Post of the Month

~ October 2006 ~

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Merries ~ Written by all writers. Posted on the HoS Yahoo group November 2005.

Standing over the small cook-fire, Tuck tipped the half-full bucket of water over it. The flames were extinguished, smoke curled up into the air.

Tuck looked around him. The clearing was full of quiet calm movement as the outlaws, their hurried meal of yesterdays pottage and bread finished, made ready to move on. John sat on the log, nursing his injured leg. Across the clearing, Alan was readying the soldiers horse which they had kept for John to ride. Nasir was pacing the clearing. Will still hung over the doused fire, standing whilst he finished the last of his bowl of pottage. Rhiannon had taken the cook-pot down to the stream to scrub it out, leaving Ellie with Robert. He too, stood by the fire with Will and Tuck, his infant daughter on his hip, turning his head to listen to the movement around him as the outlaws calmly and quietly made ready to leave

_Always on the move,_ thought Tuck. They never stayed at one camp for very long.

This sort of life was a total contradiction to his life before the outlaws. More than twenty years spent at Thornton in a serene, ordered routine - often going on errands, to Nottingham and Lincoln, to other abbeys or priories, or into the nearby villages....but always returning to Thornton and its peace, its unhurried existence.

And after Thornton....Nottingham Castle, as chaplain to the Sheriff. Life there, too, had had an order about it.

Tuck preffered not to think about the time inbetween Thornton and Nottingham. The most tumultuous time of his life - until his time with the outlaws.

Tuck was very quiet, Robert thought, listening curiously to the friar's pensive presence beside him, but did not intrude. There came a crackle and a hiss from the fire as water from a bucket hit it, and it was extinquished. The smell of smoke drifted up into the air.

Robert turned his head to listen around him. Will stood, still eating, by the fire, Nasir was moving quietly around the clearing. John was quiet and still on the log nearby. He had been slow to wake and so far had not said much since waking; Robert suspected that his friend was in more pain from his wound than he was letting on.

Across the clearing, came the restive sounds of the horse, and the clink and jingle of buckles and stirrups as Alan saddled it. Another one good with the horses, thought Robert. Like Much. He was aware his brow creased slightly in a frown at rememberance of their dawn conversation. Much had seemed....odd. Distant, aye - but he had had these occassional patches of being distant with Robert ever since the truth of the blood-tie with Gisbourne had been revealed. No, it had been child-like that he had seemed, thought Robert. Asking questions about what Robert thought about this and that - as if he had no opinion of his own. He had been like the Much of more than a year ago. Not the more mature and self-assured Much who had sprung up in the wake of Mordred's defeat and Loxley's death on Ranulf's Tor.

_He'll have to shake himself out of it,_ Robert thought now. _Maybe Loxley and the others made allowances for him to some extent, before my time. Indulged him and shielded him somewhat, like he was a child. But he's not a child. Here is the child-_ and he bent his head and softly kissed the top of Ellie's head who sat on his hip. _Much is no longer the youngest in this "family" and he must gain some independence in his thoughts and actions._

Ellie was happily burbling away to herself. Robert listened to the burble, amused and then lowered his head and touched his face gently to hers, playfully rubbing noses with her to make her giggle. She giggled and burbled some more and he felt little fingers first grab at his nose and then explore his face, curiously touching his eyes. Robert smiled and let her, liking the touch of her little fingers. She had recently started to touch his eyes a lot, as though realising they were different. Maybe she was beginning to work out that he could not see. Maybe she was copying the way he felt her face. Who knew what went on in the minds of infants.

He lifted his free hand and stroked the curve of her soft cheek.

Tuck smiled to himself as he watched Robert's interaction with Ellie.He glanced up at the sky. Almost cloudless. He sighed, and wiped his sweating face.

"Why the sigh, Tuck?" Robert asked, lifting his head from its close contact with Ellie.

"Just thinking," Tuck replied. "Another hot day. The sun is very bright."

"I can feel it." Robert turned his face directly into the path of the heat with pleasure.

Tuck watched him. He had never got entirely used to Timothy doing that, turning his face into the path of the sun with his eyes wide open and not flinching, no reaction to the brightness whatsoever, just a smile of pleasure at the feel of the warmth. Most blind people who had a scrap of light perception, would have flinched - Timothy had never, and nor did Robert now.

