12 - Nine Men Dancing by Kate Sedley

tucked under my arm. ‘You’d better leave that thing here. I’ll look after him for you. She ain’t keen on strange animals.’
    Much as I resented Hercules being called a thing, I took the girl’s advice and put him on the floor near the kitchen fire with instructions to stay there until I returned. He gave me a malevolent stare, but he was getting used to my disappearances and settled down, head on paws, with nothing more than a disgruntled sigh. I nodded to my guide and followed her through the door into the passageway beyond where there were still more doors, presumably opening into still room and larder, buttery and pantry. One was half-open and as I passed, I caught the glitter of polished surfaces and a glimpse of milk jugs and great, curving bowls for the making of cream. The Rawbones lived well, off the fat of the land.
    The passage ran at right angles to another, but the kitchen maid stepped straight across this second one and knocked on a door immediately opposite the opening to the first. While she was waiting for an answer, I took a swift glance around. To my left, a flight of stairs rose steeply upwards to the second floor; to my right, the second passage, shorter than the one behind me, was faintly illumined by a window of oiled parchment at the further end. There was sufficient light, however, to show me where one of the flagstones had been raised by means of a large iron ring, and as I watched, a plump woman came panting up from the cellar, holding in her arms two very dusty leather bottles which she set down on the floor before heaving herself up after them.
    ‘That’s the last time I’m doing that,’ she announced breathlessly to no one in particular. ‘If he wants wine in future, he’ll just have to wait until one of the men can go down to fetch it.’ She saw me and her eyebrows shot up. ‘Who are you? Ruth! Who is this stranger?’
    Before I could reply, Ruth had knocked on the door for a second time and a voice had called, ‘Come in.’ My guide pushed it wide and said, ‘The chapman, Mistress,’ jerking her head to indicate that I should enter and flattening herself against the door jamb. I smiled my thanks and went in.
    I was in the main hall of the house, a room that the family used for eating, judging by the long oaken table in the centre and by the benches shoved back against the walls on either side. Three large bronze candlesticks, supporting three fat candles, stood in the middle of the board – they had already been lit because of the overcast morning. A fire blazed in the vast fireplace set in one wall, an armchair drawn up beside it. There were a couple of wooden chests, whose flat tops meant that they could be used as extra seats as well as for storage, and some scarlet cushions scattered on the broad ledge of a window that, by my reckoning, looked out over the approach to the farmhouse. I was unable to verify this as the shutters were half closed, diminishing the daylight still further. Finally, there was a second door in the wall to the left of me which I guessed led into a smaller, snugger parlour.
    Jacquetta Rawbone heaved herself out of the chair, seized her stick, which had been resting against one of its arms, and limped towards me.
    ‘You’re late,’ she snapped. ‘I was expecting you half an hour ago at least. I suppose those Lilywhite women detained you with their chatter.’
    ‘No,’ I said, unstrapping my pack and beginning to spread the contents over the table. ‘In fact, I find the younger Mistress Lilywhite rather quiet.’
    Jacquetta snorted, but didn’t contradict me. ‘Not so her mother-in-law, though, I’ll be bound. As nosy as they’re made, that creature. A trouble-maker!’ She started to examine my store of buttons, picking them up and putting them down again with her elegant, bony fingers.
    ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ I answered. ‘I haven’t known her long enough to form an opinion.’
    My companion shot me a shrewd look from her