The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  “Good.” The woman returned Carys’s smile, then turned away and pulled the dress and shift from the tub and wrung them out. “I will rinse these at the well, since you cannot walk, but I think the gown may be too far gone to be mended. That must have been a bad fall.”

  “It was.”

  Carys shuddered as the memory of her escape flashed though her mind, and the anger coiling inside her at Telor’s seeming duplicity lost its hold. He could have left her by the road, she reminded herself. He could not have known who or what she was from a glimpse in the dark, and that he had stopped to help showed a good heart. If he desired her and wished to keep her from others—was that bad?

  Chapter 4

  What Carys had said for Telor’s benefit was wasted. She had been so deep in her own thoughts and misery that she had not heard Telor shaking Deri and at last lifting him, with considerable effort, to carry him out and dump him near the well where he could soak Deri’s head and flush away the results of his being sick from drinking too much. Carys had noticed that the dwarf was gone from the table when she watched the alewife leave the room. Her eyes also took in the food on the other table, and a pang of hunger assailed her, reminding her that she had eaten nothing since the previous day’s single meal.

  There were more important things than hunger, however, and Carys made haste to belt on her knives and pull the shirt over her head so she could conceal herself and what she was doing, if necessary. Then she took one knife from its sheath and used it to open the seams of each leg of the braies so she could reach through and grasp her weapons. Having drawn the braies over her legs, standing to tie them around her waist, she tried out the arrangement. It was clumsy; she would have to remember to give herself more time, especially since she would also have to reach under the tunic, she thought. But she did not think she would need to use the knives against Telor or Deri, and she hoped that they would protect her from others.

  Carys had been standing on one foot because her ankle was still painful, but it was only slightly black and blue and not at all swollen. She hopped quickly to the table where the remains of Telor’s breakfast lay. Progress on one foot was no trouble, for her balance was perfect, but hopping was noisy, and she glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was in sight before she broke healthy hunks from the cheese and the loaf of bread. Although she did not believe that Telor would begrudge her a meal, hard experience had made her cautious, and she bit quickly into both in several places before she sank down onto the bench to eat her meal more slowly. She was sure that Telor would not want anything bitten by someone else, and the alewife would certainly not take back the food because it could not be offered for sale.

  Her full belly and the hopeful prospect of a kind protector so lightened Carys’s heart that she could not help laughing aloud when she got up from the bench and looked down at herself. The shirt would have come down to her knees if it were not held up by the crotch of the braies; the braies had to be doubled up along her leg almost back to her thighs; and the tunic looked like a gown on her. Telor’s clothes, she thought, fingering the garments gently; he was very tall. Deri’s would have been much too broad, though the length would have better suited the purpose of making her look like a boy.

  Still she was lighthearted and smiling as she untied the blanket from the posts and then carefully folded it and the one she had slept under and placed both on the table. That done, she looked around and saw the tub of water. She glanced hastily down at her hands. They looked clean to her, but only Telor knew what he thought would be clean enough and Carys had no intention of another dose of those ashes until after she was healed. The burning in her cuts and scrapes was only just dying away. Get rid of the bath, she decided. So when Telor came back, Carys was dipping the ash-laden water out of the tub and into the bucket.

  “You need not do that,” he said, but his expression was approving.

  Relieved of the anxiety that Telor was going to demand she get back into the bath, Carys smiled. “I can do no more,” she replied, rising. “The bucket is as full as can be carried without slopping over, but the alewife was kind and I am glad to help. Should I roll the blankets? I was not sure how they were to be carried.”

  Telor hesitated before answering, so surprised by Carys’s speech and voice, which he had not really noticed before, that his full attention fixed on her. He was sharply aware that there was nothing coarse or shrill about her. Her speech was refined, he thought, like his sisters’, and her voice far more beautiful.