Tuck was transported back to that cold snowy January evening twenty five years ago when Timothy had been left at the gates of Thornton Abbey.

Tuck had been in the infirmary. He had come to the welcome warmth of the refectory, having heard about the little male foundling who had been left in a basket by the gates. The basket had been set on the refectory table, and several of the monks had been clustered around it, looking in, murmouring to each other, disconcerted and concerned.

_"There's something wrong with the child's eyes."_ Brother Eustace had turned to Tuck and said as Tuck had crossed the refectory to the table.

_"You think?"_ Tuck had said.

Brother Eustace had moved aside to make room for Tuck to stand by the table. _"See for yourself, Brother Tuck."_

Tuck had moved up close to the end of the refectory table where the wicker basket had been set, and he had leaned over and looked in at the foundling.

The child had been laying on his back in the basket, lapped up in blankets. Aninfant of five or six months, Tuck had guessed. His hands were fisted up by his head, and he was awake, laying quietly. A healthy looking infant and a handsomechild, who had already sprouted a cluster of loose dark curls in baby-fine hair. His large brown eyes, framed by dark lashes, had been open and looked bright andhealthy - but their movement had disconcerted Tuck. It had not been the normal tracking and focusing movement that eyes of even a child this young age should have. The eyes moved oddly, randomly, seemed to settle upon nothing, and the left eye had kept turning inwards.

_"He may just have a weak eye -a squint,"_ Brother Francis had suggested from where he had leant over the basket from the other side of the narrow refectory table to study the infant closely.

_"No,"_ Tuck had said with a pang, watching the child's odd eye-movement. _"I fear this little boy is blind."_

Father Lawrence had arrived, and had drawn quietly up to the table. _"So this is our little guest,"_ he had commented softly. _"How are you so certain that he is blind, Tuck?"_

Tuck had picked up the solitary candle that had been set on the table by the basket, and held it above the child. _"By the looks of him, Father, he is upwards of five months, and at that age his eyes should be focusing on us, on the candle, on all that is bright and colourful in the world."_ Tuck had passedthe candle to and fro in front of the child, who did not turn his head or move his eyes to track the glow. _"Instead...nothing...."_ Tuck had set the candle down on the table and gently stroked one of the infants curled fists, watching for reaction. The child had reacted to the touch, had stirred, had uncurled the fist that was being gently stroked and the small fingers had found Tuck's index finger and curled around it, but the child's eyes had not focused on Tuck.

_"He is blind, I am sure of it,"_ Tuck had said softly. "Mayhap how blind, I can discern on the morrow, when the day is light. It's my experience that most blind have some sight in varying degrees, if only to distinquish light from darkness."_

Father Lawrence had peered into the basket with compassion. _"God has sent this little innoccent soul to us to be looked to, and that we shall do,"_ he had said finally.

Looking back now, Tuck was surprised he had not been more surprised at Father Lawrence's uninclination to try and find out if the mother was still nearby, in case she needed help, food and shelter on that bitterly cold January evening, and to try and reunite her with her child.

_Father Lawrence must have known,_ Tuck thought now. _He must have been expecting Timothy to come to us...._

_"We will give him the name of the saint whose feast-day he was found upon,"_ Father Lawrence had said finally, _"and he shall be baptised. What is this?"_ He had spotted something on the infant's right wrist, and Tuck had seen it too then - a silver chain wound around the tiny wrist, dangling from which was a silver cross.

_"Left for him by the mother, mayhap,"_ Tuck had suggested.

Father Lawrence had crossed himself. _"Well at least the mother is - was - a Christian soul."_ He had glanced down at the infant who lay quietly awake on his back in the basket, his small hand still curled around Tuck's index finger. _"He seems to respond favourably to you, Tuck, so keep him by you this night. Too many people hovering around him would alarm him, I feel. In the morning when there's a better light, test his eyes to discern if he can see anything, and report back to me."_

The next day had dawned crisp and bright and sunny, and Tuck had carried a warmly muffled infant out into it. The child - newly named Timothy after the saint on whose feast day he had been found - had seemed bright and alert and relaxed, turning his head - but to listen to sounds around him rather than look at sights, Tuck had grown increasingly certain of, observing the infant's reactions as he had carried Timothy around the herb garden.

