Baf 66 merlins ring, p.37
BAF 66 - Merlin's Ring, page 37
part #66 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
The Archbishop of Rheims rode along with them for a space. Gwalchmai heard him say, “Jeanne, where do you expect to die?”
She was in an unusually somber mood. The army felt its spirits lagging. They were poorly armed, their pay in arrears, and they were often hungry. These facts were reflected in the thoughts of the leaders.
“Wherever God pleases. I know not the hour or the place. Would it were His pleasure that I might now lay down my arms and go back to my father and mother, who would be right glad to see me.”
Gwalchmai, his ears attuned to every nuance of her sweet, disconcertingly familiar voice, could tell that for once an infrequent melancholy had seized upon her.
At that moment they were passing along a road lined upon both sides with Lombardy poplars, and as though her words were a signal a fluttering host of butterflies came down about the heads of the marching soldiers like falling leaves. They spun and circled and lifted lightly, following the pennons and guidons, a drifting mass of living beauty, darting in rippling sweeps through the sunlight slanting through the branches of the trees.
Gwalchmai started. Crystal clear, hauntingly nostalgic, far away in time if not in distance, came to him the winding of a silver hunting horn he had once heard in Elveron. He looked covertly around, a quick glance that swept those near him. Apparently no one else had heard the descending notes.
So brave, so happy, they rose again challenging the Fates, and he knew this was the Assembly call of the fay—the great gathering, the final flitting from Earth to Astophar—~ and he knew also that this was farewell.
Had anyone else heard? The butterflies soared and came together and dropped around the standard like a benediction. Thick, so thickly swarming, yet never touching one another or Jeanne, who bore the flag, for she rode in steel and the touch of iron is fearful death. They gathered there briefly like winging fleur-de-lys and in their whirling center, Jeanne watched them and leaned back in the saddle, laughing with head thrown back as Gwalchmai had so often seen his lost love do, no soldier for this brief time, only a young girl, happy in the summer sun.
Once more the clear notes rose and with them rose the host Into the trees and higher. An eddying cloud, rising, dwindling—a ball of silver midges, a gleaming point still caught by the straining eye—until it was gone forever on the long sky road to a friendlier star.
But not all! One pale-green butterfly lingered on the safe cloth of Gwalchmai’s surcoat, opening and closing its maimed and ragged wings, gazing at him with its jeweled eyes.
There was a jaunty devil-may-care attitude about this straggler, from its scarlet antennae to its slender legs. There was no doubt in Gwalchmai’s mind.
“Always faithful, gay minstrel, brave friend! Help me guard my dear courageous leader, whoever she may be.”
The butterfly bent its legs and sprang into the air. It swept before Gwalchmai’s eyes and sped to the standard. It came down upon the gilded wood of the shaft’s point and there it rode.
There was a new spring in the gait of the marchers. They had seen what they thought was a sign of victory. On to Paris!
There is a nadir for every zenith. From the top of a hill, the only way off is—down. The long delayed advance on Paris was the beginning of the lowering slope, the end foredoomed.
“I fear nothing but treachery!” Gwalchmai felt those words strike home before the walls of Paris. The dreary siege dragged on: no supplies, no reinforcements; the army dwindling in the long nights, grumbling deserters knowing well that the lick-spittles of the court fawned upon the King to their own advantage and the death of hope. Finally, Jeanne dared wait no longer for an assault. Finding that no one had taken the trouble to sound the moat at the St. Denys gate, like a good commander, she herself went forward.
Accompanied only by Robert, as standard bearer, the two crossed the outer dry fosse. Immediately they came under fire. She cried, “Surrender to Jesus!” and plumbed the moat water with her lance.
At that moment, as cool and deliberate as she, an English archer drew his bow. The first arrow nailed Robert’s foot to the ground. In agony, he raised his visor to assess his injury and died, struck through the eyes. The standard fell.
The third arrow, aimed with precision, went completely through Jeanne’s upper thigh. She threw herself backward, into the dubious shelter of the fosse, and rolled to its bottom.
