Post of the Month

~ January 2007 ~

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Timothy & the De Normanville children ~ Written by Rhys & Siiri.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group January 2006.

Where he sat on a stool at the long table in the kitchens, Timothy lifted the beaker of ale to his lips with his left hand and drank, whilst the fingers of his right hand explored with pleasure the cheese and new bread on the platter before him.

After the hard work of the morning with all the bustle of the bakery around him, this noon meal in relative peace was to be savoured.

He set the beaker aside on the table, and turning his head, listened around him.

The kitchens had quietened since the morning. A couple of the men had gone to chop and haul wood for the oven fires on the morrow, and from outside the kitchen in the bakery yard there came the noise of the grindstone as Hal sharpened some of the kitchen knives, Timothy having tested them and found them too blunt for his liking. The women - Enith and Margery - had gone home to their menfolk, and one of the scullions was in the corner of the kitchen scrubbing away at the innards of iron pots with a mixture of coarse sand and water.

Not a bad morning, in all, thought Timothy where he sat at the table, his fingertips paused on the pewter rim of his platter, listening to the squeal of the grindstone outside and the sloshing of the water from the sink.

He sighed and rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes - he was tired from having constantly been travelling these past three months, his surroundings continually changing around him as he had moved on. There had continually been new layouts of alehouses, villages and towns to find his way around, new voices to recognise and assign names and personalities to, amid a whole host of other sensory changes to acclimatise to, returning to England from Portugal after eleven years of being away.

He missed the sounds and scents of Lisbon, and England when he had first landed at Southampton, had seemed disorientating. But he was back in familiar territory now - Nottingham - and he would welcome being here for a while, and so he was content. He had a job, food on his plate - and he was content for the moment.

This morning, after his address to the kitchen workers, he had done a thorough inventory of the kitchen and all its utensils and equipment, exploring everything with curious fingers that had missed nothing, whilst, he had been aware, the kitchen workers had stared at him, curious themselves at his methods of learning his surroundings. They had soon seemed to realise that he knew his job and knew it well, and that they would not be able to dupe him because of his blindness. Just as well, thought Timothy dryly. He was well-versed in the ways of kitchen workers trying to dupe him because he was blind. He knew all the tricks.

Little had passed his cleanliness inspection - which was why the scullion was over in the corner of the bakery kitchen now, doggedly scrubbing and sloshing away at a whole range of pots and utensils.

Now, Timothy stretched out a hand and lightly trailed his fingertips over the wooden surface of the table before him and smiled to himself in satisfaction as his fingertips met no thin film of flour or dust, or sticky patches, but instead almost squeaked over the wood.

"I will check every surface you scrub, every day," he had told Enith and Margery. "With these," and with a teasing smile he had held up his hand and wriggled his fingers at them. "These are far far better than eyes that can see, believe me."

He had gained the clear impression that Enith and Margery didn't believe him for one moment that feeling with fingers was better than seeing with eyes, but that was their problem. They had not quibbled with him anyway, but had resumed their scrubbing, muttering low to one another. There had been a lot of whispering going on in the kitchen between the kitchen workers this morning which they hadn't seemed to think he could hear. Maybe they thought he was deaf, as well, Timothy thought wryly.

He turned his head towards the open door of the kitchen as he heard voices; children's voices talking to Hal outside in the bakery yard. He focused in on the conversation and listened interestedly, his brow twitching in fascination and curiosity at the sound of these new voices.

"Is the blind man in there, Hal?" asked a breathless young girl's voice.

"What are you doing here?" Hal growled in response; Timothy grinned to himself; he had quickly judged for himself that Hal's bark was worse than his bite, and clearly the children knew this also for they seemed unfazed by his growl.

"Come to see the blind man," a young boy's voice replied confidently. Timothy listened, interested.

"He'll not want to be bothered by the likes of you," Hal growled back, but with a certain grudging respect he would definitely not have given to any ordinary child who had found their way off the streets of Nottingham.

_These must be Henri's children,_ thought Timothy, and was intrigued.

Another young boy spoke, tones of disappointment ringing in his voice. "Oh, but we wanted to see him."

"Never seen a blind man before - not up close," added the first boy's voice.

Timothy spoke out loud to the direction of the open kitchen door. "It's all right, Hal, they can come in if they have such a mind to view me as an exhibit."

There came a pause, as though both Hal and the children out in the yard were surprised by the invitation. Then:- "Well, go on then, you heard him," Hal said gruffly to the children, and the squeal of the knife-grinder started up again.

Timothy lifted his head higher, levelling it at the door as the children quietly filed in and he followed the moving line with his face as they filed round the perimeter of the kitchen to where he sat. Intrigued, he swung round on his stool so his back was to the table and sitting there, his hands resting on his knees, he waited interestedly as the children came towards him and gathered curiously around him in a semi circle.

