Medieval Love-Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Gino’s POV

It was mid-afternoon and here I was. Scratched, my clothes torn and muddied, lugging around a herb bag and a huge book. What a sight!

“Guelder Rose. It is a shrub with white flowers with flat heads. The flowers turn into red berries and the leaves turn red or purple in August. The bark is used to help with cramps and asthma and the berries can be used to make ink. It is also an important source in nutrients for birds and animals.” I was reading aloud. Seriously, I was in the middle of a bloody forest, who would hear me here. I wondered how I got myself into this situation.

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Flashback:
As we got home, Dr Bachelli started testing me on my herb lore and sadly found me lacking. So after a delicious lunch, he got out a thick dusty book. He then handed me the book, a herb bag and a compass and told me to go into the forest and get a sample of every herb in the third chapter of the book.

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So here I was. Suddenly I spotted my prey. I silently stalked it. “Aha!” I muttered under my breath while cutting off a small white flower with a piece of bark, which I put in my bag. I saw an oak with nice comfy roots nearby and decided to take a rest.

It was only then, as I sat down, that I realised I was facing a kind of path. It wasn’t a dirt path but you noticed there were no trees or bushes for a metre wide strip. You noticed it in a way you noticed a path used a lot by forest animals.

I heard a noise. It was a familiar sound getting ever louder. The sound of a cantering horse. I threw myself behind the tree and the horse ran past me unseeing.

Why am I hiding? I asked myself. A dignified part of me answered, just look at the state you’re in. I stood up and looked down, right…

I dusted myself off. Then my curiosity took over as I decided to practise my hunting skills on the horse and see if it had a rider or not. I crept along, keeping myself hidden in the shrubbery as I followed the path. I kept my eyes on the trail of hoofprints. It was as the pattern of hoofprints changed (showing that the horse was lowing down) that I heard the soft bubbling of a stream or river.

I licked my finger and held it up to see which direction the wind was blowing. I didn’t want the horse to smell me and run away. There was a slight breeze blowing towards me. Good. This meant that the slight noise I was making was not carried towards the horse.

I left the path and made my way towards the sound of water. The closer I got, the slower I moved. I stopped as I noticed I was almost at the edge of a clearing. I crouched behind a huge Lady Fern and peered through the leaves.

What I saw was a superb specimen. An 18hh (hands high) dapple grey mare. She had a finely formed head with a touch of Arab with a well formed shoulders and back. Good strong legs and a beautiful black mane and tail. I could see she was welled cared for by the way her coat shined and her mane and tail had no tangles in them.

It was then as a clear note sounded through the air that I first realised that the horse wasn’t the only living being in the clearing. Someone was sitting on a rock, next to the stream, with their long, beautiful, white legs hanging in the water. All I could see of her head was her shoulder length reddish-brown hair as she had her back to me. The sleeves of her light blue blouse were rolled up above her elbows, and her slender fingers holding a silver flute upright. She had also rolled up her white, cotton pants to stop them getting wet.

She started playing a captivating melody, mesmerising me. The last thought I had before I was swallowed up by the music was an extract from A Midsummer Night’s Dream By Shakespeare, “goddess, nymph, perfect, divine.”
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As the music came to an end, my thoughts returned to me. I saw her packing away her flute, still in a daze. Get up and go talk to her a voice in my head said, No, she’ll hate me! Go! No! Go! No! Go! Fine. I stood up and walked into the clearing composing a speech.

“Hello. I’m…” I trailed off. The clearing was empty.