Post of the Month

~ July 2007 ~

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Timothy/Celeste ~ Written by Rhys & Siiri.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group May 2006.

Timothy walked about the kitchens, idly trailing the fingertips of one hand along the edge of the table as he walked the length of it.

All was quiet. The meal for the de Normanville family had long since been prepared and sent over to the house. The scullions had scrubbed the bowls and dishes and now Timothy could hear two of them outside in the bakery yard.

Timothy swept a hand over the table in exploration and found only a smooth empty clean surface, and smiled to himself. The embers of the oven fires had been banked until morning, and all was in readiness for the next day's baking. The smell of roast meat, pottage and gingerbread and spices lingered about the kitchens.

He had taken the wafers over to Henri in his study before the evening meal. Henri had seemed surprised that Timothy had found his way alone to not only the de Normanville house, but along its main corridor to the right door - the study door - but Timothy only needed to walk a route once in order to find his way for the next time. Henri's surprise had taught the adult Timothy something that the child Timothy had not realised - that Henri, despite having had a brother who had been blind, in some strange ways vastly underestimated the abilities of someone blind.

He had placed the tray of wafers before Henri on the study table and had listened to Henri's movements as he took up wafers of different flavours and tried them all, had listened to the man's teeth crunch and then chew. And he had waited for judgement.

"You made these?" Henri's voice had been surprised and amazed. "They're beautiful to regard as well as taste. How on earth can you make such things of beauty when you can't see?"

Timothy had grinned. "I made them to taste beautiful; the visual beauty is created by the wafer moulds I had carved for me."

"And your recipes for these...." Henri's voice had ended on a curious note.

"....will stay with me to my grave," Timothy had answered lightly but with a more serious meaning underlying. He had learned his lesson over the years not to let slip certain recipes to anyone. "But for as long as I remain in your employ, Henri, I will make these for your business and your business alone."

There had come more sounds of munching from Henri's direction, and finally a sound of approval.

"So I have your leave then to make some for the morrow?" Timothy said.

"Aye. Make a batch of all these flavours on the morrow, and if they sell well on the morrow, you have my leave to order extra spices for the daily making of them. Many other bakers sell wafers - but I've not tasted any as good as these - or seen any as fine." Henri had leant forwards where Timothy had stood before the table, and his hand had lightly clapped Timothy's arm. "Well, well - people had best not scoff at the hearing that there is a blind cook at the de Normanville's bakery, had they, with the proof of your talents in something like this."

Timothy had returned to the kitchens, empty tray under his arm, feeling a quiet sense of satisfaction. He cared not if people scoffed at the idea of a blind cook - most sighted people scoffed at the idea of a blind anything when it came to trade - but it was good to know he was providing something for the de Normanville bakery that no other bakeries in Nottingham had - at least not of this standard. This made him more secure in his position - something always good to have.

Human movement now coming to the open doorway of the kitchen brought Timothy out of his thoughts; he listened, studying the movement, recognising the rather awkward sidle, and knew it to be the scullion, Giles, before the youth spoke.

"Cook?" The voice from the open doorway was deferential.

Timothy turned his head towards the voice. "Yes?"

To his surprise, an invitation was offered. "Hervy and I said we'd join Hal and Thomas at the Angel to drink with them and play dice. Want to come?" There then was hesitation from Giles - as though he was studying him and speculating. Finally the boy said a little awkwardly; "If you couldn't find your way, I don't mind leading you."

Timothy never turned down an offer of guidance with ingratitude or impoliteness, for who knew when he might need it another time. There were necessary occasions when he needed to take the arm of a sighted person and be guided, and to him that was nothing to be ashamed of, was as natural as breathing air, though he prided himself on finding his own way through many different environments.

He smiled in the direction of Giles. It would do no harm for the boy to feel needed; it would give him a sense of importance. Throughout the past day, as he had listened to the kitchen staff working around him in the kitchens, spoken with them, learnt their names, their voices, something of their various backgrounds, Timothy had been listening to the interaction between the small group of scullions in particular, and he had noted that Giles seemed to be the dominant one. If Giles was won over, then the other scullions would be easier won over also. Furthermore, if Giles was given a sense of importance, hopefully a sense of responsibility would accompany it in the hope of promotion in the future, and so he would keep the rest of the scullions in order.

Timothy spoke cordially. "Thank you, Giles, I have work I must do this eve, in preparation for the morrow, but I'll certainly call on your assistance on the morrow evening for guidance to the Angel."

He already knew his way to the Angel, but it would do no harm for some of the kitchen staff to learn how to aid him, how to guide him, in contrast to Hal's grabbing his arm and hauling him across the courtyard this morning without so much as a by your leave, Timothy thought.

"I've not been to the Angel for eleven years, so I'll be glad for you to show me what may have changed about both the route there, and the layout of the inn itself," he added.

"Aye, Cook." There came a movement from the open doorway as though Giles was turning to leave.

"Don't get yourself so intoxicated this eve you cannot stir yourself before dawn to see to the fires," Timothy said wryly but with humour.

"No, Cook." Giles laughed and left the space of the doorway.

Timothy where he stood at the table, dropped both hands to rest upon its edge, listened to Giles go and fell to thought of Lisbon. Of the kitchens at Mafalda's palace, and the numerous throng who had worked in those vast sprawling kitchens which provided the palace with everything in the way of food.

That throng of kitchen staff had been a huge confusing jumble of people at first to him, when he had first arrived; a blur of voices and movements which needed to be defined and separated, assigned names and recognised. In turn, they had been very suspicious of him, Gilbert's second in command and answerable only to him in the kitchen. There had been many a patronising remark or attitude, sometimes barely disguised scorn or doubt over his abilities as a cook.

However, as they had got to know him and had learned about the way he went about things, they had lost their pitying or patronising and often disdainful views, had lost their doubts and suspicions about whether a blind man could be a cook, and there had always been a friendly arm to catch hold of had he needed to learn a new route, either in the vast palace with its myriad of passages and doors and stairs leading to chambers, or outside in the huge noisy sprawl that was Lisbon.