Gwalchmai heard an agonized, strangled cry by his side. “My angel!” Rushing past him through the battle, Gilles de Rais thrust him heavily aside, ran through the firing line, and flung himself down beside Jeanne, covering his girl comrade and leader, and protecting her with his own body.
A heavy fire was instantly -concentrated upon them. Gwalchmai could hear bullets strike De Rais’ fine armor and ricochet whining away. Neither moved. The battle went on with savagery, but now such a downpour of missiles filled the air that no one could reach the pair and live.
They burrowed into the ditch bank, inch by tortured inch. Into the afternoon and the evening the despairing friends of Jeanne could hear her gallant pain-filled voice still raised to encourage them, calling on the charge: “Forward! Be of good faith! The town will be yours!”
As the day wore on, the clear voice grew weaker, but the words remained the same. After dark, Gwalchmai, D’Aulon, and de Gaucourt, almost blind with tears, fumbled their way out through the dead and helped De Rais, who had only minor wounds, bring her in.
De Rais went away, leaning on de Gaucourt’s shoulder, to have his wounds tended. D’Aulon hurried off in search of a leech. Gwalchmai took out the arrow as he had done before at Jargeau, for De Rais had not dared to do so lest she* bleed to death. He glanced around. No one was near. She showed no sign of pain.
It was evident that she was deeply unconscious, from loss of blood and shock. He touched the wound with Merlin’s Ring. The welling forth dwindled to a few slow drops. He bound up the injury. Even in the1 uncertain light of a single flickering torch he could see her waxen pallor.
He brushed her thick dark hair away from her cold, moist brow. His heart was very full. That haunting resemblance!
He lifted a heavy wave of her hair in his hand. It flowed over his trembling fingers, as he brought it to his lips, remembering the delight it had given him to see that hair flying defiantly free in the wind.
Torchlight gleamed on her little golden rings. They were her only ornaments. Her chiefest treasures. How often he had seen her look at them, kiss them before going into danger! Gwalchmai was once told that they were gift rings from her mother and brother, and engraved with sacred names.
He thought how Corenice had bid him to know her through the ages, by gold.
He sighed. “My precious, lovely, lost one! I look upon this strange, brave girl and I see you!”
At his gentle touch, Jeanne moaned a little. Her eyes remained closed, but she turned her face toward him and her lips moved.
“Ah, my darling! Was it for this we spoke of love at the Lake of Swans?”
Gwalchmai could not believe his ears. “Corenice! Can it be you?”
“Only for a little moment, my dear one. Only while she sleeps. Our grand-daughter’s will is so strong! I have never been able to control her—only to give her a little comfort and advice. There are others who give her more and better guidance than any she could receive from me.
“Do you still love me? I thought love was dead in you. Had you not forgotten me for a while?”
“How I watched you through the eyes of your comrade, Hanshiro, the samurai! Did you not think it strange that he would follow you across half a world, guarding your back in all your madness of killing in so many wars?
“It was that which has kept us apart. You would not have known me while you were trying to die. Did you suspect nothing, my only lord?
“You must not despair. The end of your journey is so close. Mine will end with yours and we will be together. Did you not know that I led you here?”
“Oh, Corenice! I was so sure that you were she at first Since then there have been so many little things about her that I remembered in you. How can she look so like you, when you were Nikky, and not be you again? I cannot bear it unless you two are and will remain the same.”
Jeanne’s eyes were still shut, but her lips smiled. That long-remembered, long-awaited smile.
“Can you not guess, my own one husband? Count back the years through the many generations. Her mother’s mother’s mother, and other mothers before that one, and there was still another who was the daughter of your son!
“I never told you what I saw in the spae-wife’s crystal. She knew what had come of our meeting and she showed me what was yet to come. At the end of the vision she gave me, I saw a girl riding, clothed all in clean bright steel, without decoration or emblem. Her face was like mine, but I knew it was not me.
