I curtsey again, as he glances at me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘Good day,’ he says carelessly, and to his wife he says, confidentially: ‘I must go. They are making a muddle of it. I have to go.’

She nods her head to him with an easy smile and he turns and goes out, all his men marching after him with a heavy tread. I dread his wife Anne asking me if her husband spoke to me, what he said, what I was doing with him in the darkness of the hall, why he s whme of love and troubadours. For I could not answer such questions. I don’t know what he was doing, I don’t know why he took hold of me. I feel sick and my knees are trembling to think of his bright eyes on my face and his insinuating whisper. But I know he had no right. And I know that I defended myself, and I know that it is true: I am a virgin so pure that I could capture a unicorn.

But it is worse than this, far worse; she just looks at me steadily, and my sense of outrage slowly drains from me, for she does not ask me what I was doing with her husband, she looks at me as if she knows already. She looks me up and down, as if she knows everything. She gives me a small complicit smile as if she thinks I am some little thief and she has just caught me with my fingers in her purse.

* * *

Lord John, the Duke of Bedford, has his way, the great Earl of Warwick has his way, the great men of England have their way. Joan alone, without advisors to keep her safe, changes her mind about her confession, takes off her woman’s gown and puts her boy’s clothes back on. She cries out that she was wrong to deny her voices, wrong to plead guilty. She is not a heretic, she is not an idolater, she is not a witch or an hermaphrodite or a monster, she will not confess to such things, she cannot force herself to confess to sins she has never committed. She is a girl guided by the angels to seek the Prince of France and call him to greatness. She has heard angels, they told her to see him crowned as king. This is the truth before God, she proclaims – and so the jaws of England snap shut on her with relish.

From my room in the castle I can see the pyre as they build it even higher. They build a stand for the nobility to watch the spectacle as if it were a joust, and barriers to hold back the thousands who will come to see. Finally, my aunt tells me to put on my best gown and my tall hat and come with her.

‘I am ill, I cannot come,’ I whisper, but for once she is stern. I cannot be excused, I must be there. I must be seen, beside my aunt, beside Anne the Duchess of Bedford. We have to play our part in this scene as witnesses, as women who walk inside the rule of men. I will be there to show how girls should be: virgins who do not hear voices, women who do not think that they know better than men. My aunt and the duchess and I represent women as men would like them to be. Joan is a woman that men cannot tolerate.