Sparrow

by Michael Morpurgo

  “Very well,” Joan replied, “but understand, whatever I wear, my scarlet cloak never leaves me. It will take me through my battles, so that when I am wounded – and I shall be – no one will know it.”

  “Ah Joan,” said the Duc d’Alençon. “I shall be at your side to protect you. I would never let that happen.”

  Of all the people at court, it was only the Duc d’Alençon she liked to be with. To some she was either a curiosity or a saint, and they treated her accordingly. To others, and these were many, she was some kind of a witch, casting her wicked spells over the Dauphin. Many of the army marshals were already jealous of her sudden power and influence, and resentful of her youthful vigour. Some of the nobles and their ladies, polite on the surface, were stung by her popularity with the people. She read hate in their eyes, and there was envy too. Of all of them she trusted only the Duc d’Alençon, ‘my fair duke’ as she always called him.

  She had just a few days of tranquillity and peace with the Duc d’Alençon and his Duchess at their castle nearby in the countryside, and she knew even then it would be the last such days she would ever know. Here the Duchess had made for her some new clothes, not just suitable for any soldier, but as she said, ‘for a great soldier of France’. They presented her with the finest horse they had, ‘to chase the Godoms out of France’; and the three rode, and sang, and walked and talked together for hours on end. Parting from the Duchess, when it came, was hard. “Look after him for me, Joan,” she said, embracing her. “He’s such a hot-head.”

  “Fear nothing,” Joan replied, “I will send him back to you as safe and well as he is now, or even better.”

  Back at the Dauphin’s court at Chinon she found herself treated now like a royal princess. She had her own rooms high in the Coudray Tower inside the castle itself. This suited Belami fine. He found he could fly in and out just as he pleased. She had her own chapel too and her own priest to go with it. She could hear Mass every day. She lacked for nothing – she even had servants now, and a page.

  Her page was called Louis, a slip of a lad, barely fourteen, just three years younger than she was. When they first met he was tongue-tied with awe, for by now Joan was even more famous than the Dauphin himself.

  “Well, Louis, what does a page do? I’ve never had one before,” Joan asked him.

  “Look after you, I suppose,” said Louis.

  “But I can look after myself,” replied Joan. “I always have done.”

  “What must I do then?” he asked her.

  “Be a friend to me, Louis, that’s all I ask. And be a friend to my Belami. Feed him when I forget. And, Louis, if ever I get too big for my boots – and I fear I shall – then prod me and remind me I am just Joan from Domrémy, and must always remain so. Will you do that for me? Will you promise?”

  After that, young Louis went everywhere with her, half an eye on Belami and half an eye on his young mistress – prodding her vanity whenever it appeared. He did this often and gently, particularly when she became overwhelmingly imperious or presumptuous which she was inclined to be from time to time. Joan came to trust in him absolutely, and so did Belami. He would sit on Louis’ finger, on his shoulder, on his head, anywhere – providing he got fed, of course.

  Joan longed to be gone with the army to Orléans; but, like Robert de Beaudricourt before him, the Dauphin began to lose his nerve after his first flush of enthusiasm. His marshals complained bitterly at the prospect of having a peasant girl leading their army. Only the great Marshall La Hire was firm in his support. “We have not done so well without God’s help,” he said. “If she is from God – and she may be – then let’s have God on our side. We need Him.” The bishops too sowed new doubts about her in his mind, and the doubts preyed on him. He sent countless bishops and learned clerics up to her tower to interview her; and he sent ladies to examine her purity, to make quite sure which she was, girl or boy. The Dauphin himself accompanied her to Poitiers where she had to endure long days of interrogation before more bishops and more learned clerics. Joan bore it all stoically, though on occasion her patience wore very thin. They would ask her such silly questions, and she was always inclined to give as good as she got.

  “Do you believe in God?” one asked her.

  “Yes,” she snapped back, “and better than you.”

  “Can you give us some proof that you are sent by God as you say you are?”

  “By God’s name,” she replied. “I have not come to Poitiers to perform miracles. Lead me to Orléans, and I will show you the miracle for which I am sent.”

