The King's Women

by Deryn Lake

  “Madame, do I know you? Are you one of my saints?”

  “You must not ask those questions,” the stranger replied, smiling to show she was not angry. “Now close your eyes and sleep peacefully.”

  “God bless you,” said Jehanne, starting to cry.

  “Shush,” said the visitor, and leaning forward gently wiped the girl’s face with a fine handkerchief. She was warm to the touch, like a human being.

  “Are you an angel?” asked Jehanne in sudden disbelief.

  “I am what you want me to be. Now go to sleep. We must not speak further.”

  It was tempting to peep from beneath half-closed lids to see how the beautiful vision dematerialised itself but the vows of obedience she had sworn to her Order still held too strongly to be flouted. Jehanne closed her eyes and when she opened them again saw that everything had returned to normal. John Rys, John Bernard and William Talbot were back on their bunks, apparently fast asleep. Reassured that her visitor must indeed have been of supernatural origin, Jehanne slept calmly for the rest of the night.

  Gilles de Rais had rallied his forces. The mission paid for by Charles and organised by the Bastard had finally fallen onto the shoulders of the Marechal, the Duke d’Alengon and Captain La Hire, who had abandoned their ideas of secrecy and gone with two armed companies to Louviers, outside Rouen, and there waited, apparently doing nothing more harmful than field manoeuvres. But during that enforced delay Gilles had not known a moment’s peace, under orders not to proceed until the King himself agreed, yet horribly aware that if somebody didn’t act soon La Pucelle would be destroyed.

  During the day, de Rais drank to ease his pain, but at night he would dream of her, imagining himself ravishing her white body, corrupting her uncorrupted flesh. He was on a treadmill of love and death from which there seemed no escape, besotted with Jehanne’s purity, longing to violate it, to make her as depraved as he, yet knowing that to disturb the balance between them would be impossible.

  But now, with her gone, beyond the reach of human help, such thoughts were pointless, yet continued to come. In dreams he raped her a thousand times, thrusting in with wild and savage cries of ecstasy. But he would always wake with a taste of ashes in his mouth, his body aching and weak, as exhausted as if all had been reality.

  “Jehanne, Jehanne,” he would sob in desperation, and feel his inactivity heavy on him as a yoke, until the. day that Richemont, alone except for an archer, came riding into their camp.

  The three leaders of the expedition rushed to the tent they used for war council, hastily ordering refreshments to be brought for the Earl, only delighted that the long-awaited message had come at last. But in that they were to be disappointed as Richemont’s first words dashed their hopes.

  “Gentlemen, I bring you sealed orders which, I believe, in effect command you to stay here on detachment. Negotiations are in hand for Jehanne’s release and it is felt unwise that you should make an attack on Rouen at this stage.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then de Rais asked, “What negotiations are these? From what we have heard there seems to be little hope left for her.”

  Richemont’s face remained blank. “I am sworn to say no more. All I can do is assure you that the situation is very far from as grim as it appears.”

  “A rescue bid, is that it? But how?”

  “If I told you that I would be telling too much. You will simply have to take my word for it, de Rais.”

  “She must not die,” the Marechal burst out violently. “She is too good, too blameless, to be used as a sacrifice.”

  The Earl turned a fierce look on him, as always inexplicably repulsed by the man. “Do you think I don’t know that? She means more to me than I can ever describe. You can believe that I will stop at nothing to see her freed.”

  De Rais’s dislike was written in his pitiless blue eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “And see it you shall — soon.”

  “Even doves,” answered Gilles bitterly, “can be brought to earth by savage hunters.”

  They had broken her proud spirit at last. After illness, chaining, humiliation, questioning, the insults of her guards, Jehanne la Pucelle had finally reached the point where she could take no more. On Thursday, 24th May 1431, in the cemetery of the Abbey of St. Ouen, where she had been taken to be publicly excommunicated, die girl had surrendered before sentence could be passed. It would seem that her voices and her heavenly visitors had failed her. There had been no rescue attempt and now she was faced with being burned to death. In a faltering tone the fine young creature humbly said that she was a miserable sinner and wanted to obey the church’s commands and desires.

