I considered turning back immediately and returning to my quarters but the lure of Epona’s beauty was too strong. I leaned against the rough bark as the minutes trickled by until I was confident that Cadfael would be far beyond sight and earshot.

As I waited I noted a sharp shape against the night sky and a shiver ran down my spine as realization hit me. The pyre.

There had been four witch burnings this month alone. The stink of rotting flesh hung in the air. I knew intimately that only one of the women who had met the pyre had the power within her. When the flames roared their highest she vanished. By the time the fire had calmed they assumed she had turned to ash. The other three had no such escape and their screams had been for real. The scent of burning flesh followed me into my dreams. It was what could happen to me if the Duke ever found me. And yet, here I had lived, hidden, under his nose, for seventeen years.