Post of the Month Jan 2008

The Angel alehouse was noisy and crowded. Under Timothy's table, a dog yawned and scratched itself, then returned to crunching on a bone.

Where he sat on the bench at the small oak trestle table in the corner, Timothy stretched, then leant his back against the rough plastered wall behind him, a beaker of ale cupped in one hand.

He liked the feel of the solid wall against his back. It meant he was protected from behind. He always sought an alehouse table set against the wall if he could. Out of the way of people coming and going. Alehouses layouts were constantly changing and whenever he entered one it usually meant some casting around with his stick to find a bench or a table, as well as unexpected collisions with various objects, and people.

This foray into the Angel had been no different. Timothy had not been here for eleven years. The door and the fireplace were still in the same place, but that was all, he had discovered. As soon as he had stepped inside the alehouse he had found himself in an unfamiliar layout, with tables and benches which had unexpectedly loomed up in his path in a ragged pattern as he had crossed the alehouse to the far wall in search of a vacant table. He had bumped into several occupied tables in his search, amid moans and curses at him from people sitting there who had had their table accidentally jogged, and several people had bumped into HIM.

Timothy had been unperturbed, and he had continued on his way to the back of the alehouse in search of a place to sit. Finally his stick had clicked against the leg of a small empty table, and beyond it, next to the wall, had found the shape of a vacant wooden bench. There he had sat. The coarse-sounding wife of the alehouse keeper had come up to him, and once he had shown her he had the silver penny to pay for a jug of ale and a wooden bowl of bread with a small stringy hunk of pork, she had brought that to him. He had sat and ate, and absorbed the goings-on around him, keeping a keen ear turned to all the conversations that drifted over in snatches to him.

No-one had joined him at this table. It was barely big enough for two, and if any small company had shown signs of approaching to sit opposite and take the table over, he had consciously swung his uplifted head and made a few facial expressions in the direction of the approach, well aware that that behaviour combined with his oddly moving eyes often put the sighted off from sharing any alehouse table with him. A presence which had approached with intent to commandeer his table had quickly diverted away from its approach upon such a display and had melted back into the bustle further down the alehouse, making Timothy grin to himself. It was amusing to sometimes tease the sighted. It also meant that if his table wasn't commandeered, he got some space to himself; space to think, space to listen, space to rest.

Listening to the chatter around him, Timothy leaned his elbow on the table where he sat and wearily rubbed his hand across his face.

He had been up since before dawn, overseeing the work in the kitchens. It was his job as master cook to supervise, not enter into the menial day-to day tasks, and instead concentrate on the more delicate tasks. So he had supervised the hauling of wood and water to the kitchens, the tending of the fires and the ovens as numerous batches of unbaked loaves were lifted in with the flat hardwood peels to bake and then whilst still warm were stacked in handcarts and taken over to the Bell and the Trip to Jerusalem and other establishments and private wealthy households in Nottingham who the de Normanvilles provided bread to.

He had supervised the laborious and repetitive pounding of sugar and breadcrumbs into fine powder, the tending of the spits and pots, and the other jobs which took hours of constant manual work, whilst he had concentrated on the skilled tasks - the pounding and mixing of valuable spices and the measuring of them out, making the gingerbread and the wafers. There had not only been the day's baking to oversee, but the preparation of a midday meal for the de Normanville family, as well as baking the uncooked pies that various households who did not possess an oven had sent along.

Timothy had been kept busy in this way from before dawn till way past midday, and throughout all his supervision and his own work at various tasks, he had been well aware the kitchen staff still observed him curiously and sometimes whispered to each other about him. But they had said nothing out loud, and had been quick to follow his orders. Things had been kept out of his way so he could move freely around the kitchen without his guiding-stick; brooms and pails had been set against the walls and not left lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, and everything used had been put back in its original place so he could find it easily. Table-tops and chopping boards had been quickly scrubbed clean after each task before his inquisitive fingertips had had a chance to explore them and complain.

The kitchen staff had soon realised that Timothy's ears kept track of all that went on around him and that his fingers constantly explored to check; they missed nothing, from dipping into a bowl of newly bolted flour, to poking a mound of kneaded dough, to ascertain and adjust the balance of the weighing scales. They had realised that it was more than their job was worth than to try and fool him. The blind master cook firmly held the reins of the kitchen, and Timothy had gone about the work of the day unchallenged, confident in the slight jingle of the spice chest and buttery keys which hung from his belt - the symbols of his status.

Now it was mid-afternoon, another day of cloying summer heat in Nottingham which raised the stench from the filthy gutters. The smell of stale ale and stale food rose from the straw strewn wooden floor of the Angel. Timothy sat and listened to the movement around him, turning his head to catch it all. Men moved around, and there came the scrape of wooden benches and stools as they sat at tables nearby. Labourers, peddlers, merchants, carpenters, fullers, tanners, travellers passing through. Timothy listened to them talk and identified their trades from their conversation.

He had been sitting here for some time, listening to all the snatches of conversation that drifted his way amid the general noise of movement and bustle within the alehouse and beyond its open door where there was the weekday market being held.

Being blind was advantageous in many ways. The sighted often thought just because he could not see them, he could not hear them either. It was something Timothy had never really understood, but he used it to his advantage. He could sit in a corner of an alehouse and listen, and people rarely took any notice of a blind man's presence nearby. They often spoke to each other as though he was not there to listen. He merely sat quietly with a beaker of ale and plate of food before him and listened.

As he was doing now....

It was one of the reasons he had come to the Angel this afternoon - to hear all the local news and gossip. And there was plenty of it, but to his disappointment, not the news that he wanted to hear - when Robert de Rainault would be returning to Nottingham....

Manon de Normanville emerged out of the throng milling in the market place and squinted against the sunshine to see her sister appear from around the corner of the Angel, daintily picking her way over the gutter.

Her red-gold braid flying out behind her and a handful of ribbons bunched in one hand, Manon ran across the market-place cobbles to reach her sister.

