The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  He cuffed her—not too hard, because he did not know what limits Deri would set on mishandling his companion, and Deri was too strong to cross—and showed her how to undo the bit and reins from Teithiwr’s bridle and make it into a headstall so the gelding could be fastened and still eat. When she had done the same for Surefoot—Doralys only wore a headstall since she was led, not ridden—Arne demonstrated the removal of Teithiwr’s saddle and how to rub him down with a wisp of straw. Having cuffed her again as a warning, he told her to unsaddle Surefoot, remove Doralys’s pack, and then rub all three beasts dry.

  After Arne had gone back to the entryway to resume his game with the other grooms, Carys removed Surefoot’s saddle slowly, looking up first, which few did, and then around. She could easily climb up a post and lie along one of the great beams that supported the roof. She would be well hidden there, but it seemed foolish to hide now. It was so dim in the corner where she was working, she was sure no one new would see her, and she doubted the guard would come looking for her—if he ever looked for her—before Deri returned. Besides, she was enjoying tending the animals, and that was something she could do to repay Telor’s kindness.

  As she went about her task she thought it was fortunate she was a rope dancer since few girls could have lifted the heavy saddles. Carys thought she was probably stronger than a boy of her supposed age, say fourteen, would have been. The rubbing down too was nothing to her powerful arms, although the sweat stung her sore palms slightly, but that was more than compensated by the snorts and skin shiverings that showed the beasts’ appreciation of her efforts. When she was finished, however, she frowned at her hands, which were filthy from the mud she had rubbed off the legs and bellies of the animals, and she was pretty sure her face was spattered with it too. She sighed. She would have to wash before Telor saw her and began to think of her as a filthy slut again, but surely there was time for that if he was to sing at evensong.

  Chapter 6

  While Carys scrubbed at the horses’ hides, Telor and Deri had made their way to the great hall and quietly past the groups of men and women, who were talking with more than usual intensity, to the tower that held the stair. They went up to the gallery built around the hall below the second floor of the keep. In the gallery there was an open archway in the short wall of the keep, directly behind and above the dais where de Dunstanville sat in state to do business and where his table was set for dinner. It was there the musicians gathered to play while the guests ate and danced. To either side of the arch were two smaller ones, but in the corners was an area closed in by walls that supported the floor above.

  Telor placed his instruments in one corner, and Deri knelt and opened the basket, taking out a bundle wrapped in leather. He laid it flat, unwrapped the leather and then a blanket, and removed a long gown of rich blue cloth trimmed at the neck and around the hem and sleeves with gold embroidery. Beneath the gown were a red leather belt bearing several pouches and decorated with an elaborate pattern; lighter blue chausses, like braies but with feet attached, such as the lords wore; a shirt of white linen, also richly embroidered and tucked around the neck; and a pair of shiny, bright red shoes with very long pointed toes stuffed so that they rose and curled over. While Telor took off all his clothes and replaced them, Deri bundled up the road-soiled garments into the leather wrapper and put the blanket near the instruments so Telor could cover those he did not use.

  “What will you play?” Deri asked.

  Telor grimaced. He had had one ear cocked toward the sounds coming up from the hall below, and he was not happy with what he heard. It seemed to him that the laughter was too shrill and loud, the voices too tense for what should be a happy, casual occasion.

  “No instrument will be right tonight,” he answered, his lips tight. “They are all on edge, and whatever pleases one will displease another. Accursed be this king who cannot rule and that supposed queen who cannot take and hold the throne but will not leave it alone.”

  “Amen!” Deri agreed. “And may the worms eat all their supporters on both sides.”

  Mentally Telor cursed himself for allowing his irritation to make him forget Deri’s feelings, and he said hastily, “Well, just now it would be useless to sit still and expect to gather the guests to me, so I will take the gittern and walk from group to group. But when they sit down to supper, I will need to sing something more formal than light ditties of spring and love. Take out the harp, Deri, and tie this length of gut on top and bottom. I will sling it over my shoulder.”

