The Mill

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “But you pay the same.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s not like you to accept being cheated,” Freya said. “Make a fuss. Do you buy from the same person?”

  Hawisa frowned. “There’s only two in the Market. And make a fuss? Don’t be a Barnacle Baby, you’ve more sense than that. Make a fuss and it’s a fuss will grab us both and throw us in the prison. Tis the poppy against our law, and I’ll not be sleeping in a cell even for my little lass.”

  “And if I come with you?”

  “Then buy it yourself,’ Hawisa said. “I’ll show you which stall, and you see if your looks get a better bargain.”

  In all these years, Freya had never bought it herself, and had never even known where to go or what to ask for. “Alright.” She finished the cup of poppy juice she’d started, and found too weak. “I’m not strong enough to give it up. So I’m weak. I’m the victim I never wanted to be. But I can at least be strong enough to go and buy it for myself. That’s one step forwards, isn’t it?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll wake you early.”

  “No.” She felt weak, even dizzy. The dose was more hope than brandish. “We’ll go now. I’ll talk to the stall-holder.”

  “If he’ll talk to you.”

  “Well, he knows you, doesn’t he? You come with me, and he’ll talk. I’ll make him.”

  The sun blistered the skins of the fruit and turned cabbages brown. Cups of cold juice began to warm up and spices shrank in the heat. Here in the sand dunes of the south, the early morning warmth had turned to baking sizzle before midday. Duck, hen or pigeon eggs, if left out in the glare for more than an hour, would be cooked hard. Freya followed Hawisa’s quick march to a stall shaded beneath a low golden awning. The stall appeared to sell tin whistles, bamboo hoops for children, handfuls of knucklebones, and roughly made bambolas of straw with painted plaster heads stuffed with rags, and half sewn clothes to cover their tied straw limbs. Hawisa stood and waited for the customers to leave. The man, his child clutching his hand and speechlessly excited, eyes glistening as she saw the puppet doll she was about to be given, was paying and ready to leave. Hawisa, already having been recognised, nodded to the stall owner. The man and his small daughter left, she clutching the bambola, he clutching his daughter as she skipped in excitement. Hawisa pushed Freya forward.

  “Tis for her.”

  “And it isn’t right,” whispered Freya. Her courage faded and embarrassment slipped into the place where courage had pushed her forwards. “I need it and I need the right dose. You have something – half strength.” Her voice faded out entirely.

  Entirely unimpressed, the man told her, “I sells what I gets. They cooks it up and sells it to me. I sells it to your mother. I don’t drink that muck. So I’ve no idea what it is.”

  “You make a lot of money,” Freya tried to raise her voice. “You should make sure you sell the right thing. Or if you cheat me because you say your supplier cheats you, shouldn’t you do something about it?”

  He looked at her, summarising. “Maybe. But you’d have to pay more.”

  Freya shook her head with sudden violence. “No. I pay the price for what you promise you’re selling. Sometimes it’s right. But more and more it isn’t. So I think you do it right sometimes so I don’t give up coming. But you cheat when you can. Then you give a half dose so you get twice the money.”

  After a moment watching her carefully, the man said, “So wot yer gonna do about it? Report me? Tis you they’d arrest.”

  Shaking her head, Freya stood straighter. “No, they wouldn’t. Because my father is a Law-Maker back in Eden City. He sits on the council. I ran away because he won’t let me have the poppy drink. But he’d still arrest you, and keep me safe. You’d go to prison. But he’s never going to admit his own daughter is addicted to drugs.” And she turned away.

  He called after her. “Here,” and he thrust a packet at her. “Tis the other half wot I didn’t give this morning. I won’t do it no more and you’ll get the full dose. I’ll promise it. But you gotta keep coming. Don’t you go nowhere else, or I can’t keep no promises.”

  “My – mother,” Freya smiled up at Hawisa, “will come every morning. As long as it’s a good dose.”

