Post of the Month
~ August 2010 ~
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Tuck/Timothy ~ Written by Angela & Rhys. Posted on the HoS Yahoo group December 2008. |
Where he sat before the fire, with his back against the solid support of the fallen tree trunk, Tuck leaned forwards and half-heartedly poked at the lowered fire with his staff.
He had volunteered to be on watch for the first half of the night. All was quiet at camp. Silver waterfalls of moonlight splashed down to earth between the trees. The trees, lost in their own slow patient thoughts of things long gone, thought Tuck.
He settled back against the tree trunk and surveyed the clearing around him.
Rhiannon usually slept under the large oak across the clearing, but this night she had taken Ellie and retired to the small cave to sleep, as though she wanted to be out of sight of everyone. Perhaps she needed to be alone to let some of her worry and grief spill out. Perhaps Timothy's intrusion into the camp had come at the wrong time for her to adequately cope - another man who was blind, who in some ways must remind her of Robert. She had been cordial enough to him over the evening by the cook-fire, but also remote, and she had seemed to want to withdraw from him and from everyone this night. Tuck had decided to let her be.
Much, worried and somewhat uneased by Rhiannon's retreat into the cave, slept outside at its mouth, wrapped in a blanket, as though being there could help her. It was his way of showing support. John and Will had taken the ale-skin and gone over to the large oak, sat there and talked and drank before falling to sleep there. Only Alan had remained near the cook-fire to sleep, and he was lapped up in cloak and blanket, only his tousled head showing and was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.
Tuck watched Timothy now through the silvered moonlit night. He was quietly pacing out the clearing to himself, criss-crossing back and forth, sweeping his stick before him, learning about the odd tree stump in his way. Tuck could see him counting his paces to himself.
Timothy walked with confident step, head held high. Tuck remembered how he had taught Timothy to use the guiding stick as a three year old. He, never afraid to move around in the world he could not see, had taken to using a guiding stick like a duckling takes to water, and very quickly had become extremely proficient at finding his way with it.
By the time he had been seven, he had often trotted back and forth to the village of Felden on simple errands, following the various paths and trackways with his guiding stick, and Tuck and the brothers at Thornton had had no qualms about letting him venture forth on his own. Tuck had had no desire to dent Timothy's remarkable self-confidence.
Timothy's face was alive with interested and curious expressions as he walked about the clearing. He came up against the barrier of trees that formed the perimeter line of the clearing and felt his way along them, touching their close-knit trunks with his hand outstretched to his side as he walked, his fingertips grazing their trunks. Tuck watched his exploration, and the years melted away. Timothy had always been confident at learning to find his way around. When in a strange place, the first thing he had always done was explore it, pace out the space of it, touch all that could be touched in it, and learn about it. And he was quickly learning about the outlaws camp now.
Tuck watched, amused, as Timothy felt his way around the large oak John and Will were sleeping under, finding the plethora of roots with his stick and stepping over them. His stick found the outline of John who lay on his back. John was sound asleep with his mouth open, quietly rumbling away to himself, and Tuck saw Timothy smile as he listened.
Timothy ran his stick gently down the side of John's outline, realising who he had found, and carefully negotiated his way around the giant who lay sleeping under the tree - only for his stick to find Will's outline laying huddled up in a blanket beside John. Tuck saw what only could be described as an expression of mischief cross Timothy's face as he ran his stick down the outline of Will's back - and then lightly prodded Will in the backside, on the pretence of being ignorant of what he had found.
"Gerroff!" Will irritably snarled, half-waking, before huddling under his blanket again with a mutter.
"Timothy," Tuck said quietly across to the young man.
Timothy stopped mischievously prodding at Will's prone blanket-wrapped shape with his stick and turned his head in Tuck's direction. "Yes?"
Tuck spoke with quiet humour. "Leave the poor man alone and come back over here. Try and settle. It's dark for us, and they all want to sleep."
He spoke without rebuke. Timothy did not understand light and dark. He had never seen light. Tuck remembered how as a child at Thornton, Timothy had used to be restless at night, not understanding why the brothers slept. He had found it hard to fall into the same pattern, and Tuck had presumed that this was because Timothy did not have the cues of light and darkness to tell him when to sleep and when to be awake.
Tuck leaned forwards and poked up the fire again as Timothy came back across the clearing to him. He stepped off course a little but quickly got himself back on track, aided by the crackle of the fire. He neatly avoided a tree-stump and the small woodpile at the root end of the upturned section of fallen tree which served as a seat by the fire.
His stick found the line of the tree and he put out both hands and found it and explored its contours briefly with interest, then he moved along it a few paces to find Tuck. He felt before him and found Tuck's shoulder at hip height, and moved to sit down beside him. Thus they sat, with their backs leaning against the fallen tree and their faces warmed by the low fire.
"You have a well-hidden camp here," Timothy observed, removing the leather loop of his guiding stick from his left wrist and laying the stick on the grass beside him. "Ringed by tall trees and thick bushes. With the rock face at your backs. It's a goodly space. The way the echoes of our voices bounce off the surrounding trees and the rock face tell me a lot about its dimensions. I have a fair idea of this area now."
"That's as well, seeing as how you'll be minding camp on the morrow," Tuck said.
Timothy tucked one leg under him to sit more comfortably, and listened to the lick and spit of the flames a few feet away before him. "I know where you store the dry wood now, and I'll keep the fire going. I'll also get a meal on the go for your return."
"We've some wortes and carrots in a sack in the cave. Some barley - enough to make a pottage," said Tuck.
