Yet she saw nothing dead or dying here. The stench overpowered her so much she couldn’t proceed until she steadied herself. Staggering, she followed the voice, followed, followed, and she blurrily saw there on the craggy, lit wall, a body in a “Y” like Christ, shackles like faint Christmas lights. Marcy squinted to make sense of everything, and her eyes grew large. Footsteps came behind her, but they didn’t sway her attention away from the sight before her.
“André?”
21
Jehanne
Her memories surged.
Knee resting against Maman’s, Jehanne mended a sleeve on their hay bed. Sewing was her favorite distraction from the day. Besides, if she didn’t mend clothes, her family would be naked all the time, and she would rather avoid that. Her brothers laughed and joked outside their cottage, and confused roosters crowed in the pink of dusk.
Maman, her hair long, dark, and uncombed, tensely paused from sewing up Papa’s drawers. Jehanne set down the shirt and gripped Maman’s shoulder. “Maman, what is it? Is it about Catherine?” She missed her big sister every day. The cold cloths, the wheezing, the angry, rose-colored rashes. Roses, what a terrible way to describe those hateful marks.
The rattle of that last breath, that moment the Spirit rolled like a wave across Jehanne’s shoulder and she broke for Catherine. After that, Maman and Papa were more protective than ever about what water the children drank and what food they ate. Everyone washed their hands in the basin more. The grief hung close as they all huddled together at night. When her breaths grew ragged as she thought about the English coming to hurt her family, Jehanne begged to God and the saints that Catherine was happy now and that her family would be safe and live long.
Maman stared at the floor, shoulders low. “Your papa keeps having these dreams about you. Each night this month.”
Jehanne prickled. She was no stranger to repeated dreams, but she couldn’t tell a soul for fear of accusations that she was a witch committing some form of divination. “The same dream?”
Maman’s mouth was thin and grave. They cast aside their needles and met each other’s eyes. “Yes.”
“What does he see?”
“He sees you running off with the soldiers in the war and being one of those…the women in the camps.” Maman drew a shaky breath, her mouth curling in contempt on women. “He told me he’d rather drown you than for you to be in that sort of unholy place. And if he dies, he wants your brothers to drown you if you try to make that come to pass.”
Ice doused Jehanne. All the laughter and crowing died away. “He isn’t serious, is he? He’s Papa. You wouldn’t let him do that, would you?”
“The Virgin as my witness, I’d do whatever I could to save you, even from yourself. Better dead than a whore, wouldn’t you agree? Is that the life you’d want? Would you?”
Jehanne eyes watered, avoiding Maman by staring at the hearth they slept by in the winter. “I don’t know.”
Maman shook her shoulders. “Don’t know? Why would you say that? How could you even think for a moment we’d accept that?”
“But death, Maman?” Jehanne squeaked. Maman only had two daughters, after all, and unless another was born, Jehanne was the only one left in this lifetime.
“You must stay pure. Even if you were to die young, my little dove, what is this life compared to what’s to come?” Maman pulled her close when Jehanne sobbed. “Don’t worry, shh. It won’t come to that, so long as you stay good, indeed?” The last word was more of a question than Jehanne liked.
Did Maman want an answer? Jehanne appreciated her life of prayer and sewing. It had austere meaning; every night, before she slept, she felt accomplished because she could mend clothes and speak to the angels and saints. Yet, those same voices told her to go elsewhere, into places that horrified Maman and Papa.
You were born to do this, Michael told her with a flaming sword he held, but he hadn’t meant her needles (which she never stopped loving) or her cupped hands before nestling beside Maman at night.
Then, just like that, Maman was gone, and blood, blood overcame Jehanne, the stink swelling in her nose and mouth. Jehanne smeared tears against the back of her hand like she was a girl again. Sick for home like Ruth after she was widowed, barley rows shuttering her crumpled, weeping body from view. If, back then, Jehanne had fled back home before she went to court and met the Dauphin, if she’d been in Maman’s arms again, and they could apologize to each other, them and her entire laughing family, they could’ve—
Jehanne was in Gilles’ arms again, and she barely moved as scarlet stained his chain mail. He said between gasps, “Your neck, your leg, their damn arrows can pierce armor. No, no, don’t speak. We’re almost there.” Gilles stumbled but kept upright, and Jehanne hardened her grip on something, a flutter of white. A standard, she had her white-knuckled grip on the white, tapering flag. She wouldn’t let it go, no matter how far Gilles carried her, and he didn’t say another word to her. Wind hit her scalp, and she realized her leather cap had fallen somewhere. She imagined it as a hurt kitten on scuffed earth.
