The Endless Knot (20 page)

This was no new chore in Dinas Dwr. It had been performed in just this way since before anyone could remember, probably since the first harvest had been gathered and dried. But this was the first time I had seen it as the backbreaking labor it was. And so I arrived at the boon I would give my people. I would give them a mill.

A mill! Such a simple thing, rudimentary really. Yet a wonder if you do not have one. And we did not have one. Neither did anyone else. So far as I knew there had never been a grain mill in Albion. When I thought of how much time and energy would be saved, I wondered I had not thought of it before. And, after the mill, I could see other, perhaps more exalted ventures. The mill was just the beginning, but it was as good a project as any to begin with.

Returning to the crannog, I called my wise bard to me. “Tegid,” I said, “I am going to build a mill. And you are going to help me.”

Tegid peered at me skeptically and pulled on his lower lip.

“You know,” I explained, “a mill—with stones for grinding grain.”

He looked slightly puzzled, but agreed that, in principle at least, a mill was a fine thing to build.

“No, I do not mean a pair of grindstones turned by hand. These stones will be much bigger than that.”

“How big?” he wondered, eyeing me narrowly.

“Huge. Enormous! Big enough to grind a whole season's supply of grain in a few days. What do you think?”

This appeared to confound Tegid all the more. “A worthy ambition, indeed,” he replied. “Yet I cannot help thinking that grindstones so large would be very difficult to move. Are you suggesting oxen?”

“No,” I told him. “I am not suggesting oxen.”

“Good,” he remarked with some relief. “Oxen must be fed and—”

“I am suggesting water.”

“Water?”

“Exactly. It is to be a water mill.”

The bewilderment on his face was wonderful. I laughed to see it. He drew breath to protest, but I said, “It is a simple invention from my world. But it will work here. Let me show you what I mean.”

I knelt and drew with my knife. After scratching a few lines in the dirt, I said, “This is the stream that flows into the lake.” I drew a wavy circle. “This is the lake.”

Tegid gazed at the squiggles and nodded.

“Now then.” I drew a square on the stream. “If we put a dam at this place—”

“If we make a dam at that place, the stream will flood the meadow and the water will not reach the lake.”

“True,” I agreed. “Unless the water has a way past the dam. You see, we make a weir with a very narrow opening and let the water out slowly—through a revolving wheel. A wheel made of paddles.” I drew a crude wheel with flat paddles and indicated with my hand how the water would push the paddles and turn the wheel. “Like so. See? And this turning wheel is joined to the grindstone.” I laced my fingers to suggest cogs meshing and turning.

Tegid nodded shrewdly. “And as the wheel turns, it turns the grindstone.”

“That is the way of it.”

Tegid frowned, gazing at the lines in the dirt. “I assume you know how this can be accomplished?” he said at last.

“Indeed,” I stated confidently. “I mean, I think so.”

“This is a marvel I would like to see.” Tegid frowned at the dirt drawing and asked, “But will it not make the people lazy?”

“Never fear, brother. The people have more than enough to keep them busy without having to grind every single seed by hand. Trust me.”

Tegid straightened. “So be it. How will you proceed?”

“First we select the place to build the weir.” I stood, replacing my knife in my belt. “I could use your advice there.”

“When will you begin?”

“At once.”

We left the crannog and walked out along the lakeshore to the place where the stream, which passed under the ridge wall, flowed into the lake. Then we followed the stream toward the ridge. We walked along the stream, pausing now and then to allow Tegid to look around. At a place about halfway to the ridge wall—where the stream emerged from deeply cleft banks at the edge of the woods which rose up on the slopes of Druim Vran, the bard stopped.

“This,” Tegid said, tapping the ground with his staff, “is the place I deem best for your water mill.”

The location seemed less than promising to me. “There is no place for a weir,” I pointed out. I had envisaged a flat, calm millpond, with brown trout sporting in dappled shade—not a steep-banked slope on a hill.

“The weir will be easily dug here,” Tegid maintained. “There is wood and stone within easy reach, and this is where the water begins its race to the lake.”

