Chapter Thirty-Two

Morvoren

If anyone had asked Morvoren to find the same tracks Jem led them down and take them back to Carlyon Court that night, she'd have been lost within minutes. It wasn't just that it was dark. The moon, heading toward being full, illuminated the countryside in a way she was sure would be alarming to the smugglers but a boon to their would-be attackers. It was more the roundabout route their youthful guide seemed to be taking.

They followed close behind him down narrow pathways between high, overgrown hedgerows that gave no idea of what lay beyond. He led them through at least two small, dark copses, before weaving his way with confidence across open moorland, the moon silvering the path ahead. Where the land dipped, they zigzagged their way into a deep and shadowy valley where they had to jump across a rushing stream on steppingstones then climb up the other side.

Sam had no trouble keeping up with Jem, but Morvoren and Ysella began to struggle before too long, both panting with the exertion and the steep inclines of the paths Jem had chosen. Morvoren's breath was rasping in her chest and sweat had stuck her shirt to her back long before they at last came in sight of the sea.

They heard it first. The roar of surf against the cliffs' feet rose up toward where they'd paused for breath amongst the fragrant gorse and heather.

"Lookee out there," Jem said, his skinny arm pointing. "There she be."

Sure enough, beyond the brow of the clifftop stretched the grey expanse of whitecapped waves that was the English Channel. On it, the dark outline of a little ship bobbed, a single light shining out, dimmed by the brightness of the moon.

"That'll be they Frenchies," Jem muttered, spitting a gob of phlegm onto the path, clearly a young man with a low opinion of his gallic neighbors. Maybe rightly so, as surely these were only delivering the contraband goods to line their own pockets. Morvoren chided herself at her uncharitable thoughts. Wasn't all smuggling for the same reason? Personal gain.

"We has to take the cliff path now," Jem said, keeping his voice low. "You'll be needin' to step careful, like. 'Tis a might close by the cliff edge, but the only way ter get to Nanpean Cove quick like."

He wasn't exaggerating. The path teetered right at the cliff edge over a steep drop down to those same wave-washed rocks Morvoren had first seen from the deck of a fishing boat. She did not want to see them again, close up. Mentally adding heights to her list of fears, she followed light-stepping Jem and Sam onto the cliff path.

Ysella reached out a trembling hand and grabbed hers. Perhaps she didn't much care for heights either.

The path sloped down as the cliffs grew lower, and in a few minutes, Morvoren caught a glimpse of the pale crescent of sand that marked Nanpean beach, still partly obscured by the cliffs. Deserted. Or was it? The revenue men and soldiers wouldn't be waiting in full view—they'd be hidden, waiting to catch the smugglers red-handed.

"It looks deserted," Ysella hissed.

Morvoren glanced back. "I hope you're right and I've been wrong all along." But somehow, she didn't think she was.

Ahead, Sam whispered to Jem, "Looks like no one's on the beach as yet. We should head to the farm to stop them." His voice carried above the rumble of surf. "Can you lead us right down into the valley? We'll need to hurry."

Jem nodded. "The path do foller the cliff edge most o' the way, like it do here. We can tek that un, but you leddies," he gave Morvoren and Ysella a hard stare, "had best watch yer footin'. They's narsty cliffs an' if'n you was to fall, yer'd not stop till yer hit the rocks at the foot of 'em."

Like that hadn't already occurred to Morvoren.

She swallowed. This might be dangerous, but they had to stop Kit and his friends walking into a trap. "Lead on," she said, struggling to conceal the tremble in her voice. What if Ysella were to slip and fall? She'd released Morvoren's hand once they'd had to go in single file and Morvoren wouldn't be quick enough to save her. What would Kit say to that? What would she say to him, more importantly? Especially if her memory proved faulty and tonight was not the night the excise men had chosen to strike.

With Jem slowing his pace as the path became steeper, she followed behind him with Ysella behind her and Sam taking up the rear. If she didn't look to her right, she wouldn't be afraid. Or so she told herself. Over and over again.

