“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.”