The Miracle at St. Bruno's

The Owner of the Abbey

IT WAS JUNE AND the weather had turned hot. I had never seen so many bees at work on the clover, and the pimpernel made an edge of scarlet around our cornfields. Down by the river the nettles bloomed in profusion. My mother would be gathering them soon to make some potion. I believe she was happy. It amazed me that she could so soon recover from my father’s death. The fact that a new life was stirring within her might have been responsible for this; but I had grown farther from her though I had never really been close.

I was thinking that soon they would be cutting the hay, and that this would be the last time Rupert would supervise that activity. He would leave us after harvest and I would have to make up my mind whether I was going with him. The workmen were apprehensive; they had trusted and relied on Rupert. I wondered idly whether people worked better through fear or love. Then I fell to thinking of haymaking in the good days before the King broke with Rome and we had not thought State affairs could so disrupt our house. Everyone used to be called in to work in the fields and the greatest fear in those days was that the weather might break before the crop was carried in. Father himself used to join us and I would come out with my mother to bring refreshment to workers in the fields so that little time should be lost.

I had almost made up my mind to go with Rupert for it was clear that I could not remain under Simon Caseman’s roof. Kate had written urging me to come to Remus Castle and I thought that perhaps I should go to her for there I could discuss my future. She would urge me to marry Rupert. I knew that she still thought I would in time come to see the reason of this. Once she had plans for making a grand marriage for me. This was hardly likely now that I had no dowry. Nor did I care for that.

It was twilight—the end of a lovely summer’s day. The night was calm and still for the slight breeze of the day had disappeared.

As I sat at my window one of the servants came by. She looked up at me and said: “I have a message for you, Mistress Damask. ’Twas from a gentleman who would have word with you.”

“What gentleman?”

“Well, Mistress, he would not say. He said to tell you that if you would go to the ivy-covered gate he would be there and you would know who had sent the message.”

I could scarcely hide my excitement. Who could have sent such a message but Bruno? Who else knew of the ivy-covered door?

I said: “Thank you, Jennet,” as calmly as I could, and as soon as she had gone I went to my room, changed my gown and arranged my hair in its most becoming fashion. I took a cloak and wrapped it around me and I went at once to the door in the Abbey wall.

Bruno was there. His eyes were alight with a kind of triumph which could only be because I had come. He took my hands and kissed them. He seemed different from ever before.

“So you have come back!” I cried.

“And you are pleased?”

“It is not necessary for me to tell you what you know already.”

“I knew you would be happy to see me. Damask, you are different. Are you happier now?”

“Yes,” I replied, because it was true. In this moment I was happier because he was back. “What happened? Where did you go? Why did you leave us so mysteriously?”

“It was necessary,” he said.

“To leave us…without a word of explanation.”

“Yes,” he replied. “And since I went you have lost your father.”

“It was terrible, Bruno.”

“I know. But I am back now. I shall stop you grieving. You can be happy again now I’m back.”

He held my hand firmly in his; with the other he opened the door and we went through into the Abbey grounds.

I drew back. “It has been bestowed now, Bruno.”

“I know it.”

“We should be trespassing.”

“You have trespassed many times before.”

“It’s true.”

“And now you are with me. It was always believed by the monks that I should become their Abbot.”

“Terrible things have happened to us both.”

“Perhaps it was necessary. There has to be a testing time for us all.”

“There is so much I want to ask you. Where have you been? Have you come back to stay? Where are you living? It is not the same with us now. Our house belongs to Simon Caseman.”

He turned to me and smiling gently, touched my face. “I know all this, Damask. I know all.”

“Do you know who has taken the Abbey?”

“Yes,” he said, “I know that too.”

“Some rich nobleman, I’ll swear. It will seem so strange. But it is better so mayhap than that it should fall into further decay.”

“It is better so,” said Bruno.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Into the Abbey.”

“It is said to be haunted. People have seen a ghostly figure…a monk. I have seen him myself.”

“You, Damask?”

“Yes. When I came to my father’s grave.” I told him how Rupert had brought my father’s head to me and how we had buried it.

“You are not affianced to Rupert?” he asked quickly.

“No, but mayhap I will be soon.”

“You do not love Rupert.”

“Yes, I love Rupert….”

“As a husband?”

“No, but I think we need each other.”

“You will not be afraid to go into the Abbey with me?” I hesitated and he went on: “You remember you and Kate once came in.”

“I was very frightened then.”

“Because you knew you were doing wrong. You should never have looked at the sacred chapel. You should never have seen the jeweled Madonna. But now, she has disappeared, and the sacred chapel is empty.”

“I would be afraid to go in now, Bruno.”

He gripped my arm. “You do not think any harm could come to you when you were with me?”

I did not answer for all the time we were drawing closer toward those gray walls.

He turned suddenly and I saw his face stern in the moonlight.

“Damask,” he said, “do you believe that I am not as other men?”

“But….” I could hear Keziah’s voice then, that confession of hers. “He threatened me and I told him what should never be told….I was with child by the monk….”

“I want you to know the truth,” he went on. “It is important to me that you should. Lies were told. People tell lies under torture. The woman Keziah lied; the monk lied. The world is full of lies—but one must not attach too much blame to the liars when they lie under stress. They have never learned to master their bodies. Physical torture will make a liar of many a great man who yearns to speak only the truth. I tell you this: I know I am not as other men. I came into the world…not as they would have you believe. I know it, Damask. And if you are to be with me…you must know it too. You must believe it. You must believe in me.”

He looked strange and beautiful in the moonlight—godlike—different from anyone else I had ever known and I loved him, so I said as meekly as my mother might to Simon Caseman: “I believe you, Bruno.”

“So you are not afraid to go into the Abbey with me?”

“Not with you.”

He pushed open the door through which I had seen the ghostly figure pass, and we were in the silence of the Abbey.

The coldness struck me at once after the warm air outside; it rose through the soles of my shoes from the stone floor and I shivered.

“There is nothing to fear while you are with me,” Bruno assured me.

But I could not forget Keziah’s coming back after that terrible night at the inn with Rolf Weaver and although I wanted to believe as Bruno desired me to, I could not in my heart accept the fact that Keziah could have made up such a story.

But I was with Bruno and happy as I had not been since my father’s death and I sensed that he had asked me to come tonight because he had something of great importance to say to me.

He had found a lantern which he had lighted and he said he would take me to the Abbot’s lodging. It was a strange, eerie exploration and during it I expected us to be confronted by the ghostly monk. Bruno showed me a fine vaulted hall and the many rooms where the Abbot had his dwelling. It was clear that the workmen had been there and this house was in the process of being turned into a residence of some magnificence. We left the Abbot’s lodging and Bruno showed me the refectory, a plain stone building with strong buttresses, where the monks had sat for two hundred years under the raftered oak roof.

Very soon, I thought, the man on whom the Abbey was bestowed would be living here, and Bruno was taking a last look while he could still do so. He led me through the cloisters; he took me to the cells of the monks; he showed me the bakehouse where he had once sat with Brother Clement. I reminded him of what I had heard of his stealing cakes hot from the oven.

“They like to tell these tales of me,” said Bruno.

That night he showed me so much that I had never seen before. I wondered why but I guessed later. I saw the monks’ parlor and dorter; I saw the infirmaries, the Brothers’ kitchen, the cloisters, the monks’ frater. And all by the light of the lantern and the moon.

“You see,” said Bruno to me, “this is a world of its own, but now a shattered world. Why should it not be born again?”

“What will he on whom it has been bestowed do with so much?” I asked. “He will have a very fine manor house from the Abbot’s lodging, but there is so much else besides.”

“There is more—much more. And beneath it all a labyrinth of tunnels and cellars. But they are dangerous and you should not visit those.”

He took me then to the church. Although this had been robbed of its valuable ornaments and thieves had stolen the gold and silver thread from the vestments, little damage had been done to the church itself. I stared up at the high vaulted roof supported by the massive stone buttress. The stained-glass windows were intact. They represented the story of the Crucifixion. Now the shrouded moonlight reflecting the brilliant blues and reds cast an uncanny light on the scene.

Bruno drew me to a curtain which hung to the right of the altar and pulled this aside. We were in a small chapel and I knew instinctively that this was the Lady Chapel in which eighteen years before Brother Thomas had placed the crib he had fashioned and on the following Christmas morning the Abbot had come and discovered a living child in it.

Holding my hand firmly in his, Bruno drew me into the Chapel.

“It was here they found me,” he said, “and I have brought you here because there is something I wish to say to you and I wish to say it here. I have chosen you to share my life.”

“Bruno,” I cried, “are you asking me to marry you?”

“That is so.”

“Then you love me! You truly love me?”

“As you love me,” he answered.

“Oh, Bruno…I did not know. I never thought that you loved me enough for that.”

“What if I offered you a life of poverty?”

“Do you think I would care for that?”

“But you have been brought up in plenty. It is true now you have lost your inheritance but you could marry comfortably. Rupert will be able to offer you a good home.”

“Do you think I wish to marry for a good home?”

“You should consider well. Could you live a hermit’s life in a cave, in a hut? Could you suffer cold in winter? Could you wander the countryside with sometimes no roof but the sky?”

“I would go anywhere with the one I loved.”

“And you love me, Damask. You always did.”

“Yes,” I agreed, for it was true. I had always loved him, in a strange, compulsive way which was due to the fact that I had seen him always as different from other men.

“Then you would come with me…no matter what hardship you had to endure?”

“Yes,” I said, “I would come with you.”

He embraced me then. His lips warm with passion were on my own.

“You would love me, obey me and bear me children?”

“Gladly,” I cried.

“Did you not always know that I was the one for you?”

“Always, but I did not think you cared for me.”

“You thought it was Kate,” he said. “Foolish Damask.”

“Yes, I thought it was Kate. She is so brilliant, so beautiful…and I….”

“You are my chosen one,” he said.

“I feel as though I have stepped into a dream.”

“A happy dream, Damask?”

“Happy,” I replied, “as I never thought to be again.”

“Then we will plight our troth here…in this chapel where years ago they found me. That is fitting. That is what I wish. Damask, consider. A life of hardship. Can you face it…for love?”

“Gladly,” I replied earnestly. “And I rejoice that you have nothing to offer me. I want to show you how much I love you.”

Again he touched my face gently. “You please me, Damask,” he said. “Oh, how you please me. Here on this altar we will make our vows. Damask, swear to love me, and I will swear to cherish you.”

“I swear,” I said.

We left the chapel and came out into the night air. We crossed the patch of grass where we were wont to sit when we were children.

“This is our wedding night,” he said.

“But there has been no marriage ceremony.”

“When you plighted your troth to me in the chapel we were as one.”

“Bruno,” I said, “you were always different from everyone else. That is why I have always loved you, but if we are to be married I shall have to tell my mother. There will be a ceremony….”

“That will be for later. You belong to me now. You trust me. You believe in me. It must be so or you would not be my chosen one or I yours. You have said you love me enough to give up everything—a life of easy comfort, yet you do not know what hardship is. Are you sure, Damask? It is not yet too late.”

“I am sure. I will cook for you, work for you….”

“And believe in me,” he added.

“I will be everything you wish,” I promised. “I shall be happier with you in a cottage than in a castle.”

“It must be so. You must trust me, believe in me, work with me and for me.”

“So shall I, with all my heart.”

“This is our wedding night,” he said again.

I understood his meaning and drew back. I was a virgin. I had been brought up to believe that this was a state which should not be surrendered until marriage—but this was marriage, he had said, and I must not expect life with Bruno to be as it would with other men.

“You are thinking that I plan to seduce you and leave you?” he said sadly. “So you doubt me after all.”

“No.”

“But you do. You hesitate. I thought you were brave. I believed you when you said you trusted me. Perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps you should go back to the house…. Perhaps we should say good-bye.”

He kissed me then with a passion I had not dreamed of.

I said: “Bruno, you are different tonight. What has happened?”

“Tonight I am your lover,” he replied.

“And I am ignorant of love…this kind of love. I will do anything you ask of me, but….”

“Love has many facets. It is like the diamond in the Madonna’s crown. Do you remember it, Damask? It shone with a pale light and a fiery light—it was red, blue, yellow…all the colors of the spectrum…. But it was the same diamond.”

As he spoke his hands moved over my body and I was never more aware of the strange nature of the fascination he had for me. I was conscious of his power over me but I was not sure whether my feelings for him were love as others had experienced it. It was not what I felt for Rupert or my father. Nor was his love for me like Rupert’s. I sensed in Bruno a need to subdue me and in myself an urgent desire to be subdued.

I could believe in that moment that he was different from all other men. Perhaps every girl feels this of her lover. I did not mean merely that he possessed all the perfections. I felt in that moment that there was some godlike quality about him and that no matter what the consequences I must obey him.

My will dissolved I was willing and eager to cast aside everything that I had been taught, to throw aside my respect of that chastity which must be surrendered only to my husband. But Bruno was my husband.

I had convinced myself. Bruno knew it. I heard his low laugh of triumph.

“Oh, Damask,” I heard him say. “You are the one for me. You love me, do you not…utterly, completely…so that you are ready to give up all for me?”

I heard myself answer: “Yes, Bruno. I do.”

And that was my wedding night; there on our bed of bracken we were as one.

Nothing, I knew, could ever be the same again; and even in these moments of passion I could not rid myself of the thought that I was taking part in some sacrificial ceremony.

It was early morning when I crept into the house, bemused and disheveled. We had walked back to the house together, our arms about each other, and Bruno had stood waving until I disappeared inside.

I was in a state of exultation and wonderment after my experience and I could think of nothing else. Life had become a glorious adventure. I had reached a peak of happiness and for the time I did not want to look back or look forward; I wanted to remain poised as though on my mountaintop, to savor all that had happened, to remember our whispered words, our need of each other, to recall the moments of perfect union.

Bruno seemed to me like a god. That sense of power which had always been apparent was magnified.

There is no one like him in the whole world, I thought. And he loves me. I am his and he is mine forever.

I had come across the hall and as I was about to mount the stairs I was aware of a movement. A figure appeared. I was looking up at Simon Caseman. In the dim light his face looked chalky; the fox’s mask stood out clearly, his eyes were narrowed.

“So,” he said quietly but venomously, “you creep out at night like other sluts.” His hand darted forward and I thought he was going to strike me, but he had plucked a leaf from my sleeve. “You could have chosen a more comfortable bed,” he added.

I attempted to walk past him but he barred my way.

“I am your guardian, your stepfather. I want an explanation of this wanton behavior.”

“What if I don’t propose to give it?”

“Do you think I shall allow this? Do you think you can deceive me? You betray yourself. I know what has happened. Nothing was ever more clear to me.”

“It is my own affair.”

“And do you expect me to feed and clothe your bastards when they come along?”

I was suddenly so angry that I brought up a hand to strike him. He caught my arm before I could do so and he brought his face close to mine. “You slut!” he cried. “You….”

“Do you wish to wake the household?”

“It would be good to do so that they might know what sort you are. Whore! Doxy! Any man’s for the asking!”

“I proved I was not that to you.”

“By God,” he said, “I will teach you….”

I could see the lust in his eyes and it frightened me.

“If you do not release me,” I said, “I shall awaken the whole household. It would be well for my mother to know the kind of man she has married.”

“A man who is doing his duty by her daughter?” he asked, but I could see that I had alarmed him. He knew my sharp tongue and he feared it.

He stood back a few paces. “I am your stepfather,” he said. “I have a responsibility toward you. It is my duty to take charge of you.”

“As you took charge of my father’s possessions?”

“You ungrateful slut! Where would you have been if I had not allowed you to stay here? If I had not come here….”

The words slipped out: “Perhaps my father would be free now.”

He was taken aback, and I thought: I believe it’s true. I believe he betrayed him.

Loathing for him swept over me. He was about to speak but he changed his mind. It was as though he were trying to pretend he had not understood the significance of my words.

There was a silence while we looked at each other. I knew my suspicion of him showed in my face; in his a certain hatred mingling with his lust.

He said: “I have tried to be a father to you.”

“When you were rejected as a husband!”

“I was fond of you, Damask.”

“You were fond of my inheritance…that which is now yours and should have been mine.”

“It fell to me when your father…lost it. How fortunate for you that it came to me and not to some stranger. Think what would have happened to you and your mother if I had not been here to take care of you.”

“I am thinking of what would have happened if my father had never taken you into his office. I am thinking of what would have happened if he had never given you a home here.”

“You would have lost a good friend.”

“It is we ourselves who decide the value of our friends.”

“You are a wicked, ungrateful girl.” He was recovering from the shock of my veiled accusation. “Good God,” he cried. “I have the feelings of a father toward you. I have tried to cherish you. I have thought highly of you and I find that you are but a willing wench who will surrender her virtue for the sake of frolic in the grass when all decent folk are in their beds.”

In sudden fury I slapped him across the ear and this time he was too late to prevent me. I hated him not so much because his crude words and sly hints were besmirching my exalted experience, but because I felt more sure than I ever had that he was the man who had informed against my father. If I had been entirely convinced I would have wanted to kill him.

The strength of my blow sent him reeling against the banister. He fell down two or three steps. I heard him groan as I hurried up the stairs and went along to my room.

I sat in a chair and watched the sunrise. I lived through the night—my union with the man I loved; my encounter with the man I hated. Sacred and profane! I thought.

I sat there dreaming and it occurred to me that there was one quality they had in common! A love of power.

I dozed a little and dreamed of them and in my dreams I was lying with Bruno on the grass; he was bending over me and suddenly his face changed to that of Simon Caseman. Love and lust—so close in a way and yet so far apart.

It was dawn. A fresh day. I was full of excitement, wondering what it would bring forth.

In the morning my mother came to me.

“Your father has sprained his ankle,” she said. “He fell on the stairs last night.”

“How did he do that?” I asked.

“He slipped. He will keep to his chamber today. In fact I have insisted that he rest.”

She looked important. For once she was insisting; but I guessed that he had chosen to stay in his room because he did not wish to see me.

“I must see that the fomentations are put on,” she said. “There is nothing like them for easing a sprain. Alternate hot and cold. Dear me. I thank God I have my chamomile lotion ready. That will ease the pain; and I think I shall give him a little poppy juice. Sleep is always good.”

I said: “The man has merely sprained his ankle, Mother. You talk as though he is sickening for the plague.”

“Don’t say such things,” she scolded, looking over her shoulder.

And I marveled that this man should have brought a happiness to her which my saintly father had failed to give her.

I wanted to be alone to dream of my future. What next, I asked myself? Shall I see him again tonight? Will he send a messenger for me? The day seemed long and irksome. Every time I heard a step on the stair I hoped it would be one of the maids come to tell me that Bruno was waiting for me.

That afternoon my mother came to my room. I felt sick with disappointment. I had thought the step on the stair was that of one of the maids bringing a message from Bruno.

My mother looked excited.

“The new people are at the Abbey. Oh, dear, your stepfather is not going to be pleased. He always hoped nothing would come of it. I do hope they will be good neighbors. It is pleasant to have good neighbors. I wonder if the lady of the house is interested in gardens. There is so much land there. I believe she could be very successful.”

“A rival, Mother, perhaps,” I said. “Shall you like it if she produces better roses than yours?”

“I am always ready to learn improvements. I do wonder what they will do there. All those useless buildings. I suppose they will pull them down and do some rebuilding. That was what your stepfather planned to do.”

“And now he will have to abandon his plans and we shall have him nursing a grievance as well as a sprained ankle.”

“You are always so ungrateful to him, Damask. I don’t know what has happened to you lately.”

She went on talking about the Abbey. She was very disappointed by my assumed lack of interest.

I waited to hear from him. There were so many questions I would have asked him. A terrible fear had come to me. What if I should never see him again? I had had the impression that our vows and even our lovemaking had been a kind of ritual. I had had the impression that all the time he was trying to prove to me the fact that he was no ordinary human being. Even when he spoke of love it was in a mysterious fashion. It occurred to me then that he needed to believe himself to be apart. He was proud, I know, and the fact that Keziah had claimed him as her son humiliated him so deeply that he refused to accept it.

I was trying to attach human motives to his actions. But was he after all superhuman?

I was alternately exultant and apprehensive. I kept to my room. I did not wish to see Rupert nor my stepfather. As for my mother, her chatter irritated me. I could only long for Bruno to come to me.

It was three days after that night when Bruno and I had made our vows, Simon Caseman had remained in his room ever since nursing his ankle, which I suspected was not as incapacitating as he made it out to be.

I was in my room when one of the maids came out and told me that there was a visitor in the winter parlor. My mother was there and had sent for me to join them.

I was unprepared for what was waiting me.

As I reached the winter parlor my mother came to the door. Her face was a study of perplexity.

“The new owner of the Abbey is here,” she stuttered.

I went in. Bruno rose from his chair to greet me.

Events had taken such a strange turn that I felt I could believe anything, however fantastic. Bruno, the child of the Abbey, turned adrift into poverty, who only a few nights previously had asked me to share a life of hardship with him, was the owner of the Abbey!

At first I thought it was some joke. How could it be possible?

As I stood facing him in the winter parlor I said something like this. He smiled at me then.

“Is it true then that you doubt me, Damask?” he had said reproachfully.

And I knew that he meant doubt his ability to rise above all other men, doubt his special powers.

Fortunately my mother’s inborn habits and her insistence on the correct manner in which to receive guests got the better of all else. She would ring for her elderberry wine to be brought.

And while we drank it Bruno told us of his good fortune, of how he had prospered in London; how he had gone to France on the King’s business and because he had executed that business with an especial skill he had been in a position to acquire the Abbey.

From anyone else it would have sounded incredible but his presence, his assurance and that air which was unlike anyone else’s insisted on our belief.

I could see that my mother did not doubt it at all.

“And all that land…all those buildings that make up the Abbey,” she said.

“I have plans,” he answered, smiling.

“And the gardens?”

“Yes, there will be gardens.”

“You will live there alone?”

“I am planning to marry. It is one of the reasons I have called on you today.”

He was smiling at me and my heart was lifted. All the misery of the past fell away from me then.

“I have come to ask you for Damask’s hand in marriage.”

“But this is all so…unexpected. I must consult my husband.”

“There is no need,” I said. “Bruno and I had already decided to marry.”

“You…you knew…,” stammered my mother.

“I knew that he would ask my hand and I had already made up my mind to accept him.”

I held out my hand; he took it. It seemed symbolic. Then I saw the look of pride in his eyes; he held his head high. He was so clearly delighted by the effect this had on us. And why had he not told me on that night that he was the new owner of the Abbey? Clearly because he had wanted to be sure that it was for himself that I would marry him. It was his pride—his human pride. And I was glad.

He was so proud now that momentarily I was reminded of the peacocks strutting on the lawn. There was no divinity in such an attitude surely, I thought tenderly.

It was a human attitude and it pleased me for that reason. I wanted him to be human. I did not want a saint or a miracle man. That’s what I would teach him. I wanted a husband whom I could love and care for, who was not all-powerful, who needed me.

There was so much to learn, so many explanations to hear, but for that moment in the winter parlor, I was happy as I had never thought to be again.

It was the only topic of conversation. Bruno, the child who had been discovered in the Christmas crib, was the new owner of the Abbey.

Of course, said the wiseacres, it was another miracle. They had never trusted Keziah. She had been made to confess under torture.

It had seemed strange that the Abbey had had to be dissolved but the divine purpose was rarely other than mysterious. Now they would see…what they would see. He, who had clearly been intended to rule the Abbey, was back, and it all had a seemingly natural appearance which was often the way of miracles.

Bruno was lighthearted. Here was another side to his nature. He had never been like this in the old days.

He made plans. He was going to build from the stones of the Abbey a mighty mansion. Like the phoenix of old a new Abbey would arise to replace the old one.

I lived a fantastic existence during those months. Bruno wanted the wedding to take place immediately.

My mother was shocked. A wedding must be prepared for. What of my dowry? What of the formalities to which well-brought-up people must submit?”

“I want no dowry,” said Bruno. “I want only Damask.”

The effect on Simon Caseman was what I would have expected. At first he was angry. He had lost the Abbey on which he had set his heart; and that he had lost it to Bruno, the penniless waif, the bastard of a serving girl and a monk was impossible for him to believe at first.

“It’s a hoax,” he declared. “We shall find that he is deceiving us. How could it be possible?”

“People say,” said my mother timidly, “that with him everything is possible.”

“It’s a trick!” insisted Simon.

But when he had to accept the fact that it was indeed true a smoldering silence was his response. When he learned that I was to marry Bruno he said nothing but I knew that he was far from unmoved; and if I had not been in such a state of bliss I might have been apprehensive, for I was certain that he was a dangerous man.

Rupert was bewildered. “It seems so incredible, Damask,” he said.

I repeated what Bruno had told us about finding good fortune in London and pleasing the King.

“It’s impossible,” said Rupert. “Such a thing could not possibly happen in such a short time. Even Thomas Wolsey, whose rise was phenomenal, did not succeed like that.”

“Bruno is not like ordinary people.”

“I don’t like it, Damask. It smacks of witchcraft.”

“Oh, no, Rupert! We just have to accept that Bruno is different from the rest of us.”

“Damask, are you truly happy?”

“As I never believed it possible to be after my father died.” Rupert did not answer. He was very unhappy, I know. His dream that he and I should one day marry was shattered; but it was more than that. His nature was such that while he saw his own plans for his future life in ruins he could still be apprehensive for that which I had chosen.

As soon as the harvest was over he would go to the Remus estate. Then I supposed I should see very little of him.

It has always surprised me how when something becomes a fact—however mysteriously it happens, however fantastic it is—in a short time people grow accustomed to it and cease to regard it with wonder.

So it was with the return of Bruno and his acquisition of the Abbey.

Bruno had taken the name of Kingsman. It had not occurred to me before that he had no surname. I suppose he should have had that of Keziah but he refused to take it. He told me why he was called Kingsman. When he had gone to France on the King’s service His Majesty had been so delighted with him on his return that he had granted him an audience and asked his name. Bruno had told him that he did not know his parents and that he had had no need of a name until that moment. He had decided to call himself the King’s man. This delighted the King who had greatly approved, and had increased his favor with His Majesty and had made the way to acquiring the Abbey easy.

“There is so much I want to know,” I said.

“You will know in time,” Bruno replied.

He was eager to show me the Abbey. “Your new home,” he called it, and together we wandered through that vast estate.

“There are bricks here in plenty,” said Bruno, “to build us as fine a mansion as you could wish.”

“Will that not be costly?”

“There is one thing you will have to learn, Damask. Never apply the same standards to me as you must to other men.”

“You talk as though you have endless wealth.”

He pressed my hand. “Much will be revealed to you.”

“Now you talk like a prophet.”

He smiled and the look of pride was on his face.

We would leave the church tower, he said, which was particularly fine and Norman; we would leave the Lady Chapel too because a house of this size would need its chapel; but the lay brothers’ dorter, their infirmary and kitchens would be demolished. The monks’ dorter and refectory would in time be the servants’ quarters. He had grand plans. We should see great changes during the next months. I should help him plan our new establishment.

“You will marry a rich man after all, Damask,” he said. “And you believed, did you not, that you were to marry a poor one?”

“Why did you tell me this? Why did you think it necessary to test me?”

“I wanted to be sure that you wished to come to me…for myself only.”

“And you—who know so much—did not know that I would do that!”

“In truth I never doubted you. I knew…because I know these things. But I wanted to hear you say it. I wanted you to know yourself.”

“None knows me better, Bruno.”

“Perhaps I do.”

He was smiling enigmatically now—the mystic.

I insisted on his giving me details of his rise to fortune.

He hesitated but finally he told me, and his story was, as Rupert had pointed out, incredible.

When it was known that Rolf Weaver was in the Abbey and that his purpose was to make an inventory of the treasures there and divert them from St. Bruno’s Abbey to the King, there had been time to secret some of the jewelry into hiding places in the tunnels and cellars. The Abbot died and because of the scandal created by Ambrose and Keziah it was known there would be no compensation for anyone there. All the monks would be turned adrift to fend for themselves. Brother Valerian had therefore given each monk a few jewels which would perhaps give him a start so that he might not die of starvation and have to suffer the indignity of begging. Had this been discovered death would have been the reward of those who had jewels in their possession but the desperate nature of their situation made them ready to take that risk.

As I knew, Bruno had come to our house for a while. There he had kept the jewels secreted on his person and later he had left us to go into London. He had reason to believe that Brother Valerian had given him jewels of some special value; he knew too that several monks had been discovered selling jewels from abbeys and monasteries and had been condemned to death for this, so he delayed before selling and came to our house that he might have somewhere to live during that waiting period. He then tried the smallest of the jewels in his possession and this realized enough money to take him abroad. He had decided to go to France, Italy or the Low Countries and there sell the remainder of the jewels in his possession.

He had when in London made the acquaintance of one of the King’s most important ministers who, aware of who he was and being convinced that the confession of Keziah and Ambrose had been wrung from them by torture, befriended him; and hearing that he was going abroad suggested that he might take a message to an important minister who served the Emperor Charles.

This Bruno had done so successfully that he was brought to the King’s notice and the King had received him and thanked him personally for the service rendered. Now that he was growing older and he suffered so acutely from the abscess in his leg, the King had grown more interested in booklore and the erudition of Bruno had attracted him. They had even enjoyed a very pleasant discourse on theology and Bruno, being well versed in the King’s own book which had years ago earned for him the title of Defender of the Faith, the King found the conversation very agreeable.

Bruno disposed of more jewels advantageously and was able to live like a man of some means, so no surprise was shown when he let it be known that he was interested in acquiring an estate and that Abbey lands would suit him very well.

St. Bruno’s had not yet an owner and was available to someone who could pay what was necessary.

“So,” he finished, “that is why I am here and the mansion which will arise from the ashes of the old Abbey will be my home, your home and that of our children.”

It was a strange story and had it been anyone but Bruno, would have been hard to believe; but when told it I was ready to accept the fact that with him—who was different from other mortals—nothing was too strange to be true.

There was the excitement of wedding preparations. My mother was ready to forget everything in her desire to do all that was necessary.

That I was to live near by delighted her; that I was to marry a man of great wealth—for so it seemed—pleased her too. She had been secretly worried about my dowry.

Now there was the bridecake to be made and my dress to be planned, she was in a fever of excitement—so much so that she did not even notice the glowering looks of her husband.

Clement was determined to excel himself. He and Eugene had already spoken to Bruno. As soon as the wedding was over they wanted to come to the Abbey. We should need masters of our bake and brew houses. And who knew the Abbey’s better than they?

To be back would be glorious for them both; Clement was a man who could settle in anywhere, but Eugene had suffered nostalgia. To be back, to serve their young master. I overheard them as they discussed it. “It’s a miracle,” whispered Eugene.

“And what do you expect but miracles with that one?” answered Clement.

Kate and Lord Remus came to Caseman Court for the wedding.

On the first day of their arrival Kate was up in my room—the door shutting us in—she stretched on my bed and I in the window seat as in the old days.

“You, Damask!” she cried. “You to marry Bruno! I can’t believe it.”

“Why be so incredulous? You have come to a wedding, yet you are surprised to find there is to be a bridegroom.”

“That bridegroom!” she said. “And to think of it! He is rich. Is he as rich as Remus? To buy the Abbey! How is it possible?”

“You know Bruno is not as other men. When he wants something he takes it.”

“Not always,” she contradicted.

“You must admit he has the Abbey. He always wanted it. In the old days he believed he would be the Abbot. Now he owns it.”

“But how could he have bought it? It must have been presented to him. Some have been given abbeys for good service. What service could Bruno have rendered the King?”

“He went on a mission to France.”

“What does Bruno know of missions to France?”

“You don’t know Bruno.”

“I don’t know Bruno! I know more of Bruno than you will ever know.”

“I suppose you would know my husband better than I.”

“You can be a simpleton at times, Damask.”

“And you are so wise.”

It was like the old days. But there was something different about Kate. She did not like my marriage.

I took her over to see the Abbey and walked on that spot where we used to play. Bruno joined us there.

“Now,” said Kate, “we are three grown-up people. What a lot has happened since we played as children here.”

“You have become Lady Remus,” said Bruno.

“And a mother,” she answered. “And you have become the owner of this great Abbey.”

“That surprises you, does it not?”

“Greatly.”

“Damask was less surprised.”

“Why, Bruno,” I said, “I was astounded.”

But he went on: “Damask does not care for worldly possessions as you do, Kate. What do you think now of the penniless boy who took shelter in your home?”

“I think,” said Kate, “that he was sly. He had jewels in his possession, it seems, on which he founded his fortune. He should not have kept that to himself.”

They were regarding each other intently and I said: “That is all in the past.”

Bruno turned to me. “And our future, Damask…yours and mine…is here in this place. Together we will build the finest house that ever was seen and even Remus Castle will seem insignificant beside it.”

“I like not these comparisons,” I said. “Let us show Kate what we intend to build onto the Abbot’s Lodging.”

He was delighted; and once again I was aware of that burning pride as he showed Kate his domain.

We were married almost immediately. It was a ceremony slightly less grand than Kate’s had been. But I had my bridal gown which had been made by my mother’s seamstresses with herself supervising them; my bridecake was, I think, finer because Clement had made it so. And Eugene had worked hard that the bridecup might compare with that drunk at royal weddings.

There was dancing and revelry in the hall and later we were conducted to the Abbey with a party of the guests, and we were alone in our new home.

Wife and Mother

HOW STRANGE, HOW WONDERFUL to wake up next morning in the bedroom which had been the Abbot’s. I lay looking up at the vaulted ceiling and tried to think clearly of all that had happened to me during the last few weeks. I certainly could not have imagined anything like this.

Bruno was awake and I said to him: “Does it not show how wonderful life can be when you consider what has happened to me?”

I had quickly learned that this was the sort of thing he loved to hear. I would never forget how he had kept secret the fact that he was a rich man because he was so anxious to be taken for himself and I felt tender toward him on account of this. I understood him well. He had believed himself to be apart from the rest of the world, a very special being and because that rude awakening had humiliated him more than he could endure he needed constant reassurance. He should have it. I would give it to him; and in time he would be able to face the fact that I loved him none the less because of his birth. I would assure him that it was far more commendable for a man without spiritual advantages to achieve what he had done, than it would have been for one who had special powers.

But that was for later.

We talked of this wonderful thing and he promised me more and more wonder. He was eager to go over the Abbey with me, to explain what he would have and for me to offer ideas. We would build our home together, he said.

That morning I discovered that he had engaged several servants and apart from a very few they were men and all of a kind. Although there was no physical resemblance to Clement and Eugene they reminded me of them. Then I asked myself if I thought these people resembled monks because we were in an old abbey.

I said to Bruno: “They remind me of Clement and Eugene.”

“It is because they were at one time monks. When they were turned out they were lost and bewildered. Now that they have heard the Abbey is occupied, and by whom, they have come back. They wish to work here.”

I was uneasy. “They must remember it is no longer a monastery.”

“They know full well that the King has dissolved the monasteries.”

“Is it wise….”

He laughed at me. “You must leave such matters to me. We are going to have a rich estate and rich estates need many workers. These men know the Abbey. They have implored me to give them work here on the land they know and have known all their lives. I could not say no to them. Besides they will work well for me.”

“I understand that. But….”

“I do assure you, Damask, this place now is very different from what it was under the Abbot.”

“I think, Bruno,” I answered, “we shall have to consider our actions with care. Everyone should. How can we know what new laws will be in force?”

He turned to me then and his face was radiant. “Here you will be in our own little world. Leave your fears to me, Damask.”

He looked so tall and handsome, so godlike, so calm, that I felt I could safely forget any little apprehension I might have left. And that impression stayed with me when he took me into the old scriptorium and I found yet another stranger there.

Here was indeed the monkly countenance. The skin of this man was like old parchment, the eyes embedded in wrinkles alert yet calm, the high cheekbones with the flesh stretched tightly across them, the thin mouth all suggested the scholar and stoic. I knew before Bruno introduced him as Valerian that here was yet another of the monks of the Abbey.

“There are still some of the old manuscripts which were not destroyed by the vandals,” said Bruno. “Valerian hid them away. Now he is here to bring them out to sort them and to compile our library.”

Yes, even on that first morning I was disturbed. But I forgot as we explored the Abbey.

“The church tower must stay,” said Bruno. “And how could we demolish the church?”

We went to look at it. It had been built, like so many, in the form of a crucifix and was impressive indeed for the height from the floor to the highest point of the vaulted ceiling was some fifty feet. As I stood there I could fancy I heard the chanting of the monks. My footsteps sounded noisy as I walked across the flagged floor to the five altars each dedicated to a saint—the center one to Saint Bruno who had founded the Abbey, as that other Saint Bruno had founded the Carthusians; and there was the screen beyond which was the Sanctuary where any who were persecuted could find refuge.