  The warmth of utter satisfaction cradled her from the tips of her hair to the ends, ragged ends indeed, of her toe nails, as Freya stretched on her bed, and let safety wrap her.

  “You know, don’t you,” said a mild voice from the shadows, “it’s that stuff that has you trapped. Tis an iron cage. And you’re a prisoner. You can peep out with your nose through the bars, but you can’t escape.”

  Never once, not in all the days they had now been together, had Pod mentioned her poppy drink. She sighed and rolled over. The world seemed bright, and she could breathe, move, speak, and even smile. “You saved me, Pod. You tell me anything you like, and I’ll listen. But I can’t stop, you see. I’d – die.”

  “I’m afraid it’s the other way around,” he said, pattering out again into the corridor. “You’ll die if you keep taking it. It’s not your fault. I know they made you drink it at the mill. But you have to stop one day, and I’ll help you. I can do that. Unless – you want to die.”

  She didn’t have an answer, but Freya lay for a long time thinking about his words.

  Frink stood on the northern bank of the Cornucopia, a little upstream, and watched the greenish water slop over the sides where the new spring flowers were bent, soaked and dying.

  His retinue stood behind him, politely quiet, and his queen stood in place, just one little pace back from his side. Eventually it was Denda who said, “Oh, come along Frink. It’s chilly. We can see it’s all true.”

  It was true that the Bridge had collapsed and it was true that the river beneath where the Bridge had been was now so clogged with rubble that the river was overflowing and disaster had not only occurred, but would soon occur again. Even three days after the terrible truth began, still a sudden creak and crash echoed as some other mighty piece of stone tumbled and splashed. No part of the Bridge itself remained, but stalks of the pillars which had supported it still displayed their jagged broken edges, and where the greatest heap of rubble piled, pieces would topple, and the waves would rise again.

  Only a good measure upstream was safe for wherries, and even by the palace there were few prepared to risk their livelihood, and their lives.

  “This,” glared Frink, “is a disgrace.”

  “Tell the gods.”

  The king hissed at his wife. “The pissing gods won’t clean it up, will they! Why hasn’t the council started? There’s enough idiots around to wade in there and drag stuff out. What about the ones that lived up there? They want rehousing. Well – let them work for it.”

  The council was sitting in their chamber, discussing the same situation. The council island was downstream from the palace but sufficiently upstream from the remains of the Bridge to be unaffected as yet, but the waters were rising on the island’s banks.

  Number Ten was absent. Number Nine appeared to be leading the discussion. “The straggle of remnants has settled, more or less,” said Number Nine. “It’s time to start clearing, otherwise the falls downstream where the gorge begins, will dry up. The whole course of the Corn will be disrupted. And upstream will flood into catastrophe.”

  “Sandbags,” suggested Number Six.

  Number Nine shook his hooded shadows. “That would make it worse. We need to gather a large three-fold team of the Lower City beggars and the unemployed and start the clearing. Bog Dock is already a shambles on the south side. We can start with half the rubble moved there, and from the banks it can be carted off into the desert or slung into the gorge at the point where the river disappears underground.”

  “And how long is that going to take?” demanded Number One. “We need a quicker method?”

  “Think of one.”

  Number One sniffed without words. “Three teams,” said Number Nine. “To start in two hours from now. The fir
st team works six hours, and we set up an oven to feed them after that. The next team starts – another six hours. They carry on through the night. This entire riverbed will be cleared in two days or less.”

  “And hopefully the final team won’t drown.”

  “We need men who swim, and ropes, carts, three different leaders and one in charge over-all. A few pebbles left on the bottom won’t matter. Even a few rocks. But anything too heavy for a couple to lift together – well, that needs ropes, maybe pulled by a horse or an ox. And some builders, homeless folk and so on, they’ll be welcome to come and find rocks to start new homes or find their own jumble still there underneath the mess.”

  “Such as the occasional wife?”

  “Really, Number Five. Must we? We know you did something similar to your own.”

  Shocked, “You don’t know who I am.”

  “Of course we do. Most of us anyway. And where’s the new Number Ten? He was very useful at the last meeting.”

