Chapter 12- Doubts and Gypsies
A BIIIIIIIIIIIIIG thank you to Kaio, Nosilla, and Chrischelle who reviewed promptly...as asked. I'd like to especially thank Nosilla for commenting on my writing style, and Chrischelle for asking me (ME!) to be her favourite author.... and (duh duh duh DUM!) yes! I will be your favourite author...wow! The world's a much more beeeeeautiful place now! Thank you so much for the honour of such a question...thank you for bestowing this upon my (not-so) humble hands. accepts the velvet box, and takes out golden pen, and smiles stupidly as the pen glimmers in the sunlight. Smiles wider when she sees silver eraser and takes a couple hours to stare happily at the pretty metal. Eventually sighs, puts both pen and eraser (shocking, I know) back into the velvet box and is currently typing with one finger while stroking the box happily with her other hand
My dear Chrischelle, I'd like to (in all seriousness), thank you for how you described what the reader feels as they read my work. If all my other reviewers died or decided they hated it... and if you still liked it, I would continue to write, if only for you. You have truly touched me. Mentally brushes away seriousness (and tears) and smiles Ahem, moving on! I now present you with your cookies hands Chrischelle a large (Big, huge, ample, awash, barn door (what sort of expression is that?!?), brimming, bulky, bull, burly, capacious, chock-full (chock...?!?), colossal, commodious, considerable, copious, crowded, enormous, extensive, fat, full, gigantic, heavy duty, heavyweight, hefty, huge, hulking, humungous, husky, immense, jumbo, king sized, mammoth, massive, monster, mungo, oversize, packed, prodigious, roomy, sizable, spacious, strapping, stuffed, substantial, super colossal, thundering, vast, voluminous, walloping, whopper, whopping) box of cookies...of all kinds!!!!! Except for yucky oatmeal raisin, 'cause nobody actually likes them. Moving on....
And white and milk chocolate chip cookies for Kaio...my first reviewer (I hold u in a special place in my heart...riiiiiiight) lol.
My profound apologies for not updating and posting sooner....exams and end-of- school stuff, not fun (on a brighter note: School's out). Happy Canada Day!!!!!!! Happy Independence Day!! ( Happy whatever other day you celebrate!)
Abby and Patrick were halfway down the long corridor by the time Keosha had caught up to them. The page glanced back at her and grinned, but when the girl looked to her mistress-friend, there was no returned glance. Keosha walked behind the noblewoman and the page, until Patrick parted with them. The two walked to their rooms, Abby still leading the way, a slight frown set on her features.
With a jolt, Keosha wondered if her long-time friend disapproved of Lord Dewhurst's interest in her. ' She wouldn't, she's always wanted us to be in love...' Shaking the thought from her head another came to her, unbidden, 'She wasn't so supportive when she reminded you of your paid companionship,' Mentally, Keosha slapped that terrible thought away and clenched her fists. ' I will not think ill of her for expressing what most would say every day in a harsher way. And she didn't mean it, I know that, and she apologised, it was a long, tiring day for her, she's not used to travelling,'
While the maidservant continued to silently lecture herself, the object of her lecture was thinking on an entirely different subject...
Keosha had never shared much about her past. Yes, Abigail knew she was an escaped slave, but she had never known about her master and mistress or even what being a slave entailed as to duties. She felt utterly snobbish to have known her friend for four years, yet had never thought to ask for personal information.
Unbidden, a tear leaked from her eye, and she tightened her lips as she brushed it aside. ' What a friend!' she thought, furious with herself, ' to just order her about, with no regard for her former life or background, what an unfeeling wench! A disgraceful, snobbish, self-centred, putrid excuse for a friend!' He quickened her pace, wanting to just bury herself in the soft covers of her bed and sob away her thoughtlessness.
The sound of Keosha catching her breath behind her to keep up slowed the noblewoman. 'Little good it would do to run us to the ground just to have my pity cry a few minutes sooner.' She moderated her pace and continued with her self- loathing. ' Oh, Abigail of Mattensworth is the nicest person, she knows all about her closest friend, oh yes, what she knows about Keosha Jameson could fill a book! I don't even know her Gods- blessed age!' She continued, occasionally muttering aloud, but under her breath, which, of course, had just the effect on Keosha's already muddled thoughts...
'She hates me! No, no, she loves me like a sister; she wants to see me happy. Maybe she won't go to tea, just to prevent us from seeing each other.' Keosha's thoughts exploded as Abby began muttering,
'She thinks I'm below him! No, never. Never, ever, ever. No, I refuse to believe it, she loves me like a sister.' Keosha physically shook herself, then straightened out, her head high. ' I will not believe the worst of her. She is simply confused, perhaps. I won't be bringing it up. Not unless she does.' With a firm nod of her head, she lowered her head to the proper degree of servitude and continued, sneaking the occasional glance at her muttering friend.
A scullery maid let herself out of a bedchamber, having finished her cleaning. She paused to close the door when a noblewoman came down the corridor towards her. The woman's brunette hair flew into her face, beautiful through the frown upon it. Her shapely figure was tense and she walked quickly, muttering, not noticing the staring scullery maid.
'The nobles get crazier every season.' She shook her head and watched the maid walk behind her mistress and stared. 'Natalia keeps to her Highness's chambers, she's no noble's personal servant!' The scullery maid stared after the pair. One crazy, muttering noble, followed by a servant that has no business in the noble's chamber quarters. Shaking her head the scullery maid continued. Nobles were flakey, and now the other servants were too. 'I'll have to get myself outa' here, quick-like.' With that, she walked towards the Head Housekeeper's room, wondering if she could get a reference...
