The Darkest Shore

by Karen Brooks

  Peter waited a second, as he’d been instructed, then screamed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  By this your Lordship may see, it is only the weakest that went to the walls.

  — A Letter from a Gentleman of Fife to his Friend in Edinburgh, 1705

  It was two weeks since Sorcha had been identified by Peter Morton in his bedroom and locked in the damp, bare rooms of the Tolbooth to await, so Reverend Cowper said, justice. She remembered the day it happened as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Dragged into Peter’s presence, at first Sorcha didn’t recognise the lad, so pale and thin had he become. His once bonnie cheeks were sunken, his dark hair lank and unwashed. A sour smell pervaded the space, a sickly odour that was overlaid by sweat and excitement. Unable to see Peter’s eyes, which were shrouded by a cloth, she’d been told not to utter a word but, when commanded, to step forward and rest her hand on the lad’s exposed arm.

  Captain Ross started as she entered the room, and she almost exclaimed in relief upon seeing him. The fear that had been growing in her steadily as one after the other of her friends were hauled into the bedroom and then hustled back out through the front door to God knew where, subsided. He became a sturdy rope that tied her to a solid point when all around her was shifting. She met his eyes and saw what she first thought was confusion before she understood, with a lurch of her heart, it was terror — for her.

  After all, he’d seen what had gone before.

  Seated beside the poor lad, who was as still as a corpse beneath the covers, was the reverend. With a smile that never left his lips, he performed a mime for her benefit. She bent and gently traced a vein that ran from the base of Peter’s wrist and along his now skinny forearm. It pulsed beneath her fingertips. Even through her hardened skin she could feel the power of his heartbeat, the vitality that to all appearances seemed to be draining from his body.

  Somewhat reassured, she continued to stroke him. Dear God, he’d become gaunt. He made not a sound, not a murmur. The reverend grunted, the noise almost like words she couldn’t quite catch. Puzzled, she almost forgot the command to remain silent when Peter let out an almighty cry. ‘Take her away, take her away, it be the sea-witch, Sorcha McIntyre!’ Horrified, Sorcha snatched her fingers back as if they were burned, swinging towards the captain in dismay.

  There was only one person who’d ever called her a sea-witch… Before she could accuse the reverend of putting words in the lad’s mouth, Peter started shouting.

  ‘She seeks to torment me further!’ He screamed again, his back arching so high, she thought he would snap in two. Her instinct was to render help. Constable Wood gripped her elbow and steered her away from the bed, but not before she’d seen the tears coursing from under the cloth and down Peter’s neck. Was it from the pain he professed she was causing? Why would he claim she was doing such a terrible thing? Why use the reverend’s name for her? She stared at her hands, turning them first one way then the other, shaking her head in disbelief, then raised her chin and looked at Patrick Cowper.

  He stared at her, a glimmer of triumph in his eyes.

  ‘Edinburgh will learn all that has befallen here, as God is my witness,’ said Captain Ross as she was dragged away. He raised an arm, as if he would pull her back through sheer will power alone.

  Marched up the High Street like a common criminal, along with three of the other accused women, she was thrown into a dank and dingy room on the first floor of the Tolbooth. She learned later it was where Beatrix had been kept. All it contained was a chair, a table and some fouled straw. When they were able to open it, the window let in light and air. She shared the space with Nettie, Isobel and Nicolas. According to Alick the keeper, Janet, Lillie Wallace, Margaret Jack, and even Thomas Brown had also been named. Thomas Brown. What had that kindly man ever done to stand so accused — apart from own shares in one of the larger boats. Alick said they’d been put in the cell on the lower floor.

  The suspects were separated not only to fit them into the small, fusty rooms more readily, but to prevent them colluding — whether in innocence or malfeasance wasn’t specified. All Sorcha knew was she should be grateful she wasn’t on the ground floor of the Tolbooth. In her cell, they at least had fresh air. The window of the room directly below had a loose grate, and so was sealed shut lest the prisoners escape. When the rains were heavy, water trickled through the cracks and pooled on the floor. It hadn’t stopped raining since they’d been incarcerated, as if the skies were lamenting their plight.

