“Then we’re off!” Ralf stuck his head out of the door. “A light wind coming down the fjord, and the tide was high an hour ago. Get your boots on, man!”
“Be careful,” said Gudrun, suddenly nervous. “The faering is such a little boat.”
“Don’t worry.” Bjørn looked happier already, as though glad to be given a job he knew how to do. “I know the waters, Gudrun.”
“You’re the skipper,” said Ralf cheerfully. “I’m just the muscle power.”
Peer stepped forward. “I’ll come too.”
“Better not,” said Ralf. He put a hand on Peer’s shoulder. “We can’t have all the men going off together. Look after the family for me.”
“I will, Ralf!” Peer felt inches taller.
“Oh good,” said Hilde, “then you get the job of carrying Eirik back up the hill.”
They stood watching Bjørn and Ralf drag the little faering down the dark bank of wet pebbles and into the water. The sail flapped as the two men jumped in. Bjørn scrambled into the stern, and grabbed the steering oar.
“We won’t be long,” Ralf called. “Look for us tomorrow, or the day after.”
“Bye, Pa!” screamed Sigrid.
“Goodbye!”
The faering flew away from the shore. They saw Ralf turn his head, listening to something Bjørn was saying behind him. He was laughing.
Hilde turned to look at her mother. “Ma, don’t worry. They’ll be all right.”
“I had to do it!” Gudrun’s face was white but resolute. “When I think of what those two boys did for us, the year Ralf was away – the way they stood up for us against your uncles, Peer – and when I heard Asa saying that Bjørn brought all this upon his own head by marrying a seal woman, as though poor Kersten had been some kind of monster – well, I couldn’t stand it, that’s all.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” said Hilde.
“I only hope Arne can talk some sense into him,” Gudrun added.
“Then you don’t believe the stories?”
Gudrun sighed. “I don’t know, Hilde. But believing them isn’t doing Bjørn any good.”
They watched the faering cut out into the middle of the wide fjord. There was a bloom of haze over the opposite shore. The mountains there looked flat and shadowy, against a sky the colour of tin.
“Look!” Peer exclaimed. “Another boat.”
“Where?” Hilde squinted under her hand.
“I’ve lost it. No, there – see?” There it was, just a scratch on the brilliance. As they watched, it seemed to blur and vanish. Hilde shivered. A six-oarer, with a dark sail, she thought, suddenly cold as Asa’s words returned to her mind. And it flickered in and out of sight like a butterfly’s wings…
Bjørn and Ralf were sailing confidently towards the mouth of the fjord.
“Well, there they go,” said Hilde. As they turned to begin the long walk home, Peer heard her say quietly, “And it’s too late now to call them back.”
Chapter 32
The Mill Grinds
CARRYING A STOUT stick, Peer crept stealthily across the farmyard. He was nearly into the trees when he heard the brisk clap and thud of the house door, and Hilde came out. “Peer!” she called. “Where are you off to?”
“Just for a walk.”
“Without Loki?” She came across to join him. “And what’s the stick for? Is this something to do with what Thorkell said? Are you going down to the mill?”
“Yes, but I thought I’d go alone.”
“Not a chance,” said Hilde cheerfully. “I’ll come too.”
“No! Look, if the mill’s really working at night, it’s probably only the lubbers messing about, like before. I just want to go down quietly and see…” His voice faded.
“‘Like before?’” Hilde narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Peer flushed. “You might as well know. The night I brought Ran home, the mill started grinding as I was crossing the bridge.” He didn’t want her know how it had felt, that awful moment in the rain and darkness, when he had half-believed the mill was somehow alive…
“You saw the mill working at night – all by itself? And you never told me?”
“Not all by itself,” said Peer. “It’s the lubbers, and I did tell you about them.”
“Yes, but only to say you’d chased them off. You never said a word about the mill grinding. It’s important, Peer. You should have told me.”
“Hilde, let me deal with it. I’m not afraid of the lubbers.”
“What a hero!” Hilde flashed. “Never mind that the lubbers are loathsome, treacherous, nasty things that might creep up from behind and throttle you. Tra-la! What fun. I’ll just come along and watch.”