I studied the water flow for a moment, looking back along the course of the stream; I considered the wooded slopes and the stony banks. Tegid was right, it would be a good place for a mill. Different from what I'd had in mind, but a much better use of gravity to turn the mill wheel and much less difficulty in keeping the water from flooding the meadow. I wondered what the shrewd bard knew about such things as gravity and hydraulics.

“You are right. This is the place for us. Here we will build our mill.”

Work began that same day. First, I had the site cleared of brush. While that was being done, I searched for a way to draw some of my ideas, settling for a sharpened pine twig and a slab of yellow beeswax, and I began educating my master builder, a man named Huel Gadarn, in the ways of water-powered mills. He was quick as he was clever; I had only to scratch a few lines on the beeswax and he grasped not only the form of the thing I was drawing but, often as not, the concept behind it as well. The only aspect of the procedure he found baffling was how the power of the water wheel was transferred to the giant grinding stones. But this difficulty owed more to my poor skill in sketching a gear than to any failing on Huel's part.

Next we built a small model of the mill out of twigs and bark and clay. When that was finished, I was satisfied that Huel had all the various elements of the operation firmly under his command. I had no fear that, given time and inclination, Huel the master builder could build the mill himself. We were ready to proceed.

Once the site was cleared, we could begin excavating the weir. But then it rained.

I spent the first day drawing various kinds of gear. On the second day I started pacing. By the fourth day, which dawned just as gray and wet as the three before it, I was pacing and cursing the weather.

Goewyn endured me as long as she could, but finally grew exasperated and informed me that no grindstone, however huge, was worth the aggravation I was causing. She then sent me away to do my stalking, as she called it, elsewhere.

I spent a wet, restless day in the hall, listening to idle talk and itching to be at the building site. Fortunately, the next day dawned clear and bright, and we were able, at last—and with Goewyn's emphatic blessing—to begin digging the foundations for Albion's new wonder: the Aird Righ's Mill.

14
I
NTRUDERS

T
hrough Maffar's long days of warmth and bliss, the Year's Wheel slowly revolved. Rhyll came on in a shimmering blaze, but the golden days and sharp, cool nights quickly dulled. The high color faded and the land withered beneath windy gray skies and cold, drenching rain.

Our harvest, so bountiful the previous year, yielded less than anticipated due to the rain. Day after day, we watched the skies, hoping for a break in the weather and a few sunny days to dry the grain. Rot set in before we could gather it all. It was no disaster, thanks to the bounty of the last harvest, but still a disappointment.

Progress on the mill slowed, and I grew restive. With Sollen's icy fingers stretching toward us, I was anxious to get as much finished as possible before the snow stopped us. I drove Huel and his workers relentlessly. Sometimes, if the rainfall was not heavy, I made them work through it. As the days grew shorter, I grew more frantic and demanding. I had torches and braziers brought to the site so that we could work after dark.

Tegid finally intervened; he approached me one night when I returned shivering from a windy day in the rain. “You have accomplished a great deal,” he affirmed, “but you go too far. Look around you, Silver Hand; the days are short and the light is not good. How much longer do you think the sky will hold back the snow? Come, it is time to take your rest.”

“And just abandon the mill? Abandon all we have done? Tegid, you are talking nonsense.”

“Did I tell you to abandon anything?” He sniffed. “You can begin again as soon as Gyd clears the skies once more. Now is the time for rest and for more pleasurable pursuits indoors.”

“Just a few more days, Tegid. It is not going to hurt anyone.”

“We neglect the seasons to our peril,” he replied stiffly.

“There will be plenty of time for lazing around the hearth, never fear.”

Riding out to the building site early the next morning, I regretted those words. We had worked hard, very hard, but the mill had been begun late in the season and now the weather had turned against us. It was absurd of me to expect men to work in the dark, wet, and cold, and I was a fool for demanding it of them.

Worse, I was becoming a tyrant: self-indulgent, insensitive, obsessive, and oppressive. My great labor-saving boon had so far produced nothing but plenty of extra work for everyone.