  In fact, Carys was altogether much more attractive than he had expected, although now that she was clean, she reminded him more than ever of a pretty, dainty fox. Her hair, almost dry, was the same light, rich red-brown as fox fur, and her large eyes were also a warm light brown with long, thick lashes of almost the same color; the eyes seemed to tilt upward slightly at their outer edges as a fox’s did too—or perhaps it was only that the brows slanted. He had seen the shape of the face correctly: wide temples, high cheekbones, and a small pointed chin, but the lips were full and soft with a smiling look to them. A flicker of regret passed through Telor as he remembered the brutal way he had refused her offer to couple with him. It would be hard to wipe that from her memory and make her willing to come to his bed. And then Telor repressed the idea sternly. What was he thinking! It would be monstrous to take advantage of the girl’s helplessness.

  “No,” Telor said, picking up the blankets, quite unaware of how long he had been staring at Carys. “I want to take them out and give them a few strokes with my cudgel to shake the fleas out. I would not sleep on the pallet the alewife offered and brought in clean straw, but—” Suddenly his voice faltered and a slight flush stained his cheeks. Then he walked rapidly away to get his quarterstaff, which had been leaning against the wall, but, as if to make up to her for what he had admitted, he flung over his shoulder, “It did not help much. I suppose the pests come right out of the walls.”

  Carys had stiffened warily when Telor stared at her without reply, but the wariness had passed into amusement at his first words. She felt a flash of disappointment and anger when she realized it was not for kindness that Telor had given her all three pallets; it seemed he had assumed that she would not mind the fleas or had so many already that a few more would not matter. But she could not remain angry. Now that she was clean, she realized how far down she had sunk in Ulric’s company from what she had been while Morgan managed their troupe. It had happened little by little, day by day, so that she had not noticed what she had become.

  Besides, she was amused by Telor’s thoughtless confession and his embarrassment over it. Obviously lying was not his greatest skill. A skillful liar like Morgan always remembered both dishonest acts and spoken untruths. In addition, what Telor had said seemed so much at odds with the way he had looked at her that Carys began to wonder whether he actually knew why he wanted to conceal the fact that she was a woman.

  “I am afraid these clothes do not make me look much like a boy,” she said to his rapidly retreating back.

  He paused and half turned. “Oh, well, we can stop on the road and attend to that. I will send Deri in to carry you out.”

  A devil of mischief entered Carys, and she laughed. “I think poor Deri can hardly carry himself. A man who sleeps the sun as high as he did must have good reason.” She paused to give Telor a chance to say he had forgotten Deri’s condition and offer to carry her himself, and when he did not but started on his way again, she said, “I do not need to be carried. I can come with you.” And hopped rapidly across the floor after him.

  Amazement flashed across Telor’s face, and then he laughed. “Of course, not having two feet to balance on should not mean much to a rope dancer. I had forgotten.”

  “Or having no feet at all,” Carys said as the braies slid down and she flipped over to walk on her hands. That hurt her sore palms, so she let herself down and sat to tuck the braies up more firmly while Telor stared.

  “Yes, and that is the reason that I prefer yo
u be thought a boy,” he said, as she got up and they went into the yard toward a tree with a low bough. “You cannot work before you heal, so we cannot look for a troupe that will suit you at once. In any case, I have no time to spend hunting troupes of players just now. I must be at Castle Combe by evening tomorrow at the latest, for I am summoned to sing at the wedding of de Dunstanville’s eldest son.”

  Carys had kept pace with him easily and felt no surprise at the reason he gave for wanting her to look like a boy. As he hung one blanket over the low branch and struck it sharply, she cried eagerly, “A wedding! Then there will be several troupes of players there, and great weddings in castles last some time. I will be healed enough to dance for the guests before they go, and the other players will see me—”

  “No,” Telor said.

  Carys blinked at the explosive quality of the single word and hesitated before she replied. She would like to stay with Telor; he was kind and she believed he would be easy to manipulate, but if he intended that she give up rope dancing, they must part—and the sooner the better.