  In the end it was not her answers that convinced the Dauphin, but the crowds that clamoured after her wherever she went. Just to ride alongside her through the people dispelled any lingering doubts he might have had. He could see for himself how fervent was their faith in her, how she had renewed their spirits and their hope. She was hailed everywhere as the God-sent saviour of France. So, at long last, and to Joan’s great joy, he gave the word that she was to have all she needed, that no more obstacles should be put in her way, that the army should be made ready to march on Orléans.

  More new joys awaited her, and unexpected ones, too. Knowing how said it made her to be away from her family, how she missed them, the Duc d’Alençon had sent for her brothers, Pierre and Jean, without telling her. They arrived one day at Chinon and the Duc d’Alençon led them at once to her tower. When all the tears and hugging were over, Pierre noticed Belami perched by the fire warming himself.

  “You haven’t still got that infernal bird, have you?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Joan, “and my skirt too.” And she threw her cloak about her shoulders. “See? They’re all I have left of home – but now, God be thanked, I have you as well. And Father, Mother – are they angry with me for leaving you all so suddenly and without asking, without even saying goodbye?”

  “No Joan, not any more,” said Jean. “They are proud of you, so proud, as we are.”

  Wherever she went now her brothers rode with her, along with the Duc d’Alençon, Jean de Metz, Bertrand, and Richard the Archer as her bodyguard. She also had two heralds who went ahead of her, and, of course, young Louis who never let her out of his sight.

  The Duc d’Alençon arranged for the best armourer in Tours to make her a suit of armour. She wanted it plain, she insisted, with no arms emblazoned. And so it was done. He had a lance made for her, too, and a battleaxe. The armourer wanted to make her a sword as well, but she refused.

  “My old sword from Vaucouleurs I shall give to my page, Louis. He has often asked for it so that he can protect me,” she told him. “My new sword, the sword I shall take into battle, was forged in heaven.” The armourer may have been amazed at this, but such was his faith in her, he did not for one moment doubt her. “So you need not make me a sword. But you can fetch it for me, if you will. Go to Fierbois, to the chapel of the blessed St Catherine. Tell the priests – they will know me for I was there not long ago – tell them to dig down into the ground behind the altar. There they will find a sword. It will be engraved with five crosses. It may well be a little bit rusty, but the rust will come away easily enough.”

  So he went, and sure enough, just as she had predicted, that was exactly where the priests found it. When the armourer had cleaned it up, he brought it back to her at Chinon with two scabbards, one of crimson velvet – a present from the people of Tours – and another in a cloth of gold that he had made himself.

  “Too fancy. Both of them are too fancy,” she said to Louis when the armourer had gone. “I shall have a leather one made like all the other soldiers.”

  The ladies at Chinon made her a standard to her own design: white for purity, with fleur de lys, and two angels embroidered on it, and ‘Jhesus Maria’ in large letters, for this was her motto, her battle cry. It was now the battle cry throughout the French army as they set out at long last on the march to Orléans, with Joan at their head and Belami riding high and happy on the point of her standard.

  Joan s
lept every night in her chain armour, to get used to it. She ate with her soldiers and prayed with her soldiers too. Priests went ahead of them singing Non Nobis and the Te Deum. She let it be known that because her army was fighting in the name of God there would be no swearing, no looting, no womanising. She would have none of it. Even amongst all the great nobles and dukes and marshals – including Marshal La Hire himself who was not known for his gentility – she would not tolerate bad language and most certainly no blasphemy. She was fierce in this and would brook no argument about it from them nor from anyone else. Indeed, as they were all soon to discover, this seemingly sweet-natured, simple country girl, once roused, could be fearsome in her anger.

