Post of the Month May 2007

The call of the bellman from the Nottingham street outside, drifted in to where Timothy was in the bakery kitchen. Where he stood at the long table, he paused in his work and turned his head to listen to the hour being called.

Three of the clock.

The bakery kitchens were quiet, apart from Giles and the other scullions coming in occasionally to bring more wood for the ovens and to place away the now cleaned vessels and sharpened knives. The squeal of the grinder from outside in the yard had long since departed, and Hal had been sent on an errand across town by Henri who was busy preparing for his journey to his cousin's business in Lincoln the next day. He had looked in on the kitchen several times throughout the day and had seemed pleased with what he had found; a clean and organised kitchen, though on his last visit, he had been surprised to find Timothy standing at the sink with Giles helping him scrub the last of the pots. "You should leave such things to the lads," had been his comment.

But in Timothy's view, it was always best to show even the lowliest of kitchen staff that the cook was not above to pitching in to help when needed. It won respect, and friends amongst the staff. And it was always best to have the friendship of the kitchen workers, as well as their respect. Timothy was no fool.

"Don't forget those wafers," had been Henri's last instruction to Timothy as he had left the kitchen.

Timothy hadn't. He was working on them now, and had almost finished. To his left spread across the long table, were a series of trays, containing the wafers of various flavours he had already made up.

He had mixed together eggs, sugar, flour and hartshorn and various spices to make the dough, rolled it out, pressed each wafer individually with a mould, then had cut it out and trimmed it, placing it on a tray. This batch of dough he had just mixed together was his last batch.

Timothy sighed in contentment to himself as his fingers gently worked the last piece of dough to roll it out. There was warmth on his face, and he presumed it was the sun coming through one of the windows he knew were set high in the wall opposite. He turned his face up to the warmth and smiled, whilst his fingers worked the dough and the scent of cinnamon rose up from the table to him. He was happy. Familiar scents, sounds, sensations surrounded him, the kitchen was peaceful and deserted for the moment and at last he was back working at the trade he had chosen for himself eleven year ago; the trade he loved.

The fact of being refused admittance to Nottingham Castle still rankled vaguely as a less than satisfactory start to the day - but what mattereth it if de Rainault was not in residence at the moment? - he asked himself. He would just bide his time and wait....wait until de Rainault returned. There would be other ways of gaining admittance to Nottingham Castle, and perhaps this job at the bakery would help him towards that aim.

Whilst he was here...well, he would listen to all the gossip and news surrounding him and take from it all the information he needed. And for the time being, he was content to wait.

He came out of his thoughts as the ajar kitchen door before him to his left gave a slight creak, as though it had been pushed open - he turned his head towards the door, immediately alert, aware of the presence. The presence hesitated, quiet as a mouse, then very soft footsteps tiptoed from the doorway across the stone flags of the kitchen, from right to left across his perception.

Timothy turned his head in the direction of the slight sound, following it with his ears. "Hello, Manon," he said easily across the kitchen to the movement as it crept across the kitchen.

The movement stopped dead, and the girl's voice was surprised. "How did you know it was me?"

"The way you moved." Timothy turned his head further to listen interestedly, and then as there was no further movement, turned his face back to the warmth of the sun whilst he rolled out the wafer mixture on the floured board.

"You seem to have a fascination for the bakery kitchen," he observed to where Manon stood as he rolled out the mixture. "Or is it a fascination for me?"

Manon crept a little nearer across the kitchen. "Well, you're a stranger."

"A strange stranger?" Timothy hazarded amusedly.

"Well - yes," she admitted.

Timothy laughed. "You'll get used to me. Give me a day or so - I won't seem so strange."

Manon drew nearer. "Can I stay and watch what you do?"

"If you want," Timothy said agreeably. "Where are your brothers and sisters?"

There came the sound of Manon drawing the bench slightly out from the table, and then her presence bobbed up directly beside Timothy on his left as she knelt on the bench. "Celeste sits and sews with Mother. Aline plays with her kitten. Yves and Guillot are with their tutor. And I'm bored."

"Boredom's a dreadful thing," Timothy sympathised. He reached out to his left to where his wafer moulds lay on the table, and ran his fingers over the small collection of moulds, deciding which one to use. His fingers lingered over them all before deciding upon the mould with the Fleur de Lis carved into it, and he took it up.

He had brought these small round hand-carved wafer moulds of wood with him from Portugal. They had been made by a craftsman in Lisbon, and as soon as he had felt the carvings he had known they were of quality. Impressed into wafers, they made pictures that the sighted liked to see, and over the past three years in Lisbon at Princess Mafalda's palace, his decorated wafers had always been requested for feasts. He hoped there would be a demand for them in Nottingham, and he suspected there would, as long as Henri did not overprice them.

Manon watched Timothy select a mould, and then darted a glance to where his backpack sat on the long bench beside where she knelt; seeing it was open, its flap flung back. Manon craned her neck to look, seeing inside the folds of a bundled-up cloak. What did he carry with him, this strange blind man who had come from another land? She, keeping a glance darting at him as he worked, very carefully moved her hand towards the pack, intending to rummage inside past the cloak. She moved the flap - and the buckle gave a slight jingle.