Beatriz had been one of the first to offer a guiding arm. One of the women who worked in the palace scrubbing the floors, and who had often worked in the kitchens too. Around Timothy's own age; a childless widow of a Lisbon fisherman who worked to support herself.

She had been fascinated by him, interested in how he went about things, how he learnt about what was around him with his sense of touch, how he navigated his way, but she had never been pitying, and certainly not patronising. Full of curious questions at first - much like Manon - but like Manon also, completely accepting.

_"Do you want to learn the path down to the shore?"_ Beatriz had asked him not a week after he had arrived.

Timothy had been more than delighted to take her arm and learn the route down from the palace, along various small pathways and tracks winding down a hillside full of gorse, towards the ever-pulling sound of the waves crashing to shore. And as he had learnt the route walking beside her, listening to her descriptions of what was around him that was too far away for him to touch, they had fallen to conversation, and a clear sense of like of the other had shuttled between them.

Timothy shook himself out of his thoughts, picked up his guiding stick which was propped against the edge of the table, and wended his way through the kitchens towards the open doorway where Giles's voice had come from. A welcome draught of air from it blew gently into his face as he approached.

Ascending the stone steps up from the kitchens, Timothy found that the narrow bakery yard was deserted and silent. Skirting his way past the shape of a wooden handcart turned over on its side, he tapped his way forwards and came up against the stone wall which divided the bakery yard from Henri's own private courtyard; that little oasis of peace and pleasant scents away from the filth of the gutters of Nottingham.

He felt along the wall to his left, found the wooden door set in the arch, and opening it, slipped inside the courtyard. He had no idea if he was allowed to be in here, but he always went by the reasoning that it was easier to get forgiveness than it was to get permission.

Once inside the courtyard, Timothy paused, quietly closing the wooden door behind him, and then lifted his head and turned it from side to side to find where the full warmth of the sun was. He found it was to his left, the now lessened heat full against his forehead and cheeks, rather than beating down on the top of his head, which told him that the sun's position was lowered in the sky but it was still there.

The soothing rejuvenating warmth of the sun against his skin was far different from the cloying clogging heat of the kitchens which had surrounded him for much of the day, and for several moments, Timothy stood still, with his back to the door, absorbing the warmth from the sun, casting his hearing out, sifting through the scents, employing his whole being, his ability to feel without touching, to gather the atmosphere around him into a beautifully vibrant bundle that was his surroundings.

The walled courtyard trapped the sun for most of the day, he remembered Tuck saying once when they had come here. Now, in the evening, they were still warm. He turned his head from side to side again, scanning over the space of the courtyard that stretched before him, sensing it was entering that hushed state that a garden or courtyard always seemed to be in during the evening. Someone had been in here and recently watered the flowers and the herbs that grew in tubs, for the scent of lavender was like it was after rain, he could smell wet foliage too, and yet he could neither smell nor taste any past or approaching rain in the air.

A group of sparrows were chattering along the wall to his left, and beyond the walls of the courtyard, the noise of the town had become less as the evening drew on. Timothy listened, lifting his head higher in concentration as he took his hearing beyond the walls of the courtyard, and heard no cries of wares from the market any longer. The traders had packed up and left at what had been the end of a very long day.

A long day for everyone, Timothy thought now, thinking back over his own. Still, it was not quite over yet, and he would soak in the last of the warmth of the sun whilst he could.

Where he stood, he turned his face full into the ebbing warmth and smiled with pleasure at the sensation.

Where she sat on the stone bench, shrouded in the shadows that the ivy-cloistered corner of the walled courtyard cast, Celeste glanced up from her book at the creak of the wooden door that led from the bakery yard into the family's courtyard, hearing a click of a metal-tipped stick against stone flags.

The blind man was coming.

Celeste watched as the blind man entered the courtyard. He quietly closed the archway door behind him and then paused there, his back to the door, lifted his face and turned his head from side to side, as though seeking something. He did it purposely, not aimlessly, but it still was an alien-seeming movement; a movement no sighted person employed in such a strange way. What was he doing? Celeste wondered, puzzled and fascinated, watching him. He could not see, so he was not turning his head to look at anything.

She froze, hardly daring to breathe, as he turned his head in her direction - but he continued with the slow purposeful turn of the head and back again and did not keep his face towards her direction. He did not seem to realise she was there across the courtyard watching him - she was too far away for him to be aware of, and in a way, she liked that. It meant she could study him, and study him she did.

Finally, the blind man ceased his head-turning and merely stood there, his back to the door, seeming perfectly relaxed and at ease, his face twitching some vague strange expressions that she mostly could not recognise. Once or twice his brow twitched a slight frown, once or twice his mouth twitched a slight smile. It was as though he was making these expressions in reaction to what his other senses were telling him, or in response to his own thoughts.

Celeste wondered what he was thinking about. Before meeting this blind man this morning and hearing him talk, she had not considered the fact that someone blind since birth and so without visual concept could imagine, or dream, or even think properly, without the input of sight. She had always considered the blind simple, even mindless, creatures before now; people who were not able to be in control of their own destiny.

Watching the blind man, Celeste wondered if he could smell the lavender, the pinks, and the other herbs and flowers which grew in tubs in the courtyard. Maybe that was what had led him here - the scent of them. Maybe that was what he was doing now as he stood there across the other side of the courtyard -enjoying the scent of them. Maybe he was also trying to learn about what was around him. For someone who had lived in total darkness his entire life - even if he could not tell that it was darkness he was in - he seemed remarkably astute and knowledgeable about the world around him that he could not see.

Celeste's thoughts went back to that hot sticky afternoon. Manon had been absent from the house for more than an hour, had returned, been chided by their mother, and had dutifully set herself to sewing in the upstairs solar, sitting on the window-seat with Celeste. Manon kept smirking to herself as she had sewn, as though she had enjoyed her hour of snatched freedom and hugged some nice secret to herself.

