'What else has Ralph told you?'
'He's been speaking with the brothers in the infirmary. They think Bradford might stop me visiting them. There's talk about magic potions and casting spells. It's the sort of thing that happens in a closed community …'
Harald listened with mounting apprehension. Alice seemed unaware of the seriousness of her situation. She already had a reputation as a free thinker. Now, far more dangerous accusations were being levelled against her.
He looked at the contents of her basket and wondered if she was collecting them as an act of defiance. The odd-looking roots and fungi might have curative properties but that didn't mean they couldn't be produced as damning evidence in a witchcraft trial.
She was a strange person but that didn't stop him from loving her. They had a lot in common. Alice had been abandoned by her family and placed in the care of nuns. He had nothing in common with his family and lived with them because he had nowhere else to go.
He was feeling vulnerable. There was the pending law case against the Knowles family, who were questioning William's right to his mother's dowry, and there was his feud with William Bradford.
In a fit of anger he had lashed out at William for accusing Alice of witchcraft. For a while he had the man cowered. Bradford felt vulnerable while his election as abbot hung in the balance. But it hadn't lasted. Royal assent had been granted and William was now Abbot of Sherborne with all the rights and privileges that went with that high office.
William's spies were at work trying to get people to make false witness against Alice and himself. His mother had written to his father in France, saying the family's good name was being called into disrepute. She wanted him to send brother Guy to Sherborne to sort things out. That would make things far worse. Guy had a soldier's way of dealing with problems and it always ended in violence.