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    Voices


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      Contents

      * * *

      Title Page

      Contents

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Before You Read

      Map of Holy Roman Empire

      Prologue

      The Candle

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      The Fairy Tree

      Joan

      Isabelle

      Joan

      The Needle

      Joan

      Silence

      Joan

      Fire

      Alms

      Joan

      The Cattle

      Joan

      Saint Michael

      Joan

      The Crown

      Joan

      Jacques D’Arc

      Joan

      Virginity

      Joan

      The Road to Vaucouleurs

      Joan

      Robert De Baudricourt

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      The Sword

      Joan

      The Red Dress

      Joan

      The Tunic

      Joan

      Joan

      Fire

      Saint Catherine

      Joan

      Lust

      Joan

      Her Hair

      Joan

      The Altar at Sainte Catherine De Fierbois

      Joan

      The Castle at Chinon

      Joan

      Charles VII

      Joan

      The Sword at Fierbois

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      The Armor

      Joan

      Victory

      Joan

      The Arrow

      Joan

      Joan

      The Pitchfork

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      The Stag

      Joan

      The Warhorse

      Joan

      The Banner

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      Charles VII

      Joan

      The Crossbow

      Joan

      The Gold Cloak

      Joan

      The Tower

      Joan

      Saint Margaret

      Joan

      The Stake

      Joan

      Bishop Pierre Cauchon

      Joan

      Fire

      Joan

      Epilogue

      Author’s Note

      Acknowledgments

      Sample Chapters from BULL

      Buy the Book

      More Books from HMH Teen

      About the Author

      Connect with HMH on Social Media

      Copyright © 2019 by David Elliott

      All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

      All trial excerpts from “Saint Joan of Arc’s Trials,” Saint Joan of Arc Center (stjoan-center.com), New Mexico, founded by Virginia Frohlick.

      hmhbooks.com

      Cover illustration © 2019 by Charlie Bowater

      Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez

      The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

      Names: Elliott, David, 1947– author. | Title: Voices / by David Elliott.

      Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2019]

      Audience: Grades 9–12. | Audience: Ages 14 and up.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018025855 | ISBN 9781328987594 (hardcover)

      Subjects: LCSH: Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412–1431—Juvenile literature. Christian women saints—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. Christian saints—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. Women soldiers—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. Soldiers—France—Biography—Juvenile literature.

      Classification: LCC DC103.5 .E45 2019

      DDC 944/.026092 [B]—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025855

      eISBN 978-0-358-04915-9

      v1.0319

      To Kate O’Sullivan, editor extraordinaire and Kelly Sonnack, agent nonpareil—women warriors in their own right. How lucky I am!

      Before You Read

      Much of what we know about Joan of Arc comes from the transcripts of her two trials. The first, the Trial of Condemnation, convened in 1431, found Joan guilty of “relapsed heresy” and famously burned her at the stake. The second, the Trial of Nullification, held some twenty-four years after her death, effectively revoked the findings of the first. In both cases, the politics of the Middle Ages guaranteed their outcomes before they started. It is in the Trial of Condemnation that we hear Joan in her own voice answering the many questions her accusers put to her. In the Trial of Nullification, her relatives, childhood friends, and comrades-in-arms bear witness to the girl they knew. Throughout Voices, you will find direct quotes from these trials.

      Oh, one more thing: Because the book is written in rhymed and metered verse, it’s important to get the pronunciation of the French names and places right. Here’s a quick pronunciation guide to help you out.

      DOMRÉMY: dom-ray-MI (very much like the song)

      TROYES: twah (rhymes more or less with “law”)

      CHINON: she-NOHN

      VAUCOULEURS: voh-koo-LEUHR

      ORLÉANS: OR-lee-OHN (three, not two, syllables)

      PATAY: puh-TYE

      REIMS: rahnce (not reems)

      ROUEN: ROO-uhn (kind of like the English word “ruin”)

      Prologue

      ROM her earliest years till her departure, Jeannette [Joan] the Maid was a good girl, chaste, simple, modest, never blaspheming God nor the Saints, fearing God. . . . Often she went with her sister and others to the Church and Hermitage of Bermont.