  But it was poor Beatrix who was made to suffer the most. Taken from the Tolbooth first to the Morton house, she was later delivered to the dark and windowless hole beneath the church known as St Fillan’s Cave, a former smugglers’ storehouse. For her sins, Beatrix was to suffer in darkness and solitude. Her only visitors, apart from the guards who brought a little food and water, were the reverend and the bailies.

  Mr Bollard, the pricker, was too busy for Beatrix. He was now concentrating on those locked in the Tolbooth.

  Sorcha tried not to think about that.

  Instead, she sent her thoughts and prayers winging to Beatrix. The cave was narrow and cold with a low, uneven rock ceiling and weeping walls. Sorcha’s da had taken her there one time to fetch some tea and claret. Brought over from France by sailors wishing to avoid the usual excise, the goods had been hidden deep within, away from the eyes of the government officials who patrolled the coast, waiting to be resold to gentry and merchants on surrounding estates and in the city. It wasn’t uncommon for locals to purchase some of the booty. Since Patrick Cowper’s arrival, not only had the smuggling ceased, but the cave was used to imprison the worst offenders, to break them utterly. Rumour had it you could enter it from the church, so no one even knew you were there. Every night Sorcha prayed Beatrix would survive this, that they all would.

  She prayed now, raising her head towards the ceiling when she’d finished. Not so much to see if her words went to God, but to try and spy the presence of those who spent a great deal of time peering through the holes in the ceiling to watch them.

  Nettie saw where Sorcha was looking and shook her head. They were alone. It didn’t happen often, as one or more of the town council, the guards or the reverend spied on them most days. Whether it was when they were being forced awake by having the large sounding horn blasted in their ears, or dragged to their feet and marched around the floor by a constable and volunteers from the kirk, pricked by Mr Bollard, or being shaved, stripped, having a shit or piss, eating what little they were given, the men would watch.

  At first Sorcha had been self-conscious; the ignominy of being observed in the most private and vulnerable of moments had almost consumed her. But once Nettie said she thought that they’d been put in the top room because they were the younger of the accused and the men sought to get pleasure from viewing their bodies and the punishment inflicted upon them, she made a promise to ensure any delight the men had was short-lived.

  It was the idea they were watching that kept her strong when her hair was cruelly cut then shaved from her scalp. As her long tresses floated to the floor to be scooped up along with Nettie’s and Nicolas’s dark ones and Isobel’s golden ones, knowing the men would find them less attractive allowed her to forget her vanity and take a peculiar strength from her prickly naked skull. She discussed this with the women and they all agreed they would celebrate their new look, hold their heads high and feel no shame. If anyone should feel that particular emotion, it was the men who ordered it to be done, who observed as their orders were carried out.

  That night, they’d chuckled about their appearance as they tried to adjust to their bald, itchy scalps, the way the cold bit at their flesh, stroking each other’s heads, describing how odd they felt.

  ‘Reminds me of Thom’s cheeks when he kisses me,’ said Nettie.

  Isobel broke into a smile. ‘Mine feels more like my grandpa’s lips. When he offers me a tirl, it’s like being stung by nettles.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ added Nico
las. ‘Reminds me of my ma’s.’

  They’d all rolled around on the straw at that, cackling loudly.

  Their confidence didn’t last long, their determined defiance. Not once Mr Bollard came to visit.

  It took only one session with the pricker for them to retreat to their stinking bedding, bleeding, crying quietly, to make a solemn pact.

  After Mr Bollard attended, they ceased to wash, even when they were ordered to. They tipped over the bowls of cold water, cast the soap out of the window. Used the cloths meant for washing and cleaning their teeth to blow their noses, wipe their arses. They made sure their body odour was as foul as their surroundings, that their breath, when it hit their accusers was as putrid as their toilet bucket. They made sure the vermin that set up colonies in the straw and burrowed into their clothes, crawled over their bodies and their fuzzy scalps, were transferred to the men whenever the opportunity arose.

