The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  The village was all dark when Deri reached Marston, but he drew his sword and leaned from his horse’s back to hammer on the door of what he judged to be the largest and most central hut. He thought he saw a flicker of light through a chink in the shutter; probably someone was examining him. He could only hope that one man on horseback would not be considered a threat, but he had to appear bad-tempered too, so he pounded on the door again. He heard the bar shift and sighed with relief when a tousled man peered out fearfully.

  “Fetch Michael the woodcarver,” Deri snarled.

  “We have no woodcarver here,” the man at the door quavered.

  “Do not lie to me,” Deri growled, lifting the sword suggestively. “I know he came to Marston village this very day with some other—”

  “Them!” There was relief in the man’s voice now. “They are there—” He pointed at a house that now showed a very faint line of light beneath its ill-fitting door.

  Deri turned his horse at once, as if he did not care whether the man watched, but he was relieved to hear the door close. He used his sword hilt on the other door, and this one opened promptly, and the man, whose manner was very different from that of the fearful serf, whispered, “From my lord?”

  “I want Michael the woodcarver,” Deri said loudly as he nodded his head.

  “He is not here,” Lord William’s man replied. “He went up to the manor with us, but we were sent down to lodge in the village. I do not know what became of him.”

  Deri swallowed hard and bent down to speak softly. “I am no man-at-arms,” he confessed. “I am the woodcarver’s servant. Do you know if he carried tools with him? The lord asked me, and I did not know, so I was bidden to bring these.” He handed over the packet.

  “I will do my best to get them to him. Do you want to stay the night here?”

  “No,” Deri replied, fearing that if one word of a dwarf in the village drifted back to the manor, it would spark an instant search for Telor. He did not think that either man he had spoken to suspected he was a dwarf, for it was dark and they had no particular reason to look hard at his legs. But aside from keeping that secret, his purpose was lost. He turned his horse automatically back toward Lechlade, but as soon as he was out of sight of the village, he stopped.

  Common sense bade him go back, either to stay with Carys or present himself to Lord William, but an enormous bitterness filled him, and he could not. If he had been a normal man, he could have been with Telor now. Because he was a monster that anyone could recognize in one glance, he was worse than useless. Deri started the horse moving again, and again stopped. He could not go back; he simply could not. Thinking over what Lord William’s man had said, he was reasonably sure that Telor had not been recognized and taken prisoner. That, he was certain, would have caused enough of an uproar to be noticed by a man alert to anything he could see and hear in an enemy’s territory, which Lord William’s man must be.

  The assurance brought Deri no relief, since he knew the minstrel might be caught at any moment working at the gate bars and he would have no way of knowing. But once Telor was known, Deri’s presence could no longer betray him! Doubtless discovering Telor and taking him prisoner would cause enough excitement day or night that Deri would notice something amiss if he watched the keep. And he knew just from where to watch. With that decision, a weight of a thousand pounds rolled off Deri’s heart and he turned the animal back to look for the little track on which he and the others had come the night of their escape to join the road to Creklade. He could hide his horse in the abandoned farm they had passed and watch the keep from the top of any large tree in the little wood between the farm and the manor. He would watch this night, the next day, and the following night. The third dawn he would have to leave to seek out Lord William, but if Telor had not been discovered by then, there was a good chance that he would be safe until the attack started, unless he tried to kill Orin. But even then, if Telor were not killed at once, Lord William’s assault might start before Telor’s punishment was begun.

  Deri had not the faintest idea what he would do or could do if a furor indicated Telor had been captured. He had no hope of saving the minstrel if Orin ordered him killed immediately. All he could do then was avenge his friend when he came in with Lord William’s men. But Telor’s swift death was not what dried Deri’s mouth with fear and roiled his stomach. Orin seemed to have a taste for torture, and Deri was determined to spare Telor that kind of death—or die himself in the attempt, and be free of the knowledge of it.

