Rope Dancer - Softcover

Gellis, Roberta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 051508977X ISBN 13: 9780515089776

Publisher: Jove, 1987

Synopsis

The romance of Carys, the lovely, spirited rope dancer, and Telor, the minstrel who awakens her to the joys and pains of love, is set against the richly textured pageantry, perils, intrigue, and passions of twelfth-century England

About this title

About the Author

Roberta Gellis is the bestselling author of over 25 novels in different fields. New York Times best-seller John Jakes has called her a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent; Publishers Weekly has termed her a master of the medieval historical. Her many awards include: The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur, several Romantic Times book awards and also their Lifetime Achievement Award.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The red-yellow flames of fire, oil lamp, and torch painted golden the rivulets of sweat and tears that streaked Carys's cheeks. Her breath came in tearing gasps, more of terror than exhaustion, but still she had danced, twirling and leaping in the rapidly diminishing area between the fire in its central hearth on the floor of the great hall and the dais where the lord of the manor sat. Her fear-dilated eyes flicked to him, but the new master of the keep was grinning mercilessly, sometimes watching her desperate dance and sometimes glancing at the walls of men closing in on her from each side. In a minute, or two, or three, he would laugh or lift his hand in a gesture that would loose the men, and they would seize her.

How many were there? Thirty? Fifty? However many, there were too many. Every man there intended to have her, and have her in ways that hurt. She knew she would be torn apart—dead—before they were finished.

Carys was used to judging the size of a crowd even while she twisted and turned, but the vicious lust that deformed every face addled her wits. Not that lust was strange to her, but this was not natural lust—it was an extension of the urge to kill that had minutes earlier taken the life of her protector. Less than a quarter of an hour ago Ulric Strongman had stood between her and those who watched her dance, and before him there had been Morgan Knifethrower. A single flare of hot rage pierced the cold terror that was making Carys's limbs shake. Men! Stupid, stupid, STUPID men! She had no doubt that Ulric's greed or pride or stupidity had precipitated the fight that led to his death, just as Morgan's sly dishonesty had got him killed three years ago. But now she would die too, and in agony.

The rage and resentment opened a crack in the encircling terror that had made her death by torture seem inevitable. Carys's hand fluttered down toward the knives strapped to her thighs. Morgan Knifethrower had left her that gift. Since she must die, she need not go alone. She could throw one knife into the throat of that grinning lordling, who plainly intended to enjoy watching her be raped until she bled to death, and she could plunge the other into her own throat before anyone could reach her. But even as she groped through the garish rags that were her dancing gown, she heard the low, bestial growl coming from the men rise to drown the thin music piped by a local boy to which she had been dancing. A twirl showed her that the men had closed in even in front of the dais. The only break in the circle was the fire.

Before the thought made sense to her, Carys's trained body had judged and acted. Four swift strides gave her a start for a leap that launched her straight over the heart of the flames. She did not clear the hearth completely; she landed in the fire, but she landed running and was out of it before she felt the heat of the flames. Her bare feet had touched the coals, but the soles were hard as horn, and the few embers that clung were ground out by her next step. She was nearly across the hall before howls of rage burst from the throats of the startled men. The inarticulate shouts were followed by a few cries to guard the door, but Carys was not headed for the door. Long before most of the men had taken a single step, she had gathered herself together and leapt through the window of the ground-floor hall, where the shutters had been broken away in the battle and not been repaired.

Yells of rage followed her. She could hear those as, curled into a tight ball, she hit the ground and rolled. The impact bruised her flesh and tore her skin, but falling was the first art a rope dancer learned, and the pain was not nearly so bad as a beating. On the second roll, Carys unfolded and rose smoothly, running before she had fully straightened her body. She could still hear the shouting, words now, and knew they were commands to catch her, to bring her back. Her mind heard the pounding of pursuing feet, although her ears could not.

"Lady, help," she prayed, for it was black dark and she was running blind, her eyes not yet adjusted.

Whether the Lady of Carys's half-pagan faith heard or Carys's own superb sense of balance protected her, she crossed the corner of the bailey between the window and the outer wall before the door of the hall was flung open and spilled a trail of light only a few yards behind her flying heels. The light spread in discrete halos as men with torches rushed out—but they all ran first to examine the ground where Carys had landed, expecting to see her lying there, broken and groaning. That would not have stopped their fun, she thought bitterly. By now she could see. A running leap brought the eaves of a shed into her reach; a lift and twist carried her up onto the low roof.

