Troll Fell

CHAPTER 3

Talking to the Nis

There can’t be another Uncle Baldur! After the first stunned moment, Peer began to laugh, tight, hiccuping laughter that hurt his chest. Unable to stop, he bent over the rail of the cart, gasping in agony.

Uncle Grim and Uncle Baldur were identical twins.

Side by side they strutted up to the cart. He looked wildly from one to the other. Same barrel chests and muscular, knotted arms, same thick necks, same mean little eyes peering from masses of black tangled beard and hair. One of them was still wrapped up in a wet cloak, however, while the other seemed to have been eating supper, for he was holding a knife with a piece of meat skewered to the point.

“Shut up,” said this one to Peer. “And get down.” Only the voice was different – deep and rough.

“Now let me guess!” said Peer with mad recklessness. “Who can you be? Oooh – tricky one! But wait, I’ve got it! You’re my Uncle Grim! Yes? You are alike, aren’t you! Like peas in a pod. Do you ever get muddled up? I’m your—”

“Get down,” growled Uncle Grim, in exactly the same way as before.

“—nephew, Peer!” Peer finished, impudently. He held up his wrist, still firmly tethered to the side of the cart, and waggled his fingers.

Uncle Grim snapped the twine with a contemptuous jerk. Then he frowned, lifted his knife and squinted at the point. He sucked the piece of meat off, licked the blade, and sliced through the string holding Loki. He stared hard at Peer.

“Now get down,” he ordered, through his food. He turned to his brother as Peer jumped stiffly down. “He’s not much, is he?”

“But he’ll do,” grunted Uncle Baldur. “He can start now. Here, you!” He thrust the lantern at Peer. “Take this! Put the oxen in the stalls. Put the hens in the barn. Feed them. Move!” He threw an arm over his brother’s shoulders, and as the two of them slouched away towards the mill Peer heard Baldur saying, “What’s in the pot? Stew? I’ll have some of that!”

The door shut. Peer stood in the mud, the rain drumming on his head, the lantern shaking in his hand. All desire to laugh left him. Loki picked himself up out of the puddle and shook himself wearily. He whined. Peer drew a deep breath. “All right, Loki. Let’s get on with it, boy!”

Struggling with the wet harness he unhitched the oxen and led them into their stalls. He tried to rub them dry with wisps of straw. He unloaded the hens and set them loose on the barn floor, where an arrogant, black cockerel and a couple of scrawny females came strutting to inspect them. He found some corn and scattered it. By now the stiffness had worn off, but he was damp, cold and exhausted. The hens found places to roost, clucking suspiciously. Loki curled up in the straw and fell fast asleep. Peer decided to leave him there. He hadn’t forgotten what Uncle Baldur had said about his dog eating Loki, and he certainly had heard a big dog barking inside the mill. He took up the lantern and set off across the yard, picking his way through the mud. The storm was passing, and tatters of cloud blew wildly overhead. It had stopped raining.

The mill looked black and forbidding. Not a glimmer of light escaped from the tightly closed shutters. Peer hoped he hadn’t been locked out. His stomach growled. There was stew inside, waiting for him! But he stopped at the door, afraid to go in. Did they expect him to knock? Voices mumbled inside. Were they talking about him?

He put his head to the door and listened.

“Not worth much!” Baldur was saying.

There was a sort of thump and clink. “Count it anyway,” said Grim’s deep voice, and Peer realised that Uncle Baldur had thrown a bag of money down. Next came a muffled, rhythmical chanting. His uncles were counting the money together. They kept stopping and cursing and getting it wrong.

“Thirty, thirty-one,” Baldur finished at last. “Lock it up!” His voice grew fainter, as he moved further from the door. “We don’t want the boy getting his hands on it.”

Peer clenched his fists. “That’s my money, you thieves!” he whispered furiously. A lid creaked open and crashed shut. They had hidden his money in some chest, and if he walked in now, he might see where it was.

“About the lad,” came Baldur’s voice. Peer stopped. He glued his ear to the wet wood. Unfortunately Baldur seemed to be walking about, for he could hear feet clumping to and fro, and the words came in snatches.

“…time to take him to the Gaffer?” Peer heard, and something like,“…no point in taking him too soon.”