There was silence, a few restless movements from the children where they stood. Timothy scanned from side to side over this semi-circle around him, and identified five separate presences of different heights. The smallest one, a girl who seemed no more than the age of five, was directly before him, and her two brothers, the ones he had heard speak, flanked her. Two other girls flanked the boys, one on each side.

Timothy waited for someone to speak, but no-one did. There came this hushed, awed, fascinated silence. Timothy did not doubt that every eye was fully upon him. The attention they were giving him was like a firm weight pressing against him.

"So," Timothy said easily at last to the semi circle of children, "you've come to see the blind man, have you? Well, here I am. Do I disappoint or live up to your expectations?"

The boy to Timothy's left finally found his voice and it was full of bewilderment. "Disappoint?"

"Well, you might have been expecting someone with three heads - I only have one, as you can see," Timothy said.

"Why aren't you with some travelling freak-show?" the boy to Timothy's right boldly demanded, and Timothy twitched a frown at the more aggressive tone of questioning from this one.

"Alas, it's the lack of three heads," Timothy said ruefully, "I'll never be able to make a career of being a travelling freak-show exhibit because of it. That's why I'm a cook, instead."

"I seen a chicken with two heads," the little girl directly in front of him volunteered, speaking for the first time.

Timothy directed a smile at her. "Lucky chicken. It can eat twice as much in the same space of time."

The girl on his left giggled; he immediately jerked his head slightly round to focus on the giggle and smiled in recognition; it was the same giggle he had heard at the kitchen door earlier this morning when he had been addressing the kitchen workers. A little girl's giggle. So this was the one who had been watching him this morning from the door, Timothy thought.

"Were you born blind, or did you get sick or have an accident?" asked the girl who had giggled, and Timothy sensed she had been bold enough to finally ask the question the children had all been itching to ask, for now from them came a collective aura of immense trepidation as to how he would react to such a personal and intrusive question.

"Born blind and proud to be so," Timothy replied, giving the girl another smile.

They fidgeted uneasily before him, not seeming to know what to make of that reply, and he listened to their fidgeting with a further smile, greatly amused by their awkwardness.

"You've got funny eyes," the boy to his left said at last.

Timothy grinned, unoffended. He was well aware his eyes moved oddly and they fascinated sighted people. He presumed his eyes were fascinating the children right now. "The good Lord created my eyes to entertain sighted folk with, rather than to see."

"You've got a squint," said the bolder boy to his right.

A squint....Timothy had often been called Squint-Eyes or Cross-Eyes by other children when he had been a child. He knew that his left eye often turned inwards towards the direction of his nose, and that was viewed as a squint by sighted folk. When his right eye decided to turn inwards towards his nose at the same time, then that was viewed by sighted folk as being cross eyed. Not that he knew at any given times how his eyes were behaving, unless someone like now commented.

"Why don't they go straight, your eyes?" asked the bolder boy. "They keep moving around but they don't stop on anything, and they keep going squinty or crossed. Why don't they go straight?"

Timothy turned his head to face the boy's voice, scanning over him curiously, hazarding a guess he was the elder of Henri's two sons. "Because I can't see anything."

The children was fascinated by this individual - presumably their only experience of someone blind up to now had been hopeless beggars in gutters, Timothy thought wryly.

"Nothing at all?" asked the girl who had giggled.

"No."

"Not even the bright light from the sun?" asked the boy on the left.

"No."

"Is it all darkness?" curiously asked the girl who had giggled.

Timothy felt his brow twitch in perplexment; sighted people had asked him this question before and he never knew how to answer. "I don't know, I've never seen darkness either."

"That's silly," said the bolder boy with the tone of he knew what he was talking about. "If you can't see light, then you HAVE to see darkness."

"What is darkness like?" Timothy asked the children.

The smallest girl directly before him gave a one word answer. "Frightening."

"Do I look as if I'm frightened?" Timothy asked.

"Nooooo...." she said hesitantly, still in awe of him.

"Well, then, whatever darkness is like, it can't be bad." Timothy folded his arms and sitting there on the stool, interestedly turned his head from side to side across the semi-circle, curiously scanning the children for their reaction.

"Bad things live in the darkness, that's why it's frightening," the boy on Timothy's left volunteered. "Monsters."

"Not so. Bad things like monsters live in your mind, your imagination, and that's inside you. Darkness is a physical, external element," Timothy said.

He wondered what they would make of that. They fell to silence, absorbing what they had been told, and he listened amusedly to their silence, almost able to hear the cogs in their mind turning.

"It must be dreadful to be blind." The girl on Timothy's right spoke for the first time; a more mature voice than her siblings, yet still a impudent, mischievous voice of someone not yet an adult.

"Why so?" Timothy asked, turning his head to face the voice, fascinated by the opposing elements he heard in it.