  It very soon became clear to Joan that some of the marshals of the army were treating her as little more than a sort of mascot, a lucky talisman. They murmured amongst themselves about the indignity of having to accept Joan as an equal. To them she was merely an illiterate, ignorant peasant girl, unfit to be a soldier, and untried in any campaign. It was more than many of them could stomach. She might be useful for raising the morale of the soldiers, they felt, but that was all. So they told her nothing of their plans, and did not consult her on strategy, but instead humoured her gently, conforming to her wishes that there should be no crude soldier talk, no pillaging, and in particular no women. Grudgingly they accepted all she had decreed. Joan was the only woman in the five-thousand-strong French army that marched from Blois towards Orléans, along the south bank of the Loire river that rain-soaked April. With them went thousands of cattle and sheep and pigs and wagonloads of provisions, all for the relief of the besieged people of Orléans.

  There was a rainbow over Orléans when she first saw it. The roofs of the city shone across the river under the distant sunshine. But as she stood there on the river bank, she was not completely happy. She sent for La Hire and the other marshals at once. “There is the river between us and the English,” she said, quite unable to hide her anger and her disappointment. “Tell me, how are we to fight the English if we are here and they are there? Why did you not tell me how things were?” La Hire tried to explain that it was safer to approach from the south, that the English were stronger to the north of the city, that they would wait for the Governor of Orléans, the Bastard of Orléans, as he was called, to come across with his boats, then the army could cross. It would be safer that way, he said.

  “Safe!” she blazed. “In God’s name, are we here for our safety? I am no one’s poodle, La Hire. I am the envoy not just of the Dauphin, but of God. Remember that. Never forget it.” And she stormed off leaving him lost for words. All he could do was marvel at her. “When he comes,” he whispered under his breath, “my friend the Bastard of Orléans is in for a hell of a surprise, I think.” Fully fifty paces away by now Joan whirled around pointing her sword at him. “Yes, indeed he is. And you mind your language, La Hire!”

  That afternoon the Bastard of Orléans came across the river to greet Joan. Her reputation, her fame, had gone before her. Like everyone else in Orléans he had been longing to meet this miraculous peasant girl who seemed to be rallying an entire nation, who had come to lift the siege of his city. But it was not quite the meeting he had been expecting.

  “I suppose,” said Joan eyeing him darkly. “I suppose you must be the one they call the Bastard of Orléans. You’re the one who hatched up with La Hire and the marshals this silly notion of coming south along the river to avoid a fight with the English. Are you frightened of them too?”

  No one in all his life had ever dared accuse the Bastard of Orléans of cowardice, until now. He should have been furious with indignation, but instead found himself being conciliatory.

  “We thought it wisest, Joan, not to be caught out in the open by the English, with all the beasts and the baggage. We thought it more important to first supply the city – the people are in dire need of what you bring. Then we can march the army in afterwards. After that we can sally out to fight the English whenever we like.”

  Joan could see the sense in it and calmed at once. “Well you thought wrong not to tell me,” she told them all. “That’s all. Remember that I bring you the finest help that ever was brought to a city, since it is the help of the King of Heaven himself. We shall cross now right away. I am eager to see it, to see the people.”

  But the marshals looked at once another in some consternation. “What is it?” said Joan. “What now?”

  “That was just what we had in mind, Joan,” said the Bastard, “but there is a problem. The wind. We need a fair wind to bring the boats upstream, and I’m afraid the wind is entirely in the wrong quarter. We need it to change. It could be some days.”

  “Days! You should know,” said Joan quietly, “that I don’t much like to wait, not when I am about God’s work.”

  With that she walked away from them down the river where she fell on her knees and prayed. Belami flew off to be with her. He was fluttering over her, trying to decide where best to land, when the wind gusted suddenly and changed direction, buffeting him out over the river. Joan opened her eyes, breathed the wind in deep, crossed herself and stood up. She turned round. La Hire, the Bastard of Orléans, the Duc d’Alençon, her brothers, were on their knees. Indeed, the entire army was on its knees, wondering at the miracle they had just witnessed. “Well,” she said, “you have your wind. So, no more excuses. I want to eat my supper in Orléans tonight.”

