Songs of Love & Death

Lady Lucent had traveled to her home, taking with her a minstrel loyal to her and her husband, so that her adoption of her sister’s son might be witnessed and made legal before Lord Spindrift could mount an objection. To hear the teamster tell the tale, it had been a plot long in the making, with the minstrel sworn to secrecy and the lady herself begging on her knees that her sister would give up her youngest son to them. By all accounts, he was a good and likely lad, open-faced, friendly, and an excellent horseman. All the folk at Timberrock Keep were rejoicing, and all who lived in Lord Just’s holdings could now know and share the good tidings.

Timbal rejoiced in the lively trade and good spirits that provoked such excellent tips that night. The names rang familiar in her ears, but of course they would; had not she worked at this very inn since before her accident? She was accustomed to names and bits of old news that jangled oddly in her mind and almost stirred a memory to the top.

So there was no reason for her melancholy to deepen over the days that followed. Yet it did. She awoke weeping in the dark of the night, felt a weariness that had no reason, and could not find a smile for anyone’s jest. She knew her life was good and nightly thanked Eda for blessing her. But, as she explained it to Gissel, “I cannot find my heart. I feel I have lost something, that I am missing something very important, and can know no peace until I find it.”

“You lost your father not that long ago,” Gissel ventured, but Timbal shook her head.

“I grieve him. I recall him, in flashes. His face seen by firelight, and how his hands clasped my shoulders, and even that he taught me to thank the goddess for every good fortune. No, Gissel. I recall enough of him to miss and mourn him. But there is something else. Something I had and I lost.”

“Tomorrow,” Gissel announced firmly, “we will tell my father we need a day off and we will walk up to Smithfield. It’s the next village on the river. We’ll visit my cousins, for I want you to meet Seck. I believe you’ll like each other, and he may be exactly the cure for whatever you’ve lost.”

Timbal was reluctant, but Gissel pestered her until she agreed. Her father agreed to give them both the day off, for trade was slower in winter. But he frowned at Gissel’s plan to visit her cousins, reminding her, “Seck has been seeing the farrier’s daughter. I heard he was quite taken with her.”

Gissel shrugged that off. “Perhaps he is, but I am not. And once he meets Timbal, he will likely forget all about scrawny Missa and her shrew’s tongue.”

They set out the next morning, catching a ride with a carter that Gissel knew. He was taking a load of late cabbages to Smithfield and would be happy to give them a ride back as well. Timbal sat on the tail of the cart while Gissel shared the seat with the carter, and soon divined that this was a ride that had been arranged well in advance of any favor that Gissel hoped to do for Timbal. He even kissed her before he set them down at her cousin’s house.

Her father’s gossip was correct. Seck was not even home that day, having gone to his sweetheart’s house to help her father repair a fence. Timbal found she didn’t care. The cousin’s house was a noisy place with several small children and an adorable new baby. The women there were as friendly as Gissel, and Seck or no Seck, the visit lifted Timbal’s spirits. She was reluctant to bid them farewell and lingered as long as she could. It was evening when they set out for the Smithfield inn where Gissel’s carter was going to pick them up for the ride home.

“Oh, and if I’d known, I’d have sent you on your way sooner, so you could have had a bit of music there, too,” Gissel’s cousin told her. “I’ve heard rumors of the minstrel playing at the inn. Tall and dark he is, and setting all the girls to swooning over his voice, but not a one of them will he look at! They say he mourns a lost lover, and always plays his last song to her memory.”

That was enough to pique the curiosity of both girls, and they hurried, shawls up against the light rain, until they came to the inn. Gissel’s carter was late, but they found a table near the back. Gissel’s cousin had been right. The inn was crowded with a mostly female population. The minstrel was repairing a harp string when they came in, his head bent over his work. “I’ll get us some cider while we wait for your carter,” Timbal offered, and Gissel declared, “He’s not ‘my’ carter. Not quite yet!”

“Oh, but he will be,” Timbal called over her shoulder and made her way through the throng to reach the tavern keeper.