  ***

  Carys lay down quietly in all her clothes to wait for the night to pass. She had felt such relief when Deri rode off, however, that it was no surprise to find, when she wakened suddenly, that she had fallen asleep. At first she had no idea what had wakened her, but when she turned her head, a ray of moonlight touched one eye. Instantly alert, Carys heard a faint scrabbling sound, and she leapt up to pull aside the shutter that closed the opening into the loft. She was sure it was Deri, and her heart pounded, one moment hoping Deri had Telor with him and the next fearing he had not waited to join Lord William because Telor was dead. But when she flung the shutter aside, there was no one on the ladder, and she realized the sound was coming from the cookshop below.

  A mighty hand seemed to grasp her chest and squeeze as a dreadful knowledge overwhelmed all hope. Deri was below, afraid to come up and tell her Telor was gone from them forever. So all her belief that the Lady had singled her out was no more than a child’s clinging to a silly dream to ward off fear. Tears rose in her eyes and trickled down her face, and she had to cling to the frame of the opening to steady herself, but as soon as she could, she climbed down the ladder. This truth could not be hidden from oneself, and it would grow no less bitter for delay.

  Carys opened the door of the cookshop and called softly to Deri, but the word was answered by a thin squeak of terror. Nothing could bring such a sound out of Deri—not that he was above fear, but he was built wrong to squeak. A thief, then! In the burst of joy that washed over her, Carys was predisposed to forgive anyone anything.

  “Come out,” Carys called softly. “I will do you no harm and I will let you go, but you must not steal anything large.” There was no answer, and Carys sharpened her tone, although she still spoke softly. “If you do not come out at once, I will shout for help. My friend and I must pay for any loss in this shop, and I do not—”

  “Do not call out,” a trembling whisper pleaded. “It is Ann.”

  Carys was struck dumb. Finally she brought out, “Ann?” in a strangled, disbelieving gasp.

  A small figure detached itself from a pile of sacks and oddments and came out into the dim light provided by the open door. “Where is he?” Ann asked bitterly. “Above? In your bed?”

  Although she still could hardly believe her eyes, Carys responded to the agony in the questions and put out her hand as she said, “Deri is gone to help Telor.” But then amazement overtook her again and she asked, “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

  There was a silence, and then Ann said defiantly, “I came to lie with Deri, to feel a man’s arms around me for once in my life, to—” Her voice broke on a sob.

  “Oh, Ann,” Carys whispered, “he would not. You heard him tell your father he would not despoil you.”

  “You mean he thinks I am a monster too?”

  “Ann!” Carys gasped. She had been about to urge the girl to hurry home before anyone knew she was missing, but she could not. “Come up to the loft with me,” she said.

  Carys was sorry she asked a moment later, wondering if Ann would be able to climb the ladder, but she did not object and went up it with effort but no real trouble. When they were in, Carys lit two candles from the tiny rushlight left burning as a night-light. Then she turned to tell Ann to sit on the sleeping pallet with her and stopped with her mouth open. There was no longer any dichotomy between woman’s face and child’s body. Over a yellow tunic, Ann wore a brilliant red bliaut laced tight to her figure, w
hich was even better developed than Carys had expected.

  “By the Lady,” she got out, “I think Deri would have kept his word to your father, but it would have been no easy task. You are lovely, Ann. I think your father is mad. I think any man who saw you as you are now would be glad to have you and would be as doting and fond a husband as any woman could want.”

  “Until I bore him a monster child,” Ann said.

  To that, Carys had no answer. She knew that the dwarf women among the players sometimes bore dwarf children and had heard rumors that worse than dwarves were born too. But sometimes the children were no different from others. Among players it made little difference. A dwarf child was very welcome. To a burgher, that could not be true.

  “I will never marry,” Ann went on. “Is it so wrong of me to want to know a man? And Deri is not like most of…us that I have seen. He is clever. He is kind. And his face…I will never forget him, never. My father will kill me if he learns what I have done. Above all, he dreads a monster grandchild that will mark our family as cursed for all time. But I do not care. When will Deri come back?” Then she came forward and grasped Carys’s hand. “He will come back, will he not?”

