Maud frightens Father Brandt

Queen Maud stood over the cradle in which her feverish little son lay coughing. Father Brandt crossed the room and came to stand beside her.

Colban coughed a while and then squirmed in discomfort, and Brandt saw that his face was hotly flushed and overspread with the rash. He had worsened.

Maud drooped like one of the snow-​​rotted plants in her garden, recently exposed by the cold rain. She had none of the oddly buoyant dreaminess that she had had for the past few months. She too had worsened.

“I have seen the little Princess,” Brandt said to her. “It may be she is somewhat better now.”

“She has no sin,” Maud murmured. “But he…”

“Your husband likes to say he has devilment in him,” he chuckled, “but we know it is only a manner of speaking.”

“He bears my sin.”

“No, no, dear heart. The son shall not bear the iniquities of the father. Or the dear mother.”

“The Son of God said, ‘I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. And I will kill her children with death.’”

“Thou hast repented, dear heart. The Son of God said unto the adulteress what thou knowest, namely, ‘Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more.’”

“But his father? His father? ‘He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’”

“My dear…”

“‘And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.’”

“My dear, my dear, what does this mean?” She had taken to communicating with him through verses of the Bible. So far it had taught him little. He had only speculation upon speculation, and he dared not believe anything too strongly.

Still, these cryptic verses seemed to reveal more of her heart than what she ever told others. With others, she was smiling, dreamy, and utterly blank.

“For I say in my heart,’” Maud continued, twisting her fingers in her agitation, “‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.’ Therefore shall my plagues come in one day, death, and mourning.”

“My dear, my dear…” Brandt took her restless hands and held them tightly until they stilled. “‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ Hast confessed thy sins to God? Hast asked forgiveness?”

She nodded slowly, her eyes wide and wet and her lip quivering. She was no more than a child, he thought.

“Then He has already blotted them out. Thou knowest!”

She continued her nodding.

“Now, we shall pray for thy son. It may be God’s will that he leave us, dear heart, but it will not be to punish thee – nor him for thy sins, and the sins of his father.”

“But if he should die,” she said eagerly, looking up at him as if suddenly inspired, “his father shall never have him. Never!”

Brandt recoiled slightly, blinking at the bright glare of her eyes. There were times when she frightened him – times when he wondered whether she were not possessed by some unclean spirit. “It is the Father of us all who shall have him, dear heart. But it is not a sin to hope it be God’s will he remain with us a while. We love him so.”

“Oh!” she wailed, the gleam extinguished. “My husband said I might love him! He said I might!” She threw herself against him and sobbed.