Irritated by this, Celeste had studied her younger sister curiously, and, when their mother had not been in the chamber, had quietly half-accused Manon with: _"I know where you were - you sneaked to the kitchen to see the blind man again, didn't you? Father told us to leave him alone to get on with his work - and you know Father doesn't like any of us in the kitchens under the feet of the cooks._"

Manon had but shrugged. _"He's not "the blind man" - he's Timothy. He's got a name, you know - just like Hal or Thomas or Enith or any of them. Anyway, I wasn't in his way. I just knelt on the bench and watched him make wafers and we talked."_

Celeste had been curious. _"What did you talk about?"_

Manon had happily plied her needle. _"Well, he told me a little about the land of Portugal and the Princess Mafalda's palace where he worked, and he told me about Leon, where he lived on the coast. And he told me what the sea was like, because I've never seen it."_

_"And neither has he, little dolt - how could he possibly know what it's like?"_ Celeste had chided.

Manon had pulled a face at her over the dreaded sewing. _"Well, that's where you're wrong. I'd wager you don't need eyes to know what things are like - or to enjoy the things around you. He told me he loved feeling flowers and shells and smiles."_

_"Smiles?"_

_"Aye. He places his fingers against your lips and can tell when you smile at him. Verily, he did it with me, and when his fingertips felt my mouth smile, he suddenly smiled back as surely as though he could see the smile."_ Manon had giggled. _"His eyes are so funny! They wander all over the place and they keep going crossed."_

_"Don't mock the afflicted,"_ Celeste had chided sternly again.

Manon had scowled at her. _"I'm not. I like him and I don't make fun of someone I like. I know he can't help what his eyes do. They're like that because he was born blind. Like he told us in the kitchens this morning. He didn't seem to be offended I thought them funny. He seemed to be amused by my amusement."_

Manon had given her a sly glance out of the corner of her eye. _"Don't you think he's handsome, Celeste - even with those strange blind eyes? I saw you looking at him when we were all in the kitchens this morning talking to him..."_

Celeste had merely cuffed her lightly about the ears and scolded her - but as she had bent her head over her own sewing, her thoughts had wandered back to how she had felt in the kitchens this morning as she had watched the blind man talk to her siblings. Yes, he WAS a handsome man, despite those strange blind eyes.

A movement from the blind man across the courtyard jerked her out of her thoughts; she watched as he seemed to come out of thoughts of his own. He extended his stick before him, sweeping it over the stone flags of the courtyard in a wide arc from left to right, as though in search, and then he headed confidently forwards across the courtyard.

The well was straight ahead of him, Timothy hazarded as he headed forwards across the courtyard, tapping his stick before him. Not that straight ahead was ever an easy route to follow when you were blind and had no guideline to follow with your stick; he knew well enough on such occasions his path tended to veer and without sound cues from his aimed destination it was possible to miss it entirely.

Timothy's stick came into contact with vertical stone before him. He immediately halted, then took one pace forward, extended his right hand before him and found the curve of the well wall. He moved to stand against it, and propped his stick against it, then unbuckled his belt and cast it aside on the top of the well wall, which was at waist height. He unlaced the sleeves and neck of his cloth jerkin and cast it similarly aside. His thin shirt followed, and he was bare to the waist.

The sun was suddenly hot against his back and shoulders where he stood facing the well. Timothy gave a slight sigh of contentment at the sensation, and leaning his hands on the well wall before him, arched his back in, tilted his head back, closing his eyes in pleasure.

The sun... He had scarce felt it all day, busy working in the kitchens as he had been. It was good to feel it against his bare skin, as he had felt it in Lisbon. Its warm fingers caressing his body suddenly reminded him of the heat of Lisbon, and made him wish he was there.

For a few seconds the sounds, the scents, the atmosphere of Lisbon crowded into Timothy's mind, bringing back vivid memories, and for a moment, intense longing as once again he felt Beatriz's fingers stroke his cheek, felt his own fingers slide through her long hair that had flowed over her shoulders as he had held her fiercely to him in farewell that early morning on the quayside, with the seabirds screaming all around him, the sun beating down on his head, and the huge, creaking presence of the merchant ship close by, looming over him. Waiting to take him away from what had become home; all that was familiar.

He had almost wanted to turn away, to not leave. No-one had been forcing him to return to England, after all...

No-one but himself...

From the stone seat in the corner of the courtyard, Celeste watched Timothy as he paused at the well, stripped to the waist. Her eyes lingered over the fine line of his slender graceful neck, his straight shoulders. His arms were well-formed, his waist slim, his skin tanned. In profile to her at the well, from some distance away, he looked sighted. It was only when you saw his eyes,
saw his hands reach out to feel around him that you realised there was something wrong with him, Celeste thought.

She watched him with fascination; his blindness made him seem to her like some otherworldly creature, an exotic being, and that was attraction in itself. She had never experienced a blind man before; he was something totally different from the other men in her life; her father, her uncle in Lincoln, her brothers and male cousins, servants like Hal...

Right now, as the blind man paused, leaning back, his head back and his eyes closed, smiling himself in pleasure, Celeste could not help but compare him with Eustace, the lad who looked to her father's horse where it was lodged in the stables of the Angel, or Godwyn, another stable-lad at the Angel. Both young men in their prime whom she had had the eye for and gone to when curiosity and urgings inside her had proved too hard to resist. She remembered vividly those regular but all too brief love makings with them in the musty dark on clean straw in a deserted stable or the haybarn where everything was a desirous scramble and her partners hands rambled over her so urgently and roughly, and she wondered how lovemaking with a blind man felt - was it any different? Did he use his hands with more tenderness?

Celeste thought she would greatly enjoy finding out.

She had discovered the pleasures of lovemaking bare six months ago - snatched hurried times kept so secret from her parents. Time was growing short for her - she would be in Rouen by Christmas, married to a middle-aged lump of a husband who her father had found for her before she had barely walked and talked as an infant. Before her journey to Rouen and her subsequent betrothal, she wished to have all the exciting forbidden experiences she could with younger men; handsome men, more athletic men.

