Ilchester gaol was a terrible place, full of noises and smells that were barely human. In my cell alone, there were six other women. The two who were conscious introduced themselves as Mad Meg and Twelve-toed Tess, and demanded to know what grisly crime I’d committed.
‘Apparently, I bewitched the sea,’ I said.
‘Is that all?’ Mad Meg looked disappointed.
Twelve-toed Tess cackled. ‘Welcome to our home, Little Miss Neptune.’
The name stuck, as did the pair of them to me. They didn’t stop talking all night, though the other four women stayed slumped against the wall, even when rats nosed through their hair.
*
On the morning of the Assizes I woke wavering between hope and despair. I was cold, sore, aching with hunger. No one was going to rescue me. Jem had probably been caught by now, and the Songbird would’ve set sail hours ago, so what did it matter if the world thought I was a witch and punished me according to the law? Though I still couldn’t quite believe they’d find me guilty of something so ridiculous, so totally untrue, and it was this I was clinging on to by my fingertips.
‘Rather you than me,’ said Mad Meg, whose crime had been to dig up her neighbour’s cabbages. ‘I’ve heard Mr Hopkins is a brute.’
‘Slippery as an eel,’ agreed Twelve-toed Tess. She’d been fined for chasing her sister with a horsewhip, but couldn’t pay so was in prison.
As they chatted on over my head, I sat hugging my knees until the guard arrived. He was as tall as he was wide, with a neck like a fat, pink ham.
‘Well, Sharpe, we’ve got a journey to Glastonbury ahead of us,’ he said briskly. ‘I trust you’re ready.’
My heart sank. Glastonbury: so I was returning there, despite my insistence to Susannah that I never would.
The guard, impatient, rattled the cell bars with his baton. ‘On your feet, then! Let’s be having you!
‘Keep it down, Mr Nelson,’ Mad Meg complained. ‘Or you’ll have our nerves in tatters.’
‘Bit late to worry about that,’ he replied. ‘The king’s already in Somerset. He’s come to witness Sharpe’s trial.’
My cell mates squealed.
‘King James? The Scot?’ Mad Meg gave her filthy hair a pat.
Twelve-toed Tess rounded on me. ‘Kept that to yourself, didn’t you, girlie?’
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten – more that I’d blocked it from my mind. To be reminded of it now, when things were grim enough, made me feel properly ill.
‘Well, well, Little Miss Neptune, what a dark horse you are,’ Twelve-toed Tess murmured.
‘Boys’ clothes, a boy’s haircut, the dirtiest face you ever saw,’ Mr Nelson mused. ‘You only need to look at her to see the guilt.’ Though when he unlocked the cell, Mad Meg jammed her foot against the door so he couldn’t open it.
‘You’re right,’ she told him. ‘She can’t go to trial looking like that.’
‘Rules are rules, Meg,’ the guard warned. ‘I can’t keep the King of the British Isles waiting.’
Twelve-toed Tess moved closer to the bars. She was intimidatingly tall.
‘And there’s me thinking you’d be on the side of the underdog, Mr Nelson.’ She tutted. ‘Dear me, our royal visitor seems to have turned your head.’
‘At least give the kid a fighting chance,’ Mad Meg pleaded.
I expected him to barge in and take me, yet begrudgingly he gave us five more minutes. He even brought a pail of water and someone’s old gown for me to wear.
‘We’re going to sort you out,’ Mad Meg informed me. ‘Sometimes, even if you don’t feel like it on the inside, it’s best to look the part.’
Before I could argue, Twelve-toed Tess pushed me to the ground and sat on my legs. In a whirl of cloth they scrubbed my face, my hands, my feet. Mad Meg used her fingers to unknot my hair and plait it – at least that’s what she said she was doing. I was sure she was scalping me alive. The dress was huge, but once its sleeves were turned up and its waist tied with string, I did look more presentable.
‘Thank you.’ My voice wobbled; I couldn’t help crying when they’d been kind to me.
Mad Meg pinched my cheek.
‘Go well, Little Miss Neptune,’ said Twelve-toed Tess.
The cell door opened. Irons were clamped on my wrists. Mr Nelson led me away, and as I glanced behind, they blew me a kiss.
*
The next faces I saw were considerably less friendly. Approaching Glastonbury we had our first view of the crowds. At this distance they were little more than ant-like specks covering the hillside and running along the edge of the floodwater. As we got closer the specks became people-shaped, with hats, bonnets, shawls, collars, and eyes that eagerly followed the cart’s progress to the foot of the hill. There were hundreds here, possibly more.
