Troll Mill (6 page)

“Are you invited?” said Peer.

But just then, at the dark end of the room, Sigrid stirred in her sleep. “Trolls!” she mumbled. “Help! Mamma, help!” On the other side of the hearth, Gudrun stumbled sleepily from the blankets to comfort her. A piece of turf slipped on the fire, and a bright flame shot up.

The Nis was gone.

“Drat the creature,” Peer muttered to Loki. “Why does it have to be so touchy? Troll princes, indeed!”

He lay down again, sighing, dragging the blankets around his neck, full of unhappy thoughts. But strangely, it wasn’t the Nis who haunted his sleep, or even Kersten running down the shingle to throw herself into the water. All through the long night, as he slept and woke and slept again, the great black water wheel at Troll Mill rolled through his dreams, turning, turning relentlessly in the darkness.

BJORN’S STORY

P
IERCING YELLS FROM
Eirik woke Peer next morning. Sticking a bleary head around the edge of his sliding panel, he saw that the rest of the family was already up. Sigurd and Sigrid sat on their stools, stirring lumps of butter into bowls of hot groute, while Gudrun tried to feed Eirik, who was struggling to be put down.

He couldn’t see Hilde. She must be outside doing the milking, which was his own morning task! Bundling Loki off the bed, he closed the panel and dressed quickly, thumping and bumping his elbows in his haste. As he scrambled out, Hilde came in with the milk pail, taking short fast steps to prevent it from slopping.

“You should have woken me!” Peer took it
from her, thinking how pretty she looked in her old blue dress and unbleached milking apron. Her fair hair was twisted into two hasty braids, wispy with escaping tendrils.

“No, you were tired.” She gave him a sunny smile, and his heart leaped. “Besides, it’s a beautiful morning. My goodness, Eirik! What a noise!” Her baby brother was bawling on Gudrun’s knee. His mouth was square, his face red with temper.

“Take him, Hilde.” Gudrun handed him over with relief. “I’ve fed him. He just wants to get down and create mischief. Keep him out of the fire, do! I’ll have to feed the other one now.”

Hilde seized Eirik under his plump arms and swung him onto her hip. “Come to Hilde,” she crooned. “You bad boy. What a bad boy you are!” Eirik stopped screaming and tried to grab her nose. She pushed his hand away and joggled him up and down. His face crumpled and went scarlet, but as he filled his lungs to yell again, he caught sight of Gudrun lifting the other baby from the cradle.

Eirik’s angry face smoothed into blank astonishment. His eyes widened into amazed circles. He stretched out his arm, leaning out from
Hilde’s side, trying to touch the baby girl.

Hilde and Gudrun laughed at him. “Oh, what a surprise,” Hilde teased. “Twins, look at him! Peer, just look at that expression!”

“Ha ha!” said Sigurd. He danced around Hilde, hooking his fingers into the corners of his mouth and pulling a horrible face, something that usually made Eirik gurgle with laughter. “You’re not the littlest one anymore!”

This time, it failed. Eirik craned past him, yearning toward the little baby.

“He was half asleep when I got him up,” explained Gudrun, sitting down to feed the new baby. “It’s the first time he’s noticed her.”

Frustrated, Eirik began to writhe and kick, determined to find out for himself what this new creature was. Hilde carried him away.

“Fetch me some groute and honey,” she called to her brother. “Cool it with milk. I’ll see if he’ll have some more.” She plunked the wriggling Eirik down on her knee, and when Sigurd brought the bowl and a horn spoon, she tried to ladle some into his mouth. Eirik spat it down his chin in angry dribbles. She tried again. Purple with fury, Eirik smacked the spoon out of her hand.

“Ouch!” Hilde wiped the glutinous barleymeal from her eye. “Right, you little horror! Don’t think I’m taking you anywhere near that baby. You’d probably tear her limb from limb!”

“Just let him see her,” said Gudrun wearily. “He’s curious, that’s all.”

“Curious? You mean furious,” said Hilde, bringing him across her lap. His eyes were screwed shut, and fat tears poured down his face. “All right, Eirik, you’ve got your own way. Look, here she is. Stop screaming!”

“There. She’s had enough,” said Gudrun, as Eirik’s screams subsided to choking sobs and at last to fascinated silence. “I’ll sit her up.”