“How could one deliberately demolish such a place?” I asked.

Bruno smiled at me. “We understand each other,” he said. “We will leave the church.”

Then we went out and studied the many buildings which would be taken down to make our mansion.

“It will be a great labor,” said Bruno, “a great and inspiring one.”

“And we will build together like birds building a nest.”

“A nest!” cried Bruno laughing at me. “All this glory to be compared with a straw and mud!”

“A nest to a bird is a home, as this will be to us,” I said indignantly.

And he laughed and kissed me; and I thought exultantly, we are just the same as any young married couple—in love with each other and the future.

He took me into the monks’ dorter and frater. In the frater was a long refectory table and benches and at each end of the room was a stone spiral staircase leading to numerous cell-like rooms in the doors of which were grilles through which one could see inside; and each appeared to be exactly like the others. There were pallets on the floors and crucifixes on the walls, for those who had come to rob the place had not considered these worth taking away.

“Our mansion will not be in the least modern. We must keep the architecture to this ancient Norman style,” said Bruno.

“It must necessarily be so for we shall be using the old stone and some of these places are too interesting to change.”

He agreed. He would not wish to change the scriptorium; and the brewhouse and bakehouse could not be improved on. At the moment we had very few servants but we should need more. He intended to make profitable use of the farm and the mill.

“In the old days,” he told me, “these guesthouses were often full. I should not wish weary travelers to be turned away, and perhaps in time St. Bruno’s Abbey will become the Sanctuary it once was.”

“And you will be the Abbot. What of me? Abbots cannot have wives, you know.”

“I shall do as I please.”

“I am certain of that,” I replied lightly.

We went to the fishponds. There were three of them, the first flowing into the second, the second into the third.

“There used to be enough fish to feed the whole population of the Abbey and to sell,” said Bruno. “I hope it will be the same now.”

“You will have your Abbey, I can see.”

“I shall have the sort of community I wish for and none shall say me nay.”

“But in these days one must show a little care.”

“How you harp on care.” He was faintly exasperated. “You are safe with me.”

“I know, Bruno. As if I were afraid!”

But I did feel uneasy.

I told him of the night Rupert and I had buried my father’s head.

“I wish that I had been the one to bring it to you.”

“It was a risk,” I said. “I am thankful that Rupert was not discovered.”

“He is in love with you,” said Bruno.

“Yes.”

“But you were ready to face hardship with me, little knowing that you were coming to this!”

“It would have made no difference, Bruno,” I said. “No difference at all.”

They were strange days. There was so much to do, so much to talk of, so much to explore.

We did not leave our little world during those days. As long as Bruno was with me I was happy. I was eager to run my own household. Should I have a stillroom to compare with my mother’s, a garden like hers?

I would rather be with Bruno, listening to his plans. We often talked of the children we would have, and I gleaned that Bruno greatly desired to have a son.

We were so close at such times of the day and close indeed at night; it was only when I would see that fanatical gleam in his eyes that I felt him moving away from me. Sometimes I think he sensed a certain disbelief but was determined to dispel it, to force me to accept what he wished me to; and this made me uneasy for I knew myself well enough to be sure that I could not be made to accept what I did not believe.

But that was not for the moment.

We were happy, discovering each other. We had passion, the ecstasy we shared at night beneath the Abbot’s vaulted ceiling; and we had a great plan; we were going to make a home.

Just over a week after my wedding day when I was settling into my new home and no longer awoke with a sense of wonder and had to tell myself this had really happened, a messenger came from Caseman Court to say that my mother was in childbirth and asking for me. I hastily donned a cloak and walked to my old home. Would she have sent for me, I asked myself, if all had been going well?

Poor Mother, I thought, who had been so unworthy of my beloved father and married almost before he was cold in his grave. So many memories from my childhood kept crowding into my mind as I made my way back to her: the tenderness she had bestowed on me; those days when I had gathered wild flowers for her and she had shown me how to arrange them; the excitement when roses like the musk had been introduced into the country. Now they all seemed endearing.

I reached the gate where the bold brass letters CASEMAN COURT stood out arrogantly. I crossed the lawn where the gorgeous peacock, followed by the drab peahen, strutted on the grass and I was reminded poignantly of the days when I had fed them pulse, and Father had laughed to watch and asked me if I did not think there was something entirely stupid about the peacock and was he not an example to all of us not to be overproud of the gifts which only God could give us?

The servants looked at me curiously when I came into the hall. I could imagine the gossip there must be about what was going on at the Abbey. We must be careful, I thought apprehensively.

I demanded: “How is my mother?”

“It’s a hard birth, Mistress,” said one of the maids with a curtsy.

I ran up the stairs; as I reached the gallery Simon Caseman came out of a room.

“So you came,” he said.

“Of course I came. What is happening?”

“She has given birth to a boy but that is not all.”

“You mean…it is not going as it should?”

“I think there is another child. The first is healthy. It will live.”

“I was thinking of my mother.”

“It is an ordeal for her. She has had such anxieties lately.” He looked at me reproachfully. “She has worried about your strange marriage.”

“There was no need. But I do understand her fears. When she announced her marriage to me, I was uneasy for her.”

The midwife called out something and we went into the room where my mother lay.

“Two little boys,” said the midwife. “And for the life of me I can’t tell one from the other.”

“Two!” cried Simon, and I sensed his exultation.

“And their mother?” I asked.

“ ’Tas been a trying time for her. But she’ll pull through. Exhausted she were but she opened her eyes and said, ‘A boy!’ And, poor soul, that was what she wanted. I said to her, ‘Not one boy, my dear lady, that wasn’t enough for you. You’ve got two of them—and for twins I’ve never seen such big ’uns. ’Twas small wonder they made such a to-do about coming out.”

“May I see my mother?” I asked.

“Bless you, Mistress, it’s what she wants. She’s asked for you time and time again.”

I went into the room. My mother lay back on her pillows, her hair disordered. On her face was a smile of triumphant woman.

“Mother,” I said kneeling by the bed, “you have given birth to healthy twins.”

She nodded and smiled.

“You should rest now,” I said.

She smiled at me, then her expression changed. “Damask, are you happy?”

“Yes, Mother.”

A shadow passed across her face. “It was all so strange. I never knew the like. Your father was distressed.”

“My father is in heaven, Mother,” I said. “And I believe that he rejoices in my marriage.”

“Your stepfather is uneasy. He fears all may not be as it should.”

“Tell him to keep his fears for his own affairs, Mother.” Then because I saw that the conflict between us hurt her, I went on quickly: “You should be content now that you have two little boys to care for. You will, however, not be able to spend so much time in your garden.”

She smiled. Pleasant normal conversation—that was what she wanted. If anything was inclined to worry her she preferred to thrust it to one side.

When I came out of her room Simon Caseman was waiting for me. “I wish to have a word with you before you leave, Damask.”

I followed him into the room which had been my father’s study. Many times had we sat there looking out over the lawns to the river. Many subjects had we discussed. I felt a pang of nostalgia for the old days and a longing to be able to talk to him again. I would have discussed my misgivings with him; I could even have talked with him of Bruno.

“I want to know what is happening at the Abbey,” Simon Caseman said. “I heard strange rumors.”

“What rumors are these?” I hoped my voice did not betray the alarm I felt.

“That some of the monks have returned.”

I said cautiously, “Clement and Eugene, who worked for my father, have places in our household.”

“Monks!” he said, his eyes narrowing. “And others too. All monks.”

“The lands are extensive,” I said. “There is the farm which of course must be productive. If there are one or two monks there it is because there are many seeking work.”

“I trust,” he said, “that you are not becoming involved in lawlessness.”

“I do not understand you.”

“St. Bruno’s was disbanded. It would be unwise to found it again even if it is under the name of Kingsman.”

“Many abbeys have become as manor houses since the King and his ministers have bestowed them, I take it you have no objection to that?”

“Providing those on whom they have been bestowed do not break the law.”

I felt certain in that moment that he had betrayed my father and I hated him.

I blatantly tormented him. “Owners of such abbeys as ours must of course make full use of all they have to offer. I had no idea how large it was and how much was contained in it. We have our farm, our mill, and fishponds in which are hundreds of fish. There is great wealth in the Abbey. We must make sure that full use is made of it.”

I could see the lights of envy in his eyes. His lips tightened. “Take care, Damask. There is so much that is strange going on, I fear. You may be walking into danger.”

“You fear! Nay, you hope.”

“Now I understand you not.”

“You wanted to add the Abbey to your possessions. You told me so. You were too late. It is ours.”

“You misunderstand me. Have I not always been good to you? Did I not allow you to make your home here?”

“My home was already made.”

“You are determined to plague me. You always have. Desist, Damask. It is better so. If you had been my friend….”

“I don’t understand what that term implies.”

“I offered you marriage.”

“And quickly consoled yourself with my mother.”

“I did it to keep a roof over your heads.”

“You are so considerate.”

“Do not goad me too much—you and that husband of yours. If it is true that you are gathering the monks together there, you should beware. I know that Clement and Eugene are not the only ones you have there.”

“Those two came from this house, remember. You accuse us of harboring monks, what of yourself? Did they not work for you? Take care that you are not proved guilty of that of which you accuse us. My husband has good friends at Court. He has even been honored by the King.”

With that I bowed and left him. I knew that he was staring after me with that look of mingled anger and desire which I knew so well. He would never forgive me for refusing him and marrying Bruno, any more than he would forgive Bruno for gaining the Abbey which he had so desired.

His words kept ringing in my ears: “Beware.”

Without consulting Bruno I engaged two serving girls. They were sisters of two of the servants at Caseman Court who had been reckoning on going to my mother, but when I asked them to come to the Abbey they readily accepted.

I explained to Bruno that it made us seem a more normal household, which amused him.

A few weeks after their arrival one of them—Mary—came to me, her eyes round with awe. She had been to Mother Salter’s in the woods; she blushed a little, so I guessed it was for a love potion—and Mother Salter had sent a message for me. She wished to see me without delay.

That morning I called at the old woman’s cottage. The fire was burning as I had seen it before; the blackened pot was simmering. The black cat sprang up on the seat beside her and watched me with its yellow eyes.

“Be seated,” said Mother Salter, and I sat in the fireside alcove opposite her. She stirred what was in the pot and said: “The time has come, Mistress, for you to keep your promise. You have a fine house now. An Abbey no less. You are ready to take the child.”

She rose and drew aside a curtain—lying on a pallet was a child asleep. I calculated that she must be almost two years old for she was the daughter of Keziah and Rolf Weaver whom I had promised to care for.

So much had happened since I had made that promise that I had forgotten it. Now it gave me a few qualms of uneasiness. When I had promised to take the child my father had been alive; he had agreed that she might come to our house.

Mother Salter sensed my uneasiness. “You cannot go back on your pledge to a dying woman,” she said.

“Circumstances have changed since I made that pledge.”

“But your pledge remains.”

The child opened her eyes. She was beautiful. Her eyes were a deep blue, the color of violets, her lashes thick and black as her hair.

“Take her up,” commanded Mother Salter.

The child smiled at me and held out her arms. When I took her she placed her arms about my neck as Mother Salter commanded her to do. “Honeysuckle child,” said the witch, “behold your mother.”

The child looked wonderingly into my face. I had never seen such a beautiful creature.

“There,” said Mother Salter, “remember your vow. Woe to those who break their promises to the dead.”

I took the child and carried her out of the witch’s cottage and I took her to the Abbey.

“What child is this?” demanded Bruno.

“I have brought her to live here,” I replied. “She will be as our own.”

“By God,” he cried. “You do strange things, Damask. Why do you bring a child like that into our household? Ere long you will have a child of your own, I trust.”

“I pledged myself to take her. Then it was easy. My father was alive. I told him of my pledge and he said I must keep it.”

“But why make such a pledge?”

“It was to a dying woman.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The servants will care for her.”

“I have promised to treat her as my own.”

“For whom should you have made such a promise?”

“Bruno,” I said, “it was to Keziah on her deathbed.”

“Keziah!” His face darkened with anger. “Keziah.” He said the name as though there was something obscene about it. “That creature’s child! Here!”

Oh, Bruno, I thought, are you not that creature’s child? But it was for that reason of course that he felt so angry.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Keziah was dying and she asked me to care for this child. I promised. I will not go back on my word.”

“And if I will not have the child here?”

“You will not be so cruel.”

“You do not know me yet, Damask.”

I stared at him. Now he was different from ever before. The angry passion distorted his face. It was as though a mischievous boy had drawn a mask over that irresistible perfection of features which had so enchanted me. Bruno looked almost evil in his hatred of Keziah’s innocent child.

As usual when I was alarmed my tongue was at its sharpest. “It seems I have something to learn which will not be pleasing to me,” I cried.

“You will take the child back where she belongs,” he said.

“Her place is here.”

“Here! In my Abbey!”

“Her place is with me. If this is my home, it is hers.”

“Take her back without delay whence you found her.”

“To her grandmother—Mother Salter’s cottage in the woods?”

Oh, God, I thought, she may well be your grandmother too.

I wished that I could shut out the thoughts which came to me. It was because this beautiful innocent little girl was his half-sister that he could not bear to have her in his house. Where was the godlike quality I had so much admired? It was replaced by a vile human passion—Pride! I sensed fear too. I knew Bruno in that moment better than I ever had before and I sensed that he was afraid. I had believed I could love him in his weakness even as in his strength; but my feelings had changed for him in those moments. My adoration had gone; yet in its place was a deep maternal tenderness.

I wanted to take him in my arms and say: “Let us be happy. Let us forget that you must be above all other men. We have each other; we have most miraculously this wonderful Abbey!” (Yet when I thought of that I was uneasy for I realized then that I did not entirely believe his glib explanation of how he had come into possession of it.) “We have the future. Let us build our Abbey into a sanctuary for ourselves and those in need. Let us bring up our children in a good life and let this little one be our first.”

“I had thought you would do anything to please me,” he said.

“You know it is my great desire to please you.”

“And yet you do this…. Such a short time we have been married and you go against my wishes.”

“Because I made a pledge…a sacred pledge to a dying woman. You must see that I cannot break my word.”

“Take the child back to whoever has cared for her so far.”

“That is her grandmother, Mrs. Salter. She has threatened me with curses if I do not take the child. But I will have to keep her, though not from fear but because I gave my word and I intend to keep it.”

He was silent for a few moments. Then he said: “I see that you made this rash promise. It was unwise. It was foolish. Keep the child out of my way. I do not wish to see her.”

He turned away and I looked after him sadly. I was unhappy. I wished that I were like my mother—placid and uncritical. But I could not stop my thoughts. I could not prevent myself from knowing that he was afraid to offend the witch of the woods.

There was a rift between us now. Nothing would ever be the same again. Bruno was aware that he had allowed the mask to slip for a moment and had shown me something of the man beneath it. The child had done this. She had forced him to show himself vengeful and, worse still, afraid; and it was inevitable that our relationship must change from that moment. We were together less frequently. The child took up a great deal of my time. She was intelligent, quick and mischievous, and each day I was startled by her incredible beauty. She sensed Bruno’s antagonism though they had scarcely seen each other since her arrival. In her mind I was sure he was regarded as some sort of ogre.

She would toddle around after me so that it was not easy for me not to be with her; I sensed that she was always a little uneasy if I were not present because her eyes would light up with a relieved pleasure when she saw me, which was very endearing.

Naturally the coming of a child had changed the household. It had been a very unusual one before but now it became more normal. Bruno consulted me about the building which had started and behaved as though there had never been the disagreement between us, but I realized that as the time passed he would have to see a great deal of Honey and it was no use trying to hide her from him.

He seemed to realize this and to accept the inevitability of the child’s presence. I was glad of this although the antagonism between them was apparent. In Bruno it showed in a feigned indifference but the child was too young to hide her feelings; she ran from him and when he was near kept close to my side.

So it remained an uneasy situation; but each day I loved the child more. I loved Bruno too, but differently. I found a strange sort of pity creeping into my emotions.

My mother announced that the christening of her twins was to take place and Kate wrote that she would be present, leaving Carey with his nurses and Remus to his business affairs. She would stay at Caseman Court of course, but her first call would be at the Abbey to see the bride.

Within a few days she had arrived and true to her word came at once to the Abbey. She looked as elegant as ever in her fine velvet gown and beautiful too, flushed with the October wind which had caught little tendrils of hair escaping from under her headdress.

She came into the hall of the Abbot’s Lodging and looked about her. I was on the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs and saw her a few seconds before she was aware of me.

“Kate,” I cried. “You are more beautiful than ever!”

She grimaced. “I was fit to die of boredom. Even the Court has become deadly dull. I have much to tell you, Damask. But first there is so much I wish to know.”

She looked at the great hall with its beautiful open timber roof, its molded arches and its carved pendants and corbels.

“So this was the old Abbot’s Lodging. Very fine. I’ll swear it compares favorably with Remus Castle. But what does it all mean?” She caught my hand and looked at the ring on my finger. “You, Damask. You.”

“Why should you seem so surprised?”

“That he should marry at all. It had to be one of us, of course. And I was already married to Remus, so there was only you. But this mansion…how did he acquire it? He who was so poor. How did the Abbey fall into his hands?”

“It was a miracle,” I said.

Her eyes were wide; she looked at me searchingly. “Another miracle?” she asked. “Impossible! We were deluded about the first, weren’t we? Do you know, Damask, I don’t think I believe in miracles.”

“You were always irreverent.”

She gazed up at the carvings in the spandrels. “But it’s beautiful. And this is your home now! Why did you not write and tell me what was happening? Why did you keep it to yourself? You should have warned me.”

“There was no time.”

“Well, I wish to hear everything now. This your home, Damask. Our old Abbey your home. Do you know they are saying, Damask, that the Abbey is becoming what it once was?”

“I know there are rumors.”

“Never mind rumors. Let us be together and talk. There is so much to tell.”

I took her up the great staircase with its beautifully carved balustrade to the solar where I had been sitting doing a piece of needlework—in fact making a dress for Honey—when she arrived. Although it was October the afternoon sun streamed into the long room and I led her to the window where I had been seated.

“Do you need refreshment, Kate?” I asked.

“Your mother’s stillroom provided all I needed. How proud she is of her twins. Where is your husband?”

“He is very occupied during the day. There is so much to be done here. We did not know the Abbey in the old days, Kate. I was astonished when I realized its spaciousness. There is going to be a great deal of work if we are to make it flourish as it did in the days of….”

She was watching me closely. “But it must not flourish as an abbey, must it?”

“Indeed it is no abbey in the sense that St. Bruno’s was. But there is the farm and the mill and the land has to be prepared for next year’s harvests.” I was talking because I was afraid of what questions she would ask me if I stopped. I said, “There will be the hay to be cut and baled; the corn; the animals….”

“Pray do not render me accounts of the laborers’ duties for I have not come to hear that.”

“But you must understand that there is much work to be done…we shall need many men if we are to make this place prosper.”

“And Bruno? Where is he?”

“I believe him to be somewhere in the Abbey. Perhaps he is talking about the farmlands, or the mill, or like as not he is in the scriptorium with Valerian.”

“What did he say when he knew I was coming?”

“Very little.”

“Don’t be maddening, Damask. What effect did it have on him?”

“What conceit! Do you think it is such an important event because you at last deign to visit us?”

“I should have thought it worthy of some comment.”

“He does not easily betray himself.”

This she conceded.

I asked how Carey was. Had he grown?

“It is a natural function for children to grow. Carey is normal in every way.”

“I long to see him.”

“You shall. I will bring him to the Abbey.” She was looking at me searchingly. “What banal questions we ask each other! And you have this child here—Keziah’s child!” She looked at me searchingly. “Is that wise?”

“I had pledged myself.”

“And Damask would always keep her word. And Bruno? What does he feel? His marriage not more than a few weeks old—and already a child!”

“He accepts the fact that I must keep my word. And I love the child.”

“You would. The eternal mother! That is you, Damask. And are you happy?”

“I am happy.”

“You always adored Bruno…blatantly. But then you were always so honest. You could never hide your feelings, could you?”

I avoided her eyes. “I don’t think you were indifferent to him.”

“But you carried off the prize. Clever Damask.”

“I was not clever. It just happened.”

“You mean that he returned and asked you to marry him?”

“I do mean that.”

“And he said I will lay the rich Abbey at your feet. I will give you riches and jewels….”

I laughed. “You were always obsessed by riches, Kate. I remember when we were young you always said you would marry a Duke. I’m surprised that you settled for a mere Baron.”

“In the battle of life one takes an opportunity when it comes if it is reasonably good. To let it pass might mean to miss it altogether. There were not many noble visitors at your father’s house, were there? Remus seemed a very worthy object of my attention.”

“Is he as doting as ever?”

“He dotes,” said Kate. “And of course he is eternally grateful for the boy. But it is of you that I wish to talk…you, Damask. So much has happened here—more than has been happening in my little circle. Your mother producing twins and your strange marriage. That is what interests me.”

“I think you know what happened. Bruno came back and asked me to marry him. There had been a great deal of talk about the new owner of the Abbey. No one knew who it was. I agreed to marry Bruno—then he revealed to me who he was and that by a miracle he had acquired the Abbey.”

“It’s a fantastic story and I never wholly believe fantastic stories.”

“Are you suggesting that I am lying to you, Kate?”

“Not you, Damask. But you must admit it is so very strange. So he asked you to marry him and only after did he reveal that the Abbey would be your home. What a secretive bridegroom! I’ll dareswear you promised to share a life of poverty with him.”

“I had thought that was what it would be.”

She nodded slowly.

“Bruno is a proud man.”

“He has much of which to be proud.”

“Is not Pride a sin—one of the seven deadlies I had always been led to believe?”

“Oh, come, you are being censorious now, Kate. Bruno has a natural dignity.”

“That was not quite what I meant.” Her face darkened momentarily and then she shrugged her shoulders. “Show me the Abbey, Damask,” she said. “I should enjoy seeing it. First this house. This solar is beautiful. I shall imagine you here when I am back at my gloomy old castle.”

“So the castle has become gloomy? I thought you were very proud of such a fine old place.”

“It is a castle merely—inhabited by the Remus family since the days of the first Edward. It could not be compared with an abbey, could it now?”

“I should have thought so and to its advantage.”

“Now, Damask, you are at your old trick. You are teaching me to count my blessings. You were always something of a preacher. What do you think of the new religion? Did you know that many are probing into it? And it is against the law of course, which makes it so exciting. I believe it to be a simpler religion. Imagine the services in English! So easy for people to understand which is good in a way and yet so much of the dignity departs. It is so much more impressive when you are in doubt as to what it is all about.”

“You still flit from subject to subject in the same inconsequential manner. What has religion to do with architecture?”

“It seemed to me that everything in this world is connected with everything else. There! You are thoughtful. Have I said something profound? Perhaps I am becoming clever. You and Bruno were the clever ones, were you not? How you used to madden me when you put on that superior manner and tried to carry the subject beyond me. But I could always get the better of you both. I haven’t changed, Damask, and I doubt that you and Bruno have either.”

“Why should any of us wish to get the better of each other?”

“Perhaps because some of us have what the other wants. But no matter. Where is Bruno? Manners demand that he should be here to greet me.”

“You forget your visit was unexpected.”

“He knew that I was coming to Caseman Court, did he not?”

“And do you expect him to be waiting here on the chance that you will come?”

She shook her head. “I would never expect that from Bruno. Come, show me your beautiful dwelling.”

I led her across the solar into my own little sitting room.

“It’s charming,” she cried. She gazed up at the ceiling with its carved wooden ribs and gesso ornamentation and the decorations of the frieze. “That was done not very long ago,” she declared. “It is quite modern. I’ll warrant the old Abbot had it refurbished after the first miracle when the Abbey grew rich. So he owes that to Bruno. It is surprising how much so many owe to Bruno.”

I took her from room to room. She expressed admiration for all she saw but I fancied it was tinged with envy. The gallery enchanted her. It was bare at the moment for tapestries and precious ornaments had been torn from the walls by Rolf Weaver and his men; but they had not harmed the window seats and the one beautiful oriel window which looked out on the cloister and the monks’ frater.

At the end of the gallery was a small chapel on either side of the door of which were panels each decorated with an effigy of Saint Bruno.

“They lived well, these monks,” said Kate with a smile. “And how lucky you are that it should have been you whom Bruno brought to this wonderful place.”

As we made a tour of the Abbey she constantly exclaimed with admiration at so much; I knew that she found the place which had dominated our imaginations when we were children to be entirely fascinating and that she envied me. She climbed the monks’ night stairs; she opened the door of one of the monk’s cells and stood there looking around her. “How quiet it is!” she cried. “How cold. How ghostly.”

She was thinking, she said, of all the pent-up emotion which had been suffered in this place. “Look at that pallet,” she cried. “Imagine the thoughts of men who have occupied that! They shut themselves off from the world and how often during the night would they have longed for something they had left behind. Is it living, Damask, to shut oneself away from temptation, from life? What a strange place an abbey is.” She looked through one of the slitlike windows in the monks’ dorter. “You will be frightened here at night, Damask. Who knows, you may see the ghosts of long-dead monks flitting through the cloisters? Do you think people who have lived and suffered return to the scene of their tragedies? Think how many tragedies there must have been in this place!”

She was envious. She wanted the Abbey and I understood her so well—always she had sought to take what she wanted.

I almost wished that I had not shown her all that was here. There was such potential riches. In time if allowed to develop it I could see that the owner of such a place could be enormously rich and powerful; and was that not what Kate had always wanted to be? I knew in my heart that she had a special feeling for Bruno. He had dominated our childhood. That aloofness, that difference which his origins had created made him stand apart from all others so that he had that indefinable quality, a near divinity; and in our hearts perhaps neither of us was sure whether there had in truth been a miracle in the Christmas crib on that long-ago Christmas morning.

I understood her so well, my worldly Kate; and I loved her none the less for this. I knew her strength and her weakness and both were great. We had been rivals for Bruno. I had known that all the time even when we were children playing on the grass of the forbidden territory.

What was she feeling now? I know she compared the Abbey with Remus Castle: was she comparing my husband with hers?

In the scriptorium when they came face to face, Kate was like a flower when the sun comes out after rain. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed like my mother’s damask roses so that I felt like a country wench beside a Court beauty.

“We have been admiring your Abbey,” she told him.

He too had changed. I saw the gleam in his eyes. Pride in his Abbey—and more than that an immense satisfaction because Kate could be shown what he possessed.

“And what do you think of it?” he said.

“Magnificent. So you have become a landowner! And such land. Who would have thought it possible? It is a miracle.”

“A miracle,” he repeated. “And you are well, Kate?”

“I am well, Bruno.”

He had scarcely glanced at me. He had indeed changed toward me since the coming of Honey. Kate, as she always had, dominated the scene. A vivid memory came to me of her turning somersaults on the Abbey grass diverting his attention from me to herself. It was rather like that now. She was trying to hold him with her glowing beauty; it was as though she were saying: Compare me with your plain little Damask.

“So you are visiting us….”

“I have come for the christening of the Caseman babies and to see Damask and you….” She lingered on the last word.

“And you have found many changes?”

“What changes in the Abbey! They are talking of nothing else throughout the countryside.”

“So you came to see for yourself. And how do you find it?”

“Even more wonderful than I had thought to.”

She was looking at him eagerly, calling attention to herself. I knew her well. She had no scruples.

How affected was he? What was he remembering?

“My son is not with me,” she said. “But one day I will bring him to show him to you.”

“I shall want to see him,” he said.

I put in: “We will choose a time when Bruno has the time to spare.”

“Tomorrow I must come again,” said Kate. “My stay here may not be of long duration and there is so much we have to talk about. I want to hear your plans for this wonderful place. Damask has been showing me. I had no idea that there was so much…only having seen it from the gatehouse and as tall gray walls, and of course what I saw when I came through the ivy-covered door.”

He was watching her intently. I wondered what he was thinking.

We returned to the Abbot’s Lodging and all the time he talked to her earnestly of the great plans he had for the Abbey.

“There will not be a larger estate for miles round,” he said with pride. “Once it is in order, once the farms are producing…you will see.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate, “I shall see. And deeply shall I envy you from my castle keep.”

The next day the twins were christened in the chapel at Caseman Court. I had never seen my mother so happy. Simon Caseman was a proud father too.

The boys were named Peter and Paul, and Paul bawled lustily throughout the proceedings, a fact which made my mother delight in his show of manhood while at the same time Peter’s docility showed her what a good child he was.

The following day Kate again visited the Abbey. We went to the solarium and indulged in her favorite occupation of gossiping.

Remus, it seemed, had taken on a new lease of life since his marriage and the birth of his son. She seemed a little rueful about this which I found shocking. She laughed at me.

“Rich widows,” she said, “are so attractive.”

“Is it your next ambition to become one?”

“Hush. Why, if Remus died in his sleep from an overdose of poppy juice I should be suspected of having administered it.”

“Don’t talk of such things even in a jest.”

“Still the same old Damask. Afraid. Always looking over your shoulder for the informer.”

“There have been informers in my life once. They shattered it.”

She laid her hand over mine. “My poor poor Damask. How well I know! Your good faithful heart was broken for a time. How glad I am that it has healed! And now you are so lucky….I am sorry I recalled that sad time. And I did not mean to suggest that I would be rid of Remus. He is a good husband and it is sometimes better to have an aging one than a young one. He is so grateful, poor Remus; and I verily believe that if I were to take it into my head to adventure a little—he would not take it amiss.”

“I hope you do not…adventure…as you call it.”

“That is a matter on which I propose to keep you in doubt. And I do not see why if Remus were ready to turn a blind eye you should show a censorious one. But talking of wayward wives, I must tell you the latest Court scandal. It concerns the Queen. Are you listening?”

“I am all ears.”

“I fear our dear little Queen may well be in trouble. Cruel men and women are closing in on her and she, poor soul, is in no position to oppose them.”

“This marriage surely is a happy one.”

“It was. How amusing to see the King’s Majesty in the role of uxorious husband. She is such a charming little creature. By no means beautiful. Though the cousin of Anne Boleyn, she is completely without elegance. Poor little Katharine Howard. She reminds me of Keziah in a way. She is the sort who could never say no to a man and it seems that she has said yes very frequently.”

“Tell me what has happened. I have heard nothing.”

“You soon will for I believe all that her enemies would wish has been proved against the Queen.”

“The poor child,” I murmured. “For she is little more.”

“She is a little older than you and a little younger than I, which I am ready to agree is young to leave this life.”

“It has not come to that.”

“If all that is rumored is proved against her she may well be walking out to Tower Hill as her fascinating cousin did some six years ago.”

“Can the King have had so many wives in such a short time?”

“Indeed he can. Was there not sly Jane to follow Anne who followed Spanish Katharine? Of course his marriage to her lasted twenty years and for all that time he remained married to one wife; and then Anne of Cleves who was not at all to his liking. She was the fortunate one. She now enjoys life mightily at Richmond, I believe; and now pretty little Katharine Howard.”

“With whom he is so happy.”

“With whom he was happy. Poor Katharine, rumor has it that she learned a loose way of life in the dormitory she shared with the other girls of her grandmother’s household—some lowborn and little more than servants—and that as young as thirteen she had taken a lover. These unscrupulous women found the corrupting of this nobly born young girl’s morals an amusing occupation. It is said that young Katharine had soon formed an immoral association with a musician and that was but a beginning. Afterward she went through a form of marriage with a young man named Francis Dereham. Thus she was no virgin when she married the King although I’ll swear she professed to be.”

“Her grandmother is surely the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk?”

“Of a surety she is, and little care she took of her fascinating granddaughter. Poor Katharine! Daughter of a younger son, she was of little account until the King singled her out for notice. Then my Lord Norfolk begins to appreciate his niece, just as he did with that other niece, Anne Boleyn. But you remember how he deserted her when she needed support. I’ll swear the fellow is now preparing to desert Katharine.”

“Is Katharine in danger?”

“Unlike Anne, she is really a little fool, Damask. Oh, how differently I should have managed my affairs had I been in her place!”

“Queen Anne could not have managed her affairs with any great skill for they led her to Tower Hill and the executioner’s sword.”

“True enough,” admitted Kate. “But this is different. Anne could not get a boy and the King was obsessed with the need for a boy.”

I thought of Bruno then. I believed he was obsessed by the desire for a boy. At least, I thought ironically, he could not cut off my head if I failed to provide one.

“He was also enamored of Jane Seymour,” went on Kate. “This is why Anne lost her head—through circumstances outside her control. It is not quite the same with Queen Katharine Howard. She was loose in her morals, they say; she had several lovers and allowed this to be known by the unscrupulous people of her grandmother’s household. I am told that several of them acquired places in her Court because they asked for them with veiled threats and she was perforce obliged to give them to them.”

“And all this has been brought to the King’s ears? I was of the opinion that he loved her dearly and if this is so surely he will forgive what she did before he married her.”

“You live in a backwater, Damask. You do not know what goes on. Do you not realize that this country is split by a great religious conflict? Have you ever heard of a man called Martin Luther?”

“Of course I have,” I said hotly. “I fancy that my father and I have had more discourse on theology in one week than you ever had in your life. And Bruno and I talk of these matters too.”

“I know your discourse. You would argue the rights and wrongs. I mean not that. This is politics. There is fast growing in this country two great parties—those who support the Catholic Church and those who would reform it. Did you know that Anne Boleyn was growing very interested in the reformed ideas? This brought her many enemies from the Catholic side. Of course, they had always detested her because of the divorce. How big a part they played in bringing about her downfall we shall not know, but depend upon it they played a part. Now our little Queen Katharine cares not for religion. She merely wishes to be happy and gay and to keep her royal husband so. But she comes from the Norfolk family—the Duke, her uncle, is a leader of the Catholic party. Cannot you see that those of Reformed party are determined to bring her down? She would not dabble in politics. She would not understand what it is all about. So…they will delve into her past; they will discover that she has lain carnally with several men and may have called herself married to one of them. We are going to see fearful happenings at Court. You may depend upon it, Damask.”

“We must pray for her.”

“Forget not that the Reformed party prays for her destruction. So many prayers coming from Catholics! So many from those who wish for reforms. And all to the same God. How can they all be answered, Damask?”

I said: “I shall pray for the Queen, not for any form of religion. She is only about our age, Kate. It is tragic. Is she going to lose her head?”

“The Reformed party is beside itself with anxiety. It fears she may not, for the King dotes so much upon her.”

“If this is true the King will never let her go.”

“I am told that that is what she believes. But she has some powerful minds against her. Archbishop Cranmer has examined her, they say, and methinks he will not be a very good friend to her.”

After that conversation I could not get the poor little Queen out of my mind. I pictured her agony as she recalled the fate of her cousin Anne Boleyn, and she would lack the reasoning and mental powers of that Queen. Poor uneducated little Katharine Howard, who had had the misfortune to be attractive enough to catch the King’s fancy!

Then I ceased to think of her because the miraculous event had come to pass. Before Kate left us to return to Remus Castle I knew that I was with child.

When I told Bruno he was overcome by joy. The difference which had arisen between us over the arrival of Honey was swept away. This was what he had longed for. A child—a son of his own.

This paternal pride was indeed a human quality, and it delighted me. And what pleasure we had in talking of the child we would have.

At this time I was able to bring Honey into our little circle. He rarely spoke to her and his indifference was hurtful, but at least she was allowed to be in our company. She accepted that and if he ignored her she did the same to him; but I was pleased that she no longer seemed afraid of him, and she did not cower close to me when he was present.

We had added to our household considerably; during the weeks after Kate’s departure several men arrived at the Abbey to offer their services for the great amount of work that would in due course have to be done out of doors. I had engaged new servants. I had a housekeeper now, a Mrs. Crimp, who, I was delighted to say, took a great interest in Honey.

I had a suspicion that some of the men who presented themselves for work were familiar with the Abbey and had worked there before. Some of them might have been lay brothers. There was danger in this but to be in Bruno’s presence was to share to a certain extent his confidence in himself; and the fact was I was obsessed by the thought of my child and longing for its arrival.

For Honey I had a deep protective love but I knew that nothing could compare with the emotion which my own child would arouse in me.

I was shut in a little world of my own. Vaguely I listened to the news from Court. Those men who had been the Queen’s lovers in the past were being questioned in the Tower. Sometimes, when on the river, I would look at the gray fortress and a brief vision of bloodstained torture chambers would flash into my mind. In the past I would perhaps have brooded on that, recalling my father’s sojourn in that dreaded place. But always the exaltation engendered by the presence of the child would overcome all other feelings.

I used to say to myself: But the King loves her. He does not wish to be rid of her. He will not let her die.

