Blood Red, Sister Rose

by Thomas Keneally

  The militia piling faggots under the palisades were suffering and being killed. They would run in a company at a time to start a fire under the parapets. But there were so many English on the walls that the arrows fell like a shudder of wind running through silk.

  There was no one up there to say do it all together. The other companies sat spectating or fussing over wounds or regretting the dead.

  Gilles found la Hire and spoke to him as if they’d never argued.

  Gilles: Etienne, would you look after the rear as before? I’ll take the Bretons and do the thing properly.

  Jehanne: I can come too, Gilles.

  Gilles: I don’t think so.

  Jehanne: Don’t your discs say I’ll be safe?

  La Hire: You can get hurt under the walls.

  Jehanne: Monsieur, don’t you know I’m Jesus’ sister?

  She was half-joking at him. If not to herself.

  La Hire: I wish the English knew it.

  In the end she was permitted or, at least, couldn’t be stopped.

  Gilles, his Bretons, Jehanne, d’Aulon, Raymond, Minguet, all dismounted. Bertrand, Jehan, Pierrolot seemed not to notice that they also had an option to go. The light was late afternoon. Two thousand, three thousand militia-men were facing the south wall of les Augustins. They looked at the giant above the gate. They watched other companies run up the mound into the ditch, up to the palisades, heap faggots, moving gently as beetles under their back-shields. The black downspout of rocks and arrows fell on their backs. This or that back or back-rib snapped or a bolt punched through into a spine. But the faggots were alight in a few places. The wounded were carried back through the ditch, over the mound to the watchers. The English poured water on the fires, leaned over the parapet with pails. The giant remained, over the gate, quietly hexing all the waiting army.

  Perhaps two hundred knights and squires and boys. They edged through the middle of the militia. The militia numbly watched them through. Gilles walked along the front of the line, telling them they had to light too many fires for the English to put out. The girl was with him, he said, pointing to her white banner. (It was in myopic Raymond’s hands.) The girl said there wasn’t any special virtue in that giant. It wasn’t clever to be bigger than someone else and it wasn’t clever to be bigger than anyone else, it was an accident of birth. His knights would break down the gates under the place where the giant stood. Would they come, would they do it, many many fires to show the dear lady …?

  Those militia-men who were to live on in Orleans, working out their trade, remembered Gilles’s speech for decades. For they could tell there was some kinship between Gilles and the girl. And over many years it was confirmed: both would be killed for witchery. The girl because her witchery was white and won earth for the undernourished king. Gilles because his witchery would turn black and he would grow, in the end, a beard and dye it blue, and cut living children apart in Brittany in his fortieth year, and make love to their bloody fragments and whisper endearments to their excised hearts and spleens.

  The militia listened as if they dimly guessed the outline of the potent futures of Jehanne and Gilles. What you might call a magic moment held them then.

  The English too could tell that down there, in a weedy flood plain, Gilles was breaking the spell they’d tried to make with their crass giant. They took to artillery. Culverins and mortars began to spray the militia with lumps of stone, some of it heavy river stuff to crush men, other coarse-textured and explosive to slice or penetrate. Once there was a short formal scream from somewhere in the Orleanais ranks. As if from a sportsman acknowledging a touch or a well-placed football.

  Gilles: Mademoiselle, would you consent to carry your own flag?

  He gave her what he’d given the militia: the idea that he had special knowledge about what would work.

  Jehanne: You’re a funny one.

  His eyes on her, he drew out his massive sword. Jehanne went to Raymond and took her flag – his hands didn’t easily give it up, he was in a dream.

  Jehanne: You get an axe, Raymond.

  She stood near d’Aulon. All the gentlemen pulled down their visors. She did. She was very used to the smotheration now, terror kicked only feebly in her belly. A bagpipe rant from somewhere in the lines entered the grille in front of her face and became quite refined, sweeter, inside her little steel cell.

  As at St Loup, everyone had to walk. No one could actually run. They were so burdened one way or another. The mound was very steep and slippery, although the militia had come up it so often today.

