The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  Carys was a poor prophet, however. Not only did no disaster take place, but their luck continued good. When she and Deri reached Telor, he had finished with the corpse and they were able to move through the gap the sapling had made in the hedge with the horses and get well out of sight of the road. Hardly were they safe when they heard hooves and a shout of surprise and fear. The body and the barricade had been discovered. They waited tensely, listening, and hugged each other with relief and joy when the hooves did not return to Marston but continued at a much faster pace toward Creklade.

  As the sound died away, they led their animals hastily, but quietly, to the tree where they had left their now scanty possessions. Without even pausing to tie up the few garments and instruments in the blanket, they started east again, keeping a fair distance from the road. They also detoured widely around Marston village, which straggled along the main road near where it met the short track that led to the manor. It might be completely deserted, but it was also possible that Orin had brought wives and families with the men from around Faringdon, and those might now be housed in the village.

  They hurried across the well-marked track leading south from the village to the river, which was already showing new grass from not being used, and pushed on eastward for what they guessed was another half-mile. By then it seemed safe for them to stop so the men could change out of their torn and bloody garments. While they did so, Carys removed the saddle from the worst-looking of the animals and tried to make the extra swords, the harp and lute, and other bits and pieces into a pack that would not arouse suspicion. Although neither Telor nor Deri was at all expert with the sword, they had decided to wear the accoutrements of the men-at-arms—including the helmets their victims had neglected—as a kind of disguise.

  It took Deri longest to fit himself into the looted garments because his overdeveloped shoulders threatened to burst the arming tunic, and he had to use Carys’s knife to cut the seams under the arms of the hauberk before he could force himself into it. Only Deri’s legs were short, so the hip-length hauberk was just a trifle long, and the dwarf managed to tuck the bottom of the tunic into the tie of his braies and adjust his belt under the hauberk to help prevent the hem from slipping out.

  While Deri was poking and pulling at the tunic, cursing freely, Telor had stripped the extra saddle of everything that would come off. By buckling the leather strap of one stirrup to the other, he was able to devise a way for Deri to mount and dismount by himself. He had even more trouble trying to make something that would hold his quarterstaff and had to be content with a kind of soft sling, which meant he would have to hold on to the staff all the time they were riding. Last, he put the stripped saddle back on the horse and arranged the pack Carys had made so that it concealed the cantle and pommel and looked as much like a pack saddle as possible.

  Ready to mount, the three looked at each other and took deep breaths. All knew that on the road there was a chance of meeting the men Orin must have sent out to hunt them, but they had to go out on the road if they wanted to reach Lechlade before the gates were closed for the night. But their good luck held, and no one they met showed the slightest interest in them.

  The safe passage brought Carys no relief. Even after they had passed the gates without question, she felt tense and uneasy and trembled on the brink of tears. By then she had other causes of anxiety than the simple fear of too much good fortune. Both her companions seemed to have become strangers. Telor, as tense as she, was full of a strange, unholy joy for which she could find no cause, and Deri…Deri did not seem to be there. His body was on his horse, and he answered each time she spoke to him, but his black eyes were dull and empty, even when he smiled.

  Moreover, for a time it seemed as if they would be lodged worse than if they had stayed in the wood. Every alehouse was full and most private houses already had Lord William Gloucester’s men quartered in them. Carys only discovered later it was this news that generated in Telor the crazy joy that she recognized as a sign of the doom she had been expecting. At the time, she was actually more worried by what seemed a final stroke of luck that brought them warm, clean beds in the loft of a cookshop.

  Telor had stopped at the place, as if by chance, and shouted for the “ordinary” to the cook, saying they might as well eat while they discussed whether they should go on looking for a lodging or just accept what the alehouse across the lane had offered—a place to tie their horses and lie down in the yard. Then what looked like a child with black hair came out with the food Telor had ordered. Because he knew what he was looking for, Telor saw at once that it was the dwarf daughter. He smiled at her with relief and pleasure as he took the proffered bowls, wondering whether to speak firmly for taking the open-air lodging across the road or to ask the cook, who he thought lived above the cookshop with his family, whether they could stay in his yard—or would that make Deri suspicious?

  Wanting to keep the girl in sight in the hope that Deri would notice her on his own and, perhaps, suggest they stay close by, Telor placed three farthings in her hand and asked her to bring them ale. But when she came out of the alehouse across the road, it was Carys, thinking she was a child, not Deri, who jumped up to help her carry the large leather jack, which seemed too heavy for her. The girl resisted momentarily, almost as if she were angry, but she gave up the jack before Carys’s attention was fixed by the reaction and said she would fetch cups. To Telor’s disappointment, Deri never looked at her at all.

  She was slow about coming back, and then she chose the wrong moment, just as two men-at-arms pushed past the tethered horses. One of them stepped forward and caught the girl’s arm as she passed. She cried out with fear, and her father rushed from the cookshop brandishing a heavy ladle. Several passersby paused and looked back over their shoulders as Telor jumped to his feet, his hand on his sword hilt. His eyes were on the man who held the little girl, not on the cook with the threatening ladle.