"I have a few handfulls of barley too. In here." Timothy patted his light backpack which rested against the fallen tree trunk beside him on his right. "Emergency rations. I can add that to the pot. I've also some spices I bought from Nottingham market. Have you any meat?"
"No, but if we send Much out tomorrow before dawn he may find a rabbit in a snare he's set up, or we can get him to check the fish-traps upriver a way," Tuck replied.
"Whatever is brought me," said Timothy, "I can make a meal out of it. I gutted more fish and skinned more rabbits and hares in my apprenticeship than I can count. I heard tales in Lisbon that said Robin i' the Hood and his outlaws all feasted on the King's venison every evening," he added.
Tuck laughed. "That's an exaggeration. If we all ate venison every evening, we'd all be like this," and he took Timothy's hand and patted it to his rotund
stomach.
Timothy laughed at the joke, and gave Tuck's stomach an affectionate pat of his own, then his face changed to one of curiosity and leaning forwards and turning more towards Tuck, he travelled his hand up Tuck's barrel chest to find his face. Tuck watched the young man as Timothy felt over his mouth and brow and around his eyes with delicate fingertips.
"Has my face changed?" Tuck could not resist asking.
"Not to my fingers," Timothy said wryly, then asked curiously: "has mine?"
"No, not really, you've grown into a man, that's all." Tuck said. "Last time I saw you, you have to realise, you were but a youth of fifteen. Now the shapes of your face have matured from the softness of youth into the defined contours of a man. A very handsome man," he added, regarding Timothy with searching gaze.
Timothy gave a slight smile at that last remark, and there was something about the smile which told Tuck that Timothy had clearly been informed of that fact by women in the past - it was not something new he was hearing. Tuck wondered about those women now. Of course Timothy would have had women - he had had several lasses at the village of Felden whom he had rolled in the hay with at the ages of fourteen and fifteen. Tuck had been well aware of that. But still Tuck wondered about the women who had crossed the path of Timothy the adult man.
"According to the others, that's something I have not inherited from de Rainault," Timothy said wickedly, sitting back once more. "I don't look like him, apparently."
"No, you don't. Be glad you do not have a resemblance to him to be remarked upon," Tuck chuckled.
"I am surprised that the others have accepted me so readily, knowing who I am." Timothy sat and pondered.
"Well, to be fair," said Tuck, "a lot of their acceptance of you at the moment stems from their trust in me and in what I say. Scarlet still looks suspiciously at you, but that'll pass."
"Will he let me stay here more than this night and the morrow?" Timothy asked tentatively.
"He will if I have anything to do with it," Tuck said purposefully, and Timothy smiled briefly in response, but then his face suddenly sobered to an expression of tiredness, and he lifted his hand to his face and wearily rubbed his knuckles across his eyes.
Tuck patted his arm, recognising the gesture of weariness from when the man had been a small boy. "Try and sleep."
"I can't," Timothy sighed. "So much has happened this day, my mind's still a-racing."
Tuck put his arm around the young man's shoulders and hugged him. Timothy dropped his head and rubbed his cheek against Tuck's shoulder - much the same way a cat rubbed its face against someone in affection, thought Tuck, watching Timothy. He had used to do that when he had been a child at Thornton, too.
He lifted his hand from Timothy's shoulder and stroked Timothy's hair. Timothy, his cheek still lain against Tuck's shoulder, sought Tuck's other hand, and finding it, drew it into both of his own to idly explore it. He heaved another sigh, and not moving, listened to the silence of the camp around him.
How quiet the night was! Only the gentle breeze rustling through the nearby trees. In Portugal it had all been so different at night, Timothy thought. Crickets and cicadas had chirped constantly outside his window in the warm balmy nights there, and the the scent from the jasmine on the balcony had hung heavily in the air. Everything had been glorious, unusual and exotic, and those warm nights had been the stuff that dreams were surely made of. Especially when a beautiful woman had been sharing his bed.
Now he was back in England. It still seemed strange; the boat voyage seemed like a strange, lurching, tossing dream. He felt that he could not shake off Lisbon so easily. It had worked its magic on him, and that magic he felt still lingered. Like the feel of Beatriz's beautiful smile that lingered so vividly in his memory, a smile burnt onto the tips of his fingers. He knew he would never forget it, and he ached for that memory to become reality once more.
Tuck was watching Timothy. He wondered where the young man's thoughts lay. He sat with his cheek still against Tuck's shoulder, his face turned towards the fire. His eyes were open and kept up their peculiar roving movement that never focused, did not track the brilliance of the leaping flames before him. His face was quiet and contemplative.
Tuck felt in contemplative mood, too. His mind drifted back to the old days at Thornton. Peaceful days, where in the main he had been content. He had been in Holy Orders since the age of eight years - his brief childhood before being constrained by the laws of the Church he had been sent into, had oft been remembered like some far-off dream. However, he had remembered and relived some of that childhood as he had taken Timothy under his care, and had watched him grow from an infant to a boy.
Tuck's memory floated back to the cold January day Timothy had been left at the gates of Thornton. How he had first looked into the baby's beautiful, but oddly moving, dark eyes and how he had realised with sorrow and resignation that the child was blind and that was probably why he had been abandoned.
Until Tuck had known the truth.
He would never forget the day he learned the truth. It had been a hot summers day, and he had been working in the stone-walled vegetable garden at Thornton, weeding around the staked peas and beans that provided such a large part of the monks' everyday fare in pottage. Bees had buzzed lazily about, there had been the scent of new cut grass in the air, and he had been happy as he had wielded the hoe amongst the loamy soil.
