Embers - A Story of the Remain of Joan of Arc

Embers

by Mary Longe

Dried pus sealed tight my left eye like wax on an advocate’s packet. The socket enveloped a sickness I could only have contracted from the horrid sights within those walls, my pied-à-terre for more than a year. It is without regret my nose long ago blocked the putrid odors of men’s feces and rotting limbs even if blocking the too rare sweet air of spring and blooms. My back,paining, crippled and gnarled like an old tree trunk and my arms and feet shredded raw from lugging jugs and buckets of water from first light to last, up steps and down dark stony passages. Yet today, freedom heals, freedom speaks, freedom brings truth.

My own story, my people, my village provide no insight into this tale.  Where this story starts or where it ends hardly matters.  The meaning… the consequence… the life of this story is in the listening. And, if by chance the story is taken far from here by birds or clouds or drops of rain and even by yourself, this story lives and so shall I.

The very fact that there is an ear to hear this whisper of a tale is a miracle. My patron, whose life is now with God, for God hears prayer in shrieks of agony. It is a story that needs little more than, if you please, a sip of water - precious water for my parched lips, so I may tell the story and air the miracle at last. And, please, please before I begin, tell me the date… is it still May?  Your nod, halleluiah! Your nod allows me the light, warmth and fragrance of freedom. I have no time, no spirit, no need to begrudge or say another word of the lost seasons I spent in the dark.

I was a soldier, in the siege of Orleans with our God given leader Jeanne d’Arc from Domremy. God bless her soul. You’ve heard tales of her? Yes? When she took up the sword of France, she took up the sword of our Lord, gave up the hair of a maiden and donned the armor of a nobleman’s son. Despite the despair in each man’s breath in that fight, only she breathed hope.  In victory, she mended our country torn by sixty years of war with English dogs. In that victory over them, she mended and strengthened France. She is our Maid of Orleans. May her soul rest in peace. Today she is dead, la morte. She is with God. Why you ask?

Celebration didn’t last. Weak old men, close to the French throne sold her to the English. They feared her army’s love for her. They feared a girl would overshadow the people’s loyalty to France. The English wanted to be rid of her more than the Crown wanted her gone. They saw that in only months she brought fractured France together after lifetimes of war. Now, no one, French or English wants her story told.

Putain de merde! In my heart she is a saint with miracles to prove it. I am her living miracle.

When she was seized, those near her were taken prisoner as well. For months I was condemned to a life spent as Sisyphus climbing not a mountain but steps made from ochre earth on the battered backs of previous prisoners in Philippe Auguste’s castle. I carried pots of water to the cooks with fingers burned and blistered. I hauled water in skins across my back like a mountain ass to the scrubbers whose own skin was obliterated from lye wash. I lugged water to quench the thirst of guards high in the rafters, though I must admit, I added a bit of my own piss to cleanse their souls, heh, heh.  And, as I could, I collected rags - pieces of shirts from bodies stacked for Saint-Ouen cemetery, and soaked them for my brothers long kenneled in their cells to suck dry.  I tossed them between the bars onto the withered shit-filled grasses so no guard would hear a splat on stone. I thank mon Dieu for my back breaking task. It gave me water to drink. It gave me life. It gave me strength for more drudgery.

My miracle comes from rising before the cock crows, before the cooks can make their gruel, before the matins bells call the monks of the monastery to prayer.  Being half blind, unable to smell and no longer able to stand straight from the months of hauling water, was not nearly enough to protect my senses from the task that bartered my freedom from the prison walls.  Such great joy, such hope I grasped as Rousset, the night guard who laughed at my funny faces and jokes took pity on me, or so I thought, for a task beyond the prison walls, and a promise of being set free. My elation was short lived as the chore became clear.

Gaillard and I, yoked together like oxen, pulled a wood cart creaking at the weight of four barrels of water, through crooked cobbled streets to Place du Vieux-Marché, the market square in the center of Rouen. It was slow going. Words of venom spat in our direction silenced as the throng around us recognized our petit battalion led by Rousset. He, dressed in war-tattered armor, waved a farmer’s-sword, a rake, dripping with fresh blood from the arms and calves of those who didn’t move in time. Gaillard and I followed, dressed in the rags you see, each wearing a scarf with the King’s colors draped on us before we left the castle by the gravedigger returning from burying soldiers. A tidy band were we, heh, heh.

The streets widened as we rounded the corner, screams of agony bounced from side to side off stonewalls surrounding the marché. A massive, smoky, smoldering pyre came into view and Rousset revealed in full our chore. Air escaped my lungs as I gasped the horror of the job that lay before us. Gaillard and I were to sift through the embers of the pyre to locate all remains of the Maid of Orleans, Jeanne d’Arc - the one to whom I pledged my allegiance, the one whom I followed and for whom I was incarcerated. The One, with whom I wished I could change places.

Weeks before, the Maid and our band were taken to the castle where she remained with us for a time. I happily took water to where I believe she was imprisoned, though I was only allowed in an outer chamber where brocade hung and guards in armor stood at doors. Early on in my imprisonment, I learned to embody a dog. Can you just see me? I hung my head and hugged the walls as I went throughout the castle. From that canine view, I saw priests and judicials in rich vetements and jewels watchfully waiting, wringing their hands and pacing. Then, just a few mornings ago, in my first climb of the day, I found the chamber closed off and the people gone. I heard gossip that our Maid was removed.

