Midnight

by Midnight- Three Women at the Hour of Reckoning (retail) (epub)

  Anyway, it was all very far away now, all of it, even her captivity, even her trial. All part of her life on the other side of the river. She saw it now in a sort of golden light, the light of late sunsets on the hills in high summer. Beautiful, but she wasn’t there anymore.

  She’d crossed that river, away from her whole life—not, as she’d thought at first, when she stood there at the stake on Thursday and denied her past, for she’d still believed then. Believed just as she had before, though the details were different. She’d gone to the stake believing in saints and angels, and come back believing in priests and Church prisons. But when she stood here and lied to Cauchon about the pants, that’s when everything changed.

  And though it had been better there, much better, in that golden place where she’d been young and innocent enough to do all that she’d somehow managed to do, what was interesting to her was where she was now. Strange, too—she was glad Massieu hadn’t gotten in. It was good to be alone for a bit.

  Though she wasn’t entirely alone—that was the puzzling part. Her saints had come back. She was trying to sort out exactly when, and even why. She’d told Cauchon that they’d come before she took the pants, that that was why she took them, but that wasn’t true. Or was it that it wasn’t quite true?

  She wouldn’t have taken them, granted, herself. She wanted to live, of course, but once she’d been forced to do it by the guards—surely the angels had never used less likely agents—then, gradually, by steps, her saints were there again, saying exactly what she’d told Cauchon they’d said.

  God sends you forgiveness, through us, daughter of God. But you damn your soul if you deny your holy mission. . . .

  Girl X wanted her to ask them what happened to the escape they’d promised.

  But that, too, was back there, behind her. History. She was studying something else right now. The meaning of life.

  Since we all die, she reminded Girl X.

  Girl X: But to die like this? To burn? Why not to have died, then, in battle, or at the tower, or even here, in bed, from the poison? It would have been better! Much better!

  I’m not sure. This week has been enlightening—

  Girl X: For what? The beatings? The attacks?

  —and, I think, important.

  Girl X: You should have stood there and taken it the first time, then! It would have been simpler, and over by now!

  Yes, there’s that, but I would have died on that side of life. Not knowing what I know now.

  Because she was glad for this chance to see beyond. It was different here, on the other side now, and quiet, and a strange thing had happened with time. There had, this week, been time for everything, time to grow old, and wise. A thousand days in May, she’d had this week—two thousand. Her whole “threescore and ten’s” worth of Mays.

  You mean this whole endless nightmare! said Girl X. You’re just saying it seems like a lifetime and you’ve grown old in one week—like the man in Domrémy whose hair turned white overnight when his wife ran off with the fiddler. Do you remember?

  No—that is, yes, she remembered him. He wore a blue cap then, and tried to dye his hair afterward with some red mud.

  But no, she didn’t mean time seeming endless, days dragging out. Just the opposite, really. When she was sleeping, half sleeping, she saw them all—what might be called all her natural Mays. First the flowery Mays, then the fighting Mays, and the court Mays, the captive Mays—

  Girl X: But that’s just memory! You just lay there and reminisced!

  —and then the Mays, all the ones that would have come after, as if they were granted.

  Girl X: When?

  Last night, this morning. . . .

  Girl X: Where? Here? A thousand Mays in the dungeon?

  Not here.

  Girl X: Where, then? If you’re so free, what are you doing here?

  I am so free—and I’m here.

  Girl X: You say that here, now. Alone, chained to the bed—but you’d run so fast if you could, from the stake!

  Yes, who wouldn’t, though where? she’d been thinking. Domrémy? The court? The red skirt or the armor? She couldn’t see how either of them would fit her now, though she’d give much for one more night in her mother’s house. Or a talk with the king, for that matter, if it could be honest, and face-to-face.

  But both were over for her now. Life had carried her along.

  And life had been good, her own life extraordinary.

  Beg them to save you still! Call on Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret! Tell them to take you away, or send the army as they promised! a voice, Girl X, was still pleading.

