Free The Maid by Kimberly Cutter Page A

soon as they'd finished supper, she drew Jehanne down beside the hearth and handed her a cup of hot spiced wine. Durand had already started off for Burey. "I hate to do it, but Marie is waiting on me. The baby could come any time," he'd said gruffly as Jehanne hugged him and hid her sudden flood of tears in the scratchy wool of his cloak. "Be brave now," he'd whispered as he hugged her back. "Show 'em that fire the way you showed me back in Domrémy. They'll all fall at your feet." Now Jehanne took a sip of the wine and smiled politely at Thérèse, but before she could swallow, Thérèse grasped her hand tightly and was looking at her with hungry eyes. "Do you think you can help us, dear? We've had such a bad time here these last months. I can't tell you what a time."
    Thérèse's sixteen-year-old son, André, had been killed during the siege of Vaucouleurs. The siege that Sir Robert had only been able to end by promising the Burgundians that the army of Vaucouleurs would stay out of the rest of the war. "They shot him with a cannonball," Thérèse said, blinking and looking at the ceiling. "We can't keep letting them get away with this. It's just—" She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence.
    Jehanne was silent. Finally she said that she wanted badly to help the people of Vaucouleurs, but that there was nothing she could do until she had won Sir Robert's support. "Judging from the way things went today, it could take a while."
    Thérèse squinted at her. "You've seen him already?"
    "Did Durand not tell you?"
    Thérèse shook her head, a puzzled look on her face. "He said it might be some time before Sir Robert would see you and that you needed a place to stay while you waited."
    Jehanne smiled and shook her head. "We saw him this afternoon," she said. "He told Durand that I should be taken home and beaten."
    Thérèse laughed, a high, slightly alarmed sound. "Goodness," she said. "That's not a very good start, is it?"
    Jehanne said that it was not. "I'll convince him though," she said. "I just need more time."
    Thérèse looked at her. Lowered her voice. "I hate to say this, but from what I hear, the only women Sir Robert listens to are the ones he's sleeping with."
    Jehanne's nostrils flared. "I can't do that."
    Thérèse blinked. "Of course not," she said hastily. "I didn't mean to suggest ..." Abruptly she smiled and clapped her hands against her thighs. Spoke in a bright, remote tone. "Well, it's wonderful to have you here. I know we're going to be great friends."

34
    It was weeks before Sir Robert would see her again. Cold, endless weeks. Rain pouring down every day. Darkness falling right after the midday meal. Jehanne fought the darkness in her own heart, the voices that promised disaster if she did not make it to Chinon before mid-Lent.
    She spent most of her time in the church that sat beside Sir Robert's castle, praying. Up the long, steep cobbled hill she walked every day at dawn, her steps quick and intent, nimble as a goat.
Come, my love,
she thought.
Lend me your strength.
    People stared at her. Their eyes on her ragged red dress, her fevered face, her determined walk. She smiled at those who met her gaze, walked past the rest as if she didn't see them. She turned her eyes to the sky.
    The church was a dark, shadowed place, built of brown stone with high and narrow green stained-glass windows and lit by a forest of tall, slender candles. Jehanne's boot heels tapped on the smooth stone floor as she walked toward the altar of Saint Michael, the taps echoing in the high rafters of the building, a thrilling, solemn sound that made her feel as if she were in a play. At the altar she lit a candle and added it to the flickering forest. Then she knelt and prayed, her breath coming out in small white puffs, the tender yellow candle flames trembling above her head.
    And it was always after she'd surrendered that the saints would come. Always after she thought,
Well, maybe not today,
and accepted it, felt her