The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  Fortunately Carys’s anguished scream seemed to pierce Telor’s growing weakness and make him aware of his danger. For a few minutes he rallied, long enough to slip his staff into the socket that held it and steady himself in the saddle, and long enough for Carys to drive her knife into the cantle and grip him firmly around the chest with her free arm. For a few minutes longer she could do nothing but try to control her shaking and gasp for breath. She felt screams and blackness surge up inside her and fought them back grimly, knowing that Telor would fall and drag her with him if she yielded.

  The new fear sent strength through her body, and she found herself able to turn her head to look for Deri. He was riding hard behind her, no longer using his sling. Weeping, but no longer in danger of fainting, Carys clung to the saddle and to Telor, feeling as if both arms would be torn from her shoulders, now and then daring a glance back. The distance between herself and Deri had increased at first, for Teithiwr was much faster, but it soon began to diminish. Deri was beating poor Surefoot mercilessly with sling and heels and striking at Doralys often enough to keep her going, whereas Carys was no longer encouraging Teithiwr to gallop—not because she had sense enough left to know she must not out-distance Deri but because she had no hand free with which to strike the horse and dared not relax the grip of her legs to kick him.

  As Teithiwr slowed, Deri caught up. Carys heard him screaming but paid no attention until she realized what the dwarf was yelling was “Stop!”

  “I can’t,” Carys wailed, “I can’t. I can’t reach the reins.”

  Chapter 10

  Carys’s memories of the next minutes, which felt like hours, were not clear. She must have gone on screaming louder and louder that she could not stop Teithiwr, for she suddenly felt Telor’s arms move and the horse slowed. That ended the terror she had not dared to admit—that she was supporting a dead man—and she was able to choke back her whimpers of relief. But when Deri spoke to her, she just stared at him, unable to make sense out of what he said. She kept trying to tell him that Telor was hurt, was bleeding, would die, but she could not make a sound, only stare like an idiot.

  Then Deri shouted one more thing at her—she understood that; he said to hold Telor—and he took Teithiwr’s rein and led the horse and they rode and rode and rode—it seemed like hours and hours—while Carys could feel in her own body the way the blood drained from Telor’s and knew that he would be a dead, empty husk before they stopped. But she could not cry out—and the sun did not move—and then it disappeared and there were leaves all around and overhead and then the sound of running water and then Deri shouting at her again and prying at her right arm, which was frozen immovably around Telor’s chest. Finally she heard words instead of noise.

  “Let go,” Deri was roaring at her.

  She tried, but she could not move her arm, until Deri pried it loose and caught Telor as he tilted from the saddle to ease him to the ground. Carys now knew they had stopped, but she had the greatest difficulty in opening the fingers of her left hand, and she wept with pain as she pulled them away from the leather loop. How she got down she did not know. She only remembered seeing the dwarf about to lift Telor to move him away from Teithiwr and suddenly finding her voice to cry out that Deri should not move him, although what harm it could do to move a dead man she did not know. And then she was on her hands and knees, crawling around the horse because it was impossible for her to stand.

  Hours/seconds later—she had been crawling a very long time, although she had only moved her hands and knees twice or three times—an event jarred her mind and brought her world back to normal. Telor’s voice, thin and breathless but composed, said, “It’s all right, but let me rest a minute. I think some ribs are broken.”

  “He was stabbed too,” Carys said, surprised that her tone was so ordinary.

  “Was I?” Telor sounded astonished and started to raise himself to look.

  Deri put a hand on his shoulder, growling, “Lie still, damn you! What kind of idiot doesn’t know when he’s been knifed?”

  Telor began to laugh but gasped with pain instead. He stopped trying to move too, but whispered wryly, “The accursed ribs hurt so much, I suppose I did not notice.”

  Carys thought again of getting to her feet, but it seemed hardly worth the effort. She crawled to Telor’s side and sat. He looked at her and smiled. “You cannot think there is any life debt between us now. You have redeemed it, for you saved my life today as surely as I saved yours.”

  “Shut your mouth and rest,” Deri snarled, getting to his feet, and then said to Carys, “See if you can lift his tunic and shirt to stop the bleeding without moving him while I tie the horses.”

