The dais grew to be an alcove at one end. Two seats were put there, only two.
He did not get up yet. He said, You go ahead. Everyone watched her go and she turned her head and tried to outstare them. Even far and away above France’s finest people, the musicians sat silent and agog, their instruments lying in their laps.
Machet and a bearded official in red and purple were arguing with the king. He was tamping down their arguments with a lazy left hand. At last he got up and came and joined her.
The King: What are the other things?
Jehanne: I know this from the Voices. I’ve known it since I was fifteen, at least fifteen.
The King: Yes?
Jehanne: I’m the blood sacrifice set aside for you.
The funny eyes looked inadvertent.
The King: What?
Jehanne: I’m your victim.
There was some temptation, for the first time, to apologize for the grandeur of the claim.
Jehanne: Christ our brother was the big blood sacrifice. But a king needs another blood offering all over again for his kingship.
The King: You’ve been coached by some theologian.
Jehanne: It’s the last thing I want to sound like: one of them.
His big mouth hung. He trembled.
The King: You wouldn’t lie?
Jehanne: I wouldn’t lie to you. The Voices have been getting me ready for you.
He giggled lightly. His upturned face quivered slightly.
The King: We’re not a very pretty brother and sister.
Jehanne: It doesn’t matter. We have our uses.
The King: Holy Christ, Jehanne … If you’re a liar or a witch …
Jehanne: No, you can tell.
The King: Or a spy …
Jehanne: Give in. Give in to what you know about me.
Under closed eyes, he swallowed.
The King: I don’t want anyone to die for me. I don’t want any more murders. I carry the blame for the murder of cousin Jean when I was sixteen …
Jehanne: It isn’t our choice, sweet king. It’s all been arranged. Others will see to it.
The King: This is hard to believe. That I’m talking to you like this.
Jehanne: Imagine how it is for me.
The King: You’re some sort of incarnation. The theologians won’t like that.
Jehanne: This is news for you alone. You have a right to news of your own. After all, you’re going to be anointed.
The King: This is ridiculous. You say you’re going to be sacrificed and we’re both delighted about it.
Even his laughter and excitement was creaky, angular.
The King: Your friends say you go to Mass.
Jehanne: Yes.
The King: You confess?
Jehanne: Yes.
The King: You’re a virgin?
Jehanne: More than a virgin. I’ve never bled, sweet king. But don’t tell all these people.
The King: Never bled.
Jehanne: It’s full of meaning, of course.
The King: God in heaven.
Jehanne: Give me a relief force and I’ll go to Orleans.
His gaiety vanished then.
The King: I can’t. Not just like that.
She said nothing.
The King: You’ll have to be examined.
Jehanne: After we’ve been so close? You still don’t know?
The King: It isn’t so much for my sake. It’s more for theirs.
Jehanne: After you’re anointed, you’ll be able to make up your mind like that!
She slapped her hip.
The King: No, no. All these people would have to invest in a relief force. They deserve to know …
Jehanne: All these people?
The King: Maman Yolande – I mean, my mother-in-law, Her Highness the Queen of Sicily. My chamberlain la Tremoille. The portly one there. And even the Archbishop. They all have to raise money. So do I. They deserve to know …
Jehanne: Isn’t your word good enough?
The King: I want to be sure too.
She couldn’t help her lips tightening, or stupid tears coming out on her lids.
The King: Look, don’t be hurt, Jehanne. You’re lucky enough to be here.
Jehanne: Dauphin, that won’t ever be my attitude. You’re the one who’ll have to be grateful.
The King: My God! To you!
Jehanne: To Messire.
The King: There’s a prophecy about a virgin of Lorraine …
Jehanne: I’m nearly from Lorraine. Lorraine starts at the river. The Duke of Lorraine sends his respects by the way.
The King: The sacrifice …!
They already seemed so familiar to each other, so knit to each other’s horizons. It was like falling in love: you looked at a person and understood she’d always been there, a germ in the brain, a hint in the blood.
