Page 12 of The Cornish Mermaid

“Prinny,” Kit said. “He’s my horse, actually. Prince in public, Prinny in private. I’ve given you Prinny to ride because my mother’s old saddle, that she had for her mare, only fits him, and he’s far better schooled than my uncle’s old nag.” He nodded at the other horse, a sturdier beast by far, resembling the sort of animal that might be better suited to pulling a cart. Taking the reins from Jowan, Kit sprang into the saddle without recourse to his stirrups.

Bit of a showoff, then.

“Shall we go?” He indicated the open gate onto the track, an air of impatience about him that made Morvoren feel guilty for imposing on his time. Only for a moment, though, as they had made her wear these awful clothes and ride on a sidesaddle.

He clicked his tongue at the cob. “We can take it slowly to begin with, but if we walk all the way it’ll take us forever. When you feel ready, let me know, and we can canter.”

Prinny followed the cob through the gate and out onto the track Morvoren had not so long ago stumbled up from the beach. This time, they turned north, heading uphill as the little valley widened out and became more wooded.

Now she was out of the farmhouse and on her way to Penzance, Morvoren’s spirits lifted, and even selfish Josh began to look like a reassuring prospect.

“You certainly live in a very beautiful location,” she said, as the distant purple slopes of the higher moorland came into view and a chough flapped lazily across the cloudless blue sky.

Kit nodded, his handsome face almost slipping into a smile, and for a moment the wall he seemed intent on maintaining between them was allowed to drop. “That’s why I love it here so much,” he said, dark eyes suddenly alight. “I couldn’t ever be away from here for too long.”

Surprised that he’d bared his soul to her, Morvoren nodded. “I do know what you mean. I’ve been coming to Cornwall for years and it keeps pulling me back like a magnet.”

The horses’ hooves rattled over the stones in the rough track. “You do?” he said, with a shrug. “It’s the way all the Cornish-born feel. It must be the Cornish blood in your veins. When I’m elsewhere, I feel I’m not really alive.”

“My great-grandmother was from Fowey.” She wriggled her back where the sweat was sticking the hot silk to any square of exposed skin it could. Not the right outfit for a day like this. And Kit’s looked no better. Today was a day for shorts and T-shirts.

Kit nodded as though he understood, which was nice, as Josh never had. Probably she was imagining any rapport here, but it made a change to do that for a while.

Another ten minutes of riding brought them to a line of half a dozen dilapidated cottages running off to one side at right angles to the path. The row sloped away uphill from where a small ford had been lined with slabs of stone.

Here, a group of women in long skirts and shabby blouses appeared to be doing their washing. In the stream, of all places. At the far end of the row of houses, a gaggle of small, scruffy children were at play with a couple of dogs and a rope swing under a sweeping chestnut tree.

What on earth had she stumbled upon here? More weird cult members?

As they rode past the women, Kit raised his hand to wave, and every woman straightened up and waved back, friendly smiles on their homely faces.

“Who’re they?” Morvoren asked, her curiosity more than piqued.

“Villagers. That’s the edge of Nanpean village,” Kit said. “Jowan’s is the nearest cottage. The rest of the houses are up beyond the trees. Fishermen and laborers, mostly, now the mines are all closed.”

The feeling of having made a none-too-soon escape from this strange place washed over Morvoren. Maybe as they were going uphill, she could try a canter. Anything to get away a bit more quickly.

“I think I can manage a short canter now, if that’s all right?” she ventured.

Was that a gleam of relief in Kit’s dark eyes? “Of course. Uphill will be easier for you to begin with.”

He was right. Cantering uphill wasn’t so bad as she’d expected. Once she got used to how to grip the pommels it wasn’t vastly different to riding astride. Well, it was. She was just telling herself it wasn’t to bolster her confidence.

At the head of the valley a wide vista of moorland opened up, dotted here and there with grazing sheep, small stone-walled fields, and a few farmhouses, all smaller and poorer looking than Jago’s. To the south and west the sea spread out in a hazy blue vista she’d have thought beautiful if she hadn’t been so keen to get away from Nanpean and its weird inhabitants. The rust colored sails of a few sailing boats dotted the blue, too far off to make out any details.

Wherever the land was favorable, Kit kept them to as fast a pace as Morvoren’s limited ability to canter would allow, so there was little opportunity to talk. Not that she really wanted to, even though she had a lot of questions she’d have liked to ask. His rather dour demeanor was enough to put her off. The sooner she was away from him, the better.

However, despite all the cantering, it was only after two hours of moorland riding that Kit finally announced they were almost at their destination.

Morvoren’s eyes widened. How could they be? On the entire ride they’d not crossed even one road, nor seen any sign of a vehicle in the distance. Plenty of farm tracks and narrow footpaths, but not a single metaled road. Kit must really know his way about the countryside.

However, she had to admit that riding on horseback, even on a sidesaddle, across this high moorland was a much preferable way to travel than driving in a car, and especially more so than traveling by boat had been. But still, they couldn’t be at Penzance already—could they?

Morvoren followed Kit’s pointing finger. “Where?”

Sure enough, ahead lay the familiar, hazy shape of St Michael’s Mount at the far end of Mount’s Bay, with its castle on the summit and the stony causeway clearly visible with the tide out. But nothing else seemed to match with the recent memories she had of Penzance.

Their road sloped downhill, revealing with startling clarity that what lay before her, almost like a vision from Google Earth, was nothing like the town she’d left behind that morning. Instead, a tiny fishing village with not a proper road in sight hugged the coast. No supermarkets, industry, or modern buildings. Just tiny cottages clustered around a small, muddy harbor empty of both water and fishing boats.