"Did you give Father's message to the stable-keeper?" Manon asked breathlessly as she reached Celeste. She paused to re-tie the laces of her sleeve, and straightened the gilt fillet around her head.

Celeste where she stood waiting outside the Angel, hands folded demurely, shook her head at her younger sister's disarray. "Of course."

"And I have Mother's ribbons." Manon displayed the bunch in her hand.

"You've crushed them already," Celeste admonished.

Manon shrugged and cast a glance over her shoulder at the busy market square. She had spent a while in blissfully wandering around the throng, gazing at all the wares whilst Celeste had been off on her own errand, and only wished she had had longer.

Manon kept pace beside her. As she moved past the open doorway of the Angel, she gave a cursory glance inside, then halted, and pulled at Celeste's arm to halt her also.

"Look," Manon pointed, and looking into the alehouse, Celeste spotted Timothy.

He was sitting at the back of the alehouse, at a small table in a dim corner, his back against the wall. A jug of ale and beaker were set at his right hand. His head was held high, and he was clearly listening to all that was going on around him, whilst his fingers were idly feeling over the remnants of bread in a bowl before him. The way he sat suggested an air of calm, his face kept making interested expressions and fleeting little frowns and smiles clearly in response to whatever he was hearing of the chatter of the alehouse that flowed around him. The two girls watched him with fascination, well aware that he had no idea they were present and were viewing him.

"What's he doing here?" Celeste wondered.

"Having something to eat and drink by the looks of it," Manon said. "The Angel brews very good ale."

"True enough, but he would find better food at our father's," Celeste replied.

"Well, maybe he wanted some company," said Manon. "To hear people around him and to talk to them."

Celeste peered across the smoky dim interior at the young man sitting in the far corner. "How did he get here from our father's home? He's stone blind..."

"I think he can find his way around very well, using that long stick of his. It feels the way ahead for him." Manon remembered her conversation with Timothy from the previous day and the way that long slender stick had tapped its way down the cellar steps and explored the route through the cellar after her.

Celeste was still smarting over Timothy's rejection of her advances the previous evening. No matter that she had giggled as he had retreated across the courtyard from her, bidding her keep his rosary if she was that intent on it - his response had inwardly irritated her. Mainly because she had seen in him the self-control of an adult - a quality she wanted but knew she lacked as yet. "He's a sad case. He has my pity."

"I don't think he's bothered if people pity him or not," Manon said. She tugged at her sister's sleeve. "Let's go and talk to him."

"We should return home without delay-" Celeste protested, but Manon grabbed her hand and pulled her up the step and into the noisy muggy atmosphere of the Angel alehouse.

"Timothy!" she called brightly across the alehouse to him as she approached his table.

It was the last voice Timothy expected to hear coming across the clamour of the alehouse to him. Startled out of his thoughts, he jerked his head round in the direction of the voice and smiled in response, waiting as the light footsteps hurried up to his table.

"Celeste is here too," said Manon brightly as she came up to the table - and the smile faded slightly from Timothy's face at her words and as he heard the other girl's presence arrive to stand beside Manon. Celeste saw the smile fade, and although she could see that Manon did not understand the meaning for it, she understood only too well, and uneasiness fluttered inside her.

"Mademoiselles de Normanville," Timothy acknowledged, feeling out over the surface of the table with his right hand, wondering if hers was there to connect with. He smiled afresh in Manon's direction.

"We saw you across the alehouse," Manon explained, watching the dark eyes, fascinated. They roved swiftly back and forth past her as though she was not there. Manon giggled slightly, and Celeste slammed a sharp little elbow into her side in silent chastisement.

"What are you doing here?" Manon asked curiously, looking into Timothy's face in an attempt to read it, laying her hand on the back of Timothy's, aware that Celeste frowned upon the contact, but not caring.

Timothy's face suddenly lit up in a succession of brief little smiles at her touch, and oddly delighted, Manon thought _He can't see me but he yet recognises me by my touch and if he could see, he would be glad to see me._

"Sizing up your father's opposition," Timothy said wickedly, and moved his hand back to finger once more over the remnants of bread on his platter.

"Jambert Rolfe the baker in Hounds Gate supplies the Angel with bread," Celeste said.

"So I've gathered. And he is very ill at his trade if this bread is anything to go by." Timothy picked at the remnants of bread with disgust, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger to feel the texture, then pushed the platter away from him. "He charges a fine price for it, though."

"He provided the Castle with fine white bread last summer when the King stayed in Nottingham, as our Liege lord pronounced the bread that the castle kitchens provided as foul," Celeste said. "Now Jambert Rolfe can say he provided the King with bread, it is good advertisement for him and he charges extra for any alehouse that take his bread and sell it as the same bread that the King ate."

"Anyway," said Timothy, "I might ask you the same question - What are YOU doing here? What draws YOU to such a place as the Angel, Mademoiselle Celeste?" he turned his head in her direction and purposely gave a smile that he felt confident would cause her unease. He knew she would know what he meant - he knew what she used the Angel stables for - and although he knew it was discourteous of him, he could not help himself. She had stolen his rosary the previous evening and could have so easily got him into trouble whereby he would have lost his job. He also felt that she had misjudged him to be a fool because he was blind - and no-one played Timothy of Thornton for a fool.

It was clear that the blind man's smile was directed at her, although his face was directed at her shoulder and his constantly moving dark eyes kept sliding inwards to go crossed. Celeste felt intimidated, even though he could not see her, and she realised he smiled in order to cause her discomfort. For someone who had never seen a human face or a human facial expression, he seemed very clever at knowing when to consciously direct a smile in someones direction to cause discomfort, and she suddenly hated him for it.

She flushed, aware of the underlying meaning of his seemingly casual words, fervently hoping Manon suspected nothing. She made her answer sound as confident as possible. "Running errands. Father wanted a message brought to the Angel to prepare a stall for his horse - he returns from Lincoln on the morrow."

