Free The Rope Dancer by Roberta Gellis Page A

blinked at the explosive quality of the single word and hesitated before she replied. She would like to stay with Telor; he was kind and she believed he would be easy to manipulate, but if he intended that she give up rope dancing, they must part—and the sooner the better.
    “No what?” Carys asked, watching him yank down the blanket he had beaten, fling it over a nearby hedge in the sun, and hang up the second blanket. “You mean there will not be other players there?”
    “Likely there will be,” Telor replied disdainfully. “I have nothing to do with their kind.” Then realizing that Carys was their kind, he flung his staff to the ground and snapped, “I am very sorry if I offend you, but I am not a player. I do not whine out common tunes to please common folk. My work is in the keep before the lords and ladies where I sing the great chansons and epic lays. I am a minstrel, not a jongleur—and to speak the truth, if I am known to have a dancing girl with me, ill will be thought of me and my honor will be lessened.”
    “I am not a dancing girl any more than you are a jongleur,” Carys cried. “I am a rope dancer, not a whore. And you already have a dwarf with you. Will you try to make me believe that Deri does not do on motley and play the fool?”
    Telor had the honesty to flush again. “He does in small towns and villages,” he admitted. “But when I go to sing in a keep, Deri acts as my servant. I could have two servants, or a boy apprentice. I did not mean that you have no art, Carys, only that if the lords know I also play in villages, they will no longer invite me to play for them.”
    “Oh.”
    Carys was not sure this was the truth, but she thought it might be so. She did not ask why; she knew little about lords and to her mind there was no accounting for what they did. She had been carefully kept away from the gentlemen when Morgan’s troupe played in castles. Morgan had told her dreadful tales, which she had not believed, at least not completely, but she feared a lord might demand to keep her and enjoy her until he tired of the novelty. That might mean a sure supply of food and shelter, perhaps even a few rich gifts, but it would also mean leaving the troupe. Moreover, she doubted a lord would allow her to practice her art or bother to learn if she had a place to go when he had had enough of her. It was that knowledge, not Morgan’s tales, that made her very willing not to display herself except when she was working. Her recent experience also made Morgan’s stories more believable, and she agreed that it would be better not to draw attention to herself until they were well away from the castle.
    “Shall I roll this blanket now?” she asked, putting her hand on the one he had laid on the hedge.
    Her question changed Telor’s mood. He had turned away after his reply, picked up his staff, and applied it to the blanket again with more energy than was strictly necessary. He was annoyed with Carys for having forced him to embarrass her and also annoyed with her for standing there, rock-steady on her one foot—she really did have remarkable balance—when he had no idea what else to say. He had just been wondering where Deri was when Carys spoke. The dwarf was awake and over the worst of this sickness, so he should already have brought the animals out to be saddled and loaded. Carys’s easy question relieved Telor of the need to explain himself further, so he smiled and pulled the second blanket down.
    “Yes, roll them both, if you can,” he said, “and I will go see what has happened to Deri.”
    “Does he always drink so much?” Carys asked.
    “No,” Telor replied. “It was the burnt-out village. It reminded him of his own lost family and land.”
    “I thought he had always been a player—I mean, from the time it was seen he would be a dwarf.”
    Telor shook his head, and then, knowing that Carys would be with them for a few days at least, he told her some of Deri’s story and