Into The Fire (17 page)

Jean-Pierre brings up the great bombard, Rifflard, and lines its stones to left and right: twenty smooth grey granite boulders, big as bullocks, ready to render into pulp stone and wood and flesh and bone.

Tomorrow, the gunner will fire them at Troyes. Later, he moves the smaller cannon into lines, until there is not room for another.

The army is confessed and pure, but the men contemplate the delights to come.

The Maid can forbid swearing – and has. She can throw out the whores from the army – and has. But if this city does not yield to her, then when she takes it – and not even Regnault de Chartres doubts now that this will happen – she cannot stop the men from making free with its women, its gold and its wine, its damask and candlesticks, pearl earrings and haunches of ham.

The jeering begins after Mass, and by vespers the ranks are making pantomime of what they will do. The Maid talks to the provisioners about the supply of wheat for the men and corn for the horses, to Tomas about new latrines and where they must be dug. She does not interfere.

The men of Troyes stand impotent upon their walls. Their women begin to weep. Twelve thousand Frenchmen; the women of Troyes will be serving three or four each at the very least when the army breaks in. In the morning, the magistrates send a herald to the king to sue for surrender.

Before noon, to the muted cheers of the citizens, the King of France enters the gates of the city that shamed his father. The men and women of Troyes, who had been so wholeheartedly for England that King Henry promised to make it his capital when he took all of France, must learn to love their Frenchness again, to take pride in it.

For now, it is enough that they wave with empty hands and do not throw eggs or ordure or old food.

The Maid rides at the king’s right hand. He looks better on horseback; armour hides his bone-button knees, his squab neck. His gull’s egg eyes are shaded behind his helm. Above them
Jhesu Maria
, black on white, aloft, fluttering. Her banner: her dauphin to make into her king.

Brother Tomas rides a dozen ranks back. He looks. He learns. He plans. In his head he sends messages to Bedford. Not yet, my lord. Not yet. But your servant will defeat her so completely that her ashes will be ashes, strewn upon the sea.

THE JOURNEY HOME
takes Picaut somewhat less than ten minutes. Her Nokia is switched off. Her landline is ringing as she walks in the door.

‘Picaut.’

‘Are you on Twitter?’ It’s Patrice, sounding alive and vital and electric. Just to listen to him makes her smile.

‘Not at this precise moment. Should I be?’ She thumbs open her Nokia, fires it up. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘What you are definitely not looking for at all is hashtag Orléans Take Back the Night.’

So, of course, she looks.

—
@whiteisright
We are power! Join us!! #Orléans #TakeBackTheNight

—
@Coolman
#flashmob #Orléans C. says bring a bottle. Full. Not with wine. #OrléansTakeBackTheNight

—
@Stephanie6787
Four hundred? Five? Count for yourself!!!11! lol #OTBTN #flashmobsofinstagram

This last links to an image of Orléans youth doing its best to imitate the feral youth gangs of Paris. Thus far, it looks distinctly middle class and well behaved; clots of teenagers grinning self-consciously into each other’s phones, but all are white, and there are placards on the fringes that have the ring of Christelle Vivier’s more routine pronouncements: Foreigners Out! Keep France for the French! And one, just in view: Our Maid Died For This? The date stamp is 21:04, which means they’re still on the streets.

‘Merde!’ Picaut reaches for her keys. Patrice calls through her phone.

‘Don’t! Don’t go out. You’ll be a YouTube sensation in half a minute. Ducat will skin you alive in the morning.’

‘You want me to hide behind the shutters while Orléans is overrun by teenage anarchists?’ She opens a window, letting in the sounds of distant discord.

‘I would. Stay in, listen to music. Play Grand Theft Auto. Sleep, even. It may be old-fashioned, but some people still do it. Do whatever you do to unwind. Just don’t go and look. If someone’s hurt, you can go in an official capacity. Until then, it’s not your problem.’

‘And when the press wants to know why I’m not there?’

‘Tell them your team is monitoring the situation. Which we are. I’ve got fifteen hashtag streams open on TweetDeck. You, meanwhile, are busy solving a murder. With that in mind, Rollo, Sylvie and I have Iain Holloway’s itinerary sorted out and I’ll have something for you from the chip by the morning. I’ve got into the files: it was locks, not heat. The stuff inside is scrambled; I’m just trying to decipher it now.’

