The woman stood shivering, stripped to bare skin. The Witch-finder Major walked around the woman, the remains of her dark hair wet from the dousing of ice-cold water and the savagery of shaving she had to endure. She had been taken that night, under the cover of darkness from her home. She had been dragged to the rooms of John Stearne. In one corner, a four-post bed, a chair, and a s simple desk. Her late husband, Corporal Matthew Goode of the New Model Army, had died during the battle of Nasby, along with her sixteen-year-old son. Only Mary, her twenty-one-year-old daughter, remained in Hannah's life. Although until the Witch-finder arrived was promised in marriage. There was no one else to vouchsafe her and now, the town's people looked upon her with suspicion.
John Stearne, the self-styled Witchfinder Major, newly compensated by the town's levy had silver shillings in his purse and a mission to fulfil. It had been an easy task to find one such as Hannah. She was attractive, despite her middle age. There was enough gossip to throw doubt on Hannah's character and immediately, Stearne had settled on this woman.
Now she was in the power of the Witchfinder.
He stopped and looked intently at the livid red welts that had risen on her skin, easily seen through her fingers that failed to cover her sex and the results of the rough shaving that had been forced upon her by Stearne's accomplices. The two rough-hewn henchmen stood back, one holding a razor, a bowl of soaped water and a stained towel, stained with Hannah's blood from the nicks and cuts on her body. He grasped hold of her arm and pulled it away from the cleft of her cunny.
"Stand still spawn of Satan," John Stearne hissed as she looked down at her cunny, "Keep thy hands above thy head," The woman complied, her shuddering continuing. The Witch-finder Major then leaned forward to examine the stiffened nubs of her breasts, although he was looking intently for signs of the devil, a devil's mark that told him of her loyalty to the Dark Lord and how he would take her, ravage her cunny and sin with her. The poor wretch stood as her firm, pert breasts pointed upward, although she was of middle age, they did not sag.
John Stearne looked closely and then with cruel fingers tweaked each nipple sharply, to see if blood would come or if she would scream. Either event would spell her death.
Hannah Goode made no sound and no blood came.
Stearne then slid his hand down to her hairless cunny and felt inside her cleft. Her skin was cold but her cunny was warm and in his black breeches, John Stearne's prick twitched and stiffened. He looked to the two 'sergeants', with large straight blades, late of the New Model Army, at their belts,
"Leave this bitch with me, I shall examine her for the marks of Old Nick, hand me the pricking needle and shut the door!" The two men smirked but followed his instructions rapidly, "But bring the other witch to me and set her bound and gagged by the door and call upon me in the morning and not before!"