She righted the baby and sat her on her knee, holding her tenderly. The baby hiccuped. Her eyes focused. She gazed solemnly around. Peer looked at her closely. What had the Nis been complaining about? She seemed like any other baby to him.

“Gudrun, there’s nothing wrong with the baby, is there?” he asked.

“She’s fine,” said Gudrun. “She hasn’t even caught a cold. You looked after her very well, Peer, and there’s nothing wrong at all. Don’t worry.”

“I didn’t mean that. I talked to the Nis last night.”

“The Nis?” Gudrun looked up. “Go on, what did it say?”

“It was cross,” Peer said with a short laugh. “It told me off for bringing the baby here.”

“Why?” asked Hilde, amazed.

“It’s jealous, I think. It said she’s a wild sealbaby and doesn’t belong here, and you won’t be able to manage, Gudrun. Something like that.”

“Wild?” Hilde started to laugh. “She’s as good as gold. If anyone’s wild it’s young Eirik here.” She tickled Eirik’s tear-stained cheek.

Gudrun was watching Peer’s face. “Is there something else?” she asked.

He hesitated. “It threatened to leave if the baby stays. But you know what it’s like. It probably wasn’t serious.”

Gudrun tightened her lips. “I managed when the twins were little, so I suppose I can manage now. And the Nis must learn to cope as well.”

“But it won’t be for long, Gudrun,” Peer tried to comfort her. “I mean, even if they don’t find Kersten, Bjorn will soon come for the baby.”

“But, Peer,” said Hilde impatiently, “Bjorn can’t feed her!”

“Oh, of course!” Peer felt himself flush.

“Yes,” said Gudrun, “if they don’t find Kersten, poor Bjorn will lose his child as well as his wife. Even when she’s weaned, he’s still got to go out fishing. He can’t leave her behind, and he can’t take her along.”

“Then we can keep her!” sang out Sigrid. “Hurrah!”

“Sigrid,” said Hilde menacingly, “this is
not
something to be happy about.”

“How could Kersten leave her own little baby?” Peer wondered aloud.

“What if Ma is right?” said Hilde. “What if she was really a seal-woman all the time, and Bjorn caught her and kept her prisoner?”

“I just don’t believe it!” Peer cried. “Bjorn wouldn’t do that!”

“No?” Hilde flashed. “Then what do
you
suggest? Did Kersten desert her baby—and Bjorn—for nothing? Bjorn’s a man, so it can’t be his fault, but Kersten can be a bad mother because she’s a woman? Is that what you’re saying?”

Peer stared at her, but before they could
speak again, there were voices in the yard and the doorlatch lifted. Ralf came in, dark against the daylight, bowing his head under the lintel. “Come along, come in,” he called over his shoulder.

Bjorn stepped uncertainly after him, narrowing his eyes a little to see through the indoor shadows. Hilde and Peer exchanged shocked glances and forgot their argument. Could this really be steady, practical, cheerful Bjorn? He looked like a stranger—as if what had happened to him had changed him or put him on the other side of some barrier of knowledge, so that the old Bjorn was gone and this new Bjorn was someone they must get to know all over again. There were blue shadows under his eyes, and he did not smile.

Without a word, Gudrun got up and went to him. She put the baby into his arms, kissed him, and drew him forward to sit down at the fire. “Has he eaten?” she whispered to Ralf. Ralf shook his head. Gudrun hurried to fetch a bowl.

Hilde grimaced at Peer. Still carrying the wriggling Eirik, she went to kneel beside Bjorn. “We’re all so sorry,” she said quietly.

“Thanks.” Bjorn’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “And here’s young Eirik Ralfsson!” he added, with an almost natural laugh. “That fine chip off the old block!”

“Yes.” Hilde paused. How could they say what needed to be said?

Bjorn looked down at his own baby. His face clenched. He stood up again and handed her back to Gudrun as she brought his food.

“It’s only groute, but it’s sweet and hot. Eat up, Bjorn, you’ll need your strength,” she said anxiously, lulling the baby against her shoulder.

They tried not to stare as Bjorn ate, at first wearily, but then more hungrily as his appetite returned. Ralf said in a low voice to Gudrun, “He needed that. He was out searching all night. When we saw him coming in this morning, he could barely hold the oars.”

Bjorn put the bowl down and looked at Peer. “So what happened?” he asked quietly.

