West of the Moon

by Katherine Langrish

  “No groute! Everybody hates the poor Nis.” There was a bitter little sob.

  Whether the Nis was guilty or not, Peer couldn’t bear it. He called out gently. “Nis, we don’t all hate you, truly we don’t. But I did see you down at the mill. What you were up to?”

  “The mistress wants me to go.” The Nis sounded hartbroken and Peer wasn’t sure it was even listening to him. “And so – I goes!”

  With a faint flutter like falling ash, the small humped shape vanished.

  I’d better get up and fill its bowl… but it didn’t answer the question…

  He lay back, groaning. Why did the Nis have to be so difficult all the time? He was stiff, aching from hours of work. The bed was warm. He didn’t fancy blundering around in the dark, and maybe waking the family. And Loki was lying across his legs; and besides, he was sleepy… so sleepy…

  “Well, the Nis is gone!” snapped Gudrun next morning, slapping breakfast on the table.

  “How do you know?” asked Hilde.

  “I just do,” said Gudrun. “And look at Eirik: crotchety, mardy – he knows too. If the Nis were here, it’d be keeping him happy. It adored Eirik, I will say that. Still, if it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “It’s upset,” said Peer. “I heard it last night. You forgot to put its food out.”

  Gudrun flushed. “I cannot think of everything. I’ve a house to run, and two babies to look after. When’s Bjørn coming to see his daughter? I hope he doesn’t suppose he can just leave the child to me.”

  “I’ll feed the Nis, Ma,” said Sigrid. “I’m sure it didn’t mean to do wrong.” She measured a ladleful of groute into a bowl, and looked at her mother. “Shall I put in some butter?”

  “If you must,” said Gudrun. Sigrid cut a very small lump. She placed the bowl in the hearth among the warm ashes, and the family watched as if she were doing something very iportant. It was easier than talking, with Gudrun in this mood.

  Next day, to Sigrid’s sorrow, the Nis’s bowl was still full of congealed groute. She scraped it out for the dogs, poured a fresh one, and wandered round the farmstead with the bowl in her hand, calling for the Nis as though it were a lost kitten. And although Gudrun muttered that it was a shocking waste of good food, she didn’t try to prevent Sigrid from putting food out in various different places around the farm. The bowl she left in the cowshed seemed to get cleaned out most regularly.

  “I’m sure it’s the Nis,” said Sigrid wistfully.

  “It’s rats,” snapped Gudrun. “I don’t know why the cats don’t get them.”

  “The cats won’t go in the cowshed any more,” said Sigrid – so quietly, that nobody heard her.

  Chapter 29

  Success at the Mill

  “I WISH THE Nis would come home,” Hilde sighed to Peer one afternoon, as she spread wet washing over the bushes to dry.

  “So do I,” Peer agreed. “I’m sure it didn’t talk to Granny Greenteeth.”

  Hilde dried her hands on her apron. “I think it probably did. It’s got such a quick temper. But I wish it would come back, all the same. Ma never meant it to go. She’s missing it. She’s angry, and hurt that they’ve quarrelled; and neither of them knows how to make friends.”

  “Do you think it’s hiding in the cowshed?”

  “I don’t know. Have you looked? I have. And I’ve seen Ma and Pa going in there too, when they thought no one was around.”

  Peer nodded gloomily. He’d been in, early morning and late at night, and found nothing but a few cold dusty nests in the straw, that might have been made by cats. “I feel bad about it,” he said. “I hated giving it away like that, and it would never understand why…”

  Hilde gave him a significant glance. “Speaking of quarrels, what about you and Bjørn? Isn’t it time you made friends again?”

  “What have I done to Bjørn?” Peer asked harshly. “Only rescued his daughter. Not that he seems to care. He never comes to see her.”

  “After the way you glowered at him?” murmured Hilde. “I’m not surprised.”

  Peer turned away. But Hilde’s words smouldered in his mind. Slowly, reluctantly, he began to remember the good times he had spent with Bjørn, the easy companionship of their fishing trips. With the Nis and Bjørn, he had lost two out of his three best friends. And he missed them.

