They would never do the same with her: the wrestling, the shoves that end with one’s feet sticking out of a hedge. Off the battlefield, away from corpses and puddles of blood, they keep their distance. It isn’t that they aren’t friendly with her—they are—but she is their brother-in-arms only when she is in harness. They see her clearest when she is covered in grime and guts, when her movements are accompanied by the sound of steel, and embrace her at the end of battles hard-won. Here in this space fragrant with the smell of sun and flowers, the world is different. One does not like to think of death in such a place. Dressed in silks or no, the memory of what she can do is inseparable from her. You can tease Joan. You can amuse her and tell her jokes. But would you go up and poke a giantess in the eye? Would you dare to grapple her in a headlock and test her patience? So, they are smiling yet wary. They feel safest in her company when the English are charging down at them.

Bobbing in the periphery of her vision is the Dauphin, who is prodding each rose bloom with the royal nose. When he turns, they see a butterfly has settled on his immense chaperon, today a checkered black and gold with a liripipe placed artistically over his shoulder.

“Your Majesty is as fragrant as a flower,” La Hire observes.

Joan leans forward, waves the butterfly away from the Dauphin’s hat.

“Oh, Joan, you have killed it,” La Hire says. He gestures dramatically at the air. “Look how it is dazed and reeling, with only one wing left. Put it out of its misery, and quickly.”

It may be the warmth of the day or the feeling of silk against her skin, which she is still unused to, but Joan laughs. Together they walk through a shaded grove, each bough a heavy blossom-laden garland, each leaf a waxy emerald green, as if the servants had climbed up on ladders to polish them. As she looks around at her company, shadows flicker over their faces; every man’s expression appears to be in the process of changing into something else.

The Dauphin picks a white rose, twirls it like a quill between his fingers. He stops to choose another rose and offers it to her.

“Don’t I get one?” La Hire says.

“Not until you win more battles” is the Dauphin’s reply.

A servant brings wine, and Joan picks up her cup with heavy fingers. They glitter with rings: the Dauphine’s sapphire, the Bishop of Poitiers’s pink-red ruby, a diamond from a countess whose name she has for the moment forgotten. Ah, but the day is too fine to be spent remembering names, even if they belong to countesses!