He faded, and her vision melted till she was crouching by a fire. The air smelled of woodsmoke that night at camp. She sat alone with Gilles. They were wearing simple jerkins and pants. Gilles was a handsome man, to be sure, and not much older than Jehanne, though she hadn’t taken in either of those observations fully while they’d been comrades. His hair was almost silver in the firelight.
When she caught his eye, he rubbed her cheek. She was too tired to flinch away. Besides, it felt good to be treated softly by one of her companions. At least there was this bit of goodness left in the world, this and her hope that God would deliver them all.
“The angels were gracious to us.” Gilles’ blue eyes flickered black and gold. “I thought you’d die, and I would’ve never forgiven myself.”
Jehanne traced an older arrow wound on her leg, then shifted to the bandage on her neck. “I thought I only owed my life to God, but I owe it to you too.”
He laughed. “You gave Le Basque a scare when you stormed back into the battle after you were wrapped up.”
She pouted. “He had my standard.”
“You were supposed to rest.”
Jehanne lifted her chin and scowled. “It’s my standard. And the English commander called me Satan’s whore. Was I supposed to take an arrow and that insult in silence?”
“If you curse any more men, the English may think you’re a witch.”
Jehanne snorted and rubbed her fingers against her hose. “Let them think that. God knows my heart, in the end.”
“How did a girl of your raising learn to be so bold?”
Jehanne leaned back, brow furrowing, her mind elsewhere. Let the rich man think as he wished. “How is it that the swords and arrows can make me so terrified yet full of life and meaning all at once?”
In the middle of battle, as she rode with her armor, standard, and little else, Jehanne couldn’t think much past the angel Michael’s words to her. His wings were like the fire pouring from Heaven’s spigot, and his song pooled in her blood. His face was a star-pocked amalgamation of a jackal, a frog, and an owl, yet it made her cry in wonder to look upon it. The saints Catherine and Margaret were her water, her hands tight against the standard. The river of their songs flooded her like she was a penitent, ecstatic when unchained by savage grace.
“I want you to follow me wherever I go. You’re my guardian now. My flesh-and-blood one, anyhow.” Jehanne had a dream the sky darkened to a violent, thrumming amber and a man with a lion’s head, a ruby-studded mane, and a melting crown threw her into a seething abyss. But so long as Gilles was there, Jehanne was unafraid. Between God and him, her life stretched harrowing but long ahead of her. She’d show Maman and Papa how cruel, how dismissive they were in their errant attempts to protect her. She couldn’t wait for their humbly accepted apologies.
“Is that meant to be a reward?”
Jehanne half-smiled. “You could consider it an hono
r. You saved my life. I need you with me as my protector. Will you promise God and Mary that you’ll be at my side when the worst’s to come?”
“I promise you I’ll follow you to my death and after, if need be.” He changed the subject abruptly, his voice an urgent whisper, “What are angel voices like?”
Jehanne grunted. “Why would you want to know?” His eyes were an uncomfortable blue, their color heightened by the campfire. Without stars in the sky, he was the brightest thing there.
“Who wouldn’t want to know if they had the chance?”
She stared at the languid flames. “Like this.”
“Fire?” Fire, the fire in her blood, the fire that wedded her to God.
“Yes, the flames of Heaven. You’ll hear them one day. It’s not the same when I describe them.”
“You’re an odd one.”
“Is that an insult? Do you doubt me?” She had faith better than anyone; she knew God better than anyone. That may’ve been prideful, but after the court indignities she suffered, she deserved to boast what she could.
“No. I wouldn’t have asked if I was—God forbid and save my soul—atheistic in any way.”
