Chapter 7

The people of Domrémy didn’t know it, but not long after Henry V died, France’s mad king Charles VI died as well.

The situation had already been chaotic to begin with. The deaths of both kings only accelerated the turmoil.

England made its demand.

“France must honor the Treaty of Troyes.”

The Treaty of Troyes.

Under its terms, the heir born to Henry V and Charles VI’s daughter would inherit the French throne.

In other words, the King of England would also rule France.

And so the infant Henry VI became king.

“Those power-hungry bastards actually crowned a baby who was barely born? We already have the Dauphin!”

“The Dauphin has no right to the throne. Stop twisting the facts! The rightful king is Henry VI!”

France argued that a treaty sworn by a mad king was invalid.

England declared France’s refusal an act of rebellion.

The Duchy of Burgundy sided with England. At the same time, it sought to exploit the chaos to expand its own influence.

The worsening political situation meant that none of the armies withdrew. That was the real problem.

An army consumed resources even when it stood idle.

Keeping an army in the field required supplies, but fifteenth-century armies did not rely on supply lines from the rear.

The reason was simple. Supplying an army entirely through rear logistics required not only enormous amounts of provisions but also dedicating more than half of the army’s manpower to transportation alone.

In practice, living off the land was essential to keeping an army operational, and the most common way to do that was through plunder.

“We’re running short on food. Recommend somewhere worth looting.”

“What about Lorraine? It’s an important corridor connecting the Low Countries.”

“But the Duke of Lorraine is our ally.”

“I’ve heard he’s been getting rather close to the Armagnacs lately. The Dauphin’s faction.”

“So this is retaliation for betrayal? We don’t even know for certain that he’s betrayed us…”

“The Armagnacs are already plundering Lorraine. If it’s going to be looted either way, wouldn’t the duke rather have his allies do it than his enemies?”

“An excellent point!”

The ambitious Burgundian nobles launched raids to replenish their supplies while giving their soldiers an opportunity to vent their frustrations.

***

Fweeeeeeeet!

The shrill blast of whistles echoed throughout the village.

The attack came without warning. If not for the children who had been trained beforehand, they wouldn’t even have known where to run.

“Loot everything!”

We’d prepared for this, but I never imagined we’d be invaded so soon.

“Coat, I have to help the villagers… Please take care of Agathe. I can trust you, right?”

“Yeah. Leave her to me.”

With trembling hands, Coat took hold of Agathe’s hand. The two of them fought all the time, but when it truly mattered, he didn’t hesitate to protect his little sister.

My parents weren’t home. Of all times, the attack had come when both of them happened to be away.

For the first time in my life, I prayed to God.

Please let them escape safely… Please… please…

There was no way I could wander around looking for them in a situation like this. If we happened to miss each other, we’d all be in even greater danger.

Fortunately, the villagers were evacuating quickly.

That was thanks to me.

“Everyone, listen! The enemy’s here! You need to evacuate!”

The children shouted as they guided the villagers toward the evacuation route.

When people face a disaster for the first time, their instinct isn’t to run. It’s to stop and make sense of what’s happening.

In a crisis, those precious moments are wasted. By guiding people immediately, the children cut down on that hesitation.

So far, everything was going well.

“They’re running without even trying to negotiate? They must’ve known we were coming. Think they’re taking all the food with them too?”

“What a nasty little village. Pick up the pace. Burn the buildings down!”

The soldiers who had come to plunder broke into a faster advance.

Unless you’ve stood before a line of armed soldiers marching toward you, it’s impossible to understand the pressure they exert.

Even the trained children began to panic as the soldiers closed in. A band of killers was a threat to life simply by existing.

I grabbed the villagers who had frozen in place.

They were about to be left behind.

“Please, everyone, calm down…!”

No one heard me.

Trying to control the situation by myself was impossible. Standing before an army, I truly understood how powerless an individual was.

“Burn it all! Don’t let them get away!”

As I watched the village go up in flames, I realized something.

I couldn’t keep turning my back on the war any longer.

***

Jeanne d’Arc.

