The Miracle at St. Bruno's

The Jeweled Madonna

I WAS BORN IN the September of 1523, nine months after the monks had discovered the Child in the crib on that Christmas morning. My birth was, my father used to say, another miracle. He was not young at the time, being forty years of age; he had recently married my mother who was more than twenty years his junior. His first wife had died giving birth to a stillborn son after having made several attempts to bear children all of which had failed; and because my father at last had a child, he called that a miracle.

It is not difficult to imagine the rejoicing in the household. Keziah, who was my nurse and mentor in those early days, was constantly telling me about it.

“Mercy me!” she said. “The feasting. It was like a wedding. You could smell the venison and sucking pig all over the house. And there was tansy cake and saffron cake with mead to wash it down for all who cared to call for it. The beggars came from miles around. What a time of plenty! Poor souls! Up to St. Bruno’s for a night’s shelter, a bite to eat and a blessing and then to the Big House for tansy and saffron. And all on account of you.”

“And the Child,” I reminded her, for I had very quickly become aware of the miracle of St. Bruno’s.

“And the Child,” she agreed; and whenever she spoke of the Child, a certain smile illumined her face and made her beautiful.

My mother, whose great pleasure was tending her gardens, called me Damask, after the rose which Dr. Linacre, the King’s physician, had brought into England that year. I began to grow up with a sense of my own importance, for my mother’s attempts to bear more children were frustrated. There were three miscarriages in the five years that followed. I was cosseted, watched over, cherished.

My father was a good and gentle man, who went into the city to do his business. Each day one of the boats at our privy steps would be untied and a servant in dark-blue livery would row him upriver. Sometimes my mother would carry me down to the steps to watch him go; she would tell me to wave so that my father would gaze lovingly at me until he was carried too far away to see me.

The big house with its timber frame and gables had been built by my father’s father; it was commodious with its great hall, its numerous bedchambers and reception rooms, its winter parlor and its three staircases. At the east wing a stone spiral one led to the attic bedrooms occupied by our servants; and in addition there was the buttery, the scalding house, the washhouse, the bakehouse and the stables. My father owned many acres which were farmed by men who lived on his estate; and there were animals too—horses, cows and pigs. Our land adjoined that of St. Bruno’s Abbey and my father was a friend of several of the lay brothers for he had once been on the point of becoming a monk.

Between the house and the river were the gardens by which my mother set such store. There she grew flowers most of the year round—irises and tiger lilies; lavender, rosemary, gillyflowers and of course roses. The damask rose was always her favorite though.

Her lawns were smooth and beautiful; the river kept them green and both she and my father loved animals. We had our dogs and our peacocks too; how often we laughed at the strutting birds flaunting their beautiful tails while the far less glorious peahens followed in the wake of their vainglorious lords and masters. One of my first memories was feeding them with the peas they so loved.

To sit on the stone wall and look at the river always delighted me. When I see it now it suggests serenity and perfect peace more than anything else I know. And in those days in my happy home I believed I was not altogether unconscious of the deep satisfying sense of security, although I didn’t appreciate it then; I was not wise enough to do so, but took it for granted. But I was quickly to be jerked out of my complacent youth.

I remember a day when I was four years old. I loved to watch the craft moving along the river and because my parents could not deny themselves the pleasure of indulging me, my father would often take me to the river’s edge—I was forbidden to go there alone because they were terrified that some accident would befall their beloved only child. There he would sit on the low stone wall while I stood on it. He would keep his arm tightly about me, he would point out the boats as they passed, and sometimes he would say: “That is my lord of Norfolk.” Or, “That is the Duke of Suffolk’s barge.” He knew these people slightly because sometimes in the course of his business he met them.

On this summer’s day as the strains of music came from a grand barge which was sailing down the river my father’s arm tightened about me. Someone was playing a lute and there was singing.

“Damask,” he said speaking quietly as though we could be overheard, “it’s the royal barge.”

It was a fine one—grander than any I had ever seen. A line of silken flags adorned it; it was gaily colored and I saw people in it; the sun caught the jewels on their doublets so that they glittered.

I thought my father was about to pick me up and go back to the house.

“Oh, no,” I protested.

He did not seem to hear me, but I was aware of his hesitation and he seemed different from his usual strong and clever self. Young as I was, I sensed a certain fear.

He stood up, holding me even more firmly. The barge was very near now; the music was quite loud; I heard the sound of laughter and then I was aware of a giant of a man—a man with red-gold beard and a face that seemed enormous and on his head was a cap that glittered with jewels; on his doublet gems shone too. Beside him was a man in scarlet robes, and the giant and the man in red stood very close.

My father took off his hat and stood bareheaded. He whispered to me: “Curtsy, Damask.”

I hardly needed to be told. I knew I was in the presence of a godlike creature.

My curtsy appeared to be a success for the giant laughed pleasantly and waved a glittering hand. The barge passed on; my father breathed more easily but he still stood with his arms tightly about me staring after it.

“Father,” I cried, “who was that?”

He answered: “My child, you have just been recognized by the King and the Cardinal.”

I had caught his excitement. I wanted to know more of this great man. So he was the King. I had heard of the King; people said his name in hushed tones. They revered him; they worshiped him as they were supposed to worship God alone. And more than anything they were afraid of him.

My parents, I had already noticed, were wary when they spoke of him, but this encounter had caught my father off his guard. I was quick to realize this.

“Where are they going?” I wanted to know.

“They are on their way to Hampton Court. You have seen Hampton Court, my love.”

Beautiful Hampton! Yes, I had seen it. It was grand and imposing, even more so than my father’s house.

“Whose house is it, Father?” I asked.

“It is the King’s house.”

“But his house is at Greenwich. You showed me.”

“The King has many houses and now he has yet another. Hampton Court. The Cardinal has given it to him.”

“Why, Father? Why did he give the King Hampton Court?”

“Because he was forced to.”

“The King…stole it?”

“Hush, hush, my child. You speak treason.”

I wondered what treason was. I remembered the word but I did not ask then because I was more interested in knowing why the King had taken that beautiful house from the Cardinal. But my father would tell me no more.

“The Cardinal did not want to lose it,” I said.

“You have too old a head on those shoulders,” said my father fondly.

It was a fact of which he was proud. He wanted me to be clever. That was why even at such an age I already had a tutor and knew my letters and could read simple words. Already I had felt the burning desire to know—and this was applauded and encouraged by my father so I suppose I was precocious.

“But he was sad to lose it,” I insisted. “And, Father, you are sad too. You do not like the Cardinal to lose his house.”

“You must not say that, my dearest,” he said. “The happier our King is the happier I as a true subject must be and you must be….”

“And the Cardinal must be,” I said, “because he is the King’s subject too.”

“You’re a clever girl,” he said fondly.

“Laugh, Father,” I said. “Really laugh with your mouth and your eyes and your voice. It is only the Cardinal who has lost his house….It is not us.”

He stared at me as though I had said something very strange and then he spoke to me as though I were as old and wise as Brother John who came to visit him sometimes from St. Bruno’s.

“My love,” he said, “no one stands alone. The tragedy of one could well be the tragedy of us all.”

I did not understand the words. I did know what tragedy was and silently puzzled over what he had said. But I did remember it later and I thought how prophetic were his words that day by the river.

Then he diverted my attention. “Look how pretty the loosestrife is! Shall we gather some for your mother?”

“Oh, yes,” I cried. For I loved gathering flowers and my mother was always so pleased with what I found for her; so as I made a nosegay of purple loosestrife with the flowers we called cream-and-codlings I forgot the sadness the sight of the King and the Cardinal in the royal barge together had wrought in my father.

That had been a terrible summer. News came to us that the plague was raging through Europe and that thousands had died in France and Germany.

The heat was terrible and the fragrance of the flowers of the garden was overlaid by the stench that came off the river.

I heard what was happening from Keziah. I had discovered that I could learn far more from her than from my parents, who were always cautious in my hearing and a little afraid, while they were immensely proud, of my precocity.

She had been along to the Chepe and found that several of the shops were boarded up because their owners had fallen victim to the sweating sickness.

“The dreaded sweat.” she called it and rolled her eyes upward when she spoke of it. It carried off people in the thousands.

Keziah went to the woods to see Mother Salter whom everyone was afraid of offending; at the same time she was said to have cures for every kind of ailment. Keziah was on very good terms with her. She would proudly toss her thick fair curly hair, her eyes would crinkle with merriment and she would smile knowingly when she talked of Mother Salter. “She’s my old Granny,” she told me once in sudden confidence.

“Then are you a witch, Kezzie?” I asked.

“There’s some that have called me so, little ’un.” Then she made claws of her hands and prowled toward me. “So you’d better be a good girl or I’ll be after you.” I squealed with the delight Keziah could arouse in me and pretended to be afraid. With her laughter, sometimes sly, sometimes warm and loving, Keziah was for me the most exciting person in the household. She it was who first told me of the miracle and one day when we were out walking she said that if I were a good girl she might be able to show me the Child.

We had come to that wall where our lands joined those of the Abbey. Keziah hoisted me up. “Sit still,” she commanded. “Don’t dare move.” Then she climbed up beside me.

“This is his favorite place,” she said. “You may well see him today.”

She was right. I did. He came across the grass and looked straight up at us perched on the wall.

I was struck by his beauty although I did not realize it then; all I knew was that I wanted to go on looking at him. His face was pale; his eyes the most startling dark blue I had ever seen; and his fair hair curled about his head. He was taller than I and even at that age there was an air of superiority about him which immediately overawed me.

“He don’t look holy,” whispered Keziah, “but he’s too young for it to show.”

“Who are you?” he asked, giving me a cold direct stare.

“Damask Farland,” I said. “I live at the big house.”

“You should not be here,” answered the Child.

“Now, darling, we’ve a right to be here,” replied Keziah.

“This is Abbey land,” retorted the boy.

Keziah chuckled. “Not where we are. We’re on the wall.”

The boy picked up a stone and looked about him as though to see if he would be observed throwing it at us.

“Oh, that’s wicked,” cried Keziah. “You wouldn’t think he was holy, would you? He is though. Only holiness don’t show till they get older. Some of the saints have been very naughty boys. Do you know that, Dammy? It’s in some of the stories. They get their halos later on.”

“But this one was born holy, Keziah,” I whispered.

“You are wicked,” cried the boy; and at that moment one of the monks came walking across the grass.

“Bruno,” called the monk; and then he saw us on the wall.

Keziah smiled at him rather strangely, I thought, because after all he was a monk, and I knew by his robes that he was not one of the lay brothers who left the Abbey and mingled with the world.

“What are you doing here?” he cried; and I thought Keziah would jump down, lift me down and run, for he was clearly very shocked to see us.

“I’m looking at the Child,” said Keziah. “He’s a bonny sight.”

The monk appeared to be distressed by our wickedness.

“It’s only me and my little ’un,” said Keziah in that comfortable easy way which made everything less serious than others were trying to make it out to be. “He was going to throw a stone at us.”

“That was wrong, Bruno,” said the monk.

The boy lifted his head and said: “They shouldn’t be here, Brother Ambrose.”

“But you must not throw stones. You know that Brother Valerian teaches you to love everybody.”

“Not sinners,” said the Child.

I felt very wicked then. I was a sinner. He had said so and he was the Holy Child.

I thought of Jesus who had been in His crib on Christmas Day and how different He must have been. He was humble, my mother told me, and tried to help sinners. I could not believe that He would ever have wanted to throw stones at them.

“You’re looking well, Brother Ambrose,” said Keziah. She might have been talking to Tom Skillen, one of our gardeners to whom she did talk very often. There was a little trill at the end of her sentence which was not quite a laugh but served the same purpose since it betrayed her refusal to admit anything was very serious in any situation.

The Child was watching us intently, but strangely enough I found my attention becoming fixed on Keziah and the monk. The Child might become a prophet, I had heard, but at this time he was simply a child, though an unusual one, and I accepted the fact that he had been found in the Christmas crib as I accepted the stories of witches and fairies which Keziah told me; but grown-up people interested me because they often seemed to be hiding something from me and to discover what was a kind of challenge which I could not resist meeting.

We saw the lay brothers now and then in the lanes, but not the monks who lived the enclosed life; and I had heard that in the last years when the fame of St. Bruno’s had spread the number of lay brothers had increased. Sometimes they went into the city because there were the products of the Abbey to be disposed of and business to discuss; but they always went into the world outside the Abbey in twos. Wealthy parents sent their sons to the Abbey to be educated by the monks; men seeking work often found it in the Abbey farm, mill or bake and brew houses. There was a great deal of activity, for not only was there the monastic community but mendicants, and poor travelers would always be given a meal and a night’s shelter for it was a rule that none who lacked these should be turned away.

But although I had seen the brothers in pairs walking along the lanes, usually silent, their eyes averted from worldly sights, I had never before seen a monk and a woman together. I did not know then what kind of woman Keziah was, but in spite of my youth I was very curious on this occasion and surprised by the challenging and the jocular disrespect which Keziah seemed to show toward Brother Ambrose. I could not understand why he did not reprove her.

All he did say was: “You should not look on what you are not meant to see.”

Then he took the Child firmly by the hand and led him away. I hoped the boy would look around but he did not.

When they had gone Keziah jumped down and lifted me off the wall.

I chattered excitedly about our adventure.

“His name’s Bruno.”

“Yes, after the Abbey.”

“How did they know that was his name?”

“They gave it to him, and right and proper it is.”

“Is he Saint Bruno?”

“Not yet—that’s to come.”

“I don’t think he liked us.”

Keziah did not answer. She seemed to be thinking of something else.

As we were about to enter the house she said: “That was our adventure, wasn’t it? Our secret, eh, Dammy? We won’t tell anyone, will we?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, better not. Promise.”

I promised.

Sometimes John and James, two of the lay brothers, came to see my father, who told me that once, long ago, he had lived at St. Bruno’s Abbey.

“I thought I would be a monk and I lived there for two years. After that I came out into the world.”

“You would have made a better monk than Brothers John and James.”

“You should not say that, my love.”

“But you have said I must say what is true. Brother John is old and he wheezes, which Keziah says means his chest is bad. He needs some herbs from Mother Salter. And Brother James always looks so cross. Why did you not stay a monk?”

“Because the world called me. I wanted a home and a wife and a little girl.”

“Like me!” I cried triumphantly. It seemed a good enough reason for leaving the Abbey. “Monks can’t have little girls,” I went on: “But they have the Child.”

“Ah, but his coming was a miracle.”

Later I thought how sad it was for my father for I came to believe he craved for the monastic life of solitude, study and contemplation. He had wanted a large family—stalwart sons and beautiful daughters. And all those years he had longed for a child and had been denied his wish—until I came.

I always liked to be near when Brothers John and James called at our house. In their fusty robes they repelled while they fascinated me. Sometimes the sight of James’s sad face and John’s pale one made a lump come into my throat, and when I heard them call my father Brother, I was strangely moved.

One day I had been playing with the dogs in the garden and was tired suddenly so I climbed onto my father’s knee and in the quick way that children do I fell asleep.

When I awoke Brothers John and James were in the garden sitting on the bench beside my father talking to him, so I just lay still with my eyes closed, listening. They were talking about the Abbey.

“Sometimes I wonder, William,” said Brother John to my father. “The Abbey has changed very much since the miracle. It is comforting to talk and we can talk to you, can we not, James, as to no other outside the Abbey walls?”

“That is true,” said James.

“It was a sad day,” went on Brother John, “when you made up your mind to leave us. But mayhap you were wise. You have this life…. Has it brought you the peace you wanted? You have a good wife. You have your child.”

“I am content if everything can remain as it is at this time.”

“Nothing remains static, William.”

“And times are changing,” said my father sadly. “I like not the manner of their change.”

“The King is fierce in his desires. He will have his pleasure no matter at what price. And the Queen must suffer for the sake of her who comes from Hever to disrupt our peace.”

“And what of her, John? How long will she keep her hold on his heart and his senses?”

They were all silent for a while.

Then Brother John said, “One would have thought we should have become spiritual with the coming of the Child. It is quite different. I remember a day…a June day some six months before he came. The heat was great and I came out into the gardens hoping to catch a cool breeze from the river. I was uneasy, William. We were very poor. The year before our harvest had been ruined. We were forced to buy our corn. There had been sickness among us; we were not paying our way. It seemed that St. Bruno’s for the first time in two hundred years would fall into decline. We would stay here and starve. And in the gardens that day I said to myself, ‘Only a miracle can save us.’ I am not sure whether I prayed for a miracle. I believe I willed a miracle to happen. I did not ask in humility as one does in prayer. I did not say, ‘Holy Mother, if it is thy will that St. Bruno’s be saved, save us.’ I was angry within me, in no mood for prayer. It seems to me now that my spirit was bold and arrogant. I demanded a miracle. And afterward when it came I remembered that day.”

“But whatever it was your words were heeded. In a few years the Abbey has become rich. You have no fear now that Bruno will fall into decay. Never in the Abbey’s history can it have been so prosperous.”

“It’s true and yet I wonder. We have changed, William. We have become worldly, have we not, Brother James?”

James grunted agreement.

“You do great good to the community,” my father reminded them. “You are leading useful lives. Perhaps it is more commendable to help one’s fellow men than to shut oneself away in meditation and prayer.”

“I had thought so. But the change is marked. The Child obsesses everyone.”

“I can understand that,” said my father, putting his lips on my hair. I nestled closer and then remembered that I did not want them to know that I was listening. I did not understand a great deal of what they said, but I enjoyed the rise and fall of their voices and now and then I got a glimmer of light.

“They vie with each other to please the boy. Brother Arnold is jealous of Brother Clement because the boy is more often in the bakehouse than in the brewhouse; he accuses him of bribing the Child with cake. The rule of silence is scarcely ever observed. I hear them whispering together and believe it is about the boy. They play games with him. It seems strange behavior for men dedicated to the monastic life.”

“It is a strange situation—monks with a child to bring up!”

“Perhaps we should have put him out with some woman to care for him. Mayhap your good wife could have taken him and brought him up here.”

I stopped myself protesting in time. I did not want the boy here. This was my home—I was the center of attraction. If he came people would take more notice of him than of me.

“But of a surety he was meant to remain at the Abbey,” said my father. “That was where he was sent.”

“You speak truth. But we can talk to you of our misgivings. There is in the Abbey a restiveness which was not there before. We have gained in worldly goods but we have lost our peace. Clement and Arnold, as I have said, share this rivalry. Brother Ambrose is restive. He speaks of this to James. It seems as though he cannot resist this indulgence. He says that the Devil is constantly at his elbow and his flesh overpowers his spirit….He mortifies the flesh but it is of no avail. He breaks the rule of silence constantly. Sometimes I think he should go out into the world. He finds solace in the Child, who loves Brother Ambrose as he loves no other.”

“He has come to be a blessing to you all. That much is clear. The Abbey was founded three hundred years ago by a Bruno who became a saint; now there is another Bruno at the Abbey and it prospers as it did in the beginning. This young Bruno has removed your anxieties and you say he comforts Brother Ambrose.”

“Yet he is a child with a child’s ways. Yesterday Brother Valerian found him eating hot cakes which he had stolen from the kitchen. Brother Valerian was shocked. The Holy Child to steal! Then Clement pretended that he had given the Child the cakes and was caught by Valerian winking in some sort of collusion. You see….”

“Innocent mischief,” said my father.

“Innocent to steal…to lie?”

“Yet the lie showed a kindness in Clement.”

“He would never have lied before. He is becoming fat. He eats too much. I believe he and the boy eat together in the bakehouse. And in the cellars Arnold and Eugene are constantly testing their brew. I have seen them emerge flushed and merry. I have seen them slap each other on the back—forgetting that one of our rules is never to come into physical contact with another human being. We are changing, changing, William. We have become rich and self-indulgent. It is not what we were intended for.”

“It is well to be rich in these days. Is it true that certain monasteries have been suppressed in order to found the King’s colleges at Eton and Cambridge?”

“It is indeed true and it is true that there is talk of linking the smaller monasteries with larger ones,” said Brother James.

“Then it is well for you that St. Bruno’s has become one of the more powerful abbeys.”

“Perhaps so. But we live in changing times and the King has some unscrupulous ministers about him.”

“Hush,” said my father. “It is unwise to talk so.”

“There spoke the lawyer,” said Brother John. “But I am uneasy—more so than I was on that day when I asked for a miracle. The King is deeply worried by a conscience which appears to have come into being now that he wishes to put away an aging wife and take to his bed one who is called a witch and a siren.”

“A divorce will not be granted him,” said my father. “He will keep the Queen and the lady will remain what she is now for evermore—the Concubine.”

“I pray it may be so,” said Brother James.

“And have you heard,” went on my father, “that the lady is at this time sick of the sweat and that her life is in danger and the King is well nigh mad with anxiety lest she be taken from him?”

“If she were it would save a good many people a great deal of trouble.”

“You will not pray for that miracle, Brothers?”

“I shall never ask for miracles again,” said Brother John.

They went on to talk of matters which I did not understand and I dozed.

I was awakened next time by my mother’s voice.

She had come into the garden and was clearly agitated.

“There is bad news, William,” she said. “My Cousin Mary and her husband are both dead of the sweat. Oh, it is so tragic.”

“My dear Dulce,” said my father, “this is indeed terrible news. When did it happen?”

“Three weeks ago or thereabouts. My cousin died first; her husband followed in a few days.”

“And the children?”

“Fortunately my sister sent them away to an old servant who had married and was some miles off. It is this servant who sends the messenger to me now. She wants to know what is to become of little Rupert and Katherine.”

“By my soul,” said my father, “there is no question. Their home must be with us now.”

And so Kate and Rupert came to live with us.

Everything was different. We seemed to be a household of children, and I was the youngest for Kate was two years my senior, Rupert two years hers. At first I was resentful; then I began to realize that life was more exciting if not so comfortable now that my cousins had come.

Kate was beautiful even in those days when she was inclined to be overplump. Her hair was reddish, her eyes green, and her skin creamy with a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was vain of her looks even at seven, and used to worry a great deal about the freckles. Her mother had used a freckle lotion because she had had the same kind of fair skin and Kate used to steal it. She could not do that now. She was more knowledgeable than I—sharp and shrewd, but in spite of her two years’ advantage, I was ahead of her in the Greek, Latin and English which I had been studying since the age of three, a fact which I knew gave great satisfaction to my father.

Rupert was quieter than Kate; one would have thought she was the elder, but he was much taller and slender; he had the same color hair but lacked the green eyes—his were almost colorless-gray sometimes, faintly blue at others. Water color, I called them, for they reflected colors as water did. He was very anxious to please my parents; he was self-effacing and the sort of person people didn’t notice was there. My father thought he might learn to become a lawyer in which case he would go to one of the Inns of Chancery after leaving Oxford as Father had done, but Rupert was enamored of the land. He loved being in the hayfield cutting and carrying and at such times he seemed more alive than we had ever seen him.

My parents were very kind to them. They guessed how sad they must be to lose father and mother and they were constantly indicating how welcome they were in our house. I was told secretly that I must treat them as though they were my brother and sister and must always remember if I was inclined to be unkind to them that I was more fortunate than they because I had two beloved parents and they had lost both theirs.

Kate was naturally more often with me than Rupert was. When we had finished our lessons, he liked to wander off into the fields and he would talk with the cowherds or shepherds or those of our servants who worked on the land while Kate turned her attention to me; and she always managed to score as soon as we left the schoolroom to make up for my ascendancy there.

She told me that we were not very fashionable people. Her parents had been different. Her father had gone often to Court. She told me, erroneously as it turned out, that Rupert would have a fine estate when he came of age and that it was being looked after for him by my father, who was a lawyer and so qualified to do so. “You see we are favoring him by allowing him to look after our affairs.” That was typical of Kate. She made a favor of accepting anything.

“Then he will be able to grow his own corn,” I commented.

As for herself, she would marry, she told me. No one less than a Duke would do for her. She would have a mansion in London and she supposed there would have to be an estate in the country but she would live mainly in London and go to Court.

London was amusing. Why did we not go there more often? We were very near. It was just up the river. All we had to do was get into a boat and go there. But we rarely went. She herself had been taken to see the great Cardinal go to Westminster in state.

What a sight it had been! Kate could act; she took my red cloak and wrapped it around her and seized an orange and held it to her nose as she strutted before me.

“ ‘I am the great Cardinal,’ ” she cried. “ ‘Friend of the King.’ This is how he walked, Damask. You should have seen him. And all about him were his servants. They say he keeps greater state than the King. There were the crossbearers and the ushers—and my lord himself in crimson…a much brighter red than this cloak of yours. And his tippet was of sable and the orange was to preserve him from the smell of the people. But you don’t understand. You’ve never seen anything…you’re too young.”

She might have seen the Cardinal with his orange, I retorted, but I had seen him with the King.

Her green eyes sparkled at the mention of the King and she had a little more respect for me after that. But we were rivals from the beginning. She was always trying to prove to me not how much more learned she was than I—she cared not a berry for the learning such as our tutors had to impart—but how much more clever, how much more worldly.

Keziah admired her from the start. “Mercy me!” she would cry. “The men will be round her like bees round the honeysuckle.” And that, according to Keziah, was the most desirable state for any woman to be in.

Kate was nearly eight years old when she came to us but she seemed more like eleven—so said Keziah; and there were some at eleven who knew a thing or two—Keziah herself, for instance. I was a little jealous of the effect she had on Keziah, although I was always her Little ’Un, her baby, and she always defended me, when defense was needed, against the dazzling Kate.

But after Kate came all the little pleasures seemed to be slightly less exciting. Romping with dogs, feeding the peacocks, gathering wild flowers for my mother and seeing how many different kinds I could find and name—all that was childish. Kate liked dressing up, pretending she was someone else, climbing the trees in the nuttery, hiding there and throwing nuts down on people as they passed; she liked wrapping a sheet around her and frightening the maids. Once in the cellar she startled one of them so badly that the poor girl fell down the steps and sprained her ankle. She made me swear that I wouldn’t tell she was the ghost and from then on the servants were convinced the cellar was haunted.

There was always drama around Kate; she would listen at keyholes to what people said and then she would tell her own highly colored version of it; she plagued our tutor and used to put her tongue out at him when his back was turned. “You’re as wicked as I am, Damask,” she would tell me, “because you laughed. If I go to hell, you will go too.”

It was a terrifying thought. But my father had taught me to be logical and I insisted that it wasn’t so bad to laugh at something wicked as to do it. It was every bit as bad, Kate assured me. I would ask Father, I said; at which she told me that if I did she would invent such wickedness and swear that I was guilty of it that he would turn me out of the house.

“He never would,” I said. “He gave up being a monk so that he could have me.”

She was scornful. “You wait till he hears.”

“But I have done nothing,” I protested tearfully.

“I will tell it so that it will be just as though you had.”

“You’ll go to hell for it.”

“I’m going there already—you said so. So what does a bit more wickedness matter?”

Usually she insisted that I obey her. The worst punishment she could inflict on me was to remove her exciting presence and this she quickly discovered. It delighted her that she was so important to me.

“Of course,” she was fond of saying, “you are really only a baby.”

I wished that Rupert would have been with us more often, but we seemed so very young to him. He was kind to me always and very polite but he didn’t want to be with me, of course. One of the occasions I remember most vividly of him was in the winter at the lambing time and how he went out into the snow and brought in a lamb and sat nursing it all the evening. He was very tender and I thought how kind he was and how I could love him if he would only let me.

Once my father took me down to the river’s edge as he used to before my cousins came and he sat on the wall while I stood there with his arm supporting me as we watched the barges going by.

“It’s a different house now, eh, Damask?” he said.

I knew what he meant and I nodded.

“And you’re as happy as you used to be?”

I was unsure and he gave me a little squeeze.

“It’s better for you,” he said. “Children should not be brought up alone.”

I reminded him of the time we had seen the King and the Cardinal go by in the royal barge. “We never saw him again,” I said.

“Nor ever shall,” said my father.

“Kate saw him in his scarlet robes and fur tippet holding his orange in his hand.”

“The pomp and glory has passed away, poor man,” said my father quietly.

“What are they?” I asked.

And my father replied, “What the Cardinal had to excess and has no longer. Poor sad man, his fall is imminent.”

I could not believe that the mighty Cardinal was a poor sad man. I was about to ask for explanations. But I didn’t. Instead I would ask Kate. That was the difference in our household. Kate had become my instructress; I no longer asked my father to explain what I did not know.

My cousins had been with us two years when the Cardinal died and by that time it seemed to me that they had always been there. I was seven years old at that time and two years of Kate’s tuition had matured me considerably. Kate at nine—grown a little plumper—seemed at least three years older, and at twelve girls began to be considered for marriage in their not very distant future.

I had worked hard in the schoolroom. My tutors told my father that I should be quite a scholar in a few years’ time; he compared me with the daughters of my father’s friend Sir Thomas More and they were notoriously clever. I needed the reassurance of being able to rise above Kate’s ascendancy in some ways. She pooh-poohed Latin and Greek. “Are they going to make you a Duchess? All your little quips and tags! What are they? Just repeating what someone has said before!”

She was wonderful in the saddle and to see her there in her green riding habit and the hat with the green feather lifted the spirits like the sudden sight of bluebells misty under trees or the first call of the cuckoo. I suppose others felt the same; they always turned to look at her; and she would ignore the stares but I knew by the way she held her head and smiled secretly that she was aware of the effect she had and enjoyed it.

She loved to dance and she did so with a natural grace which delighted our dancing teacher; and she could play the lute in a strange untutored way which was somehow more effective than my pieces which were in tune and time. She dominated the scene whether it was at Christmas when we gathered holly and ivy and decorated the great hall or at May Day when we watched the villagers dancing around the Maypole. When the Morris Dancers came to the house she danced with them and my parents, I think, were about to reprove her but she enchanted them as she did all others and soon they were applauding with the rest. She loved to dress up as Robin Hood and I would have to be Maid Marian. I must always take the lesser part.

The servants were always laughing and shaking their heads over Mistress Kate, and Keziah used to say with her throaty chuckle, “You wait…you just wait till Mistress Kate’s a woman.”

I had more freedom than I had before she came. My parents seemed to realize that they could not coddle me forever; and sometimes when Kate was charming everyone, I would catch my father’s eye on me and he would smile and that smile told me that I was still and always would be the darling of his heart and no one however beautiful and exciting could ever oust me from my place there.

Kate knew that the Cardinal was dead and she gave me her version of the affair.

“It is all due to the King’s passion for Anne Boleyn. He is determined to have her and she says, ‘No, your mistress I will not be; your wife I cannot be.’ Which shows how clever she is.” Kate threw up her hands as though warding off a persistent lover. She was Anne Boleyn. I could see in that moment that she was wondering whether a Duke was good enough to be her future husband. Why not a King?

“What of the Queen?” I asked.

Kate’s lips curled. “She is old and no longer beautiful. And she can’t give the King a son.”

“Why not?”

“Why not what, idiot? Why is she not beautiful? Because she is old and it’s horrid to be old. And why can’t she give him a son? I can’t explain that to you. You are too young to understand.” Kate’s favorite explanation when she did not know herself was that I was too young. I had pointed this out to her and it had the effect of making her use it more than ever.

She went on: “The Cardinal tried to stop the King. Silly man! So…he died.”

“The King killed him?”

“In a manner of speaking. Old Brother John told your father he died of a broken heart.”

“How terrible!”

I thought of that day when I had seen them in the barge together, standing close, laughing.

“He should not have annoyed the King. He was silly so his heart broke. The King is going to divorce the Queen and then he can marry Anne Boleyn and they will have a son who will be King in his turn. It’s all very simple.”

I said it didn’t seem simple to me.

“That’s because you’re too young to understand.”

What I did understand and what she failed to was the difference in our household since the death of the Cardinal. A gloom seemed to have fallen over it. My father often looked sad and when I talked to him he would smile and draw me to him as in the old days, but I fancied that his gaiety was forced. He seemed to be over-watchful; and when we were at meals I would catch him listening as though he expected some messenger who would not be very welcome.

Friends often called at the house and they would join us at table. Father had many friends both in Law and at Court. During their visits the conversation would be lively at the table and when they had drunk freely of the wine my father served them they would often talk about the affairs of the country. One thing that occupied most of the conversation was “The King’s Secret Matter.” I noticed how Kate’s eyes glistened when it was referred to; and my father said on one occasion: “Remember, my friends, it is The King’s Secret Matter, and therefore it is not for us to discuss or pass judgment.”

That sobered them; and I noticed how they almost glanced furtively over their shoulders and were very insistent that it was indeed The King’s Secret Matter and none of his subjects should attempt to question royal decisions.

Yes, it was uneasy.

But Brother John and Brother James were perhaps more uneasy than anyone. They used to come often and sit and talk with my father. I was too old now to curl up on his lap and listen. Kate was not very interested in them. She wrinkled her little nose with disgust and said: “Monks. Silly old men who go and live in monasteries and kneel for hours in prayer. Their knees must be quite sore. Mine get sore in church. And they live on bread and water and are always telling God how sinful they are—as if He doesn’t know without their telling Him! They wear hair shirts. Ugh. I like silk and satin and cloth of gold. When I grow up I shall always wear cloth of gold—or do you think silver tissue would suit me better?”

So I did not know of what Brother John and Brother James talked to my father, but I believed that their conversation was full of forebodings and I caught their lack of ease. But only temporarily for Kate soon dispelled it. Life for her was gay and it must be for me if I was to share it. She discovered so much. She told me that Jim, the chief stableman, who had a wife and six children and lived in a cottage on our estate, crept out into the woods to meet Bess, one of the housemaids, and she had seen them lying in the bracken.

“What would she do about it?” I asked. “Would she tell my father, or Jim’s wife?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll tell no one but you…and you don’t count. I’ll remember it. It will be useful when I want to use it.” Then she burst out laughing. She liked power. She wanted to have control over us like the puppeteer had over the dolls which he had shown us at Christmastime when he had come with the mummers.

And then she became interested in the boy.

One day she came to me when I was in the orchard sitting under a tree whither I had taken my Latin exercise. It was a beautiful day and I decided that I could work more easily out of doors.

“Put down that silly old book,” commanded Kate.

“It’s far from silly, Kate. In fact it is very difficult to read. I need all my powers of concentration.”

“Powers of rubbish!” cried Kate. “I want to show you something.”

“What?”

“First,” said Kate, “you have to swear to tell no one. Swear.”

“I swear.”

“Hold your hand up and swear by the saints and the Holy Mother of God.”

“Oh, Kate, that sounds like blasphemy.”

“Swear or you will be told nothing.”

So I swore.

“Now come on,” she said.

I followed her out of the orchard, across our land to that stone wall which separated us from the Abbey. Tangled ivy grew thick over certain parts of this wall. At one spot she drew it aside and to my surprise disclosed the outline of a door.

“I noticed that the ivy looked as though it had been disturbed and I investigated,” she said with a laugh. “And so I found this door. It’s hard to open. You have to push it. Come on. Heave with me.”

I obeyed. The door gave a protesting creak and then swung open. She stepped through onto Abbey land.

I stood on the other side of the door. “We are not supposed to. It’s trespassing.”

She laughed at me. “Of course I knew you’d be a coward. I wonder I bother with you, Damask Farland.”

