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she not accomplish?’
    ‘I have no special power.’
    ‘Like Faust you have strange youthfulness. Many wonder at you, undiminished by time.’
    ‘I am skilled in herbs and ointments.’
    Roger Nowell nodded. ‘Will you give evidence against the Demdike?’
    ‘I have no evidence to give.’
    He stood up, stretching. He smiled. ‘Then, perhaps you will attend the trial yourself in a different capacity. That is not my wish, though it may become my duty. But for now, I should like to invite you to a play.’
    Alice was utterly bewildered.
    ‘We ride at dawn to Hoghton Tower. There is a new play to be put on, written by William Shakespeare who has had great success in London. He was a tutor for a time at Hoghton Tower and, by gracious request, his play is to be performed there.’
    ‘I have seen some of his plays in London,’ said Alice. ‘What play is this?’
    ‘
The Tempest
. I am told it is a play about magick.
    Before Alice could answer a servant ran into the room. Roger Nowell followed him at once into the square hall. The front door was open. There were dogs barking outside.
    Alice went forward. In the hall were two men she had never seen before. They were dirt-spattered and sweat-stained. One was wiping his face with a wet cloth.
    ‘Where did you lose him?’ said Roger Nowell. ‘Salmsbury Hall?’
    One of the men looked back towards Alice. Roger Nowell turned, gesturing with his hand as though all this were nothing of any importance. ‘A fugitive. Unexpected. One of my men will ride with you to the Rough Lee as you have brought no servant.’
    Alice was escorted to her horse. In the courtyard were half a dozen men carrying wild and burning flares. Stag-hounds ran about, some with their noses to the ground, others sniffing the air as though they were hunting ghosts.
    As she rode the short distance to the Rough Lee she watched the flares dipping and darting between the trees as the men ran following the dogs. The dark forest looked on fire. The trees were lit up like funeral pyres. She thought she saw bodies strapped to the trees, burning, burning, burning.
    She spurred her horse.
    The men were moving away from the direction of her house, towards the river. The moon came up, shining down. Her horse shied. On the path directly in front of the horse’s hooves stood a huge hare, all eyes, ears and startle.
    The hare had a look she knew. But that was foolish. It was a hare.
    She rode on, and dismissed Roger Nowell’s servant at her gate.
    She was already unbuttoning her riding habit as she climbed the staircase to bed. She was in her shift when she opened the door from her dressing room into her bedroom.
    Ghristopher Southworth was lying on her bed.

Christopher Southworth
     
    HIS EYES WERE blue like forming crystals. There was a scar across his face from his left eyebrow to his right lip.
    Alice had not seen him for six years. She had never expected to see him again. There was a knock at the bedroom door. Alice threw a cover over Christopher and opened the door to take in the chicken pie and wine she had asked for. She locked the door and pulled the heavy curtains across the window.
    ‘Is it you they are hunting, Kit?’
    ‘Give me food first.’
    They were like children; eating quickly, laughing, her heart beating too fast, his face smiling all the time as he ate. He had got into the house after dark and taken the little staircase to her study, and crept through the secret corridor that joined her bedroom. Alice ran her hand over the ridge of scars under his eyes and kissed his eyelids where the skin was thick like leather.
    When he had been captured after the Gunpowder Plot his torturers had cut his face with a hot iron. They had blinded him by dripping wax into his pinned-back eyeballs. The curious blue of his eyes was due to the elixir that had saved his sight. But nothing could hide the scars.
    ‘You should not have come back to England, Kit. They will hang you this time.’
    Christopher Southworth