Flesh and Spirit Read Online Free

feather would speed the healing of his broken hand. I knew little of the body’s humors. But one of a man’s great veins lay in the thigh, and I’d seen men bleed to death faster than a frog takes a fly while removing an arrow point carelessly from just the same spot as my wound. And we hadn’t been able to stop moving. When the Harrower priestess had thrown her legion of madmen against us, the battle had gone completely to the fiery pits, and six thousand other bloodied soldiers who had wagered their fortunes on the wrong side in this cursed war were soon to be right on our heels.
    A halfwit would understand what the delay would cost me. Though I had weighed bleeding to death likely preferable to sepsis and amputation, in my usual way I had postponed the decision, figuring it was better to die tomorrow than today. Now the payment was falling due.
    Mustering my courage, I broached the question gnawing at my gut. “You’ll take the leg, I know, Brother. But think you I’ll live to raise a glass again?”
    The monk dropped his bundled linens atop a wide chest pushed against the end wall of the infirmary, then began arranging the wooden bowls on shelves already crowded with ewers and basins, jars and bottles. “If the One God’s mercy continues to hold sway, your leg will heal with no ill result. Your fever’s broken just this morn. Young Jullian will be certain his prayers are answered. You’d think the boy had delivered you from the gates of hell bearing sword and shield like the Archangel himself.”
    â€œBut it’s putrid, and when you remove the arrow—”
    â€œThe nasty bit of iron is two days out, lad, and for certain, you’ve the constitution of an ox. You’re on the mend.” The monk was a strapping fellow. Despite his circled eyes and his stubbled cheeks that drooped excess skin about his jaw, his face expressed naught but good cheer. He spread out an array of bundled plants on a long table that stood between the last bed and the stack of shelves. Perching his backside on a backless stool, he began picking leaves from the array. “I’m Brother Robierre, as it happens, by Iero’s grace the infirmarian of Gillarine Abbey.”
    â€œOh!” Astonishing how much better I felt straightaway. As if the jagged bits of a shattered mirror had put themselves together again. As if I’d pulled the veil off my contracted bride and found some girl I loved. I dropped my head on the pillow and crowed like a banty rooster. “May the angels scribe your name, Brother! The moment I’m afoot, I’ll dance you a jig and carry you to heaven on my back!”
    A stoop-shouldered monk with piebald hair and a gray scapular over his cinched black gown scuttered out from behind me, casting a mildly shocked glance my way. The steaming crock he carried past my bed to the table left a scented trail in the air. Chicken—holy mother, could it be?—and onions and carrots and thyme and savory. My stomach rumbled uproariously.
    Months had passed since I last tasted meat. In early summer Boreas and I had shot an aged squirrel, three bites apiece and broth from the boiled bones with little more than grass to throw in it. Then and since the Ardran legions had been squatting on land long raided, gleaned, and stripped. We’d had only bread like dried leather made from shriveled peas or even acorns ground into flour. And never enough. No planting or harvest this year in any of western Ardra. The summer campaign had been only one of Prince Perryn’s gross miscalculations in pursuing his father’s throne. Not even the worst.
    â€œThank you, Brother Anselm,” said Robierre. “I do believe our patient’s going to appreciate the soup today. Inform the abbot that our supplicant is awake, if you would.”
    Piebald Brother Anselm nodded solemnly to the infirmarian and scurried away. To my delight, Brother Robierre put aside his