I was already stepping through the door and when I had done so the ivy swept back into place covering it. I looked about me, expecting the Abbey land to be different from any other. The grass was the same luscious green; the trees about to break into leaf. No one would guess that we were in what had always seemed to be sacred ground.

“Come on,” said Kate and seizing my hand drew me across the grass. I followed her reluctantly. We went through the trees and suddenly she stopped because we had come in sight of the gray walls of the Abbey. “Better not go too near. They might see us and find out how we got in. They might stop up the door. That would never do, for I intend to come here whenever I wish.”

We drew back into the shelter of the bushes and sat down on the grass. Kate watched me intently, knowing exactly how I was feeling and that I was really longing to go back through the door because I hated being where I knew I should not be.

“I wonder what musty old John and James would say if they found us here?” said Kate.

A voice behind us startled us. “They would take you down to the dungeons and hang you up by your wrists and there you would stay until your hands dropped off and you fell to the ground…dead.”

We turned around and standing behind us was the boy.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Kate. She did not scramble to her feet as I did. She merely sat there calmly looking up at him.

“You ask such a question of me?” said the boy haughtily. “That I find amusing.”

“You should never creep up on people,” said Kate. “It could be alarming.”

“Particularly when they are where they should not be.”

“Who says not? The Abbey door should always be open.”

“To those who are in need,” said the boy. “Are you in need?”

“I’m always in need…of something different…something exciting. Life is very dull.”

I was hot with indignation for I thought her very ungrateful and I resented the reference to life in our household.

“My parents are very good to you,” I said. “If they hadn’t taken you in….”

Kate’s mocking laughter rang out. “My brother and I are not beggars. Your father is paid well to manage our estate. Besides he is a sort of cousin.”

The boy had turned his gaze from Kate to me and I felt a strange exultation possess me. I thought of his being placed in the Christmas crib by angels and a great destiny awaiting him. There was a quality about him of which, young as I was, I was aware. He was aloof, seeming to be conscious of the difference between himself and ordinary mortals. It was a sort of sublime arrogance. Kate had it too but hers was the result of her beauty and vitality. Although I was apprehensive I rejoiced that Kate had found the door in the wall and thus given me a chance to see him so closely. He seemed a good deal older than I although there was not a year between us. He was taller than Kate and capable of subduing even her.

Kate was bubbling over with questions. What was it like to be a holy child? she wanted to know. Did he remember anything about Heaven because he must have come from there, mustn’t he? What was God like? What about the angels? Were they really as good as people said they were? That must be very dull.

He studied her with a sort of amused tolerance. “I cannot speak of these things to you,” he said coldly.

“Why not? Holy people ought to be able to do anything. Being holy seems to be no different from anything else.”

She was deeply impressed by him however much she might pretend not to be, and it must have been clear to her that she could not tease or torment him as she did me. He was too grave and yet there was a strange gleam in his eyes which I couldn’t understand. I thought of what I had overheard about his stealing cakes from the kitchen.

“Do you have lessons like everyone else?” I asked.

He replied that he studied Latin and Greek.

I told him enthusiastically that I studied with Mr. Brunton and at what stage I had reached.

“We didn’t come through the door in the wall to talk of lessons,” complained Kate.

She rose and turned a somersault on the lawn—she was adept at this and practiced it frequently. Keziah called it wanton behavior. Her object in doing it now, I knew, was to divert attention from me to herself.

We both looked on at Kate turning somersaults and suddenly she stopped and challenged the boy to join her.

“It would not be seemly,” he said.

“Ah.” Kate laughed triumphantly. “You mean you can’t do it?”

“I could. I could do anything.”

“Prove it.”

He appeared to be at a loss for a moment and then I had the strange experience of seeing wayward Kate and the Holy Child turning somersaults on the Abbey grass.

“Come on, Damask,” she commanded.

I joined them.

It was an afternoon to remember. When Kate had proved that she could turn somersaults at a greater speed than either of us, she called a halt and we sat on the grass and talked. We learned a little about the boy, who was called Bruno after the founder of the Abbey. He had never spoken to any other children. He took lessons with Brother Valerian and he learned about plants and herbs from Brother Ambrose. He was often with the Abbot whose house was the Abbot’s Lodging and the Abbot had a servant who was a deaf-mute and as tall as a giant and as strong as a horse.

“It must be very lonely in an Abbey,” I said.

“I have the monks. They are like brothers. It is not lonely all the time.”

“Listen,” said Kate in her commanding way. “We’ll come again. Don’t tell anyone about the door under the ivy. We three shall meet again here. It’ll be our secret.”

And we did. Any afternoon that we could get away we went through the secret door and very often we were joined by Bruno. It was a strange experience because at times we forgot how he had appeared in the Christmas crib and he seemed just like an ordinary boy, and sometimes we played games together—boisterous games at which Kate scored, but he liked guessing games too and that was when I had a chance. He and I were rivals in that just as he and Kate were at those which involved physical effort. He was always determined though to beat us both—his wits were sharper than mine and he had a physical strength which Kate could not match.

Of course, I said, it was what was to be expected of a Holy Child.

Rupert, though not quite fifteen years old, was working more and more in the fields. He could talk knowledgeably with my father of the crops and the animals. He found such joy in the newborn creatures and he liked to share that excitement with others, particularly me. I remember his taking me out to see a recently born foal and pointing out the grace of the creature. Animals knew him and were his friends as soon as they saw him; he had that special gift. He could shear a sheep with greater skill than the shearers; and he always knew the precise moment to start to cut the corn. He could predict the weather and smell rain a day or so off. My father said he was a true man of the soil.

Haymaking was a happy time; then we would all go into the fields, even Kate rather grudgingly, and then she would begin to enjoy it when the home-brewed ale was brought around and when we rode in on the hay cart. The harvest was the best time though; and when it had been bound and cocked and the poor had finished their gleaning there would be a merry harvest supper. From the kitchens all that day would have come the smell of roasting goose and baking pies. My mother would fill the house with flowers and there would be general excitement everywhere. Kate and I would hang up the miniature corn sheaves which would be kept all through the year to bring good luck to the next harvest. Then we would dance and Kate would come into her own; but my father always liked Rupert to take me out to the floor and open the harvest ball.

At this time conversation seemed to center about the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. He had put away Queen Katharine who had gone to Ampthill. Bruno used to tell us a great deal more than we learned elsewhere because visiting friars brought news to the Abbey.

One day as we sat on the grass keeping within the shelter of the bushes lest we should be seen, we talked about the poor sad Queen and he and Kate were once more in conflict.

“Queen Katharine was a saint,” said Bruno; and he went on to describe her sufferings. I loved to watch him as he talked. His face seemed to me so beautiful; his profile was clear-cut, proud and yet innocent in a way; and the manner in which his hair curled about his head reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Greek heroes. He was tall and slender; and I believe now that what I found so attractive was that blending of saintliness and paganism and the manner in which he changed from being a boy, fallible and quarrelsome, into a superior being who looked down on Kate and me from heights which we could never hope to reach. I believe Kate felt this too although she would not admit it and fought against it. To be with Bruno was so different from being with Rupert. My cousin was so gentle, so careful of me that sometimes I thought he regarded me as one of his newborn foals or lambs. I enjoyed being cherished, I always had; but when I was in the presence of Bruno an exultation took possession of me; and I was excited as I could never be in the company of any other person. I knew that Kate shared this feeling with me, because she never lost an opportunity of trying to score over him, as though she must convince herself, as well as us, of her superiority.

Now because Bruno talked so sympathetically of Queen Katharine she retorted that the Queen was old and plain. It was said that she had no right to be Queen and that Anne Boleyn with her Frenchified ways and her beautiful clothes was as fascinating as a siren.

“She is a siren who has lured the King to dishonor with her singing,” said Bruno.

Kate had no use for metaphor and she was bored with old legends. Whenever she talked of Anne Boleyn her eyes danced and I knew she imagined herself in her place. How she would have enjoyed it! To have had the eyes of everyone upon her; she would have reveled in the admiration and the envy. The jewels and the flattery would have delighted her and she would have snapped her fingers at those who showed their hatred of her.

“And the true Queen,” insisted Bruno, “reproves her women when they curse Anne Boleyn. ‘Pray for her,’ she says. ‘Lament her case for the time is coming when she will need your prayers.’ ”

“She’ll not need their prayers,” cried Kate. “She is Queen in truth though there are many to say she is not.”

“How can she be Queen when we have a Queen already?”

“You speak treason, Holy Child,” said Kate with a sneer. “Take care I do not inform on you.”

“Would you do that?” he asked intently.

She smiled at him slyly. “You don’t believe I would? Well, I shan’t tell you. I shall keep you guessing.”

“Then since we are unsure we should not speak of these things to you,” I ventured.

“Hold your tongue, Silly Child.” She had made that my title when she was angry with me, just as he was Holy Child. The terms expressed her exasperation or her desire to mock. “You will hide nothing from me.”

“We do not want to be informed against,” I said.

“He is safe,” she said pointing a finger at Bruno. “If anyone tried to harm him the whole countryside would be in arms. Besides he only has to work a miracle.”

“The Holy Innocents were murdered,” I said.

“This is child’s talk,” said Bruno loftily. “And if Kate wants to inform, let her. She will not go free because she talked with us and informers rarely go free.”

Kate was silent and he went on: “The Queen spends her life in prayer and she does needlework. She is making a magnificent altar cloth for the glory of God.”

“You may like saints,” said Kate, “but I don’t. They are all old and plain and that’s why they’re saints.”

“It’s not true,” I said.

“Don’t try to be clever, Silly Child.” But she was piqued, and said we must get back or they might come to look for us, and what if they found us? Then they would find the door too, it would no longer be a secret and our meetings would be discontinued.

This was a thought which horrified us all.

It was May and proclamations were sent out that a coronation was to take place. Queen Anne Boleyn would set out from Greenwich to the Tower and after a sojourn there go to Westminster Abbey. It would be a spectacle such as had rarely been seen before.

Kate was impatient with what she called our unfashionable household. This was a coronation—even better than a wedding, she said. Crowds would be gathered in the streets and on the banks of the river to see the Queen pass by. And yet according to some it might be a funeral!

I pointed out that there had been some funerals because of this coronation.

“Never mind that now,” said Kate. “I am going to see the coronation.”

“My father would not wish us to,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s treason not to go to the coronation of the King’s chosen Queen.”

Treason! It was a word of which people were becoming increasingly fearful.

On that lovely May day when Anne Boleyn was to start on the first stage of her coronation Kate came to the nuttery where I was seated in my favorite spot under a tree, reading. Her eyes were alight with excitement.

“Get up at once,” she said, “and come with me.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Never mind why. Just come.”

I followed her, as I always did, and she led me by a devious route through the orchards down to the privy steps and there was a barge in which sat Tom Skillen, looking somewhat sheepish.

“Tom is going to row us down to Greenwich,” said Kate.

“Has my father given his permission?”

Tom was about to speak when Kate silenced him and said: “There’s no need to worry. Everything is all right. No one can manage a boat better than Tom.”

She pushed me into the boat and Tom grinned at me, still sheepish. I supposed it was all right because Tom would not take us anywhere without my father’s permission.

He began to row us rapidly up the river and very soon I knew the reason for Kate’s excitement. We were going toward Greenwich and the river was becoming more and more crowded with craft. I was as excited as she was to see so much activity. There was the great city state barge in which sat the Lord Mayor in scarlet with a heavy gold chain about his neck; and all the companies and guilds were there in all their different barges. The sound of music filled the air and there was laughter and chatter from the smaller craft. Salutes from guns could be heard in the distance.

“We shall soon see the Queen,” Kate whispered. “This is the start of the coronation festivities.”

“Shall we see her?”

“That is why we are here,” answered Kate with exaggerated patience.

And we did see her. Tom’s skillful oar work brought us close to the palace itself so we saw the new Queen with her retinue of pretty girls board her barge. She was dressed in cloth of gold and she looked strangely attractive…not beautiful perhaps but more elegant than anyone I had ever seen; and her enormous dark eyes were as bright as her flashing jewels.

Kate could not take her eyes from her.

“They say she is a witch,” she whispered.

“Perhaps she is,” I answered.

“She’s the most fascinating woman I ever saw! If I were in her place….”

Kate held her head high; I knew that she was imagining herself in that barge sailing down the river to the Tower where the King would be waiting for her.

The Queen’s barge had passed by; a passing boat rammed us and the water shot up soaking me to the skin. Kate burst into peals of laughter.

“We’d better go straight back,” said Tom nervously.

“Certainly not!” cried Kate.

“The Queen’s barge has gone.”

“I shall say when we shall go,” retorted Kate.

I was surprised that Tom was so meek. I had not noticed that he was before.

But Kate seemed suddenly to realize that everything she could see now after the passing of the Queen would be dull in comparison so she said: “Very well, we’ll go now.”

I was shivering in spite of the warm weather. I said: “We could have seen them pass from our privy stairs.”

“We could not have seen the Queen so close,” said Kate, “and I wished to see her close.”

“I’m surprised they gave us permission,” I said.

“I gave the permission,” retorted Kate.

“Do you mean my parents did not know that we were on the river?”

Tom looked uneasy.

“But who said Tom might row us out on such a day?”

“I did,” said Kate, and she was looking at Tom as she spoke. I wondered that she should have such power over him.

We were seen disembarking and my mother came hurrying out; when she saw my drenched clothes there was a great fuss. I was shivering! Where had I been? On the river! On a day like this! What had Tom been thinking of!

Tom scratched his head. “Well, Mistress,” he said, “I didn’t see the harm….”

My mother said nothing but I was hustled off to my bedchamber with instructions to take off my damp clothes and drink a posset.

Kate came up to tell me that Tom had been questioned and he had said that the young ladies wanted to go and he had thought there was no harm in taking them.

“Didn’t you tell them that you made Tom?”

“So you know I made him?”

“I couldn’t understand why he took us. He didn’t really want to.”

“You are right, Damask. He didn’t. But he dared do aught else when I commanded.”

“You talk as though you own him.”

“That’s what I’d like to do…to own people. I’d like to be the King or the Queen, with everyone afraid of offending me.”

“That shows an unpleasant nature.”

“Who wants a pleasant nature? Does that command people? Does that make them afraid of you?”

“Why do you want them afraid of you?”

“So that they do what I say.”

“Like poor Tom.”

“Like Tom.” She hesitated but she was so anxious that I should be aware of her cleverness that she blurted out: “I heard him coming out of Keziah’s bedroom early one morning. He wouldn’t want anyone to know, would he? Nor would Keziah. So if they want me not to tell they have to do as I say.”

I stared at her in amazement.

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“That they sleep together or that I have discovered them?”

“Neither.”

“You get on with your Greek and Latin. It’s all you can do. You know nothing…nothing at all. And I’ll tell you something else. We are going to see the coronation. We are going to have a window in your father’s house of business.”

“Father would not wish us to see it.”

“Oh, yes, he does, and I’ll tell you why. I have made him.”

“You are not going to tell me he dares not obey you?”

“In this he dare not. You see, I said: ‘Uncle, why do you not wish us to see the coronation procession? Is it because you don’t believe the Queen to be the true Queen?’ Very innocent…I was…none could look more so. And he grew pale for there were servants there. You see, he dare not keep us away now and I knew it because if it were said that he would not allow his family to see the coronation, people would say he was a traitor and so….”

“You are wicked, Kate.”

“The way to get what you want,” said Kate, “is to make people afraid of not giving it.”

She was right. We did see the procession pass through the city. Father and Mother took us and we sat there at the upper window of his business premises looking down on the street which had been graveled like all those from the Tower to Temple Bar. Rails had been set up so that the people should not be hurt by the horses. My father’s house was in Gracechurch Street and it was a goodly sight to see the decorations of crimson and velvet and cloth of gold.

What a sight that was! All the nobility were present. There was the French ambassador with his retinue of servants in blue velvet; the archbishops were there and for the first time I saw Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who looked very stern and serious. There were the Dukes and the Earls, the highest in state and church; and at last the one on whom all attention was centered—the new Queen herself. She lay in a litter made of cloth of gold shot with silver and two palfreys supported the litter and these were led by the Queen’s footmen. But it was the Queen on whom one must gaze, for she was magnificent with long dark hair flowing from the ruby-studded coif to fall around her shoulders like a silken cape. Her dress and surcoat were of silver tissue, ermine trimmed. She looked indeed a Queen, lying there in her litter with four handsome men to hold a canopy of cloth of gold over her.

I could not forget her; nor, I guessed, could Kate. She stared at her as though in a daze and I was sure that her imagination had transported her and she was that young woman in the litter, going to the Abbey to be crowned; she was the woman whom the King had delighted to honor even though he had to send many to their deaths in order to reach her. There were wonderful pageants in the street set about the fountain from which on this day wine flowed instead of water; but when the Queen had passed I knew that Kate lost interest in what followed.

My father’s men of business joined us for refreshments afterward and for the first time I met Simon Caseman—a man then in his early twenties.

My father said: “Ah, Damask, this is Simon Caseman, who will be joining our household shortly. He is learning to be a lawyer and will live with us for a while.”

We had had a young man living with us before, but he had made so little impression on me that I had scarcely been aware of him. He had stayed for about three years, I supposed. That was when I was much younger; but it was not unusual for men in my father’s position to take those whom they were tutoring into their households.

Simon Caseman bowed. Then Kate came forward. Kate was always interested to make an impression and I could see that she had. I was not quite sure what I thought of Simon Caseman. One thing I did know was that he was different from that other young man whose name I could not recall and who although a part of our household had somehow made so little impression on me.

Simon Caseman asked Kate what she thought of the procession and she expressed her delight in it. I noticed my father looked rather sad so I didn’t join in quite so ecstatically, although I had been as delighted as Kate with the glittering pageantry.

It was necessary to wait until the press of people had diminished before we could make our way to the stairs and our barge. Father continued silent and rather sad.

When we entered the house, I said to Kate: “I wonder what she was thinking lying there in her litter.”

“What should she think of,” demanded Kate, “but her crown and the power it will bring her?”

During the September of that year there was great excitement everywhere because the new Queen was about to give birth to a child. Everyone confidently expected a boy. It was, the King had tried to make the people believe, the very reason for his change of wives. After all Queen Katharine had already borne him the Lady Mary.

“There will be great rejoicing,” my father said to me as we took one of our walks to the river’s edge, “but if the Queen should fail….”

“Father, she will not fail. She will give the King his son and then we shall be dancing in the big hall. The mummers will come, the bells will ring out, and the guns will boom.”

“My dearest child,” he said, “let us pray that this will be so.”

I was touched that he, whose sympathies were with poor Queen Katharine, could now be sorry for Queen Anne Boleyn.

“Poor soul,” he said.

“Many have suffered because of her, Father,” I answered.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied sadly. “Many have lost their heads for her. Who knows when she will be in like case?”

“But she is beloved of the King.”

“So were others, my child, and what of them when they cease to inspire that love? Many now rest in their quiet graves. When my time comes I should like to lie in the Abbey burial grounds. I spoke to Brother John about it. He thinks it can be arranged.”

“Father, I forbid you to talk of death! And it all began by talking of birth!”

He smiled rather sadly. “There is a link, dear child. We are all born and we all must die.”

A few days later the royal child was born. We heard that the King was bitterly disappointed, for the child, though healthy, was a girl.

There was rejoicing at her christening and she was named Elizabeth.

“The next one,” everyone said, “must be a boy.”

Christmas came with its festivities: mummers, carols, feasting and the decorations with the holly and the ivy. We were growing up and the following spring I heard Elizabeth Barton’s name for the first time because everyone was talking of her; she was known as the Holy Maid of Kent and she had prophesied that if the King put away Queen Katharine and set up Anne Boleyn as his Queen he would soon die; and now that he had done so, many people were certain that he had not long to live.

Brother John and Brother James came to see my father and the three of them walked about the garden in earnest conversation because they thought the Holy Maid could make the King realize his error. It might well be a sign from heaven, said Brother John. I don’t know what my father felt because he never talked to me about these matters. I realize now that he was afraid that I might, in my innocence, say something that would incriminate not only him but me, for young people could be deemed traitors. I understand now that the King was swept on by his desire for the woman who had fascinated him and his wariness with the Queen who no longer did. His senses were in command but he greatly feared the wrath of God toward sinners. Therefore he must convince himself that he was in the right. He must believe—what he said so constantly—that it was not his senses which dictated his actions but his conscience. He insisted that Queen Katharine’s previous marriage to his brother Arthur meant that she was not legally his wife because the marriage had been consummated, although the Queen swore it had not been. The reason his marriage had failed to be blessed with children—except one girl, the Lady Mary—was due to God’s displeasure, said the King. It was not his desire for Anne Boleyn which had made him demand a divorce from Katharine. It was his duty to provide England with a male heir. The new Queen had now one daughter and had proved herself fertile; the next child would be a son.

So the King reasoned and there was no logic which could defeat his conscience. This I learned later, but at the time I forgot the brooding sense of insecurity for hours at a stretch.

My mother did too. She was a gentle, pliable woman, who perhaps because she was so much younger than my father relied on him for everything and had few opinions of her own; but she kept our house in order and our servants were devoted to her; moreover she was becoming known as one of the best gardeners in the south of England. She was always excited when new plants were introduced into England; the musk rose had now arrived; and she grew that side by side with the damask. Corinthian grapes too had been brought from the Isle of Zante and she planned a vinery which gave her a great deal of pleasure.

She was, I gradually learned, the sort of woman who believes that if she shuts her eyes to unpleasantness it ceases to exist. I was fond of her and she doted on me; but I was never close to her as I was to my father. My greatest pleasure was to be with him, to walk with him down to the river or through the orchards and as I was growing older he could talk seriously to me, which I think gave him great pleasure.

It was at the time when Elizabeth Barton became prominent that my father did talk to me.

I remember the day she was executed he put his arm through mine and we walked down to the river. He liked this way better because it was open lawn and we could talk without being overheard as we might be in the orchard or the nuttery.

He told me the Holy Maid had been a servant to a member of Archbishop Warham’s retinue and how she became ill and subject to fits. This state had turned into trances and she had declared herself to be under deep spiritual influence.

“It may well be that she was used,” he said, “poor soul. It may be that she spoke half-truths, but as you know, Damask, she has uttered against the King; she had prophesied his death if he should put Queen Katharine from him.”

“Which he has done, Father.”

“And taken to him Anne Boleyn.”

“Why shouldn’t we forget it?” I said. “If the King has sinned it is he who will be called upon to answer for it.”

My father smiled. “Do you remember, my child, when you and I saw the once-great Cardinal sail by with the King?”

“I shall never forget it. I think it was the time I first began to notice things.”

“And I said to you…what did I say to you? Do you remember?”

“You said: We are not alone. The misfortune of one is that of us all.”

“What a clever child you are! Oh, Damask, I shall enjoy seeing you a woman…if I live as long.”

“Please don’t say that. Of course you are going to live to see me a woman. I am almost that now and we shall always be together.”

“And one day you will marry.”

“Do you think that will part me from my father? Any husband who wished to separate me from you would not find much favor with me.”

He laughed. “This house and all I possess will be for you and your children.”

“But it will remain yours for many many years to come,” I insisted.

“Damask, don’t lose sight of this: We live in troublous times. The King has tired of one wife and wanted another. That may concern us, Damask. I want you to be prepared.” He pressed my hand. “You are such a little wiseacre that I forget your youth. I talk to you as I might talk to Brother John or Brother James. I forget you are just a child.”

“Kate constantly reminds me of it.”

“Ah, Kate. She lacks your wisdom. But one could not expect two such clever people in one household.”

“You are a fond parent,” I said.

“I admit it,” he told me. And he went on: “This day they are taking the Maid of Kent to Tyburn. She will be executed there.”

“Just for a prophecy?”

“For prophesying what the King does not wish to be prophesied.” He shivered and went on: “Enough of talk of death. Let us go and see how your mother’s musk roses are faring.”

The Maid of Kent was dead. On the scaffold she had admitted her guilt.

“I am a poor wench without learning,” she had said. “I have been puffed up by the praises of learned men. They made me pretend to revelations which would be useful to them.”

The learned men who had supported her were such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher.

Because I was so young I was only vaguely and intermittently aware of the tension all about me. I could not at that time accept the fact that the world outside our household was of any great importance to us. My father aged considerably in the months that followed the new Queen’s coronation. He used to row up the river to Chelsea and visited Sir Thomas More who was a very well-known gentleman. He had been Lord Chancellor before his resignation, having taken the post vacated by the great Cardinal. My father had a great deal in common with Sir Thomas, for their lives had not been dissimilar; they were both lawyers; they had both toyed with the idea of becoming monks and had chosen the family life instead. Sir Thomas had a house not unlike ours but his family was grown up and they were a large household because his children were married and their families formed part of that household. It used to be such a merry household; Sir Thomas, although so learned and a man of great integrity, loved a joke; but everything was changed now. It seemed as though they were all waiting for something terrible to happen, and because of this a certain foreboding had crept into our house.

Kate and I could escape from it, although I doubt whether Kate was even aware of it. She could go into such a storm with Keziah over the manner in which a dress had been washed, or if a favorite ribbon had been lost, and these matters seemed so much more important to her than anything else. She was so forceful and I was so used to following her that I began to feel as she did. I had discovered too that there was an inclination in my nature to ignore that which was unpleasant (no doubt inherited from my mother), so I tried not to be aware of the growing tension and to assure myself that it did not exist.

Simon Caseman had now joined us. Father said he was an extremely clever young man and he thought he would be very successful. He had shown a shrewd ability in my father’s business and seemed determined to ingratiate himself with our household. He was always very deferential toward Father and at meals he would say very humbly: “Do you think, sir—” and then go on to discuss some law matter which was incomprehensible to the rest of us. He would put forward a view and if Father didn’t agree would immediately apologize and say he was only a kind of apprentice after all. Father used to chide him a little and say that he was not necessarily wrong because they did not agree; every man should have his own opinion and so on; I could see that Father was very pleased with Simon. “He’s the cleverest of any young man I’ve trained,” he used to say.

Then Simon made himself useful to Mother. He very quickly learned the names of flowers and how best they should be tended. Mother was delighted with him and he was often to be seen carrying her basket for her while she went about the garden, snipping blooms here and there.

Often I would find him watching me speculatively and he even tried to interest himself in what I liked. He would attempt to discuss the Greek philosophers with me—for I had a reputation for being something of a scholar, largely because I was so much better at my lessons than Kate or Rupert, which did not mean I had reached such a really high standard; he would also discuss horses with me because I loved to ride.

With Rupert he could talk fairly knowledgeably on farming and the raising of animals; and he always treated Kate with that mixture of deference and boldness which she provoked and expected from most men.

In fact he took considerable pains to cause no inconvenience in the household—indeed to make himself an agreeable part of it. During the long summer evenings of that year the time passed pleasantly. We went Maying, riding, and on Midsummer Eve we stayed up to see the sun rise; we picnicked; we made the hay, always something of a ritual, and we cut the corn and when the harvest was in we hung our sheaves on the walls of the kitchen to be left there until next year; then we gathered in the fruits of the orchards and the nuttery and stored them away. When the evenings drew in we played games at the fireside. We had treasure hunts around the house, and sometimes guessing games at which I usually excelled, much to Kate’s chagrin.

It was that summer that I saw the jeweled Madonna. We had no right to see it and I am sure Bruno would never have taken us into the chapel had Kate not lured him into it.

We had gone through the secret door to find Bruno waiting for us. I believe he looked forward to these meetings as much as we did. I suppose it was because had it been known that we were trespassing on the Abbey grounds and that Bruno was meeting us, there would have been such an outcry, that we all found the meetings so exciting. Bruno fascinated us both because we could never forget the mystery of his birth. For this reason I was in awe of him; so was Kate. I believed she would have refused to admit this and to deceive herself constantly attempted to lead him into some kind of mischief. She told me once that she could well understand how the Devil felt when he tempted Christ to cast himself down and prove his divinity because she was always wanting to make Bruno do something like that. “There must be quite a bit of the Devil in me,” she said; and I assured her that she was no doubt right about that.

We were lying on the grass and Kate was talking as she often did about the Queen’s coronation and how she had lain in her litter of cloth of gold.

“She sparkled with jewels such as you’ve never seen,” she told Bruno.

“Oh, yes, I have,” he replied. “I’ve seen better jewels than hers.”

“There aren’t any better. These were royal jewels.”

“I’ve seen holy jewels,” said Bruno.

“Holy jewels! There aren’t such things. Jewels are a symbol of worldly pomp. So how could they be holy, pray?”

“If they’re the Madonna’s jewels they’re holy,” said Bruno.

“Madonnas don’t have jewels.”

“They do. Our Madonna has. She has finer jewels than the King has.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Bruno plucked a blade of grass and began to chew it in a very unholy manner. He remained silent and there was nothing like that kind of silence to infuriate Kate.

“Well?” she demanded. “You’re lying, aren’t you? You’re making up stories about your silly old Madonna.”

Kate looked over her shoulder as she spoke for she was very superstitious and she wondered whether she had gone too far in referring to the Madonna as silly and old.

Bruno said: “I’m not. I wish I could show you. You never believe anything that you’re not shown.”

“Then show us,” cried Kate.

“How could I? It’s in the sacred chapel.”

“All things are possible,” said Kate virtuously.

“The jeweled Madonna is in the sacred chapel and only those monks who are enclosed visit it.”

“Then how have you seen it?”

“I was taken there. I blessed her and she blessed me.”

“Oh,” said Kate, “the Holy Child of course.”

“Brother Valerian has the key and it hangs on a chain he wears round his waist.”

“You could steal it when he sleeps. He often sleeps when you are doing your lessons. You told us so.”

“I could not do that.”

“You mean you dare not. You call yourself a Holy Child and you are afraid of an old monk! Where are all your miracles? If you’re really a Holy Child you should be able to get the key…just like that.”

“I never said I could work miracles all the time.”

“But it’s what we all expect of you. How dare you appear in a Christmas crib if you’re not a holy child? It’s sacrilege. You ought to be turned out of the Abbey. You’re not a holy child, you’re a fraud.”

I had discovered that there was one thing Bruno could not endure and that was to have his holiness doubted. I was beginning to realize how much it meant to him to see himself apart from others. His face was suffused with fury. I had never seen him so put out before.

“I am,” he cried. “And don’t dare say otherwise.”

Kate, who could not learn a few lines of poetry, who could not without great difficulty add a few figures or memorize a Latin verb, was knowledgeable in the ways of people. She was immediately aware of their weaknesses and knew how to exploit them. She was determined to see the jeweled Madonna and set to work to achieve that end.

It took her a few days; but during that time she so played on Bruno’s fear that perhaps after all he was not so different from other boys that she prevailed upon him to steal the key from Brother Valerian’s girdle.

I had become caught up in the adventure so that I was as eager to see the Madonna as Kate was. I shall never forget the moment when we entered that cold gray building. I felt that at any moment we should be struck dead for daring to set foot on sacred ground but I was driven on not so much by my great desire to see the Madonna as to share in the triumph of these two—Kate for getting her own way and Bruno for proving that he was capable of acts beyond the power of mortal beings. For who but he would dare to bring outsiders into the sacred precincts of the Abbey.

He went on ahead of us and when he was sure that the way was clear beckoned for Kate and me to follow. We crept through those dank gray cloisters, into the narrow flagged corridors and up a spiral staircase. It was very eerie and so still that Kate said afterward that it was like being with the dead.

Bruno was very pale, his lips were firmly set though and I knew that nothing would deter him. Kate too, her eyes dilated it seemed, silent for once, overawed. Before we had entered the Abbey I had visualized our being discovered and the pain and surprise this would cause my father; but now I forgot that. I was as eager as Kate and as careless of flouting authority. It was a strange feeling; a certain knowledge that I was doing something very wrong and yet an inability to resist doing it.

It seemed a long time before we came to the chapel and Bruno fitted the stolen key into the lock; the door creaked as it moved inward so loudly I thought that the monks in their cells would hear.

Then we were in the chapel.

We crept across the stone flags, past the pews each guarded by a stone angel with what I presumed to be a flaming sword. There was a hush over the place. The stained-glass windows gave a bluish light to the place; the great stone buttresses were very cold.

We crept behind Bruno to the altar on which was a magnificent cloth wrought in gold and silver thread. The ornaments on the cloth were of silver and gold encrusted with jewels. We stared at them in wonder.

Then Bruno drew aside the heavy curtain decorated with gold embroidery. We were in a small holy of holies and facing us was the Madonna.

Kate caught her breath in wonder for she was beautiful. She was carved out of marble but her cape was of real lace and she was wearing a flowing gown of some thick embroidered material. This gown was aflame with the most glittering jewels imaginable. It was dazzling. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls had been fixed onto it. I remember thinking how heavy it must be. The Madonna’s hands had been beautifully carved and rings glittered on her fingers. There were diamonds, sapphires and pearls in the bracelets which adorned her arms. But it was her crown which was almost blinding in its brilliance. In the center of this glittered an enormous diamond; and about this was clustered gems of all colors.

I thought to myself Kate will have to admit that the Madonna is richer and more sparkling than the new Queen on the way to her coronation.

Kate clasped her hands in ecstasy. She had never seen such jewels. She wanted to touch the jeweled robe but Bruno restrained her.

“You daren’t. You would be struck dead,” he said.

And even Kate drew back.

Having proved his point Bruno was now eager to get us out of the chapel; and I think that we were anxious to go although it was difficult to take one’s eyes from that glittering figure.

Cautiously we tiptoed out, and how relieved Bruno was when he turned the key in the lock. The journey through the stone corridors seemed almost an anticlimax after being in the sacred chapel. If we were caught we would be reprimanded but he would not mention that we had seen the Madonna. We instinctively knew that in looking on that we had committed a greater sin than by merely trespassing into the Abbey.

We came out into the open and hurried to our secret meeting place. Bruno threw himself onto the ground, face downward. He was shaken by what he had done. Kate was silent; I guessed she was thinking of herself wearing that jeweled crown. But even she was subdued as we went home.

Murder at the Abbey

OUTSIDE EVENTS HAD THRUST themselves upon us now, intruding into our home, destroying its peace. Even my mother could not escape from this. My father said the very foundations of the Church were shaken. Brother John and Brother James sat in the garden with him; they talked in whispers, their voices grave. My father talked to me as he always did. He wanted me to know what was going on and as he said to me often: “You are not a frivolous girl, Damask. You are not like Kate, concerned with ribbons and frills. We live in dangerous times.”

I knew of the tragedy surrounding our neighbors, the Mores. Sir Thomas had made clear his refusal to sign the Oath of Supremacy which was an admission that the King was Head of the Church as well as State and that his marriage to Queen Katharine of Aragon had been no marriage; it was an admission that the heirs the King might have by Queen Anne Boleyn were the true heirs. And Lady Mary, Katharine’s daughter, illegitimate.

“I am afraid for Sir Thomas, Damask,” said my father. “He is a brave man and will adhere to his principles whatever evil may befall him. He has, as you know, been taken to the Tower by way of the Traitors’ Gate and I greatly fear we may never see him again.”

There was infinite sadness in my father’s face and fear too.

“Such a sad household it is now, Damask,” he went on, “and you know full well what a merry one it once was. Poor Dame Alice, she is bewildered and angry. She doesn’t understand. ‘Why does he have to be obstinate?’ she keeps asking. ‘I say to him, Master More, you are a fool.’ Poor Alice, she never did understand her brilliant saint of a husband. And there is Meg. Oh, Damask, it breaks my heart to see poor Meg. She is his favorite daughter and none closer to him than Meg. Meg is like a poor lost soul, and I thank God she has a good husband in Will Roper to comfort her.”

