But something holds her back, and she feels, just out of sight, the touch of her sister’s hand against her shoulder. Do not be so hard, Joan. It surprises her. There was no stirring of hatred when she first saw the Dauphin in the chapel. She recognized the uncertain step. The bowed head. The pause before he rose to his feet from prayer. This was a man afraid. She felt—and it bewildered her—pity for him. She realized: her list of enemies was also his. So, perhaps they could help each other. When she sees him now, all she can think is, You don’t look much of anything. Aren’t all lords and princes supposed to be lions among men? Yet here was just a person, a thin man, not handsome, with dark shadows under his eyes, probably, she guesses, from bad sleep and nightmares. A face such as his could be found selling cooking pots at a fair—and not doing a good job of it, either. With his luck, he would probably come away with less money in his pocket than what he started out with.

“And have they come true?” he asks, interrupting her thoughts.

“I do not know yet.”

To her surprise, he doesn’t push for details. He does not command her to speak up. She hears him shift in the chair. From the wide hollows of his sleeves, two hands emerge, thin as paper, and press together as if the moment calls for prayer. But he is not praying. He is looking at her and thinking.

“Then, if you are not gifted in prophecy, like certain holy women who have graced our company; if you are not an astrologer and do not possess the skill to read our kingdom’s fortunes in the movement of the stars and heavenly bodies; if you are neither a scholar nor a philosopher nor an ambassador learned in statecraft and religion, then it is a mystery how you think you can be of service to our cause.”

He speaks gently, like a person who is breaking bad news to someone unprepared for the blow. But he is growing bored. Briefly the Dauphin’s eyes close, and he exhales. Another sigh.

“The Duke writes your gifts are such that they could originate from no other source but God,” he continues, as if making excuses for her silence. “So, I ask again, what is it that you can do for us? There are councillors who were against the idea of my meeting you. I would not like to tell le Maçon, whom I trust, that they were right.”

She wonders: Why is it so hard to say what I can do? Why, if I possess strength, must it also be bound up in holiness? The Duke has used these phrases to describe her: Beloved of God; touched by the Divine; favored by our Lord, this simple maid. Why can’t they just say…