Nine Men Dancing

Eight

When Vespers finished, I went back to the priest’s house to collect Hercules, my cudgel and my pack (into which I stuffed my dirty clothes) before taking myself off to the Roman Sandal for the alefeast. But before bidding Father Anselm farewell, I returned to the church to ask if we might continue our conversation the following day.

‘There are still so many questions to which I need answers,’ I said.

‘Concerning?’ He raised a ragged eyebrow, in which black and grey hairs were inextricably mixed.

‘The disappearance of Eris Lilywhite, amongst other things.’

He regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Has Maud Lilywhite put you up to this?’

I decided to be honest with him, as I had not been with Jacquetta Rawbone.

‘Not Maud. The older Mistress Lilywhite. She’s naturally anxious to discover what’s happened to her granddaughter. But it’s partly to satisfy my own curiosity, as well.’

He nodded, turning to unlock a cupboard fixed to the wall beside the Virgin’s altar.

‘Maud wouldn’t be so anxious to know the truth, of course. That’s understandable.’

He picked up the heavy silver chalice, beautifully chased around the bowl, used at Vespers, and placed it on a shelf in the cupboard, beside its twin. On other shelves, I noted a pair of silver candlesticks, the silver-gilt pyx that contained the Eucharist and an elaborate ivory and gold crucifix. There were also one or two other pieces I didn’t have time to see in any detail.

‘You have quite a few treasures here, at Lower Brockhurst,’ I commented, as Father Anselm closed and relocked the cupboard door.

‘A few.’ He chuckled richly. ‘Although it wouldn’t do to enquire too closely how all of them were acquired.’

‘Why not?’

He gave another chuckle, looking up into my face with a mischievous grin (he only came up to my shoulder).

‘I’m going to shock you again, chapman. One of my predecessors, Ambrose Lightfoot, was known as Light-fingered Lightfoot. At least, that’s the tradition in the village. How and why he obtained his soubriquet I’ve never bothered to enquire too closely, and I’m not sure I’d get an honest answer if I did. But these sort of stories that are part of the folklore of a place very often have some foundation in fact, however distorted or exaggerated they may have become with the passing years.’

‘Sir Anselm, I’m going,’ I grinned, pulling my cloak together with one hand and picking up my pack and cudgel with the other, ‘before you undermine my faith in the priesthood altogether. Tree-worship, intimations of theft … whatever next?’ I nudged Hercules in the direction of the door with my foot. ‘I’ll call on you, then, sometime tomorrow. With your blessing, that is.’

He patted me on the back. ‘If I’m not here when you arrive, just wait for me. I shan’t have gone far. You can share my dinner, if you’d like. It’s Friday, so it’ll only be fish.’ I thanked him heartily and accepted his invitation. ‘Enjoy your game this evening,’ he added. ‘I hope Mistress Rosamund wins.’

The alehouse was so full of people and smoke from the fire that it was almost impossible to see across the room. Not that I wanted to. My eyes were inevitably drawn to the long table in the middle, groaning under the weight of food and drink. As most of the villagers were already seated, I hurriedly set down my encumbrances and freed myself from my cloak. Then I forced myself on to a bench, between two men I hadn’t met before, and proceeded to fill my empty belly with everything within reach, until it would hold no more. And by that time, everyone – including Hercules, who had been wandering around with the other dogs, gobbling up every scrap that fell in his way – was so full that it was agony to rise from the table and start shifting it and the benches to the sides of the ale-room, so that the game of Nine Men’s Morris could begin.

But it was done at last, and Lambert Miller, with two of his friends, scratched out the ‘board’ on the beaten earth floor, which had earlier been cleared of its covering of rushes. Three squares, one inside the other, were marked by wooden pegs at each corner and in the middle of each side, so that there were twenty-four markers in all. (On a normal board, these would be the holes into which the morrells were slotted.) Rosamund and Lambert then set about assembling their teams, each one comprising nine members. Long strips of coarse linen had been dyed either red or blue, and these were worn as sashes by the players; blue for Lambert’s, red for Rosamund’s. As I draped mine across my right shoulder and tied it on the opposite hip, I found it being more tastefully arranged by the lady herself.

‘You remembered,’ she whispered coyly.

‘How could I possibly forget?’ was my gallant response.