“Father, if he would sign the Oath this need not be.”

“If he signed the Oath it would be to him as though he had betrayed his God. He has been a good servant to the King but as he has said to me, ‘William, I am the King’s servant, but God’s first.’ ”

“And yet because of this they are so unhappy.”

“You will understand when you are older, Damask. Oh, how I wish you were a little older. I wish you were of Meg’s age.”

I wondered why Father wished I was older then; and I understood later.

I remember the day Bishop Fisher was executed. Then there were the monks of the Charterhouse who were most cruelly killed. They were drawn to the place of their execution, hanged and cut down when alive and fearful agonies inflicted on them. That day Brother John and Brother James came to see my father. I heard Brother John say: “What is to become of us, William? What is to become of us all?”

Bruno told us that there was continuous prayer in the Abbey for Bishop Fisher, for the monks of the Charterhouse and for Sir Thomas More; and that Brother Valerian had said what happened to them could happen to others and much hung on the fate of Sir Thomas More. He was a man who was greatly loved; if the King allowed him to die the people would be angry. Some said it was more than the King dared do; but the King dared all. He would brook no interference and he had declared that any who denied his supremacy were traitors, be they onetime Chancellors and friends of his. No man was his friend who stood against him and none who did so should escape his wrath.

There came the terrible day when Sir Thomas came from the Court in procession with the ax turned toward him. We heard of it from those who witnessed it; and how poor Meg ran to him and threw her arms about his neck before she fell fainting to the ground.

“They’ll never do it,” said my father. “The King cannot kill a man he once professed to love; he cannot murder a saint.”

But the King would allow no one to defy him. I often thought of him as I had seen him on his barge laughing with the Cardinal…another who had died, they said, through his displeasure. No man could afford to displease the King.

And then on that day of mourning the bell tolled for Sir Thomas, and his head was severed from his body and stuck on a pole on London Bridge, from which spot Meg later retrieved it.

My father shut himself into his room; I knew that he spent the hours of that day on his knees and I did not believe he was praying for himself.

He talked to me again, his arm through mine down there by the loosestrife and the long grass that grew on the riverbank, there where we could talk with no fear of being overheard.

“You are nearly twelve years old, Damask,” he said; and he repeated: “I would you were older.”

“Why so, Father?” I asked. “Is it because you wish I could understand more easily?”

“You are wise beyond your years, my child. If you were fifteen or sixteen perhaps you might marry and then I would know that you had someone to care for you.”

“Why should I want a husband when I have the best of fathers? And I have Mother too.”

“And we shall care for you as long as we shall live,” he said fervently. “I think that if by some mischance….”

“Father!”

He went on: “If we should not be here…if I should not be here….”

“But you are not going away.”

“In these times, Damask, how can we know when our time shall come? Who would have believed a few years ago that Sir Thomas would be taken from us?”

“Father, you will not be asked to sign the Oath?”

“Who can say?”

I clung to his arm suddenly.

Then he said soothingly: “The times are dangerous. It may be that we may be called upon to do what our consciences will not permit. And then….”

“Oh, but that is cruel.”

“We live in cruel times, child.”

“Father,” I whispered, “do you believe that the new Queen is no true Queen?”

“ ’Tis better not to say such words.”

“Then do not answer that question. When I think of her….lying in the litter smiling, so proud, so glad because all that pomp and ceremony was for her….Oh, Father, do you think that she spared a thought for all the blood that would be shed for her….Men like Sir Thomas, the monks….”

“Hush, child. Sir Thomas expressed his pity for her. Heads have been cut off because of her. Who can say how long she will keep her own?”

“Kate heard it said that the King was growing tired of her, that she has given him no son…only the Princess Elizabeth…and that he is already looking at others.”

“Tell Kate to keep a curb on her tongue, Damask. She’s a reckless girl. I fear for Kate—yet somehow I fancy she has a talent for self-preservation. I fear more for you, my beloved daughter. I would you were old enough to take a husband. What think you of Rupert?”

“Rupert? As a husband, you mean? I had not thought of that.”

“Yet, my child, he is a good boy. Reserved in temperament, good-natured, hardworking; it is true he has very little of his own but he is our own flesh and blood and I would like to see him continue to care for the estate. But most of all I would feel I was putting you into safe hands.”

“Oh, Father, I hadn’t thought of…marriage.”

“At twelve it is time you gave that important matter a little consideration. Perhaps in four years’ time. Four years! It is long.”

“You sound as though I am a burden you would be relieved to be rid of.”

“My darling child, you know you are my life.”

“I know it and I spoke carelessly. Father, are you so much afraid for yourself that you wish I had another protector?”

He was silent for a while and he gazed along the river and I knew he was thinking of that bereaved house in Chelsea.

And never before had I been so aware of the uncertainty of our lives.

That summer seemed long and the days filled with perpetual sunshine. Whenever we had visitors to the house, which we did frequently for no travelers were ever turned away—rich or poor—there was usually a place for them at the table. If they came from Court, Kate would waylay them and try to lure them out of earshot of my father, perhaps into the gardens to see the peacocks or the dogs that she might talk of the Court.

Thus we learned that the King was indeed tiring of the Queen; that they quarreled and that the Queen was reckless and snowed little respect for the King’s Majesty; we heard that the King had cast his eyes on a rather sly and not very handsome young woman who was one of the Queen’s maids of honor. Jane Seymour was meek and pliable, but with a very ambitious family who did not see why since the King had cast off Katharine of Aragon, a Spanish Princess and aunt of the great Emperor Charles, he should not mete out the same treatment to the daughter of comparatively humble Thomas Boleyn.

If there had been a son, we heard, all would have been different. But Anne could not get a son any more than Katharine had and there were rumors that Jane was already pregnant by the King.

Kate used to stretch out on the long grass and talk endlessly about Court affairs. She had ceased to fancy herself as Queen Anne. She was now Jane Seymour, but the role of meek Jane subservient to ambitious brothers did not suit her as well as that of proud Anne Boleyn. She was inclined to be scornful of Jane.

“How long does she think she will last?” she demanded almost angrily.

Sometimes we went through the secret door into the Abbey, and there she would talk about the jeweled Madonna. The thought of all those jewels looked at only by monks was maddening, she said. How she would like to wear them!

Her attitude toward Bruno was changing, as mine was too. I looked forward to our secret visits. I liked to watch his face as he talked and I always tried to take the conversation out of Kate’s range. It made me feel closer to him. He liked to talk to me but he liked to look at Kate; in fact he rarely glanced at me when she was there. She bullied him; she was inclined to order him about, a fact which exasperated and angered him but only seemed to increase his interest in her. Once or twice she made veiled allusions to the fact that he had taken us into the Abbey and shown us the Madonna.

“But it was you who wanted to go,” I said, for I always contrived to be on the side of Bruno against her.

“Ah,” she replied, “but he was the one who took us.” She pointed at him gleefully. “His was the greater sin.”

Then she taunted him with being the Holy Child so unbearably that he ran after her and I heard her laughing as he chased and when he caught her they rolled on the grass together and he pretended that he was going to hurt her. She goaded him as though she wanted him to do so, so that she would have something else with which to taunt him; I was always a little apart from these frolics; I could only look on; but I was aware of the excitement that seemed to grip them both when they played these rough games.

I grew up fast that summer; I passed out of my childhood. I knew that Kate had special privileges with Keziah because Keziah used to let Tom Skillen into her room at night, and not only Tom Skillen. Keziah was like Kate in as much as she had great interest in men; she changed in their presence even as Kate did; but whereas Keziah was soft and yielding, Kate was arrogant and demanding. But I did notice the men were immediately aware of them both, as they were of men.

Kate took me into her confidence a little. “It’s time you grew up, young Damask.”

One night she came into my room and said, “Get up. I want to show you something. She made me go with her up the spiral staircase to the servants’ rooms and listening at Keziah’s door I heard whisperings. Kate looked through the keyhole and made me look too. I could just see Keziah in bed with one of the grooms. Kate took out a key and locked the door and then we tiptoed down the stairs to the landing and went across to our own staircase and so to her room. Kate was stifling laughter. “Wait till he tries to get out and finds himself locked in!” she cried.

I said, “You had better unlock the door.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Then they wouldn’t know I’d seen them.”

She thought it was a great joke but I was worried about Keziah for I was fond of her and somehow I knew that these adventures with men were necessary to her, and that she would not have been Keziah without them.

Her companion of that night turned out to be Walt Freeman; he broke his leg when he scrambled out of her window soon after the dawn. As for Keziah, she couldn’t climb out of the window, and how could she get out while the door was locked? Walt told some story about his thinking he heard robbers and coming out early had tripped over a root. Kate made me come with her when she unlocked the door on a distraught Keziah.

“So it was you, you minx!” cried Keziah.

“We crept up and saw you and Walt in bed,” Kate told her.

Keziah looked at me and a slow flush spread across her face. I felt sorry because Kate had exposed her to me.

“You really are a wanton, Keziah,” said Kate, shaking with laughter.

“There’s more ways than one of being that,” said Keziah meaningfully, which made Kate laugh all the more.

Keziah explained to me when we were alone.

“I’ve always had too much love to give away, you see, Dammy,” she told me. “It would have been different if I’d had a husband. That’s what I’d have liked—a husband and lots of little ’uns like you. Not like that Mistress Kate.”

“Do you love many men, Keziah?” I asked her.

“Well, my ducky, the trouble with me is that I love them all and not being the sort that likes to say no…there it is. So it’ll be our little secret, eh, and you’ll not tell anyone?”

“Kezzie,” I said, “I think they all know.”

It was a lovely May day when we heard the news of the Queen’s arrest. It shook us all although we had been expecting something like it to happen; there had been so many rumors of the King’s dissatisfaction with his Queen and it was hinted that she was a witch and a sorceress who had tricked him into marriage. He was tired of her witchery; he wanted a good quiet wife who would give him sons. Already he had laid eyes and hands on Jane Seymour and her brothers were coaching her for the role of Queen. This we had heard; but there were many rumors and it was not until that May that we knew there was truth in them.

The King and Queen had gone to the joust together; then suddenly the King had left and the next thing was that the Queen was arrested and sent to the Tower—and some of those who were alleged to be her lovers were sent there too. One of these included her musician, a poor boy named Mark Smeaton, on whom it was impossible to believe the haughty Queen could have bestowed her favors; and more scandalous still her own brother was accused of being her lover.

My father had never believed that Anne Boleyn was the true Queen but now he was filled with pity for her, as I believed many others were too. Kate had seen herself so clearly as the fascinating Queen that to her this seemed almost a personal tragedy. That three short years ago she had ridden through the city in her triumph and was now in a dismal dungeon in the Tower had a sobering effect on us all.

As for Keziah she was full of compassion.

“Mercy me!” she mourned. “The poor soul! And what will become of her? That proud head will roll off her shoulders like as not and all because she fancied a man.”

“So you believe her guilty, Keziah?” I asked.

“Guilty,” cried Keziah, her eyes flashing. “Is it guilty to bring a little comfort to those who need it?” She had been frank with me since that night when Kate had locked her bedroom door, shutting her in with her lover. I was no longer a child. I had to learn about life, she had said, and the sooner the better. Life to Keziah was the relationship between men and women. “Men.” Her eyes flashed with anger and it was rarely that she was angry with men. She adored them, joked with them, placated them, soothed them, satisfied them, and if they were rough or gentle, pleading or demanding, she loved them all; but she did resent that what they might do with impunity was considered a crime in a woman; they might go their way and follow their will as far as she was concerned as long as the women who pleased them were not blamed for doing the same. But when a woman was shamed for sharing in what for a man was considered natural, she could be angry; and she was angry now.

“The King,” she said, “is not above a bit of fun and frolic. And if the Queen, poor soul, wishes for the same…well, then, why not?”

“But she will bear the King and the future King must be the son of the reigning one.”

“My patience, we are clever! We’re growing up and I’m glad. We can have some cozy chats now, Mistress Damask. But don’t you go thinking hard of the Queen.”

“What does it matter what I think of her? It’s what the King thinks that counts and he is determined to think ill because he is off after Mistress Seymour.”

Keziah put her finger to her lips. “Ah, that’s the root of it all, Mistress. This pale beauty has caught his fancy and he wants change. Men are rare ones for change, though there’s some that’ll be faithful. I’ll tell you this, Mistress Damask, there’s little about men that I don’t know. But you find out a little more every time. I knew about men before I was your age. I’d had my first by then. A handsome gentleman who came riding in the woods when I was with my Granny and he said to me, ‘Meet me in the woods close by the cottage’…that was my Granny’s cottage…‘and I’ll have a fairing for you.’ And I met him and our bed was the bracken which, when all’s said and done, can prove as good a virgin’s couch as feathers. It was dusk, I remember, and the air full of the scent of spring and when I got back my Granny was sitting there by the fire she always kept and the pot was brewing and her black cat that she used to say had more wisdom in his tail than most folk had in their whole bodies mewed and rubbed himself round my legs when I came in. She said, ‘Whafs that you’ve got, Keziah?’ I said, ‘A fairing.’ It had blue ribbons on it and was made of marchpane. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘so you’ve gained a fairing and lost your virginity.’ And I was afraid being less than your age. But Granny said, ‘Well, you can’t learn the ways of the world too soon and you’ll always be one who’ll never say no to the men nor they to you, so whether you take your first now or in two years’ time it’s of no matter.’ He came back…that fine gentleman, and we tried it under the hedge and even in a good feather bed and it was better every time. And then he disappeared and I was sad but soon another came riding by…and so it’s been.”

I said, “Keziah, are you not what is called a wanton?”

“Well, my love, I’ve always kept it quiet. I’m not one to brazen it round, I’ve always tried to make it so that it was just a little matter between the two of us. My word, my tongue runs away with me and all because of the King and his Queen.”

I thought a great deal about the Queen lying in her dismal prison. I shuddered when the barge carried us up the river past that grim gray fortress. I averted my eyes when we passed the Mores’ house. It was now deserted and I thought how it used to be when the peacocks strutted on the lawns and there was usually a glimpse of some members of that family walking in earnest conversation, or laughing together as they played some game.

Then came the day when the Queen walked out of her prison to Tower Hill where her head was cut off by the executioner’s sword which had been brought from France for this purpose; and the guns boomed out and the King rode off to Wolf Hall to be married to Jane Seymour.

I kept thinking of her lying in her litter, proud and triumphant. That she had come to this was tragic and I remember my father’s comment that the tragedy of one could be the tragedy of us all.

Meals were more silent than they used to be; guests who called on us and shared our meals no longer talked as freely as they once had.

We heard the new Queen was expecting a child and then one day the guns boomed; there was great rejoicing for Jane Seymour had given the King what he desired more than anything—a son. In conferring this great blessing she lost her life but the important matter seemed to be that at last the King had his heir. We were all commanded to drink to the new Prince; and we loyally did so.

Poor motherless Edward, the King’s heir! Doubtless he would join his sisters in their nursery—Mary, the daughter of Queen Katharine, who was now a young woman of twenty-one, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who was but four years old.

We all guessed it would not be long before the King was seeking a new wife. Poor Queens—Katharine, Anne and Jane! Who would be the next?

It was not of the King’s next Queen that we heard but of something quite different. Keziah was laughing about it with Tom Skillen.

“Mercy me. Well, it seems nuns and monks are human after all.”

“Ain’t what you’d expect ’em to be,” said Tom; and they giggled together.

Others took the matter more seriously. My father was very grave. It seemed that there had been several complaints concerning the conduct of nuns and monks in various nunneries and monasteries all over the country and this was giving rise to great scandals.

Kate told me about it. “A monk was found in bed with a woman,” she said. “And he was blackmailed and has been paying for months. One Abbot has two sons and he has been making sure that they both have good positions in churches.”

“But monks don’t go out into the world. How could they do these things?”

Kate laughed. “Oh, there are stories. They say that there’s a tunnel connecting a nunnery and a monastery and that the nuns and monks meet for orgies. They say that there is a burial ground where they bury the babies the nuns have, and that sometimes they smuggle them out.”

“It’s all nonsense,” I said.

“There may be some truth in it,” insisted Kate.

“But why should monks and nuns suddenly become depraved?”

“They’ve been so for a long time and only just been found out.”

She couldn’t wait to see Bruno. She wanted to taunt him with what she had learned.

“So it seems you’re not so holy in your abbeys,” she said as she lay in the grass kicking her heels in the air.

Bruno watched her with a strange expression in his eyes which I had seen before and never been able to understand.

“This is a plot,” he cried hotly. “It’s a plot to discredit the Faith.”

“But the Faith should not be in a position to be discredited.”

“Any lies can be told.”

“Are they all lies? How could they all be?”

“Perhaps there are faults.”

“So you admit it!”

“I admit that perhaps a few of these stories may be true but why should monasteries be discredited because of one or two evil ones?”

“People who pretend to be holy rarely are. They all do wicked things. Look at you, Holy One, who took us to see the Madonna.”

“That’s not fair, Kate,” I said.

“Little children should speak only when spoken to.”

“I am not a little child,” I said hotly.

“You don’t know anything, so be silent.”

I knew that Bruno was very uneasy and I guessed this was due to the state of tension within the Abbey. My father told me of it. He was very unhappy.

“Life is full of trials,” he said sadly. “One does not know when to expect the next thunderclap nor from what direction.”

“It all seems to have changed when the King changed wives,” I said. “Before that it seemed so peaceful.”

“That may have been so,” admitted my father, “or it may have been that you were too young to be aware of troubles. Some people never are. I verily believe that your mother is unaware of these storm clouds.”

“She is too concerned whether or not there is blight on her roses.”

“I would have her so,” said my father with a tender smile. And I thought what a good man he was and how content he could have been if he could have lived happily with his family, sailing up the river to his business, dealing with his cases and then coming home to hear of our domestic affairs. We could have been a serene family surely. I had my differences with Kate; I saw all too little of Rupert; and Simon Caseman although he was so adaptable and did his utmost to please everyone did not somehow make me fond of him; my mother sometimes exasperated me by her absorption in the gardens, as though nothing were of much importance outside them; and there was my father, the center of my world, of whose moods I was always aware, so that when he was uneasy so was I. I was therefore very disturbed at this time. I was fond of the servants and some of our neighbors. My mother was the lady bountiful of the place and she always saw that her needy neighbors were supplied with bread and meat. No beggars were ever sent away empty-handed. Our house was noted for its liberality. All could have been so happy but for the murmurs which surrounded us and the fact that Sir Thomas More had lost his head and his household was disbanded. These were signs that even my mother found it difficult to ignore. She did mention to me once that she thought Sir Thomas should have considered his family rather than his principles. Then he would have signed the Oath and all would have been well.

And then St. Bruno’s was threatened.

My father talked to me about it. I was fast becoming his confidante in these matters. He talked with Rupert and Simon now and then and they discussed affairs but I believe he spoke more freely of his innermost thoughts to me.

As we walked to the river he said to me: “I fear for the Abbey. Since the miracle it has become very rich. I believe it is one of those on which Thomas Cromwell in the name of the King has cast covetous eyes.”

“What would happen to it then?”

“What has happened to others? You know that some of the smaller monasteries and abbeys have already been seized.”

“It is said that the monks in them have been guilty of unmonkly behavior.”

“It is said…it is said….” My father passed his hand wearily across his eyes. “How easy it is to say, Damask. It is so easy to find those who will testify against others—particularly when it is made worth their while to do so.”

“Simon Caseman was saying that only those monasteries whose inmates had been guilty of abominations have been suppressed.”

“Oh, Damask, these are sad times. Think of all the years the monasteries have flourished. They have done so much good for the country. They have provided a sobering influence. They have tended the sick. They have employed people, brought them up in the ways of God. But now that the King has become Supreme Head of the Church and a man can lose his head for denying this is so, Cromwell seeks to enrich the King by suppressing the monasteries and transferring their wealth from church to state. And since the miracle St. Bruno’s has become one of the richest in the land. I tremble. Brother John tells me the Abbot has had to take to his bed. He is a very sick man and a fearful one, and Brother John fears he could not survive the loss of St. Bruno’s and I verily believe he could not.”

“Oh, Father, let us hope the King’s men do not come to our Abbey.”

“We will pray for it, but it will be a miracle if they do not.”

“There was a miracle once before,” I said.

My father bowed his head.

I tried to comfort him and I believe I did to some extent. But what uneasy days they were!

My mother had sent me out to take a basket of fish and bread to old Mother Garnet who was bedridden. She lived in a tiny cottage with but one room and relied on our house for sustenance. She had lost her husband and six children through plague and sweat but nothing, it seemed, could remove Mother Garnet. Everyone had forgotten how old she was and so had she, but it was a ripe age. My mother used to send one of the maids down with clean rushes for her floor every now and again and herbs and unguents would be taken too. One of my tasks was to make sure that there was always something in her larder and on this occasion Keziah came with me to carry a basket.

Keziah was full of the tales she had heard about the goings-on of monks and nuns. In fact it was the main topic with everyone. Each day there seemed to be a new and more shocking tale.

We had been to the cottage, heard Mother Garnet tell us the story she told us every time of how she had buried all her children, and were on our way back when in the lane we heard the sound of horses’ hooves approaching and there came into sight a party of about four men led by a man on a big black horse.

He hailed us.

“Hey!” he cried. “Pray direct us to St. Bruno’s Abbey.”

His manner was arrogant, insolent almost, but Keziah did not seem to notice.

“Why, Master,” she cried, bobbing a curtsy, “you’re but a stone’s throw from it.”

I noticed his eyes on Keziah; his tight mouth slackened a little and his little black eyes seemed to disappear into his head as his lids came down over them.

He walked his horse forward. Briefly his eyes swept over me; then he was looking at Keziah again.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m from the big house and this is my little mistress.”

The man nodded again; he leaned forward in his saddle and taking Keziah’s ear in his finger pulled her toward him by it. She shrieked in pain and the men in the party laughed.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“I’m Keziah, sir, and the young lady is….”

“I’ll make a bet that you’re a fine wench, Keziah,” he said. “Sometime we’ll put it to the test.” Then he released her and went on: “A stone’s throw, eh? And this is the road.”

As they rode off I looked at Keziah, whose ear was scarlet where he had nipped it.

“He was all of a man, did you think, Mistress?” said Keziah with a giggle.

“All of a beast,” I replied vehemently.

I was shivering from the encounter for there was something bestial about the man which had horrified me. It had appeared to have the opposite effect on Keziah. He had excited her; I could hear that familiar trill in her voice.

“He hurt you,” I cried indignantly.

“Oh, it was a friendly kind of hurt,” said Keziah happily.

Later I discovered that the man was a Rolf Weaver, the leader of a band of men who had come to assess the treasures of the Abbey.

My father was deeply distressed. “Cromwell’s men are at the Abbey,” he said. “This will kill the Abbot.”

What it did mean was that this was the beginning of the end of St. Bruno’s as we had known it. Its sanctity was immediately destroyed. Weaver’s men made the cloisters noisy; they raided the Abbey cellars and were often drunk; they took girls in and forced them to lie with them on the monks’ pallets and took a profane delight in defiling the cells. The girls’ stories were that they went because they daren’t disobey Cromwell’s men; and I knew it would not be long before Keziah was there; and when I pictured her with Rolf Weaver I felt sick.

Brother John came alone to see my father; he told him that the Abbot had been so grievously stricken that he had had a seizure and was unable to move from his bed.

“I fear his end is near,” said my father. “This will kill him.”

When the following day neither Brother John nor Brother James came to the house my father went to the Abbey in an attempt to see them. His way was barred and one of Rolf Weaver’s men demanded to know his business and when my father told him that he had come to see two lay brothers he was told that no one was allowed into the Abbey and no one out.

“How is the Abbot?” asked my father. “I heard he was very ill.”

“Ill with fright” was the answer. “He’s frightened because he’s been found out. That’s all it is. Fear.”

“The Abbot has lived a saintly life,” said my father indignantly.

“That’s what you think” was the answer. “Wait till we tell you all we’ve found out.”

“I know that any accusation which is brought against him will be false.”

“Then you’d better be careful. The King’s men don’t like those that are too friendly with monks.”

My father could only walk away; and I had not seen him so depressed since the execution of Sir Thomas More.

That very night Kate and I saw Keziah come in staggering a little. She had been to the Abbey, I gathered.

Kate sniffed her breath.

“You’ve been drinking, Keziah,” she accused.

“Oh, Kezzie,” I said reproachfully, “you’ve been with that man.”

Keziah kept nodding. I had never seen her drunk before although she liked her ale, and drank it freely. She must have had something strong to make her as she was.

Kate’s eyes gleamed with excitement. She shook Keziah and said: “Tell us what happened. You’ve been at your tricks again.”

Keziah started to giggle. “What a one,” she murmured. “What a one! Never in all my life….”

“It was Rolf Weaver, was it?”

Keziah kept nodding. “He sent for me. ‘Bring Keziah,’ he said. So I had to go.”

“And most willingly you went,” said Kate. “Go on.”

“And there he was and he….” She started to giggle again.

“It was no new experience to you,” said Kate, “so why are you in this state?”

But apparently it had been a new experience. She could only keep nodding and giggling. So Kate and I put her to bed. We noticed there were bruises on her big soft white body. I shivered but Kate was very excited.

A gibbet had been erected outside the gates of the Abbey. On it swung the body of a monk. He looked grotesque, like a great black crow, with his robes flapping about him. His crime was that he had tried to take some of the Abbey’s treasures to a goldsmith in London. No doubt he planned to make his escape on the proceeds, but Weaver’s men had caught him. This was a lesson to any who tried to flout their authority and divert Abbey treasure from the King who now laid claim to it.

It was horrible. None of us would pass the Abbey gates. We stayed indoors, afraid to go out.

Of everything that had happened this was the most terrible. It seemed as though our entire world was collapsing about us. No matter what else had happened the Abbey had always stood there, powerful and solid; now it was shaken to its foundations.

I often thought of Bruno and wondered what was happening to him. He would see those crude men sprawling at the refectory table where once the monks had sat observing their rules of silence. He would see them invading the cells, taking shrieking girls in there and just for the joy of abominating sacred places. I remembered that day when on Kate’s insistence he had taken us into the sacred chapel and shown us the jeweled Madonna. I caught my breath. Those men would find her; they would tear off those glittering gems. The silent chapel would be desecrated.

I prayed for Bruno while my father prayed that no ill should come to the Abbot and the Abbey be saved—although that was a forlorn hope since Cromwell’s men had come to make their inventories. Bruno was in my thoughts constantly. Perhaps he always had been, ever since we had found him that day when we went through the door for the first time. He was proud—apart from us all. The Holy Child. Sometimes I wondered what I should have been like if instead of being born in a normal way I had been found in a crib in a holy place.

Kate and I talked about Bruno while other people talked about the Abbey.

“We ought to try and see him,” she said. “We could go through the door.”

I thought of all those rough men wandering about the Abbey. “We dare not now,” I said.

Kate saw my point for once. Perhaps she had visions of being seized by one of them and forced into one of the cells for many of the girls had talked of having been forced. That offended Kate’s fastidious nature. Kate wanted to receive admiration rather than give physical satisfaction. She was the sort of woman, I was to discover later, who wishes to be perpetually wooed and rarely won.

She did not consider the idea that we should go through the door now. But she talked of Bruno and there was something in her manner when she spoke of him that made me sure that he was almost as important to her as he was to me.

“There’ll be a miracle,” she said to me. “You’ll see. This is what it was for. This is why he was sent. He was put in the crib so that he could be here at this time. You’ll see.”

She voiced the thoughts of us all. We were all waiting for a miracle; and it would come from the Holy Child.

The atmosphere was tense with expectancy.

And then the climax came. But it was not the miracle we were expecting.

Kate came to my room. It was past midnight. She looked beautiful in a blue robe with her long tawny hair about her shoulders.

“Wake up,” she said. But I had not been asleep. I don’t know whether it was some premonition which kept me awake on that night. It was almost as though I was aware that this was going to be the end of an era.

She said: “Keziah’s not in her room.”

I sat up in bed. “She’s with one of the men.”

“Yes, she’s with a man. She’s at the Abbey, I dareswear.”

“That man. He’s sent for her again!”

“She went willingly enough. It’s…horrible.”

“Keziah was always like that.”

“Yes, I know. A man only had to beckon and she was after him. I wonder your father allows her in the house.”

“I don’t think he knows.”

“His head is in the clouds. One day he will lose it if he is not careful.”

“Kate, don’t dare say such things!”

“I must say what I feel. Everything has changed so much. Do you remember when we went to see Queen Anne? How different it seemed then. Now everything has changed.”

“No, it was changing then. It has always been changing, but it seems now that tragedy is coming near…nearer to us.”

Kate sitting on the edge of my bed clasping her knees looked thoughtful. She did not want this kind of excitement. She wanted balls and gaiety, the pleasure of wearing fine clothes and jewels and men desiring her.

“It’s time your father thought of a match for me,” she said. “And all he thinks of is what is happening at the Abbey.”

“We all think of it.”

“It’s so long since we’ve seen Bruno,” said Kate. “I wonder….”

I had never seen her so concerned for anyone before. She said: “Let’s talk of pleasant things. Let’s forget Weaver and his men and the Abbey.”

“We could not forget it for long,” I said, “because it is so much a part of our lives and what is happening there is happening to us.”

But Kate wanted to talk of pleasant things. Her marriage, for instance. The Duke or Earl who would take her to Court. He would be rich and doting; but she was halfhearted and as she talked of the splendors to come I knew she was thinking of Bruno.

Was it premonition?

It was five of the clock when Keziah came in. Kate had seen her staggering across the courtyard and brought her to my room. She was without shoes or stockings and her feet were bleeding; her gown was torn and I saw a great bruise across her shoulder. She seemed as though she were intoxicated but I could smell no drink on her breath.

I cried out: “What has happened?”

“She seems to be demented,” said Kate. “Something’s certainly happened to her.”

Keziah looked at me and held out a hand. I took it. She was trembling.

I said: “Keziah, what is it? What happened? You’ve been hurt.”

She said: “Mistress Damask. I’m a sinner. The gates of hell are yawning for me.”

I said, “Pull yourself together, Keziah. What happened? How did you get into this state?”

“She’s come from the Abbey,” said Kate. “You’ve come from the Abbey, Keziah. Don’t try to deny it.”

Keziah shook her head. “No. Not the Abbey,” she said. “I’ve sinned….I’ve sinned something awful. I’ve told what should be locked away in here.” She beat her breast with such violence that I thought she would injure herself.

I said: “For God’s sake, Keziah, what have you done?”

“I’ve told them. I’ve told him and now ’tis for the whole world to know what was a sacred secret. What’ll they do now, Mistress Damask? What’ll they do now they know?”

“You’d better tell us what they know,” said Kate. “And you’d better be quick about it.”

Keziah rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and then burst into bitter sobbing.

I felt I had strayed into a nightmare. I knew that something portentous had happened. I had never seen careless, sensuous Keziah in such a state before. Had she been an innocent young girl I should have thought that she had been raped by the monsters who had invaded the Abbey, but Keziah was no innocent girl, she was one who would find rape an enjoyable experience.

But this was real sorrow—abandoned sorrow. Keziah was in torment.

I said gently: “Tell us, Kezzie. It’ll help. Start at the beginning and tell us all.”

She turned to me and I put my arms about her. She winced with pain. Her big rather flaccid body trembled.

“I’ve told,” she babbled. “I’ve told what ought never to be told. I’ve done something terrible. I wonder Satan himself don’t come down for me.”

“Begin at the beginning,” commanded Kate. “Tell us everything. You’re just babbling nonsense.”

“Yes, it’ll help you to talk, Kezzie,” I said. “I doubt it’s as bad as you think.”

“It’s terrible, Mistress Damask, I’m doomed. The gates of hell be yawning….”

“Don’t start that again,” Kate said impatiently. “Now what happened? That man sent for you and you went willingly. In fact you could scarcely wait to get there. We know that.”

“Oh, it were before that, Mistress Kate. It were long before that. It was when I found the gate in the wall. That’s when it all began.”

The gate in the wall! Kate and I exchanged glances.

“It were covered by the ivy and none would guess there was a gate there, but I found it…and I went through. I walked into sacred ground. I should have known I was damned from then.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Kate sharply. “There shouldn’t have been a gate and then you wouldn’t have found it. You couldn’t be blamed for opening and walking through. That was natural.”

“But it didn’t stop there, Mistress. I saw him there…and he’d thrown off his monk’s robe and he didn’t seem the same without it—a man, nothing more. He was tending the herbs and plucking some and he was a fine man, that much was clear. I watched him and then I called to him and when he saw me he was that startled. He bade me begone quickly. He said after he thought I was some vision sent by the devil to tempt him, which in a way I was. The devil tempted us both.”

“Go on,” said Kate excitedly, and a glimmer of understanding came to me, for I had a hazy notion as to where all this was leading.

I could picture it so clearly. Brother Ambrose working there and Keziah tempting him with that blatant sensuality which was inherent and would prove her ruin.

“I watched him working and I told him it was a pity all that fine manhood going to waste and all he could say was ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ But I was wicked and I knew it was only a matter of waiting. I went away but I came back and I could see that he was expecting me and I couldn’t think of any other man but him and I knew how it was with him. So we lay in the long grass and we did what was only natural for most men but him being a monk made it all the more exciting like for me. For him too, I reckon. And I went back and he wouldn’t come that time because he was busy in his cell itching in his hair shirt or kneeling before the cross asking for purification or something like that. So he used to tell me, but I didn’t listen. I always knew he’d come back and that he wanted to be there as much as I did. And so it was. But then I was with child. I know it had happened to others before me but this was different. This was with child by a monk.”

“It’s not the first time that’s happened to you, I’ll swear,” said Kate, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

“That was the first time—though it’s happened since, and I’ve rid myself of my burdens with my old Granny’s help. If it hadn’t been the first time I might have acted different. But there I was with child…by a monk…I was frightened. So I said nothing…nothing to him, nothing to nobody, and then it was six months and beginning to show so I went to my old Granny in the woods. She was a wise woman. She’d know what to do. ‘You’ve left it too late, Kez!’ she said. ‘You should have come three months since. It would be dangerous now. You’ll have to have the child.’ So I told her all and that it was a monk’s seed that had made my baby and she laughed then, she laughed so long and loud that she made me feel better. ‘Go back to the house,’ she said, ‘and wear your biggest petticoats. Tell them that your aunt in Black Heath is ill and calling for you. You’re going to her for a spell.’ So I did as she said and I set out with a few things in my saddlebags and I was to travel with a party that my Granny was arranging. But I stayed with Granny and she kept me in her cottage so that no one knew because she had this idea of what we should do when the child was born. She sent for Ambrose and he came to her cottage—though he were living enclosed and that were breaking his vows—and the child was to be born about Christmastime. He didn’t want to do it but my Granny had wonderful powers. He thought she was the Devil in petticoats for he believed by now that he sold his soul to the Devil. She tempted him. ‘It’s your own child,’ she said. ‘The seed of your loins. You’ll want to see it sometimes, watch over it.’ When the boy child was born—it being Christmas, this plan came to my Granny. She sat by the fire rocking herself and talking to the cat. The child was to go into the crib, so they’d think it was a Holy Child. My Granny said they’d bring him up in the Abbey and perhaps he’d be Abbot one day. They made an educated gentleman of him which would be different from his being a serving wench’s bastard. So we planned it and on that Christmas Eve I carried my baby through the secret door and Ambrose took him and laid him in the crib….”

