“Do not flee. I tell you in God’s name, they will not harm you.”
At this Richard the bowman, seeing that she was not afraid, burst out laughing. With a bound Jean de Metz had reached him, and had him by the throat.
“Varlet,” he cried, shaking the fellow angrily. “Know you 161 not that there are perils enough about us without giving a false alarm? That loud outcry of yours may bring the enemy upon us. I am minded to fling you into that water.”
“I but did it to scare the witch,” muttered Richard sullenly, eyeing the swollen stream with whitening face. The water was dismally cold, and very deep at this point. “I meant no harm.”
But De Metz, enraged by the word “witch,” lifted him bodily, preparatory to carrying out his threat, when Jeanne’s soft tones arrested him:
“Do not so, my friend,” she said sweetly. “The jest was ill timed, ’tis true; but still it was but a jest. He could neither frighten nor harm me. None can do that until I have fulfilled my mission. Let him go.”
“You hear?” De Metz let the man slide slowly to his feet. “But that she pleads for thee thou shouldst drink deep of that water. See to it that thy acts are better, else it shall go hard with thee. Ay! or whoever attempts tricks, be they jest or earnest.”
He glared at the retainers so fiercely that they shrank from his gaze. There was no further attempt to frighten the maiden during the rest of the journey, and it was noted that she had no more devoted servitor than Richard the bowman.
On they rode, and still on. Through gloomy woods, by threatened highways, and over swollen rivers the seven made their way. The enemy’s country was passed in time without mishap of any kind, and then on the morning of the tenth day out from Vaucouleurs they came to Gien on the River Loire. It held for the Dauphin, and Jeanne rejoiced for now, being 162 in friendly territory, she could go to mass. She had felt neither fear nor anxiety during the march, but she had been distressed that she could not attend mass, which she was accustomed to doing every day. Being on God’s errand she wished constantly to ask His help.
“If we could, we should do well to hear mass,” she had repeated wistfully each day; but when the knights told her that it was too dangerous she had not insisted.