The Rope Dancer (17 page)

Deri’s suggestion of mounting Carys on Doralys promised a kind of relief, but it also forced Telor to confront a problem he had assiduously avoided thinking about. It had not been difficult to convince himself that everything would work itself out easily…until he had seen Carys again in the stable. He had not missed her brief, terrified stillness when she caught his unguarded expression, nor had he misunderstood her swift withdrawal when she fell against him as Teithiwr started forward or failed to sense the rigid carriage of her body as she rode behind him.

If her look had simply been one of terror, that would have been the end of it; Telor knew his desire for her would have been quenched. Carys was attractive enough, but not so beautiful that he would want her if she found him repulsive. Unfortunately, the fear he had sensed in her was clearly not of him; it was of something within her, and that something could only be a desire for him that she felt to be wrong.

The knowledge added to his desire; Telor was tired of being prey, and the idea of “hunting” Carys excited him. But conscience strove with desire. If she thought a casual coupling was wrong, he did not have the right to convince her to yield and then expect to be rid of her as he was rid of the village girls and the castle ladies who liked a sup of new brew. And despite the sexual need that aroused a half-pleasurable, half-frustrating physical sensation in him each time Carys came into his mind, Telor told himself firmly that once satisfied he would not want her forever. Certainly, he was not ready to tie himself to any woman and settle down with her.

Of course, it was impossible for Carys to be a virgin, so he could do her no real harm…But even as Telor formed the thought he remembered Deri’s warning. He knew now Deri was right. He had seen Carys fight her longing; if he influenced the outcome of that battle and then drove her away because he no longer wanted her, he would be doing her very great harm, regardless of the state of her body.

Sometime during his self-absorption, Telor had absently agreed to Deri’s plans for reloading the horses, and a few minutes later they had turned north on the road that would intersect the old road to Malmsbury. He had then gone back to his own thoughts, until at the unsatisfactory point he had reached—that he must either leave Carys alone or be prepared to keep her until she tired of him—his attention was drawn to his companions by a sudden burst of laughter. Deri had his face turned to Carys and he looked happier than Telor had ever seen him look before.

A brief pang of jealous rage passed through Telor, as he wondered again why Deri was so eager to keep Carys with them, but the rage died as swiftly as it had come. Telor knew that Deri was very sorry for Carys and thought she had been cruelly treated. And now, listening to Deri tell her about his act and her enthusiastic approval and suggestions, it became apparent to Telor that the girl and the dwarf had become friends during their stay at Castle Combe. That was another complication. Even if he denied himself the pleasure of coupling with Carys, would it be right to drive away the only person beside himself that Deri could think of as “connected” to him? And if Carys was to remain with them as Deri’s friend, why
should
he deny himself the pleasure of her body?

“Malmsbury Abbey has a good hospice. I think it would be best to stay there,” Telor said.

Telor’s voice again gave no sign of emotion, but conscience and reason notwithstanding, he knew desire would triumph if he had to share a lodging with Carys. They had just reached the more traveled road that ran northeast toward the abbey, and as they turned right to enter it, the idea of lodging at the abbey had come into his mind. In the abbey, men and women were strictly segregated. When she was not so near, when her lovely voice and happy, soft laugh were not sounding in his ears, perhaps he could think with his head instead of with his rod.

Deri turned to look at Telor without particular surprise. He was accustomed to having his companion come suddenly out of what seemed total abstraction and make a remark completely irrelevant to what had been said before. “Is that wise?” he asked. “With Carys dressed as a boy—”

“That is no problem,” Telor said. “She has only to don my tunic again and pull it down as far as it will go. That will make a sober enough gown for your ‘sister,’ whom we are escorting to—”

“To my aunt in Oxford,” Deri said, his voice bleak. But then he added more lightly, “She looks more like your sister than mine. Why give her to me?”

“It is better that I be your sister, Deri,” Carys put in. “That tunic of Telor’s is more fitted to be the gown of a servant’s sister than the master’s.”

“Yes,” Telor agreed instantly, grateful for Carys’s quick wits. “We have so little baggage that we cannot say Carys is going to be married. Your aunt must have found a place for her as a servant.”

He had not actually given the coarse fabric or the drab color of the tunic a thought, of course. He had said Carys should be Deri’s sister because he recoiled from even so small a hint of a fraternal relationship between them.

