The Rope Dancer (32 page)

“I asked Deri to ride to Creklade and repeat to the bailiff there what information we gleaned about Orin’s training the menservants in arms and his plans to gather in any mercenary troops freed by the end of the siege of Faringdon. His news may not be good, but in a way it will be welcome to Creklade as showing them where their enemy is and that he is still weak. I think they will believe Deri, but if he is not back here after dinner tomorrow, I will ride to Creklade and do what is necessary to free him. Now are you satisfied?”

Carys shook her head vigorously and pointed to Telor.

“You wish to hear what my business with Lord William was.” Carys’s nod brought a grimace, but Telor said, “My part is even simpler. I have told Lord William about Sir Richard’s murder and that it was done by a man bound—if he is bound to anything—to Lord William’s enemy, the king. I have also told him that this stupid, bloody cur Orin will probably destroy Sir Richard’s library. Do you know what a library is?”

Carys shook her head, still without a word.

“It is a collection of books and scrolls with all kinds of writings. Few men, noblemen and priests included, have even one book, and a large collection that is not devoted to saints’ lives and arguments about fine points of religion, such as those in the abbey libraries, is a rare thing indeed. Fortunately, Lord William is a man who cares for such writings, is even greedy for them. He has a double excuse to attack Marston—Sir Richard’s death and the fact that Marston is held by an enemy—thus, no one could blame him for acting foolishly, even though his real purpose is to gather to himself that library. Naturally, I have done whatever I could to make that attack easy and successful. Deri’s news will make Creklade eager to assist Lord William with men and supplies, and perhaps Sir Richard’s neighbors will also add to his force, either for the old man’s sake or because they hope to be granted some of Marston’s lands to oversee. You see, you have been worrying over nothing.”

“Good,” Carys said, but the sardonic twist to her lips was more rather than less exaggerated. “Then we can leave here as soon as Deri returns, or I can go with you to fetch him, and we can leave from there.”

“No, we cannot go—”

“Why not?” Carys challenged.

“The first reason is that I have not been given leave to go and have been asked to sing at dinner each day by Lord William. Carys, he is not a man one dares to offend. He is different from de Dunstanville too. De Dunstanville can be defied with subtlety and cleverness, and one can escape him by going well outside his territory. Lord William can reach anywhere in England and Wales and into France also, and there is something about him…All I can say is that I am fascinated by him and terrified by him too, although he has been very kind to me.”

“You could ask for leave,” Carys insisted stubbornly.

She did not have the slightest hope of convincing Telor, but she knew he was holding back something and hoped for a slip of the tongue that would reveal all. If Telor’s tongue did not wag, she expected to have to dig and pry at odd moments before she could winkle out the truth.

Therefore, Carys was not in the least surprised when Telor shook his head in answer to her suggestion. “Even if I had a good reason that Lord William would accept, I would not ask for leave to go.” Telor paused and his hand went out to stroke the lute that lay beside him on the pallet, his fingers by habit touching the strings so that they sounded in harmony. “I must know if Lord William does attack, whether he is successful, and that Orin is dead. Then I can write a song—you heard me working on the melody—that tells of how my master died trying to save his lord and friend and how the wrath of God fell upon the murderer and brought him down.”

There was no pert answer Carys could give to that. Tears rose in her eyes because Telor’s reply confirmed to her, although he had not yet admitted it, that her lover did not intend to leave Orin’s death to the accidents of war or Lord William’s justice. But the time for teasing argument had ended. She uncrossed her legs and moved to sit beside Telor. He put an arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek gently against her temple.

“I want you for always, Carys,” he said. “You have become everything to me, and yet I cannot simply turn my back on the kindness and devotion of many years that I had from Eurion. And it hurts me too that we minstrels and players can be slain like vermin, that not one voice would be raised in protest. Lord William admired Eurion and honored him, but he would not move a finger or speak a word to avenge him. It was not the loss of Eurion but that of the library that moved him to action.”

She made no answer to that either, except to put her arms around him and turn her face so that their lips met. After a little time, Telor put the lute away, off the pallet, and Carys’s hands slid down to feel for the buckle of his belt. They undressed each other slowly, caressing the flesh each bared with an intensity touched by sadness, for there were unspoken fears in each of their minds that precluded joy. That sadness brought a languor to their love that made each slow to respond and yet deepened the response when it came, so that Carys nearly fainted when the rolling waves of her pleasure burst over her at last. And she wept as if she had lost everything when the last thrill faded.

There was a kind of healing in that love too. The explanation Telor had offered made perfect sense to Carys’s mind. There was no “madness” in his determination to bring Orin down; there was only loyalty, which she understood, and the kind of self-interest that had made her risk
her
life for his and Deri’s in Marston. However, understanding did not make the possibility she would lose him less fearful to her until, somewhere among her culmination, her tears, and Telor’s patient and passionate comforting, Carys’s spirit also came to acceptance.

I have it upside down, she suddenly realized, and smiled into Telor’s anxious eyes. Losing Morgan and sliding down into the muck with Ulric were not one punishment following another; they were blows that broke the chains enslaving me and taught me sharp lessons without which I could not have fit into Telor’s life. What a fool I am! Everything that has happened to me has had the purpose of weaving Telor’s life and mine together.

She heard Telor ask her something, but she shook her head, unable to answer, for revelation had burst upon her: If I had not been threatened at Faux’s Hill, she thought, I would have stayed there and never met Telor; if Joris and his men had not tried to steal, I might have joined them; if we had not been attacked by outlaws, we might have come to Marston before Orin took it and been killed with all the others; and if Orin had not killed Eurion and imprisoned Telor, I do not know if Telor would ever have said he wanted me. The Lady has been very kind to me. I must not doubt her. Surely this trial that faces Telor is another part of the pattern She is weaving, and She will not desert me now.

In the next moment it almost seemed as if she might not live to do the Lady’s will, for Carys became aware that she was being crushed and smothered by Telor, who was crying, “Carys! Carys! In God’s name, speak to me!”

She managed to make some garbled and gasping sound, enough so that Telor released her to look into her face, and she laughed and asked, “How can I speak when my mouth is full of the hair on your chest?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “You frightened me out of my wits, girl. I know some women weep after coupling, but I have never seen a face like yours in that weeping. And when it passed and you smiled at me and I asked if all was well with you, the eyes rolled up in your head…I thought you were dying.”

“The Lady spoke to me,” she said, her eyes huge and golden, then laughed again at Telor’s expression. “No, I am not mad. I heard no voice and saw no vision, but of a sudden, all the crazy things that have happened to me fell into place. I know you will go into great danger and possibly I will need to follow you there—”

“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.”

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.”