Language is a tool for communication, but sometimes, even when people speak the same language, the meaning can change depending on how the listener interprets it.
And so, Jeanne’s habit of quietly approaching Maxime and pressing herself against his side whenever no one else was around came down to how she had interpreted his permission to stay beside him.
…She’s positioned herself so perfectly that I can’t move. Did she plan this?
He said I could stay this close to him… I like it, hehe…
Maxime had given her permission to share the space beside him, but Jeanne d’Arc had interpreted that as permission to be physically close to him.
…In other words, she’d interpreted his words however she pleased.
Though normally shy around Maxime, once she found an opportunity to indulge her longing, one layer of her restraint fell away. She had become an unruly young horse, unable to rein herself in.
Maxime sensed danger.
This… might be a little dangerous.
At this rate, he might end up getting carried away by his own physical desires. He needed to change the mood, and anything would do. So he brought up some dry, practical business.
“Charles has accepted the truce proposal. We won’t be able to move our troops for the time being. What are you planning to do in the meantime?”
“…It’s the king’s decision, so we must obey. For now, I intend to persuade the surrounding cities.”
“Are you planning to send letters again?”
“Yes. …I’ll need your help.”
“I don’t mind writing them for you, but this time, I’ll lend a hand in another way as well.”
The Saintess’s letters had accomplished little so far. Part of the problem was that she’d always sent them to the wicked English, but it was clear that a change of approach was needed.
“Wouldn’t that be imposing on you when you’re already so busy…?”
“It’s fine. I’m just thinking of adding a symbol of peace to the letters using enamel paint.”
As he spoke, he met Jeanne’s eyes. She grew startled and quickly lowered her head.
“I-It’s embarrassing when you look at me like that…”
What was there to be embarrassed about when she was practically glued to his side? She fidgeted with her fingers. Her behavior was difficult to decipher by any ordinary person’s standards.
But she’s cute. …I might actually miss this once she gets used to being around me.
She was clearly wearing armor, yet he could feel her body warmth where she pressed against him. In truth, he could have stopped her from clinging to him, but some vague sense of unease kept him from firmly pushing her away.
And so, each indulging their own selfish desires, they settled into their present tranquility.
Just as Maxime began worrying about someone seeing them, he happened to hear something approaching.
“Prrff, woof!”
Walter entered the room, took one look at the two of them, let out what sounded like a mocking laugh, and disappeared.
“……”
“……”
Maxime stared at the spot where Walter had vanished and decided that, for the first time in a while, he would dunk the dog in water and give him a thorough bath.
At least no one’s coming to bother us.
As symbols of royal authority, they had little time to themselves. Even so, Jeanne d’Arc had an uncanny knack for finding moments when both of them were free, allowing them to spend time together without interruption.
“……Thank you for letting me stay by your side.”
Her words were so clear that, for a moment, Maxime thought he must have misheard.
“That’s not fair, saying something like that.”
At this point, I don’t even know anymore.
I took hold of both her shoulders and turned her to face me. My hands moved of their own accord. I gently stroked the soft skin at the back of her neck.
“Uh, um… Huh?”
I lowered my head and lightly pressed my lips to her forehead.
Smooch…
My lips pulled away. It was just a light kiss.
“Consider that a warning. Don’t go saying things like that so carelessly next time.”
What a pathetic excuse.
Thud.
The Saintess was KO’d. Her legs had given out.
“Urk?! Huh? Ah!”
That night, Jeanne d’Arc couldn’t forget the lingering sensation of his lips and remained awake until late into the night.
***
Maxime had made it sound as though he was merely adding a simple symbol to the letters, but the people who actually received them had an entirely different impression.
“Open it more carefully! If you crease it even a little, you’ll be in trouble!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
An image of an angel holding a sword upside down. The angel gripped the sharp blade itself, with the sword’s tip pointing toward the ground. Olive branches, symbols of peace, also surrounded the angel.
Considering that ordinary letters were little more than plain sheets of parchment, the design was quite unusual.
This is art that defies convention…
Not only had the parchment been decorated, but it had even been sprayed with perfume. The entire presentation challenged their very notion of what a letter should be.
Packaging matters when it comes to luxury goods. Humans are simple creatures in that regard. When something is beautifully packaged, they naturally assume the contents must be equally impressive.
“Laon welcomes the Saintess. We will join Charles’s forces.”
“As the representative of Château-Thierry, I pledge our loyalty to His Majesty Charles.”
With Jeanne d’Arc and Maxime working together, the cities surrounding Reims and other nearby towns began declaring their intention to join Charles’s cause one after another. Their efforts even succeeded in winning enthusiastic support.
As the surrounding cities submitted without any significant fighting, the territories already allied with Charles erupted in celebration, invoking the name of God.
“Their holiness has been proven!”
“O Saint! O Saintess!”
Yet not everyone was pleased with these developments.
“The Saint and Saintess have accomplished far too much. Public opinion is firmly on their side.”
“…If Paris falls as well, the military commanders’ achievements will be elevated to an excessive degree!”
The Armagnacs might have appeared to be a unified group, but in reality, they were divided into factions driven by their own interests. The most vehement reaction came from Georges’s faction, which had entrenched itself around the king. Ever since the Saint’s appearance, they had feared that the existing balance of power might be disrupted.
“We cannot allow the Saint and Saintess to gain any more influence…!”
Their eagerness to pursue negotiations was also an attempt to protect their own share of power.
“The Saintess is brave, but she can only see immediate gains, not the greater cause.”
