by Olivia Waite
But the vicar was already back among the Latins. “I will give you until Sunday to come to some mutual agreement.”
Penelope stalked out of the vicarage, hands clenched into fists, arms stiff at the sides of her trousered thighs. Mr. Oliver, she knew, was expecting her to behave as she always had with him. He thought she’d be reasonable, biddable, and yielding.
He thought she’d be good.
She’d been good for years. Decades. Partly because it was her nature, partly because Mr. Oliver had stepped into Owen’s vacant place. Sometimes she was still surprised to see his face at the pulpit in place of her sunny, softhearted brother. She’d been giving him Owen’s share of deference, she realized now, expecting something like Owen’s love and graciousness in return.
It had never happened.
It was never going to happen.
Rage and embarrassment at such a fundamental error thundered in her soul, and she turned from the road to strike one hand flat against the tall, sleek trunk of a mountain ash. “Damn him!” she cried, her eyes squeezing shut in shame.
In an instant, Agatha’s arms were around her, turning her, wrapping her tight and holding her close. Penelope clutched at her beloved, shaking, burying her face in the familiar smells of sweat and skin and old, soft cloth. She felt stricken, like a wounded thing, even as she looked back and saw clearly that the blow had been struck years and years ago. She just hadn’t felt it until now.
She had wasted too much time fretting over doing good. It was time to do what was right.
She let herself enjoy Agatha’s embrace for one breath more, then pulled away and dashed the tears from her eyes. Agatha was watching her closely; Penelope met her gaze and said: “I have another conspiracy for you.”
Agatha’s eyes flashed, her lips curved in sly hope—and she saluted.
Together they marched to the Koskinen’s farm, just below Backey Green. Mrs. Koskinen greeted them at the door, though her confusion was plain enough.
“We need your help, Emma,” Penelope said, getting straight to the point. “How does one go about arranging for an action in secret?”
Mrs. Koskinen’s face lit up, as her husband shook his head in resignation.
Small beer, it turned out, could be used in place of ink on a sheet of paper; it faded into near-invisibility, until the paper was held up close to a candle. Then the beer would burn, and the hidden letters reappear. “Nell and I would set up a batch of broadsides special,” Emma said, as she poured them tea in her cozy kitchen, “and then hand them out the night before whatever it was we were planning.” She shook her head. “I was thinking of approaching Mr. Biswas to help, now that Nell’s gone.”
“No need to wait,” Agatha said. “It won’t look too odd if I take over for a night or two.”
“Then I can tell you who to give them to,” Mrs. Koskinen said.
“Why did you never tell me this before?” Penelope asked.
Mrs. Koskinen’s gaze was steady. “You were always good friends with Mr. Oliver,” she said. “It seemed like too big a risk.”
“Well,” said Penelope after a moment. “I’m just impressed you were able to keep such a secret for so long, in this town.”
Mrs. Koskinen’s answering smile was proud and sly.
They would need only a few hands for the work: Harry and John were happy enough to offer help, and Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kitt were high on Mrs. Koskinen’s list of reliable troublemakers. Agatha distributed code-marked ballads using the same system Nell had, and nobody was any the wiser. Penelope’s list of equipment gave way to hasty preparations—wheelbarrows and makeshift bee veils and a truly alarming number of heavy gloves—and the next evening Penelope kept a careful eye on the sun as it sank, and the moon as it slowly but steadily rose in the sky like heaven’s benediction on her plans.
Harry only grinned when she pointed out it was full, and would help light their way. “You sound like Mother used to, when her blood was up.”
Penelope preened beneath the compliment.
They waited, in separate homes, while the bells of St. Ambrose’s tolled eight, nine, ten. At half-past eleven, the conspirators all gathered behind the churchyard: Agatha and Penelope, Harry and John, and Mr. Kitt, all in dark clothes, lower faces masked, muslin veils bundled high on hats and heads. They looked oddly ornate and festive, as though the ancient Melliton dead had risen from their graves for an eldritch moonlit picnic among the headstones.
