Songs of Love & Death

When evening was deep and the minstrel announced with regret that he must give his voice a rest, Lady Lucent spoke softly to Lord Just, and the man beckoned the minstrel forward. A little purse of red fabric tied with a gold cord appeared on the table at the lord’s elbow. His lady might have readied it and passed it to him; Timbal hadn’t seen. The minstrel thanked them both profusely, sweeping a low bow to the lord and going down on one knee to kiss the lady’s hand. Timbal, relatively new to such goings-on, watched curiously; so this was how things were done in a keep! She wondered if she had blundered into a special performance on her first evening here or if this was a nightly occurrence. The minstrel rose gracefully from his obeisance and made his way out of the room. She looked up at him from her seat on the floor as he passed close by her. He looked down at her. And winked.

Or blinked, perhaps. He was gone and she was left wondering what, if anything, she had seen. The conclusion of the minstrel’s performance had signaled the end of socializing in the hall. All around her, people were packing up their work. On the dais, the queen was bidding good evening to the aristocratic couple who were currently visiting at the keep, while the four stout men who carried the king’s pole chair were standing by to await his orders to move him. Timbal gathered up her empty bucket, her knife, and her basin of cut potatoes, and carried them back to the kitchen. Her bundle was still in the corner where she had left it. She gathered it up and waited until the cook had a free moment, and then asked him, “Please, sir, where may I sleep tonight?”

He scowled briefly, and for one terrifying moment, she wondered if he remembered that earlier that day he’d offered her room and board in return for her labor in the kitchen. Then he said, “Out that door, to the left, up the wooden stairs two flights. I think there’s a room or two empty up there. Whatever’s left in the room, you can use. If it’s empty, well, manage as well as you can tonight, and tomorrow I’ll see who can spare what. Good night, girl.”

She’d found an empty room, as he suggested, and was fortunate that it had a mattress stuffed with rather musty straw, and a simple but well-made table, and even a basin and ewer. That night, she’d taken the time to draw wash water for herself, but had slept on the mattress as it was.

In the days since then, Cook had learned her name, and she’d freshened the mattress with clean straw, and been given a rag rug and some empty sacking that had become curtains for the small window in the room. Most of the other kitchen help kept their shutters closed, winter and summer, but Timbal judged the fresh air worth the nuisance of flies in the day and mosquitoes at night. Her extra apron and servant’s robe hung on a hook at night, her shoes beneath them. Her personal clothing hung on a separate hook, with the blue boots her father had bought for her arranged neatly beneath them. She knew they would not last forever, and so she wore them only on her days off and when she wasn’t working in the kitchen.

There was little enough left of her former life; she’d make the boots and the memory of her father presenting them to her last as long as they could. They’d been tinkers while he was alive, and fairly good at that. Her mother had left them years ago, but she and her father had managed well enough, moving from town to town to find enough trade to keep them busy. Some months had been fat ones, with meat in the cook pot or a meal at an inn, and some months had been hard, with little more than mushrooms, roadside greens, and the occasional trout from a stream. But they had been happy, and more rare still, known they were happy with their simple life. Each night when they made their beds, her father reminded her to thank gentle Eda, goddess of the fields and farms, for her kindness to them.

In one town, they’d done exceptionally well, mending all the pots at a rich man’s manor. At the next town, her father had bought her a soft shawl of gray wool, and the pair of blue boots. The boots were well made, cut trimly to her foot, and came almost to her knee. They were an indulgence and she knew it, especially the rich blue dye that the cobbler had applied to the leather, just for her. She’d hugged her father tight when he’d given them to her, and he’d told her they were no less than she deserved for being the best daughter a man could ask.