‘Come quick and help, my Samuel’s hurt,’ she said, clinging to the parson’s sleeve. ‘That devil. One of those devils from up the hill half-killed him.’

Her words set the world turning. Daniel willed himself to keep a clear head. He had seen the blaze in Sarah’s eyes when she felt threatened. Perhaps Sam had taunted her, or worse, and she attacked him in response. The village would not stand for this. They would hurt her. It was just the chance Gabriel was looking for.

The crowd stirred, moving with the sudden activity of a disturbed bees’ nest, and some of that noise too; hollering in anger that a being so low should dare to hurt one of their own, shouting of the revenge they would exact, the burning of the home and beating like for like, prowling to gather lights. Each man shouting louder than his neighbour of his own courage in the face of such cowardly evil and warning the women to stay behind, they marched in a ragged line. They were on the hunt. She needed him now. He must find courage, for she had no other protector. The farm was between the green and the foot of the cursed hill. He would pass it on the way.

The mare had never been ridden and would be on an unfamiliar path in fading light. It was a risk he would never take. And his only chance.

The mare did not bend to his will in an instant. She reared and kicked, almost pitching him to the ground. He wound his fingers through her sweat-dampened mane and forced his voice to be soft, steady. She calmed a little, still pacing but more slowly, blowing into the cooling air. His plan was almost certainly doomed to fail – the horse was wild still, and he one voice against many. But he must try.

He remembered the village gathering and stalking like this once before, to chase out a pedlar who had bedded another’s wife. Daniel was a child then, and recalled only vague images of great, loud men shouting in the night, faces lit by flame and fury, the odour of smoke and sweat. Father among them. He had imagined the terror of the man pursued by such a crowd, but was too small to offer protection. No longer.

Their lights flickered now between trees, marking the progress of the village men. He could not take the path up the hill. Were they to reach her first she would be pulped beneath their fists. Or worse. Daniel pulled on the horse’s mane and pressed her sides. She jerked and kicked, swinging her head, resisting his attempt to exert his will. Desperate, he yelled and thrust his heels into her side until at last she succumbed. There was no time to be gentle. He knew exactly what to do; he would go through the woods.