In the Lorraine region, it was customary for a daughter’s given name to be influenced by her mother’s. As a result, everyone called her Janette.

Maxime was right. An army really did come.

She stepped outside, clutching the whistle Maxime had given her.

Knowing him, he’s definitely out there risking himself to help the villagers.

Maxime was the kind of person who sacrificed himself too readily. He was admirable, but sometimes she felt he took it too far.

She offered a prayer in the middle of the village.

“God, please grant me the strength to help my brother.”

Janette finished her prayer with quiet sincerity.

As soon as it was over, the trembling stopped. Her body grew strangely cold.

“Thank you.”

The raiders were on the outskirts of the village.

The villagers were already evacuating, leaving a fair distance between themselves and the attackers. There was still plenty of time to escape.

Fighting them head-on would be difficult.

There were fewer soldiers than she had expected. Unfortunately, even such a small force was more than Domrémy could handle.

She raised the whistle to her lips and blew as hard as she could, her cheeks quivering with the effort.

Fweeeeee!!

The shrill blast of the whistle rang out. The panicked villagers turned toward Janette.

“Everyone, get a hold of yourselves! Don’t push! We can all make it out alive!”

Jenne shouted.

Her commanding presence was so overwhelming that some people stumbled in surprise.

“Don’t just run blindly. Make sure no one is left behind. We’re evacuating together.”

Her charisma brought the crowd under control in an instant. Even the village elders quietly followed the path she led.

“Woof! Woof!”

Walter, too, seemed determined to help, drawing the soldiers’ attention before darting away.

Those who had nearly been left behind because of injuries or frailty calmly joined the orderly stream of evacuees.

A few soldiers rushed ahead to attack the fleeing villagers, but even trained soldiers could not take on a large group retreating in an organized formation by themselves.

The evacuation was a success.

At the banks of the Meuse, Janette spotted Maxime, drenched in sweat.

Maxime asked,

“What happened?”

She calmly told him everything she had done.

“I see. Thank you.”

At those simple words, the heart that had grown so cold became warm again.

I helped big brother…!

For the first time in her life, she experienced the joy of having saved someone.

***

The villagers paid the price for ignoring Maxime’s warning.

Fortunately, because I had prepared for the invasion in advance, the loss of life was minimal.

Only five people had died.

It was an extraordinary outcome, yet I could not feel any happiness.

“…Say that again.”

“I’m sorry… Monet was trying to help us when she was struck by a spear…. It happened so quickly that I couldn’t stop it.”

Monet was mother’s name. More than my own grief, the thought of the loss my younger siblings would have to endure filled me with despair.

She had been found in the center of the village with her clothes torn away. They said she had been captured by soldiers while trying to help her neighbors.

– If my son is helping people, then his mother should help too.

Monet was an innocent soul. She had believed that if her son was helping others, then she should do the same.

They said the area where she had been was crowded with people.

She might not have noticed the soldiers approaching until they were already upon her.

How could people who claimed to believe in God commit such atrocities?

Whatever little faith I had left vanished.

“……”

Father patted me on the back.

The man who had loved his wife did not cry. The whites of his eyes had turned bloodshot, yet no tears fell.

He still had children to raise.

“I’ll tell my younger siblings.”

“…Thank you.”

We would hide the body until the very end.

There were countless ways to dress up mother’s death. Since she had died helping others, we could honor it as a noble sacrifice.

The children accused the adults of turning their backs on reality. In truth, the one who had turned away from reality more than anyone else was me.

Is this the price of turning my back on war?

All I wanted was to protect the people around me. If I could ignore the horrors of war and keep peace within my own little circle, I thought I could be content with the life I’d been given.

I thought I had adapted to this new life.

How arrogant of me.

War did not disappear simply because I refused to look at it. That sweet, peaceful life had been nothing more than a comforting illusion.

The truth was, I already knew.

Janette was destined to become a figure of history. Yet I wanted her to remain nothing more than the ordinary girl next door.

I tried to stand in the way of her great destiny.

I justified it by telling myself, “A life is precious.”

I was no different from Rodercius, who had tried to suppress Serena. For the sake of personal happiness, I deliberately denied the wings she possessed.

