“Without the English there would be no uprisings and no murder,” Catherine said, her eyes still on Thomas. “Your kind are eating our country and its people alive, sirrah.” Thomas did not reply, for there was nothing he could say.
Catherine opened her mouth to speak again, but just as she did so her face paled even further and she swayed alarmingly on her horse.
One of the men-at-arms steadied her, and Charles, surprising himself, managed to take the initiative.
“We must rest,” he said to de Noyes, “for we have ridden over two days without stop. Is the manor house habitable?” “Yes, your grace.” As Charles moved to give the order to ride up the hill, de Noyes turned and spoke quickly and quietly to Thomas.
“If you value your life, brother, I would hasten your departure. Once the Princess Catherine recovers…”
Thomas nodded and, as the Dauphin’s party rode away, turned and walked toward his own horse.
He would be more than glad to leave this place of death.
CHARLES AND his sister rested twenty-four hours in the Lescolopier manor house before they resumed their ride southeast to the cliff-top fortification of la Roche-Guyon. When they left, de Noyes rode with them.
At dusk on the first day back on the road they came upon an extraordinary sight.
A young peasant man stood in the center of the roadway, holding a mule so that their path was blocked.
One of the escort rode forward, intending to strike them away.
But before his raised fist could descend, the peasant spoke up.
“You are Charles, grandson of John,” said the peasant, and both Charles and Catherine were astounded to hear a girl’s voice from the man’s clothing.
“And you are beloved of God,” the girl continued. “I am here to lead you to victory.”
Catherine would have laughed aloud, but Charles leaned forward eagerly. “Who are you?” he said.
“My name is Jeannette d’Arc,” she said.
Catherine’s mouth twisted grimly. The man-at-arms should have struck her before she spoke!
“Well, Joan of Arc,” Catherine said, “you speak out of turn, I think. Be on your way, and we will disregard the matter.”
Joan turned surprisingly calm and steady eyes to the princess. “You have been misled,” she said, “if you think your current station in life is your correct one. You are not where you should be.”
Catherine reeled back in her saddle, more frightened and angry than she had ever been in her entire life. Witch!
Joan switched her gaze to Charles who, unlike his sister, regarded her with rapture.
“I am beloved of God?” he said.
“Yes. I am here to lead you to a victory against the devils from beyond the narrow seas.”
Charles laughed, a little too loudly, and thumped his saddle with a clenched fist. He turned to his sister. “Well, what think you of that, Catherine?”
But Catherine could say nothing, only stare at the girl-woman before them.
“You go to la Roche-Guyon,” Joan said. “That is a good place to begin.”
And so saying, she turned, climbed on her mule, and led the royal party deeper into France, Catherine’s sharp eyes on her back the entire way.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Vigil of the Feast of St. Michael
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Tuesday 28th September
— I —
THOMAS KNEW THAT the most sensible thing would be to avoid Paris completely… but he wanted to see for himself what was happening there.
And what part Etienne Marcel played in the revolt.
Thomas had no doubt now that the troubles in Paris, as in the surrounding countryside, were part of the evil spread by the demons, and he knew he could not ride away from them.
It was always better to know your foe intimately than to spend your time guessing from a safe distance.
Signs of trouble increased the closer Thomas rode to Paris: manors burning, gangs of peasants roaming lanes and by-ways (they stayed off the main road as there were still many bands of men-at-arms riding east, presumably to join up with the Dauphin), and crops and livestock standing unattended in fields. Thomas was not troubled himself, and he assumed that as a poor traveling friar the rebels would have no interest in him.
Within a day of Paris Thomas encountered large groups of men and women fleeing the city with whatever of their goods they could manage to stuff into carts.
They were pale and silent, refusing to answer Thomas’ questions.
His concerns grew, but so too did his resolve. Paris held answers to questions he needed answered, and he could no more avoid Paris than he could his own conscience.
By the Vigil of Michaelmas Thomas was within a few hours of the city. He could see it dimly ahead, a gray haze on the horizon.
Distance haze, or smoke?
Thomas slid a hand into a pocket of his robe and fingered the seal ring Marcel had
given him. God only knew if it could still afford him protection … or if it might, in fact, call more harm on his head.
He no longer trusted Marcel.
Thomas had seen Paris once before, some ten years ago. Then it had been a vibrant community of noise, commerce, bells and colorful banners, if also narrow streets so bestrewn with animal dung that passage through them was both difficult and odoriferous.
As he drew his horse to a halt some half a mile out, Thomas saw that the city had been heavily fortified. At least it was not on fire as he had first thought. The walls, once somewhat neglected, had been patched and strengthened. Guards and archers stalked their heights. Wooden towers that Thomas could not remember previously now rose from key points along the walls, and he could see that they bristled with the machinery and weapons to repel sieges. Thomas’ eyes narrowed. This was not the result of a hasty rebellion, but of years of planning.
He remembered his last conversation with Marcel: the hatred and resentment the provost had revealed toward the established authorities … the ambition behind that resentment.
“God help you, Etienne,” Thomas whispered, “if somehow you are involved in this.”
Because if Marcel was behind this revolt—a revolt that struck at the heart of God’s established hierarchy on earth—it meant that he must be a subordinate to Satan, if not a demon himself.
Thomas clucked to his horse, and the creature moved forward. His head was high, his ears pricked, and Thomas realized that the horse knew that his home stable was nigh.
He was Marcel’s horse, after all.
THOMAS MANAGED to approach the northeastern gate, the Porte Babette, without any difficulty, but he was stopped some twenty paces out by a surly group of armed townsmen.
Rebels.
“Are you truly a priest?” a burly and heavily bearded man asked, a tanner by trade from the smell that lifted off him like a noxious miasma. “Or a spy of the cursed Prince Charles, or even of the devil-damned English?”
“If I spy,” Thomas remarked mildly, “then I spy only on God’s behalf.”
He leaned forward over his saddle, ignoring the man’s repellent smell. “Should I suspect you, my good man, of working for those forces ranged against God and all his saints in heaven?”
Thomas’ tone had harshened as he spoke, and the tanner stepped back, a lifetime’s fear of Dominican inquisitors taking automatic hold.
“These are difficult times,” said another man, better dressed and spoken. He stepped past the tanner, and looked Thomas in the eye. “I am Jean Daumier, a Master of the Wool Merchant’s Guild, and I speak with the authority of those now in
control of Paris. What do you here, brother friar? What business do you have that you demand entrance to our city?”
Thomas sat back in the saddle, his eyes never leaving Daumier’s face, and slipped a hand into the pocket of his robes.
Instantly men’s faces and bodies stiffened.
“I have no weapon,” Thomas said, and slowly withdrew his hand. “Merely this.”
And he held out his hand, palm facing upward. In its center sat Marcel’s seal.
Daumier’s eyes widened when he saw it. “Where did you get that!” he said, his voice betraying anger and outrage.
“I was given it by the man I wish to see,” Thomas said. “The provost, Etienne Marcel… if he still lives amid this Godforsaken revolt.”
Daumier’s face still reflected suspicion, but he waved the armed men around him back a few steps. “I will take responsibility for him,” he said, and took the ring from Thomas’ hand. “But beware, brother, if you come in ill will. These are terrible days, and tempers are short. Be careful. Now get down from your horse. One of my comrades here will see to his safety and care. We must needs use our feet to get to our destination.”
DAUMIER LED Thomas through the gate—just in time, for steps to close it against the night (and likely attack) were already underway—and led him, not down the main thoroughfare leading to the central districts of Paris, but down a narrow winding street that followed the inner line of the city walls.