The arrow flies. There are men waiting near but not too near the target, and a shout goes up. “A fine shot!” The crowd applauds, cheering.

Sir Robert cocks his head at her and smiles. Your turn, his expression says.

It is the first time she has ever held a bow, and the bow is nearly as tall as she is.

Afterward, she will try to describe the moment and fail. How, for a moment, just a moment, her eyes had wandered, and she had caught sight of the church near the fortress, the steeple with its thin cross reaching up to a clear sky. It was too late for prayers; there was no time to mutter even a short Ave, but she had noticed the cross, and when she’d looked away, when she had raised the bow and the arrow with it, the cross was still in her eye, seared into her vision, overlaid against the target of straw. The bow felt light in her hands. A gentle wind blew and moved a strand of hair across her ear.

She did not hear the gasp of the crowd when she pulled back the string as easily as an oar in a seasoned bargeman’s hand. But she heard the arrow fly, its sound like a sharp inhalation of air. She felt an energy vibrate through her body, just over her heart, a sensation like a hardness unraveling.

A silence. The silence begins to lengthen.

Sir Robert grows impatient. His foot, tapping again, seems to do a little dance in the grass.

“Well?” he calls to his men in the distance.

No answer.

“Bring the target!” he shouts.

A puffing servant runs, carries the target closer for viewing. This is the first arrow, he reports truthfully. That the kitchen wench’s.

The crowd had not been biased. When they’d cried out in support of their friend, none had lied. It was a fine shot, as good a shot as any, Sir Robert would later say, to console his men.

But hers—hers has plunged through the center of the innermost circle, the pupil of the iris of the eye. At the sight of it, Sir Robert gapes. He is sweating, and with a trembling hand, he touches his damp forehead, releases a sound like a sob. He crosses himself, and others in the audience follow his example.

Joan sets down the bow, sends to it her silent thanks, and looks at Sir Robert. She asks in a quiet voice, though she, too, is shocked by what has happened, “Do you remember me now, my lord? This is already our second meeting.”