The Rope Dancer (34 page)

“Talk to me?” he burst out. “For a minute I thought she would
eat
me.”

Carys choked. “She is not big enough to eat you. I do not think you need fear that.”

“Very funny,” Deri snapped.

“I did not mean to be funny,” Carys said in a small voice.

Deri shrugged in a bad-tempered way. It was probably true, he thought. Carys was literal to a fault and did not seem to have much sense of humor. She could laugh at an obvious joke, but never made any of her own and often did not seem to know when she was being teased. Anyway, he knew he should not have said what he did. He had no right to betray Ann’s feelings to another, no matter how much they had shocked him.

“Where is Telor?” he asked.

Carys meekly accepted the change of subject, although she was sure more than half of Deri’s mind was still on Ann’s reaction to him. “Telor is at Lord William’s lodging and will not be back until after dinner. He told me to buy clothes for myself, but I was afraid to go alone. Will you come with me?”

“You were afraid to go to a shop alone, but not to land on your head from two yards in the air?” Deri asked in an exasperated voice.

“I would not land on my head,” Carys responded in the carefully patient tone of someone who has many times repeated an obvious fact to a stupid child. “I know how to fall—but I do not know the value of clothes or money, and I do not like to be cheated.”

Deri threw down the rope, both ends now smooth, looked at her in a troubled, bemused way, and then dropped his eyes to his empty hands. He might have been thinking about her fall, but Carys, who was a cautious person to whom money had an almost mystical significance, would not have hesitated a minute to wager odds that he had scarcely heard her. Nonetheless, his reply, when it came was to her statement.

“Yes, of course, I will come with you,” he said, “but I had better change into my other clothes. I suppose Telor had no choice, but it is very strange going from beggar to king each time I change my tunic.”

As he spoke, he pulled off the stained and somewhat tattered tunic he had worn to Creklade—appropriate dress for his role as a dwarf in a player’s troupe—and the rough shirt beneath it. Coiling the rope, Carys could not resist glancing at him to see if his body matched his handsome face. Deri was hairier than Telor; a thick triangle of coarse black curls covered his chest from shoulder to shoulder and furred his forearms. But the dense growth could not conceal the heavy, bulging muscles that banded his chest and back and knotted on his upper arms as he drew on the fine shirt that went with the embroidered brown tunic. He had no replacement for his braies—those had to be made specially—and he brushed at them vaguely, but his legs were so short that little of them showed between his shoes and the hem of the tunic.

That swift glance had given Carys much satisfaction. The body did match the face but, perversely, had diminished his attractions for her. She did not find bulging muscles appealing; nonetheless, she could appreciate the powerful impression of virile strength generated by Deri’s body and could see why his wife had married him. As she tucked her rope away safely under her sleeping pallet, Carys thought that Ann would be thrilled—if she ever got to see Deri naked.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Deri had not noticed Carys’s swift appraisal and he said he was ready, still in an abstracted voice. Having followed Carys down the ladder and out into the street, he finally asked, rather absently, what she wished to buy.

“A good tunic and braies,” she responded, “like those I had to leave in Marston, and a dress—Telor said I should buy a pretty dress. And, Deri, the cook asked if I would rope dance at the dinner hour and before dusk—to draw folk to his shop, I suppose. He said he would trade for our lodging and meals.”

“A good trade,” Deri remarked with somewhat more alertness. “You will bring in double the usual custom or more—but we would profit too. And if I drum for you on the main street, we could clear a handsome sum. Hmmm.”

Carys began to grow excited. “The cook said I should tie my rope between his shop and the alehouse. Deri, if I bought a dancing dress and I mounted to the rope from the alehouse, no one would think the girl rope dancer and the boy lodging in the cookhouse were the same.”

“No, but then I could not drum for you.”

“Why not?” Carys urged. “You and I could divide what we took in the street. Then I could take my rope and go off, perhaps to another alehouse, and change my clothes there. It would only be for a day or two, after all.”

