Songs of Love & Death

That night, Lord Just seemed pensive and weary. Chrissock chanted long historical lays about ancient battles. They were boring and depressing. Lord Just drank too much and was carried off to his bed early. Everyone in the keep seemed out of sorts as they drifted away early from their master’s hall and off to their own rooms. Gretcha was wearing a new cap and apron, so perhaps she had been elevated to a lady’s maid. She stood gossiping with her cronies in the kitchen yard. As Timbal passed them, one whispered something to Gretcha, and then they all burst out laughing. She could not keep herself from glancing toward them, and found them flatly staring at her; she was the object of their mirth and they didn’t care if she knew it. She forced herself not to hurry, but knew all the same that she fled as she retreated up the stairs to her room.

There she let her foolish hopes shatter. He’d had all he wanted of her, and now Azen was gone. Was his mission truly to get Lady Lucent with child so that the baby could be passed off as Lord Just’s and the line would have an heir? It seemed wildly unlikely, and yet there were songs about such things happening. Both Lord Just and the minstrel had the same dark eyes and curly black hair, but that was true of three-fourths of Buck. And if Azen had been chosen as a stud, why send them off for the deed to be accomplished? Surely it would be more believable if the lady never left her home? But perhaps the process was too humiliating for Lord Just to tolerate under his roof. Or—and like a cold finger down her back, she recognized the truth—was it a woman’s decision, one that Lady Lucent had made out of her husband’s need for an heir and her need for a bed partner livelier than a crippled old man? But how could she hope to deceive her husband if he were unable to impregnate her? Unless he believed her already pregnant from some effort of his own?

Timbal felt suddenly shamed to be dwelling on the intimate affairs of the nobility. Did not the folk who had taken her in and given her work and a place to live deserve a bit of respect from her? She thought of Azen and resolved to harden her heart. Whatever had happened between her and the minstrel had been her doing as much as his. She’d gone with him, she hadn’t resisted him, and if he had no more interest in her than what he’d had, well, she had only herself to blame. Put it aside and go on with her life.

And so she did. For a week or so, Gretcha continued to laugh mockingly whenever she saw her, but Timbal ignored her, and hoped that her shame did not show. The keep was a quieter, drabber place without its mistress. The rains began and did not let up. The kitchen yard became a sodden mucky wreck, and Timbal walked barefoot across it rather than ruin the leather of her blue boots. She did her work by day and went to bed at night. It was her life. It had not seemed intolerable before Azen had stepped into it, and logic told her that it was not intolerable now. She tried to remember how pleased she had been with it when her tasks were new, how happy she had been to settle in at Timberrock Keep. Now it seemed tedious and pointless. She would spend the rest of her life preparing food for other people. That was all. It was life, it was what one did. One worked, and ate, and slept. With time, she’d remember how to do that without it feeling like each breath did no more than carry her one step closer to death.

On her next day off, Timbal resisted the urge to visit the river beach and moon over what had befallen her there. Instead, under lowering clouds, she walked into the village and treated herself to a mug of cider at the tavern and listened to a white-haired old minstrel who specialized in silly drinking songs and humorous tales. She even managed to smile a time or two. At the end of his performance, he announced that he would soon move on to the next town, and asked if there were news he could share with friends and relatives there. Half a dozen people sent greetings to extended family, one man announced the birth of a son, and another issued a warning about an upriver bridge that he proclaimed was so dangerous that carts should avoid it. The minstrel nodded to each message, repeating it back word for word. It was a common way for messages to be sent, especially those intended for the public or for folk who could not read and write.