Usually on her days off, she chose to walk into the nearby town, sometimes to treat herself to a meal not of her own cooking at the tavern. But on the day that Azen knocked not just on her soles but her soul, she decided that she would, perhaps, return early to the keep for his evening performance.

Azen was not the only minstrel at Timberrock, but he was obviously the lady’s favorite. Timbal had heard the tale of his life, for Gretcha, one of the housemaids, was fond of bragging of all she knew of the great folk and their affairs. She did not deign to speak to lowly kitchen help such as Timbal, but if Timbal were near, Gretcha seemed to take every opportunity to air loudly her special knowledge. Gretcha had come with Lady Lucent from her family home, and had served as a maid in the lady’s household since she was a child. And thus Timbal knew that Azen had grown up near Lady Lucent’s family home and had been her playmate in her childhood. He was himself the third son of a minor noble. There had been no inheritance share for him, but he had not minded. Instead, he had taken up the minstrel way and spent most of his winters at Timberrock Keep, playing for his old friend and her husband.

The other two minstrels were less impressive to Timbal. The apprentice, Saria, did little more than tune instruments, sing choruses, and flirt wildly. Chrissock, Lord Just’s resident minstrel, was an older man with a deep bass voice. He performed with a variety of drums, and specialized in the oldest tales, recited exactly as they had been handed down through the years. Some evenings, Timbal could barely stay awake through his long recitals of ancient battles and who had died and how. He twisted his pronunciation and used words that she didn’t understand and sometimes she wondered why any of it mattered anymore. But sometimes he told tales of brave warriors that were as stirring as any romance that Azen had ever sung. And for those, she sat as close to his dais as she could get, hugging her knees and watching him perform with awe.