Two Loves of a Gypsy

4. Flower Dance

I got back to the inn that in the early evening, I hadn’t sold all the flowers only about half. In less than half a day they were looking sad and droopy and nobody wanted them. When I entered the room Ms Ostler was tending to my father. My father was asleep, whether he was knocked by the healer or he was like that way when she came in I would never know. She didn’t look up from her work even as I moved around the room. While I was taking my cloak off and hiding the small knife in the basket as I took the flowers out, she didn’t look up. When I placed the handful of sad flowers on the bedside table, she did look up though.

“Where did you find these?” she said picking them up and inspecting them with her long spindly fingers. She held them up to the light the stared at me as she waited for my answer.

“I found them while I was wander on the border of town.” I said not wanting her to know about the meadow.

“May I have these?” she asked. I rocked back slightly with surprise.

“Of course why?” I asked back. A smile broadened onto her face. She explained to me, that I had in fact, brought some hard to find medicinal herb back from my trip to ‘the border of town’. She went on to explain that they were toxic if eaten but with another herb a great antiseptic lotion for cuts. She asked for details on the other flower I had picked and sold. She beamed and happily told me the medical uses for all the flowers I had picked and seen.

“How about this, you bring me these herbs and I’ll treat your father for free. I’ll even check up on him twice a day rather than once if I can” she was overjoyed by the prospect of getting more of these herbs. I was getting excited about getting free treatment for my father.

“Will you really do that? What if I bring the wrong herbs?” I asked realising I had no knowledge of herbs.

“There are no ‘wrong herbs’. Bring me what you find and I’ll pay you for it. You can then use that money to pay for me services. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Alright, I don’t want you to damage the herbs. It doesn’t matter if they wilt a bit but not as bad as this,” she said holding the sad flowers in front of my face, “cut the flowers near the base not halfway up the stem, I want the whole stem. And don’t crush the petals and flower head if you do that they become useless for medicine. I usually very busy in the morning visiting my patients so you have to bring them between noon and the afternoon when I’m on my break. You can have the afternoon to yourself.” I felt as if I had just been employed, it was a strange feeling. But at least I knew we would make it now but only I got enough herbs to sell to her.

I went to my mother’s work and told her the new development. She said she was proud of me for finding something that would help my father. I ended up helping her with her work so that she could finish early. We brought two bowls of soup from the Inn.  Mother feed father and I ate the warm red substance. I think it was tomato and something strange soup. It tasted good to my empty stomach though, particularly because I had skipped lunch.

I went to bed early that night. My father told me his whole chest felt on fire but at least when he slept he didn’t feel that pain. He told he would dream of my dancing and couldn’t wait to leave the town and see me dance again. That made me proud and determined to pick heaps of flowers and do a really good job at it too.

The next morning I woke up at dawn. I packed some of the dried food for lunch and ordered a bowl of porridge for me and my father. He was sleeping so I asked Ms Ostler to feed him. She agreed only because I told her I was leaving so early for the flowers. She questioned the distance of the flowers and I pretended that I thought I had said they were slightly out of town rather than on the border.