      * * *

      Perrin Le Drapier, churchwarden and

      bell-ringer of the Parish Church

      Trial of Nullification

      The Candle

      I

      recall

      it as if it were

      yesterday. She was

      so lovely and young. In

      her hand I darted and flick-

      ered away, an ardent lover’s ad-

      venturing tongue. I had never known

      such yearning, exciting and risky and

      cruel. As we walked to the church, I was

      burning; she was my darling, my future,

      my fuel. I wanted to set her afire right then.

      But she was so pure, so chaste; her innocence

      only increased my desire. Still, I know the

      dangers of haste. So I watched and I studied

      and waited, and I saw that her young blood

      ran hot. She had no idea we were fated. I

      could name what she craved; she could

      not. Then in her eye, I caught my

      reflection. In her eye, I saw my-

      self shine, and I saw the heat

      rise on her virgin’s com-

      plexion. That’s when

      I knew: She was

      mine.

      Joan

      I’ve heard it said that when we die

      the soul discards its useless shell,

      and our life will flash before our

      eyes. Is this a gift from Heaven?

      Or a jinx from deepest Hell? Only

      the dying know, but what the dying

      know the dying do not tell. What

      more the dying know it seems I

      am about to learn. For when the

      sun is at its highest, a lusting torch

      will touch the pyre. The flames will rise.

      And I will burn. But I have always

      been afire.
    With youth. With faith. With

      truth. And with desire. My name is

      Joan, but I am called the Maid. My

      hands are bound behind me. The fire

      beneath me laid.

      Fire

      I yearn I yearn I yearn my darling

      I yearn I yearn I yearn

      Joan

      Every life is its own story—

      not without a share of glory,

      and not without a share of grief.

      I lived like a hero at seventeen.

      At nineteen, I die like a thief.

      * * *

      I’ll begin with my family:

      a father, a mother, uncles

      and aunts, one sister, two brothers,

      all born in Lorraine in the

      Duchy of Bar. Domrémy is

      our village. It’s north of the Loire,

      the chevron-shaped river that cuts

      across France. My parents were peasants,

      caught up in the dance that all the

      oppressed must step to and master:

      work harder, jump higher, bow lower,

      run faster. The feel of the earth

      beneath my bare feet, the sun on

      my face, the smell of the wheat as

      it breaks through the soil, the curve of

      the sprout as it bends and uncoils,

      the song of the beetle, the hum

      of the bees. I was comforted

      by these, but they would not have

      satisfied me, for something other

      occupied me. To take the path

      that I have taken, I have abandoned

      and forsaken everything I

      once held dear, and that, in part, has

      brought me here, to die alone bound

      to this stake. Each decision that

      we make comes with a hidden price.

      We’re never told what it is we

      may be asked to sacrifice.

      * * *

      A shape begins to form itself

      in the air in front of me. Trunk . . .

      and roots . . . an ancient tree, its limbs

      so low they touch the earth. I know

      it now. Around its girth we village

      children sang and danced. The tree was

      thought to be entranced; our elders

      said beneath its shade a band of

      brownies lived and played. I wonder

      if they live there still, or have, like

      me, they been betrayed?

      OT far from Domrémy there is a tree that they called “The Ladies Tree”—others call it “The Fairies Tree.” . . . Often I have heard the old folk—they are not of my lineage—say that the fairies haunt this tree. . . . I have seen the young girls putting garlands on the branches of this tree, and I myself have sometimes put them there with my companions.

