12 - Nine Men Dancing Read Online Free PDF Page A

suggested.
    ‘We-ell, given the circumstances, yes,’ the man called Rob admitted (he was the one who had advocated cow manure).
    ‘And what were the circumstances?’ I pressed them.
    But just at that moment, the singing and the music stopped yet again, and Rosamund returned to join me at the fire. A brief silence ensued before my new-found friends suddenly began a vigorous discussion of the next day’s weather. Young Mistress Bush laid a dimpled hand on my arm.
    ‘How long do you intend to stay in Brockhurst, Master Chapman?’
    ‘Call me Roger,’ I invited. She gave me what she plainly thought was a seductive look from under her long, fair lashes, but which, unfortunately, only made me want to laugh. Carefully controlling this impulse, I continued, ‘I had intended going on my way tomorrow. But I daresay I could spare another morning, if you think the goodies of the village would be keen to buy any of the things left in my pack. Sadly, most of what I started out with has already been sold.’
    She pouted. ‘Oh … Couldn’t you stay longer than that? At least until the day after tomorrow? I want you to be one of my players.’
    ‘Your players? I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
    The hand slid from my arm, coming to rest lightly and seemingly accidentally on my right thigh. Again, she gave me that upward, slanting glance.
    ‘Lambert Miller, over there, has challenged me to a game of Nine Men’s Morris.’ And she indicated a handsome, florid man of some thirty summers, seated directly beneath a wall torch whose smoking light showed up his impressive physique to the best advantage. I was not fooled for a moment by his apparently white head of hair. It was obvious that his calling was the same as his name. His broad shoulders also bore a faint dusting of flour.
    Of course, I knew the game Nine Men’s Morris. Played on a board with little wooden balls as counters, it was, and still is, called Morrells (or sometimes Merrills, depending whereabouts you come from). But in my young days, there was another version of it, in which the ‘board’ was drawn on a beaten earth floor, or, in summer, out of doors on any grassless piece of ground, and in which the counters were real people. The twenty-four holes on the board, into which the wooden morrells are slotted, were, in the larger game, indicated by markers. The ‘counters’, nine for each of the two players involved, wore distinguishing scarves or sashes (just as morrells are painted in two different colours).
    For anyone who has never played the game, the object is for each protagonist to try to place three morrells, or human counters, in a straight line, either horizontally or diagonally, while preventing the other player from doing the same. Every time a player achieves this, he can remove one of his opponent’s pieces from the board. The winner is the person who first manages to capture seven of his adversary’s nine counters. When the game is played with people, the resulting moves are reminiscent of a morris dance, hence its name.
    ‘And when is this game?’ I asked.
    ‘Tomorrow night, here in the Roman Sandal, after supper.’ Rosamund gave me yet another winning smile. ‘The tables will be pushed back against the wall and the board positions drawn on the floor. Everyone’s promised to come. Everyone I’ve invited, that is.’
    I assumed that the Rawbone family, however many of them there were, had been excluded from this invitation; but with nine human counters apiece to find for herself and Lambert Miller, I guessed that most of the other villagers had been pressed into attending. Rosamund even seemed to be in need of my services.
    I hesitated for a second or two, knowing that I really should be on my way in the morning if I were to abide strictly by the terms of my promise to Adela. But I can’t truthfully say that there was ever a moment’s real doubt in my mind that I would stay. The mention of the word murder, and the whiff of mystery that