Somewhere at the base of her neck, she feels her blood jump. Her nerves skitter away from her. She has only this moment, this chance. If she is to go where her enemies are, she cannot do it alone; she will need help. Behind her back, the fingers of her right hand flex into a fist.

Now it is her turn to surprise the Dauphin. She steps forward to the edge of the carpet and returns to kneeling; her eyes take in a woolen rose, its thorns like tiny green fangs.

It was never decided what she would say if asked. Le Maçon had instructed, suddenly nervous before her meeting, Commit yourself to nothing! Be vague. Don’t boast. Though you are not a woman in holy orders, wasn’t our Lord, too, only a shepherd? And you said you sometimes watched sheep in Domrémy. So perhaps, though you should not say your prayers are more efficacious than ours, you can hint that this is so? Just for this first meeting? You understand, we have never handled someone quite like you before. We don’t know what you are yet.

She doesn’t listen to le Maçon. “Majesty,” Joan says quietly, “I can fight.”

Personal tribulations have instructed the Dauphin in patience, in the kingly art of forbearance. Le Maçon says these are his positive attributes. He is not the kind of prince who will strike a servant simply because he is angry or because he can. He will not rush to judgment. It was a hard lesson that taught him first to think, then to speak, and finally to act—that is, when he acts at all, which these days is rare enough. For if John the Fearless, father of the current Duke of Burgundy, were alive, how things might be different for him, for France…but it never does any good to dwell upon the sins of the past.

The Dauphin lets her words sink in. He exercises serenity worthy of a bishop. Except for the momentary disappearance of his bottom lip, his expression doesn’t change.

But he must say it. He must say aloud, in order to further the conversation, what needs to be said, for if this hurdle cannot be surmounted, then there is no point in continuing.

“You are a woman.” There. With a slight lilt at the end, as if it could be a question. But it is said, and, she notices, he is sitting a little higher in his chair.

She agrees with him. She nods. “I am—a woman.”

Bidding her to stand, he looks her over.