Sparrow (9 page)
Authors: Michael Morpurgo
With every mile they took her further from her family, further from her friends, and even deeper into English occupied territory. Here too she was known, but here no one cheered her. No one called out blessings. No one smiled. When at last they brought her that cold December to Rouen, they paraded her bound through the
streets, streets crowded with Burgundians and English taunting her, swearing at her, spitting at her. Joan could ignore their hateful eyes, their vicious innuendoes and insults. She only had to look up at Belami flying ahead of her and she would soar with him above the horror of it all.
She had some hopes at first that she might be kept amongst nuns in a church prison during her trial, that she might now be kept away from the leering eyes of her English captors. But her hopes were soon dashed. She found herself cast into a cell where the walls ran with damp, where rats scuttled across the floor. She had no bed, but was chained around her body night and day to a great log of wood. Worse, there were the same English guards to contend with, their bestial eyes and their grasping hands. She thanked God that she had on her men’s clothes, that she was bedraggled and
filthy. That, with her steely defiance, was all that could protect her now.
But even here she was not entirely without hope. Belami could fly in through the tiny window to be with her. She had her Belami and she had her God.
Many of the great lords and dukes of England – Warwick, Bedford, Stafford and others – came to see her in her cell, sometimes even bringing their wives with them. They came mostly to gloat; but once there, once they saw her wretched state and her heroic courage in the face of all her hardships and in the face of what they knew to be her impending fate, they could gloat no more. She stood before them in her chains unbowed and calm, her eyes ablaze with defiance. Even if they hated her, even if they wanted her dead – and many of them did – they saw her with new and grudging respect.
Jean of Luxembourg came time and again, sent
by his wife, to try to help Joan save herself. “I will ransom you,” he told her. “The English will allow it, but only if you promise never to take up arms against them or us ever again.”
Always she gave him the same reply. “They think by killing me they will have all of France for themselves. But I tell you, even if there were a hundred thousand Godoms more than there are now, they should not have the kingdom. I will make you no such promises. Let them have their trial. I will answer them truthfully as my voices have told me I should. I am not afraid. I will never be afraid.” It was not said as a boast, rather as a promise to herself, for there was a terror deep inside her that she felt might one day make a coward of her.
It wasn’t until the end of February that they led her at last to her trial, barefoot and bound in chains, to the Chapel Royal in the castle at Rouen. She was wracked with fever as she sat down at last to face her judges: the bloated, bulbous figure of Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, and either side of him a dozen abbots and priors – grim, grey men with hard eyes and thin lips. And evident in all of them, as they looked into her eyes, was the presumption of her guilt. They had made up their minds. They had judged her
already. She knew it for sure when they read out a letter from the King of England commanding the bishop to have her tried. She knew well enough what else he was commanding, unspoken, unwritten though it was. They were to condemn her as a heretic, as a witch, and have her burnt. But Joan had her voices. Somehow she would be saved. All will be well, they had told her. Sure in her faith, she would fight her accusers, fight them to the last, not with swords any more, but with words.
High above her, Belami sat on a rafter and watched and listened to it all. It had taken a while to find a hole in the chapel roof, but he was sure he would find one. He’d never yet known a roof without one. Weakened by her long captivity, Joan had only strength enough to speak softly, but like everyone else he heard every word she said.
Through it all, Cauchon fixed his eyes on her,
like a stoat before a kill. He would lean forward and do his utmost to mesmerise her, to cower her; but Joan outfaced him, she outfaced all of them. She stood accused of sorcery, of blasphemy, of witchcraft. Hour after hour they interrogated her, day after day, week after week; first in the Chapel Royal but later they came to her cell in the castle. Through it all, often sick with cold and fatigue, Joan answered them the only way she knew – with the truth as she saw it, as she remembered it. She hid from them only what her voices had said she should.
Her judges tried to confuse her, to bewilder her, lulling her with smiles and seemingly simple, straightforward questions. But every question, no matter how simple, hid an accusation, and Joan knew it. Exhausted as she was, she countered them each time, bore all their bullying, all their threats, even finding the strength to laugh at them
sometimes, and chide them. They hoped to wear her into submission, to beat her down, so that she would confess either that she had invented her voices, or that they came from the devil himself and therefore she must be a witch. But she would not be intimidated. Even when they took her to the torture chamber so that she could see for herself how terrible the instruments were, she would not confess. She told them they could do their worst, she was not afraid. She had spoken the truth and would not be deflected from it, not by torture, nor by the fire.
From his perch on the chapel rafters and from the window of her cell, Belami witnessed every moment of it.
Unlike Joan, he heard how, once she had been led away, her judges seethed with frustration and fury at their failure yet again to browbeat her into
submission. He saw how Pierre Cauchon bent them all to his will, how before each interrogation he would conspire with them to devise some new way to unsettle her and break her at last.
The questions came fast, one upon the other, from different judges, about her childhood, her voices, her men’s clothes, her miracles, leaving her little time to think or to consider her answers carefully, each judge seeking to trick her into some weakness, some inconsistency that might betray her.
“What age were you when you left your father’s house?”
“I cannot remember.”
“What age were you when your voices came for the first time?”
“Thirteen.”
“What teaching do your voices give you?”
“They taught me how to behave.”
“Who advised you to take male dress?”
“My voices.”