Timothy immediately jerked his head toward the sound and twitched a frown. "Don't touch others belongings without asking first."

Manon whipped her hand back as though it had been burnt, suitably chastened.

"Just because I can't see you doesn't mean I don't know what you're doing," Timothy observed, and calmly went back to cutting round the mould he had pressed gently into the wafer mixture.

Manon flushed. "I was just interested, that's all. You've come a long way across the seas, but you haven't carried much with you."

"I don't need a lot," Timothy answered, frowning in concentration to himself as he cut around the wafer mould. "I was raised in an Abbey where possessions were not encouraged. I have never needed possessions like a lot of men do."

Manon studied him in silence, and wondered further to herself. His dark blue jerkin was plain but of good cloth and cut, unlaced at the neck due to the heat, and his jerkin and shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His belt was plain but of similar good quality, and hanging from it was a leather purse and a fine quality knife with an ornamented hilt. He was clean, his clothes were a little dusty from travel, but they certainly spoke of him being more than a peasant.

She watched his hands as they cut round the mould. He wielded a sharp knife expertly, and she wondered how he didn't cut himself when he couldn't see what he was doing. Maybe it was practice. She watched him as he lifted the mould from the wafer, and his delicate fingers felt over the impression as though to check it had taken deeply and clearly enough, before, apparently satisfied, he trimmed the wafer and sliding the knife blade under it, neatly transferred it to the empty tray nearby.

"They're pretty," said Manon admiringly, turning her gaze to the collection of wafer moulds.

Timothy was bewildered. "What are?"

"Those." Manon nodded at the wafer moulds, then glancing up at Timothy and still seeing his bewildered expression, she suddenly realised he could not see what she was looking at and had no idea what she was commenting on. For the first time, his blindness made her think. She took his wrist and put his fingertips to the nearest mould on the table. "These are pretty," said Manon. "I'm looking at them."

Timothy grinned as he felt his fingertips touched to the familiar shape of the mould, and he ran his fingers appreciatively over it. "Aye, a rose." He took her wrist and directed her fingers to each of the wafer moulds in turn to show her - as if she were blind herself, Manon thought startled, as he guided her fingertips lightly over the carvings. "And this one an Amo Te Heart, and this one a Fleur de Lis, and this one a sun, and this one a cross, and this one an acorn, and this one a leaping stag. Fitting, don't you think, for we being so
near Sherwood?

"Aye, very fitting." Manon allowed her fingertips to be guided by Timothy over each carving, watching him curiously. She wondered if he realised she could see them laying there, and that she didn't need to feel them to take especial note of them. If he had always been blind, mayhap he didn't understand what sighted folk could see.

Or maybe he was just trying to show her what was beautiful to him...

"You're making wafers?" she asked as Timothy guided her fingertips lingeringly over the acorn mould.

"Aye. Your father wanted a batch of wafers made so he could try them before he will sell them. So I am making a batch of several flavours, the trays of which you see before you." Timothy directed Manon's hand to the edge of the first tray to touch her fingers to the rim of it. "This one is honey, lemon, ginger and cloves." He moved her hand to touch the next tray; Manon let him, still bemused by his strange way of showing her by touch what she could already see. "This one is almond. This one is anise and cherry." He touched her fingers to the edge of the board he worked on. "And here's the last batch I work on. Cinnamon, butter and nutmeg." He released her hand and went back to his work.

Manon eyed the row of trays on the table, and also spied the gingerbread resting in its tray on a cool shelf. Clearly this young stranger was out to impress her father with his skill and diversity. "They smell wonderous. Father's previous cook never concocted these. Can I have one?"

"They are uncooked, and in addition need to dry before I place them in the oven to bake - but you can taste a little of the uncooked mixture, here-" cutting round one mould, Timothy broke off a piece of the dough-like mixture and held it out to her.

Manon took it and popped it into her mouth. Cinnamon, butter and nutmeg. Even with the dough uncooked, the flavours melted on her tongue. She made an appreciative sound.

Timothy listened with amusement. "They'll taste even better once baked. At least, I'm hoping your father will think so and agree to me making batches to be sold, for I'm sure they will sell well and bring in more money."

"How did you learn to cook?" Manon asked.

"When I lived at the abbey with the monks as a boy, I was often in the refectory helping out, and I learnt how to cook plain fare," Timothy replied. "Bread and pottage and fish and the like. I realised at fifteen years old that that was the trade I wanted. So I sought an apprenticeship and I was in apprenticeship for seven years to a good man. Under him, I learnt all areas of being a cook. Not just making bread and wafers."

"HOW do you cook? Without sight, I mean?" Manon leaned her chin on her hand and watched fascinated as he carefully impressed the round wafer mould into the dough again and cut round it with the sharp knife.

"Cooking is about feeling, smelling, tasting," Timothy said. "Far more than it is about seeing. As for arranging a dish, savoury or sweet, so it looks nice to sighted folk, I have learnt through much practice to do that. I understand that to sighted people, food must look good, not just smell good, for them to want to taste it. That's always seemed strange to me, for smell should outride sight when it comes to food that has not yet been tasted, but clearly not." He smiled as he cut round the wafer mould. "Well, I didn't quibble about that to the man I was apprenticed to, I just learnt how to make the food attractive for sighted people to look at before they eat it. If you're an apprentice, you don't argue with your master. You just learn everything you can and work as hard as you can, because your future depends upon it."

