Page 130 of A Time of Witches

“No,” Sybil whispered. Already there had been too much death.

The guards stopped as much from Kat’s warning glare as Anne’s startling admission.

The crowd, equally baffled at this unusual development, looked between Anne and the magistrate.

“Mine own hands made the poppet I claimed was created by Sybil Brantham,” Anne cried. “I signed my name to a confession I did not speak. I didn’t even know what the confession claimed.” She shook her head, her doe-brown eyes catching Sybil’s from across the expanse of the field. “I didn’t know.”

The desperation in the young woman’s gaze pulled at a deep place within Sybil.

“Why would you sign a confession you did not speak?” Hopkins asked, frowning.

Anne hesitated, scrunching her eyes shut.

Kat’s lips moved, but Sybil could not make out what was said.

“I’m with child.” Anne cradled her belly with the palm of her hand. “The magistrate is the father, though he refused to help me unless I denounced Mrs. Brantham.”

“This is a lie,” the magistrate snarled. “A distraction to save her mistress.”

“We all know how ye are, Walsingham,” Kat said, her tone a singsong taunt. “Women lock their doors when ye’re nearby. Husbands make a show of being home, shouting and carrying on so ye’ll hear their voices and leave their womenfolk be.” She spun around to the crowd. “Are ye not afraid of Walsingham?”

Silence met her demand. But a few faces tucked downward, hiding from speculation.

The magistrate scoffed. “I had this chit as a lover, it is true. She was desperate to climb into my bed in the hopes of grasping a rung higher in life.”

“You said you loved me, and now…” Anne balled her apron in her hands, cheeks a brilliant stain of red. “Now I know you used me to punish Mrs. Brantham for refusing to marry you.”

Sybil’s heart squeezed in empathy for the young woman. Poor Anne, who had spent her entire life caring for others, who was so desperate to finally be cared for herself.

“Enough,” Hopkins hollered. “Mrs. Brantham has been declared guilty of witchcraft and will die this day.”

Sybil closed her eyes against the pain of his words, the inevitability of her death.

“No.” Anne shook her head. “I stood idly by as she was taken for crimes she did not commit. I stood idly by when I heard she was starved and tormented in prison. I will not stand by now as she is condemned to die. She is no witch, and she did not kill her husband. He died of the plague, same as many of yours.”

“Henry Brantham died so that many of yer kin could still be alive today.” Kat added as she faced the crowd, her expression solemn. “How many of ye had family return from the pesthouse because of Mrs. Brantham’s care? How many of the family ye lost had words of comfort from her after ye abandoned them in yer fear, leaving them to die alone?”

One woman in the front cast a glance at Sybil, her eyes gleaming with sympathy. With shame.

“Probably a similar number to the men and women who Edith fed and tended to.” Kat’s voice broke. “The innocent woman ye tried to float in the river. The one ye declared after her death what a shame it was to lose so good a soul. What a shame.”

A man in the crowd covered his face with his hands while another woman looked away.

Kat pointed at Sybil. “And ye stand here now, before a woman who gave coin to the poor when the rich held their purse strings, a woman whose husband caught the very plague she tried to save yer loved ones from, a woman who has offered the services of her mother’s healing when the lot of ye can’t afford a physician’s care. She never intended to take on her mam’s work, but ye had need, and she was there, not charging even a tuppence for her efforts.”

There was an uneasy shift among the mob.

Sybil would never have used her efforts with the townsfolk against their conscience, but Kat had no qualms with wielding Sybil’s past deeds.

Kat put her hands on her hips. “And what will ye say when ye’ve a babe with a fever and ye cannot afford care? Or when there is naught enough coin for extra food stores when this war leaves us starving? Or when ye’ve got chilblains in the winter, or a backache at harvest? Ye’ll think back to this moment and do ye know what ye’ll say?” She looked pointedly at the mob. “Ye’ll say, ‘What a shame.’”

A young woman cradled her round belly, her face stricken.

“And when the magistrate finds a woman whose man is not there…” Kat prodded a tooth with her tongue. “Ach, what a shame.”

A beautiful woman cast an anxious glance at the magistrate and crossed her arms over her chest, shrinking into herself.

No doubt she too knew the stink of ambergris and musk.