The Miracle at St. Bruno's (14 page)

“I refuse to believe that she is my mother.”

Poor Bruno. It was hard for him to bear. To have believed himself to be apart from us all, a miraculous creation, and to find that he was the son of a servingwoman. But there was cruelty in him. I saw that now, as clearly as I had seen the fox’s mask on Simon Caseman’s face.

I tried to talk to him about the future but he would not discuss it with me. I wondered whether he did with Kate for I knew that they were often together.

When Lord Remus paid us another visit Kate declared herself not in the least surprised. It was what she had expected, she said. He dined with us again and gave us more news of the Court. It seemed almost certain that the Cleves marriage would take place. The King was in excellent humor. He had walked up and down the nursery with young Prince Edward in his arms looking very pleased with the world. The Prince was a little pukey but his nurse, Mrs. Penn, guarded him like a dragon and wouldn’t allow the slightest wind to blow on him. The King had not been in such good spirits since the day he had married Anne Boleyn.

But it was not so much the King and Court which interested Lord Remus. It was Kate. When he had left she came to my bedroom and lay on the bed giggling.

“Methinks the hook is well into his lordship’s mouth,” she said. “Soon we shall haul him in.”

She was right. Within a week he was making a formal request to my father to pay court to Mistress Kate.

My father, so she told me, sent for her, and told her that Lord Remus was offering her marriage. He did not believe Kate would consider such a marriage, and she must not think that he would wish to force her into it.

“Force me, forsooth,” she cried to me. “As if I hadn’t angled for it! Think, Damask, a place at Court. I shall be there, right at the heart of things. I shall dance at Hampton and Greenwich. I shall ride at Windsor. Who knows, the King himself may look my way. I shall have jewels in plenty, fine gowns and servants to call my own.”

“And all you have to do is take Lord Remus as your husband.”

“I can do that, Damask.”

“You don’t love him, Kate.”

“I love what he has to offer.”

“You are mercenary.”

“If it is mercenary to be wise then mercenary I am.”

“So you will really marry this old man?”

“You will see, Damask.”

Kate was betrothed. She wore a big emerald on her finger and another at her throat. Her moods were startling. She was feverishly gay and suddenly melancholy. Sometimes she hinted that she might not marry after all and at others she laughed the idea of not doing so to scorn.

Once I went into her room and found her lying facedown on her bed staring straight before her.

“Kate,” I said, “you’re not happy.”

She studied the great emerald on her finger. “See how it glows, Damask. And it is just a beginning.”

“But happiness is not to be found in the glow of an emerald, Kate.”

“No? Tell me where then?”

“In the eyes of the one you love and who loves you.”

She threw back her head and laughed. But I saw the tears were near.

I was angry with her. Why should she do this? I hated the thought of her going to that old man; and since I had listened to Keziah’s ramblings images often forced themselves into my mind.

“Perhaps,” I said angrily, “it is of no consequence. You are incapable of love.”

“How dare you say that!”

“I dare,” I said, “because you are ready to sell yourself for emeralds.”

She was laughing again: “And rubies,” she said, “and sapphires, diamonds, and a place at Court.”

“It disgusts me.”

“Virtuous Damask, who has no need to sell herself but whose inheritance will choose a husband for her.”

But her smile was forced and her laughter brittle. I knew she was not as content as she wished me to believe.

Two months after Lord Remus first came to our house Kate and he were married. There was to be a grand celebration at the house and Clement and his scullions were working for days in the kitchens.

A disturbing thing happened on the night before the wedding. I went to Kate’s room because I was anxious to have a word with her. She was not there.

As the house had retired, I sat there waiting for her, but she did not come. I was afraid that she had run away, and I wondered whether to raise the household, but something within me warned me against that. It was four of the clock when she came in; her hair was streaming about her.

“Damask,” she cried, “what are you doing here?”

“I came here at midnight when the household retired to speak with you. I was anxious about you and you were not here. I thought of rousing the household.”

“You have not told anyone I was missing from my bedchamber, I hope.”

