Voices Read online

  accompanied me to Poitiers,

  where the learnèd scholars of the

  day convened to test and question

  me. Their knowledge of theology

  would tell the king with certainty

  if my suit was false or true.

  For three long weeks they put me through

  a ceaseless and a silly trial.

  Question after question, and all

  the while Orléans was bleeding.

  The proceedings of the trial

  even called for rough and intimate

  examinations to make sure

  I was intact. I endured this

  humiliation. If not, they

  would have said that I had made a

  pact with Hell. I know them well, these

  men, always looking for the worst.

  The world is cursed with them, but my

  king needed their assurance, their

  trust, their word that I was who I

  said I was, and so with my

  saints and my virginity, I

  submitted and endured. I did

  not let them see that I was

  disquieted and bored. Instead, I sent

  an urgent message to Fierbois,

  asking for another sword, a

  blade that I thought suited me very,

  very well—a hero’s sword from

  long ago, the sword of Charles Martel.

  SENT to seek for a sword which was in the Church of Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, behind the altar; it was found there at once; the sword was in the ground, and rusty; upon it were five crosses; I knew by my Voices where it was. . . . I wrote to the Priests of the place, that it might please them to let me have this sword, and they sent it to me. It was under the earth, not very deeply buried, behind the altar, so it seemed to me.

  * * *

  Joan

  Trial of Condemnation

  The Sword at Fierbois

  Joan

  I know that swords are necessary

  things: Without them there can be no

  war. But what they were invented

  for is not a skill that I revere.

  No matter how it may appear,

  though I have ridden into fierce

  and violent campaigns and have

  suffered stinging losses and enjoyed

  exalted gains that come with

  any great hostility, neither

  in the revenge of defeat nor

  the madness of victory have

  I used a sword to take another’s

  life. I’ve never made a widow

  of an Englishman’s wife, never

  caused a soldier’s blood to flow and

  spill. I was born to lead and to

  inspire, not to maim and kill.

  * * *

  These illusions and distracting

  memories help to ease the pain

  and fear of the burning present.

  The sun, which I used to love, I

  now lament, for he is now my

  fiercest adversary. With every

  second he climbs higher and brings

  me closer to his functionary:

  fire.

  Fire

  I soar I soar I soar my darling

  I soar I soar I soar

  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 arn y I ea y rling

  yea I a rn

  Joan

  Time was squandered at Poitiers.

  As day followed day followed day

  followed day, the king was anguished,

  in despair, as despondent as

  a frightened hare caught in an English

  trap. He was young and had no guide,

  no recourse, no map to tell him

  what to do. Each hour that passed brought

  him closer to the day when Orléans

  would capitulate. He was anxious,

  moody, desperate. But finally

  the decision came. The priests could

  find in me “no blame.” They assured

  the king they could discern no harm.

  And though it maddened and alarmed

  his aides, he paid to have me fitted

  with the hard accouterments

  of war.

  HE King gave her a complete suit of armor and an entire military household.

  * * *

  Louis de Contes

  Trial of Nullification

  The Armor

  I did my job;

  I did my very best

  to shield her from the pain of injury. But it was all in vain. She

  would not rest until she had been captured and oppressed.

  She’d always been her own worst enemy. But I did

  my job. I did! My very best plate against her legs

  and back and chest, my chain protecting neck and

  wrist and knee. But it was all in vain. She would not

  rest while Henry’s English army still possessed

  a single hectare of French land. Still, don’t you

  see, I did my job? I did my very best to slow

  her down, but she could not be suppressed

  by the weight of steel or by rationality.

  My work was all in vain; she would not rest.

  I did my job, but she? She was possessed by

  some internal fire, consumed, obsessed. I did my job

  and did my very best, yet my ambition was in vain.

  She would not rest.

  Joan

  Orléans was to be my test.

