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

by Thomas Keneally

  She was using his own word against him.

  Jehanne: Now will you come with me?

  Alençon: Why?

  Jehanne: Surely there’s enough for you to do. Arrangements … orders …

  He nodded and got his doublet on and latched up his points. On the way to the door he hesitated and called over his shoulder towards Madame du Rhin besieged in bed.

  Alençon: Goodbye … Goodbye Madame …

  There went Château Matracoute!

  The armourer had asked does the young lady want a proper sword.

  Jehanne thought of the swords at Fierbois. Hanging from the rafters because they had virtue, had figured in victories often prodigious.

  Père Pasquerel, her chaplain, wrote to the priest-curators of Fierbois asking for a sword.

  The next night Yolande mentioned it at table.

  Yolande: Charles Martel’s sword is said to be buried at Fierbois …

  Later the same night Mesdames Margaret and Catherine visited her.

  Madame Ste Catherine: Rose takes sword …

  Madame Ste Margaret: As wife takes husband.

  Their voices went on like a pulse in her blood. Their persistence was only partly a comfort.

  By noon the following day there was a story in the town that she had sent for the sword of Charles Martel in Fierbois, giving exact instructions about the place where it could be found by digging.

  She complained to Yolande. Yolande said it was necessary to conjure up names. Even names from seven hundred years back.

  Jehanne remarked satirically that after being in the earth seven hundred years, the weapon wouldn’t have much of a cutting edge.

  She began to feel all the tracery work Yolande and the Franciscans did on her was a kind of assault.

  Jehanne: I’ll tell people it isn’t the truth.

  Yolande: Deny a little and you deny the lot.

  She smiled, that Queen of Sicily. That cool, percipient, unafraid smile that had harried Charles from boyhood on.

  Very early the next day, Pasquerel heard her morning confession in a corner of the first floor apartment where Jehanne slept with Madame du Puy. She thought, Pasquerel is an innocent. She decided to ask him about Yolande’s hectic legend-making.

  But however personally lilywhite Pasquerel might be, he had caught some sort of subtlety from his professors of theology.

  Pasquerel: Even Jesus had to tolerate it. The story for example that he and the good thief shared the same bath water when they were babies. Maître Gelu says it’s a fantasy. Yet it’s got this much truth to it: it’s a story about how they were fated to each other from babyhood. Now the story of the sword of Martel has this much truth to it: that you’re expected to do to the Goddams what Martel did to the Arabs. You see. Maître Gelu would say there’s no sense in denying that sort of story.

  But she was afraid of operating on such a ground where truth had varieties and there were varied species of it. It was the ground where Yolande and Regnault were masters. Even Pasquerel seemed to see this fear.

  Pasquerel: Look at it this way. You won’t stop people spreading stories.

  Altogether it had been a preposterous week for Père Pasquerel. He had been made a chaplain on royal pay, heard the confession of a royal duke – how Alençon had gone flying adulterously about the earth with some affluent witch. And day by day, he (Pasquerel) learnt in confessional secrecy the girl’s conscience.

  When the sword came it was very large and in good condition, newly greased, five little crosses on the hilt. Yolande had sent a page to tell Jehanne to come to the hôtel de ville and accept it in front of various councillors, with ceremony.

  Jehanne got Pasquerel to write a letter.

  It said Jehanne preferred to accept this weapon in private. All the executive of the Armourers’ Guild brought it to the du Puys’, but only the man who had run up Jehanne’s armour was let upstairs. Jehanne and Pasquerel were by the fire. Pasquerel was reciting Matins. The armourer stood drawing the blade in and out of its red velvet scabbard on which stood blue lilies.

  Armourer: It’s lovely work.

  Jehanne: But so large. How can I carry it?

  Nonetheless she had stood and was accepting it little by little into her hands.

  Up river from Tours, the city of Blois sat pleasantly on the north bank. The French army, the volunteers and the bought, sat there in the first haze of spring in drying tents on the slopes around the town. The slopes were drained well, the French army had not suffered that winter as Yolande said the Goddams had. All that month of April corn and cattle had come in from Gien, Bourges, Châteaudun. Corn depots and pastures were found across the river in the suburb called Vienne.