Her reply was a soft outburst of mixed compassion and patronising, puzzled because he did not agree with her statement. "Because you can hardly know ANYTHING! I mean, if you have never seen ANYTHING, in your entire life, not even light....then surely you can't KNOW much, can you?"

Timothy laughed. "Well, if you were to ask me what a tree looks like, I wouldn't be able to tell you. But if you were to ask me what it sounds like, feels like, smells like - I would be able to tell you all too well."

"Smells like? I didn't know trees smell," piped up the bolder of the two boys.

"Well, next time there's rain, go and put your nose against a tree trunk," Timothy said. "You'll find it smells much differently from how it does in hot dry weather."

There was a bemused silence at this, as though they were all thinking he was mad, Timothy thought with hilarity.

He continued. "As to not knowing much....I know plenty and I don't need eyes. You must be Henri's children."

"How do you know that when you can't see us?" asked the boy on the left.

"By using my senses and some logic. I know that there are five of you here around me. Two boys, and three girls. I know Henri has five children - two boys and three girls - and I've heard that giggle before," he turned his head to his left to once more scan over the girl there. "You crept to the kitchen door earlier on, didn't you. This morning, when I was talking to the kitchen workers. I heard you giggle at the door." He smiled at the girl. "It was the giggle of someone who perhaps shouldn't be in her father's kitchen whilst it was so busy."

"You're clever," the smallest girl directly in front of him said admiringly.

"Clever for a blind man," the boy on his right corrected.

Timothy ignored the patronising tone. "So, now I have identified you as Henri's children, tell me your names. One by one. Starting from here - this pretty one with the long hair in two braids and the sweet round face and the pretty snub nose and the smiling mouth." He spoke as he reached out and gently and briefly swept his fingertips over the face and head of the little girl on his left, travelling his fingers down the long braids that flowed over her
shoulders.

"Manon," she said, seeming a little surprised to having her face suddenly explored in this manner, but not shrinking away from his touch as many sighted people did. Timothy moved his curious hand on to touch the face and head of the boy next to her, and found tight curls, a nose similar to his sister's, nervously blinking eyes at his face being explored in this manner, and a slightly parted mouth.

"Yves," the boy volunteered and Timothy moved his curious hand on to the next child.

"Aline." The smallest girl directly in front of him almost eagerly turned her face up to receive his curious fingertips, as if not wanting to be left out because she was the youngest, Timothy thought; she seemed no more than five years of age. He smiled, stroked the curve of her plump cheek and the fall of her straight hair, and moved his hand upwards to curiously touch the face of the bolder of the two boys. Scarce had his fingertips touched the angular jawline, when he found his hand roughly pushed away.

"I'm Guillot," the boy stated.

Timothy said nothing at the action - many people found his touching of their faces odd and did not like it or felt uneasy - and this was only a child. Instead without comment he moved his hand on to the last girl to the left of him, found her shoulder, and found she was taller than all of them. "Celeste," the voice introduced with a soft, almost cheeky laugh, her full lips moving as his fingers explored them, and as he moved his hand up to touch well-formed cheekbones and smooth high brow and a fall of loose soft hair held in place by a metal fillet, Timothy got the feeling he was being studied very interestedly by Celeste de Normanville - but in a slightly different way from the other children.

Celeste was the oldest of Henri's children, he remembered Henri saying. Fifteen - and at fifteen, no longer a child.

He was careful to touch her face in far more of a light and restrained way and did not stroke her cheek in friendly greeting as he had done with the two younger girls.

"What's YOUR name, blind man?" Guillot asked.

Timothy dropped his hand to rest it on his knee once more. "Timothy."

"Timothy of where?" Yves asked.

"Timothy of Nottingham now, I suppose," Timothy replied wryly.

"And before that, what were you?" Guillot pressed.

"Timothy of Lisbon," Timothy replied.

"Where's that?" asked Aline.

"Lisbon, Portugal." Celeste's voice was knowledgeable, cutting in before Timothy could explain. "South across the seas from here."

"Portugal!" Yves sounded full of awe, as though the land was as far away as the moon, Timothy thought. "The Crusaders conquered Lisbon, took it from the Moors."

"That was more than fifty years ago." Timothy was amused. "It's a peaceful place, now."

"In the year of Our Lord 1179, Pope Alexander recognised Alfonso the First as King and Portugal as an independent country with the right to conquer lands from the Moors," Guillot quoted solemnly. "With the papal blessing, Portugal was at last secured as a country and safe from any Castillian or Leonese attempts of annexation."

Timothy laughed. "You have obviously been learning your history very well from your tutor."

Guillot's voice was pleased at the praise. "Father employs one of the best tutors in Nottingham for Yves and I."

"Have you been to Castille and Leon?" Yves asked.

