The Rope Dancer (33 page)

“A player!” There was renewed coldness in his voice, and he looked at his daughter.

“You need not think Carys was trying to tempt me into her company,” Ann said. “All she told me was how cold and wet and hungry players get, and how her last partner was killed and twenty or thirty men prepared to use her. Telor and Deri saved her.”

“And I am not a thief nor a whore,” Carys said stiffly. “I do not need to use those vices to feed me. I am a rope dancer—the best. If you wish to see my work, I will tie my rope across your yard—I wished to ask for permission to practice there when I came down.”

It was clear that the cook was uncertain how to react. His innate prejudice against players was blunted by Carys’s speech and manner, which to his mind were very fine, and by her lover’s connection with Lord William. The idea of a free performance appealed to him also, and then he remembered what Carys had said about a rope from steeple to steeple, and he thought what that could mean to his shop. He had a fine profit since Lord William’s arrival, but he could make more; there might even be enough custom for him to call in Bessy’s betrothed to help. Ned’s parents had been pressing him to do it, but he had refused, knowing it would break poor Ann’s heart. Then he thought sourly that even if the rope dancer was willing to do her act, he dared not call in Ned anyway, because he would expect to stay and learn the trade, and if there was not enough work, Ann would have to go—which made the cook furious with Ann.

“What the devil are you doing standing there while a stranger stirs the pot?” he snarled.

“I asked to do it,” Carys said hastily. “And not for the sake of licking the spoon. You know we have paid for what we have eaten, Deri and I.”

“He paid,” the cook snapped. “But he is gone.”

“I told you I could pay for myself,” Carys began, dropping the spoon into the pot and moving away so Ann could drag the stool closer and climb up on it. “And Deri will be back before dinner.”

As if on cue, there was the sound of a horse entering the yard, and the characteristic thud Deri made as he jumped down. Carys ran out, and the cook followed, still angry and looking for a cause that was not his daughter’s deformity. “You!” he yelled at Deri before Carys could say a word. “Why did you pretend to be men-at-arms? You are nothing but players.”

“What do you mean, nothing but?” Deri asked softly. “I am many things besides a player, and if you do not want to be picked up and drowned in your own pot, you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to me.”

“Oh, goodman,” Carys cried, “he can do it. I pray you, do not anger him.”

The cook, recalling that Deri’s companion was in attendance on Lord William and that calling out the guard in this case would more likely get him in trouble than the dwarf, said sulkily, “I do not like to be befooled.”

Startled by the note of fear in Carys’s voice, Deri reminded himself that he was no longer a rich yeoman’s son and curbed his temper. “We did not even ask for lodging,” he growled. “You offered it.”

“I have told him already that we were not trying to fool him but dressed that way for safety because Telor was doing an errand to Lord William,” Carys put in, sounding much aggrieved. “And I have done nothing to turn him so cross. I was only helping Ann stir the pot.”

Deri almost laughed. Never had he heard so much false information imparted so innocently to a would-be fellow liar. Since Carys would hardly have told the truth to anyone and he had his own low opinion of shopkeepers, he was in complete sympathy with her fabrications. To the cook he said, “If you regret the price you would have got by telling us we could stay free, do not fret yourself. Say what you charge, and I will pay.”

The connection of the party with Lord William being fixed in his mind, the cook was more than ready to allow the offer of payment to assuage his temper and general distrust of players. He named a price and then added, “But that would include your dinners. I am not a thief any more than you, rope dancer—and the first night is free, as I promised.

“I will pay,” Carys said, “if I may tie my rope and practice in the yard.”

“Done,” the cook agreed. Then he went back to the doorway and shouted, “Let that pot be, Ann. You can watch the rope dancer until dinnertime.”

“Why the devil should you pay?” Deri asked while the cook was speaking to his daughter.

“Never mind that,” Carys said urgently. “I have to tell you first that Ann is not a child. Please do not hurt her by treating her like a little girl.”

“What?”

Carys shook her head fiercely. “She will be out any moment, and she is hurt enough. We must not be found talking about her. Please, if I get my rope now, will you tie it for me? I will explain everything later.”