  If Carys could have stood, she would have insisted on changing duties with Deri, for she was terrified. The only way she knew of stopping bleeding was to press against the wound, and she dared not do that lest she push Telor’s broken ribs through his lungs. Now that hope had been restored to her, she did not want to see the wound that would snatch that hope away. Yet there was not much blood on Telor’s tunic, and she undid his belt with trembling fingers and pulled up the outer garment, hoping her memory was wrong and the knife had barely scratched him.

  That hope died instantly, and she had to bite her lips to keep from crying out and infecting Telor with her despair. He had closed his eyes, so he could not see the horror on her face when she found his shirt soaked with blood. Still, she dared not hesitate, for there was some hope, and to do nothing would ensure the terror she had imagined while still riding—that Telor had bled to death—would come true. And she was rewarded when she lifted the shirt away, for she saw at once that the wound was well below the rib cage. With renewed hope she drew her second knife and cut the tie of Telor’s bloody braies.

  Carys’s breath eased out in relief. A long gash had opened the flesh over Telor’s hip bone and curved down and back toward the buttock, but only the flesh was cut and that not deeply. The wound was still bleeding, but sluggishly, and Carys simply bunched up the bottom of the shirt and pressed down on it. Telor groaned softly, and she said, “It’s only a cut, nothing bad.”

  He did not answer, but a moment later when Carys heard Deri cursing, she was no longer afraid that if she stopped watching Telor, he would stop breathing, and she turned her head. She saw that the dwarf could not reach high enough to get the pack he wanted off the mule, and called softly for Deri to come to Telor and let her unload. He dropped his arms slowly, and there was something in the reluctance of that gesture that made Carys realize Deri had run away from his fear about Telor just as she had wished to do.

  “It is only a flesh wound,” she said, “and the bleeding is nearly stopped.”

  And when Deri came beside her, she lifted the cloth to show him. He winced as if he felt the pain himself and then said, “It will have to be sewn. Otherwise it will open every time he moves and never heal.”

  Carys shuddered. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know how.”

  “Well, we cannot go back to Malmsbury,” Deri said. “And there is nothing much ahead of us but open moor. I could ride to Marston. There must be a leech or midwife or herb woman there. I do not think it is more than three leagues farther.”

  “Not Marston,” Telor said, opening his eyes. “I do not want Eurion to know of this. Surely you have patched a cow or a sheep, Deri.”

  “You are not a cow,” Deri retorted, looking grim.

  Telor’s lips twisted in an attempt at a smile. “No, my skin is thinner. It should be easier.”

  “We have nothing—” the dwarf protested.

  “There is a needle and you can use the thinnest string of gut.” Telor closed his eyes again. “Do it. Now. Do not make me wait.”

  Carys bit her lip, and her eyes filled with tears, but she went to get the cloth that held the sewing things from Teithiwr’s saddlebags. Deri, paler than Telor was, had opened Telor’s pouch and was pulling apart the tangle of substitute strings that he carried. Their eyes met when Carys mute
ly held out the cloth, and there was such fear in Deri’s that Carys forced her lips upward into what she hoped was a reassuring smile and nodded.

  “If you sit on his thighs,” she said, “he will not be able to move. I will hold his shoulders down—”

  “I said I was not a cow,” Telor said rather indignantly. “I will not kick.”

  Now Carys turned the smile, a little more natural, on him. “But you might twitch, and it would be too bad if you made Deri stick you anyplace that is not necessary. He would feel terrible.”

  “So would I,” Telor remarked, with the humor of those who make jests on the gibbet.

  “The angle will be better,” Deri said soothingly, but he cast a grateful glance at Telor, whose little joke, however feeble, had somehow made his hands stop shaking.