  On an April day when broom was beginning to bud on the sides of the Tours-Onzain-Blois road, Jehanne found a timbered place five miles from Blois. There she went amongst the trees, taking Minguet with her. She stripped to her undershirt and drawers and Minguet began to arm her. D’Aulon was also put into armour by his young squire. In the sunlight at the side of the road Pasquerel waited, also her second page called Raymond, and the two heralds, Guyenne and Ambleville, appointed to her from the king’s staff. Guyenne sang a song about love-making in Poitou and Limousin so lightly that one would think that to love was as easy as to breathe.

  Jehanne called through the elms to d’Aulon.

  Jehanne: All this must be awfully hot in summer.

  She had been riding the palfrey the Duke of Alençon had given her. Now Raymond brought her charger, which he’d been leading all the way from Tours. It was black, a dozen years old. The boys, Raymond and Minguet, got her up there by way of a set of folding wooden steps. Minguet carried them about at his saddle as part of his professional field equipment.

  Up there, folded in steel, she felt so clumsily arrogant that she couldn’t help expecting some large hand to swipe at her out of the broad day.

  Come on! she called out. D’Aulon was on his charger. One of the heralds had her white banner, Minguet carried her white standard. On the standard, Brother Jesus held the world in his hand. The words from the ring her mother had sent from le Puy were painted there – not in some sentimental recompense to Zabillet, but because they were appropriate to her own case. She thought nevertheless it would be good if Zabillet could one day know – it made her feel a slightly better daughter.

  When she rode in sight of the first tents and hovels on the slopes north of the road into Blois she called for her standard. There was a notch in the chamfron for her to put the butt of it, but her hand shuddered and it took two tries to place it there. The standard itself was made of buckram and did not flap in the wind off the river. This made it harder still to hold up.

  Oh Brother Jesus, and Maria carrying the unasked-for god-baby!

  The two heralds rode to the front of the line, little Raymond who had pimples and was short-sighted blew a horn.

  Men came loping out of the shacks and the marquees. They very quickly knew what dignitary it was, they started calling their friends out from indoors. Some of them wore rough shirts and clout-cloths only, bare-legged. They seemed men of large frame and reddish complexion and she could not understand what they spoke.

  D’Aulon: They’re Scotsmen, Mademoiselle. A strange people. Very wild. A backward race.

  They kept very quiet, just watching. South of the road, in the river meadows, were Piedmontese. You could smell the metallic mud in which they were camped. They were watching too. They whistled and yelled out small barrages of greeting, but without much zeal either way. They had a corpse amongst them, some soldier dead of spring fever, wrapped tight in a shroud, and Jehanne had the impression that he was levering himself on his shoulder-blades to watch. The French camp, high up by the château walls, was noisier. They whistled too and called Noël, but perfunctorily. They called, Going to slice up Talbot, sweetie?

  She told them, If Talbot isn’t wise enough to go home.

  It would have taken a campaigner’s ear to judge how much of all the noise wa
s mocking and how much applause, or what proportions of each were in a given soldier’s throat. You could guess there were reptilian obscenities inhabiting that tangle of noise. All you could do was hold on to the standard and look them in the eye. Your army.

  A French knight rode out of the château and met them. He said d’Alençon had sent him to invite her in.

  D’Aulon: They’re in a strange mood.

  Knight: They haven’t been paid. The duke has to go to Tours to see about it. There are so many slip-ups.

  D’Aulon: They won’t just wander off, will they?

  Jehanne thought this is immovable, this army and me. Neither of us are going home for any reason.

  Knight: The duke’s given them his word. You know what the hold-up is. Fat Georges.

  D’Aulon said nothing, since he lived on credit extended by de la Tremoille.

  When she went into the great hall striped with daylight d’Alençon came to her and kissed her hand. His eyes clearly said Am I forgiven, cleared to take part? She thought, if they were all like this …!

  Alençon: Come and meet two officers from Orleans.

