Eames, to climb to the top of Tol-Pedn-Penwith?” Roger’s voice lashed me. “Are you going to fly?”
I shuddered under the soft strap of his voice.
“I--I don’t know,” I stammered, disconcerted and beginning to grow frightened at my own behavior. What was I doing? “It was the lights, you see…”
“What the deuce are you talking about?”
Roger had been loosening his arm from around my waist when I showed no sign of toppling forward, but his grip tightened suddenly, and I cried out.
Immediately he released me.
“I got lost,” I began. “I had been to the Penwyth Quoit, and then I missed the path back to the Hermitage. There were lights like the glow from a lantern, and I thought they belonged to someone who could lead me home. So I followed them.” I looked around me in bewilderment. “But now they are gone . . .”
They had been a prickly oiliness, an element outside of my affinity, and the knowledge lay heavily in my mouth.
“Ah,” Roger said, almost at random as if he did not know what he should reply. “But Penwyth Quoit is no easy distance from the Hermitage, and hidden from the casual observer. Who brought you there, and left you?”
It was a penetrating deduction, but for some reason I felt a reluctance to expose his cousin’s perfidy.
“I am very tired.” I answered obliquely instead, but I must have looked and sounded pathetic for he immediately began assisting me over the tumbled boulders away from the void, down to the bottom where his black-and-white horse peaceably cropped the furze.
When I reached the bottom I could not help glancing back. The tor loomed over me, a craggy heap with rooks cawing and wheeling about it. And it was laughing.
I shivered, wondering how it was that I, even in my desperation, could attempt such a climb.
Roger would be wondering the same thing but his face was blank. He moved with a restless discomfort, avoiding eye contact when our glances chanced to meet. Several times he opened his mouth to speak only to shut it as if he talked himself out of the remark. It happened so often that I began to entertain the possibility he was even more uncomfortable in the company of strangers than I.
This time the evidence of neglect in his person was too clear to ignore: a carved horn button was missing from the front of his felted waistcoat while the ones remaining dangled ominously from fraying threads; his neckcloth was creased in a warren of wrinkles; a seam had begun to open at the shoulder of his frock coat, tailored from an expensively subtle snuff-colored ribbed silk.
I could not help the fleeting comparison of Roger to his distant cousin Damon, whose easy manner possessed the highest degree of polish.
Roger led me to a flat rock and bade me sit while he fumbled in his saddlepack, pushing past sheets of foolscap and clinking inkwells. Eventually he drew out a flask. I drank the cider he offered gratefully, washing away the dirt I found coating the inside of my mouth.
“How is it you found me?” I asked when I could speak without a catch.
Another of his queer hesitations.
“This path leads to my home,” he said with a thumb toward the narrow goat’s track wavering across the moor. “I had business in St. Ives, but instead of using the toll road I decided to take the shortcut. I rarely do so for the way can be treacherous.” He kept his attention on the toe of his jackboot scoring a line in the unforgiving soil. “The road changes from time to time. Sometimes I’ll find a cairn I never noticed before, or my horse will stumble into a bog that wasn’t there a week gone by.”
His moonlit eyes suddenly met mine. “But today I decided to chance the moor.”
“I am glad,” I said, and meant it. “I do not like to think what might have happened if you had chosen safety over speed.”
“Nor I. I’ll take you back to the Hermitage. Can you ride?”
“I’ve never been on a horse before. My foot . . .”
I trailed off delicately, as I
I shuddered under the soft strap of his voice.
“I--I don’t know,” I stammered, disconcerted and beginning to grow frightened at my own behavior. What was I doing? “It was the lights, you see…”
“What the deuce are you talking about?”
Roger had been loosening his arm from around my waist when I showed no sign of toppling forward, but his grip tightened suddenly, and I cried out.
Immediately he released me.
“I got lost,” I began. “I had been to the Penwyth Quoit, and then I missed the path back to the Hermitage. There were lights like the glow from a lantern, and I thought they belonged to someone who could lead me home. So I followed them.” I looked around me in bewilderment. “But now they are gone . . .”
They had been a prickly oiliness, an element outside of my affinity, and the knowledge lay heavily in my mouth.
“Ah,” Roger said, almost at random as if he did not know what he should reply. “But Penwyth Quoit is no easy distance from the Hermitage, and hidden from the casual observer. Who brought you there, and left you?”
It was a penetrating deduction, but for some reason I felt a reluctance to expose his cousin’s perfidy.
“I am very tired.” I answered obliquely instead, but I must have looked and sounded pathetic for he immediately began assisting me over the tumbled boulders away from the void, down to the bottom where his black-and-white horse peaceably cropped the furze.
When I reached the bottom I could not help glancing back. The tor loomed over me, a craggy heap with rooks cawing and wheeling about it. And it was laughing.
I shivered, wondering how it was that I, even in my desperation, could attempt such a climb.
Roger would be wondering the same thing but his face was blank. He moved with a restless discomfort, avoiding eye contact when our glances chanced to meet. Several times he opened his mouth to speak only to shut it as if he talked himself out of the remark. It happened so often that I began to entertain the possibility he was even more uncomfortable in the company of strangers than I.
This time the evidence of neglect in his person was too clear to ignore: a carved horn button was missing from the front of his felted waistcoat while the ones remaining dangled ominously from fraying threads; his neckcloth was creased in a warren of wrinkles; a seam had begun to open at the shoulder of his frock coat, tailored from an expensively subtle snuff-colored ribbed silk.
I could not help the fleeting comparison of Roger to his distant cousin Damon, whose easy manner possessed the highest degree of polish.
Roger led me to a flat rock and bade me sit while he fumbled in his saddlepack, pushing past sheets of foolscap and clinking inkwells. Eventually he drew out a flask. I drank the cider he offered gratefully, washing away the dirt I found coating the inside of my mouth.
“How is it you found me?” I asked when I could speak without a catch.
Another of his queer hesitations.
“This path leads to my home,” he said with a thumb toward the narrow goat’s track wavering across the moor. “I had business in St. Ives, but instead of using the toll road I decided to take the shortcut. I rarely do so for the way can be treacherous.” He kept his attention on the toe of his jackboot scoring a line in the unforgiving soil. “The road changes from time to time. Sometimes I’ll find a cairn I never noticed before, or my horse will stumble into a bog that wasn’t there a week gone by.”
His moonlit eyes suddenly met mine. “But today I decided to chance the moor.”
“I am glad,” I said, and meant it. “I do not like to think what might have happened if you had chosen safety over speed.”
“Nor I. I’ll take you back to the Hermitage. Can you ride?”
“I’ve never been on a horse before. My foot . . .”
I trailed off delicately, as I
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