“Then why do I hear judgment?” She kicked a pebble by her foot and fidgeted. She needed her needle and thread; they always calmed her head.
Gilles lifted one side of his mouth. “You weep for the English devils. You have a soft heart.”
Jehanne frowned. “It’s terrible to die before you can have a final confession.”
“They don’t deserve your pity because they wouldn’t return it. Do you know what they’d do to you if given the chance? If you were in one of their prisons, do you know what the guards would do to a girl?”
Indeed, it’d be better to have a way to defend herself. She had a sword she never used in battle, but she had broken it when she smacked the flat of it on a camp woman’s backside in a fit of rage. Whether the blade was weak or the woman’s hind too firm, Jehanne didn’t know. Her men were meant to pray and fight for France, not lech about; nevertheless, her anger cost her the only means of self-defense.
Jehanne grunted and removed her helmet. “I do know. I suppose it’s just the same as what we would do to our enemies.” She scratched the base of her shorn hair.
If I should die, best to die in battle, serving God’s purpose. My men won’t forsake me, God won’t forsake me, ever.
The world was streaked gold, a vibrating globe of lightning, and she stood in a crowd with all eyes on her.
A crowd, a crowd, yes, yes, she understood now. After the throne room spectacle, after the Siege of Orléans. She was God’s warrior meant to save her people till her death. The day, so perfect, possibly in late May or June, smelled of sweat and anticipation. A good day for a kindling. For a second, she was standing next to a man in chain mail making a wooden cross, then a man in white robes wordlessly offered the cross to her. The priest’s skin was wrinkled, and his eyes were sad.
A man with a black hood over his head walked to her and said in English, “Forgive me.”
“I forgive you,” Jehanne offered in the best English she could manage, touching his chest with her palm, and he shuddered.
In a stuttering flash like God’s run, she was bound to a pillar and dressed in white as she pleaded with the people near the wood to back away, so they wouldn’t be burned, but she couldn’t hear her own cries. Her throat ached. She wanted to talk to the sullen priest, though she didn’t know what to say. He looked like Papa; he looked like he would listen. She considered talking about the relief she’d feel once she died and she could be with Catherine again, sitting in the old lavender field and tickling stray cats’ chins till they purred.
In the smoke and blood and tears, Jehanne knew who she was. She stopped gasping. The heft of her body didn’t falter because she could see the Son, could feel the Virgin’s warm hold shielding her from pain, an embrace so like Maman’s before Catherine died. The smoke billowed black. Tear-obscured faces of dead soldiers in the sky. King Charles. Visions, fleeting as raindrops hitting hot summer soil. She only said one word over and over until she choked.
“Jesus. Jesus. Jesusjesusjesusjesus.”
Christ hung before her, his expression twisted, but his eyes kind. The worst of everything was over now. Her meager flesh fell away, as simple and yielding as linen, exposing her bones. She was no longer Jehanne, but united with God, God staring at Creation with all his hydra flowers, and she saw the pyre dampened briefly so the executioner could tear her clothes off as a final humiliation, as proof that a witch couldn’t escape judgment. The cap she was forced to wear, a meager thing with her crimes sewn into the felt, dropped away when her head dropped to the side.
Jehanne’s soul returned to her body, that husk of original sin. She was still coughing and crying from the smoke. She choked again and again. Far from shaven away, her hair sheeted across her vision like rain on glass. Her nose bled, and when she wiped it, she streaked Clair’s blood on her skin. The manor reeked of death and sulfur, and Jehanne opened her eyes to witness the dead, at least ten bodies littering the main hall. Only two beings moved: Fa—Gilles and Moreau. Gilles stood like a sentinel, a cemetery statue, frozen, observing.
Moreau was like a loup-garou. Though his appearance hadn’t changed, no long fangs or wide nose, he was a pretty, golden-haired beast of teeth and nails with inhuman quickness. He lapped up a near-black puddle with his tongue and all fingers, sucking on them like sticky candy coated them. God, he was riddled with bullets, and so was Gilles, but they gave no indication of pain.
Moreau crawled, latched on to a headless officer’s shoulder, ripped the thick fabric off as if it were parchment, and sank his teeth into the man’s throat, slurping and crunching his way through.
