Post of the Month 

~ August 2011 ~ 

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Tuck/Timothy ~ Written by Angela & Rhys. Posted on the HoS Yahoo group July 2010.

His robes hoiked up to his knees, Tuck stood ankle-deep in the small stream that ran South of the camp and stared downstream in the morning bright sunshine that scattered over the flowing waters.

Here, the stream was at its widest point, and shallow. The water was clear, and free-flowing. Small brown fish darted in the dappled shallows. Rocks and boulders, tanned with dirt left from spring's high waters, lined the bank. To one side, a low, grassy bank was speckled with similar shadows as the sun found its way down through the trees that clustered around the stream.

Waters flowing on the way to a far off sea, thought Tuck, still gazing downstream. He glanced up at the patch of sky above. It was cloudless, and Tuck knew it would be another hot day. He thought with worry of Rhiannon, who this morning had insisted on going out on search again with Ellie. Fortunately she was not searching alone, for John had insisted she accompany him, and Tuck knew he would look to the girl, but even so, Timothy's tale of her fainting at Sedgeley the previous day had filled his heart with worry.

He looked up and down the opposite bank. Shadows on the ground filled with sunlit holes lay beneath the trees, lay tossed like a cloth on the grass amongst the roots.

Tuck looked down at his sandalled feet, and the roots of the tree just by them which dipped into the water. Here, set in the shallows amid the security of these roots were several earthernware jars containing ale. It was the ale Alan had brought from yesterday. Decanted from their skins to the jars and brought down here to be left in the cool of the waters of the stream for the day. Tonight, it would probably all be drank by the returned company who would need their thirst slaked. Sweet, strong ale of the first draw.

Ale... Tuck stared down at the earthernware jars, remembering. They had stored ale in similar jars in London when he had lived with Anna as man and wife. The strange thing was, although Anna had seemed to have had that strange disregard for eating, she had had no qualms about drinking and had happily partaken of ale and Rhenish wine.

He remembered how Anna would sip the wine so quickly some of it would stain her lips and drip down her neck. How she would laugh at this and awkwardly blot it with a plain handkerchief from the purse swinging at her belt.

Here had the problem Tuck had often reached about wine as there were as many passages forbidding a good Christian to drink as there were encouraging it. One part of Numbers said: "He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink" while in Psalms was found: "Wine that maketh glad the heart of man."

Drinking too much wine turned him angry, scornful, Tuck knew to his shame. It made him say things that made people wary of him. So, he picked a favourite line from the Book and used it.

And that was: "Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake." Oddly enough, it was from Timothy.

Tuck looked back over his shoulder at Timothy who sat on the grassy bank of the stream, near the water's edge. He sat with arms encircling half-flexed knees, relaxed, but he was turning his head in Tuck's direction to catch his movements. "I'm here," said Tuck. "I haven't gone anywhere."

Timothy's face was amused. "I know that. You're just standing there in the water. No movement. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," said Tuck. "Just thinking."

Timothy laughed. "Standing in the stream is good for thinking?"

Tuck laughed too. "You know how it is. You stand and you get to thinking. Especially if all around you there is peace."

He looked out over the stream once more.

The sun was to mid-morning height. He had been awake at dawn, troubled by all he had witnessed between Naz and Timothy the previous evening. Much had seemingly had a restless night as well, so he'd taken some bread and ale with him and left camp early, saying he was going to continue searching for Robert over. Nasir had left camp early also and Tuck had not interfered. There were questions he wanted to ask Nasir, but not right now. One look at Nasir's face had told Tuck that.

John and Alan, Will and Rhiannon had all arisen, eaten the leftover pottage from the previous evening and gone out to search. And Tuck had remained at camp for the second day in a row. Only this day, he was not alone at camp. There was Timothy. Normally, Tuck would have enjoyed the prospect of having Timothy's company for the whole of this long hot summers day approaching Midsummer, but the altercation of the previous evening between Timothy and Nasir hung like a cloud above Tuck's head.