  Number Nine said, “Half of what I’m suggesting was his idea too. We spoke together a couple of days back.. But he was on important business and had to leave the city.”

  “How convenient,” with a snigger.

  “No, as it happens, Number Eight,” Number Nine said. “And hopefully, he’ll be back soon, having saved someone’s life.”

  “Another hero, like the magnificent king’s grandson. I damn well hope it’s not him. He kept asking to sit here.”

  “I would never have instigated the king’s grandson,” Number One told them, arranging the cuffs of his sleeves over the edge of the table. “And never will. Which brings me to the next subject, since it is high time we dealt with him and his wretched grandfather.”

  “We still have people homeless,” Number Four reminded him.

  “Would it be so difficult to kill two while saving fifty others?”

  “We are capable of everything,” Number Eight said, leaning back.

  “But do we pay these buggers for the cleaning up? We feed them. Right. Then they sleep six hours and get ready for the next shift. But if they’re beggars and fools, must we pay them?”

  “Yes, or they’ll wander off.”

  “Your purse, Number One?”

  “The king’s purse,” Number One answered. “He pays. We kill him a little later.”

  With the pile of papers creased and wine stained in her hand, Freya found Master Varinker and presented the documents to him. Written in her own small scribble, the words began, ‘The king sits, regarding his advisor. The advisor says, “It has begun, your grace. The invasion has begun. You must summon our forces.” And the king laughs, saying, “And if we have no forces?”’

  “I wrote a play,” said Freya. “It’s called ‘The Ultimate Solution.’ And it’s how we should have stopped the invasion.”

  Varinker scratched his nose. “And just who are you, madam?”

  Freya smiled. Her morning poppy drink had been a strong one and she could smile wide. “The one man who brings the entire audience into your theatre,” Freya told him, “is Pod and he’s my friend. We came together. Without me, you won’t have him and without him your audience will disappear again.”

  And insulted snort was the only answer but the leading female, Southern Peppa, pushed Varinker in the back. “Wake up twitwit. What the chit says is true. So what’s she asking?”

  Freya presented the papers. “Creased,” she apologised. “I don’t have a table to lean on when I write. But I think it’s a good story. Lots of heroes and heroines. Battles. King Dain and all his mistresses. It would employ everyone in your troop, including me. Pod stands on-stage and plays dramatic music. We all act the parts. I think people will enjoy it.”

  “We’re adults,” said Varinker through his nose. “We don’t play.”

  “People love mummings and religious plays, with minstrels and singing,” Freya insisted. “So they’d like a whole story looking good with costumes and running around.” She was talking to the woman now, and said, “There’s a great heroine who saves us. You could act that part.”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “There’s evidently no historical accuracy whatsoever,” sneered Varinker, “since there were no heroines at that time, and it was simply King Dain who saved the country.”

  “No one really knows what happened,’ Freya said., “None of us was born and besides, people who lived back then all tell different stories. I think this might be fun. Pod likes it. He’s read it already and now he’s writing special music to go with it.”

  “In that case,’ said Varinker, as though reluctant, “I will read your scraps of scribble, madam, and make my own decision.”

  “I’ve already made my decision,” Peppa said. “We’ll do it. We’ll be Eden-leaders in wonderful new beginnings. The first to act parts and tell a real story on stage. Just because she’s a young girl, doesn’t mean she can’t write. Besides we’ve been failing month after month. No money, no fame, no reputation. With this and Pod’s music, we’ll get all three back. Wait and see.”

  “My fame,” said Freya,

  “Oh yes, dear, you too,” Peppa told her. “Of course, I may have to re-write a few scenes, but we shall see. There’s one problem I foresee, however. Some of our troop cannot read. How can they carry their words, if they cannot read what is written?”

  “Everyone,” said Freya firmly, “learns their words off by heart beforehand. We can’t walk around being heroes and heroines fluttering little scraps of paper. We learn every word.”

  “And try to remember them?”

