“That is better! Now I shall tell thee things I should not know of thee, for I know thee not.” She pauses and the man waits with his mouth open.
“Your name is Scythe Man, and you come from another place, another time.” She pauses. The man she calls “Scythe” is shocked. His knees begin to shake.
“You come on a quest for a royal and you shall continue this quest on behalf of the royal. But there is a road that you should not travel, for upon it you will find danger lurking. A woman will wail when you do not return.” She stands upright.
“That is enough. I am tired,” she says, leaning with both arms on the table, head bent. The three men stare at her for a moment.
“That is a load of rubbish,” says the third man, who spoke for the first time. He is young, barely in his twenties, with fair hair and a ruddy countenance. He wears the finest black velvet cape with gold clasps on the shoulders and across his well hewn chest.
The first man, the one with the dead animals in his furry cape says, “No, she is right. I am Scythe, nobody knows that! I came from another land that I did not disclose… Everything she said is as true as the day we are here.”
“Surely she knew of you before, somewhere?” The dark haired man suggested as tensions flare.
Scythe raises his hand. He slams a dagger in her fine table. Janda’s face lifts and her eyes are daggers. He rises up tall before the woman. His head, adorned with a black velvet hat trimmed with gold appear awesome to the woman.
She looks up into his bird type eyes and moves her lips. Her voice is a metronome sing-song tone of voice.
“Would ye kill me then? For telling truth?” She asks. “And ruin my valuable table? Once loved by my great grandmother…, who haunts her enemies now!”
He snatches his knife and holds it aloft for a few moments as if his hand is stuck in mid air, ready to strike her head. Janda’s eyes stare into Scythe’s face, disempowering him. His eyes flicker and he returns to reality as the knife comes down with his attitude. He shoves it into his pouch on his hip.
“Hah! If we stay here all day listening to this gobble de gook, we will never catch our prey. And I am not talking about rabbits either,” he says through clenched teeth. He throws back his head and laughs. The woman waits for a few moments of paradoxical ambience, overwhelming merriment and deepest gloom mingling within her caravan. She has had enough! If they stay much longer, she will surely die a horrible death, or shall kill them all with her sword and pistol, hidden, yet within her grasp! She shakes her head. They are not worth her energy. Slowly, her voice becomes loud and commanding again.
“I have given my secrets to you. Now, be on your way.” Her index finger is pointed upwards and her lips grimly set. She speaks with such force that the men hurry out of her caravan, almost tripping over each others’ feet in the rush to get out. Fear moves them on their way to catch the prey they are assigned to. The man she named 'Scythe' in her head, is the last to leave. He turns towards the woman, his eyes fill with admiration.
“I shall return,” he says, smiling. Suddenly she feels a warmth towards this man. He believes her truth and she respects that.
“I shall look forward to meeting with ye again, alone is best,” she adds carefully, so that the other two cannot hear their words.
He shakes her hand, imprinting her palm with a solid golden coin he has reserved for this day. “For repairs to thy table.”
They depart with some noise. Other members of the Gypsy family stay hidden for fear of being run through, or worst still, being taken away and tortured.
The woman decides it is time for a nice cup of floral tea and she begins to sing in her strangely beautiful, eerie voice as she hides her coins underneath the carpet near her feet, in a secret little box beyond the wooden floor.
“I sing ye a song of travellers who wander across the globe, finding love and passion in places they were told…”
She closes her eyes for a moment of peace!
****
Garty waits in the woods for a time, to ensure Crystalina is not riding this way. On the way out through the thicket that suddenly opened out to a clearing, he notices an old building. At first he assumes it to be a ruin, but riding closer, he inspects a sign that is broken on one chain, fallen on its side. He twists his head to read the words: GRACEFUL ORPHANAGE FOR CHILDREN. It is now worn and damaged, but he identifies the words after a few efforts. His heart beats soundly. If the gypsy is correct, this is the place where the child was abandoned!
He stares at the facade of the building, large brown double doors, windows with square panes of glass, some filled with cardboard or other materials. The garden is overgrown, roses mixed with blackberry bushes, making everything look tangled and impossible to sort. He is about to turn away when he notices something moving inside a window. It is definitely not a ghost, he assures himself. Well, better find out whether or not there are records of children here? This now seemed like a golden opportunity to fulfil his mission.
He pushes open a creaking gate that is covered in rust and barely standing in its hinges. Three steps, well-worn, dirty and chipped in places are its entrance. He steps up the three and stands in the rather large stone platform outside the front door, with its filthy little windows at the sides and its oxidised brass latch. He notices a rusted iron bell in a casing on the wall. He tugs the little string and feels dust and grime on his fingers. He wipes his hand on his thigh. Would someone come out to talk to a stranger, he wonders? Just as he feels like giving up hope, he hears the door click and creak. He views a nose and eyes and then bushy hair and a narrow chin peering at him. Long fingers hold the door close to its edge, as if they needed something to hold onto. Fear surely moves this person, Garty thinks, moving back a step so as to give them a chance to see his person. He has no gun visible on him.