“I saw her ride on to her destiny and everlasting fame— and in her face I saw a consciousness of that and more. I saw something in it of you and something of myself. I knew then that it was no accident that we two met.
“Oh, Gwalchmai, you have seen my goddess and you love her. I have never seen your God, but I know now that He lives and I love Him too.
“It cannot be that the world spins aimlessly on- with no directing plan. It has been worth all our separations, and pains, and our long waiting, to be the ancestors of such a girl!”
“Yes! Oh, yes, Corenice! With such admiration—such pride! And so much like you. No wonder I thought you had come again!”
“I have been told that we shall soon be together and then we shall never part. We have been but small pieces in an immensely intricate plan. I know that now and so must you.
“I saw a little part of it in the crystal. So far-reaching and divine it was that it awed me until I could not speak of it to you, lest the knowledge of it in some way bring about its failure.
“I learned then why we two had been born to love and I knew joy and pride that we had,been chosen. I have also lived with grief, for I was shown what that destiny of hers, because of us, must be.
“They are coming, my darling. I must say farewell. Ahuni-i has told me we must return where our long journey began, to that place of ice and fire. We shall go there together, I promise you, when all is finished here. It will not be long. Be patient and hold me—hold me ever in your heart.”
Jeanne—Corenice—stopped speaking. D’Aulon and de
Gaucourt came up with anxiety plain upon their faces. The leech panted up with his bag and looked questioningly at Gwalchmai at the sight of the bandaged wound.
Gwalchmai placed his finger on his lips. He spoke with a smile.
“Quietly. Bear her easily away. She has been tended and is sleeping.”
His words were easy and without care, but in his heart he mourned, for now he knew that Corenice was gone.
Peremptory orders from the King, safe in his court at Senlis, broke off the siege. The hungry army was only too glad to return and be disbanded, caring nothing for the months of uselessness that followed.
De Rais, promoted to the rank of Marshal of France, quit the stifling atmosphere of the court in high dudgeon. Dismissing Gwalchmai from his entourage, he asked, “Will you now accept a permanent place in the Maid’s Household, until I recall you?”
“That I will, and gladly!” So D’Aulon and he became close companions in Jeanne’s care, while she followed the King’s company from castle to castle, like a pet dog, in idleness and despair.
And the banner lay idle, gathering dust.
From Guy de Laval—these, to his revered grandmother, Relict of Du Guesclin:
“My Dearest Grandmother:
“I kiss your hand. Much has happened since we returned to Senlis. The Maid was pleased that you liked the small golden ring she sent. She bids me say that she would be happier were it a better one.
“Would you appreciate the jewel more if you knew it was given her by her brother? It came from her own hand. She still has another, but these were her only precious things.
“When I told her how you had written that, before her, France had nine champions, but now there were ten, she was greatly touched. She pulled off the ring, having nothing else valuable of her own and said, ”Send this.“ She is so impulsive.
“You remember I wrote you how Compiegne was recovered for the King and how, ever since, it has fain under the cannon of the Burgundians? Duke Philip is greatly wroth at his lost city’s resistance. It is said here he has sworn that unless the city surrenders immediately, no one in it over seven years of age shall remain alive when it is taken.
“The maid has been deeply concerned. The King has refused to grant her money and soldiers for relief. He hopes for a bloodless peace with Burgundy. Alas, it would be the peace the mouse enjoys, after the cat has dined.
“At any rate, without the King’s sanction or support, the Maid has left the court, for whence we can only suspect. She took with her no more than her own Household. Old faithful D’Aulon, of course, her confessor, Pasquerel, her two brothers, and that odd white-haired man I told you about, whose face looks so young and grim.
“That last, I might have guessed. He follows her wherever she goes. Most of us are afraid of him. Some say that he must be in love with her.
“When she left, she said that she meant to go out riding at her pleasure. I know not if that were true—but she has not returned.
“Written at Senlis, this third day of April, in the Year of Our Lord, 1430.”
“By my baton! We are enough! I will go to my good friends of Compiegne! Let those who love me, follow!”
