Post of the Month

~ September 2009 ~

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

Timothy ~ Written by Rhys.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group October 2007.

The first sensation of faint warmth touched Timothy's face as he walked along the Nottingham streets. Along Hounds Gate, past the Salutation Inn, towards St Peters.

The sun had risen, he realised.

Upon leaving the de Normanville's, he had walked across the empty silent space of the sleeping market-place to the Bell alehouse. He had hoped to while away a few hours there until he heard people moving around and the market-place stir, which would tell him that it was light and that the gates of Nottingham would be open for him to leave.

But the Bell had been sleeping too. Timothy had felt over the stout oak door and had found it closed; bolted from within. Frustrated by the discovery, he had rattled the iron ring on the door which served as a handle. A window had swung open from somewhere above him and a woman's querulous and sleepy voice had bid him be gone before she called the night watch for disturbing her - the Bell was closed to business and couldn't he see that it was dark?

For some reason Timothy had not been able to understand, she obviously had not been able to see he was blind and despite his current mood, he had almost laughed at her. She had slammed the window above shut again with a curse at him.

Undaunted, Timothy had felt his way around the wattle and daub corner of the Bell, to its cobbled yard where traveller's horses were stabled and where he knew its well was - the well he had washed from on his first morning back in Nottingham.

The small yard was partially enclosed, and he had felt safer than walking the Nottingham streets at night. He had heard one horse tramping restlessly in the stable across the yard, but had sensed no people present, either awake or asleep.

He had sat with his back against the well wall, and with knees drawn up to his chest and hand on his dagger at his belt, he had tried to doze. It had been hard, for the events of the night had kept replaying in his head, most of all Celeste's screaming and crying as her father had hit her, and guilt had kept plucking at him, like a finger plucking a discord note on a harp string.

Finally though he had dozed on and off until he had become aware of the first chatter of a blackbird and the horse in the stable across the yard whicker restlessly. He had heard movement along the street by the yard; every so often a pair of footsteps - the squeak of a door or window being opened, the faint wail of a waking baby wanting to be fed. Then he had known that light had come, and the gates of Nottingham would be open, so he had washed at the well, scraped the stubble from his face with his knife, and then tapped his way out of the cobbled yard and onwards along the streets once more.

Morning had brought a strange sort of mood upon Timothy. Guilt and responsibility for all that had occurred at the de Normanvilles the previous night, sadness that he had clearly lost Henri's friendship forever - not that he could blame the man - and anger at himself for being so weak as to give into the urges of his body and as a result lose his job, which had been a good job at that.

Good jobs in his trade for a blind man were very scarce to come by, he had learned that with his heart's blood by now. Sighted people were mostly prejudiced when it came to believing that the blind could work at his trade with anything near the amount of skill as a sighted person. Henri had overcome his prejudice and given Timothy the chance - _and I threw that chance away,_ Timothy thought angrily at himself in beration as he walked.

Having very little sleep the previous night did not help Timothy's current irritability, either. Now, he strode along Houndsgate in a type of angry daze, cutting the air and the ground with his guiding-stick as if it had been a knife, wishing that he could swish it through walls and posts and cut up the ground itself in front of him.

Timothy's stick suddenly clicked against the stone wall of St Peters on his right, and he stopped short and listened.

Soft steps. A chiming of bells in the wind.

He put out his left hand to his side where his stick had found the stone footing of the church, and felt for the wall. Finding it, he moved closer to its shelter and paused whilst he listened to the movement around him.

Only a short distance ahead of him, there were a trickle of people moving from his left to his right. Out of the church, through a flung-open door that swung and creaked slightly on its hinges.

Timothy turned his head to listen to the people as they left the church, catching their quiet, tired chatter as they faced another day of working hard at their trades. In the background to their noise there came the faint cry of the bellman from the marketplace, calling out the hour of seven. Nottingham was stirring, waking itself up.