Finally, Timothy in his arms, Tuck had turned so that the child had suddenly faced directly into the low bright winter sunshine. Dazzling light had flooded straight into the child's eyes. Any other infant would had flinched, turned its head, squalled - but this infant had done none of those actions, had been completely unresponsive - as if the bright light shining full in his eyes did not exist.

And it did not, Tuck had realised with sinking heart. Light did not exist to this child.

Although he knew the truth in his heart, Tuck had tried other things. Flashing bright reflected sunlight from a small mirror into Timothy's eyes in turn, seeking to learn whether perhaps one eye had a vestige of light-awareness, but both eyes had seemed the same in their unresponsiveness. He had found cloths of bright colours - scarlet and yellow and moved them before the child, but there had been similarly no response. Finally, he had found a small bell which had made a pleasant, tinkling sound, and had gently sounded the bell from different directions around Timothy. The response had been immediate; the child had turned his head in interest to listen and for the first time had stretched out a small chubby hand in the direction of the sound, as though trying to find the bell. But his eyes had continued their odd movement and had not focused on the bell.

A sleepy infant sat on his hip, Tuck had gone to the scriptorum where Father Lawrence was, and had delivered his findings.

_"I am afraid the little boy is totally blind, Father, he cannot see even the brightest of light."_

Father Lawrence had nodded sadly.

"Mayhap it is why his mother left him at Thornton's gates,"_ Tuck had ventured. _"She realised he was blind. Up til now he seems to have been well-fed and well-cared for. And he was left warmly clothed and lapped up in blankets. Although she did not want him - or perhaps felt she could not keep him - it is clear she did not want him to die."_

Father Lawrence had made no comment to Tuck's speculation. Instead, he had quietly come across to where Tuck stood and had laid a gentle hand of blessing upon the head of the infant.

_"God in His infinite wisdom, has sent this child to us, and we will do our best for him,"_ was all Father Lawrence had softly said.

Tuck came out of his thoughts at further happy burbling from Ellie, and smiled to see Robert once more lovingly touch his face against his daughter's face.

Was Timothy like that now, a father to children? Tuck wondered. He had been a handsome lad, well capable of attracting the women, and liking to do so. Yet his had been a restless soul, curious about the world - Tuck doubted that Timothy would ever have settled in one place for very long.

That was, thought Tuck now, if Timothy had survived. He had been a capable individual, but when all was said and done, he had been a blind fifteen year old who had ventured out into a harsh world.

Will, from where he stood opposite across the extinquished fire, was staring at Tuck. "What's up with you?" Will demanded.

"Nothing," Tuck replied, pushing his thoughts and memories back to the deeprecesses of his heart. "Finish your meal, Scarlet."

Will grunted in response, and lowered his head to shovel in the last of the pottage, but shot Tuck a curious look as he did so. Tuck shot a look at Robert who still stood beside them at the fire. Robert was still stroking a restive Ellie's cheek, but his head was now uplifted, and it was clear that he was listening curiously to the presences of Will and Tuck beside him at the fireside and trying to work out what had been going on with Tuck, for his brow kept twitching with little frowns - frowns which spoke of puzzlement, Tuck knew that well enough, after a year of learning to read Robert's blind facial expressions.

Tuck felt almost guilty. Here was a whole part of his life - his past - which he had always kept to himself, kept from his friends in the outlaw band. If they but knew of some of that past....he shuddered, as the memories of those two years spent outside of the Church came back to haunt him - and he swiftly pushed them away again, adept at doing so.

But Robert seemed to sense something was troubling him, Tuck thought, glancing at the young man. He never underestimated the young man. Loxley had seemed to have had some sort of other-worldly sixth sense which Robert did not possess - but Robert had all the gifts that being blind since birth brought - and an incrediable awareness of atmosphere, a sensitivity to the moods of the people around him, was one of them.