"And have you run your errand at the stables to your satisfaction?" Timothy asked amusedly but with deeper meaning.

Celeste suddenly hated him. She suddenly wanted to poke her fingers into those crossed eyes and wipe the smile from his face.

"Quite, I thank you," she replied stiffly.

"And Mother wanted ribbons from the market. Feel." Manon draped the bunch of ribbons she held over the back of Timothy's hand.

Timothy turned his hand palm up and felt over the small bunch of satiny ribbons whose ends dangled down to touch his fingers. "They're pretty."

Celeste nudged Manon. "We should be gone. Our errands are done, and Mother will be waiting."

Timothy rose from the table and felt for his guiding stick propped against it beside him. "I've partaken of all I wish to here, and listened to enough idle prattle. I'll escort you back to your father's home, mademoiselles de Normanville."

Celeste giggled at him. "You, a blind man, escort us?"

"Oh, so you think it should be the other way around?" Timothy countered humorously, moving around the table, trailing the fingertips of one hand along its length in guidance, whilst his other hand extended his guiding stick and swept it in an arc before him to find a clear passage forwards.

"I think she means, can we help YOU, guide you," Manon hastened to correct, shooting Celeste a frown.

Timothy's stick found a narrow gap before him between two occupied tables and he turned to it, aware he turned to the sounds of people coming in through the door across the length of the alehouse. "Go ahead, and I'll follow."

They made for the door, wending their way between a maze of occupied tables and benches; Timothy following the sounds of Manon and Celeste who forged ahead into the distance.

The market was at its height. The sounds of a fresh horde of thirsty men entered the alehouse to drink. As Timothy wended his way carefully past the throng on his way towards the door, an unwashed individual bumped full into him.

The heavy collision sent Timothy off balance. He staggered back a step into a table behind him and almost fell, but clutched at the table edge in time to support himself.

"Watch where you're going-" the voice of the individual still close to him began aggrievedly, then trailed off, and murmurs of "blind..." from the people around rose, and Timothy turned his head to scan over the unwashed presence, studying its movements, as the man moved before him.

"Here, lad," the man's voice turned to a tone of pitying condescension, and a pair of rough hands grabbed Timothy's shoulders in an effort to steady him on his feet as Timothy moved away from the table; Timothy calmly shrugged off the man's grip on his shoulders and found his feet to stand upright alone, extending his stick once more to feel over the straw-strewn wooden floor before him. His stick connected with a pair of feet; the feet of the man before him.

Folk were once more moving past them in a steady stream, from the door into the alehouse. "In too much of a rush to slake my thirst, that's my trouble," the man laughed into Timothy's face, and there came a friendly slap on Timothy's shoulder before he moved past Timothy on his left, brushing up against him due to the press of the crowd and then was gone behind him.

Timothy felt a flicker of annoyance cross his face; he remained where he stood for a moment, waiting as he heard the throng of men entering the alehouse door thin to a trickle, wondering where the de Normanville girls had gone. Then he headed forwards again. His stick found the wall, and he put out his hand to be in contact with it and followed it along towards the draught of cool air he could feel against his face. He had long ago learnt that when in a crowded room full of people, it was best to find the wall and use it as a guide-line towards the exit, and so avoid collisions with people and obstacles. A wall always led to a door or some sort of exit if he followed it long enough, even if he was not well versed with the layout of the room.

"We're over here, Timothy," called Manon's voice suddenly to his left just before he got to the doorway, and then she loomed ahead of him and her hand touched his arm.

Timothy halted and turned to her voice and touch. He touched the back of her hand and travelled his hand up her arm to find her shoulder, and rested it there. Celeste's taller, more graceful presence loomed before him also, her rose-oil perfume cutting across the smell of stale ale and human sweat in the alehouse.

"Are you all right?" he asked them.

"We just kept out of the way of the men coming in," Celeste's voice said from Manon's left.

"There did seem to be a sudden influx," Timothy said wryly. "Who are they?"

"They look like labourers and bondsmen to me," Manon said. "Come in from thevillages around for market day. The fellow that bumped into you is dressed like a labourer, anyway."

Timothy felt Celeste's soft fingers lightly touch his arm. "He nearly knocked you over. Are you alright?"

"Oh," Timothy laughed, "I've had far worse collisions in places rougher than this."

He turned to move, and then stopped short as he realised the weight of his purse was no longer at his belt. He immediately put his hand down to his belt to feel - no the purse was not there. The leather ties of the purse were still knotted around his belt, the ends dangling where they had been swiftly and adroitly slashed through with a knife. He had not even felt the purse be taken in this way.

Timothy frowned - and then jerked his head round in the direction of the back of the alehouse as a familiar laugh could be heard amongst the noise of the alehouse.

"That thieving bastard!" Timothy swore in both English and fluent Portuguese; goggle-eyed at his language, Manon craned her neck to see where he listened, and glimpsed across the alehouse the labourer who had bumped into Timothy. He stood by the table in the corner and even as she watched was furtively slipping something inside his jerkin.

"What-?" Celeste was a few seconds behind - and then her voice faded in dismay as she noticed Timothy's right hand feeling over the cut ties of his purse on his belt.

"He took my purse when he bumped into me - it was a low trick designed to distract me, and so he thieved my purse!" Timothy felt his brow knot in a frown as he ran his fingers across the severed ties of his purse hanging from his belt.

Manon tapped Timothy's arm to get his attention. "I can see him across the alehouse, and he tucked something inside his jerkin just now - I'll wager it was your purse."

"Where is he exactly?" Timothy turned his head back to the direction of the coarse laughter, scanning over it carefully, giving frowns of concentration and annoyance mixed.

Manon looked in the same direction as he listened, casting a glance at him, she could see that he was already fixing some sort of bearings for himself. "At the back of the alehouse, standing by the table we vacated, talking to someone. If you follow the wall around you'll get to him."

