All the Time in the World (English)

Chapter 9: The First 30 Days of a New Life

Jack Robinson smiled at her colleague, slightly uncomfortable.
"Do you believe him? Seriously?"
Alicia sighed.
"I know, it's crazy, but..."
"Come on, you can't really believe he comes from the Middle Ages. I know you're fond of him and you would like to help him, but you shouldn't lose touch with reality."
"He told me where to find some objects that had been hidden in a secret niche in the dungeons of the castle for over eight hundred years."
"Maybe he put them there. Wasn't he right there when we rescued him?"
"The archaeologist who opened the niche said that it had been untouched for centuries."
"Maybe Guy found out some old documents that said where to find it, a sort of treasure map."
"How do you explain this?" Alicia pulled a bundle of sheets from a folder and passed it to her colleague.
"Blood analysis?"
"I've done more in-depth examinations on him. Look, he's not immune to many of the diseases that we have vaccines for, while we have found antibodies against leprosy in his blood."
Jack looked at her, surprised.
"Why did you have to test him for leprosy?!"
"Because he told me that his father had come back from war, and then he was banned as a leper. Guy is immune to the disease, but to develop those antibodies he must have been exposed to it."
"It's not a proof, anyway. He could simply have been on a trip in one of the countries where the disease is still present. It's no doubt more plausible than the idea that a man can travel in time."
"I also checked his teeth: he has no fillings or traces of modern treatments."
"Then he is a very lucky man. Even a relative of my mother died at ninety years with perfectly healthy teeth without having ever set foot in a dental studio in her life."
"Anyway, I don't think he's crazy. You talked to him, you can see that his speeches have a logical sense, and that what he tells us always maintains some consistency with what he had said in the past. He has never changed his version or invented different details depending on the moment."
"This is true. It will certainly be an interesting case for our colleagues in the psychiatric ward."
"No! Guy must stay here."
"Alicia, that man believes he came from the Middle Ages..."
"That's true, but for the rest his mind is perfectly sane. Perhaps he is really from the past, or he has memories of a previous life, or maybe he is just an history enthusiast who has suffered partial amnesia, but he can adapt to a normal life, he can learn the things that he doesn't know and he is determined to do so. What would happen to him if they think he isn't in full possession of his faculties? If they shut him up in some mental institution, I don't think he could bear it."
Jack Robinson looked at his colleague: Dr. Little was always very serious and professional, and it was strange for him to see that she cared so much for a patient that she ignored logic.
Jack had to admit that he had been involved with Guy of Gisborne's case too, and he had often found himself indulging the patient in ways that for others would look like just as the demands of a crazy man.
"I think that we can wait for the moment. It is understandable to be confused after such a severe trauma, we will see how is the situation in a few weeks. But if we can't find a relative who can be responsible for him, it will be much more complicated."
Alicia thanked him with a smile. His colleague was giving her some time to prepare Guy, and to teach him everything he could learn about the modern world so that he could have a normal life.
"Do you want to come and visit him?"
"Not today. Dr. Track will return to London tomorrow and we have the last meeting with the rescue team to take stock of this experience."
"I'll go and say goodbye to him later, then. It looks almost unbelievable... it's been a month already..."

Guy closed the book he was reading, with a sigh.
That text narrated the story of humanity, starting from ancient times to get to the present and he was trying to figure out what had happened to the world in the eight centuries that he had lost.
The thing that confused him was to see that even the historical events he had experienced in person were treated in such a superficial and unclear way that he struggled to recognize them. And if the truth had been altered so much, Guy wondered how much he could trust those informations. One thing was certain, however: humanity had not stopped fighting new wars and seemed to have found more and more effective methods of killing people.
That had not changed at all since his time, and of course the sheriff would have loved some of those new lethal weapons.
He put the book on the floor beside him and leaned back against the wall, wrapping himself in the jacket that Dr. Alicia had brought him a few days earlier.
On the roof of the hospital it was cold, but Guy liked to take refuge there when he wanted to stay alone for a while. In the beginning he had followed the same path he had done with Jack Robinson when they went to see the helicopter. Guy had returned to the landing platform a couple of times, but then he had realized that his presence was an obstacle to the rescue team, and he had searched for another place from which he could watch the aircraft take off, without disturbing anyone.
He had found access to the roof of another wing of the hospital and he had discovered that huge terrace that was used only occasionally by doctors and nurses during the breaks. From there, he had a perfect view of both the helicopter and the city.
