Living forever sure does funny things to your brain. You start thinking that you see someone you know on the street, but then you tell yourself that you're crazy. Of course it can't be her. She was burned at the stake centuries ago. Her smile, the fluttering of her short hair, I remember it all… expect her eyes. That drives me insane. Were they hazel, the warm color of melted chocolate, green, like the deepest forest, or blue? Were they icy blue, or sea blue? I don't remember anymore.
I used to pamper her. 'Jehanne'*, I used to say, you must simply lay off the peasant clothes and the boyish haircut. I wanted to doll her up, my most precious possession, in expensive fabric and accessories to match her radiance. I wanted to brush her hair every morning, just to spend more time with her. 'Non,' she would laugh and smack my shoulders. 'Francis, my place is with the people, not with the bisque dolls of Paris', she'd say. How I longed to keep her safe by my side! Versailles wasn't built then, but what I wouldn't have given to live with her there!
She thought I was the dauphin's bastard brother or something- someone no one in the palace openly talks about, but simply exists as the topic of conversation behind closed doors and in hushed whispers. I've told her the truth, but she would just laugh and tell me that no matter who I was, she would love me just the same. I saw the disbelief in her eyes. But that didn't matter. I also saw the devotion in her, and that was enough. I was content. Even when we were on the battlefield, Jehanne and I, we were free. I should've known better than to think those halcyon days would last.
I was at England's place when she was caught, arguing with haughty Lord Kirkland. We needed to end the war, oui. It had been going on for longer than we ever expected it to be. Squabbled over land, over loyalty, over each other… all meaningless things now.
I paled and rushed out of the abbey in the midst of talks when I heard the news, wearing nothing but a slip of a shirt, a scarf, and a hastily shoved on hat. The fire had already been lit when I got there.
'Please- Let me through- That's my Jehanne! That's my baby girl up there!' I tried to get to the front. God knows I tried. By the time I got through the crowd of angry people, her dress was ablaze. A dress- where did her armor go? They stripped my Jehanne of her precious armor and but her in a dirty commoner's dress. My Jehanne… my enchanting Witch of the Armagnacs.
It was May, already sweltering. I climbed the pile of wood, pushing away the men in my path. 'Jehanne! I'm coming!' It burns, it hurts. But it doesn't matter. They'll heal just as quickly as I am burnt.
'The heretic must be burnt!' They pull me back, and I find myself slipping away from her, so helpless, but bravely staring into the crowd, at me. In her eyes, I see, she knows. She has seen me burn and heal. She believes. I reach out to her 'I'm coming,' I scream. 'Mon Cherie, I' coming!' Hold on for me, Jehanne, just a little longer. A little longer… But she stares straight at me and smiles She just… smiles and mouths 'Francis, vous devez laisser'**
One slip, that's all it takes, and I'm being taken away, far from her. Her gaze, so steady and brave, burns through my eyes smarting from the smoke. Her whisper carrying through the hot wind, 'Je t'aime."
'Ah, but Francis,' I imagine she would have said if we had more time. She would have said that it was inevitable, that it was where she belonged: for her people, my people, burning in defense of God and faith.
By the time I am left alone to struggle to my leaden feet, the tears are already stinging my soor-covered cheeks. Perhaps I had been crying for some time now. Perhaps they were burnt away by the flames, the way it devoured her, too.
Even so, I still don't remember the color of her eyes.
Time flies, and here I am in the era of technology, still thinking about her. I see her immortalized in paintings, sculptures… she has become a household name. The valiant warrior who performed impossible deeds and saved the ancestral lands… To me, she is no saint, no brave martyr. She is just Jehanne, the girl with the radiant smile that captured my heart. Jehanne, who believed me in the ends, and loved me just the same.
She is where my story truly begins, and she will also be its end.
*Joan D'Arc, called herself Jehanne
** « Vous devez laisser » : You must leave/You must go (pardon my French-)
*** « Je t'aime » : I love you