Green Darkness

  “Particular friendships are discouraged in a monastery,” agreed Stephen. “They hinder single-hearted devotion, they cause human attachments which Satan uses for his own purposes.”

  Julian gave a forceful Italianate shrug, waving his hands. “This would not seem to have been the opinion of your Master, Jesu Cristo,” he said. “He showed marked partiality for John the Apostle, and even Mary Magdalene.”

  Stephen frowned, startled by this view and certain that there must be a rebuttal.

  “Pax! I’ll not disturb you, or your convictions,” said Julian watching him. “I am perhaps envious since I have none.” He rose and poured a ruby liquid into a pewter noggin. “Time for the electuary,” he said handing it to Stephen. “Remember to take it after I’ve gone.”

  “What’s in it?” asked Stephen, drinking through a pang of regret. He would miss Master Julian.

  “Crushed rose hips—I gathered them myself—blood of fresh sheep liver, honey, and claret. This must be made on a waxing moon, and I’ll teach you how. ’Tis simple and most strengthening. Drink it thrice daily. I’ll disclose to you another secret remedy,” added Julian, “—moldy cheese.”

  “Moldy cheese!” Stephen shuddered. “Was that the rank stuff you forced down me when I could barely swallow?”

  “Da vero. It cures many a distemper, especially those caused by injury. The Arabs always give it on the battlefield; they even plaster it on wounds. We had an Arabian physician at Padua in my time, the others jeered at his advice, but from curiosity I tried it on a man’s amputated thigh. He healed well and fast. As priest here you should know some doctoring. The cheese—any cheese—must have turned green, and the more maggoty the better.”

  “Faugh!” said Stephen. “Why?”

  “I don’t know for certain. It may be some correspondence in sympathy between pus and decay, or similarity of color. Medicine is full of mysteries, we can only accept. Quod est demonstrandum.”

  Stephen leaned forward and looked at the bearded middle-aged man who had probably saved his life, and in doing so must have been an instrument of God’s will, unbeliever though he professed himself to be. Stephen discovered another disused emotion—gratitude. He put his hand quickly on Julian’s arm. “I thank you, my friend, and shall pray daily for the welfare of your soul.”

  Julian grunted, then smiled. “By all means, Brother Stephen, prayers can do no harm, and that odd invisible vapor you call ‘soul’ is your concern, as the body is mine. Hark, there’s a knock!”

  They both turned and looked at the heavy oak door. Julian started to rise, instinctively sparing exertion for his patient, but Stephen pushed him down. “You’ve no longer need to cosset me, sir,” he said with the quick smile which transformed his grave face. He went and opened the door.

  Lady Ursula stood in the passage, holding the monk’s cleansed habit. “Welladay . . .” she cried, staring, “so brisk and debonair, good brother? Here’s a marvel of recovery!” She spoke brightly while concealing dismay. In that maroon velvet dressing gown, she, like Julian earlier, thought that the young monk looked like a very handsome courtier, and was glad that Celia had not been allowed to see him.

  “Your habit,” she said, thrusting out the black woolen robe. “You’ll wish to don it at once, no doubt.”

  “Aye, Lady Ursula,” Stephen bowed. “You’ve been good to me. I’ll hear confessions tomorrow night, as usual, in the chapel. Will you tell the others? And do you know where Sir Anthony is? I’d speak with him.” He sent Julian a quizzical resigned glance, knowing that the doctor understood his boredom with the Allen demands.

  “He’s in the Great Hall,” answered Ursula, “with the bailiff, collecting the overdue Lammas Day tithes and rent. Lot o’ malingering this August, tenants unsettled what with the King’s visit and the hiding of the True Faith.”

  “Ah—” said Stephen frowning, “he’ll not be in the best temper when I add my petition, but I wish to be quit of it.”

  “You’ll be busy awhile then,” said Julian laughing. “Lady Ursula, I’ll copy our young priest’s energy and cast Celia Bohun’s nativity for you.”

  Ursula’s kind horsey face flushed with pleasure. “In my chamber, Doctor,” she cried eagerly. “I’ve all that’s needed.”

  Ursula and Julian left Stephen to get dressed and fulfill his mission. They went down the passage and found Celia in her aunt’s room, crouched on a stool, doggedly stitching on a strip of tapestry. Ursula was teaching her needlework, as befitted a lady.

