For a moment, Penhallow wants to make her kneel. She’s played that game with other women, women she’s liked, who would have laughed and done it. But for Trevelyan it would be an obscenity to countenance.
(She could have saved Jackie on her own account. She could have chosen not to see what she saw, three nights ago; she could have made a promise to Pen, to make in her turn to Goody Nanskevel; and the two of them might somehow have brought the gifted boy back to his own shores, to decide for himself what might be wrought by his power. But she did not, and Pen did not ask. Trevelyan does not bend and she does not break.)
“Get on the bed,” Penhallow says. Still crisp, to be obeyed. “And make it pretty for us.”
It takes Trevelyan a moment to understand, the instant of confusion more softening to her features than any sweet nothing would be. And then they’re awash with tiny glittering lights, like fireflies at midsummer, and for all it’s a party trick it’s the loveliest thing Pen has ever seen. More so then Trevelyan herself, whose body is bones and sharp edges against Pen’s sheets, to be investigated with care for fear of being cut.
But this is what Pen wants. She checks again that it’s what Trevelyan wants. And it seems the firefly lights have a little extra magic in them; they brighten and dim in rhythm with their maker’s pitch of breathing, and Pen laughs with delight as they all go out.
In the rose-red dawn, Trevelyan gathers her clothes and Pen pretends to be sleeping. With her eyelids open a crack she watches the rise and dip of Trevelyan’s feet, arched away from the ice-cold floorboards. Trevelyan pauses in the doorway, boots in hand, looks back at Pen with an indefinable sweetness about her expression, and turns to go.
Penhallow doesn’t regret this, not at all. She couldn’t return what was taken—she couldn’t bring magic back to Kernow; but she could bring Trevelyan to this quiet, comfortable place, and she could give what was hers to give.
What was hers to give. Pen sits bolt upright, swears at the cold, and launches herself at the door. “Trevelyan! Wait! I’ve got an idea!”
Not quite an hour later Trevelyan is looking out over the water lapping in the harbour and saying, “Penhallow, this is not a good idea.”
“Neither is His Majesty’s Inland Revenue. Get in the boat.”
Trevelyan sighs and steps in, and Pen scans the horizon intently, running her internal calculations again. The delay in the tunnels the night before, together with the struggle she and Trevelyan had with Deveraux and his men, and sea’s long rise and fall at this time of year.
“Got it,” Pen says, pointing. Trevelyan shades her eyes and follows Pen’s outstretched finger, takes in the ship still standing offshore. The crew missed the tide. If they hurry—and Pen is rowing as fast as she can—they might still have time.
“It’s still not a good idea,” Trevelyan says, and then gives Pen a look of utter disgust. Pen has dropped a handful of soft cloth into the rowlocks, so the sound is muffled and doesn’t carry.
“Don’t you start,” Pen says. “Have you got everything?”
She’s just realised that she could have waited for Trevelyan to go and fetched Merryn for this errand. That this never occurred to her at the time is not something she wishes to examine too closely.
Trevelyan inspects the inventory on the bottom of the boat. The little packet contains a knife—which one can grip with one’s teeth; Penhallow and Trevelyan both tested this—; a bag of coins; and a small green bottle containing distilled essence of peacock, or perhaps elephants. When smashed it should prove an excellent diversion.
“What if it doesn’t break when it hits the deck?” Trevelyan asks, wrapping everything back up. Despite her griping, it’s a clever notion. These old merchantmen are all hold and barrels, with no internal partitions; the bundle only needs enough corrosive magic on its outside to eat through one layer of decking. If it doesn’t land close enough to him, the boy will need his own magic to get to it.
“Then we wait for someone to stand on it,” Pen says. “Hush your mouth.”
They’re close enough to be noticed now if anyone happens to be looking. It’s taking all of Pen’s professional skill to keep them as quiet as possible, letting the eddies of the water push them from side to side rather than using long strokes of the oars. But it’s early yet, the midshipmen sleepy at their posts, and though Pen is straining to hear, she can’t make out the watchbells.
“Easy,” Trevelyan breathes, and it seems they haven’t yet been spotted. Another stroke of the oars, and they’re as close as they can get.
“Now!” Pen says.
