Chapter Six: A Meeting

 The pens where the prisoners were kept reeked of unpleasantly of unmentionable substances. The woman leaned against the fence, barely paying attention as a young soldier handed a scrap of broken pottery to the scarred old fool with one eye who served as jail-keeper. The two men talked about something, but the young woman ignored them. She hoped that they would not look her way, that the young man would take no interest in her, no interest at all. He was a very young man, she thought, no older than she was, perhaps even younger. She wondered what the bundle in his arms was, but deliberately did not look, fearing that if she showed interest, it would draw theirs. Her heart sank, however, as the guard unlocked the door to the pen, and led the young man before her. She dropped her eyes to the ground, not daring to move, staring at the manacles locking her hands together. She didn’t feel curious about this boy. She just felt numb.

 “She’ll watch the baby for you. Look at them delicate hands,” the old man said, “And pretty dark eyes, nice for a young man like yourself, eh?”

 Marcus’ head whipped around as he sputtered, “No, no, it isn’t like that, I don’t want – look here, she hasn’t got a baby, how can she feed my Aurelia?” He finished, changing the subject.

 The man laughed, “That baby is old enough to eat what you eat, if it’s mushed up a bit. Let the girl see to her. Besides, she’s the only young woman your little chit can cover, ‘less you want to pony up some cash. She’s only going so cheap because she can’t speak the language and don’t know any useful skills” He sniffed, “Our translator says she told him she can’t even cook. Damned Estavacan aristocrats.” He spat on the ground.

 The woman’s eyes flickered up for a moment. Baby? This young man had a baby? There was a bundle in his arms. Still, she told herself, glaring at the manacles again, it wasn’t like she had any sympathy for some motherless imperial child. Not after what had happened today.

 “Fine,” Marcus sighed, “I guess I haven’t got any choice. Someone has to watch Aurelia when I can’t.”

 The old guard placed a hand on the young woman’s shoulder, and pushed her towards Marcus. He spoke a few rough words in Estavacan which Marcus could not understand, but the woman could. She was to go with him. He owned her now. And she would be killed if she did not obey him.

 Marcus cleared his throat awkwardly, and beckoned for her to follow him. He was still cuddling his bundle – the baby – close to his chest. They walked along the narrow, muddy streets of the camp, with tents on either side. A crow flew high over head. The young woman reflected that the black birds must follow the imperial army, drawn by the gore and rotting flesh their campaigns left behind.

 Marcus walked ahead of the woman for a long time, then finally turned and faced her. She stopped walking abruptly, looking at the ground and not at him. He looked her over, noting the poorly-cut hair, the dirty smock, and the bare feet. He would have to get her shoes, he thought. What if the legions and the baggage train were ordered on a long march, soon? She couldn’t follow them for fifteen or twenty miles a day without shoes. She needed proper clothing, too. He wondered if he could buy back her own clothes – surely she hadn’t been dressed like this when she was captured. He also wondered if they had cut her hair. Probably they had. It could be sold, after all. It was really a pity, the dark hair suited her fair complexion, and Marcus thought it would be quite beautiful worn long. Still looking at her, he tilted his head to one side then tapped his chest.

 “Marcus,” he said

 The girl looked up for a moment, her eyes a dark brown, almost black, and smouldering with contempt.

 “I speak your language,” she said in an almost insulting tone. “They thought wrongly when they said otherwise.” With a toss of her head, she added, “Though that’s what I wanted them to think. I didn’t want to be troubled.”

 Marcus blinked in surprise.

 “Oh. I mean, sorry. Um. Well, I’m, er, Marcus,” he said awkwardly.

 The woman raised a single eyebrow.

 “Aren’t I supposed to call you ‘master’ or ‘lord’ or something?”

 “I don’t think I’d feel all that comfortable with that. Maybe . . . oh, just ‘Marcus’, when we’re alone, at least. ‘Sir’, maybe, otherwise?”

 The girl nodded. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice, after all.

 “What’s your name?” Marcus asked.

 The woman said something in multisyllabic, almost musical Estvacan, something rich in vowels and soft consonants. It was beautiful, but Marcus stared at her in open-mouthed confusion. The girl sighed

 “It is the name of – “ She thought for a moment, “In your language it means ‘mulberry’”

 “Mulberry?” Marcus asked, smiling. “That’s sort of a pretty name. It'll work fine for a person in your position, too.”

 The young woman shrugged.

 Marcus turned and started to walk again, but then, once again, stopped abruptly.

