The Lady of the Rivers Read online

  We are all lined up at the great gate of Bouvreuil as he rides in, and his dark gaze rakes us all, looking from one to another as if to sniff out treason. My aunt and I curtsey low and my uncle John doffs his hat and bows. Our house has been in alliance with the English for years; my other uncle, Louis of Luxembourg, is the duke’s chancellor and swears that he is the greatest man ever to rule France.

  Heavily, he gets off his horse and stands like a fortress himself, as the men line up to greet him, bowing over his hand, some of them almost going down to their knees. A man comes forwards and, as Bedford acknowledges him with a lordly tip of his head, his glance goes over his vassal’s head, and sees me. I am staring at him, of course – he is the greatest spectacle on this cold winter day – but now he is looking back at me, and there is a flash in his eyes which I see and cannot recognise. It is something like a sudden hunger, like a fasting man seeing a banquet. I step back. I am neither afraid nor coquettish, but I am only fourteen years of age and there is something about the power of this man and his energy that I don’t want turned in my direction. I slide back a little so I am behind my aunt, and I watch the rest of the greetings masked by her headdress and veil.

  A great litter comes up, thick curtains tied tight with gold cord against the cold, and Bedford’s wife, the Duchess Anne, is helped out. A small cheer greets her from our men: she is of the House of Burgundy, our liege lords and relations, and we all dip in a little bow to her. She is as plain as all the Burgundy family, poor things, but her smile is merry and kind, and she greets her husband warmly and then stands with her hand comfortably tucked in the crook of his arm and looks about her with a cheerful face. She waves at my aunt and points inside the castle to say that we must come to her later. ‘We’ll go at dinnertime,’ my aunt says to me in a whisper. ‘Nobody in the world eats better than the Dukes of Burgundy.’

  Bedford takes off his helmet and bows to the crowd in general, raises a gauntleted hand to the people who are leaning from upper windows and balancing on garden walls to see the great man. Then he turns and leads his wife inside and everyone has a sense that we have seen the cast of players and the opening scene of a travelling show. But whether it is a masque, or a party, funeral rites, or the baiting of a wild animal, that has brought so many of the greatest people in France to Rouen: it is about to begin.

  ROUEN, FRANCE, SPRING 1431

  And then they bodge it. They harass her with erudite questions, query her replies, double back on her answers, write down things she says in moments of weariness and bring them back to her later, define their terms in the most learned ways and ask her what she means, so that she does not understand the question and tells them simply ‘pass on’ or ‘spare me that’. Once or twice she just says, ‘I don’t know. I simple girl with no learning. How would I know?’

  My uncle gets an anguished letter from Queen Yolande of Aragon, who says she is certain that the Dauphin will ransom Joan, she just needs another three days, another week to persuade him, can we not delay the trial? Can we not ask for a few days’ delay? But the Church has the girl wound tight in the web of inquiry and now they will never let her go.

  Everything that highly educated men can do to obscure a simple truth, to make a woman doubt her feelings, to make her own thoughts a muddle, they do to her. They use their learning as a hurdle to herd her one way and then another, and then finally trap her in contradictions of which she can make no sense. Sometimes they accuse her in Latin and she looks at them, baffled by a language that she has only ever heard spoken in church, in the Mass that she loves. How could these very sounds, these familiar beloved tones, so solemn and musical to her, now be the voice of accusation?

  Sometimes they bring scandal against her in the words of her own people, old earthy stories from Domrémy of vanity, of false pride. They say she jilted a man before marriage, they say she ran away from good parents, they say she worked in an alehouse, and was free with her favours like any village slut, they say she rode with the soldiers as their doxy, they say she is no Maid but a harlot, and that everyone knew it.

  It takes Anne, the kind-hearted little Duchess of Bedford herself, to assert that Joan is a virgin, and to demand that the men who guard her are forbidden from touching or abusing her. They must be ordered that it is not the work of God to assault her. Then, as soon as this order is given, they say that, since she is now so safe, guarded by the word of the duchess, she has no excuse for wearing men’s clothes and she must dress in a gown, for now they tell her it is a sin, a mortal sin, to wear breeches.

