The Mill

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “I have a little myself.” Jak also stood, but slowly, walked back to the window and stared out. A kestrel was swooping down to the roof of another building where a nest sat in the placid sunshine. He did not know whether this was the kestrel’s nest, or one the bird intended to steal. He looked away and walked back to Tom. “I do not hesitate to admit my feelings for a girl I met as almost a child, and she was younger still. She will have changed over the past years, and especially if her work threw her into such misery. Whether she still thinks the same of me, and whether we would continue those feelings if we met again after so long, I do not know.” He stared back at the window as though expecting the clouds to help. The kestrel now sat on the nest, and Jak smiled. He appeared to be speaking to the window, or perhaps to the kestrel, “She saved my life. And I love her for that alone. I would cheerfully call Kallivan my greatest enemy and will go to him first. If that brings no results, I shall begin to search. It will save us time if you tell me where you have already looked.”

  “If I might travel with you, my lord?”

  Jak smiled back over his shoulder. “If you call me Jak. And is Symon free? Or would he be disinterested?”

  “My lord,” Tom hesitated, and grinned. “Jak, I can assure you, Symon has even more reason to care than I do. Unfortunately, my Udovox cannot leave here, but I will and can. I shall speak to Symon now.” He sat and began the tedious business of thrusting his feet back into the narrow and elongated shoes, and retying the laces. He was still involved more with feet than with Jak, when he muttered, “I can only hope, that is, being an intelligent man, you must have guessed, so you know who and what I am, sir.”

  Jak leaned against the door jam. “My dear friend, if you mean to ask whether I am shocked that another man is your loving companion, I must simply point out that nothing whatsoever has ever shocked me, and that your preferences and loving habits are of no concern to me, and trouble me not in the least. In fact, I approve. I wish only that I had found my own love, and that together we shall find where she is, and that we find her unhurt.” He was aware that his hands were clenched, and the tension in his shoulders and arms was unintentional. He smiled at himself. The old feelings for Freya still lurked and were still vibrant. The thought of her badly injured was deeply troubling. “I shall speak first to Kallivan,” he said. “You speak to Symon. We should meet here tomorrow morning and discuss further. I can supply horses, and whatever else we might need. You must tell me where you’ve not yet searched.”

  Back in his shoes and shrugging once more into the warmth of his cape, Tom stood before the door, looking at Jak. “One more thing I must say, sir. Freya is no – whore. Forced to work with us, she, that is, managed more nursing than – other customers. She had no choice. And now we have a plan to get us all away from the whorehouses and live very different lives.”

  Jak didn’t move. “We shall get to know one another all over again, my friend. I make no judgements.” He stood back from the doorway. “Tomorrow morning at nine of the clock.”

  Reaching out to the door’s handle, Tom added, “I’d not question a lord adopting a whore as his mistress, it’s hardly unusual. But to make her respectable might be less reasonable. Yet that’s what she seeks and has dreamed of for some time.”

  “It is possible she left of her own accord?”

  But Tom shook his head with enough emphasis to dislodge a feather. “Without saying goodbye to her friends? Without saying where she was going and what she was doing? Without first talking of her plans and getting our help? No, never, my lord. Jak. She’d never do that. But I’ll tell you more tomorrow and bring Symon with me.”

  The sands yawned golden across such a vastness that it seemed a whole new world. Hills sloped, valleys sloped, but the next morning there was a valley where there had been a hill, flat plains where there had been a hill, and one hill after another where the day before it had stretched flat. But whatever shape had blown in with the night’s breezes, everything sparkled golden, the sands catching the brilliance of the sun, turning a dull yellow smudge to a vivid glitter of jewelled magnificence.

  Further west, covering the great sun blasted rocks where hills rose from the sands in a myriad of patterns and colours, dropped into caverns and rose in monstrous shapes, the local people had discovered plains of sheltered earth where only thorn bushes grew. Over many years these had been tended, the thorns eliminated, and fruit trees of a dozen species were grown. Now vast orchards of peaches and oranges, pears and lemons, durian and mangoes were thriving, while between the trees, vegetables were grown and along the hedgerows were vines of grape strawberry, blackberry and a cluster of ginger plants.

