I made no sound or movement; anything I said or did would be interpreted in an evil light.

“So when a man fails to do as you want,” Coke continued, “you avail yourself of a sorcerer to make potions, knowing not what substances be in them, and give them to your victims?” Coke turned to the jury with a look of weary triumph, as if he hated the world of women.

Mistress Forman spoke then, without invitation. “Your lordship, after your visit I searched the house one more time.” I wished that I truly were a witch, for then I could strike this woman dumb. Mistress Forman was a fool, destroying her dead husband’s reputation along with mine. His bravery and success in treating victims of plague would be quite forgotten and she would forever be known as the wife of a sorcerer and necromancer. What honor was there in that? “I found this.” From a pocket at her belt Mistress Forman pulled a small notebook covered in worn green linen, bound with a lace. I had read this notebook on nearly every visit to Forman; it was a list he kept of adulterous courtiers and the names of their lovers. She handed it to a clerk who unwound the lace, opened the page and read.

“‘Herein is a list of which Ladies Love which Men at Court.’” Coke leaned forward, eager for evidence of Frankie’s affair with Carr, as did the crowd, again with much creaking. The clerk hesitated, reading silently what he had been requested to broadcast. Looking deeply anxious, he handed the book back to the Lord Chief Justice. The judge read the first few lines then snapped the book shut and slammed it down on his desk. The name at the top of the list was that of his own estranged wife. He stared at me with such loathing that I knew he considered hell the only fit place for me.

“Do you deny that you used witchcraft and the summoning of devils in your attempts to force Sir Arthur Waring into matrimony with yourself, and Sir Robert Carr, afterward Earl of Somerset, into matrimony with Frances Howard, then Countess of Essex?”

“I do,” I said, but Lord Coke turned away, wincing, as if it hurt to listen to my denial.