  They turn her head, they puzzle her beyond bearing. They are great men of the Church and Joan is a peasant girl, a devout girl who had always done as the priest ordered until she heard the voices of angels who told her to do more. She cries in the end, she breaks down and cries like a child, she puts on the gown as they order her, and confesses to all the sins that they name to her. I don’t know if she even understands the long list. She makes her mark on her confession – she writes her name and then signs a cross beside it as if to deny her signature. She admits that there were no angels and no voices, and that the Dauphin is nothing more than the Dauphin and not the King of France, that his coronation was a sham and her beautiful armour an offence to God and man, and that she is a girl, a silly girl, who tried to lead grown men as if she could know the way better than they. She says she is a vain fool to think that a girl might lead men, she is a woman worse than Eve for giving advice, an assistant to the Devil himself.

  ‘What?’ bellows the Duke of Bedford. We are visiting his wife the duchess, seated in her rooms before a good fire, a lute player twanging away in the corner, small glasses of the best wine on every table, everything elegant and beautiful; but we can hear his deplorable English bellow through two closed doors.

  We hear the doors bang as the Earl of Warwick flings himself out of the duke’s apartments to find out what has gone wrong, and in this revealing burst of rage we see – as if we had ever been in any doubt – that these English never wanted the Church to wrestle with the soul of a mistaken girl and restore her to her senses, bring her to confession, penitence and forgiveness – it has all akeseen nothing but a witch-hunt determined to find a witch, a bonfire looking for a brand, Death waiting for a maiden. The duchess goes to the door and the servants throw it open before her so we can all hear, disastrously clearly, her husband bellow at Pierre Cauchon the bishop, Cauchon the judge, Cauchon the man, who is there apparently representing – all at the same time – God and justice and the Church, ‘For the sake of Christ! I don’t want her pleading guilty, I don’t want her recanting, I don’t want her confessed and shriven, I don’t bloody well want her imprisoned for life! What safety is there in that for me? I want her as a pile of ashes blowing away in the wind. How much clearer do I have to be? Goddamn! Do I have to burn her myself? You said the Church would do it for me! Do it!’

  The duchess steps back rapidly and gestures for the doors to her room to be closed, but we can still hear the regent, swearing and damning his soul at the top of his voice. The duchess shrugs – men will be men, and this is wartime – and my aunt smiles understandingly, the lute player increases his volume as best he can and starts to sing. I go to the window and look out.

  In the market square they have a half-built pyre, a strong structure with a big central beam and the wood stacked around it. Joan has confessed and recanted, she has been found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to imprisonment.

  But they are not taking the wood away.

  My aunt gives me a nod that we are going to leave, and I go to the hall to wait for her as she delays inside the duchess’s rooms, saying a few words of farewell. I have my hood pulled up over my head, my hands tucked inside my cape. It is cold for May. I wonder if Joan has blankets in her cell, as the big double doors to the duke’s public rooms are thrown open and the duke himself comes quickly out.

  I sink down into a curtsey, and I imagine he can barely see me, wrapped in my dark cape in the shadowy doorway.
I expect him to brush past; but he pauses. ‘Jacquetta? Jacquetta St Pol?’

  I sink even lower. ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  He puts a firm hand under my elbow and raises me up. His other hand pushes back my hood and turns my face to the light of the open doorway, his hand under my chin as if I am a child, and he is looking to see if my mouth is clean. His men are waiting for him, there must be a dozen people around us, but he acts as if we are quite alone. He stares at me intently, as if he would read me. I look back at him blankly, I don’t know what he wants with me and my aunt will be angry if I say the wrong thing to this most important man. I give my lip a little nip and I hear his sudden intake of breath.

  ‘My God, how old are you?’

  ‘I am fifteen this year, Your Grace.’

  ‘And here with your father?’

  ‘With my uncle, Your Grace. My father is Pierre, the new Count of Luxembourg.’

  ‘The new count?’ he asks, staring at my mouth.

  ‘On the death of the Demoiselle of Luxembourg,’ I mutter. ‘My father is now Count of Luxembourg. He was her heir.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  There seems nothing else to say but still he is staring at me, still he holds me, one hand y elbow, the other on the edge of my hood.

