Back to Joan of Arc!

On what could have been our ninth or tenth night of travelling, everything nearly fell apart. We were proceeding as usual down a country lane when Philippe, who had even sharper ears than the soldiers, suddenly whispered, ‘I can hear someone coming.’ Pierre immediately held up his hand, the signal to stop. And then we could hear it too, the unmistakeable sound of horses coming closer every second. We looked around frantically for cover but there was nowhere to hide. The countryside was bare and flat and the last village we had skirted was miles behind us. So Pierre gave the order to draw weapons and we followed him just off the little lane to one side where we waited in complete silence for the party of horsemen, whoever they were, to arrive. I was gripping my dagger hard and shivering with terror but, when I looked at Joan, I could just make out her expression in the darkness. It was one of total calm and that gave me strength. Then the horsemen appeared round a bend in the lane ahead of us. There were about ten of them, all heavily armed and travelling almost as quietly as we had been. We were outnumbered! As they came closer, we could see in the moonlight that they didn’t wear any kind of uniform so they weren’t regular soldiers. We held our breath as they went past, apparently oblivious to our presence just feet away from them. Then one of our soldiers’ horses stamped its foot on the ground, making a small sound. This was enough to alert the horsemen and they whirled around, drawing their own weapons. ‘Who goes there?’ demanded one of the strangers. ‘Some good men travelling in peace as I expect you are,’ Pierre said calmly. ‘Dismount and show yourselves,’ the same man said. ‘Why don’t you dismount?’ Pierre replied. ‘Because there are more of us than there are of you,’ the man said reasonably. ‘Ah, but we are stronger than you lot,’ Pierre now said challengingly in his deep bass voice. ‘We’ll see about that. Attack, men!’ And they did. We were now surrounded by a furious melee of shouting men, neighing horses and the clang of steel on steel. I saw Pierre go straight for the man who had spoken and chop off his hand with one blow of his sharp blade. He sank to the ground, grunting disbelievingly at the black blood now pouring from his stump. But that didn’t stop the others. Indeed, it seemed to enrage them even further. They came at us from all sides now. I saw Michel sitting tall in his saddle next to Joan and fighting two of them for his life – and hers. Then I saw Joan calmly plunge her dagger into one of the men’s hands, take it out and plunge it again into the other man’s neck which he had briefly exposed to her. They fell back screaming with pain. Philippe meanwhile was whirling his sword around his head, shrieking like a banshee and keeping another would-be attacker at bay, while the other soldiers were also fighting for their lives. Then Pierre reappeared in the middle of everything and with one mighty blow toppled Philippe’s attacker from his horse, knocking him unconscious. After that he laid into the others who finally decided they’d had enough and fled. Four of the attackers were left behind, either dead or groaning horribly from their wounds. Even Pierre was breathing heavily now but he called out, ‘Anyone hurt?’ and Vincent called back, ‘I’ve been scratched but it’s nothing serious.’ Everybody else seemed to be OK. The whole thing had taken just a few minutes from beginning to end. The soldiers, it is true, had had the advantage of their armour but how on earth had Pierre seemed to know the outcome of the battle even before it had started? And where had Joan got the sheer guts to do what she had done with her dagger? I was willing to bet that she had never harmed another human being before tonight. I got off Argent and helped Philippe down from Danseur and practically burst into tears when I saw that he was unharmed. He hugged me tight and patted my back, saying, like our father had done when I was little and had hurt myself, ‘Everything will be fine, girl.’ I managed to stifle my sobs and stole a glance at Joan. She was still sitting on Maron with a glazed expression on her face, looking every inch the warrior queen, and I understood then in a moment of insight why she would go on to fulfil her destiny and become a French national treasure. There was simply nothing that she was going to let stop her. Michel had got off his horse and was looking admiringly up at her. I heard him say, ‘You saved my life, Joan. And for that I will be eternally in your debt.’ She snapped out of her trance then and smiled at him. It was like a ray of sunshine cutting through the darkness and it warmed me up. Michel too for her gave her a wide smile back. Then we were all brought to order by Pierre who began assigning tasks to the soldiers. He asked Joan to look at Vincent’s ‘scratch’ and she did, gently washing and bandaging the deep cut with a clean piece of material she took out of her bag. The attackers’ dead bodies were stripped of anything we might be able to use and even the two who were somehow still alive were also bound and stripped and left where they lay. Then Pierre called us all together and said, ‘They were clearly bandits out to do no good. You all fought a good fight, especially you, Joan, and for that I thank you.’ And these were the last words he said on the subject of the attack. We all mounted again and rode slowly away, more heavily laden now with our booty, from that place of death.