Manon considered all she had been told, and studied him curiously, by now feeling more confident to study him closely as she felt he was not aware of her intense scrutiny. He was, she thought, handsome. His form was straight and slim. His dark hair was slightly wavy and cut close to the nape of his neck, a neck that was long and slender; and when he smiled he showed straight teeth and a full set of them, as well. He had an oval face, a straight nose, well-shaped brows and a high forehead that denoted intelligence. His skin was tanned and clear of blemish, he was clean-shaven. His hands were graceful and artistic, with long elegant fingers.

She stared fascinated at his eyes. They were dark, large and lustrous, framed by dark lashes and were strangely beautiful. She had thought that blind people had deformed or clouded eyes, but his eyes were neither deformed or clouded. They moved oddly, never fixing on anything around him but constantly sweeping around in short quick disjointed movements, his left eye kept turning inwards giving him the appearance of a squint, and every so often he went cross-eyed. It was odd and yet it was amusing, and Manon felt half-mesmerised and half wanting to laugh. The only thing that stopped her laughing was that she knew he was not going cross-eyed on purpose. He was blind and therefore could not control what his eyes did, nor did he know what they were doing.

"Are you English?" Manon asked at last.

Timothy was surprised. "Why ask?"

"Because you don't look English. Your hair and eyes are dark and your skin is tanned. You look like you come from - oh, Navarre, or the kingdoms south of there."

Timothy considered the statement as he gently trimmed the wafer he had cut round. "Well, I'm not sure. I don't know if I was born in England, if that's what you mean. I don't know who my mother was. She may have been from Navarre or she may have been from the moon for all I know."

"Why don't you know who she was?" Manon was curious.

"I'm a foundling, I was left at the gates of Thornton Abbey when I was a baby," Timothy replied. "The monks of Thornton raised me. It was a strange home, perhaps, in your view, who have mother and father and siblings, but it was a good home and I was happy there as a boy."

"Were you left there because you were blind?" Manon was curious.

Timothy slid his knife under the trimmed wafer and placed it on the tray beside the first one he had done. "I'm not sure. Perhaps."

"Didn't your parents want you because you were blind?"

Timothy's answer was brief. "Maybe." Seeking to distract her from the topic, he laid aside the Fleur de lis mould and felt over the other ones on the table to his right. "What mould shall I use now? You choose."

Manon surveyed the moulds. "The sun," she decided at last.

Timothy smiled in response, and feeling over the moulds to his left, selected the one with the sunburst carved into it.

Manon fell silent, cupping her chin with her hand, and watched him as he carefully pressed the carved wafer mould into the wafer mixture. All the time, his face was uplifted from what his hands were doing, which she found strange to view indeed. It was as though he was constantly looking across the kitchen whilst working. But he wasn't looking. The afternoon sunlight from the small high window in the wall opposite fell across his head and shoulders, hitting him directly in the face, but he didn't blink or screw up his eyes at the brightness. Those eyes roved aimlessly around - but they didn't react to the light or anything around him. It was though they had a life of their own.

His handsome face was for the most part placid and calm. Every so often he twitched a slight smile or a slight frown, as though he was making facial expressions to an invisible person across the room. It was strange to view. Then she watched what his hands did, and understood that he was making his facial expressions sometimes in reaction to the task - the frowns were ones of concentration as his delicate fingers explored each impression in the wafer mixture seeking for flaws and then carefully trimmed the wafer. Maybe his facial expressions were also in reaction to what he was thinking about. Manon wondered what he was thinking about. What did blind men think about? The same things as sighted men? Was he listening to her and wondering about her, as much as she was watching him and wondering about him?

"You're very quiet," Timothy observed at last out of the peaceful silence between them.

"I'm watching you," said Manon. "How you work. You don't turn your face down to what you're doing with your hands which is very strange to behold."

Timothy grinned. "So I've been told. I presume you're staring at me."

Manon was surprised. "How did you know?"

"Ah," said Timothy, rolling out the wafer dough afresh, "lifelong experience of how sighted people behave. When I first meet someone and they go quiet, it's a fairly sure certainty that they are staring at me."

"It's rude to stare," Manon confessed.

"So I've been told. But I'm fortunate, I don't have the ability to be rude in that method. And I don't mind if you stare. I'm used to it."

Manon watched him roll out the wafer dough. "Don't you get sad, being blind?"

Timothy was genuinely bewildered. "Why should I be sad being blind?"

"Because you're not like everyone else."

"That's always sounded a very dubious honour," Timothy said wryly, "being like everyone else. I like being different."

"Don't you get sad though when you can't do some things?"

Timothy reached for the wafer mould again. "Like what?"

Manon struggled to find something. "Well, just some things sighted people can do and things that would be impossible for you to do, because you're blind."

Timothy considered the statement. "It never occurs to me to be sad; I do all that I want to do. Sometimes I try something new, and sometimes I will fail at it and sometimes that is because I'm blind - but that's just something to accept, and nothing to be angry or sad over. Sighted people try and fail at things too - I am no different."

