That’s anither day an’anither dinner.

(We’ll leave that for another time.)

It was a fresh spring day carrying with it a hint of the warmth of the summer to come. The waters were relatively calm and the sun shone upon the Forth, turning the usually grey expanse into a glittering pool of silver. Birds hovered over the boats that dotted the sea, marking their location the way a group of clouds indicates rain. Gulls and terns heckled those who worked upon the shoreline, ever-watchful lest a fishwife drop a mussel or an oyster.

Sorcha would have enjoyed the break from the cold and rain had it not been for what preoccupied them all: the condition of Peter Morton. It had been three weeks since he fell ill and, according to gossip in the streets and Reverend Cowper himself most Sundays, he wasn’t improving. Another doctor had been sent for from Anster and, when nothing he did worked, physicians from Edinburgh came calling. Baffled by what beset the lad, nothing they suggested improved his condition, not their purges, potions or ghastly medicines. Not even the prayers of the kirk or the reverend, who attended him daily. On the contrary, his fits had grown worse and the pain increased. It was said that red marks scored his body as if unseen hands and mouths tormented him.

While the physicians were at first sceptical of the reverend’s suggestion of bewitchment, they were soon to be heard uttering the word, albeit reluctantly.

It was all the town could talk about. Where there was witchcraft, there were witches. It had happened before. Folk began to look askance at each other, to whisper behind their hands and look suspiciously upon the actions of their neighbours. It was difficult to ignore the growing disquiet. Beatrix ridiculed their fears, the wild imaginings of the townsfolk, but Nettie, Janet and Nicolas grew introspective and cautious. They remembered what had happened in Paisley only seven years ago, when six servants from the Bargarran estate were strangled and burned as witches. The accuser had been an eleven-year-old girl, Christian Shaw. A child who held the power of life and death over those who’d served her family faithfully.

Then there were those in the west of the country who had been accused only two years later. They too had been sent to their deaths. As Thomas Brown reminded them, in the last one hundred and fifty years or so in Pittenweem alone, at least two dozen had been called witch and put to the flame.

Huddled together, baiting lines, mending nets, working in threes, the fishwives sat close to each other, drawing comfort from proximity and their shared concerns. So caught up were they in exchanging news and pondering what might happen next, they only noticed Katherine Marshal, a seamstress and one of Beatrix’s friends, when she was almost upon them.