12 - Nine Men Dancing Read Free Page B

forked in with a nice bit o’ straw, you can’t beat that fer corn. Stands to reason. Horses eat corn. So their droppings must be good fer it.’
    ‘Nah! Cow dung’s better. Or root veg’tables ploughed back into soil. What I say is—’
    ‘My old father,’ insisted the first voice, forcing its way back into the argument, ‘reckoned human manure’s as good as pig’s any day. Better, in fact. He maintained—’
    ‘God’s teeth!’ exclaimed the recommender of root vegetables. ‘Human shit stinks. It’s bad enough cleaning out the privy without havin’ to spread it on the crops.’
    ‘It’s all right if it’s mixed with wood ash,’ protested a fourth man. ‘I don’t see nothing wrong with it. Although, myself, I use sheep dung. Plenty o’ that in these parts.’
    The babel of talk increased until one voice, louder and more insistent than the rest, suddenly demanded, ‘’Ere! What d’you think this young fool’s been doing?’
    I eased round on my stool so that the group were at last within my range of vision. There were indeed four men, skin like leather, cropped hair, dressed in rough, serviceable countrymen’s clothing, and a young lad, whose cherubic, normally ruddy face beneath a shock of unkempt brown hair, was now as scarlet as a rose in summer.
    The speaker continued, ‘Only putting the Rawbones’ sheep in the same pasture as Mistress Lilywhite’s geese.’
    ‘
What?
’ His listeners were united in horror and condemnation.
    ‘Don’t you know, you stupid young fool, that geese droppings is death to sheep?’
    ‘Ar! Gets in their innards and kills ’em, it does. D’you mean to say you don’ know that, Billy Tyrrell, and you born and bred in these parts?’
    ‘Boy’s a bloody idiot! Ned Rawbone and old Nathaniel’ll have his guts fer tripe if he ain’t more careful.’
    ‘It was only once and it were an accident,’ the boy pleaded, close to tears. ‘The flock were over by the stream and Mistress Lilywhite’s geese had somehow wandered in. ’Tweren’t on purpose.’
    ‘Well, you’d best be carefuller than that,’ said the first man, ‘or Ned Rawbone’ll be looking fer another shepherd lad.’
    There was a general murmur of agreement from his companions, while Billy Tyrrell looked both defiant and ashamed. ‘Weren’t my fault,’ he kept muttering.
    The two musicians now started up again, a jolly jig of a tune that soon had all the customers stamping their feet, and it was no longer possible to eavesdrop. I finished my third bowl of stew and decided that enough was enough. Even Hercules had only eaten half of his second helping and was now stretched out in front of the hearth, exhausted after his long, wet tramp through inhospitable woodlands. I wondered idly who the Rawbones were, remembering that the lad who had been forced to give up his stool to me had been of the same name. A local family, obviously, and one, I guessed, of some importance. But a family that had its enemies: William Bush and his womenfolk did not seem to like them. Or, maybe it was just the young man, Josh or Jocelyn, however he was known, who had incurred their ill-will.
    The thought had barely taken shape in my mind, when a man stormed furiously through the open doorway and, ignoring everyone else, walked up to William Bush, seizing him roughly by the throat.
    ‘What do you mean,’ he snarled, ‘by turning my nephew out of this piddling alehouse? He’s as much right to drink here as anyone else in this village.’ He gave the landlord a shake. ‘Well, answer me!’
    There were murmurs of protest from the assembled company, but the young man, toughly built and somewhere around my own age of twenty-six, I reckoned, was in an ugly mood. For the moment, at least, there was a general reluctance to go to Master Bush’s assistance on everybody’s part, except one. Rosamund Bush flung herself on her father’s assailant from behind, scratching viciously at his neck and face, and spitting like a