Timothy felt his face set with determination. He reached out, found Manon's arm, and taking her hand, pressed his guiding stick into it. "Look after this for me." He swung round, put out a hand and felt before him and found the plastered wall, and trailing his fingers along it, marched his way round the inside of the alehouse to the back of the room.

It wasn't hard to find the thief; he continued to laugh and talk to someone, and the trail of his laugh led Timothy right to him. When he reached level with the sound of the laugh, he relinquished contact with the guidance of the wall, turned to his right and walked forwards straight towards the laugh.

The sour smell of unwashed person met Timothy's nose, then he bumped into the broad back and shoulders which were turned to him. He felt over the back in order to grab a shoulder and turn the man to face him - and then the body turned of its own accord.

"Here-" Timothy's hand was dashed aside and an ugly affronted voice swung round at Timothy.

"You cut-purse! Give me back what you stole from me not a minute ago!" Timothy demanded angrily, feeling over the man's chest with one hand. His fingers had just found a bulge inside the man's jerkin when his wrist was grabbed and his hand thrust away.

The man made a dismissive sound, and then the back made to turn on him. "Get you gone. I don't know what you talk of, blind man."

"Yes you do - Don't turn away from me when I talk to you, you low and common thief, or I'll have you before the town beadle so I will!" Timothy, thoroughly angered, grabbed the man by the shoulder and forced him round, pinning him firmly back against the plastered wall of the alehouse.

He heard an interested crowd immediately gather around them, curious as to the outcome. There were murmurs from the people gathered but watching was all they were prepared to do, Timothy knew. He knew he was on his own against this thief.

The alehouse was sweltering in the June heat. Timothy could feel sweat trickling down his back, sticking his shirt to him. He could feel the changed atmosphere around him in the alehouse. It was quiet, tense, heavy, charged with threat.

He gave the struggling labourer an angry shake. "Well? Where's my purse you stole?"

The man tried to twist away, his reply flat and sullen. "You've had too much to drink, blind man. I don't know what you speak of."

He shrugged Timothy off, and made to move away, but Timothy moved with him immediately, and gripped his shoulder again, forcing him to turn around once more.

"Now you took my purse and I want it back," Timothy said steadily. "So will you hand it over or must I make you?" His hand went to his dagger at his belt. "I'm warning you-"

The man shrugged him off, and Timothy was aware he was being looked at. "So you're warning me, are you?" His face came close, Timothy felt the hot breath which stank of garlic against his cheek. "Look at you, you cross-eyed dolt." He laughed - a laugh which was echoed by some of the onlookers gathered interestedly around - and then his voice grew contemptuous. "I don't fear any paltry blind man. Why don't you crawl back to your begging place in the gutter?"

Timothy saw red; he swung his right fist immediately round, aiming for the source of the laugh - and his fist hit the labourer hard across the jaw.

The man took the blow, Timothy heard him swear, felt him stagger back a couple of paces, but he remained on his feet. "Go to it, Hob - show the blind bastard," another man shouted, there was laughter; Timothy heard the crowd behind him scatter backwards as if out of range - and then there was a rush of movement and a body suddenly connected hard with Timothy's, sending him backwards up against the solid shape of a bench, which fell backwards under him.

Timothy twisted aside to jump to his feet and flung himself forwards to make contact with his opponent, guided by the man's heavy breathing. His shoulder clashed with his opponent's and Timothy grabbed the heaving human shape, finding and grabbing both wrists to push them away from him, in case the man held a weapon in one of his hands.

This was what Timothy wanted; to be in close contact with his opponent.

With his hands encircling the man's wrists, he could feel by the muscles there the way that the man's hands were moving. The left hand was opening and closing - it was empty. The right hand however was clenched, as though it clenched some sort of small weapon, and Timothy guessed that it was a dagger.

Timothy grabbed the labourer's right arm with both hands, trying to disarm him whilst the man swore and spat in his face. Timothy's strong fingers clenched around the man's right hand like a vice, forcing it from its grip on what felt to be a dagger handle. The hand suddenly opened and the dagger clattered to the floor at their feet; Timothy trod on the handle, and having accidentally found it that way, thanked his good fortune and kicked the dagger aside with his foot, away from the possibility of the man picking it up, and he continued his struggle with his opponent who was trying to claw him in the face. He turned his head aside from the clawing fingers and bit down hard across the man's knuckles.

Enraged, the labourer grunted and swore, and the next thing Timothy knew was that a hard blow across the jaw had knocked him backwards a step, amid cries of encouragement from the crowd. He tasted blood on his lip, but he grimly hung onto his adversary, not wishing to lose physical contact with him. Then he received a blow in the stomach that made him double up. He gasped, winded, lost his grip on the man and staggered back a step - and found himself pushed backwards and pinned up against the plastered wall by a strong pair of arms.

For a moment, Timothy could not think straight. His head spun and he felt disoriented by all the movement and noise around him. Then he flailed out his arms and connected with the body of his opponent again, grabbed hold of him, and brought his knee sharply up into the man's groin area.

The labourer gave a pained yelp and loosened his grip on Timothy's wrists; Timothy went in for the kill, and, guided by the yelp, swung his right fist round. It connected with a jawbone.

The labourer went down. He crashed backwards; Timothy flung himself forwards at the man, knocking him backwards down onto the alehouse floor, sat astride him, pinning him there on his back and within a trice whipped out his dagger and finding the wildly waving head, grabbed the chin and roughly pushed it back with his left hand whilst with his right he placed the flat of his dagger blade against the man's throat. He felt the throat gulp against the blade, and the struggling beneath him immediately ceased.

"Don't move," Timothy told the man sharply.

"You think you can really use that knife on me, blind man?" the man gasped.

"Well now, let's see. I can certainly feel where your jugular is." Timothy's left thumb probed the pulsing thread that ran up the side of the man's throat. "And I'm a master cook. I've filleted many a fish in my time. Shall I fillet you? Deboning is a speciality of mine."

The crowd had gone silent. Timothy kept his head up to listen keenly to the crowd gathered around him, wary in case they interfered, but focused his attention on the figure he sat astride. There were no further struggles, only a slight whimper from the man beneath him as he realised that the watching crowd were not going to leap to his defence.