  She pricked her finger as her elders entered, murmured, “Curse it!” Then, blushing, put her finger in her mouth in a naively childish gesture. She rose and curtsied to her aunt, her sea-green eyes anxious.

  “How does he do?” she asked fervently of Julian.

  “Very well indeed—cured, in fact,” he answered, observing her sudden radiance with surprise. So . . . what’s this? he thought. The child’s in love with the priest? Che peccato! La povera . . . but young hearts mend fast, and this one is very young. “How old are you, carina?” he asked.

  “She’s scarce fourteen,” put in Ursula. “’Tis all down on this parchment I’ve prepared for you. I’ve had to guess at the hour of her birth, because . . .”

  “Oh, it was early morn for sure, my Lady Aunt,” Celia interrupted. “I’ve remembered something my mother said once. That she labored all night and I was born just as the red sun come—came blinking through the curtains!”

  “Very helpful,” Julian smiled. He glanced at the parchment. “After dawn in the middle of June would be about five o’clock, I suppose.”

  “Ye’ll tell me a good fortune, sir, won’t you?” asked Celia softly, bending near him, unaware that she smelled of the pungent gillyflowers she had stuck in her bodice, and that her rich golden hair, the wide cleft between her breasts, her dimpling mouth were all provocative.

  “I do not tell fortunes, little one,” said Julian, restraining a desire to touch her. “I only read what the stars foretold at your birth. Naught but good, I’m sure.” Yet, as he spoke he had a foreboding.

  “I think that Celia should leave,” he said to Ursula. “I require solitude, utmost concentration for this task.”

  “Oh, to be sure—go, then, dear—” said Ursula, considering how to prevent the girl from seeing Stephen, who was now, unfortunately, at large. “Run down to Midhurst for me, ’tis market day, there’ll be a mercer booth, buy me a skein of crimson silk, I’ve none left.” She fumbled in the purse which hung from her belt, and handed Celia a sixpence.

  The girl’s face again grew doleful, her underlip trembled, but there was a rebellious glint in her eyes. “Oh, Aunt,” she said, “d’ye need the silk now? Must I go to town again? Can’t I stop at Cowdray? Y’re forever sending me on errands.”

  Aha, Julian thought, the mercurial Gemini, her moods shift fast.

  “Do as you’re told, child!” snapped Ursula, but tempered the command with a quick hug.

  Celia slowly smiled and curtsied. “I owe you all obedience,” she said in a contrite voice. She disappeared clutching the sixpence.

  The two older people looked at each other.

  “I have guessed what perturbs you,” Julian said to Ursula. “Believe me, you should not fret. Puppy love passes, but it would be better if there were distance between them. The little one is beautiful.”

  “Aye, I’ve thought of that. Magdalen Dacre asked us north to visit at Naworth, their castle in Cumberland. I think we’ll go. Leonard Dacre, Magdalen’s brother, is enamored of Celia, and would suit, though I hope for a better match.”

  “Possibly,” said Julian. “Now I’m eager to cast her nativity.” He sat down and pulled the parchment towards him, glancing at Ursula’s efforts. “You have made many miscalculations,” he said. “Evidently I was a poor instructor years ago at Kenninghall. Bring me your astrolabe.”

  Ursula anxiously brought it. She sat down in her armchair and waited, breathing hard, while Julian with a goose-quill pen wrote figures and symbol
s on another piece of parchment. He worked from an ephemeris he always carried in his bag. It showed the changing positions of the planets during the last fifty years. He also drew a careful chart of the twelve houses, and their various predictions for Celia.

  From long practice he worked fast, humming a little and making occasional comments. “Her ascendant is the fiery lion, which will strengthen the quicksilver Gemini, and make her headstrong, passionate—the moon in Scorpio—Ah, that too will give her purpose and strong carnal interest, but she has healing power, love of the unknown—a decided character, though tempered by the gentle Libra in the fifth house, the house of love—it also gives her beauty . . . hm-m . . . the planets . . .”

  Julian fell silent as he studied the position of Celia’s planets. The watching Ursula saw him compress his lips. His pen moved slower, she saw his eyebrows draw together.

  “What is it?” she said in a quavering voice. “What have you found?”