  The man who had grabbed the girl glanced from the cook to Telor, released her arm, and held up his hand. “Peace, peace,” he said. “We are only seeking lodging.”

  “I have none,” the cook replied sharply.

  “You lie,” the second man-at-arms growled. “My friend and three others slept here last night, and I know they left town not an hour since.”

  “You are too late,” the cook replied. “These people here”—he gestured toward Telor, Carys, and Deri—“have taken the place.”

  “So we have,” Deri remarked, “and we do not choose to share.” There was a kind of violence in his quiet voice that made Carys shiver, and he brought up the point of the long knife, looted from Orin’s man, with which he had been spearing pieces of meat.

  There was a tense silence in which the second man half drew his sword, but the first put a hand on his arm and shrugged. “No brawling is the order,” he warned. “A cleaner bed tonight is not worth the rack tomorrow—and there are too many to stand witness.”

  It was true that the passersby had retreated to a safe distance, but most of them were still watching, and heads were poked out of doorways and windows in adjoining and opposite buildings. The men-at-arms turned and walked away. They had been warned very strictly about not offending the townspeople, and some men had already been punished for doing so. One had been hanged for raping a girl who was no more than a common tanner’s daughter.

  Partly this was because Lechlade had not been “taken”—Lord William was a guest; however, with over a hundred of his men in the town, he might not have cared much about what the burghers liked or did not like if the situation had not been particularly delicate. Only a few miles to the south lay the king’s army besieging Faringdon. It was true that the presence of Lord William’s men had protected Lechlade from looting and foraging parties; that was why he had been welcomed. But if his men became a worse plague than supplying the king’s army, it would be all too easy for the town council to forget their invitation to Lord William and appeal to the king for protection from him.

  All
this was clear enough to the men-at-arms, except the most brutal and ignorant, and those were being flogged and disciplined in other ways as examples; the men also understood that they could not hold the town an hour if the burghers wanted to open the gates instead of defending them. Since they did not wish to be running for their lives with the army behind them, only to face Lord William’s wrath when they reached safety—if it could be called safety with Lord William angry—all were taking with great seriousness this time standard orders against brawling, which were usually ignored.

  Telor sat down again with a sigh of relief. He had jumped up to protect the girl without thinking. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight with Lord William’s men. Anyhow, Deri could never think he had arranged what had happened, so all he had to do now was ignore the girl completely. She picked up the cups she had dropped while the thoughts ran through Telor’s mind and brought them to the end of the board serving as a counter where the trio was perched on stools, but Deri was staring after the disappearing men-at-arms as if he regretted the peaceful ending of the confrontation. The cook had stood still, also looking after the men until he could not see them, while the people who had been watching dispersed; then he allowed the ladle he had continued to hold threateningly to droop.

  He nodded at Telor. “Thank you, sir.” Then turned to Deri, “And you, sir, for backing my word. You may have the room, and welcome, and without cost. My girl told me you were in need of lodging.”

  “She is too young to be serving with the town so full of men,” Carys said.

  The cook shrugged wearily. “She is not so young, and she is surely safer than her sister or her mother would be. She is not to the taste of most, and I must have someone to help me. You can take your horses around to the back. There is a ladder to the loft there, but I have no shed or stall for animals, nor feed either.”

  “I will try to find a stable to take them,” Telor said. “I have an errand to do and will ask on the way. If I cannot find a place, I will bring feed back with me.”

  Carys had looked sharply at the small girl when the cook said she was not so young and was startled to see that the face was not that of a child. She was not the usual kind of dwarf either, with an overlarge head, twisted back, and too-short limbs. She was quite perfect—Carys could see that she even had well-formed breasts under her deliberately loose gown—only she was no larger than an eight- or nine-year-old child. Carys’s oppression lifted for a moment, and she was about to jab Deri in the ribs and point out what he had obviously not noticed when Telor had spoken.

  The cloud of fear descended on her again, wiping the fact of the dwarf girl’s existence out of her mind. Carys asked fearfully, “What errand, Telor?”

  “To buy some clothes in which I can appear before Lord William,” he answered in a low voice. “Deri and I must get rid of this armor as soon as we can.”

  “True enough,” the dwarf replied. “The first man who sees me standing up in this hauberk will begin to yell for his captain. I will slip around to the back as soon as I can. You had better buy a tunic for me too—and a needle and thread to sew up the hem of this shirt.”

  “You would do better to go tomorrow morning for your own clothes and get them fitted,” Telor pointed out. “You know you can never get anything wide enough—”

  “No,” Deri interrupted sharply. “I need something to go out in tonight.”

  As he finished speaking, the dwarf got up and hurried around the side of the shop. Telor followed him, signing Carys to stay where she was.

  “Why do you want to go out tonight, Deri?” Telor asked.

  “Fool!” the dwarf snarled. “Why should I lie in the same room with you and Carys and listen to your futtering? There is gold in my purse tonight, more than enough to buy me the same pleasure. You have made it plain that my warning was not enough to keep you from playing with Carys.”

  “I am not playing with Carys,” Telor snapped.

  “No more village maidens?” Deri’s brows rose in sardonic doubt.

