West of the Moon (6 page)

It meant something to Peer after all. Even he had heard of the trolls of the Dovrefell, the wild mountain range to the north. “That's an important match?” he suggested.

The Nis nodded. “Everyone is going, Peer Ulfsson. They say the bride is very beautiful. There will be such a feast!” It wriggled with delight and cracked its knuckles.

“Are you going?”

The Nis's face fell. “I doesn't know,” it admitted. “Food and drink, as much as you can hold, music and dancing, and the hill raised up on red pillars – but they hasn't invited poor Nithing yet.”

“Oh, there's plenty of time, if it's not till midwinter. But what has the troll wedding got to do with Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim? What are they up to on Troll Fell in the middle of the night?”

“Middle of the night is daytime for trolls,” the Nis pointed out scornfully. “If Grimssons go knocking on the troll gate at noon, what will they hear? Snores.”

“I see that. But what do they want with the trolls at all?”

The Nis was getting bored and fidgety. “Treasure,” it yawned, showing a pink tongue and sharp little teeth like a kitten's.

“Troll gold? Yes, but why,” said Peer, struggling to make sense of it, “why would the trolls give them any? I don't understand.”

With a loud squeak, the scales tipped as the Nis leaped into the rafters like a squirrel. Heavy feet sounded at the door. In tramped Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim, stamping mud from their boots, cold night air pouring from them like water. They looked sour and displeased. Grendel loped behind them, and Loki nipped quickly outside.

Peer scrambled up. Uncle Baldur took him by the ear, led him to the door and booted him out. “Make yourself useful, you idle young layabout. I want the wheel stopped now.”

“But I don't know how,” Peer called at the closing door.

Uncle Baldur paused with the door a couple of inches open. “Go and lower the sluicegate, of course. And then get off to the barn. Don't come knocking and disturbing us – it's late!”

And the door slammed shut.

I
T WAS PAST
midnight. A star fell over the barn roof. Peer shivered, wrapping his arms across his chest.

“They didn't look too happy, did they?” he muttered to Loki. “Perhaps their interview with the King of Troll Fell didn't go too well. No need to take it out on us, though. Lower the sluicegate? At this hour?”

Loki whined softly. Peer didn't know which was scarier, to disobey Uncle Baldur or go up near that dark millpond by himself.

“Into the barn with you,” he told Loki, dragging him there by the collar. “Sit. Stay! I'm not risking you.” Loki's eyes gleamed in the dark and again he whined gently.

Peer crossed the yard and turned on to the wooden bridge. The mill clacked steadily. The wheel churned, chopping the water with dripping blades that glinted in the starlight. Peer leaned on the rail, trying to gather courage to go on.

A black shadow moved at the corner of his eye. He whipped around, heart beating wildly. But it was only a woman plodding up the road, dressed in dark clothes with a scarf over her head. She was using a stick to help herself along.

She saw him and stopped. Realising that she too might be nervous, Peer called out softly. “It's all right. I'm the – the millers' boy. Only the millers' boy.”

“The millers' boy!” repeated the woman. “And what is the millers' boy doing out here so late?”

“I have to close the sluicegate,” said Peer.

“Ah!” The woman looked at him. It was too dark to see her face properly, but her eyes glittered in the starlight. “So late at night, that's a job for the miller himself. He shouldn't be sending a boy out. They say Granny Greenteeth lives in the millpond. Aren't you afraid of her?”

“A bit,” Peer confessed, “but if I don't go my uncles will be angry.”

“And you're more afraid of them.” The woman nodded angrily. “Ah, Baldur Grimsson, Grim Grimsson, I'd make you sorry if I had my way!” She shook her finger at the lightless mill before turning to Peer again. “I'll come along with you, my son, if you like.”

Peer hesitated. Something about the old woman made him shiver, but his father had taught him to honour old people, and he didn't know how to refuse. And it was true he would feel braver with company, though the path to the sluice seemed no place for an old lady to be hobbling along at night. He made her a stiff little bow and offered her his arm. She took it with a chuckle and a cough.

“Quite the young lord! You didn't learn your manners from the Grimssons. What's your name, boy?”

“Peer Ulfsson – ma'am.” Peer winced as her cold claw dug into his arm. She was surprisingly smelly too, now he was close to her. Her clothes must be damp, mouldy, or something.

But he was glad she was there. As they passed the millrace, he knew he would have been terrified by himself. The threshing wheel and racing water made him dizzy; there was a cold draught fanned by the wheel, and a smell of wet stone and black slime. He tripped, and the old woman steadied him, hugging his arm to her side. She felt strong, and cold.