  Joan of Arc sat up in her chains, shook her head. She no longer thought that was how it happened.

  You did!

  Yes, but I’m thinking now that that was childish, to think that escape meant leaving this place, or that victory meant a real battle, with men at arms, like something from a child’s tale. Since now she had grown up and put away childish things.

  But the glass is still dark!

  Unless maybe the saints were granting her both, escape and great victory. Do you see? she asked Girl X.

  Who was silent for a while. Then, finally, There are better ways to die than burning.

  My saints didn’t choose that for me, any more than God chose the cross for his son. It’s just the way it is, and it won’t last forever. It will start, and it will happen, and it will end. And then, if I’m right, if I’m hearing my saints correctly now, I’ll be free and victorious.

  What if you’re not?

  Then it will be something else. Something I don’t know now, but will know then.

  What if you’re wrong?

  I can’t be.

  . . .

  Joan of Arc was calm that night, on her knees, eyes closed, when the compline rang, the last bells of the evening. That’s when she always heard her saints best. The guards came in to chain her to her bed, and then paused.

  They knew it was her last night. Funny, they seemed almost regretful now, around her. Like they’d lost the will, or maybe they no longer believed the same way, either. They’d done what they’d been called to do—treated her with all the cruelty and hatred they could muster, for king and country. They’d hit her, called her names, subjected her to whatever degradation was at hand—watched her piss, helped that drunken lord attack her, and for what, in the end? Their king was a stuttering boy who’d never notch an Agincourt, and they were still them, guards in a dungeon. Poor forever. Stuck in France.

  And she was going to die in the morning, and they knew now, after all this time of wanting it badly, that that wouldn’t help any of it, either. And now they were supposed to chain her to the bed.

  “Let it be,” one of them muttered to the other. For once. They turned and walked out.

  XVIII.

  Wednesday dawned, full of woe. May 30, 1431. Martin Ladvenu arrived at the castle at first light. Massieu was still there. “They sent me to tell her,” Ladvenu said.

  They stared at each other. Ladvenu was a Dominican monk. “I’ll go in with you,” Massieu said.

  Although, he thought, as they descended to the dungeon, Instead of telling her, we could run, the two of us, right now, away from Rouen, and not have to witness the end. Hear about it, maybe, but that was different from truly seeing the face of the Gorgon, which strikes men dumb, he’d heard. Old tales.

  He would tell her king, confront him. He should leave now, today. Not wait, but head out of Rouen before the sun was properly up, and follow the Seine to Paris, and then past, to—where was he, her Charles VII? Somewhere on the Loire, and Massieu would find him and lay her death at his feet. The horrible death of the girl to whom he owed everything. For whom he’d done nothing.

  Ladvenu was shaking like a leaf. Muttering something, some prayers, a plea for strength. They arrived. Massieu took his arm, and they went in.

  She jumped up when she saw them. “Today?”

  She started to cry at once. “How?”

>   Didn’t she know? Of course she knew! What could she be hoping for? A reprieve? A change of heart among her enemies? Mercy?

  “How?” she asked again.

  Why make them say it? Tears started down Massieu’s face. Ladvenu took several breaths, then stammered out, “The fire.”

  She fell to the floor. Massieu noticed she wasn’t chained. At least that. He knelt down, took her hand.

  “No, no, please no!” she cried to him—she hadn’t thought she’d panic like this, had thought she would be all right. But now she couldn’t stop herself. “Anything else, anything but that! Let them behead me seven times!”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “My body,” she wailed, “burned to ashes—”

  Massieu suddenly found himself thinking about his mother, whom he very rarely saw. If she were here, maybe she would know what to say. Something calming.

  “To be ashes! Cinders! Dear God, please no!”

  Massieu was frightened. He didn’t want her to die like this. Kicking and screaming. It would make it easier for Cauchon, the English.

  “Let me confess you,” broke in Ladvenu gently.

