Queen by Right (29 page)

“’Tis the preacher of the abbey church, Guillaume Erard,” Anne told Cecily.

For thirty minutes Erard enumerated Jeanne’s crimes, exhorting her to recant, repent, and be saved from excommunication. Much of the abusive sermon shocked Cecily, but Jeanne appeared impervious to his accusations and slanders. The only point she vehemently spoke out to deny was not one against herself but a condemnation of King Charles. Erard, infuriated by her interruption, cried, “Silence!”

Then he instructed Jeanne that if she did not abide by the laws of mother church she would be condemned. The crowd hushed as they waited for her answer, and Jeanne lifted her eyes to heaven as if to beg for help.

“If you do not submit, Jeanne d’Arc,” Erard told her again, pointing to a man in a black hood, “your executioner awaits to take you to the stake—now!”

“Oh, Jeanne,” Cecily whispered to herself. “Save yourself, I beg of you. Sweet Mother of God, save her.”

Some of the other priests, including Cauchon, were now clambering upon
Jeanne’s platform, pressing around her and threatening her. She looked into the crowd as if to find her answer and then she saw Cecily, whose eyes implored her to save herself. A sweet smile suffused her face for a second, and Cecily gasped, her legs buckling. Anne sensed her trembling and put an arm around her friend for support.

“She will recant, Cecille,” she murmured. “You will see. The fear of fire is too great, even for a brave woman like Jeanne.”

Cauchon then gave Jeanne yet another warning. “Do as you are told! Do you want to die by fire? Change your dress and do as you are told, and you will be put under the protection of the church.” Then he pushed a piece of paper toward her and told her to sign it. But Jeanne still hesitated. Many bystanders were angry by now and hurled a few stones, missing Jeanne but causing the soldiers to push the crowd back.

“But she cannot read!” Cecily murmured indignantly. “They must know she cannot read. ’Tis unfair.”

“Hush, Cecille. People are watching us,” Anne whispered as Cauchon stepped to the edge of the platform and began slowly and deliberately to read the sentence in Jeanne’s native tongue that would give her up to her secular judges and certain death.

But the Maid herself interrupted him, muttering something only those closest could hear, and Cauchon cried out in triumph, “She has submitted! I heard her submit.” He pulled Jeanne from between her guards. “Now, sign!” he screamed, thrusting the parchment in front of her, whereby Jeanne reluctantly took the pen and made a trembling mark upon it.

The distraught young woman would have fallen had she not been supported again by her guards and surrounded by churchmen eager to keep her standing to hear her sentence. Cauchon, knowing full well Jeanne would not understand one word he would say, used Latin to enumerate her crimes against mother church and against God. Then he announced in French that as she had recanted, she would be released from excommunication. A roar of approval drowned out several gasps of disappointment from Jeanne’s sympathizers, who had fervently believed in her holy mission.

“Her crimes were great. She is sentenced to a life of imprisonment with only bread and water to nourish her, but she must repent of her sins every moment of every day and never sin again,” Cauchon pronounced.

“What prison is that, my lord bishop?” Jeanne’s voice was barely audible. “I pray you put me in the church’s prison.”

Several of the assessors and priests on the other platform nodded their assent, but Cauchon knew who his masters were. King Henry and his council wanted Jeanne kept close, and as he could not pronounce the sentence of death on her, then he knew what must be done.

“Take her back from whence she came,” he commanded, turning his back on her. The guards then dragged her down the steps and into the wagon, where the young woman, tied to the rail, had to endure taunts and insults in silence. Cecily watched in pity.

“I did not know you were coming, Cis.” Richard’s quiet voice behind her interrupted a prayer of thanks for Jeanne’s deliverance. She closed her eyes and with a sigh of gratitude leaned back against his strength. “For all it was spectacle, you must be glad of the outcome.”

Cecily nodded, unaware of the disappointment her husband and the other English lords were experiencing. She would learn much later that they felt betrayed by Cauchon, who had promised the council the stake, whereas Jeanne alive and in prison could still be a powerful symbol and rallying point for the French. The death sentence was the only way to rid themselves of a nuisance and mollify the thousands of troops angered by the Maid’s military exploits. But Richard suspected the fat Cauchon was not about to imperil his immortal soul by burning a repentant heretic. Imprisoning her to repent at her leisure for the rest of her life was a suitable punishment from the church, and Cauchon was relieved to choose it, Richard told Cecily. Only an about-face on the part of Jeanne could result in a sentence of death. This day had provided a blow to the English, and Richard felt it as keenly as the others on the council.

