“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.