Out of the blue it was. Father was talking of Robert de Beaudricourt, the captain of the castle at Vaucouleurs, and what a fine soldier he was. All I said was that given half a chance (and if I wasn’t a girl, of course) I’d go off and be a soldier, and I’d drive the English out of France once and for all. He looked at me hard and suddenly became very angry. ‘Don’t you ever speak of such a thing, Joan,’ he says. ‘I had a dream once, a dream that comes back and back to haunt me, a dream that you would one day run off with the soldiers.’ My brothers sniggered at this. Father banged the table and glared at them. ‘It is no joke,’ he stormed, ‘I tell you, if Joan ever went off with the soldiers I would drown her myself in the river, with my own hands. There could be no greater shame for all of us. Speak to me no more of soldiers, Joan. Be content that you are what God has made you, with what God wants you to be.’
“There are times, Belami, and that was one of them, that I so long to tell him what it is that God really wants me to do. But I cannot. My voices forbid it. To do what I have to do, what God tells me I must do, I must wrong my own father. I must hurt him. Yet he is the one man on this earth I will ever love, my voices have told me as much. How he will hate me, Belami, how they will all hate me.” She wept bitterly at the thought of it.
Belami had taken to waiting for her outside the chapel at Beaumont while she went in to pray. She was always a long time at her prayers; and besides, it was often warmer for him outside, and Belami loved to feel the sun on his feathers. She would often be overwhelmed by tears when she came out, but not this time. Her eyes were bright with excitement. “The moment has come, Belami. I feel like an arrow released at last from its bow. Just now, in the chapel, Belami, the blessed St Margaret came to me and said that I have to go to Vaucouleurs, as soon as possible. I have to see Robert de Beaudricourt himself. I am to tell him to send me to the Dauphin at Chinon. I am to go to fight the English. It is the beginning, Belami, it is the beginning.”
It was several weeks before Joan could arrange things. Vaucouleurs was a dozen miles away through the forest. She would need an escort, somewhere to stay, and most important, a reason for going. Otherwise her parents would become suspicious and would never allow her to leave at all. In the end luck lent a helping hand, or fate perhaps. Joan’s favourite uncle, Uncle Durand – he was a cousin really, but Joan had always called him Uncle – paid the family a visit. He just happened to say to her that she must come over and stay one day soon, that her Aunt Joan hadn’t seen her in a long time.
“She could come now, when I leave,” he said. “Why not?”
“She’s work to do here,” her mother replied, rather tartly.
“We can do without her for a few days,” said Joan’s father. “It’ll be good for her to get away for a while. She’s not been looking herself lately. Let her go.”
And so it was arranged there and then. When Uncle Durand went the next day, Joan would go with him.
Sitting under her tree with Belami the evening before she left, Joan was beside herself with excitement. “Can you believe it, Belami?” she said. “Do you know where Uncle Durand lives? Not two miles from Vaucouleurs! And he knows Robert de Beaudricourt. He knows him! My uncle, he’s a kind man, and godly too. He will listen to me. He will believe me, I know he will.”
Belami was there the next morning as Uncle Durand and Joan set off into the mists of the forest. She waited until the village was well behind them before she told him. She first made him promise faithfully he would never tell anyone what she was about to tell him. She didn’t tell him everything, only as much as she thought he needed to know. Uncle Durand sat in stunned silence on his horse as she told him, his eyes never leaving her face. “So you see, Uncle, if you do not take me to Robert de Beaudricourt at Vaucouleurs, where my voices tell me I must go, then he will not send me to the Dauphin at Chinon, and I will not be able to drive them out of France, nor to have the Dauphin crowned King of France, King of all the French. Without you, none of this can happen, Uncle.”
Uncle Durand rode on for some time before replying. “I should take you straight home, Joan, and tell your father. That’s what I should do. But I cannot, can I? I promised you I would say nothing and I will keep my promise. But what am I to do, Joan? What am I to make of you? You could be lying to me, making the whole thing up for all I know; or perhaps you are deluded and mad in the head. But if not, then you must be truly blessed. I shall help you, Joan, because I have always known you to be a good and honest and God-fearing girl, and because there’s a light in your eyes that makes me want to believe in you, want to help you.
“But there’s another reason, too, why I’m going to help you, Joan. I once heard a story, a legend if you like, about a young girl from these parts who would one day drive the English out for good and save France. Maybe the story is a true one, a prophecy, and not a legend at all. Maybe you are the one, Joan. I hope to God you are. I may live to regret it, but I will follow my hope and help you all I can, all I can, dear Joan. But we’ll have to tell your aunt, we cannot keep it from her.”
Joan reached out and took his hand in hers. “I knew you would,” she said. “Thank you, Uncle, thank you.”
But her Aunt Joan was not nearly so easy to persuade. She believed her – that wasn’t the problem – but she had other serious objections. “You shouldn’t go anywhere near that Robert de Beaudricourt,” she said. “He’s a soldier, and all soldiers are the same – rough, coarse creatures. That castle’s no place for a girl your age. I’d never forgive myself.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, Aunt,” Joan replied. “I’ll have Uncle with me, and besides I can look after myself.”
“And he drinks too much,” her aunt went on. “Everyone knows it. He won’t listen, Joan. He won’t believe you. Your uncle and I, we believe you because we love you, we know you.”
“If you believe me, Aunt,” said Joan, “then you must believe my voices too. It’s my voices that tell me I must go to the Dauphin. Robert de Beaudricourt can get me to the Dauphin. He’s the only person who can. I must go, Aunt, can’t you see?” Her aunt still looked doubtful. “I’ll be all right. I’ll have Belami with me too, as well as Uncle Durand!”
“That sparrow,” tutted Aunt Joan. “What is it you see in him? He goes everywhere with you. I don’t mind outside, but I don’t like him in the house – I’ve told you.”
“He loves it here,” Joan replied. “You’ve got no cats, and he loves you too because he knows you’ll help me, because you believe in me. So tomorrow, Aunt, when we go to Vaucouleurs, I will go with your blessing, won’t I?”
“Of course,” said her aunt, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s just that I fear for you, I fear for what will become of you.”
“But how can you fear for me when I have God on my side?” Joan exclaimed.
They set off early the next morning. Belami flew up and perched himself high on the castle wall as Joan and Uncle Durand rode into the courtyard below. They had to sit there and wait all morning, and all the while Joan had to endure the coarse banter of the soldiers. Several times she had to restrain Uncle Durand from boxing their ears. Then, at long last, two men came striding out of the castle. Both were in armour, swords at their side. “That’s him,” Uncle Durand whispered, “and that’s Bertrand de Poulengy with him.” Uncle Durand stepped forward. “My lord, we sent word we wanted to see you. It’s important, important for France.” Robert de Beaudricourt tried to ignore him, but Uncle Durand blocked his path determinedly.
