Read Smugglers' Summer for Free Online

expression.
    “Thank you, sir. You are very kind, and at that horrid hour it will be reassuring to have a friend present.” She smiled at him.
    He bowed awkwardly over her hand, and strode out.
    The tea was vastly welcome, still more so the small but neat chamber where she sank into a troubled sleep without undressing. She was called at two, tidied herself as best she could with the aid of a single candle and a small square of mirror, and went down to the silent, half-dark coffee room. The drowsy maid who had woken her offered to fetch bread and cheese or cold meat, but she settled for another pot of tea and some biscuits.
    These last she nibbled at and then slipped into her pocket. She was cold with the chill of the small hours of the morning. The tea was reheated, black as pitch and bitter as aloes, but it warmed her hands and she swallowed some with an effort.
    “Summun’s coom for thy trunk,” the maid announced, covering a yawn with her hand.
    Octavia went out into the passage and found a skinny, wrinkled little man carrying her trunk out to a two-wheeled barrow. An oil lantern burned smokily above the door, but more light came from the full moon, sailing in the starry night sky. It had stopped raining at last.
    Quick footsteps sounded in the street and Lieutenant Cardin turned into the yard. He had doffed his uniform, and without its anonymity he seemed more of a real person, if anything was real in this strange, pale world. Wordlessly, Octavia took his arm and they set off, followed by the rumbling of the iron-wheeled barrow.
    “This is the Barbican,” he said in a low voice as they entered a maze of narrow streets. “It is the oldest part of the town, and rather picturesque. I wish I could show it to you by daylight.”
    She murmured a response. They were walking downhill now, and the damp air smelled of seaweed, fish, and tar. They turned a corner and were on the quay.
    A burly man stepped out of the shadows.
    “Miss Gray?” he queried in a voice so deep it might have been Neptune’s. “Cap’n Pilway at your sarvice. Take care wi’ thet chest now, Joey. This way, if you please, ma’am.”
    Mr Cardin pressed her hand warmly. “Let me know that you are arrived safely,” he whispered. “A note to the New Customs House will find me. Good-bye!”
    “Good-bye. And thank you.”
    She followed Joey down a long, slippery flight of steps, open to nothingness on her right. Captain Pilway’s hand on her elbow steadied her. The plink and gurgle of water grew closer until she could see a long shadow lying alongside, moving gently up and down. A two-foot-wide abyss, inky black and crossed by a single plank, separated the steps from the restless barge.
    “Tom?”
    “Aye, cap’n. All’s well.”
    The captain picked her up with two hands about her waist and lifted her across as if she weighed no more than a feather.
     

Chapter 4
     
    Beyond the shadow of the quay the moon shone bright on Plymouth Sound, silvering the ripples and whitening the swirling wake as the sailing barge took the breeze. The Barbican, the Citadel, and the Hoe loomed as dark masses and the opposite shore of the estuary was a black line between sea and sky.
    Seated on a neat coil of rope, Octavia leaned back against her trunk and wondered if she was dreaming. The creak of the wheel, manned by the silhouette of Captain Pilway; the slap of bare feet on wood as Joey and Tom moved to adjust the square sails; the rush of water against the hull: all these were as foreign to her as the salty tang of the air blowing in her face.
    “Warrum enow, miss?” queried Tom, materialising beside her.
    She pulled her cloak closer about her and nodded; then, not sure if he had seen, said, “Yes, thank you. How long will it take to Cotehele?”
    “Ah,” he said, and slipped away again like a shadow.
    To judge by the gleaming path of the setting moon, they were headed south of west. Octavia thought back to her geography lessons. Surely the Tamar flowed