Who in their right mind would put a path right on the edge of a bloody cliff? Who wanted to walk this close to the edge, to court danger so openly? A madman, clearly.

She kept her eyes on where her feet were going and from time to time on Jem's narrow back. If only she had some kind of walking stick to lean on like a third leg, that would stop her overbalancing to her right, something she was horribly aware of and overcompensating for with a definite lean to the left.

The path became steeper still, with stunted bushes to their left, and the ground underfoot rougher, with the stones looser in their beds as the beach drew nearer. Jem slowed down. In fact, halfway down, he stopped altogether. He raised his hand again and pointed. "Look, now. See them's boats in the surf. They's bringin' the goods ashore already."

Morvoren strained her eyes through the darkness, which, even though you could have said the moon shone bright as day, was still pretty dark. It took her a moment to spot the boats. Three small rowing boats were coming in on the waves breaking on the beach like a trio of surfers.

By the cliff's foot, on the far side of the cove, which they could now see better than before, something moved. Was it Kit and his smugglers or the dreaded soldiers and revenue men? Small figures were hastening across the sand towards the edge of the surf. They must be Kit and his men.

A sudden idea seized Morvoren. She spun around so fast she nearly overbalanced, and only Jem grabbing her shoulders stopped her from falling.

"Doan go makin' any sudden moves like that," Jem hissed as he steadied her.

She ignored him. "Sam! Fire your gun!" Her whisper hissed through the night. "Kit's men will know it's a stranger firing and they'll straightaway think there's an ambush. Quick. Fire it now before the soldiers pounce!"

Ysella sat down hard on her bottom on the path. "Yes, fire it now, Sam! Before it's too late." Her voice rose in urgency. "Warn Kit's men."

Morvoren joined her, feeling far more secure once she was firmly anchored to the ground. Ysella's hand slid into hers, small and cold.

Sam drew out one of the two pistols he was carrying and pointed it toward the beach. With shaking fingers he cocked it and pulled the trigger. It went off with a report like a—well, like a gun firing. He staggered back a step and pulled the other one out of his belt.

Down on the beach, the tiny figures of the men who'd been heading toward the surf faltered, slowing their pace and looking around themselves in confusion as though perhaps wondering if they'd heard right. It must have been hard to hear the gunshot above the sound of the waves sucking at the sand.

"Fire the other one," Morvoren hissed.

Sam cocked the second pistol and fired again.

For a moment, the men on the beach stood immobile, before all hell broke loose. More shots rang out, the flare of them crackling in the darkness from the hillside not far below and on the beach near the cliffs. Were there revenue men hiding on the cliff path?

"Quick," Sam said. "We have to move before anyone comes up here to see who fired the warning shots. They're not far ahead." He turned to Jem. "Kit and Jago will be heading back to the farmhouse. Which way do we go?"

"If the revenue men are that close," Morvoren said, "then they might think one of their own got trigger happy."

"Not twice," Sam hissed. "Quickly. We have to move." He yanked Morvoren and Ysella to their feet.

On the beach, the smugglers had turned tail and were bolting back toward the dunes.

More gunshots rang out, the flare of them lighting the night. And shouts filled the air, some frighteningly close.

Sam turned to Jem, shoving the two empty pistols back into his belt. "Which way to the farmhouse?"

"Oh my goodness," Ysella gasped. "Look what we've done."

More gunshots, and more shouting. Were the smugglers armed, or was all this firing the revenue men and soldiers? The only thing in Morvoren's mind was the fear that she might not have been in time to save Kit from death on the beach.

Jem seemed transfixed by what was going on. Sam had to grab him by the shoulders and give him a shake. Maybe the reality wasn't so exciting as he'd expected. He wasn't much more than a child, after all.

"Jem. Pull yourself together," Sam hissed. "Point us in the right direction and then it's time for you to go back to Carlyon Court to your mother. You must take Ysella with you to safety. If the worst comes to the worst, she can't be found here at Nanpean. But I have to be there."

"But I want to come with you," Ysella protested, grabbing Sam's arm. "He's my brother."

