Chapter 5. The Maid

The Path of the King

by John Buchan

The hostel of the Ane Raye poured from its upper and lower windows
a flood of light into the gathering August dusk. It stood, a little
withdrawn among its beeches, at a cross-roads, where the main route
southward from the Valois cut the highway from Paris to Rheims and
Champagne. The roads at that hour made ghostly white ribbons, and the
fore-court of dusty grasses seemed of a verdure which daylight would
disprove. Weary horses nuzzled at a watertrough, and serving-men in a
dozen liveries made a bustle around the stables, which formed two
sides of the open quadrangle. At the foot of the inn signpost beggars
squatted--here a leper whining monotonously, there lustier vagrants
dicing for supper. At the main door a knot of young squires stood
talking in whispers--impatient, if one judged from the restless clank
of metal, but on duty, as appeared when a new-comer sought entrance
and was brusquely denied. For in an upper room there was business of
great folk, and the commonalty must keep its distance.

That upper room was long and low-ceiled, with a canopied bed in
a corner and an oaken table heaped with saddle-bags. A woman sat in a
chair by the empty hearth, very bright and clear in the glow of the
big iron lantern hung above the chimney. She was a tall girl,
exquisitely dressed, from the fine silk of her horned cap to the
amethyst buckles on her Spanish shoes. The saddle-bags showed that
she was fresh from a journey, but her tirewoman's hands must have
been busy, for she bore no marks of the road.

Her chin was in her hands, and the face defined by the slim
fingers was small and delicate, pale with the clear pallor of perfect
health, and now slowly flushing to some emotion. The little chin was
firm, but the mouth was pettish. Her teeth bit on a gold chain, which
encircled her neck and held a crystal reliquary. A spoiled pretty
child, she looked, and in a mighty ill temper.

The cause of it was a young man who stood disconsolately by a
settle a little way out of the lantern's glow. The dust of the white
roads lay on his bodyarmour and coated the scabbard of his great
sword. He played nervously with the plume of a helmet which lay on
the settle, and lifted his face now and then to protest a word. It
was an honest face, ruddy with wind and sun and thatched with hair
which his mislikers called red but his friends golden.

The girl seemed to have had her say. She turned wearily aside,
and drew the chain between her young lips with a gesture of
despair.

"Since when have you become Burgundian, Catherine?" the young
man asked timidly. The Sieur Guy de Laval was most notable in the
field but he had few arts for a lady's chamber.

"I am no Burgundian," she said, "but neither am I Armagnac. What
concern have we in these quarrels? Let the Kings who seek thrones do
the fighting. What matters it to us whether knock-kneed Charles or
fat Philip reign in Paris?"

The young man shuddered as if at a blasphemy "This is our
country of France. I would rid it of the English and all foreign
bloodsuckers "

"And your way is to foment the quarrel among Frenchmen? You are
a fool, Guy. Make peace with Burgundy and in a month there will be no
Goddams left in France."

"It is the voice of La Tremouille."

"It is the voice of myself, Catherine of Beaumanoir. And if my
kinsman of La Tremouille say the same, the opinion is none the worse
for that. You meddle with matters beyond your understanding.... But
have done with statecraft, for that is not the heart of my complaint.
You have broken your pledged word, sir. Did you not promise me when
you set out that you would abide the issue of the Bourbon's battle
before you took arms? Yet I have heard of you swashbuckling in that
very fight at Rouvray, and only the miracle of God brought you out
with an unbroken neck."

"The Bourbon never fought," said de Laval sullenly. "Only
Stewart and his Scots stood up against Fastolf's spears. You would
not have me stay idle in face of such odds. I was not the only French
knight who charged. There was La Hire and de Saintrailles and the
Bastard himself."

"Yet you broke your word," was the girl's cold answer. "Your
word to me. You are forsworn, sir."

The boy's face flushed deeply. "You do not understand, my sweet
Catherine. There have been mighty doings in Touraine, which you have
not heard of in Picardy. Miracles have come to pass. Orleans has been
saved, and there is now a great army behind Charles. In a little
while we shall drive the English from Paris, and presently into the
sea. There is hope now and a clear road for us Frenchmen. We have
heard the terrible English 'Hurra' grow feeble, and 'St. Denis' swell
like a wind in heaven. For God has sent us the Maid...."

The girl had risen and was walking with quick, short steps from
hearth to open window.

"Tell me of this maid," she commanded.

"Beyond doubt she is a daughter of God," said de Laval.

"Beyond doubt. But I would hear more of her."