“Perhaps a little longer than that. It will depend on when Lord William is ready to move.” Deri stopped abruptly and glanced warily up at Carys, but she only nodded calmly and he went on, “Creklade will give him men. I am sure of that. Telor must have been right in his guess that Orin had managed to keep the fall of Marston secret. The bailiff was outraged when I told him it had been taken by his enemy. I think he even had some notion of mounting an attack on his own—”

If they did, Telor would not be involved. Carys caught her breath with hope and cried, “Could he? How soon?”

Deri shrugged. “A town bailiff is not a lord. He holds his place by some kind of agreement among the burghers and the lord who chartered the town—or the king—so he is responsible to them. The bailiff of Creklade called in some sort of council, but burghers will be burghers and need to be sure of their bargain. They were all still talking about the least costly way of mounting an attack when I left. Mayhap on their own they would never decide anything, but if Lord William calls on them for men, they will join him. They are angry and frightened—I made sure of that.”

Again Carys nodded acceptance. She had felt a stirring when Deri spoke of Creklade. Creklade was in her pattern, she thought, part of the role she would play.

“What did you tell the bailiff was your reason for warning them about Orin? Surely they would not believe that a player would do it for love.”

“I said they misused my boy and thrust me out, keeping him. That left your fate uncertain, so if we had to reappear together in Creklade, I could say you escaped.”

“Right,” Carys breathed. “Yes, that was just right. I am sure of it.”

Deri looked at her, this time with all his usual sharpness. “What the devil are you talking about? Telor swore to me that you would have no part in this, that he would leave you here in Lechlade with plenty of money and some kind of story—”

“Telor does not own me,” Carys interrupted hotly. “I wish to please him with all my heart, but sometimes it is not possible for me to obey him. You do not always obey him either. If we listened to him, he would be dead in that hut in Marston.” She heard Deri draw breath to argue and laughed. “No, do not begin to lecture me, I beg you. You know I will not listen. Do I listen when you tell me how to practice?”

“Rope dancing is your business, war is not!” Deri exclaimed. “Your knives are useless against swords.”

Carys laughed again, despite a faint chill that seemed to warn that her knives would be needed. She thrust off that warning, for she still dreamed once in a while of the way the guard’s blood had gushed over her hand. She would do the Lady’s will when the time came, but if throat cutting were part of it, she did not want to think about it beforehand.

“I assure you,” she said lightly, “I do not intend to assault Marston all on my own, knife in hand. Do not be so silly, Deri. Think instead of what we can do to give your old tunic a look of motley.”

“A hat,” he suggested promptly, “and something I can use for a bladder that can be wrapped in bright cloth.”

The ease with which Deri allowed himself to be distracted was owing partly to resignation—he knew arguing with Carys would accomplish nothing—and partly to the fact that Deri enjoyed his work, particularly the thought of the teasing and insults he would use to draw a crowd to the cookshop. But he had not forgotten what Carys had said, only recognized that his best move would be to tell Telor that something was cooking in her overheated brain. There was a sick twisting inside him at the thought, but not the overwhelming horror of his own hurt and jealousy that had assailed him at other times when he thought of Carys and Telor. Some other problem was niggling at his mind that blurred his envy of Telor.

Carys had picked up his ideas and was adding to them. A red and yellow cloth twisted around the hat, another for a belt, and still another tied round his neck, she said brightly.

“Tied in a hangman’s noose,” Deri put in.

“Only if you make sure to tie it wrong so it cannot be used,” Carys exclaimed. “You know what people are. It would not be any surprise if someone thought it a fine jest to try to pick you up by the noose.”

“And who, short of a strongman, could do that?” Deri growled.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Carys wailed. “I do not want my act spoiled by a brawl.”

Deri began to laugh. “I was only jesting. You are a single-minded little bitch about your work, Carys.”

“It is all my life,” she said simply.