I clung to the side of the cart, shivering. It was best not to look. Best to keep my head down and remember to breathe. But I was desperate for a glimpse of my family or Susannah, and so for better or worse, scanned the crowds.
‘Brought the pamphleteers flocking, you have.’ Mr Nelson pointed out a group of men in smart town clothes, who were already writing things down. ‘They’ll be reading all about you in London by tomorrow.’
I gulped. ‘So soon?’
The thought of strangers hearing my pack-of-lies story made me long for Jem or Mother or Susannah even more. But I couldn’t find them in the sea of people. Everything had become a blur of hostile faces. I didn’t trust myself to focus on anyone again until the cart came to a halt at the very front of the crowds.
Someone had brought out a parlour table and set it on the grass. Behind it, on straight-backed chairs, sat three gentlemen. Two of these men I knew all too well – Dr Blood in black, with his plump beetle body, and Mr Hopkins, who kept his scar turned away from the crowd. I felt bile creeping up my throat: how I hated them both.
The third man was rather small, with a sandy-coloured beard. To be honest, but for the huge froth of lace at his collar he looked quite ordinary, though my cell mates’ eyes, I bet, would’ve stood out of their heads. And even I, in my wretched state, had to stare. For this was King James of the British Isles, the greatest witch hunter of them all.
‘Bring the prisoner forward for her test,’ Dr Blood instructed.
‘Test? What test?’ I asked as Mr Nelson handed me down from the cart.
Knowingly, he tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s just say you’ll be having another wash very soon.’
I’d no idea what he meant, or why my wrist irons were now being unlocked, only to be replaced with rope, which was looped around my waist. More guards surrounded me.
I was bewildered. Why wasn’t anyone asking me questions? Wouldn’t I at least get a chance to speak?
Someone was tugging at the rope around my waist. A sudden jolt and I was dragged backwards across the grass towards the water till I was in it up to my ankles.
‘What are you doing?’ I cried.
‘Quieten her!’ said a stern voice. On his feet, and holding another coil of rope, was Mr Hopkins.
‘Sir, what’s happening?’ I begged. ‘You said I was to be put to trial at the Assizes. Why am I in the water?’
‘Tie her,’ Mr Hopkins instructed the guards.
Someone grabbed my right arm. Another guard wound rope round my hand. It all happened so fast – the pushing, pulling, pinching. And then the same guard grabbed my left foot.
‘Let go of me!’ I shrieked.
He was far stronger than me, and yanked my foot so hard I lost my balance and fell. I hit the shallow water with an almighty smack. In panic, I tried to get up again, but there were guards all around me. My mouth was full of mud. Someone was pulling me again, forcing my upper body down towards my feet.
I fought hard. I screamed. Yet in a moment it was done. The guards stood back, breathless, admiring their work. Like a lamb going to market, they’d bound me, hand to foot, right to left. I prayed my family and Susannah weren’t here, after all. I couldn’t bear for them to see me like this.
A bell rang to quieten the crowd, before Mr Hopkins addressed them.
‘Fortune Sharpe will be tested today in the very floods she is accused of luring here from the coast.’
I lay on my side in the water, terrified.
‘We must protect our souls from the threat of dark magic that is infecting our people,’ he went on.
A savage cheer went up from the crowd. Just like yesterday in Bridgwater, they were hungry for revenge or justice, or I didn’t know what, their noise a confusing rumble in my head.
Why me? What had I done to make them hate me so much? I was a plain, ordinary child from a hamlet by the sea. These people didn’t know one true thing about who I was.
‘The accused will be ducked under the water,’ Mr Hopkins explained. His voice was calm and clear. ‘If she sinks and drowns, she is innocent. But if she floats, then that is proof of her being a witch, a crime which is punishable by death.’
The guards moved in. One pulled the rope. Another seized my shoulders. They pulled me away from the edge, away from Mr Hopkins. The water grew colder and deeper. The ground beneath me fell away. The guards were holding me up so I was bobbing, floating.
Above me the sky was softest grey. Water lapped around my head, my ears, over my face. I let my fear go: I had no use for it any more. Instead, I pictured Bea’s pink-gummed smile, and wondered whether the Songbird had yet hit the open seas. And if what Maira told me about the caul could really, possibly, be true.
The guards pushed me under.