  If I could lift the siege and

  arrest the progress of the English

  there, bait and defeat them the way

  the hunter does a savage bear,

  the king would know that I was not

  a charlatan or fraud, that in

  truth, I had been sent by God to

  save France from its English enemies,

  to chase them from our homeland and

  to bring Henry to his knees. Orléans

  had been surrounded for eight long

  and trying months. Charles had tried

  more than once to liberate the

  town, but each time he’d been defeated.

  His meager resources now depleted,

  his enemies grew stronger, his

  most accomplished knights no longer

  able to break the might of the

  filthy English scourge, or purge them

  from their fortified positions.

  I sent the English captains a

  warning with grave admonitions

  that unless they withdrew before

  another morning’s dew had fallen

  on French soil, they would find themselves

  in the turmoil of defeat. They

  laughed and called me whore. I was just

  a girl. No more than sixteen with

  no experience of war and

  no military training. They

  must have thought me very entertaining.

  That was their mistake. At daybreak

  I led my army into Orléans,

  unopposed and undetected.

  The way the town greeted me, cheering

  and calling for the Maid, reflected

  the long and bloody price they’d paid,

  their anguished months of suffering, their

  awful desperation. I told

  them to take heart. Their liberation

  had arrived. They had survived in

  order to be saved. How they wept

  and laughed and cheered and waved while their

  great relief and happiness drifted

  on the air! And how my spirits

  lifted with their steadfast faith in me.

  Where are they now, those shining
hours,

  those brilliant days of victory?

  Victory

  I am a pail

  that will not hold.

  I am a fire

  that soon burns cold,

  the first half

  of a story.

  * * *

  I am a bird

  that won’t be held,

  a godhead’s name

  that’s been misspelled.

  Both truth

  and allegory.

  * * *

  A paramour

  who will not wake,

  a round of bread

  that will not bake.

  A trickster’s repertory.

  * * *

  I am a war cry,

  bold and brash.

  I am kindling.

  I am ash,

  an evanescent glory.

  Joan

  On the first morning of the fight

  as light fell just after dawn, an

  English arrow struck deep between

  my neck and shoulder. The sight of

  my own blood sickened me, but it

  also made me bolder. Though I

  was bleeding badly, I did not

  leave the field of battle but

  continued leading my brave men,

  shouting we were not chattel of

  the English but the liberators

  of all France. “Advance!” I cried out

  through the pain.

  “Advance!”

  * * *

  “Advance!”

  * * *

  “Advance!”

  HE twenty-seventh of May, very early in the morning, we began the attack on the Boulevard of the bridge. Jeanne was there wounded by an arrow which penetrated half-afoot between the neck and the shoulder; but she continued nonetheless to fight, taking no remedy for her wound.

  * * *

  Jean, bastard of Orléans, count of Dunois

  Trial of Nullification

  The Arrow

  It

  makes

  no sense.

  She should

  have died. I saw

  my mark and I

  went deep. My gift

  ignored. My joy denied.

  It makes no sense. She

  should have died. The pain she

  seemed to brush aside: She was a

  vow I could not keep. It makes no

  sense. She should have died. I saw

  my mark and I

  went deep.

  Joan

  Then as now I was guided by

  my voices. All the choices I

  made in the bloody days that followed

  came from my hallowed saints, including

  the constraints I put on my men

  when the English gave up and departed.

  Some thought me weak or tenderhearted,

  for I had spoken to Henry’s

  captains, promising their safe retreat.

  * * *

  The English defeat had shown the

  king that I was his protector

  and salvation. My success was

  irrefutable, a clear and

  certain confirmation that faith

  in me would lead him to triumphant

  victory. I did not want to

  stain this gift with needless butchery.

  At the siege of Orléans, I

  finished what I started. My

  strategy was simple: We would

  fight until we won. And in eight

  short days, I, Joan, a peasant girl,

  did what in eight long and crimson

  months no clever man had done.

  T was said that Jeanne was as expert as possible in the art of ordering an army in battle, and that even a captain bred and instructed in war could not have shown more skill; at this the captains marveled exceedingly.