Her tone was ominously soft, and the young man was deceived by
it. He launched into a fervid panegyric of Jeanne of Arc. He told of
her doings at Orleans, when her standard became the oriflamme of
France, and her voice was more stirring than trumpets; of her
gentleness and her wisdom. He told of his first meeting with her,
when she welcomed him in her chamber. "She sent for wine and said
that soon she would drink it with me in Paris. I saw her mount a
plunging black horse, herself all in white armour, but unhelmeted.
Her eyes were those of a great captain, and yet merciful and mild
like God's Mother. The sight of her made the heart sing like a May
morning. No man could fear death in her company. They tell how . .
."

But he got no farther. The girl's face was pale with fury, and
she tore at her gold neck-chain till it snapped.

"Enough of your maid!" she cried. "Maid, forsooth! The shame of
her has gone throughout the land. She is no maid, but a witch, a
light-of-love, a blasphemer. By the Rood, Sir Guy, you choose this
instant between me and your foul peasant. A daughter of Beaumanoir
does not share her lover with a crack-brained virago."

The young man had also gone pale beneath his sunburn. "I will
not listen," he cried. "You blaspheme a holy angel."

"But listen you shall," and her voice quivered with passion. She
marched up to him and faced him, her slim figure as stiff as a spear.
"This very hour you break this mad allegiance and conduct me home to
Beaumanoir. Or, by the Sorrows of Mary, you and I will never meet
again."

De Laval did not speak, but stood gazing sadly at the angry
loveliness before him. His own face had grown as stubborn as hers.

"You do not know what you ask," he said at length. "You would
have me forswear my God, and my King, and my manhood."

"A fig for such manhood," she cried with ringing scorn. "If that
is a man's devotion, I will end my days in a nunnery. I will have
none of it, I tell you. Choose, my fine lover choose between me and
your peasant."

The young man looked again at the blazing eyes and then without
a word turned slowly and left the room. A moment later the sound of
horses told that a company had taken the road

The girl stood listening till the noise died away. Then she sank
all limp in a chair and began to cry. There was wrath in her sobs,
and bitter self-pity. She had made a fine tragedy scene, but the
glory of it was short. She did not regret it, but an immense
dreariness had followed on her heroics. Was there ever, she asked
herself, a more unfortunate lady?

And she had been so happy. Her lover was the bravest gallant
that ever came out of Brittany; rich too, and well beloved, and kin
to de Richemont, the Constable. In the happy days at Beaumanoir he
was the leader in jousts and valiances, the soul of hunting parties,
the lightest foot in the dance. The Beaumanoirs had been a sleepy
stock, ever since that Sir Aimery, long ago, who had gone crusading
with Saint Louis and ridden out of the ken of mortals. Their wealth
had bought them peace, and they had kept on good terms alike with
France and Burgundy, and even with the unruly captains of England.
Wars might sweep round their marches, but their fields were
unravaged. Shrewd, peaceable folk they were, at least the males of
the house. The women had been different, for the daughters of
Beaumanoir had been notable for beauty and wit and had married
proudly, till the family was kin to half the nobleness of Artois and
Picardy and Champagne. There was that terrible great-aunt at Coucy,
and the aunts at Beaulieu and Avranches, and the endless cousinhood
stretching as far south as the Nivernais.... And now the main stock
had flowered in her, the sole child of her father, and the best match
to be found that side of the Loire.

She sobbed in the chagrin of a new experience. No one in her
soft cushioned life had ever dared to gainsay her. At Beaumanoir her
word was law. She had loved its rich idleness for the power it gave
her. Luxurious as she was, it was no passive luxury that she craved,
but the sense of mastery, of being a rare thing set apart. The spirit
of the women of Beaumanoir burned fiercely in her. . . She longed to
set her lover in the forefront of the world. Let him crusade if he
chose, but not in a beggars' quarrel. And now the palace of glass was
shivered, and she was forsaken for a peasant beguine. The thought set
her pacing to the window.

There seemed to be a great to-do without. A dozen lanterns lit
up the forecourt, and there was a tramping of many horses. A
shouting, too, as if a king were on the move. She hurriedly dried her
eyes and arranged her dress, tossing the reliquary and its broken
chain on the table. Some new guests; and the inn was none too large.
She would have the landlord flayed if he dared to intrude on the
privacy which she had commanded. Nay, she would summon her people
that instant and set off for home, for her company was strong enough
to give security in the midnight forests.

