A Difficult Message

"Ladies? I think we have a visitor" Ethyn pointed, unsure what else to say.

Rose turned around and smiled at the grey feathery creature. Cooing softly, the princess rose from her seat. "Ah, what a rare treat! Are you lost, little one?"

Rose occasionally ended up with birds in her window. But mostly they flew away as soon as they realized they were being watched.

Only the military fowl were unafraid of humans. She had seen them loose on the castle grounds once in a while. They had their home in the aviary in case messages needed to be sent urgently.

Once when she was younger, one of them had stopped off in her window and she had taken it inside her chamber to pet and feed it. Eventually a soldier came looking for her new 'pet'. The king had to tell her not to keep the bird in her room. As compensation, Rhodri had allowed her to visit the birds' home whenever she pleased.

This was clearly one of those birds, but not one she recognized. The princess furrowed her brow. "Where did you come from?" She looked down at the small message attached to his leg. "And what news do you bring?"

"We should take it down to the bird keeper. Surely he will be looking for this straggler." Caitlyn loved birds in theory, but she did not like the idea of one leaving behind a gift on their window sill.

"I don't think he belongs to the palace," Rose held out her hand and the bird hopped onto her palm. Spreading its wings slightly, the small creature displayed the shiny green tips on his feathers. "Correction. I know it does not belong to the palace. We have none with such colorful plumage."

"All the more reason to bring it to the aviary. We can discover its origin," Caitlyn pressed, her curiosity piqued.

"I can think of a faster way to do that," Rose shrugged. With her father asleep, the message from the strange bird would not be read by anyone until morning.

Wasn't she in charge while he was unavailable?

The princess did not wait for the others' approval. Slipping the scroll from its tiny waterproof container, Rose set down the bird to unroll the small slip of paper. Her curiosity quickly turned to concern.

"What's wrong?" Ethyn could see her body stiffen. His worry only grew deeper as Rose turned around looking pale as a sheet. "Can you tell who the message is for?"

"Me." Rose read the words over and over again, trying to make sense of what she saw.

The other two left behind the couches, each peeking over a shoulder to read the small scrap.

"Pr. Rose-Do not agree to marry me. I have refused but father won't listen. It is a trick. Trouble is coming. Soldiers. Spy! Be wary of K. Willric!" Ethyn squinted. The last few letters were squished and disjointed. "Pr. Cal?"

Rose pursed her lips. "Prince Callum, I am assuming. He obviously ran out of room. It isn't easy to fit a message on such a small slip of paper. But I don't know who else would talk of marriage or King Willric, do you?"

The knight was aware of the contract that Willric had drawn up for King Rhodri and Rose to sign. The princess had said that Callum's signature was there.

So either the prince had been coerced into signing in the moment, he had changed his mind after the fact or the signature was a fraud. If this Willric was anything like Borit, he suspected the first option was the most likely.

"If this is indeed from His Highness, then the prince took a great risk in doing this," Caitlyn observed. "This is tantamount to treason."

The words hung in the air. How desperate must the prince have been to have turned on his father in such a way. Callum had nothing to gain—except for being free of a fiancée—and everything to lose by the message which could have been easily intercepted.

The fact that the bird landed on the Princess's sill instead of the aviary was a miracle all its own. "The Fates must have guided it," Ethyn mumbled.

If the bird had made it to its actual destination then it was likely the king would never have seen it. For Borit would have gotten a hold of the communication beforehand. If he was the spy that was in on the treachery, then surely that message would never see the light of day.

"We must tell the king! Surely this will get his attention that someone close to him is betraying him," Ethyn was ready to charge forward until he remembered that the king was asleep.

Rose puckered her lips. "It just says spy, not who the spy is." The princess lamented that there had not been room for more information. The prince's wordiness at the beginning had cost him in the end. "Perhaps he was referring to some soldiers being spies."

"But soldiers is plural and spy is singular. Surely if he was referring to them, they would both be plural..." Caitlyn took the paper and examined it. "Quite a strange message you brought us, little messenger."

The brunette lady-in-waiting looked over at the bird and her heart softened. The creature looked pretty ragged. There were scratch marks on his leg that were still in the process of healing. It must have been through quite an ordeal to get here.

Rose had noticed the same. Her hands now empty, the princess lifted the bird from the sill and brought it into the sitting room. "We cannot send it down to the bird keeper without a message. He will certainly notify the Commander of the oddity. And that will bring questions and suspicion that we do not want."

Taking a bowl from their feast, Rose filled it with water for the tiny creature to drink. Then she added a plate of seeds from their lunch for the fowl to munch. The bird landed on ground by its meal and cooed softly, happy to finally find some rest.

She looked back at the other two with a weary grin. "Just like telling father about my new romantic attachment, this note will have to wait until morning. I hate all of it so much."

"I know His Majesty is not fond of these headaches." Caitlyn added, reminding the princess that Rhodri had not left her on purpose.

"You are right, of course," Rose conceded. She sighed. "Too bad this message is not enough to get Borit thrown out once and for all."

"Just wait. Silver will send definitive evidence soon. I wouldn't be surprised if it arrived today," Ethyn tried to be positive. In truth, he had expected the cloaked figure to arrive long before this. Decoding the message must have been exceptionally difficult.

Rose sat down on a couch and watched the bird peck feverishly at the plate she had given him. She was most grateful for the warning by Prince Callum, but the lack of details made her worry just as much as the information provided.

What were the soldiers he spoke of? When was the message sent? Was the trouble still coming or already here? Were the soldiers the trouble or was there something more? The princess felt dizzy from all the possibilities.

"Why does this have to be so hard?" She sighed, placing her face in her palms.

Little did she know, it was about to get much, much harder.