Suddenly, kneeling numbly in the ignominy of all fours, a thought struck her like a blow: earlier, a soldier had shouted something about the ‘randy abbess’. What could he have meant? Surely he … How? No, it must, could only be a chance word from a foul-mouthed thug? Unless God had put that word into his mouth? And for God there was no chance. For God there were slow, unfolding patterns, unpardoning scrolls of which the living only saw a measured stretch. These thugs could be his punishing instrument, this invasion a penalty for Agnes’s sin. She had never welcomed religion’s bleak arithmetic any more than she had looked for its disembodying flights. But now, here, caged under the marble altar-slab like an answer under the line of a sum, God’s book-keeping began to look inescapable. She should have prayed but suddenly couldn’t. The guilt to be repented was too old, dead and detached from herself: like cut nail-parings. Was her conscience dead then? Gone insensible as her breasts had after the infant, Ingunda, had been taken from her and her milk dried up? They had been her most sensitive bodily organs and had lost all sensation so that now she could twist or pinch them and feel as little as if she were twisting the ends of her hair. Ingunda, she thought. The name shot giddily through her mind. Was the girl to be punished too? Had she perhaps already been hurt? How could the men have found her? But there had been a shriek? Then again, she sometimes shrieked for no reason—or for some reason private to her dark loneliness.
It was evening and pink reflections were falling on the mosaic floor where emblematic animals—peacocks, fish—were framed in squares scarcely smaller than her own hiding-place, when the chapel door was once again flung open. Agnes dropped the hem of the altar-cloth. Feet tramped up the nave and this time right to the altar. A man leaned on it and his toe intruded into the space where she was crouched. It landed on her skirt, pinning it so tautly that she could not move. If the foot were to come a thumb’s breadth closer it must touch her body and discover her. Hampered and muffled by the intervening altar-valance, the toe’s snout probed and menaced.
“What about taking this cloth?” a voice wondered. “It’s fine heavy linen.”
“Are you thick? This is no farmhouse. It’s rich! Full of gold! We can’t carry the lot, so leave the trumpery and take only the best!”
“Well, then, what about this cross here? Solid gold. Is that choice enough for you?”
“Too conspicuous. Anyone can tell it’s church property. It’s too big, too—hard to break up. Come on. There’ll be better stuff in the sacristy. Gold cups. More negotiable …”
The foot withdrew. Agnes fainted.
When she recovered it was pitch dark. Night again and the altar-lamp had been allowed to go out. Had the men left? She listened for a long while, heard nothing and eased herself out from under the altar. Hobbling with difficulty, for she had a cramp, she groped her way out of the chapel and into the cold, starlit cloister. Before she knew it she was at Ingunda’s slit. She listened. The girl’s breath was rougher, louder and more uneven than usual. It could have been the wall itself breathing.
“Ingunda,” Agnes whispered.
A scream burst shockingly from the wall: “Wa-a-ater!”
“Shsh!” Agnes felt as though the breath had been knocked from her own body. She gasped for air, listened, heard nothing. Were the nuns still locked up then? And the men? “Shsh!” she repeated. “For God’s sake, be quiet. I’ll get you water.”
She moved cautiously into the bright middle of the cloister. No sounds. She managed to reach the well and draw water from it without making more than a few faint, rustling noises, paused, ladled some liquid silently down the side of the pitcher which was kept there, and carried it back to the shadow. The girl’s water-pouch was dust-dry. Even before the invasion, the sister in charge of her rations must have forgotten to fill it. But maybe that sister was one of the renegades? No, their duties had been reapportioned. But, undeniably, order at Holy Cross was breaking down. She slid the the filled pouch into the slit.
“Ingunda,” she whispered, “this is Agnes. You must be more quiet. It’s dangerous to scream. I haven’t time to explain, but … do you understand me, Ingunda?”
Silence. But the breathing had grown quicker. Feverish wall. Who had said ‘Priests, not stones, are the foundation of the Church’? Ah, Justina.
“Ingunda. You have been screaming, haven’t you? You realize that, don’t you? Are you feverish, Ingunda?”
