Dove and Sword: A Novel of Joan of Arc

Later that night, as I slept despite the joyful sounds of the Orléanais dancing in the streets. Monsieur Boucher summoned me. “Another page seeks you,” he told me.

I thought: Yarrow! and ran to greet him.

But my rejoicing quickly turned to apprehension when I saw the boy’s face, dirt- and tear-stained, and the fear in his eyes.

“Your horse,” he said in a choking voice as soon as I appeared. “The English …”

“They did not take her?” I shouted, grabbing his tattered doublet and shaking him—for that to me would have been the worst fate, to have my Yarrow stolen. How would I know how she fared, and whether they fed or beat her?

“N-no,” he said, trembling, so I let him go.

“What then?”

His words came quickly. “When—when the fighting was—was thickest at Les Tourelles, after the Maid led the men to the walls, I took your horse from where we had stayed by that machine, and—and I came into the Augustins yard with her and saw you with a—a crossbow—and just then an English arrow flew toward us and your horse took it in her chest, and fell. And then there was such confusion I could not get to you, or find you. Oh, I am sorry!” he said, seizing my arm and looking at me imploringly. “She was a noble horse …”

But I no longer heard him, or saw him, for my eyes were overflowing with tears. I turned away, and shook off his hand.

“It—it was very quick,” he told me miserably. “She did not even scream.”

Yarrow, Yarrow, my mind was saying, while I played at soldier with a crossbow, you lay dying and I did not even know …

“I am sorry,” said the boy again, and his voice broke as I knew mine would were I to speak.

But speak I knew I must; he had been kind and brave to bring me the ill news, and I knew he was suffering for it.

“Nay, friend,” I managed to say, “it was none of your doing. You served me well, and her, and I thank you.” My voice failed me then; I whispered, “Leave me now, but in peace; I bear you no ill will.” And then I stumbled back to my room, and wept for my sweet mare. Never have I known a dearer or more willing horse than my Yarrow. I miss her still, whenever I think of her.

There was rejoicing all night, and the ringing of bells, but I heard the glad sounds only dimly through my grief.

The next morning, Sunday, though the English came out of their forts, they did not attack. In a while, Jeanne had Father Pasquerel and the other priests set up an altar, before which they said Mass for the men-at-arms and sang anthems. By the time this was done, the English were in retreat. Almost all of them departed that day, leaving behind only a few wounded men and some goods which the Orléanais quickly took as recompense for the siege.

Jeanne left Orléans soon after the days of celebration had passed, to ask the dauphin, who was at his castle in Loches, for more troops so she could take other towns along the Loire that the English held, and to urge him again to go to Reims to be crowned. I stayed in Orléans, mourning Yarrow and seeking lodging elsewhere, for I wished to put off my disguise, so I could see Louis openly as myself. He had elected to stay behind with me, and with the men-at-arms who awaited Jeanne’s return. I wanted to visit the Aumône-de-Sainte-Croix, the place for the poor people of the town who were sick. For that I would need, I felt, to be both woman and midwife.

Pierre found lodging for me at the home of a Monsieur Dupont, telling him and Madame Dupont that I was a friend and countrywoman of his sister’s, come to Orléans to await her return, bearing messages from Domremy. They had a grander house than the Bouchers’, and daintier food, which grew more plentiful daily, as the countryfolk began to come into Orléans again with their goods. We had roasted goose, capons, and pheasants; cream tarts and sweet wafers; and, once, a whole swan still in its white feathers! That one, I did not wish to eat. Even when it was cut and I could see that it had been well cooked, it still seemed too much like the live bird.

The first two days I was at the Duponts’, I rested, walking slowly in the streets where young Charles had taken me, and sitting quietly with Louis on the banks of the Loire, outside the city walls. It was peaceful there, though the ravages of battle were all around—scorched grass and trees, and great round stones shot from cannons, and broken machines of war, and arrows from the English longbows, plus rubble from Les Tourelles and the Augustins. But we blinded ourselves to them, and looked up at the bright spring sky with its soft white clouds, and listened to the birds, who had returned now that the fighting was over. It was these things, and Louis’s gentle presence, that slowly dulled the ache I felt for Yarrow.