  “Yes, yes!” She grabbed at his sleeve. “And let me receive my savior! Let me eat and drink of the Lord—”

  Yes, thought Massieu, that might help. “I’ll go,” he said to Ladvenu.

  “To Cauchon,” Ladvenu said, low. “Beg him! Be quick.”

  They were supposed to have her at the stake by eight.

  Massieu ran out, he would run through the whole town to find Cauchon if he had to, and then run back again—but Cauchon was already there, outside the castle, escorted by Warwick’s armed guards. The soldiers were already gathering, milling around, though no one was smiling. It wasn’t a picnic this time.

  Massieu stopped and swallowed hard. He took Cauchon’s hand. Kissed his ring. “My lord.”

  He begged his favor: Communion for the condemned? “If it please Your Grace, Your Royal Highness . . .”

  “Yes, why not?” said Cauchon.

  “But she is a relapsed heretic, Your Grace!” called d’Estivet, elbowing in. Massieu wheeled on him. Burn in hell!

  “No, but Your Grace—” Massieu began.

  Cauchon silenced them both. “Consider, gentlemen. The law on heretics clearly states that they may receive one last Communion if they ask for it ‘with all humility.’ ” To Massieu, “Did she ask thus?”

  “With all humility,” said Massieu, “the greatest humility—”

  “Then,” Cauchon to his clerk, “go and fetch what they need.”

  The clerk went off to the church.

  Thank you, Jesus, whispered Massieu silently. It occurred to him that this was a day for Jesus, not God. Jesus, who’d cried out himself, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Did she know that psalm? “I am a worm”—that was the psalm that Jesus was quoting. That could be a great comfort to her now. Maybe if he recited it for her, it would calm her a bit.

  Bishop Cauchon and the rest of them proceeded in, to the dungeon. The bishop looked considerably more relaxed. He had his armed guard back. He was dining once again with Warwick.

  Massieu wondered why he was going to see her now. Was he obliged by law? But wasn’t it enough that he see her at the stake, when he sentenced her? Why now? Curiosity? Perversion?

  They walked in.

  “Bishop, I die through you!” she cried to Cauchon.

  Finally! cried Massieu in his heart. Let him hear it!

  “No, Joan, you die through your own wickedness,” returned Cauchon. Milder than usual, his mildness more terrible than his passion. Signifying, as it did, no further concern that Joan of Arc wouldn’t burn today.

  Of course she would. Massieu knew it. Unless—Saint Catherine! Saint Margaret!—there was a miracle.

  “I call you before God as your judge!” Joan of Arc was crying to Cauchon. “I call God to judge how horribly you’ve treated me!”

  Massieu wondered again if Cauchon even believed in God. If he did, Massieu though wildly, maybe he would still stop this, even now.

  “Bear it bravely,” Cauchon snapped to Joan of Arc, “with forbearance,” and walked out.

  Good, thought Massieu. Let them all leave. He wanted to get close to her, wanted to tell her about Jesus.

  “Where will I be this evening, Master Pierre?” she cried to a priest lingering there. She was sobbing again. Massieu had never seen her like this. Be here now, Jesus!

  “Don’t you have good faith in our Lord, daughter?” asked the priest.

  “I do! I do!” Nervously. Talking very fast. “God willing, I’ll be in paradise this night.”

  Massieu pushed his way through. “Joan!”

  She was still crying to the priest, “God willing, Master Pierre, please God! Please, God—”

  “Joan!” She still didn’t look at him. “I have to tell you—” He touched her hand. Ice-cold. He knew the condition, “scared out of one’s wits.”

  Don’t let her die this way, he prayed. Jesus.

  “Joan,” he said aloud, “I was thinking that Jesus will be here today, with you. It’s not unlike what happened to him, that day. ‘My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ ”

  She seemed to hear him then. To stop a bit—did she? The clerk arrived with some of the accoutrements for Communion, but he hadn’t bothered to bring candles, or a stole for Ladvenu. Without them, the Communion would be questionable. Incomplete.

  “Just do it,” said the clerk. Time was short, and the streets weren’t safe for him, he said.