  At least the sheep were safe, although they had nibbled the meadows down to a short, dry sward. It seemed the trolls dared not venture this far down the hillside. “We’ll move the flock back up to the Stonemeadow after midsummer,” Ralf told Peer. “Once the trolls’ feast is over, perhaps the danger will be past.”

  And the spring days followed one after another: the grass in the home field grew deep, the birch trees on Troll Fell glittered with new leaves, and the larches put out tender green fingers. It was a pleasure simply to be out of doors. And the swallows arrived, skimming about the farmyard faster than the eye could follow. Hilde’s heart sang as she watched them flashing to and fro. Summer was here!

  But the sunshine had no effect on the mill. A clammy chill lingered inside the building, and although they had fixed the doors and shutters and mended the holes in the roof, it didn’t look much like the neat, trim place of Peer’s dreams. The new patches in the old thatch gave the mill a scabby, piebald appearance. And there was an odd, sickly smell about the place, which no amount of daylight and fresh air could cure.

  “Let’s light a fire!” said Hilde in desperation one morning. “That might bring the place back to life!”

  If anything can, Peer thought.

  “I’ve got a better idea!” Ralf rubbed his hands. “There’s only one way to bring a mill back to life – isn’t there, Peer?”

  Peer looked at him. “You mean – set it going? But we don’t have any grain.”

  “Aha.” Ralf beamed. “I brought some. Just a little, a quarter of a sack. Seems to me it’s time we found out if the machinery still works.”

  “It works all right,” said Peer at once.

  “How do you know?” Hilde asked.

  His mouth fell open. He’d never told her. And if he tried to explain now, it would sound as if he’d been hiding it. What could he say?

  Ralf saved him. “Feeling confident?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “I like that. Well, you’re the miller. Show us how it’s done. What first?”

  “Fill up the hopper,” said Peer quickly.

  “Lead on!” Ralf picked up the quarter sack of barley. They climbed the rickety ladder and crowded together in the small space beside the millstones. Above them loomed the dark bulk of the hopper, suspended from the rafters on four thick ropes.

  “Mind your heads!” warned Peer.

  Ralf slapped his hand against the hopper’s sloping wooden sides. “That’s solid!” he exclaimed, impressed. He raised the sack to tip the barley into the open top.

  “Wait,” said Hilde. “It’ll be dirty. After three years, that hopper must be full of dust and cobwebs. Let me sweep it out.” She scrambled down the ladder and returned with a small brush, but discovered that the sides of the hopper were too high for her to get her hand inside. Peer found a crate. Standing tiptoe, Hilde bent over the edge of the hopper and started brushing. “I was right!” they heard her muffled voice. “What is this? It must have dropped from the thatch. Almost like gravel. Cover your eyes!” She peered down at them. “I’ll flick it out!”

  Peer and Ralf looked away as a gritty shower pattered over the edges of the hopper. They couldn’t see what it was, but it crunched underfoot. Finally Hilde was satisfied.

  “Good enough. Go ahead, Pa!”

  Ralf poured the barley into the hopper. A few grains dribbled through the hole in the bottom and ran down into the eye of the upper millstone.

  “Right!” said Peer breathlessly. “Now we go and open the sluice.”

  “Simple as that?” asked Ralf. “No levers to pull, or wheels to turn?”

  “If it was hard to work a mill, my Uncle Baldur couldn’t have done it,” Pee
r said with a sudden grin. “The only wheel that has to turn is the waterwheel. As soon as that moves, the mill starts grinding. Come on!”

  They ran over the bridge, past the mill race to the brink of the dam, where a narrow plank was suspended over the weir. Peer stepped on to it carefully.

  The plank was slimy. There was no handrail, just a couple of posts spaced along it. Peer felt his foot slip, and grabbed the nearest to save himself. For a second he stared into the rumbling white cauldron where the water tumbled over the weir. Was Granny Greenteeth down there? He imagined her in the whirling waters, her grey-green hair flying around her face, mixed with silt and bubbles. Or maybe she was in the quiet millpond, sliding through the brown peaty water with barely a ripple – till her hand emerged to seize his ankle and jerk him under…

  “Are you all right?” shouted Hilde from the bank.

