Blood Red, Sister Rose

by Thomas Keneally

  Meanwhile their minds seem to be moving in fatuous directions. When Queen Yolande visited me today she spoke mainly of a report from some small garrison town on the Meuse. The report puts forward the merits of a country girl who makes predictions and has offered to take the king to Rheims, not before liberating Orleans. A military sibyl, Yolande called her. The Queen went on to say that although such people always abound in times of emergency it could be useful to have a prophetess on the staff, so to speak, to encourage Charles perhaps. If only this girl were the right sort of person, said the Queen. I asked what the right sort of person was.

  She replied, the girl has to be a virgin, it is necessary for a prophetess to be a virgin. Otherwise there was no sure way of telling where her prophecies came from, heaven or hell.

  She admitted that this girl was probably unsuitable. The courier who brought the despatch says there is a rumour that the girl is the area commander’s mistress. As Queen Yolande confessed this her disappointment was genuine and so, sad to behold.

  Charles stays close to his bed all day, except for hearing three consecutive Masses at mid-morning. If anyone mentions Orleans he closes the bed-curtains and sleeps for the rest of the day …

  To my honoured etc., by the same despatch bag.

  Dated 13 February 1429

  Lent has begun with what seems at first sight an Armagnac disaster. Yesterday, the first Sunday of Lent, a French army was routed in the open field. The details, as far as I know them, follow.

  On Saturday night the Bastard-Royal, Jean Dunois, heard in Blois, the mustering area of the French army on the Loire, that an English convoy under Sir John Fastolf was on the Paris road, coming to feed and strengthen the English in the mud outside Orleans.

  Dunois rode out with the Count of Clermont and the Constable of Scotland to link up with a French and Scottish force from Orleans itself led by Lord Willie Stuart and the famed la Hire. Though this latter group was small and had to dash out of Orleans through the English lines, it was the first to sight the three hundred English wagons. La Hire sent back to Clermont for permission to attack them while they were still in single line along the road. Clermont refused permission, saying la Hire must wait for the army from Blois to come up.

  This was a fatal decision. Fastolf, it seems, used the time to line his wagons across the valley and dig in pointed stakes facing towards la Hire. But somehow, about the time Clermont and the Bastard reached Rouvray town, just south of la Hire’s Gascons and Lord Willie Stuart’s Scots, a mad charge towards the English wagons began amongst the Armagnac cavalry, whose discipline is deplorable.

  The results are said to have resembled Verneuil. If Lord Willie Stuart was, as many say, responsible for the onslaught, he paid for it. His horse ripped its belly open on a stake, he fell out of his saddle and squirmed on the ground until some Welsh or English peasant emerged from the stakes and wagons, unbuckled him and disembowelled him where he lay.

  As this was happening, Clermont couldn’t manage to make his soldiers advance from Rouvray, which is a wine town. They started breaking into cellars and tasting the vintage. Dunois the Bastard-Royal was disgusted and went on up the toad with a few friends. He was able to liberate some French and Scottish knights by charging their English escorts from the flank. All over the field were parties of English long-bowmen cutting throats and looting the dead. One of them paused to fire a shot at him. The arrow punctured his steel shoe and entered his foot.

  With the arrow sticking in his foot he rode on to a hill where la Hire had eighty knights marshalled. The English were avoiding this group and la Hire was considering attacking the wagons, since so many of the English and Welsh had left them to plunder the corpses lying about. The Bastard however told la Hire that it was no good, that there was no one to support him, because all Clermont’s men were drinking wine in Rouvray.

  La Hire and the Bastard and even Clermont got safely into Orleans after dark last night. The English rout stopped at Rouvray where so many of Clermont’s Auvergnois drunks lay about for the English to deal with.

  By dusk yesterday the English outside Orleans knew about their success. The French courier who brought the bad news this evening (Monday) says they were shooting arrows wrapped round with bulletins into the outworks of Orleans. The bulletins told the French that Fastolf’s column was bringing pickled fish for Lent. Therefore the English are choosing to call this confrontation at Rouvray the Battle of the Herrings.

