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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

Running his hands over his face, Cowper took a few more deep breaths and began to feel better. It would be all right. They’d done nothing wrong. He’d done nothing wrong.

He sank into a seat and thought about Thomas Brown. Moderately well-off, it didn’t hurt that he owned shares in a boat that were now, with his death, free to be bought by someone more inclined to divide them among the councillors. Could Brown’s daughter be persuaded to sell the half she was entitled to? Maybe. Not immediately. She would be too angry, too caught up in grief. But perhaps later… They might even be able to seize all his property. After all, he died locked up as a witch. Admittedly, he didn’t confess, but he was named an accomplice…

God. The authorities in Edinburgh wouldn’t like this. Not at all and he didn’t need that bloody soldier, Captain Ross, to tell him that.

Even so, news of Brown’s demise shouldn’t have surprised him. The man had fallen ill within days of being imprisoned. The pricking, beatings and enforced sleeplessness weakened him further. But it was that idiot guard — what was his name? Rab Burne — who not only over-used the witch goad, the paddle the men used to beat the prisoners to prevent them sleeping, but denied the man the sustenance they were by law required to provide. Brown wasn’t only tortured (he winced as the word loomed in his mind), but was, according to the doctor, starved to death. Water, as Dr McLeod, a man prone to supporting Patrick’s decisions in the past, had pointedly said, will only maintain life for so long.

Burne, the greedy fool, kept the meals Brown’s daughter brought to the Tolbooth for himself, gulping them down within hearing of the prisoners. Patrick shook his head. He should have had Burne removed. Should have him whipped. Patrick could scarce believe the emaciated corpse was Brown, the man they’d interned. Not man. Witch. He must remember that. They may not have extracted a confession from Thomas before he died, but would have done eventually.

Anyway, what did it really matter? Brown had enjoyed three score years and ten or more. Testimony to his hardiness that he lasted so long. His death was inconvenient rather than a tragedy.