“You see!” Faithful Unto Death was fumbling the knife into his pocket. “She cannot say the words! She cannot! See how she twists? See the agony of the fiend within her?” He took the Bible from her lap. “She is a witch!”

“No!”

Faithful Unto Death was backing away from her, his finger pointing at her. “A witch!”

“‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.’” She was shouting the words defiantly, but Faithful Unto Death stepped close to her, slapped her once, twice, and then a third time.

“Blasphemer!” Faithful Unto Death bellowed.

The audience were roused now, growling at her, applauding Faithful Unto Death. Campion’s face hurt. The noise behind her was threatening and Caleb Higbed, fearing that these decorous, legal proceedings were getting out of hand, thumped his right hand on the table top. “Silence! Silence!” He waited for the excitement to die, then smiled. “I think we’ve heard enough. Yes?” The lawyers nodded. Caleb Higbed shuffled the papers in front of him. “The hour of lunch approaches and I know we must be hungry.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “I have to thank the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey, and of course the Reverend Palley.” The two divines gave him small bows. Caleb Higbed looked at Campion. “An interesting morning. We shall present our findings, our presentment, to the Grand Jury and they will decide whether you are to stand trial.” He smiled at her, then nodded to the soldiers. “You may take her away, and thank you for your help!”

They took her to her fetid cell, threw her in and the door clanged on her unchanging winter night. She sat in the straw, glad almost to be alone in her own place, and she scrubbed her breasts with the sacking, scrubbed till the skin was chafed and her nipples sore, but nothing could remove the sense of defiling filth. She leaned her head against the cold, wet stone, and cried. She was doomed.

Ebenezer Slythe had watched his sister’s humiliation. He had sat at the end of the last row of benches and he knew she had not seen him. She had been in no state to see anyone, and he smiled as he remembered her former confidence. As a child, oppressed by Matthew and Martha Slythe, she had always retained a hopeful air, a sense that life would be better, and Ebenezer had resented her ebullient, vivid personality. He had resented that she could run, skip, laugh, while he was imprisoned in a twisted, lamed body. Now he had seen the life wrung from her soul.

He waited until the room cleared, then followed the lawyers out on to the small patch of grass before the Tower’s chapel. Caleb Higbed saw him, made excuses to the men he talked with, and came across. “Mr. Slythe. You’re content?”

“And grateful to you, sir.” Ebenezer did not want to offend Caleb Higbed, a successful and influential lawyer. “I assume there will be no problems?”