The Cambridge magistrate, Edward Langton, sat at the back of the hall on a hastily constructed platform, sporting a fine periwig. He had spent the morning speaking with the accused women and other witnesses, including the physician who had attempted to treat the victim, Lucy Drayton.

  Simon Hopkins stood before him in his father’s outfit, now much rumpled, pleading his case.

  “Sir, I hold in my hand the confessions of these witches,” said Hopkins. “May I present them to thee?”

  “Mr Hopkins, I am aware of these confessions of which you speak. Were they not acquired under duress?”

  The crowd cried out and jeered. Langton hushed them.

  Hopkins spoke again: “Nay, sir, they…”

  A renewed commotion interrupted him, and the magistrate warned the villagers that they must calm their emotions and let the man speak.

  Someone called out, “He is not a man. He is the Devil himself!” When several cheered, others glared at them.

  Hopkins looked fit to burst. “I am God’s messenger on earth, sir! I would rid this place of evil! They,” he pointed with his staff at the Sawyers and Kipling, “be the devils!”

  Sarah Sawyer looked up and fixed his gaze. “Nay, sir, I am no devil. Nor is my daughter, who you treated with such malice.”

  “Nor my wife!” shouted Walter Kipling, when Dorothy failed to speak up, to murmurs of assent.

  “Is it not true,” began the magistrate, Langton, “that you did deny these poor women sleep, for three days and nights?”

  “It is not, sir,” Hopkins lied.

  All hell broke loose.

  When it was finally quelled, Hopkins spoke. “Whose word wouldst thou believe, sir? That of peasants? Or of the Witch-finder General himself?” It was the first time he had referred to himself using his father’s erstwhile title. He puffed himself up and stared down the magistrate.

  Sarah Sawyer spoke. “’Tis true, your honour, that he made us sit in this very hall for three days and three nights, and that when we tried to sleep, he woke us and made us walk about.”

  “She lies!” Hopkins declared. “For she is a witch!”

  The witch-finder shook his head, smiling, as the catcalls rang out. He had them. It was his word - an educated man’s - against theirs.

  Amid all the noise, Hester Quill tentatively raised her hand. As people noticed her, they ceased their ranting, until absolute silence remained.

  Langton looked quizzically at the plainly dressed woman with the weathered face.

  She spoke in a quiet, faltering voice. “Your honour, I was there also. Mr Hopkins,” she did not dare look him in the eye, “employed me as a watcher, sir. It is true that he denied these women sleep for three days and nights, just as you said.”

  You could have heard a quill drop.

  “An independent witness,” proclaimed Langton. “What say you, Simon Hopkins?”

  But Hopkins wasn’t finished. “I pray thee call the physician who did examine these witches’ unfortunate victim, sir. For his testimony will surely be damning.”

  A gentleman pushed forward through the crowd while everyone stared, transfixed by the proceedings. He stood out for the quality of his clothing and for his obvious attention to hygiene.

  “Jasper Milton, physician,” he announced when he was standing before Langton. “At your service.”

  It was the first time the witch-finder had set eyes on the man, and he realised he should have questioned the physician himself. In its place, he offered up a prayer to the Almighty.

  “You did examine the unfortunate victim in this matter - one Lucy Drayton - sir?” asked the magistrate.

  “I did, sir,” said Milton.

  “And what is your professional opinion, concerning the sickness of said victim?”

  Henry Drayton shook his fists, shouting: “My wife was cursed by these witches!”

  “Be silent, Mr Drayton!” roared Langton. “Pray continue, Dr Milton.”

  “Sir, Lucy Drayton was afflicted with a fever that worsened over several days. Besides my administrations of rosemary and sage, I employed leeches for bloodletting. I also purged her with jalap root, in the hope of expelling the malady. Alas, my endeavours were fruitless, and she died on the seventh day of her illness.”

  “Was any mark present on the body of Lucy Drayton?”

  “There was, sir.”

  Hopkins’s dark eyes lit up. “By way of the witches’ curse!”

