The Miracle at St. Bruno's Page 4

  Of course, I said, it was what was to be expected of a Holy Child.

  Rupert, though not quite fifteen years old, was working more and more in the fields. He could talk knowledgeably with my father of the crops and the animals. He found such joy in the newborn creatures and he liked to share that excitement with others, particularly me. I remember his taking me out to see a recently born foal and pointing out the grace of the creature. Animals knew him and were his friends as soon as they saw him; he had that special gift. He could shear a sheep with greater skill than the shearers; and he always knew the precise moment to start to cut the corn. He could predict the weather and smell rain a day or so off. My father said he was a true man of the soil.

  Haymaking was a happy time; then we would all go into the fields, even Kate rather grudgingly, and then she would begin to enjoy it when the home-brewed ale was brought around and when we rode in on the hay cart. The harvest was the best time though; and when it had been bound and cocked and the poor had finished their gleaning there would be a merry harvest supper. From the kitchens all that day would have come the smell of roasting goose and baking pies. My mother would fill the house with flowers and there would be general excitement everywhere. Kate and I would hang up the miniature corn sheaves which would be kept all through the year to bring good luck to the next harvest. Then we would dance and Kate would come into her own; but my father always liked Rupert to take me out to the floor and open the harvest ball.

  At this time conversation seemed to center about the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. He had put away Queen Katharine who had gone to Ampthill. Bruno used to tell us a great deal more than we learned elsewhere because visiting friars brought news to the Abbey.

  One day as we sat on the grass keeping within the shelter of the bushes lest we should be seen, we talked about the poor sad Queen and he and Kate were once more in conflict.

  “Queen Katharine was a saint,” said Bruno; and he went on to describe her sufferings. I loved to watch him as he talked. His face seemed to me so beautiful; his profile was clear-cut, proud and yet innocent in a way; and the manner in which his hair curled about his head reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Greek heroes. He was tall and slender; and I believe now that what I found so attractive was that blending of saintliness and paganism and the manner in which he changed from being a boy, fallible and quarrelsome, into a superior being who looked down on Kate and me from heights which we could never hope to reach. I believe Kate felt this too although she would not admit it and fought against it. To be with Bruno was so different from being with Rupert. My cousin was so gentle, so careful of me that sometimes I thought he regarded me as one of his newborn foals or lambs. I enjoyed being cherished, I always had; but when I was in the presence of Bruno an exultation took possession of me; and I was excited as I could never be in the company of any other person. I knew that Kate shared this feeling with me, because she never lost an opportunity of trying to score over him, as though she must convince herself, as well as us, of her superiority.

  Now because Bruno talked so sympathetically of Queen Katharine she retorted that the Queen was old and plain. It was said that she had no right to be Queen and that Anne Boleyn with her Frenchified ways and her beautiful clothes was as fascinating as a siren.

  “She is a siren who has lured the King to dishonor with her singing,” said Bruno.

  Kate had no use for metaphor and she was bored with old legends. Whenever she talked of Anne Boleyn her eyes danced and I knew she imagined herself in her place. How she would have enjoyed it! To have had the eyes of everyone upon her; she would have reveled in the admiration and the envy. The jewels and the flattery would have delighted her and she would have snapped her fingers at those who showed their hatred of her.

  “And the true Queen,” insisted Bruno, “reproves her women when they curse Anne Boleyn. ‘Pray for her,’ she says. ‘Lament her case for the time is coming when she will need your prayers.’ ”

  “She’ll not need their prayers,” cried Kate. “She is Queen in truth though there are many to say she is not.”

  “How can she be Queen when we have a Queen already?”

  “You speak treason, Holy Child,” said Kate with a sneer. “Take care I do not inform on you.”

  “Would you do that?” he asked intently.

  She smiled at him slyly. “You don’t believe I would? Well, I shan’t tell you. I shall keep you guessing.”

  “Then since we are unsure we should not speak of these things to you,” I ventured.

  “Hold your tongue, Silly Child.” She had made that my title when she was angry with me, just as he was Holy Child. The terms expressed her exasperation or her desire to mock. “You will hide nothing from me.”

  “We do not want to be informed against,” I said.

  “He is safe,” she said pointing a finger at Bruno. “If anyone tried to harm him the whole countryside would be in arms. Besides he only has to work a miracle.”

  “The Holy Innocents were murdered,” I said.

  “This is child’s talk,” said Bruno loftily. “And if Kate wants to inform, let her. She will not go free because she talked with us and informers rarely go free.”

  Kate was silent and he went on: “The Queen spends her life in prayer and she does needlework. She is making a magnificent altar cloth for the glory of God.”

  “You may like saints,” said Kate, “but I don’t. They are all old and plain and that’s why they’re saints.”

  “It’s not true,” I said.

  “Don’t try to be clever, Silly Child.” But she was piqued, and said we must get back or they might come to look for us, and what if they found us? Then they would find the door too, it would no longer be a secret and our meetings would be discontinued.

  This was a thought which horrified us all.