Celeste's gaze strayed lingeringly once more over Timothy's bare torso where he stood at the well. He certainly looked athletic, fit and able. Celeste wondered if blindness affected his ability to make love. Maybe he had never had a woman, due to his blindness. She could be his first, maybe she could teach him. That thought greatly appealed to her.

Timothy reached out and felt before him for the winding handle. His right hand met upon its shape, he directed his left hand to where his right hand was, and both hands gripping the winding handle, he cranked the bucket up from the well. As the sound of water inside the bucket neared and reached his level, he found the rope and hauled the bucket up by its handle to sit it on the stout well wall.

He plunged both hands into the cold depths of the bucket, then leant over the bucket and dashed water into his face, ran his wet hands through his hair, cooling his scalp, and then scooping up more water with his hands, dashed that water against himself, against his bare chest and shoulders. Icy rivulets traced many quick paths down the sweating skin of his back, and he spread the moisture over his shoulders and upper arms, rubbing it over them to wash, and felt revived.

Finally, he felt inside the bucket to find how much water was left, and finding around a third of the bucket was full, he leaned over the well, bent his head down to the entrance of that narrow echoing claustrophobic shaft, and took the bucket and emptied the contents of it over the back of his neck and head. Cold water hit the back of his bare neck and head in a rush, running round into his face in a glorious shock of a sensation, and suddenly he was minded of the time he and Beatriz had held hands and run into the sea, and how, laughing, he had picked her up in his arms, swung her around and thrown both himself and she into the path of the waves as they had curled over.

They had crashed forwards to the sandy shore with those waves, on hands and knees, sprawled over each other in a glorious jumble, soaking wet, spluttering and laughing. The sun warm against his face, the taste of salt water flooding his mouth and the sting of it in his eyes, his laughter and Beatriz's echoing in his ears mixed with the sound of the surf - the cold crash of the breaking waves against his neck and back.

_"I am not afraid anymore of the sea!"_ Beatriz's joyful exclamation of realisation had sounded out to Timothy as they had sat there in the thrilling movement of the surf, he sitting behind her, his arms locked protectively around her, he taking the brunt of the breaking waves against his back to shelter her.

He had laughed at the feel of the next breaking wave cascading over his shoulders, and turning his face up to receive the warmth of the sun, had tightened his grip on her, feeling for her hand to eagerly explore it by touch, for hands spoke as much to him as faces when he felt over them. _"No?"_

Beatriz's warm wet hand had stroked the length of his forearm and then moved upwards to gently push his wet hair back from where it had stuck to his forehead, her touch communicating far more to him about her current feelings than words were ever capable of communicating. _"No. When my husband drowned, then I became afraid of the sea. But you are here now, and sitting here with you now, I no longer fear it."_

He had put his hand up to her face, found her chin and turned her face to one side towards him, and leaning over her shoulder, he had bent his head and kissed her mouth....

The weight of the empty pail dangling from his hand by its rope handle brought Timothy out of his thoughts. He straightened up, secured the winding handle and let the bucket once more swing back to its original place of hanging suspended above the well in space. He reached for his cast -off shirt and rubbed his wet hair with it and then his chest and arms, and as he rubbed himself dry, the happy memories of Lisbon bubbled up inside him and he sang softly to himself.

"Estamos de mare, vamos dancar,
Estamos de vem juntar o teu ao meu sabor,
Poe esta cancao a navegar,
Que o meu coracao nao tem cor."

A stifled sneeze across the courtyard cut into the last note of his song; immediately he ceased singing and jerked up his head in alarm to listen, now aware of what he had not been aware of previously - someone was in the courtyard with him. He heard a slight movement across the courtyard, ahead and slightly to the right of him.

"Who is there?" Timothy asked warily out across the courtyard, suddenly tensing his body, turning his head in the direction of the slight movement in order to listen.

The soft answer came back, slightly apologetic. "Only I. Celeste de Normanville. Henri's daughter. I sit here on the stone seat in the corner of the courtyard. Out of the heat of the sun."

Timothy felt discomfort prickle the back of his neck. For all he knew, other people could be viewing him from a distance too, without his awareness of them, and he doubted Henri would like his eldest daughter viewing a man who was stripped naked to the waist.

He hurriedly bundled his shirt on, and cast on his jerkin in the same hurried manner. "Why didn't you make yourself known to me, Mistress de Normanville?" he asked across to the presence, lacing up the front of his jerkin.

The same soft apologetic tone drifted back in answer from across the courtyard. "I didn't want to disturb you. You looked happy, and at peace. I feared I might frighten you."

"It frightens me more if I feel that there is someone there and they don't answer me," Timothy said.

"I'm sorry," came the answer.

Timothy reached for his belt, by now well aware that he was being observed by Celeste de Normanville. Her attention was like a heavy weight pressing against him.

"Why don't you wash at the well in the bakery yard?" her voice suggested from across the courtyard.

Timothy was surprised. "There's a well in the bakery yard?"

"Aye, at the far end of the yard. Did they not tell you?"

Timothy buckled his belt around his waist. "No. I haven't explored the bakery yard as yet. I just know that as I come up the steps of the kitchens and reach the doorway, the door to the courtyard is almost straight ahead of me across a stretch of cobblestones. That's the route I have learnt so far. But I'll be sure to explore the bakery yard more thoroughly on the morrow."

He picked up his stick which was propped against the well wall, and extending it, swept it before him over the stone flags in exploration where he stood. He found only space. He paused where he stood, for a moment, turning his head to listen around him, focused on where Celeste's voice had sounded from, and then headed forwards across the space of the courtyard, towards where her voice had come from.

Fascinated, Celeste watched the blind man, as he tapped his way across the courtyard towards her. He walked confidently, without falter, his stick finding and he easily skirting a tub of calendulas in his path. "What were you singing?" she asked as he drew nearer to her.

Timothy focused in on her voice and refined his path forwards in her direction. "Just a Portuguese song I learnt whilst in Lisbon," he replied across to her as he approached.