  But these, arriving in the markets, did not grow in the sands themselves. The camels wandered the sands, some in long caravans led by their trainer, some wild, but accustomed to and untroubled by the presence of men. Trekking the dunes, they climbed slowly as they chewed, disappearing down the other side, then appearing again as they slowly plodded the plains. They chewed as they wandered, as if food constantly filled their mouths. Sometimes snorting but mostly silent they were the only creatures easy to see. But there were also birds, and there were snakes.

  “Watch out for the snakes.”

  “Wot’s snakes?” Hawisa asked.

  “Long, thin, living, wriggling.” Pod looked around but no snake was visible. “The big ones strangle you. The little ones bite.”

  “They try to bite me, I’ll bloody stamp on them,”

  Hawisa growled but Pod grinned. “You’d already be dead. They have poison. They bite – you die.”

  “I’ll avoid them,” said Hawisa.

  Sitting on the sand, Freya seemed unbothered by the possibility of snakes, and leaned back, both hands bracing behind her. She watched the sun climbing higher and breathed in the heat. Wearing the costume of a minstrel’s assistant, although quite unable to play any instrument, she was comfortable in britches and shirt. These were property of the theatrical company, but preferable to the torn tunic and clogs which was all she had previously owned. Her long brown hair had been cut, since the endless dirt and the pulled strands over previous months had left it bedraggled and uneven. The pale streaks she had always had were now dazzling in the sun’s bleach, and it topped her shoulders in a neat line.

  “You almost look like a boy,” Pod said.

  “Perhaps I can learn to dance,’ Freya thought. “Girl or boy, whatever looks best. And I can learn a drum. You be the knackerer and sing those beautiful sings.”

  Sitting beside Freya, but wary of snakes ready to leap and bite, Hawisa entrenched herself in a slight dip, and hugged her knees. “But we can’t stay here,” she said. “Drumming and dancing? With beds to fight for each night and no privacy, not even a screen, to undress. We go to bed fully clothed. We snore in a bloody row. And we makes enough to feed ourselves, and that’s about all. I reckon we move on.”

  The sun was high now, directly over their heads, and although the season of Probyn was not yet finished, there was no cloud and no wind. “Freya looked up. “I like it. No one tells me what to do. I eat twice every day and most of the beds are comfortable enough. I like never being cold.” She shut her eyes, almost murmuring to herself. “It was so cold at the mill. I was blue in the night, with my fingers like frost. My nose turned to ice. I thought my toes would drop off. Now I’m so warm, I could sing. Except I can’t sing. Not like you, Pod.”

  “I like singing,” he said. “I like having a good voice and I like writing music. Singing never helped me before, but it might here. I’d like to try.”

  Sighing, Hawisa lay back, sand finding its own journey through her hair, then scratched. “I’ll wait then. But I ain’t singing nor dancing nor scrubbing floors. Reckon I’ll chuck out trouble-makers and tell the piss-arse crowd to shut their mouths.”

  “I was born here,” Pod said softly. “The place was poor then, but I was too young to know a thing. I can’t remember anything, but I know this theatre wasn’t here. Folk were desp
erate, and they helped each other.”

  “You still do,” said Freya. “You saved my life, dearest Pod. And I love you for it. Escaping from Kallivan and that nightmare is like – going to heaven.”

  “Gives me an idea for a song,” Pod said, and walked off towards the town.

  The slow smile drifted across Freya’s face from her mouth into her cheeks, to her chin which lifted, and up to her eyes. They lit with warmth for the first time in many months. It was a smile she enjoyed. A real smile, which spoke to her, and to Hawisa, of deep happiness. Freya was utterly happy for the first time since she had been abducted, and she began to truly believe in her freedom.

  Six people sat in the audience that night, listening quietly as they watched. They had not come to watch or to listen. One woman, a widow and lonely at home, brought a basket of bread, cheese and ham, intending to eat her dinner without crouching entirely alone at her table. An older man had expected to fall asleep, but had come in order to give his grandson an evening of more than just his own snores. A younger woman hoped for anything to distract her mind from the death of her mother days before.

  Yet nobody snored, no one ate their dinner or crackled their packaging, and each person was a silent and thrilled spectator as the knackerer sang. Pod sang his own music. Eight sad melodies, one after the other, had every person in the audience in tears. The words were sad, the music tragic, but it was the voice that haunted them, and seeped into their minds, trickles of cold water reminding them of every sorrow they’d suffered, then the trickles becoming rushing rivers through tunnels of darkness.

