By evening, she was resigned to knowing she’d been used. Neither Lady Lucent nor Azen appeared for the evening’s pastimes. Timbal sat a little apart from the other servants, picking over gooseberries for pies, and listened to Chrissock without watching him. The night seemed overly long, and her task with the berries endless. She stole glances at Lord Just, but without lifting her head. She was not surprised that he looked lonely and preoccupied. He had to know what was going on. Chrissock sang sonorously of battles and warriors long dead, but they were sorrowful songs of old defeats and heroes dying in vain. Lord Just stared through him, his face still and his eyes distant.
The evening ended early. Lord Just summoned Chrissock to come forward for a purse and then apologized for ending his performance early. “I have no heart for music with my lady gone from the keep. When she returns, then we will rejoice. Eda willing, she will bear back to us that which we all most devoutly desire.”
Chrissock bowed deeply. “I am sure the goddess will be willing, Lord. You have done all possible to smooth the way for her to favor us.”
Timbal glanced around at the other servants, only to find them exchanging equally puzzled looks. It was seldom that any event in the keep was not presaged with days of gossip, and she had heard no rumor of Lady Lucent going on a journey. As the workers of the Timberrock Keep rose to leave the hall, the buzz of gossip increased in volume. But for the most part, all Timbal heard were questions until Gretcha and her two cronies happened to pass near her.
“Oh, yes, they had me packing all yesterday for the trip,” Gretcha was assuring her friends. “It’s not officially said yet, but the mistress has me doing more and more tasks for her. Soon enough I’ll be sleeping upstairs near her room, I expect. Lady Lucent likes to keep all her personal maids close, you know. And she has come to trust me so much, I can’t help but think that she’ll soon make me her personal maid. I’ve known about the plans for this journey for days, but of course, intimate servants cannot gossip about the keep like ordinary housemaids.”
Gretcha’s friends looked both impressed and annoyed to be dismissed as “ordinary housemaids.” Timbal desperately wanted to be disinterested. She kept her face impassive as she drifted closer, the basin of picked-over gooseberries on her hip. Gretcha shot a glance back at her. Were her next words intended for Timbal’s ears?
“And, of course, Azen the Minstrel must go with our mistress, or what would be the point of the journey? What? You haven’t heard?” Gretcha leaned closer to her friends, but her voice carried as clearly as ever. “Well, I suppose I should say nothing… but it does no harm to remind you what you already know. Lord Just has no heir and, of course, his health grows no better, and with his, er, difficulties, he is unlikely to get his wife with child. But a baby there must be, if he does not want Timberrock Keep to fall into his cousin’s hands when he dies. You’ve heard of Lord Spindrift? Even his own servants call him Lord Spendthrift. He’s gone through all of his inheritance already and rumor is that he’s been able to borrow more funds only because he can assure the lenders that when Lord Just dies, Timberrock Keep will be his. And all have heard that he is a cruel man to dogs and horses as well as to women and servants. Lord Just has not allowed him to even visit here since that horrible incident with the hound puppy six years ago! So there’s no chance at all that he will let the lack of an heir make Timberrock Keep fall into his hands! So, there I will leave you all to think what you will! Lady Lucent goes off on a visit to her sister and her husband. She takes with her a very handsome minstrel to keep her company. My guess is that when she returns, the imminent birth ofLord Just’s heir will be announced… No, no, I won’t tell you a word more than that! Not a word! A lady’s maid is supposed to be the soul of discretion!” She tittered as she said this, fluttering her hands before her face as if to forbid her friends to ask her any more questions. They looked suitably scandalized by what she had implied, but neither ventured a query.
Timbal put her eyes on her gooseberries and increased her pace to pass the threesome. She resisted the impulse to give a bit more swing to her hip as she passed Gretcha. She knew she had the muscle to send the housemaid flying. But then people would wonder why and the truth was too painful to admit. She hated Gretcha because the housemaid knew that Timbal had made a fool of herself over the minstrel. Hated her even more because Gretcha had warned her and she’d ignored the warning. The woman must think her an idiotic slut. Her cheeks burned as she hurried into the clamor and crowding of the kitchen. Everyone was rushing to put their chores to bed. As Timbal covered the basin of berries and disposed of the stems and rotten ones, she forced herself to consider the obvious. Gretcha had known of the journey. That meant that Azen must also have known. Yet he hadn’t admitted it last night, or even hinted at it. No. He’d simply taken advantage of her, knowing well that he’d soon be on his way and gone for months. Why would he be so heartless?
The reason for that dropped on her like a gush of cold water: If she turned up pregnant, no one would believe the minstrel had lain with her. He’d had her virginity; perhaps the novelty of that was all that had drawn him to her. As she tottered up the stairs to her room, a new fear battered her. He was gone, and if she found herself expecting a child, she couldn’t even plead with him to help her. “Sweet Eda, let that not be,” she prayed to the goddess. “I’d rather be dead than a mother with no husbandman!”
She spent another near-sleepless night. She berated herself for being a fool to have given in to him, and for being a bigger fool for longing to feel his touch again. She finally fell asleep clutching the dream that he swiftly returned to the keep with some reason for his cruelty. It did not help that she herself could imagine no explanation for how he had treated her.
Instead, she dreamed that she disgraced herself by running out to him as soon as he returned. In her dream, she was heavily pregnant, and he denied and mocked her, and Gretcha led all the servants in first laughing at her, and then driving her away from the keep for her terrible lies about the minstrel. In the dream, she had to flee barefoot, wearing only her servant clothes, and she wept because she had lost her blue boots, the last vestige of her father’s love for her.
She awoke late, her tears still wet on her cheeks. She had to rush to dress,and when she hurried down the stairs, she heard Cook calling her name in frustration. She rushed into the kitchen, was scolded harshly for being late, and put to washing up all the dishes by herself.
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.