  The gut went through the eye of the needle more easily than he expected, and he tied a loop instead of a knot in the end, knelt astride Telor’s thighs, and lifted the shirt. A closer look at the gash made him feel more confident, for it was not deep, and he pushed the needle quickly through first one end and then the other lip of skin, then through the loop, and then passed the gut through that second loop and slid his thumbnail and forefinger down to draw the knot formed tight. Telor, good as his word, had not flinched and did not until Deri tried to cut the gut with his eating knife, which was not sharp enough. The dwarf looked frightened again when he saw the skin strain, knowing it would tear if he pulled too hard, and then Carys’s hand was against his, holding a far keener blade. Deri dropped his knife and took hers, which sheared the thin gut easily.

  At about the fifth stitch, Telor bent his elbows and grasped Carys’s wrists. Tears oozed out under his closed lids, but he did not twitch or make a sound, and fortunately Deri was too absorbed in his work to look up. Six more stitches sealed the cut closed, and Deri dropped his tools and ran off to the stream, where he fell to his knees and vomited while Carys burst into noisy sobs. Telor opened his eyes.

  “You two do not have to do everything for me.” His strained whisper did not match the smile in his eyes. “I can weep and be sick myself.”

  Carys nearly choked, for laughter bubbled up amidst her sobs, and she bent suddenly and kissed Telor’s lips. It was not a very satisfactory caress; upside down their mouths did not match well, and it was far too brief to be thought of as a promise for the future. In fact, in the very instant of kissing, the emotion that had led Carys to make the gesture was totally forgotten and replaced by concern. Telor’s lips were cold as ice!

  Calling out to Deri, Carys jumped to her feet and ran to undo the packs, pulling all the blankets out and running back to put two over Telor, but she knew that would not be enough.

  “He is cold, so cold,” she said to Deri. “He must not lie on the ground.”

  “Lay a folded blanket beside him,” the dwarf suggested, “then go to the other side. I will lift him enough for you to draw the blanket through beneath—”

  “I wish you would stop talking about me as if I were a side of meat to be wrapped,” Telor interrupted. “I was hit in the ribs, not in the head. I want to move nearer the stream and under a tree so we can make a tent.”

  “Later,” Deri soothed, “when you are warmer and have gained a little strength. Do not talk so much. We must bind those ribs before we move you.”

  “Talking does not hurt, breathing does. And I have to breathe whether I talk or not,” Telor complained querulously. “If you must bind the ribs, bind them now. I do not want to settle and then be wakened to be tortured again. And you are making too much of the ribs anyway. If they were dangerous, I would be dead by now. I was using my staff after that club hit me and bouncing up and down on Teithiwr.”

  Deri looked at Carys and shrugged. “The only way to shut him up is give him what he wants or stick a gag in his mouth—and I think that would not help his breathing.”

  She smiled, reassured herself by Telor’s strengthening voice and general alertness, but did not respond to Deri’s joking directly. Instead she pointed to the right. “If we could get him up that little rise where that big yew is, he would be warmer and lie softer on the old needles, and the branches are low enough to hang the tent cloths from. And I know a way to sit him up without hurting him much.”

  That was accomplished by telling Telor to hold his body as rigid as he could and having Deri lift him from behind. The bloody shirt was used as wrapping, Deri cutting the seam on one side so that it could be restored to use when no longer needed as a bandage. While Carys wrapped the shirt firmly and knotted it on Telor’s right side, Deri scraped together a heap of dried needles into a kind of bed and spread a doubled blanket over them. Then Deri wished to carry Telor, but he insisted it would be less painful to walk, and with Deri’s strong shoulder to steady him, he managed it, with Carys following closely behind with hands outstretched to catch him.

  “I think,” Telor began, when the pain of movement had subsided and he had caught his breath, “that we—”

  And with one voice, Deri and Carys cried, “Be quiet! Go to sleep!” glanced at each other, shook their heads, and walked far enough away so that Telor would have to shout to make them hear, for which he had no strength. They busied themselves—Carys replacing her knife in its sheath and then seeking the needle, which Deri had dropped into the grass beside Telor, freeing it of the bloodstained remains of the gut, wiping it carefully, and replacing it in the cloth. Meanwhile, Deri gathered up the possessions Carys had scattered when she hastily unrolled the blankets, unsaddled Teithiwr and Surefoot, and brought them to the stream to drink. Each cast surreptitious glances at Telor and finally became sure he had fallen asleep.

