Rum Read online

  Rum

  Naomi Jessica Rose

  Copyright © 2017 Naomi Jessica Rose

  For Matt Green

  Part One

  Chapter 1: The Miller

  Nobody liked the miller very much. His name was Sayman, and though he was tall and strong and some might say handsome, he never smiled, or rarely. He had few words for most people, but he was happy to take their money and give them less flour than they supposed he should in return for the grain they brought him. There were only two things in the world the miller liked, and those were his son and particularly his pretty daughter, Serena. But there was one interesting thing about him; he could do magic, though nobody knew it, or almost nobody.

  Sayman had been a boy once. He was the youngest of the old miller’s children and all his brothers and sisters left home as quickly as they could; their mother did too, until in the end there was only Sayman and his father living in the house next to the mill. Sayman’s father grew angrier as he grew older and Sayman became an expert at getting out of his way. He would escape onto the moor, and when he couldn’t do that he would escape into his own head, and into the stories he remembered his mother telling him when he was small.

  Sometimes Sayman wanted to escape so much that he found he was able to change himself into an entirely different person; that was his magic. When he changed he would be another boy, somebody else, maybe a little older or younger, or taller, or skinnier. He never knew how he would change or who he would be.

  But it was fine to wander on the moor or in the woods as a different person, knowing that if anyone saw him they would not know him. He could pretend to be anybody or anything he wanted then, with no-one to tell him he was wrong or wanting. In the end, he would get tired, and the magic would wear off, but he always knew it was there; it was his, the only thing he had really, and he kept it safe and secret and never told anyone about it.

  Sayman grew up anyway. His father died and he became the only miller. It was a strange feeling, like peace, to find the space left in the house and at the mill after the old man had gone. Sayman could not stand it somehow; it seemed to make him itch. He rode away to town to see the lord and pay his rent, and he found he did not know what to do with his face, since there was no reason any more to keep expression locked away.

  He came into the town square and jumped down to let his horse drink from the fountain there. It was a beautiful day, sparkling summer, and Sayman looked up through the scattering drops of water and he saw a girl, a woman, more lovely that any he had ever seen in all his life. And he smiled at her.

  “Now here’s a handsome man I haven’t seen before,” she said. “Who are you?”

  That day Sayman’s life changed forever.

  Her name was Reeda, the daughter of a travelling merchant. She loved to sing and dance and, more than anything, to tell stories, and soon enough she became Sayman’s wife and the mother of his son Misha.

  Those were the best years of Sayman’s life, when he was married to Reeda and the two of them lived together with their son in the little house next to the mill. Reeda would come and mill with him in the day, and at night they would curl up in front of the fire all three, and tell old tales and new ones as well, that they made up themselves. In those days Sayman smiled and laughed all the time, he even sang sometimes, and he never used his magic, not once in those short years, for why would he choose to change into somebody else when he had everything he could ever have wanted?

  When Reeda fell pregnant with their second child, Sayman felt he might burst with happiness. He imagined a little girl with curling dark-gold hair like her mother’s, and that picture he made in his mind turned out to be almost exactly right. Serena was beautiful, sure enough, but she never knew her mother, because Reeda died the day she was born.

  Sayman let the tears roll down his face and he held his children tight, his little boy and his baby girl, for he could not love them more, even though his heart seemed to have shattered into a million pieces. They were all he had left of her after all.

  And after that, the seasons seemed to turn quicker than they had. The sails of the mill flew round in the wind, days were all the same to Sayman and he rarely found a reason to smile. He took his magic back again, for it had not gone away, and he kept it secret like he always had.

  One day he was on his way up the hill, and over it into the next valley, changed into the shape of an older man. It was late, beginning to get dark, and Sayman was all alone like usual, except he suddenly felt as if someone was walking along beside him. He stopped and stood still, listening. “Who is there?” he barked out in the gruff old voice of the person he now was.

  And there was someone there, for the someone laughed, though that was all he did.

  Sayman turned towards the sound, but he could not see anyone. There was nothing to see at all but hillside and heather. “Who is there?” he asked once again. “Show yourself!”

  “I can’t do that,” the stranger said, “for there is nothing of me to see.”

  Magic was common enough in that land. In most villages there was someone who could raise a wind, or talk to trees, small magic that had no consequence and little use, and did not interest many people. This magic seemed different somehow. Perhaps this man had no human body, or perhaps it was invisible. Maybe his body was somewhere else, and only his voice was there on the hillside. “Who are you?” Sayman asked.

  “My name is Rum,” the stranger replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sayman the miller. I trust you are well, and that your pretty daughter is also in good health.”

  “How do you know my name?” Sayman felt his heart gripped by a cold hand, but his voice, or whoever’s it was, roared out loud and angry. “What do you want with my daughter?”

  The invisible stranger laughed again, albeit from further away. “I’m here to help you,” he said, “and Serena too, you’ll see.”

  “I don’t need any help from a creature like you!” Sayman said, and he turned back to his path and began stumping down the hill once more, as fast as his new-old legs would carry him.