  They had rushed her back to the castle to prepare a statement for her to sign, and that afternoon she had done so, though strangely not with her name, which she could write perfectly well, but with a circle and a cross which together formed the symbol of the Knights Templar. This done, Bishop Cauchon had repeated the hastily commuted sentence he had passed on her that morning; life imprisonment, eating the bread of suffering and drinking the water of sorrow, and warned that she must from now on accept female dress.

  “I will happily do so,” the girl had answered, and had put on women’s penitential clothes and let down the hair she had worn rolled up above her ears during the trial. And then had come an extraordinary event which had restored Jehanne’s faith in both God and her voices. During the early hours of Trinity Sunday, 27th May, just over a year since the victory of Orleans, they had spoken to her again, telling her she had been wrong to surrender, that God really had sent her and that it was not a sin to wear men’s clothes. And when in the morning Jehanne had asked her guards to unchain her so that she might visit the garderobe, she had seen a tunic, hose and cap lying at the foot of her bed. In a moment of defiance, knowing that God truly was on her side, she had stripped in privacy and put them on.

  It had been the end of her, of course. Bishop Cauchon, obviously acting on information received, had come bustling in and asked her what she thought she was doing. And when Jehanne finally admitted that all she had said and abjured had been because of her fear of the fire and that really she was God’s messenger, regretting nothing, she was done for.

  In her enormous simplicity it did not occur to her that the clothes had been placed there by an unseen enemy, that it was desirable for her to disobey Cauchon by putting on boy’s garb, that it was in the best interests of all concerned for her to die. But, as it was, on Tuesday evening the Bishop, stunned by her disobedience, reconvened her trial in the chapel of the Archbishop’s palace.

  “Her familiar has returned and told her to defy the court, to put on men’s clothing again. These new crimes must be discussed.”

  A vote was taken and by a majority decision Jehanne’s fate was sealed; she was to be handed over to the secular authorities. With indecent haste, the English administration immediately employed workmen to set up a stake and build a low stone barricade round it, this last to keep the pyre from falling in and hastening the end.

  But that night, while the builders worked through the hours of darkness, candles burned late in Bouvreuil Castle, and none later than those in the apartments of the Regent, John of Bedford, who sat up till die small hours talking to the Earl of Warwick.

  “The poor bitch is asking for the sacraments and I have decided to grant the request.”

  “But she’s been excommunicated.”

  “Not until they pronounce it officially. It’s a loophole and I intend to slide through it. After all, we’re taking Richemont’s money for nothing. The least we can do is let the girl have her last wish.”

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it?” said the Earl perceptively. “It’s gone against the grain with you to cheat them.”

  Bedford gave a brief nod of his head. “Yes, it has. And it’s not just the fact of taking the ransom. The French are rogues and deserve everything they get. No, it’s simply that Jacquetta is so in sympathy with the girl, she really beli
eves her to be spiritual and good.”

  “The trouble with you, John, is that you’re besotted.”

  “No. The trouble with me is that I think too much.”

  “Well, stop. The girl’s mad, you know it as well as I do. It has all turned out for the best, believe me.” Warwick yawned widely. “Well, I’m off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “It’s morning now.”

  And it was indeed getting light as a knock came on Bedford’s door, the servant standing there informing him that the priests had arrived to see the prisoner.

  “Give them my permission to hear her confession and administer the host. And tell me when they have gone, will you.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  So now he was alone with his conscience, no Warwick murmuring in his ear of how clever they had been to take the enemy’s money under false pretences, no Jacquetta telling him that the girl was inspired, divine, and must not be done to death. Throwing open his window, Henry V’s brother, tired of war and thinking that perhaps enough was finally enough, came to a momentous decision.