At the edge of the millpond she released his arm so he could step on to the narrow walkway above the sluice. The pond was so black he could not see where the surface lay. If only there was a guardrail! He shuffled out and grabbed the handle of the sluicegate, remembering it acted like a simple shutter. He leaned his weight on it, driving the gate down against the pressure of the water. The wheel slowed, its great vanes dripping. The rattle and grumble of the mill faltered and ceased. Only the sound of the water was left, tumbling over the weir.

“Well done,” said the old woman. She stretched out a hand to help Peer off the bridge. He took it and then let go with a cry. It was clammy – and wet – and webbed.

The late moon was rising. She stood quietly at the end of the plank, leaning on her stick. Her long skirt and cloak weren't damp but wet – soaking wet. How had she got so wet? She pulled her scarf away from her head in fronds of trailing weed. She smiled. Even in the moonlight he could see her teeth were sharp points. Peer's hand shook on the sluice handle. He had walked here with Granny Greenteeth herself!

The woman chuckled, like the brook gurgling. “Yesss… I like to take a stroll on a fine evening. Poor boy, didn't you know me? Shall I tell you how?” She leaned towards him. “Watch for the sign of the river,” she whispered. “A dripping hem or sleeve. Wet footprints on the doorstep.”

Peer nodded, dry-mouthed. Granny Greenteeth drew back, as if satisfied that she had scared him. “I hate the miller,” she hissed. “Oh, how I hate him, thinking he owns my water, boasting about his mill. Now I will punish him by taking you.”

Peer clung to the post of the sluice. “But he doesn't care anything about me. Neither of them does. The only thing they care about is their dog, Grendel. Please!”

“Ssso?” Granny Greenteeth paused. Peer waited, shivering. At last she smiled, showing dark triangular teeth. “Then I shall send that dog, Grendel, with an apple in his mouth, as a dish for my friend the Dovreking's daughter, at her midwinter wedding. But as for you! Don't you know the miller has plans for you?”

“Plans?” Peer's heart thudded.

Granny Greenteeth leaned both hands on her stick, like the old woman he had supposed her to be. “We'll have a little gossip, shall we? I hear it all, you know. Every stream on Troll Fell runs into my river!

“After the old miller died – bad riddance to him! – the two young 'uns knew where the troll gate was. And they wouldn't let it alone. Knocking and banging, day after day! Hoping to get at the gold, weren't they? Even tried bribes. Imagine! They left fine white bread there, and trout stolen from my water. Ah! Yet they never gave me anything.” Granny Greenteeth worked her mouth as though chewing on something bitter. She spat.

“And this went on and on, didn't it? And at last the Troll King got tired of all this hammering and shouting outside his gate. Not seemly was it?

“So to get rid of them he thinks up something difficult. He sends word:
My eldest son will be married at midwinter. He wishes to present his bride with a slave boy, as a betrothal gift. Bring me a slave boy, and you shall have your gold
.”

Granny Greenteeth nodded spitefully at Peer. “And that's where you come in, my son. Your precious uncles – your flesh and blood – will sell you to the trolls.”

Peer's heart turned to ice.

“So now you'll come with me, won't you?” Granny Greenteeth coaxed. “You'll help old Granny. Baldur Grimsson wants that gold to build a bigger mill. I'd drown him sooner! But he never puts a foot wrong. He knows I'm after him.”

“Let me go,” Peer croaked. “Please…”

“Ah, but where?” she cried. “Come to me, Peer, come to me.” She stretched out her arms to him and her voice became a low musical murmur like the brook in summer. “I'll take you – I'll love you – I'll look after you. Who else will? I'll give you an everlasting bed. Come down under the water and rest. Ressst your weary bones.”

White mist rose from the millpond, flowing in soft wreaths over the plank bridge and swirling gently around Peer's knees. His teeth chattered and his head swam. How easy it would be to let go, to fall into the soft mist. No one would grieve. All for the best, maybe.

“All for the bessst,” Granny Greenteeth agreed.

Far away a dog barked, sharp and anxious. Peer blinked awake. “No!” He looked at the old woman. “Loki loves me,” he said thickly. “No, I won't!”

In a whisper of wind, the mist blew away into the willows.

Granny Greenteeth nodded. “You're stronger than you look, Peer Ulfsson. Not this time, then,” she said softly. “But I'll wait. One day you'll call to me. And I'll be listening. I'll come!”

She jerked, twice, threw her stick away and fell sideways. Her cloak twisted and clung to her body; she lay on the ground kicking – no, flapping: an immense eel in gleaming loops as thick as Peer's leg. It raised a head with narrow glinting eyes and snapped its trap-like jaws before slithering over the bank into the pond. The black water closed over it in silent ripples.