Timothy had not made an appearance at the fireside as the others had awoken and congregated there, so Tuck had gone into the cave. He had found Timothy still fast asleep, sleeping with the look of one who was completely exhausted. Being in the cave had dulled the sounds of the outside world to him, and light did not wake him, so he had continued to sleep.

Tuck had not had the heart to waken him but had let him sleep. It had been some time after the others had left camp that Timothy had emerged fro the cave, sleepily rubbing his eyes and asking Tuck if the sun was high in the sky.

He had not mentioned the previous night, and Tuck had known better than to broach the subject. Instead, he had doled some leftover pottage out into a bowl together with a hunk of bread, and Timothy had hungrily eaten. After that Timothy had seemed restless, and somewhat bored with being within the confines of the camp, whose perimeter he had thoroughly explored by now, so Tuck had suggested they walk to the nearby stream which fed into the lake, to put the ale there to keep cool. And so they had walked here.

For Tuck, it had been like old days; Timothy holding his elbow and walking alongside, guided by him, feeling out the terrain ahead of him with his stick and asking curious questions about the world around him he could not see or imagine in any visual way. But yet it was different. The last time Timothy had walked alongside, he had been 15 years old, still a lad, a head smaller than Tuck. Now he was a man and was half a head taller than Tuck. That had felt strange, and Tuck had not been able to completely shake that strangeness off. Their friendship had been so easy to pick up after eleven years of being apart - but sometimes trying to adjust to Timothy the man instead of Timothy the boy proved hard for Tuck. Timothy the boy had known little of the outside world. Now Timothy the man knew a great deal and far more than him, Tuck had realised.

They had reached the stream's edge, and Timothy had dipped his hands into the water, joyful and fascinated to feel the flow of the water through his fingers. He had stripped naked and washed, then had donned his clothes again and had been content to sit on the grassy bank in a patch of hot sunshine whilst Tuck had waded out into the stream to place the ale flagons amongst the roots of the tree.

Reluctantly, Tuck turned away from viewing downstream and splashed his way back through the shallow running water to the bank. He stepped up onto it, and patted Timothy gently on the shoulder as the young man turned his head to follow his sounds.

Tuck's mood this morning intrigued Timothy. He knew the man in the past had been prone to deep thoughts at times, but since meeting him again, had been
aware that there was a new dimension to those deep thoughts and suspected that new dimension had been added in the eleven years they had not seen each other. Whether or not he was the cause of those melancholy thoughts, Timothy was not entirely sure, and the possibility made him uneasy. He did not like to think he had caused Tuck hurt, but of course he had, those eleven years ago, when he had stolen out of Thornton that night and run away without leaving any word for Tuck, save his silver cross lain on his bed in the dormitory where he knew Tuck would find it and read it as a clear message that he did not want to become a novice in the order and would not be forced or coerced into doing so by Father Lawrence, Abbot Hugo, his father Robert de Rainault - anybody.

Timothy put his hand up to his neck and fingered the silver cross where it lay at the base of his throat. It was strange to be wearing again after eleven years. Strange, but yet familiar. And he liked to feel it around his neck now, for now it held an entirely different meaning to him. This had been his mother's. She had cared enough to leave him with this when she had left him at the gates of Thornton Abbey. He could not be sure, but he hoped now that this cross was her way of saying down the past twenty six years to him: I didn't want to leave you here, but I had to.

He turned his head further towards the soft rustle of Tuck's robes beside him, and reached his hand up to cover Tuck's momentarily where it rested on his shoulder. He quickly fingered over the back of Tuck's hand to ain clues as to Tuck's present mood. The hand was relaxed, the fingers at ease, but even the hand and the way it absently lay on his shoulder now felt as though Tuck was far away in his thoughts.

"You said you were thinking," said Timothy. "Of what?"

Tuck sat on the bank beside Timothy with a relieved sigh at resting his ankle, and tried to keep his voice as light as possible. "Just the past."

