These days, she walks alone. If once courtiers nodded to her and servants shrank against the wall at her arrival, now they giggle and sneer. At the sight of her limp, her thigh bound in a length of white linen, they whisper behind their hands and stare. Women ignore her; they will not meet her eye but look straight ahead. In a courtyard, at the hour of sunset, she sees the distant figure of the King with his friends. Sometimes she sees La Hire and Dunois with him; once she thought she spotted le Maçon. A raw bruise touches her chest at the sound of laughter, the stray notes of a lute, a voice struggling to remember the words of a song. The pain is here, just here, she wants to tell someone.

A count sends a note demanding the return of the silver belt he gifted her, the one with the jeweled clasp shaped like a seashell. It was his favorite belt, he adds, and after the account he heard of the attack on Paris, he no longer believes she is worthy of it.

Jean reads the note out loud as she is eating dinner. Letters come to her through the Archbishop, who passes along only those he believes she should hear.

“Tell him I no longer have it,” she says. “If he feels he cannot live without his seashell belt, then he must appeal directly to the King.”

The hole in her leg is nearly an inch wide and at least four inches deep. Whole weeks have passed since Paris, yet the wound still bleeds. Every few hours, Jean or her pages must help her change the bandage. When she tries to run, one foot drags behind. When she attempts to walk normally, her back straight, each step is a knife thrust in her left thigh. Her only visitors are those who have gone to battle with her. At the start of their visits, they are relieved. The spot of red on the bandage is only the size of a thumb. But the more she moves and walks about the room, the larger the spot grows, and by the time they are ready to depart, the stain is as large as a fist. So, they beg her to sit, to stay still. Dunois turns away at the sight of her blood, discreetly, like a man who has glimpsed the breasts of a woman who is not his wife. But La Hire asks kindly, “Have you considered a cane? Just as a temporary solution, of course.” He winces when he thinks she isn’t looking.

He asks her, What would you do if nothing stood in your way? If there were no Archbishop of Reims or La Trémoille to stop you? If things were as before and the King still favored you?