The Girl from Domrémy
July 18, 1429 — Morning
The King's Solar
The room was quiet, smelling of ink and morning sunlight.
Joan stood before the desk, not in her white armor, but in a simple red dress. She looked smaller without the steel. She was holding the hand of a weathered, grey-bearded peasant—her father, Jacques d'Arc. Behind them stood her uncle, Durand Laxart.
They looked terrified. To them, the man sitting behind the desk was God's Anointed, a being of terror and light.
But Napoleon was smiling. It was a rare, genuine smile.
"So," Napoleon said, his voice soft. "This is the man who raised the Savior of France?"
Jacques d'Arc fell to his knees, trembling. "Your... Your Majesty. I am just a farmer."
"Rise, Jacques," Napoleon gestured. "You have done more for this kingdom than half the Dukes in my court."
He looked at Joan. She was beaming. The weight of the war seemed to have lifted from her shoulders. She was just a girl showing her father her report card.
"Ask, Joan," Napoleon said. "You have given me a Kingdom. What can I give you? A title? A castle on the Loire?"
Joan shook her head vigorously.
"No, Sire! I want nothing for myself. But... my village. Domrémy. And Greux. The taxes are heavy, and the harvest was bad..."
Napoleon laughed. He dipped his quill into the inkwell.
"Is that all? Very well."
He wrote quickly on a piece of parchment. The scratch of the quill was loud in the silence.
The act was small, almost domestic. Yet somewhere, in an unseen ledger of the Crown, a new name was being fixed—no longer a girl, but a designation.
"Néant, à la prière de la Pucelle." (Nothing/Zero, at the prayer of the Maid).
He handed the parchment to Jacques d'Arc. "Take this back to your tax collector. Tell him the King has paid your debt until the end of time."
Joan's eyes filled with tears. She rushed forward and kissed Napoleon's hand.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you, Gentle King!"
Napoleon looked down at her. He placed his other hand gently on her head.
"Thank you, Little One," he whispered, using the name he had given her in the dark hall of Chinon.
Joan looked up, surprised by the tenderness in his voice.
"You kept your promise," Napoleon said, his grey eyes deep and unreadable. "I told the court that I had let the Crown of France lie in the mud, trampled by parasites. But you... you went into the mud, Little One. And you picked it up for me."
Joan blushed, her face glowing with pure devotion. "It was God's will, Sire."
"Yes," Napoleon murmured, withdrawing his hand. "God's will."
As Joan led her ecstatic father out of the room, Napoleon's smile vanished. It did not fade; it was extinguished, like a candle blown out by a cold wind.
He watched the heavy oak door close, shutting out her laughter.
He looked down at his own hands—hands that had just signed a tax exemption, hands that would soon sign death warrants.
Enjoy your happiness, Joan, he thought, his gaze drifting to the window, towards the distant, invisible pyres of history.
You are a saint of victory now. But victory is cheap. Any soldier can win a battle. Any king can sign a decree.
He leaned back, his eyes grey and tired, looking not at the room, but at the inevitable arc of time.
The world does not keep such innocence for long. It devours it.History is a cruel author. It demands a climax. It demands that the white armor be blackened, and the banner be stained.
They will paint you in gold, eventually, he mused, a profound, silent mourning settling over him. But only after they have painted you in ash.
He did not believe in this logic. That was the cruel part. He simply recognized it.
Poor Little One.You think you have saved France.
You do not know that France has a way of turning living girls into something else.
Into memories.
He dipped his quill back into the ink. It was black as soot.
A King's Ransom
Noon
The Audience Hall
The tenderness of the morning was gone. The King who sat on the throne now was a different creature entirely. He slouched slightly, looking bored, twirling a gold coin between his fingers.
The Burgundian Envoy stood before him, confident and arrogant.
"My Master, Duke Philip of Burgundy, desires peace," the Envoy said smoothly. "He proposes a fifteen-day truce. This will allow time for... negotiations. Perhaps he can mediate between you and the English."
Napoleon yawned. He actually yawned.
"Fifteen days?" Napoleon tossed the coin into the air and caught it. "Philip is stingy. We are all tired. My soldiers want to drink the wine of Reims. I want to enjoy my new palace."
The Envoy blinked. He had expected the "Warrior King" to refuse.
"Make it thirty days," Napoleon said lazily. "A full month. I don't want to hear the sound of a cannon for four weeks."
The Envoy's eyes lit up. So the rumors are true, he thought. Charles is still Charles. He wins one battle and wants a holiday.
"A month," the Envoy bowed low to hide his smirk. "The Duke will be pleased by your... generosity."
"And one more thing," Napoleon sat up, leaning forward as if sharing a greedy secret. "That Englishman. Talbot. The one La Hire caught at Patay."
