The Baby and the Battlefield

Chapter Nineteen: Baths

Mulberry looked up at the ceiling mosaics and smiled. She had handed in her clothes to be washed, receiving in return a wooden token with a number stamped on it. The token bobbed at her wrist, floating in the water but unable to escape its leather thong. The mosaics on the ceiling of this room were of fables and nursery stories, and she recognized a few of the tales illustrated high above her head. She always thought of the people of the empire as being very different from her own people, but really they were similar in many ways. In fact, the settled farming clan she had grown up in had more in common with these imperial city-dwellers than with the nomadic clan she had married into.

Not that she would have noticed any similarities based on architecture. Her people had baths too, of course, but they were smaller than this one, meant for two or three people at a time, not hundreds like this public bath could support. And they were wood buildings with downwards-swooping green-tiled roofs, not tall brick squares with plaster and timber upper stories, roof tiles so far away that you could not see them from the street.

She had recognized a few of the stories illustrated in the artwork – the tale of the fox in the winter, the story of the princess and the thief, and others; there, on the ceiling above, was the story of the two hounds. She had loved that one as a child, loved how the friendship of the dogs had allowed them to overcome their enemy, the wolf, to obtain the delicious cheese their master had left at his door. There was another nursery story beside it, the tale of the hen protecting her chicks, using cleverness to outwit a fox. The images she didn’t recognize seemed mostly to do with the sea – a cat hissing at a crowd of oysters, a man talking with a large fish, or perhaps a whale. She had never liked sea stories, and living first in the mountains and then on the plains, she had had little opportunity to hear them. Mulberry relaxed in the rose-scented water, admiring the familiar mosaics and watching the steam dance over her head.

Mulberry was pleased. She had bathed in the water with the rose-petals in it, just as she had been promised, and now she smelled delightful. Delicious, even. She felt calm, and completely relaxed for the first time in months, as she floated in the warm, welcoming pool.

The next room, however, convinced her that she would never understand Marcus and his people at all. It was not only that the room was decorated profusely with images of his people’s bizarre gods – men with wings on their heels, women with cat’s faces, children with horns – but it was the sheer purpose of the room. The water in this room was frigid. She shrieked as she stepped into it, drawing startled, disapproving glances from the other bathers.

One of the attendants shook her head, saying, “You must use cold water to close your pores, now that the dirt has been removed. Otherwise more dirt will just seep in.”

In spite of her better judgement, Mulberry stepped gingerly into the pool. She ducked her head under, then brought it out almost immediately, the cold instantly shooting through her sinuses, and giving her a headache. She sat there for a few minutes, hugging her knees to her chest and shivering. When an actual lump of ice floated by, she cursed the empire and everyone who lived in it, albeit under her breath. She then fled from the pool, as quick as she could manage, happy to stumble into the next room where the attendants wrapped you with soft towels.

This room had low ceilings, just high enough for a tall man to walk without hitting his head. At first it appeared to be a small room, but in fact it was as large as the bath rooms – it was just split off into long, narrow corridors lined by benches and fire pits. The attendants led Mulberry to a comfortable bench beside one of the sleepy fires. Warmth crept back into her body as she stared into the flames, surrounded by brightly polished yellow wood that was smooth to the touch.

After what seemed a long while, but was likely only moments, a pair of young women – slaves like herself, but well-fed, neat, and clean - approached. One carried a bronze mirror, heavy and round. Cool air seemed to come off of it, even in the warm room. The other girl carried a small round basket filled with brushes and combs and a large, imposing-looking pair of shears.

“We were told you wanted your haircut . . . fixed,” the first young woman said, shyly. Mulberry nodded in agreement. The second woman trimmed Mulberry's hair so that it was even all around, and the girls fanned it until it was dry, soft and smooth and slightly fluffy. It was not as nice as it had been before they had cut it, when it had been long enough to sit on, but she still liked it. It fell, straight and dark, to her chin, and puffed out slightly around her face. Her reflection in the mirror of polished bronze had been decidedly cute. She had then turned in the wooden token, and received her shift and Marcus' spare tunic, both clean and dry. She had sat on a wooden bench and put them on, and then gone out again into the world.

She felt better still once she had picked out a new dress in the market. It was made of strong, cheap material, but it had been dyed a deep green that made her eyes look like a pair of glossy chestnuts. Best of all, it was well within the limits set by Marcus’ pile of coins. In the basket she carried on her arm was another, almost identical dress dyed a dark indigo colour, and numerous soft cloths, mostly for the baby, but with a few for her own use. She had even found a stall which had just one pair of proper, Estavacan-style woven straw sandals – which happened to be just her size. And Marcus’ pile of coins had paid for all of it.

Marcus was, she reflected, turning a corner, a very kind boy. The ten copper coins and two silvers hadn't looked like much, but he had actually given her a great deal of money. She walked between two tall brick buildings and out into the square that formed the heart of the shopping district. Her husband had never allowed her to go pick out so much as the cloth for her clothes to be made out of. He had always ensured that she was well-dressed, almost always in silk, but even the floral patterns on the fabric had been his choice and not hers. These dresses were the first clothes she had chosen for herself since her father had allowed her to select the blue robe with peach blossoms for her wedding. Mulberry imagined that Marcus would be much more thoughtful towards his wife, when he had one. After all, he treated Mulberry very well, and she was nothing at all to him, just property. She wondered if she would ever again have a blue silk robe, perhaps patterned with pale pink peach blossoms.

Mulberry sighed, looking at a stall that sold doughy pockets filled with spiced meat. That was probably the sort of thing Petro had had in mind. She supposed she could buy three of those, and some eggs, and maybe vegetables, to keep them going for the day. She was looking thoughtfully at the neat stacks of meat pies when the glint of metal caught her eye