  The physician shook his head. “On the contrary, sir. It was a mark I have witnessed on many unfortunates in my practice. It was a bubo, sir.”

  “Then your professional opinion, Mr Milton,” said Langton, “is that Lucy Drayton did succumb to the bubonic plague?”

  “It is, sir.”

  The witch-finder had one final, desperate trick up his sleeve. Or in his pocket, as it turned out.

  Hopkins produced what looked like a very thin dagger: an iron needle about six inches long, set into a wooden handle. It was a witch-pricking needle.

  He addressed the magistrate. “Sir, I stand by these confessions. With thine permission, I would prick these women. If they do not bleed, then surely they are witches.”

  Langton had heard of this practice of pricking. While it was derided by men of science, he was loathe to deny Hopkins’s request so publicly.

  “Very well,” he said.

  Hopkins himself entirely trusted the process.

  Each woman in turn exposed her bare back, and the witch-finder gently - praying under his breath that no blood would appear, which some close by overheard - pushed the point of the needle into their flesh.

  First, Dorothy Kipling. A red drop of blood instantly appeared, to great cheers.

  Next, Sarah Sawyer. The same.

  Finally, young Prudence Sawyer. The one who had confessed. As Hopkins pricked her then stood back, peering intently, no blood came. The spectators collectively inhaled.

  “Witness the witch!” Hopkins cried out, just as a tiny red speck appeared at the point where he had pricked the girl, which grew into a perfect crimson sphere, then fell, weaving a fine, bloody trail down her back.

  For years afterwards, many present would declare what a joy the proceedings had been to behold.

  Henry Drayton was discovered to have held lingering grudges, for petty reasons - an enclosure gate not properly shut; a perceived slight concerning his ability to hold ale - against the Sawyers and Kipling. He was fined and forced to publicly apologise.

  Simon Hopkins’s public humiliation was deemed sufficient punishment; given that no lasting harm had been done to any person, Edward Langton allowed him to go free. Perhaps the old Cambridge association had softened the magistrate’s judgment - although Hopkins was warned of dire consequences, should he not cease his witch-finding practice.

  The chastened Puritan departed on horseback as he had arrived, jeered by a crowd and followed by young boys who threw stones at him.

  Never again would he suffer such indignity, he vowed. He had been foolish to begin his work in a place where he had not known the local magistrate, that he might cajole him towards his way of thinking.

  In Brampton, he assured himself, events would turn out very differently. The magistrate there, Bulstrode Bennett, had actively sought him out. He had ridden from Huntingdonshire to Essex to seek his counsel and to request his services. They were men of the same mind: that witches must be tried and punished, by means of the old methods.

  Just to balance matters in his favour, he would first divert back to Cambridge, to seek out a godly carpenter.

  Chapter twenty-one

  A Door Slams Shut

  Outside Huntingdon Town Hall, Jacob became animated; even Paulina forced a smile.

  “If Simon Hopkins breaks the law, then we have him!” he exclaimed excitedly, seeking affirmation in Abby’s expression but finding none.

  On the contrary, she looked fretful. “Simon Hopkins will operate just as his father did. He will deny everything and hide his methods from scrutiny. He won’t be caught breaking the law. Matthew Hopkins was cunning, and I expect nothing less of his malignant son.”

  She went on urgently, “Worse, we’ve learned that Bulstrode Bennett reached Sir Edward before us and now holds legal authority to have Jacob and I thrown in jail. We can be certain he will use it. ’Tis essential we contact my master immediately concerning the Special Commission of Inquiry Sir Edward mentioned.”

  Jacob, who enjoyed being spurred into action, nodded decisively. “Then I shall seek out a post-house and dispatch a messenger forthwith, offering him a handsome sum to ensure he accepts my charge. He shall ride to London through the night.”

  The sun was hovering above the horizon, like a benign, watchful eye over the landscape, as the inquisitors and Paulina reached her parents’ home. Paulina raised her eyes skyward and clasped her hands together, offering up a prayer, before opening the door and rushing upstairs. Abby and Jacob followed.