  She climbed it on her knees and one-handed. The flag in the other hand bucked and tripped on her knees and got dirt on it.

  At the crest everyone stopped a second, throwing their weight back on their heels. Jehanne looked into the pit. It was full of shadow. There were three dead men lying in the shadow. Because they lay steeply downhill or uphill they looked to be floating.

  Then she ran down into the ditch on her heels. She felt some sort of trip-wire grab her foot and she sat backwards in the soft dirt. Minguet and Raymond, not saying a word, lifted her up by the elbows. It took long, slow effort.

  The slope out of the ditch, out of the dark, up to the palisades. She could see splashes of blood on the black earth. And there was so little room to stand at the top, so little room to pile wood or wield an axe. She was very nauseated but knew it would be a bad omen if she puked.

  Heads down, heads down, everyone kept yelling. But it was senseless not to look up to the top of the walls. Because she wanted to see how the English looked. She could however see no shapes or faces, but far above her, hung in the air like an ornament, one black feathered arrow, very pleased in its own pure shape. She thought if it’s really hanging there, it isn’t going to hang there forever. She looked down and instantly the arrow stood, waist deep in earth, trembling between her feet. Just to her right the squires were making a fire at the gate. She could hear men being wounded. Did some of them too see death hung like a slow ornament at the top of the wall?

  She thought of walking along the base of the palisades with Minguet and Raymond, but there wasn’t room for it, you couldn’t get past the piles of faggots, the militia waiting with ladders to put up once there was a confusion of smoke.

  Soon enough there was. She could scarcely see, she simply waited there with her flag and her pages. She was grateful for the fog. She thought that if anyone could have seen them they must have looked laughable and useless. As well, she still wanted to be sick.

  There were a lot of Englishmen on the walls. You could hear bolts splitting armour open in the smoke. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk! She thought: tonight I’ll remember the sound and be shocked. Now it doesn’t mean much.

  In this way, she and Minguet and Raymond waited for a result. Now and then the boys took a blow or two at the palisades but they were such solid timber. A few chips flew, Raymond and Minguet shrugged.

  At last she could not prevent it, she leaned on the timbers and vomited. Because she had not eaten that day it was deep and painful vomit. She thought: for some reason that does it, nothing worthwhile can happen now.

  She looked up. Gilles was beside her, coughing, his visor up.

  Gilles: Dear lady, the militia are running back. It’s useless for the moment.

  She looked about. They were suddenly very alone on the scarp. She could hear foreign tongues, water sizzling down on the faggots.

  Jehanne: It’ll be dark soon.

  Gilles: There’s a message that Maître Jean has crossed the river with cannon and culverins. I’ll ask him to blow their gate down. We mustn’t stand about here.

  The metal of Raymond’s shoe seemed to pop. A bolt had entered his foot and stuck him to the earth. They watched him try to pull his foot away from the place and whimper. Then he raised his visor so that he could bend and withdraw the spike. In some way, he must have glanced up, for he returned to Jehanne and Gilles in slow cross-eyed protest. There was a bolt deep in his head, just above the bridge of
his nose. In their last instant’s vision his faulty eyes tried to focus on the missile.

  All this happened in the instant it takes compassion to travel from your futile heart to your more or less useful hand.

  Jehanne wanted to take the body which sat dead amongst her bile. Even Gilles got desperate. No one could carry the dead boy in his armour, no one had time to disarm him.

  Gilles: Even you can’t stay here charmed forever.

  In the ditch were dozens of dead. Oh Jesus, were they her onus? It was very dark in there, now that the sun was so low. D’Aulon dragged her along.

  Fresh militia had come up and were listening to stories from the ones who’d been to the walls and back.

  Jumping amongst them, what in the hell do I do now, weep, pray? Raymond, little-boy, cross-eyed.

  Gilles saved her. He simply called out, off-handed, not straining to have them believe him.

  Gilles: In Christ’s name, we aren’t going home yet. We have cannon now. I heard the English call out to Christ and then to Satan. But Satan will deceive them. They’re finished.