Peer leaped off the plank. He raced down the path, drummed across the wooden bridge, hurled himself into the barn, dragged the door shut behind him and leaped into the straw. He grabbed Loki and hugged him.

“If you hadn't barked, Loki – oh!” Loki licked his face. At last Peer stopped shaking. “I got away. But what shall I do? They're going to sell me under the hill. Under the hill!”

Suddenly he was hot with anger. The Grimssons had sold his home, taken his money and treated him worse than their dog – and now they were going to sell him? Trade their own nephew for troll gold?

“We'll see about that!” he exclaimed to the dark barn. The oxen munched indifferently. The hens, roosting in the beams, clucked in disapproval and irritably ruffled their feathers. Peer no longer thought of them as his hens. They had transferred their loyalty to the black cockerel, who plainly despised him. He hugged Loki again.

“Featherbrains! Traitors!” he called.

The hens squawked in shocked surprise. For a moment, Peer wondered if they had understood. But it was only the Nis, in high spirits, tipping them off their comfortable perches. He could hear it giggling. Loki's hackles bristled under his hand. Hen after hen fell clumsily from the rafters and ran about in the straw. One ran right over him, digging its hard claws into his stomach.

“Stop it,” he called.

The Nis pranced about in the beams, kicking down dust and feathers. “News!” it carolled.

“I don't care,” Peer groaned. “All right, what news?”

“News from Troll Fell!” said the Nis slyly.

“All right, I'm interested – go
on
!”

The Nis hopped. “The Gaffer's son will marry the King of the Dovrefell's daughter,” it said.

“You told me that already.”

“But now there's more, Peer Ulfsson. Much more! I hear your uncles saying that now…” it took a deep breath, “the King of the Dovrefell's son will marry the Gaffer's daughter!”

Peer tried to work this out. “Instead?”

“No!” the Nis said impatiently. “As well!”

“Ah. So it will be a double wedding?”

The Nis nodded in ecstasy. “Even bigger wedding! Even bigger feast!”

Peer rubbed his eyes. He understood that the Gaffer of Troll Fell had pulled off an important alliance for his son and daughter, but he didn't see why he should care. Still, one thing puzzled him. “Why would it bother the Grimssons, Nis? Why did they look so cross?”

The Nis had gone skipping off over the stalls. It answered from the other side of the barn. “Now they has to find a girl as well as a boy.”

“What!” Peer sat up.

“A girl to serve the Prince as well as a boy for the Princess,” explained the Nis. “Or the King of the Dovre will be offended.”

“You mean you knew all the time that Baldur wants to sell me to the trolls?” Peer gasped. “And you didn't tell me?”

The Nis stopped scampering about. “Doesn't you want to serve the trolls?” it asked, amazed.

“No!”

“Why not?”

Peer struggled to reply. “I'm a human,” he said at last. “I can't work for trolls.”

“I'm a Nis,” said the Nis huffily, “and I works for humans.”

“Sorry,” said Peer, a little ashamed. “But you can't
like
working for Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim.”

“No, because of cold groute with no butter,” the Nis agreed. “But for them that gives me hot, sweet groute with a big lump of butter, or a bowl of cream – for them, Peer Ulfsson, I works willingly.” It sighed.

“It'd take more than a bowl of hot porridge to get me working for the trolls,” muttered Peer. “Under the mountain? In the dark?” He shuddered.

“Under the hill is rich and splendid!” the Nis insisted.

“I'm sorry, Nis, it doesn't appeal to me.” Peer was overcome by an enormous yawn. “So you're saying the trolls want a girl as well as a boy, or the deal's off? Good news for me. Lucky I don't have a sister.” He lay back in the straw. Moonlight was blending into dawn. “I'm so tired.” He yawned again. “I wonder what my uncles will do now…?”

“They has to find a girl, of course,” the Nis replied – but Peer was already asleep.

The black cockerel woke him with a falsetto shriek of “cock-a-doodle-doo!” right beside his ear. Peer sat up with a gasp. The cockerel gave him a malicious glance and stalked away, tail feathers quivering.

“I'll tell the Nis to pull them out,” Peer threatened, pushing the barn door open. As the morning sunlight streamed in, he remembered everything he had learned.

If the trolls want a girl as well as a boy, I'm safe
, he thought.
Uncle Baldur and Uncle Grim don't have a niece, or any female relations. Did they even know any girls
?

His eyes suddenly widened in horror.

Hilde was a girl!

They couldn't. They wouldn't.

Could they?

No!
thought Peer.
But – all the same – I've got to warn her!