“Reverend Hervey? It is our duty to provide a full presentment to the Grand Jury, men not as conversant with demonology as yourself. Would you be good enough to describe a ‘familiar’?”

“Indeed.” Faithful Unto Death resumed his pacing, frowning now so as to give his lecture the full weight of academic authority. “A witch, gentlemen, is a servant of the devil, yet the devil cannot be always with each of his servants. He is not omnipresent. In his place he furnishes each witch with a familiar. Customarily this will be either a cat or a toad. I have known it to be a goat, but normally, as I said, a cat or a toad.” He turned at the end of the room, paced back. “The familiar, gentlemen, whispers the instructions of the devil, its master, into the ear of the witch. It can also, as in this case, act on her behalf. There is more!” He turned again. “The familiar, though disguised as an earthly animal, cannot endure earthly sustenance for all good things come from Almighty God and thus, to provide an example, a cat-familiar, eating an earthly mouse, would be sickened by the food.” He stopped and faced the audience. “Instead, brethren, the witch herself provides sustenance. The devil provides her with a third teat, disguised as a bodily blemish, and from this teat she will give her familiar suck of the vileness within her. That, gentlemen!” and here he whipped round to face the lawyers, “that is the true test of a witch. The third teat!”

One of Higbed’s companions, who had not yet spoken, leaned forward. “You are an expert, Brother Hervey?”

“Alas, sir, yes. It is a miserable field for study, strewn with thorns, serpents, and constantly threatened by the evil one, yet there are those of us, a few, who labor in that foul vineyard for the better protection of the people of God.”

The lawyer took off his spectacles. “You saw this witch mark?”

“I did, sir!”

The lawyer smiled. “How can you tell, brother, what is a witch mark, and what is a normal bodily blemish?”

Hervey smiled. “The Good Lord has provided proof, sir, and I will show you that proof.” His Adam’s apple was going up and down. He turned again to the audience, walking past Campion toward them. “The third teat, brethren, is a protuberance, as you might expect, for how else will the familiar take hold!” His voice was close behind her now. He paused. “Your assistance, soldier.”

She screamed, she fought with the man, but she was hopelessly weak. The soldier had one foot on her feet, his hands on her right shoulder, while Faithful Unto Death leaned over her and slit her filthy dress open. It had been sewn up during the journey to London, but now he ripped it open, helping with a small, pointed knife in his hand.

Faithful Unto Death could feel the excitement thick within him. He had wanted this girl, thinking she was unattainable, but it had come to him, as if in a blaze of light, that the study of witchcraft could be the way to many womens’ bodies. This girl was filthy now, stained and stinking, her ribs showing, but even so he felt the heavy thrill of this act. He pulled the tattered edges of the dress apart.