The Maid A Novel of Joan of Arc by Kimberly Cutter

Author:Kimberly Cutter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2013-11-28T22:00:00+00:00

3

She stood in the gathering twilight, surrounded by six bright torches on a wooden stage that had been erected at one end of the camp. Dusk was falling and the campfires were being lit in the dim fields. Huge orange blooms pulsing up in the darkness, and around them thousands of French and Scottish and Spanish soldiers standing and sitting and cheering at the sight of the small, bright-eyed girl with her glinting steel suit and her dark cap of boy's hair, and among them in the twilight, she saw flashes of danger, the long hair and gleaming shoulders of the whores with their red skirts and filthy bare feet, the dice games and card games, men staggering, reeling with drink. The air smelled of smoke and fresh straw and roasting meat, and Jehanne could feel the wildness in the men rising as the night drew down, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise up, and wondered if she was, in fact, mad to believe they would listen to her.

It was a while before they were silent. Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes of cheering, wild shouts, and roars just at the sight of her—Jehanne standing before them in her shining armor, her round face beaming, her eyes promising silently: Yes, friends, help has arrived. God's love has arrived. Now we will triumph. The strangeness of the image, the sheer fact of this impossible creature was enough to transfix them, stir them into a frenzy of joy and rage. By the time they were silent, there was hardly need for words.

In her bones, Jehanne understood this. Understood that much of her power lay in the outrageous picture she presented, the unspoiled peasant virgin—almost a child—riding down out of the fields of Lorraine to drag France up out of Hell, to restore France to her former glory. It stopped them in their tracks. And so she stood silently before them, beaming, loving them, and she could see their faces transforming before her, the jeers giving way to fascination, hope, doubts trampled by a rush of wonder as they gazed upon her, roaring and screaming her name, the men so moved that it was as if Christ Himself stood before them.

She held up her hand and waited for silence. Prayed silently, Help me, Father ... And she could feel the golden light pouring through her then, could feel the night open itself like a dark flower around her, could feel herself dissolving into the sea of people, into the white moon overhead and the black rustling forest behind and the blue hills rolling in the distance, and when she spoke, her voice was loud and clear, and it seemed that God Himself was whispering in her ear.

"I bring you great news, my friends, my brave and noble soldiers of France," she began. "After so many years of suffering, God has come to our aid." A huge storm of cheering forced her to pause. When it died down, she continued.

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