I don’t believe Rodercius whispered false love into Serena’s ear. He simply chose the easier kind of love.

But did that make Serena happy?

Could France survive without Jeanne d’Arc?

Was my personal desire truly worth abandoning the greater cause?

The result of choosing the easier path was nothing but ruin.

So then…

What was the truth?

A mere ten-year-old girl had taken command of the crowd.

Meanwhile, I had been struggling just to keep myself from throwing up from the tension.

“If I were to seek revenge… would you try to stop me?”

Father didn’t answer.

“I’m joking. I’m not going to let revenge consume me and burn myself up.”

If anything was going to burn…

It would be the world.

I embraced father, whose bloodshot eyes looked ready to burst.

***

Many homes had been reduced to ashes. Most of the villagers had survived, but some might have been better off dead. There would have been fewer mouths to feed.

Some families might starve to death before winter was over.

In terms of financial losses alone, the d’Arc family, one of the wealthiest in the village, had suffered the most. Had Jacques, the eldest son, not managed to move the livestock out of harm’s way, the damage would have been even worse.

Uncle Jacques, consumed with fury, bought a longsword from the blacksmith. He swore that if the raiders ever returned, he would kill every last one of them.

I helped rebuild the village. I accepted no payment.

I simply wanted to do whatever I could.

“You’ve been through so much yourself, yet you’re still helping us like this… Thank you.”

“May God bless you…”

The villagers offered their blessings to the quietly working me.

Not everyone thanked me.

Some villagers showed no reaction no matter how much I helped. They merely stared blankly into space with vacant eyes.

Arson, looting, chaos, and death.

There was no such thing as counseling in this era. Psychological trauma was a quick path to becoming a shell of one’s former self.

I need to find a way to help them.

If I called for revenge, these frightened villagers would never follow me. Even if they did, facing trained soldiers without preparation would only end in slaughter.

What they needed first was comfort.

I wasn’t confident in comforting people with words.

My strength wasn’t my mouth.

It was my hands.

At the center of the village, I began stacking bricks.

I hadn’t asked anyone’s permission.

Thanks to the goodwill I had built up over time, no one tried to stop me.

They were probably assuming I was helping with the reconstruction.

I picked up a masonry chisel and struck it with a hammer.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The work progressed at an astonishing pace.

No matter how many times I brought the hammer down, my hands never hurt. Ever since my reincarnation, I had known that my sense of touch had become unusually sharp. What I hadn’t realized was that my hands had become far more resilient as well.

The pile of stone gradually began to take on a human form.

Stone is unforgiving. One careless strike can create a crack and reduce hours of work to rubble.

But wherever my hands worked, no such mishap occurred. Every swing of the hammer was filled with absolute confidence.

One by one, the faces of the five villagers who had died emerged from the stone.

They looked exactly as they had in life.

I stared at my mother’s face for a long moment before carving words beside it.

– We remember you.

– We will not allow ourselves to be consumed by the sorrow they wished to inflict upon us.

– Even if we one day die and vanish from this world, the memories we shared with you will remain with us forever.

If anyone couldn’t read, I would gladly read the inscription aloud for them.

I wanted the villagers to free themselves from the fear of death.

Bricks could always be brought in. Even if more people died, I would continue adding new carvings in the same way.

…By the time I finished, I had completely lost track of the days.

When I turned around, a crowd had gathered behind me.

I later learned that I had worked for five straight days without eating.

“Sniff… sob…”

“They say he received a revelation from God…”

The memorial became a sea of tears.

I quietly stepped aside, giving the mourners space to grieve.

It was the birth of a new funeral tradition in Domrémy.

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My sculptures looked as though they held the souls of the people they depicted.

Rather than dwindling, the number of visitors only grew with time. More and more people came to pray before them.

To avoid being branded a heretic, I erected a cross, the symbol of the Catholic faith, at the center of the memorial.

I never should have raised that cross.

Before long, rumors began spreading in earnest that the sculptures were connected to the souls of the blessed in Heaven.

Several years passed.

News of Domrémy spread throughout Europe.

Pilgrims began making the journey there.