by Karen Brooks
Mr McDonald looked embarrassed. ‘It was nae bother, lass.’ He patted her hand and then took the reins she proffered, clearing his throat.
With a fleeting smile, Sorcha gave the horse that had borne her one last caress and, with a wave, began to descend the path winding down the cliffs. Before she’d taken a dozen steps, Mr McDonald hailed her.
‘I ken what happened back at the estate weren’t your fault. Despite what some did blether.’
Sorcha stopped and turned slowly in shock.
Mr McDonald continued. ‘Remember: freends ’gree best separate.’
Relatives agree best when they don’t live too near each other. Aye, well, that summed up the relationship betwixt her and Dagny. They’d always been better apart.
Not yet finished, Mr McDonald walked the horses to the very edge of the braes. ‘I might be an auld man, but I’m not blind. I can see what’s before my own eyes even if some in your family choose to remain ignorant, if you ken what I’m saying.’
She did. His kindness almost undid her.
The drops grew heavier. Sorcha nodded and found her voice. ‘I thank you, Mr McDonald. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
Without another word, she concentrated on her descent, aware of Mr McDonald’s eyes on her back. She was grateful that none of the figures growing more distinct as she approached had registered her presence… yet. They were too busy. She had a little time yet to prepare a tale.
God dammit. Her excuses.
The skies opened and in moments the harbour and even the path down to it disappeared in a thick veil. Sorcha didn’t mind. It was a game she’d oft played, hide and seek in the rain and attendant fog, so she walked the steep path with confidence. A confidence that, whenever she thought of facing the Pittenweem folk melted faster than the clumps of snow clinging to the grass.
After all, how would the town react when they learned that Sorcha McIntyre, the woman some called husband-killer and baby-murderer, the woman once praised as a boon to her family but ultimately cursed, had returned?
At that moment, a fork of lightning split the sky, throwing the tower of the distant kirk into stark relief, as if God’s house and His heavenly bolt were the only things standing between her and long-delayed justice.
Justice that, if some had their way, would now be meted out.
TWO
I’ll give you the dreel.
(You are just about to get into real trouble.)
It wasn’t so much Hogmanay preparations but the pouring rain that provided the miracle for which Sorcha had prayed. The fishwives had finished sorting and, before she’d even reached the path along the harbourfront, had disappeared up the wynds, taking the catch with them. The men secured the boats and, along with their women-folk and children who had gathered the nets, escaped indoors. The few souls remaining outside were too intent on completing their tasks or raising a dram to the new year to notice a young woman scurrying along the shore or slipping on the cobbles of the High Street. Those who did, with one exception, failed to give her a second look.
The Tolbooth and kirk at the top of the road emerged briefly out of the sheeting rain and mist, landmarks that melded the sacred and profane. Sorcha kept her head down, neatly avoiding those also heading for shelter and, when she reached the looming edifice of the kirk, chose not to think about the man who occupied its hallowed halls or those under his blessed thumb, but turned left into Kirkgate. Passing the walled cemetery, her thoughts leapt the crumbling barrier to roam the gravestones that bore her family’s name. She would pay her respects soon; truth told, sooner than she’d thought she’d be able.
About to enter Marygate, the street where she’d lived another life, she thought she heard footsteps before they were replaced by the faint ring of a horse’s clopping hooves. Spinning around and wiping her face, she saw the street was empty. There were the vague shapes of the buildings hunched on the corner, candlelight wavering in the windows. The heavy shower, swirling fog and encroaching evening had turned the world into one of shifting shadows and outlandish sounds. Still, the noise echoed around her and she wondered briefly who in Pittenweem had a horse abroad in this weather. She thought of Mr McDonald, who because of her was left with no choice, and hoped he — and the horses — managed to find the inn of the corbie.