"All the more reason for you not to be there," Morvoren said. "How would it look if the revenue men come to the house and find you there, dressed as a boy? How guilty does that make Kit look? Sam and I will go."

Sam looked from Morvoren's face to Ysella's and back again. "I think you should go back too," he ventured.

Morvoren shook her head. "It's because of me you're here, so I'm coming with you, whether you like it or not. Girls from my time don't take orders from men."

He shut up.

Jem, with great reluctance, showed them a narrow, sheep trod path down the hill, mercifully heading inland away from the cliffs but just as steep as the one they'd been negotiating. "Down there. Sh'd bring yer to the back o' Nanpean farmhouse, all righty." He cast his eyes once more over Morvoren. "You's a brave un for a girl, I guess. Good luck to yer."

Ysella threw herself into Morvoren's arms. "Be careful, Morvoren, and bring Kit back with you, please. Alive."

Morvoren hugged her back. "Let me go, or they'll be back at the farmhouse before we are."

Ysella released her hold, and with only a quick look back over her shoulder, Morvoren plunged after Sam down the rocky path toward where two tall trees marked the farmhouse.

*

Kit

The sound ofthe first pistol firing ricocheted around the amphitheater of the beach, echoing between the towering cliffs until it sounded like a myriad of shots had been fired.

Kit and Jago ground to a halt on the wet sand and their men slowed and stopped. Before them, the beach sloped down steeply toward the waves where three yawls were at this very moment struggling in the surf. A sharp wind was beating onshore and the waves were bigger than normal, and out to sea the light of the mother ship bobbed on the swell and went out. They, too, must have heard the shot.

A second shot rang out, the flash of its firing high on the cliffs to Kit's right.

"Revenue men," Jago shouted. "Scatter."

More shots went off, followed by angry shouts. From the telltale flare of each report there must be men both up on the cliff path and down on the beach, hiding amidst the rocky outcrops. Who had tipped them off?

No one needed telling twice. Without waiting to see what the men in the yawls would do, every man turned on the spot and headed back up the beach toward the deep, dry sand of the dunes.

Kit ran too, keeping to the rear of his men to make sure no one fell behind. Bullets thudded into the sand around his feet as he dodged sideways, his legs struggling as he reached the dry sand. To his right, a man fell in a spray of blood, his arms out-thrown as though pleading for help. Kit dropped to his knees and rolled him onto his front. Sightless eyes stared up at him as blood pooled under his head.

"Leave him," Jago shouted. "Save yourself."

Kit struggled upright and ran on. Nothing he could do for Clemo now. More bullets thudded into the dunes ahead as his men reached the path where they'd left the ponies waiting. Not waiting now. The sound of a hundred panicked hooves galloping up the path towards the farm echoed down the valley like distant thunder.

He was nearly there. Jago had already gained the solid ground of the track, the dunes left behind him. Kit's lungs were bursting with the effort of running on the deep sand.

A report went off, the echo of it almost in his right ear. Kit staggered and fell before he realized he'd been hit. He rolled across the sand, for a moment confused, his left hand reaching for his upper arm. It felt numb but his fingers found the warm wetness of blood.

A strong arm yanked him to his feet. "Are you hit, boy?" Jago must have seen him fall and come back. "Can you walk?"

More shouts. A few more bullets bit into the sand, far too close for comfort.

Kit nodded, not sure if that were true, the world receding into a blurry fuzz. "It's nothing. A flesh wound. It doesn't even hurt." His voice echoed in his head.

He let Jago drag him up the last bit of the dunes, the effort suddenly so enormous that his feet felt as though they were made of lead. He struggled for breath, and for a moment his head swam and he saw stars.

"Come on," Jago growled, urgency in his voice. "They mustn't catch you."

Another man materialized on Kit's right, his arm going around Kit's waist. "Come on, Mr. Kitto." Jowan.