  For once, to Telor’s surprise the dwarf did not seem much disturbed by the reminder of war. He took the string of gut Telor had fished from one of his pouches and began to tie it to the harp, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll take your clothes out to the stable and see if I can beat the mud out of them, and then I’ll take Carys—no, Caron you called ‘him’—down to the outer bailey. We can eat there. After I bed h-him down in the stable, I’ll come back with clothes for tomorrow for you.”

  Telor was struck with the notion that the prospect of taking Carys to the fair had distracted Deri from his usual reaction to any mention of the king or the war. Telor felt no jealousy. He guessed that Carys was not fond of dwarves, and he was afraid she might inadvertently hurt Deri. On the other hand, she seemed willing to have Deri accompany her, so Telor thought he had better say nothing, but he was uneasy and wanted to know what happened.

  “Yes, come back,” he said. “I need something to sleep in, or I would say not to bother. And you had better bring my boots and my red leather jerkin with the rest. I pray they are all going out to hunt tomorrow, not planning to practice killing each other in a tourney, but I had better be prepared for the worst.”

  “What do you mean ‘the worst’?” Deri asked. “If they hunt, you will have nothing to do, but they will expect you to chant heroic songs for a tourney, and there is good coin to be had out of their vanity.”

  Telor smiled. “I will have enough to do even if the men hunt. The ladies will want entertainment, and some are free with gifts.”

  “Be careful,” Deri remarked sourly. “A man can lose his head over a lady.”

  Although Telor laughed at Deri’s double meaning and assured Deri lightly that he was always careful, a slight shock went through him as he realized he had meant exactly what he said, with no implication of sexual entertainment. And with the realization came a vision of Carys’s pert vixen face and a warmth in his groin. Telor pushed the girl’s image out of his mind with an almost physical violence and deliberately overlaid it with images of the bejeweled and scented ladies waiting for him below. He called to mind the delicate white skin, the dainty hands with their buffed and gleaming nails, the soft bodies, warm and willing. He would not think of that other body, lean and hard with work and exposure, curled in on itself in rejection of him.

  Then a familiar feminine voice rose momentarily above the general buzz of conversation. Telor’s normal sense of spicy anticipation returned—the slight tightening in his balls and shaft that he knew thickened the lids of his eyes and brought a gleam of challenge to them, which only women seemed to notice. The ladies were much freer and more adventurous at a large celebration than they were in their own homes where everyone knew them for miles around. It was far easier to escape notice in a place crowded with strangers coming and going, and more than one lady was likely to dare a brief tumble with him. No doubt he would forget all about Carys when he was sated.

  “Telor—” Deri said uncertainly.

  His face must have shown his thoughts, Telor realized contritely, for he knew Deri worried when he played games of love with noble ladies, who could have his head off for a whim if he displeased them. In a way, that added to the spice; but Telor did not want Deri to be troubled.

  “I was not objecting to a tourney,” he said, changing the subject, “just to the order of events. The tourney will be held later if not sooner, and a day or two between will give the jousters time to forget if I sing the same song for one of them that I
sang tonight.”

  Deri shook his head without answering that, picked up the bundle of clothing to be cleaned, and started for the stair. It seemed to Deri that Telor’s fund of gestes and lays was endless and that he had hardly repeated one in all the time they had been together. Deri could not understand how Telor could remember so much, even though he knew Telor used most of the time that they traveled for silently repeating his repertoire to himself. Early in their partnership, once he had come alive enough to realize he was a sullen and silent companion, Deri had apologized. But Telor had told him immediately that he preferred a silent companion and explained; that was not just kindness—Deri had watched Telor and seen his fingers moving on the rein as if he were playing an instrument and his lips moving too as he mouthed words.

