THE FRENCH exploded out of Orleans just after midday… and they did not come the way that Hotspur had expected.
Several weeks ago, the English had breached the bridge that extended from the fort of les Tourelles on the southern bank of the Loire into Orleans on the northern bank.
Just as Sir William Glasdale, commander of the English forces which had captured les Tourelles, finished wiping away the gravy stains from his beard after his midday meal, he heard a great shouting from the bastions.
When he emerged it was to see the Maid herself, horseless, but clad in gleaming white armor and waving a great standard above her head, standing at the far edge of the breach. Beside her were several score men extending a span of hastily nailed timbers across the gap.
Glasdale screamed at his archers to take out both men and Maid, but even though the air was soon thick with arrows, only a few men fell, and they were quickly replaced by others from the city.
Angry—and frightened—beyond reason, Glasdale himself seized a longbow, took careful aim, and sent an arrow speeding into the air.
He thought he had been blessed, for with a sickening thunk, the arrow buried itself into the Maid’s armor just above her left breast.
She staggered, and a man rushed forward to take the standard from her, but she waved him away when he tried also to assist her. She took the shaft of the arrow in both her hands, then yanked it from her flesh.
Glasdale swore he heard her cry of agony even from the distance at which he stood.
Blood welled momentarily at the point of entry, and the Maid paused to take a deep breath, but the next instant she was screaming encouragement at her men and waving the standard.
Glasdale swallowed.
Suddenly the span bridging the gap fell into place and men swarmed across.
The battle of les Tourelles had begun.
IT LASTED most of the day. Hotspur tried to send men to aid Glasdale, but most of the other English positions were also under attack—not heavy attack, but enough to keep most of them pinned in their foxholes.
Glasdale had to manage on his own.
For many hours he did well, rallying his men who, whatever they might have thought about Joan, knew they were dead if les Tourelles fell. But by late afternoon his men were failing, and one of the gates of the fortress bulged with the force of their attackers.
He shouted wearily again, trying one last time to rally his men, but even as he opened his mouth a soldier screamed, pointing upward.
Glasdale’s eyes, as did every English eye in les Tourelles and about Orleans, looked skyward.
There, raging down at them from the heavens, rode the archangel St. Michael on a fiery horse.
Glasdale screamed, dropped his weapon and cowered. Most of his men did the same.
The French screamed also, but with victory and the knowledge that God was indeed on their side. They made one last effort, breached the gate and swarmed through les Tourelles.
Close after them strode Joan. Weak from pain and loss of blood she nevertheless stood and watched, the standard still in her hands, as her compatriots slaughtered every last one of the Englishmen within the fort.
Likewise, Philip watched from his position on the ramparts of Orleans’ walls. He had not joined in the battle, but had witnessed its progress from his spot throughout the day.
His brow was furrowed in thought.
WHEN LES Tourelles fell soon after the horrendous vision had appeared in the sky, Hotspur wasted no time in ordering his men to pull back and to make with all possible speed for the nearest coastal port.
He was not going to stay and waste his life against this holy wench.
God give him the Scots any day!
“Damn Richard to hell,” he muttered as he mounted his horse and kicked it into a gallop.
WHEN A soldier pointed out to Joan the fleeing English she sighed wearily.
“In God’s name,” she said, “they go, finally. Let them depart, and let us depart to give thanks to God. We do not follow them, for soon it shall be Sunday. Seek not to harm them. It suffices that they go.”
CHAPTER IV
The fourth Sunday after Trinity
In the second year of the reign of Richard II
(17th June 1380)
THE BOAT ROLLED and pitched in the heavy swell, and Margaret thought she would never be so glad as when she could quit this vessel. The past eleven or twelve days had been a nightmare. On the morning after the day of Lancaster’s and Tyler’s deaths, Bolingbroke, along with Mary, Neville, herself and some fourteen or fifteen of their squires and immediate servants, had boarded a Flemish vessel at the Tower’s water gate. The vessel was already crowded with Flemings desperate to escape the post-revolt turmoil within London, and the addition of Bolingbroke’s party (and even with the gold they paid out) did nothing to ease conditions or tempers. The men shared one tiny, airless cabin while Margaret, together with Mary, Agnes and Rosalind, had been crammed into a slightly larger but no less airless cabin with five Flemish wives.
There had been bedding space for three only, and barely enough standing and sitting room for the others. Rosalind had fretted and whimpered every hour that she was awake, and she was joined by the two similarly aged children of the Flemish women. Three, by the time one of the wives had given loud and riotous birth four days out from London.
The stench of the women, of the birthing, of the vomit and of the damp moldy mattresses, combined with the stifling air, the wailings of the children and the continual pitching of the vessel, made existence intolerable. Margaret had to spend most of her hours awake (and that was most of her hours) either on her feet hanging grimly on to a leather strap set into one of the bulkheads or cramped onto a stool with either Rosalind or one of the other children squirming on her lap. She hardly ate, and drank only small sips from the cup of ale the women passed around every hour or so. Her nausea never left her, her head ached the entire time, and her bowels alternately cramped and loosened, sending her scuttling for the waste bucket eight or nine times each day.
But if Margaret’s condition was pitiable, Mary’s was horrendous. She was the only one among the women who had a bed for the entire voyage—and she never left it. Margaret had known Mary was ill before they’d left London but, with the events of the rebellion, Lancaster’s death, and Bolingbroke’s and their subsequent exile, had not had any time to give Mary the attention she’d needed. Margaret bitterly regretted it.
When Mary had boarded the vessel she’d been gray and silent, and none of the women had objected to her taking up one of the valuable beds. Her silence had not lasted past their first terrible day at sea.
Mary had begun to retch violently at the first pitching of the vessel as it entered the sea swells. By evening of their first day at sea she’d whispered to Margaret that she thought she might be losing blood. By nightfall, her blood loss was worrying, if not yet serious. None of the women had known quite what to do.
Margaret had tried to send for Bolingbroke or Neville, but the door to the cabin was locked—
one of the Flemish wives told Margaret that the master of the vessel was determined to keep them out of sight as he believed that the presence of women on deck would attract sea monsters—and none of the sailors listened to her pleadings.
For all she knew the men were as locked in their cabin as she was in hers. Mary’s condition had eased a little on the next day. Her bleeding had ceased, and, while she still retched, it was no more violent than the sickness of those women about her. Salisbury managed to poke his head in the door in the afternoon, inquiring after the women. Margaret had gestured helplessly at Mary—but what could anyone do? Salisbury told her that Bolingbroke and Neville were as sick as most others and that, furthermore, there was no physician on the vessel who might ease their discomfort.
“Tell Bolingbroke that Mary ails,” Margaret told Salisbury, and he’d nodded and taken the message away with him, but Margaret knew Bolingbroke would not appear to stand mute witness to his wife’s misery.
Birthing and losing a baby was women’s work, and men had no place in its presence.
Besides, Margaret thought hopelessly as, on the morning of the third day, Mary began to spot again, Hal knew this would happen, and Mary’s loss will merely he one further step in the attainment of his ambition.