As our band of three approached the death circle we heard whispers from the crowd of the days since she was taken away.  A sentence of burning at the stake came after Jeane d’Arc was tricked by those who wanted her out of the way. Rousset, a soldier, from a country village was as much awed by the noise and crowds we encountered as Gaillard and me. Like a guide he pointed out the Cardinal of Winchester, the man who sentenced the Maid, sitting high on a dais across the square to observe the egregious deed.  

People wailing, praying, screaming infused the execution place. Those that designed this torture selected a piece of oak for the stake. The hard, dense wood burned slower and lasted longer than the tinder that was Jeanne d’Arc. They bound and chained her to allow no escape. The Maid’s brothers and father were held back by swords as they begged the guards for her life and then her remains. I looked directly at her face for the first time since we were taken into custody. I am grateful only one eye is etched with the sight of her flesh scorched and rolled like the skin of a bird. Not having eaten more than mouthfuls of gruel for months, my nose so long blocked by the stench from within the walls, forgive me Lord, for conjuring for one second the smell of succulent meat and in the next second for my shame at the thought. Voracious flames ate her clothing, a remnant of an alb glued by sweat or blood clung to her shoulders and saved under her arms where her limbs bound to the post.  A la merci de mon Dieu. Jeanne D’arc’s howling prayers subsided as she left consciousness to earth.  

Rousset drew us close to say that all traces of the Maid would be considered relics by her followers. They knew that death would keep her alive. This 19 year old girl-boy, saint-witch brought new life to France. Her voices, her graces make her more powerful than those she fought for – and so they turned on her, killed her yet failed miserably at destroying her. The authorities declared every morsel of her must be gathered and secured immediately at any cost. I realized, at any cost meant-our lives. 

Gaillard and I were instructed to collect every hair, every thread of clothing, every shard of bone or fabric of flesh. We were promised to be set free after we gathered all parts of her from the tops of the pyre. Piss dripped down my legs as I realized that Rousset spoke of being set free into the arms of mon Dieu.

Flesh gone, her bones crumpled. Soldiers stoked the fire to finish the deed. We waited. Once the flames ceased, soldiers prodded our task. The slightest raking brought the fire alive and screams from the crowd. Taking a step on the coals, my own feet stung, I bellowed for water. The crowd closed in and the guards pushed back. I knew right then, I would see mon Dieu too soon if I could not complete this task. I sought calm.

Worn thin from months on the battlefield and grinding on the prison stone floors my boots offered little to protect my feet. I took the scarf from my neck and wound it around the largest hole where my foot met earth.  I inhaled. I gritted my teeth and exhaled and stared at the living embers. The crowd took pity on me. Someone tossed an unburnt log for me to place my foot.  A kind soul placed a cool stone for me to climb closer. My weight on one step shifted, sparks flew, like sand the embers sunk rolled. The hair on my calves caught fire.

Rousset reached across the heat to hand me a sharp knife with a deer antler handle. With one swipe I set what was left of her free. I placed the knife into the shreds of my uniform britches. Still on the embers, I pulled on scraps of material near her neck. One arm flung around like milkweed torn from its root. Her fists gnarled and intertwined separated with a thump and clobbered me. I stood stunned. Only I could see that imprinted the image of Jesus on what was left of her hand. It was more perfect than any likeness I had seen in cathedrals. Jesus stood, as if walking away from the cross, harms raised but in his martyrdom. They were instead a welcome embrace. A sign from mon Dieu.  Hope refilled my heart as my legs burned.

With a poke from a soldier, Gaiillard tossed a log where he could step and removed his shirt to use it to proteck his and reached for the Maid’s on the Maid’s other side, Rousset reached up with the shroud to use like a cook’s rag to touch the still hot places on her torso.  I smelled new flesh burning and felt my heels seering. Raising what little that remained of her in my arms away from the stake, away from the heat, the crowd and guards became quiet. Dizziness overcame my body, I lost my balance and fell to one knee. The crowd screamed as I did, a soldier nearby jeered. Gaillard pulled the body to him and tossed the shroud for me to regain my footing.  

With the gruesome remains in our arms, Gaillard and I jumped from the pyre, placed the Maid’s body gently in the cart and wrapped her in the scorched shroud. The crowd swarmed the cart like vicious bees, Rousset swatting them away to little avail and separating Gaillard and me too. The mass pushed me back toward the embers. I crouched low like the dog form I took in the castle. A glint in the embers caught my eye. Risking the heat, I picked it up and without further thought, I ran into the crowd.  

Along the way, I draped a flag that a reveler dropped over my shoulders to cover the dregs of tattered uniform, soot and prison garb. I walked with crowds that diminished at each road we crossed and followed the first path into the forest that no one else claimed as their own, in order to stay off the road. With one step, I prayed for the soul of my Maid and with the next that my family remained safe.

It’s here, that you found me madame, resting on a fallen tree trunk too tired yet to take a drink from the river just beyond. Thank you for your care in listening to my tale. I’m still much aggrieved in and horrified at losing my little Maid of Orleans.  I’m eternally grateful to you for sharing a bite of cheese and a taste of bread. I feel like a new man. You have saved me, given me the sustenance to go on. Indeed, madame, a new man. Tears of joy let me now see clearly from both eyes, the pus is gone. Look, my feet have no signs of burned flesh, yet they sunk into the embers as we freed the Maid of Orleans. For the first time in months, the fragrance of the trees and the musty earth fill my nose and chest.  Only this searing pain in my palm is the slightest reminder of what she suffered as she was devoured by the embers. Oh, madame, please look at my hand. Here is the same opened arm Jesus, I saw on my Maid’s hand.  Here is the very cross she held to her death. It’s given me new life on my path home.