The sound comes from Guillaume’s father. He is cupping his narrow face with both hands, his jaw wedged open. It is painful to look at, the contorted expression, the tears large and wet and shining, and some of the men turn their own faces away, perhaps because they are embarrassed or they think it is shameful for a man to cry like this in front of other men, or at all. Even the priest lowers his head to mutter a swift prayer, willing the scene to end.

Only her father doesn’t turn away. He rises from his chair and stands in front of Guillaume’s father. He grips the man’s shoulder. And when his friend cries harder, each sob a strangled, throaty gurgle, Jacques’s grip tightens, until she is sure he will snap his entire shoulder off like a piece of dried crust. He is staring at him, as if to sear a message into the man’s soul. She feels she will never forget this moment. In the hand that rests on the man’s shoulder, her father has planted a promise; it is a promise the priest cannot hear. We will avenge your son. We will make sure he has not died for nothing. Yet no words are spoken aloud; none are necessary.

Whatever Jacques does, it seems to work. Guillaume’s father straightens. He stops crying. Someone passes him a cup of water, which he drinks, and he wipes his leaking nose with his sleeve.

The priest has been outshone, though this is generally what happens when Jacques d’Arc enters a room.

She rubs the ear so recently clutched in his fist. But, she thinks, he’s still a brute.

“It is…a symptom of these times,” the priest says uselessly. “This tragedy…”

Whatever has passed between her father and Guillaume’s father has tired Jacques out. She watches him return to his place at the head of the table to sit. He rubs his face. He leans forward, and his voice when he begins is softer than before. “When I was young, a mere child…” The men collectively chuckle. “Yes, I, too, was once a child,” he says, nodding to his audience and sympathizing with their disbelief, as Joan listens on the doorstep. She has never heard her father talk about his youth.