GROUT, Silas - Assistant to Jacob Crawley.
HANDIWELL, Jane - Thomas's daughter. A lesbian who hates Hannah for her beauty and for the fact that her father wishes to marry her, Jane is the leader of a small band of highwaywomen and a would-be witch. Her maid, Beth, is her devoted body slave. Jane's accomplices are Kate Dawson, Mary Watling (a strapping wench built more like a man) and Ellen Grayling, Roderick's teenage sister.
HANDIWELL, Thomas - Landlord of the Black Drum; a widower in his early forties, Thomas has proposed to Harriet several times.
HART, Captain Timothy - Young officer on convalescent leave who is sent with a small escort party to assist Handiwell in trying to find and rescue the abducted Sarah.
HAWKIN, George - Senior overseer at Grayling Hall and steward to Sir Roderick Grayling. Among his younger staff are Young Pip (possibly his illegitimate son), William, and Ross, a tall, thin sandy- haired young man who takes Sarah's virginity shortly after her arrival.
HORROCKS, Paul - Local labourer, now deceased, he signed a testimony against Matilda accusing her of heretic practices.
MARDLEY, Jed - Assistant to Jacob Crawley and former itinerant mercenary and executioner.
MERRIDEW, Harriet - Heiress to the small farm estate of Barten Meade.
MERRIDEW, Oliver - Harriet's father and owner of Barten Meade, a former army major wounded in battle and now virtually bedridden.
MERRIDEW, Sarah - Harriet's cousin, orphaned by a plague outbreak, she travelled to Leddingham to join her only remaining family, but is kidnapped by the highwaywomen and sold to Roderick Grayling to be trained at his slave farm at Grayling Hall, a few miles from Barten Meade and Leddingham village.
PARKES, Miranda - Young girl who has fallen foul of the Grayling slave operation. Now being trained at Grayling Hall, she has been nicknamed Titty Kitty by the overseers on account of her inordinately large bosom.
PENNYWISE, Hannah - Grandmother of Matilda and reputed witch. Her late father, Nathan, was a small businessman who built up a small fortune people think Hannah must still have.
PENNYWISE, Matilda - Attractive village girl born in London and now living with her grandmother after an outbreak of Plague in the city.
PERKINS, Sam - Wagon driver who transports slaves from London and other cities to Grayling Hall.
PORTFIELD, Adam - A senior overseer at Grayling Hall.
PORTFIELD, Daniel - Adam's younger cousin, a groom/trainer at the Hall.
SLANE, John - Blacksmith in Leddingham village.
WICKSTANNER, Simon - Minister of the Church for the parish of Leddingham.
WILLETT, Dick - Coach driver on the London to Portsmouth route, wounded when Jane Handiwell's highwaywomen abducted Sarah; his assistant is Francis, a young lad of uncertain origins.
Some Important Dates in the 17th Century
1645 - Or thereabouts, because documentation is not exactly overflowing on the subject, Matthew Hopkins, former Witchfinder General, disappears from public life. One story is that he is tried and executed by an obscure rural court, another that he flees the country with his ill-gotten gains, but we know the truth...
1649, January 30 - Execution of Charles I - The Protectorate, under Oliver Cromwell, gets a head start.
1660, May 29 - On his thirtieth birthday, thanks largely to the machinations of General George Moncke, and the fact that Oliver Cromwell's son, Richard, has made such a miss of trying to run the country after his father's death, Charles Stuart rides in triumph into London and the monarchy is restored under Charles II. Nell Gwynne (among many others) is later also restored under him, but that is another story.
1665 - The Bubonic Plague finally reaches epidemic proportions with thousands dying daily, especially in the larger cities.
1666 - The Great Fire of London starts in a bakery in London's Pudding Lane. Sir Isaac Newton discovers the Laws of Gravity.
-oOo-
If you've not already read it, enjoy the prequel to The Devil's Surrogate, also published as an eBook by us and available to download from many online bookstores now...
Cauldron of Fear
The metal contraption was an old scold's bridle, something Matilda had only previously seen in picture books at her former home. The iron bands were dull, but any rust appeared to have been removed and the hinges showed traces of having been oiled. Her initial reaction was to draw back, attempt to resist having the cruel device placed upon her head, but she quickly realised that such an action was futile and likely only to earn her even more dire retribution.
Set in the latter half of the seventeenth century, in an England ruled by fear and superstition, this is a tale of ignorance versus wealth and so-called education where, despite the fact that the notorious Witchfinder General has supposedly died in disgrace some fifteen years since, his acolytes continue his nefarious work in the more remote villages and hamlets.
Greed, torture and a clandestine white slavery network are all intertwined here, where the wrong word, a misinterpreted glance, or simply a pretty maiden spurning the advances of a powerful admirer, can lead to a gruesome death, or worse still, a life of degradation, humiliation and constant agonies.
Add a handful of genuine witches, with their own speciality of 'wyrd' sex, abduction and torture, and life in rural Hampshire starts to become more than just a little precarious.
-oOo-
And as mentioned in the intro pages of this book, if you're keen to write erotic fiction and would like our Author Guidelines, or you're a published author and have existing work, the eBook rights of which remain with or have reverted to you, we would be delighted to hear from you.
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