The King: Please, Jehanne, come and meet the queen and my council. It’s astonishing the way poets and martyrs and prophets keep coming on. Endlessly. And now you.
Jehanne: Yes, yes.
She agreed from politeness. She was enthralled by the straining necks and tip-toe postures of the nobles of France in the body of the hall.
The King: Maman Yolande’s been saying for ages that something has to be done about Orleans.
He led her by the hand out along the dais. All the Council stood except the two queens. He took her first to Yolande, the mother-in-law.
The King: Her Highness Queen Yolande of Sicily and Provence, Duchess of Anjou.
Queen Yolande had a square murky face, not at all handsome, not even for a fifty-year-old. Her hair was hidden under veils, nets, templers which all looked like a joke on top of that rugged militant forehead.
Yolande: Maître Machet has told me about you. That you’re a likely girl.
Jehanne: I hope more than likely, Queen.
Yolande: I’m sure something can be done for you.
Beside Yolande, slight Queen Marie complained to the king.
Marie: Listen, aren’t you supposed to introduce guests first to me?
She was tiny, peevish, skin as murky as Maman’s.
The King: Is it so important?
Marie: I think so. It’s always happening. Either the Queen of France has precedence over the Queen of Sicily or …
The King: The Queen of France does have precedence. But your own mother …!
Marie: All right. If you’re so keen on informality, try it out on the Council and see if they tolerate it. Introduce Machet before Clermont and Clermont before Chartres and Chartres before Georges.
The King: Jehanne, this is my queen.
Beside the queen Maman Yolande was once more casting up her eyes and smiling.
Jehanne knelt down and picked up the queen’s hem. It was a brilliant gown – black velvet vines on cloth of gold. A fur collar. It smelt of newness and spice when Jehanne kissed it. The queen seemed unaware of this gesture of submission, so Jehanne got up again.
The large man at the queen’s side was Monsieur de la Tremoille, Fat Georges, the Lord Chamberlain of the Kingdom. His eyes were sharp, blue, young, knightly in a face of sweat. They did not move, the face wasn’t interested.
Chancellor Regnault de Chartres, the Archbishop of Rheims, had blue age-marks on his pallid skin. His forehead was peeling, flakes of dying skin being on his clothing. At least he nodded.
Jehanne: Is the holy ampoule safe in Rheims, Monsieur?
Regnault: How quaint of you to ask. I suppose it is. I haven’t yet had the happiness to visit my city.
Jehanne: This year then. I promise.
But he wouldn’t give her the benefit of his eyes.
The King: Be a little grateful, Monsieur Chancellor. Jehanne’s not only going to pack the Goddams out of Orleans. She’s going to take us to Rheims as well.
The girl felt for a second let down, as any girl would whose lover used their intimacies just to get laughs from his friends. She could tell that, with this lover, it might happen a lot.
When they came to Monsieur de Gaucourt, the king asked him to find her apartments in Coudray.
The King: We can’t have her mobbed – I believe she was mobbed down in the town. That can’t go on. Also you must arrange a servant for her.
De Gaucourt kept a sort of affirmative silence, bowing slightly.
Later they all sat, the dais people. The splendid being in the hall, the knights as well, kept standing, while music was played.
The King: What does your father do?
Jehanne: He’s a farmer. He’s doyen of Domremy-à-Greux.
The King: I can’t say I know it.
It was like being told God didn’t have Domremy-à-Greux on his books.
Jehanne: The north half of it is in France, dauphin.
The King: The other half?
Jehanne: The other half belongs to the Duke of Bar.
The King: Ah, my brother-in-law. Whom were you born under. Him or me?
Jehanne: Under you, dauphin.
The King: Good.
Jehanne, as a girl of simple targets, most of which she hit squarely, could barely suspect, let alone define, the complexities she now moved amongst.
For example, during the music de la Tremoille rose and went and stood behind Maman Yolande’s chair.
La Tremoille: You got that mob together tonight, Madame. The mob outside her pub.
Yolande knew the fat man’s quick eyes were off down the Grand Logis. He liked small pale women who were imperceptible under him, whom he could lie on and almost forget they were there.