  ‘Your Grace?’ I whisper, hoping he will come to his senses and let me go.

  ‘Jacquetta?’ He whispers my name as if he is speaking to himself.

  ‘May I serve you in some way?’ I mean to say ‘Please let me go’; but a girl of my age cannot say such a thing to the greatest man in France.

  He gives a little choke. ‘Indeed, I think you may. Jacquetta, you are going to be a beautiful woman, a beautiful young woman.’

  I glance around. His entourage are waiting for him, hardly moving, pretending not to see, not to listen. Nobody here is going to tell him to let me go, and I cannot do so.

  ‘Do you have a sweetheart? Eh? Someone taken your fancy? Some cheeky little pageboy given you a kiss?’

  ‘No, my lord. No, of course not . . . ’ I am stammering as if I am in the wrong, as if I have done something as stupid and as vulgar as he suggests. He is chuckling as though to indulge me, but the grip on my elbow is hard as if he is angry. I lean back from his grip, from his avid gaze. ‘My father is very strict,’ I say feebly. ‘The honour of my family . . . I have been staying with my uncle John and his wife Jehanne. They would never allow . . . ’

  ‘You don’t wish for a husband?’ he asks me disbelievingly. ‘Don’t you think of the man who will marry you, when you are in your bed at night? Do you dream of a young husband who will come for you like a troubadour and speak of love?’

  I am trembling now, this is a nightmare. His grip is as hard as ever, but his hawkish face comes closer and closer, and now he is whispering in my ear. I begin to think he has gone mad. He looks at me as if he would eat me, and I have a shuddering sense of a world opening up before me that I don’t want to know.

  ‘No, no,’ I whisper. But then, as he does not release me, but presses me closer, I have a sudden spurt of anger. I remember in a rush who I am, what I am. ‘May it please Your Grace, I am a maid,’ I say, the words tumbling. ‘A maid of the House of Luxembourg. No man has laid a hand on me, no man would dare. I was in the keeping of the Demoiselle of Luxembourg, a virgin like myself. I am fit to capture a unicorn, and I should not be so questioned . . . ’

  There is a noise from the duchess’s room and the door behind us suddenly opens and at once he drops me, like a boy throwing down a stolen pastry. He turns and stretches out both his hands to his plain little wife. ‘My dear! I was just coming to find you.’

  Her bright gaze takes me in, my white face, my hood pulled back, and his rosy bonhomie. ‘Well, here I am,’ she says drily. ‘So you need look no more. And I see you found little Jacquetta St Pol instead.’

  I curtsey again, as he glances at me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘Good day,’ he says carelessly, and to his wife he says, confidentially: ‘I must go. They are making a muddle of it. I have to go.’

  She nods her head to him with an easy smile and he turns and goes out, all his men marching after him with a heavy tread. I dread his wife Anne asking me if her husband spoke to me, what he said, what I was doing with him in the darkness of the hall, why he s whme of love and troubadours. For I could not answer such questions. I don’t know what he was doing, I don’t know why he took hold of me. I feel sick and my knees are trembling to think of his bright eyes on my face and his insinuating whisper. But I know he had no right. And I know that I defended myself, and I know that it is true: I am a virgin so pure that I could capture a unicorn.

  But it is worse than this, far worse; she just looks at me steadily, and my sense of outrage slowly drains from me, for she does not ask me what I was doing with her husband, she looks at me as if she knows already. She looks me up and down, as if she knows everything. She gives me a small complicit smile as if she thinks I am some little thief and she has just caught me with my fingers in her purse.

  Lord John, the Duke of Bedford, has his way, the great Earl of Warwick has his way, the great men of England have their way. Joan alone, without advisors to keep her safe, changes her mind about her confession, takes off her woman’s gown and puts her boy’s clothes back on. She cries out that she was wrong to deny her voices, wrong to plead guilty. She is not a heretic, she is not an idolater, she is not a witch or an hermaphrodite or a monster, she will not confess to such things, she cannot force herself to confess to sins she has never committed. She is a girl guided by the angels to seek the Prince of France and call him to greatness. She has heard angels, they told her to see him crowned as king. This is the truth before God, she proclaims – and so the jaws of England snap shut on her with relish.