  Julian did not answer, he examined again the astrolabe and the ephemeris. Made a fresh set of figures. Finally, he looked up and met her anxious eyes. “There are afflictions,” he said with hesitation. “The eighth house, the house of Death—the twelfth—the house of self-undoing—”

  “Saturn . . .?” whispered Ursula fearingly—”But, I found beneficent Jupiter in good position.”

  Julian had not. Venus and Jupiter were each in opposition to the baleful Saturn, which was the only planet above the horizon at Celia’s birth.

  Violent early death, he would have decided had this been the horoscope of somebody unknown to him, but his sympathy for these two women was strong, and predictions were not infallible. He put down his pen, and smiled at Ursula. “There are afflictions to be surmounted,” he said lightly, “yet remember that the stars impel but cannot compel. I should like to see the girl’s palms when she returns. I’ve always thought chiromancy a truer guide to the future. Many folk were born after sunrise on this June thirteenth. And thus share her nativity. But Celia’s hands are unique. Entirely her own. Come, Lady, look not so doleful. There are indications here to satisfy your ambitions. She will rise in the world, she may even become close to royalty, and there is hope of a brilliant marriage.”

  Ursula jumped at reassurance. She seized Julian’s hand and pressed it. “Oh, Master Julian,” she cried, “you make me happy. Why is not Celia my own? Above all things I wish for that. I love her more than many a natural mother loves her child. And why am I not rich and powerful? Why must my spirit be chastened by dependence, humiliation I’ve done nothing to merit?”

  “Brother Stephen would have an answer for those heartfelt cries,” said Julian chuckling. “God’s will is inscrutable.” He released her hand gently.

  “Aye . . .” she sighed on a long breath. “God’s will.” She cast a distracted glance up at her crucifix. “Yes, He will shield her from all dangers, if I have faith enough, won’t He, Master Julian?”

  E una cosa bastante incerta, said Julian cynically to himself, thinking of life’s disappointments, its tragic cruelties. He also thought of his conversation with Stephen, and the doctrine of many lives, which he had brought forth more as an intellectual game than a conviction. “If evil befalls, there will eventually be redress, perhaps, and the strength of your desires will sometimes bring fulfillment, no doubt.” He said this from a wish to comfort, but also from sudden boredom. He was hungry, the ache in his cheekbone had reappeared to plague him, and he, too, must seek Sir Anthony and bid his host farewell, since Stephen was cured.

  Ursula interpreted Julian’s remark as a reference to paradise, patience, penitence—and was deflated. She moved slowly to the open window and looked through the hot shimmering August air to the courtyard.

  “Here’s Celia returning,” she announced, then stiffened as she saw Stephen enter the courtyard from the fan-vaulted portal. She watched the two greeting each other, their startled pleasure obvious. Celia knelt for the blessing, which Ursula thought too lingering, and during the conversation which ensued, she distinctly heard Celia’s happy excited laugh, and saw the tall black-robed figure bend nearer the girl.

  “God’s holy wounds—” said Ursula under her breath; she leaned out of the window and called, “Celia! Celia! Come at once! I’m waiting!”

  The girl looked up and waved acquiescence, then said a few more words to the young monk.

  “It is unwise, my lady,” said Julian, “to show your fears too plain, or to press her unduly. They are both completely innocent, as yet.”

  “Aye,” agreed Ursula, “but we’ll set out for Cumberland as soon as I get leave from Sir Anthony . . .” She paused and added in a rush, “He, too, gazes at Celia in a way I think unseemly.”

  “Dio mio!” Julian raised his hands, then let them fall. “Any man would, but you must not be so fearful. That child has spirit, taste and loyalty. Moreover, though innocent, she was reared in a tavern and cannot be ignorant. It’s not loss of virginity I fear for her, it’s suffering and heartbreak. Stephen is as chaste as she, and would never touch her—the other men who wish to bed her, and there will be many, can never be dangerous since barring the most brutal of rapes, of course, no woman’s maidenhead is pierced without secret consent.”

  Ursula was not listening to him, she was straining to hear the light footsteps outside, and the tap on the door which soon came.

