‘Not Maud. The older Mistress Lilywhite. She’s naturally anxious to discover what’s happened to her granddaughter. But it’s partly to satisfy my own curiosity, as well.’
He nodded, turning to unlock a cupboard fixed to the wall beside the Virgin’s altar.
‘Maud wouldn’t be so anxious to know the truth, of course. That’s understandable.’
He picked up the heavy silver chalice, beautifully chased around the bowl, used at Vespers, and placed it on a shelf in the cupboard, beside its twin. On other shelves, I noted a pair of silver candlesticks, the silver-gilt pyx that contained the Eucharist and an elaborate ivory and gold crucifix. There were also one or two other pieces I didn’t have time to see in any detail.
‘You have quite a few treasures here, at Lower Brockhurst,’ I commented, as Father Anselm closed and relocked the cupboard door.
‘A few.’ He chuckled richly. ‘Although it wouldn’t do to enquire too closely how all of them were acquired.’
‘Why not?’
He gave another chuckle, looking up into my face with a mischievous grin (he only came up to my shoulder).
‘I’m going to shock you again, chapman. One of my predecessors, Ambrose Lightfoot, was known as Light-fingered Lightfoot. At least, that’s the tradition in the village. How and why he obtained his soubriquet I’ve never bothered to enquire too closely, and I’m not sure I’d get an honest answer if I did. But these sort of stories that are part of the folklore of a place very often have some foundation in fact, however distorted or exaggerated they may have become with the passing years.’
‘Sir Anselm, I’m going,’ I grinned, pulling my cloak together with one hand and picking up my pack and cudgel with the other, ‘before you undermine my faith in the priesthood altogether. Tree-worship, intimations of theft … whatever next?’ I nudged Hercules in the direction of the door with my foot. ‘I’ll call on you, then, sometime tomorrow. With your blessing, that is.’
He patted me on the back. ‘If I’m not here when you arrive, just wait for me. I shan’t have gone far. You can share my dinner, if you’d like. It’s Friday, so it’ll only be fish.’ I thanked him heartily and accepted his invitation. ‘Enjoy your game this evening,’ he added. ‘I hope Mistress Rosamund wins.’
The alehouse was so full of people and smoke from the fire that it was almost impossible to see across the room. Not that I wanted to. My eyes were inevitably drawn to the long table in the middle, groaning under the weight of food and drink. As most of the villagers were already seated, I hurriedly set down my encumbrances and freed myself from my cloak. Then I forced myself on to a bench, between two men I hadn’t met before, and proceeded to fill my empty belly with everything within reach, until it would hold no more. And by that time, everyone – including Hercules, who had been wandering around with the other dogs, gobbling up every scrap that fell in his way – was so full that it was agony to rise from the table and start shifting it and the benches to the sides of the ale-room, so that the game of Nine Men’s Morris could begin.
But it was done at last, and Lambert Miller, with two of his friends, scratched out the ‘board’ on the beaten earth floor, which had earlier been cleared of its covering of rushes. Three squares, one inside the other, were marked by wooden pegs at each corner and in the middle of each side, so that there were twenty-four markers in all. (On a normal board, these would be the holes into which the morrells were slotted.) Rosamund and Lambert then set about assembling their teams, each one comprising nine members. Long strips of coarse linen had been dyed either red or blue, and these were worn as sashes by the players; blue for Lambert’s, red for Rosamund’s. As I draped mine across my right shoulder and tied it on the opposite hip, I found it being more tastefully arranged by the lady herself.
‘You remembered,’ she whispered coyly.
‘How could I possibly forget?’ was my gallant response.
A vision of Adela’s mocking face flashed through my mind, making me choke a little over the last word. Luckily, Rosamund noticed nothing amiss.
‘I shall call your name first,’ she murmured, as she moved away to stand beside Lambert.
She was as good as her word. ‘Roger, outside square, top left corner.’
I took up my position.
It was the miller’s turn. ‘Rob, outside square, middle peg.’
Rosamund spoke to a girl in a brown petticoat and kirtle.
‘Lucy, middle square, top left corner.’ Now, if she could only get a player at the top left corner of the inner square, she would have a diagonal three-in-a-row, and therefore be able to confiscate one of her opponent’s players.
But Lambert, at this early stage of the contest, was neither so unobservant nor so chivalrous as to ignore the obvious, and quickly ordered his next man to occupy the position.
And so the game continued, until all eighteen players were moving around the board as their captains endeavoured to line up three men in a straight line in any direction, each team encouraged by its own vociferous supporters. In the end, after just over an hour, it was Rosamund who won, having managed to capture seven of Lambert’s nine players, thus leaving him with two, and unable to make a row of three. I had been removed from the ‘board’ sometime earlier, after a momentary carelessness on my captain’s part, and had watched the finish of the game from the sidelines along with four of my other team-mates. And it was while standing there, contemplating the dance-like movements of the remaining ‘pieces’, that I was seized with the ridiculous notion that if I could only line up my own three ‘morrells’ in a straight line, they would lead me to Eris Lilywhite, alive or dead.
Everyone was smiling – none more broadly than Lambert – and congratulating Rosamund on a game well played.
‘Another one! Another one!’ the man called Rob Pomphrey was shouting. ‘Give Lambert his chance of revenge!’
There was a general chorus of agreement, and eventually, after a pretty show of resistance, Rosamund consented, even going so far as to express the wish that the miller might this time be the victor. I didn’t believe her for an instant: the Fair Rosamund was a girl who liked to win.
Lambert knew this as well as I did. He was careful not to make obvious mistakes, but as he strode around the ‘board’, peering between the players, I twice saw him deliberately turn a blind eye to an empty place in direct line with two of Rosamund’s ‘pieces’. I smiled to myself: the man was more astute that I would have given him credit for. He was also possibly more serious about the landlord’s daughter than I had thought him.
I was again captured early on, and was standing near the fire, a cup of William Bush’s best home-brewed in my hand, when, just as on the previous night, the ale-room door was flung open and Tom Rawbone appeared. He pushed his way across to Rosamund, seized her roughly in his arms and kissed her.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Stop avoiding me, girl, and giving me the cold shoulder. I was never in love with Eris. I know that now. She bewitched me. I don’t care what’s happened to her! I don’t care what’s become of her, if she’s living or dead! It’s you I want, Rosamund. It’s you I always really wanted.’ He kissed her again.
Until that moment, no one had moved. We had all, including Rosamund herself, been turned to stone by the sheer effrontery and unexpectedness of the attack. (For it seemed more like an attack than a wooing; an assault rather than a gentle plea for forgiveness.) But suddenly the whole room erupted. Lambert Miller gave a roar like an enraged bull and launched himself at Tom Rawbone, seizing him round the neck and dragging him away from Rosamund. Winifred Bush, furiously shaking off her husband’s restraining hand, tried to hit Tom over the head with a billet from the log basket, and only missed because someone else got in before her. The rest of those present joined in with an almost manic gusto, sitting astride the now prostrate young man’s legs and chest, punching him on any part of his anatomy that became available.