"What's amiss, my friend?" Still breathing hard from the fight, Timothy spoke calmly but with sarcasm. "Do you find you fear me NOW? And you thought that a blind man would be such easy pickings to steal from?" He frowned in response to the throat gulping movement against the flat of his dagger blade, and pressed the flat of the blade a fraction harder against the man's throat. "Well now, this cross-eyed dolt wants his purse back. Give it to me. Slowly. Draw it out from where you have hidden it under your shirt and place it on your chest."

There came a slow and wary movement of the man's restricted right arm, a rustle of clothing, and a slight clink of a few coins inside a leather bag as it was carefully placed where Timothy had directed. The arm moved back to its original position, and the body below him was still once more.

Keeping his dagger against the man's throat, Timothy moved his left hand down and smiled as his fingers came into contact with the familiar shape of his purse laying on the man's heaving chest. He took the purse up, weighed it briefly in one hand to ensure nothing was missing, and then tucked it securely inside his own jerkin.

He leaned forwards, listening the ragged breathing below him and directed a frown down at the man, still keeping his dagger pressed against the man's throat. "If you ever see me around Nottingham in the future," Timothy said with hard meaning, "I suggest you keep to the other side of the street. Understand?"

There came another gulp against the flat of his dagger blade and a sound of acquiescence.

Timothy took his knife away from the man's throat and scrambled up from the floor just as angry movement of one person rippled its way through the murmuring crowd and a hand gripped his shoulder as he rose to stand. "Get out!" the furious voice demanded in Timothy's face, and swinging round to face it, he recognised it as the proprietor of the Angel. "Get out before I throw you out! I'll have no troublemakers in here!"

Timothy shrugged off the hand on his shoulder and turned his head to listen briefly down at where the man was still sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily. "You're not worth bothering about," Timothy said in derision, and sheathed his dagger.

He turned his head to gain his bearings, turned to the direction of the wall behind him, and feeling ahead of him, found it with his hand. The crowd of spectators melted out of his way, amid murmurs, and dispersed.

Timothy felt his way back along the line of the wall towards the cool draught of the doorway, trailing the back of his left hand along it and keeping his right hand slightly out before him to ware him of any obstacles. He was aware people watched him and muttered about him, but no-one followed him or stood in his way in an attempt to revive the fight.

"Timothy - here," Celeste's shocked and awed voice suddenly peeped up ahead of him. There was a flurry of familiar movement, and as his hand met the corner and followed the wall round at a right angle towards where the door frame was, the movement loomed before him. Timothy immediately halted and felt before him and his right hand came into contact with Celeste's shoulder.

"Here," Manon said from beside Celeste, sounding just as awed, and Timothy felt his hand taken and the familiar knob of his guiding stick pressed against his palm.

He smiled and took the stick into his hand, and put out his other arm to protectively shepherd the shapes of the two girls forwards ahead of him through the doorway.

"Come, I think it's best we leave here," he said wryly.

He followed the girls through the doorway and turned right to find the outside of the wall with his stick. He took several paces forwards, using the wall as a guideline, then halted and rubbed his bruised-feeling jaw, aware that the de Normanville girls had halted by him. He stooped over for a moment, free hand on his knee, still recovering his breath from being hit in the stomach.

No-one in the street who walked past made any comment. He could hear everything return to normal within the alehouse. Laughter and talk from inside it drifted faintly out of the doorway behind him.

Where they stood a few paces away, Celeste and Manon watched him warily and exchanged a glance. "I didn't know you could fight like that," said Celeste at last.

"Oh," Timothy laughed a little, "I may have grown up in an Abbey, but there was a village not far from it and I scrapped with many a village lad there when I was a boy. There's no harder school of learning than brawling in the dust with the village lads of Felden."

He took a final deep breath and straightened up, and ran his stick over the ground ahead of him to orient himself. "If you've finished your errands, mademoiselles de Normanville, I'll escort you to your father's home."

This time he was met with no incredulous query; he smiled at its absence, and headed forwards, following the outside wall of the Angel and round its corner which led away from the market place. Manon's and Celeste's light footsteps kept pace beside him on his left; Manon the nearest to him.

"Did you have much money in your purse, Timothy?" Manon asked as they rounded the corner of the Angel and took an alleyway into a narrower street.

"Three silver pennies," Timothy admitted.

Celeste's voice was horrified. "And you fought for THAT? Just three silver pennies? Why, on earth? If it had been ME, I'D have been inclined to let that base scoundrel take the money rather than put my life at stake for a few pence!"

"It wasn't just the money. I fought for myself, back there. For my dignity, my self-respect. To make everyone who saw me think twice before they try and rob me or hoodwink me." Timothy rubbed his aching neck as they walked along the street. "You have to fight for what you want from this life, sometimes. I've learnt that in the past years - learnt it with my heart's blood. I'll not stand idly by and be judged as worthless or helpless by ignorant folk." He laid a hand on Manon's shoulder as they walked along, liking the friendly contact and directed a smile in the direction of the two girls. "If a man can't believe in himself, then who CAN he believe in?"

Timothy halted as the waxy smell of candle-making drifted out from an open doorway on his right. He relinquished contact with Manon's shoulder, swapped his stick from right hand to left, and reached out to his side with his right hand.

His fingers touched a weathered door frame, and he moved several paces along, keeping his hand out to his right side. His fingers found several staggered rows of candles strung across the dwelling's small unshuttered window; they clattered dully together as he touched them.

Timothy trailed his fingertips lightly across the rows of candles and turned left to face out over the street. He paused at the approaching rumble of a cart, and drew back a step against the dwelling's wall, his hand on Manon's shoulder gently drawing her back with him. "Wait-"

The cart trundled past, creaking and bouncing over the cobbles; the horse that pulled it a huge warm body smelling of oats and sweat and stable. Timothy turned his head to listen as the cart bounced away down the street, and took his warning hand from Manon's shoulder.

