12 - Nine Men Dancing Read Free

bridge, lay one of those little Cotswold hamlets of slate and stone, lying like a wisp of grey smoke between the surrounding hills. As far as I could see at first glance through the increasing gloom, this one consisted of half a dozen cottages, a tiny church thatched with rough grass and bracken, a mill and – a sight to gladden my heart – an alehouse.
    This last was unmistakable. The door stood open, showing an oblong of smoky red light across which flitted a procession of figures. Raised voices could be heard inside, laughing, complaining, shouting, arguing or drunkenly singing snatches of a bawdy song to the accompaniment of a reedy pipe and the scrape of a badly tuned fiddle. A pole with a bunch of leaves tied to its top – its ‘bush’ – indicated that food was available. My empty stomach was already rumbling.
    I gathered up Hercules and pushed my way inside, my head knocking against the door’s lintel. The general hubbub faltered and slowly died as all eyes gradually swivelled in my direction. Not for the first time in my life I cursed the great height that never allowed me to enter any room unobtrusively. I brazened it out and gave a mock bow.
    ‘Roger Chapman,’ I announced. ‘A poor pedlar who has lost his way. Hungry, thirsty and more than somewhat tired.’
    By now, my eyes were growing used to the smoky atmosphere, and I could see by the guttering candlelight that there were probably a dozen or so people in the alehouse, most of them seated at the central table. The fiddler and piper stood near the hearth at the far end of the room, while a few others were sprawled on stools ranged against the walls. I remembered the corn dolly with the nail driven through its heart, and shivered inwardly. But I kept up a brave front.
    A young woman of some sixteen or seventeen summers pushed between the customers, ignoring with practised ease the jocular, even ribald, comments of the men as she brushed against them. One man caught her around the waist and kissed her cheek, but she fended him off without giving offence, smiling at his boldness and generally implying that she was not displeased.
    ‘Come in, chapman,’ she invited. She eyed me up and down. ‘You look a starving wreck, I must say’ – everyone laughed – ‘but I daresay you need a good deal of feeding. Come and sit by the fire. Josh Rawbone! Get up off your backside and let the pedlar have your stool.’ She added, ‘I’m Rosamund Bush. My father’s the landlord of this place.’
    ‘William Bush, at your service,’ said a harassed voice just behind her, and a lean, dark man in a leather apron gently put her to one side. It was obvious at a glance that his daughter must get her fair, curvaceous good looks from the distaff side of the family. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
    ‘A bed and supper for me, and a bowl of scraps for my dog, if you please.’
    ‘Call that thing a dog?’ queried some wit from out of the smoky depths, and there was another roar of laughter.
    Hercules, always swift to sense an insult, bared his evilly pointed teeth and growled. His spirit was instantly applauded, as, with a cry of ‘Oh! What a dearling!’ Rosamund Bush seized him from my arms and crushed him against her ample bosom. Hercules rolled an alarmed eye in my direction.
    ‘It’s all right, boy,’ I assured him, thinking him an ungrateful little cur. I don’t suppose there was a man in the room, including myself, who didn’t envy him.
    ‘I can give you supper, you and your dog, but the Roman Sandal isn’t a hostelry,’ William Bush explained apologetically. ‘There’s no call for accommodation in these isolated parts. And upstairs, there’s no room for more than my goodwife and daughter and me.’
    ‘I can sleep on the floor by the fire,’ I said. ‘I’ve slept in many worse places in my life.’
    The landlord looked as though he would demur, but Rosamund – at that moment equally as fair in my view as Henry II’s Rosa Mundi – pleaded,