I took my leave of Madame that night, reluctantly. She smiled and stroked my hand softly, saying, “You are right, my child, to go, for you will be needed more there than here. Remember that you will always have a home here; I have arranged it with the prioress. Return when your task is done, if you wish.”
“I will wish to return to you, Madame,” I said, kissing her hand and then her brow.
“I will always be with you, my child,” she said softly, “for I love you as much as if I had borne you, and I am proud—so proud—of your courage and your learning. Go with God, and with my blessing.” She brushed back my hair, which had grown out almost to woman’s length and would have to be cut again.
Gently, I kissed her once more.
“Smile for me before you go,” she whispered, and so I did, though I think it must have been a sad smile. Then I returned to our hut, where Pierre helped me cut my hair, and gave me page’s clothes once more.
It was barely sunrise when we left, on a fine spring morning that promised to warm quickly. I rode a sturdy gray horse Pierre had brought for me, whom I named Smoke, and who was slow and steady. In a purse at my waist, I carried yarrow and dittany and unguents Sister Georgette had taught me to make, and some I had learned about from books; already I was listing in my mind what I must gather to supply my cart. A lark sang in the convent garden as we left, and I hoped it boded well.
We went quickly to Melun, where Jeanne was, and she smiled broadly when she saw me. She clapped my back as if I were one of her men-at-arms, shouting, “Welcome, friend dove, and my thanks for flying back to us. I hope we will not have need of you, but I will rest easier in my soul knowing you are here to care for my men.” She looked into my eyes then, and with the sweetness that she had had as a girl, asked softly, “How is it with you?”
“It is well, Jeannette,” I answered. “I have grieved sorely, but I have learned much medicine, and have also learned contentment—as you, I think, have not.”
“I have not,” she answered, “but I am more content now, for soon we ride again for France and for the king. I am a soldier, Gabrielle, a soldier of God, and cannot be content with waiting.”
“May there always be battles for you to fight, then,” I said for courtesy. Then I wished I could unsay my words, for I knew I did not mean them.
Melun, which was held by Burgundians, was already under siege by forces friendly to us, and when the people there saw Jeanne they rose up with the besiegers against their Burgundian oppressors, expelled them, and opened the city’s gates to us. I rejoiced, for there was little fighting. It was as if the very presence of the Maid had been enough to chase the Burgundians away.
That evening I saw Jeanne kneeling apart from the others, praying quietly, and when she at last stood and turned toward me, her face was pale.
“Jeannette,” I asked softly, “are you ill? May I help you?”
“Thank you, Gabrielle,” she answered, “but no. No one can help me but God.”
She turned away with such a tortured look that I could not let her go. I laid a hand on her arm. “Madame de Pisan, my teacher at Poissy,” I said, “has shown me books in which it is written that the ills of the soul are as troublesome as those of the body. She has also told me that as bleeding and emetics purge the body of ill humors, so speech can purge the soul. Perhaps it would ease you to speak of what troubles you. I shall tell no one, I promise you.”
Jeanne looked at me oddly for a few moments, as if considering it, and she thanked me again, but said nothing further. Many times after that, though, I saw from her eyes and from her laugh, which had become too merry, as if forced, that she was still troubled.
It was only much later that I learned her saints had told her she would be captured before Saint John’s Feast, which is near the end of June.
Word came to us that bands of Burgundians were roaming the land near Lagny, stealing, and terrorizing the good people there, and so one day, with what weapons we had, we set out to pursue them. I told myself this was proper, because they were oppressors and were doing much harm and evil. The battle was bitter, and we prevailed, but at great cost of lives and in wounded, and I wished more than once that Nicolas were there to guide me and to help. I enlisted two young pages, whom I saw hanging back by the carts, as assistants, to do for me what I had once done for him. They were brothers, very young, and had come with a knight and his squire, secretly following them for adventure’s sake. But both knight and squire had died at La Charité, and the two boys feared punishment if they returned to their lord’s lands, and so were willing to serve me. The younger, Antoine, was fair of face and limb, with a ready smile. Claude, the older, was quick-tempered, but brave and willing. The boys had but one horse between them, for the army was poor in beasts as well as in food, but I had Smoke, and so we managed well.
During the battle, when I caught Claude staring at me as we worked, I told them both that I was a woman, and swore them to secrecy. It seemed easier so, and they did not seem to mind. Indeed, young Antoine seemed much comforted, and sometimes snuggled against me at night as we lay under our cart, or near it, and made me think of the children Louis and I would never have.
