Sparrow

by Michael Morpurgo

  And so they did, time after time after time. Castles and towns under English occupation for a hundred years and more fell like dominoes before Joan and her army. With the Duc d’Alençon, La Hire and the Bastard of Orléans as marshals of the army she harried the English everywhere, chasing them out of their strongholds. Where they stood and fought, they died in their hundreds, in their thousands, or were taken prisoner. Where they ran, the word spread with them that Joan the Maid, Joan the miraculous, Joan the invincible, was on her way. English hearts quaked, hearts of oak, that until now had never known fear, never known defeat.

  Jargeau fell, then Meung, then Beaugency. She was tireless in her conquests, and suffered no one who tried to obstruct or delay her. Louis often had to remind her these days who she was, for he could see, as her brothers did, as the Duc d’Alençon did, that her new found power, the constant adoration of her soldiers, of the people, and her own fierce belief in her cause could sometimes make her impatient, even imperious. She would listen to them all, and for a while she would rein herself in; but always she forgot herself again and Louis had to remind her once more that what she was doing was for God, and in His name, that she was merely His instrument, and nothing more.

  “Louis is right. They are all of them right,” she once confessed to Belami, alone in her room in Orléans. “I do forget myself. But what they do not know is that my time is short. My voices have told me so. How short I do not know, though I have asked them often to tell me. I have still many thousands of English to sweep out of France. I have still to see my king crowned at Reims. If I am impatient, then it is because I must be.” Belami looked her in the eye, and she knew he understood. “These are the good times, Belami, the victorious times,” she said, stroking his wings. “But they will not last for ever, and when they are over it will be you and me, Belami, just you and me.”

  But the good times were not yet over. Word came that a five-thousand-strong English army was marching south, with Talbot, their great general, in command. Joan and her army went out to find them, but in such thickly wooded country their task was not so easy. The English were marching through the forest near Patay in search of the French. In spite of their scouts each army was blind to the proximity of the other. “Make sure,” said Joan to d’Alençon, as they rode through the trees in the morning mist, “that you all have good spurs when the Godoms see us.”

  “You think, then, we’re going to turn and run when we meet them?” the Duc d’Alençon replied, more than a little hurt at the suggestion.

  “Of course not, my fair duke,” said Joan, smiling. “I tell you, it will be the English who will turn their backs. By this very afternoon they will be defeated and you will need spurs to pursue them.”

  At about noon, the French scouts accidentally put up a stag who bounded out of cover. The English saw it and gave chase, with great hue and cry, and so betrayed their position. The French were up on them and amongst them before they knew it. In the vicious mêlée of the battle, the glades of Patay rang with the screams of the dying, the hideous neighing of terrified horses, the clash of steel on steel. Within an hour or so it was all over. Four thousand slaughtered English lay bleeding in the mud, and the rest were prisoners, including the great Talbot himself. Here was sweet revenge for the defeat at Agincourt all those years before.

  But in the din and confusion of battle Joan had been lost and was nowhere to be found. They scoured the forest calling for her. It was Louis who came across her first. At first he thought she had been wounded, for she was lying up against a tree trunk, and there was blood on her face and on her hands too. When he came closer though, he saw she was cradling the head of an English soldier in her lap. “He is dead, Louis,” she whispered as he crouched down beside her. “He died, and without confessing his sins too.” She looked down into the soldier’s face. “There’s a boy in my village who looks just like him. Can all this be necessary, Louis? Can God really have meant this?” And when she wept, she wept like a child. That was how the Duc d’Alençon and La Hire found her some time later, her head on her page’s shoulder, and wracked with sobbing.

  She looked up at them and brushed away her tears. “I did not want this, and I will have no more of it. I shall go now to Reims and see the Dauphin crowned. Perhaps now the English will have learnt. Perhaps now they will go home and leave us in peace. Then I can go back home to my mother and father, back to my village where I belong.” They helped her to her feet. “See there is no looting, that all the Englishmen are buried with honour, and the wounded cared for,” she said. “Dead or living, French or English, we are all God’s people.”

