“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 ap peared to be nowhere to lodge. 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 car riages, 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 been misled by his white hair, which she now saw was false, a powdered wig secured by the lilac ribbon under his chin.
“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—”
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—
Defeat…Then the bloodred darkness of lost battles had descen ded, muffling her voices, while those of her English-loving enemies grew strong.
“No need to get testy,” Monsieur Arouet said, gently patting her knee plate. “Although I personally find your attire repulsive, I would defend to the death your right to dress any way you please. Or undress.” He eyed the near-transparent upper garment of a female inn patron nearby.
“Sir—”
“Paris has not lost its appetite for finery after all. Pale fruit of the gods, don’t you agree?”
“No, I do not. There is no virtue greater than chastity in wo-men—or in men. Our Lord was chaste, as are our saints and priests.”
“Priests chaste!” He rolled his eyes. “Pity you weren’t at the school my father forced me to attend as a boy. You could have so informed the Jesuits, who daily abused their innocent charges.”
“I, I cannot believe—”
“And what of him?” Voltaire talked right over her, pointing at the four-handed creature on wheels rolling toward them. “No doubt such a creature is chaste. Is it then virtuous, too?”
“Christianity, France itself, is founded on—”
“If chastity were practiced in France as much as it’s preached, the race would be extinct.”
The wheeled creature braked by their table. Stamped on his chest was what appeared to be his name: GARÇON 213-ADM. In a bass voice as clear as any man’s, he said, “A costume party, eh? I hope my delay will not make you late. Our mechfolk are having diffi culties.”
It eyed the other tiktok bringing dishes forth—a honey-haired blond in a hairnet, approximately humanlike. A demon?
The Maid frowned. Its jerky glance, even though mechanical, recalled the way her jailers had gawked at her. Humiliated, she had cast aside the women’s garments that her Inquisitors forced her to wear. Resuming manly attire, she’d scornfully put her jailers in their place. It had been a fine moment.
The cook assumed a haughty look, but fussed with her hairnet and smiled at Garçon 213-ADM before averting her eyes. The im port of this eluded Joan. She had accepted mechanicals in this strange place, without questioning their meaning. Presumably this was some intermediate station in the Lord’s providential order. But it was puzzling.
Monsieur Arouet reached out and touched the mechman’s nearest arm, whose construction the Maid could not help but admire. If such a creature could be made to sit a horse, in battle it would be invincible. The possibilities…