Songs of Love & Death

A handsome minstrel had no place in either future. Traditionally, minstrels never wed or settled down. They were the wandering record keepers of the Six Duchies, the men and women who knew not just the larger history of the world, but the details of inheritances, the bloodlines of the noble families, and many particulars of agreements among the small holders and even the business of the many towns and cities. They wandered where they would, supported by the largesse of titled families and innkeepers and patrons, slept where and with whom they pleased, and then wandered on. There were minstrels’ guilds in the larger cities and informal associations in the lesser towns where orphans and the bastards of minstrels might be raised to follow in their trade. It was a high and artistic calling that was not at all respectable or secure.

In short, handsome, melodic Azen was the worst possible sort of fellow for a girl like Timbal to fall in love with. And so, of course, she had.

She had seen him before the morning he knocked on the soles of her boots and she opened her heart to him. In the evenings, when the day’s work was mostly done, all the folk of Timberrock Keep were welcome to gather in the lord’s hall to listen to music and tales while they finished whatever chores could be done inside of an evening. Stable boys mended harness, housemaids stitched torn sheets or darned socks, and kitchen maids such as Timbal could bring a big basket of apples to core and slice for the next day’s pies. And so she had seen Azen, standing in the late-evening light from the open doors and windows, singing for Lady Lucent and her husband Lord Just.

For Lord Just, long crippled from a fall during a hunt, Azen chanted tales of ancient battles or songs about deeds of daring. Lord Just had been a muscular fellow before his fall, she had heard. Confined to a chair, his body had dwindled, and his black curls were starting to turn gray. When he thudded his fist on the table and sang the refrains to some of the old songs, he reminded Timbal more of a small child banging with a spoon than a man enjoying a drinking song. The strength of his lungs and depth of his voice had diminished along with his body. Yet when he sang along, often as not, Lady Lucent would set her hand on his bony shoulder and smile at him, as if remembering the man he had once been to her.

For Lady Lucent, Azen sang romantic ballads or recited in dramatic tones the tales of love prevailing against all odds, or failing in heart-rending circumstances. When Azen performed for her, Lady Lucent’s eyes never left the minstrel’s face. Often she kept her kerchief to hand, for more than once his songs wrung tears from her eyes. She was not alone in that. On her very first evening in the hall, Timbal had been surprised to find her own eyes overflowing with tears at Azen’s tale of a wandering warrior who finally returned home to discover he was too late; his lady love was in her early grave. Timbal had been a bit embarrassed to weep at such a sad and sentimental song; it was evidently a familiar favorite to many at the keep, for they hummed along and kept at their tasks, some whispering to one another, untouched by his words. She had no kerchief and was reduced to wiping her cuff across her streaming eyes.

And when she lowered her wrist from her face, she realized that Azen was staring straight at her. As their eyes met, perhaps a small smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. Not a mockery, but his pleasure at her response to his song. His eyes had said the same, and she had dropped her gaze back onto the potatoes she was slicing, confused and embarrassed to be noticed by him. Long minutes later, she lifted her eyes again, and was relieved to find the minstrel singing directly to Lady Lucent, as if she were the only listener in his world. Timbal managed to sit through the rest of his performance without letting her emotional responses to his songs be too obvious. Surely it wasn’t appropriate for her to weep like a child at a simple song. A tender-hearted lady might break down at such a thing, but not a kitchen maid.