She hears the impact, one after another, in rapid succession, and a soft moan from above. The body staggers, wearing no steel, no shirt of chain mail. The man drops his shovel. He is a sapper, a soldier tasked with digging. His gaze meet hers, briefly, before he collapses: dead. A cloud of dust rises between them, obscuring her sight of the fallen body, just as arms grab hold of her from behind. It is La Hire, sweat dripping from his hair into her face. His eyes are wild.

“Retreat, Joan,” he says. “We must retreat.”

She struggles, though it is no use. Each plate of her left leg is dyed red from the thigh down.

As she is dragged, she passes corpses. Horse and human carcasses. She was too busy fighting and rallying her army to take notice of the field, but now she sees it is covered with her men. The sun shines, catching bright red pools, crimson oases so fresh even the flies have not had a chance to gather. Some wounds are still in the process of leaking. A twitching hand grazes her hand, stroking her thumb and forefinger. She peers up, and the sky is filled with other sounds: birds biding their time, waiting their turn to feast.

A lump rises in her throat, though she holds back her tears. She will let no one see her cry.

Later, a soldier comes up to her as her leg is being bound. He has barreled his way past her guards, past even La Hire.

Without introduction, he hits her across the face so she rolls to the ground from her stool. A solid punch. No one has punched her like this since the days of Jacques d’Arc. As she wipes blood-spit from her mouth, as he is restrained and pulled away from her, he screams, his voice high-pitched and broken up with sobs, “My brother is dead. You sent him to his death, yet you promised we would win. Witch!”

From La Hire she hears the final numbers: “You had three thousand men, Joan. One thousand and five hundred of these men are dead.”

Before Paris, she had known only victory. This is her first defeat.

That night, praying, she talks to God. She asks Him questions, tries to explain herself. “Was I wrong to fight? Was it pride that blinded me? My own anger? I had believed we could take the gate. Not the whole city, but at least we would have had a point of entry into the capital. And then…and then I had hoped the King would send me more men.”

She is rambling. From her thigh, blood drips, yet she barely registers the pain. Tomorrow, they will return to Chinon, though news of her defeat will travel ahead of them. Bad news, as well as good, moves swiftly.