"Don't you get sad because you can't see NICE things, though?" Manon persisted.

Timothy picked up his sharp knife once more and cut round the wafer mould he had pressed into the dough. "Curious, sometimes. Not sad. I listen to description, to people's emotional reactions to anything nice they see, and I imagine. And my imaginings are good enough for me."

He slid his knife under the trimmed wafer and transferred it to the nearby tray, feeling over it and realising it was nearly full. "Anyway, why should I be sad? The world is full of wonderful things to feel. Seeing has always sounded to me like a remote, detached way of observing and therefore not very satisfactory."

Manon was curious. She tried to imagine finding the world being wonderful if she could not see it, only feel it, and found she could not imagine it as wonderful at all. She studied Timothy as he worked. What was life like if you had never seen a human face? Her mind went back to the morning, of Timothy's gentle swift sweep of her face and head with his fingertips, how odd it had felt to her, but she also remembered the way he had smiled as he had felt her face; it had been a smile of enjoyment as he had discovered her face with those fingertips. And he had described her features so accurately, she had been taken-aback.

She finally found the words to express her curiosity. "When you touched my face this morning....was that you finding out what I looked like?"

"Not what you looked like," said Timothy. "What you FELT like."

"Is there a difference?" Manon asked.

Timothy trimmed another wafer. "There is if you were born blind like I. You see things - objects and people in your head, don't you?"

"Well yes...if I close my eyes," Manon agreed. "When I close my eyes, I can see in my head what everything looks like."

Timothy laid another wafer carefully on the tray. "Well, I don't have that skill. Because I have never seen anything with my eyes. But I can FEEL things in my head. What I touch....I can remember in my head how it felt."

"What sort of things?" Manon asked.

Timothy smiled to himself as he recalled the softness of Beatriz's naked skin under his fingertips. But that memory was not suitable to impart to a child. "Well, when I lived in Leon for a while by the sea, I used to walk along the shore and find pebbles and shells and pieces of driftwood worn smooth by the sea to feel. I used to take off my shoes, and walk barefoot at the very edge of the water, feel the wet sand and spreading and receding floods of water with my feet. Sometimes I used to sit in the water at the very point small waves curl over and crash to shore, and put my hands out to feel where the water curls over. The cascading of the water at that point through my fingers was truly wonderful to feel. I liked to feel through my hands how that happened; how the water rolls over, hits the sand and then floods out and upwards along the shore, and then is sucked back, to cascade once again. I can remember in my head how it felt, the same as you would probably remember seeing the sea."

"I've never seen the sea." Manon's voice was wistful. "What is it like?"

Timothy paused for a moment, casting his mind back. "It feels vast. I've stood at the very edge of the waves and faced out over them, where I know there is no land, only sea - and it seems to go on forever. I can neither feel nor hear where the sea ends, though sometimes I've stood there for a long time and tried my hardest," he smiled in memory. "That's one of the mysteries about the sea - I can't find where it ends. Like the sky..."

Manon watched him and listened, fascinated. His turned-up face was lit with memories that were obviously pleasant; he kept giving quick vivid smiles.

"And the sea feels ALIVE; like a living, moving being," Timothy continued, impressing the wafer mould into the last piece of dough. "It's always moving, changing, making different sounds - and to be standing there at its edge and feeling it move around me truly fills me with wonderment and excitement. I always want to move in response to it, to dance to its movement and rhythm at the place where the waves break on the shore, to be part of its flow."

Watching the young man, seeing the smiles that crossed his face as he spoke, Manon suddenly could imagine him dancing barefoot some unstructured joyous dance at the edge of the sea, whirling around with pure exuberance and joy at the energy and movement of the waves crashing around his ankles. She suddenly gained the impression he had done exactly that many a time. Suddenly he seemed a very free individual, who had things that she would never have, and she envied him them without really being able to understand fully what he had that she could not.

Perhaps being born blind and never seeing anything, not even light, was not so bad after all...

Timothy listened to her silence sympathetically as he worked, sensing her mood. "Maybe you'll get to see the sea one day, Manon."

"Maybe if Father marries me off to some rich merchant in Leon he knows - then I'll get to cross the sea to Normandy," Manon said.

"Is that like to happen?" Timothy asked as he trimmed the last wafer.

Manon picked up a few dough crumbs from the surface of the table with a damp fingertip and transferred them to her mouth. "Well, it'll happen to Celeste at Michaelmas, so I wager it will happen to me also in a year or so."

"Then you'll get to see the sea," Timothy observed.

"I suppose I will," Manon agreed. "Although I'd like to do as you did and feel how the waves curl over and through my fingers. It sounds more exciting. Feeling, I mean."

Timothy grinned. "More exciting than seeing? Now there's a rare sighted soul, to say something like that. But you're right."

Manon wondered how on earth he could sound so confident when he had never seen to be able to draw any true comparison and so judge, but there was something about his content and confident statement that made her disinclined to question it. "What else do you like feeling?" Manon asked curiously.

Timothy smiled as he carefully transferred the last wafer to the tray and dusted flour over it to help dry out the mould impressions before baking. "Flowers. Shells I found on the seashore when I lived beside it in Leon for a while. Patterns carved into stone or wood. Smiles."