  The first chamber on the landing was John Pepys’s and they found Paulina inside, holding the old man’s hand. Mabel Fenwick was sitting beside the bed, sewing. The space smelled of herbs - lavender for relaxation, chamomile against fever - that had been placed on the windowsills and nestled on John’s pillow. On the dresser, an array of jars containing variously coloured herbal tinctures and syrups were lined up, some with their lids off - remedies already tried.

  Old John was at least sitting up, they were heartened to discover, although he remained pale and weak, and his chest rattled as he breathed. As usual, he found strength from somewhere to greet his son’s inquisitors with good humour, nodding in greeting and raising a half-smile.

  In the next room along, Margaret Pepys lay still in her four-poster bed, covered by a heavy woollen blanket; a white cat lay curled up asleep near her feet. So still was Margaret that the three of them stopped in the doorway and collectively held their breath, until a barely perceptible rise in the old woman’s chest signalled that she was still alive, and they exhaled together.

  Suddenly, from downstairs, there came a hammering on the door, followed by Bulstrode Bennett’s bellowing voice: “Open this door at once! I hold in my hand a Letter of Marque signed by Sir Edward Mallory himself! Jacob Standish, Abigail Harcourt, show yourselves! You were witnessed entering this dwelling!”

  His ranting woke even poorly Mistress Pepys.

  Chapter twenty-two

  Figures in Shadow

  When Abby woke the following morning, she found herself on a cold stone floor and in total darkness. It took a while for her to figure out where she was and how she came to be there. The dawning realisation made her cry out angrily. Bettered by Bulstrode Bennett, she thought. Such are men and their power.

  Jacob woke around the same time, though it was impossible to tell what time of day or night it was, since his cell also had no windows. The previous night, he and Abby had been marched, their hands bound, to a square stone lock-up opposite the church, and thrown in separate cells. They had been stripped of their clothing and few possessions by a Brampton constable, and made to wear filthy prison rags.

  Bennett had discovered Abby’s list of suspects. Seeing his own name written there, he had shredded the parchment in front of her face.

  “How dare you think that I would stoop so low as to be involved in the killing of Goody Grimston,” he told her. “The pathetic wretch met his end at the hands of your witches, as everyone well knows. Simon Hopkins will prove that. And I hear that the witch-finder draws near.”

  “Is anybody there?”

  Abby and Jacob both heard it. They recognised the voice as well.

  “Rebecca?” they called back in unison.

  “Silence in there!” came the faint male voice, from outside the jail.

  A key turned in a lock, and a heavy door creaked open. Muted daylight entered the three prisoners’ cells through the small barred window in their doors, and each averted their eyes.

  “You shall not speak,” ordered the local constable, John Ward, who had been stationed outside by the magistrate. (The prisoners might have raised a smile, had they known the weather had turned for the worse overnight and his clothing was wet through.)

  “May I light a candle, pray?” Abby asked.

  They all caught the constable’s impatient sigh.

  Shortly, each of them was chewing on stale bread, while a weak, flickering flame illuminated their grim surroundings. The cells were so small that Jacob had had to sleep with his head propped awkwardly against one wall and his feet jammed against the one opposite. The walls were slimy, smelled of mildew, and so thick that Abby suspected the lock-up had once been part of an ecclesiastical complex, incorporating the church of St Mary Magdalen.

  On the positive side, the inquisitors had prepared for this; a messenger was already heading to London on horseback. But how long would it be before Mr Pepys’s reply came, while they endured these atrocious conditions?

  Which still left the unfortunate Rebecca Thacker, accused of witchcraft now thrice: concerning Goody’s spoiled crops; concerning his death; and now lately the sickness of John and Margaret Pepys. With Hopkins riding to Brampton, the omens looked ill.

  After John Ward returned to his post outside, they found they were able to communicate in whispers, faces pressed against the bars in their doors, without alerting him.

  Abby couldn’t see Jacob, whose cell was adjacent to hers, but she could see Rebecca who was incarcerated opposite.