"It was nice," said Celeste, "though I do not understand the tongue. What did it mean?"

Timothy's stick hit hard vertical stone ahead; he halted and explored with the stick, running it along the ground and upwards. He found the shape of a stone bench, and wondered if it was the stone bench which Tuck had used to sit on and rest, whenever they had come to Henri's courtyard. He moved up to the obstacle before him, put out his hand and leant to feel over the curving edge of the stone bench, and smiled in recognition. It was like finding an old friend.

Sweeping his hand briefly over the surface of the bench before him and finding that portion of it clear, he sat there. He put his hand carefully out to his left side, to ascertain where Celeste was in relation to him, and his fingers just brushed lightly against the folds of a cloth gown. She was sitting next to him and quite close; yet there was a definite seemly gap between them. Timothy carefully retreated his searching hand now he had discovered that information and instead rested his left hand on his left knee.

Now he was seated, he replied Celeste. "The song is about a carefree person who loves to dance, who asks a like-minded partner to dance with him. With no attachments. 'Melt your flavour with mine, sail this song away, for my heart has no colour'."

Celeste's voice was interested. "You like music?"

Timothy turned his head in the direction of her voice and scanned over her curiously, listening to every little shift of movement she made. He made a conscious smile at her and put a friendly, teasing note into his voice. "Of course I like music! I'm blind - have you ever known a blind person NOT to like music?"

"I've never known a blind person before now," confessed Celeste, staring with mixed fascination and horror into those odd blind eyes that moved restlessly back and forth past her as though she was invisible.

"What about your father's brother?" asked Timothy, interested.

"He died before I was born."

"So your education sorely lacks in that aspect," observed Timothy, and turned his head back to interestedly listen to the sounds of the courtyard around him. A bee buzzed lazily past; it sounded laiden with pollen, blissfully drunk on summer and he smiled to himself.

Celeste watched him, puzzled. What was he smiling at? She looked in the direction of where his face was turned and could see nothing in that direction that a blind man would surely be aware of to smile at in pleasure.

"Your father has created a beautiful oasis amid the bustle of the Nottingham," Timothy said at last.

"Do you like my father's courtyard?" asked Celeste.

"Very much so." The scent of lavender and lemon thyme drifted over to Timothy, borne on the feeble wings of a hot evening breeze. He reached out to his right, felt to his side and down - and his right hand brushed against a mass of lavender flowerheads. He felt down and found the plant grew in the tub at the side of this curved stone bench. He leant and bending his head, appreciatively put his nose to the mass of flowerheads, touching his lips to them too, fingering over them, gently crushing the leaves to exude more of the scent.

Celeste watched Timothy curiously, fascinated by his action. No man she knew had ever done this. He seemed to have a close and personal interaction with many things in his surroundings, like no other person did, and she was mesmerised by that interaction, suddenly catching a glimpse of the beauty that clearly was afforded to someone blind.
"It's a beautiful evening," Celeste said, feeling sorry for him because she remembered he had said that he could not even see light, and wondering if he would like to hear about what he could not see. "The sky is streaked with pink and gold, the sun is sinking in the sky and drawing its night cover slowly over it."

Timothy sat up straight and listened to her description, unperturbed. "I don't understand colours as I have never seen them, but a hot summer's evening always sounds beautiful as it slowly falls to sleep." He turned his face up to the space of the sky above him. "But I can feel the night you speak of. It's like a soft blanket of stillness being settled over us from above."

Celeste regarded him warily, not quite understanding why he did not express regret over not being able to see the beauty she had described to him; indeed he spoke as though colours did not interest him. "Have you been in Nottingham long?"

"Only since yester-eve; I stayed at the Bell Inn," Timothy replied. "I landed at Southampton two months ago, and ever since then have walked north to Nottingham."

He did not mention his detour to Thornton Abbey.
They fell to silence. Celeste regarded Timothy up and down where he sat in calm profile to her. She stared at his hands relaxed upon that slender guiding stick of ebony with its silver knob, and she wondered how he had found his way back to Nottingham. How did he find his way, when he could not see the world around him? It was all part of the mystery about him. He had told them he had been born blind, and he had said that with such pride, she wondered at it. It was as though he knew a great many secrets about being blind that she did not - as though he almost considered someone sighted to be at a disadvantage, not himself, and she was further intrigued.

"How did you get here to Nottingham?" she asked at last out of the silence that existed between them. "I mean, how - how did you find your way over such a distance?"

Timothy smiled at the question. "I walked. I used my guiding-stick to find my way and I followed the roads and tracks."

Celeste stared down at the thin long length of ebony wood capped at the end in a metal sheath and tried to imagine this young man tapping his way along a road amid a throng of fellow travellers and a steady stream of carts and wagons and horses that could have so easily run him down. He was totally blind, unable to see light, he had told them - that meant he was in complete darkness, even if he could not recognise what surrounded him as darkness. How could he walk so confidently along in complete darkness?

"But didn't you get lost along the way to here?" she could not help asking.

"Oh yes, several times," Timothy answered calmly, turning his face towards her.

Celeste's curiosity knew no bounds. "So what did you do?"

"I do the same as sighted people do when they get lost - I asked for directions." He flung out a smile at her that she clearly recognised as teasing, even though some of his other expressions were hard to recognise.
She was quiet at that, and with some amusement, Timothy realised his answer, whilst perfectly logical, still foxed her. Then she moved slightly beside him; shifted her right arm which accidentally knocked against his left - and then he heard the rustle as a page was turned, the soft slap of a book falling shut.

Timothy was immediately alert. "You were reading?" He put out his hand in her direction on his left, found her right arm, ran his hand lightly down the line of it to her hand which rested in her lap, and at the end of that hand his fingers found a leather-bound book closed on her lap, held there by her two small slender hands.

"The book is Father's," Celeste said. "Only I am allowed to take a book from his library."

Timothy ran a fingertip down the spine of the closed book on her lap, finding the leather binding old and cracked - a book which was obviously well-read. "What book is it?"