The Gaffer? He said that before, up on the hill, thought Peer with an uneasy shiver. What does it mean? He strained his ears again. Rumble, whistle, rumble, went the two voices. He thought he heard something about “trolls”, followed quite clearly by: “Plenty of time before the wedding.” A succession of thuds sounded like both of his uncles taking their boots off and kicking them across the room. Finally he heard one of them, Grim it must be, say loudly, “At least we’ll get some work out of him first.”

That seemed to conclude the discussion. Peer straightened up and scratched his head. A chilly wind blew round his ears and a fresh rainshower rattled out of the sky. Inside the mill one of the brothers was saying, “Hasn’t that pesky lad finished yet?” Hastily Peer knocked and lifted the latch.

With a blood-curdling bellow, the most enormous dog Peer had ever seen launched itself from its place by the fireside directly at his throat. Huge rows of yellow, dripping teeth were closing in on his face when Uncle Grim put out a casual arm and yanked the monster backwards off its feet, roaring, “Down, Grendel!”

The huge dog cringed. “Come in and shut the door,” Grim growled roughly to Peer. “Don’t stand there like a fool. Let him smell you. Then he’ll know you.”

Nervously Peer held out his hand, expecting the animal to take it off at the wrist. Grendel stood taller than a wolf. His coat was brindled, brown and black, and a thick ruff of coarse fur grew over his shoulders and down his spine. Hackles up, he lowered his massive head and smelled Peer’s hand as if it were garbage, rumbling distrustfully. Uncle Grim gave Grendel an affectionate slap and rubbed him round the jaws. “Who’s a good doggie? Who’s a good boy, then?” he cooed admiringly. Peer wiped a slobbery hand on his trousers. He thought that Grendel looked a real killer – just the sort of dog the Grimsson brothers would have.

“This dog’s a killer,” boasted Uncle Grim, as if he could read Peer’s mind. “Best dog in the valley. Wins every fight. Not a scratch on him. That’s what I call a proper dog!”

Thank goodness I didn’t bring Loki in! Peer shuddered. Uncle Grim fussed Grendel, tugging his ears and calling him a good fellow. Grateful to be ignored, Peer looked around at his new home.

A sullen fire smouldered in the middle of the room. Uncle Baldur sat beside it on a stool, guzzling stew from a bowl in his lap, and toasting his bare feet. His wet socks steamed on the black hearthstones. He twiddled his vast, hairy toes over the embers. His long, curved toenails looked like dirty claws.

The narrow, smoke-stained room was a jumble of rickety furniture, bins, barrels and old tools. A table, crumbling with woodworm, leaned against the wall on tottering legs. Two bunk beds trailed tangles of untidy blankets on to the floor.

At the far end of the room a short ladder led up to a kind of loft with a raised platform for the millstones. Though it was very dark up there, Peer could make out various looming shapes of mill machinery: hoists and hoppers, chains and hooks. A huge pair of iron scales hung from the roof. Swags of rope looped from beam to beam.

Uncle Baldur belched loudly and put his dish on the floor for Grendel. Suddenly the room spun around Peer. Sick and dizzy, he put his hand against the wall for support, and snatched it quickly away, his palm covered in grey dust and sticky black cobwebs. Cobwebs clung everywhere to the walls, loaded with old flour. Underfoot, the dirt floor felt spongy and damp from a thick deposit of ancient bran. A sweetish smell of rotten grain and mouldy flour blended with the stink of Uncle Baldur’s cheesy socks. There was also a lingering odour of stew.

Peer swallowed queasily. He said faintly, “I did what you said, Uncle Baldur. I fed the animals and put them away. Is there – is there any stew?”

“Over there,” his uncle grunted, jerking his head towards a black iron pot sitting in the embers. Peer took a look. It was nearly empty.

“But it’s all gone,” he said in dismay.

“All gone?” Uncle Baldur’s face blackened. “All gone? This boy’s been spoilt, Grim. I can see that. The boy’s been spoilt!”

“There’s plenty there,” growled Grim. “Wipe out the pot with bread and be thankful. Waste not, want not.”

Silently, Peer knelt down. He found a dry heel of bread and scraped it round inside the pot. There was no meat left, barely a spoonful of gravy and a few fragments of onion, but the warm iron pot was comforting to hold, and he chewed the bread hungrily, saving a crust for Loki. When he had finished, he looked up and found Uncle Baldur staring at him broodingly. His uncle’s dark little eyes glittered meanly, and he buried his thick fingers in his beard and scratched, rasping slowly up and down.