I shook my head. “No. I did not think you had run away on the eve of your wedding to the noble lord. Or if you had I thought that could wait until morning. Kate, where have you been?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Kate, you have been with a lover.”

“Well, Mistress Prim. What have you to say to that?”

“Tomorrow is your wedding day.”

“And tonight I am free. And pry as much as you like tonight, cousin, for tonight is your last chance to do so.”

“You have forestalled your marriage vows.”

Kate laughed so much I thought she would have hysterics.

“Oh, what a wiseacre you are! Your hand has been asked in marriage by Rupert and Simon. That makes you so knowledgeable. But there is one you do not mention. Bruno. What of Bruno?”

“What…of Bruno?” I asked slowly.

“You do not know Bruno,” she said. “Who does? Think of him. A holy child and then to find he is the result of the sinful liaison between an erring monk and a serving girl whose life has been scarcely pure. Conceived on the Abbey grass…under a hedge. Oh, yes, surely they were discreet enough to take cover during the performance.”

“Kate,” I said, “what is the matter with you?”

“You do not know, Damask?” she said. “After all there is so little you know.”

“I know that you do not love the man you are going to marry. You have sold yourself for emeralds and a place at Court.”

“How dramatic we have become. How easy for you! Oh, yes, it
is
easy to say ‘All for love’ when you lose nothing by it.”

“Where have you been tonight? Are you playing fair with Lord Remus?”

“I don’t intend to satisfy your curiosity on that point. I think you are jealous of me, Damask. I have made my choice. I think it is a wise one. Tomorrow I shall go to Lord Remus and do what is expected of me.”

I went to my room. I could not sleep. I had thought I had understood Kate. But who understands any other human being?

The next day the wedding took place in our house chapel. Lord Remus was led in between two young bachelors whom he had brought in his suite and each of them wore the customary bridelace on branches of green broom attached to their arms. Kate looked beautiful. The seamstresses had been working for weeks on her gown of brocade and cloth of silver; her hair hung loose about her shoulders. Rupert carried the silver bridecup before her as they went in procession to the chapel and I walked behind her as her attendant. And all members of the household followed with the musicians playing sweet music and some of the maids carrying the big bridecake.

The ceremony was performed and as the bridecup was handed around Simon Caseman, who was standing behind me, whispered: “Your turn next.”

Bruno was with the party. He looked aloof and scornful and the day after Kate’s wedding he disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared in the Christmas crib.

“I always knew,” said Clement, “that he was no ordinary being.”

T
HERE WAS NO TRACE
of Bruno. Rumor was now certain that he was indeed the Holy Child, that Ambrose had lied under torture and had been killed for his blasphemy. As for Keziah there was evidence that she too had been submitted to torture. The wounds on her thighs would not heal and she had gone strange in the head since her “confession.” People were always ready to believe the fantastic.

Clement was constantly talking of the miracle and how the Abbey had changed and that the Child had the gift of healing the sick.

Even my father believed the rumors.

“But if it were so,” I said, “why had Bruno not been able to save the Abbey?”

“I can only think that he has been preserved for something even greater,” answered my father.

I wanted to think so too. But most of all I wanted him to come back. I could not understand my feelings for him. I thought of him constantly. I remembered how we had talked together in the days when there had been an Abbey and how elated I had been when I had claimed his attention for a while. I was obsessed by him. I remembered certain allusions Kate had made. Once she had said that Bruno was more important to either of us than anyone else in the world. She was right—as far as I was concerned, though I was sure worldly magnificence meant more to her.

Strangely enough after Bruno’s disappearance Keziah grew better. She mingled freely with the other servants and as they were afraid to speak of the strange affair of the child in the crib it was never mentioned.

I discovered that there was another reason for the change in Keziah.

She had been making butter in the dairy and came to me in my room. I was surprised to see her at that hour of the morning and she said: “It came to me, Mistress, all of a sudden that I should speak with you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She smiled and said quietly: “I’m with child, Mistress.”

“No, Keziah!”