He cradled Cecily’s weight against him, pondering all he had witnessed and understanding one thing clearly. Cecily must not know how he felt at this moment, he decided, and certainly not while she was carrying their child. This affair of the Maid was the first dissension they had had in their young marriage, and he hoped Jeanne would disappear from their lives and Cecily’s thoughts as quickly as possible

“Aye, Richard, I am thankful she repented,” Cecily said eventually, turning and resting her cheek in the folds of his soft gown. “She does not deserve to be burned, although going back to that terrible prison will be enough of a hell for her. May God now keep her safe from those vile guards for, in truth, they will not be kind.”

Richard said nothing; he knew she was right.

“H
OW DID IT
come to this?” Cecily murmured to Anne as they sat side by side among the other dignitaries summoned to witness the execution of La Pucelle on a hastily built stand in the old market square. Not a week had gone by since Jeanne’s repentance at St. Ouen, and today she would be put to death as a relapsed heretic.

According to Anne’s instructions, Cecily had been assigned the last seat in the row, which was a few paces from the makeshift staircase, in case she felt unwell and needed to depart quickly. Rowena was positioned close by, ready to help her mistress. Cecily had pooh-poohed the notion, but as she had slept ill and the morning sickness had been especially violent that day, she was grateful that Anne had taken pains to provide for her well-being. Despite a cushion, the hard wooden bench was certainly not comfortable, but after a few unusually hot days, the thirtieth day of May had mercifully dawned pleasantly mild and had caused Katherine to remark earlier, “At least we shall not be overcome by the heat.” Almost immediately, she had clapped her hand over her mouth for her lack of tact.

“If my brother of Burgundy were only here,” Anne said in a hushed voice, “perhaps he could persuade John to spare her.” She sighed. “Indeed,
I
could not.”

“I, too, entreated Richard to reason with the duke, but I fear those pleas fell on deaf ears.” Cecily gritted her teeth, remembering that morning when she had gone down on her knees to ask her husband to save Jeanne. But he had remonstrated harshly with her for being disloyal to the English cause and had flatly refused. For the first time, Cecily’s unwavering faith in him had faltered. She had left the room with her head held high but her heart aching. Why could he not feel as I do, she asked herself. We have always agreed before.

On his way to his seat on the platform now, Richard bent to her to make sure she was well enough to endure such a hideous spectacle. “I beg of you to leave the second you cannot,” he urged, and she nodded stiffly, sending him away.

Cecily sighed. “Once Jeanne threw off the woman’s gown she had agreed to wear and donned men’s clothes once more, she was doomed,” she said, squeezing the duchess of Bedford’s small hand. “What made her change her mind, I wonder?” She watched the king’s council mount the stairs and take their seats in front of the women. “Something must have happened to make her put them on again.”

Anne was cautious with her response and glanced around before whispering, “If I tell you, you must swear not to repeat it. ’Twill upset you, Cecille, as it did me, but”—she gave a Gallic shrug—“what can we women do? John told me ’twas Cauchon’s idea. He was not convinced of Jeanne’s abjuration, and he suggested that if the guards were to . . . to use her as they would any other woman they disrespected, that she might want to throw off the gown and resume wearing the men’s tunic and leggings.”

Cecily’s horror was about to manifest itself in a cry of disbelief when she saw Anne’s warning frown and controlled herself. “And I presume the guards made sure the men’s clothes were close at hand,” she seethed, and when she saw Anne’s nod, added, “That pig Cauchon. May he rot in hell!”

“Once Jeanne relapsed, the churchmen were free to condemn her to die,” Anne concluded.

“Thus putting her fate into our hands,” Cecily murmured, her eyes sweeping the front ranks of English lords. “Just like our Savior’s priests.” She shook her head, her heart so heavy that it made her slump forward in her seat. What a tragic end, she thought bitterly, aware of a hush settling over the swelling crowd of citizens both English and French.

