The next day, before her uncle leaves, she asks him what blancmanger is. Is it real?

He used to work in kitchens. “Yes.” He nods. “Yes, it is real, but it is not a simple dish. You need meat finely chopped, which can be fresh capon or fish, and sugar of high quality. All this must be cooked in rice and almond milk until it is thick as a custard. And anise or saffron may be added, too. So as you can see, it is no commoner’s food.”

“My sister sent me to Vaucouleurs to fetch a dish of blancmanger for her,” she explains.

Her uncle lowers his eyes. He doesn’t say, Then Catherine knew full well what she planned to do that day.

The priest is satisfied that what happened was an accident, and Joan has lied to his face. “Before I left the house,” she told him, “I forgot to put a pitcher of water beside her bed. She was probably thirsty and took a fall.”

But God, she thinks, sees everything.

She has forgotten about the prize in her pocket, what the cook in Vaucouleurs gave her, which remains wrapped in a clean napkin. When she unfolds the cloth, a golden wafer rests in her palm like a miniature sun.

Her uncle bends until the tip of his nose hovers just over its surface. He inhales, smiling. “It is an unmistakable scent,” he says, “the smell of cinnamon.” She folds the wafer back into the napkin and gives it to him. As he takes it, he looks about to cry. She knows they are both thinking the same thing: This was not meant for you.

He is leaving, and she is aware he won’t come back. This is the longest he’s ever stayed in Domrémy. How many days had he sat with Catherine, held her hand, and tried to make her forget? But for the first time in his life, he has run out of stories to tell. The princess with the straw-colored hair who wears a brocaded gown and pairs of silver slippers is now a figure both comical and ridiculous. She is still happily married, in a kingdom far, far away, a new child in her belly each year and infants sighing sweetly as they roll inside their gilded cradles; but Catherine, she is already dead.

Invasion, death. He has seen these things before, just not so close, and they have taken their toll on him. This village, too, will never be the same again. His wanderer’s heart must move on.

When they reach the edge of Domrémy, Joan cries. She holds him to her, digging her chin into his shoulder. Her arms are like a death grip, and he is thinner than when he first came, wisps of white in his hair. She can feel every section of his spine. She holds him as if he were the cat Matagot.