(11th March 1380)
FOR MONTHS Joan had wondered how Thomas fared, deep within the demons’ camp. Now she wept in sorrow as St. Michael stood before her, telling of Thomas’ surrender to the demon Margaret.
“How can he have allowed himself to be so seduced?” she said, clasping her hands before her as she knelt.
Thomas is a man, and weak in the ways of the flesh. He does not have the strength of your virginal flesh. The demon has convinced him that she is pure and pood, and Thomas believes her.
“Then we are lost.” Joan had no way of understanding that the archangel was not as distraught at Tom’s situation as he appeared to be.
Anger seethed out toward her, and Joan quailed. “Forgive my doubts, blessed saint!”
Do not think that we have not planned for this.
Joan was so terrified by the archangel’s anger that she could not answer.
Thomas only does what we expected. Soon enough he will learn of the extent to which he has been betrayed . . . and then . . . then there is always the great Secret, waiting to be revealed.
“Great secret, blessed saint?”
Now amusement radiated toward her, and Joan felt the goodness of the archangel’s benevolence.
Thomas is a Beloved. On that day, the day when he learns what that means, and what awaits him, and how he has been betrayed, then Thomas will not fail you nor me. Believe it. “Most assuredly, Blessed Saint Michael.”
It is a most seductive Secret, Joan, and Thomas has already shown himself readily enough seduced. “Your paths are most wondrously wrought, blessed saint.”
St. Michael thought about that last remark, wondering if Joan wasn’t trying to pretend a little too much understanding. Be still, Joan. I must speak to you of a thing other than Thomas’
weak flesh.
“Yes, blessed saint?” Joan said.
I have already spoken to you of the significance of Orleans.
“Yes, blessed saint.”
Soon one of the damned Englishmen will lead an army against Orleans. They will attempt to strangle that proud city with afoul siege. It is time to make a first strike. You shall tell Charles that you will lead the French army to Orleans, where you shall raise the English siege. It shall be a magnificent victory.
Joan said nothing, but raised her clasped hands before her face as she stared at the archangel with shining, fanatical eyes.
After Orleans you will ride to Rheims, where you shall crown Charles king of France.
“Blessed saint!”
From that time, your victories shall be legion. You will drive the English from this land, and then . . .
“Yes, blessed archangel?”
Then, once France has roused behind you, you shall lead the armies of God across the seas and into the den of the Demon-King himself.
Joan was so overcome with awe and humility that God had chosen her for this cause, that she could not speak.
Beware, Joan. There are many who conspire against you.
“They shall not harm me. I have their measure.”
Ah, Joan, I pray that it be so. But this Demon-King is cunning beyond our understanding.
What seems like trap might be clear path, and what seems like clear path might lead to
death.
He paused, and considered the girl before him. There was something else she needed to be told, but it should not be he who would do the telling.
As Joan stared at the archangel she was amazed to realize that two glowing figures stood before her. At one moment there had been just St. Michael, the next…
“Blessed Saint Gabriel!” she cried, and bent her forehead to the floor, now almost completely overcome.
Blessed child, said Gabriel, there is much mischief about, as well you know, but I fear that you may not recognize the worst of it.
Joan remained silent, waiting for the archangel to finish.
Beware Catherine, Gabriel continued, for she is evil beyond compare.
“Most blessed saint,” Joan whispered, “I have felt her vileness.” She tried to quash the smugness that welled within her, but failed miserably. She resolved to say a prayer for Catherine’s sluttish soul.
She is cunning, and will trap you, said Gabriel.
“With your help,” Joan whispered, “I will not allow myself to be trapped.” She was strong. She would prevail. She knew it.
You are sweetness personified, Gabriel whispered into her mind, and with her head still bowed, Joan could not see that the archangel’s hand hovered over her head … and now down her back, barely above her body, and now close to the side of her robe where swelled her breast…
She moved slightly, and the hand sprang back.
Michael resumed. You are God’s own, Joan, and as you lead the French to victory you shall carry the mark of His favor.
There was a change in the light, a subtle dappling, and before Joan could even draw a breath of surprise she saw that a massive square of white cloth had appeared on the floor before her.
It was a battle standard.
There was a design embroidered in its center, and Joan had to squint a little in the glow of the archangels to make it out.
At the top-center of the design was a face wearing great and utter fury, and Joan understood this face to be that of the King of Heaven. Underneath this face stood two archangels: St.
Michael and St. Gabriel, and in their arms they held the earth. About all were woven fleurs-de-lis—Charles’ own emblem.
Carry that standard, said the archangel Michael, and all shall fall before you.
“Charles will resist,” Joan said. “He is weak.”
You must make him strong, said Gabriel. Tell him that on your march southeast a miracle will take place to further demonstrate that you and lie walk m God’s grace and that ultimate victory shall come about.
“Blessed saint, what miracle?”
Bending close, the archangels told her.
CHAPTER XIV
Maundy Thursday
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(22nd March 1380)
— I —
HOLY WEEK and the Easter celebrations approached, and London was crowded with pilgrims, pedlars, traders, thieves, prostitutes and every rank of society between peer of the realm and homeless riffraff. Among all the repentant—and unrepentant—sinners who pushed their way through one of London’s eight gates was a black-robed, hard-faced Dominican.
Prior General Richard Thorseby, recently arrived from the continent, had a wad of documents under his arm that he dare not entrust to the two friars who now escorted him. Thorseby walked with a pronounced limp, the remaining vestiges of his frostbite, and his cheeks were
wan and sweating, a legacy of the rough Channel crossing.
Infirm in body he might be, but there was nothing weak or wan in the determination of his mind, or in the belief in the righteousness of his cause.
Thorseby made his way first to Blackfriars, the London home of the Dominicans. Set into the western wall of London, and bounded at its north by Ludgate prison and at its south by the gray waters of the Thames, Blackfriars was a huge, rumbled mass of dark and forbidding buildings, and Thorseby felt at home here as nowhere else. But he did not linger.
Having briefly greeted the prior of Blackfriars, and then taken some refreshment, Thorseby made his way to the small pier in the southern wall of the friary and boarded a rowboat.
He sat down, not greeting the oarsman, and carefully wrapped his cloak about him.
The boat moved slowly upriver, the northern bank of the Thames on Thorseby’s right hand.
He kept his eyes ahead the entire trip, save for when the boat passed the Savoy. There, Thorseby turned his head and stared at the magnificent palace rising behind its river wall.
Are you there? he thought. Enjoying your last, lingering days of freedom?
The oarsman continued to row, and the boat turned south with the bend in the Thames.
Eventually the palace at Westminster hove into view, and Thorseby’s grip tightened in its hold on the edge of the boat.
RICHARD ADMITTED the Prior General only with reluctance. The man depressed him, and always looked upon him as if he knew Richard’s innermost and most deviant sins … and that irritated Richard.
But the Prior General had sent word that he had important information regarding Bolingbroke’s household, information the king would most surely appreciate, and so Richard had finally acquiesced.
“Dear Lord,” he muttered to de Vere, sitting next to him on the dais in the Painted Chamber on a chair so intricately carved it was almost a throne in its own right, “why couldn’t he have picked a less hectic time?”
De Vere smiled, and laid a hand on Richard’s where it rested on the arm of his throne. “If he gives us something with which to attack Hal, my dear sweet boy, then there should be no time too hectic for us to see him.”