There had been no-one else at work here, and he had been enjoying the solitude, until Timothy had almost stumbled through the wooden gate, fumbling with its latch and desperately calling out Tuck's name to find his whereabouts in the garden. Tuck had immediately answered to guide the boy over to him, and had straightened and watched with worry as the fifteen year old boy had tapped his way along the curving gravelled path, following the line of it with his stick. He had realised by the panicked sound of Timothy's voice that something was wrong.
Timothy, through healthily browned by the summer sun, had looked oddly pale, his movements had been agitated. He had reached Tuck and his searching hand had sought Tuck's form before him, stopping his weeding, and both his hands had gripped Tuck's arm, pulling Tuck close to him as though needing comfort, his hands clenching Tuck's arm in shock. Tuck had looked into the youth's face as Timothy had stumbled over his words.
_"He's my father. Robert de Rainault. The Lord High Sheriff of Nottingham. He's my father. I heard it from Father Lawrence's own mouth."_
In shock and disbelief, Tuck had questioned the boy, and from Timothy's dazed and shocked lips the tale had unravelled.
He had been passing the scriptorium when he had heard Father Lawrence dictating a letter addressed to de Rainault, and then had heard his name mentioned in the dictation. The door had been ajar just a crack, and Timothy had stood outside in the passage and listened, undetected. Eavesdropped.
The letter had been about him. He had just reached his fifteenth year, and the dictated letter he had heard had been in response to one from Robert de Rainault, newly landed in the role of Lord High Sheriff of Nottingham, proposing that "the boy my son be set for Holy Orders."
Timothy had at first thought that de Rainault, then newly appointed in the job of Sheriff, had a son who was coming to Thornton as a novice, and interested, had lingered by the door to listen further. What he had then heard in Father Lawrence's dictated reply had shocked him, and he had repeated it word for word clearly to Tuck in the vegetable garden:
_"Your son seems ill-inclined to want to take Holy Orders, my lord High Sheriff, despite the goodness of the Church taking him in as a babe and caring for him for all of his life, he being blind and helpless to follow any other course in life, save of course be a burden to whatever parish he may land in. And, my lord, despite having received an education from us as best we were able to instruct him and he seeming relatively intelligent despite being blind, I fear that his sins are many, his irreverence is often great, and I fear that if we cannot bring him to the path in life that you demand he be set for, then begging with a tin platter be the only future he have."_
Timothy had immediately put two and two together, and panicked and shocked, his mind in a whirl, had stumbled away to find Tuck.
There was no denying the truth of it all, Tuck had found. Timothy had not just been any blind bastard brat left at the gates of the Abbey, that had been clear then. He had been the blind bastard son of Robert de Rainault, a baby who had clearly been put away to avoid scandal surrounding Robert de Rainault - aye, and Hugo de Rainault too, whose star had rapidly been ascending in the Church at the time, Tuck had thought then and thought now, casting his mind back over the years.
And Father Lawrence had been made privy to who the baby dumped at the gates of Thornton had been; no doubt made privy to it by Abbot Hugo himself. Father Lawrence had probably even known that Timothy would be sent to Thornton ahead of his arrival. He had not seemed all that surprised that snowy January evening when Timothy had been found left at the Abbey gates. He had not even shown any signs of searching for the mother who might still have been nearby, watching from a distance to ensure that her baby would be found by the monks, Tuck thought now.
Standing there in the vegetable garden that hot summer's day, Timothy had lurched from shock to sudden determination - determination to find out who his mother had been; determination to confront the Sheriff over who he was. Seeing that the blind fifteen year old would have marched impulsively to Nottingham there and then and no doubt landed in all sorts of trouble, some due to his blindness but most due to his hot-headedness of youth, Tuck had had little choice but to promise the lad he would accompany Timothy to Nottingham in his quest to see the Sheriff and ask him questions.
And thus he and Timothy had slipped quietly away from Thornton that very night and walked to Nottingham....and there the beginning of the end of Timothy's time at Thornton had begun....and indeed his own time at Thornton, Tuck thought now. He tried to push away memories of Anna and London which had once again risen, and in part succeeded.
What are you thinking of?" Timothy asked curiously at last out of the silence between them as they sat before the fire, his cheek still lain against Tuck's shoulder, both his hands still trapping Tuck's one between them, his light fingers exploring Tuck's. Half playing with Tuck's fingers, half gathering information about Tuck's mood from the feel of them, thought Tuck, watching Timothy's hands. He had long ago learnt to read Timothy by watching his hands.
"The past," Tuck replied quietly.
"Our past?" Timothy asked.
"Aye," said Tuck. "Our past. The years at Thornton."
"I was very happy there as a child." Timothy gave another soft sigh, and drawing his cloak more around him, nestled closer against the side of Tuck's shoulder, his back against the line of the fallen tree behind him. He moved his right hand out to his side to ascertain the location of the long line of his guiding stick lain on the ground beside him.
Tuck studied the guiding stick curiously. A long thin fine length of ebony wood around five foot long - no thicker around than two of Tuck's pudgy fingers - topped with an elongated silver knob. A knob of solid silver, not just silver gilt, Tuck was sure, otherwise constant rubbing of Timothy's hand holding the stick would have rubbed the silver coating off to reveal a base metal. A soft leather loop was attached to the base of the knob to go round Timothy's wrist so he did not lose the stick if he lost his hold on it by accident. The last four inches of the ebony guiding stick was sheathed in a silver tip, and Tuck saw why - it prevented the wood from splitting or wearing down from much use. All in all, it was a thing of grace and beauty, and suited its graceful-looking owner perfectly.
"Fine guiding stick you have there," Tuck said. "It speaks of quality, made by a master craftsman."