  There were those marshals, La Hire amongst them, who argued that with the English so weakened, so demoralised, they should at once attack Paris and then drive the English out of Normandy once and for all. But Joan would not hear of it. “We go to Reims,” she said. “Let us have our Dauphin crowned the rightful King of France, as my voices said he must be. Paris can wait.”

  It was one thing to want the Dauphin to be crowned, but quite another to achieve it. He was grateful to Joan for her victories on his behalf, and heaped upon her great favours and honours. At court she wanted for nothing. He made a solemn declaration that no one living in her village of Domrémy would ever again have to pay taxes, but he would not yet go to Reims. He liked his creature comforts. He was happy enough where he was. Some who had his ear – his scheming adviser, La Trémoille, for one – thought it too risky a venture and told him so. To get to Reims an army would still have to pass through enemy country. “Why don’t you rest a while, Joan?” the Dauphin told her. “You’ve done so much.”

  In the privacy of her rooms, Joan fumed with frustration. “I should not say it, but sometimes I feel like kicking him, Belami. I really do.” As it turned out, she did not need to go to that extreme. Other voices – the Duc d’Alençon’s for one, and La Hire’s too – joined the clamour that at last persuaded the Dauphin he must leave the safety of his castle and have himself crowned at Reims.

  The road to Reims was a triumphal one. Town after town opened their gates, handed over the keys to the Dauphin and welcomed their beloved Maid of France, strewing the path before her with flowers. There were a few towns that shut their gates against them. The army did not stop to subjugate them – Joan would not let them. They simply passed around them. She would allow nothing to impede their progress to Reims and the king’s coronation.

  At Chalons-sur-Marne she found herself surrounded by dozens of children all pointing and laughing at Belami, she thought, who was perched, as he so often was, high on her standard. She looked up. “See, Belami, see how many admirers you have,” she cried. And then she noticed that Belami, too, was looking skywards. Above him fluttered a cloud of white butterflies that floated down about them now like blown cherry blossom. Belami eyed them greedily. “Don’t you dare, Belami!” Joan cried. “I’ll never speak to you again.”

  While the children laughed at this and marvelled too, their mothers and fathers knelt and crossed themselves. Here was evidence, if any were needed, again of their Joan’s miraculous powers. Had she not changed the direction of the wind at Orléans? Was she not driving the English out of France almost single-handed? She was a blessed messenger of God, sent by Him. She was their Maid, their saviour. For them the white butterflies were simply further proof of it.

  “Well, Joan,” came a voice from the crowd, a voice she knew well. “I see you’ve still got your Belami.” It was a moment or two before she found the face that went with the voice – Durand Lassois from Vaucouleurs.

  “Uncle Durand!” she cried, and leapt from her horse. She hugged him to her, her heart bursting with joy. He rode with her and her brothers all the way to Reims through the wide open country of Champagne, and all the way they talked of home, of Joan’s mother and father, of Aunt Joan and the baby, of Robert de Beaudricourt, of Domrémy. And the butterflies followed them all the way. The temptation became too much for Belami. Luckily Joan was too busy talking to notice h
is feeding forays amongst the butterflies. Belami was a very happy sparrow, and a very well-fed one too, by the time he first saw the great towers of Reims Cathedral.

  The people of Reims flocked out into the sunlit streets to greet their Maid, and the Dauphin, and their victorious army. The bells and the cheering rang out over the roofs of the city, and warmed Joan to the heart. “I think, Uncle Durand, I shall never be any happier again in all my life than I am now.”

  She was wrong. She was at her supper that evening, alone in her room with Belami, when Louis came in. “I know you do not want to be disturbed, Joan, but there is a man outside who claims he is your father,” he said. “Shall I send him away?”

  “Well,” said a shadow in the doorway, “are you so grand now that you would send me away?” The shadow stepped into the light and became her father. The two of them clung to each other, neither wanting ever to let go. “So,” said her father, at last opening his eyes, “so the sparrow came with you.”