Silently, Penelope waved her friends to follow, and they crept up the long, high hill.
When the bells struck midnight, the sound covered the noise of the Abington Hall garden gate squeaking open.
The smoker hissed like a miniature dragon as Penelope wreathed all six hives in soothing pine-and-lavender smoke. Half the garden’s plants were dug up already, she noted with affronted fury: the rows of strawberries and hyssop were gone, and the honeysuckle torn up by the roots and left stretched out on the ground like a bevy of lovesick maidens.
When the smoke had taken effect, Penelope waved the others forward, and they went about stealing the hives.
One slumbering skep went into the bottom of each wheelbarrow, a straw cover placed over its open base to protect the drowsy bees dozing in their combs. A board went over the top of the barrow, and another skep could be balanced on top of that, with twine quickly lashing it in place so as not to tip over on the journey.
The six hives were loaded up in silence, and the thieves wound their silent way back through the labyrinth and to the garden gate. Penelope caught Agatha’s eye, and saw her grinning silver in the dimness. For one glorious, moonlit moment, Penelope’s heart soared with triumph.
Then a shadow loomed in a window, and a cry went up from the house.
They were discovered.
“Go!” Penelope hissed.
Harry took off with the first barrow, bounding down the hill and into the woods, where it would take a bloodhound to trace him. Footmen and gardeners poured out of the Hall, carrying any handy weapons and shouting “Thieves! Burglars! Murder!” indiscriminately into the night. Mr. Kitt, steering the second barrow down the hill as skillfully as if it were a ship under sail, made it safely to the wood line, with Agatha and Penelope pelting after and ducking beneath the dark protection of alder and pine.
Penelope clutched the rough bark and turned frightened eyes upon her husband, who was doing his best with the third wheelbarrow. But he was so tall, and the barrow tilted more boldly forward in his hands, and as she watched with bated breath, the front wheel of the barrow hit a rock and staggered, dumping the top skep from its hasty ties and sending it bouncing over the ground.
Penelope would have rushed forward, but Agatha’s hand clamped around her wrist and held her back.
Men, at least a dozen, poured over the crest of the hill. John scooped puzzled bees and broken comb back into the skep, and shoved the whole apparatus the last ten feet, to where his wife and her lover stood in the shadows.
Penelope lunged forward and dragged the barrow into the trees.
John waved at her to hurry, then took off running—but not toward them. Sidelong, parallel to the wood, pulling the muslin from his head and waving it like a banner as he made for the bright ribbon of the open road. “Never catch me!” he sang out, with the full force of his sailor’s lungs.
The pursuers spotted him, sent up the cry, and turned as one.
“Come on,” Agatha hissed, as Penelope’s throat ached with unvoiced shouts and pleas. Each woman took one side of the wheelbarrow, and together they hurried it bumping down the track in the wood, toward Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kitt’s house. There they found the others, sitting tense around the faint embers in the kitchen hearth.
Harry bounded up and wrapped one arm around them both. “Thank god,” he muttered—but Penelope pulled back, heartsick, as he asked: “Where’s John?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her fear clogging her throat.
“The barrow fell, and he got it to us, then drew the pur
suit away,” Agatha said.
Harry laughed, half knowing, half bitter. “He’s too chivalrous for his own good, that man.”
“Maybe they didn’t catch him?” Mr. Kitt hoped.
“They’ll catch all of us, if we’re not careful,” Agatha replied.
One by one, they split off: Mr. Kitt heading toward the Four Swallows where he’d spent the first part of the evening, and where Mr. Thomas had remained, buying rounds very visibly and giving them both something of an alibi. The others kept to the darkest spots, avoiding the open roads and holding their breaths, listening for the sounds of pursuit.
The hue and cry was just starting to spread through the town when Agatha and Penelope reached Fern Hall; Harry, who arrived a few minutes later, unusually pale and out of breath, informed them that the Four Swallows had been shouting about thieves and villains when he’d slipped past beneath the curtain of willows along the riverbank.
