The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  “Oh, no!” Telor shouted. “Not this time.”

  Carys shook her head. “I do not yet know my role, so there is no use shouting at me. All I know is that I must watch and listen not to miss my call to play my part. This is the Lady’s will, Telor, and it is part of a whole thing like a play, only real. And only if we all play our roles aright, according to the Lady’s will, can we all come out of it, alive, well, and happy.”

  “God willing,” Telor agreed.

  “And the Lady—but She is merciful.”

  Chapter 19

  Although Telor said not one word to deny Carys’s claim of divine revelation, he was not at all convinced by what she said. Nonetheless, after she had gone over the progression of events as she had seen it, he was aware of a remarkable lightening of his spirits. He made no effort to suppress the feeling, despite an uneasy notion in the back of his mind that the Lady Carys spoke of was not the Virgin. But that was nonsense, for Carys could have no faith other than that Holy Church taught. Besides, the Virgin was both merciful and given to peculiar acts of charity. Still, he did not ask. He did not want to know. It was enough that both Carys and he rose from the pallet laughing instead of weeping, that they ate with excellent appetites a large and tasty evening meal to make up for scanty dinners, and then went back to bed and played lusty games far into the night—and not once did Carys weep.

  She was more anxious the next day when he went off to wait Lord William’s pleasure, but it was a different sort of anxiety—a kind of tense but eager waiting rather than hysterical terror. Telor did not know which worried him more, since he could imagine Carys “hearing her call” and leaping into all sorts of trouble. All he could do, however, was to warn her about imagining things and make her promise to wait for Deri before she decided to do anything she could not talk over with him. She agreed so readily that Telor was not at all comforted, but he did not dare bring her with him to Lord William’s lodging. What he did do was try to divert her by offering her money and urging her to buy new clothes, and when she protested that he had given her enough, he laughed at her and suggested that if she was too proud now to take his charity, she should use some of her share of the coins looted from the men-at-arms for that purpose.

  “A dress too,” he urged softly, “a pretty dress, sweeting. I long to see you as you should be.”

  That was an irresistible temptation, and besides, Carys had no feeling that any immediate action would be required of her. All that kept her from rushing out to buy clothing at once was her fear of being cheated because she was ignorant of the value of money; the cost of a rope did not seem pertinent to the cost of clothes. She would wait for Deri, she decided, and ask him to come with her. If his mood had not changed, she would have to go alone; but if he seemed glad that she needed his help, that would prove what Telor guessed was really true and would be wonderful. Besides, she had not been on her rope for two whole days, so she could use the time until Deri came profitably—if the cook would allow her to use the yard to practice.

  Happily, Carys ran down and peeped through the back door into the cookshop. The cook was not there, only the tiny girl, standing on a stool and stirring a large pot with a spoon that looked almost as tall as she. Carys bit her lip, disappointed, until she remembered that the girl was not a child but a grown woman. Perhaps she could give permission to tie the rope across the yard. Hesitating over whether to enter, for players were often not welcome in shops, Carys was caught in a glance the girl cast toward the doorway.

  “Oh,” she gasped, nearly overbalancing on the rough stool.

  Carys darted forward and caught her, just barely saving her from burning her arm on the pot. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I did not mean to startle you.”

  For a moment after Carys had steadied her and backed away a little, the girl stared at her with large, dark eyes so wide Carys was afraid they would fall out. Then she said, “A girl! You are a girl, not a boy! Why are you dressed that way?”

  In her excitement, Carys had forgotten to use her boy’s voice or mannerisms. Deciding it was more dangerous to try to go back to the pretense, Carys shrugged. “It is safer when we travel.”

  “Safer? Among soldiers? And how can a woman—”

  “We are not soldiers—” Carys confessed uneasily, suddenly remembering how Deri and Telor had been dressed when they came to the cookshop and realizing that neither the cook nor this girl knew they were players.

