Ellie is surprised to see him and turns abruptly. Her skirt swings as though captured by a delicate easterly tornado.
“No, Sir Garty, Madam has gone to the aid of one of our guests, who claims she was pushed down the steps. Mrs Bouchée is taking care of her in her room.” She looks at Garty and her face displays anxiety.
“What is wrong?” Garty asks the frazzled woman.
“Everything is wrong! The buggy has a wheel fallen off one of the horses lost a shoe and now this!” She flings her arms around. “Everyone is in distress!” She cries out in a weepy voice.
“What about Bubba?” Garty ventures to ask amid the dilemmas happening around about.
Ellie shrugs her shoulders.
“No idea, everyone is rushing back and forth like sea saws…”
Garty is distracted, noticing freshly made sandwiches on a tray nearby.
“Could I please have these, I shall pay,” he asks.
“What?” Ellie speaks in a distressed voice. “Those? Someone left them here, take them,” she says definitively. She is in a turmoil in her head.
Garty is hungry, so starts to eat greedily.
Ellie looks at him and he stares into her face, munching.
“Sir, I am sorry, do you need a drink?”
She rushes towards the kitchen and returns with a large glass of juice.
“Would you like some apple fresh?” She asks.
“I would, thank you,” Garty replies, taking the glass from her and downing it thirstily.
She watches in amazement.
“You were very thirsty,” she says at last.
“I have a journey to undertake,” he replies, taking the last sandwich in his hands. “I will return as soon as possible.”
“I shall tell Mrs Bouchée then, shall I?”
“Don’t say anything to anyone. It’s not their business,” he replies, reflecting on the foregoing events of his being locked in the store room and how Mrs Bouchée did not turn up. As far as he is concerned, everyone not present is now under suspicion. Garty dashes around the side of the building and finds Brill nibbling at some hay in a feeder.
“Take a good drink now friend, for we are going on a journey,” he says, taking the reins and leading the horse to water.
Someone had released the horse’s rope and that is a curiously strange act! Brill is a faithful animal who stayed until now. He pats his neck in thanks. The horse seems to understand and drinks for a minute or two as Garty checks the straps to ensure they have not been loosened. His heart is hammering so fast that he has to take a deep breath to reduce its pace. He checks Brill’s shoes to ensure they are in good shape too. He is immediately happy with everything and wonders if he simply forgot to tie the horse up?
Garty is feeling surprisingly vibrant after eating and drinking. He now feels ready to do a search for Bubba, no matter who joins in. He understands that her disappearance is likely to be the fiends who bashed him up and took his wealth, leaving him for dead! He has anxiety raging for Bubba. She is so tiny and vulnerable, he recalls. But, her agility and fine mind can see her through any difficulty.
“We must hurry,” he told his horse as he climbed on his back carefully and settled into the saddle. He takes a few deep breaths to check his pain level and it has subsided quite a lot.
“I am ready. Are you ready, Brill?” He asks his faithful horse.
The horse neighs.
He looks around. Ellie is watching at the back entrance and gives him a nervous wave. He cannot see Mrs Bouchée, but he also cannot wait a moment longer. He notices a few folk walking in the street but he turns towards the opposite direction. He can trust no one here! Garty tries to visualise where the three highwaymen attacked him, and reminds himself of his hand drawn map. He has left it at Etty’s when he rushed after Joanne and her brother. He makes a decision to ride to Etty’s and check the map first. Also, he does not have a weapon now and he needed to get one. He rides softly out of town as if he is in no hurry for he knowns that folk love to gossip. He has lost his hat with the red feather and his scarlet cape, which he misses very much. Now he is wearing more ordinary clothing, brown velvet jacket and pants with a very white shirt that is a little tight around his broad, and still aching chest. This is cleaner than my old shirt, he reminds himself, and it is fine. I shall suffer these insufferable clothes!
When they reach the crossroads he looks around to ensure that nobody is watching the rider on a horse. He urges Brill to turn to the left and to head down the old laneway with plenty of foliage for covering.
Garty rides zig-zag through the less used route as he tries to dissuade trackers, keeping his eyes peeled for any unusual activity. This action did cause him a little dizziness, but it was minor and worth the safety aspect. He is getting to know these pathways well, and it pleases him as he ducks to avoid overhanging branches and cautiously traverses muddy dips that might harm or cause his horse to slip and fall. It has been raining the night before and the ground is soft and clumpy in places, but Brill handles it with ease. He pats his horse’s neck several times, encouraging him to ride as fast as possible.
Along the track, Garty notices recent equine footprints and buggy wheel prints that present him with an opportunity to consider the area as one in which there had been a scuffle recently.
Dismounting his steed he finds a few sticks, stuck them crossways in the soil marking the spot for more investigation. As soon as he mounts again, he notices smoke in the distance and within a short trot the chimney of Etty's Inn is visible!