  It was May and proclamations were sent out that a coronation was to take place. Queen Anne Boleyn would set out from Greenwich to the Tower and after a sojourn there go to Westminster Abbey. It would be a spectacle such as had rarely been seen before.

  Kate was impatient with what she called our unfashionable household. This was a coronation—even better than a wedding, she said. Crowds would be gathered in the streets and on the banks of the river to see the Queen pass by. And yet according to some it might be a funeral!

  I pointed out that there had been some funerals because of this coronation.

  “Never mind that now,” said Kate. “I am going to see the coronation.”

  “My father would not wish us to,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “It’s treason not to go to the coronation of the King’s chosen Queen.”

  Treason! It was a word of which people were becoming increasingly fearful.

  On that lovely May day when Anne Boleyn was to start on the first stage of her coronation Kate came to the nuttery where I was seated in my favorite spot under a tree, reading. Her eyes were alight with excitement.

  “Get up at once,” she said, “and come with me.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Never mind why. Just come.”

  I followed her, as I always did, and she led me by a devious route through the orchards down to the privy steps and there was a barge in which sat Tom Skillen, looking somewhat sheepish.

  “Tom is going to row us down to Greenwich,” said Kate.

  “Has my father given his permission?”

  Tom was about to speak when Kate silenced him and said: “There’s no need to worry. Everything is all right. No one can manage a boat better than Tom.”

  She pushed me into the boat and Tom grinned at me, still sheepish. I supposed it was all right because Tom would not take us anywhere without my father’s permission.

  He began to row us rapidly up the river and very soon I knew the reason for Kate’s excitement. We were going toward Greenwich and the river was becoming more and more crowded with craft. I was as excited as she was to see so much activity. There was the great city
state barge in which sat the Lord Mayor in scarlet with a heavy gold chain about his neck; and all the companies and guilds were there in all their different barges. The sound of music filled the air and there was laughter and chatter from the smaller craft. Salutes from guns could be heard in the distance.

  “We shall soon see the Queen,” Kate whispered. “This is the start of the coronation festivities.”

  “Shall we see her?”

  “That is why we are here,” answered Kate with exaggerated patience.

  And we did see her. Tom’s skillful oar work brought us close to the palace itself so we saw the new Queen with her retinue of pretty girls board her barge. She was dressed in cloth of gold and she looked strangely attractive…not beautiful perhaps but more elegant than anyone I had ever seen; and her enormous dark eyes were as bright as her flashing jewels.

  Kate could not take her eyes from her.

  “They say she is a witch,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps she is,” I answered.

  “She’s the most fascinating woman I ever saw! If I were in her place….”

  Kate held her head high; I knew that she was imagining herself in that barge sailing down the river to the Tower where the King would be waiting for her.

  The Queen’s barge had passed by; a passing boat rammed us and the water shot up soaking me to the skin. Kate burst into peals of laughter.

  “We’d better go straight back,” said Tom nervously.

  “Certainly not!” cried Kate.

  “The Queen’s barge has gone.”

  “I shall say when we shall go,” retorted Kate.

  I was surprised that Tom was so meek. I had not noticed that he was before.

  But Kate seemed suddenly to realize that everything she could see now after the passing of the Queen would be dull in comparison so she said: “Very well, we’ll go now.”

  I was shivering in spite of the warm weather. I said: “We could have seen them pass from our privy stairs.”

  “We could not have seen the Queen so close,” said Kate, “and I wished to see her close.”

  “I’m surprised they gave us permission,” I said.

  “I gave the permission,” retorted Kate.

  “Do you mean my parents did not know that we were on the river?”

  Tom looked uneasy.

  “But who said Tom might row us out on such a day?”

  “I did,” said Kate, and she was looking at Tom as she spoke. I wondered that she should have such power over him.

  We were seen disembarking and my mother came hurrying out; when she saw my drenched clothes there was a great fuss. I was shivering! Where had I been? On the river! On a day like this! What had Tom been thinking of!

  Tom scratched his head. “Well, Mistress,” he said, “I didn’t see the harm….”

  My mother said nothing but I was hustled off to my bedchamber with instructions to take off my damp clothes and drink a posset.

  Kate came up to tell me that Tom had been questioned and he had said that the young ladies wanted to go and he had thought there was no harm in taking them.

  “Didn’t you tell them that you made Tom?”

  “So you know I made him?”

  “I couldn’t understand why he took us. He didn’t really want to.”

  “You are right, Damask. He didn’t. But he dared do aught else when I commanded.”

  “You talk as though you own him.”

  “That’s what I’d like to do…to own people. I’d like to be the King or the Queen, with everyone afraid of offending me.”

  “That shows an unpleasant nature.”

  “Who wants a pleasant nature? Does that command people? Does that make them afraid of you?”

  “Why do you want them afraid of you?”

  “So that they do what I say.”

  “Like poor Tom.”

  “Like Tom.” She hesitated but she was so anxious that I should be aware of her cleverness that she blurted out: “I heard him coming out of Keziah’s bedroom early one morning. He wouldn’t want anyone to know, would he? Nor would Keziah. So if they want me not to tell they have to do as I say.”