  She could not accept that her voices had betrayed her, that she was going to die within the next few hours, for all along Jehanne had believed she would escape, had only surrendered to her judges in a moment of pure weakness, when she had thought about the fire and wondered briefly if her saints had been misleading her. And now it would seem they had, the two priests who had attended her earlier informing her that she was to be taken out and burned that very morning.

  So had her whole life been a sham? Had her voices come from inside her head, and had she done and said all she had acting only as a poor deluded fool?

  “Oh no!” cried Jehanne. “Oh no!” and stood there in her boy’s clothes pulling at her hair and sweating with sheer raw fear.

  And that was how the Duke of Bedford found her, collapsed in a heap in the comer of her tower room, her guards finally dismissed, crying like a child.

  “Dry your eyes,” he said tersely. “We haven’t a second to lose.”

  She looked up fearfully. “Who are you?”

  “The Regent of England, about to make an utter fool of himself.” The girl stared at him uncomprehendingly, and he went on, “You’ve been ransomed, child, and as a man of honour I am about to play my part. I am going to get you out. Now shut your mouth, obey me completely, and there may yet be a happy outcome.”

  She was obviously too bewildered to reply but the girl at least allowed him to help her up from the comer in which she huddled.

  “Now listen. This castle is built on the site of a Roman building and beneath runs the aqueduct of Gaalor. The tunnel is big enough to walk along and connects with the well in the room below this one and the well in the Donjon too. It also has a third arm which comes out in the fields. I will give you a candle and tinder and lower you half-way down. Get into the passageway and go to your left. Then it’s up to you, you’ll have to take your chance. God be on your side.”

  Jehanne found her voice at last. “Why are you doing this, my Lord?”

  “Because Richemont asked me to and once, long ago, we were friends together.”

  A spiral staircase connected the tower rooms and going down, as she had so many times before while standing trial, Jehanne saw the well in the comer of the lower room, its handle and bucket drawn to the top.

  “In you get,” said Bedford, “and keep still.”

  She wheeled to gaze at him and he smiled briefly at the funny little countenance, so tear-stained and vulnerable, thus presented to him.

  “God bless you,” whispered La Pucelle.

  And then the door leading onto the keep was flung open. In the entrance stood Bishop Cauchon, the Earl of Warwick one step behind him. There was a momentary silence during which the world seemed to turn to ice.

  “I was bringing the prisoner down personally,” said Bedford, the greatest noble in England utterly nonplussed.

  “So I see,” answered Cauchon pointedly, unable to openly accuse the Regent.

  “I thought you might need some assistance,” put in Warwick, and looked at the Duke with such an expressionless face that Bedford was never able to tell, from that day to his dying moment, whether the Earl had guessed what he was up to or whether it was all simply a matter of coincidence.

  “Here are your penitent’s clothes,” said the Bishop, thrusting a bundle into Jehanne’s hands. “Put them on. Your escort is waiting outside.”

  She turned to look at Bedford, one last terrible glance, and it broke his heart to say, “I’m sorry, my girl. You are beyond help now.”

  *

  After it was over, after the bright spirit that had once been Jehanne la Pucelle was no more, it seemed that the square in Rouen still bore the sweet sickly smell of her burning flesh, still echoed with her agonised cries, her final whispered prayer of “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

  She had died slowly, inch by searing inch, the executioner too nervous to choke her to death with smoke as was the custom. So, without this mercy, Jehanne had burned alive, her fine young limbs, so innocent and blameless, melting into an inferno.

  There had been some unrest among the crowd, held back by English soldiers from the place of execution, and it had been noted that the Duke of Bedford absented himself from the ceremony. But only one thing bothered Cauchon, the Bishop of Beauvais, who had sat and watched the entire burning. It had been the look of bewilderment on the face of the accused as she had wept and said the words, “Then was it all a dream?” before she climbed into the fire and vanished for ever from the sight of men.

  The news reached the French camp at Louviers during the following day, and the three grown men who had fought with La Pucelle broke down and wept when they heard it.