When Telor returned to the cookshop in the early afternoon, he did not, as Carys had feared, forbid her to accept the cook’s offer; in fact, he seemed eager for Deri to work with her. Both Deri and Carys found this easy approval suspicious. Each was also surprised at the mild indifference Telor showed to bringing Lord William Deri’s news about the reaction in Creklade to Orin’s having taken Marston. They expected him to rush back to Lord William’s lodgings at once, but he seemed perfectly willing to stay and talk.

A flat question elicited the information that Lord William had already sent a messenger to Creklade. It was better, Telor said, for Lord William to get the information from his own man, and so there was no sense in his going back before the man had a chance to return. This allayed Deri’s and Carys’s suspicions somewhat; however, they were renewed sharply when instead of being upset because it would expose Carys’s legs right up to her hips, he admired wholeheartedly her garish dancing dress. Carys had contrived it from a thirdhand, ragged, but still bright-blue bliaut by cutting short the skirt, slitting what was left into panels, and garnishing it with strips of green, red, purple, and yellow cloth hung from the belt. Deri’s costume, complete with a brilliant hangman’s noose twisted from a woman’s stockings, one red and one yellow—for the idea became more and more irresistible to the dwarf as he thought about it—was also approved with laughter.

Even more suspicious was the fact that Telor did not refuse with indignation their joint, half-teasing suggestion that if he were similarly decked out like a jester, but with the addition of a mask and false hair, he could play for them. Carys felt a cold shiver go down her spine when he only looked a little sad and said it was a very good idea and that he would think of it for the future. Soon after that, he asked whether Carys had forgotten to buy a pretty dress, and when she said she had been saving that to show him later, said, “No, show me now.”

So she drew on the dark gold tunic and rich green bliaut and shivered again at the way Telor looked at her and smiled and said, “You are a lady fit for any marriage.” And then, before she could ask any question, he rose to leave, glancing longingly at her, with her great golden eyes wide and her rust-colored curls touched almost to flame by the colors of her gown. He turned away quickly, unwilling to kiss her in front of Deri, but before he finished saying he would be back as soon as he could, the dwarf had jumped to his feet and gone out. Still, Telor only took time for a brief embrace and a whispered “You are my life,” because he associated Deri’s hurried departure with a too-great sensitivity about the relationship between himself and Carys.

Deri was not thinking of the pain of witnessing a passionate embrace, however, only of following Telor to make sure he did not try to escape Lechlade. There was about the minstrel so much of a sense of wanting to give the greatest pleasure to those he loved before parting from them, perhaps for good, that Deri suspected Telor of planning to leave alone that very day to sneak into Marston. Since that horrible moment when a vision of Telor’s dying and leaving Carys to him to care for had shaken his faith in himself, Deri was determined to keep Telor alive at any cost. He was not sure what he could do if Telor set out for Marston, but he certainly intended to follow and try to protect him.

In fact, Deri’s suspicion seemed to have led down a false trail. Telor went directly to Lord William’s lodging, and less than half an hour later, Deri heard the minstrel’s powerful voice drifting down from a window open to the soft summer air. Relieved, he hurried back to the cookshop, where he was stopped as he entered the yard by a girl’s voice calling his name.

“Oh, Deri, Carys could not imagine where you had gone,” Ann cried breathlessly, running out of the shop to meet him. “She has gone to change her clothes and begged me to tell you—”

The cook bellowed from inside the shop, and Ann called, “I am coming, Papa,” but she did not go. She looked back into Deri’s face and smiled. “Carys wants you to meet her in front of the alehouse. She said she would pretend to hire you, then you would change your clothes, and…I am very eager to see what you do.” She touched his hand.

Deri stared
down
at her with the eyes of a bird fascinated by a snake. He could not care for Ann; he did not even know her—yet he felt a strange qualm of unease at the thought of her watching him or even of her seeing him in costume. “You probably will not like what you see,” he said harshly.

She started to answer but was cut off by another impatient roar from the cookshop and glanced back, looking frightened. Nonetheless, she took the time to say, defiantly, “Yes, I will! I will, indeed!” But then her father appeared in the back door, and she ran toward him, calling over her shoulder to Deri, “Go now. Carys did not want to idle in the street near the alehouse in that dress.”