On the words she leapt past Deri and was up the ladder before he could protest. Not that he wished to protest, because he had not really taken in what she said about the girl, and it was not important to him. What was important was the way she asked him to tie her rope for her. Telor could not do that—or, at least, not easily. And Telor needed him too. He could never have sent Carys on the kind of errand Deri had performed in Creklade; the bailiff might not have believed a young boy, and it was unthinkable to send a young woman with such news. The various demands on him had soothed away the worst of his feeling of uselessness, but he still felt like an intruder and was racked by a violent sense of envy too when he thought of them lying in each other’s arms.

Carys’s rope lay safe, coiled under the pallet on which she had slept—when Telor had allowed her to sleep—where it served as a rough pillow. She hauled it out, stopping to re-tuck the blanket and hoping that Ann had come out while she was gone, but of course she did not dare delay too long, because Deri would guess she had done it deliberately, and that might offend him and prejudice him against Ann. She already had the bases for her rope in mind. By habit, Carys examined every place she expected to stay for more than a few hours for anchors for her rope, and she had noted a heavy hook above and to the right of the back door of the shop, not far from the ladder to the loft. Diagonally across from the shop, in the corner next to the privy, was a tree under which they had tied the horses. The rope would slant and be short, but practice sites did not need to be perfect.

Carys got down the ladder just as Ann came out the door, but Carys could not find fault with the delay, for the small woman had taken time to pull off her stained apron and, more important, belt her gown so that it snowed a waist, full curved hips, and determined, up-thrusting breasts. Watching for Carys, Deri had not noticed Ann yet, and Carys pretended she had not either, calling that he could use the tree and the hook by the door—at which point he turned to look for it and, of course, saw Ann.

Carys scrambled down the ladder. Deri was surprised by the dwarf girl’s appearance; Carys had expected that. What she had not expected was Ann’s wide-eyed amazement. Then Carys realized Ann had never seen Deri clearly before, just glimpses as he passed in daylight and the distorted view that torchlight and fear had produced the night they arrived. Ann’s astonished, nearly enraptured expression made Carys look at Deri with eyes robbed of familiarity, and she noticed how very handsome he was. The crisp black beard framed a well-shaped, sensitive mouth; the nose was straight and fine. Thick curling hair, as black as his beard, was combed back neatly from a broad forehead, and straight brows with almost no curve to them shaded a pair of the most liquid and luminous dark eyes Carys had ever seen. She shook herself, shocked at having immediately begun to compare Telor’s bland and ordinary features to Deri’s startlingly handsome ones.

“This is Ann, the cook’s daughter, Deri,” she said, and held out the rope to him, but he did not seem to notice it. “Do you want to tie it to the tree or the hook first?” As she asked the question, Carys thrust the rope forcibly at Deri, banging it against his chest.

He blinked and brought up his hands to clutch it; then, as if the blow had wakened him, he nodded brusquely at Ann and said to Carys, “The tree. I can make a loop and slip it over the hook once it is fast to the tree.”

As Deri scrambled up the tree, agile as a cat, Carys turned to apologize to Ann because Deri had not said a word to her, but the awe and wonder with which the girl was watching Deri made it unnecessary. He threw down the rope and called, “Pull,” and Carys wound it around her hips and leaned away with all her weight and strength to tighten the knot. Deri then pulled the end of the rope through the loop that made it possible to undo the knot without trouble despite Carys’s weight on the line. He tied the loose end twice round the line, which Carys was still holding taut, so the knot could not be loosened by the vibrations she would generate while working on the rope, came down the tree, took the rope from Carys, and ran it across the yard, tying a special slipknot somewhat short of where the hook would be.

As he went up the ladder, Carys turned to Ann. “He is very strong.” But she wondered whether Ann heard her and thought, from the look on the girl’s face, that praising Deri to her was about as necessary as watering a garden during a rainstorm. Watching Ann’s expression, Carys felt a qualm of conscience, but she knew that Ann’s attraction to Deri was not of her making. The dwarf girl had been interested before they spoke to each other.

“I think it is tight enough,” Deri called. “Try it.”

