Michael Scott - The Death of Joan of Arc: A Lost Story from the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Death of Joan of Arc

A Lost Story from The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

Michael Scott

I am convinced this physician is killing me.

Certainly his treatments are much worse than what ails me. He comes each morning with his poultices and potions and pronounces me a little better every day. It gives my children comfortexcept perhaps for my eldest son, Richard, who begrudges paying the physician to keep me alive. Richard imagines that when I leave this earth he will inherit everything, but he is wrong. My fortune will go to my youngest, William, who followed me into the army and fought valiantly for England in the wars against France.

In truth, there is little wrong with me, except the seventy years which lie heavily upon my bones and some old wounds which trouble me in damp weather. And seventyor it might be seventy-one, or seventy-two, my mother was always vague about the yearis a goodly age in this, the Year of Our Lord 1481.

I have a few regrets. There was a girl I should have married, a war in which I should never have fought, a loaf of bread I should have shared, a lie to which I should never have listened. And there is a story I should have told.

It is time to tell it while I still can.

No doubt you will have been told the tale of the death of the Maid of Orlans. I have heard accounts told by people who were not there, who were either too young or too cowardly to have fought in that terrible war. I have listened to their boasts and their lies and never once have I been tempted to question them, to call them liars.

Perhaps I should have.

I know what happened on that day, the last day of May, in the Year of Our Lord 1431 in Rouen. I was there.

from the Last Will and Testament of William of York,

This day, the 13th day of October 1481

William of York heard the crowd moan behind him, then a huge indrawn breath, and knew that the prisoner must have been brought up from the cells. He didnt turn to look. He had been fighting for most of his adult life and he had no wish to see another condemned prisonerespecially not this one.

Eyes front, he snapped at the two guards on the gate. They glowered at him but obediently turned back to watch the long straight road that led into the French town of Rouen. If theres to be an attack, it will be now, he added, when the prisoner is in the open air.

There will be no attack, one of the guards, a sullen Dutchman, said in his accented English. The French want rid of her almost as much as we do.

Some, maybe, William agreed, but not all. I was there at Orlans, where she claimed her first great victory. I saw her fight at Jargeau and I was one of the few archers to escape from Patay. The Frenchthe real French, the true Frenchworship her. Pulling his heavy leather cloak tighter around his shoulders, William wandered out from beneath the shelter of the gate and stood in the center of the track. Despite his words, he doubted there would be any rescue attempt for the young woman the people were calling the Maid of Orlans. Any attack would be suicide. Rouen was a fortress. The guards had been doubled and then redoubled as the date of her execution grew nearer. English archers guarded the walls, alongside German and Austrian mercenaries, and roving bands of savage Scots patrolled the fields.

Another rousing cheer went up inside the fortress and William turned to look back at the guards on the gate. The sound had distracted them and they were looking into the town square, where the huge pyre had been built.

Eyes front, William bellowed again.

But theyre going to burn the witch, Thomas, the younger guard, said excitedly.

Shes no witch, shes a nineteen-year-old girl, William snapped, and immediately regretted his words. He would be reported to his commanders and marked down as either a potential heretic or a French sympathizer. Or both. The English bowman turned back to the road. Williams sister, Anne, was nineteen years old, and every time he thought of the condemned girl, he was reminded of her.

In the distance, close to the edge of the forest, birds fluttered up into the morning sky, circled and then disappeared south.

William stared straight ahead, remaining perfectly still. Every archer knew that peripheral vision often revealed things that were otherwise missed. Something had startled the birds, something unusualotherwise they would have settled back into the trees.

The big man turned his face slowly. The wind from the south was warm, scented with the rich growth of the forest, the hint of exotic flowers, the suggestion of vines. Closing his mouth and his eyes, he breathed in. If there were men massed under the distant trees, he should be able to smell their rank odor: a mixture of sweat, stinking clothes, rusting armor and horseflesh. There was nothing.

William relaxed his shoulders. If there was anyone thereand he was beginning to doubt it nowthen it was a small force or a few individuals. They were no threat. He rubbed his hands down the length of his longbow. He had been an archer all his life and he could fire between ten and twelve shots in a minute and hit everything he aimed at. There were thirty arrows in the quiver on his hip and at least a dozen archers on the wall behind him. They could lay down a withering rain of arrows. Nothing would survive.

Behind him he heard the crowd start to chant. Witch witch witch

William shivered. Dying in battle was a hazard every soldier faced, and this young woman, this Joan, had fought gallantly. She deserved to die a soldiers death, not to meet this terrible end shed been condemned to suffer.

From the corner of his eye, William caught the flicker of motion. In one fluid movement, he drew an arrow and nocked it to the bowstring. Someones coming! he shouted. Behind him, he heard the two guards scramble into position.

I dont see anyone , the Dutch guard began.

There! Thomas said.

I see it, another guard, high on the wall, shouted. A single rider, moving fast

Williams eyesight had always been excellent. He could see the most distant objects with absolute clarity, though his close vision was often blurry. He turned to look at the shape. It was a single rider wearing unusual black and white armor that had gone out of fashion decades ago. The lone rider, who looked slender even beneath the metal and leather armor, was sitting astride a huge black horse. Metal plates, the same color as the knights armor, protected the horse, so that it was difficult to distinguish between the rider and the animal.

How many? he called up to the guard on the wall.

One. Just one.

No one follows?

No one.

Any banners or flags?

None.

William raised his bow and drew back the bowstring and waited for the rider to draw a little closer. He would loose the arrow in an arc that would direct it right into the center of the knights chest. The arrows heavy metal bodkin tip was designed to punch through a knights metal armor.

Is it an attack? the Dutchman asked, coming out from the gate to stand beside the English archer. It cannot be an attack. There is just one, he said, answering his own question. Then he leaned forward and shaded his eyes with his hands. Is that a girl?

It is a girl, William whispered. He had just come to the same conclusion. Initially, hed thought it might be a cape or a scarf, but now that the rider had drawn closer, he saw the mane of fiery red hair that streamed out behind her. Squinting against the light, he saw that she was not carrying a shield, nor was she holding the reins. She was clutching a long, slightly curved sword in each hand.