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Chapter 25

Aparticularly fat flock of pigeons had been found in the barn, gorging on the wheat waiting to be milled into flour. One of the miller's boys chased them off, while his brothers boarded up the barn so that they could not get in again, but not before Rossa had seen the fat birds in flight.

Pigeons roasted nicely over a fire, especially fat ones. She'd seen thieves hanged for stealing a bag of precious wheat, where most people could only afford chestnut flour for their bread. So a death sentence for the pigeons seemed fitting.

She set out into the forest to hunt them, hoping to find their roost, if not the pigeons themselves. If she could catch a couple, though, she might share them with Snow, for surely the bear hadn't eaten a fresh roasted pigeon in quite some time.

With a little help from her magic, she soon found where they'd flow off to, for the stupid birds had perched all together. Perhaps they were too fat to fly far.

Rossa strung her bow, nocked an arrow to the string, then selected her target – a particularly plump bird perched on a branch lower than the others.

She drew the arrow back, sighted along it, blew out a breath and…

The whole flock whirred into flight.

Cursing, Rossa fired at the nearest bird. It might not be the choicest, but she was damned if she was leaving here empty handed.

A squawk told her she'd hit her target, before it whumped heavily to earth.

Yet when the cloud of feathers cleared, she was surprised to see she'd hit a boy, not a bird at all. He must have climbed the tree to try and catch a bird, and he'd fallen out when she shot him. The arrow stuck out of his side, where it might have missed most of his important organs, but he'd bleed plenty if she tried to pull it out.

She'd need to find some yarrow to staunch the bleeding first, then.

Luckily, he'd knocked himself out in his fall from the tree, so he was likely going to lie there while she found what she needed.

Thanking Swanhild for teaching her this particular spell, she searched the forest for the nearest patch of yarrow. It wasn't far off, but it did involve some scrambling over rocks to reach it. Plucking handfuls of the feathery leaves that she then stuffed into a pocket in her cloak, she headed back to the injured boy.

The innocent she'd shot.

If her father knew…

Grimly, she pressed her lips together and knelt beside the unconscious boy. His tunic was so thin and threadbare, it was a wonder he hadn't frozen to death out here. Even his cloak had more holes than cloth. Whoever he was, he could not have come from the village – Mother and the monastery would never have allowed one of their neighbours to live in such poverty. Perhaps he was a pilgrim, who'd gotten lost on the way to the monastery.

Whatever or whoever he was, she'd take him there once she'd finished healing him.

She lifted the hem of his tunic, pulling it up carefully so as not to disturb the arrow. He was painfully thin, this strange boy, his ribs sharply outlined beneath his skin. Definitely not from the village, where no one would be allowed to starve.

She took a deep breath when she reached the arrowhead, then peeled the cloth away from his skin with the utmost care. To her surprise, the arrow came away with the cloth, revealing no wound beneath.

She yanked the arrow out of his tunic, finding it had gone straight through both the front and back of the fabric. How it had missed him, she did not know. It should have grazed him, at the least, but there was no sign of blood or a wound on his body, and the dark brown of his tunic hid any bloodstains that might have been absorbed by the cloth.

Rossa sat back on her heels, not sure what to do. She should carry the unconscious boy back to town, where he might get a good meal and some clothes he wouldn't freeze to death in.

The boy chose that moment to wake up, his eyes growing wide as he scrambled backwards, away from her.

"You shot me!" he accused.

"I was shooting at the pigeons," Rossa hedged. "I must have missed and hit your tunic instead."

The boy looked down, and his eyes grew wider still. He stuck two fingers through the hole in his tunic and made an obscene gesture through it. "You tore a hole right through it! My last good shirt! You…stupid peasant! Can't even tell the difference between a pigeon and a person!"

Rossa almost laughed. If anyone was a peasant, it was this boy, in his rough rags. "Come back to the village with me, and I'll see that you get a new shirt," she offered. It was the least she could do.

He reared back in horror, his face curling with disdain that would not have looked out of place on Bruno's face. "Certainly not! I'm not going anywhere with a peasant girl who shoots people!"

He stood up, dusted himself off, and marched away into the forest. In the opposite direction to the village.

Rossa just shook her head. She could use magic to bring the boy back with her, but why bother with such a rude wretch? If he didn't want her help, he could go off and freeze in the forest, if that's what he wished.

Meanwhile, she'd have to go back to the castle to fetch some food to take to Snow, instead of the fresh pigeon she'd hoped to catch. Or go deeper into the forest in her pursuit of those thieving pigeons.

Sighing, Rossa set off.