Rhiannon came back through the bushes and into the clearing, and coming over to the fire, set the scrubbed cook-pot at Tuck's feet. "Thank you, lass." He hastily bent and picked it up, glad of having something to do, and turned his back to Will's suspicious gaze.

Where he sat on the log by the extinquished camp-fire, John lowered his head and gritted his teeth, fighting the pain.

His leg was throbbing. The area surrounding the wound seemed to be on fire. Tuck hadn't looked at it this morning - John had done his best to shrug off the pain and convince Tuck the wound did not feel too bad. So Tuck had not looked at the wound. "Best not to unwrap it in case it sets the bleeding off again," he had said.

John suspected the wound was infected, but there was no time to stop now and fuss over it. They were making to leave camp and it was imperative that his wounded state did not delay them. They had over-stayed their welcome at this camp-site - what with the skirmishes with the soldiers yesterday, who knew how many could come into Sherwood this day in search of the men who had not returned to Nottingham yester-eve, thought John.

He swore silently to himself. It was never a good time to get injured, for theywere constantly moving camp - but this time of all times, with soldiers skirmishing with them yesterday and the added potential threat of these Lincoln outlaws. John stared down at the ground, morose. He felt like a burden to the others. No-one said anything, but he felt it.

Alan checked the girth on the horses' saddle, then slapped its neck and led it across the clearing to where John sat on the log. "You all right?" Alan asked.

"Aye," John lied through his teeth. He stood up, planting his weight firmly on his injured leg no matter the pain, to give the impression that he was coping well, and took the reins. "Give us a leg-up, lad."

Alan obliged, and John settled himself in the saddle. The way of sitting astride now put painful pressure on his wound in a different way, but he said nothing. He did not like to admit it to himself, but he was tired, and at least if he was on horseback he would not hold up the rest of the group.

Tuck came across with an armful of rolled-up blankets and strapped them securely behind John's saddle. "You'll be hanging the cook-pot from me next," John commented wryly, in an effort to bring humour to the situation.

Tuck smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He gave John a slap on the shoulder and turned away, to instead wrap the blackened and dented cookpot up in sacking and stow it away in the hollow of the old fallen tree trunk which lay in the clearing.

Will had come to the head of the horse, stroking its nose. John leant in the saddle and whispered quietly in Scarlet's ear: "What's up with Tuck?"

"Dunno," Will grunted quietly, "an' whatever it is, I don't think he's goin' to say...."

By the extinquished fireside, Robert heard the whispers of John and Will. Absently stroking the cheek of a now sleepy Ellie he still held on one hip, he frowned to himself, and lifted his head higher to listen to the whispers. His ears tracked the movements of Tuck by the fire and he deliberated upon what he had heard Will and John say. What was going on with Tuck? Robert sensed something was, but he could not work it out.

Rhiannon where she lingered by the extinquished fire, had been watching her husband. Robert's head was turned in Tuck's direction, listening; Rhiannon looked at the friar. He bustled around enough, stowing away the cook-pot for the next time they visited this camp-site - but there was something in his face, his eyes, that she could not read. She remembered Robert's words:

_"I always have sensed that Tuck's past is...clouded somehow, for he never speaks of it. I don't wish to waken any demons that might be resting there."

It was not done to pry into the pasts of the outlaws. She had soon realised that upon becoming Robert's wife. No-one pried into Will's past with Elena, or Alan's with Mildred or what his fortunes had been before he had met Mildred. No-one asked Nasir questions about his past and his homeland - or asked John about his former life as a shepherd. That was the way it was. Each individual's past was not important - unless it rose up to affect the workings of the band in some way....

Rhiannon cast a glance at Will, he looked back at her and just shrugged.

She turned her attention to Robert, and laid a hand on his bare forearm that was protectively encircling Ellie, holding the infant on his hip. She stroked her hand gently up and down his forearm, seeking to get his attention; it worked, he gave a sudden delighted smile at the feel of her touch and turned his head away from Tuck's direction towards her.

"I'll take Ellie now," Rhiannon said.

"She's almost asleep." Robert traced gentle fingertips over the child's face, finding the little eyelids were almost closed and her thumb was in her mouth.

"Aye, good - she'll travel more easily, being asleep." Rhiannon lifted the sleepy infant into her arms and settled her in the sling against her chest.