Travelers called at the Abbey for one of the guesthouses had been thrown open as it had been in the old days. They told stories of the King’s great distress when he had heard of the scandals about his wife. It was particularly hard to bear because immediately before the news had been broken to him he had told his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, that he was so delighted to have found matrimonial bliss at last that he wished him to arrange a thanksgiving to God for giving him such a loving and virtuous Queen.

We heard also that when the poor little Queen was told of what she had been accused her fears sent her into a frenzy, and knowing that the King was at prayers in the little chapel at the end of the long gallery in Hampton Court she had run down this, screaming hysterically while her attendants who had been ordered to keep her under restraint captured her and forced her to return to her apartments.

A brooding sense of disaster was in the air. The King was all powerful. He stood between the two factions—Papists and anti-Papists—and in his eyes they could both be traitors, because those who did not accept the religion set out by him were enemies who should be punished by death. He made it clear that nothing was changed, but the head of the Church—the King instead of the Pope. He hated the Pope no less than he hated Martin Luther.

But for me there was nothing of any great importance but the gestation of my child. I shut my eyes to the fact that the atmosphere in the Abbey was changing each day, and that since I had become pregnant I was treated with the awed respect which I had noticed was accorded to Bruno.

When my mother heard of my condition she was overjoyed. She came to the Abbey bringing herbs and some of her concoctions. I would visit her and we talked together as women do. We were closer now than we had ever been.

I admired the twins—Peter and Paul—two well-formed, lusty little boys. She doted on them, and could scarcely bear them out of her sight. They had even lured her from her garden. Constantly she discussed their tempers, their intelligence and their beauty. She refused to swaddle them because they protested lustily when she did so and she liked to see them kick their little limbs.

I began to enjoy our chats. She had so much advice to offer and I knew that it was good. The midwife who had attended her she fancied was the best in the neighborhood and she was going to insist that she attended me when my time came.

She made little garments for my baby when I knew she would rather have been stitching for her adored twins.

I took to visiting her often for we had become not so much mother and daughter but two women discussing the subject nearest to our hearts. She confided to me that she hoped to have more children but even if she did not she considered herself singularly blessed to have had her two little boys and both healthy.

One day though a tinge of alarm touched me.

I was in her sewing room when beneath the material on which she was working I discovered a book. It was so unlike my mother to read anything that I was surprised and even more so when I picked it up. I opened it and glanced through it and as I did so I felt my heart begin to beat very quickly. There clearly enough were set out the arguments and the tenets of the new religion. I hastily shut the book as my mother approached but I could not forget it.

At length I said: “Mother, what is this book you are reading?”

“Oh,” she said with a grimace, “it is very dull, but I am struggling through it to please your stepfather.”

“He wishes you to read it?”

“He insists.”

“Mother, I do not think you should leave such a book where any might pick it up.”

“Why should I not? It is but a book.”

“It is what it contains. It is a plea for the reformed religion.”

“Oh, is it?” she said.

“To please me be more careful.”

She patted my hand. “You are just like your father,” she said. “You are one to make something from nothing. Now look at this. Already Master Paul is growing out of it. The rate that child grows astonishes me!”

I was thinking: So Simon Caseman is dabbling with the reformed religion!

I thought of the Abbey where a community life alarmingly similar to the old was gradually, perhaps subtly, but certainly being built up.

It occurred to me then that Simon Caseman, for harboring such a book in his house, and Bruno, for installing monks in his newly acquired Abbey, could both be deemed traitors.

A short while ago I would have gone home and argued the matter with Bruno. I might even have gone so far as to caution Simon Caseman, but strangely enough the matters seemed of secondary importance for I had just begun to feel the movement of my child and I forgot all else.

I was like my mother, shut into a little world in which the miracle of creation absorbed me.

Perhaps all pregnant women are so.

Christmas was almost upon us and I had decorated Honey’s little room with holly and ivy and told her the Christmas story.

In those December days preceding Christmas there had been a great deal of talk about the King’s matter. Even my mother mentioned it. There was great sympathy for the Queen who it was said was in a state of hysteria and had been ever since her accusation. Many believed that this was an implication of her guilt.

“And if she had taken a lover, poor soul,” I said to my mother as we sat over our sewing, “is that so very wrong?”

“Outside the bonds of matrimony!” cried my mother, aghast.

“She believed herself married to Dereham.”

“Then she deserves death for marrying the King.”

“Life is cruel for a woman,” I said.

My mother pursed her lips virtuously. “Not if she is a dutiful wife.”

“Poor little Katharine Howard! She is so young to die.”

But my mother was not really moved by the young girl’s fate. It occurred to me that in a world where death came frequently the value of life was not really great.

It was just before Christmas that Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpepper were executed. Culpepper was beheaded but Dereham, because he was not of noble birth, suffered the barbarous hanging and quartering, the traitor’s death.

I thought of them all that day—poor young men, whose crime had been to love the Queen.

At that time we thought these deaths would be enough and that the King so loved Katharine Howard that we were sure he would pardon her. Alas it was not to be so. The Queen had too many enemies. As a Howard she was a Catholic and many of the King’s ministers did not wish to see a Catholic influence on the King.

Her fate was sealed when the King’s ministers, before he could prevent them, circulated the story of her misconduct abroad and after this the King’s own honor being involved he could scarcely with dignity take her back.

François Premier sent condolences. He was shocked by the “great displeasures, troubles and inquietations which his good brother had recently had by the naughty demeanor of her, lately reputed for Queen.”

Distressed, wounded and humiliated (this last a state calculated to arouse his anger against the cause of it) the King did not intervene to save Katharine and on a bleak February day the King’s fifth wife walked out to Tower Hill where but six years before her cousin Anne Boleyn had met a similar fate.

A hush was on the land on that terrible day. Five Queens—two divorced, one died in childbirth (and who knew what her fate would have been had she lived?) and two beheaded.

The people were beginning to wonder what monster this was who sat on their throne; and when they saw him, as they did occasionally on public occasions, and in place of the handsome golden boy who thirty years before had been romantically in love with his Spanish wife, was a portly bloated figure—purple of complexion, tight-mouthed, eyes peering through slits in that unsightly countenance, a suppurating ulcer on his leg, they lowered their eyes but they dared do no other than shout “Long live the King.”

They remembered that whatever else he was, he was their all-powerful ruler.

My baby was due in June. The larger I grew the more impatient I became. One of the men who had come to the Abbey and who I suspected used to help Brother Ambrose in the old days had made a little garden for me at the back of the Abbot’s Lodging. My mother had advised and sent me plants and I grew quite fond of it. Here I would sit with my sewing and watch Honey at play. Now over two years old, she was a lively child; I had told her that she would soon have a companion and she used to ask every day how much longer it would be before it arrived.

My mother had advice to offer every time we met. She had become a frequent visitor to the Abbey. I wondered whether she would notice that some of the workers were onetime monks, and mention this to Simon. I remembered the book I had seen in my mother’s room. If Simon was flirting with the new religion he might do us some harm. Besides, I had a feeling that he would not forgive me for refusing him and for taking the Abbey and Bruno. But as he too was acting outside the King’s law, he would have to walk very warily himself.

My mother, however, noticed nothing strange; she would only comment on the manner in which I was carrying the child and impress upon me that the moment I felt the first signs I was to send a messenger to Caseman Court. She would at once send for the midwife and come herself. That was only if we should have miscalculated the time. If we had been right then the midwife would be in residence days before the expected event.

It was April—two months before my child was due—when I became aware of a change in Bruno. He was often absentminded. Sometimes when I spoke to him he did not answer.

I said to him: “Bruno, all this rebuilding must be very costly. Are you perchance anxious about the expense?”

He looked at me in a startled fashion.

“What gave you that notion?”

“You seem preoccupied.”

He frowned. “Mayhap I am anxious about you.”

“About me? But I am well.”

“Having a child is a trying time.”

“You must not fear. Everything will be all right.”

“I shall be glad when our son is born.”

“I’m afraid when you say ‘our son’ in that way. What if we should have a daughter?”

“My firstborn must be a son,” he said, and what I thought of as his prophet’s face was very apparent. “It will be so,” he continued firmly.

He convinced me then, as he could at times, that he had special powers.

I smiled complacently. Son or daughter I should love either. But if Bruno cared so intensely that it should be a son then I hoped so too.

“I am glad there is no need to worry about money. You must be exceedingly rich. I know this place cannot be producing much so far.”

“I beg you, Damask, leave these matters to me.”

“I would not have you worried. Mayhap we could postpone some of this building until the farm and the mill begin to show a profit.”

He laughed and the fanatical gleam was in his eyes.

“Doubt not that I can do all that I set out to do.”

He came over to me and kissed my brow.

“As for you, Damask, all I ask of you is to give me my son.”

“It cannot be too soon for me,” I assured him.

It was a few nights later. I awoke suddenly and found that Bruno was not beside me.

It was well past midnight and I wondered whether he had gone over to the scriptorium. He was often there with Valerian and it occurred to me that he might be going over accounts. Deep in my mind the thought persisted that he was concerned about money.

I rose from my bed and went quietly into Honey’s room; she was sleeping peacefully. Then I went to the bedchamber I shared with Bruno and going to the window looked out. There was no light in the scriptorium, so Bruno could not be there.

I sat down on the window seat looking out at those buildings—the cloisters, the gray walls, all that I could see of the Abbey. I wondered whether the old Abbot had ever sat on this very window seat, sleepless perhaps, looking out on his domain. I looked across to the tall tower of the Abbey church and beyond it I could see the first of the fishponds; moonlight touched its waters with a silver light.

My child moved within me and happily I placed my hand reassuringly on it.

“Soon now, my little one,” I murmured, “and never was a child awaited with such joy.”

I was dreaming of my child though I refused to think of it as a boy; although I knew that Bruno did and so did others in the Abbey. There was no one in this place who did not await with awe and reverence the birth of my child. I could well understand how Queen Anne Boleyn had felt when she was with child. It had been so important for her to produce a boy. I wondered what her feelings had been when the Lady Elizabeth was born. And later when she had given birth to a stillborn boy!

My thoughts were interrupted suddenly for clearly in the moonlight I saw a figure gliding across the sward. I thought at first it was the ghost for the figure was wearing the robes of a monk of St. Bruno’s and over his head was a cowl which concealed his face. This was the ghost I had seen when I visited my father’s grave.

I stood up, my hands on my body as though to calm the child. The figure was coming from the direction of the tunnels and making its way toward the scriptorium.

It turned suddenly and looked toward the monks’ dorter and as it did so, the cowl fell back from his head and I saw that it was Bruno.

He hastily pulled up the cowl and went toward the scriptorium; later I saw the light of a lantern there.

I went back to bed. I was puzzled. I could understand his going to the scriptorium in the night if some detail had occurred to him, but from whence had he come and why should he have worn the garb of a monk? I felt certain then that the ghost who had reputedly haunted the Abbey was Bruno.

I went back to bed and lay there pondering. I must have slept for when I awoke it was time almost for rising and Bruno was beside me.

I made a sudden decision to say nothing of the matter and this decision in itself was an indication of the changing relationship between us.

It was less than a week later when Bruno came into my sitting room where I was reading to Honey and said he had something to say to me.

He said: “Damask, I have to go away for a short while.”

“Away?” I cried. “But where?”

“It is necessary for me to travel to the Continent.”

“For what purpose?”

A faint irritation crossed his features. “A matter of business.”

“Abbey business?”

He said patiently: “You will realize that the development of these Abbey lands goes on apace.”

“I notice,” I replied, “that it grows more like the old community every day.”

“What can you know of the old community, Damask? You were never here. You saw everything from the outside.”

“There are several of the old monks here,” I said, “and they regard you as their Abbot.”

“They look on me as their master, which I am. I have given these men work as I might give work to any laborers.”

“The difference being that they have worked here before. They have tilled the soil and baked the bread and caught the fish…and lived the life of solitude. What is the difference in what they were doing now and doing then?”

“A great difference,” said Bruno, a trifle impatiently. “Then this was a monastic order—something of which you are entirely ignorant. Now it is a manor house. It happens to have features of a monastery because it was once an abbey. I do beg of you not to interfere in what does not concern you.”

“I must always speak what is in my mind and always shall.” I was getting excited and feared it would be bad for the child, so I went on meekly: “You were telling me that you were going abroad.”

“Yes, I am not sure how long I shall be away. It may be several weeks, maybe longer.”

“Where are you going, Bruno?”

“To France…to the Low Countries perhaps. You have nothing to fear. You will be well looked after here.”

“I am not afraid for myself,” I said. “There is no question of that. Why are you going?”

“There are business matters to which I have to attend.”

“Abbey business?”

He was clearly impatient with my persistence. “My dear Damask, this is a costly enterprise. If we are to continue we must make it a profitable one. There are certain edible roots which are commonly used on the Continent and very palatable they are and good to eat. I am going to learn of these. There are carrots and turnips which have not been grown in this country. I wish to learn of how to produce them and perhaps to bring some back with me. Hops for making beer are grown a great deal in Holland. To discover such matters it is necessary for me to go and see for myself.”

It seemed reasonable, but I thought of his prowling about at night and I wondered why he had thought it advisable to wear a monk’s robes. He must have been impersonating a ghost. It could only mean that if he were seen not only did he not wish to be recognized but he wanted anyone who saw him to be afraid.

It was mysterious. If Honey had not been there I should have been unable to restrain my curiosity and asked for an explanation. But this was not the moment.

Later I considered it again. The more I knew of Bruno, the more I realized I did not know. There were times when he was like a stranger to me. He showed so clearly that he resented my curiosity, and the relationship between us was changing quickly.

In a few days he had left.

One day during Bruno’s absence, Rupert came riding over to the Abbey. I called a groom to take his horse and then conducted him to the solar and sent for wine. Honey came in and Rupert picked her up and swung her in his arms. There was immediate friendship between them.

“Is everything well?” he asked me anxiously.

I told him I was very well. He savored Eugene’s wine and said it was good.

I told him Eugene had come to us when he left Caseman Court.

“Why, it is as though the Abbey is reborn,” he commented.

“It is very different,” I contradicted quickly. “This is merely a manor house, but as we have so many buildings and the land so we must needs make use of them. We plan to develop the farm. Indeed we must for it is necessary for us to make the place profitable.”

Rupert said he would like to ride around our farmlands before he left and I said I would accompany him.

I asked how he was faring and he told me he was pleased with his land. He had a pleasant though small manor house and his benevolent brother-in-law had given him the place, which was very likely due to the importuning of Kate.

“It is of course not as grand as Remus Castle nor St. Bruno’s Abbey, but it serves me well.”

He looked at me wistfully and I said briskly: “Rupert, you should take a wife.”

“I am in no mind to,” he answered.

“Do you have good servants?”

“Indeed, yes. They serve me well.”

“Then perhaps the need is not so urgent. But you would like to have children. You would make a good father…and a good husband too I doubt not.”

“I think,” he answered looking at me steadily, “that I shall remain a bachelor all the days of my life.”

I could not meet his eye then. I knew that he was telling me that since I had declined to take him no one else would do.

He will change, I promised myself. When he grows older he will marry. I wanted him to, because I was fond of him and when I contemplated the joys of having children I wanted him to know that too.

After he had eaten of Clement’s tansy cake I mounted my horse and together we rode out to the farmlands. He examined them carefully. Abbey land was invariably good land, he said. We would have a very prosperous farm there in a few years.

I had told him that Bruno was on the Continent studying the new edible roots which were being brought into England. He knew of them and said that he hoped to grow them too. The English were now delighted in what was known as the salad and which had been popular on the Continent for some years. Queen Katharine of Aragon had been very partial to a salad, but she had always had to send to Holland for it. Now we should grow them here and if the King’s next Queen fancied a salad she could have one from an English garden.

When it was clear that we could not possibly be overheard he brought his horse close to mine and said quietly: “I have been a little concerned, Damask.”

“Why so?” I asked.

“It was something Simon Caseman said.”

“I have always distrusted that man. What did he say?”

“He referred to your husband as the Abbot and said that there was little difference in the Abbey as it is now and as it was ten years ago.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I understand that several of the monks have returned.”

“They work on the farm at the mill and about the place.”

“It could be dangerous, Damask.”

“We are doing nothing against the law.”

“I am sure you are not, but there are these rumors because several of the monks who were here have come back and are working as before.”

“But we are doing nothing wrong,” I insisted.

“You must not only keep within the King’s law but appear to do so. I do not like it that Simon Caseman should be talking.”

“He is malicious because he wanted the Abbey for himself.”

“Damask, if you should need me at any time, you know I shall be there.”

“Thank you, Rupert. You have always been good to me.”

After he had gone I continued to think of him. If I could have loved him instead of Bruno, life would have been less complicated. But one cannot love where it would be wise to do so, for love and wisdom do not go hand in hand.

I had no regrets, I assured myself. But I liked to remember that Rupert was my staunch friend.

At last the month of June was with us. Bruno had recently returned from the Continent. He had little to say about his visit and I found myself scarcely curious because the baby’s arrival was imminent.

My mother came almost every day. When she had satisfied herself that my condition could give no cause for alarm she turned her attention to the state of the little garden James had made for me. James was a man of about thirty. Whether he had been a monk, or a lay brother, I had never asked. I felt it was wiser to know nothing. In any case his knowledge of plants was good and my roses almost rivaled those of my mother.

She and I sat there and talked of babies; she recalled some of the mannerisms I had shown in my infancy but her talk was chiefly of Paul and Peter. She was knotting a shawl for my baby as she talked and her fingers moved busily. It occurred to me that she was a great deal more content than she used to be in the old days and I marveled at this. It seemed strange that anyone could find Simon Caseman a more satisfactory husband than my father, but that was what she appeared to have done.

She was telling me that she had been to see the midwife who assured her that everything concerning me appeared to be going well and a normal birth was expected. She had arranged that as soon as my first pains started she was to be sent for.

I felt a sudden rush of affection for her.

“I never really knew how much you cared for me,” I said.

She turned quite pink and said: “Nonsense! Were you not my own child?”

Then I fell to musing that what had been the great tragedy of my youth had to her in a way been an escape, and how strange life was when nothing seemed to be wholly bad, nothing wholly good.

A few days later my pains did start, but by that time, due to my mother’s care, the midwife was already installed at the Abbey.

My labor was not prolonged and for me the joy of knowing that my baby would soon be in my arms exceeded any discomfort. It was necessarily an agonizing experience but I had so longed for my baby that I could endure it as I suppose martyrs do torture and death.

At last it was over and when I heard the cry of my child my heart leaped with joy.

I saw my mother—for once authoritative—and the midwife and Bruno.

“My baby…,” I began.

My mother was beaming. “A beautiful healthy baby.”

I held out my arms.

“Later, Damask. In a very short time you shall see your lovely little girl.”

A girl! I felt the tears in my eyes. I believed then that I had wanted a girl.

I noticed Bruno then. He had not spoken. He would want to see his daughter.

But there was the child; they laid her in my arms and I thought: “This is the happiest moment of my life.”

I had known that Bruno had been convinced that the child would be a boy but I had not thought he could be so bitterly disappointed.

He scarcely looked at the child. As for myself, I could not bear her out of my sight. During those first nights I would sometimes awake from a hazy dream in which she was no longer with me. I would leap up calling for the nurse. “My baby. Where is my baby?”

I would have to be assured that she was sleeping peacefully in her cot.

The christening ceremony was simple—not the solemn occasion which would have been accorded to a boy. Bruno seemed scarcely interested. He was still nursing his disappointment in the child’s sex.

I thought: I will make up for his indifference, my darling child. I shall love you so much that you will miss nothing.

She was named Catherine—a version of Kate’s name and that of the two Queens. I called her my little Cat. She was an ugly baby, said the midwife, and whispered the consolation that it was always those who were born ugly who became the real beauties.

I was sure she was right for my little Cat grew prettier every day.

The Passing of an Age

ALL THROUGH THAT YEAR I was so absorbed with my child that I gave little thought to what was going on in the Abbey. There were great changes of course and this was Bruno’s first harvest. Activity was everywhere. From the old barns came the sound of the threshing. Some of the animals had to be slaughtered that November and salted to provide food for the winter. I was but vaguely aware of all this because my entire thoughts were concentrated on my baby. If she sneezed I would send for my mother and she would come with many possets and lotions; and she would reassure me with her laughter, telling me that she had been the same when I was a baby.

“All these anxieties come with the first,” she told me. “Wait until you have your second. You will not be half as fearful.”

My baby flourished. She was the joy of my life. I marveled at her tiny hands and feet; her eyes were blue and wondering; when she first smiled at me my heart filled with an overflowing love and I cared for nothing that had gone before since it had brought me my child.

The world outside began to intrude on the little paradise I shared with my baby.

There was a letter from Kate.

“I am coming to see you. I must have a glimpse of my…what is she? Cousin of some sort, I suppose.”

I smiled. How typical of Kate to think of the child’s connection with her!

“According to you she is the most wonderful child who ever existed but a mother’s testimonial is rarely accurate. So I must come and see this model of perfection for myself. Remus is going to Scotland on the King’s business. So while he is away, why should I not visit St. Bruno’s Abbey?”

I was delighted as always at the prospect of seeing Kate, but a little uneasy for she had a penetrating eye and she was particularly interested in the relationship between Bruno and myself, which had not grown closer since Catherine’s birth. Moreover I was perfectly content with my child.

Kate arrived in due course, full of vitality and as beautiful as ever.

“How convenient that we should not be too far away!” she announced. “What if I had married a Scottish lord? It would not have been so easy for us to meet.” She scrutinized me. “Damask! The Mother! It suits you, Damask. You are more plump. Quite the matron. No, scarcely that. But different. And where is this paragon who is named after me?”

“I call her my little Cat,” I said fondly.

She admired the baby. “Yes, a little beauty. Well, Cat, what do you think of Cousin Kate?”

My baby gave Kate that beautiful smile and Kate bent over and kissed her.

“There, sweetheart,” she said, “we are to be good friends.”

I could see that she was not so much interested in the child as intensely curious about the state of affairs between Bruno and myself. She talked openly about Remus. She was patronizing in a tolerant way, but she was certainly grateful for the life of luxury which she owed to him.

Carey came with her—a lovely boy nearly two years old, curious, mischievous and with a look of Kate.

He was interested in little Cat and would stand by her cot gazing at her. She liked him too, it seemed. And there was of course Honey whom I had been particularly careful not to neglect since the arrival of my baby. I wanted them to grow up as sisters but I suppose it was inevitable that she should be a little jealous, for try as I might I could not entirely hide my absorption with my own child.

I washed and fed Catherine myself but I would make sure to always have Honey by to help. “She is only little, Honey,” I would say. “Not a big girl like you. She has much to learn.”

That cheered her a little.

“She is your little sister,” I said; and I thought then that if Keziah’s story was true Honey was in fact my baby’s aunt.

But now Kate was with us and life naturally changed. She was curious about everything that was going on in the Abbey. She watched it with a sort of envy which told me that she was imagining herself here in my place.

When Bruno joined us I was aware of her feelings for him. His feelings for her were more guarded, but I knew that he was not indifferent to her.

She was of course knowledgeable about what was going on at Court and loved to show off her superiority in that respect.

The King was looking for a new wife.

“Poor man, he is so unlucky with his wives! And now no woman is very anxious for the greatest honor in the land. Girls tremble when the King casts a lascivious eye in their direction. They are inclined to say Anne Boleyn’s famous remark in reverse as it were, ‘Nay, Sire, your wife I cannot be. I would liefer be your mistress.’ ”

“I pity the poor woman he chooses next,” I said.

“She will be a woman who has married before, you may be sure of it. This new statute would terrify an unmarried girl. You know it has now been declared high treason for anyone not a virgin to many the King. Parents are afraid to send their young daughters to Court.”

“Perhaps he will not marry at all for he is no longer young.”

“He is nearly fifty years of age, and overweight. He has an ulcer on his leg which is quite offensive. But he is a King withal and his courtiers wait upon his smiles and scurry from his frowns. So he has great attraction left.”

“Is power more important than handsome looks and youth?” I asked.

“Power is the very essence of masculine charm, I do assure you. I could never love the most beautiful cowherd in the world but I might easily feel affection for an aging King.”

“How cynical you have become!”

“I have not become so. Come now, you know I have always been so.”

“Well, pray do not cast your eyes upon the King for strange as it may seem I should suffer a pang or two of sorrow if your head was severed from your shoulders.”

“It has always been firmly planted thereon and there I intend it to remain. My dear cousin, what pleasure it gives me to be with you! Forget you not that I am married to Remus and unless he meets a gory end in Scotland, which is not unlikely since he carries arms there for the King and the battles have been fierce, I am in no position to take another husband.”

“Oh, Kate, do not talk so!”

“You are still the same sentimental Damask. Nay, have no fear for me. I shall know how to take care of myself if I should become a widow.”

“I had no idea that it was in order to fight that Lord Remus was in Scotland.”

“The young mother sees not beyond her nest. Did you not know that our King, having lost his wife to the executioner’s ax, has turned his attention—temporarily—to other matters? He wished to be proclaimed King of Scotland. So, Remus in the company of His Grace of Norfolk has now marched over the border. I hear that the Scots have been thoroughly routed and I do believe that His Majesty the King is preparing to join his forces there. So you see, my Remus, between His Grace of Norfolk—uncle of two Queens—and the King himself, will be in the best of company. As I am, for I do declare, my sweet Damask, that little gives me as much pleasure as my discourse with you.”

And so we talked of matters at Court and we went over the past and recalled incidents from our childhood as one does with those who have shared it.

She was very content to leave Carey with the children and I saw less of my little daughter during Kate’s stay than I had since her birth. But much as I enjoyed Kate’s company I longed to assure myself continually that my child was not in some danger.

Kate might laugh at me as my mother did but I could not help this. The child was dearer to me than anything on earth.

We dined at eleven in the morning and supped at six o’clock. Meals were taken in the big hall and all came to table. It meant very little opportunity of intimate conversation. I sat on one side of Bruno, Kate on the other and often I would catch her eyes sparkling with a mischief of which I could not quite understand. I could not discover their feelings toward each other. Kate’s was light and bantering; he was inclined to be quiet, but he was watchful of her, I know.

Clement excelled himself during Kate’s visit. There were big joints of beef and mutton succulently cooked; there were enormous pies and he often decorated these with the Remus coat of arms in honor of Kate. There was bacon, fowls, butter and cheese in plenty. And Bruno was anxious for us to try the carrots and turnips which he had recently brought in and which were fast becoming very popular.

There was often talk about the work of the farm and those whose duty it was to fish and prepare what they caught for our table or to sell it would talk of the day’s catch in their places below the salt cellar.

Kate listened attentively and occasionally she would banter with Bruno or with me.

The children did not join us, none of them being old enough.

Sometimes when I was in my nursery Kate would wander around the Abbey grounds.

Once she came back and said: “Damask, what is happening here? This is becoming more like a monastery and Bruno is like the King of his domain. I doubt there is another such community in England at this time. What do you know of Bruno?”

“I don’t understand you, Kate.”

“You should know him. He is your husband.”

“Of course I know him.” Even as I spoke I knew I lied.

“What is he like…as a husband?”

“He is a busy man. There is much to do.”

“Is he affectionate, kind, Damask? How passionately does he love you?”

“You are too full of questions.”

“I want to know, Damask. He wanted a son, did he not? How was he when he found he had a daughter?” She laughed almost triumphantly and I hated her in that moment because I felt she was pleased because I had had a daughter and not the son for which Bruno longed.

“He wanted a son. True he wanted a son. What man does not? He was a little disappointed.”

“Only a little? Parents are generally pleased with what they get. Not Kings though…and those who are Kings. Poor Anne Boleyn! She lost her head because she could not give the King a son.”

“She lost her head because the King preferred another woman.”

“If she had had a son he would never have rid himself of her. Sly little Jane and her ambitious uncles would have to have been content for her to hold sway as mistress instead of wife. Still, it is a lesson, is it not? It is dangerous to sport with Princes.”

Later she talked of the days when we had discovered Bruno and all met together in the Abbey grounds.

“Everything that happens to us has its effect,” said Kate. “What we are today is due to what happened to us then. We three started weaving a pattern. We shall go on with it for the rest of our lives.”

“You mean Bruno, you and me?”

“You know very well I mean just that. We shall always be involved with each other. We will be like fruit on a tree…first the buds, then the fruit and when our time comes we shall drop off one by one. But we shall always be on the same branch, Damask. Remember that.”

I did remember it after she had gone, and I wondered what she and Bruno said to each other when they met and I was not present. I wondered what passed between them.

But it did not seem of any great importance. I was absorbed by my child.

That December the King marched up to Scotland and defeated the Scots at Solway Moss. We did not talk very much about the war. Scotland seemed far away. But for his services to the Crown the King presented Lord Remus with an estate on the border with the result that he remained there for some months so that Kate came to visit us once more.

I knew that she had left us most reluctantly. The Abbey fascinated her still as it had when we were children. She would wander off alone and I believe she often went to that spot where we all used to meet. She was not sentimental, she insisted, it was merely a pleasant spot and it was rather amusing to recall old times.

I saw her once or twice with Bruno. I wondered if he talked to her of his plans and I wondered whether she warned him of making the place too similar to what it had been in the old days.

She said that I had become too much the housewife, the fussy mother, my thoughts straying to the nursery when she wished to discuss something serious with me. I pointed out that her notion of serious talk was generally gossip. This she conceded but added that gossip was at the very roots of great events. I should know that by now.

It was June again—Catherine’s first birthday. Clement made a cake for her and we had a little ceremony in the nursery. I suppose Carey and Honey enjoyed it more than Catherine, but she was such a bright child and her eyes were round with wonder as she watched the other children.

Kate refused to come to the celebration; so did Bruno. I felt resentful toward them both for this; but Kate snapped her fingers. So at the party were myself and their nurses; Clement and Eugene who adored the children joined us and played games to the amusement of the young people. Clement was very good at crawling around the floor like a dog carrying them on his back while he barked realistically.

I laughed so much to see them.

Kate was full of Court gossip as usual, for the King had found his new wife.

“Poor lady!” cried Kate. “They say she is somewhat reluctant. She adores Thomas Seymour. What a man! Uncle of the young Prince Edward and…irresistible. But the King has cast his eyes in her direction and so Master Thomas for all his buccaneering ways must needs retreat and Lady Katharine Latimer—another Kate, you see, how his Grace seems to love the Kates, albeit briefly—though retiring and reluctant has no choice when the royal finger points to her and says, ‘You are the next.’ ”

And so it was, for within a few weeks the King married Katharine Parr. Kate was disappointed that the wedding, although celebrated openly, was to take place in Hampton Court which meant of course that she would not be invited to attend.

“How different from his marriages to those other English ladies, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard. They, poor ladies, were married secretly and in haste. There is no need to hasten over this.”

“I wonder how she feels,” I said. “How would one feel if one’s predecessors had either been disposed of or died at one’s bridegroom’s command?”

“I heard she was most reluctant. But she is no giddy girl. She nursed two husbands so doubtless is ready to nurse a third.”

I thought about the Queen a great deal. I mentioned her in my prayers. I trusted that she would meet a better fate than the other wives of the King. I had no desire to go to Court as Kate had. I said to her that I would rather not have known the poor ladies who had suffered.

By August I discovered I was pregnant again.

Bruno was delighted. I had failed to give him a boy in my first attempt but I had shown that I was fruitful and would do so now.

The thought of having another child delighted me, and that state of euphoria overcame me again. I was scarcely aware of anything else. I discussed children with my mother once more. I brought out the small garments which Catherine had worn when a baby. I thought of little but my child.

It was almost Christmas again. I had already told the little girls that they would in due course have a brother or sister to join them in their nursery. I thought that Honey looked a little sullen at the time.

Then she said: “I don’t want it.”

“Oh, come, Honey,” I said. “You will love it. A dear little baby—imagine.”

“I don’t want it,” she declared. “I don’t want Cat here. I want only Honey…like it was.”

Jealousy was something I had always feared and had sought to avoid. I tried to make much of her, to show that it made no difference.

She asked whom I loved best; herself, Catherine or the new one which was coming.

I replied that I loved them all the same.

“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t.”

I was quite disturbed about her. It was true, of course. I was fond of her. But how could I help loving my own child more dearly?

The day after that conversation Honey was missing. I was full of remorse, accusing myself of betraying the fact in some way that she was less important to me than she had been. I must find her quickly. This was not easy. I searched the house, then I called in Clement. She had always been his special favorite and I thought he might know of some secret hiding place of hers.

He was concerned. His first thoughts were for the fishponds. He took off the great white apron he wore and his hands still floury he ran as fast as he could to the ponds.

Fortunately two of the fishers were there. They said they had been there all the morning and they would surely have seen the child if she had come that way.

We were greatly relieved. By this time Eugene had joined us; there were also the children’s nurses and Clement thought it would be better if we split up and made two or three search parties. So this we did. I went with one of the young nursemaids, a girl of fourteen named Luce.

I suddenly thought of the tunnels. I had never explored the tunnels. Many of them were blocked and Bruno had expressed a wish that no one should attempt to penetrate them as he feared they might be dangerous. When he was a boy there had been a collapse of earth in some of them; and one monk had been buried alive there.

I thought of this as I ran toward the tunnels and imagined little Honey hurt because she thought she had been displaced by my own little girl and for this reason running away or going to some forbidden place.

I had told her that she was not to go near the tunnels or the fishponds, but when children wish to call attention to themselves or are unhappy because of some imagined slight I was well aware that the first thing they do is disobey.

I called: “Honey! Honey!”

There was no answer.

“She would surely not enter the tunnels,” said the nurse. “She would be afraid.”

I was not sure.

To reach the tunnel it was necessary to descend a stone stairway; and this I proceeded to do. The young nursemaid stood at the top of the stairs, too frightened to descend, but I was too anxious about Honey to be afraid.

I called her name as I went. Having come in from the bright sunshine I could see nothing for a while. And then suddenly from below a dark figure loomed up out of the gloom. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I took a step forward, the step was not there and I fell down two or three steps and landed on the dank soil.

The dark figure bent over me. I screamed.

A voice said: “Damask!”

It was Bruno who stood over me and I could sense his anger.

“What are you doing here?”

“I…I fell.”

“I know that. You came here in the dark! For what purpose?”

“Honey is lost,” I said. He helped me to my feet. I was shaking.

He said: “Are you all right?” There was anxiety in his voice and I thought resentfully: It is not for me, it is for the child.

I replied shakily: “Yes, I am all right. Have you seen Honey? She is lost.”

He was impatient.

“I have asked you not to enter these tunnels.”

“I never have before. It was because the child might have wandered down.”

“She is not here. I should have seen her if she had been.”

He took me by the arm and together we mounted the stairway. When we reached the top he studied me intently. Then he said: “Never go down there again. It is unsafe.”

I said: “What of you, Bruno?”

“I know those tunnels. I knew them as a boy. I should know what to avoid and how to take care.”

I was too concerned about Honey to question this at the time, but it would come back to me later.

He left us abruptly and the nursemaid and I went back to the house. Honey was still not found.

I was getting frantic when a young boy from one of the shepherds’ dwellings came with a message.

Honey was at Mother Salter’s cottage. Would I go to bring her home as soon as I could?

I lost no time but went immediately to the cottage in the woods.

The fire was burning as I had seen it many times before and above it was the soot-black pot. On one side of the fire sat Mother Salter; she did not seem to have altered since I had first seen her, and on the other fireside seat sat Honey. There were smudges on her face and her gown was dirty. I gave a cry of joy and ran to her. I would have embraced her but she held aloof. I was aware of Mother Salter’s watching eyes.

“Honey!” I cried. “Where have you been? I have been so frightened.”

“Did you think you had lost me?”

“Oh, Honey. I was afraid something dreadful had happened to you.”

“You wouldn’t care. You have Catty and the new one coming.”

I said: “Oh, Honey, do not think that means I can bear to part with you.”

She was still half sullen. “You can bear it,” she said. “You like Catty best.”

“Honey, I love you both.”

“The child does not think so.” It was Mother Salter speaking in her low croaking voice.

“She is wrong. I have been frantic with anxiety.”

“Take her then. It would be well to love her.”

“Come, Honey,” I said, “you want to come home, don’t you? You don’t want to stay here?”

She looked around the room and I could see that she was fascinated by what she saw. “Wrekin likes me.”

“Spot and Pudding like you,” I said, naming two of our dogs.

She nodded with pleasure. I had taken her hand and she did not resist. She continued to gaze around the room and because she had not learned to disguise her feelings I could see she was comparing it with her comfortable nursery at the Abbey. She wanted to come home but did not wish me to have too easy a victory. I knew Honey. She was a possessive, jealous little creature. For some time she had had me to herself and deeply she resented sharing me.

