As the village came into sight, Nadya sat back into the saddle, bringing the horse to a stand still. Luca, the little boy, protested loudly. Rolling her eyes, Nadya looked back at him, which was enough to stop the flow of pleas to canter again and go really, really fast. ‘We should wait for the others’ His dark eyes gazed back at her, the obvious question lingering in them ‘why?’. She could imagine he would enjoy a rather sensational entrance. ‘Sorry Luca. I promise I will take you for another ride before I leave though.’

She preferred to arrive with the Roma, set up camp with them, to join them in their activities, their trade and their festivities. She knew after setting up camp, the villagers would already be watching. The craftsmen, vendors and shepherd’s in their band of travellers would approach the villagers for trade and business. Teenage girls would knock on the door of the fortune-teller’s carriage to have their hands or tea leaves read. Others would gather round for the artists, the performances of seductive dance or breathing fire and it wasn’t until late in the coming night that everyone would gather round the fire to listen to the storyteller telling the legends of far away and long ago. Then the music would begin and there would be singing and dancing deep into the night. Her part in all of this was small, though she felt more involved with every town they visited. She could in with the girls to dance, or lead their dance with singing. She helped with all the small things and only stopped with the festivities to listen to the storyteller Besnik. His stories would always her attention and feed her imagination, leaving her to think about them for days. She wondered where they had come from. It was doubtful he had come up with them on his own, but some were so extraordinary she just couldn’t imagine where they had come from, what they were based on or how he could’ve known about them. Then again others were so old and they must have evolved with the ages they were passed on from storyteller to storyteller. IT was no use thinking of their origin because the story itself would be over before you would know it and then the guitar would sound and vocals would chime in and everyone’s concentration was pulled from the story for that time.

And during their stay everyone would try to keep the frail balance as the tension grew with every hour they remained in the village. Fresh rumours would be spread and of course everyone at each side would be straining to keep their composure. And then their stay would come to an end, all the trading done for this year and once again they had managed to maintain the peace as the moved on to the next village. And with that her journey would take a new turn.

The rest of the gypsies had reached them and together they moved into the village. As the other set up their camp on a clearing at the edge of the small town. She had fallen back to the last of the group, deep in thought. In this trail of thoughts she gazed toward the town, the farms surrounding it. She allowed her horse calm walk down the path as their neared the town, the road got busier. She felt the eyes on her, in a twisted mix of distrust and curiosity. The best thing she could do was to simple smile back and not get worked up about them. She could understand how they felt. She looked at the house in front of her, the first of the town. It was a small farm with a field occupied by an old plough horse and it’s owner already out to fetch it. As she and Luca passed the man and horse, she nodded politely. ‘Good day sir.’ She felt Luca move behind her, clearly ill at ease.