  From my room in the castle I can see the pyre as they build it even higher. They build a stand for the nobility to watch the spectacle as if it were a joust, and barriers to hold back the thousands who will come to see. Finally, my aunt tells me to put on my best gown and my tall hat and come with her.

  ‘I am ill, I cannot come,’ I whisper, but for once she is stern. I cannot be excused, I must be there. I must be seen, beside my aunt, beside Anne the Duchess of Bedford. We have to play our part in this scene as witnesses, as women who walk inside the rule of men. I will be there to show how girls should be: virgins who do not hear voices, women who do not think that they know better than men. My aunt and the duchess and I represent women as men would like them to be. Joan is a woman that men cannot tolerate.

  We stand in the warm May sunshine as if we were waiting for the starting trumpet of a joust. The crowd is noisy and cheerful all around us. A very few people are silent, some women hold a crucifix, one or two have their hands on a cross at their necks; but most people are enjoying the day out, cracking nuts and swigging from flasks, a merry outing on a sunny day in May and the cheering spectacle of a public burning at the end of it.

  Then the door opens, and the men of the guard march out and push back the crowd who whisper and hiss and boo at the opening inner door, craning their necks to be the first to see her.

  She does not look like my friend Joan – that is my first thought when they bring her out of the little sallyport of the castle. She is wearing her boy’s boots once more, but she is not striding out in her loose-limbed, confident walk. I guess that they have tortured her and perhaps the bones of her feet are broken, her toes crushed on the rack. They half-drag her and she makes little paddling steps, as if she is trying to find her footing on uncertain ground.

  She is not wearing her boy’s bonnet on her brown cropped hair, for they have shaved her head, and she is as bald as a shamed whore. On her bare cold scalp, stained here and there with dried blood where the razor has nicked her pale skin, they have crammed a tall hat of paper like a bishop’s mitre, and on it are written her sins, in clumsy block letters for everyone to see: Heretic. Witch. Traitor. She wears a shapeless white robe, knotted with a cheap piece of
cord at her waist. It is too long for her and the hem drags around her stumbling feet. She looks ridiculous, a figure of fun, and the people start to catcall and laugh, and someone throws a handful of mud.

  She looks around, as if she is desperate for something, her eyes dart everywhere, and I am terrified that she will see me, and know that I have failed to save her, that even now I am doing nothing, and I will do nothing to save her. I am terrified that she will call my name and everyone will know that this broken clown was my friend and that I will be shamed by her. But she is not looking at the faces crowding around her, alight with excitement, she is asking for something. I can see her urgently pleading; and then a soldier, a common English soldier, thrusts a wooden cross into her hands, and she clutches it as they lift her and push her upwards to the bonfire.

  They have built it so high it is hard to get her up. Her feet scrabble on the ladder and her hands cannot grip. But they push her roughly, cheerfully, from behind, hands on her back, her buttocks, her thighs, and then a big soldier goes up the ladder with her and takes a handful of the coarse material of her robe and hauls her up beside him like a sack, turns her round, and puts her back to the stake that runs through the pyre. They throw up a length of chain to him and he loops it around and around her and then fastens it with a bolt behind. He tugs at it, workmanlike, and tucks the wooden cross in the front of her gown, and in the crowd below a friar pushes to the front and holds up a crucifix. She stares at it unblinkingly, and I know, to my shame, that I am glad she has fixed her eyes on the cross so that she will not look at me, in my best gown and my new velvet cap, among the nobility who are talking and laughing all around me.

  The priest walks around the bottom of the pyre reading in Latin, the ritual cursing of the heretic; but I can hardly hear him above the yells of encouragement and the rumble of growing excitement from the crowd. The men with the burning torches come from the castle and walk around the pyre, lighting it all the way round the base, and then laying the torches against the wood. Someone has dampened the wood so that it will burn slowly, to give her the greatest pain, and the smoke billows around her.