The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  ‘It doesn’t mean you will be hanged,’ I say quickly to Joan. ‘So don’t think that. It’s just a playing card, it can’t mean anything like that.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’ the other girl demands though Joan is silent, as if it is not her card, not her fortune that I am refusing to tell.

  ‘His gallows is two growing trees,’ I say. I am playing for time under Joan’s serious brown gaze. ‘This means spring and renewal and life – not death. And there are two trees; the man is balanced between them. He is the very centre of resurrection.’

  Joan nods.

  ‘They are bowed down to him, he is happy. And look: he is not hanged by his neck to kill him, but tied by his foot,’ I say. ‘If he wanted, he could stretch up and untie himself. He could set himself free, if he wanted.’

  ‘But he doesn’t set himself free,’ the girl observes. ‘He is like a tumbler, an acrobat. What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that he is willingly there, willingly waiting, allowing himself to be held by his foot, hanging in the air.’

  ‘To be a living sacrifice?’ Joan says slowly, in the words of the Mass.

  ‘He is not crucified,’ I point out quickly. It is as if every word I say leads us to another form of death. ‘This doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘These are just playing cards, and we are just playing a game with them. It is a pretty card, the Hanged Man. He looks happy. He looks happy to be upside down in springtime. Shall I teach you a game with counters that we play in Champagne?’/p>

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I hold out my hand for her card and she looks at it for a moment before she hands it back to me.

  ‘Honestly, it means nothing,’ I say again to her.

  She smiles at me, her clear honest smile. ‘I know well enough what it means,’ she says.

  ‘Shall we play?’ I start to shuffle the cards and one turns over in my hand.

  ‘Now that’s a good card,’ Joan remarks. ‘La Roue de Fortune.’

  I hold it out to show it to her. ‘It is the Wheel of Fortune that can throw you up very high, or bring you down very low. Its message is to be indifferent to victory and defeat, as they both come on the turn of the wheel.’

  ‘In my country the farmers make a sign for fortune’s wheel,’ Joan remarks. ‘They draw a circle in the air with their forefinger when something very good or something very bad happens. Someone inherits money, or someone loses a prize cow, they do this.’ She points her finger in the air and draws a circle. ‘And they say something.’

  ‘A spell?’

  ‘Not really a spell.’ She smiles mischievously.

  ‘What then?’

  She giggles. ‘They say “merde”.’

  I am so shocked that I rock back with laughter.

  ‘What? What?’ the younger maid demands.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ I say. Joan is still giggling. ‘Joan’s countrymen say rightly that everything comes to dust, and all that a man can do about it is to learn indifference.’

  Joan’s future hangs in the balance; she is swinging like the Hanged Man. All of my family, my father, Pierre the Count of St Pol, my uncle, Louis of Luxembourg, and my favourite uncle, John of Luxembourg, are allied with the English. My father writes from our home at the chateau at St Pol to his brother John, and commands him, as the head of our family, to hand over Joan to the English. But my great-aunt the Demoiselle insists we keep her safe; and my uncle John hesitates.

  The English demand his prisoner and, since the English command nearly all of France and their ally the Duke of Bur gundy commands most of the rest, what they say usually happens. Their common soldiers went down on their knees on the battlefield to give thanks, and wept with joy when the Maid was captured. There is no doubt in their mind that without her the French army, their enemy, will collapse into the frightened rabble that they were before she came to them.

  The Duke of Bedford, the English regent who rules the English lands in France, almost all of the north of the country, sends daily letters to my uncle invoking his loyalty to English rule, their long friendship, and promising money. I like to watch for the English messengers who come dressed in the fine livery of the royal duke, on beautiful horses. Everyone says that the duke is a great man and well loved, the greatest man in France, an ill man to cross; but so far, my uncle obeys his aunt, the Demoiselle, and does not hand over our prisoner.

  M uncle expects the French court to make a bid for her – they owe their very existence to her after all – but they are oddly silent, even after he writes to them and says that he has the Maid, and that she is ready to return to the court of her king and serve again in his army. With her leading them they could ride out against the English and win. Surely they will send a fortune to get her back?

