The Baby and the Battlefield

Chapter Fourteen: In Which Our Heroes Meet the Aforementioned Girl Assassins

The road was an old, well-marked track that forged ahead through scrubby woodland. It had been built by a minor king a century before the empire had pushed out this far, nearly two hundred years ago now. It had survived alternating decades of neglect and seasons of feverish rebuilding. It was a well-patched, rough and lonely track, but it was clear and easy to follow, the big flat paving stones reclining on the earth as if they had grown there over long-forgotten eons. From the point of view of the birds overhead, Marcus was an insignificant dot as he led the small bay horse, while Mulberry rode the gray, Aurelia strapped to her back like a peasant farmer’s baby. Petro had fallen behind, his contrary chestnut beast barely visible to the others, but in the bright sun that didn’t seem to matter much,

 Aurelia babbled merrily on Mulberry’s back, trying to kick her feet though they were bound in the sling. Mulberry could not help smiling. It was funny, how attached she had become to the baby. It didn’t really matter that she was being forced to watch Aurelia. Mulberry had been surprised to discover she liked babies, and watching Aurelia had become something she wanted to do, not something she was forced to do. In spite of her situation, right now, traveling under the warm late summer sun, Mulberry was happy.

Marcus walked ahead, deep in thought, the reins warm in his hand as the sun beat down. A pair of crows wheeled overhead, their black silhouettes occasionally blocking the sun, but Marcus paid them no mind. He would go to the place where they had burned Gaius’ body, and then what? He watched his feet scuff along the dusty path. He would take the ashes home and somehow tell his father that Gaius wasn’t coming home. And perhaps father would tell Gaius’ son.

Marcus was too wrapped up in his thoughts at first to realize that something was wrong. The first warning he had was a little yelp from Mulberry. Marcus turned, blinking, to see Mulberry trying to hit a man who had taken hold of her horse’s bridle. The horse, ungrateful traitor that she was, was standing there as if the man was her best friend, exactly as she had been trained to do. For Marcus, still half-befuddled by reverie, the scene failed to resolve itself into anything but confusion. Mulberry was leaning far over in the seat, hitting the man, and Aurelia started bawling, and then suddenly there was a man standing in front of Marcus, too. A tall man with a drawn sword, who was eying the horse Marcus was leading.

“Let’s get those saddle bags open, then, little soldier,” The tall man smiled, a single gilded tooth glinting in the sunlight.

Marcus ignored the tall man, focusing instead on the short, underfed fellow who had captured the other horse. Marcus hoped his voice sounded grave and strong.

“Let them go,” Marcus said, “And leave us. I will kill you if I have to.”

Mulberry almost laughed at this – she would have, if she wasn’t so frightened. Imagine Marcus killing someone! He was in the army, yes, and he dressed like a soldier, but he was clerk, and a milksop at that. She couldn’t imagine he even knew how to use the sword he carried, except perhaps to split open a melon. Somehow, though, the serious tone of Marcus’s voice was soothing. Even little Aurelia seemed calmed by the bizarre situation, as her screaming stopped.

The tall bandit seemed to think about Marcus’ statement just as Mulberry had. He smirked.

“I was in the army once too, kid. And just because you can stand in the right place in one of those pretty formations doesn’t mean you can fight one-on-one. If it were one-on-one, that is,” he adds, nodding at the comrade who by now has grabbed Mulberry’s wrist, so she could hit him with only one hand.

“I do know what I’m doing,” Marcus said solemnly, “My father was a swordsman. My older brother is – was – a swordsman. I can kill you.”