A vision of Adela’s mocking face flashed through my mind, making me choke a little over the last word. Luckily, Rosamund noticed nothing amiss.

‘I shall call your name first,’ she murmured, as she moved away to stand beside Lambert.

She was as good as her word. ‘Roger, outside square, top left corner.’

I took up my position.

It was the miller’s turn. ‘Rob, outside square, middle peg.’

Rosamund spoke to a girl in a brown petticoat and kirtle.

‘Lucy, middle square, top left corner.’ Now, if she could only get a player at the top left corner of the inner square, she would have a diagonal three-in-a-row, and therefore be able to confiscate one of her opponent’s players.

But Lambert, at this early stage of the contest, was neither so unobservant nor so chivalrous as to ignore the obvious, and quickly ordered his next man to occupy the position.

And so the game continued, until all eighteen players were moving around the board as their captains endeavoured to line up three men in a straight line in any direction, each team encouraged by its own vociferous supporters. In the end, after just over an hour, it was Rosamund who won, having managed to capture seven of Lambert’s nine players, thus leaving him with two, and unable to make a row of three. I had been removed from the ‘board’ sometime earlier, after a momentary carelessness on my captain’s part, and had watched the finish of the game from the sidelines along with four of my other team-mates. And it was while standing there, contemplating the dance-like movements of the remaining ‘pieces’, that I was seized with the ridiculous notion that if I could only line up my own three ‘morrells’ in a straight line, they would lead me to Eris Lilywhite, alive or dead.

Everyone was smiling – none more broadly than Lambert – and congratulating Rosamund on a game well played.

‘Another one! Another one!’ the man called Rob Pomphrey was shouting. ‘Give Lambert his chance of revenge!’

There was a general chorus of agreement, and eventually, after a pretty show of resistance, Rosamund consented, even going so far as to express the wish that the miller might this time be the victor. I didn’t believe her for an instant: the Fair Rosamund was a girl who liked to win.

Lambert knew this as well as I did. He was careful not to make obvious mistakes, but as he strode around the ‘board’, peering between the players, I twice saw him deliberately turn a blind eye to an empty place in direct line with two of Rosamund’s ‘pieces’. I smiled to myself: the man was more astute that I would have given him credit for. He was also possibly more serious about the landlord’s daughter than I had thought him.

I was again captured early on, and was standing near the fire, a cup of William Bush’s best home-brewed in my hand, when, just as on the previous night, the ale-room door was flung open and Tom Rawbone appeared. He pushed his way across to Rosamund, seized her roughly in his arms and kissed her.

‘I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Stop avoiding me, girl, and giving me the cold shoulder. I was never in love with Eris. I know that now. She bewitched me. I don’t care what’s happened to her! I don’t care what’s become of her, if she’s living or dead! It’s you I want, Rosamund. It’s you I always really wanted.’ He kissed her again.

Until that moment, no one had moved. We had all, including Rosamund herself, been turned to stone by the sheer effrontery and unexpectedness of the attack. (For it seemed more like an attack than a wooing; an assault rather than a gentle plea for forgiveness.) But suddenly the whole room erupted. Lambert Miller gave a roar like an enraged bull and launched himself at Tom Rawbone, seizing him round the neck and dragging him away from Rosamund. Winifred Bush, furiously shaking off her husband’s restraining hand, tried to hit Tom over the head with a billet from the log basket, and only missed because someone else got in before her. The rest of those present joined in with an almost manic gusto, sitting astride the now prostrate young man’s legs and chest, punching him on any part of his anatomy that became available.

I looked on for a minute or two from a distance, and was coming to the conclusion that it was time for someone to intervene, unless the village was to have another murder on its hands – and not just a suspected one, either – when I felt an urgent tug at my sleeve.

‘For goodness’ sake, stop them, Roger!’ pleaded Rosamund’s frantic voice. ‘They’ll kill him!’

I looked down at her. ‘Would that worry you?’

‘Of course it would!’ she cried passionately. She swallowed hard and rallied a little. ‘I don’t want anyone here hanged on account of Tom Rawbone. He isn’t worth it!’

