The woods at night do not frighten her; she has stepped through their darkness before, when she was younger. She staggers into them now, holding her ribs, where the pain is like the point of a spear jabbing from within. It makes her breathless. She feels along the edge of a tree; her legs give way, and she sinks against its solid bulk, resting her sweating forehead on a patch of moss.

Between trees, she sees a flicker of light: a torch. There is no time to give in to self-pity. She pulls herself to her feet and begins to limp away.

“Wait.” A soft rustle. In the light of the fire, her uncle’s face glows bright orange, like a talking star.

She hasn’t yet forgiven him for losing her at the fair. But even she knows when a blessing has come her way, so she stops, returns to the tree, and drops to the ground.

He crouches next to her. “Have you broken something?” he asks.

Have I broken something? As if her father had nothing to do with her crashing into walls and doors and a table.

But she is too tired to argue. She says, “If I have, the bones will mend again. They always do.”

Distractions help with pain, so she talks. “I’ve had an idea,” she says. “Tell me if you think it is foolish. An idea for how I shall leave Domrémy and also make my living. I will build a stall for polishing swords and shields, and all I will need is a little space, a stool to sit on, and a sign over the shutters.

“I will hire someone to make the sign for me,” she continues, “since I cannot write or hold a brush. And I shall have to find a painter who is trustworthy, else he may play a trick and write some obscenity that will get me into trouble with the authorities. I will work for cheap until word spreads. People shall hear of my business, and then all the knights, their pages and squires, will come to me, and I may be able to hire an assistant after a time, too. Well? What do you think?”

Durand listens. “Don’t take a stool leg to my head, Joan,” he says, knowing her temper, “but isn’t that what pages and squires are for? To clean their master’s armor and weapons?”

“I have thought of that,” she replies. “And the answer is: I will clean them better.”

“Because you are a girl?”

She thumps her uncle’s arm with a fist.

“You are always hitting me,” he complains.

She would thump him again, except guilt makes her uncurl her fist. With the hand that struck the blow, she rubs the sore spot on his arm. She does not say, though she is thinking it, Sometimes I worry I take after my father.