The Saint Who Healed Everyone and the Knight She Couldn't novel · Chapter 6 of 24
Chapter 6: The Cracked Plate
Lord Marshal Hartwig Stahl came into the mess tent at breakfast, and two hundred soldiers stood up so fast the benches fell over.
He was a heavy, red-faced man in a gold-braided coat, with a grey moustache that he stroked while he looked at things.
He looked at the long tables, and at the thin porridge, and then at Brunhild.
"Commander Kast," he said. "You look well rested."
Yui, at the end of the officers' table, kept her eyes on her bowl.
Brunhild's mouth did not move, but a faint pink had touched the back of her neck.
"Marshal."
"I am told the saint has spent every night in your quarters."
The tent went quiet.
"The Lady Yui is nursing my wounds," Brunhild said. "As the Court Mage knows."
Verrick, seated at the Marshal's elbow, lifted his teacup an inch in agreement.
"Nursing." Stahl sat down heavily, and the bench groaned. "Well. A cracked plate needs all the help it can get."
Someone near the back gasped.
Brunhild did not flinch.
"Say again, my lord?"
"You are the Royal Shield. You are the plate on the front of the army. And you have a crack in you that no healer has ever mended." Stahl waved a hand. "I do not say it to be cruel. I say it so that everyone understands why the plate does not lead the first charge on the Thaw."
Brunhild's grey eyes went flat.
"I have led every charge for nine years."
"And look at you." He shrugged. "Now. To business."
He pulled a folded map from his coat and spread it among the porridge bowls.
It showed Fort Gallowmere at the bottom and the Black Fen above it, a great grey stain.
"On the eve of the Thaw I want every man of the vanguard whole," he said. "Three hundred of them. Every old rot mark, every curse from every raid this winter, every fever. I want them healed that same evening, so they march fresh."
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