But by the time dawn rose, all of Melliton was awake and aware of the news:
John Flood had been taken by the special constables.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mr. Oliver’s difficulty was this: to properly charge someone with theft, one had to bring evidence he’d stolen something. And while the Abington hives were certainly gone, and Mr. Flood had been apprehended in the neighborhood at the time they vanished, nobody seemed to be able to find any of the hives at all.
They certainly weren’t at Fern Hall, which the special constables and Mr. Oliver had walked around no fewer than three times, eyes peeled for stolen beehives tucked into an empty stall in the stables or hidden beneath a draping of canvas. But Penelope’s leaf hive and her glass-topped skeps were the only bees present, and not even Mr. Oliver’s palpable suspicion could make the stolen swarms appear out of thin air.
But John was not to be let off entirely. Mr. Oliver couldn’t charge him with the felony—and six full hives’ worth of bees and wax and honey would have doubtlessly earned a sentence of transportation—but since John’s shouting had roused fully half the town from the sweet slumber of their beds, the vicar could certainly bring the full wrath of the law (or rather, the full wrath of Mr. Oliver) down on him for a breach of the peace.
To the horror of his captain and his wife, John was sentenced to spend an afternoon in the stocks. It was an archaic punishment, not much used in these more enlightened times—but Mr. Oliver was keen to make of John Flood an example in whatever way he could.
“This is all my fault,” Penelope whispered.
She and Agatha were at Fern Hall. Mrs. Braintree had brought them some of her latest distilling to pour into their tea, but it hadn’t stopped Penelope’s hands from shaking. Agatha had wrapped her in blankets and cozied up beside her in the window seat—but Penelope couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that had haunted her since she’d returned from visiting the jail with Harry.
“Nonsense,” Agatha said, staunch and loyal. Not that Penelope had expected anything less. How could anyone be so lovely even when glaring? “They’re being terrible, simply because they can. It is not in the least your fault.”
It was shameful that this made Penelope feel better. Her feeling better was useless, because it did nothing whatsoever for John. The stocks were better than the pillory—if only just—but they were still dangerous. People died in the stocks. “Mr. Scriven says that some of the Mendacity subscribers plan to bring bushels of vegetables for the people to throw at him.” Her mouth twisted. “For entertainment.”
Because of who he is. Because of who he loves. They didn’t have to say it aloud. It was written in Harry’s unwonted silence, and the anxious clasp of Penelope’s hands.
Mr. Oliver couldn’t prove that, either—but he’d sent Harry away for the same reason, so many years ago. And now, with John, he had an excuse for a punishment he thought the man deserved—even if it wasn’t what he’d been convicted of in the records.
Agatha’s hands closed around hers. “They’ll run out of vegetables eventually.”
“Then they’ll turn to bricks and stones,” Penelope said grimly. “Whatever’s handy. Because by then they’ll be in a mood for throwing.” She gulped at her tea, feeling the bite of hot alcohol burn down her throat. “And that’s when it becomes dangerous. My god—I wish I could just do something!”
Agatha cocked a head. “Like what?”
“Like . . . like throw something back. Stand there facing them down, and defend my friend. My family.” Penelope stared out the window. From here she could just see the edge of the red tile roof that sheltered her leaf hive. Worker bees clouded the hive entrance, guarding it against intruders and thieves, anyone who would threaten their queen and their colony.
What wouldn’t Penelope give for a stinger of her own?
“The Romans used to use bees in war,” she said grimly. “I read the accounts in Isabella’s library. They’d throw whole hives over the walls of besieged cities before they attacked.”
“I imagine that was very effective,” Agatha said.
Penelope grimaced. “I wish we could do the same to anyone who dares show up tomorrow, while John is in the stocks.”
Agatha sat up straight. “Can’t we?”
Penelope snorted. “We could, but someone would be sure to get stung—John, most likely, and that would defeat the whole purpose of defending him. And people have been known to die from being stung.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
“And you call yourself a beekeeper.” Penelope’s head whipped up, but the shock of the insult melted away when Agatha went on: “All you need, my dear, is bees without stingers.”