Peer stared back uneasily. His uncle convulsed. He doubled up, choking, and slapped his knees violently. He jerked to and fro, snorting for breath. “Ha, ha, ha!” he gasped. His face turned purple. “Hee, hee! Oh, dear. Oh, dear me!” He pointed at Peer. “Look at him, Grim! Look at him! Some might call him a bad bargain, but to me – to me, he’s worth his weight in gold!”

The two brothers howled with laughter. “That’s funny!” Grim roared, punching his brother’s shoulder. “Worth his weight in – oh, very good!”

Peer looked at them darkly. Whatever the joke was, it was clearly not a nice one. But what was the good of protesting? It would only make them laugh louder. He gave a deliberate yawn. “I’m tired, Uncle Baldur. Where do I sleep?”

“Eh?” Uncle Baldur turned to him, tears of laughter glistening on his hairy face. He wiped them away and snorted. “The pipsqueak’s tired, Grim. He wants to sleep. Where shall we put him?”

“On the floor with the dog?” Peer suggested sarcastically. The two wide bunks belonged to his uncles, so he fully expected to be told something of the kind. But Uncle Grim lumbered to his feet.

“Under the millstones,” he grunted. He tramped down the room towards the loft ladder, but instead of climbing it, he burrowed into a corner, kicked aside a couple of dusty baskets and a broken crate, and revealed a small wooden door not more than three feet high. Peer followed him warily. Uncle Grim opened the little door. It was not a cupboard. Behind it was blackness, a strong damp smell, and a sound of trickling water.

Before he could protest, Uncle Grim grabbed Peer by the arm, forced him to his knees and shoved him through into the dark space beyond. Peer pitched forwards on to his face. With a flump, a pile of mouldy sacks landed on his legs. “You can sleep on those!” his uncle shouted. Peer jerked and kicked to free his legs. He stopped breathing. His throat closed up. He scrambled to his feet and hit his head a stunning blow. Stars spangled the darkness. He felt above him madly. His hands fumbled along a huge rounded beam of wood and found the cold blunt teeth of an enormous cogwheel. He turned desperately. A thin line of light indicated the closed door. His chest heaved. Air gushed into his lungs.

“Uncle Baldur!” Peer screamed. He threw himself at the door, hammering on it. “Let me out! Let me out!”

He pounded the door, shrieking, and the rotten catch gave way. The door swung wide, a magical glimpse of firelight and safety. Sobbing in relief, Peer crawled out and leaped to his feet. Uncle Baldur advanced upon him.

“No!” Peer cried. He ducked under Uncle Baldur’s arm and backed up the room, shaking. “Uncle Baldur, no, don’t make me sleep in there. Please! I’ll sleep in the barn with Loki, I’d rather, really!”

“You’ll sleep where I tell you to sleep!” Uncle Baldur reached out for him.

“I’ll shout and yell all night!” Peer glared at him wildly. “You won’t sleep a wink!”

Uncle Baldur stopped. He frowned at Peer. “What’s wrong with you?” he sneered. “Bedding down near all that fine machinery – I’d have loved it when I was a lad!”

“On nice soft sacks!” Grim offered.

“It’s too small – I can’t breathe. Cramped – dark!” panted Peer, shamefaced, his heart still pounding.

His uncles stared at him unbelievingly. Slowly, Baldur began to grin. “Cramped! Dark!” he mimicked. His grin developed into a chuckle. “D’you hear that, Grim? He’s afraid of the dark! The boy’s afraid of the dark!”

For the second time that night, the two brothers roared with laughter, while Peer glowered at the floor. They pounded one another on the back, they coughed and choked and staggered about. At last, Uncle Baldur recovered. The old, bad-tempered scowl settled back on his face.

“So go and sleep in the barn!” he snarled at Peer, who nodded speechlessly, his cheeks flaming.

“It’s late, you know!” yawned Grim.

“Bedtime,” nodded his brother. They sat down heavily on their bunks, wrestled with the blankets, wrapped themselves up and turned over.

