Those Who Remain, Those Who Follow
“So go on. Tell me. Exactly when were you planning to let me know?”
Joan’s family of five sat around the long table, watching her face and waiting for their father to speak.
“…Well… if I could have helped it…”
“…?”
“I never wanted you to know. Not for as long as I lived.”
Joan slammed her palm down on the table, shot to her feet, and started toward her father — only for Ligny to cling to her, begging her to hold back, and ease her back into her seat.
“But… this gentleman… is he a nobleman, by any chance?”
Isabelle Romée, who had kept her silence until then, finally spoke.
Isabelle Romée — the “Romée” in her name said everything. She was a fervent Catholic, and she had raised Joan on the teaching that a life of religious devotion was the only proper path. Joan had lived by that teaching: a pure, ordinary village maiden, all her life.
And now that same daughter had come home after a night out with a man — uninjured, yet covered in blood.
First, grasp the situation. That was Isabelle’s judgment.
“…I am Jean II de Luxembourg-Ligny, Count of Burgundy. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, madam.”
Ligny introduced himself with the easy, practiced grace of someone long accustomed to such moments. The instant he sat back down, the second son, Jean, drew his blade and set the point against Ligny’s throat.
“Filthy Burgundian dog!”
Joan caught the tip of the sword barehanded and forced it down. Even with both hands on the hilt, Jean’s strength gave way; the blade began to lower.
“Put the sword away. He’s mine.”
“Lady Joan…”
Don’t go getting all moved over something this small when we’ve already done everything else. She thought it privately, then spoke again.
“You all already knew, didn’t you?”
At Joan’s words, the table fell quiet. By the time she had come to this house, every one of them had been old enough to understand. There was no way they hadn’t known she was adopted. Which meant they had all been keeping it from her.
“I’ve already heard everything about my birth parents.”
“…Ev—everything? Oh, dear God… why…”
Isabelle clasped her hands in prayer. Beside her, Jacques did the same.
The brothers, though, had only ever been told she was adopted. They had never known from where, or from whom. The rest of this made no sense to them at all.
“…So according to all that, I’m… the blood child of Orléans.”
“…That’s all true?” “That’s impossible…”
She told her brothers everything — the story Ligny had given her, how it lined up, and the circumstances that had brought him here. Everything except the part about the sex. Their reactions were exactly what she had expected.
“Now that you know… Joan, you are those two people’s child.”
“On the day you were born, Queen Isabeau herself came to the church and begged them to take you as far away as possible — somewhere you could never be found.”
“And through your mother’s father, you ended up here. We always worried a day like this might come. And in the end…”
“Every year as you grew, the villagers would whisper that you must be some noble’s child. We were always warning you to watch what you said.”
Both of her adoptive parents had wanted nothing more than for her to live out an ordinary life in the countryside.
But the flames of war had reached even this quiet village, and they had begun to drag the girl named Joan back toward the place she had come from.
“…I received a revelation from God.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“God told me I must serve Charles VII, take him to Reims, and make him king.”
“Oh, Lord…”
Once again, both adoptive parents bowed their heads in prayer.
“But… where’s Catherine? It’s dangerous outside.”
“When the Burgundians attacked, we got separated on different roads. Someone said they’d seen her in Neufchâteau, and that she meant to come back here. That’s all we know.”
Outside, Burgundian stragglers were still looting farmhouses and preying on refugees. The roads were not safe.
“We’ll have to find her…”
“And how, exactly? There’s a war on out there.”
“Joan. Rest for today. You need to wash that blood off, too.”
“I’m not hurt. And it isn’t even my blood…”
“Even so. You’re a young woman.”
Perhaps because the family was one of the more prominent households in the area, they owned a large wooden bathtub of a kind few other homes could boast. Joan sank into it. As the heat melted the tension from her body, questions began to surface one after another.
What even is that guidance window that pops up whenever it feels like it? And what are these skills I don’t understand?
“Status.”
Slave No. 1 — Jean II de Luxembourg-Ligny
Subordination:100 ⇄ 99(fluctuating)
The blue screen appeared again, half-transparent in the air. At the bottom, Slave No. 1 was listed. For some reason, his subordination value kept flickering back and forth between 100 and 99.
“Ligny…? Why—”
“You called, my lady?”
“Aah! What the hell!”
He must have been waiting right outside the bath. Ligny answered at once.
“What is wrong with you! You can’t just stand out there like that!”
“Forgive me if I startled you. But…”
“But what!”
“When you are somewhere I cannot see you, I… somehow feel so restless and lonely…”
Ligny flushed and lowered his head deeply — though Joan, inside the bath, could not see it.
“Hmph. For all I know you’ll turn on me the moment it suits you and sell me off somewhere.”
A spiteful mood had taken her, and the sharp words came out on their own. Perhaps her knowledge of future history and Joan’s own memories had collided, and the line had slipped out without her meaning it to.
“I… I would never…”
“…?”
“…I will never betray you, Lady Joan.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘never.’ You don’t know either — if a day comes when you have to. When it does, take my head in a single stroke. It would hurt if you had to swing more than once.”
“Lady Joan…”
Washed and dressed in clean clothes, Joan ignored her family’s stares, grabbed Ligny by the arm, hauled him into a room, and bolted the door.
“Ligny.”
“Yes, Lady Joan.”
“Ligny.”