“It is the same with all elder children,” I said to Mother Salter.

“Take care of this child,” she replied. “Take the utmost care.”

“I have always done so.”

“It would be well for you that you do.”

“There is no need for threats. I love Honey. It was a common enough sort of jealousy. How did she come here?”

“I watch over this child. She ran away and was lost in the wood. I knew it and sent a boy to find her. He brought her to me.”

Her eyes were veiled; her mouth was smiling but her eyes were cold.

“I should know if she lacked aught,” she went on.

“Then you know how well cared for she is.”

“Take the child back. She is tired. She will know to come to me if she is in need.”

“She will never be in need while I am here to care for her.”

As we left the cottage I gripped Honey’s hand tightly.

“Never, never run away again,” I said.

“I won’t if you love me best…better than Cat…better than the new one.”

“I can’t love you better, Honey. There is not all that love in the world. I can love you as well.”

“I don’t want the new one. I told Granny Salter I didn’t want the new one.”

“But there will be three of you. Three is better than two.”

“No,” she said firmly. “One’s best.”

I took her home and washed the grime from her, gave her milk and a great slice of cob bread freshly baked for her by Clement with a big H on it. This delighted her and she was happy again.

But when she was in bed I was seized by gripping pains and that night I miscarried.

My mother, hearing what happened, had come over at once bringing the midwife with her.

“It would have been a little boy,” said the midwife. I did not entirely believe her; she was one of those lugubrious women who liked a tragedy to be of the first magnitude. She knew that we had wanted a boy.

It was great good fortune, she implied, that I had survived at all and it was in fact due to her great skill. I was confined to my bed for a week and during this time I had time to think. I could not forget Bruno’s face when he knew what had happened. The precious child lost! Surely the King himself had not looked more thunderous when he had stood over his sad Queen’s bed. I even imagined I saw hatred in his face then.

I thought a good deal about Bruno. I recalled seeing him at night from my window. He had been coming from the tunnels then. And why should he have been in the tunnels on that day when I had gone to look for Honey? If there was a danger of the earth collapsing it could do so at any time, and it was no safer for him than for anyone else.

By April of the following year I knew that I was again with child. The change in Bruno when he knew this was astonishing. Passionately he wanted children and yet when they arrived he was indifferent to them…at least he was to Catherine. Honey of course he had always resented. If my child was a boy how would he be? Would he try to take him from me?

Sometimes I would grow oddly apprehensive.

What did I know of this strange man who was my husband? What had I ever known? During those years when he had lived in the Abbey—the child who had been sent to them from heaven for some purpose—his character had been formed. Then rudely he had been awakened to the truth; and now it seemed he would spend his life proving that he was indeed apart from other men.

I felt I understood him; and for this reason I could feel tender toward him; but I was beginning to see how happy we might have been. This rebuilding of our little world was a fascinating project. We were giving work to many people and the neighborhood was becoming prosperous again; people were now beginning to look to the Abbey almost as they had in the old days. What happy useful lives we could have led if Bruno had not been possessed by a need to prove himself superhuman.

I saw less of him during my pregnancy. He worked as though in a frenzy. We had moved from the Abbot’s Lodging to the monks’ frater while the lodging was being rebuilt. Bruno had designed the house in the old Norman style, like a castle.

There was something eerie about the monks’ quarters. There was no room large enough for us to share and we occupied separate bedchambers. Honey and Catherine had one of the cells for theirs; they could have had separate ones—there were enough cells, heaven knew—but I feared they might be frightened. I myself used to fancy I could hear slow stealthy footsteps in the night and often coming up the winding staircase I would think I saw a ghostly shape. It was imagination of course; but I used to lie awake and think of the monks who had lived in this place for two hundred years and wondered what they had thought as they lay in their cells at night. I grew fanciful as women will when pregnant and I asked myself whether when people died they left something behind them for those who came after. I thought more often than before during that period of the terrible day when Rolf Weaver had come; and I could imagine the terror of the monks when they knew that he and his men were in the Abbey.

Sometimes I would get up in the night and look through the grille in the door at the children, just to make sure that they were safe. I should be glad when we could move back to our completed house. But when I was with child what happened outside my little world was of a minor importance. I was the kind of woman who was first a mother; even my feelings for Bruno were maternal. Perhaps if this had not been so I might have been more aware of what was happening about me.

There was a change in Caseman Court.

I did not visit the house often because I did not wish to see Simon Caseman, but there was little that was subtle about my mother and she dropped scraps of information. She told me that some of the ornaments that used to be in the chapel had been sold; and she let out once that there was a copy of Tyndale’s translation of the Bible in a secret place in the chapel.

If Simon Caseman was embracing the doctrines of the Reformed Church, he was in as great a danger as I feared Bruno might be in bringing back monks to the Abbey. I used to argue with myself as I might have done with my father. Of what importance was it in what manner one worshiped God as long as one obeyed the tenets of Christianity, which I believed were summed up in the simple injunction to love one’s neighbor?

It was a strange summer; through the long days the sound of workmen laying bricks could be heard. I saw less and less of Bruno, and I often thought that while the men built up the walls of our grandiose castle he was fast building a wall between us which was becoming so high that it threatened to shut him off from me altogether.

Occasionally I heard news from outside. The King had been declared by Parliament King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Churches of England and Ireland. That he had become war-minded and carried the war into France meant little to me. There was rejoicing when we heard on one September day that he had taken Boulogne and had actually marched into the town at the head of his troops in spite of the sickness of his body. Prayers were said in churches throughout the country and Archbishop Cranmer, who leaned toward the Reformed religion, pointed out to the King that if people could pray in English they would understand for what they prayed and their prayers would be more fervent. Simple people wishing well to the King would not understand for what they prayed in Latin. The King saw the point of this and allowed the Archbishop to compose a few prayers in English and these were said in all churches.

I could imagine the jubilation at Caseman Court. It was the reverse in our household. Even Clement was slightly downcast.

Had I not been so absorbed in my children I might have been more aware of the growing conflict in a country when it could be so definitely felt between two houses.

Then we heard that the Dauphin of France had brought an army against the King, and recaptured Boulogne, and the King and his men were forced to retire to that old English possession of Calais so that there had been little point in the venture.

“It might have been a different story,” I had heard Clement say. “If Master Cranmer had not tried to bring in his Reformed notions. God was clearly displeased.”

In the old days my father would have discussed the changes with me. We would have considered the virtues of the old and new Church. Doubtless we would have defied the law and had a copy of Tyndale’s Bible in the house. I knew that there was one in Caseman Court. I trusted it would not be discovered because I knew what this could mean to my mother and the twins. For Simon Caseman I could feel no concern.

As my time grew near I began to feel wretchedly ill.

November was a dark and dreary month and I was not looking forward to spending Christmas in the monks’ quarters. I watched the transformation of the Abbot’s Lodging and it seemed to me that each day it grew more and more like Remus Castle—but grander in every way.

Then one day two months before my time my child was born—a stillborn boy.

I did not know of this until a week later. I myself had come near to death.

Bruno wrote to Kate asking her to nurse me. Lord Remus was now in Calais with the forces there who were protecting the town for the King. Kate came without delay.

She was shocked to see me. “Why, you’ve changed, Damask,” she said. “You’ve grown thinner and sharper of face. You have grown up. You look as though you have passed through experiences which have changed the Damask I used to know.”

“I have lost two children,” I said.

“Many women lose children,” she said.

“Perhaps it changes them all.”

“If they are as you. You are the eternal mother. Damask, has it struck you how different we all are, and how each of us has distinct characteristics?”

“You mean all people?”

“I mean us…the four of us…those of us on that branch I told you of before. There were four of us…you, myself, Rupert and Bruno…all children together.”

“Bruno was not one of us.”

“Oh, yes, he was. Not under our roof but he was part of our quartet. You are the eternal mother; I the wanton; Rupert the good steady influence.”

She paused. “And Bruno?”

“Bruno is the mystery. What do you know of Bruno? I should love to discover.”

“I seem to know him less and less.”

“That is how it is with mysteries. The deeper one penetrates the maze the more lost one becomes. You should not have become involved in this particular mystery. You feel too keenly. You should have married Rupert. Did I not always tell you so?”

“How could you know what I should do?”

“Because in some things I am more learned than you, Damask. I lack your knowledge of Greek and Latin but I know of other things which are more important. You have been very ill. When I heard I was distraught as never before. There! What do you think of that?”

“Dear Kate.”

“No, I am not your dear Kate. I am a designing woman, as you well know. Nothing changes me. Now I shall cheer you…not with possets and herb drinks. I leave that to your mother. I shall enliven you with my incessant chatter.”

“I am glad to see you. Lying here I have been passing through the strangest fantasies. I have imagined that I am trapped in a monastery.”

Kate grimaced. “That is easy to understand. Whatever made you choose this place for your lying-in?”

“We had to move out of the Lodging for the rebuilding.”

“But you have such a vast estate. Why not choose something more fitting than these dreary cells? They give me the creeps.”

“I have dreamed that I have been a prisoner here…that Rolf Weaver’s men were here…that someone was trying to kill me.”

“Now that I am here you will get well.”

“Bruno is so strange.”

“Does he not love you?”

“He does not love as other people do.”

“Bruno loves passionately…himself.”

“How should you know?”

“I know that he has great spiritual pride. So he will build a great castle; he will have a son to follow him. He will be lord of his enclosed world. He will restore the Abbey.”

“No!”

“Not yet. In time perhaps.”

“It would be treason.”

“Kings do not live forever. But our conversation grows dangerous, and speaking of Kings, before Remus set out for Calais he was most graciously received by the Queen.”

“Tell me of her.”

“A kind and calm lady, with a different sort of beauty from that of the English ladies who had previously caught the King’s fancy. Such an excellent nurse she is. I have heard that none can dress his leg as she can. She has a deft and gentle touch and if any other do it he will scream with pain and throw the nearest stool at them ere they have time to retreat. But she dabbles with the Reformed religion.”

“Kate, how many people are dabbling with it, think you?”

“More and more each day. And I will tell you that the King’s sixth wife has recently been in danger of losing her head through it.”

“But I thought she was such a good nurse to him.”

“Doubtless that saved her. Bishop Gardiner has been working against her. You have heard of Anne Askew?”

I had assuredly heard of Anne Askew who had declared herself publicly in favor of the Reformed ideas and for this had been sent to the Tower. She had been racked cruelly and finally consigned to the flames.

“It is known,” went on Kate, “that while Anne Askew lay in prison the Queen sent her food and warm clothing.”

“An act of mercy,” I said.

“To be construed by those who upheld the old faith as an act of treason. It is said that the King’s wife has come within hours of losing her head.”

I often wondered how Kate was so conversant with Court gossip. But she told her stories of the Court with such verisimilitude that one completely believed her.

She made me see the serious-minded Queen who was so interested in the new ideas that she even talked of them to the King. She made me see cruel Wriothesley, the King’s Lord Chancellor, who had determined to bring her to the block. I could hear his insinuating voice asking the King if the Queen had so far forgotten her place as to seek to teach the King religion. And the poor Queen’s ignorance of what was happening until the King had signed the order to commit her to the Tower.

But the King was weary of hunting for a new wife. It was true the Queen had not given him a son; but she was a good nurse and if she were a headless corpse who would dress his leg? And the Queen, suddenly being aware of imminent danger, had used all her wits to extricate herself. She had become ill with anxiety but recovering in time she had told the King that she would never learn from any except God and himself.

As she had when a child, Kate assumed the parts of the people in her stories. Now she struck an attitude; she strutted—she would have made a good mummer. She seemed to grow large and royal; she narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips and she was the King.

“And he said to her—for I have it from one who overhears—‘Not so, by Saint Mary. You have become a doctor, wife, to instruct us and not to be instructed of us, as oftentime we have seen.’

“At this,” went on Kate, “the Queen trembled, because she saw the hand of Wriothesley in this and the ax very close and turned toward her.”

Kate was the Queen now. “ ‘Indeed if Your Majesty have so conceived then my meaning has been mistaken, for I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord; and if I have ever presumed to differ from Your Highness on religion it was partly to obtain information and sometimes because I perceived that in talking you were able to pass off the pain and weariness of your present infirmity.’

“With which clever reply His Majesty was pleased and he said, ‘And is it so, sweetheart. Then we are perfect friends.’

“And when they came to arrest her they found her in loving discourse with them in the gardens, at which His Majesty vented his fury on them. So you see the King’s sixth Queen came very near to losing her head and we might well be asking ourselves who the seventh was to be.”

I shivered. “How near queens are to death,” I said.

“How near we all are to death,” replied Kate.

Kate left us soon after that, and I was surprised when a messenger brought me a letter from her in which she told me she was expecting a child.

“Remus is beside himself with glee,” she wrote. “As for myself I am less gleeful. I deplore the long unwieldy months almost as much as the painful and humiliating climax. How I wish there were some other way of getting children. How much more dignified if one could buy them as one buys a castle or a manor house—and choose the one one wants. Would that not be more civilized than this animal process?”

I confess to a twinge of envy. I thought with burning resentment of my boy who had been allowed to die, how much I wanted him. And Kate was to have another child although she was never meant to be a mother.

During the next months I devoted myself to the little girls. I tried not to mourn for my lost child. I watched the gradual growth of our castle and I was amazed that Bruno should have had such wealth as to be able to create such a place.

When I asked him about it he showed great displeasure. He had changed toward me. The disappointment over the loss of the boy was intense and he made no secret of it. I could not help thinking of poor Anne Boleyn when she had failed to produce a boy. Then I remembered that Kate had referred to Bruno as a King.

Where was that young and passionate boy who had wooed me? I sometimes wondered whether that had been a part he had played for some purpose. Purpose! That was it. There was some purpose behind everything that had happened since his return.

My mother was a frequent visitor, for since I did not go to Caseman Court she must come to me.

“Your stepfather marvels at the magnificence of this new place you are building. Your husband must be a man of boundless wealth, he says.”

“It is not so,” I said quickly. “You know the Abbey was bestowed on him. We have the material we need. We are using bricks from the lay quarters, so it is not so very costly.”

“Your stepfather says that there is a movement in the country to bring back some of the monasteries, and that monks are getting together again and living together as they did before. Your stepfather thinks this is a highly dangerous way of living.”

“So much is dangerous, Mother. It is dangerous to concern oneself with the new ideas.”

“Why cannot people be sensible and live for their families?” she said irritably.

I agreed with her.

She would bring the twins with her and the children would all play together while we watched them fondly and laughed at their antics. I saw what Kate meant. My mother and I were of a kind after all—the eternal mothers, as Kate would say.

In due course Kate’s son was born. She wrote:

“He is a healthy, lusty boy. Remus is as proud as a peacock.”

When I told Bruno I saw the faint color touch the marble of his skin.

“A boy!” he said. “Some women get boys.”

It was a reproach and I cried out: “Was it my fault that my child was born dead? Do you think I rejoiced in that?”

“You are hysterical,” he said coldly.

I felt envious of Kate and my heart was filled with a burning resentment because my boy had died, while Kate, who was never meant to be a mother, had hers.

She wanted me to go to the christening.

“Bring the children,” she wrote. “Carey does nothing but plague me to produce Honey and Catherine. He has thought up all kinds of new ways of teasing them.”

Bruno made no attempt to prevent my going to Remus Castle as in due course I set out with the two little girls.

Kate’s child was christened Nicholas.

“After the saint,” she said.

After a while Kate shortened his name to Colas.

Before I went back to the Abbey news reached us that the King was dead. Oddly enough I was deeply affected. The King had been on the throne for as long as I could remember; my mind kept returning to that day when my father had been seated on the wall with his arm supporting me as I watched the King and Cardinal pass by. Then the King had been a golden young man, not yet a monster; and the Cardinal, long since dead, had traveled down the river with him to Hampton. Since then he had brought about the death of two wives and the wretchedness of at least two others. And now he himself was dead.

I was on my way back to the Abbey when I saw the funeral procession passing from Westminster to Windsor. The hearse with its eighty tapers, each one of them two feet in length, and the banners of the saints beaten in gold on damask and the canopy of silver tissue fringed with black and gold silk, were very impressive. It was the passing of an age. I wondered what augured for the future. I thought of my father’s being taken from his beloved home to a cold prison in the Tower and I could hear the cries of those who by this King had been condemned to the flames or the even worse fate of hanging and quartering. We had lived long under a tyrant. Surely we must hope for a brighter future.

We had a new King—Edward who was but ten years old, too young to govern, but he had a powerful and ambitious pair of uncles.

I reached the Abbey. It seemed to rise over me menacingly and I felt little confidence in the future.

The Quiet Years

THERE WAS CONSTERNATION IN the Abbey. James, one of the fishermen who had gone into the City to sell the surplus of fish which had been salted down, came back with the news that he had seen images taken from churches and being burned in the streets. He had joined a crowd in the Chepe and had listened to ominous conversation.

“This is the end of the Papists. They’ll be hanging them from their churches ere long.”

The new King was leaning toward the Reformed ideas and he was surrounded by those who shared his views—and perhaps had formed them. In his chapel prayers were said in English, and it would no longer be an offense to have a translation of the Bible in one’s possession.

My mother visited us with the first spring flowers from her garden.

“The King is gone, God rest his soul,” she said, “and it would seem to be the beginning of a new and glorious reign.”

I knew that she was repeating what she had heard and I guessed that Simon Caseman was one who was not displeased with the turn of events.

I was uneasy though. Bruno would have to be careful. If the new religion was in favor, those in authority would frown on a community such as Bruno was attempting to build up, and although he might try to give an impression that he was merely the head of a large country estate, he would assuredly be under suspicion.

Because the King was too young to rule, his uncle, the Earl of Hereford, was made protector. He was immediately created Earl of Somerset and became the most powerful man in the country. He was ambitious and eager to carry on the war in which the late King had interested himself and less than six months after the death of Henry VIII he was marching up to Scotland. Remus was with him and actually took part in the famous battle of Pinkie Cleugh, a costly victory for the Protector.

It brought the war home to us too—in the past it had all seemed too far away to concern us much—for at Pinkie Remus was killed.

Kate wrote of her dear brave Remus but it was not in her nature to mourn or to feign grief which she did not feel. She was now rich and free, so I guessed that she would not repine for long.

Our castle was now complete. I called it castle, although it still bore the name of St. Bruno’s Abbey, for with its gray stone walls and Gothic style it had a medieval aspect. The Abbot’s Lodging had been completely swallowed up in this magnificent structure. It had been built in the form of a square closely resembling Remus Castle with circular towers at the four corners. There were two flanking towers at the gateway with oiletts as seen in Norman structures and which were meant for arrows—something of an anachronism in our day, but Bruno had said that since we were building with old stones which had been used two hundred years before when the Abbey was built we must use them in the manner in which they were intended.

Some of the outbuildings should be built in modern style perhaps; but he was not yet concerned with those.

The parapets were embattled so that the vast and impressive building had the aspect of a fortress.

Although the exterior was that of a medieval fortress, the interior possessed all the luxury and elegance which I imagined could be found in places like Hampton Court.

Each tower had four stories and on each floor was a hexagonal chamber. These towers were like little houses in themselves and it would be possible to live in them quite apart from the rest of the household. Bruno took one of these as his own and spent a great deal of time there. The highest room was a bedchamber and since we moved into the new dwelling I saw very little of him.

Some of the old rooms had been left, but so much had been added that it was easy to lose oneself in the place.

There was a great banqueting hall and for this Bruno was seeking fine tapestries. He went to Flanders to find them and they were hung on the walls; at the end of the hall was a dais on which a small dining table was placed which would be for Bruno and his honored guests while the rest of the household would eat from the big table.

When I saw this place I could not understand why Bruno had reconstructed it. Sometimes I thought he wished to live like a great lord; and at others I wondered whether he was trying to establish a monastic order.

He gave a great reception when we went to live in the castle and many of our neighbors were invited; Simon Caseman came with my mother; Kate came too.

The great hall was decorated with leaves and flowers from our gardens, and it was indeed a grand occasion.

I stood with Bruno and received our guests and I had rarely seen him as excited as he was on that occasion.

I sat at the dais on his right hand, Kate was on his left and Simon Caseman and my mother were there. Bruno told me to invite some of the rich men whom my father had known and I had done this. They had all come eager to see if the rumors they had heard of the rebuilding of the Abbey were true.

There was feasting for Clement had excelled himself. I had never seen such an array of pies and tarts and great joints of mutton and beef. There was sucking pigs and boars’ heads and fish of all kinds. My mother was in a state of wonder, tasting this and that and trying to guess what had given certain flavors.

There was dancing afterward. Bruno and I opened the ball and later I found myself partnered by Simon Caseman.

“I had no notion,” he said, “that you had married such a rich man. Why I am but a pauper in comparison.”

“If it galls you it is better not to make comparisons.”

Bruno danced with Kate and I wondered what they talked of.

A strange thing happened during the ball, because suddenly a black-clad figure was noticed in our midst—an old woman in a long cloak, her head concealed by a hood.

The guests fell back and stared at her for they were sure, as I was, that she was some harbinger of evil.

Bruno strode over to her.

“I had no invitation to the ball,” she said with a hoarse chuckle.

“I know you not,” replied Bruno.

“Then you should, my son,” was her answer.

I recognized her then as Mother Salter, so I went to her and said: “You are welcome. May I offer you refreshment?”

I saw her yellow fangs as she smiled at me.

And I thought: She has every right to be here; she is the grandmother of Bruno and Honey.

“I come in two minds to bless or curse this house.”

“You could not curse it,” I said.

She laughed again.

Then she lifted her hands and muttered something.

“Blessing or curse,” she said. “You will discover which.”

Then I called for wine for I was filled with a terrible premonition of evil, and I remembered in that moment that after Honey had been lost in the woods I had lost my baby.

She drank the wine; and then walked around the hall, the guests falling back as she passed. When she came to the door she said again: “Blessing or curse. That you will discover.” And with that went out.

There was a hushed silence; and then everyone began to talk at once.

It was some sort of entertainment, they said. It was a mummer dressed up as a witch.

But there were some who recognized Mother Salter, the witch of the woods.

Some months after our grand ball Honey caught a chill. It was nothing much but I was always uneasy when either of the children were not well. I had made a nursery for them next to the room which had been mine and Bruno’s bedchamber and was now more often mine alone, for he had lived more often in his tower. Honey had a persistent cough which was apt to wake her. I kept a bottle of cough mixture by her bed which my mother had made and which was always effective and as soon as she started to cough I would be in her room with it.

On this cold January night she started to cough. I was out of bed and into the children’s room. Catherine was sleeping peacefully in her cot. Honey, now big enough for a pallet, gave me that intensely loving look when I appeared.

I said: “Now, my pet, we will soon stop that nasty old cough.”

I gave her the draft, propped up pillows and put my arm around her as she lay sleepily and happily against me.

I think she was almost pleased to have a cough so that she could have my special attention.

“Cat’s fast asleep,” she whispered delightedly.

“We mustn’t wake her,” I whispered.

“No, don’t let’s wake her. This is nice.”

“Yes. Are you cozy?”

She nestled against me. I looked down at her; the thick lashes making an enchanting semicircle against the pallor of her skin, her thick dark hair falling about her shoulders. She was going to be our beauty. Catherine was vivacious, careless, lighthearted; Honey was intense and passionate. If she were displeased and it was usually through her jealousy of Catherine that she was, she would be sullen for days, whereas Catherine would fly into a storm of rage and a few moments later she would have forgotten her grievance. They were completely unalike. Catherine was pretty—her lashes were light brown tipped with gold; her hair was brown with light streaks in it; her skin delicately tinted. Catherine was enchanting, more lovable, less demanding, but Honey was the beauty. She disturbed me even now because of her continual watchfulness lest I should show I cared more for Catherine than I did for her. I was the center of her world. If she were proud of some achievement, I was to be told first; for me she gathered flowers—often those from my own garden. She watched me continually and she wanted me to remember always that she was my girl and that she had come to me before Catherine.

I assured myself that she would grow out of this. At the moment she was but a child. Yet she was seven years old—an age they say when character is developed. I had given them lessons from the time Honey was four, remembering my father’s maxim that a child cannot be taught too young. They must read as soon as it is possible for them to do so, my father had said, for thus a world is open to them which would otherwise be shut. I was in agreement with this and I was determined that my girls should be scholars if they had a tendency to be so, and if not at least educated ladies. Later I should arrange for Valerian to teach them. I had already spoken to him of this and he was delighted with the idea. He was a very good teacher. All this I thought as Honey and I exchanged whispers and finally she was quiet so I knew that she slept. Gently I removed my arm and crept back to my own room.

It was a moonlit night and still thinking of the children I went to a window and looked out. The sight of the Abbey buildings never failed to excite me and I could never become accustomed to living in such a place. I fell to thinking of the strangeness of my life and how different I had imagined it would be in the days when my father was alive. I thought of the strangeness of my husband and when I tried to dissect my feelings for him I could not do so. I had begun to suspect that I did not wish to because I was afraid of what I should find. He was a stranger to me in so many ways. Our closeness had always been a physical closeness. We could be lovers still. Was it because we were both young and felt the need of such contact? From his thoughts I often felt completely shut out; and I wondered whether he did from me—or whether he considered such a matter at all. I had disappointed him because I had not produced a son. We were always hoping that I should do so.

Then suddenly I began to think of Rupert and the tenderness he showed to me whenever we met, and I admitted that was something I missed in Bruno. Had he ever been tender?

I had felt tender toward him on those occasions when I believed that he needed me; and he did need me. In what ways? He needed to prove something.

I switched my thoughts away because I was fearful that I might make some discovery.

And then I saw a figure emerge into the moonlight. Bruno—again coming from the tunnels. I watched him make his way to the tower. I saw him enter. I watched and then I saw the light of lantern at his window.

It was the second time I had seen him coming from the tunnels in the night. I wondered why. It could only be because he did not wish anyone to know that he was there.

I returned to my bed. I wondered whether he would join me.

He did not. And in the morning he told me that it was necessary for him to take another trip on the Continent. This time he wanted to buy more tapestry for the walls of some of our rooms.

It occurred to me later that when I had seen him during the night on that other occasion he had almost immediately gone abroad afterward.

I wondered whether there was any significance in this. It was typical of our relationship that I did not feel it was possible to ask him.

My mother came visiting over to the Abbey, her basket full of lotions and unguents.

“My dear daughter,” she cried, “watch over the children. One of our men has come in from the city with a tale that he saw a man dying in the Chepe. He saw another on one of the barges at the Westminster stairs. The sweat is with us.”

I was alarmed for the children. I dosed them with my mother’s remedies and forbade them to leave the house, but how could I be sure that someone had not brought the dreaded sweat into the Abbey?

Honey, sensing my fear, showed a terrified delight; she clung to me as though she were afraid that I was going to be snatched from her. Catherine was scornful and tried to slip away when she could. I chided her and she was penitent but I knew she would forget the warning the very next minute.

Kate came to the rescue.

“I hear the sweat is raging in London. You are too near for my comfort. You must bring the children to Remus. Here you will be safe from the evil.”

I was delighted and prepared to set out for Remus Castle.

Widowhood suited Kate. She was rich and although so far no one had sought her hand—the death of her husband being too recent—there were one or two who were biding their time though they would not wait long, for the late King’s speedy marriage to Jane Seymour before Anne Boleyn was cold in her grave had set a fashion.

Lord Remus had never been an exacting husband and had always been ready to indulge his wife, but now Kate was the mistress and master of the house and determined to enjoy her new position.

She had gowns of velvets and silks and I had never seen such puffing and ruching of sleeves before.

“You know nothing of Court fashions,” she told me contemptuously.

Carey was now Lord Remus; he was a very important young gentleman. Someone had told him that he must take care of his mother—ironically, I thought, for no woman could care for herself as well as Kate; but Carey took it seriously. He could ride well, and was learning to shoot in the archery courtyard; he had a falcon which he was learning to use. Every time I saw him he seemed a little more grown up. He was some months younger than Honey, and a year or so older than Catherine; but he was cock of the walk in his own farmyard, I noticed.

Catherine quarreled with him incessantly; but he and Honey were good friends. I began to think that Honey showed a preference for him because he and Catherine were such enemies.

Kate was already making plans for the future. The Court, she said, had become nonexistent since the death of King Henry. How could a boy of eleven years or so hold a Court! The Protector Somerset was of course the real King and his brother Lord High Admiral Thomas Seymour was perhaps a little envious of him.

“Tom Seymour has hopes of the Lady Elizabeth,” Kate told me. “You can see where that is leading.”

“She could never be Queen of England,” I said. “There is Mary before her, and would the old King not have both considered to be illegitimate to suit his own purposes?”

“Poor Edward is a sickly child. It’s to be doubted whether he will ever beget children.”

“I daresay they will marry him off as soon as possible.”

“He is devoted to his cousin, Jane Grey. I think he would be delighted to take her.”

“Which would be a satisfactory match since she herself has some pretensions to the throne.”

“Have you thought that it could be a Protestant match, Damask, and what that could mean to the country? I would rather see someone gay on the throne. Jane is a prim little thing, so I have heard. Rather like you were, I imagine. So good with her Latin and Greek. Quite the little scholar.”

Days had always passed cozily at Remus and now it had become a kind of oasis for me. There were no problems and I realized how relieved I was to leave the Abbey for a while.

Kate, restless because she was confined to the house in supposed mourning for her husband, planning the entertainments she would give at the Castle when that period was over, parading in her velvet gowns with only me and the occasional visitor to admire her, found the best method of passing the time in talking to me.

She enjoyed going over the past and she remembered more incidents from our childhood than I had believed she would. I remembered, yes, but then I was more introspective than she. So it was surprising to discover that these little incidents which had appeared too insignificant to mean much to her had somehow remained stored in her mind.

She frankly admitted that she had always intended to get what she could from life.

“And you must concede, Damask, that I have got a great deal. Life has been kinder to me than to you, yet you have been a better woman than I. You loved your father and you suffered deeply when you lost him. You thought I did not know how deeply but I did, Damask, and while I was sad for you I thought how foolish it was to love one person so much that to lose him can be such a tragedy. I would never love like that…except myself of course.”

“There is great joy in loving, too, Kate,” I said. “I remember so many happy times with my father. I would not have missed those for anything in the world.”

“The more happiness you had the greater was your grief. People like you pay for the happiness they get.”

“But not you?”

“I am too clever for that,” retorted Kate. “I am sufficient for myself. I make myself dependent on no one.”

“Have you never loved?”

“In my fashion. I am fond of you. I am fond of Carey and young Colas. You are my family and I am happy to have you round me. But this complete and utter devotion—it is not for me.”

We talked of Bruno and what he had done at the Abbey, and what he proposed doing.

“Bruno is a fanatic,” she said. “He is the sort of man who will end up at the stake.”

“Don’t say that, Kate,” I said quickly.

“Why? You know it to be true. He is the strangest man I have ever known. Sometimes he almost made me believe that he was indeed sent from heaven for some purpose. Did you feel that, Damask?”

“I am not sure. I may have felt it.”

“But no longer do?”

I was silent.

“Ah,” she accused. “I see you do not. But he believes it, Damask. He must believe it.”

“Why must he? If it were proved….”

“He must. He dare not do otherwise. I know your husband well, Damask.”

“So you have told me before.”

“I understand him as you cannot. We are of a kind in a way. You are too normal, Damask. I know you well.”

“You always did believe you knew everything.”

“Not everything but a great deal. How he must have suffered when Keziah and the monk betrayed their secret. I pitied him then because I understood him so well.”

“We never speak of it,” I said.

“No. You dare not. Don’t speak of it. You see what he is trying to do, Damask. To prove himself. I think I might be the same. But I do not have to prove myself. I am beautiful, desirable. You see how I took Remus. I would take any man I wanted. I know I can; they know it; there is no need to prove it. But Bruno has to prove to himself that he is superhuman. That is what he is doing. But how is he doing it? How is it possible for one who had nothing…who was turned from his secluded life into the world, to become so wealthy that he can do all that Bruno is doing now? I doubt Remus could have afforded such a vast expenditure.”

“It worries me at times.”

“I doubt it not.”

“Somehow it has all become fantastic…like a dream. Before I married Bruno there was a reason for everything. Now I often feel as though I am groping in the dark.”

“I have a feeling, Damask, that you will grope for a long time and that perhaps it is better so. The darkness is a protection. Who knows what you might see in the blinding light of truth.”

“I would always wish for the truth.”

“Mayhap not if you knew it.”

There were many such conversations with Kate, and I often came from them with the notion that she knew something and was holding it back. These talks stimulated me as they did her. I too liked to watch the children at their games. I devised entertainments for them; and I gave a party for them and some children of the neighborhood. We danced country dances and played guessing games and it was the best of good fun.

Kate never joined in but she sometimes liked to watch.

She called me the eternal mother.

“I’m never going to be able to placate Carey,” she said, “when you and the girls depart.”

My mother wrote that the twins were well and the sweat was abating; but I still stayed on.

Kate invited guests to Remus and those were exciting days when we watched from the keep while they rode under the portcullis and into the courtyard.

There would be interesting conversation at dinner and we learned that the Queen Dowager, Katharine Parr, had married Thomas Seymour, with whom she had long been in love.

Kate was amused. “Of course he wanted the Princess Elizabeth but she was too dangerous so he took Queen Katharine instead. A King’s widow instead of a Princess who thinks she might have a claim to the throne! Anne Boleyn’s daughter.” She was pensive, thinking of the glittering, elegant woman whom she had so admired.

Kate giggled over the scandals of the Dower House where the Queen and Seymour lived, for the young Elizabeth was under the Queen’s care and there were rumors of a far from innocent relationship between the Princess and Seymour.

On the day when the Queen Dowager died in childbed I returned to the Abbey.

There followed what I thought of afterward as the quiet years. There were changes but they were so gradual that I scarcely noticed them. There were many workers on the Abbey estate now and always great activity on the farm for more workers had joined us. More building had been done. There had even been extensions to our mansion. Bruno never seemed to be satisfied with it. Tapestries adorned many of our rooms. Now and then Bruno made trips abroad and often returned with treasures.

Honey was now eleven and she had lost none of her beauty. Catherine, more than two years younger, was more vivacious and independent. They were both bright and intelligent children and I was proud of them. Valerian had now taken over the control of their studies and each day they took lessons in the scriptorium. It was a disappointment to me that I had no other child. My mother, who imagined that she was learned in such things, said that perhaps I desired one too passionately. She was always concocting potions for me but nothing happened. Sometimes I had the notion that Mother Salter had indeed put a curse on me because she had feared I did not care sufficiently for Honey.

I often visited Kate and she came now and then to the Abbey. She had not married although she had been betrothed twice, but had decided against marriage before the ceremony was performed. She told me that she liked her freedom and since she was rich she had no need to marry for what she called the usual reasons.

The children now looked forward to their reunions. Catherine and Carey quarreled a good deal. Honey was aloof; she always seemed much older than Carey. Little Colas was always ignored by the others and only allowed to play with them if he took the minor parts in games—the usual fate of the youngest.

Sometimes the twins came to us, but my mother liked best for me to take the children to Caseman Court. On several occasions she talked to me of the Reformed religion. She would like to see me embrace it. I asked her why.

“Oh, it’s all in the books,” she said.

I smiled at her. One faith was as good as another to her. She would be ready to follow her husband in all ways.

We seemed to have passed into a different era. The young King was as different from his father as a king could be. The times had changed. It was no longer dangerous to show an interest in the Reformed faith. King Edward himself was interested in it; so were those who surrounded him. The Princess Mary, who was the next in succession to the King, would be very different, for she was fiercely Catholic; but it would only be if the King were to die without heirs that she would have a chance of ascending the throne.

He was sickly, it was true, but they would marry him young and according to Kate he had already chosen the little Lady Jane Grey, a choice greatly approved by those who wished to see the Reformed faith flourish.

Rumors came to us over those years but they did not seem of such significance as they had when the old King was alive.

The Lord High Admiral, Thomas Seymour, had lost his head; and sometime later his brother Somerset had followed him to the scaffold.

Politics! I thought. They were so dangerous and devious and the man in high favor one day was he whose head rolled in the straw the next.

But lightly these things seemed to touch us at this time.

Now that the Seymour brothers were dead the Duke of Northumberland was in control and he had married his son Lord Guildford Dudley to the little Jane Grey.

“He had a purpose,” Kate said, during one of my stays at Remus. “If the King were to die Northumberland would try to make Jane Queen for that would mean that Guildford Dudley, Northumberland’s son, were King—or as near as makes no difference.”

“And what of the Princess Mary? Would she stand aside to see Jane Grey Queen of England?”

