Troll Mill (15 page)

Peer grabbed the handle of the shutter and tugged, expecting it to stick, swollen and jammed by three years of neglect. But it rose easily. Under his feet the water roared into the millrace, rising up the sides in strong swirls and kicking against the blades of the millwheel with fierce little spurts of foam.

The big black monster slowly came to life.
Chop! Chop! Chop!
One after another, the paddles slashed down, picking up speed. The wheel seemed to be rolling toward him, gnashing the water with its black teeth. If he fell into the sluice, the wheel would munch him up and spit out the pieces into the tail-race. He shivered, more from excitement than fear. On the bank, Hilde and Ralf clapped and cheered.

“Come on, Peer!” Hilde yelled. “Let’s go and look at the millstones!”

“Right!” Peer shouted back. With a last dizzy glance at the wheel, he shuffled back along the plank and joined the others. They
hurried over the bridge and tumbled into the mill. “It’s working!” cried Peer. The mill was clacking, rumbling, vibrating. Fine dust shook down from the rafters. The walls trembled. He snatched open the door leading to the dark underloft and glimpsed the wooden pit wheel turning, the gears revolving, the drive shaft twirling. He scrambled up the ladder to the grinding floor. There was a sweet, yeasty smell. The upper millstone was revolving. Peer blinked, and laughed to see how the ironbound rim flew past. Barley shook down into the eye of the millstones, and flour showered from the edges in a rich sprinkle. Peer fell to his knees and let it whiten his fingers.

“It works!” he cried again. “We’ve done it!”

He sprang to his feet. Hilde and Ralf were climbing the ladder, eager to see. Peer grabbed Hilde’s hand and hauled her up. “Look!” She was laughing too. Without thinking, he pulled her into a joyful hug. For a second, he had Hilde in his arms. Her hair tickled his chin. Then he let go, amazed and thrilled. Was she annoyed? But it seemed not, for she met his anxious glance with a wry
smile and shook her head. Noticing none of it, Ralf pounded him on the back. Breathless, triumphant, they watched as the millstones whirled and the flour poured out.

“But that’s enough,” said Peer, suddenly practical. “There can’t be much left in the hopper, and we mustn’t let the millstones grind away on nothing. Time to go and close the sluice.”

“And we’ll take a bag of flour home to Gudrun,” observed Ralf. “Won’t she be surprised!”

“What a day!” Hilde gave Peer a quizzical look. “Well? How does it feel? You’ve got what you wanted. You’re the Miller of Troll Fell!”

RUMORS

G
UDRUN WAS PLEASED
with the flour. “How fine it is!” she said, sifting some through her fingers. “We haven’t had such fine-milled flour for years.”

“From now on, you can have it whenever you want,” Peer told her.

Gudrun smiled. “You do look smug,” she teased. “Like the cat that got the cream.”

“And so he should,” put in Ralf. “He’s a successful miller!”

Peer grinned shyly. He sat, as he often did now, holding Ran in the crook of his arm. The baby had grown. She looked about with her dark, solemn eyes, stretching her hand with fingers spread out toward anything that interested her. By now, everyone in the family had noticed the fine webs lacing between those tiny fingers. No one talked about it.

Eirik hauled himself up against Peer’s knee. He grabbed Ran’s hand and planted a wet kiss on it, looking up at her with an impish smile. Ran kicked and blew bubbles. Gudrun turned around, rubbing the dough from her fingers.

“Did Ran make that noise? Well, I suppose it’s something. I’ve wondered if she’s deaf. It worries me. She never smiles. She never cries!”

Peer looked down at the baby. “She’ll learn, won’t she?” he asked. “I thought she smiled at me the other day. She sort of crinkled her nose.”

Gudrun sniffed. “Peer, if she had really smiled, you wouldn’t
think.
You’d
know.”

“I’ll make her a toy!” said Peer suddenly. He handed Ran to Hilde, and spent the next half hour constructing a little wooden whistle with two stops. When blown, it produced a pretty, warbling note. Ran’s eyes opened wider and she reached out for it, but she still didn’t smile.

“Clever you!” exclaimed Hilde. “Careful, twins, don’t let her take it,” she warned as the twins took the whistle and practiced blowing it in front of Ran.

