The world has changed, but it will startle you what can endure the passage of time, the worst of plagues, and the worst of wars. One’s appreciation for indigo, for furs, for a shiny new pot doesn’t wane just because another town has fallen to the English. By night, the same town may be retaken by the French (one can only hope). This fair, today, is meant to say, Life goes on, and the people of Vaucouleurs go with it. There is a war. The roads are more dangerous than they were fifty years ago, but does this mean the good citizens of France should go without salt and hemp? That tired housewives shouldn’t be spoiled by the husbands who love them and wear pretty silver bracelets or drink quality wine shipped from Épernay? No, of course not! There is still a place for beauty; there is still time to sigh over a goldsmith’s craft, to forget one’s troubles over a bolt of silk, before all is lost.

The Duke of Lorraine, an aging and shrewd man in his fifties, has ensured safe passage for all traders and visitors. He has promised to reimburse any merchant who is forcibly deprived of his goods while traveling to or from the fair and to make a public spectacle of punishing—that is, executing—the thieves responsible. In these uncertain times, there is nothing quite like the hanging or mutilation of a common criminal to make people feel safe again, to put them in a mood to spend money they don’t have and buy what they don’t need, of which the Duke will receive a small and very reasonable fraction in taxes.

This trip is her uncle’s idea to cheer them up, to show them there are still places where people live neither under the tyranny of the English nor, on the French side, under such men as Jacques d’Arc. They have not exactly asked her father’s permission to go; earlier in the day, she, along with her uncle, her dog, and her sister, simply climbed onto a cart and left. When they reach the fair, Joan rolls from her seat. Salaud leaps. Catherine descends like a princess, with a dainty jump. The dust of roads in August has powdered Joan from head to foot in a sandy yellow.

“Didn’t I tell you not to sit in the front with Uncle?” Catherine says, fussing. “Look at you.” She licks the inside of her hand, a feline movement too quick for Joan to dodge. With wetted palm, Catherine rubs her cheeks, chin, and forehead in small, expert circles. Then, as if remembering she is a sister and not a mother, she pinches Joan’s nose.