  But Ladvenu was a stalwart that morning. “Do you mean for me to give her Communion lightly? Are you insulting her, or me, or God?”

  The clerk hesitated, looked from face to face, and then went back for what he’d neglected, the candles, the stole. Good, thought Massieu.

  “Joan,” he said, “I’m not thinking of God. I’m thinking of Jesus the man, alone and forsaken. He never thought it would be that bad—”

  She still hadn’t looked at him. Would it end this way? Wouldn’t he get just one more look?

  “If he came here right now, in the flesh, I mean, you could talk to him, I think. You’re the only one who might know what to say. To make it better, for him—”

  Massieu no longer knew what he was saying. But he saw her take a breath.

  “You could walk with him, up the hill, the two of you, alone and forsaken. . . .”

  “No!” sobbed Girl X. “Anything but burning! Anything but burning—”

  Massieu took her hand.

  XIX.

  The clerk came back, breathless, with the candles and the sacred stole. “The streets are filled with people,” he said, “all praying for her soul! The priests from the cathedral followed me in procession, calling, ‘Pray for her, pray for her!’ And people have lit candles everywhere!”

  Joan of Arc looked up.

  “Truly?” she asked the clerk.

  “Everyone in Rouen is praying—”

  She turned to Massieu—looked, at last, into his eyes. Thank you, he whispered.

  “They’re praying for me,” she said slowly. “The people of Rouen—”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “My enemies—”

  “No, not the people. Never the people. They love you. They will never forget you!”

  “It could be that way—”

  “It is!” said Massieu. What else was there? Since there was nothing else. And, “He felt forsaken, too.”

  Yes, thought Joan of Arc, that’s true. He felt forsaken, but they’re out there, singing for me. The people of Rouen, not even my people. People who had been my enemies.

  She remembered her first dream at Orléans, that the English soldiers would heed her warning. Come over to her, and she would bring them all together, in peace and prayer, for God and for France, and England, too. Was that dream being realized here, now? Could it be?

  Funny, that, amazing, maybe even a gift. Joan of Arc resolved then to think no more abou
t the details of her death. She would be the “daughter of God” again. She would come out again, from a castle, with the townspeople praying for her soul once more.

  She was holy again, though in a different way. Almost sanctified. Few people knew the hour of their own death, though everyone would die. She would try to be brave.

  But you can’t be brave! They’re going to burn you at the stake! cried Girl X. Don’t you remember your horror? The executioner? The cart? The bundles of wood!

  I said I wasn’t going to dwell on the details!

  That’s because you’ve forgotten! It’s the worst death—you couldn’t do it! Remember?

  But I’ve had time now, this week, this lifetime, to become brave.

  You were brave before! Joan of Arc was always brave!

  I’m braver now.

  No! cried Girl X.

  Yes, said Joan of Arc firmly.

  Massieu was looking at her. “We all die,” she said to him softly. He looked terrible. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll kill me today, or I’ll die some other way tomorrow, or the next day, next year. It’s our fate.”

  . . .

  Ladvenu was ready now with the Communion. Some English soldiers were outside, banging on the door. The priests knew they were late.

  Joan of Arc knelt down to receive her last Communion. Ladvenu suddenly turned to Massieu. “Her pants?” That had been the pretext upon which Cauchon and d’Estivet and their men had refused her Communion throughout her imprisonment. Even though they knew she loved the sacrament, took true comfort—probably because they knew she would take comfort. “God doesn’t care what I wear,” she had pleaded with them all through her trial, to no avail.

  “God doesn’t care what she wears,” Massieu repeated now to Ladvenu, who nodded, and they began.

  She was crying again, but it was different now. There was no trace of the terror. She prayed and wept softly, and they all wept with her, and it seemed to Massieu that time had stopped, and by secret miracle, this moment would never end. This would be his life, and her life, praying here, together, in tears of awe forever, and the candles would never burn down.

  But then, the executioner, hooded, all in black, came into the dungeon.