“Oh, very well,” Deri conceded. “We can always say my father had two wives—one for me and one for Carys.”

“No,” Carys protested. “I wish to be your full-blood sister. I have never had
any
relative before, and I do not wish to go halves in the one that has been offered to me.”

Telor glanced anxiously at Deri, aghast at having forgotten in his own need to be separated from Carys how painful it would be to Deri to be reminded of the family he had lost. But the dwarf had not retreated into his private pain. Perhaps there was a shadow in his eyes, but he was smiling at Carys.

“Nonsense,” he said. “If you were my full-blood sister, I would never permit you to be sent into service far from home. I would have arranged a good marriage for you. Naturally, I was jealous of my father’s second wife and hate you because you are not a dwarf. I am a cruel half brother who only wishes to be rid of you.”

“We will be caught in lies at once,” Carys insisted, laughing. “No one would believe you to be cruel to me.”

“I am afraid that is true,” Telor remarked, aware of a strong desire for Deri to think of Carys as his sister. “I do not think Carys has a proper cowed appearance.”

“We could always seek out some wild onions for her to rub in her eyes,” Deri suggested.

“But I do not wish to have red eyes and a red nose,” Carys complained. “I can think of a better story. Let us say our aunt holds a good place and has offered to find a better husband for me than would be possible because…oh, because Oxford is a large, rich place compared to our village and because you must travel with your master.”

“Of course,” Deri agreed. “It is Telor who is cruel. I am bound to him, and he will not allow me the time to attend to my private affairs.”

“Now wait,” Telor protested. “I am not sure I wish to be the villain of this piece.”

So the tale was revised again, and yet again, until it assumed the character of an epic. Deri and Telor knew that no one at the monastery would be at all likely to question them in any detail about their relationship, and Carys, who had been serious at first, soon realized that the wild embellishments the men were adding and leading her to contribute were only a form of amusement. She gave free rein to her imagination after that, and the miles passed quickly in point and counterpoint seasoned with bursts of laughter.

The lightheartedness did not make any of them less watchful once they were on the wider road. They were now beyond de Dunstanville’s sphere of control, and Deri warned Carys to keep her ears open for any sound that might be a warning to a group ahead and to look behind now and again for a sudden showing of smoke. Telor mentioned that the road through the abbey lands might be the most dangerous, unless the monks now hired men-at-arms. Normally the neighboring landholders patrolled the road and kept the woods scoured clean of the pests, both for their own convenience and as a good work that would buy prayers and blessings from the holy men, but in these unsettled times many barons preferred to keep their men-at-arms at home to defend their property rather than sending them out to catch outlaws.

Twice Deri signaled for a halt, with sling and pebble raised and ready, upon which the long quarterstaff, upright like a lance in its socket by Telor’s left knee, seemed to leap into the minstrel’s right hand, but both times the cause of the movement Deri had sighted in the brush turned out to be innocent. Carys had asked whether it would not be better to travel quietly and had been told that it made little difference. The horses’ hooves could be heard, and watchers could call ahead. There might even be some small advantage to talking and laughing, he assured her, in that, thinking them absorbed in their amusement, the attackers would be less stealthy and so give themselves away.

In the event, the precautions were needless. When they stopped at a stream to drink and water the horses, Carys changed her tunic for Telor’s and sat sideways when she remounted, and the party soon arrived safely at the abbey, where the journeyman woodcarver Telor of Bristol, maker of musical instruments, his servant, and his servant’s sister were received without question and lodged in comfort—as a minstrel and players might not be—and allowed to depart as freely the next morning.

The separation from Carys had done Telor little good. He had been able to decide nothing, and the only original thought he had on the subject was to wonder why he thought he would ever tire of Carys since he did not tire of Deri. But that only led to the uncomfortable recognition of a notion previously buried in the back of his mind—that he would someday return to Bristol and settle down…and marry according to his family’s needs and dictates. And whatever he felt about Carys, she would certainly not be considered suitable as a wife. The mere idea would probably cause his father to fall into a fit.

