Blood Red, Sister Rose: A Novel of the Maid of Orleans

by Thomas Keneally

  Jehannette saw by the church the bloating body of a horse. It was almost a release to see this death of animal flesh amidst all the inhuman wreckage. Jacques and other men were standing beyond the body of the horse, their backs to it. They had discovered the heart mystery of the town’s ruination: that was the impression Jehannette got. So she crept up on them.

  Nicolas Barrey was lying stark-eyed and grey, some days dead. There was a cross-bow bolt in his throat and his belly was a city of maggots.

  She fought them to get near, but old Jean Barrey held her off firmly, seeming to exclude her from some last intimacy he wanted to share with the boy. Jacques beset her, hissing in her ear as she groaned and felt authentically widowed.

  Jacques: Why weren’t you kinder to him then?

  After that, a sort of genial and final despair of her appeared in Jacques. He began hugging her again. He said, in a valedictory way, You little piglet, you fat little goose, you mad little bitch. He had somehow understood he couldn’t love her through the flat of his fist any more.

  There were too many indications that that phase was over. She had lost a lover, was a sort of widow. She had carried Madame Aubrit’s love-letters to a general. Using on him (so said the noncommittal Lassois) the same catty disdain she used on her old man. She’d come home with a knight’s escort and her very individual virginity untouched. And she had been Poulengy’s white pucelle in Boischenu.

  Zabillet: I’ve told him not to beat you up any more.

  Jehannette: Thank you. It was my hair full of muck I couldn’t stand.

  Zabillet: He’s just a little scared.

  Jehannette: So am I. I don’t know what will happen.

  Although two parts of her knew differing certainties. In her chest and shoulders she was certain she would always be here, Jacques’s funny unmarried daughter. In her gut, however, she was certain of what happened to you when you were incarnate god the way she was: first the giant act, then the flesh-blood sacrifice. Jesus who was God of gods, also knew. In the Gospel of St John the knowledge was in his gut like a growth, like a baby in his mind’s womb. Now in hers like a baby. So the certainty in the gut was the worst: the chest and shoulders just had trouble imagining what would happen, that was all. First, the entry into Jerusalem or Château-Chinon. Then, the iron through the wrists.

  She was scared and did know what would happen.

  Jehannette: I just don’t know what will happen.

  De Poulengy rode down from Vaucouleurs with Julien his servant in mid-November. He wanted to tell her Jean de Metz would certainly travel now. Because Orleans had been attacked by an English army early in the month and had invited knights to join the garrison.

  Bertrand was of course appalled by the English assault. It was against all law. They had the Duke of Orleans a prisoner in England.

  Bertrand: You can’t attack the city of a prince you’ve got prisoner. That’s all.

  Jehannette felt relief. All the crazy old protocol of battle was under cancellation now. The demonic English had woken up to it. Hal Monmouth wouldn’t take prisoners at Agincourt. Then the English Royal Council refused to sell the Duke of Orleans back. Now Bedford had sent troops against the Duke’s city. She thought things are simpler now, things were naturally vicious, unfantastical. She felt that if she wanted to intrude she wouldn’t need to know all the weird etiquettes that once ruled wars.

  Bertrand (over and over): You just can’t do it, it isn’t allowed.

  Jehannette: They’re doing it.

  Bertrand: Maybe. But they’ve already suffered for it.

  It seemed that on the first Sunday of the siege the Earl of Salisbury had been looking at the city fortifications from a tower outside the walls. They heard nothing, Salisbury and the English generals, but one of the sides of the window recess blew away and bore half Salisbury’s face with it. He’d taken four days to die. The story was it was a child who had gone up on the walls of Orleans to play and accidentally set off a mortar. The one stone ball found the one window where the violator of world law stood! God had done it, Poulengy said.

  Jehannette: I suppose God gave Henry Monmouth piles too.

  What she saw was that this Earl of Salisbury had died the same way Mengette’s peasant husband Collot had, by someone’s remote action, indecently. That too somehow made the new world seem simpler, more malleable, than the old.

  Bertrand: A child! An innocent child set the mortar off!

  Jehannette: That’s a good story. I wouldn’t change it if I was them.