Good, someone is at home. He says to his horse, Brill, “Giddy up!”
The horse canters to the inn as if he did it every day in a parade.
“Good boy,” says Garty, slipping from his horse and tying him up near a nice patch of grass, green and wet from the refreshing rain. His pain had decreased and he sucked in the freshness of the air greedily. He feels stronger.
Before he entered the reception area, Garty is met by Madam Etty herself. “There you are,” she says, behaving as a scolding mother with a naughty child.
“I am here and I am sorry for any worry that I caused!” Garty says, smiling his familiar smile. Etty came right up to him, holding onto the small tool in her hands.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” she says hugging him relentlessly, not releasing the tool in her hand. Garty is worried for a moment that she might give him a smack for being bad. She steps back and he sees her eyes reflecting his face, with tears of joy.
“Where have ye been?” She asks the question with concern as she shrugs her shoulders. “The last thing we know is that you went off to find the Weasleys and then you vanished,” she says passionately.
“I know. I am sorry that I did not get back to you, but I was mugged and left for dead! I am lucky to be alive!”
“What?” Etty says, as her arm drops, still holding her tool. She turns her head towards the back of the establishment and calls out.
“Sack, come here, Garty’s back,” she says in a very loud voice.
A mumbled sound echoes a reply.
“It must be time for a celebration and you can tell us all about it,” she says, tucking the tool in her apron pocket and hurrying softly towards the back of the building. “We will take a sup and enjoy your tale at the rear,” she says, glancing back at Garty, who is in a fix between rushing away and not staying a moment too long.
Garty does sit down to enjoy a fresh cup of tea and some of Etty’s overcooked scones with lashings of freshly whipped cream and home made gooseberry jam.
“We kept your room, just in case you needed it in a hurry,” she says. “We do have another guest here, so everything is financial.” Etty explains this secret fact while the Innkeeper enjoys the remainder of scones, cream and jam.
“She’s a great cook, our Etty,” he keeps saying over and over as he devours the food.
Garty inspects his previous room and is relieved to see everything just as he left it. As soon as he can get his things together, he catches up with Madam Etty in the dining room. She is busily placing new flowers in vases, humming an unknown tune.
“Are you staying for supper?” she asks, brushing past him, giving him a motherly glance.
“I have to go perhaps for a few days, but I feel it is prudent that I pay you in advance,” Garty says, holding out several gold coins that are gratefully accepted by Madam Etty.
“That is sufficient for a whole week,” she says. “And I do appreciate your custom, and good company,” she adds. She did not ask about his business that he seems keen to undertake, but continues bustling about with candelabra dusting, polishing and humming.
Later, she calls Garty as he heads out to mount his horse. “I want to give you a picnic basket for your hunger,” she said. “We also included a bottle of the Master’s own brewed plum wine,” she says as she happily parts with a tied up in linen hamper.
“Thank you, it is sufficient,” Garty says, taking the hamper with him on his steed. He smells the meat as he tied it up to his horse and wishes that he did not have such urgent and important business and could simply enjoy a picnic.
Where can I get the most up to date information about Axemanix’s men, and heinous plots?
Before he pats the horse and urges him onwards the revelation comes to him.
About one hour later he rides into the gypsy campsite. He is met at first by a number of men with rifles and other arms.
“Hey, I come in peace,” he says playfully, hoping they calm down.
“Of course, you are the friend of our seer, Janda,” they say as they move close to Garty and his horse.
“And of Crystalina!” Garty adds, remembering that astonishing woman with eyes like crystal balls and her horsemanship that is to his thinking, absolute perfection.
“She is here too,” says the man with a reddish beard standing before Garty holding a rifle. His face is so weather-beaten that he looks at least one hundred years of age.
“Over there,’ he declares, pointing in the direction of the caravans. Garty looks in that direction and notices the wonderful young woman again. Her hair shines with the slightest light of the sun and her face is akin to something he can only imagine, a perfection in beauty desired by all women and loved by all men, especially a man like me!
She notices him looking her way and responds with a wave of her slim and beautiful arm. She is dressed in a royal blue garment that display her unbelievably pale skin and rosy red lips. Garty stares, fascinated for a moment.
“Are ye blind?” The man with the reddish beard says, mocking Garty.
“Thank you, no, I shall meet with her then?”
He asks the question but also makes it a statement as he rides over there.
The man nods and leaves the scene, quietening other men who also hold rifles. They relinquish their weapons and return to their previous activities.
“Hello,” Garty calls out to Crystalina who turns on the little landing area of the caravan. He gasps at her beauty and stares at her. She looks down at him from her high position and smiles. How were her teeth so white and her face so pure? He wonders if she might be an angel from another place and not from this earth?
“Do you wish to see Mother?” She asks this with a twist of her rosy lips.