I grabbed my cudgel from its resting place against the wall and laid about me, pulling, pushing, hitting out where necessary, using both stick and fists to haul the avengers off the bleeding, groaning figure lying on the floor. I met, inevitably, with a good deal of resistance, and earned myself a cut lip and a bloody nose before, finally, common sense prevailed. William Bush backed my efforts with a plea for calm and order, pointing out, once he could make himself heard, the dire consequences for all of them if Tom Rawbone were to die at their hands. One by one the would-be assassins slowly rose from their knees and drew back to stand in a menacing circle around their victim. The sudden silence, however, was as ominous as the preceding uproar had been.

To my great surprise, before I could offer him a helping hand, Tom staggered painfully to his feet and confronted his persecutors with as much of a sneer as his bruised and bleeding lips would permit.

‘Fucking scum!’ he spat. Or, at least, I think that’s what he said. It wasn’t that easy to tell.

There was a low growl and several of the men made a half-movement towards him.

‘Go!’ Rosamund told him sharply, laying a gentle hand on his arm. (I wondered if I were the only one, apart from Tom himself, to notice her anxiety not to hurt him further, and decided that I probably was.)

‘Can you walk on your own?’ I asked, prepared to offer him assistance.

His only answer was a contemptuous grunt as he shoved his way towards the door and, for the second evening running, left the Roman Sandal with the imprecations of the villagers ringing in his ears.

His departure was the signal for a babel of talk, a mixture of regret that he had not been taught a severer lesson, and relief that matters had not been carried further than they had. Lambert Miller rushed across to Rosamund to envelop her in a protective embrace, while vilifying her former betrothed in terms that were hardly fit for a young girl’s delicate ears. Not that Rosamund seemed offended by them, merely unresponsive. But once again, I doubted if Lambert noticed her reaction: he was too busy being the knight in shining armour, sans peur et sans reproche.

It was obvious that the second game of Nine Men’s Morris would now be abandoned, and the rest of the evening devoted to discussing Tom Rawbone’s outrageous behaviour, renewing the debate as to whether or not he had murdered Eris Lilywhite. I decided, therefore, that it was time to leave. Maud and Theresa might be wondering where I had got to, as neither had come to the alefeast, although I doubted that they would be worried. I was, after all, a big lad able to take care of himself. I found Hercules, ruthlessly interrupting his amorous advances to a large, shaggy-haired bitch, and, along with my cudgel, pack and cloak, removed him and myself without anyone noticing our going (I was becoming quite adept at this). Hercules vented his spleen by trying to bite my ankles.

‘Don’t be a fool, boy!’ I admonished him. ‘She’d have eaten you for breakfast.’

The evening air was cold and clammy against my skin, refreshing after the overwhelming heat of the alehouse. The rain had ceased, and a ragged sliver of moon showed now and then between the storm-tossed clouds that shouldered their way across the valley. The village street clove a deep shadow between the darker shapes of the houses, behind which rose the infinitely ancient hills, home of the elf-people, waiting for the blast of the fairy horn that would wake them at last from their enchanted slumber …

I shivered and reined in my imagination. Opposite me was the mill, and between it and the neighbouring cottage, I glimpsed the silvery glint of the stream as the moon reappeared and drowned its reflection in the swiftly flowing water. Something moved. Someone was sitting there, on the bank, and guessing who it might be, I crossed the street towards him. Tom Rawbone was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, having, by the smell of things, just been violently sick.

I laid a hand on his back and he bucked like a startled horse.

‘Let me give you my arm as far as Dragonswick,’ I offered.

He shook his head and muttered indistinctly, ‘Not goin’ home. No’ … No’ like this.’

‘Where, then?’ I asked. ‘You can’t stay out all night in this condition.’

He gestured in the direction of the far end of the street, where it curved away into blackness, and said something that sounded like ‘Alice’s’.

‘Alice’s?’ I queried, unconvinced that I had heard aright.

Surely there wasn’t yet another woman in his life! He couldn’t be that foolhardy! Everyday existence was complicated enough, as he must be only too well aware, without clogging its wheels with a third emotional entanglement.

But when, with my arm about his waist to support his tottering footsteps, he had directed me along the village street to a cottage that stood by itself, some two or three hundred yards distant from its closest neighbour, the mystery was solved. Alice, a large, buxom woman somewhere, I guessed, between thirty-five and forty, with sleepy brown eyes, painted cheeks and a loose mop of coarse, carroty coloured hair, introduced herself as the village whore.