  Bertrand: What’s wrong with you?

  Jehannette: So this Jean de Metz wants to leave Vaucouleurs?

  Bertrand: I’ve only discussed it in basic terms. But he seems willing. D’Ourches can’t leave the district. His father’s sick and he wants to oversee next year’s harvest.

  Jehannette: But this Jean de Metz hasn’t anything to oversee.

  Bertrand: That’s right.

  Jehannette: He’d think it was a great joke to rape me.

  Bertrand: I’m sure he can be talked out of it. He isn’t so bad.

  Jehannette: All right. I’ll travel with him.

  Bertrand: You don’t sound grateful.

  Jehannette: What’s gratitude got to do with it? You’ll have an exciting journey.

  Bertrand: Hm.

  She thought he’ll cancel if he’s given the chance, he’ll back out.

  In the new year Jehanne Lassois was due to have her baby. At Epiphany Lassois called for Jehannette, as Poulengy had told him to. The girl didn’t pack any petticoats, trying to imply she’d be away just a few days.

  Jacques: Are you going up to Vaucouleurs?

  He asked dismally. Since last August it had become her business if she went to Vaucouleurs or not. But he let her know that her tripping round would distress her old man very much.

  Jehannette: I don’t have the clothes for it.

  She showed him her empty hands. Lassois didn’t say anything.

  It wasn’t till they were going through Greux and were safely away from home that she began to give people full-value farewells. Little widow Mengette was in the sun amidst the glaring snow in her mother-in-law’s garden. The girl came up and started weeping over Mengette’s knees.

  Mengette: What’s the matter? You’re only going to a confinement.

  Jehannette: I’m going away. But don’t tell Jacques. Perhaps in a month or so …

  She made a ceremonious goodbye to the Guillemettes who were out in the snow in their yard and to Jean Waltrin of Greux. Lassois understood she was making up for the off-hand way she’d left Jacques and Zabillet.

  General de Baudricourt had been asked by de Poulengy to include a memorandum in his January despatches. It said:

  May I remind Your Benign Majesty that last May a virgin said to have Sibylline powers came here to ask for an escort to you. She claimed to be the Oak-wood Virgin of Merlin’s prophecy. She’s a very rugged sort of person, goes to Mass and doesn’t have fits. She says she’s heard voices ordering her to take you to Rheims. If Your Majesty should happen to wish to examine her, I could provide an escort from officers of this garrison who want to join the army on the Loire. I would of course examine her as thoroughly as I could here to test her political and moral nature. They call her a pucelle but a white pucelle …

  Mid-January a Lassois baby-boy had been born and poor Durand kissed his head and straightway took Jehannette to Vaucouleurs. Mother le Royer was waiting for them in the street. She was shivering and slipped about on the iced stones in her sabots.

  Mother le Royer: That gentleman Monsieur Bertrand is here, he’s been here every afternoon for a week. (Having that gentleman in the house all the time embittered her a little.) It’s no use having important people in here to talk to you. There’s nowhere for the rest of us to go to let you be private. Except out in the cold. It’s different in summer.

  Bertrand: Hello Jehannette.

  Jehannette: I’m no one’s Jehannette any more, no one’s little girl. You’d
better call me Jehanne. No one would call a spinster Jehannette.

  Bertrand: Thanks for bringing her, Durand. You’re doing better things than you understand.

  Bertrand seemed full of spry faith today.

  Lassois fended off the knight’s gratitude, protected his brain from it by putting both hands palms-out on his forehead.

  Bertrand: I’ve been talking to d’Ourches and the general about Orleans. It’s the centre of the set-up now. Like this.

  Fuller’s dust, drifted down from the floor above, lay over the table. Bertrand made marks on it.

  Bertrand: That’s the river and here’s Orleans on the north bank. Down here is Chinon and here is Blois where the relief forces are supposed to marshal and here’s Gien where the king has a garrison. That’s the place we’d go for first if we were making for the Loire. Now Rheims is right up here, as I told you.

  He pointed to the top right-hand corner of the table, spearing the dust half-a-dozen times with his index finger, emphasizing that the holy town was an island of impossibility.

