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Pressing against her, an unsettling white chair. Its ;eat, unlike those in her
home village of Domremy, was not hand-hewn of wood. Its smooth slickness ewdly
aped her contours. She reddened.
Strangers. One, two, three . .. winking into being 3efore her eyes.
They moved. Peculiar people. She could not tell Woman from man, except for
those whose pan-:aloons and tunics outlined their intimate parts. Hie
spectacle was even more than she'd seen in Chinon, at the lewd court of the
Great and True King.
Talk. The strangers seemed oblivious of her, though " could hear them
he
chattering in thebackground as distinctly as she sometimes heard her voices.
She listened only long enough to conclude that what they said, having nothing
to do with holiness or France, was clearly not worth hearing.
Noise. From outside. An iron river of self-moving carriages muttered by. She
felt surprise at this then somehow the emotion evaporated.
A long view, telescoping in
Pearly mists concealed distant ivory spires. Fog made them seem like melting
churches.
What was this place?
A vision, perhaps related to her beloved voices. Could such apparitions be
holy?
Surely the man at a nearby table was no angel. He was eating scrambled
eggs through a straw.
And the women unchaste, flagrant, gaudy cornucopias of hip and thigh and
breast. Some drank red
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wine from transparent goblets, different from any she'd seen at the royal
court.
Others seemed to sup from floating clouds delicate, billowing mousse fogs. One
mist, reeking of beef with a tangy Loire sauce, passed near her. She breathed
in and felt in an instant that she had experienced a meal.
Was this heaven? Where appetites were satisfied without labor and toil?
But no. Surely the final reward was not so, so ... carnal. And perturbing. And
embarrassing.
The fire some sucked into their mouths from little reeds those alarmed her. A
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cloud of smoke drifting her way flushed birds of panic from her breast
although she could not smell the smoke, nor did it burn her eyes or sear her
throat.
The fire, the fire! she thought, heart fluttering in panic. What had . . . ?
She saw a being made of breastplate coming at her with a tray of food and
drink poison from enemies, no doubt, the foes of France! she thought in
chum-ing fright she at once reached for her sword.
"Be with you in a moment," the breastplated thing said as it wheeled past her
to another table. "I've only got four hands. Do have patience."
An inn, she thought. It was some kind of inn, though there appeared to be
nowhere to Jodge. And yes ...
it came now ... she was supposed to meet someone ... a gentleman?
That one: the tall, skinny old man much older than Jacques Dars, her
father the only one besides herself attired normally.
Something about his dress recalled the foppish dandies at the Great and True
King's court. His hair curled tight, its whiteness set off by a lilac ribbon
at his throat. He wore a pair of mignonette ruffles with narrow edging, a long
waistcoat of brown satin with colored flowers, and sported red velvet
breeches, white stockings, and chamois shoes.
A silly, vain aristocrat, she thought. A fop accustomed to carriages, who
could not so much as sit a horse, much less do holy battle.
But duty was a sacred obligation. If King Charles ordered her to advance,
advance she would.
She rose. Her suit of mail felt surprisingly light. She hardly sensed the
belted-on protective leather flaps in front and back, nor the two metal arm
plates that left elbows free to wield the sword. No one paid the least
attention to the rustle of her mail or her faint clank.
"Are you the gentleman I am to meet? Monsieur Arouet?"
"Don't call me that," he snapped. "Arouet is my father's name the name of an
authoritarian prude. not mine. No one has called me that in years."
Up close, he seemed less ancient. She'd beenmisleadby his white hair, which
she now saw wasfalse, powdered wig secured by the lilac ribbon under his chin.
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"What should I call you then?" She suppressed terms of contempt for this
dandy rough words learned from comrades-in-arms, now borne by demons to her
tongue's edge, but not beyond.
"Poet, tragedian, historian." He leaned forward and with a wicked wink
whispered, "I style myself
Voltaire. Freethinker. Philosopher king."
"Besides the King of Heaven and His son, I call but one man King. Charles VII
of the House of Valois.
And I'll call you Arouet until my royal master bids me do otherwise."
"My dear pucelle, your Charles is dead."
"No!"
He glanced at the noiseless carriages propelled by invisible forces on the
street. "Sit down, sit down.
Much else has passed, as well. Do help me get that droll waiter's attention."
"You know me?" Led by her voices, she had cast off her father's name to call
herself La Pucelle, the
Chaste Maid.
"I know you very well. Not only did you live centuries before me, I wrote a
play about you. And I have curious memories of speaking with you before, in
some shadowy spaces." He shook his head, frowning.
"Besides my garments beautiful, n'est ce pas? you're the only familiar thing
about this place. You and the street, though I must say you're younger than I
thought, while the street . . . hmmm . . . seems wider yet older. They finally
got 'round to paving it."
"I, I cannot fathom "
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He pointed to a sign that bore the inn's name Aux Deux Magots. "Mademoiselle
Lecouvreur a famous actress, though equally known as my mistress." He blinked.
"You're blushing how sweet."
"I know nothing of such things." She added with more than a trace of pride, "I
am a maid."
He grimaced. "Why one would be proud of such an unnatural state, I can't
imagine."
"As I cannot imagine why you are so dressed."
"My tailors will be mortally offended! But allow me to suggest that it is you,
my dear pucelle, who, in your insistence on dressing like a man, would deprive
civilized society of one of its most harmless pleasures."
"An insistence I most dearly paid for," she retorted, remembering how the
bishops badgered her about her male attire as relentlessly as they inquired
after her divine voices.
As if in the absurd attire members of her sex were required to wear, she could
have defeated the
English-loving duke at Orleans! Or led three thousand knights to victory at
Jargeau and
Meung-sur-Loire, Beaugency and Patay, throughout that summer of glorious
conquests when, led by her voices, she could do no wrong.
She blinked back sudden tears. A rush of memory
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