The Rope Dancer

by Roberta Gellis

  He wiggled the saw out of the beam, squatted slowly, careful not to touch the wall, and reached into the bowl for the fat pork. After he rubbed the fat liberally onto the saw blade, he stood again and slid the blade into the cut; the saw bit, smoothly and silently, and he glanced up at the moon again. If the other men had not been sent down to the village, he would not have begged for food; if the food had been good, he would have eaten it at the evening meal; if the rat had not gnawed it, he would have eaten it before he set out to saw the bars. Under his breath Telor muttered, “Thank you, Lady.”

  ***

  Unlike Telor, Deri had little trouble keeping awake that night. He had been somewhat troubled by dreams when he slept in the kitchen, but he was accustomed to dreams of that kind—in which he was a normal man and coupled with a normal woman—and he seemed to rest well despite the violent dream activity. There was only one difference about his dreams the previous night; he had not dreamt of Mary. Oddly, he had not dreamt of Carys either. The woman was strange to him, dark-haired and voluptuous and very eager, playing tricks that Deri knew no waking body could perform. The difference had puzzled him mildly when he woke, but he had completely forgotten the dream in the stresses of the day that followed, and it did not recur to his mind.

  Marston was quiet all night, the dark unbroken by any torchlight, and the only sounds were dim ones that Deri associated with the animals penned in the bailey. Toward dawn, certain that Telor would take shelter before the folk of the manor began to stir, Deri climbed down from the tree to relieve his bladder and bowels, to hurry across the little wood to the deserted farm where he drank from the small stream behind the house, watered his horse and pulled down hay for it from the loft, and searched the ruined house and storerooms. He found some cheese and old bread, dried hard, not moldy, and he took that with him when he recrossed the wood and climbed back to his perch.

  The sky was light although the sun had not yet come up by the time Deri satisfied his hunger, but he allowed himself to doze for a while. There was no way at this hour, he believed, for Telor to make an attempt on Orin, who would just be waking and be surrounded by his people inside the hall until after breaking his fast. Deri was not afraid of sleeping too long; no one can sleep deeply while sitting upright perched on a branch, and he started awake several times before, suddenly, he was almost galvanized into action by hearing shouts and the clang of metal against metal. Deri was halfway down the tree, still hearing the sounds, when he remembered that Telor had no sword. He paused. The noise went on and on, only a single voice shouting, never growing much louder or softer. Hanging there, Deri pressed his head against the tree and let out a sob of relief. As fear diminished, the sound became familiar from visits to many keeps. It was a master-at-arms drilling his men.

  Deri relaxed and climbed back to his perch to face a long and very boring day. Only one thing that did not happen kept him alert. Lord William’s men did not go into the keep, at least, not in a group. Some men did walk up from the village, one with a basket that Deri thought held fish and another with leek leaves trailing from a bundle he carried, as well as a few others whose purpose Deri could not ascertain—so Deri could hope that the woodworking tools had made their way to Telor. But the same number of men came out that had gone in, which meant that Lord William’s plan of having men within ready to help the attackers had fallen to nothing.

  At dusk, Deri came down again, to stretch and walk about, do cartwheels and handstands. He did not want to grow too stiff to climb and fight hard when the time came to assault the palisade. Having come upright from a last handstand, he stood still, struck by a thought. It might be important for Lord William to know that the men he had sent were not inside Marston, and he did not think Lord William’s men would dare report failure. Although Deri was not certain where Lord William would be, he thought it most likely the lord would be found in Creklade, where most of his support was coming from. Telor must be hidden at this hour, and Deri thought he could ride to Creklade, leave a message for Lord William, and be back before Telor could possibly be in danger.

  By the time he reached Creklade, Deri was torn by guilt for having left when Telor was still in Marston, and the smallest check would have sent him riding back. But the guard said that Lord William was quartered in the bailiff’s house and waved Deri through. Lord William’s clerk recognized him at once, listened to his message, and then bade him wait and sent a page to the lord.

  “The dwarf?” Lord William echoed, and when the page had given him the full message, he hesitated and then said softly, “Go fetch him to me.”

  The page backed away, eyeing his master warily, and then ran. Lord William’s lips had thinned until they were virtually gone; he was not at all pleased with the men he had sent with Telor. If the minstrel had found a way to remain in the keep, they could have done so also. And not to warn him…Well, if they were inside the manor and fighting hard when he arrived, he would pardon them. If not…And what was he to do about the dwarf? Fool of a little man, Lord William thought angrily, why did he have to come now while the rope dancer is still here? If he stays here, there is a chance that she will see him, know he is safe, and refuse to go into Marston. Then there will be none of our people there. I will have to have the fool killed.

  He started to gesture forward a hard-faced man who had been leaning against the wall in a shadowed corner of the room, and then made a sign of negation. It would not do to have blood spilled in the bailiff’s solar—at least not before the men of Creklade marched out with his troops. Strangled, then? At that moment Deri entered the chamber, his movement making the candles near the door waver. The light glittered on the metal-studded leather hauberk, showing how the seams of the sleeves and the upper chest had been split to make room for the dwarf’s massive arms and body. Lord William stared in wordless fury, and then closed his eyes while he brought his temper under control.