  The clothier’s face looked haggard, its furrows enhanced in the shadows cast by her candlelight. “What am I to do?” she implored the inquisitors. “You were supposed to be our salvation, yet Bennett now has you confined beside me.”

  When Jacob explained their ruse involving Samuel Pepys and the messenger, he expected it would quell her fears.

  Instead, she began to weep and tugged uselessly on her iron bars. “Then you’ll be free while I rot in this cell!” Her face disappeared from view as she sank to the floor.

  There was no option but to let her tears run dry.

  At length, she recovered her composure. “I consider myself a strong and independent woman,” Rebecca said, sniffling. “However these charges have brought me to my knees. I truly fear the next time I see the flowers I so love, a noose will also be waiting for me.”

  “Tell us about yourself,” said Abby.

  Rebecca screwed up her eyes quizzically.

  “Tell us about yourself,” Abby repeated. It would help take her mind off the dire situation, she hoped.

  Rebecca Thacker was born in Brampton in 1640, in the house where she still resided, she explained. Her parents, Eliza and Matthew, were both weavers, and she grew up fascinated by their craft.

  Her mother would take her out into the meadows and hedgerows, pointing out the different wildflowers that could be used in the alchemy of dye-crafting. It became her passion, and she wandered far from home, seeking out fresh glades and hollows where different species might lurk.

  Their family had been torn apart when Matthew joined Cromwell’s New Model Army. Rebecca was just nine, she recalled, when her mother told her he had been killed at the Battle of Maidstone.

  Afterwards, she became apprenticed under her mother’s wing and found herself making clothing to sell at market, at which she appeared to have a natural talent. Her mother never fully recovered from the death of her husband, Rebecca said, which weakened her spirit and brought down her so low that she could no longer work.

  Eventually, when she was 14, Rebecca’s aunt came and took her mother away. Mother and daughter never saw one another again, and she was left to run the family business alone. It was a role in which she thrived. “I had no time, nor even need, for a husband,” she said.

  Specialising in creating colours unseen before, her talent became celebrated throughout the local counties. “But ’tis through my work with herb and potion that I’m accused of witchcraft,” Rebecca concluded bitterly.

  Jacob, who had listened intently to her tale, felt an increased desperation to help the wronged woman. “Is there nought you can tell us, dear lady, that might aid our investigation?”

  Rebecca pondered for a while and seemed caught in two minds.

  “Pray tell,” Jacob urged her.

  “There is something… Last week, I delivered garments to his lordship at the manor late one night. I saw, under the moonlight, two figures in shadow enter the gardener’s cottage on the estate.”

  “Is that unusual?” asked Abby.

  “I believe it was. The gardener, who tended the gardens for as long as anybody can remember, died last spring and is yet to be replaced. His cottage should have been empty.”

  “Did you recognise the figures?” asked Jacob.

  Rebecca slowly shook her head, mentally reliving the scene. “I did not. It was too dark. But it appeared to be a man and a woman.”

  Jacob pursed his lips. “A couple cloaked in shadows conducting a clandestine affair?” he mused. “How would that relate to Grimston’s death and witchery?”

  “This small English village, so peaceful and benign to the casual observer, seethes beneath the surface with secrets and lies, Jacob,” Abby replied. “If these figures in shadow have something to hide, we must discover what that is.”

  Chapter twenty-three

  The Visitor

  The three prisoners eventually grew tired of their whispered chatter and each settled into a corner of their cell, as best they could, to see out the time. Abby mulled over the facts of the case, hoping to alight on something she had missed. Jacob found a stone and began throwing it up and trying to catch it in the dim light. Eventually it landed on his candle, knocking it over and extinguishing the flame, thus ending the game.

  At some point, Constable Ward re-entered the lock-up bearing sustenance, such as it was. They assumed the hour to be early afternoon, since it coincided with their second meal of the day, traditionally a hearty dinner, though in this case comprising more stale bread and weak ale. Still they consumed it greedily.