That evening, they locked every gate and door of the mill.
“Nobody must set foot outside these walls this night,” Herebeorht told the servants grimly. “Neither door nor gate nor window must be opened, no matter what chances, or seems to chance, outdoors.”
The servants promised to adhere faithfully to his orders.
After sunset, only the youngest children went to bed. Everyone else was too nervous and apprehensive to even consider rest.
Family and servants waited together in the huge kitchen.
In the fireplaces, flames flickered. Shadows wavered. Out in the darkness, water chuckled. Mist would be rising from the millstream and the weir, to steal like heavy smoke across the ground.
At midnight there came a soft knock at the kitchen door, rap-rap-rap.
Blostma began to rise from her chair, but without a word her husband gently clasped her in a firm embrace. Her eyes widened in fear or astonishment, yet she uttered no word.
Not one of the mill-dwellers made any sound.
In the frangible silence they could all clearly hear the crunching of footsteps departing from the door, and immediately the new milch-cow in the byre began to low and bellow, ramping as if trying to break down the walls. The miller stared hard at the goose-herd, who bowed obsequiously. Neither of them spoke.
It was Blostma who breached the uncanny hush. Suddenly she was squirming and writhing in her husband’s arms, begging him to let her go. Unmoved, he held her more tightly. Out in the hen-coop the chickens began to squawk and the rooster to crow, as if a fox were rampaging amongst them. A prolonged buzzing arose, so penetrating it was like the droning of all the bees swarming from their hives. Next came the roar of a mighty updraught and the horses in the stables started a tumult, neighing and snorting, striking out with their hooves, as if the stables were afire and the animals were trying to escape the flames. The miller’s features contorted in desperation, and he made as if to rush to the door, but one glare from his eldest son was enough to quell him.
Blostma was struggling to wrench herself from the grasp of her husband. She, alone of the company, was unsilent. She entreated, cried, wept, and smote him with her pretty white hands, but he would neither move nor speak nor quit her. Meanwhile, outside in the stables and the byre the uproar worsened. Hour after hour it dragged on, until, with the coming of morning, it faded at last.
In the hen-house, the rooster crowed, welcoming the first rays of the sun.
Those who had eventually fallen asleep in their chairs jolted awake. Simultaneously, everyone began to speak, and the doors were unbarred, and the miller hastened outside to survey the damage to his premises. Herebeorht remained seated. On his lap, worn out but secure, Blostma sat, resting her head on his shoulder, peaceful now.
From the yard came Osweald’s shout. He rushed in at the door, followed by the stable-boy and the goose-herd, who between them were carrying what appeared to be a log of wood.
“All is well. ’Twas all glamour; neither beast nor fowl nor shed has been harmed—but look you here!” the miller cried triumphantly. “I found this piece of moss-oak leaning against the garden wall.”
The wood had been cut to Blostma’s exact height, and crudely carved into the shape of a woman resembling her.
“A trow-stock!” exclaimed Herebeorht, and he bade the servants fling the effigy on the kitchen fire, where it burned merrily until it fell to ash.
After the trow episode, Jewel was exalted to high regard in the eyes of the Miller family and their neighbors. Herebeorht and Blostma, in particular, doted on her. Despite the fact that Jewel still privately mourned for her family and home, life was relatively pleasant. All Summer long the marsh-daughter sported with the other children in the fields and orchards, or attended lessons with them in the little schoolhouse called “Fortune-in-the Fields,” or helped with the less arduous domestic chores. Hilde, whose year of birth was the same as Jewel’s, was her usual companion in adventure.
The Millers had accepted the orphan as a member of their family. For her part, she had adapted well to her new life, easily making friends and learning unfamiliar skills, fitting in with the daily routine. Her contentment increased as time passed, and happy memories overlaid the sorrowful ones. Moreover, she was so busy with chores and lessons and games that she could spare little time for sad reflections.
