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  the simple dress they proffered and

  my own hypocrisy. I took

  off the shift and donned the clothes more

  natural to me. I knew then

  I would face my death unafraid

  and proud. If that meant that my

  tunic would also be my shroud,

  then I would enter Paradise

  a bright and shining jewel, not an

  abomination, but the way

  that God has made me, His singular

  creation.

  AS it God prescribed to you the dress of a man?”

  Joan: “I did not take it by the advice of any man in the world. I did not take this dress or do anything but by the command of Our Lord and of the Angels.”

  * * *

  Trial of Condemnation

  Joan

  How strange it is not to be confined

  in my tower cell—where they have

  imprisoned me well over a

  long year—to feel the spring sun on

  my skin! What is it that these angry

  men so fear that they treat me like

  a criminal? They say it was

  a sin to stand up for Charles

  and for France. Yes, I carried sword

  and shield and lance onto the teeming

  battlefield, but I have never

  been untruthful or concealed my

  true intentions. They say I am

  a sorceress, but that is only

  an invention to protect them

  from their own dark villainy, their

  unmanly apprehensions

  and disguised anxieties. They

  are angry that I would not give

  them satisfaction by saying

  I was guilty or signing a

  retraction. But I will not let

  them harvest the bitter seeds of

  fear they’ve sown. I am not afraid

  because I am not alone. Saint

  Margaret and Saint Catherine will

  never desert me. They will keep their

  promise: No one can hurt me.

  Fire

  I will I will I will my darling

  I will I will I will

  I thrill I thrill I thrill my darling

  I thrill I thrill I thrill

  I burn I burn I burn my darling

  I burn I burn I burn

  I yearn I yearn I yearn my darling

  yea I a rn

  Saint Catherine

  Barbers and bakers approach me in prayer,

  and those who know their philosophy,

  and lawyers and young girls with long, unbound hair

  and wheelwrights and scribes, too, supplicate me,

  and millers and preachers and potters feel free

  to beg and beseech me. I do what I can,

  but I am not now what I once used to be.

  Saints are only human.

  * * *

  I would also like to make you aware

  I converted to true Christianity

  hundreds of pagans. I once had a flare

  for debate, religion, theology,

  was renowned for the skill of my oratory.

  Oh, yes, I was quite the sesquipedalian.

  But all that is gone. I’m exhausted. You see,

  saints are only human.

  * * *

  There once was a princess with long, flowing hair,

  lovely, and also quite scholarly.

  But she was beheaded—a messy affair—

  for refusing to take vows of matrimony.

  In case you were wond’ring, that princess was me.

  He was a repulsive, ridiculous man!

  If I’m slightly resentful, I think you’ll agree,

  saints are only human.

  * * *

  About this young Joan I’ve some sympathy,

  but if I forgot her, reneged on the plan,

  she’ll learn the hard way: There’s no guarantee.

  * * *

  Saints are only human.

  Joan

  The journey to Chinon—eleven

  days and nights—was long and hard. I

  had always to be on my guard,

  for not only was I in the

  company of men who were not

  of my blood, but the rivers were

  high, in spring flood, and we traveled

  through countryside the English

  controlled. But I was comforted,

  consoled, by the voices of my

  saints. My male escorts showed constraint

  and never once approached me with

  impure innuendos or dis-

  honorable intentions. My

  accusers often mention this

  as proof that I’m a witch, a wicked

  necromancer. They say the only

  way they can explain why healthy

  men remained aloof to what is

  vital to their sex was I had

  practiced conjuring to produce

  unnatural effects. They insist

  that I had cast a spell; they insist

  my voices come from Hell. They insist

  I am a zealot of the black

  demonic arts. They insist on

  evil everywhere but in the

  darkness of their hearts.

  T night, Jeanne slept beside Jean de Metz and myself, fully dressed and armed. I was young then; nevertheless I never felt towards her any desire: I should never have dared to molest her, because of the great goodness which I saw in her.

  * * *

  Bertrand de Poulengey, squire

  Trial of Nullification

  Lust

  I was a snake

  that would not strike,

  a fawning tiger,

  a blunted pike,

  confused and

  undirected.