  “That was what papa said when he saw the…the little man,” the girl interrupted. “He was of half a mind to report you, but I reminded him how the big man had come to my defense. Papa is worried because of Lord William being in the town—”

  “He need not worry on that score,” Carys assured her, interrupting in turn. “That is where Telor—the big man—was gone, to wait on Lord William. You may tell your papa so if it will make him easier in his mind.”

  “You are of Lord William’s household?”

  “No…” Carys drew out the word, not certain whether she wished to confess they were players but realizing she must if she wanted to practice in the cookshop yard. It was not a decision she felt she had a right to make on her own, so she said, “We are not of Lord William’s household, but Telor is employed by him sometimes.”

  “Not—not the little man?”

  “Deri. Deri is his name,” Carys said, suddenly thoughtful, and to cover what she was thinking added, “And my name is Carys. What is yours?”

  “I am called Ann,” the girl said, smiling. “What does Deri do?”

  The return to Deri as a subject confirmed Carys’s notion that she had heard a note of eagerness in Ann’s voice when she spoke of “the little man.” Carys also noted that the girl had not said “dwarf,” and had assumed that was because she hated the word herself. But now it seemed stupid not to realize that Ann would naturally be interested in Deri, although Carys knew many dwarves shunned their own kind in a sort of self-loathing.

  “Deri does all sorts of things,” she replied to Ann’s question. “You see, we are three friends, and we each do what will best benefit us all. Sometimes Deri pretends to be Telor’s servant—I do, too—but we are not his servants, we are all friends.”

  Ann laughed and looked down into the pot she had continued to stir sporadically through the conversation. “You are Telor’s friend in a very special way. I heard you before we closed last night, after Deri had gone away. Will he—Deri, I mean—come back? Are you his friend also?”

  “No!” Carys exclaimed. Ann had looked at her slyly when she asked the last question, and at Carys’s explosive reply her face froze. Seeing what the girl thought, Carys added quickly and angrily, “Not because Deri is a dwarf! I love Deri. I could not love him more if he were blood kin to me. He is the best, the kindest of men. But I am not a whore! I do not lie with every man who comes into my company. Telor is my man, and only Telor.”

  Ann’s face turned scarlet, and her eyes filled with tears. “Forgive me! How could I say such a thing! But…but I cannot help envying what I will never have.”

  The girl began to shake, and Carys grabbed her again. “Here, come down off that stool and let me stir the pot before you fall into it. And there is no sense glaring at me. I am not such a fool as to think ‘little people’ are no good for anything. I would fall into it myself if I were flying all to pieces as you are.”

  “Well, what good is a dwarf, except to go with the players and be a butt of jests?” Ann asked bitterly as Carys took her place.

  Having rescued the spoon and given a cursory stir, Carys asked in turn, rather sadly, “Do you think so ill of players?”

  “I think ill of being teased and tormented because I am not grown as tall as other people.”

  “It is true that some dwarves are treated ill,” Carys admitted, “but most of them, poor creatures, are not fit for anything else. I mean, they are witless. If the players had not taken them in, they would have been left to starve. Would that be better? Besides, clever dwarves do not need to
act the fool—more often they make fools of others, unless they are too lazy to use their wits or learn a few tricks.”

  “My father says they are all cruel and dishonest. I know that more than one troupe offered money to Papa if he would let me go with them.” The tears that had been hanging in Ann’s eyes rolled down her cheeks. “I wanted to go,” she sobbed. “My sister has been betrothed, and I am the elder, but Papa says he has not enough money to buy me a husband, and even if he pledged his shop and all, the man would likely use me cruelly because of what I am.”

  “You are not trained to be a player,” Carys pointed out.

  “But what else is there for me?” Ann cried. “All that is left is to be a servant in my sister’s house when Papa and Mama die—if she will be merciful enough to take me in. But Papa would not let me join a troupe. He said it is no life.”

