Into The Fire (50 page)

And Yolande is here, a maypole of silk and satin. She paces across and across in front of the fire. Tomas thinks this every time he is in her company: if she had been a man, there would have been no need for the Maid.

She stops in front of him. ‘May we speak?’

‘My lady.’ With a scant bow, he yields her the floor. His etiquette is perhaps not quite what it could be, but he is not long arrived. He has stood a full quarter hour for the boot boy to attack his boots, cloak and hose with a stiff brush, in an effort to knock off the mud of travel. He still rocks with the rhythm of the roan gelding that was his last mount. He has changed nine times since Rheims.

He leans back against a mantelpiece and listens.

‘We know the lady of Luxembourg; we shall write to her. She is not without power. While the lady lives, the Maid will not be ceded to her enemies. But the lady is old and not in good health. If she dies, then her protection dies with her. We cannot depend on it.’

‘We can depend on nothing. Bedford will not let her languish in womanly company. We must undermine the trial.’ De Belleville stands, walks to the fire, his hands behind his back. ‘Who is to prosecute?’

Tomas says, ‘Pierre Cauchon, of the University of Paris. He has just finished escorting the young King Henry from London to Rouen. He is as solidly English as if he had been born on the banks of the Thames. We cannot subvert him.’

‘Then we must change the minds of the other men whose good offices he will need to draw on. Huguet? Whom can we count on?’

Huguet Robèrge takes the floor, their expert in canon law. ‘By law, she must be tried where she committed her “heresy”, which is to say where she was captured, outside Compiègne, or in the see of her accuser, which is to say Pierre Cauchon. Compiègne remains in French hands and is not safe, and Beauvais is no better. In either place, we might be able to mount a raid to recover her. Thus they will seek somewhere safer, but to do that, they will need to change the laws. Cauchon has no writ beyond Beauvais.’

‘Rouen,’ Tomas says. ‘It’s where the English king is being kept. They have a big garrison there. Since the fall of Troyes, it’s the most English town in France, more even than Calais.’

‘Then Cauchon must gain authority there, and he does not currently have it. This may sound like a small thing, but the law is the law. He will have to get good men to turn a blind eye to his rewriting of it and there are sufficient men of good conscience who will not be party to that kind of calumny. We can make this hard for him.’

Yolande: ‘We shall write to the inquisitor at Rouen. We shall write also to the knights of the realm, to d’Alençon, La Hire, all the others who support her. They are all French lords cognizant of French law. She shall not be alone.’

From her seat by the fire, Marguerite says, ‘She is not alone. God is with her. He will not favour those who act against her. The bishop should be told so.’

Her words fall on a web of glances. How does one tell her that if Pierre Cauchon desires that God hates France and loves England, that He despises the Maid, then he will make it be so, and no one will dare stand against him.

‘My dear …’ The queen crosses the room. Her hand falls on Marguerite’s shoulder. They lock fingers, the two women, and if you look with the right eyes the blood line is clear in the set of the jaw, the long, lean face, the colour of the hair, what you can see of it beneath the trains and veils and plucked, high brows.

Marguerite has on her neck the birthmark with which Charles the Mad stamped all of his children, but otherwise they could be mother and daughter, or close cousins, at least.

Yolande says, ‘We shall do what we can.’

‘If we fail, she will die.’ Tomas has travelled nineteen days, and if he has seen any of the land through which he rode, it was for less than half of that. He cannot eat or drink except by dogged determination; he is no good to her if he wastes to nothing. He wants to tell this to Marguerite, and cannot find the words. She thinks God has imprisoned the Maid, and that fasting will change His mind.

De Belleville knows. With an effort, he takes his grey, grave gaze from his betrothed and fixes it instead on Tomas de Segrave, who is no longer a priest. The change has not surprised any of them. He wishes he had become a man at arms sooner. He might have saved her, or at least shared her captivity.

‘Tomas, we will do what we can, but we need your guidance. You know the English better than we do. What can be done?’

‘We need to get to her.’ Over nineteen days, he has thought of nothing else. ‘Where an army cannot go, one man may succeed. I will go to Bedford at Calais. He believes I am his agent. I will go to him, and assure him of my loyalty. I will find a way to get him to send me in to her. She needs a friend, and I will be that friend, a link from her to the outside world. Together, we shall find a way to get her out.’