She was about to blow a little silver whistle to call her
steward when a step at the door halted her. A figure entered, a
stranger. It was a tall stripling, half armed like one who is not for
battle but expects a brush at any corner of the road. A long surcoat
of dark green and crimson fell stiffy as if it covered metal, and the
boots were spurred and defended in front with thin plates of steel.
The light helm was open and showed a young face. The stranger moved
wearily as if from a long journey.

"Good even to you, sister," said the voice, a musical voice with
the broad accent of Lorraine. "Help me to get rid of this weariful
harness."

Catherine's annoyance was forgotten in amazement. Before she
knew what she did her fingers were helping the bold youth to disarm.
The helm was removed, the surcoat was stripped, and the steel corslet
beneath it. With a merry laugh the stranger kicked off the great
boots which were too wide for his slim legs.

He stretched himself, yawning, and then laughed again. "By my
staff," he said, "but I am the weary one." He stood now in the full
glow of the lantern, and Catherine saw that he wore close-fitting
breeches of fine linen, a dark pourrpoint, and a tunic of blue. The
black hair was cut short like a soldier's, and the small secret face
had the clear tan of one much abroad in wind and sun. The eyes were
tired and yet merry, great grey eyes as clear and deep as a moorland
lake. . . . Suddenly she understood. It may have been the sight of
the full laughing lips, or the small maidenly breasts outlined by the
close-fitting linen. At any rate she did not draw back when the
stranger kissed her cheek.

"Ah, now I am woman again," said the crooning voice. The
unbuckled sword in its leather sheath was laid on the table beside
the broken reliquary. "Let us rest side by side, sister, for I long
for maids' talk."

But now Catherine started and recoiled. For on the blue tunic
she had caught sight of an embroidered white dove bearing in its beak
the scroll De par le Roy du ciel. It was a blazon the tale of which
had gone through France.

"You are she!" she stammered. "The witch of Lorraine!"

The other looked wonderingly at her. "I am Jeanne of Arc," she
said simply. "She whom they call the Pucelle. Do you shrink from me,
sister?"

Catherine's face was aflame. She remembered her lost lover, and
the tears scarcely dry. "Out upon you!" she cried. "You are that
false woman that corrupt men's hearts." And again her fingers sought
the silver whistle.

Jeanne looked sadly upon her. Her merry eyes had grown grave.

"I pray you forbear. I do not heed the abuse of men, but a
woman's taunts hurt me. They have spoken falsely of me, dear sister.
I am no witch, but a poor girl who would fain do the commands of
God."

She sank on the settle with the relaxed limbs of utter fatigue.
"I was happy when they told me there was a lady here. I bade Louis
and Raymond and the Sieur d'Aulon leave me undisturbed till morning,
for I would fain rest. Oh, but I am weary of councils! They are all
blind. They will not hear the plain wishes of God.... And I have so
short a time! Only a year, and now half is gone!"

The figure had lost all its buoyancy, and become that of a sad,
overwrought girl. Catherine found her anger ebbing and pity stealing
into her heart. Could this tired child be the virago against whom she
had sworn vengeance? It had none of a woman's allure' no arts of the
light-of-love. Its eyes were as simple as a boy's.... She looked
almost kindly at the drooping Maid.

But in a moment the languor seemed to pass from her. Her face
lit up, as to the watcher in the darkness a window in a tower
suddenly becomes a square of light. She sank on her knees, her head
thrown back, her lips parted, the long eyelashes quiet on her cheeks.
A sudden stillness seemed to fall on everything. Catherine held her
breath, and listened to the beating of her heart.

Jeanne's lips moved, and then her eyes opened. She stood up
again, her face entranced and her gaze still dwelling on some hidden
world. . . Never had Catherine seen such happy radiance.

"My Brothers of Paradise spoke with me. They call me sometimes
when I am sad. Their voices said to me, 'Daughter of God, go forward.
We are at your side.'"

Catherine trembled. She seemed on the edge of a world of which
in all her cosseted life she had never dreamed, a world of beautiful
and terrible things. There was rapture in it, and a great awe. She
had forgotten her grievances in wonder.

"Do not shrink from me," said the voice which seemed to have won
an unearthly sweetness. "Let us sit together and tell our thoughts.
You are very fair. Have you a lover?"

The word brought the girl to earth. "I had a lover, but this
night I dismissed him. He fights in your company, and I see no need
for this war."

Jeanne's voice was puzzled. "Can a man fight in a holier cause
than to free his country?"

"The country . . ." But Catherine faltered. Her argument with
Guy now seemed only pettishness.

