Songs of Love & Death

Next, with a salacious grin, he asked for rumors and gossip worthy of being spread. A minstrel, he told them, could make more from a rumor than most men could from a pot of gold. So he begged them for whatever they had heard, no matter how unfounded. Much of what was offered had to do with the best whores in town, men bragging of their endowments, a warning to “whoever” had stolen six sheep from a high pasture, and a great deal of bawdy innuendo. The minstrel took note of it all with great good cheer, repeating the missives back so dramatically that even Timbal laughed until her belly hurt. Then a field hand from Timberrock Keep, somewhat the worse for drink, stood up to announce that “soon enough there will be an heir at Timberrock Keep. And Lord Just will be just as delighted as if the babe were his!”

“Eda’s tits, Lowl, you loud-mouthed drunk!” someone else at the table rebuked him, and gave him a friendly punch in the arm that sent him sprawling to the floor.

Another man at the same table shouted out, “He’s drunk! Pay him no mind!”

Even the minstrel seemed to sense that the man had crossed a boundary, for he parroted back, “The field hands from Timberrock Keep are loud-mouthed drunks. Pay them no mind,” and received a roar of approval for his amendment. But Timbal sat, suddenly silent, the grin faded from her face and the laughter dried up in her mouth. She put down her coppers for her cider and left, to walk back to the keep alone.

It was pouring rain when she left the tavern. Timbal had not even worn a cloak; there was nothing to do except get soaked by the chilling downpour. For the first half of her walk, she allowed herself to think about Azen as she had known him. She thought of the songs he’d sung, and how it had always seemed he was singing for her, even when his eyes sought out Lady Lucent’s. She thought of his softly curling black hair and how it had smelled when it had danced across her face as they made love. She let herself think of his lips, not just his kisses, but his kind words, and how gently he had held her and let her weep out her sorrow for her father. She had one night of him. Could she truly say she knew him, let alone loved him?

Love wasn’t based on knowing someone. Love, it seemed to her, simply was. It shamed her that he had treated her so badly and still she was mooning after him, recalling every whispered word and every touch. It was bad enough to be stupid once; did she have to recall her stupidity with such longing? For the first time, she let herself think the thought. Timbal wished she had the courage to kill herself. Wished she were dead and no longer feeling this pain for which she had no remedy. “But I don’t have the courage. El should kill me for a coward, for lacking the spine to do the job myself.”

She came to the footbridge she had crossed earlier that evening. The river was up. All the debris that had littered its banks all summer had been lifted and floated down to catch against the footbridge. The water pressed it against the bridge’s wooden supports, flowing through the debris and in several places across the top of the bridge. She hesitated, and set a foot out onto the wooden planks. They trembled with the push of the waters, but the bridge seemed sound enough. She glanced back toward the village to see if anyone was coming, wishing she could ask someone’s opinion on the safety. But the falling rain obscured her vision, and she doubted the others from the keep would start for home before nightfall. It would be fine, she decided.

In the pouring rain, she stooped down and pulled her boots off. Her bare feet would give her a better grip, and she had no desire for the water to pour inside her boots and ruin them. She clutched them to her chest and walked out onto the bridge. The wooden planks muttered and shuddered under her step. The water was cold as it rushed past her bare feet. Then suddenly it skipped up over the top of her foot, and on her next step, she found herself ankle deep. The water tugged at her and with one hand she snatched her skirts up out of its reach. She glanced back, but she was already in the middle of the bridge. As well go on as back.

Timbal took two more steps before the world bucked and lurched. For a moment, nothing made any sense. Then she realized that she was clinging to the bridge railing with one hand while clutching her precious boots to her chest with the other. The bridge was still there, under her bare feet, but she had lost her grip on her skirts. They tugged at her wetly as the water that was now knee-deep rushed past her. Her mind made sense of the tangle of lumber that loomed over her, pressed hard against the footbridge. The cart bridge upstream had given way, just as the fellow in the tavern had predicted. It had washed downstream, slammed into this bridge, and now other debris and the press of the flood waters was threatening to rip her bridge free of its supports and send it hurtling downstream. With her on it.