on him furiously. “You bloody little boy, you should have woken me. Why did you not tell me that France’s blood was being shed?”

  Then, getting herself prepared by her squire in tremendous haste, she had shot off on her horse and arrived just in time to see an English counter-attack from the fort of St. Pouair. Shouting encouragement, Jehanne had rallied the flagging French force and after three hours of furious combat St. Loup had been taken and set alight. Yet, despite all that, yet another attempt had been made to keep her out of the council meeting. In a furious temper La Pucelle had burst into the room and only the soothing presence of the Bastard had avoided a monumental confrontation.

  “For God’s sake,” she had protested, her cheeks flushed. “Just because I am young and female there is no need to treat me like an idiot. I implore you, Monsieur Bastard, tell me the plan.”

  “My dear Jehanne,” he had begun soothingly, only to be cut off in mid-sentence.

  “I fought by your side today, Monsieur. There is no need for you to patronise me.”

  And with that the angry girl had flounced from the room, racked with sobs.

  “I’m going after her. This simply isn’t fair,” the Bastard had said to no one in particular, and hurried after the small retreating figure.

  It was by the riverside that he finally caught up with her and saw to his consternation that La Pucelle was almost hysterical, weeping so wretchedly the air was full of the sound of her sobs.

  “Is she ill?” he whispered to La Hire, who stood watching the girl impassively, his arms folded across his chest.

  “No. She’s j
ust sent a message across to the English who promptly shouted the words ‘Armagnac whore’ back. They also called you a pimp by the way…”

  The Bastard grinned.

  “…so that’s got you sorted out. But she’s such a funny scrap. Roughs it with the army then cries if someone’s rude to her.”

  Jean smiled quizzically. “When all is said and done, La Hire, she’s just a woman at heart.”

  “Funny scrap!” repeated La Hire, and the Bastard, who had grown to respect and admire the female bundle of energy who was yet so weak in many respects, stepped forward to put his arm round the girl’s shoulders.

  “I’m all right,” she said, pulling away, embarrassed.

  “I think you should let the tears go,” put in an unfamiliar voice, and the Bastard saw to his astonishment that in the darkness a tall figure had joined the group, where they stood on all that was left of the town side of the bridge over the Loire, half a broken arch, the nearest point to the English garrison of Les Tourelles, situated at the southernmost end.

  “My Lord de Richemont!” he exclaimed. “What in the name of God are you doing here?”

  “I followed the troops coming from Blois and am camped with them to the north.” Forestalling any comment, the Earl continued, “Say nothing of my exile. This is the time for all good men and true to rally to their country. I have rejoined the King’s army be it legal or no.”

  But even as he spoke, Jean could see that the scar-faced warrior had eyes for no one but La Pucelle, who was gallantly attempting to control her weeping, wiping her eyes and her nose with her sleeve, just like an urchin.

  “Why don’t you let it out?” he whispered to her. “You will feel much better if you do.”

  She gave him one of her challenging looks, obviously thinking that here was yet another seasoned campaigner set on deceiving or belittling her, but the Earl met her gaze steadily and with an extraordinary kind of fervour. Just for a second it occurred to the Bastard of Orleans, quite nonsensically, that they looked alike.