“Frightened?” one of them asks. “We can turn back if you are afraid. But then we would be compelled to inform our master.”

She looks ahead. The lights of torches flash like demons’ eyes in the dark. Now left, now right. Now they seem to be retracing their steps and moving in circles before plunging deeper.

She thinks she hears the royal messenger say to the others, in a low voice, “Not too far.”

“We will decide how far,” one of La Trémoille’s men snaps back.

They have reached a stream. “Here. We will stop here.” The same man hands her a leather flask. “Fetch us some more water. We are thirsty.”

She looks from one to the other of her escorts, takes the flask, dismounts. She moves slowly. Under her feet, the ground is solid, but it is dark, the only light the shuddering flame of torches. The men’s faces are solemn. They are like executioners, who must carry out their task.

As she kneels to reach the water, she hears a whistle from behind. She turns in time to see La Trémoille’s men ride away, and they have taken her horse with them.

Only the royal messenger pauses. In torchlight their eyes meet. He looks frightened.

“Good luck, Joan,” he whispers before fleeing.

She is alone, and she can see nothing, not even her own hands. The moon tonight is weak. She feels for the opening of the flask, fills it, and takes a drink of water to steady herself. There is a small pain in her chest where her heart beats quickly.

When she was a child of five, her father took her to the Bois Chenu. She has since forgotten her offense, but whatever she did, it was grave enough that he considered the usual punishments inadequate. In the village, the children had been taught to be afraid of the woods, and Joan was no exception. She remembered how she kept looking from her father’s back to the sky. The sun was then slipping below the horizon. Soon it would be dark.

She thinks now, as she moves along the bank, if the men hoped to hear her scream, they will be disappointed.

Her father dragged her into the woods until they were far enough that she couldn’t see where they had come from. He told her to sit and not to move from the clearing where they had stopped. If he had time in the morning, he might return to fetch her, or he might leave her there for good.

She remembers how fear turned her skin damp. When a fox cried from its hole, she wetted herself. Every skittering beetle, every tail or snake that rustled a bush, jolted her heart until it seemed to loosen from its place, to slip and slide all through her body, knocking against her ribs.