She leaves the guard whimpering and nursing his broken wrist. Her fingers flex as she walks back to the kitchens, though she feels no pain. It doesn’t bother her that she has just put one of the garrison’s men out of commission, albeit temporarily. There is glory to be gained in whipping the enemies of France, none in making victims of those who are defenseless. Again she is reminded: It is not only the English who are cruel. Just think of her own father.

Her strength no longer surprises her. It is, she believes, the natural outcome of such a childhood. How else would she have survived if she didn’t grow strong? All her life she has been fighting. The pages may begin their training as early as seven years old, but what do they know of pain? Fighting is as much about taking pain as doling it out. When she was five, she already knew what it was to be covered in welts. And she has always worked hard. Hard work, too, proved second nature to her. By the time she was ten, she had hands callused like a laborer’s.

What does a page know about the twitch of muscle that precedes a punch? The cold gleam of a man’s eye when he is about to strike? But she has grown up with these signs and would recognize them in anyone. At eight, she was held down by her older brothers while their friends laughed. They dunked her head in a stream, but she held her breath. She learned that day: When one man beats you, it invites others to try, too. People can smell out weakness. Only strength keeps them at bay.

She remembers the cart she lifted from the mud in Domrémy and the rotted stump of a tree in the church garden, which had to be dug out and moved. The priest had called for three strong men to help, but when he returned with them, it was Joan who stood in the garden, her arms wrapped around the stump, as if she had made a new friend and was hugging it. From the tangled roots, a cascade of dirt and pebbles fell. She said, looking at the open-mouthed priest, “Where should I put this?”

Others in the village have asked her, What is it with you and fighting, Joan? (For she always looks wary and ready for a scuffle.) Is it true what your uncle says, that at the fair at Vaucouleurs you made straight for the helmet-makers and armorers? Why do you treat stories of battle and sieges as though they were songs to be sung for children before they go to sleep?