The Miracle at St. Bruno's

"Into the Abbey.”

"It is said to be haunted. People have seen a ghostly figure... a monk. I have seen him myself.”

"You, Damask?”

"Yes. When I came to my father's grave." I told him how Rupert had brought my father's head to me and how we had buried it.

"You are not affianced to Rupert?" he asked quickly.

"No, but mayhap I will be soon.”

"You do not love Rupert.”

"Yes, I love Rupert...”

"As a husband?”

"No, but I think we need each other.”

"You will not be afraid to go into the Abbey with me?" I hesitated and he went on: "You remember you and Kate once came in.”

"I was very frightened then.”

"Because you knew you were doing wrong. You should never have looked at the sacred chapel. You should never have seen the jeweled Madonna. But now, she has disappeared, and the sacred chapel is empty.”

"I would be afraid to go in now, Bruno.”

He gripped my arm. "You do not think any harm could come to you when you were with me?”

I did not answer for all the time we were drawing closer toward those gray walls.

He turned suddenly and I saw his face stern in the moonlight.

"Damask," he said, "do you believe that I am not as other men?”

"But...." I could hear Keziah's voice then, that confession of hers. "He threatened me and I told him what should never be told.... I was with child by the monk....”

"I want you to know the truth," he went on. "It is important to me that you should.

Lies were told. People tell lies under torture. The woman Keziah lied; the monk lied.

The world is full of lies -but one must not attach too much blame to the liars when they lie under stress. They have never learned to master their bodies. Physical torture will make a liar of many a great man who yearns to speak only the truth. I tell you this: I know I am not as other men. I came into the world... not as they would have you believe. I know it, Damask. And if you are to be with me... you must know it too. You must believe it. You must believe in me.”

He looked strange and beautiful in the moonlight-godlike different from anyone else I had ever known and I loved him, so I said as meekly as my mother might to Simon Caseman: "I believe you, Bruno.”

"So you are not afraid to go into the Abbey with me?”

"Not with you.”

He pushed open the door through which I had seen the ghostly figure pass, and we were in the silence of the Abbey.

The coldness struck me at once after the warm air outside; it rose through the soles of my shoes from the stone floor and I shivered.

"There is nothing to fear while you are with me," Bruno assured me.

But I could not forget Keziah's coming back after that terrible night at the inn with Rolf Weaver and although I wanted to believe as Bruno desired me to, I could not in my heart accept the fact that Keziah could have made up such a story.

But I was with Bruno and happy as I had not been since my father's death and I sensed that he had asked me to come tonight because he had something of great importance to say to me.

He had found a lantern which he had lighted and he said he would take me to the Abbot's lodging. It was a strange, eerie exploration and during it I expected us to be confronted by the ghostly monk. Bruno showed me a fine vaulted hall and the many rooms where the Abbot had his dwelling. It was clear that the workmen had been there and this house was in the process of being turned into a residence of some magnificence. We left the Abbot's lodging and Bruno showed me the refectory, a plain stone building with strong buttresses, where the monks had sat for two hundred years under the raftered oak roof.

Very soon, I thought, the man on whom the Abbey was bestowed would be living here, and Bruno was taking a last look while he could still do so. He led me through the cloisters; he took me to the cells of the monks; he showed me the bakehouse where he had once sat with Brother Clement. I reminded him of what I had heard of his stealing cakes hot from the oven.

"They like to tell these tales of me," said Bruno.

That night he showed me so much that I had never seen before. I wondered why but I guessed later. I saw the monks' parlor and dorter; I saw the infirmaries, the Brothers’ kitchen, the cloisters, the monks' frater. And all by the light of the lantern and the moon.

"You see," said Bruno to me, "this is a world of its own, but now a shattered world.

Why should it not be born again?”

"What will he on whom it has been bestowed do with so much?" I asked. "He will have a very fine manor house from the Abbot's lodging, but there is so much else besides.”

"There is more-much more. And beneath it all a labyrinth of tunnels and cellars.

But they are dangerous and you should not visit those.”