      * * *

      Joan

      Trial of Condemnation

      The Fairy Tree

      I sing the mournful carol of five hundred passing

      years. Nurtured by the howling wind and the

      music of the spheres, I have retained the record

      of every heart that ever broke, every wound that

      ever bled. I remember single drops of rain, every

      day of golden light, the sorrow of the cuckoo’s

      crimes, the lightning strikes, the trill of every

      lark. And I have stored the memory of these

      consecrated things in the scarred and winding

      surface of my incandescent bark. Etched there,

      too? The face of every child who cherished me,

      who sang my name—the Fairy Tree. They came

      to celebrate the sprites who lived beneath my

      canopy, for I was the fairies’ chosen, their syl-

      van hideaway. The brindled cows looked on at

      human folly when the fairies were charged and

      banished by the village priest. The children, too,

      have vanished, undone by years, and worms, and

      melancholy. Yes, all my children I recall, but it

      is Joan who of them all stands apart in the con-

      centric circles of my ringèd memory. She hid it

      well—the burning coal that was her heart. But

      a tree is ever watchful in the presence of a flame,

      and I saw in her a smoldering, a spark, a heat

      well beyond extinguishing. I feel it even now, that

      heat. It blazes just the same. Elements not rec-

      onciled, as disparate as day and night, sparked

      an unrelenting friction destined to ignite some-

      thing hybrid, new, and wild. It was a heavy fate

      for such a child, so small and young. And yet

      among the girls she was a favorite, their affec-

      tion for her zealous. But the boys were threat-

      ened. Rough. Rugged. Strong. Athletic. They

      did not know that they were jealous. I see now it

      was prophetic, the rancor hidden in their hearts.

      But rancor is a stubborn guest; once lodged, it

      won’t depart. The village priest abides here still,

      or his likely twin, still finding evil in every joy,

      still scolding the girls, still eyeing the boys, still

      holding up pleasure and calling it sin. As for the

      girl, for Joan, she remains a mystery. Who can

      say why some arrive and then depart forgotten

      while others fashion history?

      Joan

      The illusion of the tree is

      fading. I see my mother now,

      separating good peas from the

      bad. Clad in homespun, she has just

      come from the stable. But the light

      is dim. I am unable to

      see her careworn face, and so I

      trace the swift movement of her hands—

      the blunt fingers callused and bent,

      the rough knuckles swollen and cracked.

      But those earthly imperfections

      could never detract from the inborn

      grace with which they move, the rough

      gestures that I know and love. When

      I left Domrémy to join the

      world of soldiery and men, how

      could I have known that I would

      never feel my mother’s touch or

      see her hands again?

      EANNE [Joan] was born at Domrémy and was baptized at the Parish Church of Saint Remy, in that place. Her father was named Jacques d’Arc, her mother Isabelle—both laborers living together at Domrémy. They were, as I saw and knew, good and faithful Catholics, laborers of good repute and honest life.

      * * *

      Jean Morel, laborer

      Trial of Nullification

      Isabelle

      What is a woman?

      Her brothers’ sister, her father’s daughter,

      Her husband’s wife, her children’s mother.

      Milk the cow, churn the butter, slop the pig, spin

      the flax, nurse the sick, boil the soup, knead

      the dough, bake the bread, mind

      * * *

      the children, mind the sheep, mind

      your manners. These are what a woman

      learns to become a wife, skills all women need,

      and skills I have passed on to Joan, my daughter.

      I taught her to churn, to bake, to plant, to spin.

      Wasn’t that my duty as her mother?

      * * *

      I learned them as a girl from my own mother,

      who learned them as a girl from hers. Mind

      you, there are days my head spins

      like the stars over me, but a woman

      is not her own master. She is the daughter

      of Urgency, a servant to Need.

      * * *

      From the start, Joan didn’t need

      or want what other girls needed, her mother,

      for example. It hurts to have a daughter


      who so clearly knows her own mind.

      Such qualities are dangerous in a woman.

      She was a contradiction, able to sew and spin

      * * *

      better than any girl in the village, married or spin-

      ster. And what she could do with a need-

      le, well, there is still not a woman

      who could match her. But a mother?

      A farmer’s wife? No. In my mind

      she was more son than daughter,

      * * *

      keeping her silence, a daughter

      who would churn, cook, sew, spin

      without complaint. Yet her mind

      was elsewhere, settled on another need,

      a need she could not share with her mother

      or any other woman.

      * * *

      Mothers should understand what their daughters

      need. But Joan and I were never of one mind.

      Spin! I begged her. Spin like a woman!

      Joan

      To spin like a woman was not

      my fate. I had other talents,

      concealed but innate, that even

      now are hard for me to comprehend.

      I only know that to wash and

      mend my brothers’ tunics aroused

      in me an aching discontent.

      This low unhappiness was the

      advent of everything that followed. But

      I swallowed my pride, nodded, smiled,

      and swore that I would best every

      female task my mother assigned. All

      that to which I felt more naturally

      inclined I vowed to put aside.

      But the harder I tried, the more

      it pressed. I was beset by my

      own nature, possessed by a ruthless

      and persistent urge, as if there

      were another me waiting to

      emerge from all that was constraining.

      But about this, I said nothing

      and continued with my training.

      N your youth, did you learn any trade?”

     


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