“It is to be hoped that the King will go on living, for if he did not there could be war in England.”

“A war between the supporters of Jane and those of Mary would be a war between those of the old faith and the new.”

“We must pray for the King’s good health for that is to pray for peace,” said Kate.

I did not know it but the quiet years were coming to an end.

The Abbey flourished. The old guesthouses were occupied by workers; and in the midst of this activity was the castlelike residence known as St. Bruno’s Abbey. We were supplying corn to the surrounding districts; our wool was bringing in big prices. We had more animals than we needed for our own consumption and these were slain and salted down and sold.

I had discovered that no less than twenty of our workers were men who had been attached to the Abbey before the dissolution—some monks, some lay brothers. It seemed inevitable that they should band together and remember the customs of the old days.

The church was intact. It was used at night. Frequently I saw from my window after the household had retired, men making their way there. I believed they celebrated the Mass as they had in the Abbot’s day.

Rupert had extended his lands; he visited us now and then and when he came Bruno took a certain pleasure in conducting him around our estate. There was no envy in Rupert; he admired everything and seemed genuinely pleased to see such prosperity.

One day he rode over. It was during one of Bruno’s trips to the Continent and I knew as soon as I saw him that something had happened. Strangely enough the first thing I thought of was: He has come to tell me that he is about to marry. I was surprised at the feeling of depression that gave me.

It was not that I had a dog-in-the-manger attitude toward him; but I had come to regard him as very important in my life, and I suddenly realized what comfort the devotion he had shown me for so long had meant to me. Sometimes when I had been deeply perplexed I had thought of his existence, a close neighbor, someone to whom I could turn in trouble—always there, always delighted to be called on.

If he married, he would remain so—but I knew it would be different. I used to tell myself perhaps overemphatically how pleasant it would be if he married and had children. Some of the happiest times were when I had all the children at the Abbey—my own two girls, Kate’s two boys and my mother’s twins. I loved to hear their noisy games and sometimes join in. Kate watched me with cynical amusement, but these were some of the happiest hours of my life at that time.

I faced the fact now that my marriage was not what I had dreamed of. I looked around and wondered whose was. Kate’s and Remus’s—my parents, my mother’s with Simon Caseman? I verily believed that my mother was the happiest wife I knew. But I had Catherine and I must be grateful to the union which had brought me her.

I took Rupert into my winter parlor and sent for wine and the cakes we served with it. Clement always had a batch fresh from the oven.

“You have news, I can see,” I said.

He looked at me earnestly. “Damask,” he said, “how much do you know of what is going on?”

“Here, you mean? In the Abbey?”

“Here and in the country.”

“Here. Well, I live here. I know they are always busy producing something and we would seem to be prospering. In the country? Well, Kate keeps me informed, you know, and I hear many rumors. Travelers are constantly bringing news. The last I heard was that the poor King was very ill with the smallpox and measles and although he recovered it has left him with consumption.”

“It will be a miracle if he lasts out the year.”

“Then it will be a new Queen. It will be a Queen, won’t it? Queen Mary, I suppose.”

“There is always danger in the air when a monarch dies at such an age as to leave no heirs of his body.”

“Is this what concerns you, Rupert?”

“You concern me,” he answered.

I averted my eyes. I did not want a declaration of his devotion which I knew full well existed. It would have been an embarrassment to us both. I think I realized then that I loved Rupert. Oh, it was no wild searing passion. It was not like that which I had felt and could still feel for Bruno. Rupert had not that strange beauty which Bruno possessed; there was no mystery surrounding Rupert. He was just a good man. I loved him differently from the manner in which I loved Bruno. It was as though love were a fruit to be divided into half—one half gave passion and excitement, the other enduring love and security. I could see that what I longed for was both.

My thoughts were running on and I wanted to know what anxiety had brought Rupert here.

“There are rumors about this place,” said Rupert. “You are unaware of this. The last to hear rumors are those whom they most concern. As yet they are whispers but many people are watching St. Bruno’s Abbey. There is a mystery surrounding this place.”

“It is prosperous because we have worked hard here.”

“I want you to be on your guard, Damask. If there should be danger, stop for nothing. Take the girls and ride over to me. If need be I could hide you.”

“The children are in danger?”

“When a house is in danger all the inmates could well be.”

“What is this danger, which has suddenly loomed up?”

“It is not sudden, Damask, it has been there for a long time. Ever since Bruno came back and took the Abbey it has been said that the place is being reformed….It is known that many of the monks have returned. Talk to Bruno. There should be no assemblies…no private services…no monkly practices. It is inevitable that people will say that the monastery has been reformed in defiance of the law.”

I said: “The King is sick, is he not? I hear that the Lady Mary when she is Queen may well restore the monasteries.”

“It would not be possible, but she would certainly not frown on those who practiced the monastic way of life. Remember though, Damask, she is not Queen, and in some quarters it is said she never will be.”

“She is the heir to the throne.”

“Is she? Was not her mother’s marriage to King Henry declared to be no marriage? In which case she is a bastard.”

“The King is not dead and we should not be talking of his death. Would that not be construed as treason?”

“We wish him no ill. We wish him long life. But if we must talk dangerously then so we must, for you could well be in danger. Lord Northumberland has just married his son to the Lady Jane Grey. For what purpose think you? Edward supports the Reformed faith; so doth Lady Jane. If Lady Jane became Queen with Lord Guildford Dudley as her consort the Reformed religion would prevail and those who were suspected of Papistry and living the monastic life would be regarded as enemies of the state.”

“Rupert, it is good of you so to concern yourself for us.”

“No, not good, for there is nothing I can do to stop myself.”

“But how could this be? Who would accept the Lady Jane as Queen? Who now believes that the late King’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon was no marriage? We know full well that it was declared so that he might marry Anne Boleyn and for this he had to break with the Church, which is where all our troubles started.”

“Forget not Guildford Dudley’s powerful father. Northumberland could bring force of arms to support the claims of his daughter-in-law.”

“But he could not succeed, for surely Mary has the true claim.”

“How much will true claims count against a force of arms? Who do you think is the most powerful man in our country today? It is not the King. He is but a child in the hands of Northumberland, and if Northumberland succeeds in putting Jane Grey on the throne the danger you are now in would not be diminished, I do assure you. But I think of now. There are enemies of St. Bruno’s Abbey very close to you, Damask.”

“I believe you are thinking of my mother’s husband.”

“He is an ambitious man. From humble beginnings he has become the owner of your father’s house. He has done you a great wrong and people who do wrong very often bear great resentment against those whom they wrong.”

“You think that he would wish to take revenge on me for the wrong he did me? You believe then, Rupert, that he was in truth the man who betrayed my father?”

“I think it likely. He profited much. He could only have been in his present position through marriage with you and you made it clear, did you not, that that was out of the question?”

“You know so much, Rupert.”

“I have concerned myself closely with all that touches you.”

“What should I do now?”

“Warn your husband. Beg him to stop these men who were once monks and lay brothers assembling together. It would be better if he sent them away.”

“To where could he send them?”

“He could separate them. Perhaps I would take one or two. Kate could have more at Remus…anything rather than that it should be seen that a community of men who were once monks still live at St. Bruno’s Abbey.”

“I will speak to him on his return, Rupert.”

He was very anxious but that satisfied him a little.

I sent for the girls and I was so proud of them. Honey was now thirteen years old and a real beauty; she had outgrown that acute jealousy of Catherine; and Catherine was of course my precious darling, my own child, and I loved her as I had not loved any since my father. My feelings for Bruno I set apart—I knew it now for a bemused fascination. It could have grown into overwhelming love, perhaps greater than anything, but I had for some time now realized that was not to be so.

Rupert was a favorite of the girls. They liked to visit his farm; it was he who had taught them to ride and they felt they had more freedom on his farm than they had at the Abbey. Bruno’s indifference to Catherine and his resentment of Honey was noticed by the girls. They accepted it as children do and did not seek to change it. But I often thought that to Rupert they gave some of the love that might have been their father’s. He was something between a highly favored uncle and father.

They chattered away, asking about the animals on his farm, some of which had been given names by them.

They embraced him warmly when he went and his eyes warned me: Do not forget our conversation. The danger is here. It could flare up at any moment.

Bruno returned in good spirits. He was always in an exultant mood after his visits to the Continent. “Did you do good business?” I asked him. He assured me that he had.

“What did you bring home this time? Anything new? My mother always wants to know what new flowers and vegetables have been produced in other countries.”

He said he had brought a fine tapestry which would hang in the hall.

When we were alone in our bedchamber that night I told him of Rupert’s visit and the warning he had given me.

“Rupert!” cried Bruno scathingly. “What is he hinting at?”

“He is truly concerned. We are in danger. I sense it.”

He looked at me impatiently. “Have I not told you that you should trust me in all things? You doubt my ability to manage my affairs.” He went to the window and looked out. He turned to me. “All this,” he said, “is mine. I have rebuilt it. It rises like the phoenix out of the ashes. I did this and you doubt my ability to manage my affairs!”

“I don’t doubt for one moment, but it often happens that some are more aware of danger than others. And there is danger in the air.”

“Danger?”

“Many of the old monks and lay brothers are here. They are living a life which is very close to that which they led in the monastery.”

“Well?”

“It has been noticed.”

He laughed. “You have always sought to bring me down. You have always resented the fact that I am not as other men. Understand now, that I am not as other men. By God, do you believe that any other could have come to this place, taken it in the first place, and raised it up to what it is now if there had not been some superior power within him?”

I said: “It is certainly very mysterious.”

“Mysterious! Is that all you have to say of it?”

“How did you acquire the Abbey, Bruno?”

“I have told you.”

“But….”

“But you do not believe me. You have ever tried to throw doubts on all that I have told you. I should never have chosen you.”

Truly he frightened me. I thought: There is a madness in him! And I was ever afraid of the mad.

I cried: “So, you made one mistake. Your judgment was wrong. You chose me and you should never have done so.”

He turned to me suddenly. I was sitting up in bed and he gripped my arm. It was a painful grip but I did not cry out; I met the blazing fanatical light in his eye with what I believed was calm good sense.

Then I said, “It was a mistake, was it not?”

“It need not have been. At that time it was not a mistake. You trusted me then.”

“Yes, I trusted you then. And I believed that we should build a wonderful life together. But you deceived me from the start, did you not? You told me you were poor and humble.”

“Humble…when was I ever humble?”

“You are right. Never were you humble. And the test you put me to, that was arrogant, was it not? You did not woo me as any other man would have done. You must feign poverty lest you fear I marry you for your estates.”

He released my arm with an impatient gesture.

“You are hysterical. Rupert has been frightening you and although you have no faith nor truth in me you are very ready to believe him.”

“I believe him because what he says makes sense. The Reformed party is in power. The King is a Protestant. Northumberland is a Protestant and they rule the country. Have we not seen the tragedy that can come to those who do not conform to the doctrines laid down by our rulers?”

“And you think I would be ruled by these inferior people?”

“Have a care what you say, Bruno. Who knows what may be heard and reported? It is clear to me that you would be ruled by none but your own overweening pride…your desire to prove that you are not as other men.”

“And am I? Have you forgotten my coming?”

I thought of Keziah on that memorable night and her tenor because she had betrayed that which should never have been betrayed; I thought of Brother Ambrose walking across the grass with Bruno and Rolf Weaver coming upon them, taunting. Bruno had seen that. He had seen his father kill the man who had taunted him. Yes, he had seen it and shut his eyes to it because he would not believe Keziah and Ambrose spoke the truth. He could not have it because if it did the image which he had created of himself would be destroyed. In this lies madness, I thought.

“I forget nothing,” I said.

“It would be well that you remember.”

He stood there beside the bed—tall and straight with the pallor of his face like marble, a contrast to those startlingly violet eyes which were so like Honey’s. I thought: He is as beautiful as a god! And I felt that overwhelming tenderness take possession of me and I could not say to him: Bruno, you are living a lie because you are afraid to face the truth.

He began to speak. “I…I alone came back to the Abbey, did I not? It was lost and I regained it. How was it done?”

“Bruno, please tell me truthfully. How was it done?”

“It was a miracle. It was the second miracle at St. Bruno’s.”

I turned wearily away. There was no reasoning with him.

A New Reign

THAT HAPPENED IN THAT momentous year of 1553. My thirtieth birthday was three months away. Thirty! It was not really old but in my thirty years I had seen events take place which had shattered the peace not only of my own household but of the entire country, I had suffered deep sorrow and known some happiness; and at this stage of my life I had reached a conclusion that I had made one of the greatest mistakes a woman can make in marrying a man who can never give her the rich fulfillment she craved. I had my daughters—my own Catherine and my adopted Honey; they were at that time my life; and when I thought of Rupert’s warning and the dangers which beset us, it was of my children I thought, not of myself nor what might befall my husband and his Abbey.

The religious conflict was the main question of the day. Even my mother did not escape it.

When I visited her as I did not as often as I should have wished to, for I always feared to come face to face with her husband, or when she visited me she would chatter of her twins and their mischief, which seemed a source of great delight to her, her garden, her stillroom, her remedies. Only rarely would she refer to the new religion.

“You should study the new opinions, Damask,” she said. “They are the views of the King and it is good for us all to follow him.”

“Mother,” I replied, “I cannot say, ‘This is the right and that the wrong,’ for it seems to me that there is much to be said for both sides.”

“Nonsense,” said my mother briskly, “how could wrong be right and right wrong? It must either be one or the other. And this is the right, I do assure you.”

“Having been assured by your husband?”

“He has studied these matters.”

“Others have studied them. There are clever people on both sides. You must know that.”

“It is easy for these people to be mistaken and your stepfather has given a great deal of time to it.”

I smiled at her indulgently. How try to explain to her! But the fact that she was aware of these matters showed how firmly they must have a hold in my old home.

It was a June night—there was a full moon and I sat at my window and thought of what Rupert had said of our dangers and I wondered whether Bruno would join me that night when I saw dark figures moving toward the church. I knew what this meant. They were going to Mass. Bruno would be with them.

I shivered a little. They knew that if this were known they would be in danger, and yet they continued to act in this way. Perhaps they believed that Bruno with his supernatural powers could save them from any disaster which might threaten them. Some of the ex-monks were simple, I thought. Clement for one had clearly convinced himself that there was no truth in Keziah and Ambrose’s story. Bruno had that power to convince people in the face of facts. The only one with whom he could not succeed was myself.

Clement was happy working in the bakehouse. He would sing Latin chants as he worked. It was clear to me that he almost believed that he had never left the Abbey.

The figures had disappeared into the church and I sat for some time thinking of the significance of this when suddenly I saw another figure. It was not one of the monks this time. I stared for the man who was making his way stealthily toward the church had a look of Simon Caseman.

Impulsively I put a cloak about my nightdress and ran downstairs.

I sped across the grass past the monks’ dorter to the porch of the church. I went in. A figure moved forward. I had not been mistaken. It was Simon Caseman.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“You may well ask.” His eyes were alight with excitement. I had never seen the fox’s mask so clearly.

“Trespassing!”

“In a good cause.”

“You have no right to be here.”

“Yes, every right.”

“In whose name?”

“In the name of the King.”

“You speak fine words.”

“I speak the truth. What is going on in there? This has become a monastery once more. It was dissolved but here it is again.”

“Do you not know, Simon Caseman, that many abbey lands have been bestowed?”

“I know it well. There is, mayhap, always a reason for such bestowals.”

“A very good reason, and one which is the concern only of the bestower and the bestowed.”

“That I agree, but when the place is used to break the King’s law….”

“The King’s law has not been broken here.”

“Not when that which has been abolished is slyly brought back.”

“There are many workmen here, Simon Caseman.”

“There are monks, too. They who have been dispossessed by the Crown now reinstate themselves against the laws of the land.”

“What is happening here?” A voice cool, curt and authoritative was demanding. Bruno had come into the porch. From the church came the sound of chanting.

“This is happening,” replied Simon Caseman. “I have witnessed that which could send you to the gallows. Rest assured I shall do my duty.”

“Your duty is to go back to your house and live quietly there—although you do not deserve to, having taken that which would never have been bestowed on you but for ill justice.”

“Do not talk of justice, I pray you. What is happening in this place? How is it that you have rebuilt it as you have? Do you think I do not know? Do you think you can draw the wool over my eyes with your talk of miracles? Miracles forsooth! It is clear indeed from what quarter came your wealth.”

I saw that Bruno had turned pale. He was very uneasy.

“Yes,” cried Simon Caseman, “I know full well. Where does the money come from to build a fine Abbey to gather together your monks and lay brothers? Where indeed. From the enemies of England. From Spain and Rome, that is where the money comes from.”

“You lie!” cried Bruno.

“Then if it is a lie, where? Answer that, Bruno Kingsman. Saint Bruno…answer that. From whence came the money to rebuild the Abbey, eh? To start everything in motion, eh? Are you going to tell me it comes from the profit of the farm? I would not believe you. Great riches have been showered on this place and I am asking you whence they came. That is all I want to know.”

The singing in the church had ceased. I saw the figures of the men within the church hovering not far from the porch.

“Lie to me if you wish!” cried Simon Caseman, his face working with passion. “You won’t deceive me. I know. I have always known. The money came from Spain and Rome. It comes from our country’s enemies. It comes from those who would bring the Pope back as Supreme Head of the Church against the laws of this land.”

“You lie,” cried Bruno.

“Then where, eh? Whence came the money to build this place? How much has been spent on it? Who has such money…apart from His Majesty the King and the richest families in the land? Tell us this, Bruno, Saint Bruno…weaver of miracles, tell us! Did it come from on high? Was it poured into your coffers from heaven?”

“Yes,” answered Bruno soberly.

Simon Caseman burst into loud laughter. “You would call it from heaven since it comes from Spain. I and many with me would call it treason.”

There was a hush in the porch at the mention of that dreaded word.

Then Bruno said: “Get you gone from here. We have no need of your kind.”

“Indeed you have not. You would not find me breaking the law of the land. This is meant to be the beginning of the restoration of the monasteries. I know there are such schemes afoot. They come from Rome and Spain…where your masters are. Think not that I shall allow this treason to continue.”

Bruno went back into the church. I drew back into the shadows and Simon Caseman walked past me. I had never seen such a look of set determination in his face. I thought: Tomorrow he will inform on us. Perhaps by tomorrow night Bruno will be in the Tower.

Then my thoughts went to the girls and I wondered what would become of them.

I ran after Simon Caseman.

He heard my footsteps and turned slowly.

“So?” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“My duty.”

“I believe it will not be the first time you have informed.”

He pretended to misunderstand. “It may not be the last, mayhap. I am a dutiful man.”

“Particularly when there is much to be gained.”

“Gained? What should I gain?”

“Revenge.”

“You are dramatic, my dear Damask.” His eyes surveyed me and I remembered that I had only my nightgown under my cloak.

I felt very frightened and that made me reckless, I suppose.

“Is revenge as satisfying as a fine house which you had no hope of attaining while my father was alive?”

“What has that to do with this?”

“A similar situation. You did your gainful duty once before, did you not?”

He was silent, taken aback; and I was certain then that I stood face to face with my father’s murderer for that is what his betrayer would always be to me.

“I know,” I said, “that you informed against my father. You murderer.”

“Is this the way to talk to one who has your life in his hands?”

“I would not think that life worth having if I were not true to myself.”

“You are a firebrand, Damask. You always were. What a reckless little fool! You might have had so much. But you chose him….Is he a man or is he an idol? We shall soon see. He should hang well.”

“You have made up your mind to inform against him as you did against my father.”

“Your father?”

“Don’t try to deceive me further, Simon Caseman. My father took you into his house. You had nothing of your own. All you had was envy, greed, and a sad lack of principles. You had selfishness, wickedness, ingratitude….”

“In fact I was a very sinful fellow.”

“For once you have spoken the truth. You are my father’s murderer, Simon Caseman. You wanted his possessions.”

“I wanted his daughter, I admit. And the fact is that even when she rants and raves I still do.”

“How dare you!”

“As you dare, my reckless beauty. Here is the man who can have you all carried off to the Tower before another day has passed…and you dare abuse him.”

“I would abuse you with my dying breath. Have you ever loved a father?”

“I never knew mine so that was beyond me.”

“I loved my father. I loved him dearly. I saw him in his prison in the Tower. He was taken from there to his place of execution and his head was cut off. You cut off that head, Simon Caseman. Do you think I shall ever forgive you for that?”

“Your father was a fool. He should never have harbored the priest. He knew he was breaking the law. People who break the law must expect sudden and violent death. To give a priest shelter, to set up an abbey which has been dispossessed…these acts are breaking the King’s laws and punishable by death. You would do well to remember that while you rant, however prettily, to one who could do you much good or as you wish so much harm.”

“Not content with being my father’s murderer you would murder us all. You want this Abbey, do you not? Is this the price you are asking?”

“Don’t be so foolish, Damask. I would not harm you. Are you not my own stepdaughter?”

“To my deepest shame I am.”

“And one for whom, for all her waywardness and unkindness to me, I have ever felt great warmth of heart.”

“Have you ever felt that for any?”

“For you, you know.”

“Are you suggesting that you wished to marry me for reasons other than that I was my father’s heir?”

“You are not your father’s heir now, Damask. You are in acute danger. Tomorrow you will wait for the arrival of the King’s men. You were not there when they took your father. This time it will be your husband for whom they come unless….”

“Unless what?”

“I would do a great deal for you, Damask.”

“Then go away and hang yourself.”

He laughed. “That is asking a little too much for if I were dead how could I enjoy your company? No, Damask, you will have to be more pleasant to me…if you wish to go on living in comfort on your Spanish gold.”

“I fail to understand you.”

He took a step nearer to me. “I think you understand very well. If you were to come to me in a friendly fashion I might be persuaded to suspend my judgment on what has taken place tonight.”

“I will ask my mother’s advice,” I said caustically.

“Oh, Damask, were you not unwise? Just think if you had not been, your father would be alive today.”

I turned away and started toward the house.

He called after me: “I shall give you twenty-four hours. Think about it. You could have saved your father. Now is the time to save your family.”

Bruno was coming out of the church followed by several of the monks.

Simon Caseman broke into a run and I hurried into the house trembling.

Bruno did not come to our bedchamber that night. I spent most of it in the window seat waiting for his return. I wanted to find out whether indeed he had received money from Spain or Rome. It seemed to me the only explanation. I wondered it had not occurred to me before. Of course it was the answer. He had received money to rebuild the Abbey, and what more plausible than that he should have been chosen to do this.

Simon Caseman’s words kept repeating themselves in my mind. I was responsible for my father’s death. If I had married Simon Caseman he would not have informed on him because through me he would have had the house. But I would not marry him and so my father had to die. And now he had put another proposition to me. If I would go to him—and I knew what he meant by that—I could buy his silence.

I shivered at the prospect confronting us.

At least though we were safe for twenty-four hours.

Why did not Bruno come to me and comfort me? How characteristic of him was this. He allowed me to share nothing and the reason was that he knew I did not believe in him.

In the morning I went into the tower where he had his private quarters. He was working placidly at his books.

“Bruno,” I cried, “I should have thought you would have had something to say to me.”

He looked surprised.

“You can’t have forgotten last night’s scene?”

“Your stepfather is not worth a moment’s thought.”

I replied sharply: “He was responsible for my father’s death. He is now threatening to bring about yours and many of those dependent on you.”

“And you think he will succeed?”

“He succeeded with my father.”

“Your father acted foolishly.”

“Not as foolishly as you. You blatantly break the law. At least he did it in secret.”

He smiled and lifted his head, and he looked so beautiful that I could have wept because all was not well between us.

“I tell you that there is no need to fear.”

“No need to fear? When that man is our enemy and has witnessed what he did last night and moreover threatened to expose you?”

“He will do nothing.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I know.”

“He has threatened to expose you.”

“You believe everyone but me. You imply that you do not think me capable of defending everything I have built up.”

“With Spanish gold?” I asked.

“You see, you believe him.”

“But it seems obvious now. Where could you have found so much money?”

His eyes glowed with an inner fire. “He asked if heaven opened its coffers for me. And the answer is yes. It was a miracle. It was for this purpose that I came to the crib on Christmas morning. Men and women have uttered calumnies concerning me. And you, the one whom I chose, believed them rather than me. But this I swear. The money with which I am rebuilding this Abbey did not come from Spain. It came from heaven. And if you say that could only be a miracle, I answer: So be it. I tell you that man cannot harm me. But you do not believe me.”

“If you swear to me that you are not in the pay of the Spaniards….”

“I do not beg you to believe me. I merely tell you that he will not betray us. It may be that in due course you will have a little faith in me.”

With that he left me.

Twenty-four hours grace. I knew Simon Caseman well enough to believe that he would carry out his threat. He was an acquisitive and vengeful man. He could not believe that I would fall in with his monstrous suggestion. He enjoyed tormenting me, making clear to me how much I and my family were in his power. Moreover he lusted not only for me but for the Abbey, and I knew that to gain that was his main purpose.

It was no use remonstrating with Bruno though what he could do to save himself I could not imagine. I had no doubt that not only had Simon Caseman seen with his own eyes what was going on in the Abbey but he would have witnesses.

It occurred to me that I might take the girls and go to Kate. Would that save them? Would it involve Kate?

The tension was so unbearable that it left me numb; I felt as though I could only wait for what would happen next. I tried to act normally and went along to the bakehouse as I often did in the mornings to consult Clement about the food for the day. He had been present in the church last night.

I was surprised for he did not seem unduly perturbed.

“Clement,” I said, “what will become of us all, think you?”

“We shall be safe,” he answered complacently.

“You think those were idle threats?”

Clement raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Bruno will save us from evil.”

“How can that be?”

“His ways are miraculous.”

There was a complacency about the man which astonished me. He did not seem to realize that he could be dragged to a place of execution, hanged, cut down while still alive and barbarously tortured. Had he not heard of the monks of the Charterhouse? What had they done but deny the supremacy of the King as Head of the Church. His actions would be considered as treasonable!

“You heard what that man said last night, Clement. You were there.”

“I was there. But Bruno spoke to us afterward. He said there was no need to fear.”

“What can he do to save us?”

“That is for him and God.”

They believe he is divine, I thought. Oh, what a rude awakening they would have on the morrow!

The sudden vision of kind simple Clement, who had carried my children on his back and had surreptitiously slipped them tidbits from his oven, being tortured was more than I could endure.

“Clement,” I said, “you could get away. There is still time.”

He looked at me in astonishment. “This is my life,” he said. Then he smiled at me almost pityingly. “You have no faith. But fear not. All will be well.”

What faith they had in Bruno. During that day I realized what had been happening over the years. Bruno was not only refounding the Abbey, he was building up that image of himself which had been his before the coming of Rolf Weaver.

That day everything was as usual. No one but myself seemed to be aware of the threat which was hanging over us.

My mother called in the afternoon. I wondered whether Simon Caseman had confided in her and she had come to warn me. He could scarcely have told her of his suggestion to me.

She had brought the usual basket of good things—her newest wine, a new form of tansy cake she had made, her own special brand of marchpane.

She kissed me and said that I was not looking well. Her anxious eyes scrutinized me and I knew that she was wondering, as she did every time we met, whether or not I was with child.

I quickly gathered that she knew nothing of her husband’s discovery for she was too frank to have been able to hide it, but she did talk to me about the merits of the Reformed religion.

“And it is true, Damask,” she said, “that our King is of the Reformed faith. Poor lad, he is sick. They say that he never recovered from that bout of the smallpox. Some would say he was lucky to survive that at all.” She became very confidential. “I have heard it said that he cannot live long, poor boy.”

“Mother,” I said, “has it occurred to you that if the King died, which I hope he will not, the Lady Mary could be Queen; and if she were, might there not be a return to Rome?”

“Impossible!” cried my mother, growing pale at the thought.

“Yet it is not an impossibility, Mother. Should we not be cautious about proclaiming our views until we are sure?”

“If you know the true faith, Damask, how can you deny it?”

“But what is the true faith? Why cannot we accept the simple rules of Christ? Why must it be so important that we worship in this way or that?”

“I am not sure, Damask, but I think you may be speaking treason.”

“Treason one day, Mother, is loyalty the next.” I was suddenly afraid for her, because she was so simple. She did not love a faith but a husband; she would have taken whatever he offered her. She proclaimed her beliefs in the Reformed faith because her husband had adopted them. Yet she could die for those beliefs as others had before her.

I embraced her suddenly.

“My dear child, you are affectionate today.”

“How should I know whether I shall be in a position to be so tomorrow?”

“My word, we are gloomy! What ails you, Damask? You are not sickening for something? I will give you a little draft which contains thyme. That will give you pleasant dreams and tomorrow you will wake up in love with all the world.”

Tomorrow? I thought. What will tomorrow bring?

But I must not alarm my mother. She was happy for today. Let her remain so. My father had once said that, living in such times as ours, we should take no thought for the morrow; we should savor each hour and if it contained pleasure, enjoy that to the full.

I could not in any case speak to her of my anxieties. How could I tell her that the man she had married and on whom she doted as though he were some prophet from heaven was threatening to destroy us and had offered me security if I became his mistress?

The day seemed long. I could settle to nothing. I went to the scriptorium as I sometimes did and listened to the girls at their lessons. What will become of them? I asked myself; and I wished, as my father had wished for me, that they were securely married and living somewhere far removed from the stresses caused by men’s clashes of opinion.

At dinner we sat at the family table on the dais and the rest of the household at the large one in the hall, and although when a sound was heard from without I was aware of furtive looks in the direction of the door and I knew some of the company were attacked by acute apprehension and some trembled in their seats, there was no outward indication of alarm and confident looks were cast in Bruno’s direction.

It was just as we were about to leave the table that a messenger did arrive.

I shall never forget the awful consternation which filled that hall. I rose to my feet. I had taken the hand of Catherine who was seated next to me. Her startled gaze was turned toward me. I thought: Oh, God, it has come. What will become of us all?

Bruno had risen too but he showed no apprehension. Calmly he left his place and went forward to greet the messenger.

“Welcome,” he said.

“I bring ill news,” said the messenger. “The King is dead.”

I could sense the breaking of the tension; it was as though everyone present gave a long-drawn-out “Ah.” The King was dead. Who could say what would happen next? The Lady Mary was in line for the throne. The Abbey was saved.

I saw Bruno’s complacent smile. I saw the look of wonder in the faces of those who had been with him in the church last night.

He had promised them a miracle—for only a miracle could save the Abbey from Simon Caseman’s treachery. And this was their miracle. The death of the King; the end of the Protestant rule. The Catholic Princess awaiting to mount the throne.

Momentarily he caught my eye. I saw the triumph there; the enormous pride which I was beginning to think no one ever possessed in such strength as he did.

And immediately I thought: He knew all the time. He knew the King was dead. He knew that if Simon Caseman’s accusation against him was going to succeed he should have brought it months ago. He arranged for the messenger to bring the news at a time when it would create the greatest effect. I was beginning to know well this man whom I had married.

There was no thought in anyone’s mind now but what was going to happen next.

When I heard that Edward had died two days before the fact was made known I was certain that Bruno had known of this and for this reason he had flouted Simon Caseman and decided to impress his followers by his miracle.

I was building up such a cynical view of my husband that I began to wonder whether I hated him.

But he was less complacent when the news came that the Duke of Northumberland had persuaded the King to set aside his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, on the grounds of their illegitimacy, and to declare his cousin Lady Jane Grey the true heir to the throne; but Mary had too much support for this to be accepted and immediately a Catholic faction began to form about her and the country was divided. Families were divided. The only aspect which made me rejoice was the fact that we had a respite. The affairs of the country were so much more important than those of a single abbey and no one was going to arrest people who, were Mary to come to the throne, would be considered true and loyal subjects while those who arrested them would be the traitors.

The country was in a ferment of excitement.

My mother came over to the Abbey trembling and apprehensive. Simon had gone to Northumberland to offer his services in the support of Jane Grey, whom my mother called the true Queen.

I knew why Simon had gone. It was imperative to him that Jane Grey become the Queen of England that the Reformed faith might be preserved. He had come down too far on its side to withdraw. I suspected him of expediency but I was not entirely sure that this was all his motive. He had adopted the Reformed faith when it was not safe to do so and the greatest villains could be very firm in their views when it came to religion.

“She is a virtuous woman, Queen Jane,” said my mother. “She has lived a life of piety.”

“I believe the same can be said of those whom many call Queen Mary.”

“She is no Queen. Her father’s marriage was invalid,” cried my mother. “Was her mother not first the bride of King Henry’s brother, Arthur?”

“There are many who will support her,” I said.

“They will be the Papists,” my mother said bitterly.

“It is a strange thing, Mother,” I said, “but many Englishmen will be ready to support whomsoever they call the true Queen whatever their religion. I believe that to be so. And Mary has a great claim and after her Elizabeth.”

“Bastards!” cried my mother, almost in tears, which showed me that she was afraid that Queen Jane’s chances of holding the throne might not be good.

“Hush, Mother, do not become embroiled. It would go ill for you if any heard you call one who may well soon be our Queen by that name.”

“She never shall be,” said my mother fiercely.

The next day she came over to tell me that a vintner’s boy had been deprived of his ears because he had declared in the Chepe that Queen Jane was not the true Queen and had shouted for Queen Mary.

“You see,” said my mother firmly, “what happens to those who would deny the truth.”

There were many rumors. We heard that Jane was reluctant to take the crown. She was but a child—sixteen years old—not much older than Honey and this had been forced upon her by ambitious men. I felt sorry for poor Jane because the Princess Mary’s case was growing stronger every day. She was after all the daughter of King Henry VIII whereas Jane was only the granddaughter of his sister.

In the city people whispered together, afraid to voice an opinion openly, but I sensed that the majority of people were against Queen Jane, partly because they loathed her father-in-law Northumberland and were in no mood to accept his dominance but chiefly because they knew that Mary was the true heir to the throne.

This was in fact a division between the new Protestants and the old Catholics and the Reformed religion being so new had not yet taken a firm hold of the people.

Mary had fled to Norfolk and found thousands rallying to her cause. She was proclaimed Queen in Norwich. She crossed the border into Suffolk and set up her standard at Framlingham Castle.

Each day we waited for news. When Ridley, the Bishop of London, preached in favor of Queen Jane my mother was delighted.

“ ’Twill all come right,” she said. “Such a sweet good girl she is!”

But a few days later the Earls of Pembroke and Arundel were proclaiming Mary Queen of England at Paul’s Cross and we realized then that the nine days’ reign was at an end. Poor little Jane could not stand out against the might of right. Mary was the true heiress of England; poor pathetic Jane was cast out.

I went to see my mother because I guessed she would be very anxious.

“What is happening?” she cried, distraught. “What can people be thinking of? The Queen has the favor of the Bishop of London. Who can gainsay that?”

“Many,” I said, and I was filled with anxiety for her. “You will have to be very careful now. Do not talk freely to the servants. Heaven knows what this is going to mean.” Then I realized that, as I with my family had moved into a certain security, my mother and hers had come close to danger.

I took the books Simon had instructed her to read and hid them.

“You should not keep them here. We are about to begin a reign of the sternest Catholic rule. You must live very quietly for a while. It must not be remembered that you support Queen Jane.”

It was difficult to feign an indifference to the fate of Queen Jane. It seemed one must either support or reject. There was no middle way. I was sorry for the young girl, who had been such a reluctant Queen, knowing full well that she had no right to the title. I trusted she would be forgiven and not have to suffer for the ambition of others; but I could not help but rejoice that my home had been saved by her downfall.

Her sad little story was reaching its tragic climax. Nine days after Jane’s accession to the throne Mary was proclaimed Queen of England.

Simon Caseman had returned unostentatiously to the house before that day, and was trying to pretend now that he had been away on business and had not gone to London to support Queen Jane. He was as ready as any to shout “Long live Queen Mary.” At least he was wise in that.

I hoped he would continue to be so.

It quickly became apparent that the comparatively peaceful years of Edward’s reign were over.

Before the month was out Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were committed to the Tower of London.

Kate came to the Abbey from Remus, bringing Carey and Colas with her.

She was excited as always by great events. She wanted us to ride out to Wanstead to see the new Queen come to her capital and the young people joined her in the clamor to go.

I was glad to get away from the Abbey and we all rode out—myself and Kate with two of the men of our household to guard us and Carey, Honey, Catherine and Colas.

Kate was excited because the Princess Elizabeth was going to meet her sister at Wanstead and accompany her into London. Indeed everyone was gay and excited. It seemed incredible that such a short time ago I had had such fears. But even now I could not get out of my mind the thought of my mother at Caseman Court and I was wondering how she was feeling since her husband had lost what he had hoped for and if his Lutheran tendency were known would be in the kind of danger which had threatened my household such a short while ago.