  ‘They don’t want her,’ my great-aunt advises him. They are at their private dining table, the great dinner for the whole household has taken place in the hall and the two of them have sat before my uncle’s men, tasted the dishes and sent them round the room as a gift to their special favourites. Now they are comfortable, seated at a little table before the fire in my great-aunt’s private rooms, her personal servants in attendance. I am to stand during the serving of dinner with another lady in waiting. It is my job to watch the servants, summon them forwards as required, clasp my hands modestly before me, and hear nothing. Of course, I listen all the time.

  ‘Joan made a man out of the boy Prince Charles, he was nothing until she came to him with her vision, then she made that man into a king. She taught him to claim his inheritance. She made an army out of his camp-followers, and made that army victorious. If they had followed her advice as she followed her voices, they would have driven the English out of these lands and back to their foggy islands, and we would be rid of them forever.’

  My uncle smiles. ‘Oh, my lady aunt! This is a war that has gone on for nearly a century. Do you really think it will end because some girl from who knows where hears voices? She could never drive the English away. They would never have gone; they will never go. These are their lands by right, by true right of inheritance, and by conquest too. All they have to do is to have the courage and the strength to hold them, and John Duke of Bedford will see to that.’ He glances at his wineglass and I snap my fingers to the groom of the servery to pour him some more red wine. I step forwards to hold the glass as the man pours, and then I put it carefully on the table. They are using fine glassware; my uncle is wealthy and my great-aunt never has anything but the very best. ‘The English king may be little more than a child, but it makes no difference to the safety of his kingdom, for his uncle Bedford is loyal to him here, and his uncle the Duke of Gloucester is loyal to him in England. Bedford has the courage and the allies to hold the English lands here, and I think they will drive the Dauphin further and further south. They will drive him into the sea. The Maid had her season, and it was a remarkable one; but in the end, the English will win the war and hold the lands that are theirs by right, and all of our lords who are sworn against them now will bow the knee and serve them.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ my great-aunt says staunchly. ‘The English are terrified of her. They say she is unbeatable.’

  ‘Not any more,’ my uncle observes. ‘For behold! She is a prisoner, and the cell doors don’t burst open. They know she is mortal now. They saw her with an arrow in her thigh outside the walls of Paris and her own army marched off and left her. The French themselves taught the English that she could be brought down and abandoned.’

  ‘But you won’t give her to the English,’ my great-aunt states. ‘It would be to dishonour us forever, in the eyes of God and the world.’

  My uncle leans forwards to speak confidentially. ‘You take it so seriously? idth="1em"eally think she is more than a mountebank? You really think she is something more than a peasant girl spouting nonsense? You know I could find half a dozen such as her?’

  ‘You could find half a dozen who say they are like her,’ she says. ‘But not one like he
r. I think she is a special girl. Truly I do, nephew. I have a very strong sense of this.’

  He pauses, as if her sense of things, though she is only a woman, is something to be considered. ‘You have had a vision of her success? A foretelling?’

  For a moment she hesitates, then she quickly shakes her head. ‘Nothing so clear. But nonetheless, I must insist that we protect her.’

  He pauses, not wanting to contradict her. She is the Demoiselle of Luxembourg, the head of our family. My father will inherit the title when she dies; but she also owns great lands that are all at her own disposition: she can will them to anyone she chooses. My uncle John is her favourite nephew; he has hopes, and he does not want to offend her.

  ‘The French will have to pay a good price for her,’ he says. ‘I don’t intend to lose money on her. She is worth a king’s ransom. They know this.’

  My great-aunt nods. ‘I will write to the Dauphin Charles and he will ransom her,’ she tells him. ‘Whatever his advisors say, he will still listen to me, though he is blown about like a leaf by his favourites. But I am his godmother. It is a question of honour. He owes all that he is to the Maid.’

