Chapter 13: The Order

Brunhild stood in the doorway with her sword in her hand and her shirt open at the throat.

Yui stood behind her shoulder, barefoot, with a wet cloth still in her fist.

Eight soldiers in the Marshal's black and gold filled the stairwell.

Behind them, Marshal Hartwig Stahl climbed the last steps with his red face shining and his moustache bristling.

Behind him came Verrick Dornbach, in his long grey robe, with his hands folded.

"Commander," Stahl said. "You look rested."

"Marshal."

"A fever, I was told. Contagious." He looked at the sword. "You seem to have recovered very well."

"I have."

"Then you will not mind explaining why my saint was hidden in a tower for three days while I counted down to the Thaw."

Brunhild said nothing.

Stahl turned and spoke down the stairs, in the big voice he used on parade grounds.

"Bring them up! I want the Shield to hear this!"

Boots rang on stone.

Greta came up first, with her limp and her chin high.

Behind her came the officers of the Royal Shield, forty of them, filling the landing and the steps.

They looked at their commander in her shirt, and at the Marshal's guards, and they did not look away.

Stahl unrolled a paper.

"By the authority of the Queen's war council, Dame Brunhild Kast is relieved of command of the Royal Shield."

"Effective this hour, for hiding a soldier of the crown and disobeying a lawful order."

A sound went through the landing.

"The Shield will take its orders from me," Stahl said. "Commander, your sword."

Yui felt Brunhild's whole body go still.

She knew that stillness.

It was the one that came before she lifted a gate.

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