Striding past her neighbours’ houses, she slowed as she approached her destination, her chest tightening. As she’d intended to be absent from the Weem until at least late spring, she’d leased her cottage to her friend, the fishwife Nettie Horseburgh. Though married, Nettie had always been independent and let it be known even before wedlock that she wasn’t inclined to share a roof with her husband. Understanding if he wished to call Nettie Horseburgh wife he had to accept her condition that they live apart, Thomas White agreed. The arrangement drew the opprobrium of many in the village, in particular that of the minister, Patrick Cowper, but Nettie and Thom hadn’t cared. Their love transcended a roof and walls, or so they said. If Nettie was most content living on her own, then Thom was happy to accommodate her. When Sorcha made the decision to accept Dagny’s summons to go to St Andrew’s and help with the bairns while her sister awaited the birth of a new one, she’d offered her cottage to Nettie — a decision that drew harsh criticism from the reverend, who reproved Sorcha publicly, accusing her of undermining the sacred bonds of marriage, even though Nettie and Mr White had lived separately for years.
‘Just because you’ve lost a husband,’ he’d said outside the kirk after service one Sunday, his tone cold and unapologetic, ‘you think it’s all right to divide a man and his wife? That’s not your decision to make.’
Sorcha had met his gaze, ignoring the whispers of the others assembled outside. ‘You’re right, reverend. It’s not. It’s Nettie and Thom’s,’ she’d said calmly, even though her heart was somersaulting.
Fixing a tight smile, he’d shaken his head. ‘We’d all be better off if the likes of you never came back.’
‘Nae, reverend,’ Sorcha had said, tilting towards him and lowering her voice. ‘Confess. You would.’ Pretending a composure she didn’t feel, she’d walked away, aware of the dark mutters and the reverend’s poisonous glare following her.
As she’d suspected, Nettie had jumped at the offer. But how would she feel now Sorcha was back and months earlier than she’d intended? Sorcha couldn’t very well ask her to remain, could she? God, but she could do with a friendly face to wake up to.
She paused outside her house and stood at the foot of the stairs that led to the loft where nets, creels and her da’s fishing equipment was kept, and stared at the harled walls and pitted front door. Apart from a stack of books in the window, nothing seemed to have changed. She shouldn’t be surprised after only six months, but she was. Especially when she felt so transformed.
As she hesitated, she allowed recollections to fill her head. She could hear the roar of the ocean, a chorus accompanying her memories. Or was it a dirge? When she was a child seated at her father’s feet in the loft, her brothers and sister arrayed around him while he carved a piece of wood or mended lines, her mother downstairs alone with her knitting, she’d thought the ocean sounded like the world breathing.
Her father would cup his hand around his ear to alert his listeners to the constant rumble, then launch into one of his stories about the sea and the seamen who rode its waves. They were as endless as the ocean. Holding a piece of rope, he’d demonstrate how certain knots could call or calm the wind, or a special whistle tame it; how words such as ‘rabbit’, ‘pig’ and even ‘salt’ were forbidden on a boat and that if they were uttered, cold iron must be touched immediately to counter the damage. If one saw a man of the cloth on the way to the harbour, he must not sail, and so on. The rites and superstitions of the fisherfolk were woven into many of his stories.
Sorcha wasn’t very old before she understood her father’s purpose with these tales filled equally with warnings and promise. He was preparing his children for a fisher’s life, one depende
nt on unpredictable weather, the mercurial ocean, fish, wood, iron, sails, nets, oars, lines, creels and each other. ‘Us fisherfolk stick together,’ was a phrase he’d repeat over and over until, like the prayers said in kirk, it stuck like pitch to the mind.
Whenever he launched into one of his stories, her mor would turn away, a sorrowful expression on her face. She no more wanted her children to give their life to the sea than she wanted to remain in Pittenweem; but as Sorcha oft heard her father say, they’d no choice. Rather than getting angry with his wife or being hurt by her aversion to his home, he would kiss her head, explaining to his children that their mother couldn’t be expected to understand local customs, being an incomer from Bergen and the daughter of a Kontor merchant — a man with his feet firmly planted on the ground. However, if his children were to survive, to be one with the Weem folk, he’d say, they needed not only to learn the tales and the rites they described, but to accept them as well.
What he never revealed, and Sorcha only learned later, was the price he paid for marrying her mor.