  “I—I do not know,” Carys said. “He will come back if he can, but—”

  “What do you mean, if he can?” Ann cried. “Do you think you are being kind to me to hide that he could not bear to look at me and fled?”

  “Now you are being silly,” Carys said angrily. “You think too much about yourself. You are not the center of the world. Deri has more important things to think about than a girl.” Suddenly Carys remembered her earlier terror, and her chin trembled. “Deri and my Telor are going into great danger. They may not come out of it alive—and all you can think of are your hurt feelings.”

  “I did not know,” Ann breathed. “Oh, yes, you said Telor was on an errand to Lord William, but…Can we do nothing to help them?”

  Carys stared down at Ann, dumbstruck for a moment. The question was the very last she would have expected. A cry of grief, a promise to pray, to light candles…but a desire to help? What kind of help did Ann think she could give? Carys spoke that question aloud.

  “How can I tell until I know what the danger is?” Ann replied. “I am not very strong, but no one notices a child running an errand or idling about, a little girl nursing her rag baby in a corner. And I know the evil herbs. Get me to the kitchen, and I can make anyone believe I belong there—and then lay a whole keep low, perhaps kill many.”

  A flicker of pleasure on her face when she said that made Carys shiver inside, but it passed swiftly. A plan was forming in Carys’s mind, forming so perfectly and so quickly that she glanced over her shoulder involuntarily. The moon had moved, and the whole opening of the loft was silver with moonlight. But one question needed answering before the plan was possible.

  “Telor and Deri are not in Lechlade, Ann,” Carys said. “To help, you would have to come away with me. I am sure you will be punished dreadfully for that. You must think carefully—”

  Ann shuddered and then laughed. “I do not need to think. Papa can only beat me and lock me up and starve me for a while, and I will have seen more than the inside of this cookshop and done more than stir a pot. Yes, I will come, but where are they?”

  Drawing Ann to the pallets so they could sit, Carys told her everything she knew. Toward the end of the tale, there was the sound of tramping feet and a groan of wagon wheels. Carys flew to the front of the loft and peered out through the air vent under the roof. By twisting her neck she could see a small slice of the corner where their lane met the main road. A troop of men-at-arms was marching toward the western gate of the town.

  “If you are still willing to come,” Carys said, “we must hurry. Troops are marching out, and I am sure there will be those who follow for one reason or another. I will put packs on two of the horses, and I think the gate guards will pass us without question.”

  “Yes,” Ann agreed. “It is not their business to stop any from leaving, unless there is a cry of thievery or other evil in the town. But I cannot ride, and—and I do not think I could keep up with you afoot. I will follow as fast as I can—”

  Carys was touched by the desperate determination and pressed Ann’s hand. “You will sit behind me and hold tight, and I will tie you to the saddle so that you cannot fall, even if your arms should grow tired. It will be frightening…I was frightened to death when Telor first took me on his horse, but there cannot be any real danger. Nor, I hope, will there be any danger to you in the plan I have made, but come, let us make up the packs for the horses—if you are still sure you wish to come and face your father’s wrath thereafter. You know you can run home now and no one will be the wiser, and I will not think ill of you, I swear.”

  Ann did not answer, only got to her feet and pulled the blankets free of the pallets. Carys used one to wrap Telor’s old harp, wondering what had happened to his lute. Then the clothing, the hauberk Telor had worn with sword and belt and helmet, everything they could find was bundled into a second blanket, except several of the strips of cloth from Carys’s dancing dress. Only when she was about to fasten the blankets into packs did she stop and say, “Ann! You cannot go riding about the countryside dressed like that. Heavens, what can you wear?”

  “I have an old gown in the kitchen,” Ann said, “in case something should spill on me. Help me undress.”

  She climbed down the ladder in her shift while Carys added her tunic and bliaut to the pack of clothing and found it difficult to close the blanket. With a soft oath she snatched out the two thickest articles—Deri’s and Telor’s cloaks—and then looked uneasily over her shoulder at the moonlit opening again. Now she realized the cloaks would be needed, but she had not known when she pulled them out, and she felt the Lady’s hand strongly. By the time Carys had closed and lowered the packs to the ground with her rope, Ann was waiting, shivering a little in the chilly night air, but still she hugged Deri’s cloak close and sniffed it for his scent before she drew it around her.