Timothy frowned to himself in thought, undeceived. There was a certain tone to Tuck's voice that spoke of sober thoughts of the past, a type of longing he thought he understood.

"But your thoughts linger on something particular, don't they. A woman? he ventured uncertainly.

Tuck was shocked. "Timothy!"

"But it's true, isn't it?" Timothy pressed with. " God forgive me, I do not know why I think that, but I do, just from your voice."

"Yes," said Tuck, honestly but reluctantly, "it's true. How did you know?"

"Because I miss Beatriz," said Timothy. "So much sometimes, that I hurt. And it's impossible to put into words. There's a certain type of longing and sadness that the Portuguese call saudade. I do not know the equivalent word in English, I do not think that there is one. Saudade conveys a particular type of feeling. I sometimes experience saudade over Lisbon and Beatriz, and somehow I sensed it in you just now."

Tuck fell to solemn silence and where he sat beside Timothy, his legs stretched out on the grass before him, he surveyed his sandaled feet.

Tuck?" Timothy pressed again, yet delicately, not liking the man's silence.

"About Beatriz," said Tuck unwillingly at last. "I understand more than you may think. The love a man feels for a woman. The longing to be a husband and a father."

Timothy listened and refrained from adding to the conversation, for Tuck's tone of voice spoke of more to come from him.

"I've something to tell you," Tuck continued. "I've been meaning to tell you, for you deserve the truth, but it's been hard to find the way, for what I am about to tell you has never passed my lips to anyone for nigh on eight years now."

He drew a deep breath, and spoke softly. "I was once married."

Timothy was startled. "Married! How? I mean, you joined the Church as a boy of nine years, you always told me...."

"I left the Church for a while. After you ran away. I lost....faith, may the Lord forgive me." Tuck dropped his head and regarded his lap.

Timothy was still incredulous. "The Church let you go?"

"What else could they do? The Church is not a prison," Tuck gently chid.

Timothy still struggled to make sense of these new events in the past that unfolded to him. "Your wife... You left her to rejoin the church?"

"No. She died. Twas after that i rejoined the church." Tuck's voice was still low. "I would never have left Anna."

"Oh Tuck. Tuck, I'm sorry." Impulsively Timothy reached out and found the man's hand resting on his knee. He covered it with his own and gave it a squeeze of comfort, yet still trying to take in what his friend had divulged.

"It's all right, Timothy," said Tuck, "it was a long time ago, now. When I left the Church, I travelled to London, Trying to find a new life for myself, aye, but also, looking for you. I thought you might have gone there. I found work at an apothecary, and 'twas in London I met Anna. She was thirty years of age and was a woman of her own means as she had taken on her dead husband's business - he had been a chandler. We married and lived in the rooms above her chandler's shop. 'Twas all a long time ago now."

_Not so long ago_ the little voice inside him said, but he tried to shrug that little voice off.

"No children for you?" Timothy inquired delicately.

"No. We had but two years of marriage together and no children came for us. We wanted them, but....well, the Lord saw fit not to bestow children upon us, and maybe with hindsight, He was right."

"I don't know what to say," Timothy said at last.

Tuck managed a slight smile and managed to put that slight smile into his voice. "You don't need to say anything, lad - your very voice imparts your sincere feelings. I'm glad I've told you," he said at last.

"Do the others - the other outlaws - do any of them know?" Timothy asked.

Tuck's answer was quiet. "No. Not even Robert."

Timothy caught only too well the hidden meaning behind Tuck's answer. "I will not tell anyone," he promised solemnly.

Tuck patted his shoulder in appreciation. "Thank you."

They sat side by side on the grassy bank in silence for a moment, the repetitive whistle of a bird nearby cutting across the peace that was woven in with the flow of the stream before them and the occasional stir of the trees overhead.