  “No what?” Carys asked, watching him yank down the blanket he had beaten, fling it over a nearby hedge in the sun, and hang up the second blanket. “You mean there will not be other players there?”

  “Likely there will be,” Telor replied disdainfully. “I have nothing to do with their kind.” Then realizing that Carys was their kind, he flung his staff to the ground and snapped, “I am very sorry if I offend you, but I am not a player. I do not whine out common tunes to please common folk. My work is in the keep before the lords and ladies where I sing the great chansons and epic lays. I am a minstrel, not a jongleur—and to speak the truth, if I am known to have a dancing girl with me, ill will be thought of me and my honor will be lessened.”

  “I am not a dancing girl any more than you are a jongleur,” Carys cried. “I am a rope dancer, not a whore. And you already have a dwarf with you. Will you try to make me believe that Deri does not do on motley and play the fool?”

  Telor had the honesty to flush again. “He does in small towns and villages,” he admitted. “But when I go to sing in a keep, Deri acts as my servant. I could have two servants, or a boy apprentice. I did not mean that you have no art, Carys, only that if the lords know I also play in villages, they will no longer invite me to play for them.”

  “Oh.”

  Carys was not sure this was the truth, but she thought it might be so. She did not ask why; she knew little about lords and to her mind there was no accounting for what they did. She had been carefully kept away from the gentlemen when Morgan’s troupe played in castles. Morgan had told her dreadful tales, which she had not believed, at least not completely, but she feared a lord might demand to keep her and enjoy her until he tired of the novelty. That might mean a sure supply of food and shelter, perhaps even a few rich gifts, but it would also mean leaving the troupe. Moreover, she doubted a lord would allow her to practice her art or bother to learn if she had a place to go when he had had enough of her. It was that knowledge, not Morgan’s tales, that made her very willing not to display herself except when she was working. Her recent experience also made Morgan’s stories more believable, and she agreed that it would be better not to draw attention to herself until they were well away from the castle.

  “Shall I roll this blanket now?” she asked, putting her hand on the one he had laid on the hedge.

  Her question changed Telor’s mood. He had turned away after his reply, picked up his staff, and applied it to the blanket again with more energy than was strictly necessary. He was annoyed with Carys for having forced him to embarrass her and also annoyed with her for standing there, rock-steady on her one foot—she really did have remarkable balance—when he had no idea what else to say. He had just been wondering where Deri was when Carys spoke. The dwarf was awake and over the worst of this sickness, so he should already have brought the animals out to be saddled and loaded. Carys’s easy question relieved Telor of the need to explain himself further, so he smiled and pulled the second blanket down.

  “Yes, roll them both, if you can,” he said, “and I will go see what has happened to Deri.”

  “Does he always drink so much?” Carys asked.

  “No,” Telor replied. “It was the burnt-out village. It reminded him of his own lost family and land.”

  “I thought he had always been a player—I mean, from the time it was seen he would be a dwarf.”

  Telor shook his head, and then, knowing that Carys would be with them for a few days at least, he told her some of Deri’s story and warned her about what subjects seemed most painful to the dwarf.

  She nodded, her large eyes full of sympathy. “I will be careful,” she assured him. Something tugged at her and made her throat ache—a distant memory of weeping and weeping for love that was lost to her.

  The soft expression made Telor feel guilty. She was a fine, good-hearted girl, he thought, and it was wrong for him to refuse her the best opportunity that might occur for some time to find a good troupe. The wedding at Combe Castle would bring together as many troupes as a fair—unless the fighting had driven them out of the area.

  “We will see,” he said as Carys picked up one corner of a blanket and began to fold it lengthwise for rolling. “If your ankle is strong enough and we can find a proper time and a rope for you to use, perhaps you can show your skill at the castle.”