‘You are a magician, you know that?’

‘Always.’ He is laughing, and then he isn’t. ‘Something else you might want to know.’

‘What?’

‘You remember the Internet firestorm last September when your dad was sacked?’

‘He resigned.’ Six weeks before his death. She is not laughing now, either.

‘Sorry. Yes. Well, there was a petition supporting him and his point of view and Iain Holloway was part of the group that set it up. They called themselves Coalition of Truth. Holloway was the tenth signatory.’

There was a time when that would have mattered. Against her better judgement, she asks, ‘How many signed altogether?’

A pause. A flicker of keys. ‘Four thousand nine hundred and sixty-two. That’s not bad, given the numbers on the other side.’

It’s pitiful, but it’s better than nothing and she is grateful for his care. ‘Thanks.’ She pushes her head into her hands. ‘If that’s it, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.’

In Patrice’s universe, sleep is for old people and losers; she knows this, waits for him to say it and instead hears the slip of a shrug. Tonight, he is being kind. ‘Sure. I’ll pull all the data together and we can work out what he was doing in the morni …’ He drifts to silence, in a way that makes her throat run dry.

‘Patrice?’

‘Just go to bed.’

‘No. What? Tell me.’

‘Have you seen the news?’

There’s a plasma screen in the corner. One-handed, she hits the remote. ‘What channel?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

Christ.

She heads for the rolling news and it’s there, or rather she, Picaut, is there; the video of this evening’s performance.

She had wondered what the Family would charge for the rights. She had imagined that a minor bidding war might take place through the night with the victor screening the results on the morning news.

But there has been no bidding war, and if there is a price, it is low enough for every terrestrial, cable and satellite channel to gain unrestricted access. She surfs across the news and comment channels and cannot escape herself. Where Christelle Vivier was once ubiquitous, now Picaut is there twice over; in a shimmering bronze Chanel dress, and in a leather jacket with soot and ash on her face and the nightmare of the fire behind her.

Neither of these is the truth of herself as she knows it, but that doesn’t stop her admiring what they have done.

In the brief, edited clip, she walks on to the platform and smiles at Luc. Because she is watching for it, she sees the smile first, but knows that the outside world will see instead the bronze silk dress and they will not think about how long it must have taken to set up the lighting, so that the reflections from the crimson curtains create the illusion of flame rippling over her as she moves across the stage. They will only see the flames, rippling, seeming to consume a woman. Even for those not brought up with the legend of the Maid as their daily bread, it has had enough of an airing to trigger something deep and primal.

And then, bracketed by Luc at his most reasonable, his most liberal, they will see the curtain sweep soundlessly sideways, more flame leaping up Picaut’s silk-clad form, and the illusion will merge with the real flame on the vast, pixel-perfect image behind, in stark contrast with Christelle Vivier’s brash attempts to steal the mantle of the sainted Jeanne, Saviour of Orléans.

‘Have you seen Orléans! 24/7?’ Patrice is still being careful with his words.

‘On it.’ Orléans! 24/7 is one of the new, edgy cable channels. It is spooling the same footage, but the floating footer is newly theirs: LA NOUVELLE PUCELLE?

It is too much. Picaut stabs at the remote, closes the screen to black, sets the alarm on her phone to wake her at six. ‘I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well.’

‘Night …’

Her bed is more welcoming now; the ghost of Luc lingers in the newsreels, but nowhere else, and she can sleep.

She is deeply unconscious when her phone rings.

She reaches for it, groggily. ‘Picaut.’

‘Inès? Inès Picaut?’ The voice is hesitant, rising halfway through her name. ‘This is Henri Aubel. From your political science class at the university? You might not remember …?’

He is afraid she won’t, and hopes she will, and she does, more or less, in a woolly-headed, dream-laden kind of way: a skinny boy, with lank hair and glasses. Verging on Asperger’s, and chronically shy. His grades in exams were inversely proportional to his success with women. She borrowed study notes from him once.

Thickly, she says, ‘Your father was an engineer on Concorde.’

It is perhaps not entirely kind to remember a man by his father’s occupation, but Henri is thrilled. ‘That’s it! Thank you!’