Peer’s stomach knotted. There was simply no way of softening the bleak tale. In a low voice he described yet again how Kersten had come running over the dunes, how she’d pushed the baby into his arms and rushed past
him to the sea. Bjorn listened in silence. Under the force of his attention, Peer scoured his mind for extra details. He recalled the cold touch of Kersten’s hands and the dark tangles of wet hair caught across her face.

“She looked so wild. I thought something dreadful must have happened. I asked her, ‘What’s wrong, Kersten? Where are you going?’ And all she said was, ‘Home.’”

Bjorn caught a long, tense breath. Gudrun gave a nervous cough. “Well now, Bjorn,” she said. “What might she mean by that? Where was home for Kersten?” Although she tried to sound tactful, the whole family knew she was bursting with curiosity.

“She wasn’t from around here, was she?” Ralf joined in. “A pretty lass, but foreign? Those looks of hers …”

They all thought of tall, beautiful Kersten with her dark hair and green eyes.

“She came from the islands,” said Bjorn reluctantly.

The family nodded. “The islands!”

“Ah …”

“So that explains it!”

But it doesn’t
, thought Peer.
It doesn’t explain
anything, and we all know it. Why aren’t we talking about what really happened?

“I must go.” Bjorn got up, stiff as an old man. “Must try and find her …”

Ralf shook his head in rough pity. “She’s gone, Bjorn. Accept it, lad. Oh, we can search along the shore, but whatever we find, it won’t be your Kersten anymore.”

Bjorn’s face set, so hard and unhappy that Peer jumped to his feet. “But we’ll help him. Won’t we, Ralf?”

“Of course we will—” began Ralf. But Bjorn laid a hand on his arm.

“Kersten’s not dead, Ralf. I know she hasn’t drowned.”

With a worried frown, Ralf blew out his cheeks and ran his hands through his hair. “Well, if that’s how you feel, Bjorn, we won’t give up yet. What’s your plan?”

Before Bjorn could reply, Peer clapped a hand to his mouth. “I forgot!” He looked at Bjorn, stricken. “I completely forgot. When I went to your house last night, Bjorn, you’d been robbed! Your big chest was open, and it was empty. The key was on the floor.”

Everyone gaped at him. Peer rattled on,
afraid to stop. “And so … maybe that upset Kersten?” He faltered. “I should have told you before, but it—it went clean out of my mind. Have you lost something special?”

“Don’t worry, Peer, I’d already guessed,” said Bjorn quietly. “Special? You could say so. Kersten took the key. Kersten robbed the chest.”

“What?” cried Ralf. But Gudrun interrupted.

“She took her sealskin, didn’t she?” she asked. “You kept her sealskin in that chest.”

“Oh, now, come on,” began Ralf. This time Bjorn broke in.

“Was it wrong, Gudrun? Do you blame me?” he begged in a low voice.

“Oh, Bjorn,” said Gudrun. She looked around, as if asking the others for help. Bjorn leaned forward, his eyes fixed on her face. Gudrun swallowed. “It’s not for me to judge,” she told him very gently. “Did Kersten?”

Bjorn shook his head. “She never said so. But perhaps … perhaps she’s angry with me. I’ve got to find her. I’ve got to know. It’s out to the skerries I’m bound, looking for a bull seal with a scarred shoulder …”

“Why?” Peer rose to his feet. He felt dizzy. He imagined Kersten in the dark room, on her knees before the chest, flinging the lid back, dragging out the heavy sealskin, stroking it, wrapping herself in it.
Is Hilde right?
He glared at Bjorn.

“What’s going on? Tell us the truth, Bjorn. Was Kersten really a seal-woman? Did you trap her?”

“Trap
her?” Bjorn went white. “We were happy!”

“Then why keep the sealskin locked up?” Peer threw back at him.

The air prickled, as before thunder. For a second Bjorn looked as if he might hit Peer.

“Because I—”

He gulped and started again. “At first I was afraid she would leave. Then, later, I didn’t think it mattered anymore. She was my wife! She wasn’t a
prisoner!”
The last word was almost a shout.

“But she ran away!” Peer was breathless. “She ran away from you.”

“Gods, Peer, what do you take me for?” Bjorn cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying. All right, listen! This is how I found
Kersten—and I’ve never told the story to another living soul.”