The Darkest Shore

by Karen Brooks

  The reverend shook his head. ‘You’re wrong, Mrs White. If you do but sign these papers then we can take your confession, seek to baptise you into the Lord’s family again and banish the devil from your soul.’

  ‘I thought you said I had no soul?’ said Nettie. ‘You told me I’d given it to the devil. So which is it, reverend? Do I have one, or not? ’Cause I wouldn’t want you wasting your time trying to save what’s not there.’

  Sorcha bit back a grin. Nettie’s defiance gave her strength. From the way Nicolas’s grip on her hand tightened, it did her as well.

  The reverend frowned. ‘Watch your tongue, hussy. You’re as bad as that Beatrix Laing and Janet Cornfoot.’

  Nettie shot a sly smile at Sorcha. Their friends weren’t beaten yet either.

  ‘Very well,’ said the reverend. ‘Are any of you prepared to sign?’

  In turn, the women shook their heads.

  ‘God would not want me to lie,’ said Isobel. Sorcha had never been prouder of her.

  ‘If that’s your final word?’ asked the reverend and, without waiting for an answer, scooped up the papers, folded them and replaced them in this satchel. ‘It’s as I told you, gentlemen.’ He bowed in the pricker’s direction. ‘They’re all yours, Mr Bollard.’

  He strode out of the room followed by the officials. The constables, Bailie Cook and the pricker remained.

  The noise of their boots upon the stairs echoed dully. The men were ascending to the floor above to position themselves to watch.

  ‘Come now, lassies,’ said Mr Bollard after the door shut.

  Removing his cloak and draping it carefully over the end of the table, he pulled his leather pouch from wherever he concealed it. He smiled. He had grey teeth, as big as tombstones. ‘I thought you’d be happy to see me, considering we’ve gotten to know each other so well. Perhaps not as well as I’d like — after all, I haven’t seen you for a few days. I think it’s time to rectify that, don’t you?’

  He turned from where he’d conscientiously lined up his needles and other gadgets on the table; soldiers ready for battle. ‘I think I’d like to refamiliarise myself with you first, Sorcha. If the rest of you would be so kind as to leave us alone? That would be grand. Constable, if you could take them?’ He gestured towards Constable Wood who ushered the others out of the room. They’d be guarded temporarily in the room above, where they could hear enough of what was happening to understand what was in store for them.

  ‘We love you, Sorcha,’ called out Nettie, earning a deep frown from Mr Bollard.

  When the door was shut again, Mr Bollard passed Constable Stuart some rope, and drew a chair towards the table.

  It took all Sorcha’s will not to shake, scream and resist. From past experience she knew it only made things worse. Holding her head high, fastening her eyes on the window, watching the way the rain crazed the glass, thinking of the captain upon Liath, she complied. Even while her mind shouted.

  When she was tied down, the ropes checked, and the constable had retreated to a corner, Mr Bollard clapped his hands. ‘Right, all is in order.’ He extracted a long, sharp needle from the neat row he’d made. Holding it horizontally, he pressed it to his lips before showing it to Sorcha.

  ‘Let’s begin, shall we?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was upon his [Peter Morton’s] accusation… the minister and bailies imprisoned these poor women and set a guard of drunken fellows about them, who by pinching and pricking some of them with pins and elsions, kept them from sleep for several days and nights, the marks thereof were seen by several a month thereafter. This cruel usage made some of them learn to be so wise as to acknowledge every question that was asked of them…

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

  Sorcha only knew it was the end of May because the month and date had been written on her confession. It was spring, the season of rebirth and renewal. She should have been outside, walking through mist-veiled morns down to the shore, breathing in the warmer air, watching lambs gambolling on the pastures between Anster and the Weem. Enjoying the seal pups making their way towards the rocks at the edge of the braes, their mothers floating anxiously nearby while bursts of puffins, little motes of black, white and sunshiny yellow and red, sprang from nests dotted all over the Isle of May. She should have been casting off her winter shawl, feeling the sun on her back, dodging hatchlings and fondling puppies as she strode up the High Street. Washing the curtains, scrubbing the floors and getting ready for the day when the hearthstone and fire could be properly cleaned. She should be roaming the markets. Instead, she, Nettie, Nicolas, Isobel and the others were interned in the eternal coldness of the Tolbooth, still subject to the whims of the reverend and the bailies. Dependent on the generosity or sympathy of the guards and those who could bribe them.