Again she waited. Then: “I absolve you from your vow of silence. Answer me, Ingunda. This is the abbess.”
“Demoness!” It was a rasping crumble of sound.
“Ingunda …”
“Tonight demons are abroad. They try the righteous.”
Agnes tried to sound matter-of-fact. “Yes,” she agreed. “The convent has been broken into. But by men, Ingunda, men, not by demons. You mustn’t let them hear you. They’re dangerous. I think they’ve gone for the moment. But they may come back. So please, Ingunda, be quiet.”
The breathing in the wall was almost a rattle. She’s ill, thought Agnes, and remembered Fortunatus’s plan to get the girl out. Had she time to do it now? Could she? She tried to rock the stone immediately below the slit but it was firm. She’d need help. Some of the younger nuns were strong. Besides, she should release them. She ran quietly over to the tower where she had heard the men say they were going to imprison them. The door was nailed up. She would need some sort of a lever to remove the boards which had been nailed across it. She walked back into the cloister and was making for the kitchens when she heard sounds at the outer gate. Her way was cut off. She backed into a leafy thicket which rose next to the well. By daylight, it might not have hidden her, but in the darkness she would be safe enough. After her day’s terrified hiding, Agnes was beginning to develop the selective listening-techniques of a blind woman. She sensed the men’s arrival in the cloister before she heard them. They were being more cautious than last night. There were only two or three of them and they had taken off their shoes. A mule brayed and a man cursed softly.
“Tie him up here. Give the bastard some hay or something. Where’s that barrel of pitch? Roll it over near the well. No, keep it away from those bushes. We don’t want to burn the convent down. And keep the loot at a safe distant. Right? Set a light to it then.”
“Keep that mule quiet, can’t you?”
There was a spark, then a flare as the pitch barrel took fire. Agnes pressed deeper into her bushes for the flames were so close that a spark fell on her and the middle of the cloister was suddenly as bright as day. The men, too, seemed dazzled for a moment. There were four of them, she saw now, and two mules. Agnes recognized the animals as convent property. Bags had been tossed across their backs and two of the men had started loading them with gold cups.
“Hey Droctulf, why not flatten these? They’d take up less room. We’ll be selling them for the gold anyhow. They’re no good this way: all covered with crosses and Latin. Might as well have the word ‘stolen’ all over them. We can do it quietly. Wrap the mallet in cloth.”
A straw-haired fellow had been standing all this time beside Ingunda’s slit. “Hey, let up a minute, will you?” he called to his mates. “I hear something. In this wall.”
The one addressed as Droctulf made a smart reply but stopped hammering. The straw-head raised a hand and leaned his head towards the slit.
“Anyone in there?” he called.
Agnes felt her body freeze. There was a thundering in her ears and she heard—did she hear?—Ingunda’s voice. Yes. Yes, the voice was coming from there. It was lilting. “Dung,” Ingunda chanted, “Ding, dong, dung. No bells today. I expiate my mother’s sin. What’s that light? The demons are come. Their eyes are red. Shitty fingers are bright too. Pearl-and diamond bright. I am rich and I can pay. Pay the demons for my mother’s sin. Come, demons, I can pay. I am Mother Agnes’s bastard. I have rings on my fingers …”
The straw-headed man thrust his scramasax into the slit. There was a cry.
“What’s in there?”
Droctulf and the other two had joined the first man. Jostling they tried to peer into the slit. One ran back to the pitch barrel, took a hold of a burning piece of wood and returned holding it aloft. He tried to cast its light in through the slit.
“No good,” said the pale-haired man. “It’s deep and it’s at an angle. I didn’t hit anything either. The scramasax won’t reach.”
“There might be treasure in there. Those nuns are crafty.”
“We’ll see about that.”
They began to dislodge the stones in the wall, poking at the mortar with the handles of their swords, then levering out the stones with a bar which seemed to have been lying with the rest of the loot. No more sounds came from the hole. Agnes wanted to scream at them to go gently but her mouth seemed to have gone numb. Her mind however was racing like a trapped mouse. Maybe they’re demons, she thought. Maybe they are, I don’t care who they are if only they free her. Free her gently, gently,” her brain screamed at them but her tongue bulged like a piece of dead matter in her mouth and her jaws were locked. “I’ll pray to you,” her brain told the men. “To you.”
