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.

I watched him. I had seen him go that way before. I remembered a long-ago occasion when I thought Honey had wandered down to the tunnels. I had gone to look for her. Bruno had been there then and very angry to find me.

I had never been to the tunnels. It was one of the few parts of the Abbey I had not explored because Bruno had said it was unsafe there. There had been a fall of earth when he was a boy and he warned everyone against venturing down into that underground passage which led to them.

Yet he did not hesitate to go.

I thought afterward that it was foolish of me, but it was too late then. I was already out of bed, my feet in slippers, my cloak around me.

It was a warm night but I was shivering—with fear, I suppose, and apprehension, but something more than curiosity drove me. I had the feeling that it was of the utmost importance for me to follow Bruno that night. Mother Salter had told my mother that at moments in our lives when death is close we have an overwhelming desire to reach it. It is as though we are beckoned on by an angel whom we cannot resist and this angel is the Angel of Death.

So I felt on that night. Even by day the tunnels had repelled me; and now here I was at the entrance to them and I must descend that dark stairway although I knew that there was a man down there who, I believed, had had it in his mind to murder me.

There was a little light at the entrance to the tunnels—enough to show me the stairs down which I had fallen when I went to look for Honey.

I reached the top step and sliding my feet along the ground cautiously descended.

My eyes had grown a little accustomed to the darkness and I realized that ahead of me lay three openings. I hesitated and then I was aware of a faint light at the end of one of them. It moved. It could be someone carrying a lantern. It must be Bruno.

I touched the cold wall. It was slimy. My common sense said: Turn back. First count the tunnels and tomorrow come down, bring a lantern. Perhaps bring Catherine with you and explore. But that urge which I thought of as the Angel of Death was urging me on and I had to follow.

Carefully I picked my way, quietly sliding my feet over the stones in the passage. On and on went the light; it disappeared and appeared again. It was like a will-o’-the-wisp and a thought came to me. Perhaps it is not Bruno but some spirit of a long-dead monk who will punish me for prying into what might well be a holy place.

The light went out suddenly. The darkness seemed intense. But I still went on. I felt my way carefully with my hands, sliding my feet so as not to trip.

Then I came to the opening and there was the light again. I was in a chamber and the lantern was on the ground. A man was standing there. I knew it was Bruno.

“You dared…,” he cried.

“Yes, I dared.”

He came toward me and as he did so a figure loomed up behind him—a great white glittering figure.

I cried: “There is someone here.”

“Yes,” he answered. “There is someone here.”

I stared at the figure. It had seemed to move because the light from the lantern had caught the glittering jewels with which it was covered. I saw the crown with the great stone which was dazzling in the dimness.

I had seen it before.

“I should have killed you before this,” said Bruno savagely.

He came toward me menacingly and I shrank away, thinking: I am going to die here…now…and Bruno is going to kill me. Everything that has happened from the moment I went through the door in the Abbey wall has led me to this moment. And Bruno is going to kill me.

I had played into his hands. I had come of my own accord into the secret tunnels. He would kill me and leave me here and no one would know what had become of me. I should disappear here…beneath the Abbey.

“Bruno,” I cried. “Wait. Don’t act rashly. Think….”

He did not answer. Time appeared to have slowed down. The silence seemed to go on and on.

“Bruno….” I was not sure whether he had heard for although my lips formed the words I seemed to have lost the power to speak.

It was surprising that my thoughts could stray from this terrible danger; but I was saying to myself: It was here that he found his wealth. It was not from Spain. I am beginning to understand and that is why I am going to die.

There was no escape. I was trapped. Nothing could save me.

He was close to me now. His hands would be on my throat, pressing out life forever. I was lost.

But I was wrong.

The great figure looming behind him had moved. He, with his back to it, could not see this. It was my fancy. But, no. It swayed. It seemed to totter and then suddenly it fell.

It came crashing down toward us. Instinctively I leaped back, but Bruno had not seen it.

There was a deafening sound. I closed my eyes, waiting for death. I stood cowering against the cold stone wall. I waited…for what I was not sure. For death, I supposed.

Then I opened my eyes and saw that Bruno lay beneath that great image.

I forgot everything else but that he was my husband and I had loved him once.

“Bruno,” I cried. “Bruno!”

I knelt beside him. I brought the lantern close. His body was crushed and his eyes were wide open, staring at me but there was no recognition in them.

I must get help, I told myself. I looked about me for the entrance to this place and I saw that I was in a kind of chamber. The sides of it were of rock, as was the ceiling. It had been built, I guessed, to store the Abbey’s treasures. And this great figure lying on the floor ablaze with jewels I had seen before. It was the jeweled Madonna of the secret chapel.

It was comparatively easy to make my way out of the chamber but doing so I tripped over a lever of some sort and in that moment I heard a rambling sound. I thought that it was due to a fall of earth, but this was not so. I turned. The chamber had disappeared. I knew that a door had slid down shutting it off and that I was on one side of that door, Bruno on the other. I set down the lantern and examined the door. I could see no handle on it, no catch, no means of opening it. Then just as I had had the compulsion to follow Bruno, so I had the intense desire to get away.

I was alone in those dark tunnels. I must try to bring help to Bruno for I could do nothing alone. Slowly I found my way back to the steps.

Who could best help? I thought at once of Valerian. I knew where he slept. It was in one of the old guesthouses where several of the monks had their quarters.