All his weight was on the back of Yolande’s chair at that moment.
La Tremoille: The crowd at the pub …
Yolande: How could I get a crowd together at the pub?
La Tremoille: You got half a dozen of your Franciscans to preach about Lorraine virgins in the market today. After the Council meeting. If we’d known you’d take advantage of us like this …
Yolande: We need a new impetus. It’s time.
La Tremoille: It doesn’t matter to you that you might upset our diplomatic connection with Burgundy.
Yolande: You mean the contracts you have with the Burgundian army.
La Tremoille: You know what I mean. I mean with the duke. Who can’t be beaten front-on.
Yolande reminded him that if Orleans went Charles wouldn’t be in the market for money-loans any more.
La Tremoille admitted that, in the long term, Orleans had to be relieved. Yolande said she had some first-rate plate Fat Georges might care to advance money on.
They discussed whether the girl might be a witch, and how it was Machet’s first impression that she wasn’t.
La Tremoille: They tell me you’ve sent Gaucherie to Orleans.
Yolande: Yes.
La Tremoille: To tell them Merlin’s virgin is coming to help them.
Yolande: It won’t hurt to tell them that.
La Tremoille: Reprehensible. Playing on people’s hopes.
Yolande: It’s time they were turned back, those Goddam English.
La Tremoille: Only because you don’t want them all over your real estate in Anjou.
Yolande: It’s time. For lots of reasons.
La Tremoille: Reprehensible. Playing on people’s hopes.
His high-pitched squeak of appal died. He went and sat down.
He would never be told that Gaucherie had travelled by way of Fierbois. Where he looked at the girl and perhaps gave her news of a private hope the king had.
For Yolande knew that true visionaries take up that sort of hint with zeal. She had known the mystic Marie de Maillé, a frightening woman, whom poor old crazy Charles had consulted often around the century’s turn. And every time she told him she could see weapons hanging from the clouds and a mad king sitting in his own filth. But he had never been able to stop himself calling her in periodically to tell him of the awful times coming. She would have died for the young Charles if it had been suggested to her.
Yolande liked the way Charles was talking to Jehanne. The way he sat up when he spoke. Soon he would find out that in Orleans they were calling aloud for the girl.
Later in the night Jehanne was taken out of the Grand Logis, drunk with terror, crazed with impressions, pretending to talk and walk straight. Through a tangle of walls, over bridges, they got into the inner yards of Coudray. She walked behind Monsieur and Madame du Bellier. Servants carried lights. She already had a high-summer headache from all the lights in the Grand Logis. And she was supposed to sleep now, in the utterly foreign apartment of the du Belliers. This was in one of the antique towers – a lot of screens and opulent drapes hid the windows, but the shutters could be heard shuddering in the wind.
Jehanne and Madame du Bellier sat in high-backed chairs waiting for Jehanne’s bed to be got ready. Hot bricks wrapped in flannel were put deep down amongst the sheets.
Du Bellier: Maman Yolande is a fine character. She saves the king from his friends.
Jehanne: I’m his friend.
Du Bellier: I didn’t for a moment mean you, Mademoiselle, I think Maman Yolande is very pleased with you.
Two maids carried in a massive chamber-pot, but Jehanne asked to be taken to the latrines. It was simple curiosity. How did people in high towers rid themselves of their wastes?
A maid showed her into the hall, then down a little passageway with two right-angles in it to baffle fetor. Behinds drapes were twin holes in the masonry. She could hear a river deep, deep below them.
Maid: It’s an underground stream, Mademoiselle. It washes the whole mess down into the Vienne.
Jehanne: Above or below the town?
Maid: I’m not sure, Mademoiselle.
Jehanne: It’s an important question. For the town.
Maid: Shall I wait for Mademoiselle in the corridor?
When they got back to the place where she was to sleep, Queen Yolande sat there. So too Madame du Bellier, her head turned chastely to one side.
When Yolande spoke the words sounded habitual – like yet another midnight conference out of many.