‘Alice Tucker, that’s me, dear. All the young lads come to me when they’re in trouble. I give ’em a shoulder to cry on.’ And judging by her ample bosom, more than just a shoulder. ‘Who’ve we got here, then? Oh, it’s you again, Tom! What have you been up to, this time?’

It was a tiny, one-roomed cottage with a large bed that took up most of the floor space.

‘Tools of the trade, dear,’ Alice said, as she helped me lower Tom on to it. ‘So, what’s the story?’

I told her, and she sighed, raising her eyes to the smoke-blackened ceiling.

‘What’s the matter with the young idiot? Doesn’t he realize that you can’t treat a girl the way he treated Rosamund Bush and then, when other things go wrong, just raise your finger and get her back again? I suppose not. He’s a Rawbone, isn’t he? Conceited, arrogant, lecherous. They’re all the same. Although, perhaps it’s fair to say that the old man’s worse than his sons.’

As Tom had lapsed into semi-consciousness, I helped her strip off his clothes, so that we could see the extent of his injuries. Alice ran practised hands over his ribs.

‘Nothing seems to be broken,’ she said. ‘It’s mostly bruising.’

She fetched a small pot from a shelf opposite the bed and began to rub its contents over the bluish welts beginning to mar Tom Rawbone’s skin.

‘Primrose salve,’ she explained, noticing my curious stare. ‘I’ll put some on that cut lip of yours after I’ve finished with him.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I protested, wiping away a thin trickle of blood with the back of my hand. I went on, ‘You were talking about the Rawbone family. Conceited, arrogant, lecherous were your words. But the elder son, Ned, seems a quiet-mannered, harmless enough fellow from what I’ve seen of him.’

‘Oh, Master Edward’s settled down right enough since his marriage. He was never as wild as Tom or the old man, but he sowed his wild oats in his youth. That Petronelle, though, she keeps him under her thumb.’ Alice sniffed disparagingly. ‘Don’t get me wrong. She ain’t a dragon like Dame Jacquetta. She’s the sort who whines and snivels and sulks and makes a man’s life a misery if she doesn’t get her own way. But that’s just as bad … Hey! Get that dog off my bed, if he’s yours. Or is he some stray that’s come in with you?’

‘No, I’m afraid he’s mine,’ I admitted, retrieving Hercules, who had been about to settle down for the night, curled up against Tom’s legs. I set him on the floor, then leaned my back against the cottage wall. My legs were beginning to ache, no doubt as a result of my exploration of the well shaft that afternoon. I ventured, ‘Don’t you like the younger Mistress Rawbone?’

Alice wiped her hands on the patched and faded counterpane. Her patient stirred a little, then sank back into a torpor, either real or feigned. Either way, Alice had no inhibitions about discussing his brother and the rest of his family within his hearing.

‘Petronelle’s all right, I suppose,’ she conceded grudgingly after a few moments’ thought. ‘It’s not her fault that she loves a man who doesn’t love her. Nathaniel forced Ned into the marriage because of her dowry. He wanted to marry Maud Haycombe.’

‘Mistress Lilywhite?’

‘That’s right, dear. And I reckon he’d have defied his father, too, if she hadn’t gone and fallen for that Gilbert Lilywhite who’d come here from Gloucester to dig somebody’s well. Of course,’ Alice added hastily, ‘I don’t remember events very clearly. I was only a slip of a thing at the time.’ She saw the blatant disbelief on my face and grimaced. ‘Oh, very well, then! I was twenty and already beginning to practise my trade. I had no choice, dear. My mother turned me out of the house when she married again, and what else was I to do?’ She gave a sudden belly laugh. ‘My stepfather was one of my first customers. Now, what d’you think of that? A joke, eh? I never told her, although it was on the tip of my tongue to do so, often and often.’

Fortunately, the flow of reminiscences was stemmed by Tom Rawbone opening his eyes and asking for water, which Alice fetched for him from a barrel just outside the door. Supporting him in one strong arm, she held the wooden cup to his lips.

‘Do you want to stay here the night?’ she asked him. ‘I’ve got no visitors this evening. Unless, of course, your friend, here …?’ She turned to look up at me.

