Dark Tracks Read online

  She looked at him over her hunched shoulder. “I can’t stop. I’m called to it. Aren’t you?”

  “No. Who called you? One of the other dancers? Did they lay hold of you?”

  “Yes. Once they touched me, I was lost. But it was I who first ran after them. I wanted to dance and never stop till I died. And now, it seems, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Don’t you have a home?”

  She shrugged. “If you’d call it that. A young gentleman like you wouldn’t stable your horse there; it’s too poor for you. But it was good enough for me for years. Long, terrible years. I had a hungry childhood and miserable years growing up. Then my children left me and I have no help in my work and no dream of the future.”

  “Can’t you go back home? Don’t you want to be with your family?”

  She laughed as if he had made a merry jest. “I’d rather dance to my death than go back there,” she said flatly.

  “And all the others? Do they feel the same?”

  “How would I know?” she said indifferently. “Why would I care? I don’t ask them, and they don’t tell me. We don’t talk—we just dance. I won’t talk any more to you.” She wrapped her tattered cloak a little closer around her and closed her eyes.

  Luca stood up and looked at Freize, who shrugged. The two of them walked to the side of the square, where a man seemed to be pleading with his daughter to come away while the dancers were resting. He had hold of her hands and was trying to pull her to her feet while she dug in her heels to keep her seat on the cold stones. He towered over her, a big brute of a man, and she was like the bent stem of a stubborn weed, resisting him.

  “I won’t go,” they heard her say.

  “But your mother orders you to come, and your brothers want you home.”

  “I can’t stop dancing,” she said impatiently. “You’ve seen me. I can’t stop.”

  “But you’ve stopped now.” Freize paused to reason with her. “Why don’t you try walking home now, while nobody is dancing and the fiddle is quiet? Your father here will help you. I’ll help you. I’ll set you on your road. We’ll walk either side of you and keep you going.”

  “I had to stop,” she said. “I couldn’t dance another step. I couldn’t do anything but sit. But as soon as I am rested, I’ll start again.”

  “Don’t you want to stop?” Luca asked her incredulously.

  “Sir, I swear she does, in her heart,” her father interrupted. “She has everything to live for. A young man to marry, her work to do—we can’t run the farm without her. And yet up she gets one morning and dances round the house, does nothing, though the cows need milking and the dairy needs cleaning and the eggs have to be fetched and the ox is lame so she has to pull the plow. But she’ll do none of this. Dances all the day and half the night and then climbs out of the window and runs after the dancers.”

  “She ran after them? They didn’t take her? She sought them out? Why?”

  The girl raised her head. Her eyes were quite blank. “Because I want to dance up a whirlwind,” she said. “I don’t care what it costs.”

  The father shrugged his shoulders. “She’s run mad,” was his only answer. “She was always a fool and now she has run mad.”

  “Did you know of the dancers before you started dancing?” Luca asked the girl directly.

  “The priest preached a sermon against them the very day before!” the man exclaimed furiously. “Said that they were a crew of sturdy beggars with runaway maids and worthless lads, led by a fiddler who tempted them into sin, coming our way, and that everyone was to shutter their windows and stop up their ears. Warned us that these were fools who did nothing but dance and drink while we have no time for anything but work. Every sensible person in the town takes the warning and closes their doors. But my foolish daughter doesn’t do as she’s told. Oh no! She knows better! She leans out of the window, looking for them, and, after they’ve gone by, up she gets and starts dancing. Runs after them, dancing all the way. Then I have to come chasing after them to find her here, in the middle of the village, dancing like a madwoman where everyone can see her, to my shame and hers. When I get her home, I shall beat her to within an inch of her life. I’ll break her legs—that’ll slow her down.”

  Freize looked shocked. “But, you old fool, why would she go home with you if she knows you’re going to beat her?”

  Luca knelt on the cobbles beside the girl. “Would you stop dancing if you were not beaten at home?” he asked. “If your life was easier?”

  She raised her head and he could see that she was thin and tired, with a dark bruise fading from one eye as if someone had taken a fist to her about a week ago. “I’ll never stop dancing,” she said quietly. “And I’ve always been beaten at home.”

  “How can you do it?” Freize asked the man. “How can you raise your hand to your own child? How can you use a little lass like this to pull a plow?”

  The man shrugged at Freize’s softness of heart. “If I have no ox, how else am I going to plow? If she is disobedient, she must be beaten. How else will she learn?”

  Freize hesitated, as if he would speak with the girl again, but then, as Luca moved away, he followed him to a group of dancers whose ragged clothes and worn shoes showed that they had been dancing on the road for weeks. One of them, a young man, looked up from the stone step as Luca came toward him.

  “Will you give us alms, sir?” he asked. “We have no money for food.”

  “Why don’t you work for money?” Luca asked him.

  “We can’t work, we can only dance,” the man said. “If you give us money, we’ll dance away to the next village and leave you in peace.”

  “Does every village pay you to leave?”

  He laughed shortly. “Of course—they’re afraid of us. They’re afraid that their children will run away with us.”

  “Then is dancing your work? Do you do it for money? Are you really beggars?”

  “No, truly we are dancers. I can’t stop myself. I’ve had the priest drag me into the church and pour the holy water on my head, but I just danced down the aisle and out of the door. Then he saw there was nothing to do but get rid of me, out of his parish. He gave me some food and made me promise that I would go away and take the dancers with me. The people here will feed us and send us on our way, if not today, then tomorrow. We’re not wanted anywhere. They’ll pay us to go. Won’t you pay us to leave now?”

  Luca shook his head. “I want to know why you started dancing.”

  The dancer rose, wincing at the pain of his blistered feet. “If I lay my hands on you, you’ll dance too,” he said. “Or would you rather give me some money for food?”

  Freize drew on all his stubborn courage and stepped forward. “This is an Inquirer of the Order of Darkness reporting to the Holy Father himself,” he said quietly. “You won’t touch him, and he won’t give you money.”

  Mockingly, the youth stretched out his hand to the very center of Luca’s chest. He pointed his finger but did not touch Luca’s thick woollen robe. “If I touch him, he’ll start dancing and not be able to stop,” he said. “And you can report that to the Holy Father, with my compliments.”

  Luca looked at him steadily, but did not step back. “Don’t threaten me,” he said gently, “for I mean you no harm. I want to know what is making you and all these people dance, and if you can be cured and go back to your lives. I am here to help you if I can. Actually, I am ordered to help you if I can.”

  The young man shrugged and abruptly sat down again. “Nobody can help us; we’re cursed,” he said. “And if I touch you, the curse will fall on you.”

  Luca was about to ask another question when a tentative patter on the drum made all the people around the square stir and look up.

  “Better get inside,” Freize said nervously. “Before they start up again.”

  “Are you afraid that we will start dancing?” Luca asked him. “Because someone clatters on a drum and scrapes a fiddle?”

  “I don’t