“Didn’t you promise you would teach me to ride?” she asks.

“I promised no such thing!” But she looks so serious, and she has not budged from her seat. “When was this, then?” he inquires, more civilly than before.

“Last night” is her reply.

“Was I drunk?”

“If you were, then you still kept drinking for hours after, Grandpère. And I gave you no less than three pitchers of La Rousse’s finest ale for free. At least two others at the inn heard you make this promise. Shall I call them now to bear witness?” She is able to keep her face straight, though it is a bluff.

His wiry hands pat down his beard, as if a reply could be found inside the hairs.

“Don’t shout at me!” He holds his head, cringing. “I am old. My bones ache. The scars on my body—if you only knew! An old wreck shouldn’t teach anyone, and I’ve forgotten practically everything I have learned. Too much ale.” For a moment, he looks genuinely sad.

“You look fine to me,” she answers.

They make a deal. For food, preferably dishes of meat, he will give her lessons. If she falls off, she gets back on again. If she is maimed or has her teeth kicked out of her head by his horse: not his problem! When her attention wanders during their lessons, he raps the ground with a stick. Notice the horse’s ears! Why are you slouching? Not too tight on the reins now—what, are you afraid you’ll fall off? She gives him eel pies, slices of cheese, and, when she has nothing better, a fistful of raw carrots. For another lesson, she’ll boil and mash them, since his teeth are bad. She learns and learns quickly. But after a week, the knight leaves, and the horse with him.

Each day is long, and sometimes it is nearly the hour of Matins, two in the morning, when Joan finishes her work.

“She has had another bad dream,” Hauviette tells her, waking with a yawn, and Joan feels helpless. She can’t beat off nightmares with a stool leg.

When her friend leaves, she sits next to Catherine. She strokes her sister’s head, and the motion of her hand is quick and smooth; beneath her, Catherine sighs. No nightmares visit her when Joan is here. But sleep for Joan comes in fits; her body never relaxes. The slightest creak of a floorboard or the stir of the wind against the shutters, and her eyes fly open. She watches the door, daring whatever devil standing behind it to show himself, as her fingers creep toward the handle of the knife in her pocket.