  The courier who carried the news from Orleans to Chinon rode all last night and most of today. His message seems to have done some good here at Chinon, where the Royal Court is now situated. Since it seems that Orleans is still intact, everyone is talking about the urgency of doing something about it. Yolande is speaking practically again, and even the King is said to be in better heart now that disaster has taken the more definite shape it did at Rouvray …

  Bernardo Massimo

  News of Rouvray got to Vaucouleurs ten days after the rout. Bertrand brought it to her from de Baudricourt who had got it by way of Monsieur de Saarbruck, Commandant of Commercy.

  All the nap and freshness went out of the clothes Alain’s committee had given her. She felt time, present time, smothering her. As if she were packed in it and it were wadding. She tried walking up and down, to break out of the prickly seconds. They quietened her with a pint and a half of red wine, which made her sleep for half an hour.

  Catherine had her up in the small hours. She fed Durand, Henri and Jehanne on fresh bread and mulled wine. She was a little tipsy with the concept of journeys. Just as the concept of arrivals had excited her the first day Lassois and the girl had come. After the breakfast le Royer and Lassois fetched the two horses, the grey and black mares, from the Brazen Magpie. The girl would take both with her, ride one and lead one. Because she had no money to buy remounts. The le Royers rode the grey and Lassois and the girl were on the Duke of Lorraine’s black horse. All but Jehanne got down at the collegiate church where Jean Fournier, exorcist, was robing to say Mass. Standing, Lassois could reach his arms round Jehanne’s waist while she stayed on top of the mare. The le Royers were both weeping: they could smell finality. They thought the bluff that had worked at Vaucouleurs could kill her in another and more canny city.

  Lassois’s embrace crushed her belly.

  Lassois: You’ve bit off a mouthful you poor little cow.

  Jehanne: Not by accident. Kiss the baby for me.

  Lassois: It’s been such pure bloody fun. It’ll be hard to settle down again.

  Mother le Royer: We’ll wait at the Porte de France, Jehanne. And wave you by.

  Only de Vienne and his archer were in the inner court when Jehanne rode in. They stood talking together by their horses and wouldn’t look at her.

  She called to them.

  Jehanne: I’m the girl. I’m the virgin.

  Archer: Good morning.

  De Vienne turned to her. He was a small joyless man full of a funny professional pride.

  De Vienne: We usually travel alone. Forty trips a year. We know how it’s done.

  Jehanne: We’re all very lucky then. To have you with us.

  From the archer’s saddle hung both crossbow and longbow; he had a quiver of arrows on his back and a bag of bolts at his pommel. The crossbow shone with lubrication. A real specialist. Yet he was friendlier, had less of de Vienne’s gross professional pride.

  Archer: I’m a virgin myself. It’s best not to tell anyone. We’re a scarce class of people. Why have you got two horses?

  Jehanne: They’re all I’ve got in the world. And my clothes.

  De Metz, de Honnecourt, Julien led horses in from the outer yard and Bertrand, the Benedictine secretary and de Baudricourt came down the front steps of the palace. The general had dressed for the event: he had a tunic of de Baudricourt lions over his clothes and an orle of twisted silk, green and white, around his head. He carried a small sword by its sheath. His mood was the same as that of Lassois and the le Royers: he could have been a member o
f the family, and kept snorting and aggressively sighing in the manner of Jacques.

  De Baudricourt: Christ knows what’s going to happen to this girl. (He called out for them all to hear. He even turned to Jehanne.) Christ knows what’s going to happen to you.

  For a long time he thought about this. Colet de Vienne sneezed to bring him back.

  De Baudricourt: But if she doesn’t get there, I won’t forgive any of you and I’ll complain to the Chancellor of France and the King. So get her there. Do you swear you will?

  He offered them all the quillon of the small sword. They touched it one after another and spat. Bless them, he told the Benedictine. While the monk was still speaking, the general came to Jehanne and put the sword on to her belt with two latches.

  De Baudricourt: You poor little cow. Burgundians, Lorrainers, Swiss, Welsh, English, all over Champagne and Tonnerre. Will your Messire look after you?

  Jehanne: Of course.

  He took her by the elbow.

  De Baudricourt: Why don’t you stay and we’ll have that little pope.