“When you found King Charles at Chinon, how did you recognise him?”
“By the advice of my voices.”
“When did you last eat?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“When did you last hear your voices?”
“Yesterday and today.”
“What were you doing when you last heard your voices?”
“I was asleep. The voices woke me.”
“Did they touch you?”
“No.”
“Is the voice of an angel or does it come from God?”
“It comes from God.”
“Do you believe you are in the grace of God?”
“If I am not, may God put me there. If I am, may He keep me there. If I am not in His grace, then I would be the most miserable person in the world.”
“Did you play in the fields with the other children when you were young?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you play at fights, English against French, with the other children?”
“No, so far as I can remember, but I saw my friends fighting with the children of Maxey. I saw them coming home wounded and bleeding.”
“When you were young, did you have a great desire to defeat the Burgundians?”
“I had a great desire that the king should have his kingdom.”
“Do you want a woman’s dress?”
“I am content with what I have, since it is God’s will I wear it.”
“Does it seem to you lawful to wear a man’s dress?”
“Everything done at Our Lord’s command must be well done, must be lawful.”
“The sword found at Fierbois, how did you know it was behind the altar?”
“My voices. They said it would be in the ground, all rusted, with five crosses upon it.”
“Which do you prefer, your sword or your standard?”
“I am forty times fonder of my standard than I am of the sword.”
“Who persuaded you to have ‘Jhesus
Maria’ embroidered on your standard?”
“I have told you often enough. I have done nothing except by God’s command.”
“At Orléans, did you know beforehand that you would be wounded?”
“Yes, I did. And I tell you, before seven years are past, the English will have lost more than Orléans. They will lose all they hold in France.”
“How do you know this?”
“Through St Catherine and St Margaret.”
“Do they always appear to you in the same form?”
“Always, their heads richly crowned.”
“What part of the saints do you see?”
“The face.”
“Do they have hair?”
“Of course.”
“How do they speak?”
“Sweet and low in tone. And they speak in French.”
“Do they not speak in English?”
“Why should they? They are not on the English side, are they?”
“What about St Michael? What clothes does he have?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Is he naked?”
“Do you think Our Lord has not the wherewithal to clothe him?”
“Do your voices say you will escape?”
“They tell me I shall be delivered. But I know neither the day nor the hour. God’s will be done.”
“Where did you first put on a man’s dress?”
“Vaucouleurs.”
“Do those on your side firmly believe you are sent by God?”
“I don’t know if they believe it. But if they do not believe it, still I am sent from God.”
“Did your voices tell you you would be taken prisoner?”
“Yes, almost every day they told me. I asked only that I should die speedily without suffering a long imprisonment.”
“Did you have the world and two angels embroidered on your standard?”
“Yes.”
“What significance is there in that?”
“St Catherine and St Margaret said it should be made in this fashion, that I should bear it boldly and to have painted upon it the King of Heaven.”
“Did you do well in leaving home without
the permission of your mother and father, seeing that you should honour your mother and father?”
“I was in everything most obedient to them, save in this departure.”
“Did you not commit a sin in leaving your mother and father like that?”
“Since God commanded it, I had to obey. If I’d had a hundred fathers and mothers, if I’d been a king’s daughter, I would still have gone.”
“Did you do wrong in wearing a man’s dress?”
“No.”
“Did you leap from the tower at Beaurevoir on the advice of your voices?”
“Almost every day St Catherine told me not to leap, that God would help me and the people of Compiègne.”
“When you leapt did you expect to kill yourself?”
“No, I entrusted myself to God and hoped that by means of this leap I could escape and avoid being handed over to the English.”
“Have you asked God’s permission go escape from prison?”
“I have often asked for it, but so far have not had it. But if I saw an open door I would go, for this would be Our Lord’s permission.”
In those very words the questions came at her and in those very words she answered them. Time and again she begged to be able to say Mass. They refused her. She asked to be released from her chains. They refused her. She asked not to be left with the soldiers. They refused her.
Even inside her cell she was never alone. There were always three English soldiers in there with her and two outside on guard. But in the dead of night when they were all asleep, Belami would fly in and perch on her shoulder. She could not even move her hand to stroke him now for fear of rattling her chains and waking the guards. But she could turn her head to see him. In the intimate privacy of the dark she would weep her silent tears, and share with Belami her most dread doubts and fearful terrors. As the trial came at last towards its end and the hour of the inevitable verdict came closer, she was ever more haunted by the horror of the death she would soon have to endure.
“I fear the heat of the flames, Belami,” she whispered, “but I fear my fear more. My voices tell me that I must endure all, that I must not weaken. But all I have to do is confess that my voices were
false, throw myself on the mercy of the Church and obey them in everything, and I could still save myself. And I so want to save myself. I so want to live. I am young. But I must not weaken now, Belami, I must not. When I die in the flames it will be quickly over, won’t it? And afterwards I will be in Paradise forever, won’t I? Won’t I? Stay by me tomorrow when they judge me, Belami. Stay by me.”
It was many weeks now since Joan had seen the light of day. It was a beautiful May morning as they led her, still manacled, to the walled cemetery behind the abbey. The brightness of the sun dazzled and hurt her eyes.
“A fine day for a burning!” cried someone from the crowd.
“Burn the witch,” they cried. “Burn her! Burn her! To the stake with her! To the stake!”