  She turned toward him, surprised both by his change of heart and the reintroduction of a subject she thought settled, but he was already walking away, and Carys shrugged. Men were all strange, and Telor was stranger than most. His thoughts did not seem to follow the patterns with which she was familiar, and she had twice been deceived by his bland looks into waking his hot temper. Carys found this difference between looks and character very interesting. Both men she had dealt with intimately in the past looked what they were: Ulric was strong and stupid, and Morgan, although he could hide what he was under a “player’s face” for a time, betrayed the sly cleverness by his sharp features and narrow eyes when he was not acting. But Carys was sure Telor was not playing any role for her, which meant his face did not portray the inner man. Interesting…and dangerous. Carys resolved to be more cautious when dealing with Telor. He came out of the back shed, herding a white-faced and red-eyed Deri before him, and no one had spoken a single word while the men strapped up their belongings, saddled their mounts, and loaded the pack mule.

  Just as they were about to leave, the alewife came running around the corner of the building with Carys’s wet dress and shift. Telor looked as if he were about to wave her away, but then he dismounted and laid the tattered garments atop the other baggage, tucked into straps here and there to hold them. Carys was very grateful that she had not needed to cross Telor’s will again so soon and settled herself on the pillion seat, which she did not find very frightening now.

  There was no talk as they rode, until the narrow track they were following ended on a wider road. Telor pulled his horse to a stop and looked up and down the road. Carys craned her neck to see also, not sure what she was looking for, but ready to mention any sign familiar or unusual. As Telor turned and she leaned forward, their bodies touched; his head turned sharply toward Carys and he looked surprised, as if he had just remembered her existence.

  “You stupid girl,” he snapped, “why did you not remind me before we left the alehouse that you have had nothing to eat this morning?”

  “Because I did eat,” Carys replied. “There was bread and cheese on the table, and I took some.”

  Her surprise showed in her voice, and Telor, feeling foolish, grunted irritably and turned his attention back to the road. It was stupid to have forgotten she was a player and, no doubt, well accustomed to taking care of herself. For some reason that annoyed him, so he was not as pleased as he should have been by the fact that the surface of the road was not churned into dust by many feet and hooves, nor were the grass verge and the brush broken and torn.

  “Thank you
,” Carys said softly, and touched his shoulder.

  As inexplicably as it had come, Telor’s irritation disappeared, although he answered Carys with no more than a nod. He said Deri’s name sharply, and the dwarf prodded his pony forward.

  “No army has come north on this road,” Telor said to Deri, “and Chippasham is no more than three miles south. What do you say to riding toward the town instead of going cross-country? It may be the fighting was all to the east of us.”

  Deri began to shrug, then groaned. “By all means, let us follow a road. I am in no condition to climb up and down hills.”

  “Just be sure you are ready to run if we see any signs of an army,” Telor warned.

  Carys hardly listened to this exchange, since she felt she was little more than baggage until she began to earn her way and thus gained a voice in any decision. Her attention was fixed on unraveling Telor’s character, which would be the most important factor in her life if she remained with him and Deri. Nor was she any longer without a choice because there would be several troupes at a castle wedding. Carys wiggled her ankle experimentally. It hardly ached at all, but her spirit did not leap with joy; if anything, she felt a mild twinge of disappointment at the assurance that she would be ready to perform at Castle Combe. The truth was that she liked Telor, and was almost sure she would rather have him for a protector than any other man, even if she was not quite sure she understood him. With some men that could be dangerous, but there was something in the way Telor had thrown his quarterstaff on the ground when he was angry instead of lashing out at her with it that delighted her.

  So many things about him amused her and warmed her—like his concern about her being hungry. It had taken her a minute to connect Telor’s angry question with concern. None had been shown for her in years, except for the one or two occasions when she had taken a fever, and none was necessary. She was not so stupid as to miss a chance at a meal just because she had not been told to eat—but Telor did not know that. It was kind of him to think of her even if the kindness was mixed with irritation, which he surely would have a right to feel if he thought she expected him either to go back or to stop for her to fill her belly.