Did he and Fa—Gilles really kill them all? Kill everyone but me? Devils, the both of them.
Gilles ascended the stairs before her, hand sliding along the banister, sword wielded in the other, till he came to where Jehanne held Clair—and Clair, she worked to breathe as her eyes dimmed; she still lived as Jehanne mourned and cradled her close like a sick infant.
An unwelcome voice broke through the grief: “He likes the taste, it seems.” To her former war companion’s credit, he had aged well after five centuries, and his terrifying beauty disgusted her, that calm, unmoving paleness that, with the spilling of blood, became unlined and unstressed.
Jehanne asked, attention on Moreau, “What is he?” She looked at him. “Gilles, what are you? What did you do to him?”
He dropped the sword, and if Jehanne wasn’t clutching Clair, she had three-quarters a mind to skewer him, if that’d do anything.
“It’s amazing what one does when faced with life forever or dying in obscurity.”
“And how much of that was his choice?”
Eyes flashing with wolfish glee, Gilles fell to the floor beside her. “Do you remember?”
That didn’t answer her question. “Remember what? You—I . . .” He set a hand on her cheek and she flinched away. “Get off, you beast!” He persisted and was unfazed when she punched his bloodied shirt, the skin and bone beneath hurting her knuckles as if Gilles had an iron carapace. “Go—Gilles, stop!”
“Do you remember everything?” To himself, he muttered, “Will nothing I say make you forget this?”
“How could you? I was. . . .”
“Jehanne, and you still are.” The hay, her tiny little home in Domrémy. “The Maid of Orléans. You couldn’t forget Orléans, could you?”
She wouldn’t have, but if she’d been brought back unnaturally—had she ever been truly sick? Had the teas she’d been given only been there not to better her health and assist her sleep, but to make her permanently forgetful? Had her nosebleeds been her head fighting its locks?
He took my wings.
“No, it’s not true. This can’t be true. I can’t be.” But these visions of her first life—and the ringing, which she realized, in terror, were voices.
Kill the d
emons. All of them. Cast them in fire.
“And why not? Isn’t this a miracle?” He reeked of blood and wine.
Kill them all.
“I was in Heaven. Why are we here? Why aren’t we dead? And how could you, Gilles? How could you be like this? How am I here? How did you bring me back?”
“I was like this before we met, and I’ll explain.” He shook his head and chuckled, as if in jest, despite his ruined clothes and hair matted dry and black.
“What happened to my real maman and papa? My brothers?” The only person’s fate she knew for certain was Catherine, who left Jehanne a month before she ran off to the war effort.
He sighed. So cavalier, and she loathed him for it more than she loathed anyone, even the English captains. “I don’t know. Your mother helped overturn your conviction after your death.”
“And my papa?”
“I don’t know.” Jehanne tasted blood, and Gilles’ widened eyes made her realize it was her own.
“Oh, darling, your nose.”
Yes, I noticed.
Another voice: Cast him in fire.
A bone-splintering cold entered her body and sent spiderweb tremors down her arms. “I am not your darling or your pup.” Jehanne snarled. “And how could you not know if you’ve been alive so long, you useless beast?” She had run away to pursue her divine duty to France, and it had been the first and last time she disobeyed her parents. Even so, their final wish, had she strayed, was her death. “I was—what happened to my ashes?”
“You were dumped into the Seine like trash!” His face contorted in agony. “And I left you, spied on you for the Crown, betrayed you, left you to die. We all abandoned you when you needed us the most.”
“What have you done?” she asked once more, having no time for this tripe. Her burning had happened in the 1400s; she was past it by now. “What could you’ve possibly done to bring me back to this hell?” She couldn’t imagine. Even as a disobedient child, Jehanne had tried to be good to not suffer like this. As the angel and the saints had instructed, Jehanne had donned a cap, surcoat, and hose. If Papa had seen her, he would’ve cuffed her ear till she was half-deaf. Despite that, she sewed Mary and Jesus’ names into her standard and kissed them before her prayers. “You murderer, you devil,” Jehanne gasped, fixated on Clair’s shining eyes.
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