ANOTHER DAWN, ANOTHER
stable. The stable boys have been shooed off, partway through their mucking out. A melange of horse dung, urine and fresh-cut grass layers at head height. Bedford surges in, breasting through it, bright, sharp-eyed, combative.

‘Tomas, you’ve lost weight even since last we spoke. Don’t tell me you’re pining for your little war-girl?’

‘The one whose downfall I engineered?’ He has practised this; his life depends on his being better than when he met Stefan in the alley at Rheims. Across his face is stitched a look that combines satisfaction with dislike. ‘I ate some bad fish at Lent and I’m still shitting water. I am pining for no one.’

‘I heard you threatened to hunt down and kill Regnault de Chartres after he betrayed her at Compiègne.’

‘And yet he remains alive.’

‘Indeed. As I told him: if Tod Rustbeard wanted you dead … Well. He should know. He does know. It’s why he’s afraid of you.’

Good.

Tomas is clearer now, less ragged than he was. There will come a time when Regnault de Chartres will die a lingering death in a cage, with rats gnawing out his eyes, defecating in his mouth, dicing over his testes. But not yet. Not while the Maid lives and Tomas needs to get close to her.

He says, ‘I heard she was in Beaurevoir, with the ladies of Luxembourg. Is that safe?’

‘As safe as if she were in London. The French can’t reach it. There is no army big enough to come within a day’s range. Not even Jean d’Alençon. He blusters a lot, for a minor lord with no money. Just because he is married to the king’s cousin does not give him rights to send letters demanding … this and that …’

Demanding that the English and their French puppets adhere to Church law, perhaps?

Armed by Huguet’s assessment of canon law, pressed on by Yolande, if d’Alençon has written one letter he has written a hundred; the French king may have confined him to Normandy, but he cannot prevent him from writing in aid of the woman at whose side he fought.

Letters, of course, do not change the world. If the king wrote, perhaps, or the pope, but the king will not and the pope is dying and neither will move to help a girl who is named a heretic by some of the most powerful men in Christendom.

Tomas leans against a stall and makes himself look at Bedford, presses his fingers together, in the way of a priest. ‘Three women reside in Beaurevoir, all related to the Duke of Luxembourg. His aunt, his wife, his stepdaughter; all three named Joan. I have heard that they are become enamoured of their charge. Do you really think it’s safe to leave her there?’

‘You hear things other men don’t.’

A shrug. This is why he is paid … what he is paid. With both sides paying him, he has enough, these days, to retire. He has no intention of retiring.

Bedford asks, ‘What would you have me do?’

‘Send in a spy.’

‘You?’

‘Who else?’

‘How could you go to her now? She thinks you are French and she is held by the English. Why would her guards let you through?’

‘I will tell her I am infiltrating the English side as I have done in the past. That you believe me your man, and have sent me to question her, while, in truth, I am sworn only to her.’

‘And is that the truth now, Rustbeard?’ The big, glaucous eyes search his. ‘You are not the man you were when you left.’

‘I am who I always was. The Maid is friendless in an enemy chateau. She will trust me. I can get from her what you want. Just tell me what that is.’

He is too desperate. He can feel it leaking from his bones, oozing like marrow. Bedford may be a coward on the field but he reads men better than most.

Luck is with him. Temporarily, Bedford isn’t looking at him, but at the grey mare that is Tomas’s current mount. This is a gift from Yolande of Aragon, not as good as the chestnut the Maid gave him, but still of the late king’s stock. Bedford is a horseman before he’s anything else, he knows quality when he sees it.

Bedford steps into the stall and runs his big soldier’s hands along the mare’s top line, kneading the spot in front of her withers that makes her stretch her upper lip and sag her hip. Thoughtful, he says, ‘I want a confession. I want her to accept whatever charges Cauchon brings. I want her to sign her own burning.’

‘Then send me to Beaurevoir. I shall get it.’

‘Tod, she’s a bitch who put on armour. She goes against all of God’s laws, but she’s not insane. Do you really suppose—’ A scuffle outside the door. Heads turn, equine and human. The mare leans her chin on Bedford’s shoulder. Traitor.