So the banner took the wind for the last time. It flew above her tent at Lagny, where many who loved her rallied to it. Scots, Catalans, Italians, and French came riding in, asking for nothing except that they be led, in good faith, by one they could trust.
The banner rippled out above the moving column, marching on Compiegne, and, in good omen, Gwalchmai saw what he had seen when a larger army left Rheims for Paris —a green butterfly that came down upon the peak of the standard, to ride mere for some while, to circle about his own head, and then to flutter onward and disappear.
“You are still with me, little fay? Bring good fortune to the one I love and you will bring happiness to me.”
He fondled the hilt of his sword. On the morn, Jeanne had called him—as Captain of her Battle—to receive his orders of the day. She looked pensive and sober. She picked up her beloved blade from the camp table and said, “Basque, take this sword of Fierbois and carry it in the campaign.
I will exchange for yours. It will be safer with you, when I fall into the hands of the English.“
Gwalchmai was aghast. “God forbid,, Maid, that such should be.”
“It is beyond doubt. My Voices have announced that I shall be taken before St. John’s Day. They have never lied.”
“Then give up the campaign, I pray you, until after that time.”
Her smile was wan. “It would avail nothing. To do my devoir is my destiny. They say—although they do not explain —that it is necessary, so that a great victory shall later be won. What befalls me is of little import. It is for this that I was born.”
“Did you ask your Saints to intercede for you, that you might be spared?” ,
Jeanne hesitated, then answered slowly, “I asked only that I die quickly and not suffer long. They told me that it should be as I asked. Afterward I should be with them in Paradise.”
When the column moved out the sword Durandal hung at his side. Legend held that Charles Mattel used it against the Saracens at Poitiers, long before it fell into the possession of Roland. Gwalchmai did not know if that was true. He was certain that two Paladins had warmed its hilt, and one rode before him on the road to Compiegne.
He raised the blade reverently and kissed the cross of the hilt. His eyes fell upon Merlin’s ring. It was cool upon his finger. He found it hard to believe that he was riding into personal danger. He formed a sudden resolution.
Urging his horse forward, he pushed between Jeanne’s two brothers. He held out the ring to Pierre.
“I have noticed that your sister now wears only one ring. If I offered her another, even for remembrance and the affection you know I hold for her, she would not accept it. She fears sorcery and—I must be honest with you—this ring does have certain properties that could be most useful to her were she in danger.
“It will become warm on her finger and warn her of peril. It will unlock doors and loosen chains. If this gift comes through you, she may accept it and be protected.”
“Why not keep it for yourself?”
Gwalchmai searched his soul for the answer and then he too heard a Voice. It sounded like little golden bells. A great peace came over him.
“I do not need it any longer. I shall never need it again.” On the morning of the twenty-second of May, when the Maid brought her small force into Compiegne, by breaking through the thinnest gap in the Burgundian line, Gwalchmai, riding close in her protection, saw that she wore a ring on each hand.
Destiny came, as predicted, on St John’s Day. After a sally out of the city, to destroy the enemy’s supply dump, the five hundred men that Jeanne had led out out to war turned to fight their way back, through an immensely augmented intercepting force.
Harried on all sides and intermixed thoroughly with the enemy, her force struggled almost to the open city gates. Gwalchmai struck aside many lances aimed at Jeanne, acting as rearguard.
“Do but play your part and they will be beaten! Turn! Strike back and we shall have them!”
Her surcoat of scarlet and gold and her waving banner made her the object of the main attack. Up went the drawbridge of Compiegne. The fall of the portcullis saved the city, but left the rearguard to be captured.
The Maid was fighting for her life. The flashing sword rose and fell, crashing upon helmets, necks, and upraised arms.
“I will never kill anyone!” she had sworn. Gwalchmai saw that even in this extremity she used, not the edge, but the flat of the blade. Even so, her strong young arm still had the power to empty saddles. He saw horses running free and senseless soldiers lying in the road.
