Two Loves of a Gypsy

2. Gunshot Wound

I paced back and forth in front of the open fire. We had chosen a quiet little tavern which few people went to. If they did come they only brought a glass of ale then left, neither asking for information nor revealing anything about them-self. My aunty arrived a few hours after we had. A few hours after that the sun went down. My mother was calm enough so was my aunty and uncle. My cousin, Jacob who was only six, didn’t even seem even care. But I, on the other hand had a bad feeling.

“That’s it!” I spun and my heel and turn to my mother, aunty and uncle, “I’m going to help him.”

“Val,” my aunty started “your father will be-“

“No!” I interrupted “you can’t stop me this time” I snatched my cape from the table and marched to the door. The door flung inwards and I jumped back expected another quiet villager to wander in. Instead a cloak figure fell against the door. In a drunken way he stumbled into the tavern and then collapsed on the floor. I thought nothing of it and was ready to leave when I recognised the man’s cape.

“Father!” I said before I even processed the information. I leapt to his side pushing his cape back to reveal bloodstained clothes.

“Get a healer! Someone go get a healer!” as I yelled that at the strangers in the quiet tavern my father cough up blood. It splattered onto my dancing pants. My father’s clenched fist moved towards me slowly. It seemed like years before he opened it and dropped the Black Water stone into my lap. I felt him crumple, most likely from relief but more from his slow death.

A woman rushed to my side, “I’m a healer and the Innkeeper’s wife. Help me walk him across the street and I can treat him. I help the healer lift him up. My uncle snapped out of his trance to help him. My mother went hysterical. My aunty tried to calm her down. The strangers in the tavern either looked away or paid and left. We half carried half dragged my father into the inn, onto a kitchen table then stood back.

The healer, slightly taller than me, busied herself with finding a thick cloth. I noticed as I looked over to my father that he had been stabbed, it seemed, somewhere between his heart and his left shoulder. The wound seemed huge and was a dark red. Blood was splattered on the left side of his face and in his black hair. She called me over and told me to hold the cloth “nice and hard” on my father’s wound. Then she grabbed handfuls of herbs and ground them up then added strange coloured liquids until she had a paste. She brought it over to us. By this time the cloth I was holding to my father’s chest seemed useless as it was soaked and was allowing blood to stream out.

“Lift the cloth up” she directed the said softly to my father, “this might sting, but it will make it better” she applied the green-brown paste to my father. She kneaded into his skin as blood leaked out. At least I could tell the bleeding had lessened. My father groaned in pain every time she even touched his wound. In one spot practically he practically cried out, a kind of yelp, when the healer when near it. Like hours of holding cloths to his wound and the healer yelling a people to fetch water and other such things. My mother frantically completed whatever task she was directed to do. My father seemed at death’s door. And then possible five hours later we were relieved.

Father was bandaged in thick bandages which wrapped around his chest and shoulder. His shirt had been shredded by the healer during her work. His pants stained with blood but at least were dry when they moved him into a bed. The innkeeper and his wife offered us one night free lodgings and said that her treatment that night would be free but after that we would need to pay both for the medicine and the beds. My aunty took my mother to bed and my uncle cared for their son. I changed out of my blood stained clothes into some plain clothes. I pulled out the pins holding my black hair up. It scattered around my like a raven’s wings. I plaited it so that my hair went just past my shoulder blades then stayed by my father’s side. It was my fault, after all. Little voices whispered blame in my head; if only you hadn’t worn the black water stone today he wouldn’t have got injured.