close enough to Mary that their lips could briefly brush.
―Go home, Joan,‖ said Mary, and smiled, suddenly and brilliantly.
Joan stared in amazement, and then her face went blank, and her eyes lifeless.
Her breast might still rise and fall with breath, but Joan was no longer there.
She had gone home to her father‘s sheep.
Mary smiled once more, soft and sad, then climbed down from the cart. She walked back
to James, took his hand, and without a backward glance both of them faded into the crowd.
And everything woke up, and returned to the moment.
―Burn her,‖ screamed Bolingbroke, beside himself with rage and frustration. ―Burn her.‖
The crowd murmured and shifted, knowing in their souls if not their minds that
something extraordinary had just passed. A company of men-at-arms moved forward to drag an
unresisting Joan from the cage.
No one noticed that the placard that hung about her neck had changed. No longer did it
read Sorceress.
Now it simply read Shepherdess.
Neville leaned down and took Margaret‘s hands, helping her to her feet. She stared
wordlessly at him, and he smiled, and pulled her gently against him.
―I have had enough of great doings, my love,‖ he said. ―Shall we go home, and watch
over our children?‖
―Mary…‖ she said.
Neville laughed, his hands circling Margaret‘s waist and lifting her high in the air in the
full joy of the moment.
―Mary has given us back to each other,‖ he said. ―It is a precious gift that we should not
waste.‖
Margaret‘s mouth trembled, and the tears in her eyes spilled over, but she finally
managed a smile. ―I had not known—‖
―None of us did,‖ Neville whispered, lowering her so he could kiss her. ―None of us
knew that Mary was our salvation.‖ Then he grinned, and hugged her to him before gently
moving her away from the square.
Behind them flames started to lick at the still figure tied to the stake.
―Let us go home,‖ Neville said, ―and to our lives.‖
Isabeau de Bavière savoured each lick of the flames, each spreading scorch of Joan‘s
flesh. She watched as the flames enveloped Joan‘s feet and ankles, and shuddered in pleasure as
the girl‘s skin bubbled and burst before it caught aflame. She leaned forward, her eyes bright, as the flesh of the girl‘s calves rippled then dissolved into blackened agony as they charred. She
gasped with delight as Joan‘s shift suddenly roared into flame, obscuring the girl‘s face and
turning her hair into a roaring inferno.
She moaned, triumphant, as the dying girl‘s tendons snapped in the heat and her limbs
jerked as they cooked.
And finally, Isabeau de Bavière sighed, replete, as Joan‘s chains melted in the heat and
her charred and unrecognisable body fell into the cauldron of flames in a scattering of sparks and
a sudden, surprising, sizzle of melting body fat.
Isabeau‘s only disappointment—and it was indeed a profound one—was that the girl had
not made one sound, not one moan, not one cry, not a single screech, as she had died her
agonising death.
Joan‘s composure had not faltered for one instant.
Joan sat in the thick grass of the mountain meadow, half dreaming in the warm embrace
of the sunlight falling about her. Sheep ranged in a thick creamy crowd in every direction, and
Joan thought she had never seen sheep looking so fat and so healthy.
She sighed, contented, although she knew there was yet one thing she needed to do. She
rose, cast her eyes about the sheep once more to satisfy herself as to their safety, then walked
down the meadow.
PART SEVEN
Christ Among Us
Saturday-night my wife did die,
I buried her on the Sunday,
I courted another a coming from church,
And married her on the Monday.
On Tuesday night I stole a horse,
On Wednesday was apprehended,
On Thursday I was tried and cast,
And on Friday I was hanged.
Version two of a traditional English nursery rhyme
I
Tuesday 10th September 1381
continued…
Tharles slouched in his chair, listening to the lacklustre minstrel warble on and on and on
about the beauty of the sun and the sky and the cursed green shaded meadows. The minstrel‘s
playing was execrable, his voice worse, and the manner in which his Adam‘s apple bobbed up
and down as though it were a ball on a string was quite repulsive.