"It was a gift from my master and mentor du Guesclin when I left Lisbon three months ago," Timothy said, moving his hand idly down the shaft of the stick lain on the ground beside him. "He had it especially made for me, it's clear, for it fits my height. It's light and well-balanced in my hand and has proved to be a fine navigational aid."
"You must miss du Guesclin," Tuck observed.
"He was a good master, and aye, I think he looked upon me as something close to the son he never had," Timothy replied. He moved his hand back to take Tuck's left hand between both of his again and he thoughtfully fingered over the shape of Tuck's hand once more, exploring the lines of the slack fingers. Tuck's hand was gentle and passive and yielding to his exploration, and it brought back vivid memories of the past to Timothy, when as a young child he had used to feel Tuck's hands and so gauge his mood.
He gauged his old friend's mood now. "Do you ever go back to Thornton Abbey, Tuck?"
"No," Tuck said quietly. "I haven't been back for a long time. The last time I went back was two years ago, and that visit was only brief. Before then.....I hadn't been back there for years. Not since...."
_Not since Anna died and I returned to Nottinghamshire, and to the Church,_ he thought to himself. _Eight years ago, now. And then they sent me to Nottingham Castle, to be the Sheriff's chaplain. Which was where I spent a year, and where I met Marian, and through her, Loxley, and then somehow became caught up in all of this...._ and he looked around him at the shadowed camp.
He found he did not want to explain about Anna and leaving the Church to Timothy. Not now. Not yet. Too soon. Perhaps it should be unspoken forever. After all, none of the others knew some aspects of his past....and Tuck's eyes swept around the sleeping figures in the camp. Not even Robert knew...
Abbot Hugo knew, though. And perhaps that was why he should tell Timothy of that time himself, thought Tuck. In case Timothy heard about his past first from Hugo, should their paths meet again. And if Timothy was that determined to seek out the Sherriff and get the name of his mother from him, there was every chance that Timothy's path would cross with the elder de Rainault brother's again.
Tuck deliberated on the pros and cons of telling a soul close to him of his past - those missing years spent out of the Church - and then he pushed it to the back of his mind, for it to be dealt with later.
He turned his head slightly and looked into Timothy's face where he still sat beside Tuck with his cheek lain against Tuck's shoulder. The young man's face was still peaceful, he seemed absorbed in listening to the sounds of the fire before them.
"What's driven you to come back, Timothy?" Tuck asked softly. "I mean, I know you said you were after the name of your mother from the Sheriff - but before, when we were at Thornton, you never seemed too concerned over knowing who she was."
"People change with time," Timothy said quietly with meaning. "I've found that as I've got older, different things matter more to me. And knowing my origins has become important."
"Why?" Tuck questioned.
"There's a woman, in Lisbon. Her name is Beatriz. I want to wed her. I want to be a husband and a father. You cannot possibly imagine how much I want what I was never a part of when I was a child - a family."
"We were your family." Tuck felt slightly hurt. "At Thornton...it was a family of sorts."
"With you as father and older brother all rolled into one." Timothy affectionately fingered over the back of Tuck's hand.
Tuck sighed, pressed his cheek against the rumpled head that rested against his shoulder. "You've always been like a son to me, Timothy, even though it was wrong to think like that at Thornton. You weren't a posssession."
Timothy did not lift his head from Tuck's shoulder but remained how he sat, cheek against Tuck's shoulder, listening to the crackle of the fire before them, Tuck's hand between both of his, his fingers absently tracing over the lines and shapes that made up the back of Tuck's hand.
"You're the nearest to a father I shall ever experience," Timothy said quietly. "But that's what I mean. Wanting to become a father myself makes me want to find out about MY origins. So I know where I come from. So I know who I am. So I can pass that knowledge of origin down to the children I have."
Tuck moved his head slightly to look down into Timothy's face. The face was solemn, blank, drifting. It was almost as though sometimes you had to wake Timothy in some strange way, to get his face responsive again and he responsive to you, Tuck thought, remembering the past years of raising a blind child. Timothy had never seen anything and did not know how to respond in some ways. That was, in ways that sighted people understood.
"What is Beatriz like?" Tuck asked.
A slow smile rose to the surface of Timothy's face as he listened to the crackle of the flames before them and remembered. "Passionate. Spirited. Hardworking. Honest and trusting and loyal."
"Good qualities," Tuck approved.
"With long ragged hair that flies about her, whipped by the sea wind on the cliffs and full lips as luscious as orange segments that taste of salt when we kiss by the shore," Timothy sighed with longing.
"How did you meet?" Tuck asked.
"She scrubs the tiled floors of the chambers and passages and helps the laundresses at the palace of Princess Mafalda. Just one of a number of peasant women who are employed there in that pursuit. A bunch of laughing, joking, garrulous women. Some have husbands working at the palace, some have husbands who are fishermen down in the bay. Some are widows, some are still maidens. They are of all ages. They work hard and chatter whilst they work, and they flirt with any men who passes them by as they work. The young married ones keep their babies with them whilst they work, tied in a cloth sling on their backs." Timothy smiled as he remembered.
He had known every woman, and the names of the children they had carried with them. He had liked these bright and chatty women. They had liked him. They had not pitied him because he was blind; they had been curious about him because he was, but like Beatriz, who was one of their number, they had accepted him for who he was. He had liked them for that, had liked them for their straightforward ways of thinking, their good-natured ways of talking. He had used to flirt with them, and they with him, and both parties had enjoyed the lighthearted flirting.
