Today, the morning after the boys’ battle with Maxey, she is keeping busy. The bruises from the previous night are coming up, and it is startling how effective pain is at keeping the memory of death at bay. Also, the sun is out. The day is clear. It surprises her that the weather is not in mourning, that people are already moving about, though some small groups of men and women huddle together, whispering and talking behind their hands. She hears babies crying. Mothers scolding young children. Men shouting at oxen and mules. The only place not full of noise is the place where death has already visited. Some believe what happened was an accident; others think Guillaume was targeted, being the smallest boy. But the fact remains, she hears someone say, that he is dead, and money should be paid. Even if it was a tussle between children—Oh, is that what it was, Joan thinks, the throwing of rocks, the kicking and stamping of ankles, stomachs, and ribs—and he tripped and fell and hit his head on a stone, well, he must first have been pushed, or he was frightened and stumbled. He was not a violent boy, but violent or no, the result is the same. He is gone.

It does no good to weep or to mope, and it is always wise to keep out of her father’s sight. So, she carries grain to the mill for one of her godmothers, each arm wrapped around a bulging sack. She has so many godparents she has lost count. Another joke: Joan will put Domrémy’s miller out of a job because she is stronger than he is and less of a cheat. The miller has heard the joke and doesn’t find it amusing.

She stops by Hauviette’s cottage and helps Jehanne clean while Hauviette makes chains out of flowers and sings. Outside the dead boy’s door, she feeds crusts she’s saved to the mewling cat, and then moves on, looking for something else to occupy her time. A few people will give her a penny for the services she renders them, even if they haven’t asked for her help. Others pat her shoulder or head. Still others offer food: a cup of fresh milk, which she finishes in one gulp, not wasting a drop, a few pieces of black bread, a bowl of warm pottage, or vegetables to take home to her sister and mother. She has returned with onions, heads of cabbage, and fistfuls of herbs: lovage, sage, and thyme. Sometimes, she is full enough that she doesn’t need any supper. Her father is always complaining that she is a parasite who will eat him out of house and home, but this isn’t true. Mostly she eats one meal, her dinner, at the expense of Jacques d’Arc; the rest she forages on her own.