  He led her to a trestle table at one end of the room. A weathered little man with a delicate, bunched mouth watched her come. He had one hip hitched on the table-top. Beyond the table was a taller less fragile Monsieur. They both wore long loose luxuriant gowns of satin and braid.

  The Duke of Alençon caressed the elbows of the smaller man.

  Alençon: This is Monsieur Etienne Vignolles.

  There was a sort of blue torment in his eyes such as you see in very good monks who are straining for the vision. Had he stood he wouldn’t have been an inch taller than her.

  Alençon: You might have heard of him under his pet-name.

  Jehanne: Oh?

  Alençon: La Hire.

  La Hire: Mademoiselle.

  Jehanne: Monsieur la Hire, in the Barrois they use your name to frighten children.

  La Hire whispered Mademoiselle again, in apparent gratitude. He couldn’t even stand straight, this newly introduced nightmare, his shoulders stooped forward as if he’d damaged his back while terrifying some population.

  The upright man was Monsieur Florent d’Illiers. He lacked savage by-names.

  D’Illiers: How’s my little brother-in-law Minguet? He’s a bit of a dreamer. Kick his arse if he gives you trouble.

  Jehanne: When Monsieur de Gaucourt gave Minguet to me he reminded me the boy was of better blood than I am. He told me not to kick him anywhere.

  D’llliers: Nonsense. Kick him wherever presents.

  General d’llliers, said Alençon, was taking the first contingent into Orleans in a few days. General la Hire had been there most of the winter. He had a sketch-map of the state of the city, which he showed. As he spoke there was no echo of screams from the Barrois in his almost scholarly blue eyes.

  La Hire: There are two ways of getting to Orleans. Either along the north bank or the south. The English have made large earthworks and forts to cover all the main roads both north and south of the river. The one here called St Lorent is the biggest but maybe not the most important. You can sneak into the city by crossing the Paris Road here, just south of the forest. And you can even get through in small numbers between any two of these forts on the west, even though the English have a ditch running all the way between them. On the other hand you can come from south of the river, cross a few miles upstream and come down to the Burgundy Gate here. The English fort there is undermanned, and that makes approach from that end a very wise business.

  Although there was that story about him flinging his helmet in the mud at Rouvray, at the battle in February when Fastolf rolled up the French and the Auvergnois troops got drunk, he didn’t seem to have any passions. He spoke exactly and always said the English, never the mocking names: Goddams, coués. He was an engrossing monster.

  With all the logic of her gut, with the logic of her stature as sister-king, Jehanne knew certainly which way to go. By tapping the map with her right hand she suppressed la Hire’s appraisal. Forgetting how he was in her screaming dreams at nine years of age.

  Jehanne: The way I choose to go is this way, fair up against these forts … this one here, what’s it’s name?… St Lorent. And this one …

  La Hire: Croix-Boisée.

  Jehanne: Indeed. Then straight in the main gate.

  D’Illiers: The English wouldn’t let it happen. They’d deploy most of their men against us before we got to the line of their fortresses.

  He was surprisingly willing to discuss her idea as with an equal. He turned and asked la Hire. Etienne? he said.

  La Hire: They’d have to. They’ve got the city people feeling helpless, they couldn’t afford to let us in, to let you in, Mademoiselle. The Bastard’s mentioned you in speeches.

  Why is he admitting this to me? She asked herself. Is he an ally of mine, this tiny killer?

  Jehanne: Very well. That’s the way we get them then.

  D’llliers: It’s not all as rosy as that. The way they can’t afford to let supplies in, we can’t afford to lose them, and there’s risk of losing the battle and the supplies if we force a tête-à-tête between the river and the Paris road. (He added something, with a rough, not-very-loving indulgence.) We could even lose you, Mademoiselle.

  Jehanne: It won’t happen.

  La Hire: You can’t be sure, Mademoiselle.

  Jehanne: It isn’t the season for that sort of thing to happen to me. It just isn’t time. You can be assured of that.

  She was pleased with the way she’d regained her brusqueness – treating them the way she’d treated de Baudricourt.

