Free Sparrow by Michael Morpurgo

Dauphin, but the crowds that clamoured after her wherever she went. Just to ride alongside her through the people dispelled any lingering doubts he might have had. He could see for himself how fervent was their faith in her, how she had renewed their spirits and their hope. She was hailed everywhere as the God-sent saviour of France. So,at long last, and to Joan’s great joy, he gave the word that she was to have all she needed, that no more obstacles should be put in her way, that the army should be made ready to march on Orléans.
    More new joys awaited her, and unexpected ones, too. Knowing how said it made her to be away from her family, how she missed them, the Duc d’Alençon had sent for her brothers, Pierre and Jean, without telling her. They arrived one day at Chinon and the Duc d’Alençon led them at once to her tower. When all the tears and hugging were over, Pierre noticed Belami perched by the fire warming himself.
    “You haven’t still got that infernal bird, have you?” he said.
    “Yes,” said Joan, “and my skirt too.” And she threw her cloak about her shoulders. “See? They’re all I have left of home – but now, God be thanked,I have you as well. And Father, Mother – are they angry with me for leaving you all so suddenly and without asking, without even saying goodbye?”
    “No Joan, not any more,” said Jean. “They are proud of you, so proud, as we are.”
    Wherever she went now her brothers rode with her, along with the Duc d’Alençon, Jean de Metz, Bertrand, and Richard the Archer as her bodyguard. She also had two heralds who went ahead of her, and, of course, young Louis who never let her out of his sight.
    The Duc d’Alençon arranged for the best armourer in Tours to make her a suit of armour. She wanted it plain, she insisted, with no arms emblazoned. And so it was done. He had a lance made for her, too, and a battleaxe. The armourer wanted to make her a sword as well, but she refused.
    “My old sword from Vaucouleurs I shall give tomy page, Louis. He has often asked for it so that he can protect me,” she told him. “My new sword, the sword I shall take into battle, was forged in heaven.” The armourer may have been amazed at this, but such was his faith in her, he did not for one moment doubt her. “So you need not make me a sword. But you can fetch it for me, if you will. Go to Fierbois, to the chapel of the blessed St Catherine. Tell the priests – they will know me for I was there not long ago – tell them to dig down into the ground behind the altar. There they will find a sword. It will be engraved with five crosses. It may well be a little bit rusty, but the rust will come away easily enough.”
    So he went, and sure enough, just as she had predicted, that was exactly where the priests found it. When the armourer had cleaned it up, he brought it back to her at Chinon with twoscabbards, one of crimson velvet – a present from the people of Tours – and another in a cloth of gold that he had made himself.
    “Too fancy. Both of them are too fancy,” she said to Louis when the armourer had gone. “I shall have a leather one made like all the other soldiers.”
    The ladies at Chinon made her a standard to her own design: white for purity, with fleur de lys, and two angels embroidered on it, and ‘Jhesus Maria’ in large letters, for this was her motto, her battle cry. It was now the battle cry throughout the French army as they set out at long last on the march to Orléans, with Joan at their head and Belami riding high and happy on the point of her standard.
    Joan slept every night in her chain armour, to get used to it. She ate with her soldiers and prayed with her soldiers too. Priests went ahead of them singing Non Nobis and the Te Deum . She let it beknown that because her army was fighting in the name of God there would be no swearing, no looting, no womanising. She would have none of it. Even amongst all the great nobles and dukes and marshals –