  And finally, Pod bowed, grinning at his tiny crowd of standing, clapping and cheering listeners, and he then looked up, shook one foot in the air, and as the little bells jingled, he sang one of the fastest and happiest songs they had ever heard.

  Pod only just escaped. He scrambled behind the stage, ran down the steps and into the long back warehouse, there collapsing on the nearest bed. He looked up, saw Freya staring down earnestly at him, muttered, “They liked it,” and closed his eyes.

  The next night, the theatre was full. Three hundred and twenty people filled three hundred and twenty seats in the audience, and Pod saw exactly the same six sitting amongst the others. No baskets, no ale flasks.

  Although he managed the same performance, he sang one fewer of the sad songs. He was discovering his limits. And this time he did not escape, since more than three hundred people storming the theatre are difficult to avoid. Some pressed money into his palm, others gave letters, some gave food, one offered a shirt she had sewn, and the lonely old woman who had now watched his performance twice, asked if he and his wife would like to lodge with her, entirely free of charge,

  Tricia owned a large house. Its empty rooms echoed. “Not a wife,” said Pod, “but two friends, both women, who need beds and friends too.” The heat from the sun burned the outside of the building, but the walls were thick stone and inside it remained cool, dark, and restful. When the storms blew and the winds whistled and whined, the sand gusted into the house beneath every door and through every crack. Sweeping up afterwards didn’t seem worth the trouble until the sand got to ankle deep. Then it was time to clean. No chimney leaked and no hearth welcomed the desert’s storms, for here there was never need to light a fire, not even to snuggle by a tiny flame. Outside was an oven with a slab beneath, and here the cooking was done. There were now four to feed and the enthusiastic hostess liked to cook in spite of the heat, unless one of the storms blew out the fire.

  Adoring her new bed, all hers and well made, Freya’s bedchamber was tiny but cool. She loved to lie there feeling the walls shake and listening to the wind’s explorations across the roof. On clear nights she walked outside and stood on the dunes, staring upwards. The sky shone with such an immensity of stars, they outshone the moons. But the larger moon hovered over her head, whispering of a new life, and the smaller moon sank into the sands far, far away, murmuring goodnight.

  The tiny room next door shuddered with the night-time snores and Hawisa slept until each dawn, while the larger room on the other side sometimes echoed with the soft and tentative voice exploring new songs and practising notes.

  Life was peaceful, pleasant, predictable and even enjoyable. The Probyn gales threatened but no one else did.

  Hawisa swept out the house once each ten-day, Tricia managed all the cooking without complaint, Pod continued to perform every night, and Freya began to write a play. It was about a brothel, an attack by three villains, and what happened afterwards.

  “Corse I will,” Symon said, almost glaring. “T’were me wot had the whole bloody idea first, weren’t it.”

  Udovox admitted this. “My parents have made your idea possible, my friend. And Tom’s – let us call it finesse – will create the perfect place. But I have this vague feeling that something is lacking.”

  Symon snorted. Tom said, “But how do we find her, my dears? We have searched almost every toe-thrust of the north. Do we trudge the sands?”

  “After them Bog Docks,” Symon nodded, “I ain’t even got no idea wot there be in the south. Mayhaps just sand. But there gotta be towns and such.”

  “There are towns,” Tom assured him. “Towns, villages, and even something remotely resembling a city. Volliney, attached to a smaller town named Morse. Now they’re cramped together so people claim it’s a city and call it Volmorse.”

  Impressed, Udovox smiled at his lover. “How do you know such clever stuff?” he asked. “Have you been there?”

  “No.” Tom grinned and shook his head. “But that’s where our dear king comes from. Or at least, he went there years ago when he didn’t get the throne, and King Chas gave him the lordship.”

  “Wot a bloody boring present,” said Symon. “Sand here, sand there, sand in his arse and sand up his nose.”

  “Indeed, yes,” said Tom. “He sat in sand and grew more and more bitter. He killed his eldest son and kicked his servants.”

  “It’s Lord Jak wot’s gonna find the lass fer us,” Symon said. “He knows wot he’s a’doing’of, I reckon. You two gotta go along, and I reckon I’s gonna stay here.”

