Kate Sedley - Nine Men Dancing

Beyond the 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, ‘Let him stay, Father. What harm can he do? He’s lost, and it’s going to be a stormy night. The wind’s rising. I can hear it.’

There was a general nodding of heads; but the final decision was taken out of Master Bush’s hands by the appearance of his wife, who arrived in the ale-room, presumably from the upper storey and by way of the outside staircase I had noticed as I entered. She was a pretty, plump woman and, as I had guessed, an older version of her daughter. Her eyes were the same soft blue, and doubtless the hair, decorously concealed beneath a linen cap, was the same pale straw colour as the younger woman’s.

She had evidently overheard a part of the conversation, and was able to fill in the rest for herself.

‘Let the man stay, William,’ she said briskly. ‘He’s welcome to sleep by the fire if he wants to. We can lend him a blanket to wrap himself in. Goodness me!’ she went on in a scolding tone. ‘It’s not often we get a visitor in Lower Brockhurst at this dead time of year. And a chapman at that! The women won’t thank you for letting him go until they’ve inspected the contents of his pack. Go and sit down by the fire, Master, and Rosie here will give you some soup from the pot.’ Her gaze homed in on the same young man who had been picked on by her daughter, but her voice, when she addressed him, held a vindictive note. ‘Shift yourself, Jocelyn Rawbone, and let Master Chapman have your seat!’

As I rescued Hercules from Rosamund Bush’s fond embrace, the youth – I judged him to be about twelve, maybe thirteen years of age – rose sulkily from his stool, slouched past his fellow drinkers, past me, managing to knock into me as he did so, and vanished into the darkness outside.

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ Rosamund said, with a hostility that now rivalled her mother’s.

To my surprise, the seemingly mild-mannered landlord nodded in agreement.

‘Like uncle, like nephew,’ he muttered, adding, almost under his breath, ‘Like the whole damned Rawbone family.’

I doubt if anyone other than his wife and daughter and myself heard what he said, as the noise had increased, louder even than when I came in. But the expression of anger on his face was apparent to anyone looking in his direction, and I saw one or two people glance significantly at each other, while several more dug one another knowingly in the ribs. A local feud, doubtless, and none of my business. I recollected Adela’s parting injunction to me, to keep my nose out of strangers’ affairs. But, of course, I was agog with curiosity. Nosiness was my chief failing as my mother, both my wives and former mother-in-law had always made plain.

I was determined, however, to amend my ways. I would be home before the Feast of Saint Patrick and prove to Adela what a good husband I was. I made my way to the vacated stool by the fire and stretched my feet to the blaze. Hercules lay down beside me with a sigh of contentment, while Rosamund Bush appeared with a bowl into which she ladled a rich-smelling stew from the pot suspended over the flames.

‘When you’ve finished,’ she smiled, handing me the bowl and a spoon, ‘fill it again for your dog. Now, he does look as though he could do with some flesh on his scrawny little frame.’

For the next quarter of an hour I was too busy filling my stomach to join in any of the conversations going on around me. I persuaded the fair Rosamund to bring a separate bowl for Hercules, so we could eat together; but although our mouths were stopped, our eyes and ears were not. The piper and fiddler had paused in their labours for refreshment, so I was easily able to overhear an animated discussion being carried on behind me, by three or four men seated at the long table, at the end nearest to the fire. The topic being hotly debated was the varying merits of different manures.