“Oh, shit!” Deri muttered, turning on his heel and setting off at a run.

Idiot girl, he thought, why could she not say what was important first? Why did she have to keep him talking while Carys was probably being accosted by every whore-chaser in the town? But Carys was not at the alehouse, and Deri slowed to a walk, thinking contritely that it was he who was an idiot, not Ann. Sheltered as she was, treated like a child, she could have no idea what might happen to Carys once she was dressed as a dancer if she were seen idling about as if seeking custom.

Before Deri was forced to ask himself why he had stood there listening to Ann instead of going at once to meet Carys, he saw her, her rope coiled over her shoulder, her cropped, foxy hair hidden by a garish tangle of colored strips of cloth, running lightly toward him, already followed by yelling children. He stood watching, gritting his teeth as a man stepped out to stop her, hand outstretched. It was no surprise to him to see her twist cleverly out of the way, but he felt angry all the same and thought only that he must arrange to meet her at the other alehouse and walk with her. In the next moment she was close enough for him to step out and call, “Rope dancer!”

Carys stopped and looked at him with well-simulated surprise. “As I live and breathe, a dwarf!” she cried.

“Where is your troupe?” Deri asked.

“I am alone,” she said loudly. “Joris thought he could beat me into yielding my share…so I left him. The cook in the shop down this very street gave me leave to put up my rope above his shop, so—”

“Who will tie it for you?” Deri asked, and before Carys could reply said, “I am living above that shop. Give me a third share and I will not only tie your rope but drum for you.”

“Done!” Carys cried gaily.

By this time a number of people had collected, some of whom followed them to the alehouse, where, as if they did not trust each other, Carys warned Deri not to dare conceal any part of the take while she was up on the rope, and he protested equally loudly that he would not work for anyone who called him a thief. Passersby and men-at-arms, turning to look at the source of the loud voices, were trapped by Carys’s wild-colored dress and flamboyant gestures—very different, indeed, from the self-effacing boy who lodged above the cookshop.

Both Deri and Carys were having a wonderful time displaying their histrionic talents, but both were wise enough to know when that would pall. At the critical moment, Deri leered, offered to take his extra in other ways, reached for the rope, and entered the alehouse. The rope soon appeared, falling down the front of the building from a space under the roof as Deri tied one end to a strut. Shouts of joy sounded as Carys carried the rope to the cookshop and climbed the outside like a squirrel while Deri ran around and up into the loft. She fed the rope into the louvre, then sat on the low-pitched roof, swinging her feet while the dwarf made it secure.

By then, most of the crowd had settled itself either at the alehouse or the cookshop, yelling orders and watching Carys’s bare legs appear and disappear through the multicolor skirt as they waited more or less patiently for the show. The cook and alewife had never been so busy in their lives, but they were not too busy to congratulate themselves, one for initiating the idea and the other for accepting it.

Now Deri appeared bedecked almost as brilliantly as Carys, and he strutted into the street, tapping people on the head with his bladder, insulting them roundly for being such fools as to be trapped into paying for their food and drink when they could instead save their money for the performers. He did cartwheels down to the end of the street, capering out into the main road and attracting more people before he did handstands back to the waiting audience. By then they were warmed up and yelled uncomplimentary remarks, which he twisted so that those who insulted him looked the fools. The rest of the crowd invariably shouted with laughter, and Deri would respond by yanking suggestively on the noose, chortling that he was born to be hanged.

All the while, he had been glancing regularly at the roof of the cookshop, where Carys had been testing the feel of the rope, which was slanted down toward the lower alehouse. He caught her signal that she was ready, did a fanciful twirl, striking out madly with the bladder, and yelled for silence, coming to a dead stop himself and gasping with well-simulated astonishment as he stared upward. And when, instinctively, everyone else stared up too and was instantly caught by the fluid beauty of Carys on the rope, he slipped silently backward toward the wall of the cookshop, where he leaned, catching his breath.