  “Pod remembers his music,” Freya said. “Why can’t we remember a few words?”

  “A ten-day,” shouted Varinker from off-stage. “That’s enough to learn the parts. I shall decide who acts what this evening. So, all together at the tavern, and I shall buy us all a cup of ale.”

  “Twenty-eight of us, not counting you,” Peppa told him. “You can direct us all and make the scenes exciting.”

  Varinker had cheered up. “This will be a stage that others envy, he said, twirling the sandy ends of his cape. “Instead of sitting counting money with just one young man on stage getting all the applause, it will be all of us first having great fun, and then lining up as the audience claps and cheers.”

  “And eventually,” grinned Peppa, “there will be some fellow from Eden city, whizzing down to beg us to build a stage and act in the north.”

  “I might not want that,” murmured Freya, but her voice disappeared beneath the exhilaration of everyone else.

  Words were added, and characters enlarged or diminished. One more character was invented, and a small scene was eliminated.

  “They only do it so they can say they’ve had a hand in writing it,” said Freya, “but I don’t care about that.”

  “You’re enjoying yourself for the first time in years,” Pod said quietly, looking up. “Perhaps the first time, or at least the best time, since I met you.”

  Nodding vigorously, Freya was learning the words she had written for herself. It was not the largest or most courageous part, since she had no great desire to make a fool of herself in public. But it was an interesting part of murder and subterfuge, and of being murdered herself near the end. “A memorable part, perhaps, with some good words,” she told Pod. “But small. Only three scenes. The rest of the time I can watch from the side.”

  “Skandarella? Yes, I thought her interesting.” Pod looked up from his guitar. He was re-linking one of the shorter strings. “I shall write a special Skandarella introduction, just for when she’s on stage.”

  Loving to look out on the stars and the two moons’ crescents each night, Freya lay in bed staring from the window. The larger moon kept a predictable orbit, but the smaller moon seemed to change direction when least expected and no scientist had yet studied the movements. It was known as the False moon.

  Freya loved them both and wrote by their light. With the little bedchamber to herself, she was never interrupted, and without the city l
ights flickering below, the night’s lights flickering above were brighter and more beautiful than in the north – more personal. Whoever chose to gaze, the brilliance was just for them.

  But she dreamed of other things, with the dazzle of a hundred thousand stars singing back. And she whispered, speaking to herself as though she needed to be reminded. “He was young. So young. But his skin wasn’t a baby’s fluff. I could touch muscle and strength and the hard skin where the sword hilt and the bow had roughened his palm and fingers. Yet he wasn’t strong. He was so weak he could hardly sit, and couldn’t stand. But all that strength was hidden inside.”

  She had been excited by her first understanding of what made a man. “I thought it beautiful. So unexpected, even complicated. But not anymore. All those shagged and wrinkled pokers, dark and limp, light and thrusting. But always ugly and never kind.”

  Then she wondered how many men had used her, those she’d hated who had hurt her, those less hateful who had seemed utterly boring. She had no clear idea why such an act was considered so wonderful. It had never entertained her even for one blink of an eye. And yet, with Jak surely she could never be bored.

  “Would he somehow do it all entirely differently? But how could he? He had the same apparatus, after all, so what else could he achieve? Yet that first touch and that first kiss had been so exciting, I could have floated. And now? If I ever saw him again, or had another sweet man I liked who liked me enough to care, and to kiss me kindly, would it somehow seem better? Would he become magical just because we liked each other? Or even – though it seems impossible – love each other?”

  Magical? With magic? Well, Jak had been magic. He had sight that saw things others couldn’t see, and never would. Magical colours, magical auras.

  “Women are at least more subtle. We keep our machinery inside and almost entirely hidden. We are more like the steam presses on the trains, although we don’t smoke. At least, I don’t think we do. I’ve never looked. But, like the train engine, our engines are tucked away and not for anyone but the driver to poke at. Unless,” half chocking and her voice now less than a whisper, “we invite guests in, in exchange for money.”