Peer gave in. “Please yourself.” He turned on his heel, then swung back. “Hadn’t you better tell your mother?”
“She knows I’m going for a stroll,” said Hilde.
They set off briskly. But soon their quick pace slowed. It was peaceful under the trees. Scents of flowers and fresh leaves floated past on currents of deliciously warm air. A big beetle hurtled by with a rattle of wings. And always there was the brook, sometimes a gossiping voice among the trees, sometimes chattering boldly beside the path.
“All right, I’m sorry,” Peer said after a while. “I should have told you. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Let me decide whether to be worried or not. Don’t keep secrets, Peer: it doesn’t suit you.” Peer swung his stick and whistled quietly between his teeth. He had Hilde’s comb in his pocket, but he wasn’t going to give it to her while she was telling him off. They walked on.
Hilde changed the subject. “I wonder if Pa and Bjørn have got to Hammerhaven yet!” She sounded casual, but Peer knew her too well to be fooled.
“Ages ago. The sun’s nearly down.” He hesitated. “You’re not worrying about that sail we saw? It was just some fisherman.”
“Maybe. But if Thorkell’s right about the mill, what if he’s right about the draug boat, too? Those are creepy stories, Peer. It’s terrible bad luck to see it. At first it seems like a real boat. But there’s only half, split along the keel from stem to stern. The crew are drowned men, all blue and stiff, and the draug sits at the steerboard. He looks like a man, but —” her voice dropped to a whisper “ —he hasn’t got a face – only a bunch of seaweed.”
Before Peer could answer, there was a loud splash from the stream, now running hidden on their left behind a screen of hazels. Peer whirled with a shout and brought his stick thrashing down through the leaves. Something leaped the stream, scrambled up the opposite bank and dived away under the trees. Branches shook. A clod tumbled back into the water.
“What was that?” Hilde cried. “A troll?”
“It was one of the lubbers!” Peer said. “It was dragging a tatty old blanket, didn’t you see? So the other one won’t be far away.”
“Lubbers, this close to the farm?” Hilde sounded uneasy. “I must warn Ma. The twins play in the wood. We never told them about the lubbers; we didn’t want to scare them. What are you grinning about?”
“You shouldn’t keep secrets, Hilde,” Peer teased. “People have a right to know!”
“It’s not the same thing at all,” she protested. “Sigrid’s terrified of trolls, and then there was Granny Greenteeth – Ma and I thought that was enough for them to cope with.”
“Fair enough,” Peer agreed. “But come on. If the lubbers are slinking about up here, we can get to the mill ahead of them. Then we can lie in wait.”
“Bad idea,” said Hilde. “No one goes into the mill at night.”
“It’s my mill,” Peer argued. “I’ll have to live there one day. How can I be the miller if I only ever go there in daylight?”
“All right,” Hilde sighed. “But we can’t be long, or Ma will start to worry.”
They crept down the lane as quietly as they could, and tiptoed over the bridge and into the yard. Stinging clouds of midges swirled in the dusk.
Peer
put out a cautious hand and pushed the mill door.
“I won’t go in without a light,” hissed Hilde.
“A light would give us away. Take this.” He retrieved the rusty old shovel from the barn porch. “To scare away the lubbers!” he whispered with a grin.
“Thank you so much,” said Hilde drily. They slipped through the door.
The darkness seemed absolute. Peer heard the folds of Hilde’s dress sway, the faint rub of her sleeves, the creak of her shoe. “What now?” Her breath fanned his cheek.
“Wait for a while…”
“I’m going to sit.” The shovel rang faintly as she settled to the ground. “It could be midnight before the lubbers come back. We can’t wait that long.”
“Thorkell’s asleep by midnight,” said Peer. “If he’s really heard anything, it must start happening long before then.”
She sniffed. They sat in silence. Peer listened to the sound of his own heart beating. The darkness was grainy, as if made up of thousands of speckled seeds. Though the moving airs of evening were just beyond the door, he began to feel uneasy, breathless, trapped. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe we shouldn’t have come.
Hilde sat up. “What’s that noise?” she breathed.
It came from outside, a sweeping, pattering rush like the onset of a rainstorm. Louder and louder it came, closer and closer. Peer and Hilde leaped up, leaving stick and shovel on the ground.