There followed long marches and several small adventures; they run into each other in my mind. At Lagny, I delivered a dead child, who, when Jeanne prayed for it, came alive long enough to be baptized, and died again. At Pont l’Evêque, we suffered a retreat, at which the men grumbled. Then it was decided we should go all the way to Soissons, where there was a bridge that would enable us to take the Burgundian-held town of Choisy from the rear—but we found the gates of Soissons closed to us. The next day the captain of Soissons sold his city to the Burgundians for gold, and some of the men said this meant Jeanne was not truly from God. Others complained of lack of money and bread, for which I could not blame them. The captains ordered the complainers to leave, and Pierre said this was wise, for soldiers who cannot be paid or fed become rebellious, especially if there are no victories to cheer them.
We were only a few hundred strong when we learned that Philip of Burgundy and his men had set up camps on the northern bank of the River Oise across from Compiègne, which was on the southern bank. We were then on the high hill of Crépy to the south of Compiègne, separated from it by thick forest, and I was not far from Jeanne when the news reached her. Instead of being discouraged by it, I saw her raise her sword with her old fire and say, “We will fight them, then, as we fought at Orléans!”
“We are too few,” Pierre answered quietly.
But though the captains around her agreed with Pierre, Jeanne replied heartily, “By my staff, we are enough. I will go to see my good friends at Compiègne.”
We stayed till midnight on our hill, restlessly preparing, and the more hours we waited, the more dread I felt. Pierre, kneeling on a patch of dirt, drew me the town, and the river, and the towns nearby, as he had seen the scouts draw for the captains. It was clear to me that we could ride through the forest to Compiègne easily, and that we could enter the city from the south. But what then? The main route into and out of the city, and the route by which it was normally supplied, was over a drawbridge that led across the river to the north bank—which was now dotted with English and Burgundian camps. To free Compiègne, we would have to go through the city, cross the bridge, and take the northern bank. And to do that, we would have to walk into the very arms of the enemy.
“It is a den of lions,” I said to Pierre—and he agreed. Nonetheless, we left that night, when it was dark, with clouds covering the stars. Stars would have cheered us, I think, had they been winking at us. We arrived outside Compiègne just as the sky lightened, and were admitted through the southern gates with quiet joy and hope, as we had expected.
I walked around the town with my pages, leading Smoke and collecting what I could for the battle—rags and clothes, dried herbs, unguents, oil and pig’s grease, and wine. I had little money, but the keepers of the shops gave what they could to me freely. “For God and the Maid,” more than one said, crossing himself as he handed me a bunch of herbs or a vial of oil.
By late afternoon, as I was fastening my pouches and the boys were arranging the goods on the cart, a man-at-arms ran up to us, saying, “We are moving; the attack is about to begin!” And soon we all rode out of the city’s main gate, toward the enemy, and onto the drawbridge, which had been lowered for us. Jeanne was at the head of the column, mounted on a dapple-gray horse and wearing a scarlet-and-gold riding tunic over her armor. So mounted, with her standard in her hand, she was a splendid sight, but I still felt fear for her. I turned as we left, for bells were ringing in the town, and I saw on the walls many archers and crossbowmen and culverineers, standing ready to cover us and defend their city.
As we rode, my pages and I well in the rear as always, I saw our small army marching along a causeway that lay beyond the bridge and stretched across the marshy bank of the River Oise. I waited tensely for the first shouts and shots of battle, but none came, until we ourselves had crossed. The ground beneath was so boggy that I could understand why the causeway had been built, for carts would have sunk without it, easily.
When the head of our band had turned left and reached the Burgundian camp at the village of Margny, I heard sounds of fighting—subdued, as if we had surprised the enemy after all. Gradually, though, the familiar sounds increased, and I braced myself for the wounded that were sure to come.
I saw our men fall back, some onto the drawbridge, and then move forward again. At the same time, I saw a Burgundian force to the right looking down on us from higher ground. They sounded an alarm; soon after, men came riding from all directions, and there was vast confusion. I bound up the arm of one of our archers, and told him he could no longer draw his bow until it healed, and then I saw Jeanne being pushed back toward us and toward the causeway. We were pushed as well, Antoine and Claude and I, nearly onto the crowded drawbridge—and then I saw with horror that the bridge was being raised, no doubt to prevent those who pursued our men from reaching the town. But many of our men, caught on the bridge as it rose, fell from it into the Oise. Antoine cried out at this, and Claude used words that reminded me of La Hire—but then in grateful surprise I saw more than one Burgundian reach his lance into the water and pull out a drowning Frenchman. Can these truly be our enemies, I thought, when they show such courtesy?
But then a desperate cry drew my attention elsewhere, and I saw that Jeanne and her squire, d’Aulon, with Pierre and Xaintrailles and a few others, had been driven off the causeway onto the boggy ground, where swamp water and grass and sand sucked at their horses’ hooves and made them slow and clumsy.
And then—oh, and then …
And then I saw Burgundian archers seize the hem of Jeanne’s beautiful riding tunic, and pull her off her horse.