‘No!’ I declined the offer with more speed than courtesy. ‘It’s … It’s just that I’m married,’ I added in a belated effort to soften my terse refusal.

‘They’re all married,’ she said reproachfully.

‘Happily married,’ I pleaded in extenuation.

Alice sighed. ‘There’s nothing I hate more than a happily married man.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault, dear, I suppose. Well, there you are then, Tom.’ She smoothed his hair. ‘You can sleep in my bed tonight and I’ll rub your bruises again in the morning.’ She rose from her seat on the side of the bed and moved towards the door. I realized I was being dismissed and once more gathered up my belongings, nudging Hercules, who was snoring beside the corner hearth, with my toe. Furious, he again tried to bite my ankles. I should have to cure him of this painful habit.

Alice followed me outside. ‘You don’t perhaps want some powdered mandrake root?’ she hissed. ‘I always keep a pot for some of my gentlemen who have – well, you know – trouble.’

I laughed. ‘I already have three children.’ I didn’t tell her that Nicholas wasn’t really mine. ‘I’m trying not to have any more. So … no, thank you.’

She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

She was turning to go back into the cottage, when I was struck by a sudden thought.

‘Alice,’ I said, ‘last September, the night of the great storm, the night Eris Lilywhite disappeared, did Tom Rawbone spend the night here?’

She seemed mildly astonished that I should even need to ask the question.

‘Of course! He always comes to me when he’s in trouble. And that night, he was in a terrible state. Not surprising, really, when you think about it, I suppose. He’d thrown over Rosamund Bush because he thought Eris was going to marry him, only to find that she’d got herself betrothed to his father! I told you old man Rawbone was a worse lecher than his sons. An old ram – and that’s being unfair to rams. He should have been castrated years ago. Mind you-’ she giggled – ‘I should have lost a deal of trade if he had been.’

‘He comes here?’

Alice glowered at me. ‘Why do you say it like that? There’s nothing wrong with this place. I offer a necessary service, that’s all.’ Once more her sense of humour conquered her indignation. ‘Mother confessor to the entire male population of the village, that’s me. I bet I know more about the men of Lower Brockhurst than Father Anselm … Are you sure you don’t want to stay, dear? I’m very reasonable.’

I countered her question with one of my own, desperate to give her thoughts another direction.

‘That night, the night we were talking of, what time was it when Tom Rawbone arrived here?’

Alice stared at me with that mixture of suspicion and curiosity that I’ve noticed in a lot of people when I start probing for information.

‘Nosy, aren’t you? And I know what you’re thinking. Would Tom have had time to do away with Eris before he came knocking on my door? Well, unfortunately, the answer’s yes, he would. It must have been after midnight, because my last visitor didn’t leave until late. He – Tom, that is – was soaked to the skin. Said he’d been walking for miles in the rain. Couldn’t remember, he said, where he’d been, only that he’d been trying to overcome his fury, so that he wouldn’t go back to Dragonswick to finish what he’d begun.’

‘He meant, I suppose, his attempt to murder his father and Eris. Did you believe him?’

‘I think so. Mind you, if I’m honest, when I’d heard the whole story I wasn’t so sure.’ Alice wrapped her arms about herself for warmth. ‘Look, I’m freezing, standing here, chatting like this. I’m going in.’ She made one last bid for my custom. ‘You’re positive you don’t want to … to …?’

‘I’m very tired,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ve had a long day.’ Which was true. ‘I’ll call tomorrow to see how Tom is.’

She nodded, accepting defeat, and turned back indoors.

I picked up Hercules, who was giving a good imitation of a dog who could go no further without falling over, and tucked him under my arm. Then, with my almost empty pack and cudgel clutched together in my right hand, I walked back along the village street to the footbridge opposite the church. There were still sounds of merrymaking issuing from the open alehouse door, but the priest’s house was in darkness. Sir Anselm, for want of other occupation, had presumably gone to bed, ready to rise in the small hours to recite Matins and Lauds in the icy and deserted church. Rather him than me. It was the service I had hated and resented most during my years as a novice at Glastonbury Abbey.

I turned into the belt of trees, but before I could set foot on the bridge, an arm was clamped around my throat in a frantic effort to throttle me.