“Bees without—” Penelope snapped her mouth shut, as the full force of the idea washed over her, brilliant as the dawn. “Griffin,” she breathed, “you genius. If Pompey’d had you by his side, he’d never have lost to Caesar.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that.”
Penelope laughed and dragged her into the apiary.
They did the circuit at record speed, hurrying through the twilight woods and across fields turned blue-green by the coming night. By the time they returned to Fern Hall they had half a dozen clay jars, with a little comb for sustenance, the jar mouths closed over with net to allow for airflow in and out overnight while the bees were sleeping.
Penelope herself lay awake until nearly dawn, clutching Agatha’s arms against her waist, the warmth and strength of the woman like armor against Penelope’s back. Penelope had a husband, if in name only, and she’d had lovers before—but this was the first time she’d had someone who felt like . . . What was the word?
A helpmeet, that was it. She’d always thought love was about feelings, and feelings were very fine things—but a helpmeet was all about doing something for someone. Putting in work, and effort, and support.
Until Agatha, Penelope had never had someone offer her that. And now she wondered that she’d managed to live so long without it. She smiled against the darkness in self-deprecation: clearly her greediness knew no bounds. Once she would have given everything just to love and be loved. Now she wanted love, and something more besides.
She’d be wanting everything, before long.
Morning brought a gray dawn, and a chill deep down in the pit of her stomach. Penelope dressed in her usual kit, gulped some tea and toast, and bundled up her jars.
Agatha waited by the door, in her blue coat and gloves. She helped Penelope pin on the bee veil—even though the veil shouldn’t be necessary, they’d decided it lent a certain authenticity to the proceedings. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“No,” Penelope admitted unhappily, making Agatha’s lips quirk, “but we’re out of time, so let’s go.”
The stocks were in the old Melliton barracks, a ring of squat brick buildings which had stood empty since the end of the war. Mr. Thomas had once been stationed here, before he’d gone on half pay. He was here now, standing far back against the wall, with Mr. Kitt very close by his side; Penelope couldn’t tell which of t
hem was holding the other up, but they both looked nauseous. A small crowd had already gathered: Penelope spotted Mr. Buckley and Mrs. Plumb, but also Mr. Downes, Mr. Scriven, and a gaggle of village children. Mr. Painter and Squire Theydon stood by a barrel full of what looked like moldy beetroots, knobby radishes, and spring potatoes that bristled with too many eyes.
Agatha’s gaze took in all of this, but she said only: “Do you want me to come up there with you?”
Penelope shook her head. “Better if it’s just me,” she said. “Valiant wife defending her husband, and all that.”
“Very romantic,” Agatha replied, and gave Penelope’s arm a supportive squeeze. Then she faded back to stand with Mr. Kitt and Mr. Thomas.
Penelope slipped through the crowd toward the stocks, just as John was led out. God, but he looked ragged: hardly surprising after the night he must have had. His wild eyes ran over the crowd—then stopped, as if snagged, on where Harry stood at the very front, brow thunderous, great arms folded. A look strung between them: anguish and faith and grim understanding, all mingled together.
It nearly broke Penelope’s heart. Then hot steel flowed into the broken places. Her head came up, her breath came faster, and she wound around clumps of villagers until she was standing at her brother’s elbow.
“Afternoon,” she said to him.
He glowered in her direction—not at her, she knew, but at the general glower-worthiness of the whole event. The constables were fastening John’s feet into the stocks now, two thick wooden pieces trapping him in a sitting position on the hard-packed ground. Harry’s brow furrowed at this, then furrowed twice as deep when he took in Penelope’s beekeeping garb, and the bag over her shoulder. “What’s all this, Pen?”
She gave him a tight smile. “I’m here to uphold my marriage vows: mutual society, help—” she tapped the first jar, which buzzed in response “—and comfort.”
For perhaps the first time in his whole life, Harry was struck speechless.
Penelope wished she had the time to enjoy it. She patted her brother’s arm, and turned back to John.
