“Freely given, if possible.” Higbed nodded. “Which raises another point, Mr. Slythe.”

“Sir?”

Caleb Higbed squinted up at the great White Tower. “Kestrels nested there last year, I haven’t seen them this year. A colleague told me they had been shot, which is a pity. Yes, Mr. Slythe, another small problem. You can, I am sure, torture a confession from her, and most valuable that would be, but if she is to be tortured then I think she may end up looking even more wretched than she does now. Am I right?”

Ebenezer nodded to the lawyer’s eager, friendly face. “True, sir.”

Caleb Higbed smiled. “We’ll convict, fear not, Mr. Slythe, but we must take all precautions. I thought I discerned beneath the layers of filth on your sister the lineaments of beauty. Indeed so. Is she a pretty girl?”

Ebenezer frowned. “She is.”

“You are puzzled!” Higbed laughed. “I think you will find twenty years in the law have not addled my head, Mr. Slythe. Think of this. Your sister will be taken before a judge and jury. We will tell them, we will prove to them, that she is a witch, a murderer and a Royalist! And what do they see? They see a wretched girl, thin and pale, crying helplessly, and who can blame them if they feel some pity?” He raised a hand. “Oh, I’m sure they will convict, but there is a chance, a tiny chance, that they will see in her fragility a helplessness that arouses their pity. I know two things of men and women, Mr. Slythe. The first is that if a man pities a woman, he will try to help her. We don’t want to risk that.”

Ebenezer shifted his weight, dipping on to his maimed left leg and straightening again. “The second thing, sir?”

“Ah, the second thing. If men see a woman in the pride of her beauty, dressed in the finery of her gender, they will often resent it. Why should one man be allowed to possess such a woman while they are condemned to share a bed with a shrewish, sickly, ugly old wife?” He laughed. “I speak not from personal experience! And when, Mr. Slythe, our jury of freeholders see such a beautiful, proud woman they have but one thought in mind. If they cannot possess her, they will destroy her! Have you noticed, Mr. Slythe, how men like to destroy beautiful things? So give them something to destroy! Besides, she’s supposed to be a witch! A Royalist! Make them hate her!”

“I should clean her up?”

“How acute you are. More than that! For a small sum, a paltry sum, ten pounds only, you can have her housed well here, with matrons to attend her. She must be washed, clothed, and she must be fed! Buy her a pretty dress, something that will show her off! Make her look like a harlot, as Goodwife described her! And get a confession!”

Ebenezer frowned. He could think of no way of getting a confession except by pain.