When she did ponder on times past, she would sometimes compare her pleasant life amongst the people of High Darioneth to the way things might have been. She loved the Millers and was entirely grateful to them for their kindness. If not for them, and the children of the weathermasters, she might have roamed long alone through the wilderness. She might have been enslaved by trows, or captured by the King of Slievmordhu, or even abducted by Marauders. The inhabitants of High Darioneth could never take the place of the family and friends she had lost, but they had become very dear to her.
Autumn was the busiest season at High Darioneth, for that was when the nuts in the vast orchards were ready to be harvested. At this time the mill-hands and the brownie were constantly occupied: hoisting sacks of nuts to the upper levels, grading the varieties, ordering the storehouse, feeding the nuts through the huge rollers, separating the kernels to be ground into nut-meal, and roasting or drying some in the kiln before grinding, sifting and bagging the nut-flour and dressing the mill-stones, as well as maintaining the cogs and gears, the line-shafts and axle-trees, and all the other parts that made up the mechanisms of the mill.
Not long after the annual celebration of the High Darioneth Horn Dance—at which men traditionally pranced about wearing on their heads the antlers of deer—Elfgifu’s father received word that the mill at Coppenhall Moss had gone out of business and its machinery was going to be sold. The High Darioneth Mill was in need of a new crankshaft for the crown-wheel, the old cast-iron pivot being fractured, and close to redundancy. Hoping to be able to obtain one at a bargain price, Osweald, rather reluctantly, left his foreman, Grimbeald, in charge of the Autumn milling and set off for Coppenhall Moss, almost a hundred miles away by road.
The mill’s brownie had a jocular disposition, and was prone to entertain himself by making small mischief to the inconvenience of his fellow servitors. Notably, when he had a spare moment he liked to fling handfuls of broken nutshells at them from unexpected quarters, which did little to endear him to them, despite the fact that his nocturnal labors lightened their work-load considerably. For all his gleeful nature, he was not especially quick-witted. He was artless and credulous enough for the servants to be able to take reprisals by making him the dupe of their pranks.
“How the brownie is clever enough to speak always in rhyme is anybody’s guess,” Hilde confided to Jewel.
“He’s a wight,” replied Jewel, drawing on Eolacha’s teachings. “It is in the nature of some of them to speak in rhyme. They are unable to do otherwise.”
Of all the servants, it was the boy Cynric who most disliked the brownie. Cynric had never forgiven the wight for the thrashing he had received at Robin’s hands, and the humiliation that ensued. His resentment had simmered all through the Summer, and come harvest, he had formulated a plan for revenge. Assuming an air of transparency, he suggested to Grimbeald and the other mill-hands that they should enter into a contract with the brownie, whereby the wight must agree to do all his work and theirs as well, right throughout nut-picking-time.
“With His Lordship away,” said Cynric, “there’ll be no one snooping around. None of the household will be any the wiser!”
“I’d be more than partial to taking my ease,” said the foreman, rubbing his lower back to iron out the aches, “but even Brownie-Dullwits would never bind himself to such a one-sided contract!”
“Inform him,” said Cynric, “that if he does, you will give him the ragged coat and the worn-out traveling-cowl hanging behind the stable door. The old fool has always nurtured a liking for those cast-offs.”
Grimbeald snorted. “You’d have us drive him away, would you
? Nobody in their right senses would do that. All the tales tell that if brownies get presents, they depart!”
“Only if they get new clothes, not old, worn-out clouts,” said Cynric persuasively.
Mulling over all the old stories he had heard, the foreman concluded Cynric was probably right. Still, he did not put the proposition to the brownie straightaway. Two days later five carts rolled into the mill precincts, piled high with sacks of walnuts and hazelnuts. After one look at them, Grimbeald felt his back twinge and made up his mind.