Kate and I were astounded. We could not believe this. Bruno—the Holy Child, whose coming had been a miracle which had changed St. Bruno’s from a struggling to a prosperous Abbey, the son of a monk and a serving girl! Yet although we cried out against this fantastic story we believed that it was true.

“You wicked creature,” cried Kate. “All this time you have been deceiving us…and the world.”

I thought she was going to strike Keziah. She was so angry; and I knew that she could not bear to think of the change in Bruno’s status. She had jeered at the Holy Child but she had wanted him to be set apart from the rest of us.

Keziah began to sob. “But I’m not deceiving now,” she said. “And this is the most wicked thing of all. Now the whole world knows.”

“Keziah,” I cried, “you have told that…man!”

She rocked herself to and fro in her misery. “Mistress, I could not help it. He sent for me to go to the inn—the Abbey Inn. I was taken to a room there and he ordered me to strip and lie down on the bed. So I did and waited for him because I thought….”

“We know what you thought, you harlot,” cried Kate.

“But it wasn’t,” said Keziah. “He came and he bent over me and he fondled me rough like and said, ‘You’re not a young harlot anymore, Keziah, but there’s a lot of the harlot still left in you, eh?’ And I laughed and I thought it was a sort of love play and then he took a rope and tied me by the ankles to the bedposts. I struggled a bit but not so much.”

“You thought it was going to be some new kind of what do you call it…love play?” said Kate.

“I thought that, Mistress…right till I saw the whip. Then I screamed and he hit me across the face and said, ‘None of that noise, you slut.’

“I asked him what he wanted of me more than he’d had and more than he could take as he wished for I had nothing more to give. ‘Oh, but you have, Keziah,’ he said. ‘You’ve got something I want and you’re going to give it too if I have to kill you to get it.’ I was frightened, Mistress, too frightened to cry for he looked like a fiend there bending over me, gloating as a man might when he looks on a naked woman but a gloating I hadn’t seen before. Then he said, ‘You’ve had something to do with the monks. You’re not going to tell me a woman like you hasn’t done a little frolicking behind the gray walls. You’d have had your fill of grooms and stablemen and gardeners and any travelers that came this way. You’d want a little change, wouldn’t you?’ Then with my sin heavy on me I began to tremble and he saw it and that made him laugh the more. ‘You’re going to tell me, Keziah?’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell me all about this tumbling on the altar and in the holy chapels.’ I cried out, ‘It weren’t there. It weren’t there. We weren’t as sinful as that.’ And he said, ‘Where were you sinful then, Keziah?’ I shut my mouth tight and I wouldn’t speak. Then he brought the whip down across me, Mistress. I screamed and he said, ‘Scream all you like, Keziah. They’re used to screams in this place and they daren’t complain. That was a taste, a starter.’ I could feel the blood warm on my thighs. He bent over me then and caressed me, in his rough way. He took my ear between his teeth and bit it. He said: ‘Keziah, if you don’t talk I’ll make your body so that no man will ever want to lie with you again. I’ll make your face so scarred men will shudder when they look at you. You’ll want them just the same but they’ll not want you. You won’t find it so easy to give that I’m-willing-and-ready-sir look you gave me in the lane when we first met.’ And I was trembling and I said to myself: I must not tell. I must not tell. And I said nothing and he bent over me and he said, ‘Just once more to remind you how you enjoy it, eh?’ And then he was on me in that fierce sort of way that was almost more pain than pleasure. Oh, Mistress, what have I done?”

“You never told that beast!” cried Kate.

She nodded. “He had the whip. He was saying all the things he would do to me and so I cried out, ‘I’ll tell you….I’ll tell you everything….’ And I told him about Ambrose and how I tempted him and how my Granny persuaded him to put the child in the crib and make him holy….And he just stared at me and I’ve never seen such a change in a man. He laughed so much I thought he was going mad. Then he untied the ropes. He said, ‘You’ll soon heal, Keziah. You’ll be better than ever. You’re a good girl, and this has been a good night’s work.’

“So I put on my clothes and couldn’t find my shoes….I stumbled out of the inn and home and now it’s out. The secret’s out.”

How right she was.

The secret was out.

How quickly, how suddenly I was becoming aware of the violent passions of men. Those few days will always stand out in my mind as the most horrifying I have ever known. I have perhaps since known greater horror, certainly greater suffering, but in those days I was shocked forever out of my childhood. It seemed to me that since the day I had stood with my father at the river’s edge and seen the King pass by with the great Cardinal I had moved slowly but certainly toward this climax. Death and destruction were growing up all around me, like weeds in an ill-kept garden; but during those days I saw a man murdered and that is something that must make an impression on the mind for evermore. I had heard the bells toll for Queen Anne and for Sir Thomas More and the memory made me serious; but this was different.

All next morning we waited for the news to break. We knew it could not be long. But both Kate and I had been too shaken by it to speak of it to anyone. We hardly mentioned it to each other and when we did spoke in hushed tones.

Did Bruno know? I wondered. I couldn’t bear to think of his knowing. I knew that it meant so much to him to be the Holy Child.

I had to see Bruno. I was amazed by the strength of my feelings. I didn’t care what danger I faced. I wanted to tell him that it made no difference to me that he was the son of Keziah and a monk. In fact I felt a certain relief—although I realized what disaster this would bring to the Abbey. But I must see him; so I went out alone and I ran to the secret door, I pulled aside the ivy and entered the Abbey grounds. My heart was beating so rapidly that I felt as though I were choking. I dared not pause to think what would happen to me if I were caught there. I went to the spot where we used to meet Bruno and I hid under the clump of bushes where Kate and I used to hide, hoping, rather absurdly, that he would come. It was thus that I witnessed this terrifying scene.

I must have waited there almost half an hour, and at the end of that time he did come, but he was not alone. The monk Ambrose was with him.

I remembered him because I had seen him when Keziah had set me on the wall and I had been so bewildered by Keziah’s badinage with the monk.

It was obvious as soon as I saw Bruno that he knew. There was a strange lost look in his face. Ambrose was talking to him. They must have come here because it was an uncultivated spot in the grounds and rarely used by anyone from the Abbey.

“You cannot understand,” Ambrose was saying; and his voice came to me clearly. “I wanted to watch over you. I wanted to play my part in bringing you up. It was wrong. It was wicked. It was a form of blasphemy…but I did it because I could not bear to be parted from you.”

There was anguish in his voice which wrung my heart. I could well understand the terrible remorse and tribulation he had suffered, this man who should never have become a monk. I could picture his torturing himself in the solitude of his cell. The sinner whose actions had shut him out of paradise. Thus must Adam have felt when he had eaten of the forbidden fruit.

I was deeply moved by Brother Ambrose. I think because I remembered that my father had wanted a family; he had left the Abbey because of that, which was clearly what Ambrose should have done. Instead he had tried to have the best of both worlds—his monk’s cell and his son. I understood very well and I wanted Bruno to tell him that he did.

But Bruno was silent.

“I have suffered for my sin a million times,” went on Brother Ambrose. “But I have had great joy in watching you. Did you not sense that extra care that I gave you? Did you not feel as I did that you were my very own boy? I was jealous of your fondness for Clement, for the hours you spent with Valerian. I wanted to be the one who taught you your Greek and Latin; I wanted to cook you tidbits in my oven. And all I could do was teach you about the herbs and their healing properties and their cruel ones too. But I grudged everyone else the time they spent with you. They loved you in their way…but I was your father. I would like to hear you call me by that name…once.”

Still Bruno did not speak.

I could picture it all so clearly—the child’s growing up, the anxious father, his love for the child, his delight in him in contrast to his terrible remorse. I could understand his exultation and his suffering, and I wanted to cry out: “Bruno, speak to him tenderly. Let him know that you are glad to call him Father.”

But Bruno remained silent as though stunned.

And then the scene changed because I heard a loud coarse voice calling out: “So you are there. Father and son, eh?” And to my horror Rolf Weaver had appeared.

I shrank into the bushes. I began to think of Keziah lying on the bed naked with ropes about her ankles and prayed that the bushes would hide me. I could not imagine what my fate would be if I were detected. This man, so bestial, so crude, who was capable of acts which I did not fully understand, was a terrifying spectacle. His doublet was open almost to his waist and I could see the black hair on his chest; his face was ruddy and his black hair grew low on his forehead. He was a beast personified. He was capable of committing any cruelty, I was well aware. I marveled that Keziah could ever have found him attractive even before he had treated her so vilely. But Kate had said that women like Keziah found pleasure in a certain sort of cruelty. I remembered what she had said about his rough love play. I had seen Kate’s lips curl with disgust as she had said that. Kate knew so much that I did not. I wished that she were with me now. I could have done with the comfort she would have given me; and I wondered that I had been so bold as to come here alone. But at this moment they would not have been interested in me. Rolf Weaver had two people to torture and they occupied his attention to the exclusion of aught else.

“Now,” he cried, “what does it feel like to know you’re the son of this whoresome monk and the village harlot?”

I watched Bruno’s face. It was as white as the marble face of the jeweled Madonna.

He did not speak. Ambrose had taken a step toward Rolf Weaver.

“Have a care, Monk,” cried Weaver. “By God. I’ll have you flayed alive if you raise a hand to me. Is it not enough that you have lied to your Abbot, that you have desecrated his Abbey, that you have committed the mortal sin—must you threaten the King’s man?” He laughed. “She’s a fruity wench, I grant you. So ready and willing. By God, you have only to take one look at her and you know it’s here-and-now-and-no-waiting-please-sir. That’s your mother, my boy. Wouldn’t I have liked to see them frolicking in the grass! And that’s how you were made. I don’t doubt it was a shock for the holy monk and his little piece of any-man’s-for-the-taking when they found you were on the way.”

He let out a string of words which I did not understand. I only knew that I wanted to stop my ears and get away. But I could not move for if I did I would show myself, and I was oddly enough more afraid of Bruno’s knowing that I had witnessed his shame than of what Rolf Weaver could do to me.

Then it happened. Brother Ambrose had sprung at Rolf Weaver; he had him by the throat, and the two men were rolling on the ground. Bruno stood as though unable to move, just staring at them. I saw that Brother Ambrose was on top of Rolf Weaver and, his hands still about his throat, lifted him and banged his head several times on the earth.

I stared in horror. I could see the purple color of Rolf Weaver’s face; I heard him gasping for his breath and then suddenly there was silence.

Brother Ambrose stood up; he took Bruno by the hand and slowly they walked toward the Abbey.

I cowered in the bushes for a second or so and then I ran, taking care not to pass too close to the man who lay inert on the grass.

At sundown the following day the body of Brother Ambrose hung on a gibbet at the Abbey’s Gate. My father forbade my mother, Kate and me to go near it.

He was deeply distressed, for in addition to this awful tragedy the Abbot was dead.

He said to me: “We live in terrible times, my child.”

Our house was silent for when we spoke it was in whispers. We all seemed to be waiting for what calamity could befall our community next. My father did say that he was glad of one thing. His friend Sir Thomas More at least was spared the apparently endless tragedies which resulted from the King’s desire to have his pleasure at no matter what cost. I was glad he said that only to me, and I cried out in horror that he should ever repeat to any other what he had said to me. He comforted me; he would take care, he promised—as much care as it was possible to take in this dangerous world.

The commissioners had broken the Seal and the Abbey was now the King’s. Because of the abominations which were said to have occurred within its precincts there were to be no pensions for any of the members. The Abbot, who might have been honored with a bishopric if no scandals had been discovered, fortunately for himself had died while the King’s men were in his Abbey. It was said he died of a broken heart; and I could believe it, and I guessed it must have been almost the crudest blow that could have been dealt him to learn that he had been deluded by one of his monks who had dared defile the holy crib with his bastard child; but the greatest blow was the loss of his Abbey.

All through those miserable days there was the sound of men’s voices as the packhorses were loaded with treasures and led away. Thieves were responsible for the loss of some of the treasures. They came by night and tore the beautiful vestments for the sake of the gold and silver thread in them. If they were caught they were hanged at once; but they did not care about this. There was too much to be gained.

Many of the manuscripts, the work of Brother Valerian, were piled up before the Abbey and burned. The lead on the roofs was of great value and the man who had taken over Rolf Weaver’s duties gave instructions for it to be removed.

The monks were turned adrift to find some means of making a livelihood in a world for which they were ill-fitted. Brother John and Brother James came to see my father and were immediately offered a home which they declined. “Were we to accept your offer,” they explained, “we could place you in jeopardy and as lay brothers we are not so ill-equipped as some. We have been out in the world and have done business for the Abbey and know a wool merchant in London who might give us work.”

Seeing that they were adamant my father insisted that they take a well-filled purse and they went on their way.

Later that day I was in my father’s study and we were talking of the terrible thing which had befallen St. Bruno’s, when Simon Caseman joined us. My father was saying that he greatly wished that the Brothers had stayed when we saw two monks coming across the lawn. My father hurried down to meet them, followed by Simon Caseman and myself.

The monks told my father that they were Brother Clement and Brother Eugene and they had worked respectively in the Abbey’s bake and brew houses. Now they were bewildered and did not know where to go. There was an unworldliness about the pair which moved me deeply; to turn them into the world would be like sending two lambs among wolves.

My father immediately offered them work in our kitchens and brewhouse. When they wore fustian doublets and trunk hose they would look exactly like other servants, he said, and it would be wise not to mention whence they had come.

Simon Caseman was alarmed. He assured my father that taking in dispossessed monks might be construed as an act of treachery to the King. My father was aware of this but he demanded to know how he could turn such men away. I believe that he would have taken in all the monks as he had tried to take in John and James, if they had not all scattered before he was able to do so.

It was later the same day that Bruno appeared. I was walking with my father in the garden and we were talking of the terrible debacle and what it would mean to those men who had passed the greater part of their lives in the Abbey suddenly to be thrust out into the world.

“There may well be more of them to join Clement and Eugene,” he was saying when we saw Bruno.

“Bruno!” I cried. “Oh, I am so relieved to see you. I have been thinking of you all the time.”

My father looked surprised and with a little shock I realized that he did not know Bruno.

I said: “Father, this is he who was found in the Christmas crib.”

“My poor boy,” cried my father. “And where will you go now?”

Bruno replied: “I must find a roof to shelter me until a time when I no longer need it.”

I thought it a strange reply but nothing Bruno did had ever been ordinary.

My father said: “You have your roof. You will stay here.”

“Thank you,” replied Bruno. “I shall make sure that you do not regret this day.”

I was happier than I had been for a long time as we took Bruno into the house. He was given a room. We could not expect him to sleep in the servants’ quarters, I told my father, and when we were alone I explained my acquaintance with Bruno and told him about the ivy-covered door.

“You did wrong,” said my father, “but perhaps there was a purpose in it. Damask, that boy still believes that there is a divinity within him.”

He was right. No one could treat Bruno as a servant. My father told the household that he came to us from people who were his friends. He was to share lessons with us.

He accepted this; he had lost none of that arrogance which overawed both Kate and me and exasperated her so much.

He insisted that Keziah had lied under torture and so had Ambrose. Everything that had happened, he said he had foreseen. It was all part of a divine plan and we should see it unfold in time; and although when I was alone I believed that he reasoned thus because he could not endure to do otherwise, when I was with him I half-believed him.

The King’s men left and because they had taken the lead from the church roof owls and bats began to nest there. The rotting corpses were removed from the gibbets by my father’s orders and given decent burial. We trembled for several weeks after that for fear it should be construed as an act of treason while we waited for someone to come and claim the Abbey and its lands. But no one came.

The Abbey remained, like the skeleton of some great monster, to remind us of a way of life that had now passed and gone forever.

Lord Remus

THERE WAS CHANGE EVERYWHERE. It was unsafe to go out after dark because the lanes and woods abounded with robbers who would not hesitate to maim or even kill for the sake of a little money. Beggars and vagabonds had in the past been sure of a meal and often shelter under the monastic roofs; these benefits no longer existed. Added to the beggars were those monks who had been deprived of the only life they understood. They must either beg or starve. It was true that some could work but few wished to take monks into their household as my father had done, for Simon Caseman was right when he said this could be construed as an act of treason.

Brother Clement settled in easily and one would not have guessed that he had lived the greater part of his life in the Abbey. Sometimes he would burst into song in a rich baritone voice as he worked; and we had never tasted such cob loaves or manchets as came from his oven. Brother Eugene was equally content in the brewhouse; he made slow gin and dandelion and elder flower wine; and was constantly experimenting with berries to improve his brew. When they discovered that Bruno was in the house they could not hide their delight; and I knew his identity could not be kept a secret.

When Clement and Eugene were together they would whisper about the old days; and whenever Ambrose’s name was mentioned they would hastily cross themselves. I don’t know what shocked them more—the knowledge of his sin in first begetting a child and the placing it in the crib to make a miracle, or the violent manner of his death.

As for the inhabitants of the house, we all seemed to be cowering under a blow that had momentarily stunned us. My father wore an air of resignation, almost of waiting. I knew he spent long hours on his knees in prayer. He would go into our little chapel in the west wing of the house and stay there for hours. It was as though he were preparing himself for an ordeal. My mother worked feverishly on her gardens and there was often a puzzled look on her usually placid face. She seemed to be relying more and more on Simon who, whenever he had the leisure, would carry her baskets for her and help her plant out her seedlings. Even Kate was subdued. She had craved excitement but not of the kind we had lately suffered. Rupert seemed least affected. Calmly and quietly he went about his work of tending the land as though nothing had happened.

Bruno concerned me most. His eyes would blaze with anger if Kate or I suggested that it was Brother Ambrose who had placed him in the crib. He told us fiercely that many lies had been told and one day he would prove it.

Kate recovered more quickly from the shock of events than I did, and as Bruno had come to the house she constantly sought him out. Sometimes the three of us were together as we had been in the Abbey grounds in the old days and then it was almost as it had been long ago when there had been an Abbey and we had trespassed there.

Kate teased him. “If he was divine why did he not call down the fury of the heavens on Cromwell’s men?” she wanted to know.

His eyes would blaze with fury but because she was Kate she could inspire some feeling in him which I was sure he had for no one else.

The servingwoman and the monk lied, he insisted.

And as I said, I believed him when I was with him. Rupert was twenty years old now. He should have been managing his own lands but it turned out that he had none to manage. When his parents had died their possessions had been sold to pay their debts and there was very little left. This my father had set aside for Rupert when he was of age, but he had never told Kate or Rupert the true state of affairs as he had not wished them to think they were living on charity.

Rupert told me this himself when he came on me one day in the nuttery. I was seated in my favorite spot under a filbert tree reading and he came and sprawled beside me. He picked up a nut and idly threw it from him and then he started to talk to me and I realized that I was receiving a proposal of marriage.

“My uncle is the best man alive,” he began; and he had certainly chosen the best opening to please me. I agreed fervently.

“Sometimes,” I said, “I fear that he is too good.”

Could anyone be too good? Rupert wondered; and I answered, yes, because then they endangered themselves for the sake of others. My father had taken in the monks and that might be considered an unwise thing to do. There was Sir Thomas. Had he forgotten him? He was a man who was too good and what had happened to him? He had lost his head and his once happy household was no more.

“Life is cruel sometimes, Damask,” said Rupert. “And then it is good to have someone to stand beside you.”

I agreed.

“I had thought,” he went on, “that one day I should leave here to manage my own estate and I have learned that I have no estate. Your father did not wish us to know that we were paupers so he let us believe that our lands had not been seized by our parents’ creditors when they died. So, I have nothing, Damask.”

“But you have us. This is your home.”

“As I hope it will always be.”

“My father says that the land has never been tended as you tend it. The men work for you as they work for no one else.”

“I have a feeling for the land, Damask, this land. I know your father hopes I will stay here forever.”

“And will you?”

“It depends.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On you perhaps. This will be yours one day…yours and your husband’s. When that day comes you would not want me here.”

“Nonsense, Rupert. I’d always want you here…you and Kate. You are as my brother and sister.”

“Kate will marry, doubtless.”

“You too, Rupert. And you will bring your wife here. Why, the house is big enough and we can always make it bigger. We have so much land. You are looking sad.”

“This has become as my home,” he said. “I love the land. I love the animals. Your father is as my own.”

“And I am as much a sister to you as Kate is. Oh, I couldn’t bear for all this to be broken up…as the Abbey has been.”

He picked up another nut and threw it. He said: “I believe your father hopes that you and I will marry.”

I said sharply: “That is not something that can be done because it would be comfortable and convenient to do it.”

“Oh, no, no,” said Rupert quickly.

I felt a little hurt. It was in a way a proposal, my first, and it had been offered to me as a convenient arrangement for the disposal of my father’s lands.

I murmured that I had a Latin exercise to complete and Rupert, flushing a little, rose to his feet and went away.

I thought of marriage with Rupert and children growing up in this house. I would like a large family; I flushed uneasily, because the father I visualized for them was not Rupert.

I went up to my room. I sat on the window seat looking out through the latticed window. I saw Kate and Bruno walking together. They were talking earnestly. I felt sad because Bruno never talked to me in that earnest manner. In fact he talked to no one like that—but Kate.

When Keziah had heard that Ambrose was hanged at the Abbey’s Gate she had gone to the gibbet and stood there gazing at him. It was difficult to get her away. One of her fellow servants had brought her home but she was back again and the first night that he hung there she kept her vigil at the gibbet.

On the second day Jennet, one of our housemaids, brought her back and told me that Keziah seemed to be possessed and was acting in an unusual way. I went to her and found her in a strange state. I put her to bed and told her she was to stay there. She remained there for a week. The weals on her thighs had become inflamed and as I couldn’t think how to heal them I went to Mother Salter in the woods and asked her advice. She was pleased that I was looking after Keziah and gave me some lotions to put on the sore places and a concoction of herbs for Keziah to drink.

I nursed Keziah myself. It was something for me to do during that strange time. I think part of her trouble was that she could not face people. Ambrose was dead and she stood alone and as the perpetrator of that wicked hoax she was afraid to face the world.

She used to ramble in her talk sometimes as I sat by her bed. There was a great deal about Ambrose and the manner in which she had tempted him; she blamed herself; she was the wicked one.

“Oh, Damask,” she said, “don’t think too bad of me. It were as natural to me as breathing and there was no holding back. ’Tis like that with some of us…though ’twill not be with you maybe…nor with Mistress Kate. The men should beware of Mistress Kate…all fire on top and ice beneath…and them’s the dangerous ones. And you, Mistress Damask, you’ll be a good and faithful wife, I promise you, which is the best thing to be.”

Then she talked about the boy. “He never looks at me, Damask…or when he does it’s to despise me. He’ll never forgive me for being his mother. He’s dreamed dreams, that boy. He believed he was sent from Heaven. A Holy Child, he thought, and then he finds he’s the result of a win between a wanton servant wench and a monk who broke his vows.”

I begged her to be at peace. The past was over; she must start afresh.

“Mercy me,” she said with a return of her old smile. “You talk like your father, Mistress Damask.”

“There’s no one I would rather talk like,” I assured her.

I was a comfort to her strangely enough; and it was I who dressed her wounds with the ointments her grandmother had given me; I assigned her duties to another of the maids that she might rest in solitude until she could face the world.

She used to sit at her window and watch for a glimpse of Bruno. I believe he knew that she watched for him; but he never glanced up at her window.

Once I said to him: “Keziah watches for you. If you would look at her window and smile it would do her so much good.”

He looked at me coldly. “She is a wicked woman,” he said.

“She is your mother,” I reminded him.

“I don’t believe it.”

His mouth was grim; his eyes cold. I saw then that he forced himself not to believe this. He dared not believe it. He had lived so long with the notion that he was apart from us all that it was more than he could endure to accept it as otherwise.

I said softly: “One must face the truth, Bruno.”

“The truth! Is that what you call the words uttered by a wicked monk and a lecherous serving girl?”

I did not tell him that I had heard Ambrose talking to him a few moments before he had murdered Rolf Weaver.

“It’s lies!” said Bruno almost hysterically. “Lies, lies, all lies.”

In a way, I thought, he is like Keziah. She cannot face the world and he cannot face the truth.

How quickly one becomes accustomed to change. It was but a month since the last packhorse laden with Abbey treasure had departed and there we were adjusted to our new way of life.

The trees were in full leaf; the bracken plentiful; the shrubs green and bushy; the roses bloomed that year as never before and my mother was out in the garden through most of the day. Bruno had helped her make an herb garden because Ambrose had passed on his knowledge in this field. My mother was quite animated by this prospect and Bruno worked with her in a silence of which she did not seem to be aware.

Already weeds had started to grow in the Abbey gardens; no one interfered; they were unsure how such action would be regarded. Each day we had expected something to be done, but St. Bruno’s seemed to have been forgotten. At the end of each day several beggars would be at our gates and a bench with forms had been set up in the garden and on my father’s orders any beggar received a quart of beer and as many spice cakes as he could eat.

I sat one day in my mother’s rose garden—a delightful spot with a wall surrounding it and reached through a wrought-iron gate and I said to myself: “It won’t go on like this. This is a lull. Something will happen soon. Keziah could not stay in her bedroom; she would have to bestir herself. My father would return to a more normal life and not spend so much time in solitude and prayer. Someone would take over the Abbey. I had heard that the King made gifts of Abbey lands to those who had earned his favors. Oh, yes, it had to change.”

And while I was brooding on these matters the gate clicked and Bruno and Kate came into the garden. I noticed that their fingers were interlaced. They were talking earnestly. Then they saw me.

“Here’s Damask,” said Kate unnecessarily. I noticed that her eyes were brilliant and her expression soft; and I was sad because with Kate, Bruno could be different from the way he could be with anyone else. I felt shut out of a magic circle of which I so longed to be a part.

“The roses are more beautiful this year,” I said.

I sensed that they wanted to go away or for me to go; but I stood my ground.

“Come and sit down,” I said. “It is very pleasant here.”

To my surprise they obeyed me, and we sat Bruno between us.

I said, “This reminds me of the old days in the Abbey grounds.”

“It is not a bit like that,” retorted Kate. “This is my aunt’s rose garden, not Abbey land.”

“I meant the three of us together.”

“It’s a long time ago,” said Bruno.

I wanted to recapture the days when we were a trio of which I was a definite part.

I went on: “I shall never forget the day we went into the Abbey…the three of us and you showed us the jeweled Madonna.”

A faint color had come into Bruno’s cheeks. Kate was unusually silent. I guessed that they were, as I was, thinking of the moment when the great iron-studded door had opened and its creak had sounded loud enough to awaken the dead. I could smell the dampness, which had seemed to rise from those great flagged stones; I could feel the silence.

I said: “I’ve often wondered what happened to the jeweled Madonna. Those men must have taken her away and given her and all her jewels to the King.”

“They did not take her,” said Bruno. “There was a miracle.”

We both turned to him and I knew that this was the first time he had spoken of the jeweled Madonna even to Kate.

“What happened?” asked Kate.

“When they went into the sacred chapel the Madonna was not there.”

“Then where was she?” asked Kate.

“No one knew. She had disappeared. It was said she had gone back to heaven rather than let the robbers get her.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Kate. “Someone hid her away before the men could get her.”

“It was a miracle,” replied Bruno.

“Miracles!” cried Kate. “I don’t believe in miracles anymore.”

Bruno had stood up, his face flushed and angry. Kate caught his hand but he flung her aside; and then he ran out of the rose garden. Kate ran after him.

“Bruno!” I heard her call imperiously. “Come back to me.”

And I was left sitting there, with the realization that I could never be as close to him as Kate was and feeling lonely and sad because of it.

While I sat in the rose garden Simon Caseman came in. I thought he was looking for my mother and I told him I thought she was in the herb garden.

“But it was you I came to see, Mistress Damask,” he said; and he sat beside me. He studied me so intently that I felt embarrassed under his gaze, especially as the recent encounter with Bruno and Kate had upset me. He went on: “Why, you are growing into a beauty.”

“I do not believe that to be true.”

“And modest withal.”

“Not modest,” I said. “If I thought I were a beauty I should not hesitate to admit it, for beauty is not a thing to take credit for since it is bestowed and not earned.”

“And wise,” he said. “I confess to be a little overawed in your presence. Your father constantly speaks of your erudition.”

“You should take that as paternal pride. To a father his geese are swans.”

“In this case I find myself in wholehearted agreement with the parent in question.”

“I can only believe that you have lost your sense of judgment then. I fear for your performance in the courts.”

“What a joy it is to talk with you, Mistress Damask.”

“You are easily content, Master Caseman.”

“There is one thing I would like to ask you, with your permission.”

“That permission is given.”

“You are no longer a child. Have you ever thought of giving your hand in marriage?”

“I suppose it is natural in all young women to think of eventual marriage.”

“He to whom you gave your hand would be doubly favored. A beautiful and clever wife. What more could any man ask? He would be fortunate above all men.”

“I have no doubt that any who asked my hand in marriage might well have his thoughts on my inheritance.”

“My dear Mistress Damask, he would be too dazzled by your charms to think of such a matter.”

“Or so dazzled by my inheritance that he might well be mistaken about my beauty and erudition, don’t you think?”

“It would depend on the man. If he were, he deserves to be….”

“Well? Hanged, drawn and quartered?”

“Worse than that. Rejected.”

“I had no idea that you had such a talent for gallant speeches.”

“If I have it is you who have inspired them.”

“I wonder why.”

“Do you? You, who are so clever, must have been aware of my intentions.”

“Toward me?”

“Toward no one else.”

“Master Caseman, is this a proposal?”

“It is. I should be the happiest of men if I might go to your father and tell him that you have consented to be my wife.”

“Then I am afraid I cannot give you that pleasure.”

I had risen. But my heart was pounding for I felt afraid; and I could not tell why this sudden desire to run should have come to me. I was here in my mother’s peaceful rose garden with a man who was a member of our household, a friend of my father and one of whom he thought highly, and yet I experienced this sudden revulsion.

Simon Caseman had risen too. He stood beside me. He was not a big man—only two inches or so taller than I, and his face was very close to mine. His eyes were warm, alert and golden brown; his hair had a reddish tinge too; and the lines on his face made it appear to me, seen so close, like a fox’s mask. I knew in that moment that I was afraid of him.

I turned to go but he caught my arm. His grip was firm as he said: “What have you in mind, Mistress Damask? Is it to marry someone else?”

I wished the color would not flame into my cheeks. I said: “I had not thought of marrying anyone.”

“You do not plan to enter a convent?” His lips curled slightly. “That would be an unwise plan….at this time when so many of our convents have gone the way of our monasteries.”

I withdrew my arm and said coldly: “I do not think I am of an age to consider marriage.”

His hand lightly brushed the front of my gown. “Why, Mistress Damask, you are a woman already. You should not delay your enjoyments of womanhood, I do assure you. Pray do not reject me without consideration. I do verily believe that your father would not object to our union. I know that he wishes to see you under the protection of one whom he trusts. For these are troublous times in which we live.”

“I shall make my own choice,” I said.

And I walked out of the rose garden.

I was very shaken. I was not yet seventeen and I had already had two proposals of marriage whereas beautiful Kate, who was two years older, had not had one.

Or had she? But who could have proposed to Kate?

It was strange that I should have had this thought about Kate because a week or so after that scene in the rose garden Lord Remus called at the house.

We had known that he was coming because my father had settled some matter of law for him and as he was a very rich and powerful nobleman my mother was making a very special occasion of his visit.

All that day Clement had been working in the bakehouse; he had made pies with fancy crusts and there was one in the form of the Remus coat of arms. Clement was delighted with it because in the Abbey kitchen he had not had the opportunity of indulging in such frivolity. My mother was in her element for if there was anything she liked better than working in her garden it was preparing for visitors in the house. She took on a new authority. It was clear that she wished we entertained more.

Kate and I watched the arrival of the visitors from the window of her room. We were disappointed in Lord Remus who was fat and walked with a stick, wheezing as he made his way up the slope of the lawn from the privy steps. But he was very richly clad and quite clearly a man of great consequence.

Father led him into the hall where we were all waiting to greet the visitors. Mother first and Lord Remus was very gracious to her, then myself as the daughter of the house and the others, Rupert, Kate, Simon and Bruno. (I was delighted to see he was included.) My family, Father called us.

Kate swept a beautiful curtsy which she had been practicing all day; her long hair was caught up in a gold net and she looked beautiful.

That Lord Remus thought so was obvious for his eyes lingered on her, a fact of which no one was more aware than Kate.

It was a banquet that was put before our distinguished guest. There was fish—dace, barbel and chub all served in herbs of my mother’s growing. Lord Remus congratulated her on her cook and she was delighted. Then there was sucking pig and beef and mutton followed by my mother’s own brand of syllabub. There was ale and wine in plenty and I saw my mother’s eyes gleam with satisfaction and I thought how easy it was for her to be happy in the moment; and how strange it was that such a short time ago we were living in terror of what would happen next and I could not get out of my mind the image of Brother Ambrose hanging from his gibbet at the Abbey’s Gate.

Kate, who was seated opposite Lord Remus, asked him when he was last at Court and he replied that he was there but a week before. He talked of the Court and the King’s dissatisfaction with his state and how his temper was such that it was apt to flare up if one were careless enough to rouse it.

“I’ll warrant you, my lord, are the soul of tact,” said Kate.

“My dear young lady, I have a desire to keep my head on my shoulders, for that I consider is where it belongs.”

Kate laughed a great deal and I saw my mother glance at her and I thought afterward she will be reprimanded for her forwardness; but for the time that could pass, for Lord Remus did not seem to object to it.

Lord Remus had drunk a great deal of the elderberry concoction which my mother admitted was particularly fine this year and he was inclined to be talkative.

“The King needs a wife,” he said. “He cannot be happy without a wife, even when he is looking for a new wife. He must have a wife.”

Kate laughed a great deal and the rest of us smiled; I guessed my parents were thinking uneasily of the servants.

“This time,” said Lord Remus, “he is looking for a Princess from the Continent, but some of the ladies are just a little reluctant.” He glanced at Kate. “Like me, young lady, they are anxious to keep their heads and in view of what happened to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn and even to Queen Katharine, the reluctance is understandable.”

“It is like the Arabian nights,” said Kate. “Perhaps if the King could find a Queen who could continue to amuse him she could continue to live.”

“That is what the new Princess will have to aim for,” said Lord Remus. “I hear that the sister of the Duke of Cleves has the King’s attention. Master Holbein has painted a beautiful portrait of her and the King declares himself to be enamored of the lady already.”

“So the new Queen is chosen.”

“That is what is being said at Court. Master Cromwell is eager for the marriage. I never liked the man—a low fellow—but the King finds him clever. It would be a good marriage for politics’ sake, so they say. I’ll dareswear that very soon you will be seeing another coronation.”

“She will be the King’s fourth wife,” said Kate. “I should love to see her. I daresay she is very beautiful.”

“Princesses are rarely as beautiful as they are made out to be,” said Lord Remus. “I’ll warrant those who lack royalty can often make up for it in beauty.” He was smiling at Kate in somewhat bleary-eyed concentration. Our elderberries were very potent that year. They must have been or I am sure he would not have spoken so freely.