  He tried to forget that man, that creature, as he stumbled along. There was an old cottage down in the valley, a lonely, broken-down place next to a tarn where no-one lived, where people brought dogs and others brought their money to bet. Sayman came there from time to time, and always as a different stranger, a stranger to himself just as much as to any, since he never had any idea what he looked like. Nobody minded a stranger in that place; there were plenty of strangers, and people Sayman knew too, out of their ordinary guises of baker or blacksmith, laughing and drinking and making coarse jokes.

  Sayman felt sick, and he rocked on his feet. He made himself listen to the harsh, shouting voices and he made himself look at the dogs as well, monsters made of muscle and slobbering snarl, held back on chains, eyes bulging with the desire to get at each other.

  How did that creature known my name, he wondered?

  There were four dogs, and they would likely fight to the death. One of them was small, lean and black with its ears laid flat against its head. It seemed pitiful compared to the others, until it turned and glared out of its red, glistening eyes with an expression of pure evil. This whole world is evil, Sayman thought, there’s no sense in pretending otherwise.

  “Put your money on that one,” the sudden voice tickled Sayman’s ear with its whisper, and someone gripped his shoulder for just a moment, making him jump and whirl round. “He’ll kill them all,” the someone said.

  Sayman thrust out his hands to try to catch hold, but he caught nothing, and he sensed that the creature was gone. So he watched those dogs fight, for what else could he do? The small black dog ripped all the others to pieces and Sayman won more money that he ever had before.

  That money bought a
book of stories.

  “Oh, how wonderful!” Serena clapped her hands with joy and Sayman was almost lost in the warm wave of her love and happiness.

  Serena never seemed to be entirely in the world. Most of the time, she was off in a dream, or in one of the wonderful stories she invented for herself and told to anyone who would listen. But she loved books and clothes and other pretty, useless things as well.

  So Sayman found his way up and over the hill every so often, in a different guise each time, so he could win money and buy pretty things for his pretty daughter, and so he could feel what she felt, for as long as that lasted. He got used to the strange sensation, like a shake in the air, when the creature called Rum appeared from nowhere to whisper in his ear which dog he should choose. And it seemed that his heart grew a little colder each time, and a little smaller too.

  Chapter 2: The Miller’s Daughter

  Serena rode slowly along the track next to the wood on the old white horse, old Maid. She just let Maid amble and hummed away, enjoying the sunshine, looking at the trees getting their new leaves for the coming year. The wood was beautiful at any time, but in spring it was simply magical. Serena had been to the next village and had bought three loaves of bread from the baker there and on the way home she had visited the bee keeper for honey as well. It was all tucked away under a cloth in the basket over her arm. The smell of it helped her doze and dream and a baby came into her mind and began to make a story there. Serena didn’t care about babies at all, but she loved to make up stories, and there the baby was, wanting its story to be made and told.

  Something made the mare lift her head and stop still.

  “Come on old thing,” Serena said.

  She was not in a hurry, but she did have to get back before sundown to make a meal for her father and brother. Serena didn’t care for cooking much either.

  Maid let out a whinny, shaking all over, and another horse replied. Serena heard them then. Not just one horse, but a company of them. She felt her heart lift with excitement. There was no company of horses in her village. Not one that cantered together at a steady pace like these were doing by the sound of them. And as the sound of those horses’ hooves came nearer, Serena heard men’s voices mixed up with them.

  The company burst from the wood and Serena’s heart stopped, just for a moment. She drummed the mare with her heels to catch them up because she couldn’t do anything else, and old Maid pricked up her ears and went after them just as eagerly.

  They were shining, those men. And the horses they rode shone too, brightly brushed and resplendent in their glittering harness. Serena held the mare back, knowing neither of them had any business in this company. They were soldiers in red tunics and mail shirts wearing shiny boots and swords, all alike save one.

  And suddenly there were people all around. “It’s the king! The king!” a boy on a donkey sang out; Jonjo, the blacksmith’s boy, riding his little grey donkey flat out. But there were other children too. A gang of boys tumbled out of the trees and a crowd of girls picked up their skirts and ran through the long grass toward the company like darts. Serena was laughing. She was ahead of all of them, loaves of bread flying out of her basket as she rode. Everyone from the village, it seemed, was spilling out into the wide meadow next to the wood.

  Serena knew very little about the king really. Her father had once seen the old king, and he had told her about it, but the old king had died last year and now his son was king instead. She knew he was the one dressed differently; in white with a red star on the front of his mail shirt. He was grinning as broadly as she was herself, urging his horse on faster, more like a boy really, than a grown up man.

  A party of different sized children galloped along, and amongst them was Juss, the goose-woman’s son, who had no father anybody knew and who could make rainbows. He was making them as he ran, shooting them at the people all around him, causing those he hit to whirl with joyous mirth.