Peer tiptoed past. On his way to the door he had to step over Grendel, who opened one glinting red eye and wrinkled his lips in a silent snarl. Quickly and quietly Peer got through the door and crossed the yard.

The barn was dark, but it felt high and sweet and airy. Peer pulled crackling straw up over his knees and woke Loki, who gobbled the crust Peer had saved for him.

“There’s no more,” said Peer. He pushed aside Loki’s hopeful nose, and lay down, exhausted.

It was not completely dark in the barn. Outside the sky had cleared and the moon had risen. A few bright stripes of moonlight lay across the floor and wooden stalls. Peer lay on his back, too tired to sleep, his mind working restlessly.

There’s something funny going on.

What does Uncle Baldur want me for?

He tossed and turned, pulling more straw over him. Gradually he fell into uneasy dreams. Beside him Loki slept, whimpering and twitching.

A strange sound crept into Peer’s sleep. He dreamed of a hoarse little voice, panting, and muttering to itself, “Up we go. Here we are!” There was a scrabbling like rats in the rafters, and a smell of porridge. Peer rolled over.

“Up we go,” muttered the hoarse little voice again, and then more loudly, “Move over, you great fat hen. Budge, I say!” This was followed by a squawk. One of the hens fell off the rafter and minced indignantly away to find another perch. Peer screwed up his eyes and tried to focus. He could see nothing but black shapes and shadows.

“Aaah!” A long sigh from overhead set his hair on end. The smell of porridge was quite strong. There came a sound of lapping or slurping. This went on for a few minutes. Peer listened, fascinated.

“No butter!” the little voice said discontentedly. “No butter in me groute!” It mumbled to itself in disappointment. “The cheapskates, the skinflints, the hard-hearted misers! But wait! Maybe the butter’s at the bottom. Let’s find out.” The slurping began again. Next came a sucking sound, as if the person – or whatever it was – had scraped the bowl with its fingers and was licking them off. There was a silence.

“No butter,” sulked the voice in deep displeasure. A wooden bowl dropped out of the rafters straight on to Peer’s head.

“Ow!” said Peer.

There was a gasp and a scuffle. The next time the voice spoke it was from a corner on the other side of the barn.

“Who’s there?” it quavered.

“I’m Peer Ulfsson,” said Peer. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” said the voice quickly. “Nobody at all.”

Loki had woken up when the bowl fell, but Peer stroked him gently to reassure him. He didn’t want any barking.

“I think you’re a nis,” he said to the voice. A nis was a sort of house-spirit. Peer had heard about them, but never expected to meet one. “Are you a nis?” he persisted.

There was a bit of a silence. “What if I am?” the voice asked huffily.

Peer wanted to be friends with someone in this place, and now he thought he knew a way. “Didn’t they give you any butter?” he asked sympathetically.

This set the creature off. “Plain groute,” it exclaimed bitterly. “Nary a bit of butter for poor Nithing, but plain barley porridge! Me that does half the work round here, me that sweeps and dusts and cleans, me that polishes away cobwebs!” Remembering the dust and dirt he had seen earlier, Peer doubted that it did any of these things well, but he did not say so. Probably the Nis would work better if it was fed well.

“And they has mountains of butter,” went on the Nis, working itself up, “in the dairy. In a wooden barrel,” it added darkly, “to keep off cats and mice and the likes of me. Plain groute they gives me, in a bowl by the fire, and I sees it and I fetches it away, and I tastes it – and no butter.”

“I know how you feel,” said Peer, “they didn’t give me any stew either.”

The idea that somebody else might be hard done by seemed to take the Nis by surprise. Peer still could not see it, but he heard it jumping lightly closer among the rafters. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand,” it chanted in its scratchy little voice. Peer did so. Something warm and smooth was slipped into his hand.

“Have an egg,” said the voice with a squeak of laughter. Peer closed his fingers over the egg. He did not really want to eat it raw, and saw no way of cooking it. He decided to give it to Loki for his breakfast. He thanked the Nis. It skipped about above.

“No butter.” It was still brooding over its wrongs. “I has a cousin, Peer Ulfsson – I has lots of cousins – but I has a cousin over in Jutland who wrung the neckses of the very best beasts in the stable because they forgot his butter. I could do that.”

