The Rope Dancer (31 page)

Telor was a little surprised at the cordiality, for all clerks were churchmen and many churchmen condemned minstrelsy as a work of the devil. As he thanked the young man and went out into the garden behind the house, he reflected that an overly religious and censorious priest would not be likely to remain long in the service of a man with the habits rumored for Lord William. That was none of Telor’s business—if anything, he liked the clerk the better—and he uncased the lute and examined it. Relieved to find it undamaged and only needing tuning, he ran over what he thought suitable in his repertoire for an informal dinner and chose a short episode in one of the cycles of tales about Hercules, which was heroic without being either merry or mournful. He had considered singing something pertinent to his situation but dismissed the idea; after the warning he had received, he was taking no further chances.

Actually, though, he
had
selected a piece related to the problem. When he finished singing, Lord William asked him dryly where he had learned of Hercules. The consternation on his face when he had to admit he had learned the legend at Marston proved, however, that he had not meant to use his song to spur Lord William into action. He was forgiven with laughter and asked to sing again, and he gave Lord William and his guests an adventure of Pryderi—a Welsh hero. If tales about him appeared in Sir Richard’s library, they would be of Sir Richard’s own writing from Eurion’s songs, and Telor knew nothing of that. But he was interested to see that Lord William looked more and more thoughtful as he listened.

The men kept Telor longer than he expected and would have kept him longer still if Lord William had not assured them that Telor would return to sing at the dinner hour for several days. They were generous in their giving also, and civil about it, beckoning him to the table and handing him the coins rather than flinging them at him. He had some difficulty in thanking them properly, however, because by then he was certain Carys would be utterly furious and Deri worried sick.

It was Carys waiting in the street, her eyes haunted, as tense as she had been the previous night. Telor was relieved of any fear that she was angry by the warmth of her embrace when he reached her, but he felt still guiltier. It was not reasonable for her to fear he had slipped away after using her, but women often did act unreasonably after coupling with a man out of wedlock. So, as soon as he saw her, Telor hurried forward, his arms open, and she ran into his embrace.

“I am sorry, dear heart, so sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “Lord William kept me longer than I thought he would, and I had no one with whom to send a message. Can you not trust me? Did not Deri assure you—”

“Deri trusts you not a whit more than I,” she retorted even while she pressed herself against him. “Both of us are sure your business with Lord William was to tie a noose for all our necks.”

“No!” Telor exclaimed. “I doubt Lord William remembers Deri, and he does not even know you exist. What I have arranged with him concerns me alone. I have a small task that I hope Deri will do, but I do not believe there is any danger in it, and you will have no part in this business at all. How can you believe I would expose you to the smallest shadow of evil after last night?”

Carys pulled free of him. “After last night? How dare you speak of it one breath after telling me you are going to risk your neck in some mad plot to do God knows what? You do not think—after last night—that to lose you would cast a shadow of evil over me?”

Telor sighed. “Whatever will happen is some days off, Carys. Let us not sour today with fears for the morrow. Where is Deri?”

“Something is wrong with Deri too,” Carys said, her voice catching on a sob. “He is above in the chamber, mending his clothes.”

“There is nothing wrong with mending clothes,” Telor protested, frowning. “What do you mean, there is something wrong with Deri? He was fine when I spoke to him this morning.”

“I do not know what I mean.”

Carys’s voice was low and not unsteady, but Telor looked at her anxiously. There was a kind of tight-drawn quality to her that threatened screams or hysterical laughter any moment, and he seemed to be making her worse with each assurance he offered. The previous night working with the horses had calmed her. Perhaps giving her something practical to do would help.

“My heart, I must talk to Deri,” Telor said urgently. “I want him to ride to Creklade today, and it is getting late. Will you fetch me some ale? I am dry with singing.” He pressed a coin into her hand and kissed her cheek gently. “Can you do that, dearling?”

