**Elsewhere, near the tower**

Cedar thanked the crows, then collected himself and his tools, before heading back out over the marsh back toward the lake.  The horses were still milling about, nibbling on grass, and being generally ornery about his approaching them. They still did not appreciate his being half bear, despite fully knowing he was not going to eat them. If they had been humans, he would have considered bigotry, but as it was, he knew it was just nature forcing its way to the top. It was a good, natural, and reasonable instinct to have, given how his mom would have handled this.

He chuckled to himself. The idea of his mom deciding that she had had enough of their bullshit, and just eating one of them to make the point, brought a smile to the corners of his face. Despite the wry humor of the situation, it was still an annoyance, as he herded them back toward the tower and into the "stable", where he unsaddled and brushed them down-- wide-eyes and snorts be damned.

Some of them had saddle and strap galds from having their gear on for too long.  Absently, he used the modest healing magic he knew to correct it, as he did the brushing. They still distrusted him, but slowly the nags started getting the hint more clearly.

He was climbing up the stairs with a saddle over each shoulder, (the first of several planned trips) when a small grey and black bird noisly landed in front of him and started cooing, walking back and forth, blocking his path.

"[color=7bcdc8]What'ya want, lil bird? Ya in the way![/color]"

It just continued moving back and forth on the stair, blocking his ingress, cooing at him.

Irritably, he put down the saddles on the stairs, then crouched down to look at the silly thing more clearly. There was a tiny capsule on its leg, which it was earnestly trying to make conspicuous with its repeated movements on the stair.

A sudden spark of cognition hit him, and he realized it was a messenger pigeon. Carefully, he teased the extremely tiny capsule open and extracted the thin, light bit of folded paper inside.

Reading was not his strong suit-- he had quite a bit of difficulty with it at times. His dad told him it was not really that important, except when dealing with dishonest merchants, tax collectors, auditors, and other "official" humans-- For the most part, if he could muddle through reading the signs outside shops to know what they sold, it was likely good enough, and better than a lot of peasants could do.

He squinted at the tiny text...

--------
[b]Madame Matilda,
It pains me to inform you that I cannot regroup with your party at Hdur at the scheduled time. We had a situation with the city Constable, and the uncooperativeness he and his men displayed cost us valuable hours. Fortunately, we managed to secure crucial information regarding His Highness'  assassination plan, and it involved a local group with extensive knowledge of the city's underground tunnels. We will work on this clue and see if we can regroup with you tomorrow. 

PS: the pigeon is trained to not leave your side immediately in case you wanted to reply to this letter. If you wished to do so, the password to send him home will be márnanwen, meldë [/b]
--------


He looked down at the bird, which looked up at him expectantly, before fluttering its wings. He sighed, nodded at the bird, then picked up the saddles again. The pigeon fluttered up and landed on his shoulder, continuing to coo expectantly at him.

'The things humans trained animals to do', he thought to himself.

He would give the note to its intended recipient, Miss Matilda.  HOPEFULLY she was done with, and had dispatched, that shuffling horror Solomon had conjured.