The shots had died away. They must be reloading. Kit's feet scuffed on the solid gravel. He was on the path now, the abandoned ponies long vanished, and the going was easier. A second wind came to Kit and with it, clarity of thought. He shook off Jago's hold. "I'm all right now. It was the shock. I can walk by myself."

"Yer'll need ter run," Jowan grunted.

Kit ran, one hand fast over the wound. He needed to stop the bleeding or he was going to faint and be caught, and what a scandal that would make if the revenue men caught themselves a free-trading viscount. The path was steep, but it was a path he was used to taking several times a day when he was in Cornwall, and he was a fit young man. His arm throbbed with every jarring step he took, but he ignored it and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could, willing himself not to stumble over the uneven surface.

How short a time ago he'd helped Morvoren up this very path. Not even a fortnight. Who'd have thought he'd so soon be running up it for his very life? His thoughts, befuddled by the wound, jangled in his head as he ran. All he was conscious of was Jago and Jowan by his side and a blurry shape in skirts that had to be Jenifry running up ahead.

It seemed forever until the pale bulk of the farmhouse loomed out of the night. The last of the men must be scattering across country up the valley, heading for their homes as fast as they could go. Not a pony in sight. Jowan unhooked the gate, closing it behind them, and Kit staggered across the farmyard to the front door of the house where a welcoming light was already burning. Who could have lit it when they were all down on the beach?

Jago shoved open the front door and Jenifry tumbled inside. A man was standing by the table, one hand on the lantern, a slip of a boy in a tricorn hat just behind him.

"Good God, Kit!" Sam's horrified voice rang out.

Kit slumped into the chair beside the range and closed his eyes, his arm on fire, all feeling returned.

Dimly, he heard footsteps as Jenifry ran to the door into the back kitchen and came running back with a pan of water which she set down with a thump on top of the range, the water slopping onto the fire with a hiss.

"They'll be coming up the hill behind us." Jago's voice echoed in Kit's head. "Get his dirty clothes off. Wash the soot off his face and hands. We have to hide that he's been shot, or they'll ha' proof we was down there."

Someone pulled Kit forward and took Jago's old coat off, left arm first. Fingers, gentle and soft, went to the buttons on his shirt. Was that Jenifry? A ripping sound as the shirt was torn. Then pain as water ran over his wound.

"Burn that shirt," someone said.

"It's gone right through. He was lucky." Whose anxious voice was that? He should recognize it, but try as he might, he couldn't.

He wanted to open his eyes and look, but the lids were leaden and, try as he might, they wouldn't obey him. Those gentle hands were dabbing at his arm again. Who was that? He'd had Jenifry's ministrations as a boy often enough and this didn't feel like her rough make do and mend.

"Bandages," someone said, lifting his throbbing arm a little. Those same gentle hands began to bind it, the tightness of the bandages fierce. He winced at the pain but kept silent.

"How long do we have?" came a voice he ought to know. Sam's voice. Yes, Sam was here. Sam? How so? Sam was at Ormonde, not here at Nanpean, and Sam knew nothing of his master's smuggling activities.

"Not long. Clean shirt and get him into his coat, then if the bandages leak no one'll see." Jago's voice, gruff and concerned.

What must have been a clean shirt went on, was tucked into his breeches with hasty fingers and then Sam and someone else, someone big and strong, got him into a coat that felt too tight and pressed on his wound. He bit his lip to prevent himself from crying out.

Quick fingers did up a scarf around his throat, and someone held a flask to his mouth. Liquid trickled in. He coughed on it, swallowed, and coughed again, the liquid running down his chin.

"Keep drinking," that same gentle voice he ought to know said in his ear. "You have to appear to be drunk. Drink a little more so you smell of it."

He did as he was told.

"They're a-comin'," came Jenifry's voice from afar. And someone bodily lifted him and set him at the table. His head flopped forward onto his left arm, his right arm hanging loose onto his lap, throbbing, his fingers fat sausages he couldn't move.

The grate of chairs on the flagstones, and he had the sense that other people had sat down at the table, the clink of glasses, the rustle of cards. Someone put a glass into the loose fingers of his left hand. What were they doing? He had to play the part they'd given him.