Yona smiled from their place on the ramparts. 'So the Earl's daughter was compassionate. Good.' The shadowed figure watched the two women struggle to lift the young man. Leaning slightly closer, and squinting a bit, Yona recognised the face of Lord Antony Dewhurst. 'Lovely, just what the healer brewed.' The figure shook its head, and moved cautiously along the walls, not watching for the guards, but for the moss, which grew between the unkept stones.
The black-swathed person arrived only minutes before the trio. Peering through the healing quarter's window, Yona watched as the young page, Abby and Keosha were admitted into the Quarters. Hopping agilely from one outer window sill to another, Yona kept track of the trio's progress my watching through the windows, the white cloth acting as a barrier didn't reach the stone floor, letting the mid-calves show of any walking down the corridor.
The three entered the room where the guard lay in the bed. 'Antony, you fool!' Yona silently cursed the guardsman as the black clothed person observed his close perusal of the noblewoman's handmaiden. ' Of all the people to take to....why them?' Shaking their head, the person gazed at the interaction between the young nobleman and the two women.
The young guardsman took the maidservant's hand and Yona observed the change in the young woman's dark cheek. The servant left and Yona noted the way the nobleman's eyes followed her and how he took a moment to compose himself before calling someone in. A healer in white robes came in and Yona slipped away. The figure had no need of any further knowledge of the guardsman, for now.
Yona hooked a rope in-between the stonework of the walls and slid down it, the padded boots on the person's feet absorbing any sound that regular boots would have given upon impact with the earth. Looking up Yona tugged and the hook folded on itself and Yona jumped back, to avoid being speared by the special metal hook.
Picking it up and stowing it in a mud-containing bag, the shadowed figure attached it closely to its person and left, the rain erasing any footprint and evidence of them from the mud.
The next day, the gypsy camp was being broken. They must move about often, for gypsies do hate to be tied to one spot for long.
The two gypsy brothers had noticed the roses, and if any of the other caravan folk noticed, there was no mention made.
' Just as well,' Hershel thought. ' The stranger needs no-one talking of him...or her.' Hershel quickly corrected his thoughts to allow for the (unlikely) event that Yona was a female.
Mier had withdrawn yet again, even to Hershel, and his older brother could not help but wonder if their new friend were the cause. Asking would do nothing, Hershel knew, for questioning Mier was a waste of both parties' time.
The young man harnessed the horses, thinking of their night time visitor. Yona seemed to know the meaning of flowers, and something of languages aswell. So, to Hershel's way of thinking, the person was either a traveller, a noble, or a spy. Travellers picked up such information and talent, nobles were taught it, and spies needed to know such things....and most spies were originally travellers. But what sort of noble sneaked about in the Royal Forest? To the young gypsy's understanding: none.
The Caravan Master called for move out in a quarter hour. Shaking his head, Hershel began checking the thrice-checked wagon for any missed errors. Yona could wait, though finding the gypsies would not take very much effort (their trail would be obvious what with the wagons and all), their shadow- friend would perhaps not visit them, on account of their moving. Shrugging the feeling of disappointment at not seeing this mysterious rose-giver again, the young man continued with his inspection.
Across the Caravan- Circle, Hinda watched Hershel closely. His hair fell gracefully into his handsome face as he bent to check the underside of the wagon. Her heart squeezed as he flipped the gangling bells out of his face and continued his work. Such a time they had had at the bonfire dances last night! She flushed at the mere memory of his merry green eyes as they danced with one another last night. She peeked through the opening of her family's caravan to see him again.
She sighed lightly, but not lightly enough that her all- seeing and hearing Mother did not hear. Her Mother leaned over her to see what she sighed at. Smiling wisely, she patted her eldest daughter's head.
"You are too young to be sighing and worrying over a boy, Hinda. Your time is better spent improving your Light and your skills." Hinda's Mother, Mignon had not been born into a gypsy caravan, but had married into one when she fell in love with Hinda's father and his way of life. She had been raised in a prosperous Marquion family, confined to a world of charades, where people lied eloquently and smiled without their eyes. Her love of the Gypsy way had come from their bold talk and their lack of pretences.
Now she surveyed her daughter's pretty face and wondered how she had come to be telling her daughter off for loving. ' Too young yet. She needs to become a woman.'
Hinda, in her turn was surveying her Mother. Her small, fair Mother. She held herself nobly, even when stirring a pot over their open fires. She smiled at the sound of her Father's approaching footsteps. He smiled in return when he saw them together and called to them in his deep voice, drawing out their names,
"Miiiiiiiiiinion, Hiindaaaa. It is time to be off, my butterflies, small and fair wife, doe." Shaking her head at her husband's foolishness over their name-meanings, Mignon leaned over to kiss her daughter's still pink cheek. They sat in the front of their canvass- covered wagon, while their daughter made herself comfortable in the back.
Hinda pushed aside her thoughts of Hershel. They had grown up in each other's company and if you were born into a caravan, you stayed until you were 'married or buried.' as the old gypsy saying went. The young gypsy girl smiled slightly. One day (perhaps soon,) Hershel would see her as a girl, not simply a playmate. ' And that,' she thought, ' Is a very encouraging thought, indeedy.'
Settling back against a rolled-up blanket, she pulled out her small wooden pipe and began to play, and others in the rest of the caravans accompanied. Soon the caravan travelled in the midst of Hinda's pipe, a half- stringed mandolin, a jangling tambourine, and a bumpily played fiddle. The rest of the caravan sang along the in the melodious Gypsy tongue.
Soon the Royal Forest was filled with the unearthly and full sound of Gypsy music. And the very birds were quiet as they listened.