  * * *

  I was hunger,

  agitated,

  always wanting,

  never sated,

  asking but neglected.

  * * *

  A fire

  unlit,

  ale

  not drunk,

  a ripened bud

  that grew

  then shrunk,

  a belfry unerected.

  She was ice.

  She was flame.

  She was goodness.

  She was my shame,

  iniquity

  reflected.

  Joan

  Before we set out on our expedition,

  I made another change. It is

  the accepted tradition for

  young women to arrange their hair

  in long and flowing tresses. This

  well-established custom expresses

  they are of age and available

  for marriage, and is a subtle

  declaration to the opposite

  sex. But I have never felt compelled

  to do what everyone expects.

  I took up a pair of shears. My

  hair is now an easy length, cut

  just below my ears.

  ID you wish to be a man?”

  * * *

  Trial of Condemnation

  Her Hair

  I was

  a flag,

  a waving

  splendor;

  I was

  a sign

  to each

  contender,

  as full

  of hope

  as morning.

  * * *

  I am a wonder. I am ease.

  I’m an avowal: I do what I

  please. A fearless day aborning.

  * * *

  I was

  encour-

  agement.

  I was

  allure.

  I was

  a melody

  flowing,

  pure,

  appealing, and

  adorning.

  * * *

  I am a helmet on a strange head.

  I am a
word that won’t be said,

  a triumph, and a warning.

  Joan

  From the town of Fierbois, I relayed

  my intention to see the dauphin,

  a single day’s ride from where he

  held court. My saints had supported

  our long expedition, and while

  we awaited the dauphin’s permission

  to enter Chinon, I rested

  and prayed, giving thanks to my voices

  that we’d not been delayed by the

  English or outlaws the war had

  created. I was impatient

  but also elated, for soon

  I would kneel before the chosen

  king of France, nevermore to tend

  my father’s bleating sheep nor weed

  the tender plants in my mother’s

  kitchen plot. I welcomed who I

  was and left behind who I was

  not. The chapel at Fierbois was built

  of stone and wood, and I

  attended Mass there as often as

  I could, finding happiness and

  strength as I knelt before its altar.

  Never once did I falter or doubt

  I would succeed. My saints—they would

  sustain me and give me everything

  I need.

  AVE you been to Sainte Catherine de Fierbois?”

  Joan: “Yes and I heard there three Masses in one day.”

  * * *

  Trial of Condemnation

  The Altar at Sainte Catherine De Fierbois

  For hundreds of years, I’ve attended prayers of peasants and nobility, their earthly cares, their hopes, their needs, their gravest sins, so many secrets that it begins to encumber me. Stained with salt of countless tears for hundreds of years, I’m burdened by the solemn pleas, the quivering voices, the bruisèd knees of desperate, suffering penitents. They have repeated the same sentiments, intoned the same vows, or so it appears, for hundreds of years. The secrets I know, I keep interred; unforgivable sin and damning word are buried with other mysteries, swords left by knights to calm and please a vengeful god who saw their sins. Oh, the secrets I know are crushing me. But she was different from the rest. She asked for nothing, no fervent request. I was both purified and awed when, in emptiness, she offered herself to God and, baptized in her ecstasy, I surrendered and let go of the secrets I know.

  Joan

  To lift the siege at Orléans

  was my initial charge. Henry

  had the town surrounded, his army

  large and well-supplied. The citizens

  were starving but would not be

  occupied by an invading foreign

  power and so were forced to cower

  in their homes like sparrows in a

  storm when English arrows rained,

  unable to maintain their lives

  without the fear of death. The English

  only had to hold their breath for

  the town to fall. Saint Margaret and

  Saint Catherine said that Orléans

  must not be lost. I had to lift

  the siege, whatever it might cost.

  But first I had to gain the dauphin’s

  confidence. For that I would rely

  upon my holy saints and my

  own intelligence. Word of our

  mission traveled faster than we.

