What followed I do not like to remember. The English, fearing rightly for their lives and their safety, fled out of the town. Many ran to the river, rushing so quickly that they fell in and were drowned, for in their heavy armor they sank helplessly. Then, too, the gentle—or so I had thought—Orléanais who had come with us argued with our men over who should collect ransom for some of the prisoners. When they did not get their way, they fell upon the prisoners, massacring them till the ground ran red with blood. No one did anything to prevent the slaughter; it was as if victory had crazed them all. Our men joined the Orléanais in sacking Jargeau, despite Jeanne’s pleas that it be left alone. Even the church was pillaged, and I do not like to think of what must have happened to whatever women were in the town. I wondered where God was on that day, and said as much to Nicolas, who looked at me oddly, saying, “You have a woman’s tenderness; be careful it does not soften you too much.”
We returned to Orléans, but soon marched again, toward Meung and Beaugency, in heavy mist along the Loire, Nicolas and I with the supply carts, leading our horses to keep them fresh. We were at the end of the column, and Jeanne and Alençon were at the head. The guns followed, by boat, on the Loire, and we were a large party again, full ready for war. Louis was in the middle somewhere, with Pierre and other men-at-arms, and Jean had disappeared.
I was sleepy and could only grumble when Nicolas tried to instruct me, as we lumbered along, about the proper way to remove a badly mangled leg. I felt heavy and stupid; my head was buzzing, and I began to think perhaps I was ill. The mist kept us from seeing if any English waited for us, and I was sure that if any were nearby, they could not help but hear us even if they could not see us, for we were so many and so loud. And then I stumbled, hitting my knee hard upon a rock. Tears sprang to my eyes and I rocked back and forth in pain, gripping my knee, while Nicolas watched in apparent surprise, saying, “Come, come, boy; tears are a woman’s weakness! It is not so great an injury.”
I wanted to shout then that I was a woman, and that tears are not weak, and that I would not have wept at all had I not felt so ill. But I choked back those words with the pain and the tears, stood, and went on.
We were weary with marching when word passed along the line that we had reached Meung, so Nicolas and I made ready to receive wounded. There were sounds ahead of fighting, and then silence; our men, we heard, had taken the bridge to Meung easily, and driven the English into the town, where they remained.
And there we stayed the rest of the day, and camped in the fields. After a damp, nearly sleepless night, I was awakened by Louis shaking my shoulder and saying softly in my ear, “There you are! Come, the sun is rising through the mist over the river, and it is very beautiful.” He kissed me quickly when no one was looking and pulled me to my feet, but my head felt so heavy I could barely hold it up. At last I realized that I had caught cold, from the damp, no doubt, and the mist, whose beauty I felt too ill to appreciate. But I went, reeling, with Louis to the river. When we reached it, Louis put his arm around me and pointed to where the rising sun made a yellow-pink glow in the sky and on the water. I tried to smile, but instead gave such a sneeze as to almost knock him over.
Clearly alarmed beyond all reason, he stripped off the leather doublet he wore over his mail shirt, and put it around my shoulders, saying, “You shall ride on a cart today; I will speak to Nicolas. Quick, now, come to the cooking fires and get warm.” He led me back, and I could not protest.
But Nicolas met us before we reached the fire, his face angrier than I had ever seen it. “What does this mean?” he barked, looking from Louis to me and to Louis again. “What interest have you in my page, monsieur? It is as if you are some Greek lover of boys. That will not do, and I am sure”—here he reached out and put a protective hand on my shoulder—“that my good page likes it not.”
I looked helplessly at Louis, and Louis turned bright red. “It is not as you think, monsieur,” he said stiffly.
“No?” Nicolas stepped closer, his face inches from Louis’s face, and his fists doubling. “Then you will not object if I tell you I will have no more of your skulking around my page, wooing him with I know not what promises of wealth and station—empty promises, for you, monsieur, are in tatters and surely the youngest son of a youngest son, with little to offer …”
I could bear no more, and I could see that Louis’s anger was about to spew forth in a way that could lead only to drawn swords. So I pushed myself between them, my alarm and fever chasing away whatever discretion I had left, and said, “He tells the truth. It is not as you think, for I am not a boy.”
Nicolas stared for a moment and I could see something pulsing at the side of his head. I found myself holding my breath and I think Louis was holding his as well—and then at last Nicolas threw back his head and laughed. “Of course!” he bellowed. “Of course! I saw it and yet I did not see it—and you are lovers, then”—his face took on a stern expression, but a mock one, I was sure—“under the very nose of the Maid, who will have no women following her army. It is a grand joke, surely—but a very dangerous one.”