"You are a great lady," said Jeanne, "and to such as you liberty
may seem a little thing. You are so rich that you need never feel
constraint. But to us poor folk freedom is life itself. It sweetens
the hind's pottage, and gives the meanest an assurance of manhood....
Likewise it is God's will. My Holy Ones have told me that sweet
France shall be purged from bondage. They have bidden me see the King
crowned and lead him to Paris. . . . After that they have promised me
rest."

She laid an arm round Catherine's neck and looked into her
eyes.

"You are hungry, sister mine," she said.

The girl started. For the eyes were no longer those of a boy,
but of a mother--very wise, very tender. Her own mother had died so
long ago that she scarcely remembered her. A rush of longing came
over her for something she had never known. She wanted to lay her
head on that young breast and weep.

"You are hungry--and yet I think you have been much smiled on by
fortune. You are very fair, and for most women to be beautiful is to
be happy. But you are not content, and I am glad of it. There is a
hunger that is divine...."

She broke off, for the girl was sobbing. Crumpled on the floor,
she bent her proud head to the Maid's lap "What must I do?" she cried
piteously. "The sight of you makes me feel my rottenness. I have been
proud of worthless things and I have cherished that wicked pride that
I might forget the doubts knocking on my heart. You say true, I am
not content. I shall never be content, I am most malcontent with
myself. . . . Would to God that like you I had been born a
peasant!"

The tragic eyes looked up to find the Maid laughing--a kind,
gentle merriment. Catherine flushed as Jeanne took her tear-stained
face in her hands.

"You are foolish, little sister. I would I had been born to your
station. My task would have been easier had I been Yoland of Sicily
or that daughter of the King of Scots from whom many looked for the
succour of France. Folly, folly! There is no virtue in humble blood.
I would I had been a queen! I love fine clothes and rich trappings
and the great horse which d'Alencon gave me. God has made a brave
world and I would that all His people could get the joy of it. I love
it the more because I have only a little time in it."

"But you are happy," said the girl, "and I want such
happiness."

"There is no happiness," said the Maid, "save in doing the will
of God our Father."

"But I do not know His will. . . . I am resolved now. I will
take the vows and become a religious, and then I shall find peace. I
am weary of all this confusing world."

"Foolish one," and Jeanne played with the little curls which
strayed around Catherine's ear. "You were not born for a nunnery. Not
that way God calls you."

"Show me His way," the girl implored. "He shows His way privily
to each heart, and His ways are many. For some the life of devout
contemplation, but not for you, sister. Your blood is too fiery and
your heart too passionate.... You have a lover? Tell me his name.

Docilely Catherine whispered it, and Jeanne laughed merrily.

"Sir Guy! My most loyal champion. By my staff, you are the
blessed maid. There is no more joyous knight in all the fields of
France."

"I do not seek wedlock. Oh, it is well for you who are leading
armies and doing the commands of God. Something tells me that in
marriage I shall lose my soul."

The girl was on her knees with her hands twined. "Let me follow
you," she cried. "I will bring a stout company behind me. Let me ride
with you to the freeing of France. I promise to be stalwart."

The Maid shook her head gently.

"Then I take the vows." The obstinate little mouth had shut and
there were no tears now in the eyes.

"Listen, child," and Jeanne took the suppliant hands in hers.
"It is true that God has called me to a holy task. He has sent His
angels to guide me and they talk with me often. The Lady of Fierbois
has given me a mystic sword. I think that in a little while this land
will be free again.... But I shall not see it, for God's promise is
clear, and for me it does not give length of days. I did not seek
this errand of mine. I resisted the command, till God was stern with
me and I submitted with bitter tears. I shall die a maid, and can
never know the blessedness of women. Often at night I weep to think
that I shall never hold a babe next my heart."

The face of Jeanne was suddenly strained with a great sadness.
It was Catherine's turn to be the comforter. She sat herself beside
her and drew her head to her breast.

"For you I see a happier fate--a true man's wife-- the mother of
sons. Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother
of God--she has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind. She is the
channel of the eternal purpose of Heaven. Could I change--could I
change! What fortunate wife would envy a poor maid that dwells in the
glare of battle? . . . Nay, I do not murmur. I do God's will and
rejoice in it. But I am very lonely."

For a little there was silence, an ecstatic silence. Something
hard within Catherine melted and she felt a gush of pity. No longer
self-pity, but compassion for another. Her heart grew suddenly warm.
It was as if a window had been opened in a close room to let in air
and landscape.

"I must rest, for there is much ado to-morrow. Will you sleep by
me, for I have long been starved of a woman's comradeship?"