When the hole was wide enough, one of the men stepped through it. His companion held up the torch. Agnes had crept heedlessly out of her thicket and was only a few paces behind them but they were all staring at the hole and didn’t see her.
“Well, what’s in there?”
“Shit mostly. It’s a small place. There’s a woman here—or a child. I can’t tell. She’s in a bad way. Here. Catch.”
The man held up an armful of bones and tatters, a limp, live creature whose breath kept coming more and more loudly, wheezing and rasping and thudding through the cloister with such astonishing volume that it seemed to be the breath of the whole building or to be a freak organ, a heart which had grown while the body around it had shrunk into a mere receptacle or casing for this vigorous, beating pulse. Agnes glimpsed a pair of dazzled eyes but there was nothing individual about them and she wouldn’t have known them. She herself was standing right behind the men now. She stretched a hand between two of their bodies to touch the area around the two light-mirroring orbs. The men were too absorbed to notice. She reached Ingunda’s hair—it was dry and thorning—and one of the men pushed her hand blindly aside without wondering where it came from.
“Are you sure that’s all that’s there?” he asked, taking the wheezing bundle from his companion and leaning so heavily across it that Agnes could hear Ingunda’s breath being crushed. The man craned towards the hole. Agnes put a hand between his heavy body and the frail burden which he was about to flatten. She poked his belly with her elbow and he leaped backwards, dropped Ingunda and, involuntarily, kicked her cranium with his heavy boot.
“The devil,” he cursed in surprise, “I’ve cracked its skull.” He backed away, staring at the fragile creature at his feet. Blood was pouring through the sparse hair. “As well finish it off,” he remarked and bashed it in with a flat blow of his scramasax. There was a sound of bone being crushed. “Queer looking, isn’t it?” he said as he cleaned the short sword on his tunic. “Hadn’t much life in it, I’d …” Then he saw Agnes. “What . .”
Before he could say more, she had snatched the scramasax from his limp hand and plunged it at his lower belly. He howled and doubled up. The man beside him swung round, saw her holding the weapon and raised his own.
“Stop him!”
Chrodechilde and Childeric stepped into the light.
“Don’t let them touch her,” shouted Chrodechilde.” Save her. It’s the abbess.”
Childeric was holding the man’s raised arm. “Easy,” he soothed.
“You’re all animals!” Chrodechilde was shaking. “Oh Christ! You’ve killed her. Killed the recluse. Look: Oh Jesus, God!” She shook and swayed in a lament that spilled from her like blood or vomit or some overflowing humour. “Oh Holy God, what have I done? It’s my sin! Mine,” she spurted. Her undershot jaw gnawed the air. Her tongue got in the way and the words fell out like clots of wet, angry matter. “Did you hear, did you? The recluse was her child! Hers. You’ve killed her, you’ll have no luck. We’ll all be damned. Damned! We’ll burn!” She screamed at Childeric. “Your men are devils!” Her mouth wobbled and a spray of white spittle foamed out of it and across the face of the man whose weapon arm was still frozen in mid-air.
The man jerked angrily and Childeric, who was still holding him, pulled him backwards. The man Agnes had wounded was still bent over, holding himself and groaning.
“She’s castrated him!” shouted the fair-haired man. “Let’s kill the bitch. Both of them!” He glared furiously at Chrodechilde. “They’re mad,” he said, “mad, bloody women!”
“Leave them alone!” Childeric turned to Chrodechilde. “I thought you wanted to be abbess yourself?” he said. “Didn’t you? Well, now you’ve got her where you want her. When the bishops hear she had a child …”
“I was wrong!” Chrodechilde flung herself on her knees and began to embrace Agnes’s. “Forgive me,” she whimpered. “Punish me. You’re my abbess.”