Celeste opened the book up at where she had placed the bookmark. "The Golden Legend."

Timothy smiled. "One of the more interesting books that Tuck used to read to me when I was a child." He moved his hand to idly stray it lightly over the open pages, whilst she stared at the long slender fingers, fascinated by their ways of learning about the world around him. They were not pitiful, did not grope as she always thought blind men's hands to do, but instead were calm and self-assured and certain in their movements. They seemed to like shapes, textures and to follow lines, for they moved instead to the edge of the cover and traced that edge along. She watched his face which was uplifted from what his hand was feeling, and wondered how he conceptualised the world around him.

Timothy moved his fingers across the open book to feel the depth of the pages on either side of the centrefold, and found she held the book open at one-third into it. There was a bookmark nestled there - a narrow strip of leather embossed with a vertical line of Fleur de Lis and surrounded by lozenges. "What saint are you currently reading about?" Timothy asked, interested, tracing a fingertip over the embossed patterns of the marker.

"Silvester."

Timothy's childhood came back to him with a jolt; sudden memories of cool quiet musty passageways and chambers, the rustle of parchment pages turning, the scratching of quill nibs on parchment as the monks copied religious books. The row of books in the scriptorium which were hundreds of years old and highly prized. As a child, he had used to run his hands along that row of dusty old volumes, open one up and run both small hands over its parchment and vellum pages, curious and fascinated how something so smooth could yet provide such tales to sighted people who used their eyes and not their hands to scan those smooth pages.

He was suddenly once more a five year old sitting on a stool in a dusty scriptorium, Tuck's calm quiet presence sitting before him, listening to Tuck's voice solemnly read aloud to him...

_"Silvester is said of sile or sol, which is light, and of terra, the earth, as who saith the light of the earth, that is of the church...."_

"...Or Silvester is said of silvas and of trahens, that is to say he was drawing wild men and hard unto the faith," Timothy suddenly found himself in the present quoting from his memories of listening to Tuck read. "Or as is said in glossario, Silvester is to say green, that is to wit, green in contemplation of heavenly things, and toiler in labouring himself; he was umbrous or shadowous. That is to say he was cold and refrigate from all concupiscence of the flesh, full of boughs amongst the trees of heaven."

Celeste's voice was impressed. "Did someone once read the Golden Legend to you? You have a good memory for it."

Timothy laughed. "I heard the Golden Legend a good many times from Tuck when I was a boy."

"I like the way Silvester draws wild men and hard unto the faith," Celeste said.

"Like the outlaws in Sherwood?" Timothy asked amusedly.

"Well, maybe there's hope for them still, even though they be outlawed and follow the forest god of Herne," Celeste replied piously.

"Who says they have abandoned their faith?" Timothy pressed. "Mayhap Herne and God live side by side in their lives and co-exist in harmony."

"Weren't you brought up in an Abbey? - I'd have thought you to be more pious," Celeste said.

Timothy laughed. "Being brought up in an Abbey is no guarantee for piety, Mistress de Normanville."

He took his hand from feeling over the open book in her lap and lifted it to rub it over his face. Celeste watched him wonderingly. He rubbed his knuckles over his blind eyes as though they were tired also, and she wondered how blind eyes could be tired when they did no work of seeing. Perhaps the gesture was instinctive even in someone born blind.

"You must be weary after such a long journey," Celeste remarked at last.

"I am tired," Timothy answered truthfully, "but a night's sleep will remedy that."

Celeste was inquisitive once more. "How long have you been away from England, from Nottingham?"

Timothy sensed all too well her fascination with him. He was used to people being fascinated with him due to his blindness. He minded not the questions, though. It could be that he could subtly slip in some of his own and she would think nothing of answering them. "It's been eleven years since I was last in Nottingham. I was your age, then."

"Fifteen?" Celeste asked.

"Aye, fifteen," Timothy replied.

"Things must have changed here in Nottingham since you were last here at age fifteen," Celeste commented.

"Not as much as I'd thought. The Bell and the Angel still stand and still seem the same. Your father still holds his business, and this courtyard is still here, which I was glad to rediscover." Timothy smiled at her. "And I hear the Sheriff is still the same man."

"Aye, Robert de Rainault." Celeste's voice held no reverence about it at the name.

"I hear he's not in town at the moment, though," Timothy said casually.

"No, he went to London," Celeste replied. "Before Easter, it was."

"When does he return to Nottingham?" Timothy asked curiously.

Celeste placed her book aside on the seat. "I've no idea. Why are you so interested in the Lord High Sheriff?"

"Men of power interest me," was all Timothy said. "How they so freely come and go from their domains. How they can hold their positions of power for so long, as in the case of Robert de Rainault. He's been Sheriff here for a good twelve years and more here, hasn't he? It takes a tenacious character, methinks, to hold and to keep such a position. And I hear he has been challenged indeed these last few years by the man they call Robin i the Hood."

Celeste was interested in turn. "Have you heard the tales about Robin i the Hood?"

Timothy idly fingered the engraved knob of his guiding-stick, turning his head to listen about him and realising the sounds of the town beyond these courtyard walls was much diminished. "Yes, they reached me even in Lisbon. I used to talk with the English sailors at some of the drinking-places. Receive news from this land, hear the gossip, the tales....wonder what was real; what was true, what was false...."

Celeste regarded the young man sitting beside her with a mix of emotions. He was an oddity, a curio, and somehow that made him very attractive. "Tuck was your friend, wasn't he?"

"Still is," Timothy corrected gently.

"But you haven't seen him for eleven years?-" Celeste suddenly stopped short, unsure.

Timothy caught her apprehension, the break off of her words, and grinned. "I know it's odd to use the word see with me, but it matters not. Sometimes no other word does. Yes, I haven't "seen" Tuck for eleven years."

Celeste glanced swiftly across the quiet courtyard and then up at the upper windows of her home - what she could see of them, for she knew any view of her was well shielded here by the cloistered corner of the wall upon which swathes of ivy grew. There was no movement, no faces at any of the windows she could see. The coast seemed clear enough. But that was always part of the excitement; wondering if she would get caught.