  “He’ll always be with me,” said Joan. And the two sat down at the table to talk. “And Mother? Is she with you? Is she here?”

  “You think a farm runs itself?”

  “Is she well? And Hauviette? Have you seen Uncle Durand? He’s here too. And anyway, how did you know where to find me?” There were so many questions they talked together all night and were still talking when Belami woke at dawn.

  “But after today your work will be done, Joan,” her father was saying, reaching forward across the table to grasp her hands. “Today, when the Dauphin is crowned, you will have done enough, done all anyone could ever have expected of you. Come home with me, Joan. Come home.”

  “You think I do not want to, Father? You think I haven’t seen enough of this killing? You think I’m not tired of it? Oh, Father, I long to lie again under my apple tree and dream my dreams, to sit spinning beside Mother, to go wandering in the fields with Hauviette. I long for it. But my work is not finished. My voices tell me I may not rest until the last of the enemy is driven from the soil of France. I must listen to them, you know I must. Have they not always been right? Have they not always protected me? They will never abandon me. They have promised me. Dear Father, no more pleadings, no more entreaties; else you will weaken my resolve. And no matter what happens, I must be strong for France, strong for my Lord in Heaven.”

  On the day of the coronation they breakfasted together with Uncle Durand and her two brothers and d’Alençon. It should have been a joyous affair, but it was not. The impending parting of their ways hung over them like a shadow.

  As she rode at her king’s side that day through the streets to the cathedral, she was blind to the rapture and adoration all around her, deaf to the blessings they called out to her. Belami sat on the pommel of her saddle and she stroked him with her finger, just as she did when she was in bed and crying herself to sleep.

  All through the glittering ceremony, the anointing of the royal head, and the crowning itself, the tears welled in her eyes and would not be held back. Tears of joy, the people thought, but they were not. This crowning was all she had strived for. She had achieved the impossible in just a few short months, yet she could not rejoice in it.

  That same evening her father prepared to leave for Domrémy. “I came here to bring three children home,” he told her. “I leave with none. Neither of your brothers will leave your side. No father in France can be sadder than I am today, and none prouder either. Go then, if you must, and chase the Godoms out of France. But when you have done it, come home, Joan. We shall be waiting for you.”

  Joan could not bear to watch him go, but ran inside and hid herself in her room. “Sometimes, Belami,” she said, sitting on her bed, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, “sometimes I know things even my voices have not told me. I shall not see him again, Belami, nor hear his voice, not on this earth, not in this life. I know it, but I must not think of it. There is Paris still to take. There is still God’s work to be done, and I must be about it. I must go to the king. We must take Paris at once. There must be no delay.”

  But there was nothing but delay. The new King Charles, basking in the glory of his coronation, strutted about his court like a puffed up peacock. “Patience, Joan,” he told her. “If things go my way, we shall take Paris without ever lifting a sword.”

  “How?” Joan demanded.

  And the king, surrounded as he was by La Trémoille and his friends, all of them deeply envious of Joan and only too happy to see her thwarted, put his arm around her, and said cryptically: “You will see, Joan. You will see.”

  For days on end the king would say nothing more, and then at last he summoned her to him. He was waving a scroll at her as she came in. “You see Joan? I have it. I have it from the Duke of Burgundy himself. Peace. I have his word, his promise. In fifteen days he will surrender Paris to us. What do you think of that?”

  “I think it is a trick,” Joan replied. “You have been ill advised, Charles. Ask yourself why he should ask for fifteen days if it is not to reinforce his garrison with English soldiers. You have been fooled, and not only by the Duke of Burgundy, but by La Trémoille and your own advisers, too. I tell you truly that neither the Duke of Burgundy nor his English masters will come to terms unless it be to their own advantage. Like it or not, we shall have to drive them out. I do not wish for war, nor certainly for bloodshed, but the lance and the sword are all they understand. This treaty, my lord king, is not worth the paper it is written on. I spit upon the Duke of Burgundy and upon his treaty, too.”

  And with that she stormed out. The Duc d’Alençon hurried after her.

  “You will make dangerous enemies, Joan,” he warned her.

