“Mrs. Reekie is cleared of witchcraft,” Sir William declared loudly. “She is innocent.”

Alys looked at him and at James with her blue eyes blazing with rage. “Agreed,” she said through her teeth, and then she clicked to the horse and they went out of the yard.

As James rode back to the Priory in the early winter dusk he could see a narrow bar of firelight through the closed shutters of Ferry-house, and he stopped his horse, tied the reins to the gate, and tapped on the kitchen door. Alys answered it, a horn lantern in her hand.

“You,” she said shortly.

“How is your mother?”

“She has stopped vomiting water but, of course, she could drown later, when it flows into her dreams. She might die of poisoning from the foul water, or she may miscarry her baby and bleed to death.”

“Alys, I am so sorry that . . .”

The look of hatred that she shot at him would have silenced any man. He said nothing, then: “Please give her my good wishes for her recovery. I will come tomorrow and—”

“You will not. You will give me a purse of gold for her,” she said quietly. “She is going to leave here. I am going with her. We are going to London and we’re going to set up a carting business. You are going to buy us a storehouse with a place to live. I’ve taken the cart and the horse from my husband’s family. We’ll leave tomorrow at dawn, and we’ll set up a business and keep ourselves.”

He was astounded by the authority of the young woman. “You’re leaving your husband?”

“That’s between him and me. I don’t have to explain to you. We’ll never come back. You’ll never see her again.”

“You know that the child is mine.”

She shook her head. “You lost any rights when you let them strap your child’s mother on the mill wheel and put her under the water.”

“I have to tell her—”

“Nothing. You have nothing to tell her. You watched your lover accused of whoring and you let them swim her for a witch. You have nothing to do but to give me the money I demand, or I will tell the world that you are the man who forced her. I will name you as a rapist and you will be shamed as she has been shamed. I will name you as a papist spy and I will see you burned to death in front of Chichester Cathedral.”

“It was better that she be swum for a witch than hanged for a thief!”

“It was me that should have been hanged for a thief!” she flared at him. “I owe her my life, just as you owe her your honor. She kept my secret and yours, and it has nearly killed her.”

He took a breath as he thought of the secrets that she had kept for him.