Midnight

by Midnight- Three Women at the Hour of Reckoning (retail) (epub)

  XI.

  Night, though it had just been day. It was funny, how things happen so quickly. Absolute change, in the blink of an eye, no time at all, the flash between past and future. A man is alive, a good fellow, full of blood and muscle, with a name, a family, maybe a horse, and plans to be a miller as soon as he gets home—and then, one arrow, one spear, one thrust from an ill-fated sword, and that good fellow, who knew the words to all the songs and could dance like an elf king, is a pile of dirt, soon to start smelling.

  Joan of Arc hadn’t been happy that afternoon when she’d charged out from Compiègne. Her life had gotten complicated, and she forgot first principles in favor of second ones. She rode out that afternoon seeking her own happiness—fighting, shouting, banner high. At the head of a group of soldiers again, the greatest pleasure, she thought, in life. Having forgotten how infinitely pleasurable it was to sit simply in one’s house, to walk by the way, to lie down in one’s bed, and then to rise up in the morning.

  Until all that was taken from her, and she could take its measure, but by then she was on her back, on the ground, with an enemy archer standing over her. “Rendez-vous!”

  She almost said to him, No, no, this is all wrong! Just a mistake, I see it now!—and she still thought it would come out all right in the end, when she made her official surrender to Jean de Luxembourg, the Count of Ligny and Saint-Pol, the highest-ranking knight there that day.

  She hoped at first he would extend her his protection, at least from the English. He was, after all, French, though allied to her king’s enemies. She wasn’t unduly alarmed when she heard that the English had sent him a message, by swiftest runner, offering him a “whole King’s ransom, to be paid at once” for her. Or that, even before he could reply, they’d sent another runner, offering another king’s ransom. Joan of Arc was worth two kings to them.

  She was more flattered than uneasy at first. Luxembourg moved her from one of his towers to another, farther from the English. She took this as a good sign.

  She didn’t know, of course, that he was simply removing her from danger while he negotiated the details of the fortune that had fallen into his hands. He had only to preserve his prisoner alive until all was settled. He had a wife, an aunt, a daughter, all named Joan. To them he entrusted the care of his great prize.

  They went together to visit her, the three Joans, and then separately, and then together, for they were always there, up the long winding stairway to her cell in the tower. They would arrive wordless, breathless—with food, sponges and water, to care for their namesake prisoner, whom they were coming to regard as holy. They began to love her. They begged her, for mercy’s sake, for holy charity, to change her offending pants for a skirt.

  She started telling them of her saints and angels. They listened to the descriptions of Saint Catherine’s dress, Saint Margaret’s hair, the sweetness of their saintly breath, which she had smelled—“as sweet as, no, sweeter than the flowers in the woods in May.”

  “If ever I took the skirt again,” she told the three Joans of Luxembourg, “it would be for you.” They would come in the morning and bring their needlework, and at the end of every afternoon they would kneel together, all of them, her, too, in prayer. And she began to feel safe.

  “Yes, of course! Fear nothing at our hands,” the Luxembourg ladies assured her. “Our family would never sell you for gold!” She believed them.

  She shouldn’t have. The wonder, Girl X understood now, wasn’t that Luxembourg gave her up, but that he managed to keep her as long as he did. She had been captured in late May. He still had her in his tower in November, when Richard Warwick, commander of all the English forces in France, paid him a call.

  He brought with him a fortune—ten thousand gold francs, gathered mostly from the captive estates in Normandy—and a large armed escort.

  “We’ll refuse the gold!” the three Joans swore to their prisoner. They went to Luxembourg, citing the cardinal laws of chivalry, their family’s ancient honor, and his own oath as a knight, sworn on his aunt’s jewel-encrusted Bible, to protect prisoners of war and damsels. Joan of Arc was both.