It was expected that fishermen would eventually take one of the local fishwives as a bride. Called ‘wives’ whether they were single or not, these were lasses born and bred to the sea, the daughters or widows of fishermen, and raised to their ways. In marrying an incomer, a foreigner who knew nothing of a fisherman’s lot, let alone Pittenweem, Charlie McIntyre had done the unforgivable: spurned the customs of his village and the families he’d been raised among. But it was his wife who paid the price for what became known as his Norwegian folly — the beautiful, wide-eyed Astrid Grimmsdatter.
‘You wait, Charlie McIntyre,’ grumbled those who either hadn’t profited from the journey that brought Astrid to Pittenweem, or had eligible daughters they felt had been spurned. ‘Bad luck will find you, mark my words. Just pray it doesn’t find us too.’
They were right. Bad luck found them all and there were many who could never forget or forgive Charlie for his wife, her strangeness, and the sorrow that wreathed her like an eternal evendoon.
There were many who couldn’t forgive Sorcha either, and not merely because she was Charlie’s daughter.
Sorcha’s throat grew tight, her heart a weight anchoring her to the spot. Despising her self-pity, blaming the flood of remembrances, tiredness and her aching head, she willed herself to enter the cottage, noting with a half-hearted air that while the rain had all but ceased, the day had gone to bed. Night had begun to draw its cloak, casting deep shadows over the road and houses.
Again, she heard the remote ring of hooves. Closer this time was the distinct tread of boots.
Turning first towards the old Lady Chapel, then glancing up Lady Wynd before looking back to town, she tipped her head to listen. There was the steady drip of water, the growl of the ocean, a shriek of laughter, and even faint strains of music, but no footsteps. Had she imagined the sound? Was her mind playing tricks?
Nae, ’twas not.
From the direction of the High Street, moving unsteadily past the graveyard wall, three men were strolling up Marygate. They walked close together, halted, then started again. She could just discern their outline through the tendrils of floating mist. Who might these men be? Considering the tavern lay behind them, she wavered. It would be rude not to greet them, especially since it was Hogmanay. But there was something about the way they leaned into each other and, when they saw her, began whispering, that made her stomach lurch.
‘Evening, lass,’ one called, increasing his pace and dragging the others with him. The voice was deep, unfamiliar. English.
The men, who were sodden from the rain, stopped a few feet away, leaving the entrance to Lady Wynd on their left between them, and studied her brazenly. They weren’t neighbours; they weren’t even incomers in the usual sense, though they were that too. These were soldiers. Too late, she realised her mistake; she should have gone inside.
‘I don’t remember seeing you before,’ said the tallest of them finally, one hand resting on his hip, his other arm slung around his companion’s shoulders. He nudged his mate, and nodded towards Sorcha appreciatively. ‘And I don’t think I’d forget if I did.’
The men chuckled darkly.
Sorcha’s throat grew dry. Before she’d left to go to Dagny’s, a number of soldiers had been quartered throughout the town, either awaiting transport to the battlefields of Flanders or stationed to protect the coast from potential invasion. They were an undisciplined mob, a mix of English and Scotsmen drawn from around the country and mostly sympathetic to the Crown. There’d been trouble. Terrible trouble. A woman had been raped.
As she measured the distance to her neighbour’s house, calculating if she could turn and dart down Abbey Wall Road in time, she understood her choices were few. The men might be drunk, but she was weary and, in her heavy boots, unable to run fast. Not even reaching her door meant safety, not with three armed men able to force their way in. She glanced at the knives attached to the belts at their waists.
Instead, she opted for friendliness, to disarm them with a smile — not too welcoming, but showing no fear either. ‘Evening, lads,’ she said with false brightness. ‘Happy Hogmanay to you. I can see you’ve been celebrating. I guess it’s time I go to my family — they’ll be waiting for me.’ She nodded towards the door of her cottage and pulled her burlap further onto her shoulder.
‘Who’s your family?’ asked the shorter of the Scottish soldiers, reaching out to delay her. She didn’t recognise the face but the accent was local. ‘That be the McIntyre place. I heard the woman who lived there leased the cottage to the Horseburgh woman. You’re not her, by chance, are you?’ He leaned forward to peer at her face, blinking.
