The Rope Dancer Read online

  “A bower fit for a fairy queen to sit and dream in, or to take her pleasure in, or to talk and laugh in—as my queen commands.”

  Her expression, which had been cynical, almost bitter, softened. “Ah, Telor,” she sighed, shaking her head gently, “you have a silver tongue. I will come down and walk.” She put her hands on his shoulders.

  He grasped her around her waist and lifted her down in a smooth, easy movement, holding her a little above the ground for just a brief instant while he allowed his lips barely to brush her throat. And as he set her down he murmured, “I beg pardon, my lady. I wish you were not so very beautiful.”

  “What?” she cried, but the face turned up to his was smiling. “That is most unkind.”

  “But you are dangerous to me,” he whispered. “You are such a temptation that I take chances that might offend you. I have no right to touch you other than at your command.”

  “Yet if I command, how can I know you do not obey out of fear rather than desire?”

  Telor laughed. “Come, in five minutes I will show you an answer to that question.”

  He took the reins of both horses in one hand and slipped the other about Lady Marguerite’s waist. He had made his formal excuses and could now take certain small liberties that would grow steadily greater as long as Lady Marguerite smiled and did not protest. In a way this delicate balancing between wooing and offending was a nuisance, and a flickering vision of a pointed fox face came between his eyes and the bland pink and white countenance at which he was gazing. If Carys had been willing, there would have been teasing and laughter and truth instead of flattery…Telor cut short the thought. It was not all flattery. Lady Marguerite was beautiful—but she was no danger to his heart.

  Telor turned a trifle eastward along a faint path, and in less than five minutes they arrived at a small clearing that edged a place where another, smaller brook had been dammed to form a pool. Lady Marguerite stopped and took a step away from him. When she turned her head toward him, her eyes were cold.

  “You have been here before,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, smiling and seeming unconscious of her jealousy. “It is a favorite spot for Lord de Dunstanville’s lady and daughters. Whenever I come here in summer and the weather permits, they bid the servants bring food, and I play and sing for them. Sometimes they invite neighbors and dance on the grass.”

  “Liar,” she said, but her voice was softer. “You come here with women.”

  Telor looked shocked, which was not all pretense because he was troubled that Lady Marguerite should care whether he had other women. He had made love to her four or five times before, and she had clearly been playing a light game. There was something different in her manner this time that worried him.

  “I am not so crude as that,” he said. “I would not bring you to a place where I tumbled a village maiden. That would be like…like sacrilege. And whom else could I bring? Can you think I would look with desire on the lady of this keep?” He paused while Lady Marguerite lowered her eyes and tried not to laugh; de Dunstanville’s wife was no beauty. “Nor am I so much the fool as to play with a young girl,” he went on. “I would not pierce the heart of a child who does not understand what is…impossible.” He waited, looking at her anxiously, and then murmured, “I beg you, my lady, only sit by the water with me for a little time. I take such joy in your company.”

  She looked at him and saw that there was no fear in his expression, only a kind of worried tenderness, and she looked away fearing that tears would come into her eyes. “Oh, go and tie the horses,” she said. “You could convince the devil to pray.”

  He came back unrolling the blanket that was always tied behind the saddle, and he folded it in half and set it on a flat rock that protruded into the pool. The water was very still there, and he came to her smiling and drew her to the place.

  “I have not forgotten your question about how you could be sure I wished to touch you from my own will or for fear of yours,” he said. “Come kneel here and look down and you will see the answer I promised you.”

  “I will see nothing but my own face,” she protested, laughing, but she knelt on the blanket and looked into the water.

