There was a deep satisfied sigh from the listening crowd, and Sir William fell silent at this incriminating evidence. The crowd, staring at Alinor, waited for him to speak, content to wait for his decision, since there could be only one decision from him. It was as if they were enjoying the pause before the final act of a mystery play, the chance to savor the sentence that would come, waiting for the violence that would break out.

“The purse,” Sir William said quietly to Alinor. “Did you steal the money? Did you put the old coins in place of Mrs. Miller’s savings?”

“I did not,” Alinor said.

“These old coins and chips of coins. Are they yours?”

Alinor looked at her brother’s hat, which one of the searcher women handed to Mr. Miller, who held it out at arm’s length, as if the little silver tokens would burn him.

“They look like my coins.”

“You keep them at Ferry-house?”

Alinor glanced at Ned.

“She does,” he said miserably.

“Then how did they get from there to here?”

Alinor choked on her answer. She looked at the sky over Sir William’s flinty face, she looked at the ground beneath his polished boots. There was a long silence.

“Sir William . . .” Alys began, her voice thin and trembling. “Your lordship . . .” She detached herself from Richard’s grip and took one step forwards.

“I did it,” Alinor interrupted her daughter.

“Witchcraft!” Mrs. Miller exclaimed. “Just as I said. Witchcraft.”

“Oh, Alinor, God forgive you!” Mr. Miller joined in.

“Was she going to pass off her baby as ours?” Richard clamped Alys to his side, his eyes burning. “Are you truly with child? Our baby? Were you going to make me a cuckold twice over—put a faerie child in my cradle, and my wife not the mother?”

“What?” demanded Mr. Stoney.

Sir William and James exchanged shocked glances, but events were moving too fast for them.

“No, no!” said Alys, her hand twisting in his grip, but he held her tightly. “For God’s sake, no!”

“But you knew that your mother was with child too? Conceived at the same time? How’s that possible?”

Alys looked despairingly towards her white-faced mother. “It’s nothing to do with us, Richard. And the money—”

“You hush,” Alinor said firmly to her daughter. She was calm now, as if the needle scratch had bled away all shame. She nodded to Richard. “Take her away,” she said. “I told you before. Take her to your home. I don’t want her here.”

“Ma! I have to tell them—”

“Never,” Alinor said firmly. “You have nothing to say that can help me. Just go.”

“We don’t have to do what you say!” Mr. Stoney blustered.

“For pity’s sake, take her away,” Alinor said simply to him, and Richard nodded and half dragged and half lifted Alys towards the wagon. His father and mother followed, torn between their desire to join their neighbors in the trial of a witch, and the horror that the witch was now related to their family.

They were climbing in the wagon and setting the horses going when someone spoke up from the back of the crowd: “Swim her!”

“I didn’t do it with witchcraft, I did it as an exchange,” Alinor said rapidly to Sir William. “It was a loan. That’s why I left everything that I have, to show that I would pay it back. As a token that it was me and I would repay.”

“Faerie gold,” someone said. “It’d fade to nothing if anyone but her held it.”

“And who’s the father of her child?” someone else demanded.

“We should take her to Chichester for the hangman!” someone suggested.

“Satan’s child.” There was a low hiss from the back of the crowd. “A faerie-born boy.”

“Her husband always said Rob was none of his begetting,” someone remembered.

Rob turned a horrified look at his mother.

“It’s not so!” Alinor cried out. “It’s not so! Not so! Rob is a good boy from a bad father!” She turned to Sir William, gabbling in her distress: “Your lordship, don’t let them speak ill of Rob! You know what a good boy he is.” She turned to Ned. “Take him away,” she implored him. “Get him away.”

“Enough!” Sir William exclaimed, cutting through the rising shouts that Alinor should be taken to Chichester and hanged. “We’ll swim her,” he ruled, into the sudden avid silence. “In the millpond. If she comes up alive she’s innocent of all charges, and nobody says anything against her again. She repays the money to Mrs. Miller as she says she intended. Agreed? We swim her to see God’s will! Agreed? That’s my judgment, and my ruling! Agreed?”

“Swim her,” half a dozen voices assented.

“Quite right,” they said. “Duck her.”

Alinor, blank with terror, turned unseeing to her brother, Ned, but he was looking down at the ground, shamed before everyone.

“Ned, take Rob away,” she whispered to him. “Ned!”

His head came up at the urgent tone in her voice.

“Take Rob away!”

Her whisper recalled him from his misery at her shame. “Yes,” he muttered. “Come on, Rob. Let’s get out of here. It’ll all be over in a moment.”

“They shan’t touch her!” Rob exclaimed, pushing between his mother and the crowd, though the searcher women laid hold of her and would not let him take her.

James grabbed his arm. “Better this, than she’s accused of theft,” he said urgently. “This will be over in a moment. But if they get her to Chichester they’ll hang her for theft on the gallows.”

“Sir, she can’t bear it! The pond is deep water. She can’t bear it! You know—”

“Yes, I can,” Alinor interrupted him. Her face was white as whey, her eyes huge with fear in her ashen face. “But you go, Rob. I can’t stand for you to see this.”

Already people were running to the mill to get ropes to truss her up, shuffling their feet and hesitating, not knowing how to lay hold of her, frightened of touching her, but pushed forwards by more people behind them. Sir William watched them, scowling, and nodded to Ned. “Take the lad away,” he said. “That’s an order. He shouldn’t see.”

Ned took Rob by the shoulder and forced him through the yard gate, towards the ferry, bobbing on the ebbing tide. “We’ll just wait here, beside the ferry,” Ned said, his voice gruff. “Then we’ll go back and get her when it’s over.”

“How can she be with child?” Rob whispered to his uncle.

Ned shook his head. “Shamed,” was all he said shortly.

“But how can she?”

Ned wrapped the boy in his arms and pushed the young face against the rough weave of his jacket. “Pray,” he advised him. “And don’t ask me, I can’t bear it. My own sister! Under my roof!”

James watched the two leave. “How can we stop this?” he demanded urgently.

“We can’t,” said Sir William. “Let them do it. Get it over with.”