  Armored as he was, it would not be so easy to kill that little devil, who was doubtless an acrobat as well as strong as an ox. And then he remembered that despite what she had told the bailiff, the rope dancer was not interested in the dwarf; it was the minstrel who was her lover. She had already defied the dwarf by coming here and devising this scheme, so the dwarf could have no influence on her.

  “My lord,” Deri bowed jerkily, “I have told all I know. I beg you give me leave to go.”

  Lord William stared at him with raised brows. “You bold little man,” he said. “Many love not my company, but few tell me so plainly. What is it that draws you so strongly away?”

  “My friend Telor, my lord,” Deri got out, swallowing hard. “I have been watching Marston—”

  “From where?” Lord William asked, suddenly alert to military possibility, putting aside his irritation.

  “There is an abandoned farm separated from the manor by a narrow band of woods—”

  “How long to cross these woods?” Lord William interrupted again. “And the farm, men could wait there? A signal, it could be heard from the road?”

  “To cross the woods? Not long. Less than a quarter of an hour walking quietly. Running would be quicker. Men could wait at the farm and not be seen from the manor, but not in the wood, at least not near enough to make it worthwhile. The wood is thin, and I think the guards in Marston would notice men there. As to a signal, I am not sure one could be heard, but the track from the main road to the farm is not long and that, too, is out of sight of the manor. A man could ride it to bring word to attack so quickly it could make no difference.”

  Lord William leaned back in his chair, his good humor completely restored. “So you did have more to tell,” he said to Deri, then turned his head and said in French, “Send Andrew up. I want him to translate so there is no chance of mistake.”

  Deri watched warily as the guard came out of the shadows, his hands clenching and opening. Lord William smiled. He had been right. The little devil would have made so much noise before he died that all the bailiff’s servants would have heard him. But th
at did not matter now. The dwarf would be out of the way, and even if he saw the rope dancer and the dwarf woman go into the keep, he would be too far away to do anything. And it would be as good as a play to watch the fury of the minstrel and the dwarf when they realized their women had come to rescue them. The clerk came into the room and, having been told to translate, went to stand beside Deri, who relaxed, but shifted his position a little so he could see any movement by the guard.

  “You have offered your service,” Lord William said in French, the clerk whispering the words in English almost simultaneously. “What I want is that you lead a troop of men to the farm. If you wish to go into the manor, you can go with them when they storm the wall.”

  “But Telor—” Deri began.

  Lord William cut him off. “Do not be a fool. Even if your friend is discovered, they will either kill him at once, which you cannot prevent no matter how quickly you run to throw your life away, or they will take him prisoner to be judged tomorrow. In that case, our attack is more likely to save him than anything you could do alone.”

  ***

  Even if Deri had not set out a few hours later to guide a troop of men to the farm, the chance that he would have come across Carys by accident was minimal. Once Lord William had approved the plan for getting men into Marston, little time had been wasted in choosing the men. Of the eight “players,” four had been Lord William’s men, as had the two dressed as worn-out drabs. To give a shade of verisimilitude to the pretense, Carys had worked most of the morning and all of the afternoon with the “players” and with Ann. By dusk, she and Ann, who had had little sleep, were exhausted. When Deri arrived, both were curled together on a pallet in a quiet corner of the kitchen in the bailiff’s house, fast asleep.

  The hurly-burly in the kitchen at dawn, as the bailiff’s servants prepared a meal worthy of the illustrious guest, woke the girls. They got out of the way as quickly as they could, snatching at whatever the cook threw at them in his eagerness to be rid of them. They had slept in the clothes in which they intended to present themselves at Marston village—Ann in her old gown and Carys in a dress provided by the bailiff, only minimally less tattered than the garment she was wearing when Telor found her. Having visited the latrine, Carys told Ann not to bother washing, since it was better to be grimy to support their story. Then she went to look into the shed where the men had slept, relieved to find them awake and arguing about the best way to hide their weapons in the battered two-wheel cart so that they would be easy to bring out when needed. She did not interfere, except to remind them that the pack with her dancing clothes and Ann’s fine dress must be where they could reach it without exposing the weapons.

  They set out as soon as they had eaten, for they planned to get to Marston village before the men went out to work in the fields, and arrived, draggled and mud-spattered, having been caught in a sharp shower on the road. Their condition gave credence to their story—that they had played at Creklade but had made little and had been driven out without food or lodging. They begged for food and shelter against more rain that threatened, and they cursed the area and swore this was not only the first but the last time they would visit it. Meanwhile, one of Lord William’s men went running up to the manor and cried aloud for all to hear that there were players in the village, with a girl dancer and a girl dwarf and men who juggled and tumbled and sang and played.

  The men in the keep, bored to death with the weary round of watching and training, all exclaimed joyfully, and one, promoted to captain after the deaths of Orin’s original group leaders, rushed in to tell his master. Orin had already heard the noise, which was growing louder as the men contemplated a break in their dull routine, so he shrugged and said the players might come up to the manor. He really had no choice; a refusal would make the men sullen and unwilling, and the players might have useful news of Creklade. If he thought them dangerous, he could order them killed. No one would care about a troupe of players.

