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Back The Darkest Shore Save as PDF
Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by Karen Brooks
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. EXPLANATORY NOTE
  7. PART ONE
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Twenty
  28. Twenty-One
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. PART TWO
  37. Twenty-Nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. PART THREE
  45. Thirty-Six
  46. Thirty-Seven
  47. Thirty-Eight
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Forty-Eight
  58. Forty-Nine
  59. Fifty
  60. Fifty-One
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. PART FOUR
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Epilogue: Autumn 1706
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. GLOSSARY
  75. LIST OF CHARACTERS
  76. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

She remembered the words as if they were seared into her soul.

When asked to identify her accomplices she’d shrieked seven names — the same number as those who’d burned in Paisley back in 1697.

She’d named Isobel Adam, Lillie Wallace, Nettie Horseburgh, Margaret Jack (how her name had come to her, she knew not), Janet Cornfoot, old Thomas Brown and, last of all, she’d said the name the reverend had been trying to get her to speak for days.

Sorcha McIntyre.

Twenty

TWENTY

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You claw ma’ back, I’ll claw yours.

(We’ll see that we both get something out of this.)

They came for Sorcha less than a week after she burned the wax figure.

Down on the shore, sorting the latest catch of herring, cod and other fish into creels for sale later that day, she was unprepared for the constables or the orders they carried.

‘Will you look at them,’ said Nettie, jerking her head towards a group of men marching purposefully along the foreshore. Her arms deep in fish guts, Sorcha stopped what she was doing, wiped her hands on a cloth and watched as they approached.

Nicolas Lawson turned and did the same. All the women slowly ceased working and followed the direction of Sorcha’s and Nettie’s gaze.

‘I don’t like the look of this, Nettie,’ said Sorcha quietly, coming around to join her.

‘Me neither.’

‘They appear angry,’ said Lillie Wallace, joining them from over by the nets.

‘Angry?’ huffed Janet Cornfoot, standing up. ‘I think they look afeared.’

Janet was right, thought Sorcha. There was a wide-eyed panic about the men, their tight-lipped mouths, the exaggerated swinging of their arms, the way they puffed out their chests, projecting a fierce determination not to be cowed by women or public opinion.

They’d heard how the constables had beaten Beatrix, a woman old enough to be their grandmother. One of them had copped a tongue-lashing from his own ma, so ashamed was she that he could lay hands on Beatrix, even if it was under orders from the reverend and council. He protested he hadn’t hit her hard, as if that was a suitable defence. Sorcha doubted that was true, even while she wanted to believe it was so.

‘At least the pricker not be with them,’ said Nettie under her breath as the men jumped down onto the sand.

Sorcha shuddered. Alick had told Captain Ross — and Mr Brown, who, upon learning of his wife’s arrest had abandoned what he was doing in the city and come home — what the pricker had done to Beatrix. While the captain had refrained from describing everything the poor woman had endured, his omissions, and the fact William Brown was prostrate with guilt and grief, spoke more loudly than words.