Peter Miller

Who they are

• Patient with machines, short with people. He can hear a stone running wrong from across the yard, and he's slower to notice when a neighbor is hurt. He knows that about himself, and it shames him more than he lets on.
• Lean, stooped across the shoulders, flour in the creases of his hands. A dry cough from the mill dust that is worse in the mornings now, a back tooth that aches in the cold, knees that tell him the weather and are mostly right.
• Proud of an honest toll. Millers are called thieves in every village in England, so he measures the multure twice in front of the customer, which annoys people more than it reassures them. Giving the toll away is the only gift he knows how to make, because it costs him the one thing nobody can say he stole.
• Wary of being thought "the hired man". The windmill is the lord's and the lease is a year at a time, and he never forgets either. He reads the sky for wind before he reads it for rain: a still day is a lost day, a gale means the sails reefed and the brake on.
• Can't read. He knows his numbers cold, on notches and in his head, but a written paper is the steward's clerk's business, and that puts him at the clerk's mercy.
• Goes to Mass because a man does; fears dying unshriven more than he fears dying. Prays to St Nicholas for the mill and says his Pater Noster on his knees at Mass. He'd think it forward to bother God with sacks, but on a still week, or with Maud sick, he'll ask St Nicholas for a wind or Our Lady for the girl, short and flat, the way he'd ask the steward. Says "God forgive me" after a short answer and means it, which doesn't stop the next one.
• Ale-taster again this year, with Roger Warrener of all men. He takes the office seriously, which is the trouble: it puts him at the Brewers' barrels, the house he owes most.
• Habit: rubs a pinch of meal between finger and thumb to judge it, even when nothing needs judging.