The brownie happily agreed to the proposal. The mill-hands were careful that no hint of the subsequent proceedings should reach the ears of their employer’s family, or any servants with loose tongues. Throughout harvest-time they reclined at their ease in the hayshed behind the byre, while the wight worked on, day and night, performing such tasks of strength and perseverance as no mortal man could possibly endure for more than a week at most.
None of the mill-hands disliked the brownie with the same intensity as the stable-boy, and on the whole they were not a hard-hearted lot. Some of them began to feel sorry for Robin, and they began to talk amongst themselves. Gratitude and pity moved them. “Poor old fellow,” they murmured, “working himself to the bone for a threadbare coat and cowl, the old simpleton. Let’s give the garments to him now, and let him have joy of them during his final days of hard labor.”
Just before the miller was due back, Grimbeald and some others went into the grinding-room one evening. They left the coat and cowl for the brownie on a pile of pecan-kernels, then hid behind a partition to enjoy his delighted response. When the wight came in to start work, he saw the gifts laid out for him, and a huge smile spread across his ludicrous features. Snatching up the coat and cowl, he frisked about in glee, crowing, then put them on. However, instead of getting down to his work, to the astonishment of the eavesdropping men he said loudly:
“Robin knows you’re hiding all, spying there behind the wall!
Foolish clowns, to pay the fee before the work is wrought for ye!”
Triumphant at the notion of outwitting his fellow-workers he added in sneering tones:
“Since you’re such clods I’ll now decline to haul another sack of thine.
Robin has got a cowl and coat, and never more will work a jot!”
In the greatest consternation the men started from their hiding place, begging him to stay, but the wight had already disappeared.
He was never seen again at High Darioneth Mill.
The miller returned from Coppenhall Moss with the new crankshaft loaded on his ox-cart. When he was informed of what had eventuated during his absence, there commenced an uproarious hullabaloo. Cynric the stable-boy protested his ignorance of the fact that brownies will depart whether the gifts they are given are old or new. His assertions did not hold water with the miller, who instantly discharged the lad from his employ. Only Grimbeald’s years of loyalty saved the foreman from the same fate. Mildthrythe was distraught at the loss of the wight, her life-long supporter, and for several weeks the atmosphere at the mill was one of misery and recrimination.
The labors of the miller and his hands were manifold after the brownie’s departure, but otherwise all seemed to go well at the mill as the seasons turned again, and the snow-line crept down the ring of storths.
Osweald Miller was puzzled when, as Winter again yielded to Spring in the year 3467, queer incidents started happening around the mill. The strangest of these was the unsettling of the storerooms on the upper levels. No matter how carefully the laborers sorted the nuts and left them overnight ready for the cracking-rollers, when morning came they were scattered about and jumbled in utter disorder. This happened quite regularly, despite the door being locked. Although he searched methodically, the miller could find no evidence of breaking in, and he was at a loss to explain or prevent this occurrence.
At length, determined to discover the prankster, the miller couched himself one night underneath an old oilcloth, and kept vigil. The storeroom was dim and quiet. Only weak, watery starshine trickled through the windows.
He estimated it must have been around midnight when the whole length and breadth of the room was lit up by an extraordinary radiance, as though liquid moonbeams were flowing in. Thousands of miniature folk came sliding through the keyhole of the locked door. The miller knew at once that these were siofra, and the diminutive wights had apparently shrunk themselves even more, in order to squeeze through the keyhole. Without further ado the tiny wights began to gambol amongst the heaps of sorted and graded nuts, which soon became mixed up in thorough disarray. Hazelnuts tumbled in with the walnuts, pecans rolled with the chestnuts, large nuts mingled with the small, and low-quality blended with the best. The miller could scarcely contain his wrath. He was heedful, however, that the siofra, although diminutive and fetching, could be angered—like any other wight. If enraged sufficiently, they might take revenge. So he gritted his teeth, sat motionless, and stared without interfering.
