The Baby and the Battlefield

Chapter Forty-Five: After the Silence

The noise, when it came, was deafening. Even the baby was shocked, momentarily, into silence. By the time Aurelia’s wailing started up again, Tsuga was already back on her feet, pounding towards where Salix’s body lay crumpled in the grass. Mulberry tried to look out from around Marcus’s protective arm, and realised that she could see nothing but the dust, dark as a thundercloud, thrown up by the – was it an explosion? For a long moment, there was nothing but confusion; Aurelia crying in her ear, Marcus shouting something to Petro, and more distantly, a soft, sad noise that Mulberry couldn’t place. The dragon was flying away to the North, lurching drunkenly with a damaged wing, and Salix lay in a pool of blood.

As the sky cleared and Marcus, too, ran off to where Salix had fallen, Mulberry realised that the soft noise had been Tsuga’s voice. The voice now became more urgent. Mulberry, too, started running to the spot where Salix lay, jostling Aurelia as she ran, the baby balanced on her hip. Aurelia screamed, but for once no one told Mulberry to quiet her down. No-one seemed to notice the crying baby at all.

Marcus knelt at Salix’s side, leaning over her, pressing the torn flesh together.

“Get me . . . damn, we haven’t got clean water.”

“The wine, that'll do,” Petro said, “I've seen the doctor in the 47th use it often enough. Tsuga, grab it. I'll get bandages.”

Marcus nodded, then added, “Mulberry, keep an eye on those horses. And Tsuga, I need that salve!”

“Salve?” Tsuga asked, her eyes wide and confused, as she thrust a wine skin into Marcus’ waiting hands.

“Yes, that magic salve that Salix used on that bandit on the Estavaca woman. Go get it!”

Tsuga turned bright red and burst into tears. In a second, Petro’s arms were around her, begging her to tell him, “What is it? Where’s the salve?”

From where she was standing by the horses, Mulberry watched Tsuga spread her hands wide, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“It’s gone,” she said, “it’s all gone. That was all we had.”

Marcus’ mouth dropped open.

“Gone? That’s it? But I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” Marcus sank back onto his heels.

“You can stop the bleeding,” Petro said, “I'll help you. The doctor and I have done it before. Heck, you did it with him, before.”

“But with wounds like this . . We stop the bleeding, and then she dies of fever, when the wound rots from the inside out. We can’t fix this!” Marcus protested, as Tsuga continued to bawl in Petro’s arms.

It was then, in a flash of insight so intense it was positively blinding, that Mulberry had an idea. She bounced Aurelia on her hip and said, “So take her home.”

The others stared at her in confusion, so Mulberry continued, “Take her home. Take Salix back to . . .wherever you Florae stay when you’re at home. You do keep more salve there, don’t you?”

Tsuga nodded.

“So let Marcus and Petro fix her up, stop the bleeding, and then take her home. Petro can go with you.” She caught Petro’s expression, and firmly said, “No, Marcus and Ear of – Aurelia – and I will be just fine. The dragon's gone. We just have to follow the river now, right Marcus? And then you can join us later. But right now . . . I don’t want her to die.”

Marcus nodded at this, and said, “Fine. Petro, start separating your stuff out from mine. And would someone toss me those bandages already?”

Mulberry got the bandages for him herself, after pushing Aurelia into Tsuga’s arms. The girl still looked overwhelmed, and she was still teary. Mulberry, on the other hand, efficiently pushed Petro towards the pack horses, wiped her hands on her bodice, and, a bundle of bandages in her arms, knelt at Marcus’ side. She watched as he washed the wound out with wine, then pushed the flesh together, as if willing it to knit itself back into health. He had her rinse her hands in the wine, then help him hold the wound together.

“Press as hard as you can,” he instructed, looking at the rent flesh and not at Mulberry. Mulberry held the sides of the wound together for what seemed like hours, watching blood trickle out between her fingers. She leaned heavily on her arms until they ached, and slowly, slowly, the trickle of blood slowed, and then disappeared. Marcus then wrapped the wound with the bandages, pushing Mulberry roughly out of the way. She sat back on her heels, inspecting her hands, smeared with Salix’s blood.

Petro returned and sat beside Marcus, taking the bandages from him, wrapping them more professionally and neatly than Marcus could manage. Mulberry sniffed the blood on her hands, almost unthinkingly. The scent of blood – metallic and salty all at once – made her want to retch. It reminded her of that battlefield, of being captured, and it reminded her of her failures. Her failure to bear a child for that man she had been married to but had hardly known. Though in the end, it was probably better that way. The child would have been sold away from her, or perhaps killed outright. It was better that there had never been a child. Mulberry grimaced, and washed her hands in the wine, before wiping them, with a sigh, on her skirts. Someday she would wash this dress, she hoped.

Salix did not wake up in all the time it took Marcus and Petro to truss her up in the bandages, nor did she wake as Petro lifted her onto his back, carrying her like a wounded colleague. She slept through Tsuga wiping the tears from her cheeks and handing Aurelia back to Mulberry before loading her arms with Petro’s things. Tsuga then stood very close to Petro, wrapping him and Salix in Salix's black cloak. Mulberry and Marcus could actually see the cloak this time as the transformation began. A grey mist seemed to emanate from somewhere in the dark folds of cloth. As it rose and swirled before their eyes, Tsuga and Petro and even the unconscious Sailx ceased to exist, and the cloaks with them. Instead a massive crow, with a tiny black bird clinging to his back, thrashed his wings madly and hovered near the ground while a lithe young crow sped off into the sky. Despite the gravity of the situation, Marcus almost wanted to laugh at the sight. In a second Tsuga turned back and flew slowly before Petro, who followed awkwardly, his flight inefficient, but still somehow managing.

“I wish I could do that,” Mulberry breathed. Marcus looked long after his friend.

“Petro will tell us all about it,” he said, “but for now, come. I need to take. . . to take that home.” He sighed, thinking of the urn holding his brother's ashes. Then, smiling a little, he added, “And Aurelia, too. My father should meet his granddaughter.”

He then gently took the baby from Mulberry’s arms, and walked off towards the scattered horses.