“The door shook a second time, but still it did not break. ‘I do not care if it takes until dawn to beat down this door,’ she shouted, looking each man in the face. ‘Will you give up at the last? Will you let me down?’ With this—one last heave—the door broke, it toppled with a crash like an explosion of cannon-shot. My heart leapt into my mouth, I thought again that my knees would give out, but I, too, released a war cry, second only to hers.

“I saw Joan climb walls. I saw her shake the English over the crenellations and throw them down to the French, soldiers and citizenry both, who waited below with their swords, pikes, spits, and hammers for what fell at their feet. I saw her move faster, for she was lighter without her armor, and yet no blade or arrow could catch her though she was already wounded.

“You could smell the fear in the air, my friends. Fear, too, has a distinct smell. Before her, the English crumpled. They tripped over themselves. They quaked, for they saw that her wound was real: the arrow hole, the remnants of blood still drying on the front of her shirt. She ripped their precious bows of yew from their hands. She halved them over her thigh. Crack. It was like rolling a siege engine through a flock of sheep. The sheep don’t stand a chance. They fled. She had struck fear into their souls. ‘Retreat, retreat!’ they screamed.

“Still she did not rest. When the fighting was over, she tended to the wounded, though she must have been in pain. By then her banner had been returned to me, and I watched her reach for the cloth. I said, ‘No, Joan, stop! We will find something else to use!’ But she took the banner and tore long strips from it to bind the wounds of the men who were still alive. And that is why the banner is torn—not from any English hand, but because the pieces are scattered among the injured soldiers and citizenry of this city. Here, a painted angel’s wing to stanch the bleeding of a man’s gashed leg. There, a gold lily wrapped around a cut temple.”

The women of the household are smiling, the pages and servants silent. Everyone makes the sign of the cross, whispers a prayer. And she, Joan, listens from across the room. She is standing at the door in partial view of the speaker and his audience. They thought she was resting, but she would never miss the chance to hear a good story.