Chapter 6 Summary

Joan's beating leaves her ill with infection. Her father has scraped the pages of her book, and she is depressed, but her mother wants to nurse her back to their former world of Saxon secrets and stories. Gudrun explains that when she was young, the invading Christian soldiers burned everything and she was beginning to starve. When the canon and missionaries arrived unarmed, offering food in exchange for listening to them preach, Gudrun left with them. Gudrun cautions Joan to never give herself to a man.

An emissary from the Bishop of Dorstadt arrives to take the canon's child to the school in Dorstadt. Joan's parents allow the messenger to think that it is John who has been summoned. John goes reluctantly, having stolen his father's knife. He resents Joan for her intelligence and for being their mother's favorite child. Joan is not...