Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Later that afternoon as Robin filled the hopper and scraped flour into sacks — and tried to ignore the groaning — a young man knocked at the threshold.

Red-eyed Elgiva was just behind him. Handsome in a soft, beardless way, the lad was proud in his neat yellow smock, sky blue hose, and round hat.

His feet, the outlaw noted, were narrower than his hands.

Seymour, journeyman miller to his father Uland in Carberton, was earnest and sincere, solicitous of Elgiva’s plight. Luther had cast her out without a penny, and what might she do to gain back the knight’s graces. Seymour could help her mill. The job should rightfully have gone to him anyway, since he’d spent years repairing the gristmill, and had been Hosea’s trusted friend. Was Robin capable to mill, and might he need a journeyman?

When his talk availed nothing, Elgiva loosed her tongue. “You shouldn’t even be here! It’s not right and it’s not fair! You come out of that accursed forest, a murderin’ outlaw with blood on his hands, and take work away from decent folk! You’ll be in strife when Lord Lancaster comes through! He’ll set dogs on you and your strumpet wife—”

Seymour jumped in. “And you’ll ruin this mill with your meddling! Already you’ve thrown the wheel out of kilter or neglected to grease somethin’! It never did groan like that before!”

Robin opened the door wider to let the sound travel. “Perhaps the mill mourns a master done wrong. Perhaps it cries for vengeance. What say you?”

The two young people shut up, turned white as ghosts. Seymour’s hands shook. Elgiva backed away.

From the lodge, two horses danced down the valley. As planned, the huntsman had watched for Seymour and fetched Sir Luther. They reined in before the mill, hooves throwing mud. The knight nudged his bay palfrey sideways, swiped Seymour across the shoulder with a quirt.

“Get ye gone, wastrel! I’ve appointed this man miller and not you, and I’ll stand no gainsaying my decision! Now hie yourself back to Carberton before I whip you out of the valley, and never come back! And you, trollop, get out of my sight!”

Luther ordered the huntsman to escort Seymour home, at the end of a rope if necessary. After a hasty and tearful farewell, the boy shouldered his satchel and scampered up the road, while Hosea’s widow hiked her skirts and pegged for the village.

“There,” the knight sighed. “He’s driven out, but Elgiva must stay till we find the money. I hope your wife knows what she’s about.”

“She always does,” Robin smiled, “better than I.”

“What you’re about or she’s about?”

“Either. I’m married long enough not to argue. I’m broke to the yoke.”

Luther nodded, “You and me both. Lean into the harness and avoid the goad. You’ve got the mill turning. Good. But what’s that benighted groaning? It sounds like—”

He stopped.

“I’m glad you needs spend the night and not me.” The knight pelted away, leaving Robin to his haunted mill.

That evening, Marian returned from the village with their supper. Robin showed off his work, and she congratulated him, but added, “Why does it moan so? It sounds like a thirsty ox. Or—”

Robin raised a hand to stop her. His elation at fixing the mill had evaporated. He leaned out the window and dropped the sluice gate. Gradually the mossy wheel rolled to a halt. The silence was brittle after the unceasing groans.

They kindled a fire outside and ate supper there. “So what of your day, Marian? What have you gleaned?” Glad to change the subject, she caught him up on their outlawry business, but had little else to add. Robin was too tired to note his wife was deep in thought.

They slept outdoors.

Marian left before dawn, toting a satchel and bow, no hint of her destination. Her departure might have miffed Robin had he not done the same so often.

Robin fell to milling and found he liked it. Once he’d loaded the wooden hopper over the millstones, there was little to do except scoop flour from the cupboard. He replaced the missing floorboard with another plucked from the loft. Prowling after work, and grumbling at Hosea’s laziness, he hauled sacks away from the walls, dug out rotting sprouting mouldy grain and pitched it to the birds. He put down pallets and restacked the bags. He stomped so many rats and mice that he turned to the village and traded a silver ha’ penny for a big brindled cat. He tested the scale and its iron weights, one against another.

He’d have loved the work if not for the infernal moan. In desperation, he fetched lard from the village and greased every moving part. Nothing diminished the groaning, though while smearing the big crown wheel he made a curious discovery. He thought to tell Marian later.

But Marian didn’t return that night, so he paid a penny for bread and meat and beer at the alehouse, then slept under a bush. Another day found the harvest in full swing, men cutting, children stacking, women winnowing. Wagons heaped high rolled to the mill door. Robin fed the hopper and stitched sacks.