  Food was scarce, but that was because even when the guards took coin to pass on meals prepared by family and friends, they more often ate what was provided. She couldn’t blame them, not really; everyone was hungry, not just those for whom the food was intended. The catch was still meagre; the land hadn’t recovered from the famine that ravaged it only a couple of years previously. Astounded by the generosity of those who sought to ensure the prisoners didn’t starve, she worried that they did. The guards, clearly, had no such compunctions. Blankets and even clean clothes did find their way upstairs. It was a relief to dress in them, to huddle beneath the extra warmth, even if their bodies were foul, scarred and beaten.

  What they all wanted more than anything, apart from this protracted nightmare to end, was information. Information about those in the room below, about Beatrix in the cave down the wynd, and about what the reverend and council intended to do with them.

  Especially now that, with the exception of Thomas Brown, they’d all confessed.

  Becoming weaker by the day, Thomas refused to confess or sign anything. Sorcha was in awe of his strength, his will. What she feared — what they all did — was it would outlast his body.

  As Sorcha sat against the wall, her knees drawn up and her arms resting limply upon them, her chin sank towards her chest. For days they’d held out. Days and days. After all that, what had finally broken her, broken them all, was the incessant pricking. Allowing them short periods where they were left alone, lulled into a false sense that maybe the torture was over and real healing could begin, only made its resumption worse. Ruthless, endless, it wouldn’t stop. Bollard would not stop. Awash with blood, delirious with pain, her mind wandering, she’d finally uttered the words the reverend was imploring her to say.

  Believing that he and the pricker were responsible for the eventual admission of her sins, what Sorcha would never tell Patrick Cowper was that it was the spirits of her dead family who finally persuaded her to concede. Appearing before her in a vision after one terrible session with Bollard, they’d begged her to admit to what was being demanded. Weeping, her da and Erik, even her mor, had whispered they feared she would die if she did not. She must do what she promised and live — if not for herself, then for them.

  It wasn’t violence, but love that made her confess. By then, she’d lost her faith in God (no matter what she promised Him, He did not listen), in justice, but not in her da, nor Erik. Not even in her mor. Memories of them were strong, untarnished by current circumstances. They lived in guiltless perpetuity in her heart.

  Without even reading what was written on the paper the reverend slid across the table, she did spy the month. Shocked so much time had passed, she held the quill in her shaking, twisted hand, repulsed by the long, filthy nails, and signed. What she’d confessed to she didn’t find out until later.

  Returned to her cell, she collapsed on the floor. It was over. Her ordeal was over. Nettie, Nicolas and Isobel crawled to her side. Wrapping their lacerated arms around her, their heads close together, they simply lay there. She couldn’t speak; not because her voice was taken but because she didn’t want to tell them what she’d done — not so m
uch that she’d signed — they would have guessed — but that she’d given up.

  One by one, the women were dragged out of their prison (for that’s what it had become), before being returned hours later. Nicolas was so brutalised by the pricker she’d been carried. Just like Sorcha, the women had lain upon the cold, soothing stone floor, while hot tears and blood flowed. For the first few hours, they kept their backs to each other and, like Sorcha, stared at the blank wall. They were facing their weakness, their shame and, while forgiving it in others, hated it in themselves.

  It wasn’t until after Nettie was brought back, crawling on her hands and knees to close the distance between them and forcing Sorcha to turn around, that Nettie told her she too had signed.

  Over the following days, they forgave each other their broken promise to withstand the men, the pricker, the reverend. Their promise to each other.

  At least, Nettie said, they would be released now.