The men were still rushing here and there, unable to believe she had disappeared, but soon they would begin to search in a more organized way. Behind Carys were the supports of the palisade walkway. If she could only reach one without being seen...But the bobbing torches seemed to be coming closer, and she rose and leapt, sobbing softly in terrified expectation of hearing a triumphant shout to announce her discovery. A moment later she was perched on a strut in the deepest shadows, right against the wall, but what had seemed like a safe haven when she was on the exposed roof now closed her in like a trap.

The walkway just above her shook as the guards on the walls responded to the shouts of the men on the ground and Carys shook with fear. She had forgotten the men on the wall. Usually they looked outward for attackers, but the noise of the fight that had ended in Ulric's death must surely have attracted their attention. If one had still been watching the bailey and had seen her, she was lost. There would be no escape from this cage of cross-beams and supporting struts.

At first Carys was so terrified of being trapped that she made no sense of what the men on the ground were shouting up to the guards, but the short negatives of the guards' replies were unmistakable, and her fear receded enough for her to understand that the men were warning the guards to watch the ladders giving access to the walkway. The boards just above Carys's head quivered as a man crossed them, and she heard the sound of his footsteps diminish as he moved away. Still she clung unmoving to her perch, frozen as a rabbit when a fox is near, feeling as if she would strangle for lack of breath yet fighting the urge to pant lest the men hear her.

Then her breath stopped altogether as one searcher came right toward her. But he did not thrust a torch in under the walkway; instead he entered the shed on which she had climbed and began to push and pull at the bales and barrels stored there. Carys nearly choked repressing a whimper of fear when he came out, but his back was toward the palisade, and grumbling curses and threats, he trotted off toward the next outbuilding. As she realized that all the men were engaged in examining the interiors of the structures, Carys's sense of suffocation eased.

Stupid men, Carys thought again, a tiny flicker of contempt further reducing her fear. How could they think she would be so foolish as to hide in those places? But she knew her time of grace was very short. When they had gone through the huts, her danger would be all the greater. Still, her contempt had unlocked her muscles, and she inched forward and peered right and left to see where the ladders were. That was where the guards would be watching for her. None was visible from her perch, and that piece of good fortune cleared her head. She knew she could not stay where she was, and the drawbridge over the dry moat had been lifted and secured for the night. Perhaps she could get down and hide in one of the sheds the men had already searched—but what good would that do? She could not be sure the outbuildings would not be searched a second time, and there was no way of hiding who she was. Her clothes would mark her so that she could not pretend to be one of the serf women or maidservants and escape the next day when the drawbridge was lowered.

Tears started to run down Carys's face again, though she did not permit herself to sob. The only way out was over the palisade. If she had a rope...But there was no rope and no way to find one. She must let herself fall. Carys shivered. She knew about falling, but the rope on which she danced at village entertainments or town fairs was seldom higher than ten or fifteen feet. The palisade was much higher—perhaps the log wall was twenty feet high and the ditch below it another twenty feet. She shivered again. The men would hear her fall. They would rush out and capture her while she was still stunned. Her back and hips ached and stung from the scrapes and bruises inflicted by her dive out of the window. How much more pain would come from so great a fall?

For a moment Carys fingered one of her knives, wondering if she should save herself more fear and pain with one swift stroke. But even as she thought of killing herself, Carys's eyes watched the torches that marked the men's movements in the bailey, and her ears strained to hear whether steps approached her. No one approached; no face turned in her direction; no torch drew near. And as she stared at the flickering lights, she saw in memory a happier time, when the torches and voices calling meant that the play was about to begin.

Playing had always made Carys happy. It was a joy and wonder to her to be dressed in brilliant gowns, glittering with jewels, and to pace onto the stage with measured steps, speaking in the high, fluting voice and accent thought fitting for a great noblewoman. It did not matter that the fabric of the gown was coarse, that the jewels were only glittering shards of glass, that instead of French she spoke the English necessary if the village folk they entertained were to understand. Nor did it matter that the great lady was taunted and tumbled down, the butt of the fool's wit. What mattered was the excitement, the brilliance of the stage lit by many torches,...

Edition details

• Publisher: Jove
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 051508977X
• ISBN 13: 9780515089776
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 432