  “It is a very hard life,” Carys temporized. “Players are greeted with shouts of joy but are not really welcome wherever they go. Mostly they are wet and muddy or hot and dusty in summer, frozen in winter, and hungry in all seasons, and all folk look at them with suspicion, as if they expected to be robbed or befooled—and sometimes their suspicion has good cause…And yet, there is joy in that life. There are few men and fewer women who know that their work gives great pleasure to others, so much pleasure that people will pay their hard-won pennies to see and hear what will not feed or clothe or shelter them.”

  “How do you know so much about players?” Ann asked.

  Carys took a little time to stir the pot more carefully. A notion had come to her when Ann explained how little future she had. Ordinarily, despite that, Carys would have warned her strongly against trusting herself to a troupe of players. Ann did not seem to have the quick, bitter wit of a “smart” fool, and without that or training in tumbling or juggling, which took years to learn well, at best the girl would be used as the butt of cruel jests and teasing. At worst her fate would be one that brought shudders to Carys’s flesh. She might be sold again and again to such men as lusted after children—for as long as she survived their cruel handling.

  Yet Carys did not want to paint a picture of such degradation of the players’ life. If Deri could like Ann and wanted her to join their group, that would be entirely different. Telor would not deny Deri the girl’s company if Deri wanted her—and she could be a profit to them too. Perhaps she could be trained to do a little playlet with Deri, or very simple juggling, or to sing a little, or simply to stand by and look astonished at Deri’s antics. Even if she could not learn, just having two dwarves would attract attention—and it would not spoil Deri’s act as Telor’s servant because Ann would simply be Deri’s wife. And if Deri liked her, Ann would be cherished as few women are. On the other hand, no matter what care Deri lavished on her, he could not shield her from the hardships of the road. Born to the life as she was, sometimes Carys suffered keenly. How would the town-bred Ann endure a winter’s night in the open?

  Hardship was not the only reason Carys held her tongue. It was very possible that Deri would not find Ann to his taste. Carys thought the girl was more pretty than plain, with her big dark eyes, her snub nose, and her wide mouth, but perhaps Deri would not want a dwarf mate; his first wife had been a normal woman, Carys knew. And now that Carys had looked at Ann more closely, she saw that the girl’s arms and legs were not really a perfect fit with her body. Worse, the woman’s face atop the childlike form was unnatural and would grow more so with age. If Deri was like those dwarves who avoided their own kind, he would not want Ann.

  What Carys wanted to do was to warn Ann away from players in general and yet leave the door open for her to join them if Deri was willing and they could convince her father. “I was a player,” she said slowly. “There is a long tale of sorrows I could tell, but the outcome of them was that of the troupe only the strongman and I remained. We went to entertain in the wrong keep. Ulric was killed, and the men-at-arms—some twenty or thirty of them—thought they would play with me—all at once. But I am a rope dancer, and I know how to climb and fall, so I escaped them. Telor and Deri picked me up on the road, half dead. I cannot tell you the kindness they have shown me—and I did not pay with my body for it,” she ended sharply.

  “I am sorry.” Ann looked away, then blushed and added, “Even if you did, it was no hardship.”

  “It would have been for me,” Carys retorted shortly, and stirred the pot with vigor again.

  She understood Ann’s eagerness to experience love, however, and she was not angry with her. Still, without Deri’s concurrence, she could say no more on that subject, so she thought of asking the girl to recommend a place to buy clothes. Just as she was about to speak, the cook’s voice bellowed from the doorway, “You! You filthy man-lover! What are you doing, smelling around my daughter?”

  “No, Papa,” Ann cried, running toward him. “She is a girl, not a boy.”

  “Fool!” the cook exclaimed, but paused when Carys laughed.

  “Indeed, I am a woman, goodman. I dress as a boy for safety on the road.” Carys spoke in her natural voice, and the cook frowned uncertainly. “Nor are Telor and Deri, my friends, men-at-arms. We came here on an errand to Lord William Gloucester, and they dressed as they did for safety also.” Although it gave a totally false impression, that was the literal truth, so Carys said it smoothly, with assurance and a kind of amusement.

