What can he do with this girl-child, who is as strong as a young bull but slippery like a shoal of minnows? When she runs, as she does now, not because anyone is chasing her but simply for her own amusement, the nails in her pockets rattle like little invisible bells. Her single braid is the tail of a black cat whisking around a tree, a bend in the lane, a corner. In Domrémy, it is common for people to say, “I thought I saw her, Joan, just there—standing in a stream, coming in, going out, up on So-and-so’s roof, hanging off a branch—not a moment ago. Is she still there now?” Yet by the time they look, she is already gone. Unless she falls into dreaming, she will never sit for long in any place. She is not quiet. Often she will shout at her brothers or at other boys standing in her way, and her voice sends sparrows flying from treetops. After beatings, she stands up and runs, returns bruised but intact hours later, and she is still capable of laughter, of mischief. Some grown men shake—actually shake!—when Jacques d’Arc crosses their path, and even his sons will lower their eyes as soon as he enters a room. But not a slap or a shove will take the glint out of Joan’s eye, the eye that looks her father up and down, as if to say, Strong but getting on a bit. Not worth the asking price. “Tell me,” Jacques d’Arc has said to his friends, “what does one do with a daughter like that? Unless she changes, and she is not likely to change, no man will put up with such a woman—so then, is it possible she will have to become a nun? But what convent will take her?” His mind is already calculating; he will probably have to bribe them. Joan has overheard this conversation and doesn’t find it funny. She rubs the space between Salaud’s eyes, and he licks her hand. She will not go anyplace where they don’t have trees for her to climb. She will not set foot in a house, even if it is a house of God, that doesn’t welcome dogs.

IV

A new morning, and her head is itching, as if it were on fire. She and Salaud make a good pair, scratching and yelping whenever they pick at a spot too hard. He has fleas. She has—Catherine takes one look and makes a face at her. “Oh, Joan,” Catherine murmurs. Joan’s ailment is common enough, even among the crowned heads of princes. It is lice.