Agnes stood rigid, dry and dead-eyed. She took no notice of Chrodechilde and did not even look at the broken-skulled bundle which had been Ingunda. She waited until Chrodechilde’s outburst had dwindled into a sobbing mumble then said dully. “I am not your abbess. You can take over now. You or … another.” She stepped carefully around the two bodies twisted on the ground and walked towards the hole in the wall. “I shall go in here,” she said. “I shall take her place in the wall.”
*
Fortunatus and the prince rode south. For the first two nights Fortunatus had not slept fearing that the bravoes supplied by Palladius might have orders to kill one or both of them. But they had reached Saintes, Bordeaux, Agen, Toulouse and crossed over into the territory of the Goths without any attempt being made on his or Clovis’s life. The bravoes had become familiar by now. He knew their names, listened to their talk and had grown to trust them. This might be foolish but he could not believe that it was. Reaching the south his spirits rose and when they got to the sea, the southern sea which recalled his youth in Rimini, he had a feeling for a moment that he was young again and emerging from a long passage underground and into the sunlight. He saw it first on a hot morning at the bottom of a sloping field of thyme and lavender, swelling and bellying like a great scaly reptile toasting itself in the sun. A breeze moved the leaves from green to silver. The sea-scales shifted. Crickets made a sound tiny and busy enough to fit the surface quiver of the visible landscape. Fortunatus struck Clovis on the shoulder.
“Look, you Frank!” he shouted. “Here is a country which should sooth even your boiling and spoiling for fights!”
“You wouldn’t want me soothed now, would you?” laughed the prince.
The boy thought he was being brought to join an army of supporters who would help him gain the crowns of Gaul. He treated the armed escort as his first henchmen, looked on them with emotion and had confided to Fortunatus that he intended to find a good position in his armies for their leader. Poor deluded wretch! Whose fault? Fortunatus sloughed off the discomfort he felt every time the boy talked of his hopes.
“Don’t talk about that!” he said, frowning.
Clovis took on a look of discretion and responsibility. His mouth twitched with joy.
“Oh the devil!” roared Fortunatus and turned his horse down the slope to the sea. He drove it into the waters until they were delicately nibbling at his heel. The boy would have to sail for Byzantium. There was no help for it. He would be told, on boarding the ship, that it was taking him to join the bulk of his army at some likely port, then, once at sea, he would be told the truth. Not by Fortunatus. Fortunatus would be on his way back to Poitiers where he would wait for a bishopric to fall vacant. As they hadn’t killed him, they must reward him. There were only two ways to treat a dangerous man. A man who had been dangerous. A man eager for retreat. Fortunatus bent over his horse’s neck, caught a scoop of sea water and s
plashed his face with it. Life would be quiet now, he thought as he straightened up. Agnes would be supreme at Holy Cross. She could release Ingunda as she wanted. The matter of the renegade nuns would be easily settled. Bishops Gregory and Palladius would see to that. Radegunda’s white-hot spirit had dissolved and lost itself in the light of the godhead. She was gone, lost like one of those long-tailed falling stars which appear from time to time, inexplicably burning the air around them, then finally fall and bury themselves leaving a crater where they sink: a space, a hole, a nothingness, thought Fortunatus, looking with a needle-thrust of melancholy at Clovis. At best an afterglow in a few memories.
“Race you up the slope!” he challenged and prodded his horse to a gallop with a quick-tapping heel.
“You cheated!” shouted Clovis, taken by surprise.
While the kings were still in conference at Andelot, news reached them that the convent of their holy kinswoman, Radegunda, was without an abbess. The foundress herself had but lately thrown off her fleshly body to enter the heavenly kingdom and her spiritual daughter, the Abbess Agnes, had been moved by grief to become an anchoress. Being filled with solicitude for the nuns thus doubly orphaned at a single stroke, they sent pressing directions to Maroveus, Bishop of Poitiers, recommending that he choose as abbess a young nun, wise beyond her years, the fame of whose piety and probity had already reached across Gaul. This was Chrodechilde, a kinswoman of their own whose virtue was as noble as her lineage. This was done and Chrodechilde proved a worthy successor to the holy Radegunda for she ruled with zeal and perseverance showing as much energy in punishing the wicked as she did modesty in consoling the weak.
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