Robin Hobb - Blue Boots

She was sitting on the splintery landing of the rickety wooden steps that led up to the kitchen servants’ quarters. The sun had warmed the steps and it was her free day. Timbal had an apple, crisp from the tree, and she was swinging her boots and watching the swooping swallows as she ate it. Summer was winding to a close and soon the birds would be gone. Idly, she wished she were going with them, then just as quickly changed her mind. Life at Timberrock Keep was good to her; she should be thanking the goddess Eda for such a pleasant day, not wishing for more.

Azen the minstrel came out of the kitchen door. As he passed her, he casually reached up and knocked on the bottom of her boots. “’Morning, blue boots,” he said, and walked on. She sat, apple in hand, staring after him as he made his long-legged way down the winding gravel path. His trousers were blue, his jacket a deep gold. His head was a tangle of loose black curls that jogged as he strode along.

In that moment, Timbal fell in love with him.

It does not take that much to fall in love when you are seventeen and alone in the world, and Timbal was both. Her father’s death had cut her adrift; she knew she’d been lucky to find a post as a kitchen girl at one of the lesser keeps in Buck Duchy. It was much better than the inn where she’d first found employment. Here, she had daily work, hot food, and her own room and bed. There was a future for her here; most likely was that she’d keep working year after year and that eventually she’d become a cook. Less likely was the prospect of getting married and becoming a wife to one of the other Timberrock servants.

A handsome minstrel had no place in either future. Traditionally, minstrels never wed or settled down. They were the wandering record keepers of the Six Duchies, the men and women who knew not just the larger history of the world, but the details of inheritances, the bloodlines of the noble families, and many particulars of agreements among the small holders and even the business of the many towns and cities. They wandered where they would, supported by the largesse of titled families and innkeepers and patrons, slept where and with whom they pleased, and then wandered on. There were minstrels’ guilds in the larger cities and informal associations in the lesser towns where orphans and the bastards of minstrels might be raised to follow in their trade. It was a highand artistic calling that was not at all respectable or secure.

In short, handsome, melodic Azen was the worst possible sort of fellow for a girl like Timbal to fall in love with. And so, of course, she had.

She had seen him before the morning he knocked on the soles of her boots and she opened her heart to him. In the evenings, when the day’s work was mostly done, all the folk of Timberrock Keep were welcome to gather in the lord’s hall to listen to music and tales while they finished whatever chores could be done inside of an evening. Stable boys mended harness, housemaids stitched torn sheets or darned socks, and kitchen maids such as Timbal could bring a big basket of apples to core and slice for the next day’s pies. And so she had seen Azen, standing in the late-evening light from the open doors and windows, singing for Lady Lucent and her husband Lord Just.

For Lord Just, long crippled from a fall during a hunt, Azen chanted tales of ancient battles or songs about deeds of daring. Lord Just had been a muscular fellow before his fall, she had heard. Confined to a chair, his body had dwindled, and his black curls were starting to turn gray. When he thudded his fist on the table and sang the refrains to some of the old songs, he reminded Timbal more of a small child banging with a spoon than a man enjoying a drinking song. The strength of his lungs and depth of his voice had diminished along with his body. Yet when he sang along, often as not, Lady Lucent would set her hand on his bony shoulder and smile at him, as if remembering the man he had once been to her.

For Lady Lucent, Azen sang romantic ballads or recited in dramatic tones the tales of love prevailing against all odds, or failing in heart-rending circumstances. When Azen performed for her, Lady Lucent’s eyes never left the minstrel’s face. Often she kept her kerchief to hand, for more than once his songs wrung tears from her eyes. She was not alone in that. On her very first evening in the hall, Timbal had been surprised to find her own eyes overflowing with tears at Azen’s tale of a wandering warrior who finally returned home to discover he was too late; his lady love was in her early grave. Timbal had been a bit embarrassed to weep at such a sad and sentimental song; it was evidently a familiar favorite to many at the keep, for they hummed along and kept at their tasks, some whispering to one another, untouched by his words. She had no kerchief and was reduced to wiping her cuff across her streaming eyes.

And when she lowered her wrist from her face, she realized that Azen was staring straight at her. As their eyes met, perhaps a small smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. Not a mockery, but his pleasure at her response to his song. His eyes had said the same, and she had dropped her gaze backonto the potatoes she was slicing, confused and embarrassed to be noticed by him. Long minutes later, she lifted her eyes again, and was relieved to find the minstrel singing directly to Lady Lucent, as if she were the only listener in his world. Timbal managed to sit through the rest of his performance without letting her emotional responses to his songs be too obvious. Surely it wasn’t appropriate for her to weep like a child at a simple song. A tender-hearted lady might break down at such a thing, but not a kitchen maid.

When evening was deep and the minstrel announced with regret that he must give his voice a rest, Lady Lucent spoke softly to Lord Just, and the man beckoned the minstrel forward. A little purse of red fabric tied with a gold cord appeared on the table at the lord’s elbow. His lady might have readied it and passed it to him; Timbal hadn’t seen. The minstrel thanked them both profusely, sweeping a low bow to the lord and going down on one knee to kiss the lady’s hand. Timbal, relatively new to such goings-on, watched curiously; so this was how things were done in a keep! She wondered if she had blundered into a special performance on her first evening here or if this was a nightly occurrence. The minstrel rose gracefully from his obeisance and made his way out of the room. She looked up at him from her seat on the floor as he passed close by her. He looked down at her. And winked.

Or blinked, perhaps. He was gone and she was left wondering what, if anything, she had seen. The conclusion of the minstrel’s performance had signaled the end of socializing in the hall. All around her, people were packing up their work. On the dais, the queen was bidding good evening to the aristocratic couple who were currently visiting at the keep, while the four stout men who carried the king’s pole chair were standing by to await his orders to move him. Timbal gathered up her empty bucket, her knife, and her basin of cut potatoes, and carried them back to the kitchen. Her bundle was still in the corner where she had left it. She gathered it up and waited until the cook had a free moment, and then asked him, “Please, sir, where may I sleep tonight?”

He scowled briefly, and for one terrifying moment, she wondered if he remembered that earlier that day he’d offered her room and board in return for her labor in the kitchen. Then he said, “Out that door, to the left, up the wooden stairs two flights. I think there’s a room or two empty up there. Whatever’s left in the room, you can use. If it’s empty, well, manage as well as you can tonight, and tomorrow I’ll see who can spare what. Good night, girl.”