She cast her glance back over Timothy, restlessly wondering when to make her move. His head was raised high and he seemed to be listening to what was around him; a series of vague fleeting expressions chasing across his face. "Father said at dining this eve that you used to visit the courtyard with Tuck when you were a little boy," Celeste ventured, wondering if his mind was far away and so hoping to regain his attention. "Father said that Tuck used to sit here and rest, drink from Father's well, when he came into Nottingham, and Father said you were often with him."

"That's right. I was left at Thornton Abbey's gates as an infant. A born-blind infant whose parents clearly did not want him." Timothy spoke factually, without bitterness. "The monks at Thornton could not find any new home for me in the villages, due to my being blind, so they took me in. I grew up at Thornton Abbey under the care of all there, but Tuck in the main had charge of me. I suppose he more or less brought me up. Taught me about the world, educated me. Cared for me. He was near enough like a father to me. At least, how I think a father should be." Timothy fell to pensive thought.

"And now Tuck's with Robin Hood in Sherwood," Celeste said. "I've often wondered why a man of God follows the outlaws."

"There was always something about Tuck that suggested a rebel at heart," Timothy said wryly.

"Does Tuck know you're back in Nottingham?" Celeste asked.

"No," Timothy said quietly. "No, he doesn't. I think he thinks me dead." He fell silent and for a while there was only the sound of a sleepy Nottingham outside the walls of the courtyard.

"It's late," Timothy said at last out of the silence that existed between them, "I should bid you good night, Mistress de Normanville."

"Oh, but it's not even dark yet," Celeste demurred, then looked at his face, at the eyes that strayed oblivious past everything, and she realised that her statement meant nothing at all to him.

"Nevertheless, I must be up before dawn to start the day's baking-" Timothy took up his stick, and made to rise from the seat; Celeste's hand suddenly rested on his arm to stay him. Timothy subsided uncertainly at her touch, trying to read both it and her sudden change in mood. Her piousness was like a veil slipping away from her; now he all too clearly detected the coquettishness. He felt he knew where this was leading.

Celeste's voice became coaxing. "Oh, don't go just yet. It isn't dark yet, you know, and I desire to talk with you further."

Timothy affected bewilderment as the safest course of action. "Upon what?"

There came the movement of Celeste gracefully sliding along the seat to sit close to him, and then her small hot hand slowly stroked down the length of his bare forearm, from elbow to wrist. That hand slyly wormed its way into his, clasping his fingers. Timothy recognised the touch with some unease; part of him knew what was proper to do in this circumstance, but another part of him enjoyed the attention. He drew in the scent of her now she was closer to him - the scent of hot skin and rose-oil.

"Upon what pleases you....and what would definitely please me..." Celeste whispered, and her whisper was accompanied by a flirtatious fingertip trailing across the inside of his wrist before it mischievously tickled across the palm of his hand in a zig-zag pattern. That touch from an attentive and sweet-smelling female was too delightful to ignore, and a shiver ran up Timothy's spine; he instinctively smiled and fluttered his free hand in pleasured response at the sensation before he knew it and before he could stop himself.

Celeste giggled, and Timothy felt her warm breath against his cheek. "Manon says you like to touch faces and feel smiles," Celeste said, and he felt her hand grasp his wrist, and pull his hand upwards and forwards towards her. Curious and fascinated, he allowed her to guide his hand. Suddenly his fingertips met the line of her jaw, and then she steered his fingers across the smooth curves of her chin, to a pair of full lips slightly parted which now turned upwards. Timothy was sure those lips smiled for his benefit, and they felt as luscious as two segments of fruit.

He moved his fingertips slowly across her lips in interested exploration and felt his own mouth smile in response to hers, whilst Celeste continued to giggle softly.

"Is my smile pleasing to you?" Celeste whispered, releasing his wrist. "That's only a small taste of what is to come in the way of pleasures, I can assure you."

If this had not been his employer's daughter sitting here, Timothy would have been more than happy to sit in this warm peaceful sweet-scented courtyard and play all sorts of enjoyable touching games with a willing female - but years of past experiences where he had mixed pleasure with business in his profession rose to the fore and warned him not to take the risk with this particular female It was vital he remained in Nottingham for the time being, and to be able to do that, he needed to make a living.

He calmly dropped his hand from feeling over Celeste's lips. "I must go," he repeated softly, and rose from the seat - only to hear the slither of a string of beads sliding from his belt and hitting the stone flags at his feet with a light collective clatter. He put his hand to his belt where he kept Brother Anselm's rosary tied, and found it gone.

Celeste jumped to her feet beside him and stated what he already knew. "You've dropped your pretty amber rosary."

Timothy bent and putting his hand to the ground, felt around his feet for the rosary, aiming for where he had heard it fall to the stone pavings. His fingers found the cracked stone slabs with weeds sprouting up between the cracks, but just as they found the string of small round beads, he felt them move; trail away from under his reaching fingers and he heard a slight laugh from Celeste who had bent also.

He straightened up as she did so, and he held out his hand expectantly in her direction. "You have my rosary?"

Celeste gathered the rosary in her hand and looked down at the cluster of honey-like amber beads briefly in admiration before she dropped it down the front of her gown into her small cleavage. She looked at Timothy triumphantly before she realised the triumphant look was completely wasted on him. She put the triumph into her voice instead. "I have it."

Timothy was suspicious at the note of victory in her voice but still kept his hand held out in her direction. "Will you give it back to me?" he asked calmly.

There came a giggle from Celeste as though the rosary she had snatched was some great prize. "Come and get it."

Timothy felt his brow twitch a series of slight frowns at her answer. "I don't know where it is." He reached out and found her shoulders, and he ran his hands down the line of her arms to her hands, which he quickly searched by touch - to find them both empty. Where was his rosary? He could not fathom the mystery. He felt over her empty hands again and frowned afresh in bewilderment, realising she was teasing him.