  Belami settled on her shoulder. “Ah Belami,” she said. “If only we could all fly like you. Then we’d have no need of boats or wind, would we? That would be something, wouldn’t it?” She laughed out loud as she read the thoughts in their heads. “No, no my friends, I cannot sprout wings. Come on, off your knees. There’ll be time enough for praying in Orléans.”

  So the boats sailed across the Loire that afternoon and Joan was ferried across, along with all the beasts and the provisions, and the French army. By nightfall they were at the gates of the city.

  From their forts the English looked on, too few, too surprised to do much about it, except hurl a few obscenities, and fire off a few cannons. But Joan and the French were well out of range of both. Belami was in Orléans before Joan. He could not resist flying on ahead. Below him he could see the streets packed with people, the entire city lit by their torches. After a while he flew back to be with Joan, to perch in pride of place on the point of her standard as she rode in through the city gates and was at once enveloped by adoring crowds. But Belami very nearly came to grief. A torch touched a nearby banner and it burst instantly into flames, singeing Belami’s tail feathers. Joan was too busy putting out the flames to notice his discomfort. He did try to tell her, but in all the clamour he could not make himself heard. Once in her lodgings, she seemed to have little time for him. Instead he went and complained to Louis who fed him and stroked him. “She has not forgotten you, Belami,” said Louis. “She has a great work to do, and she must be about it. You understand that, don’t you, Belami?” Belami understood it perfectly, but he did not like it, not with his feathers all singed.

  The room was full of people. La Hire was there at her table as she ate her supper – some bread dunked in red wine, her favourite. So was Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, the Duc d’Alençon, her two brothers and the Bastard of Orléans. It was the Bastard and La Hire who were doing most of the talking, arguing between them as to whether or not they should go to Blois for reinforcements before attacking the English. “Go for your reinforcements, if you like. But not yet,” said Joan. “I want no blood spilt until I have given the English a chance to retire from their forts.”

  “But Joan,” said the Duc d’Alençon, “we have already sent a letter to the English. And what did you have back but insults? I tell you, they will not leave unless we make them leave. I know these English. They won’t go just because you ask them to. For God’s sake, let’s be at them.”

  “My fair duke,” said Joan, “your wife was right, you are a hot-head. But I tell you, I will spill no blood, English
or French, unless I have to. My Lord in Heaven says I must do what has to be done, so far as I can, without bloodshed. So, my lord, I shall write another letter. Take this down and have it sent.” She thought for a moment and then began to dictate. “Talbot, Glasdale, and all you English dukes and soldiers. You see I have come to Orléans as I said I would. I urge you now, before it is too late, to give up the siege and go home to England where you belong. If you do not I shall be forced to attack you in your forts and drive you out. Go, Godoms, in God’s name, go.”

  The next morning one of Joan’s heralds was dispatched to the English under a flag of truce. All day she waited, and still the herald did not return. Joan, becoming more agitated by the minute, paced her room alone. Only Belami was with her. “Why do they not reply, Belami?” she said. “Don’t they know I mean what I say? Do they think I am frightened? Do they know me so well? For I am frightened, Belami, but not of fighting, nor of dying either, nor of being wounded. I know that one day soon I shall be wounded – here above my left breast, I know it. My voices have told me so. But it’s none of these things that frighten me. My voices tell me I must be a soldier, that I must lead my soldiers and fight alongside them. Until now I had not thought of it, Belami. If we fight, then there will come a time when I face my first Englishman sword in hand and I shall have to kill him. I don’t know if I can do it, Belami, not look him in the eyes and drive my sword into his flesh. That is what frightens me. Please God they will surrender their forts and just march away. Please God. Where is my herald? Where is he?” But by evening the herald still had not returned, so she determined to deliver her message herself.

  D’Alençon tried to stop her, so did her brothers. She would listen to no one. She would have one last try, she said, and forbade any of them to come with her. Alone she strode out over the bridge towards the Tourelles, the strongest of the ring of English forts that surrounded the town. “You English,” she called out. “I call upon you in God’s name to give yourselves up and save your lives.” But the rest of her appeal was drowned out by a chorus of jeering and whistling.