"Aye, over the years," Timothy said. "Both fine kingdoms. But I loved Portugal - and Lisbon - the most." His mind briefly flashed back to the warmth of Beatriz's skin against his and without success he tried to push away the memory of their parting the day he sailed, her face touched to his, her breath hot against his cheek as she asked softly: _"Voltaras p'ra mim?"_

It had been the question he had dreaded and yet the one he knew she had been gathering the courage to ask him; if he would return - to Lisbon, to her.

_"Voltarei p'ra ti,"_ he had replied. And yet he had not known despite the assurance that he would return, whether he would be able to keep that promise to her. He only knew he should say it, to keep both their hearts happy.

And had come her assured reply. _Esperarei por ti"_

It was a rare woman who told her lover that she would wait for him, Timothy thought. When he was disappearing across the seas and knew not where his quest may lead him...

He jerked out of his memories at a tug at his sleeve, wanting his attention.

"Are there monsters in Portugal?" Yves asked curiously.

"No. But-" and Timothy leaned forwards and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, "when I sailed from Lisbon to Southampton three months past, as we sailed the Bay of Biscay, the sailors told me tales of sea- monsters living in the depths that they had seen. Huge monsters with long curling arms, that came up from the sea and could wrap around the hull of a small boat and drag it down through the waves, drowning the poor souls on board. It is without a doubt that those creatures then eat those poor souls they have drowned."

An awed silence followed, and he grinned to hear it.

"I'm never going on a boat on the sea," Aline said fervently.

There came a faint call drifting from across the garden courtyard and the bakery yard, through the kitchens open door, and Timothy jerked his head round to listen, aware of the children moving to listen, also. "I think that's your mother or one of the female servants calling you," he told the children.

"It's mother. She'll be looking for us," said Manon. "We shouldn't be here..."

"Where should you be?" Timothy asked, amused.

Celeste's voice was guilty. "At the table to partake of the noon meal."

"So you'd best go and partake of it." Timothy swung back round on his stool to face the table once more, finding platter and beaker of ale with his fingers, aware he was being curiously watched. "I too must eat - and then I have work to attend to. I hope I managed to allay your fears about the possibility of my having three heads-" and he grinned as he took up his beaker of ale.

"Oh, you have that," Yves said seriously.

The group of children shifted to move, and then Manon said: "You'll not tell Father we were down here?"

"Not unless he asks," Timothy replied. "However, it may be politic to bribe Hal on your way out so he doesn't tell."

They sniggered and moved away, and interestedly he followed them with his ears as they headed towards the kitchen door and then out of it, talking amongst themselves. And then he was alone again - save for the scullion in the corner who still sullenly sloshed and scrubbed away at cook-pots in the sink.

Timothy finished the bread on his platter, falling to thought.

Finally, wiping his hands on the sacking that hung from his belt, he set empty beaker on empty platter, and rising, took up the platter and leaving his guiding stick where it was propped against the table, crossed the kitchens to the sink without it, counting the steps in his head. The dimensions of the kitchen would become familiar very quickly and now that the kitchen workers had been instructed to keep everything in the same place and not to leave anything on the floor, he felt confident at moving around without using his stick.

Reaching out and finding the shelf above the large square sink, he placed the platter upon it, then felt below it to examine the cleaned pots which had been set, dripping, on the slanted wooden board beside the sink to drain.

"This is better," Timothy approved to the scullion. He ran a finger across the inside of several pots and chafing dishes, pleased.

"Aye, sir," the scullion grunted in response.

"Much left to do?" Timothy asked the scullion, listening to the slosh of water just by him as more was poured from a bucket into the sink. Standing beside the scullion, he reached out both hands and his fingers found the edge of the large stone sink.

"Aye, sir; all the pots stacked on the floor by your feet. But out your way," the scullion added hurriedly, "set against the wall out your way like you wanted."

Timothy smiled at the realisation that the kitchen workers had taken onboard his instructions, and bent, and feeling around by his feet, he found an assortment of platters, chopping boards and bowls and pots stacked in several small piles against the wall just by the sink. He lingered his fingers thoughtfully over the stacked shapes for a moment, then straightened up once more.

"What's your name?" Timothy asked, reaching out and finding the boy's shoulder. He felt over it, curious, trying to gain some idea of the person. The boy was tall, thin and rangy - yet seemed no older than twelve or so - _younger than I when I started my apprenticeship with Gilbert..._ Timothy thought.

"Giles, sir," the scullion replied.

Timothy unlaced the sleeves of his jerkin and rolled them and his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, then lifted up a stack of platters and mixing bowls from the pile on the floor and placed them in the sink. He felt for the bucket sitting on the draining board and angling it to one side, tipped fresh water into the sink. "Well, Giles, I'll give you a hand to get this done."