  They trusted in that, and so did she, and together, she could see now, they were the biggest fools in all of Gaul. Chivalry was dying. Hadn’t she heard its musical horns giving way to the mechanical beat of drums on the battlefield? As well as the hateful new proverbs making the rounds in the court of her king: “Big fish eat the little ones.” “In time of need, one takes help from the devil.” “Who serves the common weal is paid by none.” “If your coat is thin, turn your back to the wind.”

  Still, she believed she was safe. Luxembourg’s women, maiden, mother, crone, threw themselves at his feet. They were great ladies all, in their own right. He himself was just the younger son of a younger son—his whole inheritance came from his aunt. His wife had brought her own wealth and title. These ladies knelt before him and took the hem of his garment. “Release her!” they pleaded. “Don’t take gold for her—it will be cursed!”

  Jean de Luxembourg was really just a man of his times, it occurred to Girl X. A man for changing times, he tried to explain to his ladies. Tried, too, to explain that it wasn’t as if he had any choice. He pointed out the strength of Warwick’s army. Warwick would have Joan of Arc whether Luxembourg took his money or not

  The Luxembourg ladies were horrified. They vowed never to speak to him again. Never to extend to him the hands that had bathed and fed his prisoner. Nevermore to let him hear the soft voices that were forced to break to her the worst of all news—that their family had sold her to the English.

  The three Joans left the tower that evening weeping, and she was left to pace desperately, back and forth, trying to make sense of what they’d told her. “Sold to the English, sold to the English”—what now, what now? She wasn’t hearing her saints, clearly—had they abandoned her here in this predicament? Or was it more that she couldn’t quite hear them? Maybe she needed the wind in the trees, and the church bells, needed to be inside a church again, and then they would come back to her clearly.

  “Sold to the English”—was this possibly to be part of her mission? “Maybe Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret are saying that I won’t be freed until the English take me to London to meet their King Henry. . . .”

  Joan of Arc actually said that. Girl X almost laughed. Almost funny, that—her initial conception of what her English captivity would entail.

  That hadn’t lasted long. Her forebodings increased, though not enough, she knew now, for her to have any real sense of what was in store for her, how bad it would be.

  Still, she had been sufficiently appalled to climb out onto the parapet that evening. The tower was high, sixty feet or so, but not impossible. Maybe she hadn’t been hearing her saints because she wasn’t meant to be a prisoner. Maybe they would help her again if she helped herself.

  She looked down. A long way, but if her saints came to her, she could do it. She took heart and decided to try. She climbed up on the ledge, called on Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, commended herself to God, and, looking up, not down, leapt.

  When she finally opened her eyes, it was into the kind eyes of the three Joans, full of tears. She had been found lying unconscious on the ground, and they had been terrified that she would die in mortal sin, a suicide.

  No, no, she whispered to them. She hadn’t been trying to kill herself, she had been trying to escape. She’d thought that maybe her saints would catch her. Then she closed her eyes again and nearly did die.

  The English were outraged. “The king,” fumed Warwick to Luxembourg, “has paid dearly for her. The king”—six-year-old Henry VI—“doesn’t want her to die, except by his justice.”

  She didn’t die then, thanks to the loving care of the three Joans. Still, she wouldn’t eat or drink for three days. That had been only last November. What would they say now? she wondered.

  “You must eat, dear girl,” they’d said then, “drink this water, this tea, otherwise we
fear greatly that you will burn in hell.”

  And she’d done it, for them, but hadn’t she been in hell since then anyway? Locked in a dungeon, chained. No light, no air.

  Though no fire, put in Girl X. Yes, there was that.

  The three Joans were there, when Luxembourg finally turned her over to the English. The old one tried to speak, but couldn’t. “She has sickened, she will die soon,” the young one whispered. She herself vowed never to forget, ever. She was in black—she would never wear colored clothes again, she told Joan of Arc, tears running down her pale cheeks.

  The middle one’s eyes were dry. She didn’t answer when her husband addressed her. She turned away when he moved to take her hand.

  As for Jean de Luxembourg, he had his gold—and a new coat of arms. A camel, staggering under its load. His new motto: “Nul n’est tenu à l’impossible.” No one is held to the impossible.