With a piercing squeal – with an anguished wooden groan – with a roar of muffled waters, Troll Mill woke from its sleep.
“Somebody’s opened the sluice!” Peer shouted. Up in the grinding loft, the millstones screeched and sparked. “But the hopper’s empty! There’s nothing for the millstones to grind. We’ve got to stop it.”
He sprang to the door and looked out. For a second his eyes couldn’t take it in. The ground outside was seething with dark shapes, surging with energy like a nest of maggots. “Huuuututututututu!” The shriek rose into the night, and he understood.
“Hilde! The yard is swarming with trolls!”
He dragged her away from the door, treading on something that clanked, spun round and bashed his ankles. The shovel! He kicked it aside, cursing, and pushed Hilde into the darkest corner. They crouched there, panting – and the door flew wide.
A mob of trolls rushed in, flooding across the floor. The dark space filled with bangs and crashes, with jabbering, hooting, chuckling cries. Through the jiggling, sparking light, a furry face snarled, a white-rimmed eye glittered, a thin beak stabbed. The loft ladder was clotted with trolls. Scaly feet scraped on the rungs; a naked, rat-like tail clung and twitched. Some leaped straight up into the grinding loft with huge kicking jumps. Peppery dust showered down, and Peer and Hilde shrank back, wiping their eyes.
With a long, rattling roar, the trolls emptied something into the hopper. The terrible shriek of stone on stone ceased, and the sparks vanished. Ears ringing, Peer and Hilde knelt listening to the millstones’ rasping grumble.
Red light bloomed in the doorway. Now they could see the trolls, working away. They could see baskets being carried in, passed forward from hand to claw. A short, fat troll with long naked arms and splayed fingers flipped up the lid of the nearest grain bin. Two others lifted a basket and poured into it a rattling stream of —
“Bones!” Hilde whispered in horror. “They’ve been grinding bones, Peer! Bone-meal for troll bread!”
But Peer’s attention was fixed on the doorway. The light blushed brighter. Shadows raced one another round the walls. “Someone’s coming!” he said, hoarse with dread. “Somebody’s – coming!”
The shadows fled to quiver in corners. A fiery torch was thrust through the doorway, a pine branch flaring with orange and blue flames. It lit up an arm – thick, bare, hairy, bulging with muscles. The arm was followed by a shoulder, clad in a ragged tunic. The creature – troll – whatever it was – ducked under the lintel and straightened up, up, and further up until its head nearly vanished among the rafters.
Peer’s fingers bit into Hilde’s arm. He saw a mane of shaggy black hair. Wicked little eyes, blinking in the torch light. A small red mouth, half-buried in masses of bushy black beard: and on either side of that mouth, two glistening white tusks curving upwards, as sharp as meat-hooks.
Baldur Grimsson!
The man spread his arms, fists clenched, lifting the torch high so that the light played over the walls. Again the shadows dashed for cover, as if the mill were full of dark, sliding, desperate ghosts. Shaking his fists over his head, the man let out a wild howl. “Huuuuuuutututututu! Huuuuuuutututututu!” Yellow froth gathered at the corners of his mouth and dripped from his tusks.
“Peer.” Hilde pinched him. “Peer!”
“It’s my uncle,” said Peer stonily. “Baldur Grimsson.”
“I know, I know. And we’ve got to run before he sees us!”
Too late! With a slow gesture, Uncle Baldur bent down, sweeping the torch low towards the corner where Hilde and Peer crouched. The streaming flames lit his face from below, so that nostrils and brows were bright, while his eye sockets turned into black holes. The tusks threw sharp stripes of shadow up his face and into his hair. Hilde and Peer stiffened, hoping against hope that somehow he would miss them.
“Well, well, well!” The high whistling voice of Peer’s nightmares was accompanied by a gust of hot, bad breath. “My nephew. Scared, as usual. Crouching in a corner like a rabbit, as usual. And his girlfriend, too. Two rats in a trap!”
Peer got up. He pulled Hilde to her feet.
Sometimes, in daydreams, he’d imagined facing Uncle Baldur again. In those daydreams, Peer had grown, while Uncle Baldur had shrunk. Tall, strong and capable, he’d been able to stare his uncle straight in the eye. He’d not been afraid.
