“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.