Part 19

The Reeve shook his head. “I—I don’t—”

“He takes a cut,” said Ma, pouring herself another cup of tea.

Legolas frowned “A cut?”

“Ten per cent of the sale price of the blue.” She held up the teapot, offering the others another drink; they shook their heads.

“Ten per cent for doing what?” asked Arador, with a strange expression on his face.

“The levy pays for the upkeep of the road,” said the Reeve, “for maintenance of the bridges, and—

“It pays him to keep quiet, he means,” said Ma. “Pays for his stables, and for Lady Morwen’s fancy drawers.” She turned to Legolas and, in an exaggerated whisper, admitted: “The mine doesn’t belong to me—I’m what you’d call a squatter—so he’s got me over a barrel.”

“I see,” said Legolas, thoughtfully. “Who does it belong to, then?”

Ma shrugged. “It was left abandoned when Sauron was defeated,” she said. “It was going begging...”

“I think,” said Arador, “that it belongs to you, my Lord, as Lord of Eryn Carantaur.”

Beneath the table, Eowyn took Legolas’ hand.

“Are you going to close me down?” asked Ma.

Legolas looked from her to the Reeve and back again. “Between the pair of you,” he said, “you have killed the forest.”

“No,” said the Reeve.

“No,” said Ma, “that’s nowt to do with me.”

“But the trees were healthy in Sauron’s time,” said Belecthor, suddenly. “There were heaps of spoil around the mine, and nothing would grow up on the slopes, but the trees beside the stream weren’t dying like they are now.”

“It is probably the salt water,” said Arador. “Jemmy told me they had trouble with the dam,” he explained; “that it kept giving way and washing out the salt pans. The salt water would have drained down the stream and flooded the lower-lying ground, and that would explain all the crusty mud.”

“Jemmy,” said Eowyn. “I have heard that name before, somewhere...”

“Jemmy’s my business partner,” said Ma. She picked up the plate of biscuits and offered it round. “I was working in the Royal Laundry, after he’d,”—she jerked her head towards the Reeve—“run me out out Newhome—”

“I did not—”

“Yes you did. I knew you too well.” She leaned towards Legolas and added, confidentially, “I was a looker, in my day.”

Arador gasped.

“Anyway,” Ma continued, “one of those scholars at the Academy’d worked out how to make fake blue, but no one was interested ’cept me and Jemmy... And Jemmy knew the mine, you see—knew it would give us everything we needed, and knew there was people up here that wanted the work. So we came back, and set up the blue-making. Then he,”—she nodded at the Reeve—“found out, and made us pay him to keep quiet.”

“I think I am wearing Jemmy’s breeches,” said Eowyn.

The Reeve turned to Legolas. “Her accusations are crazy, Lord Legolas,” he said. “What are we going to do with her?”