“My father taught me,” said Peer. “I
haven’t made one for years. Look, she likes it! So at least she’s not deaf.”

“Make us another!” Sigrid cried, but Gudrun had both hands over her ears.

“Your ma would prefer something quieter,” said Peer ruefully. “Aha. I know!”

“What?” Sigrid was excited. Peer leaned back, amused.

“Find me some flat pieces of wood,” he ordered. “About the size of your two hands.”

The twins rummaged in the woodpile and brought him a couple of soft pine shingles. Peer handled them gravely. “These will do. Now, watch!”

He began to chip and pare at the wood with his knife, smoothing and trimming until both pieces were oval in shape. The twins watched eagerly. Peer laid one down. “Sigrid first.” He looked at her for a moment. “A cat, I think!” The knife twisted and danced in his hands. Long shavings curled away like the peel of an apple and dropped to the floor. Sigrid gasped. The mask of a cat was appearing under Peer’s fingers: short, pricked ears, slanting eyes, and wide, tufted cheeks. Peer hollowed out the eyes and cut a succession of
sharp lines on either side of the mouth. “Whiskers!” Sigrid laughed. She snatched the mask and peered into it, and her own eyes blinked mysteriously through.

“That’s wonderful!” Hilde was fascinated.

Peer beamed, flushing, thinking of the surprise present he had for Hilde. Her comb. He’d been making it for days. It was nearly finished. But he didn’t want to give it to her in front of everyone; he was waiting for the perfect moment.

“My turn now!” Sigurd clamored. Peer stretched his fingers. “All right. How would you like to be an owl?”

Now the whole family clustered around, watching closely as the same magic sprang from under Peer’s knife. This time, the heart-shaped face of a barn owl appeared, with round eyes and sharp beak. Peer cut a series of neat curves to indicate feathers. He looked at it critically and handed it over. Sigurd held it up to his face and hooted.

“Find some string and you can tie them on,” said Peer, putting his knife away.

“What do you say to Peer?” Gudrun prompted.

“Thanks!” Sigurd shouted, as the twins ran off to find string.

“It was fun,” said Peer. “I enjoyed doing it.”

“And I’d forgotten your father was a wood-carver,” said Ralf. “He must have been a fine craftsman, to teach you all that. Didn’t he carve the dragonhead for our ship, the
Long Serpent?”

Peer nodded slowly. “He was working on it just before he died.” He fell silent, his hands between his knees, remembering. They had burned his father’s body on the beach at Hammerhaven, with the longship drawn up on the strand close by. On that night, the worst night of his life, he had watched the flames shooting into the cold sky, and the ship had seemed to arch its proud dragon neck, glaring over the crowds like a sentinel. But it couldn’t protect him from Uncle Baldur, looming out of the darkness like a big black bear to drag him away.

“Thorolf’s still the skipper,” Ralf said. “He takes her voyaging every summer. They’ll be sailing soon. I wonder …” And he gave a long, unconscious sigh, clearly miles away in his own mind, gazing out from the ship’s
prow to a boundless horizon.

Gudrun stared at him, biting her lip. Suddenly she burst out, “It’s no good dreaming, Ralf. You can’t go! There’s too much work to do! It’ll be sheepshearing next, and then harvest time. Nearly every morning you’re off to the mill, and here I am coping with two babies and the children. It isn’t fair!”

Ralf looked at her in surprise. “Why, Gudrun!”

“It’s all very well for you, Ralf!” Gudrun’s voice shook. “I haven’t set foot off the farm in weeks. I can’t remember when I last spoke to one of the neighbors!”

“You’re right.” Ralf got to his feet. “By thunder, you’re right, Gudrun. We’ve been working so hard, we’ve forgotten how to have fun. Here’s a plan! We’ll take a holiday tomorrow—children, babies, and all. We’ll go down to Trollsvik. You can visit the womenfolk and have a good chat, and I’ll find Bjorn. It’s time he set eyes on his daughter. The children can play on the beach. How does that sound?”

Gudrun sniffed and smiled.

* * *

The next morning, the children were scrubbed and paraded.

“You can’t go to the village with a neck like that!” Gudrun pushed up her sleeves and dunked the spluttering Sigurd for a second time. “And put on a clean jerkin!” she added, opening the chest where the best clothes were kept.

