The Rope Dancer (4 page)

Carys strained her eyes back toward the men. Surely that shape the tall man had unslung from his shoulder and hung on a branch was a lute or a gittern. They
must
be players. Then she looked at the animals; no troupe she belonged to had ever been able to afford any such animals, and she began to doubt that these men were common players. Still, she had a dim memory of riding in a little cart pulled by a goat. She had been sitting atop a mound of…something, and a hand steadied her. That had been before she came into Morgan Knifethrower’s hands. She remembered kisses too, and gentle arms around her, and sweet laughter.

With an effort, Carys closed down the path to those few warm memories. This was not the time for them. If the tall man and the dwarf were rich players, so much the better. Surely they would not grudge the cost of feeding her for a few days, and then…then she would think of something, she assured herself desperately. She had been clenching and unclenching her hands and rubbing them gently together in the water while she thought. The pain of the cuts and abrasions had been dulled by the cold, and the grit seemed to be gone. Carys leaned farther forward to wash her arms and legs. That hurt, but she knew dirt could mortify wounds, so she kept at it, glad of an excuse for crying—she could pretend to herself that her tears were not owing to the fear of being alone.

“Let me do your back.”

Carys jumped and peered, but she did not need the evidence of her eyes. The voice was deeper than the tall man’s. It was the dwarf, and she eyed him warily. Carys knew a number of dwarfs because at great fairs many troupes of players congregated. Some dwarfs were dim-witted creatures; most of those who were not could be slyly cruel, perhaps to revenge on normal people the bitterness of their deformity. But Carys remembered the sympathy in this one’s voice when he first saw her, and she nodded her head and pulled the tattered remains of her gown off her shoulders, turning her back. She tensed, fearing a hand would reach around her and grab her breast, but she heard a faint splash and then shuddered as a cold, wet rag was applied to her back.

Between the pain and the cold, Carys was shivering so hard she thought she would shake apart, but she made no complaint. A few minutes later the dwarf called softly over his shoulder, “I cannot do more for her here in the dark, and she’s badly chilled.”

“All right,” the tenor of the tall man came back. “I left out the old blue blanket, and this pillion is all it’s ever going to be. Carry her over here, and I’ll wrap her up and put her on the horse.”

Carys did not know whether to be amused or frightened. Everything they were doing was very kind, but they spoke about her as if she were an odd piece of baggage instead of a person.

“My name is Carys Ropedancer,” she said to the dwarf as he reached down to pick her up. “What is yours?”

“Deri.” He paused for a moment and nodded as the weight of the seemingly thin creature he carried was explained by her name. “Longarms,” he added absently, and when he realized he had spoken that name without thought, as if it had always been his, he laughed harshly. “Now I am called Deri Longarms. Once I had another name—but it died.”

“And I am Telor Luteplayer,” the tall man said quickly as he took her from the dwarf and lifted her to the blanket fastened behind the saddle. He enveloped her in another blanket, pulling it down over her shoulders and tying it around her with a rope so that her arms stuck out through the sides, adding as he worked, “I, too, had another name once, but I left it behind me and it is not important.”

The swift remark seemed designed to cut off Carys’s question about how a name could die, and she took the hint. It was enough that her hopes had been fulfilled. Luteplayer, like her own name, told of a skill rather than of bloodlines. She heard the sentence that followed and knew she must sometime consider its implications, which might be ugly, but for now Carys was content to remain silent while Telor explained how to sit sideways on the horse and hold on by the ropes he had fixed to the saddle.

“Most likely you will not need them,” he finished as he set his foot in his stirrup and mounted, twisting awkwardly to avoid striking her with his right leg. “We will be going slowly, and you will be in no danger of falling. But just in case we are pursued, you can swing your leg over to sit astride and hold the ropes.”

Despite this assurance, Carys nervously clutched both the saddle and the ropes as they made their way back to the road. The motion of the horse made her seating feel very insecure. It was no great way to the ground, but she was still much afraid of falling. The distance was far too short to make a ball and roll, and she dared not try to land on her feet and run forward with the impetus because of her lame ankle. Thus, she was sure if she fell off she would fall directly under the beast’s feet.

