The Baby and the Battlefield

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Pigeon

A week out of Byford Augusta, the weather was bright and surprisingly hot. It seemed that nature had forgotten it was autumn, and had enthusiastically returned to high summer. By mid-afternoon walking was a chore, and they had given up on travelling for the day. Petro had been set to keep watch, while Marcus watched the baby, and the girls bathed in the Florea. It was a small river here, so far from the sea and from human habitation. Their campsite was actually a picturesque spot, with the river chattering over small rapids on the edge of a heavy wood. They were nearly ten minutes' walk from the main trail, and it looked like no-one had stopped this way in an age. Petro’s only complaint was that the girls had insisted on picking a pool to bathe in that was surrounded by thick shrubbery. This meant that while Petro could hear their chatter and the occasional giggle on the breeze, he couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see Marcus either, but Marcus was off in the woods to his left, talking to the baby as he set up camp. Marcus was not nearly so interesting to Petro’s mind as the girls were. He sighed and sat on a log, looking up at the sky, which was just starting to darken into twilight.

As Petro looked up a grey shape circled above, silhouetted by the dying light. As it came closer, the shape resolved itself into a fat, curious-looking pigeon with a little box tied to one leg. Petro watched as the pigeon landed on the ground in front of him. The bird cocked its head to one side. There was something odd about the bird, something about the way it moved. It was not frightened. Instead, it was acting as if it was trying to decide something. The pigeon regarded him for a long time, then took wing again. Apparently thinking better of his decision, the bird only made a short circle before landing, cooing, at Petro’s feet. For a long while Petro stared at the pigeon. The bird looked up at him and cocked its head to one side a second time. Then, very deliberately, it pecked at Petro’s toes, hard. Petro was wearing sandals, and the bird’s beak felt like someone was driving a dull nail into his foot.

“Ow, you stupid bird!” He yelled, lunging for it. The pigeon squawked and leapt out of his reach, but then held out one leg, the leg with the tiny box. Petro paused, one hand out, staring at the bird. Pigeons didn’t do that. Homing pigeons flew home, not out to find people in the woods. And they didn’t insist you took their message, and they didn’t stand there, leg out, waiting for you to take it. There was something seriously weird about this creature. Petro reached for the box, then again drew his hand back, placing his finger in his mouth for a moment, like a child. The bird waited patiently while Petro looked all around, and then stared at the pigeon, and the little box, a while longer. Finally Petro reached out and, kneeling beside the bird, untied the tiny box. Before Petro could even palm it, the bird had taken off, flying away. Petro looked at the little box. It was dark, brown wood, with the pattern of a rose impressed on it and outlined in red ink. “Florae,” he sighed, “Why am I not surprised?”

Petro only thought for a moment about going to deliver the box to Salix or Tsuga. The girls were still splashing and giggling in the water, and he knew that he most certainly should not go anywhere near them. Not, at least, if he wanted to live. So, instead, he popped open the lid of the little box, and slipped out the tightly rolled strip of papyrus.

Petro could read, though only slowly and if the letters were clear. He had to sound things out, unlike Marcus who could see something for the first time and read it aloud as quickly as if he were speaking. Petro puzzled over the note for a long while, before realising it was, partly, in some sort of code. It was addressed to Flora Salix, he could tell that, but beyond that he couldn’t tell anything. He held the note up to the sunlight, trying to make some sense of it.

By the river, the girls climbed out of the cold water, drying themselves with their dirty clothes turned inside-out. Salix pulled a clean tunic over her head, commenting, “Ah, it's so nice to be clean. I prefer to feel civilized.”

“You'll be civilised soon enough, Senior,” Tsuga laughed, “Once you've married.”

“Are you looking forward to it, Flora Salix?” Mulberry asked, conversationally.

Salix blushed prettily, “Oh yes. My Vitus is a lovely man. and I'll be happy to marry him, at long last. All my old school mates have had husbands for years, and a baby or two in the bargain."

Mulberry frowned, "Then it is not usual among your people to be unmarried, at your age?"

Salix shook her head violently, "Far from it. If I were not serving the gods as I do," she smiled archly at the irony of this, "Vitus and I would have married perhaps six or seven years ago."

Mulberry was unsure of how old Salix might be, but Mulberry had always thought of her as younger than herself. Mulberry herself had been sent away to marry at seventeen; it sounded like Flora Salix would have been younger still. Mulberry had hated being torn away from everything she ever knew. She knew that things would not have been so hard on Salix, since she knew the boy well, but still, Mulberry did not envy these Imperial women.

Salix sighed and added, "I often wish we could have married then, but I had other obligations." She glanced over to where Tsuga sat drying her hair, and added, "I still do have other obligations."

Mulberry was surprised, but could not help smiling. "You really do like him, then," she pointed out.

Salix nodded, "I wouldn't marry him if I didn't. I'd stay with the Florae, do my job, rise through the ranks. Instead, I'll grow fat with nothing to do but chase little children around the garden. Well, fatter, at any rate," she laughed, looking down at her plump figure.

Dressed but not quite dry, Salix, Tsuga, and Mulberry rounded the patch of shrubbery and came upon Petro. Upon seeing him squinting at the tiny scrap of paper, Salix broke into a run, tearing the paper from his hand. Mulberry looked over at Tsuga, who was staring at her senior in utter confusion, her mouth slightly open.

“Was there a pigeon? Was there? What did you do with it?” Salix was demanding, crumpling the note into her hand.

“He flew away! I didn’t do anything!” Petro protested.

Salix gave him a dirty look. “That was private correspondence, from our superiors. It is not to be looked at by the likes of you!”

Tsuga had by now caught up with them and begged, “Please don’t be angry, Flora Salix! Petro can hardly read, I bet he got nothing from it.”

“I can too read!” Petro retorted, blushing red at the perceived insult.

“Shut up, I’m trying to help you out, here!” she hissed at him. He muttered something about not needing enemies, with friends like her.

Salix, however, had no patience for this back-and-forth bickering. She stood very, very close to Petro, glaring up at him.

“If you ever, ever try to read something delivered by that sort of bird again, I will kill you, Petro son of Callidus. I will gut you, and leave you to bleed to death, slowly, while I spread your intestines out in the sun for the wolves to eat.” Salix tossed her head back and walked off, every movement telegraphing annoyance and betrayal.

Petro blinked, twice. He hadn’t realised that this was so big a deal for her. Tsuga threw him an exasperated look. Mulberry just shrugged, and walked off.