"It's safe now to cross," he told the de Normanville girls, and finding the line of the gutter with his stick, stepped over the refuse which had collected in it, and blithely tapped his way across the street.

Celeste and Manon exchanged a glance, and hurried across the street to catch up with him.

Timothy's stick met the wall of a shopfront on the opposite side of the street, explored along it for a few paces, then found the opening of a narrow dank alley that the yards of the tanners and butchers backed onto. He felt his way along; aware that the de Normanville girls followed him in single file. Within a matter of yards they came out of the alleyway into Long Row, whereupon he turned right and walked on, towards the de Normanville's home and bakery.

Manon and Celeste kept pace alongside Timothy and watched in fascination as he walked confidently along, his stick clicking from side to side over the cobbles, at every right strike hitting the walls, steps and doorways of the jumble of homes and shopfronts he passed. His use of the stick was rhythmic, Manon thought, fascinated, watching him. Timothy strode easily along with his head up and a calm confident face that surely made onlookers doubt about approaching to either help or attempt to rob him, Manon thought. It was clear that he was listening to the sound his stick made, as well as feeling the way ahead with it.

"It's as if your stick is a part of you," Manon observed as they walked along the curving street towards the de Normanville's bakery.

Timothy laughed. He had been well aware that for the past few minutes of silence he had been the focus of the de Normanville girls' attention. "I consider it a detachable part of me, 'tis true enough. I've found my way around with a guiding-stick since I was four years of age and I am now six and twenty, so as you can see, I've had many years of practice."

"Who taught you to use a guiding-stick?" Celeste asked, picking her way daintily around a pile of refuse.

"Tuck." Memories suddenly came back to Timothy; dim early memories of the cool quiet interior of Thornton Abbey. The sound of the monks singing had risen in shafts like the clustered perpendicular columns of the abbey; in perfect harmony, blended together, smooth and polished and even as a small boy he had been struck by the ethereal beauty of it.

He shook himself out of the sudden memories and concentrated on where he was heading.

Celeste had been watching the long thin elegant stick of ebony as it tapped from side to side two paces ahead of Timothy's feet, its metal-capped tip clicking lightly against the cobbles. She had seen blind men wandering around Nottingham before, but they had all possessed stout roughly hewn staffs, nothing like this smooth thin stick which she could see in Timothy's hand was used like a fine precision tool. She caught a glimpse of the stick's knob between Timothy's fingers and fancied that it was silver. "How do you find your way around? It's not just by using your stick, is it."

"Ears and memory too," Timothy replied. "And my stick finds not only obstacles, but openings or corners where I must turn. It finds guidelines I can follow. Like the walls of buildings or the line of the gutter."

"Your nose finds the way too, doesn't it." Manon was intrigued. "You knew to cross the street and find the alleyway when you reached the candle-makers. You could smell the candles."

Timothy smiled. "You're very observant. My methods of finding my way around are manifold."

His stick clicked against the high outside wall of Henri's courtyard, running his hand along the wall as he walked on, he found the stout oak door in the archway. He stopped, felt over the iron banded door for the iron ring handle, and pushed the door open. He took a step back to allow the two girls to pass, holding the door open for them. "After you."

"Manon, we are already overdue running Mother's errand," Celeste agitated. "Away before she sends our brothers to look for us."

"We should go," Manon said, turning to Timothy and laying a hand on his arm.

Celeste cast a glance over Timothy as he stood there. Several pieces of straw stuck to his hair and clothes, and there was a smudge of dirt across one cheek. "You should neaten yourself up a little before you return to the kitchens or Hal or one of the others will surely ask you about your appearance."

"Do I look as if I have been brawling in an alehouse?" Timothy asked.

Manon put her head on one side and regarded him critically. "Just wash your face at the well and brush down your hair and clothes and you'll do." She giggled. "I wish you could have seen the face of that thief when you had your dagger at his neck! Proper sight, it was!"

"Manon!" reproved Celeste as she sailed past Timothy and through into the courtyard.

Manon giggled further, then the light touch of her hand was gone from his arm and her light footsteps scurried away across the courtyard to catch up with her sister. Timothy listened to them go and smiled.

He waited until they had gone, then crossed the courtyard to the door that led to the bakery yard.

There was no-one out in the yard, though he could hear people inside the kitchens; some of the scullions washing the last of the pots; someone honing a knife on a leather strop; someone talking in a quiet voice about when Henri was due to return from Lincoln. There was still the comforting scent of warm bread in the air, mixed with the smell of raked ashes and the musky scent of the cooked fish that the de Normanvilles had been served with for the noon meal.

Timothy quietly clicked his way not to the door of the kitchens but instead to the well at the far end of the yard by the large woodpile. After having been made aware of the well's existence in the yard the evening before, he had explored the bakery yard thoroughly that morning, learning its dimensions and what it contained, and had in the process found the well.

He leaned over the edge of the well and listened to the faint dripping below, smelt the familiar dampness. He gripped the crank and turned it. At last the winch brought the bucket to the mouth of the well. Swinging it over, he grabbed it and set the bucket on the wall of the well. He bent his hands in a scoop to the water and dashed it into his face, then straightened up, dried his face on his sleeve and was given to thought.

He doubted he would be welcome back to the Angel for some time. However, there were plenty of other alehouses to frequent; to sit in and listen, and pick up all the latest news and gossip....

He brushed down his clothes and smoothed down his hair as Celeste had advised, then turned from the well and crossed the bakery yard to descend the steps into the kitchen.

Giles and Thomas the scullions were splashing disconsolately over at the large stone sink, scrubbing clean the last of the pots. Hervy, the other scullion was by the fireplace, sharpening knives. Timothy sent them out to haul more wood for the morrow, and then descended the cellar steps at the far end of the kitchens.

A mouse scuttled across his path as he crossed the cellar. Other than that, all was quiet. After the blur of hard work undertaken in the bakery since before dawn and the noise of the Angel, Timothy found his head throbbed. The peace of the cellar was like a balm to his ears.