Manon was bewildered. "How can you feel smiles?"

Timothy paused, wiped his floury left hand on the piece of sacking tied to his belt, then reaching out to his side, felt around and found her shoulder, then moved his fingers up to her chin and then her mouth. He moved his fingers gently across her mouth - and felt it suddenly curve. He smiled back in response to what he felt.

"You're smiling at me. It's nice when I feel people do that. Smiling faces are the ones that you remember." Timothy moved his hand lightly up her face to touch her forehead, and found it smooth and relaxed, with no puckering. "I get the feeling that your face is not one that often frowns." He smiled afresh at her, laid his hand lightly against the side of her face and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb.

Manon giggled, looking into his face, into the dark eyes that both turned inwards as he smiled at her; he kept going cross-eyed and it was disconcerting, hilarious and yet bewitching in a curiously attractive way. "Why do you do that? Stroke my cheek, I mean?"

"It's just my way of telling you I like you. I know sighted people use their eyes to send silent messages to each other that they like each other. I can't do that. So I use my touch. Stroking someone's cheek means I like them." Timothy smiled at her, gave her cheek one final stroke, then dropped his hand and reached out to move the tray of wafers aside on the table.

Manon felt almost disappointed; whilst he had been feeling her smile and stroking her cheek, his attention had been soley focused on her, and she had enjoyed receiving that attention. Coming from a large family, it was not often she was the recipient of such attention from an adult. "Can I touch YOUR face?" she asked curiously.

"If you want." Somewhat bemused, Timothy paused both hands against the edge of the table and turned his face towards her and waited.

He sensed her hesitate, then he felt four small fingertips placed gently against the side of his chin, he kept his head still and turned towards her. The fingertips hovered there, uncertain.

"I won't bite your fingers off if you touch my mouth to feel my smile, I promise," Timothy laughed quietly at her.

There came another giggle from Manon, and then Timothy felt the fingertips travel along the line of his jaw and upwards to his lips. He smiled, and felt the small fingertips travel from left to right and back again over his lips, following the line of them.

"You're right," Manon's voice was both fascinated and pleased, "smiles CAN be felt. Even sighted people can feel them."

The fingertips travelled nervously up to his left cheek and paused there; Timothy twitched a slight frown of puzzlement, trying to work out what she was going to do next - perhaps she was just intent on exploring his face and gaining some insight - and then he blinked in reaction as he felt the small fingertips touch the corner of his right eye, but kept his eyes open. The fingertips very gently explored over his eyelids - as though she was trying to work out why he was blind and perhaps touching his eyes would tell her, he thought. He wasn't surprised. Children often wanted to touch his eyes in fascination.

He suddenly remembered the very first time he had visited Felden with Tuck at age four, and the village children crowding around him, fascinated. He had stood there unafraid and curious in the midst of them, clutching his guiding-stick as they had gathered around him. Their not unfriendly fingers had touched his face and his eyes, and there had been a rush of questions and comments.

_"What's wrong with your eyes?"_

_"He's blind..."_

_"He's the little blind boy who lives with the monks at Thornton..."_

_"You've got funny eyes."_ A ripple of amusement had gone round the children.

Timothy remembered laughing too, not really understanding, but one curious thought entering into his head - Were these children not blind too?

It had been hot high summer. He had walked beside Tuck along the dusty track back to Thornton, following the verge of it as a guideline with his stick.

_"Tuck, aren't the children of Felden blind?"_

_"No, Timothy, they can see. Like myself and the brothers at Thornton."_

It had been then that he had realised that not all children in the world were blind and that children who were blind did not grow up into being able to see, which was what he had previously suspected. He had taken the information, the new realisation, and absorbed it and accepted it unconcernedly. It had never been something which had bothered him.

He jerked out of his memories as Manon took her gentle touch away from his face. He gave a smile in her direction, then turned his face back into the warmth of the sunshine, reached for the damp cloth that lay on the table and began to wipe clean the carved wooden wafer moulds.

"The wafers are done. I must let them dry for a while before setting them to bake. Your father said have them ready for this evening, so I must ensure they are." He put a hand to his mouth, stifling a yawn, then rubbed his hand over his face, weary.

Manon watched him fascinated, for he rubbed over his eyes as though they were tired and strained and he had been using them in concentration. It was a peculiar gesture for someone blind since birth, but mayhap it was an instinctive gesture in everyone, blind or sighted.

"Are you sleeping at one of the inns this night?" Manon asked.

Timothy wrapped the wafer moulds once more in their square of sacking cloth and placed them away in his backpack. "No, your father said I could sleep where your previous cook slept - he said there was a small store chamber off the main cellar, and that there was a bed there, but I haven't explored that area as yet."

He had not. He had been shown the archway in the far wall which led to the cellars, and curious, once the kitchen workers had left, he had gone to the archway and felt over it, exploring the heavy oak door with its iron ring handle, discovering where the bolts and keyhole were. Opening the door, he had explored the ground before him with his stick, and had felt through his stick that steps led downwards from the threshold, but the steps had vanished out of his stick range and out of his perception, so he did not know how many there were.

"I'll show you if you want," Manon offered.

