Read 12 - Nine Men Dancing for Free Online

they’re tied up outside at nights, anyway.’
    It was a more inviting prospect than sleeping on the straw-covered flagstones of the ale-room, particularly if I intended remaining in Brockhurst for longer than a single night. Besides which, I should be right at the heart of a mystery that was beginning to intrigue me. Surely I was bound to learn more about the missing girl from her mother and grandmother than from anyone else.
    ‘Thank you. I accept,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to come with you at once?’
    ‘If you would. We keep early hours. What else is there for two women on their own to do on long winter nights besides sleep?’
    I hoped that on this particular evening I might tempt her and her daughter-in-law into conversation, but I didn’t say so. I simply begged a few moments’ grace to explain matters to William Bush and say goodbye.
    The landlord, although patently relieved to be rid of me, nevertheless deplored my choice of alternative lodging. The Lilywhites obviously ranked alongside the Rawbones as people who had inflicted unhappiness on his daughter, and were not to be easily forgiven. They had spawned the siren who had stolen the affections of Rosamund’s betrothed.
    ‘Watch yourself then, chapman,’ William advised, failing in his half-hearted attempt to persuade me to stay.
    I had a suspicion that his daughter might try harder if she knew of my intention to leave, so, while she was still flirting with Lambert Miller, I gathered up my pack, my cudgel and an indignant Hercules and followed Theresa Lilywhite outside.
    It was quite dark now, the storm clouds no longer great bastions in the sky, but torn to witches’ hair by a rising wind. It was the dead time of year, cold and tempestuous, as late February so often is just before the earth begins to stir and put forth new shoots. The dank smell of sodden grassland teased my nostrils, and a few thin trees waved arthritic branches overhead as we crossed the wooden footbridge and left the village behind us. My cloak whipped around my legs, and Hercules cowered in the shelter of my arm, growling his disapproval.
    ‘What’s the stream called?’ I asked Theresa Lilywhite as we started climbing the slope towards the homestead, halfway between the village and the farm that I had noted earlier in the evening.
    She laughed, the sound streeling away like a banshee’s cry on the cold night air.
    ‘Nothing. It’s just known as “the stream”. It’s probably got a name somewhere along its length, but not in Lower Brockhurst.’ She raised her voice against the increasing violence of the wind. ‘But the rill that flows down from the ridge, that’s known as the Draco. Don’t ask me why.’
    ‘Maybe from
drakon
, the Greek word for a serpent. Or from the Latin for a dragon.’ I remembered the snake-like meanderings of the little brook, although, as we trudged diagonally uphill across the sheep-bitten grass, it was lost to view in the darkness.
    ‘What sort of pedlar are you?’ panted my companion, as she pushed open a gate in a picket fence and led the way into a small enclosure.
    Our entrance was greeted by the furious barking of two great hounds, each tethered by a long chain to a stake driven into the ground; while, somewhere on the far side of the one-storey building that stood in the middle of the compound, geese began to cackle loud enough to have awakened the whole of ancient Rome. Theresa Lilywhite yelled at the dogs, who, recognizing the voice of authority, slunk back to their posts and lay down. The geese cackled on.
    ‘Sorry,’ she apologized, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about those hideous birds. We’ll just have to wait for them to settle.’
    ‘The Romans found them better sentinels than dogs,’ I pointed out, and once again, she laughed.
    ‘I’ll have your story out of you before we go to sleep tonight,’ she promised. ‘So be warned. I have a long nose.’
    ‘So have I,’ I admitted cheerfully.
    She gave me a curious