I think my father was rather relieved when the meal was over; then my mother led Lord Remus into the music room and she sang a very pleasant ditty to him which he applauded with delight and then Kate took her lute and sang.

She sang a love song and every now and then she would raise her eyes and smile in the direction of Lord Remus. Her long hair escaped from the gold net and fell about her shoulders; she pretended to throw it impatiently back but I knew her well enough to realize she was calling attention to it.

When Lord Remus left we all conducted him to the privy stairs and watched his barge sail up the river.

I noticed that Kate was laughing as though at some secret joke.

She came to my room that night. She had to talk to someone and she had always used me for this purpose.

She stretched out on my bed. She always did that while I was expected to occupy the window seat.

“Well,” she said, “what thought you of my lord?”

“That he eats too much, drinks too much and laughs too much at his own jokes and not enough at other people’s.”

“I know so many to whom those words could apply.”

“Which shows that my lord is so like many others that there is very little new one can say about him.”

“One could say that he is rich; that he has a large estate in the country and a place at Court.”

“All of which could make him very desirable in the eyes of scheming young women.”

“There you speak sense, my child.”

“Pray do not call me your child. I have had a proposal of marriage which is more than you have had.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Master Caseman?”

I nodded.

“He doesn’t want to marry you, Damask, so much as all this…your lands, this house and everything that you will inherit from your father.”

“That is exactly what I implied.”

“You are not so foolish after all.”

“And no longer a child, since plus my inheritance I am considered marriageable.”

“Lucky Damask! And what have I to recommend me? What but my beauty and charm.”

“Which seem to have their effects. Even gentlemen with a place at Court and an estate in the country seem to be not unimpressed by them.”

“So you think he was impressed?”

“Without doubt. But were you wasting your talents?”

“Indeed not. He could make me his lady tomorrow an he wished it. He has had two wives and buried them.”

“By the faith,” I said, “he is almost as much married as the King. But, Kate, he is an old man.”

“And I am a young woman without your inheritance. Your father will give me a dowry, I doubt not, but it will not be anything to compare with what his darling daughter Damask will bring to her husband.”

“I would that there need not be this talk of marriage. It seems to me to be a melancholy subject.”

“Why so?”

I did not answer. I thought of the fox’s mask which I had seen on Simon Caseman’s face and of Kate’s planning to lure Lord Remus into marriage because he had a high-sounding title, an estate in the country and a place at Court.

“Marriage,” I said, “should be for the young, those who love not worldly goods and titles but each other.”

“There speaks my romantic cousin,” said Kate. “Who said you had grown up? You are a child still. You are a dreamer. It so often happens that those we love are not the ones we dare marry. So let us be gay. Let us enjoy what we can while we may.”

But she was no longer bantering; and there was a faraway look in her eyes which I did not then fully understand. That came later.

A change had come over Keziah. She had come out of that trancelike state and suddenly began to take on her old duties. Once or twice I heard her singing to herself. She had lost a certain amount of weight and I often noticed her gazing longingly at Bruno with an expression of intense longing which, if he was aware of it, he ignored. As far as I knew, he ignored her. I remonstrated with him over this. It seemed very cruel to me. But his eyes would flash angrily and to tell the truth I was so wretched when he was cool to me, that I avoided the subject.

He had changed a little too since the day when he had spoken of the jeweled Madonna. One of the servants told me that she had asked him to lay his hands on her and this he had done with the result that the violent rheumatics she had suffered in her legs had disappeared. They knew who he was, and the legend that he was indeed divine lived on. Clement in the bakehouse talked a great deal, I imagined. I wondered how he had ever observed rules of silence. The belief was beginning to spread throughout the household that Keziah and the monk had lied under torture and this was what Bruno wished.

My father told me that he was giving him a little time to grow accustomed to the great change in his circumstances before discussing with him the choice of a career. Bruno was well educated—indeed something of a scholar. Perhaps he would like to go into the church or the law. My father, I knew, would be willing for him to go to one of the universities if Bruno wished it. So far Bruno had discussed his future with no one; and he seemed only to care for the company of Kate and myself.

But I could not completely ignore his treatment of Keziah.

“You could be gentle with her,” I protested. “Speak to her kindly.”

“Why should I?” he asked.

“Because she is your mother and longs for a smile from you.”

“She disgusts me, and she is not my mother.”

“You are cruel to her, Bruno.”

“Perhaps,” he answered.

“I refuse to believe that she is my mother.”

Poor Bruno. It was hard for him to bear. To have believed himself to be apart from us all, a miraculous creation, and to find that he was the son of a servingwoman. But there was cruelty in him. I saw that now, as clearly as I had seen the fox’s mask on Simon Caseman’s face.

I tried to talk to him about the future but he would not discuss it with me. I wondered whether he did with Kate for I knew that they were often together.

When Lord Remus paid us another visit Kate declared herself not in the least surprised. It was what she had expected, she said. He dined with us again and gave us more news of the Court. It seemed almost certain that the Cleves marriage would take place. The King was in excellent humor. He had walked up and down the nursery with young Prince Edward in his arms looking very pleased with the world. The Prince was a little pukey but his nurse, Mrs. Penn, guarded him like a dragon and wouldn’t allow the slightest wind to blow on him. The King had not been in such good spirits since the day he had married Anne Boleyn.

But it was not so much the King and Court which interested Lord Remus. It was Kate. When he had left she came to my bedroom and lay on the bed giggling.

“Methinks the hook is well into his lordship’s mouth,” she said. “Soon we shall haul him in.”

She was right. Within a week he was making a formal request to my father to pay court to Mistress Kate.

My father, so she told me, sent for her, and told her that Lord Remus was offering her marriage. He did not believe Kate would consider such a marriage, and she must not think that he would wish to force her into it.

“Force me, forsooth,” she cried to me. “As if I hadn’t angled for it! Think, Damask, a place at Court. I shall be there, right at the heart of things. I shall dance at Hampton and Greenwich. I shall ride at Windsor. Who knows, the King himself may look my way. I shall have jewels in plenty, fine gowns and servants to call my own.”

“And all you have to do is take Lord Remus as your husband.”

“I can do that, Damask.”

“You don’t love him, Kate.”

“I love what he has to offer.”

“You are mercenary.”

“If it is mercenary to be wise then mercenary I am.”

“So you will really marry this old man?”

“You will see, Damask.”

Kate was betrothed. She wore a big emerald on her finger and another at her throat. Her moods were startling. She was feverishly gay and suddenly melancholy. Sometimes she hinted that she might not marry after all and at others she laughed the idea of not doing so to scorn.

Once I went into her room and found her lying facedown on her bed staring straight before her.

“Kate,” I said, “you’re not happy.”

She studied the great emerald on her finger. “See how it glows, Damask. And it is just a beginning.”

“But happiness is not to be found in the glow of an emerald, Kate.”

“No? Tell me where then?”

“In the eyes of the one you love and who loves you.”

She threw back her head and laughed. But I saw the tears were near.

I was angry with her. Why should she do this? I hated the thought of her going to that old man; and since I had listened to Keziah’s ramblings images often forced themselves into my mind.

“Perhaps,” I said angrily, “it is of no consequence. You are incapable of love.”

“How dare you say that!”

“I dare,” I said, “because you are ready to sell yourself for emeralds.”

She was laughing again: “And rubies,” she said, “and sapphires, diamonds, and a place at Court.”

“It disgusts me.”

“Virtuous Damask, who has no need to sell herself but whose inheritance will choose a husband for her.”

But her smile was forced and her laughter brittle. I knew she was not as content as she wished me to believe.

Two months after Lord Remus first came to our house Kate and he were married. There was to be a grand celebration at the house and Clement and his scullions were working for days in the kitchens.

A disturbing thing happened on the night before the wedding. I went to Kate’s room because I was anxious to have a word with her. She was not there.

As the house had retired, I sat there waiting for her, but she did not come. I was afraid that she had run away, and I wondered whether to raise the household, but something within me warned me against that. It was four of the clock when she came in; her hair was streaming about her.

“Damask,” she cried, “what are you doing here?”

“I came here at midnight when the household retired to speak with you. I was anxious about you and you were not here. I thought of rousing the household.”

“You have not told anyone I was missing from my bedchamber, I hope.”

I shook my head. “No. I did not think you had run away on the eve of your wedding to the noble lord. Or if you had I thought that could wait until morning. Kate, where have you been?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Kate, you have been with a lover.”

“Well, Mistress Prim. What have you to say to that?”

“Tomorrow is your wedding day.”

“And tonight I am free. And pry as much as you like tonight, cousin, for tonight is your last chance to do so.”

“You have forestalled your marriage vows.”

Kate laughed so much I thought she would have hysterics.

“Oh, what a wiseacre you are! Your hand has been asked in marriage by Rupert and Simon. That makes you so knowledgeable. But there is one you do not mention. Bruno. What of Bruno?”

“What…of Bruno?” I asked slowly.

“You do not know Bruno,” she said. “Who does? Think of him. A holy child and then to find he is the result of the sinful liaison between an erring monk and a serving girl whose life has been scarcely pure. Conceived on the Abbey grass…under a hedge. Oh, yes, surely they were discreet enough to take cover during the performance.”

“Kate,” I said, “what is the matter with you?”

“You do not know, Damask?” she said. “After all there is so little you know.”

“I know that you do not love the man you are going to marry. You have sold yourself for emeralds and a place at Court.”

“How dramatic we have become. How easy for you! Oh, yes, it is easy to say ‘All for love’ when you lose nothing by it.”

“Where have you been tonight? Are you playing fair with Lord Remus?”

“I don’t intend to satisfy your curiosity on that point. I think you are jealous of me, Damask. I have made my choice. I think it is a wise one. Tomorrow I shall go to Lord Remus and do what is expected of me.”

I went to my room. I could not sleep. I had thought I had understood Kate. But who understands any other human being?

The next day the wedding took place in our house chapel. Lord Remus was led in between two young bachelors whom he had brought in his suite and each of them wore the customary bridelace on branches of green broom attached to their arms. Kate looked beautiful. The seamstresses had been working for weeks on her gown of brocade and cloth of silver; her hair hung loose about her shoulders. Rupert carried the silver bridecup before her as they went in procession to the chapel and I walked behind her as her attendant. And all members of the household followed with the musicians playing sweet music and some of the maids carrying the big bridecake.

The ceremony was performed and as the bridecup was handed around Simon Caseman, who was standing behind me, whispered: “Your turn next.”

Bruno was with the party. He looked aloof and scornful and the day after Kate’s wedding he disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared in the Christmas crib.

“I always knew,” said Clement, “that he was no ordinary being.”

A Child Is Born

THERE WAS NO TRACE of Bruno. Rumor was now certain that he was indeed the Holy Child, that Ambrose had lied under torture and had been killed for his blasphemy. As for Keziah there was evidence that she too had been submitted to torture. The wounds on her thighs would not heal and she had gone strange in the head since her “confession.” People were always ready to believe the fantastic.

Clement was constantly talking of the miracle and how the Abbey had changed and that the Child had the gift of healing the sick.

Even my father believed the rumors.

“But if it were so,” I said, “why had Bruno not been able to save the Abbey?”

“I can only think that he has been preserved for something even greater,” answered my father.

I wanted to think so too. But most of all I wanted him to come back. I could not understand my feelings for him. I thought of him constantly. I remembered how we had talked together in the days when there had been an Abbey and how elated I had been when I had claimed his attention for a while. I was obsessed by him. I remembered certain allusions Kate had made. Once she had said that Bruno was more important to either of us than anyone else in the world. She was right—as far as I was concerned, though I was sure worldly magnificence meant more to her.

Strangely enough after Bruno’s disappearance Keziah grew better. She mingled freely with the other servants and as they were afraid to speak of the strange affair of the child in the crib it was never mentioned.

I discovered that there was another reason for the change in Keziah.

She had been making butter in the dairy and came to me in my room. I was surprised to see her at that hour of the morning and she said: “It came to me, Mistress, all of a sudden that I should speak with you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She smiled and said quietly: “I’m with child, Mistress.”

“No, Keziah!”

“ ’Tis so, Mistress. I’ve known a week or more and I’ve had that happy feeling that comes with it. Or so ’twas always with me.”

“It is wrong. You should not feel happy. You have no husband. What right have you to have a child?”

“The right that’s given every woman, Mistress. And I can scarce wait to hold the little ’un in my arms. ’Twas always a child of my own I wanted. But there was always the voice within me that said no. You can’t bring a bastard into the world, Keziah. You must go to your Granny.”

“You should think of this before….”

“One day you’ll understand. There’s no thinking before. ’Tis only after that you get to thinking. Three times I’ve been to Granny in the woods. And twice she has brought about that which I knew must be, though never wanted it. There was the first time….” Her face puckered. She had been trying to convince herself that she and Ambrose had never had a child. “This time,” she went on quickly, “I won’t go to her. I want this child. ’Tis maybe the last I’ll ever have for I am getting past the age for child-bearing. And this little ’un will be to me what I’ve never had before.”

“Who is the father of this child?”

“Oh, there’s no doubt of it, Mistress. It was him all right. It had to be. There couldn’t be a shadow of doubt. This little one belongs to Rolf Weaver.”

“Keziah! That man! That…murderer!”

“Nay, Mistress, ’twas the monk who were the murderer. My Rolf…he were the victim.”

I was horrified. I stared at Keziah’s expanding body. That man’s seed! It was horrifying.

I said: “No, Keziah. In this case it is justified. You must go to your Granny.”

Keziah said, “Hush you, Mistress. Would you murder my baby? I want this child as I never wanted a child before…and I’ve grieved for all of them. When I saw that boy my heart yearned for him. But he spurned me but when I knew that I carried this seed in my body it gave me comfort. I shall have this child.”

There was a strange exalted look about her and she would not listen to anything I said.

I could not forget that man with the hair growing low on his brow; I could not forget what he had done to Keziah, to our lives.

I had thought that was the end of him when he had lain lifeless on the grass. It was a shock to know that he lived on in Keziah’s body.

I missed Kate very much. Life had become dull as never before. I was aware of Simon’s watchful eyes; I knew he believed he was going to make me change my mind.

My mother said to me: “You’re growing up, Damask. It’s time you married. It would give me and your father such pleasure to see our grandchildren. Now Kate is settled it will be your turn next.”

My father was too close in thought to me to mention marriage again; but he would like to see me with a man to protect me. I had two to choose from—Rupert and Simon; I knew that no objection would be raised whomsoever I chose, although naturally they would prefer it to be Rupert, he being related. Neither of them had anything in great worldly possessions to offer me. Rupert had great skill with the land, Simon was gaining a reputation as a clever lawyer. Both of them would benefit by the wealth I should bring to them. Perhaps that was why I hesitated. I wanted to be chosen for myself, as Kate had been.

“I am of no great age yet,” I told my mother.

“I married your father when I was sixteen,” she told me. “I was in the schoolroom. I have never regretted it.”

“But then you married Father.”

“You’ve always idolized him,” she said, snipping at the stalk of a rose. Whenever she talked I always felt that more than half her attention was on the flowers she was either planting, cutting or arranging.

Kate came to see us, full of exuberant excitement. Married life suited her. The adoring Remus could not take his eyes from her; and I could see that marriage had made her even more attractive. For one thing she was sumptuously clad; she had a damask gown and a kirtle of velvet; her feet were in velvet shoes with garnet buckles and there were new jewels sparkling at her throat.

She had been to Court. She had seen the King. He was magnificent—enormous, royal and terrifying. He bellowed his wishes and everyone obeyed without a second’s hesitation. His temper was notoriously short, especially when his leg pained him. He sparkled with jewels and every square inch of flesh on his big body was royal. He had smiled on Kate; he had patted her hand. In fact if he had not been completely besotted by the young and giddy niece of Lord Norfolk who knew what might have happened? Kate was a little regretful but not much. It was a precarious existence, everyone realized, to be singled out for very special attention by the King. A pat of the hand and smile of appreciation were very welcome and by far more comfortable.

She was bubbling over with the joy of being the harbinger of exciting news.

He disliked Anne of Cleves so much that it was very likely Cromwell would lose his head for arranging the marriage, and it was said that the Duchess had no great liking for the King. It was said that there had been no consummation on the wedding night and the King was furious with Hans Holbein for making such a flattering picture of a plain woman for whom he could have no fancy. And there was Katharine Howard, fluttering her eyes at the King with a mixture of awed Oh-Your-Grace-can-you-really-be-glancing-my-way and a promise of all kinds of sexual excitements. She had secretive eyes and a certain wanton manner. It was said that Norfolk was pleased. One niece, Anne Boleyn, had come to grief soon after insisting on the crown; but the King was older now, his leg was a perpetual irritation and as Katharine was young and pliable it seemed possible that she might hold the King’s attention; and if she could give him a son, who knew he might be satisfied. Though it was not even of such vital importance to get a son now that there was Prince Edward in the royal nursery.

So Kate rambled on of the glories of Windsor and hunting in the Great Park; of a ball at Greenwich and a banquet at Hampton.

“Do you remember how we used to sail past Hampton, Damask, and talk about the great Palace?”

“I remember it well,” I told her. I should never forget the sight of the Cardinal sailing by our privy steps with the King.

Kate had more news for us. She was to have a child.

Lord Remus was delighted. He had not believed this possible but his beautiful clever Kate was capable of anything. He followed her with his eyes, marveling at her grace and beauty. Kate reveled in it; she laughed and flirted gaily with her husband and it was only to me that she talked freely.

She wanted to go to her old room, she said; and I went with her there. When we reached it, she shut the door, and the first thing she said was: “Damask, have you seen him? Has he ever come back?”

I didn’t have to ask to whom she was referring. I said: “Of course he has not come back.”

“He went because I married. He told me he would go right away and he would not come back until he was ready. What did he mean by that, Damask?”

“You knew him so much better than I.”

“Yes, I did. I think, in his way, he loved me.” She eyed me maliciously. “You are jealous, Damask. You always wanted him, didn’t you? Don’t deny it. I understand. It was a way he had. He was different from all others. You could never be sure whether he was a saint or a devil.”

“I never thought that.”

“No, you thought he was a saint, didn’t you? You adored him too openly. You were no challenge to him as I was. He had to convince me. You were already won. So he loved me, but it wasn’t good enough for me.”

“You wanted riches. I know that full well.”

“And see how happy I have made my husband. A child. He never thought to get that…at his time of life. He’s so proud. My patience, how he struts! As for me, I’m a marvel, I’m as much a miracle to Remus as Bruno was to the monks of the Abbey. I rather enjoy being a miracle. That’s why I understand Bruno so well. I feel for him. I understand his bitter disappointment.”

“But you didn’t love him well enough to marry him.”

She smiled ruefully. “Imagine me, the wife of a poor man…if you can.”

I agreed that I could not.

“You can’t be happy,” I said.

“I can always be happy when I get what I want,” she retorted.

Keziah grew more and more strange. I spoke to my father about her.

“Poor woman,” he said, “she is paying for her sins.”

I was always touched by Father’s attitude for I had never met anyone who could be as good as he was and yet have such sympathy for sinners.

One day one of the servants came to tell me that Keziah was missing. She had not slept in her bed that night. I wondered whether she had found another lover but I thought that could hardly be the case for she was now within a month or so of her confinement. I was alarmed and some instinct sent me to the witch’s hut in the woods.

She was there.

Mother Salter bade me enter. I felt the shiver of apprehension I always felt in her house. It was a small cottage with one room in which was a short spiral staircase. This opened into the room above. It was overcrowded; there were cabalistic signs on the wall and bottles in which she kept her concoctions. There were jars of ointment on the shelves and from the beams there always hung bunches of drying herbs. The smell was peculiar; a mixture of herbs and something indefinable. A fire always seemed to be burning and a great sooty-sided caldron hung over it suspended on a chain. There were two seats on either side of the fireplace and whenever I had seen Mother Salter she was seated in one of them.

It took a great deal of courage to enter her house; the sickly did because they hoped to be cured; those who wanted a love potion came; as for myself I was so anxious about Keziah that I walked boldly in.

She pointed to one of the seats beside the fireplace and smiled at me. She was very old but her eyes were lively and young. They were small and dark, embedded in wrinkles, crafty and knowledgeable, rather like a monkey’s.

I said, “I’m worried about Keziah.”

She pointed upward.

My relief was obvious. “So she is here.”

She smiled at me and nodded. “Her time is near,” she said.

“So soon?”

“The babe is eager to get out into the world. She’ll come before her time.”

“It’s to be a girl?”

Mother Salter did not answer. She knew such things and had often prophesied correctly the sex of a child.

“And Keziah?”

Mother Salter shook her head. “Her time is running out,” she said.

“You can save her.”

“Not if her time has come.”

“It can’t be,” I cried. “You can do something.”

She gave me a grin which was not pleasant to behold. There was something malevolent about it and it showed her blackened teeth. Then she stood up and beckoned to me. She started up the short spiral staircase. I followed.

I stepped straight into a room with a small latticed window. It was darkish but I recognized the figure on the pallet.

“Keziah,” I said, and knelt beside it.

“It’s the little ’un,” she said. “It’s Dammy.”

“Yes, I’m here, Kezzie. You gave me a fright. I wondered what had happened to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me again on this earth, little ’un.”

“That’s foolish talk,” I said sharply. “You’re going to be all right once…once this is over.”

“He were going to kill me,” she said. “This is his way of doing it. What a man he were! All that man going to the worms, where I shall soon be going.”

“What talk is this!” I cried indignantly.

Mother Salter cackled. She was standing there like a vulture watching us.

“Keziah,” I said, “come back to us. I’ll look after you. I’ll look after the baby….”

Keziah seized my hand; hers was hot and burning. “You’ll look after the child, Dammy? You’ll look after my little baby? You’ve promised me.”

“I promise you, Keziah, we will look after the child.”

“She’s to be brought up like a little lady. She must sit at the table where you used to sit with Mistress Kate and Master Rupert. That’s what I want to see. I want her to be full of booklore, like my boy. But he never looked my way. He wouldn’t have me for his mother. He wouldn’t believe it. But I want her to have book learning. I want her to be a lady. I call her my little Honey. I remember it well…there he was standing over me and it had never happened that way before and through the window I smelt the honeysuckle…and that’s when my baby was made. Honeysuckle, sweet and clinging. I call her my little Honey.”

Then I knew that Keziah was part of my life and that if she were no longer there I should have lost that part; and perhaps, next to my father, Keziah when I was very young had been nearest to me, for my mother had never really been close.

Now she lay there with the beads of sweat clinging to the faint hairs about her lips; and the rosy color of her cheeks replaced by a network of tiny reddish lines. Something had gone out of her, that gaiety, that love of living. She was no longer in love with life and that could only mean she was preparing to leave it.

I said urgently: “Keziah, you’re going to get well. You’ve got to. What shall I do without you?”

She said: “You’ll do very well. You don’t need me now…haven’t for a long time.”

I said, “The baby will need you. Your little Honey.”

She grasped my hand firmly; hers was hot and dry. “You will, Mistress Damask. You’ll take her. You’ll look after her as though she was your little sister. Promise me, Damask.”

I said: “I promise.”

Wrekin the cat had come up. He pressed his body against my foot and purred. Mother Salter nodded.

“Swear it,” she said. “Swear, my girl. I and Wrekin will be your witness.”

I was silent, looking from the rather malevolent face of her whom we called the witch to the strangely altered one of Keziah on the bed. I sensed that it was a solemn moment. I was swearing to make a child my concern, the child of a serving girl and a man whom I had seen murdered and whom I could never regard as anything but as low as the beasts of the forest. Worse, because at least they killed from fear or from the need for food. He had found joy in torturing others; and I had rarely been so disgusted in my life as when I had witnessed Keziah’s desire for this man. And I was promising to care for their child! But Keziah’s dry hand was pressing mine. I saw the anguish in her eyes.

I bent over her and kissed her. And it was not fear of Mother Salter but love and pity for Keziah that made me say: “I swear.”

It was a strange scene in that bedroom. Keziah dying and the old woman standing by yet showing no grief.

“You’ll come to bless this night,” she said to me. “If you keep your word. If you don’t you’ll come to curse it.”

Keziah moved uneasily on the bed. She whimpered. Mother Salter said to me: “Be gone now. When the time comes you will know.”

I came out of the cottage into the woods and ran all the way home.

I knew that I must tell my father of my promise. If I told my mother she would say: “Yes, the girl can come to us and she shall be brought up with the servants.” Then she would forget about it and the child would become part of our household. There were children now in the servants’ quarters for one or two of them had been got with child and my father would never turn away a deserted mother.

But this was different. I had promised that Keziah’s child should be brought up in the house, sit at the schoolroom table. I knew I must keep my word.

I told my father what had happened. I said: “Keziah has been almost as a mother to me.”

My father pressed my hand tenderly. He knew that my own mother while she had looked after my physical needs in an exemplary manner had perhaps sometimes been a little absentminded when absorbed by her garden.

“And,” I went on, “this is Keziah’s child. I know she is a servingwoman but this child who is about to be born will be the brother or sister of Bruno…if it is true that he is Keziah’s son.”

My father was silent and a look of pain crossed his face. We rarely mentioned what had happened at the Abbey. And the fact that Bruno had disappeared had deeply affected us all. My father was becoming convinced that the confession had been a false one and that Bruno was in fact a Messiah or at least a prophet.

I went on quickly: “I gave my word, Father. I must keep it.”

“You are right,” he said. “You must keep your word. But let Keziah bring her child here and tend it. Why should she not do that?”

“Because she will not be here. That was why they made me swear. Keziah…and Mother Salter…believe that Keziah will die.”

“If this comes to pass,” said my father, “then bring the child here.”

“And she may be brought up as a child of the household?”

“You have promised this and you must keep your promise.”

“Oh, Father, you are such a good man.”

“Don’t think too highly of me, Damask.”

“But I do think it and I shall always do so. For, Father, I know how good you are—so much better than those who are supposed to be holy.”

“No, no, you must not say these things. You cannot see into the hearts of people, Damask, and you should not judge unless you can. But let us walk down to the river where we can talk in peace. Do you not miss Kate?”

“I do, Father, and Keziah too. Everything seems to have changed. It has all become quiet.”

“There is sometimes a quiet before a storm. Have you noticed that? We must always be prepared for what may happen next. Who would have believed a few years ago that where our flourishing Abbey stood there should be almost a ruin? Yet the winds had been blowing that way for some time and we did not notice them.”

“But now there is no Abbey and the King has found a new wife. Kate has said that already he has his eyes on a girl named Katharine Howard.”

“Let us pray, Damask, that all goes well with this marriage because you have seen what disaster the King’s marriage can bring to his people.”

“It was the break with Rome. Surely that was one of the most important events which ever befell this country.”

“I believe so, my child, and it has had far-reaching effects—and will doubtless have more. But when you talk to me of bringing Keziah’s child into the household, I wonder when you will be bringing up your own.”

“Father, are you still hankering after my marriage?”

“It would please me greatly, Damask, if before I died I saw you betrothed, with a good husband—one whom I could trust—to care for you, to give you children. I longed for sons and daughters and I have but one. And you are more precious to me than all the world, as you well know. But why should I not see my house peopled by children—the children you will bring me in my old age, Damask?”

“You make me feel that I must marry without delay to please you.”

“As my desire to see you happy is even greater than that for grandchildren, it would be far from my wish. I long to see you married—but for my contentment you must be a happy wife and mother.”

I pressed his arm gently. I am sure that if Rupert had asked me to marry him at that moment I should have agreed to do so because I wished to please my dear good father more than anything else on earth.

One of the serving girls brought a message for me. Mother Salter wished me to go to her. When I arrived the old woman was seated as usual on the chimney seat, Wrekin at her feet, the sooty pot bubbling over the fire.

She rose and led the way up to the short spiral staircase. On the bed lay a body under a sheet and on the sheet was a sprig of rosemary. I gasped, and she nodded.

“It was as I said it would be,” she murmured.

“Oh, my poor Keziah!” My voice trembled and she laid a hand on my shoulder; her fingers were bony, her nails like claws.

I said: “And the child?”

She led the way downstairs. In a corner of the room was a crib which I had not noticed when I came in. In it lay a living child. I stared in wonder and Mother Salter gave me a little push toward the crib.

“Take her up,” she said. “She’s yours.”

“A little girl,” I whispered.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

I took up the child. It was unswaddled and wrapped in a shawl. Her face was pink and crumpled looking; its very helplessness filled me with pity that was close to love.

She took the child from me.

“Not yet,” she said. “Not yet. I’ll nurture her. When the time comes, she’ll be yours.” She laid the child back in the crib and turned to me. Her claws dug into my arm. “Don’t forget your promise.”

I shook my head. Then I found that I was weeping. I was not sure for what—for Keziah whose life was over, or for the baby whose life was just beginning.

“She was young to die,” I said.

“Her time had come.”

“But it was too soon.”

“She had a good life. She loved a frolic. She could never resist a man. It had to be. Men were the meaning of life to her. It was written that they would be the death of her too.”

“That man…the father of her child…I loathed him.”

“Yes, my fine lady,” she said. “But how can any of us be sure who fathers us?”

“I am sure,” I said.

“Ah, yes, you, but who else can be? Keziah never knew who her father was. Nor was her mother sure. My daughter was another such as Keziah. They couldn’t resist the men, you see, and they both died in childbirth. You’re a fine lady and you’ll make little Honeysuckle one too.” She squeezed my arm. “You’ve got to, haven’t you? Wouldn’t dare do aught else, would you? Remember, you gave your word. And if you don’t keep it, my fine young lady, you’ll have the curse of dead Keziah on you forever and what’s worse still, Mother Salter’s.”

“I’ve no intention of not keeping my promise. I want to. I long to have the child. My father has said that I may bring her up as my own if I so wish.”

“And you must so wish. But not yet…. She’s too young yet. I’ll keep her with me until the time comes. Then she shall be yours.” She had brought with her the sprig of rosemary which she pressed into my hand. “Remember,” she said.

I left the witch’s cottage mourning for Keziah, remembering so many scenes from my youth and at the same time I was thinking of the child and how happy I should be to have a baby to care for. I longed for children of my own. Perhaps, I thought, my father was right when he said I should marry.

The Shadow of the Ax

AN IMPERIOUS LETTER CAME from Kate, brought by one of Lord Remus’s servants. We were at supper in the big hall where we took our meals at the long table at which places were always laid for any travelers who might call. There was usually someone—footsore and weary; they all knew of the benevolence of Lawyer Farland who had the reputation for never turning any away. Conversation at our table was usually interesting because as my father said it was stimulating to hear new views. In the kitchen there were always salted joints of pig hanging from the beams and Clement invariably had an assortment of pies to hand. Next to her garden my mother loved her stillroom and her kitchen. In fact one served the other. She dried her herbs and mixed them, experimenting with them, and was almost as excited by the result as she was by growing a new rose.

This was supper and it was six of the clock, and early summer, so the doors were wide open. As we sat at table one of the servants came in to say that there was a man at the gate who wished to see Father.

He rose at once and went out. He came back with a man whose clothes proclaimed him to be a priest. My father looked pleased; he always enjoyed giving hospitality but naturally to do so to some gave him more pleasure than to others.

The man was Amos Carmen and it appeared that he and my father had once known each other and the reunion gave them much pleasure. He did not take his place at the table where callers usually sat but a place was laid next to my father and the two of them talked together. They had at one time been together in St. Bruno’s and thought of taking up the monastic life. Amos had become a priest while my father’s intention was to found a family.

When Amos began to talk about the changes in the Church I could see that my father was growing a little uneasy. Although those at the table might be trusted there were the servants to consider and it was so easy in these days to betray oneself. To imply by word or deed that one did not consider the King to be the Supreme Head of the Church could mean death. When my father changed the topic of conversation I think the newcomer realized what was happening for he immediately fell in with the new subject and we were discussing the uses of herbs on which he had complimented my mother because of the manner they had been used in the pies which were being served to us.

It was a change to see my mother animated. It was usually when we had horticulturists to dine with us that she sparkled.

“It’s amazing,” she was saying, “how little use is made of the flowers and herbs which grow in our meadows and hedgerows. They are there for anyone’s taking and they can be so tasty. Primroses and marigolds make excellent garnish in pies and tarts.”

“I can see, Madam,” replied Amos with a smile, “that you are a past mistress at the art of cookery.”

Mother dimpled rather prettily. She was far more susceptible to flattery about her flowers and her household than her looks; and she was still good looking.

Father said: “She is the best housewife in England. I’d defy any to deny it. Why, when Damask here is snuffling with a cold it seems nothing will cure her mother gives her juice of buttercup. Following the dose there is such an attack of sneezing that the head is cleared at once. And I remember how when I had blisters on my feet she cured that with…crowfoot, was it?”

“It was indeed,” said Mother. “Oh, yes, there is a great deal to be learned from the roots and flowers and herbs.”

And so we discussed the herbs which could ease pain or delight the palate and it was while we talked thus that the letters arrived from Kate.

How grand her servants were in their bright livery! Ours seemed humble in comparison. One of the letters was addressed to Father and Mother, the other to me.

We did not consider it polite to read them at table, which was a trial to me as I was burning with impatience to have Kate’s news. The messenger was taken to the kitchens to be refreshed, although, said Father jocularly, one wondered whether such a fine-looking gentleman should be invited to sit at the head of the table.

The conversation continued concerning new plants and vegetables which my mother believed would shortly be introduced into the country. My mother was saying that like Queen Katharine she often longed for a salad, but unlike the Queen had been wont to do, she was in no position to send to Flanders or Holland that the proper ingredients might be acquired.

“And I believe,” said Amos Carmen, “that there is talk of bringing in Flemish hops and planting them here.”

“It is so,” cried my mother. “I should verily like to see more and more such things coming into the country. There are so many edible roots like the carrot and the turnip. It is ridiculous that we cannot grow them here. But we shall. Do you remember the visitor we had from Flanders?” She turned to her husband.

He remembered well, he told her.

“He told us, you may also remember, that plans are afoot to bring these edible roots into the country. They would grow very well here, so why should we be deprived of them? How I should like to make a salad of these things and take it to the Queen….”

She stopped for she remembered that Queen Katharine who had sent to the Low Countries for her salads was now dead. We were all silent. I was remembering how the King and Anne Boleyn had worn yellow as their “mourning” and had danced on the day of Queen Katharine’s death. And now Anne herself was dead and Jane was dead and the news was that the King was mightily dissatisfied with his new Queen.

It seemed impossible to speak of any subject without coming back to that one which was in everybody’s mind.

But what I wanted was to get away to read Kate’s letter.

“I have written to your parents to tell them they must do nothing to prevent your coming to me. I need your company. There was never any state so uncomfortable, humiliating and dull, if it were not enlivened by bouts of misery, as having a child. I swear it shall never happen again. I want you to come and stay with me. Remus is agreeable. In fact he is eager. He is so delighted at the thought of the child and so proud of himself (at his age!) that he would willingly put up with any tantrum I care to throw and I assure you I throw them constantly. I have been thinking what I can do to relieve the tedium and the misery and I suddenly thought the answer is Damask. You are to come at once. You will stay until the child is born. Only a matter of weeks now. Make no excuses. If you don’t come I shall never forgive you.”

Father came to my room. He was holding Kate’s letter in his hand.