We explained then, Louis and I, how things stood with Jeanne, and with Pierre.
Nicolas shook his head as if in disbelief, and said, “Never have I heard such a tale—or seen such healing skill,” he added, looking at me, “on the part of a woman. Very well, then,” he continued, “I will keep your secret, Gabrielle de Domremy, and I will try to adjust to having a daughter instead of a son—for, yes,” he said, his eyes darting away as if he were embarrassed, “I had begun to think of you in that way, for my wife and I have no issue, and …”
And then I sneezed, and sneezed again, and both men fussed around me like mothers, bundling me into the medicine cart, among the herbs and saws and bandages. I made the next march—a short one—riding in it, with Anglais walking along beside. Though it was a bumpy ride, I felt better for it, and better, too, for the tea Nicolas fed me, pungent with sharp herbs that cleared my nose at least while I was drinking it, and soothed my fiery throat. Many of the men, Nicolas said, were in a similar state, and grumbling, too, because of lack of pay—but what they planned to spend it on, along the Loire’s desolate banks, I could not imagine!
I roused myself as we approached Beaugency. A massive stone donjon rose above the river, and an abbey’s buildings covered the slope leading to the shore. The donjon presented a smooth face save for a few slits of windows, and I did not see how we could take it, unless our guns were stronger than I thought, and could crumble it.
I remember that battle in a fog, for my head was still muzzy despite Nicolas’s teas and Louis’s loving attention. Nicolas now looked in kindly manner upon Louis whenever he came to me, and winked, as if they shared a joke, and tempered his gruffness. Louis fed me tea, brought me bread and cheese, and even helped me into the woods, standing guard while I relieved myself. He stayed near me that night as well. The cart was well away from the fighting and hidden from the men, but now and then I could hear our guns hammering at the donjon, though later I learned they had done it little harm.
When morning broke, I found myself leaning against Louis’s shoulder, heedless of the hard metal bumps of his mail shirt. There was less mist, and I felt both better and warmer, partly, of course, because of Louis’s warm body and the protection of his heavy doublet, which I still wore.
“I think you slept,” he said, smiling into my eyes and kissing me; Nicolas’s back was turned, though it would not have mattered had it not been. Still, we had grown accustomed to being careful.
“Because of you,” I said, smiling back. “And you? Have you slept?”
“Now and then,” he said. “Off and on. But listen …” He told me that more French men-at-arms were coming to help us fight—and he left me then, to prepare for battle with the other men.
That very afternoon we went back toward Meung to meet the French reinforcements, and we all waited for the English between Beaugency and Meung, along a ridge that seemed taller than it was, owing to the flatness of the surrounding land.
Nicolas and I positioned ourselves at one end of the ridge and behind it, with the carts and our horses, ready to tend the wounded. I was thankful to find my head clearer, but my nose still streamed and my eyes watered, so I was somewhat distracted.
I was not so distracted, though, that I did not see the English coming toward us like ghosts out of the mist, which again lay thickly over all the countryside. I felt myself moving toward Anglais and bracing my back against the cart, for I was suddenly so chilled with fear I wanted to run, and knew I could not. No one moved, not Nicolas, or me, or our horses or the captains, who were not far from us, or the men. The silence was eerie, and I knew I was not the only one afraid.
At last I heard Alençon’s voice. “They approach, Jeanne,” he said quietly. “What will you have us do now? Shall we attack?”
I heard her give a short, hard laugh. “See that you all have good spurs,” she said.
“What?” asked Alençon, and I could hear amazement in his voice. “Are we to turn our backs on them?”
“No. It will be the English who will put up no defense. We will beat them, and you will have to have good spurs to pursue them.”
I understood then, and Jeanne’s confidence cheered me, but at the same time I liked not the thought of our men pursuing the English, lest there be another slaughter as at Jargeau.
And there was not. We and the English spent the day bristling at each other across the short space of flat land that divided us, while flies buzzed around the supply carts and birds flew overhead attending to their affairs, all innocent of the impending battle below them. I had to hop first on one foot, then on the other, to keep both feet from tingling. In the end, without so much as a skirmish, we French marched back to Beaugency, and the English forces went toward Meung; it was said among the men that we would meet them again the next day.
That night, when I fell asleep under the medicine cart, my head was stuffy again with my cold, and dread filled my heart.