He wended his way round a maze of barrels and sacks, finding that new ones had been placed down here whilst he had been absent, and reaching the tiny side cellar, subsided to sit on his bed. The straw stuffed mattress crackled under him, and gingerly he rubbed his stomach where the thief's stubby hand had dealt him a good blow. His hand went to his belt where the cut ties of his purse still dangled, and feeling over the ends of the leather ties, he sighed to himself.

He reached inside his jerkin, drew out his reclaimed purse, and pulling it open at the neck, emptied its few contents out onto the worn blanket that covered his bed. He felt over the contents to check that everything was there, and satisfied that everything was, tipped the contents back into his purse.

Reaching down by the side of his bed, he took up his small pack, and searching through it, brought out several long thin leather laces. Selecting the longest, he removed the cut ties from his purse and began to thread the new leather lace through the eyelets of the purse.

He lifted his head to listen as he heard the door to the cellar creak open. There came the sound of a light tread quietly descending the steps, and crossing the cellar, coming towards him. The footsteps rounded the corner and Timothy, not pausing in his task, turned his head to face the archway as the soft tread approached.

"Who is there?" he asked calmly, still threading the leather lace through the eyelets. He knew from the way she had so elegantly stepped across the cellar, but he decided to make her uncomfortable.

Where she had halted in the archway, Celeste lifted the lanthorn she held and stared in at him.

The blind man sat on his bed in what would have been almost complete darkness had she not brought a lanthorn, she realised. His uplifted face was half turned in her direction, listening and attentive, but his deft fingers were still working, threading new leather ties through the eyelets of his purse on his knee as surely as though he was looking down at it. His dark eyes roved restlessly past her as though she was not there, oblivious to the glare of the lanthorn that spilled a circle of light over him. Celeste suddenly found the scene alien, found him alien, and felt uncomfortable.

"It is I, Celeste de Normanville," she replied, somewhat chastened.

She was alone. Timothy continued threading the new leather ties through the eyelets of his purse. Now Manon was not present, he felt he could speak his mind to her older sister. "What do you want, Mademoiselle de Normanville?" he asked brusquely. "Come to tease me again, have you?"

"Came to give you back your rosary," Celeste answered. "Don't you want it?"

Turning his head from side to side, Timothy scanned over her presence before him with doubt and not a small amount of unease. "Not if I have to reach for it down the front of your gown," he said.

Celeste giggled. "I wouldn't be so cruel." She moved a pace forwards and Timothy heard a clatter of beads drop softly onto the blanket of the bed before him. He reached out and felt over the bed in the direction the sound had come from, and his fingers found the string of smooth round beads. He took the rosary up and ran his thumb over the shape of the Gaud, recognising it.

"It is yours, you know," Celeste said, curiously watching him identify the rosary by touch.

"Just checking," Timothy replied with meaning, still running his thumb over the Gaud.

Celeste's voice was both amused and teasing. "I've kept it very safe. It has nestled between my breasts all this while."

Timothy suddenly scarce liked to touch the rosary at fevered thought of where it had lain. The amber beads were warm from being next to her skin and the thought fevered his imagination. He remembered all too clearly the feel of the plump pert little breast against his palm and the memory made his throat tighten. "That's not exactly a Holy place to keep a rosary," he said ungraciously, tying it once more to his belt.

"Maybe it isn't," said Celeste unperturbed, "but if I hadn't kept it hidden there, Mother or Father would have seen it and asked me how I came by it."

Timothy took up his newly mended purse and tied it once more to his belt. In the golden light of the lanthorn, Celeste watched him curiously, for again he did not turn his face down to what his hands were doing.

"I thought you had to hurry back to your Mother?" Timothy said.

"I did. She sent me across to the kitchen to fetch her a jug of wine from the buttery - she gave me her key to it. So I am here on quite seemly business. No-one is around in the kitchen above, at present. No-one to see. So I slipped down here. To give you back your rosary. I could not return it to you whilst in the company of Manon. She would ask questions."

Timothy rested his hands on his knees and listened to the explanation. "So why have you deigned to give me back my rosary?" he asked plainly. "I thought it was gone for good."

Celeste's voice was apologetic. "I had a think about the taking of it, and I felt sorry for you. I thought mayhap you wouldn't have liked to have lost it - I thought maybe a loved one had given it to you."

Timothy gave a slight laugh, remembering Brother Anselm pressing the string of beads into his hand only a few days ago. "No. It's no love-gift. But you're right, I wouldn't have liked to have lost it. I am not particularly pious but that rosary was given to me by a good and gentle man and one whom I respected, though I did not know him long."

Celeste's voice was again apologetic. "I'm sorry I took it."

"But not sorry you tried to get me to the stables at the Angel to love-makeamongst the hay," Timothy said wryly. "Why did you try and seduce me?"

Celeste lifted her chin defiantly, staring him in the face even though she knew he could not see it. "I thought that you were a poor blind man and that maybe you would enjoy what I offered. I thought that maybe no woman had ever offered herself to you before."

Timothy frowned. "You truly make me incredulous. I am six and twenty. What makes you assume I have not bedded a whole string of lovers before now?"

She faltered. "Well, because you were blind, I thought-"

"-I am no case for charity," Timothy cut in.

"You're proud. Pride is a sin." Celeste accused.

Timothy swung his head in irritated response at her statement. "I am proud to be an individual who is blind, yes. I am proud to be me. But that is not a sin. It is belief in myself. If I were to think myself better than others, then yes, that would be when Pride is a sin. But being proud to be me - liking to be me - that is not a sin."

Celeste was dumbfounded. "How can you be proud to be blind?"

Timothy had an immediate answer ready. "How can you be proud to be sighted?"

Celeste's tone was condescending. "You're blind - you can't see - that puts you at a lack."

