She looks down. It is the second time a holy medal has been passed to her this way, slipped like a dark secret, a whisper between flesh. But footsteps interrupt them. A servant enters with a basin and a fresh towel. She gives the medal to le Maçon, who brings it closer to the window, into the light.

Joan pulls up her sleeves, dips the cloth in the water, and presses it to the King’s forehead. His eyes flutter open, close again. His lips move without speaking. His hand floats to the space over his heart, and she recognizes the gesture. The pain is here, just here. This is what he wants to say to her.

For a time, they are alone. Le Maçon has left, and she hears whispering in the hall. When he returns, she knows to follow him. He takes her out of the hearing of the servants and the other courtiers. He shows her the medal again: a piece of cheap pewter with a hole bored through it, on a loop of fraying string.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

He is sweating and pale. He explains, slowly, that such medals are sometimes given out at the end of a pilgrimage, as proof the journey has been made. This morning, at precisely the time the King was in the abbey, hundreds of these medals were distributed. Not only in Corbeny but in Reims.

“Joan…” His voice is strained; he sounds as if he, too, is in danger of fainting. “There were thousands in the streets clamoring for these medals. So many the medals ran out, and now they are being sold for profit.”

He looks like he is about to cry. “I will try to find out who commissioned these. But we can both guess. Who else would have the funds to pull off such a trick?”

Her thumb moves over the pewter, the profile and name crudely stamped. Now that she has had a closer look, the resemblance is clear enough.

Here is her face. Here is her name.

“We must convince the King this is not our work,” she says. She, too, feels unsteady on her feet and needs to lean against the wall. “We will find out who ordered them and inform His Majesty.”

There are times, like at Orléans and at Patay, when she feels she can control the outcome of any event, when it is as if a voice has whispered into her ear the future, and she is afraid of nothing. But what has just happened feels beyond her power. In her mind, she is keeping a tally of her enemies’ hits. This isn’t a fight where weapons can be seen, and only now does she realize she has been cut.

“It would be no use,” le Maçon answers. “The damage is already done.”