Can’t war be like this, too? One man’s loss is another man’s gain, and you don’t have to be English to come out the winner. Think how precious food is. Grain and flour. Salted meat and salted fish. Fresh apples. So, go into supplies is what Durand has heard in the course of his travels. Go into transport. Go into building work. There is always something to construct in war. Gatehouses to be fortified. Ditches to be dug. If you have a good pair of hands, someone will find a use for them.

“Have you ever fought, as a soldier?” Joan asks.

Her uncle shrugs. “I’ve been on battlefields. I’ve seen corpses.” His answer is evasive. Then he turns to her. “Define what you mean by fight. There are plenty of roles other than a soldier in war.”

She doesn’t ask how any of what he says applies to her. The skills she knows—the collection of kindling, the quick and unthinking motion of the wrist that snaps a chicken’s neck, the skimming of cream, the practiced humming that appeases flustered babes—would any of this help her in war? She can’t read—though she doesn’t know anyone, besides the priest, who can. But she has a pair of hands. She is hardy and, save for occasional bouts of lice and fleas, strong. Sometimes she cannot see her future. Other times, when her uncle recounts a story, an image will come to her, and she will feel, for the length of the tale, that things could be different. How? She doesn’t know. But it is possible, just possible, that not all roads have to end in a field like this one.

The war has widened the scope of the land for her. It has taught Joan the names of places she didn’t know: Orléans, Crécy, Sluys, Poitiers. New towns means new people. There will always be those like her father and the captain from Maxey. But there will also be people like Durand, like Catherine and Jehanne and Hauviette, who will make you a chain of flowers when you are bald and hurting, and take you into their arms without the intent of killing you. France is a kingdom. It is large. Just think.

This is the hour the spirit world comes out, her uncle tells her. Like the feu follet. Have you ever walked past a lake and seen strange lights, green and blue, floating across the water, when there is no boat or fisherman in view? Well, if you have, that is the feu follet, and if you catch sight of these lights, then you must turn away. You must run in the other direction, for if you follow them, you will never find your way back again, and no one will recover your body.