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Chapters (43)
  1. Cover
  2. Epigraph
  3. CAST OF CHARACTERS
  4. Map
  5. Part One
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. VII
  13. Part Two
  14. I
  15. II
  16. III
  17. IV
  18. V
  19. VI
  20. VII
  21. VIII
  22. IX
  23. X
  24. Part Three
  25. I
  26. II
  27. III
  28. IV
  29. V
  30. Part Four
  31. I
  32. II
  33. III
  34. IV
  35. V
  36. VI
  37. EPILOGUE
  38. afterword
  39. Dedication
  40. acknowledgments
  41. By Katherine J. Chen
  42. about the author
  43. What’s next onyour reading list?

Her body is renewed, but she cannot say the same for her army. Out of five hundred, most have deserted. And they must leave behind the cannons, which are too heavy to take with them, so their artillery will fall into the hands of the enemy and one day may be used against their own. It is her second defeat. She has still failed.

VI

CHINON, JANUARY 1430

A week after she has returned from La Charité, the King holds a feast where a jester performs. The jester puts on a woman’s dark wig, its hair reaching past his waist. He stuffs his chest, so it appears he has breasts. He wears pieces of armor, gauntlets and oversized sabatons, which he stomps around in, making as much noise as possible, and a backplate but no breastplate. He wears a sign around his neck, one painted like a coat of arms, with fire-breathing dragons and upside-down fleurs-de-lis. But the word “whore” is also scrawled across it in large black letters.

The jester prances. He bats his eyes at the King, blows kisses at the Archbishop, and sighs at Dunois, pronouncing himself in love with all three men while pretending to trip over his long hair. He flails a wooden sword and makes moaning noises, as if he is being ravished, then pulls from his leg a bolt of white linen splattered with red paint, meant to remind the guests of the bandage Joan keeps wrapped around her thigh. He jokes about bleeding. Thigh bleeding, a woman’s monthly bleeding, how he has one but not the other.

He tickles two of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting under their chins, then blushes and says he sometimes forgets he is a woman and not a man. To make the women scream, he throws his wig at them, though the Queen herself does not laugh, and she glares at those who do.

It is not wine that turns the King’s complexion red but laughter. He is laughing so hard he nearly falls out of his chair, and his wife has to support his arm, to keep him from rolling under the table.

But around the room, there is the sound of chairs being pushed back. La Hire rises; he is first to leave, followed by Dunois.

“Dunois!” the King calls after him. He is slurring; his words feel too large for his mouth. The show continues, yet the air in the room has shifted. His Majesty still smiles, but he does not laugh with the same abandon as before.