Once we went to the Isle des Boeufs, where Pierre was later to live, though of course I did not know that then. We walked the entire day there, trying to make each other laugh, I with descriptions of battles with the boys of Maxey, and with my parents’ name of changeling for me, and he with accounts of feasts at which each course was more elegant than the last. I had thought that swan in feathers was the oddest dish ever brought to table, but Louis told me of a pie in which a chicken, though cooked, was made to rise up as if alive when the crust was broken! I marveled more than ever that Louis could care for someone as humble as I. But he said that he believed it was not people’s station that made them what they were but they themselves, and that I had the makings of a great lady.

“I do not wish to be a great lady,” I told him, “for that would be dull. I would rather be a great doctor. But that is not possible, I am sure.”

Louis looked thoughtful. “They do not, I think, allow women in the university to study medicine, but perhaps when the dauphin is king and Jeanne is again spinning in Domremy, you and I can go to Paris and I can leave off soldiering for a while and go to the university and teach you what I have been taught. I told you I would not mind being a scholar-knight.”

“But you do not care for medicine,” I said, not mentioning what had made joy leap within me: that he saw us together when the king was crowned and the fighting was at an end. I dared to remember, then, too, what he had said in the Augustins yard about a nagging wife.

And then he took my shoulders and drew me to him, and held me close to his body, saying softly, “No, my Gabrielle, I do not care for medicine, but I truly would not dislike combining study with soldiering. Most of all, though, I find that I care for you. Why is it, think you, that I stayed in Orléans rather than following Jeanne or going home to my father?”

“To avoid the hardships of travel or hearing your father’s anger, I suppose,” I said, but my voice was weak and my head was spinning.

Louis pulled me even closer and put his lips on mine as he had done before. For a long time we spoke not, and I learned why it is that women sometimes do not wait to be wed before they get with child. It was hard for me to wait that day, for Louis’s touch made my body sing and my whole being rejoice as nothing had before—but fear and shyness made me hesitate; he did not urge me, and the moment passed.

The next day, with Louis, I went to the Aumône-de-Sainte-Croix to see if I could be of service, and found I was welcome because of my knowledge of midwifery. And so every day I went there and gave them what aid I could, delivering several fine infants, two of whom, I am proud and pleased to say, were named for me! I helped with the sick, too, and learned the ingredients for several new unguents, which I was anxious to show Nicolas when he returned—for he had gone with Jeanne to the dauphin. Once or twice after I left the hospital, Louis taught me more letters, but usually I was too weary, and so we would just talk.

May passed into June, and soon Jeanne returned, having at last convinced the dauphin to give her troops to win back the towns the enemy held along the Loire. Pierre was with her, and the surly Jean, and Nicolas. Pierre said—and Nicolas agreed—that the dauphin’s advisers, especially the stout La Trémoille and Archbishop Regnault de Chartres, who had ignored Jeanne at Blois, wished to ignore her still. “Their purpose is always to advance themselves,” Nicolas explained, in obvious disgust. “I am happier in the field than at court when those two are there, for they will agree with whoever buys or flatters them; they are selfish, dangerous men in the guise of loyal ones.”

But despite La Trémoille and the archbishop, the dauphin had put Jeanne’s beau duc Alençon in charge of the army, and had told him to follow Jeanne’s council. I saw Jeanne and Alençon smiling and laughing together more than ever after that, almost as close and easy with each other as Pierre and I.

More troops had come to Orléans this time than I had seen even at Blois, and despite what I had learned of war, my blood stirred once more at the sight of them, though their horses put me in mind of Yarrow. Louis, I saw, felt the same, for he turned and said to me, as we watched them enter the city, “It is time for us to be soldiers once more, you and I, is it not? Will Gabrielle be a page again, and a boy?”

I nodded, and stood on my toes—for he was tall, my Louis—and kissed him, saying, “She will be a boy in garb and in speech and manner, but her heart will remain a woman’s,” and I hurried off to take my leave of the Duponts and don my boy’s clothes, so I could return to Pierre’s side as his page.

On the tenth of June, we set out, an army again, for Jargeau, to the east of Orléans, which the English held. I had a small black horse which Pierre had somehow found for me. I think he must have belonged to the English, for he knew the language of reins better than that of speech. I named him Anglais and found him steady, but I decided not to love him, lest he, too, be lost in battle.

We, and the men of Orléans who came with us, marched along the Loire, where it was very flat and so misty we could not see much at all ahead of us. And at last we stopped in a wood not far from Jargeau. The knight commanding Louis’s section was old, and did not always notice whether his men were with him, so it was easy for Louis to join me when we all made camp in the woods. Louis and I moved a safe distance from the others, and built our own small fire under the trees.

