Locked in the hold when the crew abandons their ship, The Crown of London,Violet and Samuel cling to each other as the doomed vessel breaks up on rocks off the islands of Orkney. Their love for each other has helped them survive a conflict that has dominated their lives since childhood. They have been persecuted and punished, fought through bitter battles and spent desperate months together as prisoners in Edinburgh's Greyfriars churchyard. Now, banished for life and being transported to work on a plantation in a far-off country, it seems they will pay the ultimate price for their defiance.
Scotland is being ripped apart by a civil war that has already seen thousands die as Covenanters fight the armies of King Charles II over who has the right to be head of the Church of Scotland - King or Jesus. As The Crown of London breaks in two, Violet and Samuel are sucked violently through the broken hull and into the waiting blackness and the freezing waters of the North Sea. |