Not wanting to reveal who she was, she danced around the outstretched hand and straight into the clasp of another.
Fingers tightened on her wrist. Determined not to cry out, she forced another smile. ‘Please, let me go. I don’t want any trouble.’
‘Please,’ said the Englishman, imitating her burr perfectly, ‘let me go. I don’t want any trouble.’
The men laughed loudly.
‘Not so fast, lass. We just want to talk,’ said the local soldier. Sorcha tried to place him. He must be from over Anster way.
Before she could wrench free, the men closed around her. The odour of ale and whisky combined with peat smoke and oysters was overpowering. Their clothes were wet and bore the stench of their bodies — unwashed and stale. Their faces shone under the burgeoning moonlight peeping through the clouds.
‘What about?’ asked Sorcha more bravely than she felt.
‘I ken who you are,’ said the local man suddenly. ‘You be Sorcha McIntyre.’ He elbowed his friend in the ribs. ‘Andy Watson’s widow.’
Sorcha shut her eyes briefly. Damn the man.
‘Andy Watson?’ The other soldier scratched his head. ‘Weren’t he the one who drowned because his wife didn’t carry him to the boat?’
‘Aye, that’s the one,’ said the local. He jerked his chin towards Sorcha. ‘And she be the wife —’
Sorcha could barely move, the men were pressed so tightly against her.
‘So, you’re the bitch what killed Andy…’ said the soldier, his breath hot in her ear. ‘I think you need to be taught a lesson…’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the Englishman from behind her, his mouth against her hair. ‘You’re missing the point. This woman is a widow, you say? It’s not a lesson she needs…’
Sorcha felt a rush of gratitude. Perhaps this man could yet talk sense into the others.
‘It’s a man.’
Her blood turned to ice.
‘Och,’ chuckled the local. ‘What she needs is three…’
With a swiftness that belied his state, the man grabbed her face between his hands and pressed his moist lips against hers. One of the men restrained her arms, pushing himself against her. The kiss deepened as the local groaned and his slimy tongue dredged her unwilling mouth. Her burlap was dragged from her shoulder, her
shawl with it. Hands began to roam over her body, grasping, squeezing. She strained against them, tried to cry out, pull away. Their breath was loud, heavy, rancid.
They began to force her away from the house, towards the cemetery gate, holding her upright, half-carrying her into the darkness. Before they reached the wall, she leaned into the man kissing her, surprising him. Pretending to enjoy his mouth upon hers, she drew his lower lip between her own then bit down hard. Throwing her head back, she pulled a chunk of flesh with it.
There was a yowl of pain, followed by a hot gush of blood. Then, she was free. She spat the piece of lip out as the man staggered away in shock, forcing the others to break their hold.
‘The fucking bitch bit me,’ he cried, blood pumping from his ravaged mouth. ‘She fuckin’ bit me.’
Sorcha grinned, swiping the back of her hand across her lips, uncaring that her face was smeared with his blood. ‘Aye, and I’ll do it again if you come near me, you fucking bastard.’
Down by the kirk, a dog howled. A curtain shifted in a nearby window, but no one came to her aid.
The mood altered.
‘You can’t bite us all, lass —’ The Englishman lunged.
Sorcha tried to move, but he was too fast. He seized her dress. Sorcha let out a scream, before it was cut off as she was struck across the face.
‘Maybe she can’t,’ shouted a welcome voice. ‘But we can.’
Pouring through the doorway of Sorcha’s house, silhouetted against the sudden light, were three women brandishing gutting knives and a broom. It was her friends Nettie Horseburgh, Beatrix Laing and Nicolas Lawson.
They ran towards the men, weapons raised, their faces grim. Sorcha was thrust away as if she were a hot coal.
Before Sorcha could call out a warning, the man with the torn lip raised a dirk. The wicked blade glinted in the dim light. The other men drew theirs. One pulled a gun from his breeks.
Sorcha ran to join the women, turning to face the men. There was nothing but the slash of a blade separating them.