  “Oh, yes?” The man’s voice wobbled between uncertainty and open disbelief. “So where was he away to so early and with such haste that he did not break his fast? I wished to speak to him.” The last sentence, begun angrily, tailed off in doubt. The cook had been prepared to evict a boy-lover and his male whore from his house, only to discover the “boy” was a woman.

  Carys gave him a sunny smile. “Telor went to Lord William’s lodging—and you may go yourself or send a messenger to ask for him if you doubt me. He is bid to come there each day early. I suppose he broke his fast there with the rest of the household.” Carys smiled again. “I suppose I did come smelling around your daughter, but my heart is innocent. I wished to ask her to recommend to me a merchant who sells clothes.”

  “A good mercer can be found—” the cook began, very glad now to get away from the subject of Telor’s relationship with Lord William. He felt he had a merciful escape in Carys’s good nature or ignorance that Telor might have influence with that powerful lord.

  “I am sorry, goodman,” Carys interrupted. “Woman I may be, but sew I cannot. I told your daughter I was raised a player. I can dance on a rope tied from steeple to steeple across a road, but I cannot do almost anything most women are taught. The clothing I buy must be ready-made.”

  “A player!” There was renewed coldness in his voice, and he looked at his daughter.

  “You need not think Carys was trying to tempt me into her company,” Ann said. “All she told me was how cold and wet and hungry players get, and how her last partner was killed and twenty or thirty men prepared to use her. Telor and Deri saved her.”

  “And I am not a thief nor a whore,” Carys said stiffly. “I do not need to use those vices to feed me. I am a rope dancer—the best. If you wish to see my work, I will tie my rope across your yard—I wished to ask for permission to practice there when I came down.”

  It was clear that the cook was uncertain how to react. His innate prejudice against players was blunted by Carys’s speech and manner, which to his mind were very fine, and by her lover’s connection with Lord William. The idea of a free performance appealed to him also, and then he remembered what Carys had said about a rope from steeple to steeple, and he thought what that could mean to his shop. He had a fine profit since Lord William’s arrival, but he could make more; there might even be enough custom for him to call in Bessy’s betrothed to help. Ned’s parents had been pressing him to do it, but he had refused, knowing it would break poor Ann’s heart. Then he thought sourly that even if the rope dancer was willing to do her act, he dared not call in Ned anyway, because he would expect to stay
and learn the trade, and if there was not enough work, Ann would have to go—which made the cook furious with Ann.

  “What the devil are you doing standing there while a stranger stirs the pot?” he snarled.

  “I asked to do it,” Carys said hastily. “And not for the sake of licking the spoon. You know we have paid for what we have eaten, Deri and I.”

  “He paid,” the cook snapped. “But he is gone.”

  “I told you I could pay for myself,” Carys began, dropping the spoon into the pot and moving away so Ann could drag the stool closer and climb up on it. “And Deri will be back before dinner.”

  As if on cue, there was the sound of a horse entering the yard, and the characteristic thud Deri made as he jumped down. Carys ran out, and the cook followed, still angry and looking for a cause that was not his daughter’s deformity. “You!” he yelled at Deri before Carys could say a word. “Why did you pretend to be men-at-arms? You are nothing but players.”

  “What do you mean, nothing but?” Deri asked softly. “I am many things besides a player, and if you do not want to be picked up and drowned in your own pot, you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to me.”

  “Oh, goodman,” Carys cried, “he can do it. I pray you, do not anger him.”

  The cook, recalling that Deri’s companion was in attendance on Lord William and that calling out the guard in this case would more likely get him in trouble than the dwarf, said sulkily, “I do not like to be befooled.”

  Startled by the note of fear in Carys’s voice, Deri reminded himself that he was no longer a rich yeoman’s son and curbed his temper. “We did not even ask for lodging,” he growled. “You offered it.”

  “I have told him already that we were not trying to fool him but dressed that way for safety because Telor was doing an errand to Lord William,” Carys put in, sounding much aggrieved. “And I have done nothing to turn him so cross. I was only helping Ann stir the pot.”