Meanwhile
1694 Words
Saturday, 17th September 1442
What a great morning it was even though the sun rarely peeks out from the thick clouds overhead during this Autumn and the warmth was quite substantial compared to past Autumn.
We had breakfast at the conference halls as the twins were seated at their own high chairs and had been spoon fed with some with oatmeals, sweet corn kernels and some milk mixed together to make a soft wholesome gruel.
As for the two of us, both Heather and I were having thick slices of bread with molten salted butter and fruit jam on each side, which makes a perfect breakfast anytime.
After we had our breakfast and the twins had been cleaned up after their feed, the twins were let down and off they went on their trikes all over the ground level of the domain.
They took turns riding near the rabbit's enclosure which had doubled since the female rabbit had borne some babies. They fed some greens to the rabbits and then zoomed off within the ground floor and under the watchful eyes of the helpers.
The twins knew that they were not allowed to cross the Royal Street no matter how without our permission and supervision so they just played along on the ground level.
There was no school on that day so basically, the twins were free to do what they wanted for both days. It was too early for them to attend Mass and to understand what High Priest Eke was saying during the sermon so we watched them play instead at home.
It had been 10 days since Gwen and Michelle had issued the first task and there had been a few parties that had returned earlier than expected because of certain shortfalls such as not bringing enough coins with them or the shortage of provisions such as drinking water.
Nobody would like to be caught of having shortages such as drinking water and the parties that had gone and gone back were ashamed of themselves for being undersupplied and overconfident of getting enough freshwater as well as close to bodies of water for their water supply.
Little did they knew that they had to follow the directional of where they were supposed to go and not to follow the flown of the River Ure instead.
8 parties had gone out on the 8th September and only 2 had not returned back yet. It was early morning and it would be expected that the parties that had not returned had brought us good tidings instead.
One party, led by the Mackenzie, party leader Johannesburg, 18 years of age and his sister Joceyln, 16 years of age and two more others, had managed to bring back three families of Romani Gypsies (descendants from India since 13th century), totalled to about 44 family members to Gracehaven.
When they first came here, accompanied by the Mackenzie, we thought that the leader of the party decided to retire but to our surprise, after guiding them in, the Mackenzie led the party out back in the wilderness.
A few days later, it was followed by 4 families from the Irish Travellers consisted of O'Malley, O'Leary, O'Shea and O'Toole that came in together with their livestock and all.
The moment they came in, they created such an uproar because the livestock began to graze around crazily as if they had not seen anything edible for some months...!
They were more sceptical that the Romani Gypsies since they have heard of travellers being turned into gorgers and had left their traditions. After they reported that Guy MacDonough had told them to report here, they soon got to be at the town square for a short debrief.
After being lectured by some of the Irish Travellers that had been with us for some seasons, they finally relented and resigned to their fate and destiny to become settlers after having some hours of heated debate spoken in Shelta.
It wasn't that easy to educate the latest batch of Irish Travellers to become settlers but after they were advised strongly to stay out and help out the community, they finally let in.
It was after seeing the improvements of the Irish Travellers that had settled there and also the just and fair treatment they had been getting as an equal, they slowly began to accept their existence and presence not as some lower chaste but of equal rights as citizens of Gracehaven.
"From now on, Irish Travellers and Romani Gypsies would be part of a term or category because overall, no matter what, all of you are citizens of Gracehaven and here to build a better life for yourself, and your families."
That never fails every time and we welcomed the new 72 members of the extended families they made up of parents, nephews and nieces, relatives and cousins from within the 4 household names.
It was considered as one big family and they were welcomed by the rest of the earlier Irish Travellers as they and the Romani Gypsies were taken in as temporary residents first.
"Not bad, my dear, we now have a total of 116 new members in the community and this time it is so mixed up and I'm not sure how you would be giving away the houses later on." Heather was shaking her head when she had completed the registration of the new census for the temporary residency of these two groups of people.
She had marked IT and RG that spells out as Irish Travellers and Romani Gypsies on the top corner of the census populace for these two groups.
So once they had served a minimum 6 months tenancy here, they would then be allocated to the brick homes, a single unit or a semi-detached one, subject to availability.
"Don't worry, honey. Right now since O'Malley is in charge of the current group, he should be reporting how many thatched houses would they be allocated at the moment and directly report to Old Jack and Frank as they would assist whenever they could."
"As for the Romani Gypsies, we have Ferdinand Eastwood to take care of the group and once he had gotten the figures, he would get back to the duo."
"At the meantime, Crystal and some of the ladies were checking in the health of the livestock and would be reporting to us how much we would be paying, altogether."
"Besides, O'Malley is also getting the figures from his group as well. So once it tallies up, we would just reimburse accordingly. It is a good thing that this MacDonough and Mackenzie fellows had seen these two groups of people beforehand, at least they could be of some help to our town later."
I checked on the list of livestock that was handed in earlier and found that the Romani Gypsies were much simpler as they only had dray horses with them and there were about 14 of them (2 per wagon) but they had with them some fine porcelain wares which they seemed to guard them with their lives.
We looked at their conditions and understood since they suffered much more than the Irish Travellers and were even had to be separated from the others when it comes to gatherings and such.
Besides, Romani Gypsies hold a strong belief that their kind should not mix with non-Romanians. This proves to be a great headache for everyone to overcome.
As Irish Travellers were a tad easier to handle and to merge with the community, for the Romani Gypsies, it proved to be much harder to process as their state of mind and thinking were almost the total opposite of what we have in mind for them and everyone.
"People takes time to adjust dear, don't you worry about it. Tomorrow is a games day that would be organised by the town folks here and also a boat race too."
"I'm not sure what the town folks would be organising since the engineers were touching up the RedCoc that they had been building for the past weeks."
Heather advised me as Eagle came up from the sides and he plopped a large old journal that was a reference to the Romani Gypsies and its culture et cetera.
It was an old reference book and it seemed that I would be pulled back into history once I start poring over these.
"It's for your general knowledge, Your Majesty. You can find all sort of customs, and even certain archaic languages that might catch your interest. They originate from India so maybe some spices, curries and foods would entice them and break the ice among them and our people."
"There are some recipes inside them if you want to try out, Your Majesty, since Romani Gypsies would eat rather spicy foods and their staple is rice rather than bread."
I listened and Heather grabbed the book and scanned it to look for recipes and which she did...!
"Dear, I'm going to try this sodmay something. Its something like chilli con Carne and it's wrapped in cabbage leaves...! Hahaha."
"I think I could get the girls to make these tomorrow for the games and instead of using mini baguettes, they could use steamed cabbage leaves...! How wonderful could it get, eh? "
Heather was laughing gaily and when the twins heard their mummy laughing her head off, rushed over to see if their mummy's head need to be reattached to her shoulders back or not. Hahaha.
"I'd be right back dear, watch the twins for me..." and Heather quickly flitted over to the Priest and Priestess Guild and got hold of Priestess Imelda and Farah and discussed in the new cabbage rolls that would be made tomorrow during the games.
After explaining about the new menu she slipped her way back to the domain and gave her thumbs up, indicating that her task would be well taken care of.
It seemed Heather knew how to break the ice among the Romani Gypsies from tomorrow onwards since the protective barrier that the group had put up for several days had not shown any signs of faltering yet.
- Writer