"And you can't feel, hear, smell, taste and just be AWARE half as well as I can - and that definitely put you at a sad loss," Timothy replied. "One of my senses is missing, yes - but it matters not, there is no gap there to me because I have never had that sense. But you....you are fractured, lacking quality and focus in all four of the senses I have. Who out of us is the one who lacks, Mademoiselle de Normanville? Myself with one sense completely absent or yourself with all five senses but four of them definitely substandard?"

Celeste felt taken-aback by this sometimes alien-seeming but nonetheless engaging young man. "I've never thought about it in that way. So I suppose we're....equal," she offered awkwardly.

Timothy laughed and swung his head in delight by the answer. "So, an admission! Yes, equal. That's what we are. Not many sighted people realise that, though, and it's good that you have." He grinned mischievously in her direction. "I almost begin to like you, Mademoiselle Celeste."

Celeste hesitated then moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. Timothy turned his head uneasily towards the movement. "My father had a brother who was born blind - like you."

Timothy listened, interested. "I remember you saying yestereve that you had never met him."

"Yes. Father left Rouen when he was no more than a lad and came to England. I was born here. Father's parents kept his blind brother hidden away mostly. Oh, they took good care of him, but didn't let him out their home. Father said he had a comfortable life."

Timothy shuddered. "Poor creature."

Celeste was bewildered. "Why? Why do you speak so?"

Timothy reached for his pack that lay on the bed and placed away the leather laces he had not used in the mending of his purse. "Because he was denied freedom. Because his parents clearly never taught him to take care of himself."

Celeste watched him in the glow of the lanthorn, curious. "Didn't the monks at Thornton Abbey do the same with you? Didn't they keep you cloistered away?"

"Maybe they tried at first," Timothy laughed, "just out of pure worry that I would bump into trouble, but by the time I was seven or eight, I'd learnt to climb the back of the wall at the abbey and head off to the village or the woods. I had a guiding stick," he tapped the head of the stick that was propped against the edge of the bed beside him, "and I knew all the paths and tracks for miles around. Besides, I liked exploring. By that age I'd learned there was so much stretching all around me to feel for and find and learn about - things I didn't know were there. There still are."

He fell to thought, suddenly remembering the first time he had discovered the orchard by Felden. A blind seven year old alone on an Autumn afternoon, exploring, who had tapped his way inquisitively along a faint path trodden into the ground; a path he had never come across before with his stick. He remembered his excitement at stepping off the path and trying to find the trees that he could suddenly sense all around him.

Apple trees. He could still smell the apples in the branches of the trees around him, their scent mingling with the scent of drying leaves and the hint of moisture in the air. It had been almost intoxicating and he had wandered from tree to tree, feeling over the trunks and the lowest of the twisted branches, finding with delight that there was a regular pattern in the spacing of the trees around him as he left one only to come across another. Slowly, little by little, piecing together the order of what was around him and understanding what he had come across. How the whole orchard presented itself as a whole.

He remembered that glorious, vibrant, absorbed voyage of discovery in the orchard as though it had been yesterday. Most of all, he remembered the contentment in him at the secure knowledge that he was free to explore, free to reach for the world around him and touch it.

"Tuck brought me up to be independent," Timothy said softly at last, coming out of his memories. "To be free. There were no greater gifts that I could be given. The gift of freedom far surpasses the gift of sight."

Celeste dropped her head, suddenly dejected. "I wish I were free. But I'm not. That's the fate of being female, isn't it?"

"I've met many a free woman." Timothy's mind fled to Beatriz, widowed at four and twenty and making shift for herself as one of the many peasant women who scrubbed and swept the floors of the many grand tiled passages and chambers in the palace of the Princess Mafalda.

"In Lisbon?" Celeste asked.

"In Lisbon and other places." Timothy fell to contemplation once more, fingering the buckle on the flap of his pack.

Celeste looked at him. By the flickering shadows the lanthorn cast, his face was suddenly pensive, indicating his thoughts lay in the past. He suddenly seemed as far away from her as the moon, and she wondered at that past he clearly dwelt upon, however momentarily. She could not read his eyes to gain any hints of secrets he kept within him; their restless random movement rendered them unreadable. "You're still lucky, even if you are blind, because you're a man," she said softly.

Timothy laughed, coming out of his inner thoughts. "So you'd rather be a blind man than a sighted woman?"

"Were you ever not in control of your own destiny?" Celeste asked.

"Oh yes." Timothy thought of his adolescence at Thornton Abbey. "The monks wanted me to join the order, when I was fifteen. Well, let us say that I felt some pressure applied to me by Father Lawrence," he added wryly.

_On the orders of certain others,_ he thought to himself privately, suddenly solemn.

"I've never been in control of my own destiny." Celeste drooped her head, suddenly sad. "So I exert what little control I have in other areas. My body. Whilst I still have it. I won't even have that when I marry. My body will become my husbands." She glanced across at Timothy, seeing his listening, thoughtful face at her confession. "Can you blame me wanting SOME form of freedom?"

Timothy caught the sadness, the sudden dejection in her voice. He reached out, found her slim shoulder, and ran his hand lightly down the line of her arm and covered her hand resting in her lap with his own. He gave her hand a brief squeeze of comfort. "No. No, I don't blame you. It's hideous not to have control over your life."

They sat there for a moment in silence, his hand covering hers in her lap.
Then Timothy felt Celeste stir, as though jerking out of thoughts of her own. "I - I must go," she said, rising hurriedly, and made for the archway that led to the main cellar.

"Celeste?" Timothy asked.

She paused in the archway and half turned to look back at him over her shoulder. "Yes?"

"Thank you for returning my rosary," Timothy said simply, casting a smile in her direction.

She managed a smile back, even though she knew he could not see it. "I am no thief like that man in the alehouse. Let us just say I...borrowed your rosary."

She picked up her skirts and passed through the archway to the cellar beyond.

Timothy laughed, listened to her soft tread fade away across the cellar, and then, sitting on his bed, once more alone with stillness around him, he fell to memories of the past.

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