  She wheeled round to face him. “Am I right or am I not?”

  “You are right,” d’Alençon conceded.

  “Well then. And I care not a fig for my enemies. If they are my enemies then they are the enemies of my king and my country. Your enemies too, my fair duke.”

  “But they could harm you, Joan.”

  “I know it, and no doubt they will try. But meanwhile I would have the army out in the field and ready to march.” She put an arm on his.

  “See to it for me, d’Alençon. We must take Paris. If we do not, I tell you, we are lost.” Belami flew down at that moment and landed on d’Alençon’s shoulder.

  “He’s never done that before,” d’Alençon laughed.

  “Maybe he trusts you,” said Joan, “as I do.”

  Within a few days it was clear that Joan had been right all along. English soldiers under the Duke of Bedford were reported to be pouring into Paris. Even knowing this the king dithered and would not move against him, but waited until the fifteen days of the treaty were up. Only then did he grudgingly allow the Duc d’Alençon and Joan to move on Paris.

  From St Denis outside Paris, Joan rode out to reconnoitre the defences. The walls were higher, the ditches under the moats deeper than at Orléans, deeper than she had ever seen before. She rode back in silence with d’Alençon.

  “You know it cannot be done, Joan,” he said at last.

  “It must be done,” she replied. “And I shall do it. In God’s name I shall do it. The sight of us coming will be enough on its own. The city will rise in our support.”

  “Do your voices tell you this?” d’Alençon asked.

  For a moment she was silent. “No,” she said. “My voices have not spoken to me for some time now. I hate it when they are silent. I am so alone without them.”

  “You have me, Joan,” said d’Alençon. “You will always have me.”

  “Nothing and no one is for always,” Joan replied. “Everything and everyone has its end. Only God is eternal. We must not forget that.” She reined in her horse and surveyed the walls of Paris. “Tomorrow, with God’s blessing, I shall say Mass in Paris.”

  But she did not say Mass in Paris the next day, nor any other day; neither did the populace rise in her support as she had hoped. Attack after attack was driven off. But in spite of al
l d’Alençon’s pleadings, Joan would not hear of retreat. Whenever they saw her standard raised her army would rally again. Wherever she led, they would follow – many, so many, to their deaths. When she was herself wounded in the thigh by an arrow, Louis, her brothers and Richard the Archer had to drag her protesting to safety. “We can try again tomorrow, if you like, Joan,” said d’Alençon. “But for today it is enough. You must rest. The army must rest.”

  That night, at Joan’s command and under cover of darkness, the Duc d’Alençon built a wooden bridge across the ditch near St Denis for a surprise attack the next morning; but unknown either to d’Alençon or Joan a terrible treachery was afoot. Before morning came the bridge had mysteriously caught fire. The attack had to be called off. For days, as Joan lay recovering in her tent, the army could only sit and watch the walls of Paris. Despite all Joan’s best endeavours to persuade the king there were no new assaults. Whispers about the camp told the story, a story Joan found quite impossible to believe when she first heard it. But when her brothers confirmed it, and d’Alençon too, then she had to believe it. King Charles himself, it seemed, the king she had restored to his throne, had personally ordered the bridge to be destroyed, and the attack on Paris to be halted. Behind her back he had come to terms again with the Burgundians and the English. Paris and the north of the country would be left to the Duke of Burgundy and the English, if he could keep all the conquests to the south. The king was going to disband his army, her army, leaving the English still in France. She wept when she heard it, more in anger than in sorrow.

  Confirmation of her king’s treachery was not long in coming. He summoned her to him, and told her abruptly that he had run out of money. He could not afford to continue the siege of Paris, he said. He was disbanding the army, and she must accompany him and his court back to the Loire. The campaign was over.

  “You are God’s anointed King of all France,” she told him, “and so I must obey you.” And looking hard at La Trémoille and the king’s advisers, she went on. “You serve neither your king, nor your country but only yourselves. What you have done you will live to regret, I promise you.” And sweeping them with a gaze of undisguised contempt, she left them.