“There!” The lawyers stared.

She jerked, twisted, hearing the soldier’s breath loud in her ear as he leaned over to look at her breasts. Only the Reverend Palley did not look, staring instead at his clasped hands on the table.

“There!” The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey slid his left hand down her skin until his index finger pointed close to the mole above her navel. “A protuberance, gentlemen!”

The clerks had stopped writing and stared instead. Two soldiers sidled down the wall for a better view.

Campion screamed again, the scream turning into sobs. She pulled at her bonds, hurting her wrists, but she was unable to move, unable to hide herself from this humiliation. She felt the Reverend Hervey’s left hand spread itself on her stomach, pushing into her skin, and then she saw, in his right hand, the knife going past her eyes.

“No! No!”

His voice whispered in her ear. “Stay still, Dorcas, quite still. You won’t be hurt if you’re still. Quiet now!”

She was frightened. Her breath heaved in great gasps. She looked at Hervey, his face close to her left shoulder, and he smiled. The knife in the right hand went lower. He looked away from her eyes; down to the mole, and suddenly she felt the cold tip of the knife on her belly. It stayed there, quite sharp, and she heard him grunt and it seemed to her that he had pretended to force the knife into her belly. She felt no pressure, only the cold, needle-sharp tip of the blade on her skin.

Suddenly he leaped away from her, holding the knife in the air. “See? No pain! You saw me, gentlemen, you saw me! You saw the knife on the witch mark, you saw me dig it in! Yet did she cry out? Did she struggle? No! And that, gentlemen, is the way to distinguish a witch mark from a natural blemish. The first will not feel pain, the second will! The devil frees the teat from pain, for it might be clamped by a cat’s teeth or clawed by a toad! Yes!” He sheathed his small knife.

Campion’s head was bowed now, the tears running down her cheeks and falling on to her naked breasts. Hervey came back to her, stood behind her, and his hands came over her shoulders and clamped on to her breasts. They were cold and dry. His fingers kneaded her, holding her still, and he groped and pressed, rubbed and squeezed as he talked over her filthy hair. “See, gentlemen! The mark of the devil!” He tilted the chair back, began turning it, and she wrenched her body uselessly. He swung her round, staying always behind her, until she faced the benches on which the audience sat. He took her right nipple in his fingers. “See, brethren? A teat, a woman’s teat, provided by God for the sustenance of the young. And here!” The hand slid to her belly again. “The Devil’s mark!” He took his right hand away, leaving his left hand to stroke her left breast. The audience stared. They were mostly men, mostly friends of the lawyers or of the officers in the Tower’s garrison, and it was for this that they had come. A witch was not uncovered at a trial, only at the tribunal that gathered the facts for the Grand Jury. They stared. Those at the rear stood up. Faithful Unto Death put his dry, cold hands on her breasts again and rubbed his palms down her body, either side of the mole, until his fingers were probing at her pelvic bones. “Look well, brethren! The body of a witch!” He brought his hands up again, right to her shoulders, and then tipped the chair once more, swung her, and she again faced the lawyers. Hervey stepped away.