“Gudrun, they’ll only get dirty on the beach,” Ralf tried to say.

His wife tossed him a comb. “Use this, Ralf. And clean your nails! Hilde?”

“Yes, Ma?” asked Hilde meekly, winking at Peer.

“Come and help me pin my cloak.” Hilde helped fasten the big round brooches at each shoulder. Gudrun looked around. “Are we ready?”

“This is more trouble than any Viking expedition,” Ralf joked. He lifted Gudrun onto the pony, put Ran into her arms, stood back, and saluted. “Lead on, captain!” And with Peer and Hilde leading the pony, the twins and Loki running ahead, and Ralf bringing up the rear with Eirik bouncing on his shoulders, the family ceremoniously set off for the village.

As they went down through the wood, Peer sneaked a look at Hilde around the end of the pony’s nose. Her fair skin was flushed and freckled, and her golden plaits shone. She was swinging along, humming to herself. Over her best blue dress she wore an embroidered linen apron, almost blindingly white in the sunshine, and a white linen hood.

He felt in his pocket. He’d sat up half the night behind the sliding panel of his bunk, straining his eyes and finishing the comb. He explored it with his fingers. The teeth were a bit thick, perhaps. But the curved back was nicely carved. He gripped it tightly. “You do look pretty, Hilde,” he said shyly.

Hilde glanced at him sideways. “Thanks,” she said curtly after a moment, and stopped humming. With a sigh, Peer let the comb slide into the depths of his pocket.

The mill came in sight. Everyone stared at it curiously, and they all felt secretly glad to be going somewhere else. As the cavalcade came to the bridge, Loki glanced over his shoulder, waiting to see if Peer would turn into the yard. When he saw that they were going on without stopping, he barked joyfully
and bounded away down the lane.

“Would you like to see what we’ve done, Gudrun?” Peer offered half-heartedly. But Gudrun, swaying downhill on the pony, clutched Ran more tightly to her chest and said in alarm, “Another time, perhaps.”

He lowered his head and trudged on.

“It’s a strange business!” said Einar, shaking his head.

“What is, Einar?” Delicately, Gudrun finished a morsel of salted cheese. “Try this, Ralf, it’s so good! What do you put in it, Asa?”

“Just a little thyme.” As fat as Gudrun was thin, Asa beamed at her. “But then our goats forage along the seashore, you know, and they eat the seaweed. I think that gives the cheese some of its flavor.”

“This business of Bjorn Egilsson,” persisted Einar.

“Oh, that’s terrible!” Asa joined in. “You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on.” Her voice dropped. “Day and night, he’s out there, rowing and calling for his wife—if wife she was!”

“What else might she be?” Ralf asked, his hand suddenly suspended between mouth and platter.

Asa tittered. “Well, Ralf, you know as well as I do. A seal-woman she was, and the seals have called her back. To think of a neighbor of ours taking a creature like that between his sheets!”

Ralf quietly laid the piece of cheese back on the platter. “I believe I will go and find Bjorn,” he said, rising. “Come with me, Peer? Excuse us, Einar.” Peer followed him out quietly. Einar and Asa watched them go, and Einar raised a hand to silence Gudrun, who was about to speak.

“Don’t say a word! Ralf’s a decent man. I can see he doesn’t want to believe it, but it’s true enough.”

“And what do you mean by that?” asked Gudrun.

Einar leaned across the table. “Bjorn’s a marked man!” he said importantly. “You wouldn’t know, Gudrun, living so far up the valley, but we’ve all seen the signs. In the last seven years, think of the luck he’s had! The best fisherman on the fjord, for sure. That’s
all changed now. His wife’s gone and taken his luck with her. And there’s worse …”

“They say,” whispered Asa, “that the draug boat follows him now, every time he goes out!”

“Harald’s seen it,” Einar continued. “Out beyond the point, three days ago. He saw Bjorn’s boat sailing in, and beyond it another. But this second boat
wasn’t always there.”

“That’s silly,” said Hilde, who was listening, with Ran swaddled on her knee. “Harald got spray in his eyes, I should think.”

“No,” said Asa. “It was a six-oarer, with a dark sail, and it flickered in and out of sight like a butterfly’s wings. There, and then gone.