  They might have been prisoners, might have been at the whim of these desperate zealots, but they weren’t completely powerless. Not yet. Sorcha wouldn’t allow that to happen. Nor would Nettie.

  Reflecting upon how long they’d been there, wondering as she did every moment how much more of this hell they’d have to endure, Sorcha hauled herself upright, aware her legs pained her horribly and that her underarms were tender. She limped to the window and pushed it open as far as she could. The broken latch meant it wouldn’t concede much, but at least she could breathe in the fresh air, push out her arm and feel the rain upon her flesh.

  Dear God, she thought for the umpteenth time, how had it come to this? These wicked and patently false accusations. All because of a young lad. All because of a woman’s imprudent tongue. Through Alick, they’d learned that Beatrix was inconsolable about giving up their names. When they learned how long she’d held out, exactly what had been done to her and then, shockingly, experienced it themselves, any anger they’d felt towards her dissolved.

  No one should have such punishment inflicted upon them in the first place.

  But that was the point. They would all be driven to the same precipice as Beatrix, where they would say anything, do anything, leap into the abyss and condemn themselves, if only the pain would stop. With a shudder, she pushed the idea to the back of her mind, tried not to think about the aches that worried her body, or the wounds marking her flesh. What strength remained she sent to Beatrix, alone in that cold, lightless hell-hole beneath the kirk.

  From her vantage point, Sorcha could see the High Street. It was emptier than usual, despite the weather, but still she searched for the one figure she’d come to rely upon to be there most days. She wasn’t disappointed. There he was. The captain. With a leap of her heart, she gazed at him as he sat upon Liath beneath the tavern shingle, staring up at the tower.

  Upon seeing her, he lifted his hat and bowed his head, his sign that he saw her. Tears filled her eyes as she waved, making sure she put all the energy she possessed into the simple gesture. She would not let him, or any of the others who might be looking, see how much the action cost her. How moving her arm caused her shoulder to pain, her ribs to burn, the sores in her armpit to open. Thank goodness he was too far away to see her wretched state; the dirt that lay beneath her fingers, in the crook of her elbow, the dried blood. Thank goodness he couldn’t inhale her scent. Her lips were cracked, her pricked belly sunken. She was mere bones dressed in filthy flesh.

  Gazing at her slender arm, the bruises and bloodied scratches that tracked her skin like a pitted roadway mapped by a madman, she gave one last wave and withdrew, using the rainwater to wash away the dried blood, stifling her groans as she did so. She moved away from the window and joined Nettie, who resembled a nun without her cowl; almost beatific.

  ‘Maybe they’ll leave us alone today,’ she whispered. A habit already honed.

  ‘It’s Sunday. Even we witches deserve a day of rest,’ agreed Nettie.

  ‘Don’t call us that,’ snapped Nicolas. Of them all, Nicolas suffered most. Mr Bollard had been crueller to her than the rest. After she refused to admit to any wrongdoing, despite being accused of fashioning a wax figure that was never found, he took even greater satisfaction from pricking her flesh, fondling her breasts, searching her maukin, her woman’s parts, for signs of a witch. The more she sobbed and cried, the harder he stabbed and prodded.

  If Sorcha had an instrument she could have turned on the man and used to end all their suffering, she would have gladly. Let them hang her for a real crime. But they were all bound when the pricker came. Their wrists were tied and, as they were taken one by one to the rooms above and forced into a chair, their ankles as well. It was the same when the reverend asked his endless, repetitive questions over and over; they were secured so they couldn’t use their limbs to conjure demons, to enchant the men.

  Thus far, despite what had been done to them, none of them had broken. Not yet.

  Beatrix had told the men nothing else since she gave up their names; not even the worst Mr Bollard could do was as bad as confessing, surrendering to the pain and telling lies. She begged Alick to pass that piece of wisdom on to her friends. He had.

  Upon that, they were agreed. They would not tell falsehoods; they would not condemn others to this miserable fate.

  For that was what they were being asked to do: to tell lies, to give up innocent names. They were no more witches than the men who tortured them. Why would no one believe them? Why would no one come to their aid? Even Captain Ross’s efforts had amounted to nothing… so far. But how far was that? There was a weight of anticipation in the ‘so’ — as if their circumstances could change. It seemed an impossible hope.