  I stared at her in amazement.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “That they sleep together or that I have discovered them?”

  “Neither.”

  “You get on with your Greek and Latin. It’s all you can do. You know nothing…nothing at all. And I’ll tell you something else. We are going to see the coronation. We are going to have a window in your father’s house of business.”

  “Father would not wish us to see it.”

  “Oh, yes, he does, and I’ll tell you why. I have made him.”

  “You are not going to tell me he dares not obey you?”

  “In this he dare not. You see, I said: ‘Uncle, why do you not wish us to see the coronation procession? Is it because you don’t believe the Queen to be the true Queen?’ Very innocent…I was…none could look more so. And he grew pale for there were servants there. You see, he dare not keep us away now and I knew it because if it were said that he would not allow his family to see the coronation, people would say he was a traitor and so….”

  “You are wicked, Kate.”

  “The way to get what you want,” said Kate, “is to make people afraid of not giving it.”

  She was right. We did see the procession pass through the city. Father and Mother took us and we sat there at the upper window of his business premises looking down on the street which had been graveled like all those from the Tower to Temple Bar. Rails had been set up so that the people should not be hurt by the horses. My father’s house was in Gracechurch Street and it was a goodly sight to see the decorations of crimson and velvet and cloth of gold.

  What a sight that was! All the nobility were present. There was the French ambassador with his retinue of servants in blue velvet; the archbishops were there and for the first time I saw Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who looked very stern and serious. There were the Dukes and the Earls, the highest in state and church; and at last the one on whom all attention was centered—the new Queen herself. She lay in a litter made of cloth of gold shot with silver and two palfreys supported the litter and these were led by the Queen’s footmen. But it was the Queen on whom one must gaze, for she was magnificent with long dark hair flowing from the ruby-studded coif to fall around her shoulders like a silken cape. Her dress and surcoat were of silver tissue, ermine trimmed. She looked indeed a Queen, lying there in her litter with four handsome men to hold a canopy of cloth of gold over her.

  I could not forget her; nor, I guessed, could Kate. She stared at her as though in a daze and I was sure that her imagination had transported her and she was that young woman in the litter, going to the Abbey to be crowned; she was the woman whom the King had delighted to honor even though he had to send many to their deaths in order to reach her. There were wonderful pageants in the street set about the fountain from which on this day wine flowed instead of water; but when the Queen had passed I knew that Kate lost interest in what followed.

  My father’s men of business joined us for refreshments afterward and for the first time I met Simon Caseman—a man then in his early twenties.

  My father said: “Ah, Damask, this is Simon Caseman, who will be joining our household shortly. He is learning to be a lawyer and will live with us for a while.”

  We had had a young man living with us before, but he had made so little impression on me that I had scarcely been aware of him. He had stayed for about three years, I supposed. That was when I was much younger; but it was not unusual for men in my father’s position to take those whom they were tutoring into their households.

  Simon Caseman bowed. Then Kate came forward. Kate was always interested to make an impression and I could see that she had. I was not quite sure what I thought of Simon Caseman. One thing I did know was that he was different from that other young man whose name I could not recall and who although a part of o
ur household had somehow made so little impression on me.

  Simon Caseman asked Kate what she thought of the procession and she expressed her delight in it. I noticed my father looked rather sad so I didn’t join in quite so ecstatically, although I had been as delighted as Kate with the glittering pageantry.

  It was necessary to wait until the press of people had diminished before we could make our way to the stairs and our barge. Father continued silent and rather sad.

  When we entered the house, I said to Kate: “I wonder what she was thinking lying there in her litter.”

  “What should she think of,” demanded Kate, “but her crown and the power it will bring her?”

  During the September of that year there was great excitement everywhere because the new Queen was about to give birth to a child. Everyone confidently expected a boy. It was, the King had tried to make the people believe, the very reason for his change of wives. After all Queen Katharine had already borne him the Lady Mary.

  “There will be great rejoicing,” my father said to me as we took one of our walks to the river’s edge, “but if the Queen should fail….”

  “Father, she will not fail. She will give the King his son and then we shall be dancing in the big hall. The mummers will come, the bells will ring out, and the guns will boom.”

  “My dearest child,” he said, “let us pray that this will be so.”

  I was touched that he, whose sympathies were with poor Queen Katharine, could now be sorry for Queen Anne Boleyn.

  “Poor soul,” he said.

  “Many have suffered because of her, Father,” I answered.

  “Yes, indeed,” he replied sadly. “Many have lost their heads for her. Who knows when she will be in like case?”

  “But she is beloved of the King.”

  “So were others, my child, and what of them when they cease to inspire that love? Many now rest in their quiet graves. When my time comes I should like to lie in the Abbey burial grounds. I spoke to Brother John about it. He thinks it can be arranged.”

  “Father, I forbid you to talk of death! And it all began by talking of birth!”

  He smiled rather sadly. “There is a link, dear child. We are all born and we all must die.”