A rider barges in past men whose duty it is to keep him out. He is young, lean, swaying to the rhythm of a horse he no longer sits. The stable may be ripe, but the air is sweet compared to what he imports: rank, hot chaos.

He sags against the doorpost. In the presence of Bedford, he fails to stand straight and Bedford does not order him flogged. It is less than an hour after dawn. To arrive in this state, he’s been riding through the night, and men are permitted some leeway who have done that.

Bedford snaps his fingers. The stable boys who have not, after all, been far away, run to see to his horse, to whip off its saddle and throw on a rug, to stand it in cold water to keep its tendons whole, to find it food and a straw strap. A lad with white-blond hair runs in with a pitcher of wine and a ladle.

Bedford scoops up a measure, hands it himself to the messenger.

‘My lord …’ He’s good, well trained; he speaks before he drinks. ‘The Maid of France. She got on to the roof of Beaurevoir Castle. She tried to climb down, to escape. She fell.’

Oh, dear God. He has seen Beaurevoir. It is seventy feet from the heights to the moat. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Oh, God
…

‘Damn her!’ Bedford slams his fist against a wall. The mare jerks back. ‘She will
not
escape me. I will not allow it.’ He spins, catches hold of himself, forces his temper down as he might force the head of a wilful horse. ‘Is she dead?’

The messenger has drunk. He has closed his eyes, as if he has just entered heaven, and wishes there to remain. From his distant place, he says, ‘They say not, lord, no. She has cracked her ribs and her breathing is not good. But she lives.’

Tomas has read of volcanoes, of the slow simmer before the mountain explodes, spewing fire and rock and smoke. Nobody lives, who is close. He thinks it would be wise to remove himself from Bedford’s presence, to think of other ways to get to the Maid. He can change the colour of his skin, find a wig, change his accent. Italian. That would be good. Tomaso di Carsoli, physician to princes; he has been that once before, in Poland. A beard. He will grow a short, spiked beard in the Italian fashion, and dye it black. He will—

Bedford grasps his arm.

He turns slowly. He is not at all sure that his heart does not show in his eyes. ‘My lord?’

Bedford is crimson, dull at the angles of his chin, and up beyond his temples. ‘Go to her. Heal her. Bring her to Rouen. Bring her alive, and well enough to stand trial. Do whatever it takes to get back into her credit. If you have to kill Regnault de Chartres to do it, I don’t care. But see to it that she lives until we can burn her, or I’ll burn you in her stead.’

Nine days later, he is at her bedside. She is bandaged, chest and brow. She wakes slowly, and incompletely. ‘Tomas? They let you in?’

‘I have Bedford’s writ.’

Her face clouds. She seems to sleep, but he knows she is awake. He does not know how much pain she is in, but she is pale. Her pulse, when he feels it, is wiry, and bounds. He thinks the pain is great. ‘What were you doing?’

‘Escaping. It is my duty.’

‘Escape how? You thought to fly?’

‘I was climbing down the wall. I made it halfway.’ Her smile is brief, a rare sun. ‘Climbing down is always harder than climbing up. Jean de Belleville taught me that. Still …’

‘You thought you could do it.’ She is mad. He loves her madness.

‘I had to. He is going to destroy them.’

‘Who is going to destroy who?’

‘Burgundy is going to destroy Compiègne. On Bedford’s order, he is going to break into the city and put it to the sword: men, women and children. He will kill them all, and those he cannot cut open, he will burn.’

He would say that’s not your fault, but perhaps it is. He says instead, ‘Compiègne is holding firm. The governor won’t let them in. The walls are thick and it’s only one town. The English will give up in time.’

‘Bedford won’t.’ Behind half lids, her gaze is disconcertingly sharp. ‘The ladies here tried to buy my freedom.’

‘I know.’

‘The king could ransom me. Charles. He has Talbot, Suffolk, Scales in captivity. He could offer all for me.’

‘I know.’

‘He won’t do it.’

‘Lady, even if he wanted to—’

‘Which he does not.’

‘Even if he did, Bedford won’t let him. He needs you convicted as a heretic so he can prove that Charles does not rule by divine right.’

‘Fool.’

That could be him, or Bedford, or Charles; any or all. He says, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault. Did you kill Regnault de Chartres?’

‘Not yet.’

He is a failure.

She sleeps.