Hopelessly Carys nodded and turned away, wondering, as she plodded toward the alehouse, what great evil she or her parents could have committed to deserve that each joy she ever found in her life be turned into a torment. She had at last come together with a man who could bring her joy instead of loathing, a kind and generous man, who did not act as if she were no more than a coarse jug to be used or broken on a whim. She had barely tasted that joy, only to have it withdrawn, leaving her in a state far worse than the doubt and ignorance she had known before.

One night, one single night of perfect happiness, that was all she had been granted. Carys had known that from the moment she wakened and found Telor gone. While she and Deri sat at the cookshop’s counter so she could break her fast, she had tried to tell him that Telor’s eagerness to talk to Lord William boded no good, but the dwarf seemed unable to take in what she said.

Deri kept replying that she must not be angry, and he would not listen when she explained that she did not expect to be first with Telor, that she knew fondness for a woman always followed second or even third to honor or pride or greed or other desires in men. Still, Deri kept assuring her that Telor cared for her, that his departure was a necessity, not a sign of contempt or lack of love for her. And all the time he talked, the dwarf’s eyes were blank and his smiles like the rictus that twists a dead man’s lips—until she screamed at him that Telor was planning something that would bring disaster on them all. Then Deri had blinked and nodded and frowned, and his face came alive as he said that perhaps she was right.

“How can we stop him?” she had begged.

Instead of answering, Deri had jumped down from the stool and run away with a look on his face that froze her in her seat. Later, when she had followed him up to the loft, he would not raise his head from his mending nor answer when she spoke to him. She was afraid to cry, knowing that if she let herself begin to weep she might not be able to stop. She thought of attacking Deri, pummeling him until he responded, but she did not—not because, as in the past, she feared a beating but because she feared the answer she might get. So she had run away to walk up and down the street watching for Telor.

Carys shuddered and looked around. She had stopped automatically but for a moment could not remember what she was doing. Then a slight cramp in her hand made her lift it and open the tight-clenched fist. The coin reminded her of Telor’s request for ale, and she realized she had stopped at the alehouse. She ordered and paid, thinking only of that business because money was still new and very important to her, but when she took up the leather jack and started back to the cookshop, it suddenly occurred to her that it was strange indeed for her to fear words more than blows.

Instantly, together with a renewed knowledge of how precious to her was her new life, came a flood of rage at the thought of losing it—and losing it without the smallest struggle to hold for herself what was precious to her. She was a fool to despair, she told herself, her fury rising higher yet. Despair was a greater danger than any that Telor was planning. Despair was what pushed her into Ulric’s company, into allowing herself to become a filthy, dull-minded drab. Despair had nearly caused her to kill herself in Marston without even trying to discover whether her friends were still alive—and that would have left Telor and Deri, who had saved her and cherished her, to die horribly in torment. Eyes blazing, Carys set out for the cookshop. She could do nothing to stop Telor, she knew that. But she also knew she saved him once and might save him again, and to do that she had to know every part of his plan.

Moreover, she decided grimly, clutching the jack to her chest with one hand while she used the other to climb the ladder to the loft, she should have kicked Deri until he told her what was wrong with him. Coward that she was, so afraid for herself that she had let a dear friend suffer alone. But when she reached the loft, Deri was gone and Telor was seated on the double sleeping pallet on which they had made love, looking into nothing while he drew from his lute a somewhat uncertain but terribly haunting melody. Feeling fear creep up on her again, Carys slammed the jack down so hard that some of the ale splashed out over Telor’s tunic. He jumped up and brushed the drops away before they could soak into the cloth, crying, “What the devil ails you?”

“You lunatic,” Carys screeched, “I should have emptied the whole over your head and used the jack to brain you. What evil have you sent Deri into?”

Startled blue eyes met hers, burning gold. “None, I swear!” Telor exclaimed, and then laughed and put down his lute. “It is good to see you angry instead of afraid.” He reached out and pulled her against him. “There is nothing for you to fear, nothing. Come, let me love you and make you forget.”