  Jehanne: I wasn’t born for that sort of trouble.

  Monsieur the commandant hugged her briefly round the waist he could not reach her shoulders, since she was on the horse. As she touched the back of the general’s hat she saw the archer grin and shake his head.

  Bertrand gave his instructions. De Vienne and the archer would go first, then de Metz and his man, then Julien, Jehanne and Bertrand himself.

  While they were riding out of the yard the general was able to walk beside her for a few seconds.

  De Baudricourt: Haven’t you got a saddle?

  Jehanne: I’m used to riding just with the cloth. Don’t let my grey mare tread on you.

  It happened to be the last and politest thing she ever said to him.

  There was mist that day all across the middle of the country and only beyond the walls, after not looking at Durand and le Royers, that Jehanne saw the density of it.

  And then she thought with some regret that when she got into trouble, de Baudricourt would blame himself. Oh, Brother Jesus, why did she always forget to reassure people?

  BOOK TWO

  King Meets Sibyl

  It would one day become fashionable to call the journey prodigious. De Vienne himself gave it for most of its course an air of major dangers reduced to minor ones because of his expertise.

  In dripping Sept-Fonds forest, for example, they stopped to bind their horses’ hoofs with rags. Jehanne went up to young de Honnecourt. She had a bundle in her hands.

  Jehanne: These are your clothes back. I hope you didn’t mind …

  De Honnecourt: I’ve nothing of my own. I go out to empty their shit and when I come back all my clothes are gone.

  Jehanne: Don’t sulk, I haven’t got anything either.

  Vienne told Bertrand the way they’d go: off the main road immediately. Lanes and goat-tracks as far as Montiers. Back to the highway for a mile or two, but ten miles from Joinville they had to take to forest tracks again. That was the worst part. At St Urbain Abbey they would be under sanctuary. If they arrived late at night and left early no one could have a chance to report them to the commandant in Joinville. And so on.

  The country was hilly the first day and the mist stayed down. It was very cold. Bertrand kept groaning and his nose ran. Unexpectedly at noon, light savaged her right eye. Mesdames Margaret and Catherine came:

  Margaret: Don’t fret.

  Catherine: For Jesus’ little cherry there’s no ambush …

  Margaret: No rape …

  Catherine: No sharp edges.

  Margaret: Love the king …

  Catherine: Jesus’ weak brother.

  Then wet Bertrand replaced them.

  Bertrand: What?

  Jehanne: What?

  Bertrand: You said hold me up. You were slipping sideways.

  Yes, she could remember the heat forcing her off her horse.

  Jehanne: I don’t know why I said that.

  Sour Colet led them to river fords and along chalk tracks over the hills, amongst the bare presence of dim vineyards. At mid-afternoon they were single-file on a bridle-path when Colet and the archer stopped. The archer turned and pointed urgently to a thin ditch beside the path. Bare shrubs filled it. They led their horses down there. Colet came on foot down the ditch to see Bertrand and Jean de Metz.

  De Vienne: We heard them.

  De Metz: What?

  De Vienne: Didn’t you hear them?

  Bertrand: No.

  De Vienne: They were talking English.

  Jehanne: Jesus. Where?

  De Vienne: Up there. On the track.

  Bertrand: Listen.

  All the girl’s limbs tingled. The outrage of foreign sounds threatened to jump on her out of miasma. The core outrage, the deepest enemy. The Goddam voice.

  De Metz: I can’t hear anything.

  De Vienne: Shhh!

  He had prestige to say it, he had been closer than anyone to English tongues. He slipped between their sentences with the king’s letters.

  It began to rain. De Metz dismounted and grabbed his man’s elbow, pointing to the top of the ditch. The girl could see it dimly: de Honnecourt white in the face, de Metz punching him in the back to make him more obedient. Together they vaulted out of the ditch and drew out their swords. De Honnecourt tried to look everywhere simultaneously.

  De Metz called out a challenge at the top of his voice. It frightened Bertrand, for he stood with his mouth at full stretch and his breath cowering down in his throat.

  De Metz: Kneel down you Goddam bastards. You’re my prisoners. (He repeated the word emphatically since they were aliens.) Pris-on-ers!

