Songs of Love and Death

MY THREE ALIEN crew members found me in a bar late that night.

“Go away.”

Jax shuffled closer. “The ship’s note’s been paid off, so we own her free and clear. And we got a reward. A most generous reward. The Infanta meets her obligations. And I’ve procured a new cargo. We’re ready to leave whenever you are.”

Jahan curled up on the bar stool next to me. “The fleet has withdrawn. They’re rushing back to Hissilek. Apparently, the emperor’s had a stroke.”

That pulled me out of my rapt contemplation of my scotch. I met those alien eyes, and I had that cold sensation of being surrounded by hidden forces that were plotting against humans.

“How… convenient,” I managed.

“I think she’ll be a good ruler,” Jahan said. “Now the final bit of news.” She gestured to Dalea.

“The Infanta is pregnant.” I gaped at the Hajin. “Congratulations,” Dalea added.

I’m going to be a father. My child will be the heir to the Solar League. I will never know him or her.

And I realized that maybe none of us ever gets to choose our lives. Our only choice is to live the life that comes to us, or go down into darkness.

I drained my scotch, and pushed back from the bar. “Let’s go see what tomorrow holds.”

Robin Hobb

New York Times bestseller Robin Hobb is one of the most popular writers in fantasy today, having sold more than one million copies of her work in paperback. She’s perhaps best known for her epic fantasy Farseer series (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest), as well as the two fantasy trilogies related to it: the Liveship Traders (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, and Ship of Destiny) and the Tawny Man (Fool’s Errand, Golden Fool, and Fool’s Fate). The last one was reprinted in 2009. She is also the author of the Soldier Son trilogy (Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, and Renegade’s Magic). Her early novels, published under the name Megan Lindholm, include the fantasy novels Wizard of the Pigeons, Harpy’s Flight, The Windsingers, The Limbreth Gate, The Luck of the Wheels, The Reindeer People, Wolf’s Brother, and Cloven Hooves; the science fiction novel Alien Earth, and, with Steven Brust, the novel The Gypsy. Her most recent books as Robin Hobb are the novels Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven.

In the poignant story that follows, she shows us that although love can build bridges across the widest of chasms, those bridges can be swept away by a flood of troubles—but that sometimes, with luck and persistence, they can be built again.

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 high and 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 back onto the potatoes she was slicing,