“…Yes?”
“Ligny.”
“…Yes… Master.”
A satisfied look crossed her face. She crossed her legs and stretched one foot out toward him.
“Truly? You’ll swear lifelong loyalty to me?”
“Of course. For my Master’s sake, if you ordered me to return to Burgundy and slaughter them all, I would obey.”
“Even your wife?”
For an instant Ligny froze. Then he spoke again.
“I have one secret of my own to confess.”
“Go on. Whatever it is.”
“It… concerns my wife, Béthune.”
“Sorry about insulting her yesterday — but the situation was what it was—”
“Béthune is… in truth… a man.”
Ligny laid out a story almost too strange to imagine.
His wife Béthune was, in fact, male — raised as a daughter so that his father would not have to send a son to war. The first husband had been a homosexual, so the deception had held without anyone finding out. Ligny himself, for the sake of appearances and reputation, had merely pretended to be a happily married man.
“And… well… in truth, Lady Joan… you were my first…”
“I wasn’t, though?”
She tossed the reply back as if it were nothing, and Ligny flinched again and shut his mouth.
“Ligny.”
“….”
“Jean II de Luxembourg-Ligny.”
“Yes… Lady Joan.”
“Ligny.”
“….”
“Li—gny.”
“Yes. Master.”
“I’ll ask you again. Will you swear lifelong loyalty to me?”
“….”
For a moment he kept silent. Then, with difficulty, Ligny forced out a single word.
“Yes.”
Slave No. 1 — Jean II de Luxembourg-Ligny
Subordination:100
On the status window, Ligny’s subordination value locked firmly at 100 once more.
“Ligny.”
“Yes…?”
“Kiss my foot.”
“….”
Without a word, Ligny came quietly forward, knelt before her, took her foot in both hands, and pressed his lips to it.
At the light touch, a faint shiver ran through her body. Then Joan cupped his chin in one hand and drew him up as she spoke.
“After the second and the third… care to be the fourth man as well?”
Ligny did the rough math, then smiled softly.
“I’d like to reserve my place in line for the near future. May I?”
The ties of her linen dress were already undone; one shoulder had slipped bare.
Ligny’s hand traced slowly upward along her calf, then her thigh. Joan parted her legs a little and said,
“Won’t you show me proof of your loyalty one more time?”
Ligny drove without hesitation between her thighs.
Slurp… suck… slurp…
“Mmnh… yes… hah…”
She rubbed his cock slowly with her foot. It stiffened hard almost at once — and even so, he never stopped licking her cunt.
“Somehow… you remind me of the puppy we used to keep at home.”
He must not have caught it properly; Ligny lifted his head to look at her. Joan’s expression went abruptly cold.
“I didn’t call you. And I don’t believe I told you to stop.”
He buried his face between her legs again, and Joan’s footwork grew a little busier. She rubbed him slowly, then caught him between her toes and stroked him up and down; Ligny’s hips began to move in time with the sensation along his cock.
“Ligny.”
Still deep in concentration, he raised his head and looked at her.
“Come here.”
“…Yes… Master…”
Ligny climbed slowly over her and eased his hard cock into her cunt, already soaked from the long attentions of his mouth.
“Nnh—good.”
“Ah… Master…”
A dazed, blissful look on his face, Ligny kept moving.
“M-Master… nnh… hah…”
“Ligny.”
“…Yes…?”
“Fuck me harder. There’s a good dog.”
Looking faintly sulky, Ligny gripped her waist and began to piston into her in earnest.
“Ahhn… yes… that’s how my puppy should do it. Nnh… ah…”
“Nngh… Master… nnh… hah… uh… uh…”
As the room slowly filled with the heat of the two of them, in the chambers adjoining left and right, two people had their ears pressed to the wall, eavesdropping on Joan and Ligny’s coupling.
“Damn it… Joan… I should have moved first… my Joan…”
“My little sister… that Joan… nngh… Joan…”
In the left-hand room, Jean; in the right-hand room, Pierre — both with their ears to the wall, listening to the pair’s moans as they stroked themselves.
“My Joan… nnh-nnh… ah…”
“My little sister… nnh… ah… ah…”
The two lovers’ cries, and the two brothers’ loser masturbation, brought that evening to a close.
The next morning, the two brothers appeared at the table looking hollowed-out, while Joan and Ligny sat down with a healthy glow on their faces. The remaining three joined them.
“I’m going to find Catherine, bring her home, and then I’m going to war. Don’t try to stop me. God has commanded it.”
“Think it over one more time, Joan. You’re just our Joan — the child we raised right here in Domrémy.”
“That’s right. The greatest adventure of your life used to be going to the next village to buy vegetables.”
“Please just accept that I have no choice but to go.”
For a moment everyone sank into thought — and then the two brothers stood up and cried out.
“If that’s how it is, I’m going with you.”
“Me too… I’m going too!”
Jean and Pierre both rose from their seats and declared they would accompany her. Their parents fell into troubled silence.
“…We still have the eldest son, so the line won’t die out… isn’t that right?”
“We’ve thought something like this might happen someday. Let’s just make sure they’re properly prepared.”
Of one mind, the parents left the house for a while to gather what would be needed. In the meantime, the others studied the map, pinpointed where Catherine was most likely to be, and laid their plans.
First, find Catherine and return her to Domrémy. After that — on to Vaucouleurs.