  Celia rushed in. “Here’s your silk, Aunt!” she waved a crimson skein. “Mercer’s ’prentice wanted fourpence for it; I told him ’twas disgraceful, and I none o’ the castle gentry to be diddled like that! So I got it for thrupence.” She put the change in Ursula’s hand. “And, I met Brother Stephen below! I vow he seems better than before all his illness, and he says he’ll start my lessons next week again!”

  Ursula compressed her lips, but her plans were immature. She could not so soon dampen the girl’s gaiety.

  She accepted the threepenny bit with a fleeting smile, and said, “Master Julian, pray will you look at Celia’s palm?”

  He was immensely reluctant to do so. His hunger and his discomforts had increased. He would have refused except that Celia danced up to him, holding out both her hands. “’Tis part o’ the fortune?” she asked giggling. “Last summer at Cowdray Fair, there was an old wise-woman who read palms. I wanted to try but didn’t have the silver.”

  He took the small, reddened hands in his, he turned them over and gazed briefly at the Mounts of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the life line. He started and squinted harder, hoping that his eyes were tricking him. He dropped her hands abruptly. The women waited.

  “There’s little here,” he said at last, shrugging. “I see little to interpret, and am weary. I bid you good day; we’ll breakfast and meet in the morning.” He bowed and hurried away.

  Julian went down the passage to his room, where he poured himself a glass of wine, and tried to deny what he had seen. On both of Celia’s palms the life line was very short and stopped with an “island” on the Mount of Venus. In the right palm, furthermore, there was the malignant cross on Saturn at the base of the ring finger. Well, he thought, many die young and violent deaths, and she had a star on Jupiter which is good; besides, nothing is certain in this world, and I have seen prognostications go awry, or she may have had a childish injury which distorted her right palm. In any case, I can do nothing. Soothsaying is not my forte—I am a physician. He took another glass of wine, and gradually began to feel resentment towards Ursula, who had nagged him into sentiments he deplored. He combed his hair and beard, brushed his robes, and went off to find Sir Anthony.

  By nine o’clock that evening, Anthony, having spent a long day disposing of tenants, a thieving potboy, hysterical accusations of witchcraft against old Molly of Whiphill, the Steward’s requisitions, and finally, the requests of Stephen, Master Julian, and Lady Ursula, gave a great yawn, and pushing back from the supper table emptied a flagon of mead.

  “Excellent,” he remarked to “Lord” Gerald, the only remaining visitor at Cowdray. “The butler
chills it in the well, and the honey came from Yorkshire—heather, y’know—gives it a tang. Old-fangled drink, but I had a bellyful o’ fancy clarets and muscadines whilst the King was here. God’s blood, ’tis hot tonight,” he added, loosening his ruff and mopping his face on a yellow silk handkerchief.

  Gerald’s bright squirrel eyes peered at his host. “Ye’ve had a hard day, Nephew,” he said twinkling. “Niver so conscientious will I be, if I’m earl on me rightful lands again.”

  Anthony laughed. It amused him when this young bantam who was only three years older, addressed him as “Nephew.” It did not amuse him to think of Geraldine as “Mother,” and he had never done so.

  “When and if you get your earldom,” said Anthony, yawning again. “Spare me the plots, I don’t want to know ’em . . . ’Tis a night to get drunk and go wenching i’ the moonlight. Pity the Midhurst whores’re so unappetizing.”

  “You’ve a dairymaid, Peggy Hobson she’s called. I’ve sampled her and found her wholesome,” said Gerald helpfully. “Shall we get her?”

  Anthony shook his head. “I do not foul my own nest. A lapse now and again in town, when my Lady Jane is ailing, but I make full confession and do penance.”

  “Is your chaplain strict?” asked Gerald idly, munching on a prune comfit. “Poor fellow near died, I understand.”

  “Aye, he did, but mended enough to resume duties, and saddle me with an importunate matron from Kent.” Anthony made a rueful face as he thought of his interview with Emma Allen. She had been subdued, ingratiating, but very persistent in her claim to the lost dowry. When Anthony, quite truthfully, asserted that he had no idea where it was, round glistening drops had oozed from the corners of her eyes. Finally, she had collapsed on a bench and given two or three sobs, while her husband distractedly patted her shoulder.

  Anthony’s conscience was sometimes troubled, as had been his father’s, by the immense benefits they had derived from the dissolution of the monasteries, and to be rid of Emma, he finally gave her six gold angels and a slightly flawed diamond ring.