A hammering on the door. He wanted to get up and tell whoever it was to go away because his head hurt near as much as his arm, but he couldn't. His head swam at the thought, and if he had to stand up, surely he'd embarrass himself by casting up his accounts.

"You go, lad," Jago's voice grunted. "We's too busy at our card game, ain't we?"

The slap of cards on the table. Who was playing? Sam was here. What was Sam doing at Nanpean? Playing cards with Jago, whom he'd only met once before, of all people?

Kit managed to open an eye. A tall, slim boy, barely visible away from the one light in the kitchen, plodded to the door and lifted the latch. The door swung open and a moment later, half a dozen redcoat soldiers were standing in the kitchen.

Jago's voice, calm as if this were an everyday occurrence. "What're you about, this time o' the night when decent folks are shut up in their houses?"

"Are you Jago Tremaine?" A cultured voice—an officer. Another voice he ought to know.

The scrape as Jago pushed his chair back. "Aye, I am that. And you know well I am, Captain Carlyon."

Fitz. Here. At Nanpean. With the revenue men. Kit wanted to lift his head and tell his cousin to get out of the house, but he couldn't. His body wouldn't lift his head.

"Have you been out of this house tonight?" An edge of irritation in the voice. Fitz was more than a little angry. Frustrated probably. He'd thought to make arrests tonight and what had he got? One dead man on a beach and no contraband. Kit managed a chuckle from his position prone on the table. It turned into a snort.

"What's wrong with him?" Fitz demanded. A clump as he stepped closer.

Kit rolled his head onto one side and hiccupped. "C'n I help you, Cuz?" He chuckled again and blinked myopically up at his cousin. "C'n I offer you a drink?" He hiccupped and blinked again. The man would simply not come into focus.

"Kit!"

Fitz sounded astonished to see him.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Ignore him," Sam said with a sneer. "He's foxed. Again. Just as well because he cheats at cards."

"I do not," Kit mumbled, incensed by the foul calumny. This was taking realism too far. "I do not cheat…" but his words ran away with themselves and ended in a slur. Fresh blood was trickling down his right arm, tickling his skin. He lifted it with care and put it in his lap, burying his face in his other arm again so none might see him wince.

"There's horse droppings out in your farmyard, and there were ponies down on the beach to meet a ship from France," the captain said to Jago. "How do you account for that?"

Jago gave a snort of laughter that Kit wanted to join in with. "Horses did it," he said. "What did you think did it? Passing dolphins?"

The air shimmered with resentment that even Kit, inebriated as he was, could feel. Men like his cousin didn't take kindly to being mocked.

"There are a lot of droppings," the captain went on, his voice stiff and stilted, accusatory even. "And there were men down on the beach with the ponies, only someone warned them so they fled. You must have seen or heard something. They must have come right past this farm."

"I've got horses," Jago said. "Who ain't round here? An' I been out wi' them today, sev'ral times, so they bin in my yard on an' off all day. Want to see them? I c'n get the boy, there, to nip out and fetch 'em in for you." He paused and a bottle clinked against his glass as he topped it up. "And we been here at cards all evenin' an' not heard a thing."

The captain grunted. Kit closed his sausage fingers around the sleeve of his coat, blood running onto his hand and breeches. It was going to drip onto the floor in a minute.

"Well," Fitzwilliam's angry voice boomed out, echoing in Kit's head. "I'll leave you to your card game. But mark my words, we'll be keeping an eye on this little cove from now on. So, if you know of anyone who was down there tonight, you'd best let them know we're onto them. And next time, make no mistake, we'll get them."

A shuffling of feet as the soldiers crowded toward the front door.

Kit tried to lift his head but the room swam again. He gripped the table edge with his good hand, his breathing coming in shallow pants. Please let them go so he could give in to his pain.

The door banged open and the tramp of feet reverberated around the kitchen as the soldiers crowded out. Kit's grip on the table slackened, the world spun, and darkness swept up to envelop him as he slid sideways onto the flagstone floor.