  Mother le Royer didn’t like the way he was treating her table. The names were unknown to her, the pattern may have been unclean for all she knew.

  Bertrand: If they take Orleans, Blois and Gien will go, then Bourges. They’ll be deep in the king’s country then. It’s unthinkable. Even as it is now they’re right across the line of travel from Chinon to Rheims. You have to understand these things if you want to talk to the general.

  The hard geography he had drawn depressed her. She began to yawn.

  Jehanne: You mean they’ve got to be driven away from Orleans?

  Bertrand: Yes. And don’t think there isn’t a road from Paris to Orleans. In every town there’s an English depot and a garrison. And between the line of the road and Rheims there are towns called Montargis, Melun, Auxerre, Troyes, Sens – Holy Mother, endless towns that all have a garrison of Goddam-English or Burgundians!

  The girl waved her hand, dismissed the eastern half of the table.

  Jehanne: You told me about them last May. It’s Orleans that’s the trouble.

  Bertrand: Yes, yes. It’s the trouble.

  He sounded exhausted by his knowledge of the map.

  Jehanne: De Metz still wants to come?

  Bertrand: Yes. There are lots of English nobles down there. He wants to get himself one and put him up for sale.

  Jehanne: When are we going?

  Bertrand: The general wants to see you first.

  Jehanne: No.

  Bertrand: How does he know you’re not a witch? You come here using words like pucelle. It gets around.

  Jehanne: I was told by the pucelle of the witches of Boischenu, a whore called Mauvrillette … you might know her … I was told the devil services the witches with an ice-cold member. How can I be a witch if I’m still a virgin?

  Bertrand: He doesn’t know you’re a virgin.

  Jehanne: I’ve got a body like a child. Because I haven’t bled.

  Bertrand: He doesn’t know that.

  Jehanne: I won’t tell him. I don’t want him to know!

  He hushed her down, pointing to the roof.

  Bertrand: You’ve already told the fuller, Jehanne.

  The girl sat and began to huddle. Motherly Mother le Royer recognized a frightened child there and came out of the corner, taking her by the shoulders.

  Bertrand: We’re going to Chinon all right. (Bertrand was brotherly as Mother le Royer was maternal.) But he’s waiting on an answer from the king for a start.

  Mother le Royer: The king knows about her?

  And at once there was a fever of strength in the girl’s belly, an intoxication. Of course, I’m in the king’s knowledge now, she articulated to herself. My pattern is in the king’s knowledge. The excruciating map de Poulengy had drawn in dust was blown out of her memory, remaining valid only at the back of the brain, not in the guts where godhead pawed like a baby.

  Messire: Orleans is an eye in the king’s head, a tooth in his mouth, love. Its walls touch Jesus’ brow.

  Jehanne: Orleans?

  Messire: Orleans.

  Jehanne: Yes.

  So Jehanne went back amongst the sable lions of de Baudricourt and the cavernous fireplaces. Raging now with de Baudricourt timber, she saw. Timber contracted to Monsieur Antoine Vergy last August, when Domremy-à-Greux, Greux, Burey-le-Petit, Burey-la-Côte and two dozen towns had been ruined.

  De Baudricourt: Well, you said you’d be back. And you’re back. (The little shoulders shook genially, and the unheroic gut.) Just in time. We’ll be moving out at Easter.

  She didn’t want his unmixed goodwill. It would yield more to keep him bewildered.

  Jehanne: You lost the city but won some contracts.

  For a second he was offended. He’d only been trying to be nice.

  De Baudricourt: That’s the way of the world. Someone has to get Cauchon’s contracts … But I’m not going to explain myself to you.

  Jehanne: I wouldn’t be very interested.

  De Baudricourt: Jesus, you’re the same rude little cow.

  Jehanne: Yes. When can I have the escort? There’s Orleans to look to now.

  De Baudricourt: Messire’s added Orleans to the list?

  Jehanne: I can’t help Messire, general. Amongst what he says is Orleans. When can I have the escort?