She is so very nearly asleep. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You could make my career, actually. Or break it.’

He has a career. Somehow, she had imagined him as a clerk, adding up columns of figures in a dusty attic. Her images are of a forgotten century; more than likely, he is another Patrice.

‘I’d hate to break anyone’s career. Will it endanger mine if I help you?’

‘I hope not.’

‘You’re supposed to sound more sure than that. What is it you need me to do?’

‘Come to the studio in time for the early slot at six a.m.’

Six? Oh, God … ‘What studio?’

‘Orléans! 24/7. Actually Orléans! Six–Huit.’ He leaves a polite gap, for her to fill with the right kind of impressed noises.

She hasn’t the energy, and truly, if Patrice hadn’t just pointed it out, she’d barely remember its existence. It’s been on air for less than a month and is trying to make a name for itself with a mix of edgy, investigative journalism and gossip. She struggles to remember something useful about it.

Henri breaks the silence. ‘You don’t watch it, do you?’

‘Sorry.’ She shrugs an invisible apology. ‘Why do they want me?’

There is a blank, discomfited pause. Then Henri’s rising, quizzical note, ‘You’re a celebrity?’

Oh, dear God. ‘But I’m not …’ Not a celebrity. Not television material, however hard the Bressards might try to change that.

‘I know.’ He sounds crushed. Alarmingly, he might weep. ‘I did tell the producer you wouldn’t do it.’

‘And if I don’t, you’ll be looking for another job?’

‘It’s not your problem, Inès. Don’t worry. I had to ask, but it’s fine.’

‘Don’t hang up … Oh, fuck.’ She grinds her knuckles into her hairline, tries not to think of Uncle Landis and what this could do to his carefully sculpted campaign. She has not closed her windows and sounds still carry to the bedroom. Somewhere outside, a siren wails. She can hear glass break, to the north and west, beyond the cathedral; too close, too urgent, too angry.

Distracted, she says, ‘I can’t discuss details of the murder investigation. Or in fact anything about any current case. Your producer does know that?’

‘Of course! Totally! Absolutely! Does that mean you’ll do it?’ He is weeping now, tears of pure joy, from the sound of things. ‘Inès, you’ve saved my life! I promise you! Thank you so much!’

She checks her Nokia, resets the alarm to five o’clock. Fuck it all. ‘Will you be there?’

‘Oh, Inès! I wouldn’t miss this for worlds!’

She falls asleep with her phone still in her hand.

FOR THE SECOND
time in twelve hours, a make-up technician brushes a fine sheen of powder across Picaut’s brow, her cheekbones, the bridge of her nose.

Orléans! 24/7 is housed in a newly refurbished single-storey building in the north-eastern section of the city. The entire place is a testament to the Internet age, Wi-Fi ready, Bluetooth-compatible, bustling with ardent, enthusiastic interns of Patrice’s age, if not his sartorial style, all of whom look as if they have been up all night and enjoyed it. They wear barcoded, laminated tags round their necks which give only their first names.

An intern was waiting at the door to welcome Picaut. ‘I’m Marianne.’ Marianne had dark hair, darker eyes, and black and white fingernails with small silver skulls on the tips. She was wide awake, friendly, efficient. ‘This way.’ They processed past whispering doors that slid aside before they were touched, through a white-tiled corridor that smelled of new paint, into a small, tidy green room with fewer mirrors than Picaut had feared and more than she would have liked.

Once there, Trudi (blonde with pink highlights; green eyes of a hue that can only be coloured contacts; sky blue nails) brought her coffee. Albrette (straw blonde, blue, acid green) brought her gossip magazines and then, when she asked for it,
Le Monde
. Suzanne (blonde curls with a black forelock, grey, scarlet zigzags) fetched the make-up tech who is called Esteban (a goth). Each of them has been endearingly helpful.

Picaut herself has done nothing to prepare for this beyond the fact that her T-shirt is clean and her jeans are relatively new. Her leather jacket still smells of fire smoke and she will not change it. She has done enough interviews not to care what they say, even when fed suggestive images by the Bressard spin machine.

The door behind her slides open on a huff of techno-air. In the mirror, she watches the interns stand straighter.