I could not help noticing the admiring glances that came the way of my girls. Kate of course would always dominate any scene by that incomparable charm and now that she had poise and a certain look of experience to add to it, it had in no way diminished. But Honey was a beauty—in her way even more so than Kate. She was of course a child as yet but ready to burst into womanhood, and in her russet-colored velvet riding suit and her jaunty little feathered hat I thought she was one of the loveliest creatures I had ever seen. As for Catherine, in a similar hat but of dark-green velvet, she sparkled with the love of life—in contrast to the rather brooding silence of Honey, so that what she lacked in actual beauty she made up for by her vital personality. And Carey, what a handsome boy he was—with a look of Kate and not unlike my girls either. As for eight-year-old Colas, the baby of the group, he was determined to enjoy every moment. They might well all have been sisters and brothers. Catherine and Carey sparred continuously and we had to reprove them once or twice, telling Carey to remember not to speak to a lady as he spoke to Catherine, and Catherine to be less provoking.

And at Wanstead we saw the Queen’s meeting with her sister Elizabeth. It was a historic moment, I thought—the daughters of Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn meeting at Wanstead.

I’ll swear that more eyes were on the Princess Elizabeth than on the Queen. That red-haired young woman of twenty reminded me in some ways of my own Catherine. She was no beauty but possessed of vitality and charm which was in great contrast to the silent manners of the new Queen.

Mary was dressed in violet-colored velvet which did nothing to enhance her aging looks, for she was thirty-seven years old. But the cheers were loyal and when the sisters kissed they rang out even louder.

The sisters left Wanstead and rode toward the city. We joined in the press of people with our servants closing around us to ensure that we were given passage. I made the girls ride on either side of me, and so we came through the city portal at Aldgate and into London. Our young people chattered excitedly all the time. It was wonderful to see the streamers hanging from the windows and there were many groups of children to sing songs praising the new Queen; and in the Minories all the crafts of the city were represented in their appropriate costumes.

We followed all the way down to the Tower; on the river gaily decked crafts seemed to prance with delight and sweet music could be heard everywhere as the guns boomed a salute.

I wondered whether from some window in the Tower the Queen of nine days looked out on all this rejoicing and wondered what her fate would be. Of one thing there could be no doubt. London was welcoming the new Queen and heralding in the new reign.

Catherine said suddenly: “What a pity that Peter and Paul did not come with us. How they would have loved the procession.”

I shivered, and wondered how my mother was taking the news of the acclamation of a new queen while she who had reigned so briefly was awaiting her fate with dread.

Kate stayed with us for a while at the Abbey. She talked continually of the changing world. Under the last reign the Reformed faith had been the favored one; this was a return to Catholicism, and those who had been in high places during the last reign now found themselves out of favor.

Everyone was afraid to speak freely. It was seen how quickly one could fall out of favor and it was inevitable that after such a clash between two queens and two religions the blood should flow. Edward was buried at Westminster and the Queen had a solemn service performed for him in her private chapel with all the rites and ceremonies of the Church of Rome.

A few days later the Duke of Northumberland was beheaded.

Kate stayed for the coronation, which was in October, and we saw the Queen carried in her litter which was covered with cloth of silver and drawn by six white horses. Her gown was of blue velvet edged with ermine and she wore a caul of gold network on her head; it was set with pearls and precious stones.

I glanced at Kate and wondered if she remembered that other Queen whom we had seen years ago when Tom Skillen had been blackmailed by Kate into rowing us to Greenwich. How different that elegant radiant Anne from this aging, tired woman!

Kate whispered that the caul must be weighty with all those stones; and indeed the poor Queen looked as though it made her head ache.

And in an open chariot decorated with crimson velvet rode that other Queen’s daughter—the young Elizabeth—and with her was her stepmother Anne of Cleves—the only one of Henry’s poor sad queens to survive to that day.

It was a great pageant, but I wondered, and I am sure many did on that day, what lay in store for us all.

Of course I had known that a new reign would mean changes; for us at the Abbey it was as though we had a narrow escape from disaster. I was glad Simon Caseman remained subdued. He was wise in that he went about his estate neither condemning the new Queen nor praising her. Either would have been to call unwelcome attention to himself. An increased complacency was apparent in Bruno. He was regarded with an even greater wonder than before and I gathered from Clement that it was believed he had brought about another miracle which had saved the Abbey. It was the third. The first had been when he had come in the form of a baby in the crib and because of this the Abbey which had been in decline began to prosper; then he had returned to the Abbey after it had been disbanded and, lo, many had found it possible to return; and now when an enemy had threatened to destroy what he had built up, by a miracle the King had died in the nick of time and a new Catholic Queen was on the throne.

Bruno had done this—Bruno the miracle worker.

The first change was an act which abolished the Reformed liturgy, that which Edward and his Parliament had declared had been inspired by the Holy Ghost, and revived the old form which had been used in the days of Henry VIII. This was of greater significance than at first appeared because it was a pointer.

At the beginning of the following year we heard that there was to be a marriage between Mary and Philip of Spain, that most fanatical of Catholics.

There was an outcry about this and I knew that it gave great hope to those who wished to see the Reformed Church established. Mary was popular; she was the rightful heir; but the people of England had no desire to be dominated by Spain. The Parliament raised its voice to ask the Queen not to marry a foreigner, but this appeared to be of no avail.

I rarely went to Caseman Court. I was afraid of meeting Simon Caseman, but my mother and the twins were constant visitors to the Abbey.

Peter and Paul, so alike that one could not tell the difference between them, were about the same age as Carey and the children were almost as of one family. My mother had some time before asked that the twins should share my daughters’ tutors and this had been arranged, and when Kate stayed with us Carey would join them in the scriptorium. I regretted that neither of my girls shone in the schoolroom. They were bright without being clever. Carey excelled far more at outdoor pursuits rather than lessons; Peter was the cleverest of the children; though this was not discovered for some time and both were thought to be clever children until it was discovered that Peter did most of Paul’s book-work for him and was always ready with a whispered answer for his twin. Paul was the sportsman and could rival Carey in outdoor pastimes. It always seemed to me that the twins had the shared attributes of one very accomplished person.

My mother doted on them; so did their father. He might be grasping, avaricious and of an unpleasant character, but he certainly loved his sons.

I often thought how happy we all might have been together, but for the covetousness of Simon and the overwhelming pride of Bruno. If Bruno could have been a normal husband and father and Simon could have forgotten that others had what he wanted, if we could have settled down and accepted what we had and made the most of it, how different everything could have been. There were outside events of course, and these could strike in such a devastating manner that, in my opinion, families should stand firmly together as a bulwark against them, and not allow themselves to be fraught with internal conflicts.

My mother’s naïveté often gave me an insight into what might be happening at Caseman Court and it alarmed me.

When there was talk of the Queen’s marriage my mother could not hide a certain exhilaration, and I could tell at once that she hoped that the Queen would be overthrown. I knew that she was voicing her husband’s feelings for she would consider it her duty to share his opinions.

“Marriage with Spain,” she said, as she and I sat in my garden together. “Why, we shall be a subject of that country! Do Englishmen want that?”

“I doubt not,” I said, “that if the Queen married Philip of Spain there would be all sorts of conditions to prevent Spain’s getting a hold on the country.”

“When a woman marries she is influenced by her husband.”

I smiled at my mother. “Mother,” I said, “all women don’t make as dutiful wives as you do.”

She was a little uncertain what I meant by that but she went on: “We should have the Inquisition here. Can you guess what that means? No one would be safe. Any one of us could be carried off to face a tribunal. Have you any idea what it is like to live under the Inquisition in Spain?”

“It is terrible. I hate persecution in any form.”

My mother dropped the shirt she was embroidering for Peter or Paul. She gripped my arm. “Then, my dear Damask, we must prevent its ever coming to these shores.”

“I am sure the people will never tolerate it here.”

“If this Spanish marriage takes place who can say what will happen? If we are a dominion of Spain, they will be here with their thumbscrews and their instruments of torture.”

“They are already here, Mother, and were before the Queen thought of marrying a foreigner. I shudder sometimes when I pass the Tower and think of Father—and of the dungeons and the torture chambers in which so many people’s beloved sons and husbands have suffered. Women too…. Have you forgotten Anne Askew?”

“She was a martyr.”

“A martyr indeed.”

“A saint,” said my mother fervently.

“And would have been equally so had she been of any other faith.”

My mother was silent for a while and then she leaned toward me.

“This reign cannot last,” she said. “I have reasons for knowing this. I worry about you, Damask…you and the children.”

“Mother, I worry about you and the twins.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s strange that religion should be the cause. I can’t see why everyone cannot see the true way.”

“Your way, Mother? Or that of your husband perhaps?”

“I have seen the truth,” she said, “and I believe that you live dangerously. I should like to see you with us, Damask. So would your stepfather. He always speaks kindly of you.”

I smiled cynically. “That is indeed good of him, Mother.”

“Oh, he is a good man. A man of principles.”

Oh, God, I thought, do you not know that he murdered my father?

“He thinks that you resent his taking your father’s place.”

“No one could take his place,” I cried fiercely.

“I mean, my dear, because we married. Some daughters are like that…sons too. But you should remember that he has made me very happy.”

I wanted to shout the truth at her. He murdered my father; he asked me to marry him; he has tried to make an infamous bargain with me; he has asked for my virtue as a price for my safety. And this is the man of whom you, my mother, think so highly.

But of course I said nothing. She was so innocent. She must go on in her blissful ignorance.

“You should try to be a little more reasonable, Damask.”

I smiled rather sardonically and she smiled.

“Think about it,” she went on, “think what the Spanish marriage would mean. Queen Jane is still a prisoner in the Tower. There are still many who would be ready to proclaim her Queen and even those who feel that she has no rightful claim can look to the Princess Elizabeth.”

“But, Mother, how could the Princess come before Queen Mary?”

“The King proved his marriage to the Queen’s mother was no true marriage.”

“He proved it to himself,” I said. “Mother, do you not think that simples and herbs and flowers and embroidery are of greater interest than these weighty matters?”

“Well,” she conceded, “these weighty matters are for men.”

“Then would it not be better…and safer…for women to keep to those things in which without doubt they excel?”

She nodded smiling. “All the same, I worry about you,” she said. “I wish Bruno had bought a pleasant country mansion. An Abbey is suspect…particularly when….”

“Oh, Mother, when religion and politics sway this way and that, the treason of yesterday becomes the loyalty of today. Let us all take care. And let us remember that the enemies of Rome are those who are in danger today, although tomorrow it may be different.”

“Tomorrow,” said my mother, brightening. “That will come.”

It was small wonder that she disturbed me.

In the bakehouse Clement was kneading dough; the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows and he seemed to caress the mixture as he worked.

Catherine was sitting on the high stool watching him, her lovely face bright with interest. She had always had some enthusiasms for as long as I could remember. They faded quickly but they were nevertheless intense while they lasted; Honey was more constant.

“Go on, Clement,” she commanded; and I heard him say as I entered: “The Abbot had called us and we stood round the crib and there in it was the living child.”

She turned as I entered.

“Here comes our mistress,” said Clement, “to give me orders for the day. Mistress, I am trying a little burdock and purple orchis in the potage today. It gives a mightily pleasant flavor. I shall await your verdict.”

“Mother,” said Catherine, “Clement has been telling me the story. Was it not wonderful! It is like something from the Bible. Moses in the bulrushes. I always loved that story and now to know this….”

I looked at her animated face and I was not sure what I wanted to say to her. She was so thrilled by the thought that her father was some sort of saint or messiah and even though I was convinced that this was false and I wanted my daughter to accept the virtues of truth, the alternative to the mystery story was not something which I could tell to my daughter. Catherine had always had to know everything once her interest was aroused. She knew more of the histories of the people who lived around us than any other member of the household. Now I saw that I was in a quandary which had been certain to arise sooner or later. She either had to accept her father as this superior being or learn the sordid story of his birth. For the moment I thought it better for her to accept the legend, but I wished it had not been so.

I discussed the food that was to be prepared that day and said: “Come, Catherine, it will soon be time you were at your lessons and I wish you to gather some flowers for me and arrange them.”

“Oh, Mother, I hate arranging flowers. You know I can’t do it.”

“All the more reason that you should learn. It is one of the necessary accomplishments of a housewife.”

“I don’t think I shall be a housewife. I’ll stay here all my life and become a nun and I’ll have a convent of my own. An abbess I suppose I’d be.”

“My dear child, it is not long ago that monasteries and convents were dissolved by order of the King.”

“Ah, but that was in the old days, Mother. We have a new Queen now—a good, virtuous Queen. Doubtless she would wish to see the return of these institutions.”

“You are a child, Cat,” I said not without a twinge of alarm. “For God’s sake do not get embroiled in these matters yet.”

“Dear Mother, how vehement you are! I have always suspected you of being somewhat irreligious.” She kissed me in that endearing way of hers. “Not that I didn’t love you for it. I used to be frightened by all this…and all the people who looked like monks. I was afraid to go near some of the old buildings. Do you remember how I used to cling to your hand or your skirts? I used to think nothing can harm me while Mother is here, but she will always look after me.”

“My darling, I always would.”

“I knew, dearest Mother. You are so…as a mother should be. He is different, of course. He is wonderful. Clement has been telling me what it was like in the Abbey when he came. They did not know how to look after a baby and although they knew he was no ordinary baby as Clement says, he came in the shape of one and therefore was half mortal.”

“Clement talks too much.”

“It is all so interesting. There is so much I want to know.”

“Confine your interests to your lessons for a while,” I said.

She laughed with that high-pitched, infectious laughter which I so loved to hear. “Dear Mother. Dearest Mother. You are so practical…always….So different from….No wonder Aunt Kate laughs at you.”

“So I am the butt for your amusement?”

She kissed the tip of my nose. “Which is a good thing to be and we all love you for it. Why, Mother, what would we do without you?”

“Now,” I said, well pleased, “you will just have time to gather your flowers and arrange them before you go to the scriptorium. And do not be late. I have already had complaints of your un-punctuality.”

She ran off and I looked after her with that love which was so intense that it was like suffering a pain.

After that I often found her in the bakehouse where Clement would tell her stories of her father’s childhood. She discovered facts which I had never known. Each day she became more and more interested. Bruno had noticed it and he warmed toward her. At last he was taking an interest in his daughter.

One day I went into the schoolroom and heard Catherine and Honey quarreling.

“You are easily duped, Cat. You always believe what you want to. That is no way to learn what is true. I don’t believe it. I don’t like him. I never did. I believe he is cruel to…our mother.”

Catherine spat out: “It is because he is not your father. You are jealous.”

“Jealous! I tell you I am glad. I would have any man for my father rather than him.”

I paused at the door and did not go in. Instead I crept silently away.

I thought a great deal about that conversation. It was inevitable of course now that they were growing up that they should form their own opinions. When they had been little I had kept them away from him, knowing that there was no time in his life for young children. I did wonder whether it would have been different if Catherine had been a boy.

I considered them now—Catherine was nearly twelve years old, Honey fourteen—almost a woman, Honey, for she had developed earlier than most. There was a certain touch of Keziah’s voluptuousness about her and her beauty had by no means diminished. Those startling violet black-lashed eyes alone would have made her a beauty.

But she was not as easy to know as Catherine, who was all effervescence, her feelings close to the surface, tears and anger coming quickly and as quickly dispersing. Catherine showed her affection with a quick hug or a kiss; she could laugh derisively at one’s failings and then show a quick penitence if she thought she had inflicted a wound. How different was Honey! I was aware that I must be careful with Honey and I always had been, taking the utmost pains to show that I loved her equally with Catherine. For me she had, I was fully aware, a deep and passionate devotion. It gratified me and at the same time alarmed me a little, for one could never be quite sure of Honey. How her name belied her! She was wild and passionate.

It was disturbing now that they were growing up and developing such distinct personalities; and the more adoration Catherine showed for Bruno the more loathing Honey seemed to feel; and because they were young neither of them could cloak their feelings; and as Bruno realized his daughter’s growing appreciation and interest in him, so he was aware of Honey’s intensifying repulsion.

I decided that I would speak to Honey about it and I asked her to walk with me one morning around the garden and pick flowers with me. I was growing like my mother, I thought, in that I had become so domesticated; but I never had a great interest in these things and when I did my flowers my thoughts would be far away with what was happening at Court, for instance, and what effect any change there might have on our lives.

“Honey,” I said, “Catherine talks to you often of her father.”

“She talks of nothing else nowadays. Sometimes I think that Catherine is not very intelligent.”

“My dear Honey,” I replied, in what Catherine called my unnaturally virtuous voice, “is it unintelligent for a daughter to admire her father?”

“Yes,” retorted Honey, “if he is not admirable.”

“My dear child, you must not talk so. It is…ungrateful and unbecoming.”

“Should I be grateful to him?”

“You have lived your life under his roof.”

“I prefer to think it has been under yours.”

“He provided it.”

“He never wanted me here. It was only because you insisted that I was allowed to stay. I know so much. I go to my grandmother in the woods.”

“Does she speak of these things?”

“She is a wise woman, Mother, and she speaks sometimes in riddles as wise people do. I wonder why. Is it because they are afraid that if they speak clearly we might learn as much as they know?”

“That could be a reason.”

“My grandmother has told me some truths. She says it is well for me to know of certain matters. I often think how different life might have been for me but for you.”

“My darling Honey, you have been a joy and a comfort to me.”

“I shall always endeavor to be that,” she answered fervently.

“My blessed child, you are my own daughter, remember.”

“But by adoption. Tell me about my mother.”

“Does not your grandmother tell you?”

“I would like you to tell me for people see others in different ways.”

“She was gay and in a way beautiful…though you are more so.

“Am I like her then?”

“No, not in your ways.”

“She was not married to my father. He came to disband the Abbey. What was he like?”

“I saw little of him,” I said evasively.

“And my mother fell in love with him and I was born.”

I nodded. So she had in a way and I could not tell Honey the horrible truth.

“I am his sister,” she said. “My grandmother told me. She said: ‘You are both my grandchildren.’ And when I heard it I could not believe it. My grandmother says it is why he hates me. He would rather not have to see me.”

“He does not believe it, because he will not accept the fact that your mother was his.”

“He believes himself to be divine.” She laughed. “Do divine people care so much that people shall adore them?”

“He believes he has a great mission in life. He has given homes to these people here.”

“He never gives without counting what will come back to him in return. That is not true giving.”

She was too discerning, my Honey.

“You should try to understand him.”

“Understanding does not increase my respect for him. Perhaps I understand too well, as might be expected since we came of the same mother.”

“Honey, I would like you to forget that. I think of myself as your mother. Could you not try to do the same?”

She turned to me and I saw the blazing devotion in her eyes.

“My darling child,” I said. “You cannot know how much you mean to me.”

“If I could have a wish,” she told me, “it would be that I were truly your daughter and Catherine was my own mother’s.”

“Nay, I would have you both my daughters.”

“I would liefer be the only one.”

Yes, Honey gives me twinges of alarm. Her hate would be as fierce as her love.

There could not be peace for long. My mother had come over to tell me that Simon Caseman had gone away “on business.” She was anxious, I could see, and I wondered what this business entailed.

Simon Caseman was clever. He had not come out openly on the side of Queen Jane but I was sure that had she succeeded in holding the Crown he would have supported her wholeheartedly. Now I wondered whether there was some fresh conspiracy afoot.

I was soon to discover. Sir Thomas Wyatt was leading a rebellion against Queen Mary.

My mother came hurrying over to the Abbey with the news that the Queen was in the Palace of Whitehall and Sir Thomas Wyatt’s men were marching on the city. The Queen was in despair.

“She knows that this is the end of her reign.” My mother’s voice rang out triumphantly.

I said: “Where is your husband?” She smiled secretly.

“I worry about you, Damask,” she said almost immediately. “I want you to bring the girls and come over to Caseman Court. When Sir Thomas Wyatt is triumphant I would not have you here.”

“And if Sir Thomas does not triumph?”

“You will see.”

“Mother,” I said, “where is your husband?”

“He has business to do,” she answered.

“Business?” I asked. “With Sir Thomas Wyatt?”

She did not answer and I did not press her to because I was afraid.

I said: “Sir Thomas would set Queen Jane or the Princess Elizabeth on the throne. And do you think that if he did so the people would stand by and let the rightful Queen be thrust aside?”

“I wish you would come with me to Caseman Court” was her answer.

But my mother was disappointed for on the cold February day which followed that when my mother had implored me to take care, the rebel forces marched in London and there was fighting in the streets of the capital. I heard that the Queen was intrepid and it was she who had to comfort her weeping ladies. Later I discovered how near Wyatt had come to success, and might have done so but when cornered in Fleet Street, surrounded and cut off from his fighting forces, he had given himself up believing the battle to be lost.

My mother was indeed distraught and knowing that Simon was not at Caseman Court I went over to see her.

“What has gone wrong?” she cried. “Why does the Papist woman always succeed?”

“Perhaps,” I answered, “because she is the true Queen.”

Shortly after that Jane, the Queen of nine days, was executed with her husband. That was a sad day for even those who were fanatically Papist were well aware that the innocent young girl of sixteen had been enemy to none; she had not desired the Crown which had been forced upon her by an ambitious father-in-law and husband; yet she had been led blindfolded to the dock and that fair head had been severed from her shoulders.

The Princess Elizabeth was implicated in the rebellion; and indeed it was said that the object of it was meant to place her, not Jane, on the throne.

Bruno said: “She is a wily woman and greedy for the throne. It is a pity that they did not take her head instead of Jane’s.”

“Poor Elizabeth,” I remonstrated. “She is so young.”

“She is twenty years of age—old enough for ambition. The Queen should not allow her to live.”

But the Queen did allow her to live for Sir Thomas Wyatt, who that April laid his head on the block, declared with his last breath that the Princess Elizabeth was innocent of any conspiracy against her sister.

Simon Caseman had returned to Caseman Court. I wondered what part he had played in the Wyatt rebellion.

It was a marvelous thing that he could be involved and extricate himself before the involvement became an embarrassment. I was convinced that what he wanted was to see the end of Mary’s reign, to prevent this return to Rome which was threatened and to see a Protestant ruler set up in the Queen’s place.

The obvious choice was Elizabeth.

It was Bruno’s belief that Elizabeth took her religion as she took her politics—from expediency. The Queen was Catholic and her proposed marriage to a Spaniard was unpopular; if Elizabeth were going to stand in contrast to her sister she must support the Protestant faith. And that was why she did so.

She had become important. People were looking to her more and more. There were many of Mary’s supporters who would have liked to have her head; but the Queen was not vindictive. Some said she remembered the days of Elizabeth’s childhood when she, Mary, had had a fondness for an engaging little sister.

And so although Queen Mary had placed herself firmly on the throne and strong men and factions surrounded her with the purpose and intention of keeping her there, there were uneasy moments. And the thoughts and hopes of many men and women were turned to the daughter of Anne Boleyn.

My mother came to the Abbey with the usual baskets full of good things. She had a story to tell. She had the twins with her for they seized the opportunity to come to the Abbey whenever they could and they carried her baskets for her.

The girls came to see what she had brought and to listen to her news.

“My word,” she said, settling down, “there are goings-on in the city.”

“Tell us, Grandmother,” commanded Catherine.

“Well, my dear, ’tis a haunted house in Aldersgate Street, though maybe it is not haunted. It may well be that it is an angel of God abiding there. Who can say?”

“Do get on,” cried Catherine. “Oh, Grandmother, you are so maddening. You keep us in suspense always with your stories.”

“She will tell it in good time,” I said. “Don’t harass her.”

“Good time,” cried Catherine. “What is good time? Now is good time in my opinion.”

“And who is wasting time now?” asked Honey.

“You!” cried Catherine. “Now, Grandmother.”

“It’s a voice that came from the bricks,” said Peter. “I heard it. Didn’t you, Paul?”

Paul agreed with his brother as he agreed in everything.

“What sort of a voice?” insisted Catherine.

“Well, if you had let me explain from the beginning,” said my mother, “you would know by now.”

“Which is perfectly true,” I added.

“Well, tell us,” cried Catherine.

“There is a voice which comes from the bricks of this house. And when the people cry, ‘God save Queen Mary,’ it says nothing.”

“How can it be a voice if nothing is said?” demanded Catherine.

“What an impatient child she is,” said my mother frowning. “You do not wait to hear. Now when the crowd shouts, ‘God save the Lady Elizabeth,’ the voice says, ‘So be it.’ ”

“Who is it then?” asked Honey.

“That is the mystery. There is no one in the house. Yet the voice comes.”

“There must be someone,” I said.

“There is no one. The house is empty. And when the crowds shout, ‘What is the Mass?’ the voice answers, ‘Idolatry.’ ”

Catherine had flushed scarlet. “It is some wicked person who is tricking people.”

“It’s a voice,” said my mother, “and no one there. A voice without a body. Is that not a marvelous thing?”

“If it talked sense it would be,” said Catherine.

“Sense! Who is to question the divine word?”

“I do,” said Catherine. “It is only divine for Protestants. To the people of the true faith it is…heresy.”

“Be silent, Cat,” I said. “You are disrespectful to your grandmother.”

“Is it disrespectful then to tell the truth?”

“Truth to one perhaps is not truth to another.”

“How can that be? The truth must always stand.”

I said wearily: “I will not have these conflicts in the house. Is it not bad enough that they persist in the country?”

Catherine persisted: “I must say what I feel.”

“You must learn to curb your tongue and show a proper respect where it is due.”

“Respect!” said Catherine. “My father would say….”

I said: “I will have no more of this.”

Catherine flung out of the room. “It is a pretty pass,” she muttered, “when one must pretend to agree with wicked lies…just to please people.”

“My word,” said my mother, “there goes a fierce little Papist.”

I noticed that Honey was smiling, as she always did when there was a difference between myself and Catherine.

With such frictions in the family, I wondered how one could hope for harmony in the world.

Catherine was triumphant when an investigation of the house revealed a young woman, named Elizabeth Croft, who had been secreted into a hole in the wall that she might answer the questions which were put to her and incite the people against the Queen and her Spanish marriage.

“There is your voice,” cried Catherine and hurried over to Caseman Court to tell my mother.

“She was so discountenanced, I couldn’t help laughing,” she told me when she came back.

“You should have had more compassion,” I told her.

“Compassion on such a bigot!”

“And you, my dear, do you perhaps suffer from the same complaint?”

“But I am in favor of the true religion.”

“As I said, a bigot, Catherine. I do not wish you to become involved in these matters.”

“I talk of them with my father…now.” Her eyes were shining. “It is wonderful to have discovered him. All these years I have been at fault.”

“He took no notice of you.”

“Of course he did not when I was young and stupid. It is different now.”

“I do beg of you to be careful.”

She flew at me and hugged me. “Dearest Mother, you must know that I am grown up…almost.”

“But not quite,” I reminded her.

Peter came in to tell us that Elizabeth Croft was in the pillory for playing her part in the hoax.

“Poor girl,” I said. “I hope she does not pay for this with her head.”

I thought then: A common price to be asked. And when I considered the religious conflict which seemed to have intensified rather than to have diminished now that we had a firmly Catholic Queen I continued in my apprehension and promised myself that if it must be there in the outside world it should be curbed in the family.

That July Prince Philip of Spain landed in England and the Queen traveled to Winchester where they were married.

We saw their entry to the capital. They crossed London Bridge on horseback and I was struck by the wan look of the Queen and the pathetically adoring manner which she displayed toward her pale-faced, thin-lipped bridegroom. She was nearly ten years older than he and I felt sorry for her.

The marriage was very unpopular but when the people saw the treasure which Philip had brought with him they cheered. Ninety-nine chests were needed to carry it and these chests were filled with gold and silver bullion. This accompanied the royal couple on their journey to the Tower and at least that met with the people’s approval. It was more loudly cheered than the bride and groom, but even in spite of this there were murmurings in the crowd.

Now we indeed saw the changes in the land. Under the Queen’s father life had been dangerous. He had been a tyrant who had been wont to demand a man’s head should he give offense; yet in that King’s day life had seemed colorful. There had been constant drama at Court where the King had changed his wives frequently; this Queen remained constant to her husband; she doted on him; but the solemnity of Spain had already taken possession of the Court.

There was something else. The laws of Spain were being brought into the country. We heard a great talk about the true church which was the Holy Church of Rome and the word “heretic” was constantly used.

And then the fires of Smithfield began to burn.

Often from the gardens we would see the pall of smoke, and when the wind blew westward would smell it; we would shiver and fancy we heard the shrieks of the dying.

The Queen had been given a new name. It was Bloody Mary.

It was on a cold February day in the year 1555 when they took Simon Caseman.

The first I heard was when Peter and Paul came running over to the Abbey. At first I could not understand what had happened. They were incoherent.

“They came…they looked everywhere….”

“They have taken books away with them….”

“They tied up their barge by the privy steps….”

I said, “Peter, Paul, tell me from the beginning. What is this?”

I think I guessed very quickly. After all it was not uncommon. And I had long known that Simon Caseman was flirting with the new faith.

Paul started to cry suddenly. “They have taken our father,” he said.

“Where is your mother?”

“She is just sitting there…staring. She doesn’t speak. Come quickly, Damask. Please come with us.”

I hurried over to the house. I went into the hall where the table was set for a meal and I thought: It was to this hall they came to take my father…. Simon Caseman brought them to take him…and now they have come for Simon Caseman.

My mother was seated at the table. She looked as though she were dazed. I knelt beside her and took her cold hand in mine.

“Mother,” I said, “I am here.”

She spoke then. “Is it Damask? My girl Damask?”

“Yes, Mother, I am here.”

“They came and took him,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“Why should they take him? Why—”

“Perhaps he will come back,” I said, knowing full well that he would not. Had not the twins said they had found books and taken them away? He was doomed as a heretic.

“Mother,” I said, “you should lie down. I will get you one of your potions. If you could sleep a little…perhaps when you awoke….”

“He will come back?”

“Perhaps he will. Perhaps they have taken him for questioning.”

She clutched at my arm.

“That’s it,” she said. “They’ve taken him to question him on some matter. He will come back. He is a good man, Damask.”

“Mother,” I said, “let me help you to your bed.”

The twins watched me as though I were possessed of some power to soothe her. How I wished I had been! For the first time in my life I should have been happy then to see Simon Caseman walk in.

“What harm had he done?” she demanded.

“Let us hope he will soon be back to tell you all about it.”

She allowed me to help her to bed and I sent for that soothing draft; and I thought: Twice in her life a husband has been taken from her; and twice in the name of religion.

When she was sleeping I returned to the Abbey. I met Bruno as I came into the hall.

I said: “I have come from my mother. She is distracted with grief.”

“So they have taken him,” he said; and a smile played about his lips.

“You know!” I cried.

He nodded, smiling secretly.

I cried out: “You…arranged it. You informed against him.”

“He is a heretic,” he replied.

“He is my mother’s husband.”

“Have you forgotten that one night he would have done the same to me?”

“It is revenge then,” I said.

“It is justice.”

“Oh, God!” I cried. “It will be Smithfield for him.”

“The heretic’s reward.”

I covered my face with my hands because I could not bear to go on looking into Bruno’s. “So much grief for your father’s murderer!” I turned and ran to my room.

The girls came to me.

“Mother, is it true then?” cried Catherine, her face working with emotion. “They have taken him. What will they do to him? What are they doing now?”

“He will die,” said Honey. “He will die at the stake.”

Catherine’s face puckered. “They can’t do it, can they? They can’t…to him! He is your stepfather.”

“That fact will not deter them,” I said sadly.

Catherine cried: “And they will burn him to death simply be cause he believes God should be worshiped in a certain way? I know he is a heretic and heretics are wicked, but to burn him”

“To death,” said Honey somberly.

They were too young to know of such horrors. I said: “It may be that it will not happen. I am going to bring the twins over here. You will be very kind to them. You will remember that it is their father….”

They nodded.

Then I went back to my old home to look after my mother.

I sat with her and we tried to talk of other things: of her garden, of her stillroom. But all the time her ears were alert for the sound of a barge at the privy stairs, for the voice which I knew she would never hear again.

It was no use. We must talk of him, because it was of him that she was thinking. She told me how good he had always been to her; how happy had been her years with him.

“He was the perfect husband,” she told me; and I thought of that good man, my father, and asked myself if she had mourned him like this, although I knew the answer to that.

“He was so clever,” she said. “He wanted to know what people were writing…what people were thinking.”

Ah, poor Simon Caseman, he should have known that one must not display interest even where our rulers had decided that we should not.

“They should have kept Queen Jane on the throne. This wouldn’t have happened then.”

No, Mother, I thought, not to you. But to others. Perhaps to Bruno.

Then I remembered that it was Bruno who had brought this about. He had done to Simon Caseman what Simon had tried to do to him.

I thought: I shall remember it forever. I had loathed the man but it sickened me to think that he had been betrayed by my husband.

The day had come. My mother wanted to go to Hampton Court, there to see the Queen and beg her to pardon her husband.

He was a heretic, proved to be a heretic, and so I heard would not diverge from his opinions. A strange man—so much that was evil in him and yet my mother thought him the perfect husband and he remained true to his belief in face of death.

I quieted my mother that day with her poppy juice and she slept.

I went out into the garden and looked toward the city. A pall of smoke was drifting down the river. The Smithfield fires were burning.

Then I went in and sat by my mother’s bed that I might be there to comfort her when she awakened.

Death of a Witch

A YEAR HAD PASSED since Simon Caseman suffered the heretic’s death. My mother seemed to have aged ten years. Caseman Court had been returned to its rightful owner—myself—for as the wife of a good Catholic who had defied the reign of heretics and in some measure reformed the old Abbey, I was in high favor.

I did not tell my mother that the house had been returned to me. Her grief was too great for her to be concerned with such matters. She went on living there. It was a sad and sorry household.

Rupert was often there; he had offered to help with the estate and this he had done. I saw him frequently and his gentleness to my mother moved me deeply.

I loved Rupert. It was no wild passion—just a gentle enduring affection. Since the betrayal of Simon Caseman I had felt a kind of revulsion toward Bruno. He knew this and hated me for it. Honey was right when she said he wanted admiration all the time. I would say he wanted adoration.

In spite of her shock over Simon Caseman’s death Catherine’s devotion toward her father had intensified. They were often together and I believe that Bruno found pleasure in turning her from me. I was hurt that my years of love and devotion could be so easily undermined. But she was bemused by him, as others had been before her, and still were. God knows I could understand that. Was I not once as bemused as any?

Honey watched Catherine’s growing devotion to her father and her estrangement from me with a satisfaction which could only alarm me.

The times were sickeningly melancholy; but never before had there been such discord in my own family circle.

I was turning more and more to my old home, where my mother was always glad to see me. Rupert was often there and we would all three sit together finding some consolation in talking of the old days.

It was a terrible year. I remember when Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake on a bitter March day in front of Baliol College in Oxford. They said that he held out his right hand first to meet the flames because it was with that hand that he signed a document recanting his beliefs.

Ninety-four people were burned that year—forty-five of them women; and there were even four children.

I found it difficult to go about my ordinary affairs. Whenever I went out of doors I seemed to smell the Smithfield fires. I dreamed of Simon Caseman writhing in agony, and I could not help remembering that Bruno had sent him to that fate.

Kate wrote from Remus. Carey would soon be sixteen years of age and she wanted to give a ball to celebrate his birthday.

The young people were excited. We lived in melancholy times and it was wise no doubt to get away from the news of arrests and dire consequences for a while; and Kate was the one to arrange such an occasion.

Honey, Catherine and I traveled to Remus with the twins and a few servants. Bruno refused the invitation and my mother preferred to stay at home; and as our barge took us downriver farther away from Smithfield and the Tower I felt my spirits rising a little.

I was amused by Catherine who could not hide her excitement at the prospect of the ball and at the same time wondered whether she ought not to have stayed behind to be with her father. The dress I had had made for her was of golden-colored velvet from Italy. The bodice was stiffened and the front opened to show a beautifully embroidered brocade kirtle—also from Italy. Honey’s dress was similar but of blue velvet. Honey was nearly seventeen years old, Catherine fifteen. I thought with a pang: They are growing up. Soon it will be a case of finding husbands for them.

It was pleasant to be with Kate again. Even though she was past thirty, she was no less attractive than she had been at seventeen. I often wondered why she had not married again. It was certainly not due to a devotion to Remus.

She entertained a good deal in Remus Castle. Now her guests would be Catholic families. Kate was too wise to be embroiled in politics; she was one who would sway with the wind.

As soon as we arrived she carried me off for a private talk, and her first words were to compliment me on the looks of the girls.

