A French town, under threat from the Duke of Burgundy. She nods. “How many men?”

“Three hundred?”

She can work with three hundred. “I make no promises,” she says. She sees that he thinks she is referring to victory and defeat. She isn’t. “I may yet return.”

His shoulders stiffen. An involuntary movement. “Tell me, do you believe you will be remembered?”

She doesn’t answer. She moves to leave, lets him talk.

“You underestimated me, as others have done. But you do not know me. I, too, am blessed by the same God as you and have outlived all my elder brothers in order to inherit this throne. I have outlived Henry, the great warrior-king of England, and my own father. And I will outlive you, Joan.”

She has already begun to walk away. “Are you certain?” she asks, turning. It is the last time they will look at each other. When their eyes meet, he takes a step back. He seems to shrink into himself, and she is willing to spare only a few more moments for this sad man with a crown. In the distance, a sound like a rush of air reaches them. It makes the King jump; he starts, looks over his shoulder, but Joan remains still. From where they stand, she can see birds; the sound had come from their ascension, their flight.

“I am the greatest warrior alive,” she says when there is silence again. “I am the performer of miracles.” A beam of light touches the top of her head; it picks out the gold thread of her cloak and makes her shimmer. She pauses. “What are you, other than a king?”

May 1430, Compiègne. Her men are retreating. They are losing the battle, but it does not feel like a defeat to Joan.

It feels like—freedom. Behind her, the gate to Compiègne where her soldiers are running for shelter must soon close. Her path to safety will be cut off. There is no way for her to reach the gate in time.

It barely registers: the thunderous clang, as it slides shut.

Yet as her horse collapses under her with a scream, her sword moves like a sickle blade across the Burgundian soldiers, who tumble in neat rows as grass freshly scythed to make hay. She can still cut a straight furrow. Outside the town, her body seems to grow, to fill the space of the field. A steel elbow lands in an archer’s eye; the sweep of her gauntleted wrist sends another crumpling to the ground. They bounce against her armor, and all she sees is her blade in her hand, like flashes of lightning in the spring air.