Free Where the Stones Sing by Eithne Massey Page A

priory. From where they were looking, it looked almost like a little village. Then they had reached the banks of the Cammock and Tom was racing the last bit of the journey. The mill house, old stone and golden thatch, stood before them, its door open as if to welcome them in. But as Tom led his friends into the kitchen and started to introduce his brothers and sisters to his companions , he realised one face was missing.
    ‘Where’s Edith?’ he asked. ‘Surely she’s not lying abed on her Saint’s Day?
    ‘Poor Edith is not well at all,’ said his mother, coming over to hug him and greet Kai and Jack. ‘A summer cold, but she’s shivering like a leaf, so she is staying in bed. She’s very disappointed not to be able to get up to greet you, but you can go up to the chamber and see her if you wish.’
    Edith, fair-haired and blue-eyed like Tom, was pale and, even under the mound of blankets and duck feather quilts, was shivering as if with cold. She hugged Tom tightly and smiled at his friends.
    ‘I’m so annoyed that I can’t get up,’ she said. ‘I was really looking forward to spending the day with you. But Tom, you go on and show your friends the mill and the farm, andcome and see me later. Maybe I’ll feel better then.’
    Tom looked at his mother anxiously.
    ‘It’s just a summer cold, I’m sure,’ Dame Alisoun said again, tucking the blankets more closely around her daughter. ‘Or it could be the over-excitement of the day. Maybe the thought of too many sugar sticks! Now, you bring your friends around and show them everything. Perhaps Edith will be feeling better later and able to go out with you.’
    So Tom began the tour of the farm. They went first to the orchard by the river and picked fruit to bring back to the canons. Tom led them from there to the oak wood along the riverbank where they gathered a sack of acorns for the priory pigs. There they stopped and paddled in the little river, splashing each other and laughing. But Jack was impatient to see the stables.
    Taking a shortcut through the dairy, where the cows were milked, they reached the stables, where the great workhorses were kept. Tom shivered a little as he entered them: this was where the horse had kicked him when he was small. Kai looked at his pale face and asked him if he was feeling ill.
    ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘But I’m dying to show you the mill.’
    It took a while to get Jack away from the horses, but when they eventually went to the mill the giant mill wheels fascinated him almost as much. Tom’s father was there. After greeting them kindly, he left them alone, and went to deal with a customer who had come to collect flour.
    ‘Tom will be able to tell you as much as I could about how the mill works,’ he said, ruffling his son’s hair affectionately.
    Tom started a long explanation of how the mill wheels ground the corn, and Kai, bored, began to wander around, looking out of the windows onto the yellows and reds of the autumn trees that grew along the riverbank. She had her back to the boys when she heard Tom shouting.
    ‘Jack! Stop it! Get back now!’ Tom sounded furious. When Kai looked around, she saw that Jack was leaning right into the deep pit where the huge wheel was turning around.
    ‘Come away! You could be caught in the wheel and dragged down there and crushed! You would be killed!’ Tom’s face was white.
    Jack just laughed. ‘Oh, Brother Albert says I have nine lives, like a cat!’ he said.
    ‘It’s not funny,’ said Tom. ‘One of our apprentices died that way – you can still see the mark of the blood, way down there.’
    The children could see that there was a dark stain on the stones, far below. Kai felt a little sick. All of them were silent.
    ‘Can we go to see the puppies and kittens now?’ she finally asked.
    Tom nodded. ‘We will go to see the puppies first. We keep the kittens and puppies in different barns, otherwise there would be war between their mothers!’
    Kai felt a great