For a while Carys could think of nothing except staying put, but to her surprise her body seemed to have no tendency to slip off, even after the horses began to walk faster on the road. Then for a time she was occupied with the way the horse’s haunch under her rolled her from one sore buttock to the other. Finally she grew numb, and her fatigue was actually intensified by the little comforts that soothed her. The blanket was thicker than the one she had left behind in the keep, and just enough of the chilly night air touched her arms where they protruded to make the rest of her feel cozily warm. And once she was used to it, Carys thought muzzily, the gait of the horse was soothing. She was so tired…so tired…

“Carys!”

The sharp voice and a hand pulling at her arm jerked her awake. Instinctively Carys grasped with the arm that had been pulled forward around Telor’s chest. The slight give of ribs and Telor’s grunt recalled her to her precarious perch, and she clung all the tighter for a moment when he released her arm, although she felt him stiffen against the pressure. It was only for a moment, though. As soon as the wave of panic passed, she drew her arm away and sat upright again. What a fool she had been to fall asleep! Had Telor realized she had been dozing or had he thought she was leaning against him as an enticement?

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I am so tired.”

He did not reply immediately, and Carys restrained a resigned sigh. If he thought she had issued an invitation, she had better allow him to couple with her. Her lips thinned bitterly because with waking she had become aware again of the complaints of her abused body, but no man would care about that or about whether she said she was tired. Telor did not answer—but neither did he stop his horse or pull it toward the shelter of the trees. Carys allowed a sigh to ease out silently, thinking she had been granted a respite because Telor felt they were still too close to the keep.

The idea of coupling with him remained in her head, however, and when she separated it from the pain of her bruises and her fatigue, she found that it was not unpleasant at all. There was no way of telling in advance, of course. Usually lust brought out the most unpleasant characteristics a man had. Still, he had saved her, and her body was the only coin she had with which to repay him. And if he enjoyed her, that might be a way to induce him to keep her until she could find a proper place of her own. But would he enjoy her? Suddenly Carys wished she had listened to the old whore Ermina, who had been part of Morgan Knifethrower’s troupe and had tried to teach Carys how to delight a man. At that time Carys had only been interested in how to discourage men and had done her best not to listen.

Had Telor known what Carys was thinking, he would have set her mind at rest at once. His rigidity when she clung to him had been an effort not to thrust her away, since the only image that had come into his mind when she embraced him had been of armies of lice and fleas rushing to a tastier morsel than her thin stringiness. Now, although preachings on
caritas
and his own humanity chided him, he bitterly regretted having stopped to pick her up.

Until she gave her name as Carys Ropedancer, Telor had assumed that she was a whore and that the baron had decided to throw her to his men because she had been greedy or dishonest. Carys had implied she was totally innocent, but Telor did not believe that. Word spread quickly from one troupe of players to another, and barons who mistreated them without cause soon found themselves at a loss for entertainment. But then Telor remembered that the keep in which she had been dancing had just been taken by assault. That gave some weight to her claim of innocence.

Telor found himself forced to reconsider his assumptions. There was the sureness and hint of habitual pride with which Carys had called herself Ropedancer. And she had none of the mannerisms of a woman who whored for her living, although she certainly smelled as bad as the worst of them. But only the used-up whores let themselves get into the condition Carys was in. Telor grinned wryly. Since she was young and, from what he could see in the dim light, pretty enough, the way she smelled was probably evidence that she did not usually come too close to her clients. The wiry solidity of her body was more evidence that she did not spend most of her time on her back in a ditch. So the girl was a skilled player, and he might have done her an injustice in blaming her for the near-attack that necessitated her escape.