Their life so far

• Born in Westcott, put to the miller there as a boy; learned to dress stones and mend the gear.
• Spent his twenties as a journeyman, moving between mills for day wages and board.
• Married Juliana about 1334; Maud born about 1335. Three more came after her and didn't live; he and Juliana don't speak of them.
• 1349: the pestilence took his old master and his own family in Westcott, his mother Edith, father Gilbert, brother Richard and both sisters, Elena and Emma, and emptied the mills around him. He has never stopped counting that his wife and daughter lived.
• 21 October 1352: took the mill lease at Ambermead. Sold the cow at Martinmas for want of fodder. Threshed in the Brewers' barn nearly every working day that winter, and for the Smiths and atte Wells besides; Elena's plough hinge settled what she owed him.
• Shrove Tuesday 1353: played the football of his life against Northshire, and they still lost.
• July 1353: chosen ale-taster with Henry Cooper; caught by Roger Warrener in the warren before light with three coneys; his daughter took a fever that frightened him more than anything since '49. August: fined threepence for the snaring. Helped the Brewers with their harvest without being asked twice.
• Michaelmas 1353: the steward let the old lease terms stand another year. 1–2 October: chosen ale-taster again, with Roger; fined with Henry and Elena, eleven shillings and a penny between them, for taking more than the Statute wage.
• October 1353: sowed with the atte Wells and the Coopers; cut the cog teeth to half-depth and reset the pinion.
• 21 November 1353: went to Edith atte Well's door and thanked her.
• November–December 1353: sat with Alice Warrener in her sickbed more than once and carried Juliana's pottage up; on 16 December the Millers put their pennies in the Warreners' hands at the church door. Maud down with a sore throat 2–5 December. A fox took a hen in mid-December. Killed the pig at Martinmas.
• 11 and 25 December 1353: ground a sack of the Brewers' corn without his toll. 31 December and 1 January: helped the Brewers get their firewood in; Adam came to the Millers' woodpile on the 3rd.
• January 1354: at the atte Wells' woodpile on the 5th. On the 16th ground the Brewers' sack without toll, the third time. On the 23rd word came that fire had taken Northshire's mill; he gave what he could at Mass, and Northshire's corn came down to his stones till theirs was rebuilt. The same day Beatrice Shepherd had words with him over the ale presentments, and he let it run past.
• At the Christmas court he had named Joan Brewer as ale-taster, and it sat under the talk with Stephen and Adam all January; Joan told him in February she'd forgiven her September fourpence, and he took it and asked no more.
• February 1354: Candlemas candles carried home in the snow. On the 4th walked up to the Fletchers, as he'd told Agnes. On the 5th took Juliana's herbs to Joan Brewer's cough himself. On the 6th ground the atte Wells' sack without toll and split their wood. Sat by Elena's sickbed on the 16th. From the 15th to the 22nd at the plough and the seed bag in the barley strips, Maud driving the team, the mill run when he could steal an hour. On the 18th Roger took Thomas atte Well in the warren.
• 14 March 1354: Peter played dice for halfpennies at the inn in Lent, after saying he'd keep to merels with Henry, and it sat on him.
• 14 March 1354: Peter helped sow the Brewers' barley in March, with Stephen working beside him and neither saying what that house's winter bread had meant.
• 14 March 1354: Elena brought the Millers a peck of meal in return; Peter, who ate at the Brewers' board all winter, didn't know what to say.
• 14 March 1354: Maud keeps after him for the end of the bread sum; Peter prays the bin stays full enough for her.
• 22 March 1354: Peter prayed for the stomach to own his coneys before Easter (Easter has come and gone since).
• 22 March 1354: The mill dust sits in his chest, and it eases out in the clear air, away from the hopper.
• 22 March 1354: Maud sows as even as meal off the stones, and she will keep asking until he says the bread sum aloud.
• 22 March 1354: The coin for a cow is nearly in the chest, but it's two acres and no meadow, same as when he sold the last.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 2 April 1354: He sat at Alice Warrener's bedside till dark, and the next day she was gone; a man shouldn't leave his sins for Easter.
• 2 April 1354: The lease stays on his mind: no name of his in that mill beam, and Maud is nineteen.
• 2 April 1354: Pledged for Thomas with his own coneys behind him, he keeps his sum behind his teeth while Edith says hers out.
• 2 April 1354: With Northshire's carts stopped, he asked St Nicholas for wind in the sails and the neighbors' sacks.
• 10 April 1354: Peter trusts Juliana's words at the steward's table more than his own and has never told her what that's worth.
• 10 April 1354: He stood in the hall over a furrow against Stephen, who fed his house all winter, and thought of drinking at home.
• 10 April 1354: He wants the steward's word on the lease put on paper.
• 10 April 1354: He stands pledge for Thomas and feels the weight of it.
• 20 April 1354: Made a loveday with Stephen over the furrow by the mere, Adam Brewer standing between them, and drank on it. Stephen paid the 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 19 April 1354: Peter made a loveday with Stephen, Adam standing between them, and the plea was withdrawn; Maud had pressed him to speak plainly.
• 19 April 1354: Taken by Roger at the mounds last July, Peter knows the walk home Henry now has.
• 19 April 1354: He prays to keep his house the giving side of the church door, and the Brewers' gifts grind on him.
• 19 April 1354: He means to go before the steward as Juliana wants, and finds wood to cut instead.

Pastimes

• Tells tales: Havelok above all, the poor boy carrying sacks who turns out a king's son. Tells it flat and exact to Maud and Juliana by the rushlight, best on the parts about being underrated, and skips the kissing. Stephen claims he tells it better, and they argue it.
• Carves oak cogs and small gear models from scrap, working out a wheel that would grind faster, and carries a cog in his coat to turn over. Thomas atte Well comes to the bench with his horn and his box-wood bird, and lately Adam Brewer with his alder pig; Peter tells each of them what's wrong with it. Henry Cooper stood over his cogs a long while in February, and Peter thinks he has the eye for a true fit. It's the one thing he'll talk about without being asked.
• Fishes the lake when there's no wind for the sails, roach and perch and the odd eel, and comes home in a better temper for it.
• Dice at the alehouse for halfpennies, badly; Candlemas night the halfpennies ran out like meal through a split sack. Means to give it up for merels with Henry on a Sunday, no coin on the board. Hasn't yet.
• The lake: means to show Henry Cooper his knot and the deeper water after Mass.