“ ’Tis so, Mistress. I’ve known a week or more and I’ve had that happy feeling that comes with it. Or so ’twas always with me.”

“It is wrong. You should not feel happy. You have no husband. What right have you to have a child?”

“The right that’s given every woman, Mistress. And I can scarce wait to hold the little ’un in my arms. ’Twas always a child of my own I wanted. But there was always the voice within me that said no. You can’t bring a bastard into the world, Keziah. You must go to your Granny.”

“You should think of this before….”

“One day you’ll understand. There’s no thinking before. ’Tis only after that you get to thinking. Three times I’ve been to Granny in the woods. And twice she has brought about that which I knew must be, though never wanted it. There was the first time….” Her face puckered. She had been trying to convince herself that she and Ambrose had never had a child. “This time,” she went on quickly, “I won’t go to her. I want this child. ’Tis maybe the last I’ll ever have for I am getting past the age for child-bearing. And this little ’un will be to me what I’ve never had before.”

“Who is the father of this child?”

“Oh, there’s no doubt of it, Mistress. It was him all right. It had to be. There couldn’t be a shadow of doubt. This little one belongs to Rolf Weaver.”

“Keziah! That man! That…murderer!”

“Nay, Mistress, ’twas the monk who were the murderer. My Rolf…he were the victim.”

I was horrified. I stared at Keziah’s expanding body. That man’s seed! It was horrifying.

I said: “No, Keziah. In this case it is justified. You must go to your Granny.”

Keziah said, “Hush you, Mistress. Would you murder my baby? I want this child as I never wanted a child before…and I’ve grieved for all of them. When I saw that boy my heart yearned for him. But he spurned me but when I knew that I carried this seed in my body it gave me comfort. I shall have this child.”

There was a strange exalted look about her and she would not listen to anything I said.

I could not forget that man with the hair growing low on his brow; I could not forget what he had done to Keziah, to our lives.

I had thought that was the end of him when he had lain lifeless on the grass. It was a shock to know that he lived on in Keziah’s body.

I missed Kate very much. Life had become dull as never before. I was aware of Simon’s watchful eyes; I knew he believed he was going to make me change my mind.

My mother said to me: “You’re growing up, Damask. It’s time you married. It would give me and your father such pleasure to see our grandchildren. Now Kate is settled it will be your turn next.”

My father was too close in thought to me to mention marriage again; but he would like to see me with a man to protect me. I had two to choose from—Rupert and Simon; I knew that no objection would be raised whomsoever I chose, although naturally they would prefer it to be Rupert, he being related. Neither of them had anything in great worldly possessions to offer me. Rupert had great skill with the land, Simon was gaining a reputation as a clever lawyer. Both of them would benefit by the wealth I should bring to them. Perhaps that was why I hesitated. I wanted to be chosen for myself, as Kate had been.

“I am of no great age yet,” I told my mother.

“I married your father when I was sixteen,” she told me. “I was in the schoolroom. I have never regretted it.”

“But then you married Father.”

“You’ve always idolized him,” she said, snipping at the stalk of a rose. Whenever she talked I always felt that more than half her attention was on the flowers she was either planting, cutting or arranging.

Kate came to see us, full of exuberant excitement. Married life suited her. The adoring Remus could not take his eyes from her; and I could see that marriage had made her even more attractive. For one thing she was sumptuously clad; she had a damask gown and a kirtle of velvet; her feet were in velvet shoes with garnet buckles and there were new jewels sparkling at her throat.

She had been to Court. She had seen the King. He was magnificent—enormous, royal and terrifying. He bellowed his wishes and everyone obeyed without a second’s hesitation. His temper was notoriously short, especially when his leg pained him. He sparkled with jewels and every square inch of flesh on his big body was royal. He had smiled on Kate; he had patted her hand. In fact if he had not been completely besotted by the young and giddy niece of Lord Norfolk who knew what might have happened? Kate was a little regretful but not much. It was a precarious existence, everyone realized, to be singled out for very special attention by the King. A pat of the hand and smile of appreciation were very welcome and by far more comfortable.