Had Gretcha followed him? Her lighter slippers would make no sound. Timbal was frozen, her heart thumping so loud that her ears rang. What did it mean? And what would become of her if Gretcha came up the steps now and discovered her? She would know she had overheard. Was the secret worth her life? She lost track of how long she crouched there. Her left foot began to buzz with numbness before she dared rise and continue her climb up the stair.

She groped her way to her room, letting her garments fall as they would, and crawled into her bed. And there she lay, sleepless, and wondering exactly how Azen served Lady Lucent. She could think of only one way to interpret Gretcha’s words. Azen would get the lady with child, that the lord might claim an heir. And if that were so, if that were his “duty” that kept him at the lady’s beck and call, what then could a kitchen maid possibly mean to him? Nothing. A pastime, a way to spend his “freedom.” She’d been a fool. When morning came, she rose and went, sandy-eyed, to face yet another day of toil. She felt both changed and unchanged by the events of the night before, and could not say which was more terrible.

She went about her work that day as if nothing had happened. Her premonition that she had been a fool only deepened as the day went on. She tried to find satisfaction in the simple tasks that had occupied her hours, and could not. Her mind wandered, she felt impatient with chopping the onions, annoyed with searching the kitchen gardens for turnips that had not gone wormy. She did not, as a rule, see the minstrel during her workday, so she told herself she should not wonder at his absence. She tried to ignore the hard-eyed look that Gretcha gave her each time they passed, but could not. “I wish I could just die,” she said to herself, and then was shocked at her own whisper. She saw Gretcha muttering to two of the upstairs maids at lunch, and then all three of them turned to stare at her.