Isolde bowed her head to hide her resentment, and went back down the aisle and returned with Ree holding her hand.

The two of them sat opposite him, in silence, Ree between them, their eyes on the floor. Luca remembered that when he first met Isolde she was accused of witchcraft and now she sat before him accused of the worst of crimes, once again. He could not help but feel a superstitious shiver that so much trouble seemed to swirl around her, though she always looked, as now, so shiningly innocent. He couldn’t help but think that a woman who was truly good would not have one slander against her name, let alone two. This woman seemed to attract trouble as iron bars sown in a field will attract a thunderstorm.

His anxiety about her strengthened his resolve to hold a proper inquiry. He dismissed his feelings for Isolde and stared at her critically, without affection, and tried to see her, as these people saw her: a strange, exotic and dangerously independent woman.

‘You have been accused of working as a storm-bringer,’ he said, his voice firm and level. ‘Both of you have been so accused, by people who say that you went out of the town as night was falling, to a place called the green lake and that there you called up a storm by splashing and making waves in the lake.’

The two young women looked at him in utter silence. Luca flushed as he imagined that he saw contempt in their level gaze.

‘What do you say?’ he asked them. ‘To these charges? I am bound to put them to you, you are bound to answer.’

‘They are unworthy of an educated man,’ Ishraq said icily. ‘They are the fears of fools.’

There was a buzz, like an angry swarm of bees, at the arrogance of her tone. One of the wise women looked around triumphantly. ‘Hear how she calls us fools!’

‘Even so,’ Luca said, irritated, ‘you will answer. And be advised not to abuse these good people. What were you doing at the lake?’

‘We went out of the town in the afternoon,’ Isolde spoke for them both, her voice very clear and steady. ‘We wanted to wash and the landlady didn’t have hot water for us, nor a bath that we could carry up to our room.’

‘Why would they want to wash? In November?’ one of the women said from the centre of the crowd standing before the chancel steps. People murmured in agreement. Ishraq looked around at them scornfully.

‘The stable lad had told us of a place where boys went swimming . . .’ Isolde went on.

‘So what young lady would go there?’ someone demanded. ‘What young lady would go where the boys go? These must be girls of bad repute, little whores.’

Isolde gasped at the word, and looked at Luca, expecting him to silence the shouts. He said nothing to defend her.