  The one person who would have been most interested in the news never heard it. Behind the pile of lumber in the woodworker’s shed, Telor slept fathoms deep. The first night he had worked for some time after Deri was sure he was in hiding. The wood was so hard and he so unused to doing the coarse preparatory work of woodcarving that his progress was slow. At first he had rested when his arms grew tired; later, when he saw how slowly the blade bit, he continued until tears of pain ran down his cheeks.

  The next night was far worse, although he had slept away the morning and the forenoon. That meant he missed the bread and ale of the morning meal and dinner too, so he had to finish the bowl in case the cook remembered him when he went to get the evening meal. And because he had spent the day on the bowl, he could not sleep a few hours in the evening as he had planned; that time had to be given to sharpening the saw. He cut himself twice because his fingers would not tighten properly on the sharpening stone and because the muscles in his arms would knot suddenly, making them jump painfully and uncontrollably.

  His fear that he would be unable to accomplish what he had promised sent Telor back to work on the bar long before the people of the manor were asleep. Voices and laughter were still coming from the hall when he started the fat-silenced blade biting at the second bar. And all the time he worked, he worried, wondering whether he would be able to wield his staff at all, wondering whether he would die and what it would be like, hoping that if he did die, Deri would not drift back into the hell of loneliness he had seemed to be escaping since Carys…He always stopped his thoughts when Carys came into his mind; he preferred to think about the agony in his arms than to think about her. He could not bear to think of her weeping for him, mourning for him, but the very idea of her going with someone else was even worse. His bowels knotted and burned with rage. She had said, “Only you, Telor. Never another man.” But if he were dead and gone forever?

  There were actually people stirring when he pushed the softened wax into the cut he had made to hide it. He had stopped earlier, when the saw fell out of his hands and no force of his will could make them close on it again. He had crouched down behind the bars then, nursing the limp limbs in his lap, trying to rub each hand between his thighs. He grew so desperate after a time that he tried to put the wax into the wood with his teeth and tongue. While he was trying, however, half crazy with fear and frustration, his hands twitched, and an hour later he had enough control of them to work the wax into the cut.

  The heavy shower that had soaked Carys and her party on their way to Marston permitted Telor to reach his haven without being seen. The combination of physical and emotional exhaustion and relief—for every minute of the last hour he spent at the bars he had expected the morning guards to arrive to open the gate and catch him—pushed him beyond natural sleep into a nearly unconscious state. Had the attack on Marston taken place then, he would have slept through that. The minor excitement caused by the arrival of a troupe of players did not even cause Telor to twitch.

  A second shower, which delayed the performance of Carys’s troupe, lasted longer than the first. Carys, who had been praying for rain so that the ineptness of her companions would not betray them, began to wonder whether an attack might also be called off because of rain. That frightened her almost more than how a performance by her troupe would be received. But it was nearly dinnertime when the rain lessened, and Carys managed another delay. She wept and whined of her hunger and her cold and her fear that her rope would stretch with the wet and she would fall. Her voice rose hysterically, until it was agreed that the players would be allowed to eat first and would entertain the manor folk during their dinner.

  Carys’s voice penetrated to Telor when the noise of battle probably would have left him unmoved. He jerked upright just as a male voice shouted, “All right. All right. For God’s sake, feed them. We will all enjoy ourselves better if we are not soaked, and you can see that the sky is clearing.”

  Carys bowed and murmured her thanks too low for her voice to carry, sniffing as she ran off toward the k
itchen shed. Ann trotted beside her, one hand clinging to Carys’s skirt, the other fingering several packets and a little vial stoppered with wax in her purse, her black eyes bright with malicious excitement.

  Telor sat up, blinking, still half asleep. Carys’s voice…No, that must have been a dream, although he could not remember dreaming. He was puzzled by what he had heard the man say, and he sat still, thinking about it for a few minutes. But he could make no sense of it, and finally he got stiffly to his feet and inched toward the open side of the shed to see what was going on. By then, Carys was gone and all Telor saw was a knot of men dispersing. They were all armed, apparently ready for the constant training Orin demanded. Telor rubbed his arms and moved into the shadowed interior of the shed to pick up his quarterstaff and slide it back and forth between his hands.

  Chapter 23

  Lord William had his own troops well under control and had easily convinced the bailiff of Creklade to allow him to assign and distribute the town’s men among his, with assurances that they would not be used to absorb the first shock of the battle. These men were divided into three parties: One, about fifty men, had gone to the farm with Deri as their guide. They were to assault the palisade to the north. A second party, also of about fifty, had been sent by the river to where the men of Marston village docked their few small boats. They were to come up by the track to the village, take any men they found there, and assault the southern wall. The largest group, dragging the cart that held the ram, came by the main road. That party was mostly Lord William’s men-at-arms, and their business was to burst in the gates and actually take the manor while the other assaults prevented the defenders from concentrating and driving them off.