  The company of soldiers wheeled away from the oncoming crowd which Serena at once found herself swallowed up in. It was like a busy market day in town, the mixture of different people and the crowdedness of it, only everyone here was running, and rainbows flew everywhere amongst them. One of those bouncing rainbows crashed into Serena’s chest and she felt the familiar exhilarating crescendo of wonder spin her consciousness round and round, dizzyingly, until she hardly knew which way was up. But it only lasted a moment, just as usual, and she found herself laughing uncontrollably as the effect slowed. There is simply too much joy in the world altogether, she thought.

  The white mare began to puff and slow, overtaken by the others on their ponies and Jonjo on his donkey, who wouldn’t stop for anything now. Serena expected the spectacle to diminish anyway, over the hills in the direction she supposed the King’s palace lay.

  Not so; the king checked his horse and the fine company ground to a firm halt in front of a quivering crowd. Serena simply could not bear it. I will burst, I know I will, she told herself.

  “You!” the king called out, peering at someone in the crowd. Serena could see beautifully from the tall mare’s back.

  The king was young, Serena knew that much. He was the king now, but before that he had always been young Prince Malcolm, of whom the stories told of wild and daring adventures were probably not entirely true, but still. He climbed down from his shiny horse and Serena believed she had never seen anyone as magnificent, or as handsome. He was tall and lean with broad shoulders and an air of self-satisfaction that surely no-one could ever match. He strode into the hushed crowd and took hold of Juss the goose-boy, who was terrified.

  “What was that you were doing?” the king asked the boy. He was frowning, but he didn’t look angry. He looked as if he wanted to understand something new. Serena could hardly look at his dark curling hair or the glint in his black eyes. He was so fine and alive and so filled with energy.

  “I d-don’t know what you mean, sir,” the boy stammered.

  The king let go of his arm and knelt down in front of him. “You were throwing something, colours.”

  “Rainbows,” the boy explained. “I make rainbows for people. Makes them happy.”

  “Make one for me,” the king ordered.

  Serena held her breath. The rest of the crowd did too, it seemed. They were still and completely silent standing there, like they never usually would be.

  The king stood up again and Juss threw a rainbow square at his chest. He staggered and reeled and then laughed like a fool. “Now there’s a trick,” he said, when he had come back to himself again. “How is it done?”

  “I don’t know sir,” the boy said, his cheeks flushing red.

  “Well, perhaps you had better make it your business to find out.” His face was so serious and focused Serena felt she might fall all into little pieces. And when he turned back to his company and got on his horse to ride away she thought she would die.

  “Farewell to you all!” he called over his shoulder.

  The crowd began to buzz immediately, everyone talking at once, some exclaiming, some shrieking. Serena rode away back along the track, not wanting to listen, wanting to savour the moment and make it last forever. She swung down to retrieve her loaves of bread and walked alongside the mare around the big meadow. By the time she got back to the crowd it had mostly gone as all the people with important things to do had returned to those things.

  “My eyes,” Tawney was saying. “What shall I do now, or ever again?”

  “Well I’ve a hundred things need doing at home, but I don’t think my legs will walk,” said Gert.

  “I'm sure all of those things can wait a while,” Serena said soothingly. “Let’s have a feast. We can have it here in the meadow, why not? Look, I've bread and honey!” She took off Maid’s bridle and let the mare weave away, then she spread the cloth from her basket on the grass and threw herself down onto it with a contented sigh.

  “Isn’t that honey for your father?” Billa asked doubtfully.

  Serena l
aughed. “No, it’s for me! Come on Billa, have some.”

  There were five girls left and a handful of boys. Serena let the boys dip their fingers in the honey before they hared off back to their tree climbing, all except Juss the goose-boy, who had been left behind and was curled up fast asleep in the grass.

  Tawney and Gert were Serena’s best friends, girls she had known all her life. Tawney had clouds of curly blonde hair and a round face with dimples. Gert was tall and plain and never wore nice frocks because she was poor. Billa was a foreigner; only moved to the village two years ago. Serena was fascinated with Billa because her face didn’t look like everyone else’s and her talk was strange. She still used words that no-one knew the meaning of, though after two years she was mostly trained to talk like all the other girls. Lily was there too, pale washed-out tiny-bird Lily. But she didn’t ever speak, so she hardly counted. Serena was queen of the girls in the village anyway, with her golden red hair and her forever smile. She knew it perfectly well too.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to marry the king,” Serena announced. The other girls fell about laughing but Serena was serious.

  “You don’t need the money though,” Tawney said, “Your father is rich enough, isn’t he?”

  “My father? He isn’t rich at all, he’s the miller! How could a miller be rich?”

  “Rich enough to buy you fine dresses and books and trinket boxes and trinkets to put in em,” Tawney proclaimed with a twinkle in her blue cornflower eye.

  “But that’s nothing compared to what the king has, silly. When I marry the king I’ll be the queen I suppose and I’ll have gold rings and fine horses. I’ll have rooms full of dresses and rooms full of books, but I won’t care a thing about them. As if I’d marry someone just for their money!”

  “It’s a good enough reason,” Gert said. “When I marry Larsen I’ll be all right for a house and land.”