Timothy waited until the moving trickle of people before him had passed by, and then tapped his way forwards along by the wall, using it as his guideline. He came up against two stone steps and after exploring them briefly with his guiding-stick, he ascended them to pass through the doorway into the large quiet space of St Peters.

Prime had finished, and only a few remaining people brushed past him on their way out as he tapped his way forwards into the nave. He went carefully but curiously forward, finding it an unfamiliar place, his stick sweeping from left to right ahead of him, tapping on the cool, cracked stone floor, sending out echoes that bounced back to him off a multitude of hard surfaces and disappeared upwards to be absorbed by the space of a high roof above him.

The few stragglers out of the church came towards him and passed him; a young child walking towards him with light quick footsteps laughed and said: "Look at the blind man, mother!" and a female voice sternly admonished: "Hush ye, Thomas, and come away from him!" as though she feared Timothy might harbour disease or at the very least transfer his blindness to the child.

The child's quick footsteps on the stone floor suddenly steered across Timothy's path to the left and passed him, and both child and mother's steps echoed together out of the wide space of the door now behind him, to become muffled and lost in the sounds of the street beyond.

Timothy tapped his way on into the space of the nave, unperturbed. He sometimes wondered how he must look to some sighted people, to evoke such things being said by them. Sometimes they seemed to think that they might catch his blindness from him, as one caught fever or the pox.

Timothy suddenly came up against a stone column in his way, his guiding stick warning him of it two paces before his shoulder would have clipped it.

He halted beside the column to reassess his surroundings, his left hand paused against the column's fluted surface. With his right hand he ran his guiding stick out wide across the stone flags ahead of him and to the side of him in curious exploration, but it found nothing but an expanse of worn stone floor. The draught from the open door blew softly against the back of his head and the dim sounds of the street that filtered into the church were still behind him, so he knew he faced the chancel and the rood screen. The heavy sweet smell of incense lingered faintly in the air around him; it seemed to hang suspended there like a dream that was slow to fade. The familiar scent immediately brought back vivid memories of his childhood at Thornton Abbey.

Timothy stood quietly and turning his head from side to side, listened to the interior of the church that enveloped him.

The last time he had been in St Peters had been as a fifteen year old with Tuck. Now he remembered Tuck's description of the ornate wooden rood screen that divided the chancel from the nave, designed to separate the more sacred areas of the church and keep out the unwashed and unholy. Solid only to waist height, the rood screen, Tuck had said, was richly decorated with pictures of saints and angels in gleaming colours like jewels and glowing gold, with squint holes in the screen ensuring that the congregation could see the elevation.

He had taken Timothy up to the rood screen and placed his hand on the carved wood so Timothy could feel and form his own impression of it. Timothy still remembered the wooden twists and swirls of the carved screen under his hands, forming a repeating pattern of tracery that he had enjoyably followed along and upwards with his fingertips.

St Peters was old, Tuck had said. _"It was here before King William faced Harold Godwinson at the battle of the Old Grey Apple Tree, and that was a hundred and fifty years ago...."_

Timothy shook himself out of his memories and securing his guiding stick firmly in his hand once more, he tapped his way forwards, wondering if he could find the rood screen to touch. He came up against more thick fluted stone columns, which he wended his way around in exploration. Some of them he walked around more than once, following his hand over their curving shapes as he felt his way around them, ever curious, until, surprised, he suddenly came up against a stone wall.

He halted, put out his hand and wonderingly touched the wall before him, sweeping light fingertips over the stones before him, registering the rough variety of them; some sensitively shaped and honed, others rough and cobbled together, a network of cracks between them, like the non-pulsing veins of a dead soul.

The draught from the main door blew on Timothy's right cheek and softly ruffled his hair, and what with that and his contact with the wall, he gained an idea of his new placement within the church. He was to one side of the nave, and the rood screen should be somewhere on his right in that formless distance he knew little about. He realised that with his exploration of the stone columns he had wandered off-course. He had not found the rood screen with its delicious carved tracery of memory, but that did not matter, because he had found this wall instead, and it was just as interesting.