Robert turned his head to find and track the quiet movements of the Saracen who was pacing the clearing. "Naz?" He extended his hand in the direction of Nasir.

The question and the gesture was a summons - as he had worked through the blind childhood he should have and learnt all he should have as a blind child, he had learnt that if he held out his hand to someone, it indicated to them that he wanted them to come over to him.

Nasir came over, and laid his hand over the back of Robert's extended one, looking at him seriously.

Robert gave a brief smile and felt over the back of Nasir's hand with his other hand, reconnecting with this quietest of individuals. "I know we sent Much on ahead - but I'd like you to go on ahead also. Sweep the area as you go, and come back to us if there's any trouble. If there be no trouble, we will meet with you by noon at the lakeside camp."

"I will do so," Nasir replied quietly, pressed Robert's hand in farewell, then turned and melted through the bushes that surrounded the clearing, scarcely making a sound.

Turning his head to listen to him leave, Robert knew that Nasir would soon be far ahead of them, sweeping the area around the route that they would take, alert to any potential danger. A good advance guard indeed. The sun was hot against his face now, which meant the day was light. Gisbourne would no doubt be wondering where his soldiers had got to, and now the light of day had come, would feel brave enough to send more men into the forest to find out. Robert wondered if the soldier he had wounded and who had fled, had managed to get back to Nottingham Castle. If he had, all the more reason to leave this camp, near to Sedgeley, and to go deeper into the forest, to a more secluded place.

He turned his head back to face the quiet space of the clearing, standing still whilst he ran his stick idly from side to side ahead of him, feeling over the lay of the land, liking to feel the soft tangled grass through the stick and every little vibration from the stick sweeping the ground that transmitted itself to the palm of his hand. Birdsong rang out, the horse nearby snorted, as though impatient to be off, its bit clinked and jingled. Above him, the tree tops gently rustled with the same soft breeze that suddenly whispered into Robert's face. Robert turned his face up to the sound of the tree-tops, feeling their movement. They almost seemed to be stirring, to tell the outlaws to go; their movement encouraging the still assembled outlaws to move.

"Let's leave," Robert said finally to the company assembled around him.

John, aboard the horse, took the reins and urged it forwards, Rhiannon waited until the horse had passed, then fell into step behind it, and Tuck hurried to catch up with her and fell into step beside her, smiling at the placid face of Ellie who was now fast asleep. Robert stood to the side and listened to them pass, half his mind and hearing still locked on the rustle and movement of the treetops above him.

Alan was only a few yards from Robert. As the horse moved slowly past them, he moved to Robert's side, and touched his arm.

"Do you want guidance, Robert?" he asked quietly. Robert had been feeling over the ground with his stick as though preparing to head forwards, but as yet had not taken a step. Alan wasn't sure if Robert was hesitating for some reason, or simply merely lost in thought. He sometimes paused for a reason, or sometimes just ran his stick idly from side to side ahead of him whilst he stood still and thought to himself - as though doing that was something of a comforting gestureto himself, feeling over the solidity of the ground before him, connecting with the earth there, exploring every bump and curve within the arc of his stick's sweep - reassuring himself perhaps that there was a path forever ongoing to be found.

Robert jerked out of his thoughts at the touch to his arm and Alan's soft intrusion. He could have fallen in behind the horse and Rhiannon and Tuck, and followed them competently, using his ears and stick...but - and he did not know why - suddenly he found he wanted human contact. All of his friends were used to guiding him when the occasion called for it....but Alan was particularly good at it, and was an undemanding presence by his side as they walked together.

He was tired, Robert realised, he wanted to relax his senses a fraction, as they had been on intense alert since taking over the night watch from John halfway through the night. If Alan guided him, he could both remain on alert and think over all that had happened - and plan for the coming days, ensconced at the lakeside camp. They would have to develop strategies for all sorts of possible situations.

He smiled, and reaching out, felt for Alan's shoulder, and ran his hand down to lightly take hold of Alan's arm just above the elbow. "Aye, lead on," he said simply.

Alan smiled too and stepped forwards; Robert fell into pace beside him and they crossed the clearing, following the others out of what had been their camp.