Yolande chortles. “See, that is my daughter. Do not be deceived by her sweet looks. Only one side of her heart is soft as a feather pillow. The other is sharper than any dagger. She is also marvelous with an account book. Give her any ledger, from any business in the kingdom, and she will make sense of it. Is that not true?”

The Dauphine smiles. It is true.

“You are the new favorite of His Majesty,” Yolande says to Joan, who glances at the Dauphine. How will she respond to this? But the Dauphine’s face does not change. Her expression is as serene as it is inscrutable. “You can do no wrong. The whole of the kingdom is beholden to you. Did you know, the Italians are already writing about you? A miraculous shepherdess they call you! Oh, don’t look so horrified. I know you did not handle sheep in Domrémy. It is only because they know you are from a small village, and when people imagine villages, I suppose they think of woolly creatures.” Yolande shrugs, as if to say, What difference does it make? “There are some who have heard so many different accounts of you that they have written to me for clarification. And from dear John of Castile, who just months ago thought Charles’s best chances were to leave France behind for good, I quote from his letter: ‘It looks as if you can stay put in your lovely castle in Chinon, and when you move again, it may be back to the Louvre, in Paris. We all wish God could send angels to preserve our thrones.’ It is certainly something to wonder at: how many friends France has now that things are going well! From Charles’s lips, I hear only, ‘Joan, my miraculous Joan!’ You are all he talks about these days. And is it any wonder? We had forgotten how sweet victory tastes that now we are all drunk on this wine.”

A pause: to clear her throat, to take a sip from a jeweled cup. “Yet there is more work to be done. Reims,” Yolande says, as if proposing a new stitching for embroidery. There is no chance to interrupt her. “Charles was never crowned there, and he needs to be made king. Officially. In the cathedral of that city and anointed with the holy oil, for how can one be king and not be anointed? And Marie must be made queen. My daughter has already given France a fine son and heir, as well as a little princess. Marie must be made queen. Officially.”

“His Majesty did not come to Orléans,” Joan says. “Why would you believe he will risk his life to travel an even greater distance to Reims in order to be crowned?”