They had seemed to find him something of an attractive exotic because he was blind. A blind man who was completely capable of looking after himself was unusual to them, and they had been fascinated by him. Timothy had learnt long ago that a blind man able to look to himself was considered by sighted people as unusual, but he had always enjoyed being unusual.
The working women at the palace had been eager to help him learn his way about when he had newly arrived at the palace. On one hot morning, shortly after his arrival, a small gaggle of them had offered him a friendly guiding arm and taken him on a guided tour through Lisbon; into close-set confusing streets which he had not known about, describing to him all that they could see around him, explaining all the strange noises and scents which had assailed his ears and nose.
They had taken him into the local market where they bought their own food from. A vibrant market in the very heart of Lisbon, a crowded squared stuffed full of noise and movement, which had instantly given Timothy a sense of its crowded dimensions. A place pulsing with joy and energy, an all pervading vitality which he had found intoxicating. The flow of movement around him, the heady mixed swirl of scents both exotic and commonplace, recognisable and unrecognisable, had been vastly exciting.
The market had been bathed in heat and dust and pollen, and just as overpowering had been the smells of grilled meats, sun-warmed fish and overripe vegetables, mixed with the scent of incense, rose- water, honey, and vanilla. A heavy flavour of hemp and charcoal had seemed to exist in the very fabric of the market itself, as though it had mingled there for generations.
And the sounds. Hundreds of voices had risen and fallen, blending together to form a cacophony of noise one could liken to a giant hornets' nest. Haggling of buyers and sellers all around him, the clink of coins changing hands, the glassy bangle of medicinal jars and corked bottles knocking together, the sweeping sound of silk bolts being unravelled to be placed on display.
Timothy had held onto one of the women's arms for guidance, and had followed where he had been led, weaving this way and that through ever-sifting crowds, the other women following him and talking to him all the time, describing to him what was around him so he could gain an idea of his bearings, happy to be showing him their world. He had reached his free hand out from his side in curious search as he had walked, and his fingertips had grazed against market stalls they had passed; trestle tables overhung with canvas to shade the wares and sellers both, and cobbled-together wooden booths which concealed infinite delights. Anything the heart desired could be found here for a price, he had been sure.
The women had taken him up to the stalls and had touched his fingers to all sorts of wares for him to explore, their garrulous voices explaining rapidly in Portuguese to the stall holders that he was blind and needed to touch in order to learn what was before him. The Portuguese were a friendly people, Timothy had found, and the stall holders in the market had been talkative and accommodating - and once again there had been the sense of acceptance about his blindness which Timothy had found refreshing.
At the stalls and booths, he had fingered bales of smooth gossamer- like silk, and drapes of velvet, some figured with a fretwork of embroidery. His fingers had found exotic rugs hanging down like dried leaves from the awnings of some of the stalls. Coils of rope, bowls of cinnamon quills and piles of precious nutmegs and other spices had been arrayed over the trestle tables. Most interesting of all had been the heaps of strange and exotic fruits and vegetables from the Far East and the Africas which he had never known about. The women of the palace had laughed fondly at his fascinated face as first his curious fingers and then his nose and tongue had explored the previously unknown fruits and vegetables, and they had told him what dishes they made from them. Thus, Timothy had learnt very quickly about the local food and where both the usual and the unusual could be sourced from, and it had not been too long before he was finding his own way to the market and around it alone. The stall holders had soon got to know him, and he them.
In return for all their friendliness and the sharing of their knowledge to assist him, he had always made sure the women working at the palace received the best left-overs from the kitchens to eke out their sparse living; bread and meat and vegetable scraps. If their babies had had teething problems or the colic, he had given the women some precious cloves or anise from his own personal store of spices, so they could make soothing remedies for their children.
He had played with their toddlers in the cool, shaded, herb-lined courtyard off the kitchens, holding out his arms to them as they had run across the stone flags of the courtyard towards him, to catch them up and swing them around in his arms whilst they had squealed with delight. And with the shape of a child in his arms, feeling over a chubby face and toothy smile, feeling little fingers explore his own face curiously, knowing at even their young age that he was different but unfazed by it, Timothy, now having entered his twenties, had known that he wanted children of his own to love and he wanted Beatriz to be their mother.
He wanted to be a father...
These emotions had led him to think of de Rainault, the father he did not love and who did not love him, who had never picked him up or played games with him as a child, whose face he had never explored with the chubby fingers of a toddler, and Timothy had realised that somehow, he needed to explore his own past, his own parents, and learn his own origins before becoming a parent himself.
Tuck's curious voice now broke into Timothy's memories. "And Beatriz?"
Timothy jerked out of his reflection. "Oh, I haven't given her a child, if that's what you mean. Not yet, anyhow. She's a widow - her husband Fernam was a fisherman drowned at sea a year before I came to the palace. No children from that union, either. She lives in Lisbon with her widowed sister who has a whole string of children. They live together and work to support themselves. She and I have been lovers for nearly three years."
He was silent for a moment and then, changing the subject, added curiously: "How long have you been outlawed and living in Sherwood, Tuck?"
"Six years," Tuck gave a sigh and prodded up the fire before him once more with the end of his staff. "Seems like forever," he added with a touch of wry humour.
"I saw Henri de Normanville the baker whilst I was in Nottingham," Timothy said at last out of the silence. "He told me that before you were outlawed, you were de Rainault's chaplain at Nottingham Castle."
"Aye," Tuck scratched his head, feeling uncomfortable with that fact Timothy had found out. "I served that position for a year."
Timothy drew back from Tuck to sit up straight, and leaning forwards, he reached out and found Tuck's face. Agitatedly he fingered over the friar's face, seeking out Tuck's expression. "Chaplain to him! I couldn't believe it when I heard that! Why, Tuck? Why go seek employment with my father when you know how he treated us that time we sought an audience with him?"
