At her door, someone left a pile of unwashed and soiled laundry. Her response: in full view of the men, she kicked the sorry heap down the stairs.

The foot soldiers, too, would be happier if she were replaced by a sighing mule and a cart of supplies. A mule and supplies would be practical, at least. Most couldn’t help staring, though some went further: they shook their heads when she passed them. They thought her presence here was wrong, even insulting. Why was her hair shaved and trimmed in the bowl-shaped cut fashionable among noblemen? Why did she wear a man’s doublet? She could never be a knight, so why should she have a squire and pages and servants?

But they didn’t know her. They didn’t know that the more they stared, the more she would carry herself as if it were she and not Yolande, Queen of Four Kingdoms, who doled out the soldiers’ pay.

She didn’t mind being ignored; she could take the sour looks, the shakes of the head quietly, but La Hire went a step further. Soon after they arrived in Orléans, he sauntered up to her, picking his teeth in a way that reminded her of her father. She wanted to tell him anything that reminded her of Jacques d’Arc made her temper rise.

He looked her up and down. “You have no place here,” he said. “You, a woman? A farm wench, a shepherdess who knows little more than how to squeeze the tits of cows and goats for milk, who crawled out of some hole, some ditch in the kingdom, and now calls herself a virgin warrior? My God, woman, you won’t last five minutes on the field. I don’t care how big you are. Our prince, king, whatever he is, has gone mad like his father, and you think I wouldn’t say this to his face, but I would bark it into his ears if I thought he would listen. I could stand the little boy with bleeding hands and feet, even that lecherous monk. Let them claim to be prophets. Let them sleep until noon and eat meat and pies. What harm could they do? But this?” He beat his chest, wincing at the force of his own fist. “The sight of you offends me as it would any true soldier here. Now grow out your hair and put on a dress!”

He stood a few inches shorter than Joan, so she stared down at him. She took a step closer, covering him with her shadow.