  But as the days and nights passed and no one came to unlock the door, except to pass them vittles and messages, they began to lose hope all over again. This was the cruellest blow. At least in confessing, they’d been given a glimpse of the end of torture, of release. While the brutalising did stop, they remained locked in the cell. Too mortified to stand at the window and reassure friends and family they were alive, too weak to cry out for news, they lay or sat, talking quietly of what their lives had been before — when they were free. As if it was a shared dream, they spoke of their loved ones, the ocean, the currents, the slippery herring, the sweet faces of the seals and their hoarse barks, the prickly seaweed and raucous gulls, with wonder and longing. They took it in turns to describe each of the fishermen who worked the boats, the fishwives too, sometimes chuckling at their memories, how different they were. They shared confidences and aspirations.

  More than ever, Sorcha found herself thinking of Captain Ross, hoping, praying he was doing whatever he could to see that justice was served, to liberate them from this hell. But in her bleakest moments, when the room was so black she could taste the darkness, she began to wonder if justice and freedom were even the same thing.

  Beatrix ran her fingers over the gouges she’d made in the walls, trying to work out how long she’d been in this place. She knew she could light the stump of candle smuggled to her by Simon Wood, but didn’t want to waste it. Anyhow, she thought, dropping her arm and feeling her way back to what passed for a bed, what did it matter? The reverend had won; he’d broken them and they’d all confessed.

  Collapsed on the pile of stinking blankets, she reached around until her fingers found the lump of bread she’d saved from yesterday. As she nibbled on it, she knew the crumbs spilling down her front and onto the floor would mean the rats would pay a visit, but she was beyond caring.

  As they so often did, her thoughts flew to her friends in the Tolbooth. They might have each other, they might have light and even fresh air to comfort them, but did they understand how cold that comfort was? They were all living on borrowed time.

  Janet would know. Thomas, too. She prayed the rest of the lasses remained in ignorance.

  Until yesterday, she’d been spared what Thomas and the women in the Tolbooth had been forced to endure — not merely the pricker and his sick hobby (dear God, she was grateful for that) but the vile utterings of the reverend.

  When she heard the key fumbling in the lock last night, she’d assumed it was the guards bringing the daily ration of food and water, only the sound was coming from the wrong direction. In the semi-darkness, it took her a moment to realise the noise was coming from the kirk and the small door wedged under the overhanging bit of rock towards the rear of the cave.

  For a wild moment, her heart leapt and she wondered if someone had dared to come and free her. Inwardly berating herself for allowing such a foolish hope to flare, she quickly leaned over and extinguished the candle, plunging the cave into darkness. Let whichever bastard disturbed her learn how to navigate their way around the hole like she did, skinned knees, grazed hands, broken tooth and all.

  The reverend came alone, pushing the door open and holding a flickering candlestick aloft, blinking and peering. He looked like a badger emerging from its den. For a few moments, Beatrix had the advantage and she saw the reverend before he had a chance to adjust his features. He looked smaller than she remembered, older, but also, as the halo of light accentuated his cadaverous face, narrow lips and strange cold eyes, a man incapable of remorse. How had he ever come to God?

  She’d no doubt Cowper was like so many of his ilk, attracted to the Almighty for the power his position afforded him, power he wouldn’t otherwise be able to wield, despite being a man.

  ‘Och, there you be, Mrs Laing. Cowering among the rags, where your kind belong.’

  Beatrix knew better than to respond.

  He studied her. ‘I came to tell you that your sisters have joined you.’

  What did he mean? She resisted the urge to look around, as if the others might manifest beside her.

  Then it struck her. They’d confessed. God damn the arse.

  She screwed her hands into fists, relishing the pain that shot up her arms. Keeping her eyes fixed on the reverend, she swallowed the words, the insults and threats batting at her mouth. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  ‘Mr Bollard’s expertise was what was needed,’ continued the reverend after a while, his voice oddly flat in the cave, ‘to extract what law and the city officials require in order to put you all to trial — confessions. With the exception of Thomas Brown, everyone has now conceded they are indeed witches and that you, Beatrix Laing, are their leader.’