Peer thought the Nis was probably boasting, but to please it, he begged it not to. “After all, it’s not the animals’ fault,” he pointed out. “It’s the Grimssons’.”

“Could you get me butter?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Peer gloomily, “if they caught me stealing butter I should think they’d half kill me. I don’t think I’m going to get much to eat here either. I’m sorry,” he added.

“Hmm!” said the Nis. And it spoke no more that night. In the morning when Peer woke up, he wondered if it had been a dream.

Then he looked at the straw beside him. Loki looked eagerly as well, his brown ears pricked. He knew what an egg was. Peer broke it for him and he lapped it up noisily. “You sound like the Nis,” said Peer, stretching stiff arms and brushing pieces of hay off his clothes. The oxen moved restlessly in their stalls, waiting to be fed. Peer opened the barn door and let out the hens to forage for themselves. He forked some hay down for the oxen. It was still very early morning and there was no sign of his uncles. Peer didn’t fancy waking them up.

“Let’s go and explore, Loki!” he said to the dog. “Walkies! Come on!” He pushed open the barn door, and Loki bounded cheerfully out.

CHAPTER 4

Meeting Hilde

Although the sky was fresh and clear, the yard still lay in chilly shadow. Peer splashed through the puddles, keeping a wary eye on the silent mill, its blind shutters and tattered thatch. The reed thatching had once been twisted into fancy horns at each end of the roof, now so damaged they looked like crooked ears. A dismal thread of smoke wavered from the smoke hole and trickled into the yard, as if it were too tired to rise. There was no sign of anyone awake.

Peer walked out of the yard and round the end of the building to the bridge. He leaned on the rail, looking upstream at the big wooden waterwheel. It towered higher than his head, a motionless monster, its dark teeth dripping. The central shaft, thick as a man’s thigh, ran through an aperture into the side of the mill. Peer recognised it, wincing. No wonder his head felt bruised!

He stared up the narrow channel of the mill race and shivered. A cold breath came off the water, which flowed listlessly under the wheel in inky creases, since the sluicegate was shut. Beside the wheel, the overspill from the millpond plunged into white fury over a little weir and went boiling down under the bridge. Hesitant swirls of foam detached themselves and went venturing up the millrace on back eddies, before losing heart and hurrying off downstream again. Peer watched the changing patterns until he felt dizzy. Then he crossed over and turned left up the bank to take a look at the millpond.

It was a gloomy place, even on this sunny morning. Twisted willows frowned into the water, as if they were studying their own reflections and disliked what they saw. Patches of green slime rotated slowly on the dark brown water, which seemed hardly to move except at the very edge of the weir, where it developed glassy streaks and furrows and tumbled smoothly over into the ferment below. Peer sniffed. There was a damp, cold reek about the place.

He walked further along the bank, till his way was blocked by a narrow, deep-cut channel, fed by an open sluice in the side of the millpond. The water sprayed in a glittering arc over a sill slotted between wooden posts, and dashed noisily away to join the tailrace below the bridge. Peer threw a leaf on to the surface of the pond and watched it move imperceptibly towards the open sluice, before suddenly flashing over and down.

He turned back. Loki had run off, nosing into the reeds with his tail high. He dashed back and jumped at Peer with muddy paws.

“Get down!” Peer pushed him off. “Phew! That mud stinks!” It was fine, thick, black mud, the sort that dries to a hard, grey shell. Peer grabbed Loki and tried to wipe his paws with a handful of grass, and Loki tried to help by lavishly licking both his own paws and Peer’s fingers. In the middle of this mess Peer heard a pony coming down the road towards the mill, and looked up.

A girl of about his own age was riding it, brightly dressed in a blue woollen dress with red stitching. On her head she wore a jaunty red and yellow cap, and her hair was done in two long plaits tied with pieces of red and blue wool. She sat sideways on the shaggy little pony, with a basket on her knee. Her eyes widened when she saw Peer, and she pulled the pony to a stop.

“Hello!” she called. “Who are you?”

She looked clean and colourful. Peer looked down at himself. His old clothes were drab and torn, and his hands were smeared with mud.

“My name’s Peer Ulfsson,” he mumbled.

“Ulf’s son?” said the girl. “Now wait, I know everyone, don’t tell me. I’ll get it. Yes! There was an Ulf who was old Grim’s stepson. Is that him?”