  D’llliers: Mademoiselle, I don’t think your seasons are the sole consideration.

  Jehanne: I thought it had all been settled by the Royal Commission. You’ve been told about the Royal Commission.

  D’llliers: Which one, Mademoiselle?

  Jehanne: The one into the question of whether I was a witch and heretic.

  D’llliers: That one.

  D’llliers winked at la Hire. It wasn’t a nice, uncle-style wink. What if there were generals with whom the Royal Commission didn’t count for much?

  Jehanne: Why in the name of God would the king send me? Fit me out with weapons and equerries? All that? If I’m not to give orders?

  One of la Hire’s shoulders dipped, as if in respect for the King’s Commission. She was glad d’llliers would be leaving for Orleans soon and la Hire staying on.

  La Hire: You have your certainties, Mademoiselle. I don’t think the Royal Commission said they were absolute certainties. Monsieur the Duke and all of us … we have to acquire our certainties with a bit more difficulty.

  Jehanne: There is a royal warrant. It says I have to be consulted.

  Alencçn was a little panic-stricken between his generals and his prophetess.

  Alençon: And you shall be, Jehanne.

  La Hire: But there are more generals to arrive yet.

  D’Illiers: And all of us are subject to the Royal Council.

  He could have been saying, that six-week circus in Poitiers. What does it mean to us? Jehanne remembered a story she had heard of la Hire: how at the siege of Le Mans he dismounted to ask a priest for a quick absolution. The priest asked him to confess; he said there’s no time to confess, just time for absolution. The priest refused. Back in his saddle, la Hire said, God, I want you to treat General la Hire the way General la Hire would treat you if he was God and God was a general. From a man like d’llliers or even de Gaucourt it would be a good joke. From la Hire it came with a cold workmanlike madness.

  That night Maître Machet came to tell her the Council wanted her to send a letter of summons to the English outside Orleans.

  She wondered how you got a letter to the English. Well, her heralds would take it, Monsieur Ambleville, Monsieur Guyenne. She remembered Guyenne’s sweet lyric voice.

  Machet: It’s all right. They’ve got immunity.

  But only under the weird
laws that had given Orleans its immunity. The Goddam English had annulled those laws. So, in her guts, had she.

  Machet: They’d have no sane reason to detain heralds. Believe me.

  Jehanne: Ambleville and Guyenne … they can take it right into St Lorent and put it in Talbot’s hand?

  Machet: I’ll send a secretary.

  Jehanne: Père Pasquerel must read it to me in its final form.

  Machet: Of course.

  The letter she worked on called first on the English king (seven-years-old, what must he think of the jagged world dad Hal Monmouth left him?) on Bedford, Suffolk, John Lord Talbot, and Thomas Scales, all to give up and surrender the keys of all the king’s cities they had taken in France. Divinely sent, she’d come to ask for the be-Englished Duke of Orleans and his city back. (Had the Voices spoken of that duke or was it the daily subcutaneous voice of Madame Rabateau?) All soldiers, gentlemen or otherwise, in the English army outside Orleans, go home. The king (said the letter) and I are willing to make peace if you do. The King of England must understand: I am a leader whom you can’t argue with. The English king can’t hold France because Brother Jesus refused to recognize him. Brother Jesus recognizes Charles, the virgin Jehanne recognizes Charles and Charles will enter Paris in the end.

  Late at night the letter was impressively embellished in a small hand in Blois château. Pasquerel read it aloud to her. He liked it. Quite strong. She was tired enough to doubt if he was an authority on strength. Ambleville and Guyenne were sent for.

  Meanwhile, it was found that some businessmen in Tours and Blois had agreed, after late-night consultations with members of Yolande’s Council, to underwrite the army’s pay.

  At ten o’clock that morning, under a streaky sky that promised no such surprise, a twenty-five-year-old boy called Monsieur Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, rode into camp. With him three hundred peacock knights and their staffs. They could have arrived the night before but Gilles had made them camp down the road to polish armour and enamels and have their servants unpack the best silk tunics and dress the war-horses. Like Yolande’s Councillors and the financiers they must have worked half the night.