Timothy reached for his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and reached for his guiding stick which was propped against the table. "All right. Lead on."

"This way." There came the sounds of Manon dancing ahead across the kitchen, full of energy, and he followed her sounds, towards the cellar door.

Reaching the door, Manon pushed it wide open with a creak, then turned and waited for Timothy. She watched with awe as he walked across the expanse of the kitchen towards her, tapping the thin stick from side to side ahead of him, it clicking against the stone flags. She had not seen him walk with the guiding stick before, and seeing him use it suddenly gave her a shock, reminded her with a fresh impact that he was blind. Yet, at the same time she didn't find him using his guiding stick odd; it seemed perfectly natural for him. He did not stumble and grope around like she had expected the blind did, nor did he falter in his step as he walked; his movements were confident and fluid, and he almost seemed in rhythm with the stick, as though it was part of him.

"I opened the door," Manon said as Timothy approached, and she spoke half in warning, worried that he might fall straight down the steps.

Timothy gave her a smile. "I did hear."

He halted at the threshold of the open doorway and ran his stick along the top of the first step and then the one below it, discovering their length, breadth and depth. The first two at least were narrow and steep. "How many steps?" he asked.

Manon had already clattered down them ahead of him, and her voice drifted up to him after an initial pause as though she had been counting to herself. "Eleven."

Timothy descended. Eleven steps down, and then his stick clicked against stone-paved level ground once more. He paused and ran his stick over the stone floor around him in search, but it came into contact with no obstacles.

"Is there much stored down here?" he asked Manon.

"Barrels of oil and flour, sacks of grain," Manon said.

Timothy turned his head to listen to the echoes her voice created, and determined that the cellar was low-ceilinged and wide.

"Show me where I sleep," he said to Manon.

"This way." The girl moved away from him across the cellar, to his right, and Timothy followed, using his stick to find a clear path ahead.

The cellar smelt of mouse urine. He could hear one scrabbling across the stone floor, away from the echoing click of his stick. Now he was in unfamiliar territory. His stick kept hitting clusters of barrels and grain sacks; he came up against some, negotiated himself around them, and followed Manon's movements, the sound of her footsteps and quiet breathing as she turned to the left.

"Do you want me to guide you?" Manon's voice asked from ahead of him as he followed her. "You could put your hand on my shoulder. My father had a blind brother, he told me that was how he used to lead his brother around sometimes when they were children."

She spoke without pity or patronising and Timothy smiled to hear it; children often had a far better attitude to his blindness than adults. "I can manage. It doesn't take me long to learn a route with my stick. And it doesn't hurt me to come up against obstacles in my way, either. They help me remember the way, for I use them like landmarks in my surroundings."

"It must be a little like we sighted people being in a maze, I should think," Manon observed from ahead of him. "You come up against a few hedges trying to find your way out and you realise you can't go that way so you retrace your steps and try a different way - and you soon learn by coming up against those hedges the way out, don't you?"

Timothy smiled. "You're very perceptive. That's very much like how it is."

Manon's voice was curious. "Don't you hate being in a maze all the time? I mean, your blindness means you will never, ever get out of your sort of maze. Don't you wish that you could get out of it?"

Timothy laughed. "I've been in a maze all my life, Manon - I know no other way of finding my way around. And I do get out of mazes. Every particular set of surroundings is a particular maze. Like the bakery kitchen, for example. I simply leave one maze and enter another. It's an ongoing process. Sometimes they are confusing - but they are always interesting to explore, and I am always curious and eager to learn what lies ahead."

"Here," said Manon just ahead of him. She had stopped. "Here's the little side store-room where the last cook slept."

Timothy halted also, and putting out his hand, found her shoulder. Locating her, he moved a step forwards to draw level with her, and then paused. Putting his right hand out to the side, he found the side of the archway, curving inwards above his head.

"Ahead of you," said Manon. "Through this archway and down a step. It's not very big, but the bed is still there. The last cook left only yesterday."

Timothy found the uneven stone step with his stick and descended it to find himself standing on yet more stone flags. He walked forwards - and within four paces had come up against the rickety wooden frame of a low bed.

He placed his backpack and guiding stick on the bed and felt over it
curiously. The straw mattress was thick and crackled under the pressure of his hands. There were two thin blankets, and a straw-stuffed sack for a pillow.

"It doesn't look very much," Manon said apologetically from where she still stood in the archway. "Very comfortable, I mean."

"On the contrary," said Timothy, "I spent a week of sleepless nights on a very hard bed in a tossing boat, and since walking from the port of Southampton I've slept outside, or on an alehouse bench. This bed is luxury, believe me."

He turned and felt his way along to the end of the bed, and finding the end of it, walked forwards, intending to pace out the dimensions of this store-room come bedchamber. Four paces from the end of the bed, and he came up against a roughly plastered wall. He paused and ran both hands over it in exploration as he stood facing it, but he found no apertures, no shelves, nothing hanging from nails or hooks. He turned to his right, away from where Manon still stood in the archway and felt his way along the wall, wondering where it would lead, still sweeping his hands over the surface in curiosity. They found a coil of old rope hanging on a bent nail at his head height, a rough wooden shelf above the coil of rope. His fingertips explored the surface of the shelf and found nothing save a cracked and empty earthenware jar and a stub of candle laying on its side.