Celeste gave a little mischievous laugh. "We can play seek and find. I hide your rosary, you try and find it-"

"-Celeste-" Timothy remonstrated.

"I'll give you a clue. It's near. Very near."

"-Celeste-"

Timothy suddenly felt his wrist taken, his hand pulled forwards towards her, she giggled, and the next thing he knew his fingers had been slid under a cloth gown and thin soft chemise and her hand covering his closed it firmly over her breast.

"Does that feel nice?" she asked.

It felt very nice indeed, small and plump and pert and for a few seconds Timothy gave himself up to the unexpected pleasurable sensation, and somewhat mesmerised, allowed his fingers to lingeringly stray over the rounded curves of her breast in enjoyment.

"The rosary's tucked somewhere nearby if you want to feel around," Celeste invited coquettishly. "Want to try your luck with your other hand?"

For an instant, Timothy was highly tempted to - then common sense slammed into his head and he slid his hand out from under hers and away.

"Cease this!" He took a step back from her, uneasily flapping the hand which had been in contact with her breast as though it had been scalded.

Celeste's voice was aggrieved. "Why, what's the matter? Don't you think I'm nice to feel?"

"You're Henri's daughter...." Timothy swung his head in unease, very aware he could not tell if there could be witnesses to what had just happened. "Someone could see...."

"Not here - we're hidden from view from my father's house. Anyway, we could go somewhere private, you and I. Somewhere very dark, so I could be blind too," Celeste laughed softly. "That'd be fun. I'd like to try it as though I were blind. With my very own real blind man, and a handsome one at that too," her hands slid inside the opened front of his jerkin and his shirt and across his ribs, slithering over them like two snakes. "Wouldn't you like to show me how to do it blind, or don't you know what to do?"

Timothy had long come to the conclusion that this fifteen year old was no pious innocent, despite the act she put on to everyone in general. This fifteen year old was not only precocious, she was sexually active. It was clear she had lain with a man before, and probably more than one. He wondered how on earth she had had the opportunity, if her mother guarded her so much - but then girls of this age were very good at hiding their true selves from parents when there was a whole different side to them, and were equally as good at slipping away from a chaperone for a while.

His mind briefly flashed back to some of the girls at the village of Felden near Thornton Abbey, when he had been fifteen years old. Some of the girls there had been very inventive with their parents when they had wanted to slip away for a while and be with him. Joan had used to lay amongst the hay stubble with him after lovemaking and for his amusement, reel off all the excuses she had used with her parents for her absences. In turn, he had used to regale her with the excuses he used with the brothers up at the Abbey when he turned up late from such secret sessions of lovemaking. They had laughed together like naughty children over those excuses they had swapped and had thought themselves very clever.

Celeste's hands were still delightedly sliding across his ribs in caress; Timothy quickly trapped her hands beneath his to stay them. "You will cost me my job if we are found...." His blood was surging in his ears, his breathing quickened in desirous anticipation, his common-sense fought every urge in his body. His body wanted this and it was screaming at him to get on with it and to hell with everything else. It had been three long celibate months since Beatriz and three months was far too long.

"We won't be found if we're discreet; I can guide you to the back of the stables at the Angel and we can have each other there," she replied softly, slid her hands out from under his shirt, from under his hands - and then he felt her hands gently tug at his belt, starting to unbuckle it.

Timothy made an effort to clear his swirling head and quell his rapidly pounding heart, and taking her small wrists, he gripped them firmly and moved her hands away from his belt. She wrested her wrists out of his hands with an abrupt jerk, clearly angry at the rejection, and then stood still, not touching him.

Timothy stood still too and listened to her smouldering silence. "Will you not return my rosary to me?" Timothy repeated calmly.

Celeste's voice was thwarted and annoyed. "I told you, you'll have to come and find it."

"Then I give up ownership of it. Pray keep it, if you have such a mind - I would rather not be teased by you over it," Timothy answered stiffly, swung away from her and extending his guiding stick before him, tapped his way smartly away from her with as much dignity as he could muster.

She did not follow, but fell to giggles, and they rang in Timothy's ears as he headed across the courtyard. He felt he could not get away from her quick enough, and it was a relief to come up against the far wall of the courtyard where the door leading out into the bakery yard was set.

He felt along the courtyard wall for the door, his hand found it and he hastily slipped through it, swinging it closed behind him. Then he quickly crossed the stretch of cobblestones in the bakery yard and found the kitchen doorway and gratefully descended the steps to it.

The kitchens were silent and empty in the oppressive heat of the summer evening and the banked oven fires. No-one was here, and just as well, for who knew what feelings he gave away on his face, Timothy thought. He could feel it twitching furiously away with all sorts of movement and heaven knew what expressions he was making in response to his feelings - but sighted people would no doubt be able to read at least some of those expressions and guess at what had occurred. Sighted people were good at that, and in that respect they had the advantage over him.

He headed across the kitchens and found the door to the cellar, and thought that only there, where he had been told that it was dark and sighted people could not see, would he be safe from them viewing him until his face, his heart, his mind had all calmed.

He stumbled down the steps into the cellar, and swiftly tapped his way through it until he was brought up short against a brick wall. He strayed his hands in recognition over the side of the brick archway that led to the side room where his bed was, then he turned his face into the wall, rested his hot forehead against the cool brick and he subsided with a sigh in the clammy stillness. He was alone, and glad for it.

He flapped his right hand in restless frustration to himself where he stood face into the wall, finding his urges still fought with his common sense and not knowing what on earth to do about it. The feel of Celeste's breast was still deliciously imprinted on his fingertips, on the whole of his hand, and at the thought of his rosary nestling in the narrow passage between that breast and its surely equally beautiful partner made him break out into a longing sweat. He was going to have to stay away from Celeste de Normanville, that was for sure, because from now on she would no doubt do her best to tempt him, no matter at the potential cost of his employment here.

Timothy sighed, stopped flapping his hand and instead bumped his forehead gently against the brick of the archway in frustration. "Damn, I've lost my rosary," he said quietly to himself.