“Ah,” he said, “you know the gist of this, I’ll warrant.”

“Poor Kate,” I said, “I think she was not meant to bear children.”

“My dearest child, that is what every woman is meant to do.”

“Every woman except Kate,” I said. “Well, am I to go?”

“It is for you to say.”

“So I have your permission?”

He nodded. He was looking at me in a quizzical, tender way. Afterward I wondered whether he had a premonition.

“I shall hate leaving you,” I told him.

“The birds have to leave the nest at some time.”

“It will not be for very long,” I assured him.

The next day Amos Carmen left and I was busy making my preparations. It would be the first time I had been away from home. I looked wryly at my clothes. I guessed they would seem very homely in Kate’s grand mansion.

We were to go by barge some ten miles upriver; and there we should be met by members of the Remus household. I should take two maids with me and Tom Skillen would be in charge of the barge. Then our baggage would be put onto pack mules and horses which would be waiting to take us to the Remus Castle.

I was so excited and eager to see Kate again. It was true that without her and Keziah—as she used to be in the old days—life was a little drab. Then there was Bruno whom in my heart I knew I missed more than any. I often wondered why. He had seemed so remote to me and I had often thought that it was only rarely that he remembered my existence. But I, no less than Kate, had felt this strong emotion for him—in Kate it was an imperious desire for his company; in me a kind of awed respect. Kate demanded it while I was glad when it came my way. I was eager for the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table while Kate was seated at it as if she were supping there.

The day before I was due to leave Amos Carmen came back to the house. I came upon him with Father. They were standing by the stone parapet near the river in earnest conversation.

“Ah,” said my father. “Here is Damask. Come here, daughter.”

I looked from one to the other; I knew at once that they had something on their minds and I cried anxiously: “What is it?”

My father said: “You may trust this girl with your life.”

“Father,” I cried, “why do you say that?”

“My child,” he said, “we live in dangerous times. Tonight our guest will be on his way. When you are in the household of Lord Remus perhaps you should not mention that he visited us.”

“No, Father,” I said.

They were both smiling placidly, and I was so excited at the prospect of my visit to Kate that I forgot what their words might have implied.

The next day I set out. Father and Mother with Rupert and Simon Caseman came down to the privy stairs to wave me off. Mother asked me to take note of how the gardeners at Remus dealt with greenfly and what herbs they grew and to find out if there were any recipes of which she had not heard. Father held me against him and bade me come home soon and to remember that in Kate’s house I was not at home and to guard well my tongue. Rupert asked me to come home soon and Simon Caseman looked at me with a strange light in his eye as though he were half exasperated with me, half amused. But he implied at the same time that his great desire was to make me his wife.

I waved to them from the barge and I sent up a silent prayer that all would be well until my return.

Tom Skillen had changed; he was more subdued now that he had lost Keziah; skillfully he took the barge upriver; we passed several craft and I beguiled the time by asking Tom Skillen if he knew to whom they belonged. When we passed Hampton, the great mansion which was growing more and more grand every week, I thought often as I always did of the King’s sailing down the river with the Cardinal at his side.

Then I reflected how pleasant it would be to sail with the whole of the family on a barge like this which would carry us all miles away, right into the country where I believed people could be safe from the troubles which seemed to beset us all. I visualized a peaceful house, exactly like ours, but too far away to be involved in unhappy events.

Far away? But where was one safe? I remembered the men of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire who had risen against the reforms in the Church which the King and Thomas Cromwell had brought about. What had happened to them? I shuddered. I remembered the body of the monk outside the Abbey and that of Brother Ambrose, swinging on the gibbets. There was no peace anywhere. One could only pray that one was not caught up in danger. Had those men of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire known when they began their Pilgrimage of Grace that so many of them would end on a gibbet?

Death, Destruction, Murder. It was everywhere.

I prayed fervently that it would never come to that house by the river which had been my home. But as my father had often said: We lived in violent times and the disaster which befell anyone concerned us all. We were all involved. Death could point its finger at any one of us.

Was it so in the reign of the previous King? He had been a stern man and a miser; he had never been the people’s idol as the present King had been. He was not a man of passion. As the grandson of Owen Tudor and Queen Catherine, widow of Henry V, his claim to the throne was somewhat dubious; and some said the marriage between the Queen and the Tudor had never in fact taken place. But to substantiate his claim he had married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV—and thus by one stroke he had strengthened the royal stem and united the houses of York and Lancaster. A clever King—devious and unlovable, but he had made England rich. No doubt there had been dangers in his day, but there had never been so many pitfalls as at this time. There had never been so willful a man whose passions must be satisfied and his conscience placated all at the same time.

But enough of fear. I would think of Kate and her marriage and of my own, which I suppose could not be long delayed.

I had a choice—Rupert or Simon—and I knew it could never be Simon. Good as he was—a clever lawyer, said my father, an asset to his business and his household—he somehow repelled me. It would be Rupert, good kind Rupert, of whom I was fond. But his mildness made me feel indifferent toward him. I suppose like all girls I dreamed of a strong man.

Then I was thinking of Bruno. How little one knew of Bruno! It was never possible to get close to him. But ever since I had heard the story of the child found in the Christmas crib he had represented an ideal for me. His very strangeness attracted me as I am sure it had Kate. We believed then that he was aloof from us all and in our different ways we loved him.

This was why I could not contemplate marriage with Rupert with any enthusiasm. It was because deep within me I had this strange, rather exalted emotion for Bruno.

The two serving girls, Alice and Jennet, were giggling together. They had been in a state of excitement ever since they had known they were going to accompany me. I knew they believed that life in Kate’s household would be far more exciting than in ours.

It was very pleasant on the river and in due course we arrived at that spot where we were to disembark and there were the servants in the unmistakable Remus livery waiting to help us and there were the pack mules to which our baggage was tied. We said good-bye to Tom Skillen and rode off in our little party and two hours’ ride brought us to Remus Castle.

It was of a much earlier period than our residence which had been built by my grandfather. Its solid gray-granite walls confirmed the fact that they had stood for two hundred years and would doubtless stand for five hundred more. The sun glinting on the walls picked out sharp pieces of flint so that they shone like rose diamonds. I gazed up at the machicolations of the keep as we crossed the drawbridge over the moat. We passed through the gateway with its portcullis and were in a courtyard in which a fountain played; as we clattered over the cobbles I heard Kate’s voice.

“Damask!” And I looked up and saw her at a window.

“So you’re here at last,” she cried. “You’re to come straight to me. Pray bring up Mistress Farland without delay,” she commanded.

A groom took my horse and a servant came out to conduct me into the castle. I said that I would first wish to go to my room that I might wash off the grime of my journey and I was led through a great hall up a stone staircase to a room which overlooked the courtyard. I guessed it was not far from Kate’s. I asked that water be brought to me and the maid ran off to do my bidding.

I was soon to discover what an imperious mistress of the household Kate was.

She came to my room. “I told them to bring you to me without delay,” she cried. “They shall hear of this.”

“ ’Twas my orders that I first rid myself of some of the dirt of the roads.”

“Oh, Damask, you have not changed a bit. How good it is to have you here! What do you think of Remus Castle?”

“It’s magnificent,” I said.

She grimaced.

“It is just what you always wanted, wasn’t it? A castle, a place at Court—and you to flit twixt one and the other.”

“And how much flitting dost think I do? Look at me!”

I looked at her and laughed. Elegant Kate, her body misshapen, her mouth discontented; nothing the satin gown edged with miniver could do could alter that.

“And soon to be a mother!” I cried.

“Not soon enough for me,” grumbled Kate. “I dread the ordeal but I yearn for it to be over. But you are here and that is good. Here is your water so remove the dust at once. And is that your traveling gown? My poor Damask, we must do something about that.”

“Your ladyship looks very grand, I swear.”

“No need to swear,” said Kate. “I’m well aware of how I look. I have been so ill, Damask, so sick. I would rather jump out of this window than go through the same again. And the worst is to come.”

“Women are having babies every day, Kate.”

“I am not. Nor shall there be another day.”

“And how fares my lord?”

“He is at Court. Does that not make it even harder to bear? Though they say the King is in ill humor and it takes very little to bring a frown of displeasure. Heads are very insecurely balanced on shoulders these days.”

“Then should you not be glad that yours is in a firm position?”

“Still the same old Damask, still counting your blessings. It is good to have you.”

And she was certainly the same old Kate. She asked questions about what was happening at home and when we talked of Keziah she was a little sad.

“And it is that man’s child,” she said. “I wonder how she will grow up. Conceived in such a way…born of such parents.” And she put her hands on her body and smiled.

Kate was impatient for my company. There was so much to talk of, she told me. If I had refused to come she would never have spoken to me again. When I said I would unpack my baggage she told me there was no need for that: a servant would do it. But I wished to do it myself, so I unpacked and showed her a little silk gown for her baby that had been made from the silk produced by my mother’s silkworms. Kate was indifferent to it; she preferred a little charm bracelet I had brought and which had been put on my wrist by my parents when I had been born.

“When the child can no longer wear it, it must be given back to me.”

“So that you can put it on your own child’s wrist? Well, Damask, when is that to be?”

I flushed slightly in spite of my determination not to betray my feelings. “I have no idea,” I said sharply.

“You’d best take Rupert, Damask. He will be a good kind husband—just the man for you. He will care for you and never cast eyes on another woman. He is young—not like my Remus. And although he is poor in worldly goods you have enough for both.”

“Thank you for settling my future so easily.”

“Poor Damask! Oh, let us be candid one with the other. You wanted Bruno. Are you mad, Damask? He would never have been the man for you.”

“Nor for you either, it seemed.”

“Sometimes I wish I had gone with him.”

“Gone?” I demanded. “Gone where?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied. Then she hugged me and said: “I feel alive now you’ve come. This place stifles me. When I was at Court it was different. There’s an excitement there, Damask, that you couldn’t understand.”

“I know I’m an ignorant country girl in your estimation—though may I draw your attention to the fact that my home is nearer London than yours—but I can certainly imagine how exciting it must be to wonder from one moment to another when you make some remark, perform some action, whether it will send you to the Tower, there to live—oh, most excitingly—awaiting the order for release or decapitation.”

Kate laughed aloud. “Yes, it is good to have you here. Bless you, Damask, for coming.”

“Thank you. I suppose your blessings are preferable to the curses I could have expected had I refused.”

I felt my spirits rising. I suppose we belonged together in a way, and although I disapproved of almost everything Kate did, and she was contemptuous of me, although we sparred continuously, I felt alive when I was with her. I suppose because we had grown up together, she seemed like a part of myself.

We supped together that night alone in her room. She had a little table there on which she often took her meals.

“I dareswear you and your husband dine and sup here alone when he is in residence,” I said.

She laughed again, her eyes flashing scornfully.

“You don’t know Remus. What should we talk of, do you think? He is getting deaf too. I should throw a platter at him if I had to endure him alone. No, we eat in style when he is here. We use the hall which you noticed when you came—or perhaps you didn’t. All Remus’s relics of past wars—halberds, swords, armor—look at us while we eat; I at one end of the table—and by the grace of God—he at the other. Conversation is lively or dull depending on the guests. We often have people from the Court here—then it can be very amusing; but often it is dull country squires who talk endlessly of plowing their lands and salting their pigs until I feel I shall scream at them.”

“I am sure Lord Remus finds you a most accommodating spouse.”

“Well, at least I am providing him with a child.”

“And he considers that the price he has to pay is worthwhile? You are”—I looked at her searchingly—“quite pleasant to the eye even in your present state of discontent. And you have doubtless renewed his youth by proving that he is still not too old to beget children.”

She said quickly: “I said I was providing him with a child. I did not say it was of his begetting.”

“Oh, Kate,” I cried, “what do you mean?”

“There! I talk too much. But you don’t count. I just like to tell the truth to you, Damask.”

“So…you have deceived Remus. It is not his child. Then how can you pretend it is!”

“You have not yet learned much of men, Damask. It is easy to convince them that they have the power to do what they fancy themselves doing. Remus is so puffed up with pride at the thought of being a father that he is ready to forget it might have meant his playing the cuckold.”

“Kate, you are shameless as you ever were.”

“More so,” she mocked. “You surely cannot expect me to improve with experience.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I am so glad,” said Kate with a grimace. “My indiscretion is forgotten.”

“And here you are about to undergo the greatest experience any woman can and you lie here puling about it.”

“For two whole months I have lived in solitude—save for the guests who have come here. I have had to endure the solicitude of Remus. I have had to behave like a woman who yearns for her child.”

“And in your heart you do.”

“I don’t think I was intended to be a mother, Damask. No. I want to dance at Court. I want to hunt with the royal party. To return to the Castle or the Palace—we were at Windsor recently and there we danced and talked and watched mummers or the play, and there is a ball. That is the life. Then I can forget.”

“What do you want to forget, Kate?”

“Oh,” she cried, “I am talking too much once more.”

The gardens at Remus were beautiful. My mother would have been delighted with them. I tried to remember details so that I could tell her about them when I returned home. There was one very favorite spot of mine—a garden with a pond in the center surrounded by a pleached alley; because it was summer the trees in this alley were thick with leaves. Kate and I used to like to sit by the pond and talk.

I was gratified that she had changed since I had come. The lines of discontent had disappeared from her mouth and she was constantly laughing—often at me, it was true, but in that tolerant, affectionate manner with which I was familiar.

It was in the pond garden that she talked to me of Bruno.

“I wonder where he went,” she said. “Do you believe that he disappeared in a cloud and went back to heaven? Or do you think it was to London to make his fortune?”

“He did disappear,” I mused. “He was found in the crib on that Christmas morning and Keziah did seem to lose her senses when she met Rolf Weaver. Her confession may have been false.”

“What purpose was there in his coming?”

“St. Bruno’s became rich after his arrival and it was due to him.”

“But what happened when Cromwell’s men came? Where were his miracles then?”

“Perhaps it was meant that they should have their way.”

“Then what was the purpose of sending a Holy Child just to make St. Bruno’s prosper for a few years so that greater riches could be diverted to the King’s coffers? And what of the confessions of Keziah and the monk? Keziah could never have made up such a story. Why should she?”

“It may have been some devil prompting her.”

“You have been visiting the witch in the woods.”

“I did because of Honeysuckle.”

“You are foolish, Damask. You have promised to take this child, you tell me. And your father agrees. You are a strange unworldly pair. The child of that beast and a wayward serving girl. And she is to be as your sister! What do you think will come of that?”

“I loved Keziah,” I said. “She was a mother to me. And the child could be Bruno’s sister. Have you thought of that?”

“If Keziah’s stories are true they would be half-brother and sister, would they not?”

“The relationship is there.”

“How like you, Damask. You fit events to truth as it pleases yourself. At one moment you want Bruno to be holy so he disappears up to heaven in a cloud; the next minute you want to make a reason for taking this child, so she is Bruno’s half-sister. You see you are not logical. Your thinking is muddled. How much easier it would be if you had simple motives like mine.”

“To get what you want from life and to make others pay for it.”

“It’s a good arrangement from the taker’s point of view.”

“It could never be a good arrangement—even if it worked.”

“It’s going to work for me,” said Kate blandly.

Whatever topic we started with, Bruno would find a way into our conversation. Kate would soften a little when she spoke of him. She often recalled details of those days when we used to go through the ivy-covered door and find him waiting for us. I was sure that at times she believed that Bruno was something more than human.

“Do you think we shall ever knew the truth about Bruno, Kate?” I asked.

“Who ever knows the whole truth about anybody?” was her reply.

I dispatched a messenger to my father to tell him of my safe arrival. I said I would be coming home shortly after the baby was born. I knew that Kate would not wish me to go. I had an idea that she visualized keeping me there as a companion for herself. She told me once that she needed me.

“And since you don’t altogether fancy Rupert I might arrange a grand marriage for you,” she promised me.

“My father would expect me to go home.”

“I am sure he is eager to see you married.”

But with the baby due to arrive at any time we were both awaiting the signs so that our conversation was often of the imminent birth. I went through the layette which had been prepared for the child and Kate and I discussed the names of boys and girls which we thought would be suitable for the infant.

Kate liked to talk about the Court and the King’s affairs and her recent adventures at Windsor made her feel that she was really very knowledgeable—particularly compared with a stay-at-home cousin.

The King’s marriage was the great topic for we all knew that he was greatly dissatisfied with his bride.

“It is a most unfortunate affair,” said Kate happily as we sat in the pond garden. I was stitching at a little garment I was making for the baby. Kate sat idly, her hands in her lap, watching me.

“Of course poor Anne of Cleves is a most unsuitable wife. The King would never have thought of taking her but for the state of affairs on the continent.”

I begged to hear more. I had heard rumors but I liked listening to Kate’s more racy version than those which had been vaguely alluded to at our dinner table.

“The King always hated the Emperor Charles and the King of France,” Kate explained, “and the thought of their joining up together was quite alarming. They say that he believed they were plotting a mischief against him. So he wanted allies on the Continent. Cromwell believed that the Duke of Cleves would be that ally; so why not make a firm alliance through marriage with the Duke’s sister?”

“And the lady was willing,” I said. “Did she know what had happened to Queen Katharine and Queen Anne?”

“Surely the whole world knows! It was bruited about Europe as I believe no other affair ever has been. The King’s Secret Matter was undoubtedly the world’s most well-known scandal. Ladies were not too willing. There was Mary of Guise—and she a widow. Very comely, said those who knew her. The King fancied her but she refused him for the King of Scotland. That is something he will not readily forgive the Scots. And now he is angry with Master Cromwell, because the lady of Cleves does not live up to his expectations. Remus saw the account which Cromwell’s man sent him of the lady. It compared her beauty with that of other ladies as being like the golden sun to the silver moon. She was said to surpass them all. And Holbein the artist made a portrait of her but omitted to put in the pockmarks. Her face is pitted with them. They say that when he saw her the King was horrified and disgusted and naturally furious with those who had brought her to him.”

“Poor woman!”

“She could not speak a word of English so she did not know what was being said about her.”

“She must have sensed the cold reception.”

“I was sorry for the King. I wondered whether he compared her with that other Anne. Do you remember her, Damask? How fascinating she was riding in her litter! Did you ever see anyone like her? So elegant…so attractive….She was a real Queen. I shall never forget her.”

“Nor I the day you blackmailed poor Tom Skillen into taking us up the river to see her pass by.”

“How grateful you should be to me. But for my astuteness you would never have seen Queen Anne Boleyn. No, I shall never forget her. She was unforgettable. How could the King have let her go for the sake of Jane Seymour! That is something I have never been able to understand. Jane was so simple, so dull….Compared with all that brilliance….”

“Perhaps men sometimes tire of brilliance and fancy a little peace.”

That made Kate laugh. “His Grace the King? Never! Well, he would have quickly tired of her had she lived, so, poor soul, perhaps it was as well she died. When I saw the new Queen at Shooters Hill whither we had ridden out with the King’s party to greet her, I was mightily astonished. I had insisted on Remus’s taking me, although he had feared I should not ride at that stage of my pregnancy. But I insisted and there she was. Damask, the pity of it. So plain! That dreadful skin and her clothes! If they had tried to make her look ugly they could not have succeeded better. She had some twelve or so ladies with her—all as ugly as she was. They are fat, these Flemings, and have no style. How different from the French. Anne Boleyn was Frenchified, was she not? Do you remember the way she held her head? And the King. He looked magnificent…although I will whisper to you that he no longer has that golden look he once had. His face is red and he is fat and his eyes have grown smaller and his mouth tighter…and when he frowns he is quite terrifying. But on this day he was in a coat somewhat like a dress—purple velvet, embroidered with gold thread and trimmed with gold lace. The sleeves were lined with cloth of gold and the coat was held together by buttons which were diamonds, rubies and pearls. His bonnet was a glitter. And his new Queen! She was in a gown of raised cloth of gold and on her head was a caul and over that a bonnet. How hideous are the Dutch fashions! To see them meet was most revealing. The people cheered and the King could not give vent to his real feeling, but those near him knew that the thunder was rumbling and those responsible for bringing Anne of Cleves to England trembled then and have been trembling ever since.”

“Surely that was Cromwell.”

“Cromwell, yes, and there are many who hate that man and will doubtless be pleased to see befall him that which has been the fate of many others.”

“He is too powerful a man to suffer because the King does not like the look of a woman.”

“Powerful men have fallen before. And they say that the King never loved Cromwell. He has accorded him scarce any dignity nor respect. ’Twas different with the Cardinal—yet look what became of him.”

“It is dangerous to serve princes.”

“You are not the first to have mentioned the fact,” said Kate with a wry smile. “Do you know that after he had seen her for the first time the King was so incensed that he cried out: ‘Whom shall men trust? I promise you that I see no such thing in her as hath been shown to me by her pictures or report. I love her not.’ ”

“Could he expect to love her on such a short meeting?”

“He meant he had no desire for her. And so long had he been without a wife that this was ominous. To tell the truth I believe he already had his eye on Katharine Howard and if this were so this would doubtless make Anne of Cleves seem even more repulsive than she might otherwise have been thought. Remus said that the King summoned Cromwell and demanded to be told how he could be released from the ‘great Flanders mare.’ Poor Cromwell, he is at his wits’ end. But should we say ‘Poor Cromwell’? Secretly I think not. Perhaps we are smiling a little because he is now himself in that danger in which he has placed so many. When we think of those days when his men came to St. Bruno’s….”

“He was but doing the King’s bidding.”

“Oh, a little more than that. He was the enemy of the monks. But for that man perhaps now Bruno would be living at the Abbey and you and I would be stealing through the secret door to have word with him. But that is all gone. It is as though it never was. And now it is Cromwell’s turn to face the wrath of his sovereign.”

“I pity any who must face that.”

“Have you forgotten? Do you remember the monk who hung on the gibbet…how limp was his body! It made me shudder to look at him. And Brother Ambrose….”

“Please don’t talk of it, Kate. I’d rather forget.”

“There’s the difference in us. I’d rather remember now and say “There, Cromwell, it is your turn now.’ ”

“But has it come to that? He has a great title bestowed on him, has he not?”

“Oh, yes, my Lord of Essex and Lord Chamberlain of England. Remus tells me that the King has bestowed thirty manors on him. Well, I suppose he deserved some to fall to him when one considered how many he has diverted to the King. But that was in April. It is now June. The summer skies are darkening for Master Cromwell and it is all due to this marriage.”

“How knowledgeable you are.”

“These are matters which are discussed at Court and sometimes here when people come from Court.”

“And you find it dull?”

“Not such talk. Not such people. It is the country squires who bore me. Moreover I would wish to be at Court and not merely to listen to what goes on there when good fortune sends us a visitor.”

“And what of Cromwell, Kate? What do they tell you of this man?”

“That the Cleves marriage has been a mistake from beginning to end. The King loves only attractive women and they procured for him a Flanders mare. The marriage was necessary, said Master Cromwell, because the King must placate the Duke of Cleves since the Emperor Charles of Austria and King François of France have put their heads together and have made an alliance which is surely to attack England. The German States could be brought to England’s side because of the union with one of them and the unhappy King could see that he must do as his statesmen bid; and so against his inclination he married Anne of Cleves but declared that he could not bring himself to consummate the marriage.” Kate began to laugh. “Imagine it! He went into the nuptial chamber but he had no inclination to go farther.”

“I am sorry for her,” I said.

“They say she was terrified. She feared that wishing to be rid of her he would trump up some charge against her. And now the Emperor Charles and King François have fallen out, and while this should be a matter for rejoicing, when the King knew what had happened he was furious, for it seemed he had married for no reason at all. He did not care now whether he had the support of the German States or not, for his two great enemies were even greater enemies of each other and while this state of affairs persisted he had nothing to fear. He demanded that Cromwell should extricate him. Cromwell does not know which way to turn. The clever man is caught in his own net.”

“I wonder any man desires to go to Court. Look at the peace of this garden! How much more pleasant it is to watch the lilies on the pond and the bees in the lavender than to be concerned in the King’s business.”

“The rewards are great,” said Kate.

“And to gain them one must risk one’s head?”

“Damask, you are without ambition. You do not know how to live.”

“But it is precisely what I would wish to do. It is you who think that there is some virtue in gambling with death.”

“I would rather live boldly for a week than dully for twenty years. I am sure my way of life is more to be desired than yours.”

“When we are old, we will remember this day and perhaps then we shall understand who is right.”

We were silent for a while. Then she said that she thought her time would be sooner than she had believed possible.

“We must send for your husband,” I said.

But she shook her head. “We shall do no such thing. I do not want him here, intruding on us.”

She was adamant. I was a little alarmed. There was a feverishness about her. I kept thinking of Keziah lying in Mother Salter’s cottage with the sprig of rosemary on the sheet.

Lord Remus came to the Castle. Kate was disappointed that he had returned so soon, but he told me that he must certainly be present when his child was born. There was no doubt that he adored Kate. I was surprised because she was not always gracious to him; but he reacted to her tantrums as though she were a favored child, as though everything she did must be accepted because she did it so charmingly.

But at least what he had to tell was of interest to Kate.

Kate had insisted that she was in no mood to entertain and we took our meals as before in her room. The difference was that Lord Remus was often with us. Kate would have preferred him to be absent but when he talked of the Court affairs she became animated and interested.

Because of his post in the King’s household Lord Remus could talk knowledgeably of affairs and although I imagined that ordinarily he was a man of discretion Kate could worm anything out of him. She wanted to know the truth about Cromwell and therefore she had it.

“The man is in a frenzy of anxiety,” Lord Remus told her. “He has been arrested at Westminster. I heard from my Lord Southampton, who was present, that he was taken completely off his guard. He came to the Council and as he entered the room the Captain of the Guard stepped forward with the words, ‘Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, I arrest you in the name of the King on a charge of High Treason.’ Southampton says he never saw a man so astonished and then afraid.”

“How many times,” cried Kate, “had Master Cromwell called for the arrest of men who were more innocent than he!”

“Be careful, Kate.”

“What nonsense!” she retorted. “Do you think Damask will inform against me? And of what should she inform?”

“It is necessary to guard the tongue, my dear. We do not know who may be listening or how words may be distorted. We cannot trust our own servants these days.”

“Tell us more,” commanded Kate.

“The fellow was near hysteria. He threw his bonnet to the ground. He called on the members of the Council to support him. They knew he was no traitor, he said. But all were against him to a man. They have always hated the fellow. He went straight to the Tower and before the day was out the King’s men were ransacking his houses. I have heard he had accumulated much treasure during his days of power and that the King’s coffers will be much enriched by it.”

“Master Cromwell will have a taste of what he was delighted to do to others. I can see them now at the Abbey. Those laden packhorses! All the riches and treasures of St. Bruno’s.”

Lord Remus again begged his wife to have a care and this time she was silent. I knew she was thinking of Bruno and the anguish he had suffered.

I said to Lord Remus: “How could this man who has worked for the King so suddenly become a traitor? Are not his fortunes linked with those of the King? Is he a traitor then because two Princes of Europe have become enemies when they were friends?”

Lord Remus looked at me gently. There was something very kind about him and he and I had become good friends. I think he liked the deference I always showed him, which I felt was due to his age and position, and in any case I was sorry for the manner in which Kate behaved toward him.

“Why, Damask,” he answered, “the way to the King’s favor is through good fortune and can any man expect good fortune to attend him all the days of his life? There are those who would say that Thomas Cromwell has led a charmed life…until now. They will tell you that Cromwell rose from humble stock to greatness. There again he resembled his master Wolsey. His father, they say, was a blacksmith and a fuller and shearer of cloth, but I have heard that he was a man of some small means having in his possession a hostelry and brewhouse. Cromwell is a man of great ability. Shrewd, cunning, but with little of those graces which would have helped his progress at Court. He was well fitted though to do the work the King gave him to do. But he was never liked. The King was never affectionate toward him as he was toward the Cardinal. While he used Cromwell he despised him. It seems there is little chance for the man now.”

“I wonder any man wishes to serve the King.”

Lord Remus’s eyes opened wide with fear. “It is the duty and pleasure of us all to serve His Majesty,” he said loudly. “And it is wrong to show pity for those who…are traitors toward him.”

I asked of what Cromwell had been accused. Was it bringing a wife whom the King found repulsive? If he had brought a beauty would he have been now living in peace in one of his many mansions?

“He is accused of secret dealing with the Germans. He has failed in his foreign policy, for the alliance he made with the Duke of Cleves is proved a nuisance to the King who wishes now to conclude a treaty with Emperor Charles. Cromwell’s policy has brought no good to the country and in addition it has brought a wife to the King of whom he wishes to be rid.”

“It might so easily have gone the other way.”

Lord Remus bent toward me and said: “There is little sympathy for this man. His actions have not won the love of many. There will be plenty who will not shed a tear when his head rolls—as it surely must.”

Then I thought of my father’s saying that the tragedy of one was the tragedy of us all; and I was very uneasy.

We were all very relieved when Kate’s pains started and her labor was not long. Trust Kate to be lucky.

Remus and I sat in the anteroom of her bedroom in deep sympathy with each other. He was very anxious and I tried to comfort him. He told me all that Kate had meant to him, how life had changed for him since his marriage, how wonderful she was and how terrified he had been when she was at Court lest the King’s eyes stray too often toward her. How grateful he was to Norfolk’s niece, Katharine Howard, who was not nearly so beautiful as Kate (who was?) but had a straying wanton glance which had greatly beguiled the King so that he scarcely saw anyone else. He was sure that as soon as the King was free of his distasteful marriage, he would wish to make Katharine Howard his fifth Queen.

I shuddered and he said quietly, “You may well feel sorry for the poor child. She is so young, so unaware. I trust if it should ever come to a crown for her, fate will not be as unkind as it has been to her predecessors.”

And by fate of course he meant the King.

I tried to make him talk about the affair to keep his mind off Kate, but even at such a time he was too much aware of the dangers to say overmuch.

Then before we dared hope to we heard the cry of a child and we rushed into the room—and there he was, a healthy boy.

Kate lay back in her bed—exhausted and pale, beautiful in a new way, ethereal and triumphant.

The midwife was chuckling.

“A fine boy, my lord. And what a pair of lungs!”

I saw the color flood Remus’s face. I doubt whether he had ever known such a proud moment.

“And her ladyship?” he said.

“It’s rarely been my luck to have such an easy birth, my lord.”

He went to the bed and stood there looking down at her, his expression one of adoration.

Kate was too tired to talk; but she caught my eye and said my name.

“Congratulations, Kate,” I said. “You have a fine boy.”

I saw the smile curve her lips. It was one of triumph.

The child was named Carey which was a family name of the Remuses. Kate affected an indifference to him which I did not believe she really felt. She refused to feed him herself and a wet nurse came in—a plump rosy-cheeked girl who had enough milk and to spare for her own child when Carey had had his fill. Her name was Betsy and I said to Kate that it was a shameful thing that a country girl who had come as the child’s wet nurse should show more affection for him than his own mother.

“He is too young for me yet,” Kate excused herself. “When he grows older I shall be interested in him.”

“Such maternal instincts!” I mocked.

“Maternal instincts are for such as you,” retorted Kate, “who doubtless has not a soul above feeding and cleaning infants.”

I loved the baby. I would nurse him whenever possible and young as he was I was sure he knew me. When he was crying I would rock him in his cradle and never fail to quieten him. Lord Remus used to smile at me.

“You should be a mother, Damask,” he said.

I knew he was right. Being with little Carey made me long for a child of my own. I thought I would like to take the boy home with me, for I said to Kate it was time I went home.

She raised a storm of protests. Why did I constantly talk of going home? Wasn’t I content to be with her? What did I want? I only had to ask and she would see that it was brought to me.

I said I wanted to be with my father. He was missing me. Kate must remember that I only came to be with her until she had her child.

“The baby will miss you,” said Kate slyly. “How shall we keep him quiet when you are not there to rock the cradle?”

“He’d rather have his mother.”

“No, he would not. He prefers you, which shows how clever he is. You’re of much more use to him than I am.”

“You are a strange woman, Kate,” I said.

“Would you have me ordinary?”

“No. But I should like you to be more natural with the child.”

“He is well cared for.”

“He needs caresses and to be made aware of love.”

“This boy will own all these lands. He’s a very lucky baby. He’ll soon grow out of the need for caresses and baby talk when he sees this grand estate.”

“Then he will be like his mother.”

“Which,” said Kate, “is not such a bad thing to be.”

So we bantered and enjoyed each other’s company. I knew that she sought every pretext to keep me there and I was delighted that this should be so. As for myself I thought often of my father and were it not for him I should have been contented enough to stay. I guessed that he must have missed me sorely and now that Kate had her boy, I thought he would write urging me to come back; but his letters to me were accounts of home affairs and there was no urgent request for me to return.

I was a little piqued by this, which was foolish of me; I might have known there was a reason.

Little Carey was a month old. My mother wrote that she had heard that a fruit called the cherry had been brought into the country and had been planted in Kent. Could I please try to find out if this was so? And she had also heard that the King’s gardener had introduced apricots into his gardens and they were prospering well. She would so like to hear if this was the case. Perhaps some of the people who visited Remus Castle and who came from the Court would be able to tell something about these exciting projects.

The people who came from the Court did not talk of apricots. There was about them all a furtive air; they lowered their voices when they talked but they could not deny themselves the pleasure of discussing the King’s affairs.

The King was determined to rid himself of Anne of Cleves. Cromwell, who had made the marriage, was going to unmake it.

I thought of him often in his prison in the Tower—his fate was not unlike that of the great Cardinal, only his lacked the dignity. The Cardinal had had the King’s affection and had died before the ignominy of the Tower and death there could overtake him. I was filled with pity for these men—even Cromwell—and no matter how much I remembered that terrible time when the Abbey had been defiled and violence and misery had prevailed, still I felt pity for the man who had climbed so high only to fall.

I heard now that Cromwell had been forced to reveal conversations which he had had with the King on the morning after the wedding night. During these conversations the King had made it perfectly clear that the marriage had not been consummated.

“Cromwell has admitted,” so said one of our visitors, “that the King told him he found the lady so far from his taste that nothing could induce him to consummate the marriage. If she were a maid when she came, so Cromwell assures us the King said to him, then His Majesty had left her as she was when she came, though as for her virginity, His Majesty was inclined to doubt that she was in possession of such a virtue when she arrived. Now Parliament will bring in a bill to declare that the marriage is null and void and that if a marriage has not been consummated this is a ground for divorce.”

“How unfortunate are the King’s wives,” I said.

“I do not think the lady who will soon become the fifth would agree with this.”

“Poor girl. She is very young, I hear.”

“Aye, and the King is eager for her.”

“Perhaps when he is married to her he will soften toward her and pardon Cromwell.”

“That man has too many enemies. His doom is certain. The King never had any affection for him.”

I shivered.

I shall never forget that July. The scent of roses filled the pond garden and the leaves were thick in the pleached alley. I used to carry the baby out to the seat in his wicker basket and sit him down at my feet while I stitched at some garment for him. Kate would join me. She was planning her next visit to Court.

“They say Katharine Howard is already the King’s wife. I wonder how long she will last.”

“Poor girl,” I murmured.

“At least she will be a Queen, if only for a short time. I have heard it said that in the Duchess of Norfolk’s household she was a very merry little lady at one time.”

“The King would hardly wish for a somber one.”

“Rather free with her smiles and other favors.”