A hand caught his in a tight grip and Ann’s voice, choked and fierce, muttered, “You told them, great stupid louts! Oh, you told them what they are!”

“Only what
all
men are, large and small, Ann,” Deri said softly, but he felt an odd sense of satisfaction at her acceptance of his sometimes cruel jests, followed by a deeper feeling of utter confusion. “Look at Carys,” he urged. “Is she not a wonder on the rope?”

He looked up himself, afraid to turn his head and see whether Ann’s eyes were on the rope dancer or still fixed on him, resolving that he must have a firm talk with this silly girl and warn her that most dwarves were not safe company. But this was not the time, and Deri darted out into the center of the street as Carys went off the rope, the crowd screaming with one voice until she caught herself by her hands, and going over and around, lifted, and seated herself, calling down, “A gift, good people,
pour
boire.
Of your charity, I must eat to dance again.”

From the corner of his eye, Deri saw the cook grab Ann and give her a smart slap. He froze for a moment, but then went on about his business, telling himself it was her father’s right. Ann should not have been wasting time talking to him when the shop was so busy. Still, he was sick at heart as he pranced from one person to another, holding out his cap, urging and cajoling and threatening that if they did not give enough, Carys would not show the greater wonders she could perform.

The cap grew so heavy after a while that it folded in on itself and he had to hold it in both hands to keep it open. There were enough coins, too, to make him wish he could get away for a minute to empty part of the take to induce others to give more. If there had been another person to collect, he thought, the problem would not have arisen. And he would not have had to see Carys get up and begin the second part of her act because she could sense the crowd’s growing impatience, even though he had not offered the hat to at least a third of the audience. He got to them when Carys was finished, but a number of the men-at-arms had given twice. Of course, most of those asked at what price Carys sold her favors too.

He made merry answers, all negative, but when Carys perched on the roof, he warned her through the louvre as he untied the rope, and she ran across the roof to the back to make her way down. And when he came down to go to the alehouse, he called loudly to the cook to let Carys shelter in the shop until the men departed since she did not wish to lie with any man and was afraid of being importuned.

Outside the alehouse, one man-at-arms accosted him, accusing him of driving away custom so he could have Carys himself, which was at once so far from the truth and so close to it that Deri brayed like an ass with tortured laughter. The man turned away before Deri could control himself enough to answer in words, and the dwarf thought bitterly that the laugh was answer enough. It confirmed any normal man’s conviction that a woman would prefer him to a dwarf. So Deri went up to untie Carys’s rope, still laughing, but somewhat less bitterly because he remembered Mary and other women too in the keeps and towns where he and Telor visited regularly. Some were curiosity seekers but…He stopped laughing when he recalled the avidity in Ann’s face. She was no curiosity seeker, that was certain. No! Impossible!

He walked Carys to the second alehouse, where a gaudy dancer with a rope over her shoulder went in, and a quiet boy, carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle, came out. Deri had gone back to the main road and walked a little way up toward Lord William’s lodging. Soon Carys came running lightly after him and asked to be shown the place. Deri’s instincts told him to refuse, but he knew Carys could find out if she wished, so he took her there and pointed out the house. Telor was still singing, or singing again, and they paused to listen with several others before they walked back.

The cook was delighted to see them and brought them into the yard, so they could eat in privacy, trenchers and bowls heaped high with his most expensive dishes—all of the common stew of all kinds as well as the coarser cuts of meat and the cheap fish were gone. He served them himself, and although he spoke kindly to Carys, promising to keep the men away from her, with Deri his manner was uncertain, jumping from praise of his cleverness and ability to sudden black frowns.

For a time Deri seemed unaware, eating quickly and responding with no more than nods to the cook’s remarks, until the man’s sudden retreat toward the shop and the sound of a slap and a cry brought him to his feet. Carys jumped up too, to grab him, but he flung her off. He did not, as she feared, attack the cook.