As the rays of the morning sun glinted off his crown, young King Henry mounted the stairs and passed close enough to Cecily for his purple robe embroidered with the lilies of France to brush her skirts. However, she did not see the dismay in his round blue eyes when he caught sight of the stake anchored in the middle of the square, a wall of faggots piled at eye level in a circle around it. At least, he had been told, this burning would be mercifully quick, as the smoke from the wall of wood would suffocate the Maid long before the flames consumed her flesh.

A second platform near the market church of St. Sauveur was filling up with the many members of the clergy in black or scarlet robes who had presided over the trial. They formed a semicircle—like vultures circling for the kill, Cecily thought, and she shuddered. A simple stool was placed in front of them. Her uncle Beaufort sat next to Cauchon, and they seemed to be sharing a joke. The bile rose again in her throat.

Her eyes roamed around the square, usually so lively with farmers and their animals, carts full of vegetables, pie-men hawking their fare, and peddlers enticing shoppers to buy their ribbons and geegaws. Instead she observed the same noisy men and women jostling for position and glad of a day off. She
tried not to stare at the gruesome woodpile with the sturdy stake standing sentinel, iron rings ready to accept the prisoner’s chains. Poor Jeanne, how can she escape now?

“Elle arrive!”
A shout rose from the back of the thousand-strong crowd, many of whom had traveled for hours to be here, for word of the execution had been sent to towns and villages two days ago as soon as the Inquisitor had finished his job. At first the voices were loud and insulting, but as the prisoner was brought among them, barefoot, clad in a penitent robe of black, and her lank hair now grown into a more feminine length, the spectators fell silent.

Two black-robed friars walked behind her, mouthing prayers, and stayed below as she was hauled up onto the second platform and told to sit upon a stool facing her judges. Cecily suddenly felt faint as she remembered her dream of the circle of rats in their black robes accusing her as she sat, just like Jeanne, on a stool before them. Anne, frowning her concern, nudged her friend, and at once the ugly vision faded. Cecily whispered her thanks and said that she was quite well.

As the nine o’clock hour tolled, the canon of Rouen, Nicholas Midi, rose from among the clergy and began a sermon that droned on for almost an hour. Jeanne sat rigidly on her stool, her eyes raised to heaven and her lips moving in prayer for the duration of the homily. Then Cauchon rose awkwardly to his feet, his short legs taxed by the overweight body, and stepped in front of Jeanne.

“What now?” Cecily murmured. “Dear God, has she not endured enough?”

“Because you have been found guilty of heresy, idolatry, and sorcery,” Cauchon shouted, “it is meet that you, as a limb of Satan, shall be excommunicated from the church and your body burned, so nothing remains with which to taint the living!” Then, in one terrifying gesture of unity, Cauchon and all the priests grasped the ends of their crucifixes, held them out to Jeanne, and turned them upside down. A gasp of horror rose from the crowd, knowing Jeanne could now never enter the kingdom of heaven. “We now commit you to the bailiff, who will deliver you into the hands of the executioner!” Cauchon announced.

“May God have mercy on my soul!” Jeanne cried, standing boldly to face the crowd. “Rouen, I fear you will pay a costly price for this day.”

This ominous prediction for their city sat ill with its citizens, and they began to shake their fists and jeer at the young woman, who was now being jostled down the steps. Two Dominican friars continued their prayers as the
bailiff and a guard led her to the wall of wood. Cecily saw Jeanne stumble. Her ankles were raw from the shackles and there was blood on her feet, and instinctively Cecily reached out her hand as though she could help Jeanne. The desperate young woman implored those nearest her to give her a cross, and one grizzled English soldier tied two sticks together and thrust it into her hands as a joke. But then, transfixed by Jeanne’s radiant smile of thanks and her kissing the makeshift cross with passion, he signed himself, chastened by her piety.

A black-hooded giant of a man with a heavy chain wound about his arm took hold of Jeanne and led her through a gap in the faggots to the stake. Only those on the platform and those spectators hanging out of upstairs windows could now see the prisoner over the wall of wood as she was shackled to the stake.

Cecily tried to look away as her tears blurred the hideous scene, but she could not. Jeanne begged the friars standing near her to fetch a proper crucifix. One turned his back, but the other, compassion finally overcoming him, called over the woodpile for someone to fetch the crucifix from the church. While the executioner made a drama of thrusting the tallow-soaked torch into the brazier and holding it aloft to rouse the crowd, Brother Isambard held the delivered cross for Jeanne to kiss.