 “Mulberry?”

 She looked up at him again, wondering what he would order her to do.

 “This is Aurelia,” Marcus said, holding the baby out to her.

 Mulberry took the baby, uncertainly. The little girl had big, blue eyes, just the the boy did, but her hair was dark

 “But, but – she isn’t Imperial at all,” Mulberry said in confusion, “She’s Estavaca”

 Mulberry pointed to the patterns on the child’s blanket, the orange and red patterns bright in the afternoon sun. It was impossible to believe that the young man had been here long enough to have fathered a child with an Estavaca mother. Not when Mulberry knew that until six months ago the imperials had maintained only a skeleton force along the frontier. She doubted that someone this young, who spoke with no hint of a border accent and didn’t seem to recognize Estavacan weaving when he saw it, could have been part of that force. So he could not be the baby’s father. Except – except the baby had those blue eyes, so similar to the young soldier's. It made no sense.

 “She Estavaca,” Marcus corrected, “She’s mine now. I found her and – and so she’s mine.”

 Mulberry was surprised by this. What did he mean, he found her? How do you find a baby, exactly? And really, what kind of young man, a soldier of a sort, would take in a baby that wasn’t even his own? In a war, no less? This didn’t make sense. The men who had captured her were rough, and cruel. None of them would have taken in a baby, though they were as imperial as the young man standing before her. She was sure of that. Mulberry sighed and pushed the blanket aside from the baby’s face. Perhaps the boy had been posted here for a couple of years, and the baby really was his, despite the evidence to the contrary. Her eyes were very like Marcus’, after all.

 “You have named her Aurelia?” Mulberry asked him.

 “Yeah,” Marcus nods, “I don’t know her real name.”

 “You can’t read Estavacan,” Mulberry stated.

 “No, I can’t. It wasn’t something my tutors thought was worthwhile, when I was a boy. But, how do you know?” Marcus replied.

 With one finger, Mulberry traced the red and orange patterns woven into the blanket. It was wool, but with strands of rabbit fur and silk threads worked in, resulting in a complex, gently mottled effect that overlaid and ran through the colourful shapes. The child’s family must have been wealthy indeed to afford to have something like this made for a mere baby.

 “Ear-of-Mouse,” she translated.

 Marcus blinked, “Ear-of-mouse?”

 “That is what it says. It is her name.”

 Marcus shook his head.

 “That’s crazy. Who’d name a baby Ear-of-Mouse?”

 Mulberry looked at him, chin forward, expression belligerent.

 “It is the name of a plant! A little, wayside plant, with round leaves, like the ears of a mouse. Most girls have names of little plants when they are small. Everyone knows that. My own name-in-childhood was ‘Chickweed’”

 Marcus laughed.

 “’Mulberry’ suits you much better. And her name’s ‘Aurelia’ now. After my mother. Not ‘Ear-of-Mouse’ or ‘Random Plant’ or anything else. Aurelia. And it isn’t a name-in-childhood or whatever you called it, either. It’s her name. That’s it.”

 Mulberry looked down.

 “Yes, sir. Aurelia,” she sighed.

 “What’m I going to do with you?” Marcus asked.

 It was a long while before either of them spoke again. As twilight began to fall, Mulberry pretended to admire the lamps set at every corner, the better not to have to look at this person who claimed he owned her.

 Eventually, Marcus sighed loudly, then announced, “I guess you’ll have to travel with the baggage train, but you’ll have to bunk with me and Petro – he’s my tent mate. When he’s not being a nuisance around here, Petro is assistant to the legion doctor – though he's always looking for a promotion, the cheapskate – and I’m the assistant clerk. We’re neither of us particularly useful as fighters, and we’re neither of us as important as our bosses. I guess that’s why they put us together. I can’t afford another tent for you. In spite of what that idiot Petro will tell you, I don’t have much in terms of savings.”

 “I did not ask to be bought.” Mulberry said quietly.

 “Don’t get impertinent! Look, I’m sorry your day is going so badly, but I own you now. You have to listen to me. That's the law, and besides you owe me: even though I don't have to, I’m going to take good care of you, and it could be worse. All I need is a nursemaid for the baby. That’s it. I’m not going to do anything to you, I’m not going to hurt you, none of that. So stop looking scared, or sad, or whatever it is!”

 Mulberry looked down, and burst into tears. She hugged the baby close as the tears coursed down her dirty face. Marcus sighed. This just wasn’t going well at all. Far above, a crow cawed angrily.