After leaving the feast, La Hire and Dunois visit Joan in her rooms. They invite her for a walk under the stars and tell her the story, like boys who feel they have done something good and are pleased with themselves for standing up for their friend. Dunois has brought a sack of wine, which he passes, after several generous swigs, to La Hire. When it is offered to her, she refuses. “What a king we serve, eh?” La Hire says. He belches. “Disgraceful.”

“There will be other chances,” Dunois says. They slap her shoulder to liven her spirits. How do soldiers comfort each other after their defeats? She has always wondered, and now she knows. Drinking and prancing around. Getting so drunk the memory of one’s loss is forgotten by the next day.

To placate them, she smiles. She thinks, There will be other opportunities for you. Even your defeats are chances to learn. Sometimes you treat war like it is a game. But the stakes, they have always been higher for me.

She lets them wrestle and dance away from her. The sack of wine depleted, she watches Dunois wander off to piss against a tree. Soon the hoots and calls of La Hire fade. He has tripped over a bush and is retching into it. Behind him, Dunois is laughing. “Can’t hold your drink, old man!” he shouts.

She moves away from them. The night is clear. Above, the stars look down at her like pairs of blinking eyes, watching what she will do next. She is alone.

In the morning, Joan hears a rumor from her squire. Following le Maçon’s example, the Archbishop has found her replacement: a young shepherd boy, six years old, another prophet with bleeding hands and bleeding feet. The boy’s arrival is meant to insult le Maçon, to ridicule him, and to soothe the worries of the King. It is said the boy has received visions of France’s victory over England and Burgundy, that he predicts the deliverer of these victories will be none other than His Majesty.

“On the battlefield?” she asks.

“ ‘On the battlefield, to rival Charlemagne’ were the boy’s exact words,” Jean replies.

Even in such times, there are still occasions for laughter.

Daylight does the King no favors; his long nose is red from the cold, his eyes squinting and watery, the corners veined with pink from last night’s heavy drinking. He pulls the furred sleeves of his robes closer to him. Kingship has not fleshed out His Majesty’s body; he is still a gatepost, though he stands a little taller.

He expects Joan to kneel, so she does, purposefully slow, to make him wait.

“Orléans feels a long time ago,” he says when she rises. He sighs, tipping his head to show the Valois profile at its best angle.