Carys gave him a shove that broke his grip and rocked him back on his heels. “Oh, no! That was how you cozened me last night. Not one hand or lip will you lay on me until I know to the last hair what mischief you are making.”

“You need not take me so literally at my word,” Telor said, somewhat indignant, “or I will begin to prefer fear to anger. It is not polite to knock down your lover. And what do you mean, I cozened you last night? You said me yea almost before I asked.” Suddenly he began to laugh. “Oh, Carys, how dare you say I cozened you? I only just remembered how you laid these two pallets together all ready before I even came back with the clothes.”

“Men!” Carys exclaimed in a disgusted voice. “Can you only think of one thing? I did not mean you cozened me into coupling with you. I meant you cozened me out of asking what noose you were braiding for us all to hang from. And I did
not
set the pallets together. I was far too worried and frightened to think of such a thing.”

“Then it must have been Deri.” Telor frowned, then shrugged. “I suppose it was his way of saying he was sorry he had taken me to task for wanting you. I told him—”

“Never mind what you told him about wanting me.” An uneasy qualm had passed over Carys when Telor said it was Deri who laid the pallets ready, but she tried to push away the lesser problem until she could solve the greater. “Why have you sent Deri to Creklade? And why in such haste? I was not gone a quarter of an hour, yet he was away before I could return. Could you not wait until I said him farewell? Did you even ask him what was troubling him?”

Telor looked unhappy. “No, I did not ask because he would not have answered me, and to speak the truth, I do not know what can be done to help him. I fear that our loving has opened anew the wounds of losing his family, especially his wife.”

Tears came to Carys’s eyes. “Oh, God, does he want me too?” she whispered. “I love Deri dearly, but I could not…I could not! Not because he is a dwarf, I swear it. But I could not. Not after you.”

“No.” Telor took her in his arms and kissed her, but only to give comfort, warmed and comforted himself by this proof that Carys would give him no reason to be jealous in spite of her past life. “No,” he assured her, knowing it would make matters a hundred times worse if Carys began to avoid Deri. “It is not that he desires your body, Carys, just that we have each other and he has no one. I asked him once if he desired you and he said that you were not to his taste—more boy than girl, he said. But in a different way you have become very important to him. Because he is the way he is, Deri needs someone to protect and care for. I did not know that myself until we found you. From the first he wanted to keep you with us. He thought you were a broken bird.”

Carys remembered suddenly when Deri had discovered her knives and how disappointed he had sounded when he said she was as helpless as an adder. But he had been cheerful enough even after that. Why should he turn morose just because she and Telor had coupled? Then she realized it was because he felt only her lover could be her protector. But how foolish! She needed a friend
more
now that Telor was her lover. Surely she could explain that to Deri.

“Very well, I understand Deri’s trouble,” she said, pushing Telor away once more, though less violently. “But you are trying to cozen me again. What trouble have you sent Deri into?”

“You are the most exasperating girl.” Telor groaned. “For the tenth time. There is no danger in what I have asked him to do.”

“No? Then why are you so unwilling to tell me?”

“I am not
unwilling
,” Telor said, glancing at her sidelong. “I am unable.”

“Unable!” Carys echoed, outraged. “Unable! Do you mean you do not trust me?”

“I mean you will not shut your mouth long enough for me to explain anything.”

Mild blue eyes, now twinkling with mischief, stared at her challengingly. Telor almost hoped her indignation, for Carys was not usually at all talkative, would outweigh her good sense, since in a way he did not trust her. He feared that she would find a way to take an active part in the assault on Marston. He could not think of any way she could involve herself, but he knew Carys’s mind was more agile than his when she wished to apply it, and it made him uneasy.

The hope she would grow angrier and argue was not fulfilled. Carys’s mouth did open on a hot retort, but not a word did she speak. Instead, she closed her mouth and plopped herself down, cross-legged and arms akimbo—which effectively prevented him from any attempt at an embrace—and looked at him with a raised brow and a sardonically questioning expression. Telor sat down also, opposite her rather than alongside to show he did not plan to try to embrace her.