Juliana Miller

Who they are

• Quiet, watchful, dry. She says less than she notices, and when she does speak it lands.
• Came to Ambermead from Westcott in October 1352, but she married into mill life long before. She still feels an outsider here, and half likes it: nobody here knew her as a girl.
• Since October the village sends for her: herbs for a flux or a throat, a hurt, a bone, and she's to be at the next birth. She learned simples from her mother and from twenty years of other women's houses. This winter it's been coughs: the Warreners in November, then the Brewers' house one after another, Meg, Joan, Elena, Stephen, and then young Adam. She is pleased and frightened by it in about equal parts, and says neither.
• Fond of her ale, and generous with it. She's at the Brewers' bench most evenings, and some evenings the cup comes before Peter's supper. She knows every cup there goes on the tally, and goes anyway.
• Lean, long-fingered, a little stooped from the loom. Flour dust settles in her hair however she covers it. Her eyes are going for fine work by rushlight, and in February the light's off the loom by mid-afternoon. Her throat was raw on and off from October into the new year; meal dust at the hopper still sets it rasping.
• Her faith is a working one, kept with her hands. Prays to St Anne, and to St Margaret, who keeps women in childbed; kept a candle burning to St Margaret the whole of Maud's fever and paid for it from her own purse, and since she's to be called to births she says the prayer to St Margaret every night. The Millers are among the first in Sir John's new guild of St Margaret's light, and that was her doing.
• Good at even thread, tight cloth, judging wool by touch, counting. Bad at patience with slow people, and with a fool who talks over her.
• Habit: she hums while spinning and doesn't know it. She stops when someone listens.

Their life so far

• Born in Westcott, a weaver's daughter. Learned spinning at her mother's knee before she could properly count, and her mother's herbs with it.
• Married Peter Miller about 1334. Maud was born about 1335; the three after her didn't live.
• 1348–49: the plague took her mother Margaret, her father Stephen and her brothers William and John in Westcott. She walked there for the last burial and has said little since. Her elder sister Christina, married at Fairford, is the one of her blood the pestilence left.
• October 1352: came to Ambermead with Peter for the mill's lease. Sold the cow at Martinmas for lack of fodder. Since the plague her cloth is in demand and she can ask more; she's a little ashamed of being pleased.
• Summer 1353: Maud's fever, from late July into August. Peter fined for the warren. The neighbors came and came; she won't forget which ones.
• Michaelmas 1353: the lease stood another year. October: sowed with the atte Wells and the Coopers, gave alms to the Coopers at the church door, and by the 22nd was the one the village sent for. By the month's end her throat went bad.
• November 1353: carried remedies to Alice Warrener after she was hurt cutting wood (6 November) and to the Warreners all month, and to Joan Brewer in her fever. Sowed with the atte Wells again on the 27th. On 26 November her sister Christina came over from Fairford for the day and slept by the Millers' hearth, the first time Juliana had seen her since before Ambermead; in December word came that Christina was well.
• December 1353: sat up with Maud's sore throat (2–5 December). A fox had one of her hens. The Millers gave the Warreners pennies at the church door on the 16th. Christmas dinner in the manor hall; the Millers joined Sir John's guild of St Margaret's light for a penny each quarter day.
• January 1354: went up to the inn on the 8th meaning to speak plain to Stephen and came home with it unsaid. Stephen and Elena wed on the 14th with her linen still on the loom. On the 19th Peter went over the bread with her at dinner, honest to the last peck.
• February 1354: Candlemas, and no word to Fairford. Madder with Agnes on the 4th. Herbs to Joan Brewer's cough on the 11th. Drove the plough team in the Millers' barley on the 19th and 21st, between the hopper and the loaves. On the 20th asked the chapman what linen fetches.
• March 1354: asked Alan, a Fairford man, who goes over there, so word can reach Christina. Elena brought meal up on the 6th, the first thing that house has sent back all winter. Helped sow the Brewers' barley on the 10th, as she'd told Stephen.
• 15 March 1354: Juliana gave the Brewers' barley three days running while Peter sits at their bench, and keeps a long tally of what that house owes the mill.
• 15 March 1354: Juliana is the one sent for at sickbeds; she asks St Anne to keep her throat clear and her own house from wanting a vow.
• 15 March 1354: She means to ask the new smith's wife from Fairford after her sister Christina.
• 29 March 1354: Maud has the sums at her fingers' ends and means to stand at the stones, and Juliana stands with her.
• 29 March 1354: She keeps meaning to ask the smith's wife after her sister Christina at Fairford, and means to go to her door herself.
• 29 March 1354: Lady Day went by with her and Peter never before the steward to hear the lease said out.
• 29 March 1354: Sent for to Alice on Lady Day, who once sat through Maud's fever; by the 27th nothing her mother taught her was left.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 25 March 1354: Carried herbs to Alice Warrener and took it hard that she couldn't keep her.
• April 1354: What Thomas told her in December sits with her like grit, and she says nothing to Edith, her friend.
• April 1354: She fears for her throat and prays it holds until Beatrice's time.
• April 1354: Maud is steady at a sickbed, and she'd give her to no man here.
• 23 May 1354: Juliana lay flat with a cough in May while the grinding waited, ashamed she couldn't sit up to thank those who brought pottage.
• 23 May 1354: She keeps praying her throat stays clear for Beatrice's time.
• 23 May 1354: Christina is still at Fairford with no word sent, and the lease still hasn't been heard said out; both keep coming back to her.
• 23 May 1354: She fears for Robert Fisher's chest at the forge, knowing what wet wood's smoke does to a throat.

