They leave behind the ruin of Agincourt to walk together. Above them, the blazing sky succumbs to night, blotted blue and purple and a crimson so dark it is nearly black.

They are standing in a field that in another week, at most two, will be ready for harvesting. This is also why her uncle is here: to help with the reaping, sheaving, threshing, and winnowing. There is always a need for more hands, and a bit of money to be made this time of year.

They stand side by side; her shoulder reaches just above his waist. When he inquires, politely, whether her new hair is the work of her own hand, she sighs.

“Lice,” she says.

They catch each other’s eye. Lice, like Agincourt, shouldn’t be funny, but they break into a fit of laughter, though it hurts her to laugh.

“I shall miss Catherine braiding my hair,” she says. “I liked that.”

“Who doesn’t?” And he runs a hand through his own thinning hair, as a joke. “But it suits you in a way.”

She sees that he is serious. “It itches less,” she concedes.

A pause, then: “Here is something to make you feel better. Did you know when Duke William of Normandy first arrived on the shores of England—oh, this was four hundred years ago—King Harold had his spies report back what they saw. And his men informed him that the enemy was a large contingent of priests. Nothing to be concerned about.”

She glances up. How can this be, her look says. How can one mistake an army for priests?

“It was because the Normans shaved and did not grow their hair long, so anyone who saw them assumed at first that they were holy men. One could say something good came of having their hair cut, don’t you think? Well, good for the Normans.”

“Priests,” she says thoughtfully, “with swords and shields?” King Harold’s spies fell for that?

Her uncle appears at a loss for a reply. “People were more trusting then,” he says.

He glances down at her. She catches, what, a flicker of pity? She has not yet seen her reflection in a stream, but if her uncle, who is used to her usual wounds—one eye swollen to twice the size of the other, or both narrowed to dark purple slits—looks like he might cry, then it must really be bad. And having just arrived in the village, he has not heard what happened to Guillaume. Another defeat, Joan thinks, to add to Agincourt.

“I am used to it,” she says to cheer him up. “I am French, after all.”