Timothy's head was hot. He turned his face up to the heat, feeling it burn against the surface of his open eyes and vaguely he wondered what such heat looked like. Beatriz had said it was painful to view. The heat in Lisbon had been great. The heat on his face now reminded him all too clearly of Lisbon, though he missed the dry rattle of the gorse bushes shaken by the breeze, and the ever present smell of the sea in the air. Here, there were no crowded narrow streets, no tiled cool buildings, no hot scents of spices. Just forest - calm peaceful forest, where heat flashed on and off against his face as he walked between the trees.

What would Beatriz make of Sherwood, he wondered. This vast number of trees clad in mystery which seemed to impart subtle dreams to anyone who spent a time laying under them as he did now. The warm currents of the air that weaved in amongst the sound of the swaying branches above him, and expectant hush of the forest. This great and mossy wheel of life that was poised at days end to breathe in summer stardust, and exude the scent of dusky blossom that enchanted. A brief moment beneath these trees could be eternal in the memory, like a word, a sigh, a kiss.

Beatriz.... He suddenly wanted her so much it hurt.

He moved to sit straighter, and felt for the purse at his belt. He felt down into its depths, past the teeth of his comb and the two silver pennies that clinked together, to the skein of Beatriz's hair wrapped within its square of linen. He took the pice of linen out and unfolded it on his knees, and his fingers found the soft thick strand of Beatriz's hair, tied at one end by a thin silken ribbon.

He ran the fingers of his left hand gently down the long lock of her hair, and for just a second pretended that she was with him here in Sherwood.

He felt Tuck's fingers gently cover his as his slowly ran along the length of the hair spread across his knees. "This is Beatriz's hair?" Tuck inquired softly.

"She cut this lock from her head the night before I left for England," Timothy answered quietly. "A part of her to keep with me always, whilst we are separated. It's a part of her I can still touch and be reminded of her, even though she's hundreds of miles away from the reach of my fingers."

Tuck watched Timothy's fingers linger down the long soft skein of hair he held. The hair was as dark as night, and he imagined Beatriz as this dark-haired, brown-eyed, olive-skinned beauty. Like Timothy, Tuck suddenly thought, watching the blind man as with face uplifted to the warmth of the sun, he lovingly ran his fingers over the skein of hair across his knees. Timothy had never looked English, with those dark eyes and that dark hair and skin that turned brown with the slightest touch of an English sun.

His mother, whoever she be or was, was not English, thought Tuck, watching Timothy. He wondered if he should impart his thoughts to Timothy and if it could help Timothy's knowledge in the search for his mother. Timothy knew the colour of his eyes and hair, but perhaps did not understand the significance of it all, what his colouring could mean. Colours held no meaning for him, he did not understand them.

"What does Beatriz feel about your blindness?" Tuck asked curiously, watching Timothy. He could not help wonder if the woman was more interested in any money Timothy might have amassed rather than Timothy himself, and saw him as someone easy to control to obtain a share of it. God forgive him, Tuck did not wish to think that, but he knew how the world worked. A master-cook could command a good wage, and no doubt Timothy had been prudently setting some of that wage aside for his future.

"I don't think she thinks about it," Timothy said. "It is of little significance to her. I've always been just Timothy. Oh, like all the women I've taken to my bed, she was curious at first and asked me questions - did I have an accident or was I born thus, could I see anything, how did I find my way, how did I understand the world around me when I have never seen it. Things like that. Then, when she knew the answer to those questions, my blindness faded to the background for her, and I became just Timothy. My blindness is just a fact to her, an easy and humorous subject with no thoughts of sadness or tragedy attached, and she assumes that like any other man I will provide for her and our future children when we are married, and of course I shall."

Tuck felt a warming toward the woman he had not felt before. The woman clearly loved Timothy as her man and that was good to know. "'Tis good she thinks that way."

"Aye," Timothy agreed, "but you know me, I would not stay with any woman who treated me anything less than normal. I AM normal. I'm just blind, that's all."

Tuck smiled, thinking back over the past when Timothy as a child had run around with the children his age at the village of Felden. They had never seen him as anything else but normal, and the child Timothy had thrived on it. It was the adults that had always taken a different, more stifling and narrow view, Tuck thought now.