“It should not be difficult to find husbands for them. They are an attractive pair. Catherine should have a good dowry. What of Honey?”

“I shall see that she is adequately provided for.”

“Ah, yes, Caseman Court is yours now.” A shadow crossed her face. “A bad business. How is your mother?”

“She has aged ten years. She works in her garden. Thank God she has that. Oh, Kate, what a melancholy country this has become!”

“It was more gay, was it not, under Henry when we were girls? I have a feeling, though, that this will not last. The Queen is a sick woman.” She lowered her voice. “One must be careful how one speaks. Poor woman! She has brought misery to thousands.”

“Is it the Queen? Or is it her ministers?”

“Ah, there you have it. She is a fanatic surrounded by fanatics.”

“These burnings at the stake. There was never such horror here before.”

“You forget those who were hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

“There are those too and in addition that fearsome pall of smoke that seems to hang forever over Smithfield. I wonder what is coming to us all.”

“There is the great consolation that it cannot last. It is the Spanish influence. These burnings of which you speak have been a feature of Spanish life since Torquemada and Isabella revived the Inquisition in Spain. If the Spaniards should get a hold on England it would be the same story here.”

“God forbid!”

“Have a care, Damask. It is better to speak only of these things to those whom you trust—and whom can one trust?”

“All this in the name of religion!” I cried.

“In the name of envy, malice and covetousness perhaps. Many men go to their death sent by someone who covets an estate, a woman—or even desires revenge. Who sent Simon Caseman to his death, think you?” I was silent and she went on: “Bruno? Such a short time ago he threatened Bruno.”

“Only a lucky chance prevented Bruno’s being taken, I am sure.”

“A miracle?” she said mockingly. “With Bruno there must always be miracles.”

We were silent for a while and then she went on: “It will not last, Damask. It is said that the Queen cannot live long. She is the most unhappy woman in England. Her husband does not love her. She is distasteful to him, they say. He prefers to roam far from her and they say he is happier spending a night in an inn with the landlord’s daughter than with her. I have heard some of our servants singing a rhyme which would no doubt cost them their lives if they were overheard in some quarters. I’ll whisper it to you:

‘The baker’s daughter in her russet gown

Better than Queen Mary without her crown.’

There. But is it true? He is a strange, cold man, and we shall never understand these Spaniards.”

“I am sorry for her but I deplore this sorry state into which we have fallen. It seems one is a heretic if one as much as discusses a new idea.”

“Ah, we have a hint—and only a hint—what religious persecution can mean. But there is a growing resentment in the people. It might well be that if Wyatt had waited a few years…if he had risen now he might have had enough support to put Elizabeth on the throne.”

“You think life would be different under her?”

“Who can say? She is young. She is clever. How many times do you think she has come within an inch of losing her head? The Queen has a softness for her sister though. She would rather remove her from the succession by giving birth to a child.”

“Can she do this?”

“You will have heard of those supposed pregnancies which were not pregnancies at all. Poor woman. She suffers from dropsy, they say, and so great is her desire to bear a child that she believes she is about to do so. Imagine her grief when she discovers it is a false pregnancy.”

“Poor lady. It is no great good fortune to be a Queen.”

“It is no great good fortune to be any of us in this age,” said Kate with a laugh. “Unless of course you are as clever as I am. Tomorrow at the ball you will meet good Catholic families most fervently loyal to the Queen and those who, like myself, reserve their judgment. They are the wise ones. They are poised…watchful of events and ready to leap to the appropriate side a moment before the rest of the country realizes what is happening. The wise ones are like me. They take their religion mildly; they are not fanatical or fervent…calmly swaying with the wind. Remember this, my dear Damask, and you will enjoy my ball.”

The ballroom of the castle was decorated with leaves and flowers and the musicians were in the minstrels’ gallery, almost hidden from view by the heavy curtains on either side of it.

At six o’clock we feasted in the great hall and I had rarely seen such elaborate dishes. I thought how Clement would have loved to examine the contents of those massive pies and to test the quality of the crust. The leading families present had the pleasure of seeing their coats of arms and crests on the pies; the sucking pigs were brought in steaming hot on dishes which were carried around the tables by Kate’s servants in the Remus livery; and when the sirloin was brought in we all stood up and made obeisance to the dish which had been knighted by King Henry.

Cakes had been baked and topped with ginger; in one of these cakes was a tiny figure in the shape of a king. These were distributed among the men; and the one to find the king in his cake was elected King of the Revels for the night or Lord of Misrule.

There was a great deal of amusement when Carey found the king’s figure; it was clear that he was hoping that a very pretty girl, Mary Ennis, daughter of Lord Calperton, who was a guest with her father and her brother Edward, would win the queen’s figure. He was well mannered enough to hide his dismay when Catherine won it.

Catherine laughed with delight and I could not help smiling, recalling how solemn she had been when wondering whether she ought to leave the Abbey and join in our frivolity.

She and Carey must needs now put their heads together and plan games and antics for our amusement; and this they did. There were charades and guessing games and we became very merry.

Carey and Catherine must lead us in the dance and they did so with some decorum though I overheard Catherine whisper to Carey fiercely: “And I’m almost as old as you in any case and everybody knows that girls grow up more quickly than boys.”

I found myself dancing with Rupert.

“It is pleasant to be here,” he said.

“I have not felt so content for a long time,” I told him.

“This is how life should always be,” he said. “Not just a little oasis of pleasure. But families gathering together like this.”

“And yet, Rupert,” I said, “even on such an occasion we must guard our tongues lest we betray something which could bring harm to us. It is only with our nearest and our trusted friends that we can be frank.”

“Damask,” he said, “how frank are you prepared to be?”

“In what way?”

“I wonder about you so much. I think of you constantly. Sometimes I brood on what it might have been if everything had turned out differently. Then I think of you at the Abbey there.”

“Yes, Rupert.”

“A strange life,” he said. “How is it there, Damask? Are you happy?”

“I have the girls,” I said.

“And they suffice?”

“They mean a great deal to me, but they will marry and have lives of their own. You should have married, Rupert. Then you would have had children.”

“Who would marry and have lives of their own. But I should like children.”

“You are young yet. Who knows, perhaps at this very gathering you will meet someone. You are in your thirties…some say it is the prime.”

“Let us sit down,” he said. “This conversation interests me so much that I prefer not to fit it to the dance.”

So we sat and I watched my girls. Honey, breathtakingly lovely as all must think her, dancing with Edward Ennis, and Catherine with Carey, scowling at him now and then when he trod on her toe and yet her eyes aflame with excitement, for she loved to dance. And how well it suited her, far better than brooding on whether she should go into a convent, if, now that we were under a rigorous Catholic rule, one could be found for her.

“You know I shall not,” said Rupert.

“What was that? I was thinking of Catherine.”

“Marry and settle. And you know why.”

I looked at him and seeing the expression in his eyes I was amazed that he had remained faithful all those years. I could not help my pleasure, which was wrong for it was no life for him to hope for a woman who was married to someone else.

“And Bruno?” he said.

“What of him?”

“He is all that you hoped he would be?”

“We generally ask too much of people, do we not?”

“And you asked too much?”

I hesitated and then I said: “Sometimes I wonder about our life at the Abbey. Sometimes it takes on the quality of a dream. It is so…unreal. We are living in an Abbey…. Many of those who live there were once monks. They had services in the church and those services are openly now the same as those which were conducted there long ago. As you know the Abbot’s Lodging was made into a castle not unlike this. But there are the monks’ dorter and refectory which still stand. I believe many of them behave just as they used to. We are an abbey which is not an abbey. Bruno is an abbot with a wife and family. Since King Edward died it has become more openly so. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the Queen were to die. Simon Caseman was about to betray us at the time of the King’s death. Poor man, it was he who met his death. It is a strange life.”

“If you were happy you would think it worthwhile. You are not happy, Damask.”

“What is happiness? Just a day or so here and there…a moment perhaps…. How often can anyone say, ‘Now I am completely happy’?”

“That should not be so. A life of contentment should be within our reach.”

“With the uncertainty which surrounds us! When we know not from one day to the next when some misguided word or act could lead us to the death!”

“All the more reason to take happiness when we can.”

I sighed. “I saw my father taken. My mother has lost two husbands. By a quirk of fate I am not a widow now. Oh, it is a violent world we live in. Will it always be so?”

“It will change. Change is inevitable.”

Suddenly I touched his arm. “Rupert, take care. Do not lean one way or the other for how do we know from one week to the next which is the safe way?”

“I am not a fanatical man, Damask. I keep a steady road…quiet, unexciting, I suppose.”

I said: “I think we should dance.”

And as we joined the dancers I knew that he was telling me that he loved me now as he had in the beginning and whatever happened he would not change.

As his hands touched mine in the dance, he said: “Always remember, whatever happens…I should be at hand.”

It was a comforting thought.

Lord Calperton and his family were guests at the Castle for several days and I began to notice that young Edward was always at Honey’s side. She blossomed; a radiance was added to her beauty.

I was afraid for her. The Ennis family was a noble one, and my Honey, of doubtful parentage, would not seem a very good match, I was sure. I did not want the child to be hurt and she could be more easily than Catherine, who had the security of being my own and Bruno’s daughter.

All the same I was sorry when it was time for us to go back to the Abbey; and it was not long after our return when I received an invitation to visit Grebblesworth, the Ennises’ place in Hertfordshire and to take the two girls with me. Kate was also invited. She wrote to me jubilantly.

“Mistress Honey made quite an impression on Master Edward. I’m not surprised. That girl is a real beauty. She is fascinating. There is a kind of smoldering passion behind those glorious eyes of hers. But I must say I’m surprised. After all Edward is the Calperton heir. Well, we shall see.

“Of course we all know that Bruno is very rich and his situation is very fitting to our present way of life. I am truly eager to see the outcome of this.”

Honey was enchanted. I realized that for the first time in her life she was at the very heart of everything. It was because of her that we had received this invitation. Catherine had been invited too, but simply because she belonged to the family.

I spent the next weeks with the seamstresses and we made gowns for Honey. She looked delightful in her riding habits with the little feathered caps we had had made for her.

I said to her as we tried on a lovely brocade gown, “Are you happy, Honey?”

She threw her arms about my neck and I had to protest that she was suffocating me.

She said: “Everything I have had and shall have comes from you.”

I was deeply moved and I replied: “Whatever happens you and I will love each other.”

The night before we left for Grebblesworth she was not in her room when I went to consult her about a ribbon for her hair.

I felt a twinge of alarm and went to Catherine’s room to see if she had seen her. Catherine was sitting disconsolately in a chair studying a book of prayers in Latin. She looked very pleased to put it aside.

“Where is Honey?” I asked.

“I saw her go out half an hour ago.”

“Did she say where?”

“No, but she goes often in that direction.”

“What direction?”

“To the woods, I think.”

“I don’t like her being out alone. There are robbers about.”

“They wouldn’t dare harm anyone from the Abbey, Mother. They would be afraid of what my father would do.” When she spoke his name a beautiful smile touched her lips. “It is wonderful to have a saint for a father.”

I turned aside impatiently. I was asking myself often whether I was jealous of Catherine’s devotion to her father.

I left Catherine and went back to Honey’s room. I waited there anxiously until she came back.

“Honey,” I cried. “Where have you been?”

“To see my grandmother.”

“Mother Salter?”

“I call her Grandmother. She is my grandmother, you know.”

I recalled the time when Honey had run away from me because she thought I cared more for Catherine than for her.

“I always go to her when something important happens. She wishes me to.”

“And something important has happened?”

“Is it not important that we should be asked to Grebblesworth?”

“It could be, Honey.”

“It is. I know it is.”

“Honey, my dear child, does it make you happy…that they have asked you?”

“As happy as I never hoped to be,” she answered.

Lord Calperton received us warmly. He was a widower of some years’ standing and it was clear to me that this great mansion lacked a mistress. They were a good Catholic family and as Kate said “unworldly” but I for one liked them none the less for that.

I fancied Lord Calperton, like most men, was a little in love with Kate; perhaps that was one of the reasons why he had taken so kindly to the family.

It was not a large house party, which perhaps made it all the more enjoyable. We rode through the countryside; we danced a little; we played games and there were dinner parties when we met the local families. Carey sought out pretty Mary’s company and that left Honey to Edward. Catherine and Thomas, the younger son of the household, played rather rough games together, and it was a very jolly party.

Kate was amused by the rapidly advancing friendship between Edward and Honey.

She whispered to me: “I verily believe that Calperton is so enchanted with us that he would ask a very small dowry for Honey.”

“Do you really think they would consider her?”

Kate laughed at me. “How excited you are! Why, Damask, you are a matchmaking Mamma. I am surprised.”

“I want Honey to be happy. She is very taken with Edward.”

“And he with her.”

“Oh,” I cried, “I believe she would be so happy. She has always felt that she was not of the same importance as Catherine. Heaven knows I have done my best to convince her. But if this in truth became a marriage…. Oh, I can see her mistress of this house.”

“If Calperton does not marry again of course.”

“Kate, you are not thinking—”

“I have refused a Duke and two Earls. Do you think I should succumb to my Lord Calperton?”

“You might possibly love the man more than a great title.”

“There speaks the old sentimental Damask. I do declare you amaze me. A scheming matchmaking mother one moment, gloating over the fine match her daughter will make, and then sentimentally talking of love. Let me tell you this, Damask. I have no intention of taking Calperton. As far as I am concerned Honey shall have the scene all to herself. But I know my Calperton. He wishes Edward to marry. He wants a grandson. Young Edward is completely enamored of Mistress Honey—and I am not surprised. My Lord will reason that he is more likely to get healthy sons with a young woman who so enthralls him. “I’ll wager you that ere long there will be a discreet offer for Honey’s hand.”

I was so delighted, because I knew the state of Honey’s feelings.

And when the offer came, I myself saw Lord Calperton. I told him that Honey was my adopted daughter; I myself would provide her dowry. She was well educated, a lady in every sense. She was the daughter of a woman who had served me but been a friend; and her father had worked for Thomas Cromwell. He was satisfied.

Honey was married on that June day in the year 1557 when war was declared on France.

The marriage was celebrated at the chapel in Caseman Court. I had chosen this because after all it was my home and I made the excuse that it would do my mother good to supervise the celebrations. And it did; bustling about her garden, gathering herbs for this and that, practicing with her new salads and giving orders in the kitchen seemed to bring her alive again.

Bruno attended the wedding but he was aloof. As for Honey she had little to say to him; she had always avoided him.

We had the usual ceremonies with the bridecake and the mummers came in and performed. I was gratified to see my mother laughing merrily at their antics, and happy to pass Honey on to Edward Ennis, for it had given me the utmost pleasure to see her happily settled.

After the wedding we all seemed faintly depressed. My mother, deprived of all the tasks which the wedding had entailed, sank into melancholy once more; what surprised me most was how much Catherine missed Honey, far more than I had believed possible. She became moody—very different from the girl who had danced so gaily and teased Carey as Queen of Misrule.

Kate came to the rescue by suggesting that Catherine should come to Remus Castle for a spell and this was arranged. I was surprised by the alacrity with which she went.

It was soon after her departure that one of the servants brought me a message from Mother Salter. These messages were in a way like commands, and it did not occur to me to disobey them. I suppose deep down in me I was superstitious as most other people although my father’s teaching should have placed me beyond such primitive thinking. Mother Salter was a witch but she was the great-grandmother of Bruno, child of a serving girl and a monk, who had risen to become head of a community, and of Honey who had married into the aristocracy; and when I considered this I realized that it was Mother Salter who had made the fortunes of both her grandchildren.

She was a power in her little cottage as Bruno was in his Abbey and the reason was that we all believed—in lesser or greater degree—in the extraordinary powers of these people. I no less than the most gullible of my serving girls.

So I lost no time in going to Mother Salter in the woods.

I was shocked when I saw her. She had always been lean, now she was emaciated.

I cried out: “Why, Mother Salter, you are ill.”

She caught my hand, hers was cold and clawlike; I noticed the brown marks on her skin which we call the flowers of death.

“I am ready to go,” she said. “My grandson’s fate is in his own hands. I have provided for my granddaughter.”

I could have smiled for was I not the one who had nurtured Honey and educated her so that she was a fitting bride for a noble gentleman? But I knew what she meant. She had insisted that I care for Honey; and if Keziah could be believed, it was Mother Salter who had planned that the child should be placed in the Christmas crib.

“You have done well,” she said. “I wanted to bless you before I go.

“Thank you.”

“There is no need to thank me. Had you not cared for the child I would have cursed you.”

“I love her as my own. She has brought great joy to me.”

“You gave much—you received much. That is the law,” she said.

“And you are unfit to be alone. Who cares for you here?”

“I have always cared for myself.”

“What of your cat?” I said. “I do not see it.”

“I buried it this day.”

“You will be lonely without it.”

“My time has come.”

I said: “I cannot allow you to stay here to die.”

“You, Mistress, cannot.”

“These woods are Abbey woods, and are you not my Honey’s grandmother? Could I allow you to stay here alone?”

“What then, Mistress?”

“A plan has come to me. It will do much good, I think. I shall take you to my mother. She will care for you. She needs help for she is a sad woman. You will give her that. She is very interested in herbs and remedies. You could teach her much.”

“A noble lady with old Mother Salter in her house!”

“Oh, come, old Mother Salter has not such a poor opinion of herself.”

“So you give orders here.”

“I care for the sick on my husband’s Abbey lands.”

She looked at me slyly. “You would not take me to my grandson.”

“I would take you to my mother.”

“Hee-hee.” She had what I had always thought of as a witch’s cackle. “He would not be pleased to see me. Honey used to come to me. She confided in me. She told me of her love for you and how she feared you loved your own child more. ’Twas natural. I blamed you not for that. You have done your work well and I don’t forget it. But let those who heed me not take care.”

My heart was filled with pity for this poor old woman, sick and near to death, still clinging to the powers which she had possessed or led people to believe she possessed.

I said I would prepare my mother to receive her and I went to her immediately. She agreed to take in Mother Salter once she had grown accustomed to the incongruous idea; she commanded her servants to prepare a room, put fresh rushes on the floor, and make up a pallet as a bed. Then she and I went together and we set Mother Salter on a mule and brought her to Caseman Court.

It was an unconventional thing to have done. Bruno was aghast.

“To take that old woman to your mother’s house! You must be mad. Are you going to gather up all the poor and set them up in Caseman Court?”

“She is no ordinary woman.”

“No, she has an evil reputation. She traffics with the devil. She could be burned at the stake for her activities.”

“Many a good man and woman has met that fate. Surely you understand why I must give this woman especial care.”

“Because of her relationship to the bastard you adopted.”

Then because I could not bear him to refer slightingly to Honey I cried out: “Yes, because she is Honey’s great-grandmother…and yours.”

I saw the hatred in his face. He knew that I had never believed in the miracle and this was at the very root of the rift between us. Before I had implied my disbelief; now I said it outright.

“You have worked against me always,” he said savagely.

“I would willingly work with you and for you. And why should facing the truth interfere with that?”

“Because it is false…false…and you alone whose duty it was to stand beside me have done everything you can to plant these false beliefs.”

“I am guilty of heresy then,” I said.

He turned and left me.

Strangely enough I had ceased to care that all love was lost between us.

I could not have done a better thing for my mother than take Mother Salter to her. When I next visited her I found the sick room fresh and clean. On a table beside the witch’s pallet were the potions and unguents which my mother had prepared. She was excited and important and fussing over the old woman as though she were a child, which seemed to amuse Mother Salter.

Of course the old woman was dying; she knew it and she was amused to be spending her last days in a grand house.

My mother told me that she had imparted to her much knowledge of plants both benign and malignant. She would not allow my mother to write them down perhaps because she who could not write thought there was something evil in the signs that were made on paper. My mother had a good memory for the things in which she was interested and she became very knowledgeable during that time, which I was sure was ample payment for all that she had done for Mother Salter. But here was more than that. Whether the old woman had powers to bless or curse I cannot say, but from that time my mother really grew away from her grief and while Mother Salter was in her house I heard her sing snatches of songs.

Two or three days before she died I went to see her and was alone with her. I asked her to tell me the truth about Bruno’s birth.

“You know,” I said, “that he believes he has special powers. He does not accept the story that Keziah and the monk told.”

“No, he does not believe it. He has special powers. That is clear, is it not? Look what he has done. He has built a world about himself. Could an ordinary man do that?”

“Then it was lies Keziah told?”

She gave that disturbing witch’s chuckle. “In us all there are special powers. We must find them, must we not? I was born of a woodcutter. True I was the seventh child and my mother said I was the seventh of a seventh. I told myself that there is something different about me…and there was. I studied the plants. There was not a flower nor a leaf nor a bud I did not know. And I tried them out and went to an old woman who was a witch and she taught me much. So I became a wise woman. We could all become wise men or women.”

“And Bruno?”

“He is my Keziah’s son.”

“And it is true that he was put into the crib by the monk?”

“It is true. And it was my plan. Keziah was with child. What would happen to the child? I said. He or she would be a servant, not able to read or write. I always set great store by writing. There’s a power in it…and what is written can be read. To read and to write—for all my wisdom I could not do that. Nor could Keziah. But my great-grandchildren did. And that was what I wanted for them. The monk should not be blamed. Nor Keziah. She did what was natural to her and he dared not disobey me. So I made the plan; they carried it out. My great-grandson was laid in the Christmas crib—and none would have been the wiser if Weaver hadn’t come. My great-grandson would have been the Abbot and a wise man and a miracle worker because these powers are in us all and we must first know that we possess them before we do.”

“You have confirmed what I have always believed. Bruno hates me for knowing.”

“His pride will destroy him. There is greatness in him but there is weakness too and if the weakness is greater than the strength then he is doomed.”

“Should I pretend to believe him? Am I wrong in letting him know the truth?”

“Nay,” she said. “Be true to thyself, girl.”

“Should I try to make him accept the truth?”

“If he could do that he might be saved. For his pride is great. I know him well though I have not set eyes on him since he was naked new-born. But Honey talked of him. She told me all…of you both. Now I will tell you this. The monk before his part in this were known, was heavy with his sin. He said that the only way he could hope for salvation after his sin was to write a full confession. He could write well. He came here now and then. It broke the laws of the Abbey but they were not my laws and I had my grandson to think of. I must see this monk who was his father; I commanded him to come to me and he did, and he showed me the wounds he had inflicted on his body in his torment. He showed me the hair shirt he wore. He felt his sin deeply. And he wrote the story of his sin and hid it away that in time to come it should be known.”

“Where is this confession?”

“It’s hidden in his cell in the dorter. Find it. Keep it. And show it to Bruno. It will be proof, and then you will tell him that he must be true to himself. He is clever. He has great powers. He can be greater without this lie than he ever was with it. If you can teach him this you will help to destroy that pride which in time will destroy him.”

“I will look for this confession,” I said, “and if I find it I will show it to Bruno and I will tell him what you have said.”

She nodded.

“I wish him well,” she said. “He is my flesh and blood. Tell him I said so. Tell him he can be great but he cannot rise through weakness.”

Our conversation was broken up by my mother who came bustling in and declared that I was tiring out her invalid.

A few days later Mother Salter was dead. My mother planted flowers on her grave and tended them regularly.

The Monk’s Confession

THE MONKS’ DORTER HAD become a place which I avoided. There was something more eerie about it than the rest of the uninhabited part of the Abbey; and although many of the Abbey buildings had by this time been demolished and so much rebuilding had been done, the dorter was a section which had been left intact.

Since Mother Salter’s revelation I went there often. I wanted to find that confession which she said Ambrose had hidden there. If I could do this and present it to Bruno, he would then be face to face with the truth; and I could see, as Mother Salter had seen, that until he accepted it I could not respect him, nor could he respect himself.

Was this true? I asked myself. How difficult it is to test one’s motive! Did I want to say, “Look, I am right”? Or did I really wish to help him?

Once he accepted the fact that his birth was similar to that of many others, would he start to grow away from myth? Would he build his life on the firm foundation of truth?

I did not know, for I did not understand Bruno nor my own feelings for him. I had been bemused by the story of his miraculous appearance on earth. I had been drawn into this union while in a state of exultation. It had not brought me happiness, except that it had given me Catherine.

Whatever the motive, I was urged on by some compulsion to search for the document which according to Mother Salter Ambrose had left behind.

As I walked up the stone spiral stairs with its thick rope banister I thought of all the monks who had filed down this stone stairway during the last two hundred years and it occurred to me that many of them must have left something of themselves behind.

At the top of the stairs was a long narrow landing and on either side of this were the cells. Each had a door in which was a grille through which it was possible to see into the cell.

Most of the cells were bare although some contained a pallet which had not presumably been considered worthwhile taking away by the vandals. Each cell was identical with its narrow slit without glass which was cut into the thick walls. It must have been bitterly cold in winter; the floor of each cell was flagged; and there were slabs of stone in the walls. No comfort whatsoever; but monks did not look for comfort, of course.

I had heard something from Clement and Eugene of what life in the Abbey had been like. I knew of the hours of penance which had to be performed in the cells and how at any time the Abbot would walk silently along the landing and peer through the grille to see what was going on inside.

“The watchful eye which came we knew not when,” was Eugene’s way of expressing it. I knew something of their habits, how there were long periods when silence was the order of the day; how they were not allowed to touch each other in any way; how they must perform their tasks and their devotion with equal fervor. A strange life, particularly for men such as Clement, Eugene and certainly Ambrose, who had broken free of it on more than one occasion.

I could imagine the anguish of that man, the soul-searching, the earnest prayers for guidance, the suffering and torment that must have gone on in his cell.

I don’t think I should have been very surprised when I reached the top of that staircase to have come face to face with some long-dead monk who found it impossible to rest in his grave.

As I stood there on the landing I asked myself which of these identical cells had been that of Ambrose. It was impossible to know. Could I ask someone? Clement? Eugene? They would immediately report my interest to Bruno. I did not wish for that. No, I must find Ambrose’s cell and if possible his confession by myself.

I went into the first cell. I caught my breath with horror as the door shut on me. I felt a panic such as I had rarely felt before. It is amazing how much can flash through one’s mind in a short time. I imagined myself imprisoned in one of the cells. No one would think to look for me there. I should remain in my cold stone prison until there was no life left in me, and in time I should join the ghosts of the monks who haunted the dorter.

But there was no need for such panic. The door had no lock. I remembered Clement’s explaining that. Doors could be opened at any time by the Abbot or any of his subordinates without warning, in the same way that they could peer through the grille.

I stepped back into the cell. I examined the walls. I could see no place where a confession could be secreted. I touched the walls, all the time looking over my shoulder, so convinced was I that I was not alone.

The cold dankness of the place chilled me. I looked into several of the cells—all alike. If only I could discover which one was Ambrose’s that would help. A confession secreted in the wall! Why should Ambrose have confessed when his great desire was to cover up his sin?

I wanted to convince myself that there was no confession, and the reason was that I wanted to get out of this place and never come here again. I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was overlooked and that something evil was waiting to catch up with me.

There were forty cells on this landing. I looked into all of them; they were all alike, every one of them. How could I possibly tell which had belonged to Ambrose?

At either end of the landing was a spiral staircase. I reminded myself that while I was mounting one stairway, someone else could be mounting the other. Someone could lurk in one of the cells and leap out on me.

Who?

What was the matter with me? At one moment I was afraid of ghosts, at another I was looking for a human assailant.

I could not understand myself. All I knew was that whenever I entered the monks’ dorter I was conscious of something warning me that if I were wise I should keep away.

Kate wrote that she was bringing Catherine back to the Abbey.

I replied that I would be delighted to see her as always, and I trusted that Catherine had behaved with the decorum which was now becoming necessary to her increasing years.

I looked forward to Catherine’s return and the arrival of Kate with great pleasure. Both of them had a cheering effect on me.

I had not yet found the confession although I had been several times to the dorter. I would attempt to search and then some inescapable feeling of imminent danger would come to me. I should look through my grille expecting to find someone standing there and even when my gaze met nothing, the fear persisted.

I began to dread going there and yet had a great compulsion to do so.

I should have liked to confide in someone. Kate was not the one on this occasion. Rupert? I thought. No, I could not talk to Rupert. The fact that he had asked me to marry him and still thought of me tenderly debarred me from that for I could not speak openly to him of my feelings for Bruno. In fact I scarcely knew myself what they were.

I went again to the dorter. I mounted the stone stairs. I always hoped that this would be the time when I should find what I sought. I had examined six of the cells thoroughly, touching the stone slabs on the walls carefully to assure myself that nothing could be secreted there. My efforts had been without success.

Perhaps this afternoon, I thought.

How quiet it was everywhere on that afternoon. A pleasant June day; the sun was hot on the grass outside but the dorter was cold as ever.

My steps on the stairs had a hollow echo. I mounted them quickly and stood on the landing, and as I did so I thought I heard a sound from below. I stood still listening.

There was nothing.

I went into the seventh cell. Lightly I touched the buttress, then the walls which separated this one from that on the other side. I went to the long narrow slit and looked through the aperture in the very thick wall. Suddenly I felt the goose pimples rise on my skin because I knew that I was not alone. I swung around. A pair of eyes were watching me through the grille.

I heard myself gasp and putting out my hands grazed them against the granite wall.

The eyes disappeared.

I wanted to get out of this place but I had to know who was there in the dorter. But had I imagined those eyes peering at me? I thought of monks who had lain in their cells and suddenly looked up to see a pair of eyes watching them. That was the purpose of the grille—that someone outside could look in and catch the cell’s occupant unaware.

I began to shiver. I went out into the corridor. I walked along it, looking into the cells. They were empty except for the pallets which had served as beds and which Cromwell’s men had not thought worthy of taking away. I stood still and listened. Silence…and yet there was that uncanny awareness which clung to me and which told me I was not alone.

I pushed open the door of one of the cells. I stared aghast. Seated on one of the pallets was a man. I looked again to assure myself that it was Bruno. His eyes were cold, snakelike. He gave a sudden low laugh which had an unpleasant ring.

“Bruno,” I cried, “what are you doing here?”

“I might ask what you are doing here.”

“It was you who looked at me through the grille.”

“Did that disturb you?”

“Naturally. It was so…uncanny. Why didn’t you speak? Why didn’t you let me know you were there? Why go away so dramatically?”

“Did you think it was a ghost who was looking through the grille at you? You had a guilty conscience, Damask. Why? Was it because you were doing something you would rather not be caught doing? What were you doing?”

I could not tell him. How far we were apart! We were enemies. And yet this man was my husband. How could I tell him that I was hoping to find something which he would go to great lengths to stop my finding?

“I…I was looking at the dorter.”

“You find it interesting…suddenly?”

“Not suddenly. It was always interesting.”

“You were here recently. You seem to make a habit of visiting the place. I wondered why.”

“So you followed me.”

“What I want to know is why you are so startled to be found here.”

“Startled?” I countered. “Who would not be startled to see a pair of eyes watching them from the other side of a grille?”

“Sit down, Damask.”

He moved along the pallet.

I was deeply aware of the silence of the place and a great urge swept over me to turn and run…to run away from my husband.

I said: “Not now.”

“You are in a hurry? Surely not. You were making a leisurely search. Feeling the walls! What did you hope to discover? Were you looking for something?”

He had risen and was standing close to me. What was the meaning of the strange expression in his eyes? Did he know of the confession? Had Ambrose told him? Suppose he did know. Then he would guess that I was looking for it; and he would do all in his power to stop me. All in his power? He had great power. I knew that. I knew something else too. He would stop at nothing to prevent my finding that confession for in it would be a denial that he, Bruno, was the man he was determined to be—the prophet, the near-god, the superhuman man whom he wanted all those about him to believe he was.

Yet I assured myself that I must find that confession. I must make him accept the truth for I saw how right Mother Salter was when she said that his pride could destroy him, and perhaps us all.

I knew that he must not suspect that I was searching for the confession. He must not know that I was aware of its existence. If he did…what then? I dared not examine my thoughts too closely. I saw him clearly…too clearly for comfort…but he was my husband and I had loved him once. And a voice within me kept insisting: He must not know. You would be in peril if he did.

My wits came to my aid. I said quickly: “I was thinking to what purpose we could put this place. The building is so solid. It could make an excellent buttery.”

“You have suddenly decided this?”

“I have been thinking of it for some time. I am constantly thinking of how we can put these places to good use.”

“Doesn’t the present buttery suffice?”

“It is scarcely adequate now that there are so many people here. I daresay that in the future you will be entertaining even more.”

I was trying to sound matter-of-fact.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s true.”

“Then what do you think of the idea?”

He was studying me intently and his eyes still held that cold snakelike quality. “It’s worth considering,” he said.

I felt a great relief flooding over me. I believed I had convinced him that I had been inspecting the monks’ dorter for this domestic reason.

I went to the bakehouse. Clement was there with two of his scullions and when he saw that I wished to speak to him alone he sent them off to scour some pans in readiness for the day’s cooking.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “Lady Remus will be here. She is bringing Mistress Catherine home.”

“Ah, I shall be glad to see the young mistress home. I’ll make some of her favorite marchpane. There is no one that appreciates it but her now that Mistress Honey has left us.”

“And for Lady Remus?”

“There shall be a game pie and I’ll work the Remus coat of arms in paste for her. There’ll be bacon and sucking pig. Those are favorites of hers.”

“You will know how best to please her. Clement,” I went on, “you must prepare almost as much food now as you did in the old days.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“Do you regret the old days, Clement?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking back. “This present day suits me well, Mistress.”

“Do you ever go into the dorter, Clement?”

He shook his head. “Not since that day when the heretic”—he crossed himself—“Simon Caseman informed against us and almost took us to death.”

“Before that did you go to your own cell and imagine the old days were back?”

He nodded, smiling.

“I was looking at the old cells not long ago. I thought we might make a buttery there. Those thick walls make it very cool. What do you think, Clement?”

“What does the master think?”

It was always so. They seemed afraid to express an opinion without Bruno’s approval.

“I spoke to him of it. He thought it an excellent notion. Would you come and look at it some time and give me your opinion?”

There was nothing Clement liked so much as to be asked for an opinion. His face creased into smiles.

“When would that be, Mistress?”

“There is no time like the present. Could you meet me there in half an hour?”

He was delighted. I waited below for him. It felt different going up those stairs with him lumbering behind me.

“One of these must have been your cell, Clement.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Which one was yours?”

He led me along the landing.

“They are so much alike, can you be sure?” I asked.

“I’d always count,” he said. “Number seven, that was mine.”

“And who was next to you?”

“Brother Thomas that way. Brother Arnold there.”

“I daresay you can remember the names of most of them.”

“We were many years together.”

“I have heard you talk of some of them. Eugene now…where was he?”

“He was there. And next to him was Valerian and then Thomas and Eugene.”

“Where did you say Ambrose was?”

“Ambrose? I didn’t say.” He crossed himself again. “I said Eugene. But Ambrose was here opposite me. I used to hear him, praying in the night.”

I hastily counted to myself. Seventh from the end was Ambrose’s cell.

“Well,” I said, “what do you think of my idea of the buttery?”

He thought it excellent. I had to listen to his views on storing salted meats for he thought these cells would be ideal for that purpose.

“The thick stone walls keep out the heat,” he said. “I could keep salt pig in here for a very long time.”

I listened; I agreed; and I longed to be rid of him; for now that I knew which was Ambrose’s cell I was eager to get to work. I came back that afternoon. It took me an hour to examine the cell. Then I discovered that behind the crucifix which hung on the wall, one of the slabs was loose.

I removed it. Behind it was a cavity and in this I found Ambrose’s confession.

I took it to my bedchamber. I shut myself in. It began:

“I, Brother Ambrose of St. Bruno’s Abbey, have committed mortal sin and have imperiled my immortal soul.”

It was the cry of a man in torment and I was deeply moved by the suffering he had obviously endured. He had written it all down: his dreams and longings, his erotic imaginings in that cell as he lay there on his hard pallet. He wrote of his great desire to purge his soul of lust and the hours he spent in prayer and penance. And then the coming of Keziah; the temptation which had been too great to resist; the hours of remorse that followed. The torment of the hair shirt and the lacerations of his flesh. He had indulged it; he would crucify it. But the sin was committed and then he knew that that sin was to bear fruit.

Doubly he had sinned. He had broken from the enclosed state; he had had speech with the witch of the woods, he had agreed to her monstrous plan to deceive the Abbot and everyone in St. Bruno’s. And this he had done for yet another temptation had come to him—to watch over his son, to see him educated and raised to greatness. Again he had been unable to resist.

He would never expiate his sin; he was doomed to eternal damnation, so he had plunged headlong into sin and loved this son with the idolatry which should have been given only to God.

This confession he had made. It was for the generations to come. No one should read it while his beloved son lived for all must believe him to be divine.

