The Redemption of Alexander Seaton
- Автор: Маклин Шона Дж.
- Серия: Alexander Seaton #1
- Год: 2009
- Язык: английский
- Год: Quercus
- ISBN: 1847247911
- Жанр: Исторические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Redemption of Alexander Seaton». Краткое содержание книги:
Is the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister?
When he collapses, vomiting, over the two whores who find him on that dark wet night, they guess rightly that he’s been murdered by poisoning.
So begins this gripping tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s. The body of the victim, the provost’s nephew and apothecary’s apprentice, is found in Alexander Seaton’s school house. Seaton is a school master by default, and a persona non-grata in the town – a disgraced would-be minister whose love affair with a local aristocrat’s daughter left him disgraced and deprived of his vocation. He has few friends, so when one of them is accused of the murder, he sets out to solve the crime, embarking on a journey that will uncover witchcraft, cruelty, prejudice and the darkness in men’s souls.
It is also a personal quest that leads Alexander to the rediscovery of his faith in God as well as his belief in himself.
Among her many strengths, Shona MacLean is brilliant at evoking period and place. You feel you are in those cold, dark, northern rooms, eavesdropping on her characters. You are totally involved in the rich, convincing world she has re-created.
Paul Black still held the tack of the ferry. He hailed me from a distance, an identical boat hook in his hand. ‘Bring him round this way, Mr Seaton.’ He helped me settle and tie the animal. Having seen to the other travellers he did not cast off, but instead came over to talk with me. ‘I am sorry, Mr Seaton, you will be inconvenienced today. The smaller boat is not out.’
‘I have no need of the smaller boat,’ I said, not comprehending.
‘No, but it means we will have to wait for Sarah Forbes.’ He nodded back in the direction of the town and I followed the line of his vision. The name Sarah Forbes was something familiar to me, but I did not know why. Then, as I looked towards the town, I remembered, and the bleakness of it filled me. A crowd, not large but notable none the less, was making its way past the Greenbanks towards the ferry landing. At its head was the town drummer who struck out a relentless beat. The image in my mind was of George Burnett, master mason. He had sat in the kirk last Sunday on the stool of repentance, as I myself before the whole congregation had often done. His public shaming was in recompense for his having been found guilty of the sin of fornication, adulterous fornication, with one of his servants, which he had denied until Sarah Forbes’s six-month swollen belly gave him the lie. He would sit on the stool another two weeks, for the good of his soul and the edification of his neighbours, and he would pay a six-shilling fine which would be put into the hand of the presbytery divinity bursar such as I had once been. As for Sarah Forbes, who could take her punishment but not pay her fine, she and her unborn child had been condemned to banishment from the burgh, never to be found again within its bounds, on pain of death. Such was justice in our godly commonwealth.
At the sound of the drum I had thought immediately of Mary Dawson. I had not seen her since Monday night, and had not heard of her about the town since her sister Janet’s banishment. I wondered what fate had befallen her.
As the procession came to a halt, the town’s officer read out the terms of Sarah Forbes’s banishment one more time. A woman spat; another hurled a stone that missed the girl but caught the drummer on the cheek. Some filthy names were called and then the performance was over. Paul Black helped the girl and her meagre belongings onto the boat and the crowd turned away, the mundane business of the day calling their attention once more. Once aboard, the girl reached in a small leather pouch and brought out a coin which she held out to Paul Black. He shook his head and closed her fingers back over it. She settled herself at the end of a bench opposite me and looked directly ahead of her out to sea. She spoke to no one and no one spoke to her on the short crossing to the other side of the Deveron. As we landed on the east bank of the river, I had to wait for Paul Black to help me off with the horse, and stood back as he reached for the girl’s bundle and then her hand to steady her as she stepped warily down the gangplank.
‘You are a good man, Paul,’ I said, as he untied Gilbert Grant’s horse for me.
‘“Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me.’” There being no travellers waiting for passage back over the river to Banff, he set to the oars with his three sons and soon the boat was pulling away towards the opposite side of the river.
Sarah Forbes was walking away in the direction of the parish of King Edward. I myself had a call to pay there with packages from Mistress Youngson to the minister’s wife, who was her sister. She had given me to understand that the nondelivery of these packages safely into her sister’s own hands would place in jeopardy my continued residence in the schoolhouse, protest her husband however much he might. Still on foot and leading my horse by the head, I had caught up with the banished girl in less than a minute. I could not just get up on the beast’s back and ride past her. ‘It is Sarah, is it not?’