"Did your...wife," Timothy hesitated, "did your wife feel the same way about you once having been a monk?"

Tuck contemplated his past. "She never knew I had been one," he answered.

He still cursed himself for that. For his dishonesty over that matter. Maybe he hadn't actually lied, but he had certainly withheld the truth of some of his past. Oh, he had told Anna of his boyhood at Tuckenby and all his boyish adventures there, and she had smiled - but he had led her to believe that Simon of Tuckenby had lived in that small village past the age of eight years old and had grown into a man there. When Anna had asked about his trade in the village, he had answered that he had worked in the fields, which had been true enough. His father had often put him to work in the fields, scaring away the crows from the corn.

Timothy's voice now broke into Tuck's thoughts. "Why didn't you tell her?"

"It was just too...difficult." said Tuck. "Would have caused a lot of problems. It was as though having been a monk handicapped me in some strange way, God forgive me. But that's how I felt. Having been a monk put me at a disadvantage far more than being blind put you at a disadvantage, because for you, being blind is normal, of the ordinary. Not being a monk certainly was not normal for me, I can tell you."

He cast his mid back to those crowded years spent in London. "There came a certain type of strange freedom in no-one knowing I had been in the Church. There was a lack of reverence offered me which, you know, I quite liked. A sense of anominity. You do not have that if you are a monk; you are always looked up to and held up to be an example to, and sometimes that's very wearying, because I am just a man and not perfect in many ways. I liked to walk amongst the crowds in London and be anonymous. Not have people around me alter their mood as soon as they saw me. You know, when I had been in the Church, people - ordinary people in the streets, they would quiet when I passed them by. Perhaps they would be laughing boisterously, but when they caught sight of me in my robes, they would then be silenced. It was an interesting power I had as a monk, but it didn't save any souls. It didn't make anyone good. Not on the inside, at least."

"I don't think anyone can be wholly good," said Timothy softly. "Only the saints. But then that's why they are saints."

He folded the lock of hair back into its square of linen and tucked it away in his purse, then he lay back on the grass with a sigh, arms outstretched, and he contentedly took in the suns warmth, feeling like a flower that has unfolded all its petals and given itself up willingly to whatever may happen to it during the fierce heat of the day.

"Soon be Midsummer," said Tuck.

"I love summer. The whole world seems to wake from the drudging pull and toil of winter. The memory of ice falling away with the robin's first call, and the unfurling of leaves. The taste of crushed berries on my lips, ripe and sun-warmed. The heartbeat of the living earth, so many dreams, so many tales, forever changing and our lives changing with it. A harmony sustained, a vivid dance of gaiety. Summer is all these things to me." Timothy turned his head aside towards Tuck and closed his eyes.

"We can stay here for a while," said Tuck, "if you wish. The day's peaceful and there's no sign of soldiers or any sort of trouble."

"I'd like that," said Timothy. "Just to think, to gather my thoughts, to make sense of them. To listen and feel all that is around me, to feel the forest as a whole. The peace soothes my heart."

"Aye, Sherwood does that to a soul." Tuck reached out and gently smoothed the hair back from Timothy's forehead.

Where he lay, Timothy reached up and caught hold of Tuck's hand. "One thing I want to say to you," said Timothy softly and seriously, "that maybe I haven't said clearly, or haven't said enough. But you in many ways have been to me the father I always wished for, Tuck I'm sorry you and Anna had no children, for you clearly wanted them. But for a son, you need look no further than here." He gave Tuck's hand in his a squeeze as though to emphasise his words. "He is here, no matter how far away he's been or will be. He will always be your son."

Tuck could not find the words to answer. Instead he squeezed Timothy's hand gently back. Timothy gave another slight smile, and released Tuck's hand and turned his head further aside. Tuck watched him, and within minutes his face lost the look of someone who was focusing ears and awareness on all that was around him and relaxed, his chest rose and fell steadily and Tuck could see that Timothy had fallen asleep.