Yolande: Jehanne, have you ever heard of Maître Gelu or Maître Gerson.
Jehanne said she hadn’t.
Yolande: They are great scholars. Expelled from the University of Paris by the Duke of Burgundy for being Armagnac in sentiment, you understand – for loving the king. Like Père Machet himself.
Jehanne: I see.
Yolande: The Council has written to Maîtres Gelu and Gerson asking their opinion of you. Now one thing is likely to be troublesome. I believe it’s forbidden in the Old Testament for women to wear men’s clothing.
Jehanne: I didn’t know that, Queen Yolande.
Yolande: It isn’t the sort of thing a parish priest has to tell most girls.
She put her big chin up and scratched underneath it, like a man whose stubble is itching him.
Yolande: Why do you dress like that?
Jehanne: Jean de Metz advised it. Then the voice of Messire …
Yolande: Do you think it was good advice?
Jehanne: It was the best way to travel across France …
Yolande: But the journey’s over now.
Jehanne: No, I haven’t gone to Orleans.
Queen Yolande gave a whimsical grunt. Jehanne tried again.
Jehanne: I should be at home. I should be having children. Except that wasn’t allowed and I had to take on new clothes.
Yolande: Like a nun?
Jehanne: Messire called me his little he-nun.
Yolande was well satisfied.
Yolande: Ah, like a nun throwing off her old clothes. I’ll most certainly tell Maîtres Gerson and Gelu you said that.
Jehanne: I don’t need anyone to plead for me, Madame.
Yolande: It might be your business to believe things are fated to happen. It’s my business to arrange them. Let’s respect each other’s business. Now, you’re supposed to be a virgin as well.
Jehanne: Yes.
Yolande: You can’t object if Madame du Be
llier and I verify it.
Jehanne stood silent, minding. The queen shrugged and looked suddenly tender.
Yolande: You’ll have to put up with a lot of this. I’ve sent off to Orleans telling them to expect a great virgin. I’ll look silly if the virgin’s fallen from her state. Undress now and lie on the bed.
Jehanne went to the screen that was meant to shield the bed from draughts. She took off her clothes and hung them on the screen.
Yolande: Now lie on the bed. Ah, at least you’ve got breasts.
Jehanne: Of course, Madame.
Du Bellier: Her Majesty is thinking of a clique who consider you a boy disguised. Some royal bastard …
Yolande: Now, lie as if you were being looked at by a physician.
Jehanne: I’ve never been looked at by a physician.
Yolande: Of course not. Well, like this.
The Queen of Sicily actually rolled on the bed and disposed her large legs. Then she rose and indicated Jehanne should do likewise. Jehanne did. She could see squinting Madame du Bellier and the Queen of Sicily framed by her knees. Her head side-on on the pillow, she flinched as if they would attack her.
Yolande: Madame du Bellier, Madame … quite remarkable. Quite …
Jehanne looked at Madame du Bellier, who was frowning and peering devotedly.
Jehanne: I’ve never bled. Please don’t tell anyone.
Yolande: You’re a good girl, Jehanne.
But Jehanne hated that timid adjective.
Jehanne: I’m more than that, I’m a freak. But Brother Jesus planned me.
Yolande: You’re a most necessary freak.
Jehanne: My blood belongs to Jesus and his weak brother …
It was immensely more than she’d intended to say.
Yolande: Ah. Thank Christ you came.
Still lying on the bed with her knees up, Jehanne begun weeping, weakly. It was a little hard to breathe, she felt so far above the earth in the arc of her godhood, so uselessly furious at the Voices. Disconnectedly, she thought how nice it would be to sleep in a haystack again, all her points done up, between de Metz and Bertrand.
The queen came up the side of the bed and patted her short hair.
Yolande: You’ll learn to trust only me. And to look out for spies.
She didn’t say whose.
The king’s first Mass was not till mid-morning so Jehanne had to fast till then. Early however the maid came and told her the du Belliers and Monsieur de Gaucourt wanted to see her in the hall.
Blood Red, Sister Rose: A Novel of the Maid of Orleans Page 15