“It will be hard,” mused Louis, chewing a bit of rabbit I had both snared and cooked, “to live again within walls. We are so used to being out-of-doors.”

I laughed and poked him. “This is our first night out-of-doors after a month of nights within; do you forget so quickly?”

“That I do,” he said, swallowing his meat and seizing me around the waist, “for I prefer being outside, away from watchful eyes, and free as the birds and the beasts and the trees and the flowers …” He left off then and looked deep into my eyes. “Gabrielle, Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he whispered, his eyes so full of love that I felt an overpowering softness steal my strength from me. “I am so happy when I am with you! I care not where I am, or who I am; I want only to stay by your side and serve you and talk with you, for”—he traced my brow with his gentle fingertip—“your mind is as wonderful as the beauty of your face.”

I knew I was not beautiful, and would have laughed but for the seriousness of his voice and the strength of my love for him—and for what he said next, which was, softly, “Gabrielle, little changeling as some call you, will you lie with me?”

I ached to say I would; every part of me hungered for him. And this time I do not think it was fear or shyness that held me back. But I made myself refuse, choosing my words with care. “I wish to, with all my heart,” I told him, “but I cannot lest we be wed, and I say this not to trap you, but because I cannot follow the Maid and do what she and God would deem sinful. Surely you see that; oh, please, my Louis, say that you do!”

He looked hurt and for a moment seemed to withdraw from me, but then he kissed me tenderly and said, “Yes, I do see it, and I love you more for it. But we must wed quickly, then, Gabrielle, for we both long for each other so!”

“What of your father?” I asked then, “and what of mine? I have no dowry …”

“Do you think I care for that?” he said angrily. “Or for what my father says, or yours? We are rebels, you and I; they cannot cage us, Gabrielle, and they will not. We will not let them, and we will wed!”

Oh, how those words echo in my mind, even now; how they make my heart ache and my eyes fill—oh, my Louis!

Nicolas came to me early the next morning, Sunday, with Pierre, and, taking me aside, said, gently for him, “I have been short with you, my boy, and hard, to test you, and I have delayed speaking until I saw you in battle. But you have proved yourself resolute and calm as well as skilled, and so I have asked your master, Pierre, if he will release you to serve me as my page and assistant—in short, as my apprentice—and he has agreed. What say you?”

I glanced at Pierre, who nodded and said carefully, “Since I have promised your parents to look after you, you will see me still—but it is right for you to serve Nicolas, since you have more skill for healing than for warfare.”

So I agreed, my mind racing—for of course Nicolas did not know I was not the boy he thought me, and I could see that Pierre had not told him. What would he do if he found out? I feared his anger, but my eagerness to learn from him overcame my fear—though I knew I would have to be more careful, now, of seeing Louis, for Nicolas would expect me to stay close to him, and it would seem strange to him if I were often visited by a young nobleman!

“Good,” Nicolas said with much satisfaction. “I shall inform the captains and the Maid.”

Soon after, Jeanne summoned me and Nicolas before the captains and the army, telling them to look to us both should they fall in battle. And at intervals all that day our guns fired at Jargeau’s walls, but Nicolas and I, near our cart of herbs and linens and tools, had little to do, for our men were too far back for the English shots to reach them. That night, each time my eyes closed, I heard the guns again, jolting me out of sleep.

When morning came at last, I thought there could be no more rounded stones left for the cannons—indeed, the workers were already chiseling new ones. Later, the trumpets called for an attack, and our men surged forward, those in the front carrying the scaling ladders that had been brought up on the carts. They put these against the walls, though we could all see the English waiting above them, armed with stones and iron balls and hot pitch and flame, which they poured down. And once, when I looked up again at the walls after treating a man whose arm had been burned, my breath caught in my throat, for none other than Jeanne was mounting a ladder, her standard in her hand, beckoning our men to follow. As I watched, more horrified every moment, a man on the wall hurled down a stone, which hit her on the peaked helmet she wore. I know I let out a cry when the stone shattered and she fell. There was, for the space of a few seconds, a ghastly silence from us French, and a great cheer from the English. But as Nicolas and I ran toward Jeanne, the sounds were reversed, with the English falling silent and our men shouting with joy and relief, for Jeanne sprang to her feet, as if the fall had been a mere tumble. “Up, friends,” she cried. “Up! Our Lord has damned the English. At this very moment they are ours; be of good cheer!”

And our men swarmed over the walls as if no power would ever be able to stop them. Jargeau was indeed ours.