  They two other men stared, shocked and Udovox said, “I wonder if I might ask why, my friend, since you are the one who knows both Lord Lydiard and dear Freya better than we do, and are usually ready to face any challenge.”

  “Humph,” said Symon.

  “Not a very satisfactory explanation,” decided Tom after a slight pause.

  Symon wiped his nose on the back of his fist and stomped over to the window. “There be three reasons,” he declared, “and I reckon you’ll be bloody pissing yerselves over all o’ them. But wot I does, I does cos I does it.” He turned, aiming for the door, and added, “But remember this when you goes gallivantin’ over them sands, I ain’t gonna be no fixer and I ain’t gonna be no killer no more. I ain’t gonna run no Molly House and I ain’t gonna do no dog fights. I’s surely gonna do some fucking thing but you’s can all wait n’ see.”

  Jak arrived at the Verney household apartments at court with faint remorse. It would, he thought, be Reyne he would by necessity speak with, and he preferred not to drag up old recriminations. As the Verney steward opened the door, Lord Lydiard strode into the large salon, took off his hat, held it with both hands behind his back, and sighed. “Is Master Verney at home?” he asked.

  The steward apologised but shook his head. “He’s out, I’m afraid, my lord. Indeed, he has an audience with his majesty.”

  “Mereck, then? Lord Mereck? Tell him Lydiard’s here.”

  Once again, the steward apologised. “I am extremely sorry, Lord Lydiard, but Lord Mereck has accompanied Master Verney.”

  One further hope. “Then is Sir Kallivan at home?”

  Clearly the steward felt the difficulty of a continuous refusal. “My apologies again, my lord, but Sir Kallivan has not been here for the past three days. I do not know his whereabouts.”

  “Shit.” Jak nodded. “Lady Reyne, then.�
��

  “I shall ask the lady if she will receive you, my lord. Please be seated.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Voices remained hushed, footsteps padded into silence, as though the passage from life to death should not be interrupted. The women wore black, their faces staring hairless and almost stark white from black linen drapes, down to black gowns which covered every flicker of skin except for their hands. It was their hands that were always busy, for ten women nursed fifty men in one cavernous and vaulted room, while in a similar room at the back of the building, another twelve women in black nursed seventy female patients.

  Some of the female patients had managed to sail from Shamm, begging their daughters or their mothers to help them find the urgent aid they needed, which could not be given where they lived. Amongst those women, her bed amongst the others in long dark rows, slept Milldy, a young woman seemingly near death, but who fought for her life and was still alive after a ten-day, even though the chief nurse confirmed that she was losing the battle. The windows were large, and so was the hearth and the chimney, for it was agreed that light and warmth were the two essentials of health. The two rules were kept in the men’s vast room also, and there lay Thribb, wallowing in his hatred for the man who had once blinded him, for his son whom he loved and despised equally, and for the most recent enemy who had slashed his throat , pierced his already empty eye socket and almost killed him. “A knackerer,” growled Thribb, although he did not know the knackerer’s name. But he knew one more important fact, that the knackerer was a friend of the whore Freya. And his son Kallivan told him there was no doubt, the bastard swordsman was surely Lord Jak Lydiard who had been looking for his mistress.

  The nurses, being devoted to the church and to various of the gods, were called Good-doers, but not all of them were quite as sweet as they claimed. One of the younger Good-doers found Thribb a strong, interesting and badly treated character who deserved generous treatment. He had, after all, been living in a deserted mill out in the northern countryside where the weather was vile, and in spite of his wicked treatment in the past when he had lost an eye during an act of great heroism, he had taken on the care of an old friend and his mentally simple daughter, with only occasional visits from his wealthy son. And now attacked once more, and by an evil stranger, he had been so close to dying that surely he had seen the opening gates of heaven. Having described at some length the act of heroism when he had saved three women and their six children from a band of robbers, Thribb then relished describing the attacker who had managed to thrust his sword right into his eye, but not deep enough to touch his brain. And then, his throat slashed open, he had been in terrible agony while attempting to save the simple daughter at the mill. Then his son had collected him and dumped him at the hospital with a little money, but had not visited since. Welba often sat on the side of Thribb’s bed when she had a spare moment, talking to him and listening to his stories. She ensured he had some of the best food, and definitely the best treatment.