“ ’Tis always better to smile than frown—something which you might remember.”

She laughed. “My mentor!” she murmured. “You always seem to know what is best for me. Why should you think that you are so much wiser than I?”

“Because I should be hard put to it to be less so.”

“Oh, so now we are clever! Go on, clever Damask. I will sit with my hands folded and listen to your sermons.”

We were silent for a while. There was no sound in the garden but the buzzing of the bees in the lavender.

Then she said: “How does it feel to die…to leave all this, I wonder.”

I looked at her in a startled fashion and she went on: “How did Queen Anne feel in her prison in the Tower, knowing that her end was near. It is four years since she died, Damask, and in the month of May, the beauteous month when all nature is reborn…and she died. And now that man, who was no friend of hers, is also to die. She was brave. They say she walked most calmly to her death, that she was elegantly attired as always. She was scornful of her fate. That is how I would be. And think of the King, Damask. He heard the death gun booming from the Tower. ‘The deed is done,’ so they tell me he said. ‘Uncouple the hounds and away.’ And to Wolf Hall he went where Jane Seymour was waiting. But she did not long enjoy her crown.”

“Poor soul,” I said.

“Yet she died in her bed and not on a bloody scaffold.”

“Perhaps it was better that she died thus than live to face a worse death.”

“Death is death,” said Kate. “Wherever it is met. But not all die as Anne died. I can picture her lifting her head high as she walked and as calmly laving it down to receive the blow from the executioner’s sword. How different is Cromwell. He begs for his life, they say. He has sworn all that the King asks him to swear. He declares the King confided to him on the wedding night…because that is what the King wishes. He begged for mercy.”

“And will it be granted?”

“Is the King ever merciful?”

“I wonder,” I said.

We were interrupted in the garden by the arrival of a visitor. He came from Court and Kate went out to greet him. That day we dined in the great hall and Kate was animated and I thought that having a child had by no means impaired her beauty. Lord Remus could not take his eyes from her and I marveled at her power to win such devotion without making much effort to do so.

The talk was of the Court as Kate wished it to be.

The fall of Cromwell and the King’s infatuation for Katharine Howard were the topics.

“My Lady of Cleves now passes her time most comfortably at Richmond Palace,” our visitor told us. “Those who have seen her say that a great serenity has fallen upon her. She has many dresses and all of the latest fashion. She walks in the gardens and is most pleasant to all who approach her. The truth is that she has come through a trying ordeal. They say she was terrified when the King showed he would not have her and greatly feared that her head would roll in the dust as had that of Queen Anne Boleyn.”

“What a merciful escape.”

“It is not always judicious to cut off the heads of those who have powerful friends in Europe. Thomas Boleyn was an Englishman, and no powerful monarch. So Anne lost her head.”

“It is small wonder that my lady Anne revels in her freedom,” I said. “I can understand how she feels now. Free…with no anxiety! Free to enjoy the King’s mercy.”

“The King was merciful to Cromwell too” was the answer. “He gave him the ax in place of the gallows. As a lowborn man it should have been the gallows but the King was a little moved by his pleas for mercy and granted the block.”

“And now he is no more.”

I could not join in the laughter and merriment of that night when the mummers came into the hall and there was dancing to entertain our visitors. I kept on thinking of the feverish relief of Anne of Cleaves, the mercy shown to Thomas Cromwell—an ax to cut off his head instead of a rope to hang about his neck—and of the young girl who was blithely walking into danger as the King’s fifth wife.

Kate came to my room that night.

“You brood too much, Damask,” she told me; for she understood the trend of my thoughts although I had said nothing. “Does it not seem to you that by the very fact that we live in a world where death can come at any moment to anyone, we should cherish those moments we have of life?”

I thought that perhaps she was right. And a few days later Rupert came to Remus Castle.

Our visitor from Court had left and we were quiet again.

Intending to take little Carey into the rose garden and sit there and enjoy the peace of the place while I worked at my sewing I went to the nursery where I found Betsy in tears. Carey who had been well fed was sleeping and when I asked her what was wrong she told me that her sister’s master, who had been good to her, had yesterday been drawn on a hurdle and taken to Smithfield to undergo the dreaded sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering. This barbaric custom of hanging a man and cutting him down when he was still alive to disembowel him was so horrifying that to hear of it sickened me; I tried to comfort Betsy and asked of what her sister’s employer had been accused.

“He was not rightly sure,” she told me. “But it was doubtless speaking against the King and the new law.”

He did not rightly know meant that there had been no trial. What had happened to our country since the King had broken with the Church and ordinary humble folk must watch their words?

I could not think of how I could comfort Betsy so I took the baby and went out to the rose garden. Kate came there and sat beside me as I stitched. She too was somber for she had heard of the tragedy.

“He was hanged, drawn and quartered with three others as traitors,” she told me, “while three more were burned as heretics. What a strange state of affairs. Those who were hanged, drawn and quartered were traitors because they spoke in favor of the Pope; those who were burned as heretics were studying the new religion and spoke against him. So those who are for Rome and those who are against Rome die together at the same hour at the same place.”

“There is a simple explanation,” I said. “The King has made it clear that there is to be but one change. The religion is the same—the Catholic Faith, but in place of the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church there is an Englishman, the King. To declare the Pope head of the church makes a man a traitor. But to study and practice the new doctrines set out by Martin Luther is heresy. Lowborn traitors are hanged, drawn and quartered; heretics are burned at the stake. That is how things stand in this country at this day.”

“All men and women should take the greatest care not to dabble in these things.”

“My father told me that Luther had said: That what the King of England wills must be for the English an article of faith—to disobey which means death.”

“How do we know,” said Kate soberly, “whether we are not at this moment talking treason?”

“Let us hope that only the birds and insects can hear.”

“It was more comforting when there was the old law. Now it is so difficult to know whether or not one speaks treason.”

“So one must be careful before whom one says one single word which can be considered treason. I’ll dareswear Betsy’s sister’s master wished no harm to the King. It may well be that by talking of this man we could be accused of treason. Perhaps Betsy by shedding a tear for him is a traitor. It is a frightening thought.”

“Let us talk of other things. I will show you the sapphire bracelet Remus has bought for me. That man is so proud to have a son. He says he is afraid to let it be known, for the King can be very envious of men who get healthy sons.”

“Could it then be treason to have a son! The young Prince Edward is something of a weakling, I believe.”

“How strange that my little Carey should be such a lusty animal while Edward with all the royal care and fuss is puny.”

“Is it treason so to discuss the heir to the throne?”

“Treason is lurking round the corner always ready to creep up on one. If we talk of a ribbon—could that be treason? If my ribbons are of a prettier color than those of Queen Katharine Howard and I say so—could that be treason? Methinks, Damask, that we should guard our tongues and never speak at all except to say the sun is shining or it rains or like your mother discuss the merits of one rose against another. That is safety. But this is a matter of which we have talked often, and in spite of all I would rather go to Court and risk death than die of boredom here.”

But the thought of treason had had a sobering effect on us both and neither of us was in the mood to banter.

It was the following morning when Rupert came.

As soon as he rode into the courtyard accompanied by his servant, I knew he had brought bad news. I ran out to him and embraced him.

He said: “Damask, oh, my dear Damask….”

“Father?” I asked. “Is it Father?”

He nodded and I saw that he was trying to control his features that he might hide his grief.

“Quickly,” I cried. “Tell me quickly. What is it?”

“Yesterday your father was taken to the Tower.”

I stared at him in horror. I could not believe it.

“It’s not true,” I cried. “It can’t be true. Why? What has he done?”

And even as I spoke our conversation of the last few days came back to my mind. How easy it was to be a traitor to the King. What could he have done to take him to the Tower, he who had never done anything to harm anyone in his life before?

“I must talk to you,” said Rupert. “Where is Kate? Where is Lord Remus?”

Lord Remus was out with the hunt. Kate, having heard the sounds of arrival, joined us in the courtyard.

“Rupert,” she cried. “Welcome, brother.” Then she saw his face. “Ill news?” she cried, looking from one of us to the other.

“Father has been taken to the Tower,” I said.

The color left her face; her great eyes looked stony. I had rarely seen Kate so moved. She turned to me, her lips quivering, and held out her hand. I grasped it and she pressed it firmly. She was reminding me then that she understood my suffering and that she was as my sister.

“Pray come in,” said Kate. “Do not let us stand out here.”

She slipped her arm through mine and we went into the great hall.

Kate said: “We cannot talk here.” And she led us to an anteroom. There she bade Rupert sit down and me too; and seating herself she said: “Pray tell us all.”

“It was yesterday while we were at dinner. The King’s men came and arrested Uncle in the King’s name.”

“On what charge?” I cried.

“Treason,” said Rupert.

“It could not be true.”

Rupert looked at me sadly. “They took Amos Carmen too. They found his hiding place. They went straight to it as though someone had betrayed the fact that he was there.”

“In our house?” I asked.

Rupert nodded. “After you left, Amos came back. He was being hunted. He had declared the Pope to be the true head of the Church and refused to sign the Act of Supremacy which as a priest he was required to do. He was going to escape to Spain because there was no hope for him here while the King lived; your father was helping him.”

I covered my face with my hand. How could he have been so foolish! He had walked straight into danger. It was what I had always feared. That which had threatened us had at last caught up with us.

It was Kate who spoke. “What can we do to save him?”

Rupert shook his head.

“There must be something,” I cried. “What will they do to him? That…which they have done to others?”

“It would be the ax for him,” said Rupert as though to comfort me. “He is of gentle birth.”

The ax! That greatly loved head to be severed by the executioner. That good life to be ended by a stroke! How could such things happen? Had these people never known what it was to love a father?

Kate said gently: “This is a terrible shock to Damask. We must take care of her, Rupert.”

Rupert said: “That is what I am here to do.”

“I must go to him,” I said.

“You would not be allowed to see him,” Rupert reminded me. “It is his wish that you should remain here with Kate.”

“Remain here…when he is there! I shall do no such thing. I am coming home at once. I will find some way to see him. I will do something. I will not stand by and allow them to murder him.”

“Damask…this is a great blow. I have broken it too roughly, too harshly. Here you are safe. You are away from the house. He did not wish you to come home while Amos was there. He would allow none of us to be involved. He declares again and again that he and he only is responsible for hiding Amos. He was not in the house, but you remember the little cottage in the nuttery. Uncle hid him there and himself took food to him. No one went to the loft above. Only garden tools were stored in the lower part, you remember. It seemed he was safe there. It would be folly to go back now. We do not know what will happen next.”

“So they came while you were at dinner.”

Rupert nodded.

“And he…how did he go?”

“Calmly, as you would expect. He said, ‘No one here knows of this but myself.’ And then they went out and took Amos. They have both been carried off to the Tower.”

“And what can we do, Rupert?”

Rupert shook his head blankly. What was there to do? What could anyone do? What the King willed was an article of Faith—and Amos had broken the King’s law and my father had helped him do this.

Kate, wondrously gentle for her, said: “I am going to take you to your room, Damask. You are going to lie down. I will bring a posset which will soothe you. You will sleep and then you will be better able to suffer this blow.”

“Do you think I am going to sleep while he is in the Tower? Do you think I want possets? I am going back at once. I am going to find out what I can do….”

Rupert said: “It’s no good, Damask.”

“You may stay here if you are afraid,” I said, which was unkind and unfair too. “I shall not cower behind Lord Remus. I am going home. I am going to discover what can be done.”

“Nothing can be done, Damask.”

“Nothing. How do you know? What have you tried to do? I am going back at once.”

Rupert said: “If you go I shall come with you.”

“You should stay here, Rupert.”

“Where you are I wish to be,” he said.

“I will not have you risk anything for me. But I shall not stay here. I shall go back at once. There may be something I can do.”

Rupert shook his head but Kate surprisingly came down on my side.

“If she wishes to go back, she must,” she said.

“But it is dangerous,” protested Rupert. “Who knows what will happen now?”

“What of my mother?” I asked.

“She is stunned by the blow.”

I could imagine her, startled out of a world where she had lived shut away from events and the blight on her roses was by far the greatest tragedy she could envisage.

“And what is being done?” I asked.

“What can we do?” asked Rupert. “He was taken yesterday. He is in the Tower. They have allowed him to take a servant with him. Tom Skillen went. He came back for a blanket and some food. They allowed him to take them to him. So he is not being so badly treated as some.”

I said firmly: “When can we start?”

“We could leave tomorrow,” said Rupert. “It is too late today.”

Kate said: “That is wise. You will go tomorrow. Rupert must rest. He has had a long journey.”

I was silent, staring before me, visualizing it all. His calm acceptance when they came to take him; the barge would have taken him through the Traitors’ Gate. And he would have been thanking God that Damask was not at home, that she had not been in the house at all while he had sheltered Amos. He would be saying, “Damask is safe.” As if I wanted to be safe while he was in danger. Why had I gone? Why had I not been there? I would have done something, I promised myself. I would never have allowed them to take him. I thought of him in his dismal prison in the Tower. So many had exchanged their comfortable beds for a pallet on the cold stone floor—to await death.

But it could not come to that. It must not. There would be a way.

Kate was leading me to my room.

There was the night to be lived through before we left. I could not wait to start on the journey home. Remus had come in from the hunt, beaming and full of high spirits. The change in him when he heard the news was astounding. His skin turned a pale-yellow color and his jaw worked without his volition. I was looking at Fear. No man in these days cared to be connected with a traitor.

He recovered quickly, for he was remote from my father; all he had done was marry a cousin of his wife. Surely that could not be construed as treason? After all there had been no question of Lawyer Farland’s treachery at that time. He had been a rich man, a respectable lawyer who had given good service to many of the King’s close friends. Remus decided that he was safe and the fear passed. But I could see he was glad that I had decided to leave his house.

At dawn I was up, ready to leave. I was touched by Kate’s solicitude. Never before had she shown her affection for me so clearly; she was deeply moved and she whispered to me: “Rupert will take care of you. Do as he wishes.” Then she threw her arms about me and held me tightly for a second.

She stood at the gateway watching us ride away.

It grew lighter as we rowed upriver but I scarcely noticed the landscape as we passed. I was thinking of him; pictures kept coming in and out of my mind; I thought of his standing by the wall watching the barges go by, his arm about me. I heard his voice telling me that the tragedy of the Cardinal was the tragedy of us all. How prophetic were his words, for the Cardinal had fallen when the King broke with Rome and the reverberation of that break still echoed through the land and it was for this reason that my own father now lay in his dank and dismal prison awaiting death.

It was more than I could bear. I was in such despair that only my anger could rouse me from it. I would in my present mood have gone to the King himself and told him what a cruel and wicked thing this was to harm a good man who had done nothing but what he believed to be right.

There on the bank were the towers of Hampton Court. I shivered as we passed it. Work was still being done on it, I remembered inconsequentially. My father had mentioned only the last time we had passed that a great astronomical clock was being erected in one of the courtyards and that the lovers’ knots with the King’s and Jane Seymour’s initials which had been put into the great hall were already out of date since there had been another Queen since and talk of yet another. The towers which had always seemed so enchanting to me, now seemed menacing.

How slowly Tom Skillen rowed, I thought impatiently. But it was not true that he did. Poor Tom, he also had changed from the carefree young man who had crept into Keziah’s bedroom by night.

We had arrived. The barge was tied to the privy stairs and I scrambled out and ran across the lawns into the hall, where I found my mother. I threw myself into her arms and she kept repeating my name. Then she said: “You shouldn’t have come. He didn’t wish it.”

“But I am here, Mother,” I said. “No one could stop my coming.”

Simon Caseman appeared. He stood a little apart from us, a woebegone expression on his face. He looked strong and powerful so I appealed to him.

“There must be something we can do,” I said.

He took both my hands in his and kissed them. “We will never give up hope,” he said.

“Is there some way of getting to him?” I asked.

“I am trying to find out. It may be possible for you to see him.”

I was so grateful that I pressed his hand warmly.

He said: “You may rely on me to explore every path.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank you.”

“My dearest child,” said my mother tearfully. “You will be so worn out with the journey. Let me get something. I have heard that the juice of the pimpernel will raise the spirits when one is melancholy.”

“Oh, Mother,” I said, “nothing could raise my spirits except to see him come through the door a free man.”

Simon had edged Rupert aside. Rupert had done his task in bringing me home and he could only now regard me with sorrowful eyes which told me how well he understood my pain and would willingly bear it for me. There was something very good about Rupert. He reminded me of my father.

“What can we do?” I demanded of Simon, for he seemed more capable than any.

He said: “I am going to one of the jailors. I know him well. I did a little business for him and he owes me something. It may well be that he could let us through so that you might see your father.”

“If that could only be.”

Simon pressed my shoulder. “Rest assured,” he said, “that if this cannot be brought about it will be due to no lack of effort on my part.”

“When?” I demanded.

“Stay here with your mother. Comfort her. Go into the gardens with her. Behave as though it were any day and this had not happened. Try please. It is the best. And I will get Tom to row me to a tavern I know and there I may well discover something. I will see if I can find my warder friend and I’ll make him see that he can do no harm in allowing you and your father to see each other.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“You know,” he said quietly, “that my greatest pleasure is to please you.”

I was so grateful to him that I felt a little ashamed for not really liking him in the past. Rupert was good and kind, I knew, but he accepted disaster. Simon was ready to fight against it.

“First the pimpernel,” said my mother.

Simon said: “Take it. It will do you good to do so and your mother good to prepare it. Try to sleep a little. Then go into the garden with your mother. Take the flower basket and gather roses. Rest assured I shall be back with news soon. You must get through the time till my return as best you can.”

I thought how much he understood my grief and I warmed toward him still further. I allowed my mother to take me to her room and there she brought me the potion brewed from the juice of the pimpernel and what other ingredients I knew not.

She made me lie down and she sat by my bed and she talked of it, that terrible day when they had been at dinner—as they had so many times before and how they had been eating one of the mutton pies which Clement made so well, when the King’s men came in. I could see it all so clearly. I might have been there. I could almost taste the mutton pie garnished with my mother’s herbs; I could feel the terrible fear in my stomach and the dry constriction of my throat. And I saw his dear face so calm, so resigned. He would be as though he had almost known it must come. And he would have gone with them quietly, sitting there in the barge while the oars dipped in the water and they came through the Traitors’ Gate.

I slept for many hours. It was the pimpernel perhaps and other herbs which my mother had given me. I suppose she thought the only way in which I could forget my misery for a short while was in sleep.

To my joy the meeting was arranged. Simon came to my room and asked to be allowed in. He stood there smiling at me and as the light which came through leaden panes was not great it threw shadows and again I saw the fox’s mask and was ashamed for thinking of it in the face of all his consideration for me.

“Tomorrow I shall take you to your father,” he said.

The relief was great. I felt almost happy. Yet I knew that I must be stealthily let into his cell, that the meeting would be brief. Yet somehow I felt that by seeing him I could achieve something.

“How can I thank you?” I said.

He replied, “My reward is to do everything in my power to help you.”

“You have my gratitude,” I told him.

He bowed his head and taking my hand, raised it to his lips. Then he left me.

How I lived through the rest of that day and the night I cannot be sure. The next day I put on doublet and hose which belonged to Rupert. My hair betrayed me as a woman. Without a moment’s hesitation I had seized it in my hand and cut it off. It was thick and I cut it to hang almost to my shoulders. Now with a cap set on it I might have been a boy.

When he saw me Simon stared. “Your beautiful hair!” he cried.

“Doubtless it will grow. And I could not look like a boy with it so I must needs cut it.”

He nodded. Then he said: “You will soon be seventeen, Mistress Damask. You have made yourself look like a boy of twelve.”

“So much the better,” I replied, “for since you thought I should wear doublet and hose, you must believe I shall have a greater chance of seeing my father if I am believed to be a boy.”

“So you would sacrifice your beautiful hair for a few brief moments with him.”

“I would sacrifice my life,” I said.

“I have always admired you, as I believe I have made you aware—but never so as at this moment.”

And we went down the river together and I shall never forget seeing that grim gray fortress rise before us. How many, I wondered, had looked up at it knowing that somewhere within it lay a loved one? I had heard much of it—of the dungeons from which it was impossible to escape, the dark torture chambers; I had many times seen the great Keep and I knew the names of the many towers—the White Tower, the Salt Tower, the Bowyer Tower, the Constable Tower and the Bloody Tower in which, not so long before, the two little sons of King Edward IV had been murdered as they slept and their bodies buried, some said, under a secret stair in that very fortress. I had seen the church of St. Peter ad Vincula before which was Tower Green, the grass of which four years before had been stained by the blood of Queen Anne Boleyn, her brother and those men who were said to be her lovers.

And now my own beloved father might be destined to join the band of martyrs.

It was growing dark as we rowed upriver. Simon had said this was the best time to go. In the Lantern Turret lights burned. They were lighted at dusk and kept burning through the night to act as river signals. The river smelled dank and evil. We were now close to the stone walls.

At last we came to rest, the barge was tied to a stake and Simon helped me out.

His warder friend came out of the shadows.

“I’ll wait here,” said Simon.

The warder said: “Watch your step, boy.” And I wondered whether he was pretending to think me a boy or knew who I was. My heart was beating wildly but not with fear. I could think of only one thing: I was going to see my father.

The warder thrust a lantern into my hand.

“Carry that,” he said, “and say nothing.”

The stone was damp and slippery. I had to watch my steps carefully. I followed him through a passage and we came to a door. He had a bunch of keys and using one of these he opened it. It was iron studded, and consequently heavy. It creaked as it opened. He carefully locked the door behind us.

“Keep close,” he said.

I obeyed, and we went up a stone spiral staircase. We were in a stone-floored corridor. It was very cold. Here and there a lantern burned on the wall.

Before a heavy door the warder paused. He selected a key from his bunch and opened the door. For the moment I could scarcely see anything and then I gave a cry of joy for there he was. I put down the lantern and clung to him.

He said: “Damask. Oh, God, I am dreaming.”

“No, Father. Did you think I would not come?” I seized his hand and kissed it fiercely.

The warder stepped outside the door and stood there; my father and I were alone in the cell.

In a broken voice he said: “Oh, Damask, you should not have come.”

I knew that his joy in seeing me was as great as mine in seeing him, but that his fear for me was even greater.

I laid my cheek against his hand. “Do you think I would not have come? Do you think I would not do anything…anything….”

“My beloved child,” he said. Then: “Let me look at you.” He took my face in his hands and said: “Your hair.”

“I cut it off,” I said. “I had to come here as a boy.”

He held me against him. “Dearest child,” he said, “there is much to say and little time to say it in. My thoughts are all for you and your mother. You will have to take care of her.”

“You are coming back to us,” I said fiercely.

“If I do not….”

“No, don’t say it. You are coming. I will consider nothing else. We will find some way….How could you have done anything wrong? You who have been so good all your life….”

“What is right for some of us is wrong in the eyes of others. That is the trouble in the world, Damask.”

“This man…he had no right to come to you….He had no right to ask you to hide him.”

“He did not ask. I offered. Would you have me turn away a friend? But let us not talk of what is past. It is the future I think of. Constantly I think of you, my dearest child. It gives me great comfort. Do you remember our talks…our walks….”

“Oh, Father, I cannot bear it.”

“We must needs bear what God has decided we must.”

“God! What has God to do with this? Why should wicked murderers prosper while saints are done to death? Why should they dance in their castles…a new wife every….”

“Hush! What talk is this! Damask, I beg of you have a care. Do you want to please me? Do you want to bring me happiness?”

“Father, you know.”

“Then listen to me. Go back home. Comfort your mother. Watch over her. When the time comes marry and have children. It can be the greatest joy. When you have little ones you will cease to mourn for your father. You will know it is the rule of life—the old pass on and make way for the young.”

“We are going to take you back home, Father.”

He stroked my hair.

“We shall find a way. We must. Do you think I can endure to be there without you! You have always been there. All my life I have looked to you. I never thought till now that there would come a time when you…would not…be there.”

“My love,” he said, “you distress yourself…and me.”

“Let us be practical then. We shall try to get you out of here. Why should you not change clothes with me now….You could go and I could stay here.”

He laughed tenderly. “My dearest, do you think I would look like a boy? Do you think you could be mistaken for an old man? And do you think I would leave here one who is more dear to me than my own life? You talk wildly, child, but your talk pleases me. We have loved each other truly, we two.”

The warder was at the door.

“You’ll have to come away now. It’s dangerous to stay longer.”

“No,” I cried, and clung to my father.

He put me from him gently. “Go now, Damask,” he said. “I shall remember as long as I live that you came to me, that you cut off your beautiful hair for the sake of a few brief moments.”

“What is my hair compared with my love for you?”

“My child, I shall remember.” Then he caught me to him and held me tightly. “Damask, take care. Watch your tongue. You must know we are in danger. Someone betrayed me. Someone could betray you. That is something I could not endure. If I know that you are safe and your mother is safe…I can be content. To be careful, to care for each other, to live in peace…that could be the greatest thing you could do for me.”

“Come now,” growled the warder.

One last embrace and there I was standing in the dank passage, that heavy door between him and me.

I was unaware of the journey to the barge. I only vaguely saw the rat that scuttled across our path. There was Tom Skillen waiting to help me into the barge.

And as we rode along the dark river, guided by the lights from the Lantern Turret, one thing my father had said kept recurring in my mind. “Someone betrayed me.”

I did not see him again. They took him out on Tower Hill and that noble head was severed by the ax.

On the day it happened my mother, on Simon Caseman’s advice and without my knowledge until afterward, gave me a draft which she had made with poppy juice. It sent me into a deep sleep from which I did not awaken until I was fatherless.

I rose from my bed, heavy eyed but heavier hearted; I went downstairs and found my mother seated in her room, her hands in her lap, staring blankly before her.

I knew then that she was a widow and I had lost the dearest and best of fathers forever.

For the next few days I went about in a kind of daze. When people spoke to me I did not hear. Rupert tried to comfort me; so did Simon Caseman.

“I’ll take care of you for evermore,” Rupert told me, and I did not realize until later that he was asking me to marry him.

Simon Caseman was more definite. I did not forget that he had arranged the meeting with my father. He had seen his execution and that of Amos Carmen, and he told of it.

“You would have been proud of your father, Damask,” he said. “He walked out to his death calmly and without fear. He laid his head upon the block with a resignation which was the admiration of all who beheld it. But I will not speak of it. It is better not.”

I was silent; my grief welling up within me. I had shed no tears. My mother said it would be better if I did.

Simon said: “His last thoughts were of you. I had a word with him. You were his great concern…you and your mother. He longed to see you in the care of a strong man. That was one of his greatest desires. Damask, I am here to take care of you. You need a strong arm to lean on; you need the love which only a husband can give you. Let us delay no longer. It would be his wish and remember, you are alone in a dangerous world. When a man is arraigned for treason who knows what is in store for his family? You need me to care for you, Damask, as I need you because I love you.”

I looked at him and the old repellence came back. I fancied I saw the fox’s mask and I drew away from him. Doubtless my expression betrayed my feelings.

“I would not marry for expediency,” I said, “though, Simon, I am grateful to you for what you have done for me at this cruel time, but I could not marry you, for I do not love you and I would not marry where I did not love.”

He turned and left me.

I forgot him; I could think of nothing but my loss.

Two days after my father’s murder a strange thing happened. They had not told me, because they did not wish to grieve me, that Father’s head had been placed on one of the poles which were stuck on London Bridge. He was well known in the city and this was meant to be a warning to all men who planned to disobey the orders of the King. It would be called the head of a traitor. There were other grizzly spectacles there and to have known that his was among them would have been too much to be borne. I remembered how five years before our neighbor, Sir Thomas More, had been beheaded and his head stuck on the bridge. His head had disappeared and rumor had it that his daughter Margaret Roper had gone by night and taken her father’s head that it might no longer be exposed and be given decent burial.

Had I known that Father’s head was there I should have planned to do what Margaret had done. I would have asked Simon Caseman to help me.

One of the servants brought the news to us that Father’s head was no longer there. It had disappeared. He had seen for himself. One of the watermen had told him that there was consternation because at dawn the pole on which it had been placed was lying on the bridge and the head was gone.

They were all talking of Sir Thomas More, a man who would never be forgotten, for his goodness lived on in the minds of men and there were many who thought he was a saint. He had had a beloved daughter who it was said had taken his head; my father also had a beloved daughter.

I wished that I had done what Margaret did. I wished that I had gone stealthily by night and taken down that beloved head that I might give it decent burial.

But the mystery remained.

My father’s head had disappeared.

The days were empty. I could not believe that only four had passed since that terrible time when my mother had made me drink poppy juice and I had slept while he went to his death.

I should have been there. But I knew he would have wished me to be unconscious during that dark hour. He would have approved my mother’s action. I could think of nothing but my loss. I recalled so much of our life together. Everywhere in the house were memories of him.

It was the same in the garden. I wandered down to the river and sat on the wall watching the river craft and I thought as I had so many times of the day when the King and the Cardinal had passed.

I stayed there until it was dusk and my mother came out and said: “You will be ill if you go on like this.”

I went back to the house with her, but I could not stay indoors and I wandered once more out into the garden and watched the first stars appear.

And then I heard my name called softly and turning, I saw that Rupert had joined me.

“Oh, Rupert,” I said, “I feel none of us can ever be happy again.”

“Pain cannot last forever,” he said gently. “It will become less acute and there will be times in the future when you will forget.”

“Never,” I said fiercely.

“You are so young and he meant so much to you. But others could mean as much. Your husband…your children….”

I shook my head impatiently and he went on: “I have something to tell you.”

I thought that he was going to suggest marriage again and I wanted to leave him and go into the house, but his next words startled me.

“I have his head, Damask.”

“What?”

“I knew that you would not wish it to remain there. So when it was dark I took Tom Skillen with me. I knew I could trust him. He waited in the boat and I took down the pole….I have his head…for you.”

I turned toward him and his arms were around me. He held me against him.

“Oh, Rupert,” I said at length, “if you had been caught….”

“I was not caught, Damask.”

“You might have been. You risked great danger.”

“Damask,” he said, “I want you to know that I would risk everything I have for your sake.”

I was silent and then I said: “Where is it?”

“It is in a box…hidden. I knew you would wish to give it decent burial.”

I nodded. I said: “He once said that he would like to be buried in the Abbey burial ground.”

“We will bury him there, Damask.”

“Can we?”

“Why should we not? The place is deserted.”

“Rupert! Only you and I must know. Only you and I will be the mourners at his funeral.”

“It would be better so.”

“Rupert, it is a comfort to me to know that he no longer is there…for people to look at him…perchance to mock, to shame him.”

“Goodness is not shamed no matter how it is mocked.”

I seized his hand and pressed it.

“When shall we bury him, Rupert?”

“Tonight,” he said. “When the household is asleep. We will go to the Abbey burial grounds and there we will lay him to rest.”

We went through the ivy-covered door. How eerie it looked by the faint light from the crescent moon. Rupert had brought a lantern and a spade.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Rupert, “there’s no one here.”

“Only the ghosts of those monks who have died miserably because they have been dispossessed.”

“They would never harm us.”

We made our way to the burial ground and I stood by holding the lantern while Rupert dug a grave.

I myself held the box which held that precious relic. Then together we prayed and called for a blessing on that great good man.

I shall never forget the sound of clods of earth falling on the box; and at that sound the tears started to my eyes.

I think from that moment I began to feel that I could face life again.

Each day I went to the monks’ burial ground. I planted a rosemary on the grave. I used to kneel beside it and talk to my father as I had when he was alive. I asked for courage so that I could go on living my life without him.

The Stepfather

A WEEK AFTER THAT night when we had buried my father’s head Kate came and declared her intention to take me back to Remus Castle.

I said I would stay where I was for I wanted to visit the spot where my father’s head was buried.

But Kate was determined.

“You are coming back with me,” she declared. “Young Carey misses you. Betsy says she has not had one peaceful night since you left.”

At length I was persuaded and I left with Kate for Remus.

Kate swore that little Carey was happy now that I had returned, but I said he was far too young for that; but I did find comfort in the child. Kate took great pains to please me. She coaxed me into showing some interest in the gowns she had had made for her. She insisted that I admire the jewelry Remus gave her.

She was going to Court soon. Though she complained the Court had become dull.

“The King,” she said, “finds great pleasure in his new wife and makes excuses to be alone with her. This takes a great burden off his courtiers but means there is less entertainment; and he’s in a good mood too, except when the ulcer on his leg is painful, but the Queen knows how to comfort him. She is young and very pretty but I have heard she has had some experience in offering comfort before her marriage.”

But I could not bear to talk of the King. I regarded him as my father’s murderer and I was filled with a hatred toward him which had it been known would have doubtless meant a sojourn in the Tower for me and my head on a pike over London Bridge.

There was a certain amount of talk too about the new laws against heretics. A heretic was one who did not accept the King as Supreme Head of the Church, be he Papist or anti-Papist.

“It’s a very simple rule,” said Kate. “The King is right whatever he does. Whatever he says is the truth and all those who contradict are traitors. It’s all one has to remember.”

And I was sure that there had never been a time so fraught with danger as these in which we lived.

In Remus Castle we seemed away from the world. I did love the baby and I began to believe that he had special feeling for me. It was true that if he were bawling lustily, which he often did, and I picked him up he would stop and something like a smile would touch his features. Kate was proud of the child in an offhand sort of way. She left him to the nurses but because I was interested in him and wanted him often with me, she saw more of him than she would otherwise have done.

His christening in the castle chapel was a grand affair and as many people from Court were present, I made the acquaintance of Dukes and Earls who before had been merely names to me. Their conversation was chiefly about the King and the new Queen. It was amazing how people could not prevent themselves discussing subjects which they knew could be dangerous. They reminded me of moths flying to a candle.

The Queen, it seemed, had a definite charm which enthralled the King. She was not pretty by any means, she lacked the elegance of Queen Anne Boleyn, but the King had not been so delighted with any of his wives as he was with Katharine Howard—apart from Anne Boleyn before their marriage perhaps. The new Queen had a way with her, I gathered. She was good-natured, easygoing, sensuous—just what an old man needed to revive his youth and that, it seemed, was what Katharine Howard was doing for King Henry. As for the last Queen, Anne of Cleves, she was thoroughly enjoying her life at Richmond Palace and delighted to call herself the King’s sister as she congratulated herself on her lucky escape.

There was, it was true, an insurrection on Yorkshire, when men rose to protest against the new Supreme Head of the Church, but that was quickly suppressed and the requisite amount of blood shed to ensure that the people understood what happened to those who opposed the King.

But now that the King had found a wife who pleased him so much that he did not want to change her, life seemed to have become more peaceful.

Six weeks had passed since my father’s death and then one day Lord Remus came out to the pond garden while Kate and I sat there with the baby in his basket and said: “I have grave news for you, Damask.”

My heart pounded in fear; but even then I wondered what else could happen that could seem of any real importance to me.

Lord Remus was frowning. He did not seem to know how to begin.

“Damask,” he said, “you must know that when a man is judged a traitor and is executed there are occasions when his worldly possessions are confiscated by the King who may take them for himself or divert them to someone he considers is deserving of them.”

“You are telling me,” I said, “that the King has not only robbed my father of his head but has taken his estates as well.”

“That is what I understand, Damask.”

“So…I am homeless.”

“It is not quite as desperate as that. A certain amount of leniency has been shown in your father’s case.” He added with a cynicism which he did not seem to realize, “It is not as though his estates were so very large…by the King’s standards, that is.”

