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up behind their backs. Silvia huddled in the charge of the constables, the little girls clustered around her, sobbing. Luka was lying on the ground, a constable’s knee in his back. His eyes met hers. ‘Go, Milly, go!’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself out of here!’
    Then Zizi leapt onto the constable’s shoulder and, yanking his hair hard, bit his ear. He yelled and flinched away. At once Luka was up and running but then the big, ugly man let go of Noah to smash Luka down with his steel fist. Noah stumbled forward, his violin clutched to his chest, trying to escape.
    â€˜Here, Noah, here!’ Emilia screamed. He turned towards her, hand groping out in entreaty. She kicked Alida forward, thinking for one glad moment that she could reach him and swing him up behind her. Then the pastor stepped forward and grabbed Noah, dragging him back. Noah cried out in fear and hit out with his violin. The pastor wrested the violin from him and flung it down on the cobblestones, stamping upon it until it was smashed to smithereens. Noah sobbed in despair.
    â€˜You devil!’ Emilia cried, wild with fury and grief. ‘How could you!’
    The pastor glanced up at her, his face rigid and white, his eyes blazing with righteous anger. Then he gestured with his hand for the constables to seize her.
    â€˜Godless infidels,’ the pastor said coldly. ‘We shall see them all hang, and this town cleansed of their profane presence.’
    He strode forward and seized Alida’s halter, but Emilia kicked him square in the chest. One boot slipped on the filthy cobbles and he lost his balance and fell back, straight into a huge, green, sloppy pat of cow manure.
    Emilia looked down into his face and knew she had made an implacable enemy. Once again she looked across at Beatrice, who pressed her hands together beseechingly and cried, ‘Go!’
    Tears pouring down her face, Emilia leant low on Alida’s back and galloped out of the market square, knocking over a cage of chickens and a barrow of apples on the way. Rollo raced behind her, low to the ground.
    Behind her she could hear the pastor screaming, ‘Catch her and bring her back! We’ll see her burn in hell for this!’

    Luka rubbed his head, which was ringing from the ugly man’s blow. Zizi was crouched on an awning a few feet away, gibbering with fear. Luka looked up and saw the pastor staring down at him. He clutched his fiddle close under his arm, afraid the pastor might seize it and stamp it to pieces too.
    â€˜Godless heathens,’ the pastor hissed. He glanced at the ugly man and said, ‘Lock them up. We’ll have them before the magistrates at the beginning of next month. Murder, vagrancy, begging and trading in the marketplace without a licence.’ He looked across at Beatrice, who shivered and drew her shawl up about her head. ‘And singing,’ he said, very softly.
    Luka was hauled to his feet and marched along the market square with the rest of his family. Zizi leapt down onto his shoulder and cowered against his neck, her tail wrapped tight enough to half strangle him. Afraid they might drag the little monkey away from him if they noticed her, Luka tucked her away inside his coat and she lay quietly, her head pressed against his fast beating heart.
    They were hustled down a side street to a small crooked wooden building with a steep thatched roof and tiny mullioned windows. A poorly painted sign hung over the door, depicting a hand holding up a mace. The sour smell of beer gusted out of the front door, and to Luka’s surprise they were ushered into a dark, grimy, straw-strewn public bar. An innkeeper, his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbow and a filthy apron on over his breeches, looked up and sighed.
    â€˜What, more? I haven’t room for all these prisoners, and more importantly, I haven’t the funds. This new pastor of yours has scared away all my customers with his talk of hellfire