How they talk

• To customers and neighbors: few words, flat and exact, often a number. "Two pecks, and a handful over." "Let me see the sack." "Could be" when he won't commit, though not every time; as often he just shrugs and says nothing.
• To his betters (the steward, the priest): stiff, too careful, every sentence rehearsed on the walk there, and he still comes away feeling he said it wrong.
• To Maud: gruffer than he means, then suddenly soft over something small, a hare she carved or a horse she quieted, or the way she held the team in the barley. When she presses him on the bread he answers with a number and leaves the room.
• When crossed: goes quiet and starts counting something. "That's not how it grinds" means he's done listening. His dry jokes mostly go past people.
• Called: Peter the Miller, and "the hired man" by those who want to hurt him.
• Swears: "By God's bones", flat, over a short sack.

What he thought lately

Ground the Fletchers' rye and a measure of oats. The stones ran true and the toll went in the dish where all could see it. Slow work, but clean.

25 June

Sunday and the stones stood idle anyway, so I sat telling tales till the thunder came over the rise. A post mill and lightning keep poor company. Lord, spare the mill and my house.

15 June

Found fault with the widow's furrow and her man came down on me for it. I went to help and came away with words owing. Bea Shepherd fourpence on the day she lay in. A taster gives the name and the steward the sum.

10 June

Called at the Coopers' as I told Henry I would, and kept it. Maud wants a plain answer of me tonight, and numbers won't serve. I was never good at the other kind.

31 May

Thomas says he'll stand with me before the steward. Edith's words too. I stood for him in February. That sack came back full. No more wood to hide behind.

28 May

Overheard

In the books

• 20 April 1354 Peter Miller and Stephen Brewer made a loveday, Adam Brewer standing between them, and drank on it. Stephen paid 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 8 April 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Thomas atte Well asks the lord about rent for the empty holding by the mere; Alan Shepherd asks the lord about meadow ground for hay; Thomas atte Well against Roger Warrener, a pig in the garden; Peter Miller against Stephen Brewer, a furrow over the mere. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 27 February 1354 By the lord's ruling: Thomas atte Well was amerced 6d for snaring in the lord's warren a second time, and lost the snares; Peter Miller and Stephen Brewer stood pledge for his good behavior.
• 2 October 1353 By the lord's ruling: Henry Cooper and Peter Miller and Elena Smith were amerced 11s 1d in all for taking excess wages against the Statute; it goes toward the next subsidy.
• 1 October 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper, taken in the lord's wood by night; the ale-tasters' presentments; Henry Cooper and Peter Miller and Elena Smith, for taking excess wages. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 1 October 1353 At the manor court Roger Warrener and Peter Miller were chosen ale-tasters for the year, and Thomas atte Well hayward, and Henry Cooper reeve.
• 29 September 1353 Peter Miller saw the steward about the mill lease terms; the old terms stand for another year.
• 30 August 1353 Peter Miller helped the Brewers with their harvest.
• 20 August 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: Peter Miller was amerced 3d for snaring in the lord's warren.
• 30 July 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Peter Miller, taken in the lord's wood by night; the ale-tasters' presentments; Stephen Brewer against Thomas atte Well, beasts in the corn; Henry Cooper against Stephen Brewer, a pig in the garden. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 13 July 1353 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Peter Miller at the warren before light, with three coneys out of the lord's warren. He must answer for it at the manor court.
• 9 July 1353 At the manor court Henry Cooper and Peter Miller were chosen ale-tasters for the year, and Thomas atte Well hayward.
• 7 January 1353 Plough Monday: Stephen Brewer, Adam Brewer, Thomas atte Well, Henry Cooper and Peter Miller dragged a plough round the houses and collected 6d for the plough-light in church.
• 21 October 1352 Peter Miller came from Westcott with his wife Juliana and a daughter, Maud, and took up the lease of the mill.