This wasn’t a dream.
Uncle Baldur waved the torch in front of their faces gloatingly. “I ought to break your necks. That’s what you do with rats and rabbits. One quick snap. Or I could hand you over to this lot!” He waved at the shifting, sniggering, rustling crowd of trolls. There was a pause, while the millstones overhead continued sullenly chewing up bones, and Peer tried to push Hilde behind him.
“But I won’t.” A thick smile appeared on Uncle Baldur’s lips. “Because you’ve mended the mill for me. For me, do you hear?” He raised both hands above his head, yelling, “Did you think you could take the mill from me? I’ll always be the miller! I’m miller to the Troll King himself! Huuuuuutututututu!”
Hilde shoved Peer in the small of the back. “Run!”
Peer snatched her hand and tugged her under Uncle Baldur’s outstretched arms. He swooped on the rusty old shovel and backed towards the door, waving it in threatening arcs. “Go, Hilde! Run! I’ll hold them off.” Hilde vanished without argument.
Peer reached the door, flung the shovel at the approaching trolls, and hurtled out. “Come on!” Hilde screamed from the end of the bridge. He pounded across and tore up the hill after Hilde’s flying figure. Distantly, he heard Uncle Baldur calling the trolls off the chase: “Get back to work!”
He caught up with Hilde under the eaves of the wood. “Are you all right?” She nodded. Holding hands tightly, they hurried into the sheltering darkness.
“Rat bones, sheep bones,” panted Hilde. “Even bird bones. Do you think they use them to make different sorts of bread?” She shuddered. “All that gritty stuff in the hopper. It was crushed bone, for grinding up small.”
“I ought to have guessed.” Peer was sick with shock. “That crag where you saw the trolls, Hilde. The mill is straight down the fell from there. That’s where the trolls were heading. Why didn’t I guess?”
“Why should you?” Hilde demanded. “We thought Baldur Grimsson was gone for good. How could anyone guess he’d persuade the Gaffer to let him out and start using the old mill for grinding bones?”
“Hilde!” A terrible thought struck Peer. “If Uncle Baldur’s down at the mill – then where’s Uncle Grim?”
“Run!” said Hilde, breaking away and starting up the path as fast as she could. But it was too late. They ran out of the trees, and saw the dim outline of the farmhouse roof; and even from this distance, they could hear Gudrun screaming.
Chapter 33
The Lubbers at Large
AFTER PEER’S STICK came whistling down through the leaves, the lubbers dived into the undergrowth and began creeping stealthily uphill. At the edge of the wood they parted the last twigs with their clammy fingers, and stuck out their heads, peering with greedy eyes at Ralf ’s farm.
The door was shut. Loki was visible on the doorstep, lying with his nose on his paws, waiting for Peer to come home.
The lubbers blinked at him. “See?” muttered one. “It’s no use. There’s always a dog somewhere about. I hate dogs.”
“Patience,” said the other in a hollow whisper. “They’ll get careless. They’ve drove out their Nis already, right? Think of those thick, green blankets waiting for us – if we do the job!”
“Aaah…” The first lubber dragged the blackish threads of its old blanket around its sharp shoulders. “You’re right. We’ll wait.” It flung itself down like an abandoned scarecrow.
The other crouched, clawing at the leaf mould for beetles and small worms. After a while, there was a hooting and a pattering in the wood. Hidden in the bushes, the lubbers listened intently.
“Trolls,” mumbled the crouching lubber. “A whole bunch of trolls going down to the mill. Pah!” It spat out a mouthful of shiny black wing-cases and legs, and ran an exploratory finger around its teeth. “That’ll give that boy a shock. Him, and his dog, and his shovel!”
“Hark!” The other lubber tensed. “Here’s someone else. Coming this way. Someone big. Someone heavy!”
With slow thudding footfalls, a man as huge as a marching tree-trunk came up the path. He clutched a club. Shaggy black hair hung over his shoulders, and as he flung back his head, the lubbers saw the pale flash of tusks.
The first lubber sank back with a sigh of relief. “It’s only one of them man-trolls from the mill.”
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