  After a moment, Telor touched her cheek gently. “Is that not answer enough?” he murmured. “When you smile, it is like the sun rising, and when you talk to me of my music and where I found the words to go with it, your eyes are so bright, so clear…”

  She shuddered at his touch, and then put up her hand to turn his head so that he too was looking into the water. “Yes,” she breathed, “look there. Look into the water. Do not look so close at me that you will see the wrinkles and the lines—”

  “Oh, my lady.” Telor sighed, pulling her into his arms. “How can you be so foolish? There is beauty in your soft skin and sweet face—that is true—but there is far more beauty in the look of cleverness in your eyes, in the warmth of your smile, in your quick wit—”

  For a moment she clung to him fiercely, but then she leaned back far enough for their lips to meet, and her kiss was as fierce as her embrace had been. Telor responded in kind for a while, but then he eased his hold on her and softened the pressure of his mouth on hers. Almost at once she stiffened and pulled away completely, but Telor had begun to kiss her nose and chin in little playful pecks, and she sighed and closed her eyes until he whispered with his lips almost against hers, “Come, let me lift you up. You cannot kneel here longer or your knees will get all bruised—poor little dimpled knees.”

  Lady Marguerite laughed at that, but her breath caught in the midst of the laughter, and when Telor drew her to her feet and leaned down to snatch up the blanket, he thought she might push him away or run away. She did neither, however, standing quietly and staring into nothing as he walked to where the ground was dry, unfolded the blanket to a double thickness, and laid it down under one of the trees that bordered the small glade.

  All the while, Telor cast quick, worried glances at Lady Marguerite. He could not guess what had happened to her; perhaps a noble lover had cast her aside. Poor lady, he thought, God help me ease your pain. With all your jewels and furs and silks, you bruise and bleed just like a village maiden. He went to her then and put one arm around her shoulders while working free the pin of her light cloak with his other hand. With that draped over his arm, he leaned down to kiss her ear and throat while he led her the few steps to where the blanket lay, holding her to him so she could feel the hard, ready shaft when he kissed her lips.

  Ordinarily Telor was more cautious with a noblewoman and did not press ahead so fast, allowing the lady to signal the advance from one stage of wooing to the next. This time, he was so moved by sympathy, by the desire to rebuild Lady Marguerite’s pride by making her feel irresistible, that he cast aside caution. In the same good cause, he pretended more passion than he felt. He broke the kiss with a soft moan and turned her so that her back was to him. With one hand he pulled out the bow that held the lacing of her gown while the other pressed between her legs and served the double purpose of direct stimulation and keeping her buttocks tight against his groin so he could rub the hard, hot shaft against her.

  By the time the laces were undone, Lady Marguerite was trembling. She helped him pull off her gown and bent to remove her shift while Telor tore off his jerkin and tunic, kicked off his shoes, and slid his braies down. He was reaching for the tie of his shirt when her hand fell on his and he saw she had not taken off the shift after all, nor her shoes and stockings.

  “No,” she said, her eyes glassy with lust, fixed on the red, moist, exposed head of his penis, which thrust out under the hem of the shirt. “As you are! As you are!” And she slid down onto the blanket, holding out her arms for him.

  Telor knelt beside her, bending to kiss her throat while his hand caressed her breast through the thin shift, but she hooked a hand around one of his thighs and drew him between her legs, breathing, “Love me, minstrel, love me. I am ready.”

  The sigh of pleasure Tel
or uttered as he slid inside her was perfectly genuine, but the image that came into his mind as he drew and thrust again was of a narrow vixen face, fox-red hair in wild, curling disorder, great golden eyes hidden in ecstasy. He banished the vision angrily, opening his eyes to give his full attention to the woman he was loving, but oddly the greater beauty cooled rather than excited him. There was no harm in that; he was able because of it to bring Lady Marguerite twice to shuddering, wailing culminations before his seed sprang forth, but he was deeply disturbed by Carys’s intrusion into his mind.

  When Telor had caught his breath, he lifted himself off his partner and sat beside her, gently running a finger over her flaccid hand. “Lovely,” he murmured. “A water nymph, caught and drawn from the pool, my prize for an hour. How heavy my heart because I cannot hold her.”

  Lady Marguerite’s eyes had opened as soon as Telor spoke, and she had been staring at him. He should have been smiling, mischief in his blue eyes; instead he looked troubled and sad. She sat up suddenly and said, “Stop! Hold that beguiling tongue of yours, Telor Luteplayer. You have done me harm enough. Do you know I dream of you?”

  “Of me?” The words were scarcely audible, for Telor’s breath and heart had stopped.