  “This is yours?” Deri said, extending toward Carys the blood-clotted knife that had been stuck in the cantle of Teithiwr’s saddle.

  Carys wrinkled her nose at the stains. “Yes. Can you lend me a piece of cloth to clean it?”

  Deri looked down at the flat handle bound with worn leather, at the ten-inch-long blade, honed on both edges and coming to a needle point. “You seem to know how to use it.”

  “There is little sense in carrying a knife one cannot use,” Carys replied, dropping her hand, which had been stretched to receive the weapon.

  “You did not use it in Castle Combe,” Deri remarked.

  “It is too easy to kill with my knives,” Carys said, shaking her head. “I wanted to stop that man, not kill him.” She shrugged. “Telor had said the lord was harsh. We could not leave a dead man lying about. What could we have done with the body? And even if we hid it, we would have had to kill the others to keep them quiet.”

  Laughing uneasily at the progression of cold-blooded thoughts, Deri looked toward where Telor had originally lain. The knife he had used to cut the gut had not been stained with blood, and it was gone. “Where do you keep them?” he asked.

  Carys promptly lifted her tunic to display the thin but hard leather sheaths flat against her thighs and showed the split seams through which she could slide her hands. “I can throw them too,” she said.

  Deri looked up at her. “What really happened at that keep?”

  “Just what I told you,” Carys replied. “Two knives are not much defense against fifty men—or even twenty.”

  “You are about as defenseless as an adder,” Deri said wryly. “Why did you pretend you were helpless?”

  “Am I not?” Carys asked. “If you and Telor had left me, how would I have found bread? I am not a thief or a whore. Nor does slitting throats put food in one’s belly. And by the time we came to Castle Combe, I wished to stay with you. No one has ever been so kind to me as you and Telor.”

  “Here, take it.” Deri thrust the knife he was holding at her. “You can use the cloth for polishing harness to clean it.”

  “I just forgot about them,” Carys said in a small voice. “I was not hiding them apurpose—not after the first day or two.”

  Deri laughed. “And I thought you were joking when you asked Telor if you should have knifed that man inst
ead of trying to gouge out his eyes.” Then he laughed again, more mirthfully, when he saw how distastefully she looked at the bloody knife in her hand. “For someone so easy with knives, you are very chary of blood.” And when she shuddered, he reached for the knife again. “Oh, give it here. I will clean it for you. Look about for some very dry wood so I can make a fire that will not smoke. I think hot soup would be good for Telor.”

  “Are you going to hunt?” Carys asked in a frightened voice.

  Like all players, Carys knew the forest laws, which prohibited the common folk from taking game or wood, were strict and brutal. Most foresters would overlook a small fire using only thin deadfall, particularly when the players were willing to pay with entertainment, but any evidence of killing game would bring the full wrath of the law on them.

  “Not yet,” Deri replied. “I do not wish to lose a hand or be hanged. I have some grain and dried meat in my saddlebags.”

  “I can find some greens and roots along the stream,” Carys offered.

  Ermina had taught her to recognize wild plants that were good for food, and Carys had listened out of curiosity since Morgan’s troupe rarely needed to live off the land. In the years with Ulric, Carys had blessed Ermina—whenever her dulled mind had lifted from the bare necessity of the gathering—for she might have starved altogether if not for those lessons.

  ***

  Deri produced not only grain, dried meat, and salt but a flat pan from his saddlebags, and Carys, having dropped her gleaning of twigs and branches, went up and down the stream banks and found wild onions and garlic, lily bulbs, plantain, and nettles. Neither Carys nor Deri was much of a cook. They cut everything into small pieces and dropped them into the pan, precariously balanced on three rocks above the fire, where water was already boiling briskly. The dried meat, hard as leather, needed time to cook, and Carys scrambled up the tree over Telor to hang the tent cloths, which Deri handed up to her. These were somewhat “aromatic,” since they were periodically oiled and the oil grew rancid with time, but Carys’s nose was accustomed to worse, and the cloths would keep them dry unless it poured. After the cloths were fastened, Deri and Carys took turns watching the pot and adding water when necessary while the other slept.