He placed the flat of both hands gently against the wall and listened, and felt. The wall almost hummed with the vibrations of the past. He could almost feel this ancient place speak to him, and the very peace of it seemed to seep into him and soothe him. He lingered his fingers over the cool stones of the wall, enjoying its shapes and textures, enjoying its sense of peace and being in contact with it. It was good to feel something solid in all this quiet sleepy space. Protective, sheltering, a guideline to follow. He always liked to find a wall, for a wall always led him somewhere.

Timothy turned and leant his back against the wall and lifted his head to the large space above. He remembered Tuck saying there was a fine beamed roof above, set with carved globular three-petalled ballflowers, and carved wooden angels that looked down on them. He could smell the scent of seasoned timber mingled with dust and the wax from a thousand candles. He could almost feel the cold draught of time, of comings and goings, beginnings and ends, great happiness and sadness.

He was just one more person standing in this great draught of time he realised. He had come, he would go, he had known in his twenty-six years both great happiness and great sadness. His beginnings he knew not of - and the Lord alone knew where he would end.

The church suddenly seemed full of ghosts that shrieked silently in fury. He listened intently to them, and they became only one voice ringing in his ears - that stinging, sarcastic voice in the tower chamber that had smelt of parchment, sealing wax and ink, at Nottingham Castle, eleven years ago, and he felt he was but fifteen again. The feeling of his then unempowerment came back like a bittertaste on his tongue.

_Why?_ Timothy angrily asked the memory of that sarcastic voice now. _Why did I let myself be made weak, why did the cold words from your mouth matter so much to me? Why did I allow myself to run, to disappear within myself for you?_

_Wasn’t it only yesterday that I was still a child - still so weak and useless in your eyes? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I finally learned what true strength is? Did how I felt ever matter to you; did my words ever reach your heart? Could you hear them?_

He felt he knew the answers.

And yet he had still returned. To ask more questions, to find more answers.

This time, however, he would not go away until he had what he wanted.

Timothy sighed and rubbed a hand across his tired face.

But now, where? He could not stay in Nottingham at present; he had little money and the threat of Henri sending the watch after him if he remained in the town was one that should be taken seriously. He doubted he could find a job in another bakery or cook-house in Nottingham - Henri was well-respected and would soon spread the word not to employ him. His peers would listen.

He thoughtfully fingered the leather purse at his belt, aware that only three silver pennies clinked lightly together at the base of it. He needed to earn a living whilst he remained in England, but he doubted he would find work at his trade in Nottingham now, due to Henri. Yet, he should stay near Nottingham, at least for the time being. Close enough to pick up news and gossip which he could act upon when he felt the time came. So where should he go?

His words to Manon the previous night came back to echo in his memory. _"This area is where I grew up, and yet I don't feel a part of it anymore."_

Timothy swung his head to himself, seeking comfort from the movement in the face of such an admission remembered amid such still surroundings. He suddenly felt disjointed, disconnected; fragmented from these surroundings, fragmented from the feel of Nottingham itself and fragmented from his past experience of the town.

He remembered when he had been a boy he had used to blend and merge so delightfully and familiarly with all that he had encountered in Nottingham, with all that had loomed up into his awareness to meet him and his fingers and nose and ears and sense of place. Every time he had visited the town with Tuck he had slid enjoyably and naturally into its surroundings, and had felt a part of it, a part of its movement and sound and pulse. He had not felt fragmented from it like this. He had not felt alone, as though Nottingham no longer fitted him, or he no longer fitted Nottingham.

Timothy's fingers slid along his belt from his purse to the rosary tied there. The rosary that Brother Anselm had given him; Timothy's own simple rosary of smooth olive-wood beads which he had brought from Portugal was lodged deep at the bottom of the small pack he carried. Timothy fingered over one of the decade of beads in the string tied to his belt. The beads were of amber, Celeste had said, and yes, they did have that curious quality of amber he had learnt to recognise by touch; stone-like and yet almost warm to the skin.