  While he watched Deri’s back disappearing around the corner, Telor tuned the gittern. When it was right to his ear, he stood in one of the smaller arches and began to play. One or two heads bent upward, and the woman whose voice he had recognized beckoned to him, her eyes brightening. Telor bowed and hurried down the stairs, plucking at the instrument softly as he made his way toward the lady who had summoned him. Two men who knew him spoke his name, and to each he excused himself, promising to return as soon as his first obligation was fulfilled. Instead they accompanied him, one exclaiming to the other that he wished to hear no more about a war in which a man’s friends became his enemies before his eyes. He would rather listen to some merry music. On the word several others turned from their talk and came along.

  When she saw Telor’s company, the woman cried, “No, Sir Hubert, I saw Telor first. Go away. I do not wish to hear again how Roland could not break Durandel.”

  “Neither do I, Lady Marguerite,” Sir Hubert replied wryly, unaware that it was not songs of war Lady Marguerite wished to avoid but the company of others—at least for a few minutes. “Not today, at least,” he went on innocently. “I will gladly bow to your choice, or to Telor’s. But I do not think it safe in such fair company”—he bowed gallantly—“to listen to too sweet a love song lest we be led astray.”

  Telor flashed a single glance at the lady, and her eyes lowered in sly, significant acknowledgment. She knew that Sir Hubert’s remark, no matter how delicately phrased, was as much an order to Telor as the complaint she herself had seemed to direct at Sir Hubert. But her brief smile was slightly mocking; she would not help. Telor would have to solve the problem himself. Telor’s grin was an answer to her challenge, but at the back of his mind there was a thread of worry that had nothing to do with the immediate problem. One party did not wish to hear songs of heroic adventure and the other did not wish to hear tales of love. Since both usually enjoyed either type of entertainment, Telor knew his estimate of the uneasy temper of the crowd had been accurate. But he smiled, lifted an eyebrow in simulation of a merry, slightly teasing question, struck the gittern, and began:

  O, Cathegrande is a fish,

  The greatest that in water is,

  So that thou wouldst surely cry

  If thou sawest it floating by…

  Lady Marguerite laughed as Telor drew out the words with exaggerated facial expressions to fit them. Sir Hubert smiled too, and someone behind him said in an eager, amused tone that this was new to him. More people drifted close to listen as Telor told how Cathegrande

  …has an ugly side—

  When he hungers he gapes wide;

  Out of his mouth a breath is hurled

  The sweetest thing in the wide world.

  Other fishes come from afar…

  and were promptly swallowed. That drew more laughter, and an even larger crowd was present for the denouement, which described storm-tossed mariners thinking the fish was an island, landing on it, building a fire, and promptly being drowned as Cathegrande dived to put out the flames.

  This melodramatic tale was cheered enthusiastically, and Telor was complimented—with several silver coins, a richly embroidered ribbon, a small ring, and a few less valuable trinkets—for presenting a completely new piece.

  The small ring, the last “gift” bestowed, was Lady Marguerite’s, and as she pressed it into his hand she murmured, “Oh, vain man, are you singing about yourself with the ‘sweet breath that draws victims’? After the hunt leaves tomorrow, I will go riding.”

  He began to bow and thank everyone, seeming not to hear her as his nimble fingers tucked away the gifts as swiftly as he received them. And he began at once to deny that the piece was new and to explain that the words came from a well-respected source, although the music was his own. His explanation distracted the group both from Lady Marguerite’s words, if any had heard them, and from noting how much he was given. The admission that the music was his own encouraged a few others to bestow largesse upon him. His explanation happened to be true, the story of Cathegrande having come from an old bestiary. But he would have claimed a source for the piece even if the poem had been his because any material without a source was slightly suspect, and what came new from a minstrel’s mind must surely be inspired by the devil. Music was usually an exception to this rule, though some of the clergy felt that all music composed outside the Church was also unholy.