  “Of you! A common churl!” Her voice was bitter, and tears stood in her eyes. “We must not meet again—ever. Even if I call you, you must deny me.”

  Telor’s heart jumped, and his breath eased out. For a moment when she implied she was enamored of him, he had feared she had arranged this meeting just so she could accuse him of having accosted her in the woods when she was riding after the hunt. He could have been killed just for speaking to her or startling her; she did not need to compromise her reputation by saying he had tried rape. Now he took her hand and kissed it.

  “Oh, my lady, I am so sorry,” he sighed. “I am sorry that you are truly lost to me, but sorrier for the cause. I never meant any hurt to you. Until this moment I thought you were only playing.”

  “And so I was,” she said in a more natural voice, removing her hand from his and standing up. “Even when I dreamt of you last night, I thought it was only the delight of my body that I desired. It was when you came upon me in the wood and I saw your fresh, young face—I could not help but wonder whether your tricks were like a dog’s, performed on command without real joy. But when we came into this glade and I thought of you with other women—”

  “I have never lain with another woman here,” Telor lied with deep sincerity.

  She smiled. “Then I can keep the memory. Now help me dress, and I will go. No, do not look so sad. The wound is a slight one—and I know what salve to lay on it to make it heal.”

  Telor sat a long time alone in the glade after Lady Marguerite had ridden away. He knew he had been in great danger and that the danger was not completely over. If Lady Marguerite continued to hunger for him, she might feel the discomfort could be most easily assuaged by having him dead and beyond reach for all time. Perhaps Deri was not so silly, and he should stop playing with noblewomen. If he had a woman of his own, perhaps he would be less likely to look on them with desire…In immediate response to that idea, Carys’s face was in his mind, but Telor remembered too how she had drawn herself together, knees to chin, arms defensively tight around them, when she had recognized his desire for her.

  ***

  A great deal of thought over several days had not brought Carys any closer to a decision about what she wanted. She knew she did not want to join either troupe playing at Castle Combe, but she was even more afraid to remain with Telor, particularly after overhearing his conversation with Deri. Knowing that a noble lady was willing to take such risks to couple with the minstrel had only increased Carys’s interest in him. Now, no matter how often she called herself a fool and tried to drive Telor’s image away, it returned to her mind. She found herself planning what she would say to him or, worse, imagining what it would be like to touch him, caress him, even lie with him. That was stupid and dangerous.

  Nor was there any excuse for putting off a decision, Carys knew. Her bruises had healed, her ankle was free of pain, and she had been able to do some exercises in the stable the day Telor had gone off after the lady. Nearly all the horses and grooms had been out that day, and Deri had agreed to keep the one groom left behind outside the stable and busy, after he returned from the keep, looking like a cat that had got into the cream.

  The day after Telor’s meeting with the noblewoman had been rainy and both Telor and Deri had been busy in the keep. Carys had slipped away as soon as Deri went to join Telor and had introduced herself to the second troupe, but they were even less attractive to her than the first. Still, she could let her hair loose among them, take off her tunic, and really work to limber up her body. No one in the troupe questioned why she was dressed and acting like a boy; there were many good reasons for the disguise, from simple fear to the satisfaction of a master’s obscene desires, and they knew them all. But they were surprised at the length and intricacy of Carys’s practice, and that worsened her impression of them. All members of a good troupe practiced hard when they were not performing.

  When she left them, Carys noted that the smell she had tried to ignore accompanied her. Anxiously, she examined her tunic, but it was not soiled with filth; then she realized it was her shirt, which carried the smell of her own sour sweat. She had not washed after the exercise the previous day, and she had slept in all her clothes because Deri had laid out straw for their beds side by side. Carys thought he did it to protect her from those grooms, men-at-arms, and servants who preferred sleeping in the stable to lying out in the open. Still, she did not want to take any chances and did not remove even her tunic. So there had been no chance for airing, and this day’s work had made the odor worse.

