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study.’
    â€˜As to that,’ Johannes said, ‘I have made some notes.’
    Hew stood up, exasperated. He took from the shelf the first book to hand. ‘Here is a book that you have not yet read. It will profit you well to turn it into Latin’ – he glanced upon it quickly – ‘ah, to turn it from the Latin, into native Scots. That I think is somewhere where you lack experience.’
    Johannes said, baffled, ‘It is a book about bees.’
    â€˜And bees are, indeed, a very fine exemplar. You may come and see me, when the work is done.’
    Had Hew been left for longer to his own devices, he might well have repented of this treatment of Johannes. But barely had he turned back to the case in hand, when Doctor Locke returned, with Roger at his heels, and both of them brought news that chased it from his mind.

II
    It was chance alone that brought the two together; they had met on the turret stair, where Giles overcame his antipathy to Roger, sufficient to allow him access up to Hew. Roger spoke first. ‘You were right enough about the prentice boy. He had a tale to tell. His master, it seems, was a hard man to work for. He was little liked. There were many people might have wished him harm.’
    â€˜It matters not,’ Giles pointed out, ‘how many may have wished him harm. One man harmed him. That was Sam. And if you mean to say he had a reason for it, that hardly helps his case.’
    Roger said, ‘Hear me, for there is more. The boy’s last commission on the eve of Candlemas was to deliver candles to a guid wife out of town. That woman was by no means well disposed towards hismaster. The boy believes she put a curse on him. He is quite convinced, that she is a witch. He saw a spirit in her house. Perhaps it was that wife that killed the candlemaker, caused his vein to burst by the casting of a charm.’
    Giles retorted, ‘Pah!’ an expression of disgust which he did not clarify, by gracing it with words. But Hew, more circumspect, inquired of Roger if he knew the woman’s name.
    â€˜She is, I understand, some relation to the Balfour family. She is aged, far beyond the common course of life, and she lives in a coven, by the Poffle of Strathkinness, two or three miles from the town.’
    Giles corrected, with a snort, ‘She is a distant cousin of the Balfours. She has lived in seclusion now for many years, in a house she rents from them. Her given name is Ann. She is a lady, though a very poor one. And she is by no means a witch.’
    â€˜Do you know her?’ asked Hew.
    â€˜She is a patient of mine. And if you will libel her, with this vile lie, I will take it much amiss.’
    â€˜Who says,’ Roger countered, ‘that it is a lie?’
    The doctor turned on him. ‘There speaks the boy, who has no faith in God! You do not for a moment take her for a witch, for you do not believe in them. And yet you will not hesitate to propagate the slander, for the sake of Sam. It is not just, nor honest. It is vicious, cruel and foul.’
    Roger coloured at his words, but would not be cowed. ‘Is it, though? Are you so very sure, that it cannot be witchcraft? When will you admit, that there is something in this case your physic and your science cannot yet explain, and recognize the evidence right before your eyes? Do not pretend you did not see it too. I know you did.’
    â€˜What evidence?’ asked Hew.
    â€˜Aye, tell him,’ Roger urged.
    â€˜Roger here believes he has the cunning of a surgeon, when he has been employed by one no more than seven months. That is not so strange. For when he was a student here, he knew himself to be so fully a philosopher, he did not need to trouble taking his degree,’ Giles remarked, evasively.
    â€˜ What evidence?’ said Hew, again, until his friend replied. ‘As I understand, he is referring to the fact that the incision seems too deep. The vein was severed