“If we lose Burgundy’s goodwill, the war will drag on once again. There’s no need to turn an entire duchy against us just to capture a city.”
“I acknowledge the Saintess’s momentum, but entrusting her with the entire front… She still has much to learn.”
“The soldiers have grown so excited by their string of victories that they’ve become arrogant, blindly believing they can win any battle.”
“The Saint is a quiet warmonger. What else would you call his obsession with overhauling all our military supplies if not madness?”
“He’s also a drain on the treasury, constantly wasting resources by insisting on rebuilding weapons that are perfectly serviceable.”
No one mentioned that the Saint was the very reason their finances had improved.
“The citizens want stable governance. It is our duty to meet those expectations.”
Although there was no movement to attack the Saint and Saintess directly, they were firmly united in their desire to diminish their influence.
Charles remained silent. In the early days of his reign, he was an indecisive king who struggled to make decisions.
Outwardly, he supported the two holy figures, but privately, he shared the views of his closest advisers. He, too, had grown wary of the Saint and Saintess’s ever-increasing popularity.
‘They were useful when my claim to the throne was uncertain, but now that my position as king is secure, their popularity is no longer a good thing.’
Charles pondered which course of action would benefit him most.
***
While the Armagnacs remained inactive under the truce, England landed troops at the port city of Calais.
John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, brought them into Paris without encountering any difficulties.
“W-What are all these troops?”
“Reinforcements from England. They’re here to crush that false king.”
As more than four thousand soldiers marched forward, their heavy footsteps kicked up clouds of dust. The sight of these dependable regular troops brought relief to the anxious citizens of Paris.
There were only a handful of cavalrymen. The rest consisted entirely of infantry and longbowmen, troops intended to defend the city walls.
“My lord Regent, the Duke of Burgundy says he intends to bring his forces to join us.”
“Tell him to remain where he is for now and concentrate on deceiving the French.”
Paris was the strongest fortress in Europe.
The outer walls stood nine meters high, while the inner walls were built at a slight incline. The space between them was filled with crushed stone mixed with lime mortar, bringing the total thickness to three meters. Defenders could rain stones and arrows down from positions along the walls. Narrow openings had been built into each section of the fortifications, allowing long-range cannons to be installed. A moat surrounded the outer perimeter.
And all of this had been completed as early as the thirteenth century.
The walls of Paris had already been formidable, but they were strengthened even further during the Hundred Years’ War. With continued royal funding, new fortifications were constructed. Dozens of towers were erected with defensive cannons mounted on top. Two moats were dug in front of the walls, each thirty meters wide, with an additional wall built between them. Traps were also dug to prevent cavalry charges, and numerous chains were arranged in staggered patterns.
If World War II had the Maginot Line, the Hundred Years’ War had Paris.
Four thousand English regulars had joined the three thousand Parisian militiamen. Once the reinforcements from Burgundy arrived, they would have enough defenders to man every section of the walls.
“Even with a purely defensive force, excluding any troops for offensive operations, we can hold our own against the false king.”
John of Lancaster was not satisfied with that alone. He sent letters to every regional noble in English-controlled France, ordering them to bring their armies and join him.
The longer we drag this out, the more certain England’s victory becomes!
He was preparing for a decisive battle that would turn the tide of the war.
***
In truth, having the army rest during the truce wasn’t such a bad thing from Maxime’s perspective.
Finally, I have some time to improve the cannons.
Managing an army was brutally demanding. Even a simple march required dozens of inspections and adjustments. No matter how quickly the Saint worked, he never had a moment to spare.
“Coat, assemble the engineering corps.”
“Leave it to me.”
He separately summoned Henri, Laurent, Ben, and Lupuy, all from Domrémy, in their capacity as squad leaders.
“I’d like you all to help prepare for bronze processing.”
He also made a request to the administrative soldiers responsible for managing supplies.
“Please bring me every cannon I’ve marked in the inventory ledger.”
As the scale of the preparations grew, so did the soldiers’ anxiety. They had a feeling the Saint was about to pull something outrageous again.
“Oh, God.”
“Mom… I miss you.”
Some of the craftsmen who had joined the engineering corps with grand dreams found themselves wiping away tears.
“We’re going to make proper bronze cannons. At the very least, they need to be able to withstand gunpowder clay.”
Gunpowder clay was about to see its first deployment in actual combat.
It had been manufactured using the gunpowder proportions that would become standard by the late eighteenth century.
The mixture consisted of 75 percent saltpeter, 15 percent charcoal, and 10 percent sulfur by weight. It was several times more efficient than the haphazardly mixed gunpowder of the Middle Ages. Of course, those proportions assumed that all the ingredients were 100 percent pure.
Since the charcoal and sulfur were already highly pure, Maxime focused on the saltpeter.
He increased its purity by boiling it in a large cauldron to dissolve the nitrates. He then filtered out soil and organic residue from the solution using cloth filters and removed impurities through sedimentation.
Once the solution cooled, potassium nitrate crystallized out as white crystals. He dissolved the recovered saltpeter again and repeated the process.
Even after all that, the purity was still less than perfect. So, after several experiments, he made slight adjustments to the proportions to compensate for the remaining impurities.
“We’ll mix copper and tin at a ratio of nine to one for the alloy.”
Maxime carefully controlled impurities in the materials and attempted to produce the alloy while paying close attention to the risk of internal cracks in the bronze cannons.
Let’s build a siege cannon capable of breaching any fortress wall mankind has ever constructed. It’s entirely possible.
France’s ultimate weapon was taking shape.
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