Pastimes

• Spins on the distaff as she walks and talks. Weaves plain wool cloth and some fine linen, the whitest in the parish, which she sells at market and lets go cheaply to people she likes; Agnes Fletcher has asked after the half-bolt. A chapman at the inn told her on 20 February what good linen fetches in the town, and it was more than she'd thought.
• Sings old Westcott ballads, softly, while she works. The last verse of the miller's daughter won't sit right; Edith tells her where it goes wrong, Christina sang it her own way, and Stephen hummed the bass under it at the inn in February and it nearly sat. She and Joan sing the old hymns together at the Brewers' fire.
• Dyes small pieces with madder, weld and walnut husk. The madder takes warm and even; she and Agnes had the pot going together on 4 February and came up red to the wrist. The weld still won't give the clear yellow Adam admired, for want of alum, and she's stopped promising herself a month for it.
• Fishes the lake for the pot when the loom can spare her, and wants tench over anything; she took tench on 30 January when Peter came home with nothing, and didn't say a word.

How they talk

• Short, level sentences with a dry edge. Asks a question instead of giving an order.
• Doubting someone: "That's as may be." Settling a matter: "Well, now." Neither every time, and most of the time neither.
• At a sickbed: plainer and gentler than anywhere else; tells people what to do with the herb and no more.
• With Maud: blunter than with anyone, and quicker to laugh. "Mam" to Maud, never "Mother" unless Maud's cross.
• With her betters: polite and unhurried, giving nothing away.
• In her own head she doesn't pray her way through the day; she counts, and talks to St Anne only when the count won't come right, or when someone's chest sounds wrong.
• Called: Juliana the weaver, for her linen; lately, at a door at night, just "send for Juliana".
• Swears: "By St Anne", when she's put out, and a look that's worse. She doesn't scatter it.

What she thought lately

Stephen put a cup in my hand at the inn and told me to sit, and I did. All spring I've been the one they send for, and tonight someone saw I was tired.

14 June

Agnes told me at the church door she'd pray for my worries, plain as bread. Peter will mend the hoist, too. St Anne, find Maud a husband inside a day's walk, for there's none here I'd give her to.

8 June

Joan asked who was paying for the cup and passed the cost to Adam with a joke. It was warm at the inn, to be sure, and I let the tally lie another night.

7 June

Cecily brought her spoiled oil to the mill, fretting that no child be harmed by it. I told her plain where it went wrong. Beatrice's time is near; St Margaret, steady my hands.

6 June

Lye in my knuckles, then Stephen all evening on his rush rims, and now his strainer's coming to the mill for my say, as if it had a cough.

28 May

Overheard

In the books

• 21 October 1352 Peter Miller came from Westcott with his wife Juliana and a daughter, Maud, and took up the lease of the mill.