He had come down from the ladder and was holding the loose end of the line. With a mental shrug, Carys ran up the ladder, stepped on to the rope, and ran out to its center. “Good.” She nodded, ran back, and climbed higher on the ladder to make way for Deri, who came up and leaned over to finish the knot so it would not slip.

Carys was out on the rope the minute Deri started down the ladder, and she deliberately gave her work all her heart and mind. With the rope so low, not more than six or seven feet off the ground, there was little danger for her in a fall—beyond bruises, to which she was accustomed. She could have spared a glance or two and a little attention to see what Ann and Deri were doing, but she did not want to know. That way, if either mentioned the other to her, her reactions would be genuine. She had had to subdue a natural curiosity for the first few minutes, but after that she was caught up into the effort and rhythm of her act and truly became unconscious of the two in the yard.

Having run through her normal routine and repeated one of the more difficult parts twice more, Carys began to work on something new. She thought it would be exciting for her as well as for watchers to do cartwheels from one end of the rope to another. She had been told more than once that it was impossible, that her movements had to set the rope moving so that she could not find it with her feet. This had indeed proved to be true, but Carys kept trying new ways of placing her hands. She was firm in the belief that either she would find a way to judge where the rope would be when her feet came down or she could learn to lift and twist over without moving the rope. Her hope was fueled by having succeeded in doing one and then two turns. This time she had started her third when she felt her toe brush past the rope and she fell.

A feminine shriek and two masculine shouts accompanied her down, drowning her own resigned, “Oww,” as she landed. She rolled and came to her feet, rubbing her sore spots, just as Deri reached her, yelling, “Damn you, Carys, what are you trying to do?”

“Cartwheels,” she answered literally, surprised by the question. “You have seen me try them before.”

“Yes, when you were two feet from the ground, not way up in the air!” Deri roared. “You idiot! Do you want to break your neck?”

Since Carys had discovered that it was useless to try to explain anything to Telor or Deri when they thought she was doing something dangerous, she just repeated, as she had done many times before, “I will not break my neck, but I am sore here and there, so I think I will have done for today. Will you take my rope down?”

“I will,” Deri growled, “and I will be damned if I put it up for you another time unless you promise not to try that again.” He started off for the tree, flinging over his shoulder, “Not that it would do any good, for you are sure to have five more tricks that are even worse.”

Carys was still laughing when the cook ordered Ann back into the shop, which made her sober and bite her lip. The cook did not follow his daughter in. He came up to Carys and said, “Ropedancer, I will trade you the cost of your meals and lodging if you will set up your rope between my shop and the alehouse at dinnertime and before dusk and do what you can do—safely. I do not want appetites spoiled by a bloody corpse in the road.”

“I would be glad to do that, goodman,” Carys said, smiling, because nothing pleased her more than admiration of her art and a chance to display it before a crowd. Then she frowned. “But I cannot agree until Telor hears of it. It is because of his business with Lord William,” she explained, seeing how disappointed the cook looked. “I cannot imagine that Telor or Lord William could have any objection, but I dare not do anything without being sure.”

Her reason brought a curt nod; the cook was no more eager than she to incur Lord William’s wrath. He turned to go in, but Carys followed him, asking again, more eagerly, about a shop that sold clothing. He suggested two places, and Carys turned back and, seeing both Deri and the rope gone from the yard, she climbed the ladder to the loft. He was working to undo the knot tied for the hook, the other already smoothed flat, but when he looked up his face was full of trouble mingled with a kind of pained astonishment.

“Oh, Deri,” Carys sighed, “I was not in any danger. I swear I was not. Will you not trust me to know my own business?”

His eyes came up to meet hers, and her heart leapt. Trouble, pain, even a kind of horror looked out at her but not the blank deadness that had chilled her soul and made her feel Deri was lost entirely.

“She—she…the girl…Ann—” he began, then closed his mouth and looked desperately down at the knot.

“Do you not like her, Deri?” Carys asked plaintively. “I do not believe she had ever met a person like herself before. She was eager to talk to you. I thought she was a pretty girl.”