But if the minstrel didn‘t sing and play, then Charles would be left alone with his
thoughts. Worse would be the rising memory of his mother‘s twisted, bitter voice, reminding him
of his constant failures. None of that did Charles want to think about at all. So he stared as if
entranced at the damned minstrel, concentrating on the man‘s pitiful music, and using it to keep
thoughts of his failures at bay.
He‘d travelled with his entourage far enough south to reach one of Isabeau‘s castle
outposts. It was a wretched place, full of draughts and crumbling walls and damp bedding and
narrow, dark windows. Charles could not wait to move on to…to…well, to anywhere, most
probably Avignon which was far enough away from everything nasty and problematical to be a
safe haven. Charles was certain that Pope Clement would give him a sweet palace to live in, and
trumpet mightily about how the dark English king had stolen Charles‘ throne (without actually
making any move to force Charles to try to regain his lost realm), and entertain Charles once or
twice a month at the papal table; more frequently, perhaps, if Clement entertained ambassadors
or diplomats from far-flung places.
If Avignon proved too close to France for comfort (what if Bolingbroke decided Avignon
was worth invading for its rich array of papal jewels and gold?), then there was always
Constantinople. Charles had heard great stories of Constantinople‘s wealth and
sophistication—even the streets were paved with gold and gems—and the quality of the
minstrels and scholars there…
Bolingbroke would never, ever, surely, try to pursue Charles as far as Constantinople.
But even as hope waxed in Charles‘ thoughts, a niggling horror buried that hope so deep
it brought instant tears to Charles‘ eyes.
Wasn‘t Constantinople packed, not only with wealth and sophistication, but also with the
most fearful and skilled of assassins? Could not Bolingbroke— or his own mother, more
like! —ensure with a hefty payment Charles‘ own death from poison? Or a well-placed knife? Or from the fangs of one of the hideous serpents that Charles had heard about?
He sobbed out loud, covering his mouth with a lace-trimmed neckerchief, and waved the
minstrel away.
For some minutes Charles sat in pathetic despondency, weeping into his piece of lace,
and wondering what terrifying end awaited him. Whatever it was, Charles knew it would be both
painful and humiliating, and would be bound to involve his mother curling her lip in disgust at
his inability to even die gracefully and courageously.
Then something—a noise, a movement—disturbed him, and Charles slowly raised his
head.
Joan— impossible, impossible—stood in the doorway of his solar, wearing nothing but a
simple robe and light hooded cloak…and, remarkably, carrying in her hands the crown of
France.
Except this wasn‘t Joan, was it? It couldn‘t be, for the girl glowed with a gentle radiance
and, as she stepped forward, Charles realised that Joan was diaphanous to the degree he could see straight through her.
Charles hiccupped in terror. This vision of Joan was most apparently a spectre—Joan‘s
spirit come to torment him for abandoning her.
His sobbing increased as he cowered deeper into his chair. Would the bitch never leave
him alone?
Was she going to pursue him into and beyond both their graves?
Joan glided forward, her expression becoming more gentle, more loving the nearer she
came to the cowering, sobbing figure in the chair.
Strength, Charles, she said, her lips barely moving, and courage and daring. These I
finally bequeath you.
And her spectral hands lowered the crown onto Charles‘ trembling head.
Isabeau had just begun her descent of the steps to dismount the stand, the scent of charred
flesh still lingering enjoyably in her nostrils, when the first agonising pain gripped her.
It felt as if a great hand had seized her heart and was slowly, inexorably, squeezing.
She stopped, one hand gripping the handrail of the steps, one hand buried deep in the
folds of her gown above her chest, and stared goggle-eyed into the distance, as if her pain had
opened to her a vision other than that of the rapidly emptying castle square of Rouen.
―No,‖ she whispered, her hand twisting within the folds of her gown as another, stronger,
pain tore through her. ― No. ‖
― No,‖ he screamed.
Her hands let it go, and Charles felt the full weight of the crown rest on his head.
And something happened.
He blinked, and very slowly straightened in his chair. He blinked again, and stared into
Joan‘s loving face. ―What have I done?‖ he whispered, his tone completely altered from its