Nor, when they mounted to leave in the morning, did Telor find his physical response to Carys at all diminished. He did not meet her eyes at all when he lifted her to her seat on Teithiwr, but warmth tingled up his arms, and a tightness formed in his loins. He was silent and preoccupied, and Deri put a finger to his lips to signal Carys to be quiet. The dwarf had meant to ask if his chatter to Carys interfered with Telor’s practicing, but he had forgotten and now decided that the question could wait until Telor emerged naturally from his practice or they reached a place where Carys could change.

A few miles from the abbey, the transformation that had altered Carys from boy to maid was reversed. Telor, relieved that Deri thought he had been practicing as usual, said at once that their conversation would not disturb him, hoping, in fact, that it would distract him as it had the day before. Instead, two lines of poetry formed in his mind: “as clear and pure as running water/is my lady’s laugh,” and he really did become deaf to the conversation, which began and then died away again as, totally unaware of what he was doing, he gestured irritably at Deri for quiet while he struggled with some concept that could paint in words the glory Carys’s hair became when lit by sunlight and the molten-gold wonder of her eyes.

He was wakened with a shock when his arm was gripped in a painful squeeze and Carys whispered in his ear, “There was smoke behind us, and now it has stopped.”

“Stopped?”

Telor turned his head sharply; Carys was leaning forward; their lips were a hairbreadth apart. For a heartbeat of time both were turned to stone, but to Carys fear was a stronger impulse than desire, and she pulled back a little. Her movement released Telor, who called, “Look to the mule’s pack, Deri.”

The dwarf pulled up, grumbling loudly about the quality of the leather thongs, but he did not look at the perfectly secure packs. He used the excuse to prod Sure-foot closer to Teithiwr, and Carys saw the sling was ready.

“The smoke is gone,” she said softly, gesturing back along the road to where there had been a side track going to what seemed like a charcoal burner’s place. “When we passed, there was smoke; now there is none.”

Neither of the men had looked at her as she spoke. Deri’s eyes watched backward the way they had come; Telor looked ahead. He had already taken his staff from its socket and rested it on his foot.

“A new trick?” Deri asked as softly as Carys, but his eyes were alight and he was grinning from ear to ear.

Telor shrugged. There was no reflection in his expression of Deri’s vicious smile. He fought when he had to, but could never understand the pleasure many men seemed to take in it. “On ahead,” he murmured, “at the pace we have been keeping. Just before the bend of the road, spur Surefoot as fast as you can. They will be waiting for us around the bend if at all.” Deri nodded, still grinning, and moved on. Telor watched him get Doralys started, kicked Teithiwr, and then said, “Carys, hold tight. We will change pace suddenly. With luck, this will be another false alarm, or we will burst through. If not, for God’s sake, do not get in the way of my staff. And keep watch behind.”

Carys took quick glances over her shoulder, but she dared not twist around and watch steadily lest she be unprepared for the jolt as Teithiwr sprang forward. She was terrified, which was very strange. She had lived through plenty of bloody fights but could not remember being so frightened. All she could think of was clutching Telor as tight as she could and hiding her face—neither of which was a sensible idea.

And then between one glance backward, when the bend in the road seemed as far away as ever, and turning forward, Deri kicked Surefoot and slapped him on the rump with his sling; Telor brought his quarterstaff up and over into a painful rap on Doralys’s hindquarters, startling her into a heavy canter, and at the same time kicked Teithiwr hard. Deri disappeared around the bend, but a sudden roar of challenge and a shriller shriek of pain warned that this was no false alarm. Then Teithiwr was around the curve, and Carys had a confused vision of men—several lying in the road as others poured out from the trees on each side, brandishing clubs and yelling.

Even as she saw them, most seemed to drop behind Teithiwr, whose speed was, to her, like flying. But there were more men ahead, leaping from the brush and running to stop Deri’s pony. Telor shouted and kicked Teithiwr again; his arm lifted, light gleamed from the polished wood of his quarterstaff, and under his arm Carys caught a glimpse of Deri’s sling hand rising, spinning, loosing, dipping for another stone, and rising again so fast she hardly saw the motions. And before Telor’s arm blocked her view, the three most distant men ahead of Surefoot spun and cried out and collapsed in rapid succession; the closest man screamed and flung his hands up to his face as the sling whipped across his eyes; then Surefoot plunged beyond them, Doralys running almost nose to nose with the short-legged pony.