  De Baudricourt: I want to talk with you a bit first, I want you to call me Monsieur because that’s what I bloody well am to you. I want you to confess every few days to the priests at the collegiate church. I want to talk to Mother le Royer …

  Jehanne: She knows I’m a virgin. We went to the baths together today …

  The general raised his eyebrows – almost like the father of a wise child – towards the Benedictine and Poulengy and some middle-aged official in a long woollen overall. The official refused to share the general’s pride.

  De Baudricourt: Go back to your cellar now. (The general told her softly, again like a father. She wondered was she visibly orphaned; the speed at which le Royer and the general offered themselves as new parents astounded her.) And don’t give Mother le Royer any cause to change her mind about you.

  Jehanne: If you have to make these jokes, I suppose I have to tolerate it.

  De Baudricourt: That’s right. Get out now, get out.

  Outside she asked de Poulengy who the middle-aged man in the long tunic was. He told her it was the Chamberlain to the Duke of Lorraine. The general thought the Duke might be talked into giving them safe conduct papers.

  Jehanne: Would that do any good?

  Bertrand: Perhaps a little.

  Jehanne: The general wants to share the joke. The joke I am.

  Bertrand: Perhaps.

  Jehanne: Bertrand?

  Bertrand: Yes?

  Jehanne: I do often mean to thank you. For what you do.

  Bertrand shook his head.

  Bertrand: No, I’m honoured. It’s my … my only chance.

  She looked at him, knowing he meant my only chance of knighthood, honour. At first she wanted to laugh at such an imperfect knight’s intimate ambitions but after a second was ashamed of herself.

  Jehanne: You have to fix it so that we start soon, Bertrand.

  She was begging. She could feel a sort of hilarious disbelief rising in her, in the static air of Vaucouleurs. Waiting for the commandant to try out his squalid tests.

  At the collegiate church she confessed to Père Jean Fournier and not without some cunning. For example:

  Jehanne: I was arrogant towards a lord higher in the order of things than me. But he wouldn’t do what’s needed.

  Fournier: Needed? Who by?

  Jehanne: By Messire St Michael.

  Fournier: You don’t mean to tell me …?

  Jehanne: Yes, by Messire St Michael. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.

  Père Jean Fournier knew who he had there, behind the black screen.

  Fournier: What else?

  Jehanne: I despair.

 
Fournier: You despair?

  Jehanne: Because things take so long to arrange, great men move so slowly.

  Fournier: Nothing happens in a hurry in this world. Especially for the arrogant. Especially for those who despair.

  Ho-hum Père Fournier, she thought.

  He asked her did the voices tell her to be arrogant. She said the arrogance was all her own.

  And why was she a virgin?

  Because Christ was. But she didn’t tell him she was victim: clerics like Fournier didn’t like girls to make claims.

  Some days she went back to Burey-le-Petit to see the baby. One afternoon she spent three hours with de Baudricourt and even asked him how to deploy a company of troops. He enjoyed himself, calling the businessmen in from the waiting-room to use as moving pieces. The businessmen formed the men-at-arms in the centre. Mounted or dismounted according to the nature of the action, the ground where you stood, whether it had rained or not – a dozen other considerations. The Benedictine monk and a few officers were arranged around them as wedges of pikers and archers. So the general had turned the social order upside down, making the local tradesmen the knights for the purposes of demonstration, and making the knights and the clergy the common off-siders and flankers.

  De Baudricourt: Don’t worry about the chinless wonders in the middle. The longbow counts for a lot. Not so much the crossbow. It takes too long to crank it up and fit a new bolt. But when you’re defending a town the crossbow’s fine. Like at Orleans. You can have men on the walls all day cranking their bows. Bertrand will tell you we had ordinary citizens up on the walls sending bolts off all day at Vergy’s Burgundians and Swiss. The Swiss are scared shitless of them, to coin a phrase. You see, a bolt can do awful things.

  Nicolas Barrey’s image, desecrated by bolts, burnt her eyes.

  De Baudricourt: It’s the English who are really good at all this.

  When the businessmen and officers had been sent out, the general and the girl suddenly began laughing, laughing.

  Jehanne: Please send me.

  De Baudricourt: I can’t yet. You know all the reasons why. And you can’t be a general. You’ve got to start learning that at five.