Tuck sat for long, staring at the shining water of the stream as they coursed past. They took him on a journey of his own, in his memory, drifting back to the stream of people that used to course along Chandler's Row, past Anna's shop. He had used to sit on the window seat in their tiny solar and look out of the casement window, down onto the heads and hoods of the people passing by below. And wonder at such a stream of people.

His mind fled back to that March day in London, when he had sat on the window seat in their solar and watched the people below in the street. The bitter winter had passed, and the promise of spring had arrived, yet he had not felt as contented at that prospect as he had used to when he had been in the Church, at Thornton.

"Simon?" Anna's soft voice had broken into his thoughts. He had looked round, as she had come to stand beside him at the window seat and crane her neck to peer out, curious to see what he was looking at.

"Just the people below," Tuck had said by way of an explanation, "that's all. Coming and going. Living their lives."

He had eyed her out of the corner of his eye, concerned. She had seemed thinner than ever, and hollow-cheeked, her eyes large in her face.

"It's Spring at last," he had added. "The beginning of new things. The birds are nesting, and every animal I see seems to have a young one with them."

Anna's voice had been sad and wistful. "I so wish for a child, Simon. It has been six months now since our marriage and no sign of any. I know we are old to become parents, but older people than we have started raising children."

Tuck had remembered what Juliana had said about a woman's ability to conceive a child. "Maybe a change of diet for you would help..." She had looked warily at him, and he had not seen the warning signs on her face but had continued. "Or mayhap additions to it. Dear heart, you eat very little, I've noticed."

"I eat enough, all that I need to," Anna had answered defiantly with a toss of her head.

"But you look so thin...."

"I have always been thin, even before you knew me," she had answered sharply, cutting off that subject, and then had sighed and turned away from the window, knotting her fine veined hands in the front of her kirtle.

Tuck had risen from the window seat, anxious and eager to sweep away the sadness he had suddenly glimpsed about her face. "Anna..."

She had turned back to him and levelled her eyes on his face. Tuck had watched her, feeling both sad and bewildered, trying to understand the complexity of emotions he saw on her. Sometimes it was so difficult to read Anna's expressions and guess at where her mind lay.

"I so long for a child, Simon," she had whispered sadly. "There is a great need in me for one...a child that would complete me, complete US....and banish the ghosts of those two poor little souls that lay in the corner of St Bartholomew’s church without proper name save Childe Of God..."

Tuck had tried again. "We need not be without the joy of a child in our lives, Anna. We could take on a child that has no parents. There are plenty of orphaned and needy children. We could take on a child that has great need of parents and love; a child that is physically at a lack that otherwise would not find a home. Say, a blind child...."

She had sharply interrupted him. "Blind?" She had shuddered.

Her shudder had sent a twist to Tuck's heart and angry rising in defence of Timothy's memory. "Blind children are children like any other, my love."

Anna's voice had remained sharp and brusque. "No they are not, they are sub-human, abnormal, and should be locked away out of sight where we don't have to see them beg in gutters."

"Anna!" Tuck had been shocked by her reaction.

"Simon, you are very charitable and 'tis what I love about you, but sometimes you take it too far to the threshold of sainthood. First you gave away money to the poor this past winter that we could ill-afford - money that we needed to keep us warm and fed - and now you're suggesting that we take on a child who is not ours, and even worse, is flawed, imperfect!" Anna had shuddered again.

"Think how much we could teach a blind child," Tuck had said..

Anna had almost laughed in a sarcastic way. "Aye, I suppose we could teach it to beg on a street corner for us. Do we send it out every morning with its long stick and tin cup to do so?"

"Anna!" Tuck had been horrified and angry.

She had shaken her head to herself in vehement feeling. "Why should I want a blind child forced upon me? Why should I suffer it and be looked upon with pity because I have it? If it 'twere born to us, then that's another thing and I would forebear it and the pity I would receive for bearing it - but to receive one that is not of my blood and expect to be thankful as though it is some sort of a GIFT?" Her voice and eyes had been incredulous as she had looked at him.

