The Mill
Public — The Mill
The mill stands where the race narrows and takes the whole push of the Ember, and its wheel has not stopped in living memory except for the Cinderwake. Garvin Mott runs it, as his father did and his grandfather before him. From Reaping to the festival the farmers queue in the yard, and the guild weighs every sack that goes in and every barrel that comes out, for the factor downriver at Harlmouth will take nothing without the weighmaster's stamp. Under the mill, cut into the bank, is the old toll cellar, from the days when the mill paid its toll in kind. Nobody keeps flour down there, because the damp gets into it.
For Corvin
To Corvin Ash
You saw that the cellar padlock was guild make, and new this spring. The hinges beside it were older than the door.
Public — Next stop