In the great canopied bed the two girls lay till morning. Once
in the darkness Catherine started and found her arms empty. Jeanne
was kneeling by the window, her head thrown back and the moonlight on
her upturned face. When she woke in the dawn the Maid was already up,
trussing the points of her breeches and struggling with her long
boots. She was crooning the verse of a ballad:

"Serais je nonette' Crois que non--" and looking
with happy eyes at the cool morning light on the forest.

"Up, sleepy-head," she cried. "Listen to the merry trampling of
the horses. I must start, if I would spare the poor things in the
noon. Follow me with your prayers, for France rides with me. I love
you, sweet sister; Be sure I will hasten to you when my work is
done."

So the Maid and her company rode off through the woods to
Compiegne, and a brooding and silent Catherine took the north road to
Picardy.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The promise was kept. Once again Catherine saw and had speech of
Jeanne. It was nearly two years later, when she sat in a May gloaming
in the house of Beaumanoir, already three months a bride. Much had
happened since she had ridden north from the inn at the forest
cross-roads. She had summoned de Laval to her side, and the lovers
had been reconciled. Her father had died in the winter and the great
fortune and wide manors of the family were now her own. Her lover had
fought with Jeanne in the futile battles of the spring, but he had
been far away when in the fatal sortie at Compiegne the Maid was
taken by her enemies. All the summer of that year he had made
desperate efforts at rescue, but Jeanne was tight in English hands,
and presently was in prison at Rouen awaiting judgment, while her own
king and his false councillors stirred not hand or foot to save her.
Sir Guy had hurled himself on Burgundy, and with a picked band made
havoc of the eastern roads, but he could not break the iron cordon of
Normandy. In February they had been wed, but after that Beaumanoir
saw him little, for he was reading Burgundy a lesson in the
Santerre.

Catherine sat at home, anxious, tremulous, but happy. A new-made
wife lives in a new world, and though at times she grieved for the
shame of her land, her mind was too full of housewifely cares, and
her heart of her husband, for long repining. But often the thought of
Jeanne drove a sword into her contentment. . . . So when she lifted
her eyes from her embroidery and saw the Maid before her, relief and
gladness sent her running to greet her.

Long afterwards till she was very old Catherine would tell of
that hour. She saw the figure outlined against a window full of the
amethyst sky of evening. The white armour and the gay surcoat were
gone.

Jeanne was still clad like a boy in a coarse grey tunic and
black breeches, but her boots did not show any dust of the summer
roads. Her face was very pale, as if from long immurement, and her
eyes were no more merry. They shone instead with a grave ardour of
happiness, which checked Catherine's embrace and set her heart
beating.

She walked with light steps and kissed the young wife's cheek--a
kiss like thistledown.

"You are free?" Catherine stammered. Her voice seemed to break
unwillingly in a holy quiet.

"I am free," the Maid answered. "I have come again to you as I
promised. But I cannot bide long. I am on a journey."

"You go to the King?" said Catherine.

"I go to my King."

The Maid's hand took Catherine's, and her touch was like the
fall of gossamer. She fingered the girl's broad ring which had come
from distant ancestors, the ring which Sir Aimery of Beaumanoir had
worn in the Crusades. She raised it and pressed it to her

Catherine's limbs would not do her bidding. She would fain have
risen in a hospitable bustle, but she seemed to be held motionless.
Not by fear, but by an exquisite and happy awe. She remembered
afterwards that from the Maid's rough clothes had come a faint savour
of wood-smoke, as from one who has been tending a bonfire in the
autumn stubble

"God be with you, lady, and with the good knight, your husband.
Remember my word to you, that every wife is like Mary the Blessed and
may bear a saviour of mankind. The road is long, but the ways of
Heaven are sure."

Catherine stretched out her arms, for a longing so fierce had
awoke in her that it gave her power to move again. Never in her life
had she felt such a hunger of wistfulness. But Jeanne evaded her
embrace. She stood poised as if listening.

"They are calling me. I go. Adieu, sweet sister."

A light shone in her face which did not come from the westering
sun. To Catherine there was no sound of voices, but the Maid seemed
to hear and answer. She raised her hand as if in blessing and passed
out.

Catherine sat long in an entranced silence. Waves of utter
longing flowed over her, till she fell on her knees and prayer
passionately to her saints, among whom not the least was that
grey-tunicked Maid whose eyes seemed doorways into heaven. Her
tirewoman found her asleep on her faldstool.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Early next morning there came posts to Beaumanoir, men on weary
horses with a tragic message. On the day before, in the market-place
of Rouen, the chief among the daughters of God had journeyed through
the fire to Paradise.