I see it now in both my parents. Joan too. The same look on their faces they’ve all had since the first day they came to visit me in jail. The lowered eyes and the bowed heads. The shame of it. When I walked into the inn and stood there, unnoticed at the door for a moment or two, their faces had been different. Lighter. Ma had been supping her soup heartily and Da had been sitting pondering his ale solemnly, but with no great look of sorrow. They looked relieved it was over. They looked relieved I was gone.

I can hardly blame them, either.

I am handed a nip of rum. It slides like liquid fire down my throat. I hold out my cup for another drink, but the innkeeper shakes his head nervously. He wants me gone before I attract a crowd.

The men hoist me up and start to walk me out. Da fumbles in his pocket to pay for the unfinished meal and I wonder whether he will resent spending the money.

Finally my words come, thick and bruised-sounding.

‘I will go,’ I say. ‘You’ve no need to drag me. But I want a physician. The best they can find. When we get to Edinburgh I want to go straight to the courthouse and I want to speak to the sheriffs directly. We must make good time, before it shuts for the day. I don’t want to be accused of avoiding the law. And I want my gown and boots back. Joan, where are they?’

My family looks at me with renewed surprise. They have never seen me make such demands before. I always did what they wanted, until I met Spencer.

‘Your gown and boots were stolen clean away, Maggie,’ Joan says. ‘As we were tending you under the scaffold – taken away from under our noses.’

‘My Sunday gown, the one I was married in? Surely you could not be so careless?’ Suddenly I start to cry at this, of all things. The tears prickle at my eyes and I think, Do not lose your grip now, Maggie. ‘My Sunday gown gone, and me left in this ghoulish shroud?’

‘Ah, but there’s money in rag and leather, and even more money in anything taken from the gallows,’ Mr Prat comments, with the air of an expert. ‘Your good clothes will be fetching top bids, as we speak. Some folk collect things like that. Gentlemen of a certain persuasion. Particularly a hanged lady’s dress.’

We all shudder, and Joan looks fit to vomit. ‘This has been a truly dreadful day,’ she whimpers.

Ma puts an arm about her shoulders and whispers, ‘There, there, hen.’

No one puts their arm about me.