That admission came grudgingly into Telor’s mind. If she were not already a whore, it would be impossible simply to leave her in the next town as he had originally planned. A rope dancer could not perform alone. There was the rope to set up, for example; the girl was strong, but not strong enough for that. Besides that, a woman alone would soon run afoul of the authorities if she drew attention to herself—and how could she draw an audience without drawing attention if she did not have a man to bang the drum for her? To leave her would force her into whoring—and that seemed cruel, if whoring had not been a major part of her work. Having come to that conclusion, Telor decided he had better listen to her story again with a more open mind.

“Tell me,” he said, “why you think your troupe was attacked. It is not usual for a whole troupe to be killed even if the lord has reason to become angry at one or two.”

He expected her to deny all blame vehemently, but she shook her head and said, “It was not a whole troupe, only Ulric and me. That was why I was dancing like a common whore on the ground. Ulric did not wish to set up my rope—and now it is lost.” She paused, and although she was not touching him, Telor could imagine the brief sigh and shrug that dismissed what was lost and beyond regret. “But you asked why he was killed.” She uttered a short laugh. “Ulric was stupid, I suppose, and the men in the keep were still half crazed with fighting. He was always making bets and winning them.”

“He cheated at a game of chance?” Deri’s deeper voice held a snarl. He hated the thievery and dishonesty characteristic of the wandering players, a little because they made his new life more difficult but more because he took pride in his craft and did not like it soiled.

Carys looked across at the dim figure on the sturdy pony with some surprise, puzzled by his distaste, because to her knowledge cheating was a natural part of a player’s life. But she responded to the anger in his voice and knew that she felt much the same; what she did not understand was that their reasons were different. She had no moral objections to stealing or cheating; she had never been taught any, and even if she had been, she would have soon learned that morals were a luxury she could not afford. On the other hand, experience had taught her that dishonesty led to disaster sooner or later. Still, although she did not regret Ulric’s death, she had a strong sense of loyalty, and fair was fair.

“Not in a game,” she replied. “I don’t
know
what happened, but Ulric was always making bets about what he could do, and winning them. For all I know, that fool said he could throw a man over the wall, and did it, and killed the man. When the men ran into the hall where I was dancing, they were yelling in the lord’s language. I can understand it, mostly, and even speak a little, but I got so scared I couldn’t make head or tail of what they were saying. I knew it was trouble from the way they looked at me.”

She shuddered as memory renewed terror, and Telor asked, “What happened to the rest of the troupe?” as much to divert her as from interest.

“One thing after another,” Carys said, shrugging. “It started with Morgan Knifethrower getting so drunk that he was caught switching the bones. The men he was playing with killed him. That was three years ago. We were nine then and had a cart for the gowns and blankets and iron poles for my rope dancing. We did plays—sometimes I was a grand lady and sometimes an old beldame.” She uttered a small delighted chuckle and her voice was light and animated. “And the watchers believed me. I changed my voice and my walk—Morgan taught me that. We even played in keeps then…only three years ago.”

The lilt had gone, leaving her voice thin and tired. Telor knew the rest of the story without hearing it. With no one to hold the troupe together, quarrels had developed and the group had broken up. Very likely Carys and her man had been looking for another troupe to join and had been caught in the area when fighting broke out. That reminded Telor that she might have information far more important to him than her personal history.

“How did you come to be in that place?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”

“We were in Chippasham when the town had news that there was fighting west along the road to Marlborough, so they put us out. We were two extra mouths to feed, and they did not trust us. We knew there had been fighting near Devizes not long ago, so it did not seem safe to go south, and Ulric remembered that the young scholars in Oxford were free with their pennies—those that had any.” Carys shrugged. “We had no news of any fighting there, so we were going toward Oxford and staying off the great roads to be on the safe side. The night before last we spent in a village—it was just ahead. Ulric and I were in a shed near the edge of the town, so we were able to escape when the men-at-arms came through, but they had burnt the place out, and there were dead all around. We could not go back. We were also afraid to try to creep past the keep, lest we be taken for enemies. It seemed best to go boldly, saying we were players. And at first all went well…”