Page 70 of The Cornish Mermaid

She couldn’t drag her eyes away as they rattled past, and it took Ysella’s hands on hers to tear her attention back from the sobering, barbaric sight. Horrified, Morvoren stared from Ysella’s face to Sam’s haggard one. “They’re attacking smugglers throughout the county.” Her voice came out more querulous than she would have liked. “What if we’re too late?”

From the look on Sam’s face, he’d clearly had the same thought, because all he did was frown as though he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Ysella was made of sterner stuff. “We won’t be too late to save Kit. You mark my words. You’re here because fate has put you here to save him, so save him you will.”

Morvoren shook her head. “Suppose there is no fate, and all of this is just chance? Suppose it’s impossible to change the past?”

“I don’t believe that,” Ysella retorted. “And this isn’t the past, it’s the present. Whatever you say.”

“But for me it is the past,” Morvoren protested, absurdly angry with Ysella at refusing to believe she lived in the past. Really, she should have seen Ysella’s point of view, as after all, this was her own present now, as well as Ysella’s. So surely, they could change it?

“In my old world, it’s a fact recorded in a museum display,” Morvoren said, struggling to explain something she didn’t understand herself. “If I truly can change the past, won’t the display in the museum have to change? And countless other things? Won’t Kit live to have children and grandchildren and by my time lots of descendants? Won’t I have changed my whole world by this one tiny act? That’s why I’m so afraid I won’t be able to change anything—because it’s not just him, it’s two hundred years of history by my time.”

Sam looked up from studying his hands. “Maybe you don’t know it, but some descendant of Kit’s has to do something important—discover something—like a cure for consumption. Build something, invent something. I don’t know. But what I’m saying is, perhaps Kit isn’t the important one here but one of his descendants is.”

He had a good point there. If she saved Kit and somehow returned to her own time, would she find it vastly different because of something one of his heirs had done? Could she leave some advice for Kit’s descendants? Warn them to avert the two World Wars? To get rid of Hitler as a baby? To prevent the invention of the nuclear bomb? Now she was getting into the realms of fantasy.

“If he’s caught,” she whispered. “Will they hang him?”

“He won’t get caught,” Ysella said, determination in her voice. “I won’t let them catch him and neither will you. We’ll be in time. I know we will.”

At this crucial point, one of the horses lost a shoe.

Was fate against them? Was time itself striking back at Morvoren to prevent her changing history?

“I’ll have to let them walk until we reach the next village,” James called down. “If I don’t, on this road he’ll go lame and we might not get a replacement.”

“Will the carriage run with just two horses?” Morvoren asked, the cold sweat of fear trickling down her back at yet another delay. “Could we unhitch the lame one and its partner?”

Sam shook his head. “Our own horses could, but not these nags. The carriage would be too heavy. It runs well with two of our horses at home at Ormonde but only over short and well-maintained distances. On these hills, two hired nags would be struggling within a short time. It makes sense to get the shoe done.”

It turned out, after an hour of walking to the next village, that the horse needed four new shoes or the others were going to come off as well.

“What about the other three horses?” Morvoren asked, scowling at where they stood munching a few oats in their nosebags. Supposing Sam said they needed doing as well?

“Luckily, their shoes are good,” Sam answered, patting the scrawny quarters of the lead horse. “More than can be said for their condition. Poor old things. They look to me as though they’re only a step or two from the knacker’s yard.”

The village blacksmith was old and bent-backed, and not a fast worker. He took his time with the horse and seemed disinclined to hurry, even when Sam waved money in front of his face.

“If I rushes, these shoes won’t last,” he grumbled, as Ysella, Morvoren and Sam stood in an impatient row willing him to speed up. “An’ you’ll be havin’ the problem all over agin in less than twenty mile. Can’t rush a craftsman.”

At last, the horse’s pedicure was done and Sam paid the blacksmith his extortionate price for emergency work. James and John reharnessed the horse with his patient fellows, and they were off again.

Luckily, Sam possessed some foresight. When he remounted the carriage, he carried with him a basket laden with bread, cheese, and fruit, all obtained from the inn opposite the forge, as well as a large earthenware bottle of cider. Once out of the village, he brought it all out and they half-heartedly nibbled on the food and drank a little too much of the cider.

If only willpower were able to drive the horses to greater speed. James and John changed them for fresh ones at an inn called The Indian Queen, a name, he told them in a transparent effort to distract them from their worries, that originated from a visit to the inn by none other than Princess Pocahontas. Then they were off again, bumping over the uneven high road. Until, as late evening fell, they reached Hayle on the north coast. Where the tide was in… of course… and there was no bridge.

“I’m sorry,” James called down. “We’re just too late for the tide. There’s no other way we can go. We’ll have to wait until the tide goes out. The road crosses the estuary on the sands and it’s not safe right now with the heavy flow.”

Morvoren groaned in frustration, nausea welling in her stomach. Was everything against them?

As the next low tide was in the morning, they would have to wait for the water to drop before the road, if you could call it that, became safe to cross with the carriage.

“Could we not go south and find a bridge?” Morvoren asked Sam and James. “Surely there must be a bridge or even a ford upstream from here?”

Their shrugs were answer enough. Sam and Morvoren went to ask the landlord of the inn where they’d halted their carriage.

“You won’t get that there smart carriage down they lanes,” he said, his facial hair, which he had in abundance, vibrating as he spoke. “Too narrer and too bumpy. Yer’d do it on hossback, but yer haven’t got no hosses to ride.”