  ‘Very well. But do it at once. The English are very pressing and I won’t offend the Duke of Bedford. He is a powerful man, and a fair one. He is the best ruler of France that we could hope for. If he were a Frenchman he would be wholly loved.’

  My great-aunt laughs. ‘Yes, but he is not! He’s the English regent, and he should go back to his own damp island and his little nephew, the poor king, and make what they can of their own kingdom and leave us to rule France.’

  ‘Us?’ my uncle queries, as if to ask her if she thinks that our family, who already rule half a dozen earldoms and who count kinship to the Holy Roman Emperors, should be French kings as well.

  She smiles. ‘Us,’ she says blandly.

  Next day I walk with Joan to the little chapel in the castle and kneel beside her on the chancel steps. She prays fervently, her head bowed for an hour, and then the priest comes and serves the Mass and Joan takes the holy bread and wine. I wait for her at the back of the church. Joan is the only person I know who takes the bread and wine every day, as if it were her breakfast. My own mother, who is more observant than most, takes communion only once a month. We walk back to my great-aunt’s rooms together, the strewing herbs swishing around our feet. Joan laughs at me, as I have to duck my head to get my tall conical headdress through the narrow doorways.

  ‘It is very beautiful,’ she says. ‘But I should not like to wear such a thing.’

  I pause and twirl before her in the bright sunlight from the arrowslit. The colours of my gown are brilliant: a skirt of dark blue and an underskirt of sharper turquoise, the skirts flaring from the high belt tied tight on my ribcage. The high henheaddress sits like a cone on my head and sprouts a veil of pale blue from the peak that drops down my back, concealing and enhancing my fair hair. I spread my arms to show the big triangular sleeves, trimmed with the most beautiful embroidery in gold thread, and I lift the hem to show my scarlet slippers with the upturned toes.

  ‘But you cannot work, or ride a horse, or even run in such a gown,’ she says.

  ‘It’s not for riding or working or running,’ I reply reasonably. ‘It’s for showing off. It is to show the world that I am young and beautiful and ready for marriage. It is to show that my father is so wealthy that I can wear gold thread on my sleeves and silk in my headdress. It shows that I am so nobly born that I can wear velvet and silk; not wool like a poor girl.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to be showed off in such a thing.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be allowed to,’ I point out disagreeably. ‘You have to dress for your position in life; you would have to obey the law and wear browns and greys. Did you really think you were important enough to wear ermine? Or do you want your gold surcoat back? They say you were as fine as any knight in battle. You dressed like a nobleman then. They say that you loved your beautiful standard and your polished armour, and a fine gold surcoat over all. They say you were guilty of the sin of vanity.’

  She flushes. ‘I had to be seen,’ she says defensively. ‘At the front of my army.’

  ‘Gold?’

  ‘I had to honour God.’

  ‘Well anyway, you wouldn’t get a headdress like this if you put on women’s clothes,’ I say. ‘You would wear something more modest, like the ladies in waiting, nothing so high or so awkward, just a neat hood to cover your hair. And you could wear your boots under your gown, you could still walk about. Won’t you try wearing a gown, Joan? It would mean that they couldn’t accuse you of wearing men’s clothes. It is a sign of heresy for a woman to dress as a man. Why not put on a dress, and then they can say nothing against you? Something plain?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I am promised,’ she says simply. ‘Promised to God. And when the king calls for me, I must be ready to ride to arms again. I am a soldier in waiting, not a lady in waiting. I will dress like a soldier. And my king will call for me, any day now.’

  I glance behind us. A pageboy carrying a jug of hot water is in earshot. I wait till he has nodded a bow and gone past us. ‘Hush,’ I say quietly. ‘You shouldn’t even call him king.’

  She laughs, as if she fears nothing. ‘I took him to his coronation, I stood under my own standard in Reims cathedral when he was anointed with the oil of Clovis. I saw him presented to his people in his crown. Of course he is King of France: he is crowned and anointed.’