From what Guy could see from there, Nottingham was completely different from the city he remembered, bigger, with all those dark roads dotted with cars and modern buildings instead of peasants' huts. There were much less fields and trees and, at night, the city was all glittering with lights. Even the castle was no longer the one of his time, but a more recent building, and Guy wondered if there was anything left of the old Nottingham, besides him.
The helicopter's noise filled the air and Guy approached the parapet to watch it leave.
To see that metal object that was able to rise in the air and to move at that speed still seemed like a miracle to him.
That modern world was still frightening and filling him with wonder at the same time.
If I could go back, would I do it?
He wasn't sure he had an answer to that question. Learning and understanding all those new things was a difficult and frightening task, and Guy wasn't sure he could ever succeed, but in the time he had spent in the twenty-first century, he had become accustomed to the advantages of that time.
Returning to the tough life of the Nottingham of the past would be difficult, now.
In the present, people were less dangerous, more kind, and even when competing with each other, discussions and fights rarely degenerated into violence. In fact, nobody carried swords and daggers with them and only very few people went around carrying weapons.
In his Nottingham it would be unthinkable for a knight not to have his sword with him, and Guy still missed it. Without a weapon he was too vulnerable, yet he had rarely had the opportunity to feel so safe.
At the castle he had to be always careful and ready to defend himself because even the slightest distraction could cost him his life. There were always rivals ready to usurp his place, as he himself had done with the old Master at Arms, enemies to face, revenges... He always had to be ready to defend himself.
Now, instead, he could sleep quietly, knowing that no one would try to cut his throat during his sleep.
Perhaps he was becoming too confident and, if he ever had to go back in his time, this weakness could cost him his life, but it was nice not to be constantly forced to watch his back. If only he didn't feel so alone...
A chilly gust of wind made him shiver, and reluctantly Guy picked up the book from the ground and went back inside.
Alicia was waiting for him in front of the door of his room, and smiled at seeing him.
"Were you on the roof again?"
"Sometimes the ward seems too loud."
"And then to find some silence it seems perfectly logical to go and listen to the sound of a helicopter that takes off."
Guy smiled.
"It's a different kind of noise."
"I know, I was joking, I understand what you mean." She glanced at the book in Guy's hands. "Are you studying history?"
"Yes."
Gisborne glanced at the book.
"You look a bit dispirited, are you feeling well?"
"Alicia, what is going to happen to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"My wounds are almost completely healed, it makes no sense that I spend the days without doing anything. I've always had to earn the necessary to live with my own efforts, but now I don't know how to do it. I don't like to depend on the charity of others."
"You're doing your best, Guy. You're doing so much to learn the things you don't know..."
"But it's never enough! For every new thing I can understand, there are at least ten that I find incomprehensible! I spend all day observing, reading, trying to understand, yet I always feel like an imbecile."
"But it's not true at all!"
"Do you think I don't notice how people look at me when I ask for something that is obvious to them? When I was little, in our village there was a poor idiot who had been trampled by a horse during childhood. He had survived, but he was not even able to use the latrine on his own, and anyone who saw him would look at him with pity, as if they thought that it would be better to die rather than to live in those conditions." Guy sighed. "Now people look at me with the same kind of look..."
The woman put a hand on his arm and squeezed it slightly.
"We know that it's not like that. People can't fully understand your situation, you have to admit it is unique."
Guy nodded.
"I struggle to believe it myself."
"Don't overdo, things will settle in one way or another."
Guy sat on the bed with a sigh, massaging his temples.
"I hope so."
"Do you have a headache?"
"It has been happening often to me, lately."
Alicia looked at him, a little worried, thinking that he was still too pale and that he looked tired.
"I think you're right, you know? By now your health is much improved, yet you are always stuck here in the hospital, and you do nothing all day but trying to learn and remember new things. I'm not surprised that you feel discouraged and under pressure, it often happened to me too when I was studying medicine."
Gisborne looked at her.
"Really?"
"I did nothing but studying and I had the impression that I would never remember what I was trying to learn, and that I would never be able to put into practice the things I learned. I was away from home for the first time, I felt alone, and I was convinced that I would fail, that I would never become a good doctor. Then I was always tired because I was studying until late and I had to get up early to practice in the hospital. I had come to a point where I always had stomach ache and I cried for nothing. One day I had almost decided to give up everything and abandon my studies."
"But you didn't."
"No. And do you know why?"