  Beatrix’s eyes glimmered as tears banked. She willed them not to fall. Not yet. It wasn’t what he said that upset her, but what he didn’t. What must have been done to the lasses to make them say such things?

  ‘It won’t be long before Thomas Brown also confesses. After all, how can he meet his Maker if he doesn’t cleanse his soul?’

  The reverend stared, clearly expecting her to ask what he meant, to seek further information. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She’d heard that Thomas was wasting away in the cell, unable to eat, drink or sleep; that at the reverend’s insistence the pricker had been merciless with him, uncaring of his age.

  Cowper’s brow furrowed then cleared.

  ‘It also won’t be long before you’re free of this place, Beatrix — all I’m waiting upon is word from Edinburgh, then this will be over. How will that feel, hey?’

  Beatrix raised her chin. A tear escaped and slowly slid down her left cheek. Damn if the canny dede-doer didn’t see it.

  Raising the candle higher, the reverend leered. ‘Imagine, the wind upon your face, the fresh spray of the sea, the smell of brine and weed and fish — the odour of Pittenweem. There’ll be a nice view from the Green as well. You’ll be able to see and inhale it all — that is, before the smell of smoke, fire and burning flesh consumes you.’

  Before she could respond, he gave a crow of laughter, turned and wedged the door closed, leaving her in the dark once more. There was the jangle of keys, the abrasive scrape of a latch being drawn, then silence.

  Beatrix sat still, breathing deeply. In and out, in and out. If she listened very carefully, she could hear the sea. She could almost feel it as well. It was like it surged beneath the floor, echoed deep in the walls. It had been her greatest comfort. Some days, her only one.

  Though that wasn’t quite true.

  They might break her body, but for all they tried, they couldn’t shatter her mind. Between them, the sea and memories of her husband, daughter, granddaughter and her friends sustained her. And, in its own strange way, so had the cave.

  The one thing no one ever told you about the dark, even the inky blackness she now dwelt in, was that despite the absence of light and colour, it wasn’t true that you couldn’t see. You might not be able to fasten upon what was actually there — the uneven cave walls, the pitted, rocky floor, or the low-hanging c
eiling, punctuated with crevices, holes, and all manner of shapes. But they were its illuminated dress. It wore another when there was no light, and Beatrix had come to appreciate its beauty. Despite the dark, or perhaps because of it, if she narrowed her eyes she could see the mauves and golds of sunset; if she opened them swiftly after screwing them up tightly, there were the scarlet and blues of a stormy morning. At other times white spots flashed across the undulating dome above her like the lighthouse on the Isle of May. Sometimes she could even make out the changing palette of the Firth of Forth upon the floor, as if it had washed into the cave and was lapping at her toes. Aye, the darkness had its own way of introducing her to a different way of seeing and that was before she considered the textures and smells of St Fillan’s Cave. Nae. Not Fillan’s any more. It was now Beatrix’s cave and she knew it as well as her own sore and worn body.

  It was to the blackness that Beatrix now surrendered herself as she thought of her friends in the Tolbooth. Lying down, she shut her eyes and, refusing to think about Patrick Cowper or his menacing words, allowed their bright beautiful images to parade across her night — burnished copper, roses, turquoises, greys and chestnuts, all accompanied by the golden strains of laughter.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  He speired the guts oot ’o of me.

  (He asked too many inquisitive questions.)

  Captain Aidan Ross entered the reverend’s study gathering what remained of his forbearance. As he closed the door, he took in the room and the tableau of men before him. Rather than the austere space he’d been expecting, the reverend’s study was luxurious, with polished wood, plushly upholstered chairs and thick curtains. The large hearth blazed despite the sunshine outside. Many framed pictures hung upon the walls, as did a large arras, and provided a sumptuousness he hadn’t expected from the aloof, reedy man dressed in black who sat behind the big desk at the end of the room.