  “Fine,” he called back. “My foot skidded, that’s all.”

  He went on along the plank. The waterwheel loomed over him, dark and dripping. Long ago, thick timbers had been driven into the stream bed, fencing off the mill race from the dam. He needed to raise the sluice gate, a simple wooden shutter running in grooves between two squared-off posts.

  Peer grabbed it and tugged. It rose easily. Water roared into the race, rising up the sides and kicking against the blades of the mill wheel with spurts of foam. One after another, the paddles slashed down, picking up speed. On the bank, Hilde and Ralf clapped and cheered.

  “It’s working!” Hilde yelled. “Let’s go and look at the millstones!”

  “Right!” Peer shouted.

  They hurried over the bridge. The mill was clacking, rumbling, vibrating. Dust shook from the rafters. Peer 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. The upper millstone was revolving. Peer blinked and laughed to see how the iron-bound rim flew past. Barley shook down into the eye of the millstones, and flour showered from the edges in a rich sprinkle.

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

  Hilde and Ralf were climbing the ladder, eager to see. Peer grabbed Hilde’s hand and hauled her up. 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. 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 on nothing.”

  “And we’ll take a bag of flour home to Gudrun,” observed Ralf. “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!”

  Chapter 30

  Rumours

  “YOU DO LOOK smug,” Gudrun teased. “Like the cat that got the cream.”

  “And so he should,” put in Ralf. “He’s going to be a rich man. A successful miller!”

  Peer grinned shyly. He sat, as he often did now, holding Ran in the crook of his arm. The baby looked about with her dark, solemn eyes, stretching her hand towards anything that interested her. By now, everyone in the family had noticed the fine webs lacing between her 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 at her with an impish smile. Ran blew bubbles. Gudrun turned, rubbing dough from her fingers.

  “Did Ran make that noise? I suppose it’s something. I’ve wondered if she’s deaf. 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 wide and she reached for it, but still she didn’t smile.

  “How clever of you, Peer!” exclaimed Hilde. “Look, she heard it. Now we know for sure she’s not deaf.”

  Peer smiled, thinking of the comb he was carving for Hilde. 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 father showed me how to make whistles,” he said, aloud. “I haven’t made one for years.”

  “I’d forgotten your father was a woodcarver,” said Ralf. “Didn’t he make 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 how they had burned his father’s body on the beach at Hammerhaven, with the dragonship drawn up on the strand close by. 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. That dragonship had sailed all the way to Vinland and back again.

  “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.

  Gudrun stared at him, biting her lip. Suddenly she burst out, “It’s no good dreaming, Ralf. There’s too much work to do. Sheep shearing 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. You can’t go.”

  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 neighbours.”

  “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 Bjørn. It’s time he clapped eyes on his daughter. The children can play on the beach. How does that sound?”

  Gudrun sniffed and smiled.

  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 tunic!” 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. Are we ready?”

  “This is more trouble than any Viking expedition,” Ralf joked. He lifted her on to 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 on his shoulders, the family set off.

  Peer sneaked a look at Hilde round 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 of last night, straining his eyes in the firelight, finishing Hilde’s 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. “Thanks,” she said curtly, and stopped humming. With a sigh, Peer let the comb slide into the depths of his pocket.<
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  The mill came in sight. Even Peer felt secretly glad to be going somewhere else. “Would you like to see what we’ve done, Gudrun?” he 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?” Gudrun finished a morsel of his wife’s 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 flavour.”

  “This business of Bjørn Egilsson,” persisted Einar.

  “Oh, 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 o a neighbour of ours taking a creature like that between his sheets!”

  Ralf laid the piece of cheese back on the platter. “I believe I will go and find Bjørn,” he said, rising. “Come with me, Peer? Excuse us, Einar!” Peer followed him out. 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. “Bjørn’s a marked man!” he said importantly. “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.”