“Please tell me what has happened.”

Lord Remus hesitated. He coughed. “It’s a little delicate,” he said, “but I have been asked to break this to you and so must I. You should not think that your father’s house will no longer be your home. Simon Caseman has made that clear. There is always to be a home for you there.”

“Simon Caseman!” I cried. “What is this to him?”

“The King’s officers have decided to bestow your father’s house on him.”

“But why?”

“He has lived with your family. He has been your father’s right-hand man in business.”

“But…if it is decided to take my father’s estate from those to whom it belongs…my mother and myself…why not to Rupert who is related to us?”

Lord Remus looked uneasy. “My dear Damask, to leave it to a relative would not be to confiscate it from the family. The King wishes to reward Simon Caseman and this is his way of doing it.”

“Why should the King wish to reward Simon Caseman? He has worked with my father. I should have thought he might have been suspect since he lived in that house of iniquity.”

“There has been an investigation of the case. Simon Caseman has said that he is eager to marry….”

“No,” I cried. “That can’t be.”

Lord Remus went on as though I had not spoken. “He is eager to marry your mother and this will solve a difficulty. Neither you nor your mother will be homeless although, in accordance with his right, the King has deprived your father and his heirs of their possessions.”

I stared at him. “My mother to marry Simon Caseman?”

“In a reasonable time…not immediately. It seems a good arrangement.”

I could not believe it. It seemed incredible to me. My mother to marry this man who but a short time ago had been pleading with me to marry him.

It was like a nightmare; and then the light began to dawn on me. I saw his face in my mind—the fox’s mask exaggerated and I heard my father’s voice: “Someone in the house has betrayed me.”

Kate came bursting into my room.

“I wondered where you were. I couldn’t imagine why you didn’t come down. What’s the matter?”

I said, “I have just heard that our house now belongs to Simon Caseman and that he is going to marry my mother.”

“Remus told me,” she said.

“Oh, Kate, do you realize what this means? He planned it. The King wished to reward him. For what? Mayhap for informing against my father and Amos Carmen?”

Kate stared at me in disbelief.

“You can’t mean that.”

“Something within me tells me that it could be true.”

“Then he would be your father’s murderer.”

“If I could be sure of that I would kill him.”

“No, Damask, it can’t be.”

“It fits, Kate. He asked me to marry him. He has asked me several times. Does he love me? No, he wanted my inheritance.”

“That may be so, but a man is not a murderer for wishing to make a good marriage.”

“I refused, and he took this opportunity of betraying my father.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because someone in the house betrayed him and who but Simon Caseman?”

“You jump to conclusions.”

“You forget he will have my father’s estates. That is what he always wanted. That was why he asked me to marry him. Oh, I knew it was the fox’s mask I saw there on his face.”

“Fox’s mask. What nonsense is this?”

“I saw it on his face. When his face is in shadow it is there. His eyes are tawny like a fox’s. He is a sly fox who came in to rob the hen roost.”

“Do you feel all right, Damask? This has all been too much for you.”

“And I have lost my senses!” I cried. “That’s what you think. But did you know that my mother is going to marry him?”

“Remus has just told me it is so.”

Kate stared at me incredulously.

“I must go home at once,” I said.

When I arrived at the house it seemed very quiet. I was not expected so there was no one to greet me. The house seemed different. Of course it was different. It was a house in mourning. It had a new master now.

I went up to my mother’s stillroom. She was there and when she saw me she flushed as red as the reddest of her roses. She knew that I was aware of what she was preparing to do and I was glad to see that she could show some shame.

“I have heard, Madam,” I said.

She nodded and sat down on a chair. She waved her hand in front of her face like a fan. She was now quite pale and was implying that she was about to faint. I thought how like her it was to faint in a crisis. It had been her way out of a difficult situation more than once. I forgot that she was my mother. I despised her in that moment because Simon Caseman was so hateful to me and now that I was home the enormity of my father’s loss was brought back afresh.

I said: “So you are going out of mourning for your murdered husband and putting on wedding garments ready for your next.”

“Damask,” she said, “you must try to understand.”

“I understand too well,” I said.

Her hands fluttered helplessly. “We should have been homeless. It seemed the only thing to do.”

“You think he chose you for his wife?”

“You see, Damask, he has the estates now and it is the best thing for us all, that was why he chose me….”

“You mistake me. I know very well why that man chose you. I am surprised that my noble father should ever have married a woman who could forget and forgive his murder when his body is scarcely cold, and be ready to dance at her wedding.”

“It will not be a grand affair, Damask. A quiet wedding, we thought.”

I laughed scornfully. She would never understand anything but her garden and her herbs and how to make her pastry light. I felt a sudden pity for her—poor helpless woman, who had never really made a decision for herself.

“Simon Caseman,” I said. “You can consider him…after you have been Father’s wife!”

“Your father is dead.”

I turned away to hide my emotion.

“Oh, Damask,” she went on. “I know how close you two were. He cared more for you than for me. It was always Damask….”

“He was the best of husbands as well as fathers,” I said fiercely.

“He was a good man, I know.”

“And so you have decided to put this adventurer in his place.”

“I don’t think you have realized what is happening, Damask. Your father’s estates are confiscated.”

“And passed to Simon Caseman. Why, do you think? Why?”

“Because he was your father’s right-hand man. They have worked together. This is his home too. And he will marry me and we can go on as in the old way.”

“As in the old way! When he is not here. I would to God we could go on in the old way. Do you think it will be the same with your new master? Mother, I know a daughter should not say this, but I will. You are a fool.”

“I think your grief has upset you so much that you do not know what you say.”

“I know this, that Simon Caseman came into this house with the express purpose of making it his. Did you know that he has asked me to marry him…many times. So devoted he was. So chivalrous! He thought to get possession of the place through me. I was not so susceptible to his charm as you are. I said, no, I would never marry you. So he casts about for other ways. Who else is there? There is my mother. But she has a husband. Let us get rid of him and marry the accommodating widow.”

“Damask. Damask, what are you saying?”

“I am saying that I am very suspicious of a man who asks the daughter to marry him and when she refuses and the mother is in a position to give him what he seeks, promptly decides to take her.”

“My child, be careful. Do not say such things. They are wild. They are impossible. But they could mean disaster for you.”

“To speak against the King’s man, yes. I’ll dareswear you are right.”

“All wise men are the King’s men. You should know that.”

“So my father was unwise?” Whenever I mentioned his name words seemed to choke me. My emotion gave my mother the advantage. She came to me and laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Listen to me, Damask,” she said, “this terrible thing has happened to us. Your father hid that priest in the nuttery cottage. In doing so he risked his life, our estates and our future. I know that he was a saintly man, but saints who endanger their lives and those of their family are not acting wisely. What would become of us, Damask, if I do not make this marriage? We should be thrown out onto the roads as beggars or onto the mercy of our relations. I daresay Remus would help us. But when I marry Simon we shall continue to live here. It will be as before….”

“It will never be as before,” I said. “He is gone.”

“My child, you have to grow away from this. Some are taken…in that way. How do any of us know where we shall be tomorrow? I thought of the house and everything here. I thought of you and the home…and Simon will be a good husband to me.”

I said: “You are older than he is.”

“It is of no moment.”

“How could I stay here and see that man in my father’s place?”

“You will become accustomed to it. Simon is a good man of business. He has prospered and he will continue to do so. The choice is stay here and live in comfort or go out penniless into the world and starve or live on the bounty of relations. Simon has come to me with his offer of marriage. I have accepted it.”

“You want this marriage,” I said. “When you speak of it there is a gleam of pleasure in your eyes.”

“I was never a woman who wished to stand alone. Simon has promised to look after me. There are women who must have a husband. I am one. Simon and I understand each other. Your father and I had little to say to each other. He was always buried in a book or teaching you. I could never understand him when he quoted in his Greek or was it Latin?”

“You make excuses,” I said. “You are eager for this marriage. I see it. You are ten years or more older than he. And he is marrying you for the estate!”

“The estate is his without me.”

“But he wants it as it was. He wants a woman to look after the household as you do. He does not want it said that he turned the family from the home to beg in the streets. He wants to have power over us. Can’t you see?”

“You imagine this, Damask.”

“And who informed against Father?” I asked.

“There were many who could have done it.”

“The servants, who would lose a good master by it?” I demanded.

“There are others who could have done it.”

“His wife,” I asked, “who fancied a young man in her bed?”

“Damask!”

I was sorry at once. “Oh, Mother,” I said, “I cannot bear it. He has gone forever. I shall never see his dear face again, never hear his voice….”

I covered my face with my hands and she was holding me in her arms. “My child,” she said, “my baby. I understand. You are upset. You and he were as one. I used to feel shut out. You never had much time for me, did you? I understand. Try to accept this, daughter. Try to see that we have to go on and this is a way.”

I felt limp and exhausted by my emotion. I allowed her to take me to my room and tuck me in. She brought me a potion. She had just devised it, she said. There was pimpernel to make me feel happy and thyme to give me pleasant dreams and there was an ashen branch to lay on my pillow for it was said to drive away evil spirits—those who put cruel thoughts into the mind.

I let her soothe me and, worn out with emotion, I slept.

When I awoke I was refreshed. I thought of my mother, helpless like her shrubs in the gale, blown this way and that by circumstances which were too much for her. I could not blame her. I knew her character well. She was a good housekeeper; she wanted to live in peace; my father had had little in common with her for she had never been educated beyond learning to read and write; she could never follow his reasoning. He had determined to educate me and he had often said that education was not learning the fruit and flowers of other men in order to repeat them and make a show of erudition; its purpose must be to set the mind in motion that it might produce flowers and fruit of its own.

I must not blame her.

And she was right. I had now to fend for myself. I would have to make some plan, for I did not believe I could continue to live under this roof and see that man in my father’s place. I had been wrong to voice my suspicions of him, for I must admit they were but suspicions. Could he really have been responsible for my father’s betrayal? Perhaps he was merely the jackal who waited for the moment to come in after the kill.

I must be fair. What had he done? He had asked me to marry him and I had refused. My father had been murdered and his estates given to Simon. Why? I must be reasonable. I must be logical. Could it in truth be because he was my father’s betrayer? I could not be sure and because I was not sure I must not accuse him. I would find out though. And meanwhile must I live on his bounty?

I dreaded meeting him but I could not avoid him for long. I came from my room and found him in the hall. He watched me as I walked down the stairs.

“Welcome home, Damask,” he said.

I stared blankly at him.

“It is good to have you back,” he went on.

“I suppose you are expecting me to congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage.”

“No, I was not expecting that. You take it hardly, I know.”

“The murdered husband is scarcely cold in his grave.”

“My dear Damask, you have been infected by those Greek tragedies on which you set such store. Now I am going to ask you to take care. I would not have you in disgrace. Curb your tongue, I beg of you. You could be in dire trouble so easily. I am going to take care of you now. I shall be your stepfather….”

I laughed. “It was not quite the role you at first chose for yourself!”

“I think you understand my feelings for you.”

“Which were conveniently transferred to my mother.”

“Your mother and I are scarcely young romantic people.”

“I believe she is some years older than you.”

“It is not a great deal.”

“So convenient! Although had she been thirty years older I am sure you would have found that no obstacle.”

“My poor sad Damask!”

“I am not your possession yet.”

“I am devoted to you and to your mother,” he said. “These estates have been bestowed on me. I could not take them from you. So this marriage seems to be the best solution.”

“You could always hand them back.”

“I do not think that would be allowed. I am doing what I think is best for us all.”

“And if I had agreed to marry you, what then?”

I saw the flicker of his eyes; the marking of the fox mask was clearer for a moment.

“You know my feelings for you.” He had taken a step toward me.

I held him off.

“Do not forget that you are an affianced bridegroom,” I said sharply. I looked at him steadily. “Tell me, who betrayed my father?” I added.

He clenched his fists together. “I would I knew,” he said.

“Someone betrayed him,” I said. “I shall not allow it to be forgotten. I shall never rest until I discover who it was.”

He held out his hand to me. I stared down at it.

“I want to make a bargain with you,” he said. “We shall both try to find that man who took the happiness from the household and brought about the death of the best man on earth.”

The tears started up in my eyes and he looked at me with tenderness, so that I was sorry momentarily that I had suspected him.

I turned and ran from him back to my room. I could not go down to the hall to eat. My mother sent up a leg of chicken for me and a slice of the crusty cob loaf which I used to love. I could eat nothing; and when finally I slept, for I believe she had laced my wine with one of her potions, I dreamed of Simon Caseman. He had the face of a fox and in my dream I believed him to be an evil man.

I was torn by my doubts. My mother and Simon were kind to me. She gave me potions and ordered that the foods I had once enjoyed should be prepared for me. He was tolerant and never forced his company on me; sometimes I found his eyes on me and as mine met his he would assume a tender expression, as though he was now regarding me as a cherished daughter.

I thought, I cannot endure this.

Their wedding was to be a quiet one, for it was such a short time since my father’s death; but the entire household was now accepting Simon Caseman as the master.

I could not rouse myself. I thought, I cannot continue in this way. Soon I must make a decision. But at this time I was too stunned to do anything but let time wash over me while I lay listless believing that in due course my grief would be subdued and some notion would come to me as to how I could make something of my life.

At times I thought of going to Kate. Yet I did not wish to throw myself on the bounty of Lord Remus. I did know that since my father’s arraignment Kate’s husband was made a little uneasy by my presence. Kate however would imperiously overrule that if I had wished to go. There was another thing. Every evening at dusk I went through the ivy-covered door into the Abbey burial ground and visited my father’s grave. The rosemary I had planted was growing well. I often thought how frightened I once would have been to wend my way at dusk past the Abbey walls—empty and ghostly in the evening shadows—and to go among the graves of long-dead monks. But because his dear head was there, I knew no fear, for a belief had grown up within me that the dead protect those whom they especially loved and I certainly felt that my father was protecting me.

I lived for my visits to his grave; and when I went to the Abbey I would remember those days when Kate and I had crept through the secret door to be with Bruno. He was never far from my thoughts and I longed to see him again.

I pondered on my feeling for Bruno. It took my mind off my present uneasy situation. I compared the emotion he could rouse in me with my love for my father. I had known my father as well, I think, as it is possible for one person to know another. I was aware of his beliefs, for he had talked to me so openly; I knew before he told me what his opinions would be on almost any problem. Losing him was like losing a part of myself. But Bruno? What did I know of Bruno? Very little. I had never understood him. Bruno seemed to have built a wall about himself. One could never be sure of what he was thinking. I suppose that having for years believed himself to be a superhuman being who had been sent into the world for some special purpose, to have been certain that he was holy, must surely have had an effect on him. Then the confession of Keziah and Ambrose and all the violence which attended it, the dissolution of St. Bruno’s Abbey…what would that have done to him? He had given little indication except that he rejected the confession of those who claimed to be his parents. There was the same aloofness about him. He would never betray himself completely to anyone. Sometimes he had seemed as though he did not belong to this world, yet his arrogance, his frustrated anger were essentially worldly. I remembered Brother John’s explaining how the Child had been caught stealing cakes from the kitchen and lying when accused.

How lost and bewildered I was during those weeks!

Rupert was bewildered too. He did not know what the future held for him. He had loved the land. I had seen him come in from my father’s fields as animated as he had ever been, because they had succeeded in gathering in the harvest before the storms came. The workers were fond of him. He was a good master to them; and he understood everything that he asked them to do. He would pick up a flail and thresh corn in the barn with the most humble of his workmen; I had seen him winnowing, shaking the flat fan-shaped basket in the wind; most of all I remembered his going out in the snow at lambing time to rescue young lambs and how he himself would nurse them and feed them. Sowing and reaping, growing the foods which supplied the household and selling the surplus, this had been Rupert’s occupation and he could imagine no other.

Once when I was coming back from visiting the Abbey burial grounds I heard a voice call me. It was Rupert’s.

“Damask,” he cried, catching up with me, “you should not be out at this hour.”

“I will go out when I will,” I replied impatiently.

“It is unsafe, Damask. There are robbers about.”

“I have no fear of them.”

“But it is dangerous.”

I turned impatiently away and he said: “Damask, don’t go yet. I would like to talk to you.”

“Then talk,” I said.

“I think often of the future. What will become of us all?”

“For that we must needs wait and see.”

“There will be changes. We have a new master of the household now.”

“He has made little changes so far, but doubtless that will come, after the marriage.”

“Then what, Damask? I have worked for your father for many years. He had promised me that part of the lands which I cultivated should one day be mine. He hoped of course that you and I would marry.” He was a little wistful.

I said quickly: “He realized that marriages can only be made by two people—the two who are to become husband and wife. He would have been the first to say that they must both agree wholeheartedly.”

“And you do not feel that you could marry me?”

“I could not think of marriage. It is far from my mind.”

“I will tell you something. Lord Remus owns several estates and Kate swears that she will insist on his giving me a place of my own.”

“Then you have no need to be anxious about your future.”

“If you shared it, we could go from here together.” I shook my head. He sighed and insisted: “Your father wished it.”

“He only wished for my happiness,” I said.

“I would make you as happy as it is possible for you to be now that you have lost him. I would live solely for you. I would care for you, cherish you.”

“I know it,” I said.

“Marry me, Damask. Let us go from here. You would be safer than you are now, because those who are related to a man who has been accused of treason are in constant danger. One careless word…even a look could incriminate you. As my wife, you could lose your identity as your father’s daughter.”

I turned on him angrily. “Do you think I want that? I am more proud of it than anything that has ever happened to me.”

I turned and ran from him up to my room. I shut myself in and I wept. My tears were mingled sorrow and anger. Would I never get over my loss? And how dared Rupert suggest that I would ever wish to hide the fact that I was my father’s daughter. I considered Rupert then. He was good; he was kind; he had meant no harm. I went to my window and looked out toward the Abbey. I could just make out the gray tower. I thought of the burial ground—how ghostly it would look now with the faint moonlight shining on the tombstones above the graves of long-dead monks.

There was talk now that the Abbey was haunted. One of the farm workers and his wife returning home at dusk declared they had seen a monk emerge from the Abbey wall. The monk had appeared to pass through the stones; he had stood for a while, and they had been so frightened that they had run.

It was natural, was the verdict. How many of the monks had died because of what had happened? Think of those two who had hung in chains at the Abbey’s Gate. There was he who had sought to escape to London with some of the Abbey treasures and had been caught and hanged; there was Brother Ambrose who had murdered Rolf Weaver. There was the Abbot who had died of a broken heart. Wasn’t it natural that such men should be unable to rest in their graves and come back to haunt the place where they had lived and suffered?

People were afraid to go near the Abbey after dark. Even in daylight they liked to have a companion.

Strangely enough this had no effect on me. I could not feel afraid and I continued to visit my father’s grave.

My mother had become Simon Caseman’s wife. Now that the wedding was over I was aware of a change creeping over the household. It was subtle at first but none the less there. The servants were made aware of a different rule in the house. Simon was not going to be the lenient master my father had been. He walked with a certain swagger; the servants must always call him Master. The men must never forget to touch their forelocks and the maids must make sure they curtsied almost to the ground. He watched the household accounts with care. He dismissed a few of the servants as being unnecessary. Beggars would no longer be sure of food and wine; he ordered that travelers should not be encouraged to regard us as a kind of hostelry. Not that we had had many such since my father’s death; knowing that he had been arraigned and condemned, people were afraid to come near us. But now that there was a new master they might come, so Simon Caseman gave the order that they were not to be encouraged.

My mother had become a little nervous, I noticed. She was very eager to please him. She agreed with everything he said; and what disgusted me was that she had a kind of adoration for him and this, when I considered her lack of appreciation of my father, angered me.

I was certainly beginning to feel things more strongly which was, I suppose, a sign that I was growing away from my grief.

One day I discovered lettering on the wrought-iron gates of the house. This was CASEMAN’S COURT. Before the house had had no name. It was simply known as Lawyer Farland’s House. The resentment when I saw those letters affected me like a physical pain.

He was the master. He wanted us all to know that. He wanted us all to know that we lived on his bounty. My mother must present her household accounts to him—something she had never done to my father. She was an excellent and thrifty housewife but I noticed that she was always nervous on Fridays, the day she must produce her accounts.

Rupert’s position had changed. He was no longer treated like a member of the family. He was a workman, though a superior one. He was not allowed to make his own decisions.

I alone was not subjected to this treatment. If I wished not to join them for meals I did not and I was not called to order for this. I was not expected to do anything in the house. I often found his eyes fixed on me in a strange kind of way. I was suspicious of him, disliking him. I was constantly looking for the fox’s mask on his face; it seemed to have become more apparent; his eyes were sharper, more tawny. I was very wary of him and I hated him and the changes he was making in our house, for these very changes reminded me more and more of the old days and my dear father.

Less than two months after the marriage my mother told me that she was going to have a child. I was horrified, although I suppose it was natural enough. She was thirty-six years of age, young enough to bear a child; but the fact that she should so soon be fruitful seemed to me an insult to my father and I was disgusted. How she had changed. She seemed to me simpering and foolish, pretending to be as a young wife might have been with her first child.

Simon Caseman was delighted. He seemed to regard it as a personal triumph. He knew that my father had longed for a family and he had only been able to get one girl who lived; whereas he, married but two months, had already given evidence of his virility.

I knew now that I wanted to go away and I decided I would write to Kate and ask if I might stay with her for a while.

Simon cornered me one day in the garden and he said: “Why, Damask, I see so little of you. I might think that you deliberately avoid me.”

“You might well think it,” I said.

“Have I offended you in some way?”

“In many ways,” I replied.

“I am sorry.”

“You appear to be far from that.”

“Damask, we must accept circumstances, you know, even when they go against us. You know that I have always been fond of you.”

“I know that you offered me marriage.”

“And you are a little hurt that I married another.”

“Not on my own account—only on that other’s.”

“She seems well content.”

“She is perhaps easily content.”

“I’ll venture to say that she was never more content than now.”

“You venture too far.”

“It does me good to speak to you.”

“I don’t reap a like benefit,” I retorted.

“I am sorry that I have taken that which should be yours.”

“You lie, sir. You are very happy to have what you always wanted.”

“I did not get all that I wanted.”

“Did you not? It is a fair house; the land is good. And you do not talk like a good husband?”

“I hear that you wish to go to your cousin.”

“Don’t tell me that you propose forbidding me to do so.”

“I would not presume to do that.”

“I am glad because it would have been useless.”

“Let us be good friends, Damask,” he said. “I want to tell you that you are welcome here as long as you care to stay.”

“It is a very gracious gesture to allow me to remain as a guest in my own house.”

“You know that it is mine.”

“I know you took it.”

“It was bestowed on me.”

“Why on you? Could you tell me that? It is a question on which I have long pondered.”

“You can guess, can you not? Because I was capable of managing it. It had been my home for some years. I was ready to marry the widow of the previous owner which would relieve the family hardship considerably. It seemed a good arrangement.”

“For you, yes.” I walked off and left him.

Rupert asked me to walk with him in the nuttery. It used to be a favorite place of mine but since the hut in which my father had hidden Amos Carmen was there, it had become too painful a reminder of all that had happened.

He slipped his arm through mine. “Damask,” he said, “I must talk to you very seriously.”

“Yes, Rupert.”

“I am going away. Lord Remus has offered me a farm. I shall manage it and in a short time it will be my own. Kate has prevailed on him.”

“Her marriage was a great blessing not only to her but to you.”

“Damask, you are growing bitter.”

“Circumstances change us all, doubtless.”

“There is still much that is good in life.”

“I see little at this time.”

“Well, it is a dark period through which we are passing. But it won’t always be so. The world we knew has gone. It is for us to build a new life.”

“You may well do that with your new farm. You will go away from here and forget us.”

“I shall never forget you. But my surroundings will be different. The problems of the present will, I know, impose themselves on the past.”

“It is easy for you.”

“I loved your father, Damask, and I love you.”

“I was his daughter. Do you think your love can be compared with mine?”

“Still it was love.”

I took his hand and pressed it. “I shall never forget what you risked to bring his head to me,” I said. The tears were on my cheeks and he drew me to him and kissed them gently.

Suddenly I knew that if I could not find the great ecstasy I had dreamed of with Rupert, at least I could find comfort. I could leave this house. It would mean a great deal to me not to see my mother and Simon Caseman together. To leave this house…I had never thought to do it. I had dreamed of myself growing old in it, my children playing in these gardens as I had done; my father delighting in his grandchildren. That dream could never become a reality. But Rupert was offering me consolation. He was telling me that although I should mourn my father forever, I could start to make a new life for myself.

He said: “The farm is not far from here. Between these lands and Remus’s estate—not far from Hampton. I shall be between you and Kate. We can meet often…if you decided not to come altogether. But I hope you will because I know, Damask, that I can look after you.”

“Rupert,” I answered emotionally, “you are a good man. How I wish that I could love you as a husband should be loved.”

“It would come, Damask. In time it would come.”

I shook my head. “And if it did not? You would be cheated, Rupert.”

“You could never cheat anyone.”

“Perhaps you do not know me, for I sometimes feel I do not know myself. To leave here….Oh, Rupert, I had never thought of it. I visit my father’s grave…frequently.”

“I know and I do not care for you to be wandering about the Abbey grounds alone.”

“You fear that there is some evil lurking there?”

“I fear desperate men might be lurking there.”

“Monks perhaps returning to their old home, or the spirits of murdered men?”

“I fear for you to go there. Damask, we could remove your father’s remains. We could take them with us. We could make a sanctuary in our new home and there you could have that precious box with you always. You could make a shrine to his memory.”

“Oh, Rupert,” I cried, “I think you understand me as no one ever did…since Father.”

“Then come with me, Damask. Come away from this house which is no longer your home, come away from a situation which has become distasteful to you.”

It seemed that I must. Yet I hesitated. It was not as I had always thought it should be. Was life always to be a compromise? I thought of Kate’s marrying Lord Remus for what he could give her. Should I be doing the same if I married Rupert? Lord Remus gave Kate jewels, riches, a place at Court, and I had despised her for her mercenary motives. But if I married Rupert because he could take me away from a situation which had become intolerable to me was I not in like case?

“I am so unsure,” I said. “I do not know what I should do. Be patient with me, Rupert.”

He pressed my hand gently. I could sense his elation. I knew he would always be patient.

“Think on it,” he said. “You know I would not wish you to do anything which was distasteful to you. Remember too that it was his wish.”

I did remember it and it weighed greatly with me.

And that night I lay in my room and thought that I would marry Rupert, and I was ashamed because at one time I had believed he would have married me for the fortune I could bring him.

Now I was without that fortune and he still wished to marry me. I had misjudged him.

This made me feel very tender toward him.

Yet I could still not make up my mind.

I was sitting in my mother’s walled rose garden thinking about the future when Simon Caseman came in.

He took the seat beside me.

“By my faith,” he said, “you are more beautiful with your hair half grown than you were when it reached past your waist.”

“As I was never very beautiful that need not be a great deal.”

“Your verbal darts ever amuse me.”

“I am pleased you can be so easily amused. It must be a blessing in this drab world.”

“Oh, come, stepdaughter, are you not unduly morbid?”

“Considering what has befallen me this last year, most certainly not.”

“I should like to see you happier.”

“The only thing that could make me happier would be to see my father walk into this garden alive and well, happy and secure from…traitors.”

“We are none of us secure from traitors, Damask. We have to remember that we live on the very edge of a volcano which can erupt and destroy us at any moment. If we are wise we take what we can get and do our best to enjoy it while we can.”

“I see you put your policy into action. You are enjoying what you have taken.”

“Most willingly would I have shared it with you.”

He moved closer to me and I drew away with some alarm.

“Foolish Damask,” he said. “I would have made you mistress of this place.”

“It was what my father intended—that I should in due course come into my own.”

“He would have wished to see you mistress of it, yes. You have been foolish. And one day you will see how foolish. I shall be a very rich man one day, Damask.”

“Do you see your way clear to acquiring more lands?”

He pretended not to see the significance of the question.

He went on as though talking to himself. “The Abbey is going to ruin. It cannot always be so. Imagine what could be done there. The lands are rich. They will not lie idle forever. It will be bestowed on someone who will cultivate it, possibly build a fine mansion. There are enough bricks there to build a castle.”

“Caseman Castle!” I mocked. “It sounds even grander than Caseman Court.”

“You have ideas, Damask. Caseman Castle!”

“And you have ambitions. Not content with a court you must have a castle as well.”

“There is no end to my ambitions, Damask.”

“But they are not always realized—even in your case.”

His eyes smoldered as they looked into mine.

“That can only be decided at the very end,” he said.

I was afraid of him in that moment. I thought: I must get away. It is unsafe here. I will marry Rupert. It is the only way.

Marry for security, for safety, for a hope of forgetting? I was as mercenary as Kate.

“You gained this house through some service in an influential quarter,” I said. “You are doubtless looking around to find means of doing a similar service, the reward of which would be the Abbey and all its lands.”

He looked at me, laughing; but I knew I had put into words the ideas fermenting in his head.

I stood up. “You are a very ambitious man,” I said.

“Ambitious men frequently get what they set their hearts on.”

“No one can ever achieve the impossible,” I retorted over my shoulder as I hurried away.

That night I had a great desire to see my father’s grave. I waited until the household was sleeping, then I crept quietly out of the house. The moon was shining brightly and how beautiful the country looked—vague, mysterious in that cool pale light.

I slipped through the ivy-covered door into the grounds. I sped across the grass and paused for a while to look at the gray walls of the Abbey. Suddenly I was startled by the hoot of an owl; I looked up at the roof—half open now to the sky—and I thought of this historic Abbey’s falling into Simon Caseman’s hands.

I went along to the burial ground and wending my way among the tombstones, I knelt by the grave in which lay my father’s head. The rosemary was flourishing. I took a little sprig of it and slipped it into my gown.

“As if I needed rosemary to remember you, dear Father,” I murmured. And I went on: “Give me courage to live without you. Show me what I must do.”

I looked about me almost expecting to see him materialize beside me, so sure was I that he was close.

It was hard to go on living in the house which now belonged to a man whom some instinct forced me to mistrust, and Kate would have delighted to have me with her. But she would try to find a husband for me, I was sure, and I did not wish for that. If I had wanted a husband I would marry Rupert of whom I was fond and whom I trusted. Then my thoughts went to Bruno as they constantly did, and I wondered afresh whether that confession of Keziah’s had been wrung from her and that she had dared not deny it. I thought of her tied to the bed and that evil man bending over her. Had she screamed words which he put into her mouth? And had the monk supported her story because torture impelled him to? How could one be sure what was truth when people were threatened with unendurable agony until they confessed what their tormentors asked of them? How many men at this moment were being racked in that grim gray fortress along the river? How many were suffering the torture of the thumbscrews, the rack and the scavenger’s daughter, that dread machine of which I had heard, shaped like a woman and covered with iron spikes which as a man was squeezed into an embrace, penetrated his body, puncturing heart and lungs.

The times were cruel. Simon Caseman was right in one way. We should enjoy what we could while we could.

I fancied that it was my father’s spirit which comforted me. And I rose from my knees and left the burial ground filled with that peace and lack of fear which always astonished me on these occasions.

I was on the edge of the burial ground and the Abbey was in sight when I saw the figure of a monk gliding across the grass. Was this the ghost of some departed monk who could not rest and had risen from the grave to haunt the scene of his tragedy?

I stood very still. Strangely enough I was not really frightened. Years ago Kate would invent gruesome tales of ghosts who rose from the tomb to come back to haunt those who had wronged them; and I would lie in my bed trembling with fear. Sometimes I had begged of her not to talk of ghosts when it grew dark—which of course always provoked her to do so. But now I was surprised by the calm within me. I was not so much frightened as curious.

The figure had crossed to the Abbey wall. I expected it to disappear through it but it did no such thing. It pushed open a door and passed into the Abbey.

All was silence. Then I heard the owl again. Something prompted me to cross the grass to go to the door through which the monk had passed. On this impulse I did so; I pushed the door which opened easily. The cold dankness of the Abbey rushed to greet me. I half stepped inside but for some reason which I could not understand my hair seemed to rise up from my head and I was afraid.

I believed in that moment that the special power which protected me in the burial ground and which came from my father’s spirit could not follow me beyond those gray walls.

I had an overwhelming desire to run away. I sped across the grass as fast as I could and let myself out through the ivy-covered door.

The fear left me then. I walked home.

I had corroborated the opinion of the farmer and his wife and those others who said they had seen a figure near the Abbey. So the Abbey was haunted.

My mother was now noticeably larger and happily making preparations for the birth of her child. She decorated the cradle which had been mine and which had been put away for eighteen years. She had polished it and cleaned it and I had seen her rocking it with a faraway look in her eyes as though she was already imagining the baby there.

We heard little news of the Court for we did not have visitors now; Kate did not write. She had never really been a letter writer. It was only when anything was wrong or she wanted something that it would have occurred to her to take up a pen.

I would have written to her but I did not wish to write of Caseman Court. And in any case there was little to say.

The King, it was said, was happy in his marriage and the Queen accompanied him everywhere. She was gay and good-natured and it was said that people only had to ask for a favor and she would be ready to grant it. Moreover she was not one to forget her old friends. She was kindhearted too and did her best to reconcile the King to the little Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, who had been the present Queen’s cousin.

I had no doubt that Kate would have plenty of scandal to relate about Court affairs, but Kate was far away and because the King was at last happy with a wife we were lulled into a sense of security.

There was a reminder of the terrible things that could overtake us when the Countess of Salisbury was executed. She had had no fair trial but she was suspected of being on the side of the rebels in the Northern uprising—at least this was said to be her crime. Her royal blood was doubtless the true reason. As the granddaughter of George Plantagenet, the Duke of Clarence, himself brother of Edward IV and therefore in closer line to the throne than the Tudors whose claim had never been very firm, she had always been considered to be a menace and this pretext to be rid of her was too good to be missed. The old lady—she was nearly seventy years of age—had suffered greatly from the cold of her prison cell and the young Queen, feeling great pity for her, had smuggled in warm clothing that at least she might know that comfort. But nothing could save her. Her royal blood must flow to keep the throne safe for our tyrant King.

I remember well the day she died. It was Maytime. Why did so many have to leave this earth when it was at its most beautiful? She walked out to the block but refused to lay her head on it for, she declared to the watching crowd, she was no traitor and if the headman would have her head he must win it.

We heard she was dragged by her hair to the block and there so butchered that the ax wounded her arms and shoulders several times before her head was struck off.

How glad I was that I had not seen it.

A few days later I heard that the Abbey had been bestowed.

My mother had got the news from one of the servants who had had it from one of the watermen who had paused at the privy stairs while she was feeding the peacocks to shout the news to her.

My mother announced it while we were at dinner and I shall never forget the look on Simon Caseman’s face.

“It’s a lie!” he cried, for once robbed of his calm.

“Oh, is it?” said my mother, always ready to agree.

“Where had you this news?” he demanded.

Then she told him.

“It could not be true,” he said; and I knew that he was imagining himself master of that place.

But it seemed that it was true. That week there were workmen putting back the lead on the roof. Simon went over there to talk to them, and when he came back he was pale with fury.

The workmen had been instructed to repair the roof; others were there cleaning the place.

They did not know on whom it had been bestowed. They merely had their orders to make it ready for habitation.