  ‘Was he there?’ asked Nettie as Sorcha gingerly lowered herself beside her, jerking her chin towards the window.

  ‘As always.’ Sorcha let out a long sigh and leaned the back of her head against the wall and shut her eyes. The stone was hard, cold. At least her head wasn’t as tickly as it had been when they were first shaved. They’d only nicked her a few times, unlike Nicolas, who’d tried to resist and earned herself a deep cut above one ear for her efforts. It was when the men shaved their cunts that none of them had dared to shift. Cowper had supervised that part of their humiliation, entrusting the task to Simon Wood and Gerard Stuart.

  Allowing the women to keep their skirts on, simply to hoist them, Simon had at least been embarrassed, careful. Perhaps it was because as he worked, Sorcha kept reminding him of the times they would frolic upon the braes as bairns; how they’d play jokes upon Widow Agnes and her father and then run like the clappers when the old man had chased them with his stick. Nettie added her own reminiscences of when Simon was a bairn. When the reverend understood the women were affecting the lad’s work, he’d had their mouths stuffed with fabric. Gerard Stuart had become… excited by what he was doing, hamfisted, and had cut Isobel. After that, Cowper had taken the knife himself and shaved her then Nicolas, raining prayers and curses upon them for their womanly wiles and efforts to seduce men.

  After that, the pricker had begun his work. Between Cowper’s and the bailies’ questions and Mr Bollard’s instruments, they sought to have them confess, promising to end their agonies if only they would admit to being witches. These men must have thought them fools. Had Beatrix’s suffering ended after she’d confessed? Confessed not only to being in league with the devil, but naming accomplices? It had not. They would not confess to what they hadn’t done. To being what they were not.

  Sorcha wanted to believe no one would, but now Alick was gone and she feared they wouldn’t hold out much longer. The Tolbooth keeper’s efforts to make their imprisonment easier by sneaking in supplies and passing notes from Captain Ross and other snippets of information had been discovered and he had been removed from the tower.

  In the room below them, Thomas Brown and the other three women suffered greatly as well. The new guards, hastily recruited and posted to safeguard the lower room only last week, were refusing to give Thomas the food his daughter cooked for him,
eating it outside the door with great relish so those inside might smell it and know what they were missing out on. Janet had managed to have a message passed upstairs by one of the other, older guards who felt sorry for them. From this they learned that Thomas had fallen ill and was becoming frailer with each passing day. Sorcha was scared for him. For Janet, too; for all she gave the appearance of being as tough as a seasoned milch cow, she was really just a grannie mutchie.

  A noise outside the door drew Sorcha’s attention. The key rattled in the lock. The women scrambled to their feet, meeting in the middle of the room and holding hands, drawing strength from each other. God, they were a sorry looking lot.

  Who should enter but the reverend, fresh from delivering his sermon. So much for Sunday being a day of rest.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies.’ The rain had plastered his hair to his skull. His smock was damp along the bottom. Grass and clumps of dirt clung to his boots. He smelled of the outside, of wood smoke and, goddamn him, whisky and mutton.

  Behind him was Mr Bollard. Sorcha no longer had the energy to be afraid. Following them were bailies Cook and Vernour. There were others as well, the constables, a few town officials. The latter pressed handkerchiefs to their noses, gazing at the women with round eyes, their shock apparent. A couple coughed. One cleared his throat loudly.

  ‘We’ve come to give you one last chance,’ said the reverend amiably. Sorcha knew his words were empty, said for the benefit of the strangers. He said that every time.

  Pulling pieces of paper out of the satchel he had slung across his shoulders, he came further into the room. He laid the papers on the small table and smoothed them out. A quill and inkhorn were also produced. ‘If you would but sign these confessions then all this will stop.’ His hand swept the room. ‘You would be free to go.’

  ‘Free?’ snorted Nettie. ‘For how long, reverend? For as long as it takes the constables to round us up again and set us to burn upon the Kilgreen like the witches of bygone days.’