  News had spread of the prophecy,

  and when we rode into Chinon,

  the narrow streets were crowded. I,

  Joan, a peasant, a girl, was being

  celebrated, lauded by the

  townsfolk who were shouting, reaching

  out to touch my arm or leg and

  begging me to deliver France from

  its English enemies. Was it so

  wrong of me to feel pleased to

  hear them calling out “The Maid!” as

  our small cavalcade made its way

  through the throng? Wrong of me to take

  pride in how far I had come? Sinful

  to take pleasure in the sweet hum of

  hope that filled the air? Everywhere

  I looked—faces smiling, laughing,

  cheering! Cheering in a time of

  misery and war! I loved these

  people, the faithful poor. But we were

  nearing the castle, the residence

  of Charles, the gentle dauphin

  and rightful king. I had never

  seen anything so majestic

  or so grand. Its towers and its

  battlements fanned out on the very

  top of the hill that overlooked

  the town, like a protective helmet

  or a shining, royal crown. My

  voices whispered I would soon stand

  on its parqueted and polished floors;

  but they did not warn me of the

  darkness lurking in its corridors.

  FTER dinner, I went to the King, who was at the Castle. When I went to the room where he was I recognized him among many others by the counsel of my Voice, which revealed him to me. I told him I wished to go and make war on the English.

  * * *

  Joan

  Trial of Condemnation

  The Castle at Chinon

  Only

  a child trapped

  in the thrall of palace

  rooms that wind and sprawl—each

  hung with gaudy tapestries whose func-

  tion is to warm and please the noble folk

  when winter’s squall explodes against the

  tower wall and muffles the pathetic call of

  courtiers begging on their knees—only a

  child could not attend the pleading waul,

  the pain, the misery, the pall, that radiate

  and rise from these: the blood spills and

  the treacheries that fester in these lurid

  halls—only a child. Where kings reside,

  the sleeping dust on gilded frames knows

  not to trust anything a king might say. A

  promise that he makes today, though

  he proclaims it with robust sincerity, is

  worthless. Just and wise men know that

  greed and lust, deceit and treason, often

  play where kings reside a game in which

  the drag and thrust of power that is won

  and lost leaves innocence to die, decay. It

  is a virtue to betray where kings reside.

  Joan

  When finally I saw Charles—

  after two days of waiting,

  worrying, wondering, anticipating—

  they tried to deceive me. His male

  advisors did not believe me

  and so they put him in disguise

  and introduced another as

  he. The look on their faces! The shock

  and surprise when they saw that I

  was not so easily misled.

  How their jaws dropped when I smiled

  and said, “But this man is false, a

  giddy pretender.” And in the

  splendor of the court went directly

  to Charles and gave him my knee.

  My voices told me it was he. I

  then described for him my vision,

  my saints, my voices, and my mission

  to lift the siege at Orléans.

  We went into a private room,

  and there in the solemn and imposing

  gloom, I gave my king a sign that

  everything I’d said was true. I

  told him something that only he

  knew—the content of his secret prayers.

  WAS at the Castle of the town of Chinon when Jeanne arrived there, and I saw her when she presented herself before the King’s Majesty with great lowliness and simplicity; a poor little shepherdess! I heard her say these words: “Most noble Lord Dauphin, I am come and am sent to you from God to give succor to the kingdom and to you.�
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  * * *

  Sieur de Gaucort

  Trial of Nullification

  Charles VII

  What an embarrassment to me—

  this peasant wench dressed in men’s clothes!

  To come before me! Royalty!

  In tunic! Doublet! And in hose!

  * * *

  A reprehensible affront that goes

  against all laws of propriety!

  She says she is unschooled. It shows!

  What an embarrassment to me!

  * * *

  To all the aristocracy!

  She should be whipped! But then suppose . . .

  suppose that her hyperbole—

  this peasant wench dressed in men’s clothes—

  * * *

  suppose she speaks the truth. A Christian knows

  that God’s work is a mystery;

  she may well be the one He chose.

  To come before me, royalty,

  * * *

  takes unusual bravery.

  Can she defeat our English foes,

  deliver France its victory,

  in tunic, doublet, and in hose?

  My noble courtiers oppose

  her and her tale of prophecy.

  Yet she was able to disclose

  words I’d said in secrecy.

  What an embarrassment!

  Joan

  Before I could set upon my

  mission to roust the English, save

  Orléans, and lift the siege, Charles,

  the dauphin, my king, and my liege,