  ‘The English slit the tongues of anyone who says that,’ I remind her. ‘That’s for the first offence. The second time you say it, they brand your forehead so you are scarred for life. The English king, Henry VI, is to be called King of France, the one you call the French king is to be called the Dauphin, never anything but the Dauphin.’

  She laughs with genuine amusement. ‘He is not even to be called French,’ she exclaims. ‘Your great Duke Bedford says that he is to be called Armagnac. But the great Duke Bedford was shaking with fear and running around Rouen for recruits when I came up to the walls of Paris with the French army – yes, I will say it! – the French army to claim our own city for our king, a French king; and we nearly took it, too.’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘I won’t hear you, and you shouldn’t speak like this. I shall be whipped if I listen to you.’

  At once she takes my hands, she is penitent. ‘Ah, Jacquetta, I won’t get you into trouble. Look! I will say nothing. But you must see that I have done far worse than use words against the English. I have used arrows and cannon shot and battering rams and guns against them! The English will hardly trouble themselves over the words I have said and the breeches I wear. I have defeated them and shown everyone that they have no right to France. I led an army against them and defeated them over and over again.’

  ‘I hope they never get hold of you, and never question you. Not about words, nor arrows, nor cannon.’

  She goes a little pale at the thought of it. ‘Please God, I hope so too. Merciful God, I hope so too.’

  ‘My great-aunt is writing to the Dauphin,’ I say very low. ‘They were speaking of it at dinner last night. She will write to the Dauphin and invite him to ransom you. And my uncle will release you to the Fr . . . to the Armagnacs.’

  She bows her head and her lips move in prayer. ‘My king will send for me,’ she says trustingly. ‘Without a doubt he will send for me to come to him, and we can start our battles again.’

  It grows even hotter in August, and my great-aunt rests on a daybed in her inner room every afternoon, with the light curtains of silk around the bed soaked in lavender water and the closed shutters throwing barred shadows across the stone floor. She likes me to read to her, as she lies with her eyes closed and her hands folded on the high waistline of her dress, as if she were a sculpted effigy of herself in some shaded tomb. She puts aside the big horned headdress that she always wears and lets her long greying hair spread over the cool embroidered pillows. She gives me books from her own li
brary that tell of great romances and troubadours and ladies in tangled forests, and then one afternoon she puts a book in my hand and says, ‘Read this today.’

  It is hand-copied in old French and I stumble over the words. It is hard to read: the illustrations in the margins are like briars and flowers threading through the letters, and the clerk who copied each word had an ornate style of writing which I find hard to decipher. But slowly the story emerges. It is the story of a knight riding through a dark forest who has lost his way. He hears the sound of water and goes towards it. In a clearing, in the moonlight, he sees a white basin and a splashing fountain and in the water is a woman of such beauty that her skin is paler than the white marble and her hair is darker than the night skies. He falls in love with her at once, and she with him, and he takes her to the castle and makes her his wife. She has only one condition: that every month he must leave her alone to bathe.

  ‘Do you know this story?’ my great-aunt asks me. ‘Has your father told you of it?’

  ‘I have hecopiedsomething like it,’ I say cautiously. My great-aunt is notoriously quick-tempered with my father and I don’t know if I dare say that I think this is the legend of the founding of our house.

  ‘Well, now you are reading the true story,’ she says. She closes her eyes again. ‘It is time you knew. Go on.’

  The young couple are happier than any in the world, and people come from far and wide to visit them. They have children: beautiful girls and strange wild boys.

  ‘Sons,’ my great-aunt whispers to herself. ‘If only a woman could have sons by wishing, if only they could be as she wishes.’

  The wife never loses her beauty though the years go by, and her husband grows more and more curious. One day, he cannot bear the mystery of her secret bathing any longer and he creeps down to her bath-house and spies on her.

  My great-aunt raises her hand. ‘Do you know what he sees?’ she asks me.

  I lift my face from the book, my finger under the illustration of the man peering through the slats of the bath-house. In the foreground is the woman in the bath, her beautiful hair snaked around her white shoulders. And gleaming in the water . . . her large scaled tail.