"Lord Talbot?"
"He eats too much," Napoleon complained. "And he curses too loud. I want him gone. If the Duke of Bedford wants his best dog back, tell him to bring gold. Heavy gold."
Napoleon named a sum that was astronomical—enough to bankrupt a small duchy.
"If they pay that," Napoleon grinned, looking like a merchant haggling over a rug, "they can have him back. I prefer gold to prisoners."
The Envoy was practically trembling with joy. A month of delay to fortify Paris? And the return of their best general?
This King was a fool. A greedy, lazy fool.
"It shall be done, Your Majesty," the Envoy said, backing away quickly before the King could change his mind.
Napoleon watched him go. The bored expression slid off his face like a mask, revealing the predator underneath.
Go, he thought. Tell Bedford I am sleeping. Let him spend his gold on a broken general. Let him relax.
A month is a long time. Enough time for me to turn a mob into an army.
God's Price
Afternoon
The Council Chamber
The Envoy had barely left when the room erupted.
"A month!" Archbishop Regnault sighed with relief, sinking into a chair. "A wise decision, Sire. A month of peace."
The Count of Clermont nodded enthusiastically. "We should use this time to retreat to the Loire. The castles are comfortable there. We can disband the levies, save some money, and wait for the English to give up."
"Give up?!"
The scream cut through the air. Joan stood up, her chair scraping violently against the stone floor. Her face was flushed with anger.
"Are you mad?" she shouted at the nobles, then turned desperately to the King. "Sire! You signed a truce? That is the Devil's lie!"
She slammed her hand on the table.
"We are lawful now! You are the King! The English are terrified! We should march on Paris tomorrow! We should drive them into the sea!"
Regnault frowned. "Child, you do not understand diplomacy..."
"I understand that God told us to fight!" Joan interrupted him, her voice cracking. "Delay is sin! They are only stalling to fix their walls! Sire, tear up that paper!"
The room fell silent. Everyone looked at the King.
Napoleon sat still. He did not look at Joan. He looked at the map of Paris spread on the table.
"I have given my word," Napoleon said coldly. "And I have sold Talbot."
"You... you sold the enemy?" Joan looked at him as if he had slapped her. She took a step back, horror in her eyes. "Why? For gold? Like... like Judas?"
"Enough."
The word was not shouted. It was spoken with the weight of a guillotine blade.
Napoleon stood up. He turned his grey eyes on Joan. There was no "Little One" in them now.
"This is the Council Chamber, Joan. Not your village church."
He walked slowly around the table.
"I am the King. I decide when the war starts. I decide when it ends. And I decide the price of my enemies."
Joan trembled. For a moment, she looked small, crushed by the sheer weight of the Crown she had helped restore. The nobles—Regnault, Clermont—smirked, expecting tears, expecting the peasant girl to flee back to her village.
But she did not flee.
Slowly, the trembling stopped. Joan raised her head. She did not look at the map, or the nobles, or the gold coins. She looked directly into Napoleon's eyes.
Her expression changed. The fear evaporated, replaced by a strange, terrifying calm. It was not the look of a subject obeying a master. It was the look of a martyr pitying a sinner.
"If the King commands, the Maid obeys," Joan said softly. Her voice was no longer a shout, but a whisper that carried to every corner of the silent room.
She took a step back, retreating into the shadows. But before she turned away completely, she paused.
"I will go, Sire. I will pray for this peace."
She looked at the jubilant nobles, then back at Napoleon.
"I will pray that your 'price' is not higher than God's."
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. It hung in the air long after the door clicked shut behind her.
Regnault's smile faltered. Clermont shifted uncomfortably in his seat. For a second, the gold on the table looked less like ransom, and more like thirty pieces of silver.
Napoleon stared at the closed door, his face unreadable. He broke the silence first.
"Notification," he said, his voice cutting through the theological dread like a knife. "We are not going back to the Loire."
"We stay here. We prepare."
Napoleon looked at Dunois.
"Bastard," he said sharply. "I want a meeting. Tonight. In my private study. No scribes. No priests."
He began to list the names, ticking them off on his fingers like a roll call of death.
"The Duke of Alençon."
"The Count of Vendôme."
"The Count of Richemont."
"La Hire."
"Gilles de Rais."
"Lord Gamaches."
"Jacques Cœur."
He paused, looking at the confused faces of the old politicians.
"And you, Dunois. Bring the roster of every captain in the army."
He turned to leave, but stopped near the shadows where Joan was standing. He didn't look at her, but his voice softened just a fraction—enough for only her to hear.
"You too, Joan. If you want to know what I am going to do with this month... be there."
He swept out of the room, leaving the "Peace Party" confused, and the "War Party" intrigued.
The Mask of Peace had been worn. Now, it was time to sharpen the knife.