Guy looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
"That day I had been studying the same page for a while and I couldn't remember a single word of it, I was nervous and frustrated, and at some point I closed the book and I decided to give up. I took my purse and got out of my room without having the faintest idea of what I could do in my life if I couldn't be a doctor. I wandered around the city for a while, without a real destination and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a fair: I don't know what they were celebrating, but it didn't matter much... There were stalls selling candy, music, games and competitions. People were cheerful, carefree, with no other thought than deciding what to eat or what game to play. At another moment I wouldn't even have stopped to look at the fair: I was always in a hurry and I had the idea that every moment I didn't use to study was wasted time, but that day I was convinced that I wouldn't have a future anymore and so I had all the free time in the world. I bought some sweets and I ate them wandering through the crowd, then I danced to the sound of the music, spending the few coins I had to break a pyramid of jars with a ball of rags and for an entire afternoon I just thought about having fun."
"And then?"
"And then in the evening I returned to my room, tired but much more serene, and it was only then that I realized that I actually remembered very well the page that I had struggled so hard to learn that morning. I was just so tense and discouraged that I had only convinced myself that I would fail, but I just had to learn to relax more and to rest when I needed it."
Alicia smiled at Guy and stroked his cheek.
"Now I'll get you a painkiller for your headache, then I want you to lie down without thinking of anything. You are tired and in the last few days you have overexerted yourself; the night shift nurse told me that you aren't sleeping much."
Gisborne nodded.
"When I go to bed, I constantly think of what I have learned during the day, I try to repeat it so that I can't forget anything, and eventually I can't sleep anymore."
"What did you like when you lived in the castle? Was there anything that relaxed you?"
Guy thought ironically that with the sheriff nearby he could never relax, then he realized that there was something.
"Horses. When I was too nervous or in a bad mood, I liked grooming my stallion."
"Then when you go to sleep try to remember what you did when you groomed your horse, try to remember the smells and the sounds, to feel his mane under your fingers... Don't think about anything, just imagine your horse and relax."
"I'll try."
"Good. You'll see: tomorrow you will feel better."

Guy turned in his sleep, hugging the pillow and he wrapped himself in the blanket with a sigh. Dr. Little's suggestion had worked, or perhaps Gisborne was so tired that it wouldn't have made much difference.
When he went to bed, Guy had tried to think of nothing and to remember his horse.
He had closed his eyes, trying to imagine the stallion in every detail, from the silky tail to the leather straps crossed on his forehead. Guy could almost feel the warmth of his body, the strength of the muscles, ready to push the elegant legs of the animal, and the noises he made, the soft and light neigh that the stallion uttered in recognition of his master when Guy entered the stable. That scene was so realistic and familiar that Guy could almost smell the characteristic odor of the stables and hear the buzzing of the flies.
He had slipped into sleep almost immediately, and for once his dreams had been serene, smelling of hay and caressed by the breeze blowing in the fields of Locksley.
When he woke up, the sun was already high and, as Alicia had said, he felt better.
He got up from the bed, stretching his back, and he noticed that someone had left, on the chair next to the bed, clothes different than the ones he usually wore. The trousers were still black, but the fabric was less soft and apparently more durable than the fabric of his usual gym suit; instead of the black sweatshirt there was a wool sweater of the same color, rather warm.
Guy wondered why they gave him those new clothes, but he wore them anyways. He thought that those more adherent trousers, though they were of a different material, reminded him somehow of the leathers he used to wear when he lived in his time.
It seemed absurd to him that only a month has passed since then. Sometimes he had the impression that his life at the castle was a completely different life, so far that it looked like a dream.
Will you forget about me, Guy?
Marian's voice was like an echo in his mind and Gisborne shook his head.
"No, I could never forget you," he whispered.
"Guy?"
Gisborne turned to the door with a start. Alicia Little stood on the door and looked at him, smiling.
"You look fine. Is the size right?"
Guy nodded.
"Yes, but why..."
"Get your jacket and come with me."
Gisborne noticed that the woman didn't wear her usual white coat, but she was also wearing a warm jacket and a woolen cap.
"Where?"
Alicia smiled.
"I think it's time for you to come out of the hospital, at least for a while. Do you feel like facing the modern world for a few hours?"
Guy thought of the terror he had felt when he first walked through the hospital doors and he had seen the cars and the helicopter for the first time. It seemed a far memory too, by now.
"I think so."
"What about getting on a car?"
Gisborne looked at her and nodded.
"Since you've explained me how they work, I've often wondered how it would be traveling on a vehicle like that."
"Well, you're about to find out, I'd say. Shall we go?"
"Where will you take me?"
Alicia smiled.
"I can't tell you, it's a surprise. But I think you'll like it."