"Wasn't my doing, Timothy," Tuck said. "I was sent there to be chaplain on the orders of Abbot Hugo, and had no choice but to obey. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, I believe Hugo's motive was. I think Hugo and Robert de Rainault believed I knew where you were or where you might have gone, so they were going to keep me close and have me watched. Of course, I didn't know where you were, but it was some months before they realised that. By then, Loxley had come to Sherwood to be Herne's Son, and I became tangled up in all of that; left Nottingham Castle with Marian, and then joined with the outlaws and became outlawed myself."
"Did my father Robert de Rainault ever speak of me to you?" Timothy asked, his voice low and solemn, his fingers still tracing over the shapes of Tuck's face to learn Tuck's expression as he replied.
"Only to demand of me if I knew where the blind brat was," Tuck said simply. "Which was a question of course I couldn't answer."
Timothy swung his head uneasily in response, finding he frowned to himself. He lowered his hand and felt over the folds of Tuck's ragged sleeve instead. "So he never mentioned who my mother was, then?"
"No. Never. Never a word escaped his lips - or Hugo's - on that subject," said Tuck. He looked deep into Timothy's unsettled face and patted the back of his hand in an attempt at reassurance. "I'm sorry. I wish I knew more to tell you."
Timothy heaved a sigh. "Hugo doesn't like to look at me. I know that much now. When I saw him at St Marys recently, he came up close to me, as though he was studying me - I could tell. And I felt him shudder. He said-" Timothy recounted carefully, "-_"Damn you - damn those eyes of yours! They haunt me! They're the eyes of your mother...."_"
He fell silent for a moment, troubled, whilst he thought back over the recent past and his meeting with Abbot Hugo at St Marys not long ago.
"Hugo knows who my mother is, Tuck. He must have known her once, to say that I look like her."
"Well, as the others here have said, you don't resemble de Rainault," Tuck said, studying the young man curiously. "Therefore it is logical to assume that you resemble your mother, whoever she is."
"Do you think she be Norman?" Timothy questioned.
"I think the trick is to find out where de Rainault was living at age seventeen, which was the age when he fathered you," Tuck said, prodding up the fire once more. "I don't know when he came to England. Maybe during that time. Maybe after."
Timothy frowned in thought. "I wish I knew."
He subsided and sat back once more beside Tuck, his back against the fallen tree trunk behind them.
"You really want to find her, don't you," Tuck said softly with sympathy, looking into the young man's face. He suddenly saw the burning need in Timothy - the heartfelt desire, the longing. That had not been there in Timothy as a child.
Timothy sighed. "Previously I hadn't been all that interested in my mother. She had left me at Thornton - so I had always thought - because I was blind, and so I had emotionally detached myself from her. I was at peace with the knowledge of having been left at the Abbey, abandoned because I was blind....but once I suspected that my being blind had little or nothing to do with being left there, and it was everything to do with my being the Sheriff's bastard and something of an inconvenience or embarrassment best shut away - THAT was what I found hard to take."
He paused in thought. "Now I have an inkling she might have actually loved me, despite my blindness, but was forced to give me up for some reason, I find that I am interested in her. I have started to feel for her, and I want to find her." He hesitated. "To find out if she DID love me...and also...find out her side of the story surrounding my birth. That story is something I'd like to know. Aye, I know I may not like what I find - but I will take that risk. I would still like to know it."
Tuck could not find the words to answer, just patted Timothy's hand. He thought back to his own parents at Tuckenby, probably dead by now. He had not seen them since he had been eight years of age. Had they really loved him? He would never know now.
"I'd like to go back to Thornton," said Timothy at last out of the silence. "See Father Lawrence. Ask him what he knows....maybe after all this time he will be able to tell me SOMEthing-"
Tuck covered Timothy's hand with his own, hating to be the bearer of bad tidings. "Father Lawrence died eighteen months ago, Timothy. Of a chill and a fever, so I hear."
He watched the young man, seeing his face sober at the news. A possible avenue of hope gone, thought Tuck, reading the look of disappointment on Timothy's face.
"Whatever Father Lawrence knew, then, he has taken to the grave with him," Timothy observed quietly.
"Aye." Tuck crossed himself.
Timothy fell to contemplation over the fact. "I don't blame him for keeping my origins secret. No doubt he had sworn to God before Hugo. Father Lawrence was essentially a good man. I believe he sought only the best for me, misguided in my abilities though he was."
He turned to Tuck, seeking his arm. "Tuck, if you have ANY idea who my mother might be-" he pleaded with sudden desperation.
Tuck looked into the young man's despairing face with dismay. "Timothy, I don't, I swear I don't....I'm sorry...."
The young man subsided and rubbed a hand across his face in weariness and emotion, and watching him, Tuck suddenly came to a decision.
"I've something for you, " said Tuck. "Here. Feel." He reached inside the purse at his belt and brought out Timothy's silver cross, abandoned by him eleven years ago. He took Timothy's left hand, and turning it palm up, put the cross on its chain in Timothy's left palm and closed Timothy's right hand gently over it before drawing his own hands away. He watched the young man warily, wondering if Timothy realised what he was holding.
Timothy carefully traced the fingertips of his right hand over the object in his left palm. It was a cross of metal, he found, nestling atop a coil of neck-chain. The cross was around an inch and a half long, its arms tapering out to broad and flattish ends. Its centre was a small flattened circle with its only decoration there - engraved grooves radiating outwards from the centre of the circle in a very distinctive design, giving the appearance of a sunburst. The neck chain was threaded through the cross's large circular bale which was fixed solid to the top arm of the cross.