Tuck had faced her, clenching his hands by his sides in disbelief as he had stared at her, finding she was like a stranger when this angry bitter mood took her - and suddenly to his shock, he had found he disliked this Anna.

Her eyes had glittered angrily at him and she had continued in a flippant way: "Maybe we could have a whole family of assorted blind and crippled children that nobody wants - maybe we could send them all out begging for us every day - why, we'd be rich-"

He had struck her then - a short swift angry slap across the face, the first and last time he had ever struck her or indeed any woman, and he had immediately been ashamed of himself. She had stared at him, speechless, her hand against her reddened cheek, and then she had pushed him aside and ran through the door from the solar into their bedchamber, thrown herself onto their bed. And there had screamed. Horrible, dry, tearless bloodcurdling screams. He had never heard or seen the like before

Biddy had come to the door of the solar, white-faced, staring at Tuck, her usually good-natured face creased up in anxiety. "Oh sir, do ee make her stop - the whole street below will think she a be murdered and will send for the watch!"

Tuck's guilt had known no bounds and he had leant over her on the bed. "Anna, Anna, I pray you, please cease. God forgive me for striking you - I did not mean it, but' tis done and all I can do is ask you for forgiveness. Anna!"

She had stopped screaming, turned to low moaning, and lay curled up in bed in a foetal position, her face turned to the wall. Finally her moaning had ceased and she fell silent.

She had remained curled up on the bed not speaking for two days. Tuck had called in Juliana Coleman, she had came and sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the motionless Anna, sighed and tutted and shook her head to herself. Then she had left the chamber and silently beckoned him to come.

Tuck had left Anna's frail figure curled up on their bed, and had followed Juliana back into the solar. He had quietly closed the door of the bedchamber, so Anna would not hear them talk, and had crossed the solar to stand before where Juliana had composedly seated herself on the carved chair beside the fire. He had kept his eyes fixed on Juliana's face and waited.

"What did you do to her, Simon?" Juliana had demanded.

"Nothing," Tuck protested. At the arch of Julian's brow in response: "Well...I struck her. Only once, but across the face."

"Simon!" Julian had been horrified. "For what cause?"

Tuck had hung his head. "We talked of children, of taking on one if we could have none of our own. She wasn't best pleased."

"Simon...."

"I was trying to HELP, Juliana!" he had protested. "She wants a child. I do." He leaned both hands on the back of the settle and looked down at its carved back. Outside in Chandlers Row, the noise of the street came through the tiny cracked panes of glass.

Juliana sighed and shook her head to herself. He lifted his head and met her gaze.

"Well," Juliana had said, "you are her husband and therefore you can do with her how you see fit..."

"I didn't expect marriage to Anna to be so DIIFICULT!" Tuck had burst out with at last.

"Life with Anna, whoever had married her, would have always been difficult," Juliana had said quietly.

"You seem to know that she has behaved like this before," Tuck had observed uneasily.

Juliana's answer had been blunt. "Aye, she has. Both times far worse, but this - this, 'tis bad enough."

Tuck had been startled by this new admission. "BOTH times?"

Juliana had nodded. "When they had to take her dead child away from her. Both of them."

"She told me they died at birth," Tuck had said wonderingly, casting his mind back.

"Aye, just a few minutes after. She held them in her arms the first time - and they died. She...curled up around them on the bed, holding them in her arms and screamed. Refused to let them be taken from her. Of course," Juliana said at last, awkwardly, as though she regretted confessing her own part in all this, "we had to take them from her eventually. It was particularly bad when her second child died. We had to hold her down, and force the dead baby out of her arms."

Tuck had felt a chill at envisaging this scene that he had rarely felt before.

"Oh in God's name," he had rubbed his hand across his face and looked across at Juliana who had composedly sat opposite him. "In God's name, why couldn't you have just let her be and let her hold her dead child and grieve for it a while?"

Juliana raised an eyebrow, and her reply had been chilling. "Simon, she had been holding onto it for THREE DAYS."