“Such moments test us,” he says, “and let us know what kind of men we are. So, I will be with you to the end, or I will give up arms and never fight again. Even if you led an army of one, I would be at your side, ready to die. I could not live out my life in the skin of a coward, knowing I abandoned you when your fortunes were low. Would you have me be so?”

“No,” she replies. She is suddenly tired; she feels that if she lay down, she might sleep for whole days at a time. “But you may change your mind, and if you do, then I will not hold it against you.”

At night, she wakes, shivering. The linen around her leg is soaked, and blood drips down the side of her ankle. She changes the bandage herself, as she prepares for a meeting. Earlier, her bowl of watery stew came with a note tied to an extra manchet loaf. It was from Yolande.

She heads for the field where the archers practice. In the ground, she has stuck twelve arrows for shooting. The target is a blurry straw-colored dot, and it is growing dark. But she does not even have to try. She may have lost Paris, but she has lost nothing else.

It is one of those meetings that both parties must deny took place, and if one party insists it did happen, the other will shrug and say, Where is the proof?

The Queen of Four Kingdoms is here, as well as the Queen of France.

There is no time to waste. No pleasantries exchanged, no greeting.

“Officially, I rebuke you,” Yolande says. It is late, but she is still resplendently dressed. Mother and daughter match, in gowns of moonlit silver, glowing like fish tails in an enchanted lake. “I rebuke you, as Her Majesty the Queen rebukes you. We shun and forsake you for having gone against the King’s wishes in launching an attack against Paris. You knew Charles did not support the attack. And look at the result. Officially, I must say to you, Joan, what you have done is shameful, yet Fortune still smiles on you in some small way. The King, my most generous and forgiving son, has spared your life.”

In the dark, the Queen smiles gently at her.

“Unofficially,” Yolande continues, “I have berated Charles for giving you only three thousand men with which to launch an attack against Paris when he had more than ten thousand at his disposal. I have asked him why he released those men from service without first paying their wages and when there was still work to be done. And I have found the answer he gave me, which I am not at liberty to share with you, disappointing. The Queen shares my opinions, unofficial as they are.”

Beside her, her daughter nods.