"It's my silver cross!" Timothy said wonderingly in realisation, tracing the shape of the cross with his fingertip, and Tuck saw his face suddenly light up in happy recognition.
"Aye," Tuck replied quietly, pleased at Timothy's pleasure at being reunited with the cross. "We found it lain on your bed in the dormitory, the morning after you left Thornton."
"Yes, I placed it there....it was a message of sorts, or intended to be." Timothy still thoughtfully fingered the cross lain on his palm, lost briefly in memories of eleven years ago, when he had last held this cross in his hands. "I couldn't write you a note to tell you what I wanted to say - that I didn't want to be forced into being a monk. So by leaving the cross on my bed, I hoped that would tell you all - tell Father Lawrence."
"Aye, he got the message right enough," Tuck said wryly.
"And you kept my cross with you? - all this time?" Timothy questioned, curious and interested.
"Well," said Tuck, "I always prayed I would find you. See you again. So I could return it to you."
"Why?" Timothy queried. "Did you not think that I would never desire it round my neck again? It was after all given to me by the monks at my baptism when I arrived at Thornton as a baby."
"Oh Timothy," said Tuck, heartfelt, feeling guilty at the young man's ignorance of the truth, "no, it wasn't. I know you were always told that by us all at Thornton, but the truth is that your cross was found on you when you were left at the gates of Thornton, the night you came to us as a baby."
"Found on me?" Timothy felt shocked, and examined the shape of the cross afresh, suddenly feeling as though he explored it from a new angle, now he knew of its true history.
"Aye." Tuck watched Timothy a little warily, uncertain of what his full reaction would be. "You were discovered at the gates and brought into the refectory, which is where I saw you for the first time. You were laying lapped up warmly amongst blankets in a rush basket, sleepy and quiet. I found that cross wrapped round your little wrist on its chain, like a bracelet. That cross came with you."
"My mother must have left it with me!" Timothy exclaimed, fingering over the cross with new interest.
Tuck nodded. "Aye, that thought has crossed my mind many a time over the years. I have always kept your cross safe with me, in the hope I may find you again, and be able to tell you the truth."
Timothy continued to finger over the cross in his palm. "Why did you never tell me this when I was a youth at Thornton, Tuck?"
Tuck's answer was simple. "Father Lawrence forbade me to. Back then, I was only nineteen years of age, with none of the experience of the world and its shades of grey over wrong and right that I have now. Father Lawrence said that it was best that your mind was not stirred about the mist of your beginnings as you grew up. He made me swear on Holy relics that I would not tell you. I thought back then that it was probably best that you did not fall to wondering about your parents and become restive or sad about what your origins might be. For I was so sure back then that you had been abandoned by your parents because you were blind. Forgive me, Timothy."
"And now?" Timothy questioned. "You feel you can tell me now?"
"I always vowed," Tuck said, trying to keep his voice steady from a sudden tremble of emotion, "that if I ever found you again - had another chance to talk with you, that I would tell you. Because life is too short for keeping secrets. And now here you are." He looked at Timothy and gently laid his hand against the side of Timothy's face in a gesture of tenderness, seeing Timothy smile in recognition at the touch. "God is good, He has given me - us - this second chance to talk to each other."
Timothy reached up his own hand to briefly cover Tuck's that was lain against his cheek, then travelled his hand along Tuck's arm to find Tuck's face. He lightly circled his fingers over it curiously, finding a brow puckered with past memories and eyes blinking nervously with uncertainty.
Tuck looked into the young man's face and tried to smile as Timothy's fingers felt over his lips, seeking to understand his expression. "And now...well, I'm outlawed. A renegade monk, so some people call me, including your father. I have more experience of the world and of life, since we last met - I now balance my faith with what I know is RIGHT. And telling you the truth about the cross is RIGHT."
There was silence between them for a moment, silence broken only by the low crackling of the fire before them. "Forgive me," Tuck said again at last.
"Oh Tuck. Of course I forgive you," Timothy said simply.
He sat back once more, his back against the log seat behind him, given to silent thoughtfulness. Tuck found he could not speak from emotion, so leant forwards and prodded at the fire before them once more.
This could have been my mother's....." Timothy whispered, still fingering over the cross in his palm. He felt awed and solemn by the discovery, by this tangible link. He bent his head and touched his lips to the cross in an almost reverent kiss, and then placed it around his neck. He put his hand up to it and found that now he was an adult, the cross rested neatly at the base of his throat. The metal quickly warmed against his skin, and tracing his finger over the cross, he felt his heart warmed too. Was this cross the message of a mother's love for a child that somehow she had been unable to keep?
"This IS my mother's," he whispered. "I have something of my mother's.... And I had it all the time I was growing up, had I but known...." He bowed his head and blinked, and felt two hot tears splash onto the back of his hand that still fingered the cross at his neck.
Tuck did not know what to say, but watching Timothy's sudden tearful reaction to an object that provided a link with the mother he had never known and now seemed to long to know, made him feel extremely guilty that he had never told Timothy the truth about the cross when he had been a lad.
_I should have told him about his cross the day we met the Sheriff in Nottingham,_ Tuck thought to himself now as he watched Timothy distractedly rub his eyes to wipe the tears away, _for by then the damage was done, Timothy knew who his father was and had been rejected by him most soundly - but I felt that the lad had suffered enough rejection for one day. What a coward I was. I should have had the courage of my convictions and told him. At least then, when he ran away, he would have known about the cross. But then again, I had been bound by Father Lawrence and by God..._
A set look of determination unfolded over Timothy's face as he continued to finger the cross now at his neck. "I need to see de Rainault now more than ever," he said firmly. "I need to talk to him. FIND these answers I seek."