  She heard Gilles. She felt Raymond in an instant cease to be a bleeding grief. He became a stone in her belly. Portable. Gilles rejoined her.

  Gilles: It’s going to be today. Why are you limping?

  Jehanne: I fell over in the pit.

  They could see de Gaucourt and la Hire standing chatting. De Gaucourt did not look up till Gilles and Jehanne were feet away.

  De Gaucourt: See, it isn’t exactly like your Voices say.

  She wouldn’t answer.

  La Hire: You’re bleeding, Mademoiselle.

  Her remaining page confirmed it.

  Minguet: From the foot, Mademoiselle.

  As soon as they all told her she felt radiant weakness in her body. She sat on the ground. Pierrolot and Jehan bent over her, as of right. D’Aulon’s long tranquil face came and went above her, Bertrand’s long frantic one. She could see her blood drying on the weeds of the king’s France. From a ridiculous little wound in the foot, a little blood.

  Jehanne: At least Jacques would be pleased to know.

  But Pierrolot and Jehan didn’t understand the family joke she was making. D’Aulon sent Pierrolot to get water from the river to wash the wound. It was, he said, dirty.

  Then Gilles bent to the wound.

  Gilles: Dear lady, its so deep, you stood on a caltrop. Those spiky things the English leave about.

  She could see occult intentions forming in his eyes.

  Jehanne: No Gilles, nothing fancy. For God’s sake, go and talk to the master-gunner.

  Minguet stood by with lard and rags. He was bare-headed and weeping and she began weeping too.

  Jehanne: How old was he, Minguet?

  She meant Raymond.

  Minguet: I don’t know. Fourteen. We weren’t really friends. I suppose we were in a sort of way. Eternal rest …

  In fact, Pasquerel and other priests had gone right up to the walls anointing the recent dead. The English did not try to stop them. She hoped one of the priests would go right up to the wall and close Raymond’s awesome cross-eyes with chrism.

  Partrada the Spaniard talked earnestly to d’Aulon about the wound. Those caltrops, he said, you could get a killing fever from. You could get lockjaw …

  Minguet had bound it up tight, disciplining the pain. Some yards away the Scot Kennedy was arguing with la Hire. Partrada went out of boredom to listen. D’Aulon asked her could she stand. Yes, but she wasn’t going to wear armour on that foot.

  Across at the argument, Kennedy had decided against risking any of la Hire’s subterranean furies. He wanted a straightforward slanging, he wanted a man who could be trusted to lose his temper and be seen to lose it. Now he had begun ranting at Partrada. La Hire played gently with the lobe of his ear and walked away.

  Kennedy could be heard ranting in his weird French, Partrada answering in his. Kennedy said that the best people had been wasted all day. All that was needed was someone to go straight for the gate.

  Of course, he was not being reasonable.

  Partrada said the ones who’d spent all day in the rear-guard were just as brave as someone who went straight for the gate. What did a person do when he got to the gate? Knock?

  Kennedy said he’d get there and if the thousands didn’t follow and break the gate with mere weight then he’d rather be dead.

  It was a futile chivalric sentiment and if she’d been able to walk properly she would have gone and told him.

  At last, with d’Aulon’s help, she stood. The wound did not hurt sharply. Minguet came up with a felt slipper for her, she meant to ask where he’d found it. But the noise of wagons distracted her. It was the gunners, preparing their arts.

  If you held your arm out full length the sun was only half a hand span above Olivet hills.

  D’Aulon: Maître Jean himself.

  She remembered that impish master-gunner she’d seen nesting in a bridge pylon the first day she went to talk to Glasdale. The Marshal de Rais could be seen talking to Maître Jean. There were five cannon facing les Augustins from the back of wagons. On a third wagon sat culverins. Being so close to them, Jehanne began sweating. She hated the metallic stink of them, the chemical noise they would make, the random killing they were meant to do.

  Jehanne was about to find that hers was not the only magic lunacy in Sologne. Looking to her front, she saw Partrada and Kennedy clasping hands. They called make way and began shambling forward, making good pace in all that steel.

