BooksBarbecue
Back Joan Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Cover
  2. Epigraph
  3. CAST OF CHARACTERS
  4. Map
  5. Part One
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. VII
  13. Part Two
  14. I
  15. II
  16. III
  17. IV
  18. V
  19. VI
  20. VII
  21. VIII
  22. IX
  23. X
  24. Part Three
  25. I
  26. II
  27. III
  28. IV
  29. V
  30. Part Four
  31. I
  32. II
  33. III
  34. IV
  35. V
  36. VI
  37. EPILOGUE
  38. afterword
  39. Dedication
  40. acknowledgments
  41. By Katherine J. Chen
  42. about the author
  43. What’s next onyour reading list?

After Poitiers, she traveled to Orléans, stopping at Tours and Blois for supplies. She thought there would be fighting as soon as she reached Orléans, but her squire informed her that while the English numbers were strong, they hadn’t enough men to cover every gate in the city. So, through the Saint-Aignan gate, she arrived with her small household. A train of supplies followed. It was already dark, yet the city, lit with torches, was as bright as morning. Some people held candles, the last stubs from their cupboards, to light her way. Fathers lifted their children, bleary-eyed with sleep, to watch her. She saw a man mouth the word “angel” into his daughter’s ear. She saw they were hungry, that some were ill, and they were tired of living under siege with the English at their backs. They wanted something to believe in and were ready to believe in anything, even ancient prophecies from the wizard Merlin and the Venerable Bede. She saw they were ready to believe in her.

II

News of the victory at Saint Loup spreads, and the next morning a crowd of men gather to hear Joan speak. They are not soldiers but citizens of Orléans: bakers and blacksmiths, tailors and goldsmiths, cobblers, lawyers, tanners, butchers and their apprentices. She faces them, suited in her armor, which her pages have polished so that the white steel plates reflect the sun, and she is as bright as a flaming star.

She is on eye level with these men. No dais. No stage. No horse. She moves through them as she talks. She touches their bony shoulders, clasps their skeletal arms, and looks into their hollow eyes. Orléans is a city of over thirty thousand. The supplies and livestock she had brought nearly a week ago are far from enough.

“You are men of the city of Orléans,” she says. “A great city. One of the finest cities of this kingdom. And I know you are hungry. I know you are ill and sick with worry for your families, your friends, your neighbors. I, too, have felt hunger. On the day the English invaded my village, I was in the throes of a fever. I was near death. And I could do nothing to defend my home. When my family fled the village, I could not even walk. I had become a burden to the ones I loved.”