  “No more village maidens, nor fine ladies either,” Telor replied, but the anger had gone out of his voice. “It is no sudden virtue on my part. I seem to have lost my taste for them.”

  “For how long?” The question could have held a sneer but did not, and Deri’s deep concern made Telor sigh again.

  “For as long as Carys wants me,” he said steadily. “You were right that I wanted her from the beginning for her body and sweet face and bright eyes, but this is different from plain wanting, Deri. I am full when she is with me, empty when we are parted. My spirit is upheld by her cheerfulness and her high courage.”

  “You have a way with words, that is sure,” Deri remarked with a tinge of bitterness.

  The bitterness was directed at himself. He had been truly startled when Telor spoke of what he felt was Carys’s beauty, for Deri had never even thought her attractive. That Telor should see beauty in that scrawny body and peaked face testified to the depth of his attachment. Deri knew there could be no hope that Telor would tire of Carys, and Carys would cling like a limpet both because she felt happy and safe with Telor—as Deri himself had felt—and because women never did seem to tire of the minstrel. And Deri knew Telor would keep his word and would be faithful to Carys as long as she wanted him, so there would be no jealousy to disrupt them.

  For once misunderstanding Deri’s tone and expression because he was so wrapped up in his own emotions, Telor shook his head vigorously and drove the knife in deeper. “They are not just words. Lusts of the body fade quickly, but desires of the spirit are long-lived. I feel that I will forever desire her and only her, body and soul, but I swear that even if that desire should die, I will never take another woman while she is with me. Could I hurt her? How many times has she saved my life?” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “I have not always liked her methods—but I will not forget them either! Do you think I want to wake up with my throat cut or a knife in my eye? No man who knows her and is in his right mind would lightly make Carys jealous.” He put a hand on Deri’s shoulder, his face serious again. “I intend to marry her in church in the eyes of man and God, if I come alive out of what I plan to do, and if Carys is willing.”

  Chapter 17

  Deri paled as eagerness to be needed by someone—as Carys would need him if Telor should die—and terror that Telor, to whom he owed so much, might be hurt, both emotions equally strong, tore at him.

  “Come alive out of—What the devil do you mean?” Deri croaked.

  In the flaring, uneven light of the one torch near the cookshop’s back door, Telor could not see so subtle a thing as a change in the dwarf’s complexion. He shook his head again. “Not now. I will tell you after I have spoken to Lord William. If he will not take the bait I hold out to him, I will have to think anew—and I do not need to listen to you calling me an idiot if nothing is to come of my plan. And I know already you think it wrong for me to lie with Carys when my life is in doubt, but I cannot help it. I want her. I have already been too close to death without once tasting her sweetness. I cannot bear to go without that.”

  Deri’s eyes had been searching Telor’s face. Now he dropped them and nodded. “All the more reason for you to be alone with her.”

  “But with the town full of men, the whores will be busy,” Telor said gently, “and we are newcomers. If they have regular customers—”

  “Regular customers do not pay in gold,” Deri snarled.

  “But there is no need,” Telor persisted. “I always intended to take Carys out. The night is fine. With two blankets—”

  “We risked our necks to have this lodging not a quarter of an hour past,” Deri said. “If you want it to stand empty, that is your affair, but I will not sleep here this night. I have my wantings too, even if my soul has lost its mate. Now go and see if you can find a shop open this late and find me a replacement for this armor.”

  Telor turned away feeling like a fool. Even if Deri did not want Carys, he must have been aroused by
seeing her kissed and fondled. It had been a long while, Telor thought, since the dwarf had taken a woman—the maid would have had time for no more than a brief coupling in Castle Combe. It was quite natural that Deri should want relief, Telor told himself, but he felt uneasy, and he was frowning when he went around to the front of the cookshop and stopped to tell Carys he would be back in a short while.

  “Is something wrong with Deri?” she asked anxiously.

  “No,” Telor replied, trying to reassure her although he was not sure himself. “He wants to go awhoring, and I cannot be easy in my mind about it when the town is full of men-at-arms contesting for the same whores.”

  “Cannot he wait for tomorrow? Only one day? We will be gone from here by then, will we not?”

  Telor did not know how to answer that last question and was grateful to have an excuse to avoid the first two. He had not forgotten Carys’s fear of coupling and did not want her to spend the time he was away in an expectation that might grow more fearful than pleasant. In fact, bending over her, seeing her curls tipped now red, now gold, in the flaring torchlight, Telor did not want to go at all. But if he did not, Deri would be at risk—and he would have to answer Carys’s questions too. So he merely told her he would explain when he returned, putting his haste down to needing to find a shop that had something Deri could wear before all the shops closed.

  Normally, of course, they would have closed at dusk. It was rare for anyone to do business after dark, but the flood of uncritical customers provided by the bored men-at-arms, some of whom had the easy money of winnings from gambling in their purses, induced even sober mercers to place flaming torches at the sides of their outdoor counters and light the interiors of their shops with an array of candles. Telor found exactly what he needed without difficulty, replacing shirt, braies, tunic, and cloak, choosing fine cloth in rich but sober colors, and paying without haggling. Since it was not his money but that of Orin’s men, he did not care how he spent it.