She glanced at me and then looked ahead of her, blankly. ‘Yes. I think that is well known, today anyway.’ She continued on her way.
‘You are Ishbel’s friend, Ishbel MacGillivray?’
Her face had lightened a little when she turned it towards me again. ‘Yes. Ishbel is my friend. I doubt I will ever see her again, though. And the doctor too, he was good to me. He tried–’ She paused, unsure how to proceed.
‘You must know the doctor is my friend. You are free to speak with me. My name is Alexander Seaton.’
Now at last she smiled, a smile that lifted her face from the ordinary and took something of the wariness from her eyes. ‘I know who you are, sir. Your name is also known.’ She looked down as if she regretted being so open, then said, ‘But Ishbel says you are a good man, and that the doctor thinks well of you.’
‘The doctor thinks better of me than I deserve. He tried to help you, then?’
She nodded. ‘He guessed at my condition two months ago. He spoke up for me before the session and at the council, but it did not sway them. Why should it? I am a fallen woman.’
‘Where will you go now?’
‘I have nowhere to go but my uncle’s house – on the far side of King Edward. If he will take me.’
‘Are you afraid he will not?’
She gave me a dubious smile and then looked down at her belly. ‘He had little enough opinion of me before he sent me to work in Banff, and he will have less now. Anyway, I must get on. The haar is coming in. Goodbye, Mr Seaton.’
I remained motionless by my obedient mount as she walked away and up the track. ‘Wait,’ I called. ‘Please wait.’
She turned around and lowered her head.
‘Sarah …’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I …’ I did not know the answer. ‘It is a long walk to King Edward. Six miles, maybe.’
‘Not so long. Two hours, or a little more, will take me there. Anyway, I am in no great hurry.’
That I could believe well enough. The condemnation of the citizens of Banff would hardly have faded in her ears before that of her aunt and uncle started.
‘It will be hot when the haar lifts. Much of your journey will be uphill. I am going by King Edward myself.’ I indicated the saddle, broad and worn by many years in the old schoolmaster’s service. ‘If I moved these bags a little, and doubled this blanket, there would be room …’
She looked at me, perplexed, and then laughed out loud, a true laugh of delighted mirth. ‘Mr Seaton, where are your eyes? Have you seen the size of me? The poor beast’s back would break with me up there as well, and you would have to sit on his ears just to make room for me.’
I stood aside from the horse and stepped a little closer to her. ‘You do not understand, Sarah. If you can make yourself comfortable up there, I will walk.’
She parted her lips slightly and drew in her breath as if she was about to say something. She looked up at me for a moment and then looked away as the pale green eyes that had looked blankly out to sea on the ferry threatened to give way to her feelings. She took the hand that I held out and let me lift her up onto the horse.
We passed only one or two people on the road, and they took little notice of us. I thought of her former master George Burnett, the father of her child. I had never liked the man, and neither had my father before me. I remembered my father coming home from meetings of the craft guild and talking of the swagger and the coarseness of George Burnett. But the stonemasons were a powerful guild in Banff, and Burnett the most skilled amongst them.
‘Will George Burnett care for his child?’ It was not unknown for a father to raise a natural son with those of his marriage.
Again she laughed, a different laugh this time. ‘Care for his child? George Burnett is too busy to concern himself with anything so profitless. These last storms have cost him many days’ work, and the fine the session forced from him is more than he thinks me or my baby worth. He should have been much further on with the building of the minister’s new house by now, but the weather has held him up so badly he still has much of the garden ground to clear before he can even complete the foundations. The longer it takes him, the longer he will wait on his payment. My fate is of little interest to him, other than that I should be out of his wife’s sight and cease to cause him inconvenience. He will not acknowledge the child. But I would have it no other way.’ I waited for her to continue, and she did. ‘I arrived in Banff a maiden and no whore. I have left it a maiden no longer, but I am no whore either. While there is breath in my body he will never set a hand on my baby.’ She placed her hand over her belly, and in that moment I knew she would kill to protect her child if she had to. I began to fear a little less for Sarah Forbes.