  Most of the men and women crowding the area smelled worse than she, but she knew Telor would not like it and, with surprise, decided she did not like it either. She would have to wash or at least air out the shirt as soon as she could. What she needed was her old shift to replace it. She knew where Telor had put the shift, but her spirit was sore from years of suspicion and she did not dare touch Telor’s saddlebags. Not even starvation could have made her steal from either Telor or Deri, but she did not expect them to believe that.

  She watched for Deri but did not see him at all after he left the stable that morning, and there was no need for Deri to worry about her. He knew that food and drink were free to all for the taking anywhere in the lower bailey and in the village below the keep. Large roasting pits had been dug, and beef, mutton, and pork turned on improvised spits for anyone to cut at or tear at. There were great piles of coarse bread, and tuns of ale were broached. Serfs and men-at-arms got drunk, slept it off, and got drunk again throughout the day, but no one looked more than once at Carys, who wore her “ugly” face.

  When the long evening of summer was over and the light started to fail, Carys went back to her dark corner of the stable to be on the safe side; she knew the old saw about all cats being gray in the dark. She brought with her ample supplies of meat and bread and the waterskin she had earlier filled with ale, thinking that Deri might have been too busy to eat, but he did not arrive until very late. The celebration after the wedding had lasted well into the night, continuing not only in the hall but in the tents in the bailey, long after the young couple had been bedded. Telor had asked Deri to stay to collect the “gifts” for his singing and to bring messages to him from groups or individuals who wanted him to come to them. Tired, Deri refused the food Carys offered and asked testily why she had not taken her shift if she needed it.

  “I would not open your bags or Telor’s without leave,” Carys replied in a choked voice, hardly believing that the dwarf meant what he said.

  “Well, you have leave now,” Deri grunted as he pulled off his tunic and fumbled in the dark until he found the full truss of straw that marked the sleeping place. He laid his tunic over the standing truss, collapsed on part of a second truss, which he had divided
and flattened into two pallets, one for himself and the other for Carys, and drew his blanket over himself.

  Carys stood indecisively for a moment, then decided it would be better to open Telor’s bag while Deri was there. She found her shift by touch, closed and replaced the bag near Deri’s head, and after a second moment of indecision, took off her tunic and put it alongside Deri’s. There was not the faintest rustle to hint of a change in Deri’s position to watch her and it was very dark, so she faced the wall of the barn and quickly changed the shirt for the shift, drawing her blanket around her even before she lay down. By then, Deri, who had expected to be asleep before his eyes closed, found he was not, and realized it was because he felt guilty for his gruffness.

  “You were right to wait for leave,” he said. “I am sorry I scolded you, Car—Caron.” Then he smiled into the dark, having thought of a way to make amends without any suggestive overtones. “Tomorrow will be the tourney, and I must be with Telor on the field, but before I go, I will bring you something to clean your shirt—soap, which is better than ashes.”

  Soap. Carys considered the word, which she felt she had heard before but could not connect with anything she had seen. It puzzled her enough to keep her awake for a time after she heard Deri start to snore, until she did remember; her eyes snapped open, and she barely bit back a cry of thanks. It had been four or five years ago that she heard of soap. They had been in Salisbury, and Morgan had sent her to bring certain of the performing costumes to a laundress. It was she who had said the word; making a grimace of distaste, she had said, “These certainly need soap.” And the garments Carys had fetched two days later had been so bright and sweet…But perhaps that was not the word, Carys thought, damping her excitement. Better wait and see before being glad.

  ***

  Deri was gone by the time Carys woke, and she felt lost and even somewhat betrayed when she saw the stable was empty except for herself and Doralys—even Teithiwr and Surefoot were gone. She lay still, thinking that no one had told her not to go to the tournament, and that she could tie her blanket on Doralys and ride down to join the others. But she remembered that Morgan had never been willing to play where a tournament was being held. He said that it was no place for players; everyone was too drunk on blood and pain to find pleasure in milder forms of excitement, and that too many of the audience felt they would like to join the fighters by dismembering a few strangers. Morgan had ended up dead not because he had ever been wrong but because he did not obey his own rules, and Carys was not about to follow his example. She would gladly have gone to the field with Deri and Telor, but she was afraid to go alone.