Amber was precious; Timothy suspected now that Brother Anselm may have given him his own rosary, and wondered at the giving of it. At the time, had he looked so troubled, so helpless, so in need of spiritual and physical guidance? He did not know, he could not see himself, and now he wondered how many of his inner feelings, his inner secrets, he had unwittingly given away to Brother Anselm.

He ran his thumb over the string, finding the large Paternoster bead and then the Gloria bead, before lingering his fingers back on the row of smaller Ave beads. For a moment he thought longingly of Thornton Abbey; he found he wanted to be amongst people who remembered him, who knew him, who would not judge him.

Memory flooded back to him; an instance in his childhood. He had been very young, no more than three years of age, only just beginning to learn to use a guiding stick. He had been taken out of the Abbey by Tuck for a walk. He remembered the heat of that summers day and the cool hollow he had found under the shoulder of the hill near the Abbey. The smell of earth and grass and apples. He had escaped Tuck's attention and had run as fast and far as his three year old legs could carry him, around the curving slope of that hill. He had dashed away from Tuck's call, convinced that if the call was not heard, it would not truly exist.

He had tripped over a rabbit hole and fallen headlong, grazing his hands and knees on a stony patch of ground that had rudely come up to meet him. Worn out by the heat of the day and the concentration expended on learning to find his way independently with the guiding-stick, he had lain there and howled until Tuck had arrived and scooped him up, and carried him back down the hill.

Arms and legs wrapped around Tuck, he had hiccoughed wearily against Tuck's shoulder, soothed by Tuck's hand patting him gently on the back, and then, exhausted and hot-faced, arms dangling, he had fallen asleep whilst being carried, his tear-stained cheek crumpled against Tuck's shoulder.

He had woken to find himself back in the quiet spacious Abbey atmosphere that he recognised as home. He had sat on the edge of his bed in the dorter and had reached out both hands and curiously felt over the smiling faces of Brother Tuck and Brother Matthew as they had crouched before him, whilst their cool calm hands had lain briefly upon his hot brow and cheek and their quiet voices had confirmed to each other that he was merely overheated and fractious due to the oppressive warmth of the summers day.

The cold rim of a pewter mug had been touched to his lips and he had eagerly taken its shape between his small hands to drink from it. Cool water had coursed over his tongue and then he had fallen back to sleep, feeling Brother Tuck's hand stroking his rumpled hair, nestled in the comfort of Brother Matthew's muted prayer being said over him and the softness of a woollen blanket. All had been right again with his world.

Life had seemed so simple as a child, with love and protection given unconditionally from Tuck and the other monks at Thornton, Timothy thought now.

He lifted his head higher to listen to the peace of the church around him. Quiet footsteps crossed the nave from right to left a distance in front of him, someone whispered a prayer; there came the flare of a candle being lit. To his right, where the draught softly fanned his cheek and hair, there drifted in the dim sounds of the Nottingham street outside.

Nottingham. Noisy, busy, even at this early hour. Soon it would become heat-ridden in the June day, with the gutters stinking to high heaven. The flow of people in the streets and the market passing him by, pushing and shoving.

He found he wanted to feel soft cool grass under his hands. He wanted to feel the shade of trees and smell their cool leafy scent; smell the scent of cut hay and hear the breeze whistle through broken reeds at the edge of a river or stream. Familiar sounds and scents and textures from his childhood spent in this area; he suddenly had the need to reacquaint himself with all of that, in the hope that he would no longer feel so fragmented from his past.

Most of all, he found he wanted quietness and peace for a while. To gather his thoughts. To talk with a trusted friend and to maybe lay at least a little of the uneasy past to rest.

Timothy heaved a soft sigh to himself as he considered all his options, still fingering over the rosary at his belt. Then, coming to a decision, he gathered his guiding-stick more firmly into his hand and turning, felt his way along the line of the stone wall, back towards the space of the open door through which the draught and the sounds of the busy town filtered.