  The militia-men made way as if being attacked from behind. One of them tripped and dropped a ladder on a wounded man.

  Jehanne, seeing Partrada and Kennedy running like that, felt that through some mercy they had no right to, they were going to break down the wall. Some militia-men felt it too, and began running after them, not well deployed, but right behind, on their potent spore.

  She forgot Raymond in her furious certainty.

  Jehanne: Raymond, Minguet. It’s going to happen.

  Gilles: There’ll be a little noise …

  The cannon noise rang horribly in the walls of her helmet.

  She knew it was Maître Jean, who was breezy with knights and happened to be a new kind of gentry, would blow les Augustins open for those two ridiculous knights, Partrada and Kennedy, running beneath the echo of cannon, still holding hands. The first one to pull away was meant to be ashamed for a life-time. What a game!

  Militia-men later said they could hear the giant hold his breath. But was he as big as that, poor bastard? Was his breathing audible five hundred metres back?

  One cannon shot broke a leaf of the gate of les Augustins away, when the knights were already on the mound. The second broke the parapet above the gate. The giant, it appeared, sank slow and straight amongst the broken timber. No one thought at the time he’d break his back. They all thought, that’s the end of his virtue.

  Partrada and Kennedy were seen entering the gap Maître Jean had made.

  Jehanne: Minguet, get my flag up there fast.

  Young Minguet seemed to think some code would be broken by his running ahead of her. She could see he felt he ought to explain the rites of soldiering to her.

  Jehanne: For God’s sake, don’t waste time. I’ll get up there as fast as I can.

  She was in crowd, hobbling. She looked at her feet, to see nothing new happened to them. It wasn’t really an item in a great scheme – a cut foot – it was pretty mean damage. If the king heard of it he wouldn’t say ah the scapegoat’s blood has begun to flow. It was just a little accident and she didn’t want any more little accidents.

  The sun was one finger above the hills, behind her left shoulder.

  She saw de Gaucourt limping forward. Was he reluctant to take the fortress?

  On the mound ahead her big flag was standing, Minguet standing at the side of it. No one else’s flag was there, and the last of the daylight gave her white and gold emblems great power. The militia went over the mound laughing. Some we
nt in the main gate. Others set fire again to the heaped faggots. Others put ladders up and went up them easily, as if they were flights of stairs. The wind blew the smoke over the river towards St Lorent – into Talbot’s eyes.

  When Jehanne got to the gate she had to climb over hillocks of split timber to get inside. It was like a poor town in there. In the middle, the unroofed chapel of the monastery. The hovels ran in streets. She could hear yowling, less than human, from the middle of the place. Militia-men ran past her to get to it. Avid to be in at the liturgy of screaming.

  And the knights who should be preventing all the worst things, beginning to walk back already towards the gates with English knights as prisoners!

  D’Aulon: It can’t be helped, Jehanne.

  She was so shocked with those others she bit at him.

  Jehanne: Why don’t you get a few prisoners yourself? Help pay the bills?

  She stopped to rest the foot. She closed her eyes against the noises – axe-blows, glottal sounds, whines.

  D’Aulon: Don’t listen, Mademoiselle.

  Jehanne: I’m not listening.

  D’Aulon: That’s good. Nothing can be done.

  Jehanne: Did you see Raymond?

  D’Aulon: Of course.

  Jehanne: I want you to get some men and close his eyes if they haven’t been closed. I want you to bring him back gently to the Bouchers’ own chapel. All right?

  D’Aulon: It’ll be done.

  Walking on, they moved in a bubble of their own, Jehanne, Minguet, d’Aulon. No one touched them. They met no one. They walked on the dead but saw no one dying. Ageless dead Goddams, nuzzling the ground or showing dirty faces. Too many for a tired person to feel regret for – so many they seized up the small jaws of guilt. She didn’t feel guilty. They were like fallen wood, dropped gear.

  In the end she had to sit amongst them. On a bench by a well. It was a busy place: the wounded were carried past, and loot.