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by Andrea Lena DiMaggio
In a field near Azincourt, Northern France, St. Crispin's Day, October 25, 1415...
Non Nobis Domine
Davey Kenney almost feared enough to cower at the rear. He wanted to honor his king, but away from the battle whereas other boys merely months older than him would show their mettle and fight. Truth be told, he had no stomach for the fight, but to lag while others fought? That would dishonor his father. He stared at the gloom that engulfed the field before him before grabbing an abandoned sword...
A few days before, Auxi-le-Château…
“Henri? Please. You don’t have to take your son. There must be plenty of men already in place to serve the king.” Marie grabbed her husband's sleeve in a futile attempt to sway the madness. He raised his hand to strike her, but their son pulled his mother away.
“I will go, Maman. It is my duty to our King.” Henri stayed his hand and patted the boy on the back.
“See, my wife? Our son is well-named. He will be just fine. You’ll see,” Henri walked to the door of the cottage and nodded before walking out. Alexandre kissed his mother farewell. He was not afraid, but something in his heart bode too strongly against hope.
“All my love, Maman!” He sighed deeply and followed his father out of the cottage.
By the supplies...
“You going to….” Jacob Hardy kept his voice to a whisper, but Davey understood above the loud, threatening noises from all over the field. His father Tom eyed the sword in Davey’s hand and nodded in approval.
“Let the other boys stay with the provisions. My boy will prove himself today," Tom Kenney had boasted. His bragging earned a glare from one of the archers; easy enough to say. Davey turned away at his father’s words; wishing for all the world he was back home in Hastings. He sighed at the thought of death. Not because he was afraid of death, but perhaps as the apostle had said, he also was born out of time. Davey thought back to his last…last? Words with his ma...
“Now you never mind your dad…leastways while ‘es off with one o’ his women somewhere. That gives us plenny o’ time fer my girl.”Aggie Kenney half-smiled at the girl in front of her. Dinah winced at the word ‘girl’ and glanced over "her" shoulder.
“What'n yer dad don’t know canna hurt ya,” Aggie laughed as she double-bolted the door. As much as there might be hell to pay upon his return, what little money he earned was already eating a hole in his pocket, and he would likely be gone for two or three days drinking and whoring. Dinah unconsciously touched herself; feeling the two equally offending parts of her.
“I don’t care what’s there, Dinah lass. You’ve been a good lad to your father and Lord be praised you’re a good girl to me. “ Dinah began to cry.
“None o’ that sweet child. Time enough when my Tom come home and beats you fer not doin’ what he never told ya.” Aggie pulled her boy/girl child into a comforting embrace and completely ignored her own words; holding Davey close.
“There, there, sweet girl, it’ll be all right,” she repeated over and over. Aggie didn’t have a prescient bone in her body, but it would indeed be alright; just not in a way that anyone could have anticipated.
Meanwhile...
“Mind your manner, son,” Henri said as he warmly patted his son on the back. It was important to show everyone what a good job he had done raising his boy. Alexandre was as obedient and attentive as any boy could be. That he favored his mother was of no consequence since whatever was soft in him was attended to with a switch or a cord. Marie did as much as she could to mend the damage, but the child’s soul was ebbing away save for the few precious times he wasn’t required to be Alexandre.
“Send that child away, Marie. It is cursed and you with it,” Marie’s aunt had said. In an almost fitting if sad twist of fate, Estelle passed that very night in her sleep. Like any of her generation, Aunt Estelle was almost kind.
“I am glad Maman did not live to see this,” Marie’s sister had exclaimed, but immediately surprised Marie with her next words.
“She would have been twice as cruel to this sweet baby…” Louise shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"I pledge my life to see that your child is safe, my dear sister" Between the two of them and Henri’s almost indifference in the midst of his demands, Henri would never learn their secret. At least not in this plane of existence...
As Davey Kenney stepped away from the wagon, an arrow whizzed by his head and pierced Jacob’s heart; killing him with nary a sound. Rather than fall back behind the safety of the supplies, Davey rushed nearly headlong into a volley of arrows. He felt the sting of an arrowhead as it tore through his coat sleeve and opened a shallow cut on his arm.
Meanwhile, his father had retreated behind the safety of a wagon that would provide him cover for the hour upon hour of the battle that raged only yards away. His cowardice would remain known only to him; as 'proof' of his fighting, he would smear on himself mud and the blood from the body of another fallen supply boy who died protecting the rear line.
Davey staggered fell several times and quickly bore the mud that had once been part of the green meadow. He did brandish his sword a handful of times, but only to parry away the blades of French soldiers. About halfway across the battlefield, he came upon a slight-looking youth.
“Je ne te souhaite aucun mal." (I wish you no harm.") The boy patted his heart.
Davey nodded reflexively, almost knowing without knowing at all but still sensing the child’s intent, but more so looking into the child’s soul. He dropped to one knee and placed his sword on the ground.
The child…Alexandre Bonne-âme fell into Davey Kenney’s arms and wept. Alexandre was also covered in mud; the two could have been mistaken for long-separated twins. As the battle raged around them, the two communicated almost silently with nods while holding hands; exchanging few words.