  The packs Carys had made up went on one horse. The one Telor had used was loaded with what was left of a new truss of hay over the saddle to conceal it and sacks of grain hung about the sides. Carys hung her rope over the saddle pommel of her horse, then folded the third blanket to make a pad, laid this over the horse’s croup, and fastened it to the saddle. With the help of a stool from the kitchen, she got Ann up, tied her there with soft strips of cloth, and left her clinging to the saddle, shaking with fright but silent. Finally, Carys fastened one packhorse’s rein to the other’s saddle, took the loose rein in hand, and mounted.

  Carys was almost as frightened as Ann. She was scarcely an expert rider, and she had to make sure Ann did not slip, control the two packhorses, and manage her own mount. Fortunately, the animals were not young, and even several days without exercise did not produce too much liveliness. Also, there was nothing in the quiet streets of the town to startle them, and the slow progress toward the gate permitted Ann to become a little accustomed to her position and the motion of the animal under her.

  The gates were open, as if more traffic was expected, and the two hooded figures passed by the guards with hardly a glance in their direction. For a long time after they were safe on the road, both were silent, Carys afraid that their female voices would somehow carry back to the guards and Ann not daring to open her mouth at all lest what came out would be a shriek of terror. Carys’s fear was the first to pass, and since she was aware of how Ann was shaking with fright, she decided she would take Ann’s mind off riding.

  “Now never mind falling off, Ann. You cannot fall off no matter how strange you feel. Listen to me instead of holding yourself all stiff, and you will soon match with the rhythm of the horse and grow more comfortable.”

  “Nothing will make me comfortable,” Ann sighed. “I feel like a pea perched on an egg—but I will listen.”

  “Very well. I had told you how Orin murdered the lord of Marston and Telor’s teache
r, Eurion, and how Telor determined that Orin must be punished. So, Telor, to make Lord William more eager to wrest Marston from Orin, promised to creep into Marston and weaken the gate bars so that the gate would fly open at the first blow of the ram.”

  “I think your Telor has maggots in his brain,” Ann remarked in a much more natural voice.

  “You will discover when you know more of them that all men have maggots in their brains,” Carys responded. “If they did not, would not Deri have tried to persuade Telor to give up so mad a notion? And did he? Not at all! He only grieved because, being a dwarf, he would be recognized and could not go with Telor. I know you are about to ask why I did not try to divert them from these notions, and the answer is that men think women have maggots in their brains and will not listen to anything a woman says.”

  Ann uttered a little choke of laughter, and her grip on Carys grew somewhat less desperate.

  “Besides,” Carys went on, “in this case Telor did have reasons for what he did. It would take too long to explain to you because it is all wound in with the kind of life players live—”

  “Tell me,” Ann begged. “Not so much about other players but about how you and Deri and Telor live.”

  “I will,” Carys said sincerely, thinking that after she had risked so much for him, surely Deri would look on Ann with more interest. Ann must know that, Carys told herself, so it must be that she is cleverer than I thought. Perhaps she is seeking adventure, but perhaps she believes that she can force Deri to take her with us out of obligation for her sacrifice. That way she would certainly escape her father’s punishment, but worse may befall her than a few beatings. Ann had better understand how hard a life she would have.

  “But I cannot tell you now,” Carys continued. “First you must understand what I would like you to do and tell me truly whether you think you can do it and whether there is anything I do not know about what you can do. Telor, I think, will enter Marston tomorrow; Deri will join Lord William’s troops, trying to be first into the manor to help Telor once the attack begins. I would like to be inside the manor then also. Two are better than one, but three are better than two. I do not like to fight, but I know how. I have knives, and I can use them. I am very strong for my size and a good tumbler. There are many ways I could help Deri and Telor.”