Feeling his way onwards along the wall, he came up against a corner, and wall that led away at a right angle to his left. He found the humped shapes of several sacks piled in the corner. He explored them briefly with his hands and found they contained yet more grain, then negotiated past them and felt his way past the corner. He gained the sense that Manon was observing him with a mixture of emotions. Sighted people often didn't seem to know what to make of him exploring his surroundings, whether they should feel sorry for him for some peculiar reason he had never really understood, or whether they should offer aid.

"It's really quite small and bare," Manon's voice said almost apologetically again from the archway.

It echoed into this tiny store-room and Timothy turned his head to catch the echoes, hearing that the ceiling was low overhead, and that the space around him was indeed cramped. He came up against another corner and found the wall leading onwards from it headed in the direction of Manon and the bed. He judged that this store-room was almost square in shape.

"The smallness makes it convenient and as for the bareness of it, it does not bother me," he answered her. "The shelf on the wall and the coil of rope hanging from the nail breaks up the surface of the wall and makes for decoration enough."

There was a bemused silence from Manon, and he realised she did not understand what he meant, but he did not explain; he was too engrossed exploring what was under his hands.

He felt over the plastered wall as he turned the second corner and came back along the wall leading towards Manon. "There's not a window?" he asked. He lifted his head and turned it restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sensation of a draught of air against it, but no matter how much he turned his head, nowhere could he feel air blow against his face that suggested there was a window, even if a tiny one set high in the wall where he could not reach to feel.

Manon was puzzled. "What do you want a window for? Not for light. You're blind. You said to us you couldn't see light, so what do you want a window for?"

"Air," said Timothy pulling at the neck of his shirt. "And even if I can't see light from a window, it's still nice to know there's a window and where it is."

"No window in here," said Manon. "You wouldn't mind this in the winter - it's warm down here, it is, because it's so near the kitchen."

_And if there were a fire in the kitchen it would be hard to escape and I would most like burn in my bed,_ Timothy thought wryly but said nothing

"What's the matter?" he asked puzzled across to Manon's presence where it still lingered by the archway, realising she had not moved. "Aren't you coming in?"

"I don't like to. It's dark in here," said Manon.

Timothy laughed as he felt his way back towards the sound of her voice, feeling his way along the wall and gaining an idea of the small space. "Is it? Can you not see anything at all?"

"Not very well," Manon said. "When we came down the steps and walked across the main cellar, there was light from the door and from two small barred windows set high in the main cellar wall - but round this corner, it's very dark. Father always brings a lanthorn with him."

Timothy came up against the bed once more, and found there was a rough three legged stool set beside it. He felt over the small stool, found the round flat shape of an iron plate, and feeling curiously over it, found several melted stubs of candles.

He laughed, feeling over the candle stubs. "Well, that's something I won't be needing. I won't be costing your father in candles, at least."

Manon sniggered.

"Nor will I risk setting the cellar alight by a candle-flame," Timothy added wryly.

"Must have been nice, living in that palace in Lisbon," Manon's voice was wistful.

"I had a good chamber in the servants quarters, to myself," Timothy answered. He felt his way around the end of the bed to face her once more where she stood in the archway. "It was up a set of winding stone stairs, through a small, iron-studded door that creaked. My chamber was small, but it possessed a balcony, and jasmine grew in large pots there. Jasmine and other flowers which grew over the balcony. Whenever I had the time, which was not often, for the kitchens were always busy, I could sit in the balcony in the heat of the sun and smell the jasmine and listen to the people pass by below in the small courtyard. And there were evenings too. When I sat there and did not feel the heat of the sun, nor hear the chirp of the birds, which told me darkness had come, but everything was still beautiful in the blanket of hot silence. The scents were heavy in the still air, and I felt that all the flowers around me were sleeping and dreaming."

Manon's voice was fascinated. "It sounds beautiful. And the bed in your chamber must have been softer."

Timothy remembered well the wide soft bed in his chamber, the feel of Beatriz's naked form laying there warm and inviting, her tangle of hair spread across the pillow.

"It was very fine," was all he replied.

Manon's voice grew curious. "So...if you were happy there, as a cook at the Princess Mafalda's palace in Lisbon, and had such a good job and chamber and life there...why did you leave, come back to England?"

Timothy sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, and spoke far more easily and unconcernedly than he felt at that question. But she was only a child, there was no underlying threat in her curious question, and he felt no need to deflect it. "Oh, I was curious as to how everything's changed here - after all, I've been away for eleven years. I felt that if I was going to return to England, I should make the journey whilst I was still young and didn't have the responsibilities of a wife and children."

"You don't have them?" Manon was curious. "Wife and children?"

Timothy laughed. "No, not yet." He yawned, rubbed his hand over his face, and then sat there and fell to silence, thinking over everything.

Where she still stood in the archway, Manon watched him in the gloom, intrigued. She wondered what he was thinking about. She studied his face, which was turned towards the blank wall of the store-room, three-quarters turned to her, his eyes wide open in the gloom, oblivious to the darkness. She followed them with her gaze as they moved, and she found she could not read them. She disregarded their movement and instead studied his face as a whole to gain clues. In the gloom she saw expressions flit across that face - some strange twitches of expressions that she could not read - but also in his face she saw thought, and remembrance.