  * * *

  Maître Aignan Viole

  Trial of Nullification

  Joan

  We went on to be victorious

  in other towns the English held.

  Word spread; my forces swelled. Farmers

  joined my army with nothing more

  than spikes; some had only pitchforks,

  some only wooden pikes. They asserted

  as much chivalry as any

  royal knight. In all, I had six

  thousand men, each eager to be

  led by me. We took Jargeau,

  Meung-sur-Loire, and long-bridged

  Beaugency.

  EANNE assembled an army between Troyes and Auxerre, and found large numbers there, for everyone followed her.

  * * *

  Gobert Thibaut, squire to the king of France

  Trial of Nullification

  The Pitchfork

  Joan

  I loved the military life,

  though it was often rife with

  peril, the men I fought with nearly

  feral when their blood was up. I

  shared their food. I shared their cup.

  When they slept depleted on the

  unforgiving ground, I lay there

  too, surrounded by the sound of

  soldiers in their dreams. The moan, the

  muttered word, the restlessness, the

  sigh, were as comforting to me

  as any lullaby and proof I

  was not mending seams or tilling

  rocky land. Instead I was in

  firm command of brave and fighting

  men. The war is not yet over,

  but I will not see those thrilling

  days or know that happiness again.

  Fire

  I roar I roar I roar my darling

  I roar I roar I roar

  I soar I soar I soar my darling

  I soar I soar I soar

  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 bu b rn I n my ling

  rn n I bu

  I arn y I ea y rling

  yea I a rn

  Joan

  My saints were always there beside

  me, to counsel, cheer, console, and

  guide me. And they helped in other

  ways: We were marching in the summer

  haze toward the commune of Patay,

  where English captains, bold and sly,

  had set a snare, their men concealed

  among the trees. With ready bows

  and hungry swords they waited to

  attack. But before this black plan

  could be enacted and embraced,

  a stag raced from a clearing.

  Appearing from nowhere, large and wild,

  he charged into the woods where the

  Englishmen were hiding. I was,

  as always, riding at the head

  of my troops and saw frightened groups

  of Henry’s soldiers scatter, the

  clatter of their swords as good a

  warning as an alarm. They knew

  the fatal harm the stag’s sharp

  antlers could impose. A clever

  ambush was thus exposed. Four thousand

  English died that day, the awful

  price they had to pay for their flagrant

  treachery, but their agonizing

  loss was our tremendous victory.

  Who but my saints would send that stag,

  as sure a signal as a flag

  alerting me to jeopardy?

  I know this as surely as I

  know my father’s cattle graze

  unshod: The stag was sent to me

  by Heaven; the stag was sent to

  me by God.

  THINK that Jeanne was sent by God, and that her behavior in war was a fact divine rather than human. Many reasons make me think so.

  * * *

  Jean, bastard of Orléans, count of Dunois

  Trial of Nullification

>   The Stag

  She says it was Heaven. I say it was Hell

  that morning in the woodland glade

  when unannounced and unafraid

  I charged those soldiers. Who can tell?

  * * *

  Four thousand men died in that dell.

  I can’t forget the serenade

  of dying screams, the acrid smell

  of bitter blood beneath the blade

  * * *

  on the soft ground where they fell.

  They’d gone to Mass, confessed and prayed,

  and still transformed from man to shade,

  the clash of swords their clanging knell.

  She says it was Heaven. I say it was Hell.

  Joan

  After victory at Orléans

  and the Battle of Patay, the

  king had confidence that I, and

  I alone, could rescue France. My

  voices said to take the king to

  Reims, where he would at last be

  consecrated by the holy

  oil with which French kings must be

  anointed. The men around him

  were pointed in their discouragement

  of this dangerous endeavor,

  for we would ride through land that

  Henry’s soldiers held. They were clever,

  these advisors, warning that the

  English would never be expelled

  if Charles were caught and in their

  hands. But even as they spoke, Henry’s

  men were thriving on French lands,

  growing fatter every day. In

  this matter, I told Charles he