BooksBarbecue
Back Joan
Chapters (43)
  1. Cover
  2. Epigraph
  3. CAST OF CHARACTERS
  4. Map
  5. Part One
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. VII
  13. Part Two
  14. I
  15. II
  16. III
  17. IV
  18. V
  19. VI
  20. VII
  21. VIII
  22. IX
  23. X
  24. Part Three
  25. I
  26. II
  27. III
  28. IV
  29. V
  30. Part Four
  31. I
  32. II
  33. III
  34. IV
  35. V
  36. VI
  37. EPILOGUE
  38. afterword
  39. Dedication
  40. acknowledgments
  41. By Katherine J. Chen
  42. about the author
  43. What’s next onyour reading list?

The words fall out before she has time to think: “Is this dignified now? Is this what Your Majesty calls honor?”

His eyes fly to hers. His fist, which he had clenched, unfolds, and he smooths the front of his robes, as if to pacify his own temper.

He steps away to put distance between them. When he speaks, it is on a different subject. He is no longer pale, and his expression is wistful. “Do you know the history of this place?” he asks. They raise their heads to look together. The castle is like a sleeping dragon resting on a cliff, supine and beautiful. One can almost see the towers that form its arched back rise and fall with each silent breath.

Joan listens as he tells her Chinon’s history. It was an English king who built much of the castle—yes, English, not French; his name was Henry Plantagenet, and he was the second husband of the beauteous Eleanor of Aquitaine. Chinon was one of his favorite homes. This Henry Plantagenet was also Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou and Maine. And he had nearly all to rule. So though he possessed no shortage of castles, Chinon was always closest to his heart. Then his youngest son, a bad English king named John Lackland, lost it to the French.

But a castle is not just a pleasant place, Joan thinks. It is not simply a home.

A castle is also its towers and baileys, its drawbridges, its walls, its meurtrières, or murder holes, where archers can take aim or keep secret watch on the enemy’s movements. A castle is its machicolations for spilling vats of boiling tar and scalding water on enemy heads. It is a place of tricks and traps, doors that open only from within—a stronghold of siege instruments with which to fling great stones and piles of filth on those camped outside. This is what a castle is. Not halls hung with finery and portable art, but gates so hardy they can withstand the shock of the battering ram.

“You can see why he favored Chinon,” the Dauphin says, breaking her thoughts. “This is an easy place to love.”

“But one must fight for what one loves,” she replies. “Or else it will not be hard for others to take it from you.” She thinks, I have learned this the hard way.