  De Vienne and the archer, still shoulder-deep in the ditch, began hooting, and the rain came down harder on de Metz and his man.

  De Metz: There wasn’t anything?

  The couriers doubled over their pommels. It was the first time all day de Vienne had laughed.

  De Metz gestured into the ditch with his sword but its tip couldn’t quite reach de Vienne. De Vienne laughed so thoroughly that he threatened to fall off his horse.

  Archer: You were going to take all their gear? And sell them back their lives?

  De Vienne: You’re such a brave bastard. Such a businessman.

  Jehanne: I don’t think it’s funny.

  Her nose had begun running: that much was permitted to happen to Jesus’ cherry.

  Bertrand told de Vienne there wasn’t to be any more of it. But for an hour afterwards he would now and then laugh privately.

  When they rested at dusk, de Vienne said they were only halfway to the abbey.

  An hour after dark they were deep and blind in a dripping forest. The girl’s thighs were aglow with saddle pain, and Bertrand, rash and exhausted, yelled from the back of the line.

  Bertrand: Is this another joke?

  De Vienne: No, this is la Saulxnoire. A dreadful bloody place. Witches everywhere.

  Beyond the forest they would often look up to find themselves in a blind little village, where all the lights were doused. In such a place de Honnecourt dropped back two paces to ride beside the girl.

  De Honnecourt: Can I sleep with you when we get to St Urbain?

  Jehanne: Damn it all! (She was so tired.) You weren’t thinking of that this afternoon. When Jean made you climb out of the ditch.

  De Honnecourt: He’s mad, he’d do anything for money. Will you sleep with me?

  Jehanne: If I wanted to sleep with any old redneck I would have stayed at home.

  De Honnecourt: That’s a bitch of a thing to say.

  Jehanne: Would you sleep with a nun?

  De Honnecourt considered and made a face that meant it might depend on the state of his temperament, but altogether he’d rather not.

  De Honnecourt: It’s sacrilege.

  Jehanne: All right. Messire calls me his duckling. God help any man who has me.

  Messire didn’t frighten de Honnecourt enough.

&
nbsp; De Honnecourt: You only want to sleep with knights.

  Jehanne: That’s right. Of course.

  De Honnecourt: Bloody Sir Bertrand.

  Jehanne: If you like.

  De Honnecourt: Hopeless idiot he is! Dresses up like women.

  Jehanne: What?

  De Honnecourt: Every chance he gets. Every time there’s a party. Dresses up like a bloody woman. Gets all the other officers to court him.

  Bertrand had said, Once you dress like that nothing will ever be the same.

  Jehanne: What’s wrong with that?

  De Honnecourt: It isn’t very natural. Is it?

  In the middle of the night she heard a river on her right. De Vienne sent the word back. It was the Marne in full flow. They were amongst the houses of the abbey suburbs then. The mist had thinned from the frantic rain and she rode with the others under an arched gate into the abbey’s outer yard. She saw carts, stables, straw and cow dung: it was a homely place.

  De Vienne knew the place in the wall to knock at, for the king’s messengers always used the abbey. It had been the place of sanctuary from the Counts of Joinville for three hundred years. One of the whimsicalities of law gave Jehanne a bed tonight, just a few miles south of a Burgundian fortress.

  A middle-aged brother let them in the gate. Holding up his pitch-pine torch, he knew de Vienne.

  Brother: You’ve got a lot of friends tonight, Colet.

  De Vienne: They’re de Baudricourt’s friends.

  Brother: Well, we’d better find them room in the men’s house.

  Jehanne: Can I stay in the women’s house?

  The monk squinted at her and looked shocked.

  De Metz: Jacques always wants to get in with the women.

  So they were all taken through into the men’s dormitory where two big beds stood in a clean cold room. The brother porter lit the fire and put his torch in a wall-bracket.

  Brother: You can show your friends the latrines, Colet. Benedicamus Domino.

  All: Deo gratias.

  Brother: You’re very welcome.

  The second he went de Mete bent and kissed Jehanne on the side of the neck.

  De Metz: This is going to be a nice night, duckling.

  Bertrand: Jean, myself and Jehanne in this bed, the four of you in the other.