"It feels like we've known each other forever," Davey exclaimed with a smile as tears cascaded from his face. Alexandre nodded even as he tilted his head in confusion; only to have the inkling of understanding shown in an ever-widening smile.
Their sacred moment was interrupted as Henri Bonne-âme happened upon the two.
"Laches (cowards)," he exclaimed as he picked up Davey's discarded sword.
"Sales lâches pervers! (Dirty coward perverts!) he screamed as he stabbed them repeatedly until they were dead.
He spat on their bodies before moving off, calling out ‘Alexandre ? Alexandre? Où es-tu, mon fils? (Where are you, my son?") Henri would live on as one of the 'lucky' ones in an army that suffered catastrophic and disproportionate losses to a vastly outnumbered English force. But he would never recover from the loss of his only child; dying impoverished and alone; abandoned by his inconsolable wife.. And Tom Kenney would live a relatively long and miserable life bearing the shame of his cowardice.
Two teenage girls sat nearly side by side on a wide Settee in the middle of a broad and airy atrium. The ceiling was adorned with the images of decidedly feminine angelic beings. It was supported on all sides by tall marble columns whose spacings revealed a blue sky interspersed with soft white clouds. Both girls leaned a bit and glanced down to what looked like fearful chaos below.
"Mon dieu!" one of them exclaimed as she pointed downward.
"J'ai peur!"
"Don't be afraid, little one. We are safe." The other girl said with conviction even as the memory of her own fear was fading away.
"It still makes me sad, tho..." The girl sighed and looked down and away; as if she could see for many miles.
"J'ai peur de ne plus jamais revoir maman." the first girl gasped.
"But we will see them both again." The second girl, Dinah Kenney, sighed; a fleeting moment of regret that was pushed aside by a growing if inexplicable confidence that things would indeed be alright.
"Tes paroles me font plaisir." Alexandrine Bonne-âme said, patting her breast. Grasping Dinah's hand, she used her other hand to lift Dinah's face; kissing her on both cheeks.
"Sisters?" Dinah asked. Alexandrine smiled at Dinah and answered.
"Oui! Sœurs pour toujours!"
In Act IV: Scene VIII of Henry V, the Bard recorded the words of Harry (Henry V) expressing thanks to God with the command,
Do we all holy rites:
Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum';
The dead with charity enclos'd in clay-
And then to Calais; and to England then;
Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men
Little else is said by Shakespeare regarding the Battle of Agincourt, but it is vividly and tragically played out in the movie Henry V, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh in the scene where the dead are retrieved even as the stirring rendition is played of Non Nobis Domine scored by Patrick Doyle, It is fitting that King Harry carries the body of one of the boys, since their deaths more than any others show just how futile it all was. A remarkable film and a brilliant score.
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Comments
beautiful
thank you for sharing this.
"for we will put on heavenly bodies..."
After a rough life and an ironic death these two strangers who recognized instantly who the other was get to be sisters forever. Literally. While I think it's sad they never got to be their real selves while on Earth it's a sweet thought. And it does say in the Bible (Corinthians something, something) we will be given a heavenly home and new eternal bodies; which as I recall it implied wouldn't necessarily be like our earthly ones but would fit our souls; so who knows? it's nice to think the Christian god would be more accepting of and kinder to trans people than a lot of his self-appointed agents on earth. It certainly seems more consistent with what their book touts as a god of love.
In a few deft brushstrokes this story gives us these angelic sisters short, harsh brutal lives and family dynamics, their behavior in a battle they had pretty much been roped into and didn't seem to see the need for but they were at least as brave as their manliness obsessed fathers. These aren't the first MtF trans soldiers who have died on the battlefield in your stories; I wonder if there's a special part of heaven where they all hang out, a band of sisters from wars all over the globe and all thru history. Maybe there's a story in that somewhere but I know I couldn't do it justice...
~hug, Ronni
.
Not sure what the 100 Year War was about, it was probably something silly; but you gotta hand it to Henry V; he led the charges himself unlike some kings who sit in their room watching the battle on television, eating Big Macs, shouting at people on burner phones and deleting records. (Sorry, been watching the hearings...)
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
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Lovely
And the time/place made me smile. Just yesterday, I used the last part of the King's speech (as told by the Bard) before the battle in a story.
Thanks
Samantha
Body And Soul
Two youngsters whose outward appearance did not match their souls thrust into a battle that neither of them sought....and despite Henry's victory at Agincourt the English ultimately lost The Hundred Years War so their deaths were in vain. Perhaps the two of them were joined in an afterlife as the story would have it. We can only hope.
Kings leading their troops into battle went out of fashion many years ago so that today's so-called leaders have no idea what happens in the field but sit and watch the carnage on their TVs, chortling happily as their men wage war on the enemy.
Nothing but bluster
Henri was all mouth, just bluster and no true courage, claiming otherwise until it really counted. His true colors emerged when his life was on the line.
It wasn't made clear if Henri knew he'd killed his own son, when he found the two boys together on the battle field, but he reaped what he'd sewn all the years before.
Others have feelings too.