Early. The bells had not yet rung for Prime. They—La Trémoille’s two men, the royal messenger—heard snoring from her room as they passed her door. They found her in bed, her clothes scented with moss and oak. She stirred, sat up, and looked at them. They seemed more tired than she was, for reasons she couldn’t fathom (after all, they had taken the horses). So she thinks they must have lost their way returning to the castle.

Le Maçon says, “My sources tell me the messenger, Colet de Vienne, accompanied La Trémoille’s men only to ensure nothing…untoward happened.”

If she could give her opponents at court some advice, she would tell them: Do your research. Though she supposes they can’t, not unless they make a special trip to Domrémy and interrogate her father.

Because her father would tell them: Oh no, that’s not how you trick Joan at all. I tried that when she was a child of five! Work my daughter like a plowhorse? That won’t do it, either! She would outlast any ox or mule.

She is seventeen now. Twelve years ago: She slept in the woods as children are accustomed to sleep, deep and dreamless. At first light, she rose from her bed of moss and left the clearing behind. She walked through the Bois Chenu, and from the woods to the only house of stone in Domrémy below. The door swung open and her father stepped out. As he stared, eyeballs bulging, she yawned at him.

Now she thinks, smiling to herself: This is why when the men looked in on her this morning their expressions were so familiar. She had seen such faces before.

It is Nones. Three in the afternoon. In a large courtyard: Straw targets in various states of disturbance. Some beheaded. Others disemboweled. The ground is strewn with straw blood, and stable boys have been called in to clean up the mess.

Le Maçon shakes his head, which, unlike those of the targets, still rests firmly on his shoulders. His Majesty came to witness the display. He watched each spear strike home, each arrow hit its mark. And he watched her ride.

It was the first time the Dauphin saw what others—the Duke of Lorraine, Sir Robert de Baudricourt—meant by feats. By miracles.

Le Maçon thought the Dauphin would be pleased. Here, for the first time, is no pretender. But in Joan’s room he is pacing. “I heard His Majesty was upset,” he said. There is a tremor in his voice. “I heard he said to the Duke of Alençon, his cousin, So? So she can throw a spear! And shoot better than most men. How does that help me?”

Joan scratches her head. More lice? She hopes not. And she would like to offer His Majesty a small correction: All men. She shoots better than all men.