“Going hunting,” Meg said, refilling Phoebe’s teacup.

The next instant, the cat came flying back into the kitchen, racing footsteps sounding on the path close behind him.

“Phoebe… Meg…” Olivia burst into the kitchen, her hair flying loose from its pins, her breath coming in gasps. “They’re c-coming!”

“Who are?” Phoebe had jumped to her feet, sending her cup spinning to the floor in a dark splash of blackcurrant.

“The village… they have the witch finder,” Olivia panted. “They’re a few minutes behind me. Meg has to hide!”

Meg drew herself up to her not inconsiderable height. “I’m not hiding from a rabble,” she said.

“But you must!” Olivia insisted, her eyes wild, darting around the small kitchen.

And then they heard the sounds. It was the sound of feet, the soft rumble of voices. Then the cat flew out of the cottage, fur on end, his tail a thick bush. He leaped onto the roof of the cottage with a loud meow of outrage.

The crowd appeared out of the trees. It was the whole village, Phoebe thought in stunned horror. The men were in front. They carried heavy staves; behind them swarmed the women, some carrying babies, some with children clinging to their skirts.

“Olivia! For God’s sake, get out of here!” she cried before the mob had reached the gate. “You can’t be found here!” For some reason it didn’t occur to her that what was not meet for Lord Granville’s daughter might also be wrong for his wife.

“In the apple loft,” Meg said calmly. “Go quickly. Phoebe’s right. When they’ve gone, maybe you can go for help.”

Olivia hesitated, then she turned and scrambled up the ladder into the loft.

Phoebe and Meg with one mind stepped out of the cottage, side by side, presenting a united front to the incoming tide.

In the middle of the front line strode a tall man in a frieze cloak and a fiat-crowned, wide-brimmed black felt hat. He carried a thick walking stick and a large leather pouch at his waist.

“Is that the witch?” He stopped and pointed at Meg with his stick.

“No!” Phoebe exclaimed, pressing her foot on Meg’s to gain her silence. “And just who might you be, sir?”

He stepped forward. “I, my good woman, am the witch finder. And I am here to find a witch.” His voice boomed through the quiet, and the villagers at his back shifted and murmured in agreement.

“I am not your good woman!” Phoebe declared, incensed. Her only hope of prevailing was to intimidate this man and his rabble with her own status. “I am Lady Granville, and my husband is the representative of the law in this country.”

“Aye, ‘tis true,” one of the leading men said.

“Indeed it is. And you should know better than to have truck with this nonsense, Bill Watson!” Phoebe jabbed a finger at him.

“Be silent!” boomed the witch finder. “I have the authority to seek out witches across the land. And I fear no one in the exercise of my holy work.”

“Where’s the vicar?” Phoebe demanded. “He’s the one supposed to be concerned with holy work.”

“The vicar has given his blessing. The devil is among us and must be cast out,” the witch finder droned. “You will stand aside, woman, and let me do my work.”

“I mostly certainly will not!” Phoebe planted herself in front of Meg, arms akimbo. Meg was silent, seeming to accept Phoebe’s tactics. Phoebe had no idea whether the natural authority of her own position as Cato’s wife would carry any weight in the face of this muttering crowd. But it was all she had if they refused to remember her as a friend.

The witch finder suddenly drew something from his leather pouch. It was a long, thin needle. “I smell not one witch but two,” he said. “You did well to send for me, good folk.”

“May the devil take you and damn you to hell!” Phoebe cried, not sure whether anger or terror was holding sway. She couldn’t believe this was happening, and yet she knew it was a nightmare lived all too often across the land.

The witch finder spun around to face the crowd. “You heard her curse me. You heard her call upon the devil. Seize them both. We’ll prick ‘em and find the mark of the devil.”

“You touch me and you will answer to Lord Granville.” Phoebe raised her hands as if she could thus ward off the throng who had begun to move towards the two women.

There was an unmistakable hesitation and she had a moment of hope. But the witch finder knew how to command a crowd.

“If there be no mark, then they have nothing to fear. Only the guilty would resist the test. Will you go on with the devil in your midst and watch your children die, your crops fail, your cattle fall where they stand?”

“No… no… no devil!” a woman cried at the back. It was the woman whose child had died. She pushed forward, her face contorted with hatred, her eyes crazy with grief. “She killed my child.” She pointed at Meg. “She put a curse upon him and my baby died.” She spat directly into Meg’s face.

It was the signal for the rest. They surged forward and Phoebe and Meg were both surrounded. Hands grabbed at Phoebe, wrenched her arms behind her back, tied her wrists with rope. She cursed them, using every expression she had ever heard in barnyard and stables.

And yet rough as they were with Phoebe, they manhandled Meg with a savage brutality, scratching and punching her as they trussed her. A yowling shriek that truly sounded like the devil shivered through the air, and a black bundle, hissing, spitting, claws tearing, flew through the air to land on the back of one of Meg’s captors.

He screamed as the cat’s claws dug into his back, and the witch finder gave a bellow of satisfaction. “The familiar!” he cried. “I have no need of pins. We’ll swim the witch.”

“Aye, swim the witch… swim the witch.” They took up the chant, and Meg’s cat loosed his hold and leaped back up onto the roof again. For a second he was visible on the gable, and then he was gone in a black streak.

Phoebe struggled for breath. “You cannot swim for a witch without finding a mark,” she said desperately. “It is not permitted. You cannot do that. You know you cannot.”

She could think now only of buying time. If it meant they had to endure the ordeal of the pricking, then so be it. Once Meg was trussed, wrists to ankles, and thrown into the freezing river, she would drown. If she held her breath and came up again, seeming to float, then they would burn her for a witch. There was no salvation, short of a miracle. But while there was time, there was time for a miracle.

“Aye, she’s right,” Bill Watson said slowly. “We’ve to do this accordin‘ to law an’ custom. Tain’t right otherwise.”

There was a murmur of agreement, and the witch finder, after a moment when he seemed to assess the mood of the crowd, said, “ Tis all the same to me. I smell witches, but if you want proof, then you shall have it. Bring them.”

He strode through the crowd, who parted before his staff like the Red Sea before Moses‘. They surged around Meg and Phoebe and drove them after the tall figure of the witch finder.

Phoebe stumbled along, conscious not of her own ills but of Meg’s. Meg’s face was scratched and bruised. Her gown had been torn and her breast was exposed, but her expression was grimly determined. She would show this rabble not the faintest sign of fear.

In the apple loft, Olivia stared out of the small round window as the procession surged away. Then she half jumped, half fell down the ladder to the kitchen. Meg’s carving knife lay on the breadboard on the table, and Olivia grabbed it up. She had no idea what she could use it for, but just possessing a weapon made her feel better.

She pulled the hood of her cloak close about her face as she set off after the mob, running through the woods parallel to the path until she came up with the stragglers. In their heated excitement they paid no attention to the tightly cloaked new arrival slipping into their midst.