The Rope Dancer Read Online Free PDF Page A

the other man’s arms received her, brought Carys’s eyes wide open and made her catch her breath with surprise.
    “A dwarf!” she gasped. “Are you players?”
    Her sudden return to consciousness nearly precipitated a disaster. Telor was so startled that his grip relaxed and Carys began to slide, but her arms flashed up to grasp his neck, and in jerking back, Telor pulled her lower body so that she was sitting across his thighs. The movement did not free his head, and Telor gagged, partly because Carys was strangling him but equally because her odor was so rank.
    No one traveling the roads could be clean, but Telor and Deri washed as often and as thoroughly as they could, using the bathhouse in keeps or the public baths in large towns. Deri’s family had been rising in social status and thus was far stricter in their niceties than those socially above them. Telor had also learned cleanliness by family habit because it was part of an artisan’s business not to drive away custom with dirt or offensive odors. That had been reinforced by his master, who had taught him that no matter whether a baron was himself filthy, he would not tolerate the same condition in a man invited to entertain his guests.
    The sense of security Carys obtained when she felt herself drawn up on Telor’s lap allowed her to relax her stranglehold, and cry, “I’m sorry. I was afraid to fall.” And her voice was so thin, so breathless and frightened, that Telor managed to resist his impulse to thrust her away.
    “I thought you were near dead.” He choked, coughing convulsively.
    Carys, having caught sight of Deri, and seen that he was, indeed, a dwarf, felt almost safe with “her own kind” and launched into an explanation of what had happened to her, sobbing and shaking again with remembered terror. Long before she came to explaining what had aroused the threat against her, however, she broke off to beg Telor to go on lest those in the castle come after her. Recalling the light and sound from the bailey, Telor felt her fears had some foundation. Despite what she was and what she smelled like, it was impossible for him to leave her there, but he did not believe he could bear to carry her so close to him on the front of his saddle.
    “Could you ride pillion behind me?” he asked.
    “Oh, yes,” Carys replied, sighing with relief.
    As soon as her primary fears of being recaptured had been relieved, Carys had realized that her position had a number of disadvantages. Far too much of her sore body was in contact with either the hard saddle bow or with her rescuer himself. Anywhere he touched her hurt, but more important than the pain this caused was the near-certainty that the man would soon notice the knives she was carrying. The fact that he had stopped to help her showed that this was a good man. Carys thought she had met some good people, but she had never remained with any of them long enough to be sure they had no ulterior motive for their seeming kindness, and all those she knew intimately had only wanted to use her for their own purposes. It was best that these men believe her to be utterly helpless; that was the quickest way to learn their intentions.
    They moved off the road and into the shelter of the trees so that Deri and Telor could cobble together some kind of pillion saddle from a blanket and rope. But when Telor let her down, Carys cried out and sank to the ground, staring with horror at one ankle. The way her eyes rounded, the whites glinting all around the dark pupils, was visible even in the dark—a silent scream of ultimate despair. Telor’s heart lurched in instant empathy. For a dancer to break an ankle was equivalent to his breaking a hand or a wrist. He went down on one knee beside her.
    “Move your toes,” he said harshly.
    Carys’s frightened eyes turned to him. She bit her lips with pain, but the toes moved. Telor put a hand on the ankle, touching it here and there with his sensitive fingers. Carys whimpered but