The crippled angel Book by Sara Douglass
Contents:
Prologue
PART ONE Windsor
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
PART TWO The Dog of Pestilence
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
PART THREE Shrewsbury
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XII
PART FOUR The Crippled Angel
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
PART FIVE Agincourt
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XII
XII
XIII
XIV
PART SIX Mary
I
II
III
PART SEVEN Christ Among Us
I
II
III
IV
V
Glossary
Prologue
Friday 1st March 1381
The chamber was close and warm, its windows closed, its air thick with the scent of
herbs. There was silence, save for the moans of the woman squatting between two midwives
before the roaring fire in the hearth.
The woman giving birth was naked; her skin gleamed with sweat, while her unbound hair
had soaked into glistening strings clinging to her shoulders and back. The midwives bent over
her, holding bunches of soothing herbs close to her nostrils and open mouth, rubbing the small of
her back encouragingly.
They did not murmur instructions to her, for Marie was of their own and knew what was
happening both to her own body and to the baby it was trying to expel.
Two other women stood half shadowed on each side of the shuttered windows. To one
side stood Catherine of France, daughter of the insane Louis and the adventurous Isabeau de
Bavière, her attention as much on her silent companion as on the labouring Marie.
Slightly distanced from her stood Joan of Arc, Maid of France, staring intently at the
woman struggling to give birth. Her face, if possible, was even more tortured than that of Marie.
She was terrified of what Marie was about to birth.
Joan had spent these past seven months since Charles‘ crowning at Rheims cathedral in a
fugue of despair. This despair was not caused by Charles‘ stubborn refusal to move from
Rheims, or to do anything which might be construed even vaguely warlike, but by the swelling
of Marie‘s body. Indeed, Joan‘s despair had increased in direct proportion to the escalating
distention of Marie‘s belly. Marie might not know how her child had been conceived, or who had
put it in her, but Joan had a very good idea, and she knew that if the child confirmed her
suspicions then she would have no choice but to abandon her crusade for the Archangel Michael.
How could she serve an angel who so callously used women‘s sleeping bodies? Who was
so inherently flawed? So inherently sinful? And so arrogant in that sinfulness?
―See?‖ said Catherine conversationally, very well aware of Joan‘s distress. ―The baby is
about to be born.‖
Joan jerked, an almost inaudible moan escaping her mouth. She wished she could tear her
eyes from Marie, or run from the room, but she could do neither. She prayed meaninglessly,
futilely—for she was not sure to whom she could pray—that somehow the actuality of Marie‘s
child would prove the archangel‘s innocence.
But in Joan‘s innermost being she knew that was impossible.
In her innermost being, Joan knew that the archangel had put that child inside Marie.
And in her very few, most painfully honest moments, Joan knew that the archangel had
lied and abused and manipulated her even more grossly than he had Marie.
All Marie had to do was endure the agony necessary to birth his child.
All Joan had to do was die. To die for the cause of a sincrippled angel.
How could that cause be good, and just?
Marie was struggling even more now, moaning as she bore down on the child. One of the
midwives moved in preparation to catch the baby as it slithered from Marie‘s body; the other
rubbed even more vigorously at Marie‘s back.
Catherine moved her eyes from Marie, looking at Joan.
There was no venom, nor even triumph, in her gaze. Once she‘d hated and loathed Joan,
but now she realised that the struggle taking place within Joan was even worse than that which
consumed Marie.
Of all people, a child of the angels herself, Catherine was one who empathised with those
the angels used and manipulated. She also knew that, riven by her doubts, Joan was no longer such a terrible threat to the cause of Catherine and her fellows.
She wondered again, as she had so many times over the past few months, why the angels
believed they could afford to alienate Joan.
Was Thomas Neville now so much their man?
Catherine frowned slightly. The small amount of news she‘d managed to glean about
Thomas Neville over the past few months indicated anything but that. He‘d abandoned his vows,
and married Margaret Rivers, half-sister to the Demon-King himself, Hal Bolingbroke. Surely
Neville was more in the Bolingbroke camp than in that of the angels?
A particularly intense moan from Marie—more of effort than pain—made Catherine turn
back to the woman. The midwife waiting to catch the child had moved forward now, her hands
held ready, her eyes intent. Marie threw back her head, bearing down with every ounce of
strength that she had.
She gave a sudden wail, almost of surprise, and Catherine saw the baby slither forth.
―‘Tis a girl!‖ cried the midwife, who laid the baby on the waiting linens and was securing
the cord as Marie herself sank down to the floor.
Catherine looked back to Joan.
The girl was staring unblinkingly at the scene before her, her eyes round, almost starting
from her head. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead and cheeks, and Catherine thought them
less a product of the chamber‘s warmth than the intense emotion within Joan herself.
Catherine saw that the cord binding Marie and the baby had now been cut, and the child
was wrapped securely in some linens.
She walked over, and took the child from the midwife. ―I will bring her back
momentarily,‖ she said at Marie‘s murmured protests, then walked slowly back over to Joan.
―See this child?‖ she said, half holding the baby out to Joan, even though she knew Joan
would not take her.
Joan stared down at it, her form trembling slightly.
She was a beautiful child.
Angelic.
And…something else.
―Can you feel what she is?‖ Catherine said softly, so that neither Marie nor the two
midwives could hear.
Joan‘s mouth half opened, and her tongue flickered over her lips. Her lips moved, but no
sound came forth.
She was still staring at the child.
―Can you feel what she is?‖ Catherine said, more forcefully, but still low.
She is a demon, Joan. You can sense that, can”t you?
Joan‘s face twisted in agony, and she finally managed to tear her eyes from the child to
Catherine‘s face.
The lack of malice—worse, the understanding—that Joan saw there appeared to distress
her even more.
―Can you now see,‖ Catherine said, ―how ‗demons‘ come into this world? How is it that
we are hated and vile creatures, Joan, when our only sin has been to be abandoned and loathed
by our fathers? Who is the more hateful, Joan? The child…or the father?‖
―I don‘t…I can‘t…‖ Joan said, then she shuddered so violently that Catherine took some
pity on her.
―Go now,‖ she said. ―I will come to you later, and speak with you honestly.‖
Joan stared at her, blinked, looked once more at the child, then fled the chamber.
Joan stumbled as if blinded through the passages and hallways of Charles‘ palace in
Rheims. She managed to gain her small chamber having fallen only twice, and immediately
groped her way across the darkened room to a small altar in the corner.
―Saint Michael?‖ she whispered. ―Blessed saint?‖
Even now, even though Joan‘s mind knew the corruption of the angels, she refused to
accept it. She wanted the archangel to appear and reassure her. She needed him to demonstrate to
her how she‘d been misled, how she‘d misunderstood, and how there was a reasoned explanation
for all she‘d just witnessed.
After all, surely the ways of the angels were strange to the poor minds of mortal men and
women?
―Saint Michael? Blessed saint… please…I need to hear your—‖
What? My explanation?
Joan‘s head jerked up from where it had been bowed over her clasped hands, but there
was no physical sign of the archangel. No light, no glowing form, nothing but a heavy coldness
that felt as if it had stepped all the way down from heaven.
I owe you nothing, Joan. I care not what you choose to believe. You have proved yourself
fragile and useless. I cannot believe that I ever had faith in you.
―Saint Michael, please—‖
Please what? Do you expect me to explain myself to you? I have finished with you. Done.
―The child. Tell me about the child! ‖
The cold intensified, and Joan gasped with pain as it wrapped itself about her.