  His little tale having warmed the crowd, a request was made, accompanied by a tossed coin. Some cried out in mock horror at having to listen to the old favorite, and Lady Marguerite drifted away in pretended disgust. But the complaints were now good-humored, and when Telor begged comically not to be forced to offend one to please another and promised a second “new” piece to follow the old, he was assured that he would not be made to suffer. If a head was to be broken, it would be that of the requester, which was too thick to allow entrance to any variety. Since it was the brother of the requester who issued the threat—and the brothers were known to be most affectionate—Telor offered to mediate with a new tune to the old tale. This was cheered by the crowd, and Telor began the tale of Havelock the Dane. He was always puzzled by the popularity of the piece among the Norman barons, for it was an English song which his master had translated into French. Possibly the lords liked it because the story was told from the Danish invader’s point of view and explained why it was right for them to rule England.

  As he completed the first section, in which the wicked Earl Godrich imprisons Princess Goldeburgh instead of keeping his promises to her dying father, and launched into the even more horrible mistreatment of Havelock and his sisters by the wicked Earl Godard, Telor saw the steward signaling the servants to set up the tables for the evening meal. Still singing, he drew his audience out of the way, first to one side of the hall and then to the other. He described how the fisherman Grim saved Havelock instead of drowning him, how Havelock outdid all others in feats of strength as a young man, and how Goldeburgh was married to him as a final act of spite by Godrich, who did not know Havelock was king of Denmark.

  When he had got to the visit of Havelock and Goldeburgh to Lord Ubbe, he described how they sat down to dinner, mentioned the dishes served, and then struck a loud chord. “And so is there served your meal, my lords and ladies, if you will be seated and eat.”

  That produced a roar of laughter and a shower of coins, most of which Telor was able to catch in the skirt of his gown by a practiced swing of the gittern under his arm so he could lift the fabric with both hands. He had forgotten the harp on his back though, and it fell against the gittern so that he almost dropped it and nearly failed to catch any of the coins. He did miss several bright flashes, which fell into the rushes and disappeared. His eyes flicked down, but he did not bend, only called his thanks, bowed this way and that to the dispersing crowd, and backed away to sit down on the edge of the dais as the musicians in the gallery above began to play. Had Deri been there in a quiet corner, as he often was, the dwarf could have scrabbled for the coins on the floor, but Telor felt it would be wrong for him. Dressed as he was, he would look a fool crouched down, searching the rushes; someone would laugh, and in the future, thinking it great fun to see a man who sang of tragic love
and heroic endeavor groveling in the filth on the floor, all his patrons would deliberately throw his “gifts” so that he could not catch them.

  Telor had barely scooped the items in his skirt into a second pouch, which did not hold several plectrums for the gittern, extra gut for strings, or other musical odds and ends, when de Dunstanville called, “Minstrel, come hither.”

  With one eye on the servants, who were carrying large cauldrons of soup and stew and huge platters of roast beef, mutton, pork, and other dishes, so he would not get in the way and be knocked down or deliberately spattered, Telor came to the front of the dais and bowed.

  “Too proud to pick a prize off the floor, are you?” de Dunstanville asked.

  “I do not think it fitting for me,” Telor replied evenly, and then, smiling, added, “Unfortunately, my servant is not here. I gave him leave to go down to the fair. I would not have been too proud to order him to look for the coins.”

  The lord of Combe laughed. “You hold yourself high, Telor.”

  “Not myself, my lord, but I would not cheapen the noble tales I tell.”

  “That is a round answer,” de Dunstanville said less aggressively, but added cynically, “and a good one if true.” Nonetheless, he beckoned to a young squire standing ready with a cloth on which his master could wipe his hands. “Go find a servant and tell him to search the rushes for the coin,” he ordered. “And see that they get to Telor.” Then he turned his head toward Telor again. “So, what have you to sing for us after? Will you finish Havelock?”

  “If that is your desire, my lord,” Telor answered, bowing his thanks. “But I have ready new songs for this great and happy occasion—a special tale of King Arthur’s court about the loyal love of Lord Geraint and Lady Enid.” Telor smiled and bowed slightly at de Dunstanville’s son and the girl beside him in the seat of honor. “And a tale of high adventure of the hunting of a great boar. And, from the court of the queen of France, a story of the heroic acts of Sir Gawain, whose honor was sore tried by a knight enchanted by a cruel sorceress.”