“What do you want?” A female voice speaks.
“Good day Madam, Garty says. Sorry to trouble you, but I am on the King’s business and I was wondering if you may be able to assist.”
“We have no food. Go away,” she says, attempting to close the door. Garty shoved his booted toe in the gap and said, “I am so sorry, but I do not need food. I need information about a child who lived here.”
The door slowly opened a little more, so that he sees the whole frame of the person. The woman is in her fifties or sixties, maybe older even, and she is wearing a type of uniform suited to her station, navy cotton dress under a white apron that is drab and faded, with several patches and a number of badly repaired rips and holes. Her dress was ink coloured in its hey day, now faded and topped by a tarnished yellowish collar.
“Are you its parent or guardian?” She asks. She stamps her feet as she speaks, as if ordering children to go backwards away from some adult conversation.
So, there were children here and not too long ago I figure, Garty reasons, picking up her thought patterns. Maybe some children live here even now? She is hiding something!
“I am neither parent nor guardian, but am searching for a lost female child. Commissioned by King Justice Swanfeather of Kallai.”
Her demeanour changes instantly. She presses her hand to her sternum and utters a cry.
“I come from Kallai Central, born on the First Day of December…” she says. “Mrs Irma Nagg,” at your service. “Please come in! I thought you were a stranger!” Suddenly friendly, she beckons to him.
Relieved, Garty steps into the wide hallway with black and white tiled floor akin to a checker board. A wide stairway leads up to rooms above. On either side of the stairway are rooms, dark and dismal and badly in need of maintenance. His heart lurches for its needs. I cannot fix the whole world, he decides thus commanding his rational to earth and reality here today.
“Come into our dining room,” she says, leading the way into a room nearby.
He notices that her shoes are worn and her black stockings show a number of small holes. How terrible for this woman, to be so poverty stricken, he thinks? Where is her husband? His thoughts subside as they enter the room.
“Please, be seated, Sir,” she says, indicating the collapsed armchair near a circular table, polished and stained with many stains. A vase stands in the centre with flowers as faded as the walls. He smells rancid aromas emitting from the vase, but he choses not to mention the fact. He does not wish to intimidate this lady at any cost.
She sits in a wooden chair that creaks as she moves slightly. Her hands fold in her lap and her ankles cross as she waits like a school girl waits for a headmaster to administer his orders. A deep pity crawls over Garty as he struggles with his posture in the collapsed armchair. He tries to sit straight up and act politely. After all, he is a perfect gentleman, so must suffer discomfort at times. He binds his fingers together and leans forward, taking a moment to stare at the floor before lifting his head and opening his mouth. How shall I begin? She is staring into his eyes, piercing his soul. He begins his interrogation.
“There was a certain female babe brought here to the orphanage nineteen or twenty years ago. I am trying to find her!”
He stares at the woman’s expression that changes and relaxes into an almost comical mode.
Her mouth reminds me of an egg in its oval shape, with a thin border around it.
“Sir,” she says, as if answering for something she had not done and had been blamed for, “we have had hundreds of girls and boys left on our doorstep over the years. Twenty years ago there were many poor mothers.” She stops for a moment’s breath and Garty speaks.
“This one was special. She was wrapped in scarlet,” he says, grasping the edges of his cape for emphasis. The woman stares straight ahead, but she is obviously trying to remember something.
“I was head governess here at that time.”
At least she remembers something that happened now almost twenty years ago! This may be a breakthrough, thinks Garty, leaning closer, but not too close. His back aches in this position.
“Do you have records for that year?”
The woman is quiet for a while. “We have been operating for over one hundred years you know? Until we closed our doors a couple of years ago, due to lack of finance,” she adds in a heavy tone. “Very disappointing for the little ones with nowhere to go,” she says, heaving a huge sigh. “I do have records in our filing system, if you would like to see those,” she adds unexpectedly.
What a brainwave! Garty thinks. It is the very thought I am meditating upon. Can she have sensed my thoughts and stolen them? This is hopeful. Actual records would be invaluable.
“I certainly would appreciate that,” Garty says, suddenly stirred. Hope flickers once again for his mission.
“Come with me.”
She limps her way down the hall and into a small room filled almost to head height in square, oak brown drawers with brass handles. A little ticket with alphabetical indication was on most of the drawers.
“These are somewhat shabby, but all records are in these files,” she says. “Do you know the name of the child?”
Garty is confounded instantly. He has no idea what her name was when the Gypsies brought her here, or if she had a name at all?