My wise bard was right. The time-honored rhythm of the seasons, of work and play and rest, served the purpose of balance in the sacred pattern of life. I had tipped the scales too far, and it was time for me to put it right.

The day dawned crisp, the sunlight thin, but bright; the chill east wind tingled the nostrils with the fresh scent of snow. Yes, I thought as I came upon the vacant site, it was time to cease work for the winter. I dismounted and walked around, inspecting the excavations, waiting for Huel and his builders to arrive.

Despite the incessant delays, we had made good progress on the construction: a shallow weir had been dug and lined with stone; the foundations, both timber and stone, for the mill house had been established. In the spring, we would quarry the huge grindstones and set them in place—the mill house would be raised around them. The wheel would be built and then the shafts and gears attached. If all went well, I reflected, the mill would be ready to grind its first grain by harvest time next year.

Preoccupied with these plans, I wandered around the diggings and slowly became aware of a peculiar sound, faint and far away, but distinct in the crisp autumn air: a slow rhythmic thump—like stones falling onto the earth at regular intervals. What is more, I realized with a start that I had been hearing it for some time.

I glanced quickly toward the ridge trail, but saw no one. I held myself completely still and listened. But the sound was gone now. Intrigued, I remounted my horse and rode up the slope of the ridge and into the wood. I paused to listen. There was nothing but the whisper of the wind in bare branches.

Turning away, I thought I heard the soft thudding pat of running steps on the path ahead—just a hint and then the wind stole the sound away again. Raising myself in the saddle, I called out, “Who is it?” I paused. No answer came. I shouted again, more loudly, “Who is there?”

Lifting the reins, I rode forward, slowly, through the close-grown pines and came upon one of the many tracks leading to the top of the ridge. Almost at once, I came upon a footprint in the damp earth. The print appeared fresh—at least, rain had not degraded it overnight; a swift search revealed a few more leading into the wood.

I turned from the trail, proceeding cautiously toward the edge of the ridge, and immediately came upon an enormous heap of timber: fallen branches and logs fetched from the wood and thrown into a pile at the very edge of the ridge. The place was well chosen, screened from the trail behind by trees, yet open to the valley beyond. There was no sign of anyone about, so I dismounted and walked to the woodpile.

Scores of footprints tracked the damp earth, and on closer scrutiny I observed the prints of at least three different people. The immense size of the heap astonished me. It was the work of many days—or many hands. Either way, I did not like it. An intruder had raised a beacon on our very threshold.

I whirled from the beacon-heap and vaulted into the saddle. I snapped the reins and urged my mount to speed, skirted the beacon, and galloped along the ridgeway until I reached a place where I could look down on either side of the ridge: on one side, the valley with its brown fields and the long slate-gray lake with the crannog in the center; on the other side, the gravemound beside the river, and the empty plain spreading beyond.

I released my breath through clenched teeth. I had half-expected to see Meldron's massed war host, risen again, streaming into the valley. But all was still and silent.

Even so, I sat in the saddle for a time, looking and listening. The clouds shifted and the light dimmed. A cold, misty rain began drizzling out of the darkening sky. The wind caught it and sent it swirling. I turned away from the ridgeway and started back down the trail to the lake. I had almost reached the lake path when I met the workmen coming up to the mill.

“Go back to your families,” I told them. “Sollen has begun; it is time we took our ease.”

The workmen were much relieved to hear me say this. So it surprised me to have Huel instantly appeal against the decision. “Lord,” said the master builder, “allow us but one more day to secure the site against the snows to come. It will save much labor when the sun returns and work resumes.”

“Very well,” I told him. “Do what you think best. But after today there will be no more work until Gyd.”

Leaving them to continue on their way, I returned to the crannog. Tegid was standing at the hearth in the hall, and I sent Emyr to fetch Bran. The bard noticed my agitation at once. “What has happened?” he asked.

I thrust my hands toward the fire. My silver hand glowed with the light of the flames, and my flesh hand began to warm. I looked at the gleaming silver, cold and stiff as a chunk of ice on the end of my arm. Why was it so cold?