"He's in London, as you have heard," said Tuck uneasily, not liking the expression he saw cross Timothy's face. "That's a long way for you to travel and try and find him there."
Timothy frowned, irritably swung his head and briefly flapped his hand in agitated reaction, and Tuck remembered the blind behaviour as Timothy's instinctive version of an annoyed gesture. He realised that Timothy was annoyed at his capabilities being doubted. The boy had indeed grown up into a confident and capable man, sure of himself and his abilities at thriving in a world he could not see. Tuck realised suddenly that Timothy had travelled so much further than he himself ever had. Further than he could imagine. Further than the vast majority of sighted people in this world.
"I shall walk to London and try and find him there," Timothy said determinedly.
"Wait a while," Tuck tried to advise. "Don't go haring off in the direction of London just yet. Wait awhile here with us. De Rainault will return to Nottingham sooner or later - after all, he's left Gisbourne in charge since before Easter, which is something he'll be keen to remedy as soon as he can."
Inside, he was dismayed. Timothy had only just arrived back in his life and now was contemplating haring off again. There was so much to catch up on, so much that they had missed - and Tuck found himself almost terrified that the impulsive Timothy would suddenly up and leave as unexpectedly as he had arrived.
But then he looked at the young man and suddenly thought _Aye, that's what he is, he is a man now, not a child nor a youth to be told what to do, what right do I have to try and stop him? Would I stop a young man who could see? Nay. I would offer counsel, aye - but stop? No._
Inside, he was full of pride as he looked at Timothy, and he supposed it was something like the pride a father took in his son. He had in the main raised this boy, and the boy had turned out well.
You must do what you must," Tuck said finally. He took Timothy's hand between his two and looked earnestly at the young man. Timothy's face was uplifted and turned in Tuck's direction, his expression was one of complete attentiveness now that he was being touched. The best way to get Timothy's undivided focus on you and what you had to say to him had always been to take his hand, Tuck remembered. "Just know that I only say what I have done because I care about you."
A smile flashed across Timothy's face at the feel of his hand being taken between Tuck's. "I know," he answered softly.
"I'm very proud of you," Tuck said quietly without a tint of patronising and he could see how the way Timothy instantly flashed another smile in response that Timothy knew there was no patronising attached to that sentiment. "You've gone out into the world and made something of yourself. And been proud and happy to be yourself in that world."
"I had a good teacher," Timothy said.
Tuck smiled, drew Timothy's fingers up to touch his mouth so he could feel the smile being directed at him, and watched Timothy smile afresh in response as his fingers touched the curve of Tuck's mouth. "Life is the best teacher - life and experience."
"Aye, that I know well enough by now." Timothy laughed, then his face suddenly sobered and he added more seriously: "It was one of the things that I wanted to do if I ever saw you again, Tuck - to thank you. For caring for me in those early years, for teaching me so many things about the world around me when I was a child, for instilling independence and - I hope - a sense of integrity in me." He wrapped his arms around Tuck's familiar shoulders and hugged him, and no more words needed to be said.
Tuck smiled, kissed the young forehead in affection and drew back from the young man, noting the dark shadows under his eyes, and the lines of weariness creeping over his face. Timothy's eyelids kept drooping, the dark eyelashes shuttering the eyes that had never seen, and the eyes themselves had slowed in their peculiar roving movement - a sure sign that Timothy was growing sleepy. Tuck touched Timothy's cheek in fondness and smoothed Timothy's dark hair back from his forehead in a touch he knew had always soothed Timothy in the past when his mind and heart had raced with turbulent thoughts and feelings.
"I must remain alert and on watch, but you've travelled far this day and look exhausted, and it's late," Tuck said quietly. "Try and sleep. It'll be a long day tomorrow for all of us."
Timothy wrapped his cloak around him, and moving his pack beside him to serve as a pillow, lay down on his left side before the embers of the fire, facing it, his back against the solidity of the log. He drew his knife, to lay it on the ground beside him under his right hand, and settled down comfortably. Tuck's hand gently stroked his hair. A familiar touch, a long remembered touch from when he had been a child and had been falling to sleep. Drowsiness was at last stealing over him, blurring all the new-discovered information in his previously racing mind. He felt his eyes close and his heartbeat slow, and his body sink down into peace.
Tuck watched in silence as Timothy's eyes closed, his body relaxed, his breathing grew deep. He had often wondered how the blind experienced the shift from waking to sleeping, without sight to give the cues. It was only one of many mysteries of the blind since birth that he pondered upon sometimes. How did they dream without visual concept? How did they imagine without visual concept? Sometimes watching Timothy as he had grown, he had gained small glimmers of insight into a way of experiencing that was so vastly different from his own - glimmers of insight that had proven to be fascinating, but he knew he would never gain more than a glimpse into the way Timothy interpreted the world around him.
Tuck did not even feel in danger of falling asleep on watch. Not this night. As the owls swooped by on their nights hunting and the dark night wove its quiet magical spell over the countryside, he sat before the fire, his head too full of what had happened this day.
He sat and watched the sleeping Timothy for a long time. He pondered over the unspoken mysteries that a sleeping face could show. And his mind went back over the years.
Timothy had changed in the years that they had been apart, Tuck reflected. But then, so had he. They both had grown and matured. The outside world had shaped them in different ways, for they had experienced different things and had taken different paths in life. But Timothy by some miracle had found him again, and for a while at least, their paths in life had merged.