  “Goodbye,” sobbed his daughter to Joan of Arc. “Take our love.”

  And she would, thought Girl X. She’d take it tonight. Wrap it around her, though it was rightfully Joan of Arc’s, not hers, and cover her legs with it, sleep with it tonight. It would be her pants, and her evening prayer, mass even, and Holy Communion. It would protect her and defend her, from all the English—they could do it, her three Joans. She would wrap their love around her, and sleep that night and maybe dream.

  XII.

  She awoke the next morning. Still alive. Arms and legs, hands and face. Everything hurt—it had been bad yesterday. But her perspective was a long one now.

  “Unchain me,” she called to the guards. It was routine, every morning. They let her up to use the latrine.

  “Unchain me, let me get up.”

  Whispering, mumbling. Finally, one of them came and unlocked her chains. The best part of the day. She rubbed her wrists and ankles.

  “Give me the dress first,” he said, “before you go.”

  “I can’t go without it—” It was all she had on, besides a short shirt. She would have to walk half naked, in front of them.

  But he started pulling it off, over her head. The other one grabbed the dress, then pulled her old pants out of a sack, and threw them to her. “Now get dressed.”

  She covered herself, as best she could, then sat there, shaking. If they got her to put on the pants, they could report that she’d broken her promise to wear the skirt. And then she’d be a relapsed heretic, and she would burn.

  She wondered who’d thought of this scheme. She looked at their dull faces—it occurred to her that they must have names.

  They’d been together, truly intimate one might say, for months. Long, bad months, bad for them as well. The dungeon was cold, and damp, and dark.

  “You know I can’t put these on! They’ll burn me!”

  “Get up and get dressed!” One of them stuffed the dress into the sack, and tossed it into the corner.

  “No, no, you don’t understand!” But she could see they understood perfectly.

  “Was it your idea?” she asked in fast French, which they didn’t catch. She knew, anyway, that it wasn’t. It was sophisticated and clever, this ploy, worthy of Warwick, or perhaps the lord who’d been here yesterday. Murder with no trace.

  “These pants are my death,” she said, more slowly. They nodded. They knew.

  She didn’t put them on at first, just sat there till noon, trying not to think, just to sit, calm, quiet, made of stone, until the exigencies of nature insisted that she was not stone, but alive. She finally put on the pants, and went out to relieve herself. When she came back, she turned to one of the guards.

  “What’s your name?”

  The other, cutting in: “Shut up, whore!”

  To him, then: “I beg you, in the name of God, give me back my dress!”

  He, the smarter one: “What dress?”

  The dumber: “The dress is gone.” He pointed to the corner.

  It was true. The dress was gone.

  They forgot to chain her—or anyway didn’t. They weren’t playing their lots, or laughing, or drinking their beer. No one was looking at her. They wouldn’t hit her anymore now, she felt. And then it came to her that Joan of Arc was back.

  In her pants. At least that. Dear God, it was good to have them on again. She would die now.

  We all die, said Joan of Arc.

  You didn’t, said Girl X, you couldn’t.

  Then, said Joan of Arc.

  But to burn?

  But to rot here? Chained like a dog?

  Better than to burn!

  I burn once. I’m chained here forever! And what choice is there anyway? said Joan of Arc. Where’s the dress?

  Someone had put the guards up to it. Cauchon, or probably Warwick, it was more English than French, this murder of prisoners. Hadn’t these kings of theirs come to power through the murder of allies, even archbishops? Her eyes filled with tears.

  They were tricking her, murdering her! She would at least accuse them!

  So—die kicking and screaming? said Joan of Arc.

  Better than as a lamb to slaughter! You know nothing! cried Girl X.

  No, no, I knew nothing before the stake.

  All the things that happen to a person in life. Born naked, and die naked, too. Even in pants. Church bells were ringing. It was Sunday.

  Be brave, daughter of God. . . .