He was guilty of lust and deceit; he would burn forever in hell but great pleasure had been his in the woman who tempted him and the son who was the result of their lustful union.

I folded it carefully and locked it in a sandalwood box which my father had given me years ago.

Soon I would tell Bruno that I had proof of what had happened at his birth not only from his great-grandmother, who had told me when she was dying, but by this confession of his father’s.

But I must delay this until after Kate’s return to Remus.

Revelations

WHEN KATE ARRIVED NEXT day I thought she seemed more subdued than usual. Catherine was quiet too. I fancied that she was resentful toward Kate, which was strange; generally they were in harmony for they shared a gay and carefree outlook on life.

When I took Kate to her bedchamber she said she must talk to me soon. Where could we go for quiet?

I suggested the winter parlor.

“I will be with you in fifteen minutes,” she told me.

I went straight to Catherine’s room. She was standing at her window staring moodily out.

“Cat dear, what is wrong?” I asked.

She turned around and flung herself into my arms. I comforted her. “Whatever it is I daresay we can do something about it.”

“It is Aunt Kate. She says we may not marry. She says that we must separate and forget and she has come to talk to you about it. How dare she! We shall not accept it. We shall….”

“Catherine, what are you speaking of? Marry whom? You are only a child.”

“I am nearly seventeen, Mother. Old enough to know that I want more than anything on earth to marry Carey.”

“Carey! But you and he….”

“Oh, yes, yes, we used to quarrel. But don’t you see? That was all part of it. Quarreling with Carey was always more exciting than being friendly with anyone else. We both laugh about it now and we can never, never be happy away from each other. Oh, Mother, you must persuade Aunt Kate. She is being so silly…. Why should she disapprove of me? Are we not as noble as she is? She is some sort of cousin of yours, is she not? And your parents looked after her or she might have been poor indeed and not had a chance to marry Lord Remus and have Carey….”

“Please, Catherine, not so fast. You and Carey have told Aunt Kate of your decision and she refuses to sanction the marriage. Go on from there.”

“She went quite odd when I told her. She said she would refuse to allow it, and she was coming to see you…without delay. And then right away she wrote to you and told you we were coming…and here we are.”

“You are overwrought,” I said. “I will go to Kate now and discover what this is all about.”

“But you would not be so unkind? You would not say no?”

“I can see no reason why you and Carey should not be married except that you are so young, but time changes that of course and providing you do not wish to hurry into marriage….”

“What sense is there in waiting?”

“A great deal of sense. But let me go and see what is worrying Kate.”

“And tell her how foolish she is! I daresay she wants a duke’s daughter for Carey. But he won’t take her. He’ll refuse.”

I told her not to get excited and I went down to the winter parlor where Kate was already waiting—unexpectedly punctual.

“Kate, what is all this about?”

“Oh, Damask, this is terrible.”

“I’ve gathered from Catherine that she and Carey want to marry and you are against the match.”

“So must you be when you know the truth.”

“What truth?”

“You were always so blind in some ways. They cannot marry because Carey is Bruno’s son and therefore Catherine’s brother.”

“No!”

“But, yes. So is Colas. You didn’t imagine Remus could get sons, did you?”

“But he was your husband.”

Kate laughed, but not happily or pleasantly. “Oh, yes, he was my husband but not the father of my children. Is that so hard to understand? There were three of us, weren’t there, playing there on forbidden grass? And didn’t you know how it always was between us? Bruno is not the saint he often likes to pose as being. He loved me. He wanted me. And to you and me of course he was the child in the crib. We deceived ourselves, did we not…most excitingly? We were in the company of one of the gods who had descended from the heights of Olympus. He was as pagan as that. And yet he was divine; he was a saint. In any case he was different from anyone else we knew. And he was important to us both. But I was always the one, Damask. You knew that. He came to Caseman Court when the Abbey was disbanded. He loved me and wanted us to share our lives but how could I share my life with a penniless boy! And there was Remus with so much to offer. So I took Remus but not before Bruno and I had been lovers. But marry him, no! Marriage was for Remus. I think Bruno came near to hating me then. He can hate, you know…fiercely. He hates all those who lower his pride. Keziah, his mother; Ambrose, his father; myself for preferring a life of luxury with Remus to a life of poverty with him. So there was before my marriage a kind of love between us—not wholehearted love. For us both it was overruled by ambition—in me for luxurious living, for him by his pride—his eternal overwhelming pride. I thought he could not then give me what I wanted and by my rejection of him I wounded him where he was most vulnerable. But the fact is that Bruno is the father of my son and your daughter and there can be no marriage between brother and sister.”

“Oh, God!” I cried. “What have we done to those children?”

“The more important question, Damask,” said Kate soberly, “is what are we going to do?”

“You have told them that they cannot marry but given them no reason?”

She nodded. “They hate me for it. They think that I am seeking an heiress of noble birth for Carey.”

“It’s the obvious conclusion. We must tell them the truth. It is the only way.”

“So thought I, but first I had to tell you and we must speak with Bruno.”

He stood there in the winter parlor, the light full on his face with those wonderful features which even now looked as though a halo should be shining on them.

I said: “Bruno, Kate has come with a terrible problem. Catherine and Carey want to marry.”

I watched his face closely. He said: “Well?”

I could scarcely believe that he could be so unconcerned.

I cried out: “Kate has told me that Carey is your son. Have you forgotten that Catherine is your daughter?”

He looked almost reproachfully at Kate. “You told Damask that?”

“I thought it necessary as this has arisen.”

He said coolly: “It should not be known. The marriage must be prevented for some other reason.”

“For what reason?” I cried.

“Do parents have to give reasons to their children? We do not wish the marriage to take place. That will suffice.”

I hated him in that moment. I had never seen him quite so clearly. He was not so much moved by the predicament of his son and daughter as at the prospect of how this would affect him.

I said: “It will not suffice. You cannot break people’s hearts and not tell them the reason because it would be inconvenient to do so.

“You are hysterical, Damask.”

“I am deeply concerned for my daughter, whom I regret is yours also. Oh, Bruno, come down to earth. Who are you, do you think, to take up this role of saintliness?”

It was Kate who said: “You are getting excited, Damask.” It was as though we had changed roles. I had always been the calm reasonable one and it had been I who had in the past warned her to be cautious.

“Excited!” I cried. “This is my daughter’s life. She is going to know the truth. She is going to know her father for what he is.”

“You must not be jealous because Kate and I have been lovers.”

“Jealous!” I said. “Not jealous. I think I always knew that I was the second choice…the one who had to come to you for yourself alone because Kate had refused to do so. It is all clear to me now. You had nothing to offer Kate except as a lover so, in her worldly fashion, she rejected you as a husband. Blithely she bore your son. Then, piqued, you went to London. There you either approached or were approached by foreign spies in this country who were interested in reviving what the King had destroyed.”

“You are wrong.”

“Indeed I am not. You…the god or whatever you think you are…are merely one of many little facets in the Spanish scheme. You went to the Continent on an embassy for the King, you tell us. You went to the Continent to take instructions from your masters. You were given money to acquire the Abbey and return it to what it was in the days before the dissolution. You were chosen because you were found in the Christmas crib in the Lady Chapel. Oh, it is all becoming very clear to me.”

“You are shouting,” said Bruno.

“And you are afraid that I shall explode your myth. Is it not time that myth was exploded? Is it not time that you were known for what you are? An ambitious man…who is not without his moments of lust and ambition and would sacrifice his son and daughter if need be to keep his pride intact.”

Kate said: “What has come over you, Damask? This is not like you.”

“It has been coming over me for a long time. I have seen so much of late. I have seen this man for what he is.”

“But you love him. You always did. We are bound together. We three were as one.”

“Not anymore, Kate. I am no longer close to either of you. You have deceived me, both of you. You will never do it again.”

“You must not take this hard,” said Kate. “It all happened so naturally.”

“Is it so natural,” I asked, “that a man should be unfaithful to his wife, that he should have sons, and his own daughter should want to marry one of them?”

“That is the situation to which we must give some thought,” said Bruno looking coldly at me. “When Damask has finished pitying herself perhaps we could discuss it.”

“Pitying myself! My pity is for those young people.”

“It must not be known,” said Bruno. “Catherine can be married suitably or Kate can find a wife for Carey who will make him forget Catherine.”

“We are not all so fickle in our relationships as you are,” I reminded him.

“They are young. They will recover. In a few months this will have been just an adventure to them,” said Kate.

“How glibly you settle the lives of others! It is nothing to you to make a loveless marriage for the sake of expediency. Others do not feel the same. They must be told the truth.”

“I forbid it,” said Bruno.

“You forbid it. You may have no say in the matter. This is my daughter. They shall be told, for in their present mood they could run away together and marry no matter what we say.”

“And if they did?”

“A brother and sister! What if there are children?”

Nobody spoke and I was horrified because I knew that Bruno was ready to let them marry and take the consequences rather than to tell them the truth.

I looked at him standing there.

And I could bear no more. I turned and ran from the room.

Catherine caught me on the stairs.

“Oh, Mother, what is happening?”

“Come to your room, my darling. I must talk to you.”

I took her in my arms and held her against me.

“Oh, Catherine, my dearest child.”

“What is wrong, Mother? What is Aunt Kate trying to do? She hates me.”

“No, my dearest, she does not. But you cannot marry Carey.”

“Why? Why? I tell you I will. We have said we will not allow any of you to ruin our lives.”

“You cannot marry him because he is your brother.”

She stared at me and I led her to the window seat and sat there with my arm about her. It seemed such a sordid story told simply.

“You see there were three of us, myself, Kate and your father. He loved Kate but he was poor then and she married Lord Remus but she had your father’s child. So you see he is your brother. That is why we say you cannot marry.”

“It is not true. It can’t be. My father! He is….”

She looked at me as though begging me to deny it.

“Men do these things,” I said. “It is not an uncommon story.”

“But he is not as ordinary men.”

“You believed that, did you not?”

“I thought him divine in some way. The story of the crib….”

“Yes, I suppose that is where it starts, with the story of the crib. My dearest child, you are young yet but your love for Carey and the tragedy of it has made of you a woman, so I shall treat you as such. You have listened to Clement and he has told you the wonderful story of how the Abbot went into the Lady Chapel one Christmas morning and found a child in the crib. That child was your father. It was known as the Miracle of St. Bruno’s. You know that story.”

“Clement told me. Others have talked of it. The people here all talk of it.”

“And with the coming of the child the Abbey prospered. The Abbey was dissolved with others in the country but is rising again through the child in the crib. You believe that, do you not? And it is true. But you must know more of the truth and I believe it will help you to overcome your tragedy. All that you have been told is true. Your father was found in the crib but he was put there by the monk who was his father, and his birth was the result of that monk’s liaison with a serving girl. I knew her well. She was my nurse.”

“It can’t be true, Mother.”

“It is true. Keziah told the true version; so did Keziah’s grandmother, and I have the monk’s written confession.”

“But he…my father does not know?”

“He knows it. In his heart he knows it. He has known it since Keziah divulged it. But he will not admit it and his refusal to do so has made him what he is.”

“You hate him,” she said, drawing away from me.

“Yes. I think I do. This hatred has been growing in my heart for a long time. I think since you were born and he turned from you because you were a girl and not the boy his pride demanded. No, it was before that. It was when Honey came to me and he resented her—a little child, helpless and lovable. But she was his sister and he could not bear to be reminded of the mother who bore them both. He hated Honey; he resented her. Yes, that was when I first began to turn against him.”

“Oh, Mother, what am I going to do?”

“We will bear it together, my love,” I cried, weeping with her.

There was hatred in the Abbey now. I was aware of it.

I looked from my window across the Abbey lands to the bastion of the castlelike structure which he had built to resemble Remus Castle. It must be as grand, nay grander, so that Kate should realize every time she looked at it that she could have had wealth and Bruno too.

Catherine had shut herself into her room. She would see no one but me. I was glad to be able to offer her some comfort.

She said of her father: “I wish never to see him again.”

Kate stayed in her room writing to Carey.

Now that I had made my feelings clear to Bruno I was determined to show him Ambrose’s confession, for I knew that we had gone so far that there was no drawing back. Bruno must face the truth. Even so I did not think it was possible to start a new life from there. I feel I had exposed my own feelings to such an extent that I understood them myself as I never had before.

I found Bruno in the Abbey church and wondered whether he had been praying.

“There is something I have to tell you,” I said.

“You can tell me here,” he replied coldly.

“It is hardly a fitting place.”

“What can you have to say to me that cannot be said in church?”

“Perhaps it is fitting after all,” I said. “It was here that they found you. Yes, it was here that Ambrose laid you in the Christmas crib.”

“You have come here to taunt me with that lie.”

“It is no lie and you know it.”

“Oh, come, I am weary of your rantings on that score.”

“I believe the evidence of Keziah and Ambrose.”

“Extracted under torture?”

“Mother Salter told her story freely.”

“An old witch from a hut in the woods!”

“A woman who would scorn to lie. When she was on her deathbed she told how she had bidden Ambrose to place you in the crib.”

“So you believe everyone but me.”

“No. I have Ambrose’s confession which was written long before Rolf Weaver came to the Abbey.”

“Ambrose’s confession! What are you talking about?”

“I found it in his cell in the monks’ dorter. Mother Salter told me where to look for it.”

He turned on me then, his eyes blazing with anger.

“So that is why you were prowling about in the dorter. You lied to me. You said you wanted to make the place into a buttery.”

“Yes, I did lie to you,” I agreed. “I knew that if I had told you what I was looking for….”

I paused and he said quietly: “Yes, go on. What if you had told me?”

“I knew that you would have tried to prevent me.”

“Yet you deliberately went against my wishes.”

“Yes. I wanted to know the truth.”

“And you think you have it?”

“I have Ambrose’s confession.”

“His confession! What nonsense are you talking?”

“You know the truth. He confessed, did he not? Do you think he would have lied…and condemned himself?”

“Men will tell any lies if they think that by so doing they can save their wretched lives.”

“This is no lie. It tells of his sin in begetting you and his further sin in putting you in the crib that there would appear to be something miraculous about your birth. He wanted his son to grow up to be the Abbot of St. Bruno’s.”

“I shall not believe this confession exists until I see it.”

I was not going to fall into that temptation.

I turned away but he was beside me.

“If you have this confession, give it to me.”

“You will see it in due course.”

“What do you mean by that? When?”

“When you have given me your word that you will cast aside this make-believe, when you promise to face the truth, when you accept the fact that you are a real man.”

“You are mad, Damask.”

“I don’t think so. It is you who are mad with pride. I ask you now, Bruno, to give up this mystery with which you console yourself. Accept the truth. You are clever. You are more than that. You have brought the Abbey to what it is. Why should you pretend to be possessed of supernatural powers when you have so many that are natural? Bruno, I want you to let it be known that this confession has been found. I want you to let everyone know that you are a man…not some mystic figure different from the rest of us. Therein lies madness.”

“Where is this confession?”

“It is locked away in a safe place.”

“Give it to me.”

“That you may destroy it?”

“It is a forgery.”

“Nay, it is no forgery. I want you to begin with those monks you have brought here. Tell them the truth. Tell them that Ambrose left his confession and that you are in fact his son and that of my nurse.”

“Yes, indeed, your brain has been affected by madness.”

“It is what I ask. Very soon it will be known that Ambrose’s confession has been found. I would rather you told them before I did so.”

“You have become a teacher to instruct us.”

“Here is your chance, Bruno. Face the truth. You have a wife; you have a daughter. It might well be that they could learn to love you. You have men who serve you well. They will respect you for the truth. You have wealth. You could use it wisely, which I’ll swear some would say you do now. But give up this alliance with a foreign power. Good God, don’t you know how near you came to death in the last reign? And what now think you? Next year we could have a new sovereign. Have you ever thought what that would mean? This moment will not last forever. You have to choose.”

He held his head high; it looked amazingly handsome; he looked in fact divine. He could have been carved out of marble, so pale was his face, so exquisite those proud features. I felt a sudden twinge of love for him. I almost wished that he would say: “Yes, I will cast out my pride. I will no longer hide from the truth as though it were the plague. I will tell the world who I am. I will make it known that Ambrose has written the story of the miracles of St. Bruno’s Abbey.”

I spoke gently to him. “Give all this up. I have Caseman Court and its rich lands. If you must give up the Abbey, do so. We will build a new life together founded on truth…. We have a daughter to be nursed through her tragedy. Perhaps we could forget all that has gone before and come to some happiness.”

He looked at me scornfully. “The shock of learning that Carey is my son has turned your brain,” he said. “If there is this confession of which you talk…and I doubt it, for I thought you were. very strange when I discovered you prowling about the dorter…you should bring it to me at once. It is some hoax of course but such documents are dangerous. Go and get it that I may see it, and bring it to me here.”

I shook my head. “You shall not have it. I beg of you, Bruno, consider what I have said.”

I went out and left him.

What a strange brooding house it was. Kate had written to Carey and sent a messenger off with the letter. Catherine shut herself in her room and would eat nothing. In the old days I should have gone to Kate to pour out my sorrow to her. Now I kept aloof.

It was evening of that long day. I was sitting alone in my bedchamber when Bruno came in.

He said: “I must talk to you. We must come to an understanding.

“That would please me, but I must make you understand that I cannot go on sharing in this lie.”

“I want you to give me Ambrose’s confession.”

“So that you can destroy it?”

“So that I can read it.”

“A lie has been lived so long. There was no miracle at St. Bruno’s. Since Keziah’s confession I could never pretend that there was. Had you tried to be a man instead of a god everything would have been different.”

“What would have been different?”

“Perhaps you would have told me that Kate had rejected you.”

“What difference would it have made? You would have taken me!”

“Were you as certain of me as that?”

“I was certain.”

“And when she rejected you for wealthy Remus your pride was deeply wounded. I understand, Bruno. You, the superhuman being, the god, the mystery, the miracle child had suddenly been reduced to an ordinary being, rejected lover, bastard of a servant and a monk. It was more than you could endure.”

“Kate came to regret her decision.” I saw the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

“Your pride was deeply wounded. You had to apply the soothing balm which was my consent to go with you wherever you wished…to live in a cottage if need be. That was what you wanted of me.”

There was a knock on the door and Eugene came in with a tray on which was a flagon of wine and two glasses.

“So you wish us to taste your new brew, Eugene,” said Bruno.

He took the tray from Eugene and set it down.

“It’s my best elder flower,” Eugene told me.

“The one you were telling me of,” said Bruno.

“And you particularly wish the Mistress to try it.”

Eugene said this was the one. He went out smiling complacently and Bruno poured the wine into the glasses and brought one to me.

I was in no mood for drinking. I set down the glass and said: “It is no use, Bruno. I see this clearly. We cannot go on living this life. It is false. There is only one chance of our being able to make a life for ourselves and our daughter. We will let it be known that we have found the monk’s confession. The miracle of St. Bruno’s will be finished forever. It will be forgotten in time.”

“And what do you wish me to do?”

“It is simple. We will tell everyone at the Abbey that we have found the confession. This will be the proof we need to show that Keziah’s story was true. You must tell your Spanish masters that you can no longer go on with this falsehood.”

“I tell you I have no Spanish masters.”

“Then tell me this, too. How did you find the money to do all that you have done here?”

“This is where your story breaks down, does it not? So you have to provide me with Spanish masters. I tell you I have none. I have not received money from foreign countries to refound the Abbey.”

“Then where did you find the money?”

“It came to me…as I told you, from heaven.”

“You insist on this story!”

“I swear to you that the means of rebuilding the Abbey came from heaven. You are dabbling in matters too great for you, Damask. You do not understand. Come, drink up your wine. Eugene will want to hear what you think of his latest brew.”

I picked up the glass and even as I did so I was aware of Bruno’s gaze fixed on me. There was hatred in it. Oh, yes, he hated me. I knew then that it was because I had the means in my power to expose him.

What was it? Some warning perhaps. I was never to know. But I just felt that I must not drink that wine.

I set it down and said: “I am in no mood for drinking.”

“Can you not take a sip or so to please Eugene?”

“I am in no mood to judge.”

“Then I shall not drink alone.”

“So he will not know your judgment either.”

“I have already given it. It is of his best.”

“Perhaps I will try it later,” I said.

Bruno went out and left me.

My heart was beating fast. I picked up the wine and smelled it. I could detect nothing.

I took both glasses and opening the window threw out the wine.

Then I laughed at myself. He is proud, I thought; he is arrogant; he sees himself of greater importance than other men. But that does not mean he is a murderer.

I thought suddenly of Simon Caseman and I had a vision of his writhing in the flames. Bruno had sent him to his death…as Simon had endeavored to send him, as Simon had sent my own father.

Was not that murder? Simon had proved himself to be Bruno’s enemy—as I had…

The next day I went to Caseman Court. My mother was delighted to see me.

“I was saying to the twins only today,” she said, “that you would be coming to see me and bringing Kate too. I understand she is at the Abbey.” She looked at me closely. “Why, Damask, is something wrong?”

I thought: She must know of course that Catherine and Carey cannot marry and she will have to know why. So I told her.

“A bad business,” she said. “There was always something wanton about Kate. I often thought she was deceiving Remus. And the boys too…well he was as proud as a peacock at his time of life. It’s a sorry matter. Poor Catherine; I will send something over for her. And you, daughter! Well, husbands are unfaithful…though a man in Bruno’s position…. Well, well, your stepfather never believed in his faith. It was not the true faith, you see.”

“Mother,” I said, “be careful. Men and women are being burned at Smithfield for saying what you have just said.”

“ ’Tis so, and that’s a sorry matter too. Poor, poor Catherine. Such a child though. She’ll recover. And Carey too. I would not have thought it of Bruno. He being so well thought of. Almost holy. Why Clement and Eugene used to genuflect when they spoke of him. It wasn’t right. Your stepfather….”

“It has been a great shock to me,” I said. “But you have comforted me.”

“Bless you, daughter. That’s what mothers are for. And you will comfort Catherine.”

“I shall try to do so with all my heart.”

“Ah, I had a good husband.”

“Two good husbands, Mother.”

“Yes, I suppose that is a good tally.”

“Indeed it is”

“I am going to give you some of my new cure. It is herb two-pence and I know from Mother Salter that it will cure almost any illness you can name. When I was gathering it I saw Bruno. He was gathering herbs too. I talked to him and I was surprised what he knew of them. He said that when he was a boy he was taught the power of them. He had vervain for he said Thomas, one of his men, suffered from the ague and there is nothing like vervain for that. And he was getting woodruff for someone else’s liver. Then I saw that among the herbs he had gathered was what seemed to be parsley but I knew it for hemlock and I said to him, ‘Look, what have you there? Do you know that is hemlock?’ He said he knew it well, but that Clement had gathered it for parsley and he was taking some back with him to show him the difference.”

“Hemlock…that’s a deadly poison, is it not?”

“As all should know. I’m surprised at Clement. Why, I remember one of our maids mistook it for parsley and that was the end of her.”

I thought of the glasses of untasted wine and I wanted to tell her of my fears. Mothers, as she had said so often, were meant to comfort.

“There,” she said, “what shall I give you? Something to make you sleep.”

“No,” I said, “give me an ashen branch, Mother, for you once said that would drive evil away from my pillow.”

Dusk had fallen. The Abbey was silent.

I pictured Catherine in her room, face downward on her bed, staring into space at a desolate future which did not contain her lover. And of what did Kate think in her room? Was she reviewing the past? The wrong she had done Remus, the terrible consequences which meant that the sins of the parents must be borne by the children?

I laid on my pillow the ashen branch my mother had given me, but I could not sleep easily. I dozed a little and dreamed that Bruno crept into the room and stood over me and I saw that he had two heads and one was that of Simon Caseman.

I called out in my sleep and when I awoke the word “Murderers” was on my lips.

I started up. I was too disturbed to sleep. I kept thinking of Bruno gathering hemlock and bringing in the wine.

He hated me as much as that! He would have hated anyone who crossed him. His love for himself was so great that anyone who did not feed it was his enemy. He would not accept the fact that he was an ordinary mortal, and therein lay his madness.

If he had tried with the wine would he not try again? I thought of leaving him, taking Catherine with me to Caseman Court.

I rose from my bed and sat in the window seat brooding on my situation. Could I speak to Kate? No, for I no longer trusted Kate. All those years when I had confided in her she had been his mistress; for Colas must have been conceived on one of her visits to the Abbey. I imagined her sharing confidences with me and then going off to share Bruno’s bed.

Whom could one trust?

It seemed only my mother.

I must have sat there brooding for more than an hour when I saw Bruno. He was making his way to the tunnels.

I watched him. I had seen him go that way before. I remembered a long-ago occasion when I thought Honey had wandered down to the tunnels. I had gone to look for her. Bruno had been there then and very angry to find me.

I had never been to the tunnels. It was one of the few parts of the Abbey I had not explored because Bruno had said it was unsafe there. There had been a fall of earth when he was a boy and he warned everyone against venturing down into that underground passage which led to them.

Yet he did not hesitate to go.

I thought afterward that it was foolish of me, but it was too late then. I was already out of bed, my feet in slippers, my cloak around me.

It was a warm night but I was shivering—with fear, I suppose, and apprehension, but something more than curiosity drove me. I had the feeling that it was of the utmost importance for me to follow Bruno that night. Mother Salter had told my mother that at moments in our lives when death is close we have an overwhelming desire to reach it. It is as though we are beckoned on by an angel whom we cannot resist and this angel is the Angel of Death.

So I felt on that night. Even by day the tunnels had repelled me; and now here I was at the entrance to them and I must descend that dark stairway although I knew that there was a man down there who, I believed, had had it in his mind to murder me.

There was a little light at the entrance to the tunnels—enough to show me the stairs down which I had fallen when I went to look for Honey.

I reached the top step and sliding my feet along the ground cautiously descended.

My eyes had grown a little accustomed to the darkness and I realized that ahead of me lay three openings. I hesitated and then I was aware of a faint light at the end of one of them. It moved. It could be someone carrying a lantern. It must be Bruno.

I touched the cold wall. It was slimy. My common sense said: Turn back. First count the tunnels and tomorrow come down, bring a lantern. Perhaps bring Catherine with you and explore. But that urge which I thought of as the Angel of Death was urging me on and I had to follow.

Carefully I picked my way, quietly sliding my feet over the stones in the passage. On and on went the light; it disappeared and appeared again. It was like a will-o’-the-wisp and a thought came to me. Perhaps it is not Bruno but some spirit of a long-dead monk who will punish me for prying into what might well be a holy place.

The light went out suddenly. The darkness seemed intense. But I still went on. I felt my way carefully with my hands, sliding my feet so as not to trip.

Then I came to the opening and there was the light again. I was in a chamber and the lantern was on the ground. A man was standing there. I knew it was Bruno.

“You dared…,” he cried.

“Yes, I dared.”

He came toward me and as he did so a figure loomed up behind him—a great white glittering figure.

I cried: “There is someone here.”

“Yes,” he answered. “There is someone here.”

I stared at the figure. It had seemed to move because the light from the lantern had caught the glittering jewels with which it was covered. I saw the crown with the great stone which was dazzling in the dimness.

I had seen it before.

“I should have killed you before this,” said Bruno savagely.

He came toward me menacingly and I shrank away, thinking: I am going to die here…now…and Bruno is going to kill me. Everything that has happened from the moment I went through the door in the Abbey wall has led me to this moment. And Bruno is going to kill me.

I had played into his hands. I had come of my own accord into the secret tunnels. He would kill me and leave me here and no one would know what had become of me. I should disappear here…beneath the Abbey.

“Bruno,” I cried. “Wait. Don’t act rashly. Think….”

He did not answer. Time appeared to have slowed down. The silence seemed to go on and on.

“Bruno….” I was not sure whether he had heard for although my lips formed the words I seemed to have lost the power to speak.

It was surprising that my thoughts could stray from this terrible danger; but I was saying to myself: It was here that he found his wealth. It was not from Spain. I am beginning to understand and that is why I am going to die.

There was no escape. I was trapped. Nothing could save me.

He was close to me now. His hands would be on my throat, pressing out life forever. I was lost.

But I was wrong.

The great figure looming behind him had moved. He, with his back to it, could not see this. It was my fancy. But, no. It swayed. It seemed to totter and then suddenly it fell.

It came crashing down toward us. Instinctively I leaped back, but Bruno had not seen it.

There was a deafening sound. I closed my eyes, waiting for death. I stood cowering against the cold stone wall. I waited…for what I was not sure. For death, I supposed.

Then I opened my eyes and saw that Bruno lay beneath that great image.

I forgot everything else but that he was my husband and I had loved him once.

“Bruno,” I cried. “Bruno!”

I knelt beside him. I brought the lantern close. His body was crushed and his eyes were wide open, staring at me but there was no recognition in them.

I must get help, I told myself. I looked about me for the entrance to this place and I saw that I was in a kind of chamber. The sides of it were of rock, as was the ceiling. It had been built, I guessed, to store the Abbey’s treasures. And this great figure lying on the floor ablaze with jewels I had seen before. It was the jeweled Madonna of the secret chapel.

It was comparatively easy to make my way out of the chamber but doing so I tripped over a lever of some sort and in that moment I heard a rambling sound. I thought that it was due to a fall of earth, but this was not so. I turned. The chamber had disappeared. I knew that a door had slid down shutting it off and that I was on one side of that door, Bruno on the other. I set down the lantern and examined the door. I could see no handle on it, no catch, no means of opening it. Then just as I had had the compulsion to follow Bruno, so I had the intense desire to get away.

I was alone in those dark tunnels. I must try to bring help to Bruno for I could do nothing alone. Slowly I found my way back to the steps.

Who could best help? I thought at once of Valerian. I knew where he slept. It was in one of the old guesthouses where several of the monks had their quarters.

Still carrying the lantern I went to his room. It was as I expected—the crucifix on the wall, the hard pallet, a desk, a chair and no other furniture.

“Valerian!” I cried.

He started up from his bed and I said: “I have just come from the tunnels. I followed Bruno there tonight. There has been a terrible accident.”

“Bruno is dead,” he answered quietly.

“How can you know that?”

“I know it,” he replied. He put on a fustian robe and went on: “We will go back to the tunnels.”

I said: “I must explain to you. I followed him. I felt a compulsion to do so.”

He nodded.

“I found him in a sort of chamber. There was a great glittering figure there. I had seen it before because he had shown it to me and to Kate when we were children. I think he was going to kill me. The figure fell…he was beneath it. I came away and a sort of door descended.”

He did not speak but taking the lantern, led the way through the tunnels. I could see that he knew the way.

He paused at length and said: “This is where you entered the chamber.”

“It would be here, but I see no sign of it.”

“Here is what you call the door.”

“We should bring him back to the house. He will need a doctor.”

Valerian shook his head. “He will never need a doctor again.”

“Open the door and go in.”

“I cannot open the door.”

“Please do.”

“It is not in my power.” Nevertheless he attempted to do so but his efforts were in vain.

He held the lantern so that he could see my face.

“You have been through a terrible ordeal,” he said. “I must talk to you…now. But this is not the place. Come back with me to the scriptorium.”

“There must be something we can do. Bruno needs attention.”

“He is in the hands of God.”

“You are sure that he is dead?”

“Yes, I am sure.”

“How can you be?”

“I know these things. Come. We cannot enter the chamber. The way is not known to any of us. He was the only one who knew. But we must talk.”

I followed him out of the tunnels to the scriptorium. There he bade me be seated and gave me a cordial to drink. It was hot and burned my throat but it revived me.

“The miracle must live,” he said.

“There was no miracle. It was because I had proved this that he hated me and tried to kill me.”

“Yet the miracle must live.”

“How can it when it was not the truth?”

“It will be the truth in the minds of many, and it is what is in the mind which is important.”

“He will be found there in the tunnels.”

Valerian shook his head. “Only he knew how to open the door. The secret was told to him by the Abbot. Only the Abbots of St. Bruno’s knew how to open that door and they passed the secret on to their successors. The code was written down and hidden—none knew where but the Abbots and those destined to take their place. Treasures of the Abbey have been stored there through the ages. Bruno would tell no one. The secret was his alone.”

“It was there he found the wealth to rebuild the Abbey. It was from the jewels of the Madonna. He took them as he needed them. I can see it all so clearly now.”

“They were such jewels that it was necessary to show the utmost caution in disposing of them. He had to let time elapse before he went abroad to sell the first and the smallest of them.”

“That was why he came to us when he left the Abbey. He was biding his time, waiting until the hue and cry over the Abbey jewels had died down.”

“That was so and the first and the smallest of them realized such a sum that he was able to buy the Abbey. He knew that he had a great treasure store and when he needed money he took a jewel and sold it abroad.”

“So when Cromwell’s men were coming to the Abbey they must have taken the Madonna down through the tunnels to that chamber. How could they have done this?”

“It must have been a great undertaking. All we knew was that it was in the sacred chapel one day and the next was gone. It was thought to be a miracle because a few days later Rolf Weaver’s men came. I think I know what happened. The Abbot’s giant servant could have carried her down. If her jewels were taken from her she would not be so heavy, of course. Among them, the Abbot, the servant and Bruno would have taken her there and replaced the jewels about her when she stood in the secret chamber. That is the only way it could possibly have been done.”

“And only Bruno knew.”

“The Abbot died. The servant was a mute. He is dead now. All three who knew the secret are dead. This is the end. I have seen its coming. I am aware of these things. Bruno is gone. We know where, but no one else must. This is the Madonna’s answer. A new reign is almost upon us. We could not have survived as we are under a new sovereign. But the miracle must live…and this is the only way it can do so.”

“You mean that no one must know what happened tonight?”

“I am commanding your silence. Go back to your room and say nothing of this night’s events.”

“But I must.”

“Most certainly you must not. This is ordained. I know it. Bruno is dead. He had to die to preserve the miracle and the miracle must live. He will have gone as strangely as he came and in the generations to come people will talk of the Miracle of St. Bruno’s Abbey and good will come of it. Go now. You are distraught. You are weary. Go and rest. The cordial may make you sleep. In the morning it will seem more clear.” I went back to my room and waited for the morning.

Kate stayed with us all through that year. She did not wish to go back to Remus Castle now for Carey was there to reproach her.

For months after that night when Bruno had died in the Madonna’s chamber his return was awaited. He had gone away before on those trips to the Continent to sell jewels, and at first it was assumed that he had gone away as he had on other occasions. But as the months passed and he did not return it began to be said that he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come.

“It was a miracle,” people said. “He appeared on Christmas Day in the Lady Chapel—a babe in a crib—and he disappeared in the thirty-sixth year of his life.” It would never be forgotten.

Kate and I had returned to the old ways. She used to come to my room and talk of what was happening in the outside world just as she had always done: How the old Queen was dying of a broken heart because her husband Philip of Spain neglected her. How she declared that her heart had been broken in any case by the loss of Calais and when she died that name would be written across her heart.

“The name of Philip will be there too perhaps,” said Kate, “if I may continue with such a flight of fancy.”

She became gayer every day. “One cannot go on mourning forever,” she said.

Honey was happy for she was to have a child; I insisted that she come to the Abbey that I might look after her. Catherine began to regain her spirits although she was never again the same lighthearted girl.

“Catherine will forget in time,” said Kate. “So will Carey. You’ll forget. I’ll forget. Everyone forgets, so the sooner one starts to do so the better.” She looked at me intently though and went on: “How strange that Bruno disappeared. Do you think he will come back one day?”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

“You know more than you betray.”

“One should never betray all one knows.”

“I often wonder,” said Kate, “where he found the money to do what he did. I believe he was in the pay of, Spain.”

“One must have some beliefs,” I told her.

“The only conclusion I can draw otherwise is that there was truly a miracle at St. Bruno’s.”

“It is not a bad conclusion to which to come.”

That September the Emperor Charles, the father of Philip of Spain, died and in his will he exhorted his son to inflict even more severe punishment on heretics. The Smithfield fires would be intensified, said the people. They were in a sullen mood.

But in November the Queen died and a new sovereign was proclaimed at Hatfield where she had been living in a seclusion which could have been called a prison.

There was rejoicing throughout the land. The dark days are over, said the people. There will be no more smoke over Smithfield now that Elizabeth was Queen.

We took to our barge and went down the river to see the new Queen brought in triumph to London. Kate and Catherine, my mother, Rupert and I joined in the loyal shouts of “Long live the Queen.”

She was young; she was vital; and she glowed with purpose. She told us that she would dedicate herself to her people and her country.

And we believed her.

I knew that as we were rowed back along the river leaving the grim gray fortress of the Tower of London behind us we were—every one of us—convinced that there would be changes in our lives and our spirits lifted and our hearts rejoiced.