The way he quietly sat in sudden inner reflection, the way he held his head, the way his face twitched those thoughtful and memory-ridden expressions at the blank wall in the darkness, suddenly evoked a strange emotion in her, which was not pity, nor of love - but of curiosity. He did not seem unhappy, but his reflection suddenly made her want to put her arms around his neck and hug him, or kiss his face - something that he could feel, some sensation to make him smile, to bring him back from wherever he had gone and was currently drifting. But she hardly knew him, he was older than she, and she was afraid to touch him in case she startled him, for he could not see her coming.

"I should go before Celeste or Mother comes looking for me," she offered up reluctantly at last in the silence.

Timothy jerked out of his inner thoughts and turned his head more towards the sound of her voice, consciously directing a smile at it. "Poor Manon, you seem to spend your day trying to escape mother and sister who demand duties of you."

"I have never liked sitting and sewing," Manon admitted. "Sitting in Mother's stuffy chamber and sewing, when all I want is to be out in the courtyard, in the air. I wish I could escape all the time."

"Just remember, when you have to sit and sew," said Timothy, "your body may not be able to escape the physical confines of that chamber, but your mind can always be sent anywhere - and no-one around you need ever know where it escapes to. Where you send it." He gave another smile in her direction. "Doesn't knowing that mean you have a delicious secret you can always hug to yourself, in the midst of other's demands upon you and insistence of your adherence to their rules? No-one can ever fetter your mind."

Manon overcame her hesitation, and in a fit of impetuosity, stepped forwards, reached out and gently if gingerly stroked the back of her fingers across his right cheek, watching him warily, ready to jump back if he either flinched or swung his head in that strange way he had, or pushed her hand away in startled response.

Timothy felt her move nearer, bewildered, he lifted his head to face her movements, wondering what she was doing, and then he felt gentle fingers stroke his cheek and he smiled in response to the sensation, now understanding the reason for her moving closer to him. He turned his head to push his cheek further under the stroking fingers, liking the sensation, for no-one had stroked his cheek in fondness since Beatrice at the quayside on that Lisbon morning three months ago when he had set sail for England... He had missed the contact - the Portuguese were tactile like he, and he had always understood them well. Not like the English, who in the main, did not employ touches with each other.

Manon, fascinated, continued to stroke Timothy's cheek, and watched his reaction to her touch, the series of fleeting smiles, the delighted gentle nudging of his cheek against her fingers as they stroked it. He seemed to understand exactly what she was telling him with the touch - and he was clearly signalling back to her in his blind way that he appreciated it. She had never before encountered such an interesting individual who could act and respond in such strange ways and yet whose ways seemed perfectly normal to him. Encouraged by his positive reaction, she moved her hand up to gently stroke his forehead, wondering what he would make of that, and was rewarded by further fleeting little smiles of appreciation.

I suppose this means we are friends," Timothy laughed slightly, turning his face up to receive with pleasure the strokes across his forehead.

"Friends," Manon said simply and seriously, as she stroked his forehead, looking down into the upturned face, into the beautiful but strange dark eyes that now did not seem so frightening as they roved past her as though she was invisible. "You said you stroke people's faces to tell them you liked them. Why should I not use your method in return with you?"

Timothy reached up, took the chubby little hand by the fingers and moving her hand down to his mouth, bent his head and delivered a chaste kiss to her knuckles. "No reason at all." He lifted his head slightly and directed a smile ahead of him at her. "You're a rare soul, Mistress de Normanville and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Manon giggled - partly in embarrassed coyness at having her hand kissed and partly in hilarity because his face did not meet hers and his smile had been directed at her shoulder.

"I must go," she said. "Or Mother will berate me for my absence from her side."

Timothy released her hand, and she turned to step through the archway, then turned back for a moment to look at him. "But I'll not forget what you said about being able to send your mind elsewhere."

Timothy smiled in response, and then listened to her footsteps recede through the cellar and up the steps and disappear.

Now she was gone, he fell to further thought, turning his head to listen around him, hearing the further scrabbling of a mouse, the very vague blur of sounds from the Nottingham street above and beyond the cellar. He ran his hands again over the crackling straw stuffed mattress and considered all that had happened to him this day.

This lodging and this job would be more than satisfactory. Until...

Until he gained admission to Nottingham Castle. Until Robert de Rainault was in residence there once again. He could wait....

But for now, he had work to do; the wafers needed baking and taking to Henri to hear his judgement of them, and after that, it would be time to prepare the evening meal for the de Normanville family. Meat needed to be spitted to roast, a sauce for it needed to be made, along with pottage and a dish of eggs. Most of the kitchen staff would be returning shortly, and he needed to supervise them. He would be kept busy until the oven fires had been banked for the night, and all had been prepared for the day's baking early on the morrow.

Timothy jumped up from the bed, gathered up his guiding stick and finding the archway leading into the main cellar, tapped his way through it, retracing the route he had taken from the kitchens above. As he did so, he felt he was smiling.

He was back in Nottingham and it was a good feeling.

*********************