Page 74 of The Cornish Mermaid

“How do we get there?” Sam asked, taking out his pocket watch. “It’s just gone half past nine and it’s nearly dark. How are we to get there from here?”

Morvoren swung round on Ysella. “Do you know the way?”

She shook her head, her face stricken. “Not at all. I’ve only ever been down here twice, and it was a long time ago. I barely remember anything. I’ve no idea even in which direction we should be going.”

Morvoren turned back to the old lady. “Do you love your master?”

Her face split into a wide, gummy smile. “That I do.” She smacked her lips. “Young master, he be one o’ the best.” She seemed about to say something else, but instead folded her lips over her bare gums and her arms across her scrawny chest.

Dared Morvoren risk it? This old woman might know nothing about the nighttime activities locally, about Kit’s nighttime activities, but on the other hand, she looked as though she had something she wasn’t prepared to share. “It’s all right,” Morvoren said, taking the plunge. “We know all about the smuggling.”

The old lady’s clawed hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “Hush now, don’t you shout about it then. Don’t know who might be a-listenin’.” She glanced around the shadowy hall as though quislings might be lurking in every corner, eavesdropping on their secrets.

So she did know. What a relief. “There’s a traitor amongst the smugglers,” Morvoren gabbled. “We found out about it, and we’re here to warn them. It’s tonight they’ll be betrayed. We have to find Kit—Lord Ormonde—and warn him.”

The old lady fastened on the one word that must have been most important to her. “A traitor?” Her clawed hand gripped harder. “A traitor ’mongst our men?”

Sam nodded. “We journeyed down via Bodmin moor. There was a raid on Jamaica Inn the night we were there, and in Bodmin they’d just hanged some smugglers in the square. We saw their bodies. It’s going on across the whole county. We have to prevent it from happening here. Tonight.”

Seemingly taking it in her stride that three strangers should turn up on her doorstep, two of them women dressed as boys, and start talking about smuggling, the old woman tightened her grip on Morvoren’s wrist. “You come this way along-a me. Quick now.”

Keeping her hold on Morvoren’s wrist, she pulled her across the hallway and through a small door almost hidden beneath the rising staircase to the first floor. They were in the shabby servants’ area of Carlyon Court.

After the silent and gloomy front hall with its shuttered windows, this part hummed with life. The aroma of food carried from the kitchen as she dragged Morvoren into it, Sam and Ysella right behind. Four people: two older men, a woman of about forty and a young boy in his early teens, were seated around a table built for twenty, dirty plates in front of them, and beakers of cider, or might that be contraband brandy, in their hands.

They set their beakers down as the old woman dragged Morvoren in, and the two men scrambled to their feet. In shirt sleeves and rough breeches, none of them looked like the sort of servants Kit had at Ormonde.

“What’s this?” the elder of the two, a white-haired, portly man, asked, his tone gruff and even a little aggressive. “What you after?”

He was addressing Sam, but Morvoren answered. It was, after all, on her say-so that they were down here searching for Kit. “We need a guide to take us to Nanpean. Right away, even though it’s nearly dark. It’s a matter of life and death.”

The man’s face furrowed in a heavy frown. “An’ who be you to go demandin’ that we stir ourselves of an evenin’ to do that?” he asked, the implication being that they were very rude to expect decent servants to bestir themselves out of working hours. Whatever their working hours might be in an empty house.

Ysella stepped forward. “I am Ysella Carlyon and I have the authority of my brother, your employer, to command you to do as I ask. If we don’t get to Nanpean very shortly, Kit will die, and a lot of other good Cornishmen with him.” She paused. “It’s no use you all pretending you don’t know about the smuggling, because we know you’re lying. We know all about it.” She waved a hand at Sam and Morvoren. “And we’ve ridden over two hundred miles from Ormonde to save Kit. He and the others are going to die tonight if you don’t help us.”

The woman, who must have been the cook, bestirred herself. “Master Kit and his men’s in danger, ye say?”

Morvoren nodded, taking off her hat so they could see she was a girl like Ysella. “There’s a traitor amongst the smugglers, only Kit doesn’t know it. The revenue men and soldiers know there’s to be a consignment tonight. We have to warn Kit and his men and stop them getting caught. We have to hurry.”

“A traitor?” The white-haired man banged his beaker down on the table. “D’you have the name of the traitor?”

Morvoren shook her head. “I’m sorry. All I know is that they’ve been betrayed and the revenue men will be lying in wait for them with armed soldiers.”

The second man, younger and less corpulent, glowered across the table. “I’ll away over to Nanpean village to warn the wives.” He paused. “Though one o’ them’ll know already, because I’ll be bound the traitor won’t be on the beach tonight. He’ll be hidin’ back home with some excuse for why he couldn’t be there.”

Morvoren glanced back at Sam, who hurriedly took out his watch and nodded to her. She turned her hat in her hands. “We’ve already wasted twenty minutes here. We have to get to Nanpean Farm to warn Jago and Kit, but we don’t know the way.”

The woman’s wide-eyed stare went from the two men to the still seated boy. She bit her lip in evident indecision, then dropped her hand to the boy’s shoulder. “Father can’t go, not on his legs, but my boy Jem do know the way to Nanpean like the back o’ his hand, so to speak. He can show you the quickest way to get there all right, even in the dark. Can’t you, Jem? Take them along the cliff path. ’Tis the quickest way.”

Jem, a sandy-haired, slight boy, nodded vigorously, the light in his eyes betraying his excitement at what he must see as the coming adventure. Perhaps he already pictured himself as the savior of the day.

His mother tightened her grip on his shoulder. “A moment. You fine folks must remember my son’s jest a boy. Don’t you go lettin’ him get in the way of any o’ them musket balls.” She looked down at him. “And Jem. Once you got Miss Carlyon and her friends to Nanpean, you come straight back here to me. No heroics. You’re too young to join the gentlemen.”

She had a faint hope of that, from the look on Jem’s eager face.

“I’ll make sure he goes back,” Morvoren said, giving him a stern glare. “I promise I’ll do my best to keep him out of danger.”

Jem ducked his head and, shaking off his mother’s hand, got to his feet, all long skinny limbs and big feet, like a newborn colt.