Hildebrande sat slumped on her stool. Her fingers were spread out over her knees, as if she were holding sinew and bone together. The old blue gown Alys had given her was bloodstained and spattered. There was a large dark stain at the hem – she had soiled herself in her agony. Her shoulders were hunched awkwardly, one side irregular where the shoulder had been dislocated and not thrust back into the socket. Her feet were bare. On the pale old skin of her feet were deep purple and red blood-bruises, perfect copies of the knots which had tied her to the rack. Her wrists were black with bruising, where the rope had tied her arms above her head. Her thin toes were stained with blood. They had ripped out the toenails. The fingernails, too, were gone. The hands spread like old bloody talons, clinging to her own body, as if to hold it together, clinging to her faith.

At Alys' sudden movement Hildebrande looked in her direction. Their eyes met. She recognized Alys at once. Her bloodstained mouth opened in a dreadful smile. Alys saw the deep, dark bruises on her cheeks from the metal gag and then, as her ghastly smile widened, saw that her teeth had been pulled out from the gums, some broken and left as stumps, others leaving dark, blood-filled holes. Alys saw the smile and knew Hildebrande's revenge had come easily to her hand. Hildebrande would not suffer alone. She would not burn alone.

Mutely, Alys watched her. She said nothing. She did not plead with her eyes, she did not put her soft hands together in a secret sign for forgiveness. She waited for the horror of Hildebrande naming her as her accomplice and a runaway nun. The evidence was there. She was wearing Alys' gown, there was food from the castle at the cottage. Alys waited to be named and Hildebrande to be revenged on her for her pain of disappointment, and for the pain of the rack and the tortures.

Hildebrande's pale blue eyes in the blackened strained sockets never wavered. 'There was no one conspiring with me,' she said, her voice clearer. 'I was alone. Always. All alone.'

'Who is Ann?' Stephen said again. Mother Hildebrande smiled directly at Alys, her old face a ghastly, toothless mask.

'Saint Ann,' she lied without hesitation. 'I was calling on Saint Ann.'

Alys dropped her head and wrote blindly, one word after another.

The old lord leaned forward and tweaked Stephen's gown. 'Finish it,' he said. 'I mislike this crowd.'

Stephen nodded, straightened up, raised his voice to a shout. 'I demand that before this court you deny your mistaken loyalty to the Pope and affirm your loyalty to the King, His Majesty Henry the Eighth, and your faith in his Holy Church of England.'

'I cannot do that,' the weary voice replied. 'I caution you that if you fail to repent now you will be found guilty of heresy to the Holy Church of England and you will be burned at the stake for your sins and burn hereafter in the everlasting torments of hell,' Stephen said in a shower of words like hailstones.

'I keep my faith,' Hildebrande said quietly. 'I await my cross.'

Father Stephen looked uncertainly towards Lord Hugh. 'Shall I wrestle with her for her soul?' he asked.

'She looks as if she has done enough wrestling,' the old lord said acidly. 'I'll sentence her, shall I?' Father Stephen nodded and sat down. Lord Hugh banged on the table with his stick. 'It is the judgement of this court that you are guilty of treason to His Supreme Majesty Henry the Eighth, and guilty of heresy to the Holy Church of England,' he said rapidly. 'Tomorrow morning at dawn you shall be taken from here to a place of execution where you will be burned at the stake for your crimes.'

Alys was writing blindly, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, watching the quill move up and down the paper. She felt Hildebrande's eyes on her, she felt the old woman willing her to look up, to exchange one look. She felt the weight of Hildebrande's need for the two of them to look into each other's faces once more, without deceit, without pretence, knowing what the other one truly was – as clear and as open as when Alys had been the little child in the garden and Hildebrande had seen the daughter she would never have. Alys knew that Hildebrande was waiting for one glance from her. One honest exchange of penitence, of forgiveness, of release.

Of farewell.

Alys kept her head down until she heard them carry the old woman out. She would not look at her. She never said goodbye.

In my dream I smelled the dark sulphurous stink of a passing witch and I pulled the smooth embroidered sheets up over my head and whispered 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us', to shield me from my dream, from a nightmare of terror. Then I heard shouting and the terrifying crackle of hungry flames and I came awake in a rush with a thudding heart and sat up in my bed and looked fearfully around the white-washed walls of my room.

The walls were orange, scarlet, with the bobbing light of reflected flames, and I could hear the deep excited murmur of a waiting crowd. I had slept too long, in my grief and confusion -I had slept too long and they had the faggots piled around her feet and they had already set them alight. I snatched for my cape and I ran barefoot through the open door of my chamber and out into the ladies' gallery, where the light was shining brightly through the coloured glass of the oriel window and the smoke was pouring in through the open casement where the women were gathered. Eliza Herring turned to me, one side of her face glowing with the brightness of the fire outside, and she said: 'We called you, but you were fast asleep. Come quick, Lady Alys, the flames have caught.'

I said nothing to her, but ran for the door, down the winding stairs and out into the courtyard.

They had set up a stake for her in the square stone-filled pit before the prison tower, and heaped small pieces of dry kindling at the base of the pile and faggots of wood, to burn brightly and strongly, at the top.

Before the fire were the soldiers and servants and Lord Hugh, Stephen the priest and my Hugo. But they had kept the townspeople away, afraid of their anger. Hugo turned and saw me in the doorway, my hair flying loose, my eyes glazed with fear. He put a handout to beckon me, turned to come towards me, but I was too quick for him.

I raced across the courtyard towards the fire, towards the flames, and I saw through the heat haze the white tortured face of Hildebrande. The wind was blowing from the west, a clean wind with the smell of rain behind it, and it kept the flames away from me. I scrambled, like a child rock-climbing, over the wide spread of kindling and then up the faggots to the central pole, and grabbed her thin, racked body around the knees, and then found my feet and pulled my self up, and held her around the waist. Her hands were bound behind her, she could not hold me. But she turned her face towards me and her bruised eyes were full of love. She said nothing, she was silent, as if she were at peace, like the quiet centre of a storm, as the flames came licking closer, all around us like the tongues of hungry serpents and I was choking in the swirl of smoke and dizzy with the heat and the terror.

Deep in my belly my baby churned and struggled as if he too could feel the heat, as if he too wanted, more than anything in the world, to live. I looked through the shifting heat haze of the smoke and saw Hugo's white, panic-stricken face turned towards me, and I tried to make my lips say 'Goodbye' but I knew he could not see me properly. His sight was too blurred, it is fading fast. He could not see me when I said to him 'Goodbye'.

I held firmly around her waist and tried to force myself to stand still like a woman with holy courage. It was no use. The bundles of dry wood beneath my feet were shifting, the flames were licking up from underneath. I stepped from one foot to the other in a foolish dance, vainly trying to spare my bare feet from the pain of burning.