The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Prologue

Banff, 26 March 1626, 10 o’clock

The younger of the two whores rifled the man’s pockets with expert fingers. She cursed softly. Nothing.

‘Leave off, then,’ said her sister. ‘The baillie will be here any minute.’

Mary Dawson rolled the man back over onto his face. He groaned, then retched, and she cursed once more as he vomited bile over her foot. ‘Pig,’ she said, and kicked him. The wind sent a barrel careering past them down the brae to smash into a wall below. Somewhere, a dog took up a demented howling.

‘Leave off,’ insisted her sister.

Mary turned away from the form slumped in the overflowing gutter. Janet was right: there was nothing to be gained here tonight. A quarter-hour would see them out of this tempest. She took her sister’s arm, ready to make for home, and then she froze. A hand had come from the ground and held her ankle. The words came in a ghostly rasp. ‘Help me,’ he said.

Unable to shift her foot, Mary looked to her sister in silent, distilled fear. The other lifted a finger to her lips and came slowly towards the dying man. Mindless of her already filthy clothes, Janet knelt down in the gutter and brought her mouth to his ear. ‘Say it again.’

The words came with even greater labour this time. ‘Help me,’ he repeated. Another convulsion took him. He gave up his grip on Mary’s ankle and his face sank into the mud.

Janet Dawson looked up slowly at her sister, who began to shake her head. ‘Oh, no. We cannot. There has been evil here. This is no drunk. Think who he is. The baillie will come soon; they will have us for this.’

‘We cannot leave him,’ said Janet.

‘Please,’ her sister pleaded. ‘They will have us. Let’s get us away.’

‘He’ll be dead by morning if we leave him.’

Mary looked at the still convulsing form at her feet. ‘He’s dead anyway.’ The bell above the tolbooth clock began to toll the hour. Her voice was urgent. ‘It is ten. The baillie … Let’s get us away.’ But she knew her words were useless.

Janet Dawson, on hands and knees now, heaved the man’s left arm about her own neck and looked up at her sister. ‘Well? Am I to do this alone?’

At length the two women got him to his feet, but all strength was gone from him, the paralysis spreading through his body slowly disabling him. They half-carried, half-dragged their burden across the cobbles of the Water Path towards the old schoolhouse. The wind whipped their hair across their faces and the rain lashed into their thinly clothed backs. His head, beyond his power to lift now, lolled first onto the one and then the other. Words came, forced from his constricting throat, but were lost in the darkness as the storm took hold of the night.

The bolt on the pend gate leading to the backyard of the house gave little trouble to the sisters, and they passed through, taking the man the last few yards of his journey. A gust slammed the gate shut and the tableau was gone from view. The schoolhouse was all in darkness: no light from lantern or candle glimmered from the cracks in its shutters as it loomed three storeys over the narrow street below. No sounds came either of disturbance in the backland, of startled animals, no knocking on the door. It was not many minutes before they came out again the way they had gone in, not three this time but two.

‘Do you think they will find him?’ asked Mary.

‘They will find him.’

‘Aye, but in time?’

Janet was weary now, anxious for her rest and to be out of the storm. ‘I cannot tell; we have done what we could. It is in God’s hands.’ They closed the pend gate behind them and went swiftly up the Water Path. As they forked to the left, Janet looked back. She had not been mistaken, then: they were watched. The figure met her eyes for a brief moment then disappeared into the darkness. She would not tell Mary whom she had seen, not until they were safe home. Perhaps it would be better not to tell her at all.