At length, his supernatural visitors started to busy themselves in a way still less to his taste. Each wight commenced to pick up a nut and dart through the keyhole, which happened to be a somewhat larger aperture than most of its kind. So many of the little creatures were rushing in and out of the orifice that it resembled the opening of a bee-hive on a sunny day in Juyn. Watching the produce disappear in this fashion, the miller struggled harder to leash his ire. His entire frame was shaking with the effort and the cords on his neck were bulging like pipes.
One of the siofra was handing a hazelnut to another when it said in the tiniest voice the miller had ever heard, “I weat, you weat.” At the smugness in the tone, and the air of propriety over the ill-gotten spoils, the miller could restrain himself no longer. He burst from his hiding place, bellowing, “Pestilence and boils upon you! Let me get amongst you!”
Like a swarm of disturbed insects the siofra flew up, or else some numinous wind swept them up like Autumn leaves. Squeaking with fright, they swirled about the head of the miller. He blinked. When he looked again, they had disappeared.
The miller had a bolt and padlock fitted, instead of a keyhole, and the siofra never disturbed his storerooms again.
But the tiny folk seemed more plentiful, or more active, that season than ever before. Or perhaps it was the lack of a brownie at the mill that made them bolder.
On certain moonlit nights the queen of the siofra and her retinue continued to be glimpsed bathing and sporting like small birds in the circular pools beside the millstream. Emboldened by this sign of the queen’s ongoing favor, and by his success in driving the nut-thieves from his storerooms, the miller took a jaundiced view when one of the mill-hands came to him, grasping his cap in his fist, saying, “Sir, the kiln-house is being used at nights, when all proper mortals are in bed. Some of us have seen smoke rising from the chimney, sir, and heard little mousy-voices in there, after all has been locked up. In the mornings, the kiln is warm and there are signs that roasting has been going on.”
For a few days the miller simmered resentfully, mulling over these revelations. He took to prowling around outside the kiln-house at nights, and sure enough, what the hand had told him was true.
It irked him intolerably.
By all the signs the culprits could only be the siofra again, using the eye of the kiln as their kitchen to boil their pottage and cook the nut kernels the miller had laid up for roasting. The siofra contributed nothing to the success of his mill, unlike the brownie, who had performed astounding labors, requiring nothing more than a bowl of cream and a quarter loaf of nut-bread to be set out for him on the hearthstone each night.
The siofra were tiny wights; a single hazelnut was as much as one alone could consume. But their population—which appeared to fluctuate dramatically, according to the incomprehensible ways of eldritch wights—could be enormous. That they should be dining extravagantly at his expense stirred Osweald Miller to extreme wrath. Every day he labored strenuously to feed his family, and thes
e lazy imps wantonly thieved the produce! Since he had been so successful in driving them off the first time, he confidently decided to take matters into his own hands once more. On this occasion, the flames of his rage had been fanned to such intense heat that he wanted to do more than merely frighten the siofra away; he wished to take revenge for their impudence.
One night, while the siofra were preparing their supper inside the kiln-house, chattering and squeaking in their miniscule voices, the miller quietly climbed onto the roof. In his pockets he carried a sizeable sod he had cut from the bank of the millstream. Steeling his nerves and drawing a deep breath, he threw the sod down the chimney and instantly fled. As he half-clambered, half-slid down the ladder he could hear the tumult going on inside the kiln-house. The falling mass had dashed soot, fire, and boiling pottage among the wights. Before he could reach the mill the trembling fugitive heard the cry “Brunt and scalded! Brunt and scalded! The sell of the mill has done it!” And the queen set out after him like an angry wasp; just as he reached the door she touched him and he doubled up, bowbent and crippled.
And crippled the miller remained.
“Osweald, I cannot undo what has been laid upon you by the queen of the siofra,” said dour-faced Luned Longiníme, standing beside the wicker chair where the miller slouched, wrapped in a shawl. “Nor can I tell if this affliction will ever be lifted, or whether you will have to bear it until your dying day.”
With these reassuring words, she put on her cloak and departed.
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 12
