When we finally reached the other side, I lowered her back onto her feet and picked up the candle.

‘Come on!’ I said, but she just stood there trembling and I had to seize her hand and drag her along until we reached the steps that led up to the cellar.

Once back there, I put the candle down and sat on the edge of the old carpet. This time Alice didn’t sit. She just folded her arms and leaned back against the wall. Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say and I was too busy thinking.

I’d slept for a long time, both before the dream and after it. I went to peer out of the door at the top of the cellar steps and saw that the sun was just going down. I’d leave it another half-hour and then I’d be on my way. I desperately wanted to help the Spook but I felt utterly powerless. It hurt me even to think about what was going to happen to him, but what could I possibly do against dozens of armed men? And I wasn’t going to the beacon hill just to watch the burning. I couldn’t bear that. No, I was going home to see Mam. She’d know what I should do next.

Maybe my life as a spook’s apprentice was over. Or she might just suggest that I go to north of Caster and find myself a new master. It was difficult to know what she’d advise me to do.

When I judged it time, I pulled the silver chain from where I’d tied it under my shirt, and put it back inside the Spook’s bag with his cloak. As my dad always says: ‘Waste not, want not!’ So I also put the salt and iron back into their compartments inside the bag – as much as I could manage to get out of my breeches pockets.

‘Come on,’ I said to Alice. ‘I’ll let you out.’

So, wearing my cloak and carrying the bag and the staff, I climbed the steps, then used my other key to unlock the back door. Once we were out in the yard I locked it behind us again.

‘Goodbye, Alice,’ I said, turning to walk away.

‘What? Ain’t you coming with me, Tom?’ Alice demanded.

‘Where?’

‘To the burning, of course, to find the Quisitor. He’s going to get what’s coming to him. What he deserves. I’m going to pay him back for what he did to my poor old aunt and Maggie.’

‘And how are you going to do that?’ I asked.

‘I gave the Bane my blood, you see,’ Alice said, her eyes opening very wide. ‘I put my fingers through the grille and it sucked it out from under my fingernails. It may not like girls, but it likes their blood. It took what it wanted so the pact’s sealed and now it has to do what I say. It has to do my will.’

The fingernails of Alice’s left hand were black with dried blood. Sickened, I turned away and opened the yard gate, stepping out into the passageway.

‘Where you going, Tom? You can’t leave now!’ Alice shouted.

‘I’m going home to talk to Mam,’ I said, not even turning back to look at her.

‘Go home to your mam, then! You’re just a mam’s lad, a mammy’s boy, and you always will be!’

I hadn’t taken more than a dozen paces before she came running after me.

‘Don’t go, Tom! Please don’t go!’ she cried.

I kept walking. I didn’t even turn round.

The next time Alice shouted after me there was real anger in her voice. But more than that, she sounded desperate.

‘You can’t leave, Tom! I won’t let you. You’re mine. You belong to me!’

As she ran towards me, I turned round and faced her. ‘No, Alice,’ I said. ‘I don’t belong to you. I belong to the light and now you belong to the dark!’

She reached forward and gripped my left forearm very hard. I could feel her nails cutting into my flesh. I flinched with the pain of it but stared back directly into her eyes.

‘You don’t know what you’ve done!’ I said.

‘Oh yes I do, Tom. I know exactly what I’ve done and one day you’re going to thank me for it. You’re so worried about your precious Bane but believe me, he ain’t no worse than the Quisitor,’ said Alice, releasing my arm. ‘What I’ve done, I’ve done for all our sakes, yours and mine, even Old Gregory’s.’

‘The Bane will kill him. That’s the first thing it will do now it’s free!’

‘No, you’re wrong, Tom! It ain’t the Bane who wants to kill Old Gregory, it’s the Quisitor. Right now the Bane’s his only hope of survival. And that’s all thanks to me.’

I felt confused.

‘Look, Tom, come with me and I’ll show you.’

I shook my head.

‘Well, whether you come with me or not,’ she continued, ‘I’ll do it anyway.’

‘Do what?’

‘I’m going to save the Quisitor’s prisoners. All of ‘em! And I’m going to show him what it’s like to burn!’

I looked hard at Alice again but she didn’t flinch away from my gaze. Anger blazed in her eyes, and at that moment I felt that she could even have looked the Spook in the eye, something she wasn’t usually capable of. Alice meant it all right and it seemed to me that the Bane might just obey her and help. After all, they’d made some kind of pact.

If there was any chance of saving the Spook then I had to be there to help him to safety. I didn’t feel at all comfortable about relying on something as evil as the Bane, yet what choice did I have? Alice turned in the direction of the beacon fell and, slowly, I began to follow.

The streets were deserted and we walked quickly, heading south.

‘I’d better get rid of this staff,’ I said to Alice. ‘It might give us away.’

She nodded and pointed to an old broken-down shed. ‘Leave it behind there,’ she said. “We can pick it up on our way back.’

There was still some light left in the sky to the west and it was reflected in the river, twisting below the heights of Wortham. My eyes were drawn upwards to the daunting beacon fell. Its lower slopes were covered in trees, now starting to lose their leaves, but above there was only grass and scrub.

We left the last of the houses behind us and joined a throng of people crossing the narrow stone bridge over the river, moving slowly through the damp, still air. There was a white mist on the riverbank but we soon rose above it as we climbed up through the trees, trudging through mounds of damp, mouldering leaves to emerge near the summit of the hill. A large crowd had already gathered, with more people arriving by the minute. There were three huge piles of branches and twigs ready for lighting, the largest one set between the other two. Rising from these pyres were the thick wooden stakes to which the victims would be tied.

High on the beacon fell, with the lights of the town spread out below us, the air was fresher. The area was lit by torches attached to tall, slender wooden poles, which were swaying gently in the light westerly breeze. But there were patches of darkness, where the faces of the crowd were in shadow, and I followed Alice into one of these, so that we could watch what was going on without being noticed ourselves.

On guard, with their backs to the pyres, were a dozen big men wearing black hoods, with just slits for eyes and mouths. In their hands they carried cudgels and looked eager to use them. These were the assistant executioners, who would help the Quisitor with the burning and, if necessary, keep back the crowd.

I wasn’t sure how the crowd would behave. Was it worth hoping that they might do something? Any relatives and friends of the condemned would want to save them, but whether there were enough of them to attempt a rescue was uncertain. Of course, as Brother Peter had said, there were lots of people who loved a burning. Many were here to be entertained.

No sooner had that thought entered my head than, in the distance, I heard the steady beat of drums.

‘Burn! Burn! Burn, witches, burn!’ the drums seemed to thunder.

At that sound the crowd began to murmur, their voices swelling to a roar that finally erupted into loud catcalls and hisses. The Quisitor was approaching, riding tall on his big white horse, and behind him trundled the open cart containing the prisoners. Other men on horseback were riding alongside and to the rear of the cart, and they had swords at their hips. Behind them, on foot, were a dozen drummers walking with a swagger, their arms rising and falling theatrically to the beat they were pounding out.