  She leapt up—they were back! Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret! She fell to her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  They’re murdering me!

  Just be brave, daughter of God. . . .

  I have been forsaken!

  No, no, daughter of God, be brave. . . .

  Don’t leave me again!

  Never, daughter of God. . . .

  The ray of light came in. It hit the same spot every day, just a little bit later. She got up tentatively—they still hadn’t chained her. The guards didn’t look up as she walked across the cell to the place where the light hit the wall. She crouched down. She could frame the place where the light came in, where just by luck, or the grace of God, or both, the sun passed just once a day at just such a height as to hit that tiny slit of a window, and bring her—everything.

  To be murdered by them—Girl X motioned at the guards. Cruel, stupid faces, though somehow assuaged now. As if it were over.

  Well, it mostly was.

  The door had been opening and closing all day. Faces looking in at her, confirming. She was in pants. She had fallen.

  No, no, it won’t be like that, said Joan of Arc.

  Don’t tell me you’re still expecting your miracle? said Girl X cruelly.

  Joan of Arc half smiled. Who knows?

  XIII.

  Eight priests came in with Cauchon the next day. None of them had been there since last Thursday, and they all stopped short, even Cauchon, when they saw her. The Dominican friar Isambart de la Pierre turned away in tears.

  She put her hand to her face gingerly. She knew it was bad.

  Cauchon cleared his throat. “You are in men’s clothing.”

  She: “Yes, I took them recently.”

  Cauchon: “Who made you do it?”

  She: “No one. I took them willingly, without any constraint.”

  Cauchon: “Why?”

  She: “I like them better.”

  Cauchon: “You swore not to take them.”

  She: “You swore to put me in a Church prison. But it is more licit that I wear men’s clothes here, among men.”

  Cauchon: “Have you heard your so-called voices since Thursday, when you abjured them?”

  A question both leading and fatal, and they all knew it. There was a pause, and then she said, “Yes.”

  Cauchon breathed. “What did they say?”

  She: “They brought me God’s pity for the treason I committed to save my life. But Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have told me that I damn my soul this way.”

  The priests looked up. It was done now. The scribe wrote “RESPONSIO MORTIFERA”—fatal r
esponse—in big letters in the margin. She watched the quill: Yes, write. I don’t read, but I don’t have to.

  She: “They told me to be brave, and answer boldly, for the preacher that day was a false one, and when he said that I hadn’t been sent by God, that was a lie, for God sent me. I was damning my soul, and my saints came, and told me to confess my sin, for they understood that I did it all from fear of the fire.”

  Cauchon: “Yet you denied your saints on the scaffold.”

  She: “It was because I saw the executioner there, with his cart. I didn’t know, after that, what I was doing, but now I know I’d rather die once than suffer any more in here. And I’ll never deny God or my saints again.”

  Joan of Arc stood before them, radiant again.

  Liar, said Girl X to her silently.

  Maybe, said Joan of Arc, maybe at first.

  The priests stood, silent. No one moved, or even seemed to breathe.

  “Well?” Cauchon said finally to them. “Anything to say?”

  But there was nothing. “Then let us go.”

  Still, they didn’t move. They stood there, like choirboys, like newborn babes. Isambart looked like he was going to be sick.

  Cauchon wanted to kick him, all of them. “We have our work.” Idiots! He nodded to one of the guards, and the brute let them out at once, with no unpleasantness. Good. These days, one no longer knew.

  Cauchon didn’t look back at Joan of Arc as he left. Why look back, when he was looking forward? Soon he would be archbishop of Rouen, with all this behind him. Winchester had promised.

  He walked out of the castle and spied Warwick there, waiting.

  “Be of good cheer!” called Cauchon, loud enough for everyone to hear, as he crossed the few steps to his English colleague. “We’ve got her!”

  Warwick gave the barest nod. Everyone knew that the girl was back in pants. The question now was how much longer these Frenchmen could dither. “When?” asked Warwick.