Trevelyan stands up and throws the packet over the side. It drops out of sight, Trevelyan drops to her knees, Pen starts rowing with no thought for discretion. They cover the distance with great alacrity but not so much so that they can’t hear someone shouting, “What the fuck?” and then a great deal of indistinct yelling.
Pen rows furiously for a few minutes longer, until the crew couldn’t come after them even if they wanted to, and then Trevelyan throws a net astern. They come into harbour as a fishing boat, eccentrically crewed by an anonymously-dressed Revenue officer and the woman who owns most of the land she stands on, but they tie up without inciting remark, and come back up into the town as the two respectable pillars of society that they are.
“I suppose we’ll never really know,” Pen says, as they settle on the harbour wall in the usual spot. The bundle may not have eaten its way belowdecks. The peacocks may not have been enough of a diversion. It wasn’t a great distance to land, for a strong swimmer, but the lad may never have seen open water before. And even if he gets so far, comes ashore at Pen’s familiar cove to the north-northwest, he may not have found the other gifts for him, the knife or the coins, and without those, have no way to evade the agents of the Crown.
“But we tried,” Trevelyan says.
Pen nods, slowly, and then elbows Trevelyan; she’s spotted the cloud of green sparkles, still visible against the pinks and purples of dawn. They’re both laughing a little, and they sit in companionable silence until the sun has risen entire over the water.
“Well,” Trevelyan says, standing up. “Daylight’s burning.”
“It is at that,” Pen agrees. “I suppose you’ve got your duties to attend to.”
“As have you,” Trevelyan says. She tips her hat to Pen and sets off with spurs jangling, as relentlessly determined as those she serves. Penhallow watches until she’s quite out of sight, and then goes up to see Goody Nanskevel.
Four months later, it’s a small operation, five cases of rum and another three of jenever, so it’s just Merryn, Penhallow and Ram Das stowing the crates. It would have been Jackie, too, had his mother not had another attack of the vapours and refused to allow him out of the house. But Ram Das is both willing and efficient, and Pen is thinking about letting him handle the next small job by himself.
“But take the right-hand path, never the left,” Pen cautions, when proposing this idea to him, and Ram Das promises he won’t, not for the sake of a crate of jenever or to impress a girl. They amble back on foot, Pen and Merryn and the boy beaming like all his feast days have come at once, and they run into the Revenue just on the edge of the town.
“Keeping late hours,” Trevelyan observes, halting in the lamplight.
“A moonlight stroll,” Pen says, hands in her pockets. They’re empty, as are Ram Das’s. She patted him down before they left the cove.
“Yes, of course.” Trevelyan clicks her tongue and makes to ride on, but Pen holds up her hand.
“How’s your mum, Trevelyan?” she asks.
“She does well, thank you for asking,” Trevelyan says. “She thinks that she would like to see London again. Perhaps at Christmas, when the fairy lights are out.”
“That’s a long way to go alone,” Pen says.
“I may accompany her.” Trevelyan pauses. “I might…take the opportunity.”
Pen smiles. “Will you come back?”
“Yes.” Trevelyan cli
cks her tongue again. “Good evening to you, Pen. Merryn, Ram Das.”
She nods at them each in turn, picks up her reins and disappears into the night.
“Pen,” Merryn says. “You’re—”
“An idiot and a fool, I know,” Pen says. She puts her hands back in her pockets, and smiles.
(Because this is Kernow, where she was born; this is Penhallow, for which she was named; and this is a world in its passing, from which the great things are almost gone, but still and all, are not gone yet. Perhaps those who built the ballroom under the water will one day call for its return, and perhaps they will not. It makes no difference to Penhallow. She will be here.)
(And Trevelyan will come back.)
Acknowledgments
This story would never have existed without Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent and their invitation to the Underwater Ballroom Society. I'm very grateful for their editing, formatting cheerleading and all-round good-eggness. Thanks also to Llinos Cathryn Thomas and Cara Wynn-Jones, for the lovely cover and technical assistance.
(And to A. -- le uisge-beatha gu leòr.)
About Iona Datt Sharma
Iona is a writer and lawyer, and the product of more than one country. She's currently working on her first novel, a historical fantasy about spies. Her other short fiction is at http://generalist.org.uk/iona/fiction and she tweets as @singlecrow.
Copyright © 2018 by Iona Datt Sharma
First published in The Underwater Ballroom Society, ed. Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent, 2018.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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