And it’s not about ancient rights, for she doesn’t believe, not a whit, that the English really care about France or adding new subjects to its sad little population. It is an English king who uses the excuse of an ancient claim because he has gazed across the Narrow Sea, into the dim and murky offing, and seen a vision of himself as the richest, most powerful man in Christendom. In the end, it’s about money, the accrual of wealth and land. It’s about making English knights rich with French treasure so they can build more castles on their gray-green island, where, she hears, it never ceases to rain and even the woodland and meadows are as wet and putrid as swamps. For with wealth, you can buy comfort. You can buy prestige, and you can buy culture: carpets to walk on, books studded with sapphires, tapestries, statues, a second castle, a third castle, a smattering of country manors. You can eat peacock meat, swan meat, and fresh salmon every day for every meal. Why not? the English ask themselves upon waking, before they pillage, burn, and destroy. And, she tells the Dauphin, ever since Catherine died, she can almost hear it in her own ears, this question the English ask each morning: “Why not?”

To her, war has become something else, and here lies the problem. When kings have gone bankrupt from the expenditures of war, when they are unable to pay their troops, and soldiers go hungry and feel they have put their lives at stake for nothing, for less than nothing, looting happens. Murder happens. Rape happens.

“I believe God crafted the sound of a woman’s scream,” she says, “to pierce the heart and to test our humanity, whether we still have it or whether we have left it behind.

“But there are men for whom a woman’s scream is as a fist that bounces off armor. I have thought to myself, What choices does a woman have for vengeance, for justice? For we cannot simply pray. I can’t stomach my mother’s prayers. We cannot afford to wait and be still. I won’t live this way—not anymore. So when I spoke to God that morning, I decided, if I am to scream, let it be in battle. There is no chance for peace except at the point of a sword.”

She stops to catch her breath. A silence settles between them. How will His Majesty take this lesson? And from someone like her?

But his face doesn’t change. He clears his throat. He says, as calmly as before, “You talk well. This I grant you, too.”

Without looking at her, he raises a jeweled hand and beckons. “Come,” he says, and when she hesitates, he repeats himself: “Come closer.”