  “The murdering cheats,” sobbed d’Alengon. “They have taken both our money and our hope. May they rot for eternity.”

  “No, don’t hate them” Gilles had answered in pure pain, “hate the voices that led her to this. Hate her God who let her suffer so.”

  “You must not speak like that,” remonstrated La Hire, but Gilles ignored him.

  “Or perhaps He would prefer me to love Him. I wonder how He would like that,” de Rais babbled on. “Yes, that’s the way. I’ll love God and live a life I shall devote entirely to Him, everything I do shall be an act of worship.” He burst into a flood of hysterical tears. “Oh Jehanne, Jehanne, how can I live without my soul? They have taken away my other self. In killing you they have also killed me.”

  And then, to the horror of those watching, the nobleman fell upon the ground and covered his face with the dust and sand thrown up by the hooves of the restless horses, knowing that for the rest of his days on earth he must fulfil his terrible destiny, his only hope turned to ashes, his glimpse of salvation gone.

  Part Four - Agnès

  Thirty-Seven

  A cold clear April and the sky blue as periwinkles, the colour echoed in the chilly river, still full of last winter’s icy currents. Every cloud sharp-edged, white as milk, big as sailing ships, the earth a mass of flowers, the river path yellow with primrose, the trees shimmering silver and green in a lively wind.

  This day showers came and went at will, visible as they swept over the hills and down into the river valley, purpling the heavens for a moment then dancing off, throwing rainbows across the watery span behind them. Drenched by their sudden attack, the pale gold sun glistened weakly, casting faint shadows, then vanished behind an indigo cloud round which it threw a splendid nimbus.

  Lambs populated the far fields, looking like daisies at that distance, the air full of their bleating, the shout of blackbirds and the high silly bark of the chateau’s dogs, ineffectually chasing a ball in the courtyard below. It was a day of fine rain, wild wind and high excitement as the land welcomed the arrival of spring.

  Staring moodily out of the window, not enjoying any of it, thinking the weather dismal and the dogs devoid of brain, stood Louis the Dauphin, first-born child of Marie d’Anjou and Charles
de Valois, now aged twenty. The trouble with this particular young man was, put very simply, that where his father was ugly with style, wearing brilliantly coloured clothes which gave him a faun-like and gleaming charm, Louis dressed nonchalantly, almost to the point of shabbiness, hiding his features beneath a large hat which he always wore and frankly adored, the only ornament on this unattractive head gear, a brooch depicting the madonna and child.

  In looks the Dauphin resembled the very worst of his grandmother Isabeau; inclined to be squat, with black eyes and full lips, his entire face was dominated by an enormous hook nose. It was the Valois trait in caricature, and though the Dauphin frequently said that his grandmother — who had died in the Hotel St. Pol in 1435, alone and friendless, chewing her emeralds to the last — had been nothing but an old whore and that the identity of his grandfather was anybody’s guess, it was obvious from that one feature alone that someone of that house had sired the King and thus his son. The only other physical similarity that the Dauphin could be seen to have inherited was his father’s long legs, though in Louis they appeared rickety and awkward.

  To add to his unprepossessing appearance, the young man had other defects: a speech impediment which made his pronunciation indistinct; a coarseness of manner and a love of eating and drinking which would appear to have been another legacy of Isabeau; and added to all this, and this obviously directly handed down from Queen Venus, a love of women, a sensuality, that was boundless. In his drunker moments the Dauphin declared that homing was his favourite pastime and he would spend all day and all night so employed if he had only half a chance.

  He had been married at fourteen, and she a year younger, to Margaret of Scotland, the Scottish King’s daughter, and heartily detested his wife from the moment he saw her. She was small, fair, listless and melancholic. She was also, and this was unforgivable, sterile. Every month Louis did his duty and every month Margaret only produced a flux despite the basketfuls of unripe apples and pints of vinegar she consumed in order to help her conceive.