“You never told that beast!” cried Kate.
She nodded. “He had the whip. He was saying all the things he would do to me and so I cried out, ‘I’ll tell you….I’ll tell you everything….’ And I told him about Ambrose and how I tempted him and how my Granny persuaded him to put the child in the crib and make him holy….And he just stared at me and I’ve never seen such a change in a man. He laughed so much I thought he was going mad. Then he untied the ropes. He said, ‘You’ll soon heal, Keziah. You’ll be better than ever. You’re a good girl, and this has been a good night’s work.’
“So I put on my clothes and couldn’t find my shoes….I stumbled out of the inn and home and now it’s out. The secret’s out.”
How right she was.
The secret was out.
How quickly, how suddenly I was becoming aware of the violent passions of men. Those few days will always stand out in my mind as the most horrifying I have ever known. I have perhaps since known greater horror, certainly greater suffering, but in those days I was shocked forever out of my childhood. It seemed to me that since the day I had stood with my father at the river’s edge and seen the King pass by with the great Cardinal I had moved slowly but certainly toward this climax. Death and destruction were growing up all around me, like weeds in an ill-kept garden; but during those days I saw a man murdered and that is something that must make an impression on the mind for evermore. I had heard the bells toll for Queen Anne and for Sir Thomas More and the memory made me serious; but this was different.
All next morning we waited for the news to break. We knew it could not be long. But both Kate and I had been too shaken by it to speak of it to anyone. We hardly mentioned it to each other and when we did spoke in hushed tones.
Did Bruno know? I wondered. I couldn’t bear to think of his knowing. I knew that it meant so much to him to be the Holy Child.
I had to see Bruno. I was amazed by the strength of my feelings. I didn’t care what danger I faced. I wanted to tell him that it made no difference to me that he was the son of Keziah and a monk. In fact I felt a certain relief—although I realized what disaster this would bring to the Abbey. But I must see him; so I went out alone and I ran to the secret door, I pulled aside the ivy and entered the Abbey grounds. My heart was beating so rapidly that I felt as though I were choking. I dared not pause to think what would happen to me if I were caught there. I went to the spot where we used to meet Bruno and I hid under the clump of bushes where Kate and I used to hide, hoping, rather absurdly, that he would come. It was thus that I witnessed this terrifying scene.
I must have waited there almost half an hour, and at the end of that time he did come, but he was not alone. The monk Ambrose was with him.
I remembered him because I had seen him when Keziah had set me on the wall and I had been so bewildered by Keziah’s badinage with the monk.
It was obvious as soon as I saw Bruno that he knew. There was a strange lost look in his face. Ambrose was talking to him. They must have come here because it was an uncultivated spot in the grounds and rarely used by anyone from the Abbey.
“You cannot understand,” Ambrose was saying; and his voice came to me clearly. “I wanted to watch over you. I wanted to play my part in bringing you up. It was wrong. It was wicked. It was a form of blasphemy…but I did it because I could not bear to be parted from you.”
There was anguish in his voice which wrung my heart. I could well understand the terrible remorse and tribulation he had suffered, this man who should never have become a monk. I could picture his torturing himself in the solitude of his cell. The sinner whose actions had shut him out of paradise. Thus must Adam have felt when he had eaten of the forbidden fruit.
I was deeply moved by Brother Ambrose. I think because I remembered that my father had wanted a family; he had left the Abbey because of that, which was clearly what Ambrose should have done. Instead he had tried to have the best of both worlds—his monk’s cell and his son. I understood very well and I wanted Bruno to tell him that he did.
But Bruno was silent.
“I have suffered for my sin a million times,” went on Brother Ambrose. “But I have had great joy in watching you. Did you not sense that extra care that I gave you? Did you not feel as I did that you were my very own boy? I was jealous of your fondness for Clement, for the hours you spent with Valerian. I wanted to be the one who taught you your Greek and Latin; I wanted to cook you tidbits in my oven. And all I could do was teach you about the herbs and their healing properties and their cruel ones too. But I grudged everyone else the time they spent with you. They loved you in their way…but I was your father. I would like to hear you call me by that name…once.”
Still Bruno did not speak.
I could picture it all so clearly—the child’s growing up, the anxious father, his love for the child, his delight in him in contrast to his terrible remorse. I could understand his exultation and his suffering, and I wanted to cry out: “Bruno, speak to him tenderly. Let him know that you are glad to call him Father.”
But Bruno remained silent as though stunned.
And then the scene changed because I heard a loud coarse voice calling out: “So you are there. Father and son, eh?” And to my horror Rolf Weaver had appeared.
I shrank into the bushes. I began to think of Keziah lying on the bed naked with ropes about her ankles and prayed that the bushes would hide me. I could not imagine what my fate would be if I were detected. This man, so bestial, so crude, who was capable of acts which I did not fully understand, was a terrifying spectacle. His doublet was open almost to his waist and I could see the black hair on his chest; his face was ruddy and his black hair grew low on his forehead. He was a beast personified. He was capable of committing any cruelty, I was well aware. I marveled that Keziah could ever have found him attractive even before he had treated her so vilely. But Kate had said that women like Keziah found pleasure in a certain sort of cruelty. I remembered what she had said about his rough love play. I had seen Kate’s lips curl with disgust as she had said that. Kate knew so much that I did not. I wished that she were with me now. I could have done with the comfort she would have given me; and I wondered that I had been so bold as to come here alone. But at this moment they would not have been interested in me. Rolf Weaver had two people to torture and they occupied his attention to the exclusion of aught else.