Women in the Wall (20 page)

She left the chapel in a mood of exhilaration. She was eager to get to grips with this new challenge, but was impeded.

A nun had come to look for her. There were visitors at the convent gate. Important ones who would not be put off.

It was still early. The garden foliage was white with dew and the sun had not finished burning the haze from the tops of the vines below the convent walls. Who could have come with such imperious needs outside convent visiting hours? Someone, it appeared, from the royal palace at Soissons. An emissary from Queen Fredegunda herself. Poitiers had been under the rule of this queen and her husband—who was also under her rule—since its former king, Sigibert, had been murdered five years before. Popular opinion credited Fredegunda with that murder but then half the murders ir the kingdom were laid at her door.

“Who is it?” Agnes asked the portress when she reached the gate. “Did they give a name?”

“Bishop Bertram of Bordeaux.”

“No less!”

This bishop, whose already shady reputation had not been improved by recent rumours of a scandalous intimacy with Queen Fredegunda, was not in his own diocese and Agnes under no obligation to receive him. However, she handed her key to the portress who opened the door.

A bull-like man with heavy jowls, not much neck and dressed more like a soldier than a bishop was outside on horseback backed up by a train of armed and mounted men. A girl, also mounted, was beside him but her head was bent and Agnes could not see her face. The bull-faced man inclined his torso a little, identified himself as Bishop Bertram, and began to speak.

“My lord,” Agnes cut short his compliments. “I should be grateful if you would state your embassy briefly. Our Rule permits us only the most necessary dealings with the world outside.”

“Admirable, Mother!” The bishop raised an eyebrow then bent his head. The two gestures seemed to annul one another. “How I envy you!” He paused, then, injecting a careful dose of insolence into his tone, said, “My mission, as it happens, is holy and delicate. If you would allow me to unfold it to you in some place more discreet…?” Another pause. “It concerns”, he decided to admit, “a vocation.” Nodding at the girl beside him who did not look up. “I can say no more here.”

“All right,” said Agnes. “I shall see your Grace in the reception room then. With the postulant. Nobody else.”

The bishop bowed. Agnes withdrew. She went for a moment to the chapel to prepare herself for what was coming. Bishop Bertram would not have made the journey from Soissons simply to escort a nun. Agnes wished she could have consulted Radegunda but Radegunda was in retreat. The only other person familiar with courts and politics was Fortunatus. How thoroughly she was cured of him! She had not thought of him once during the vigil or funeral. Now his name came to mind in a worldly
connection
—appropriately, for he was a worldly man. He had become a priest four years ago: a late, tepid vocation. But he did know about court intrigues. He would be able to help her. She left the chapel and gave orders that a peasant was to be sent to the poet’s quarters with an urgent request that he come to the convent. Then she went to the parlour. The prioress was waiting at the door and followed her in: Justina. She was the niece of the Bishop of Tours, not the one who had come to the ceremony for the True-Cross relic but his successor, Gregory. Justina was the most likely of all the nuns to be able to give useful advice. Besides, the presence of another nun was required at all visits. Bishop Bertram did not waste time.

He was a coarse-faced creature with a nose as fat as a fist knuckled into the flesh of his cheeks and as thickly riddled with blackheads as a March seed-bed is with grain. He began to speak with some ceremony—a purely vegetable ooze or crackle might have surprised less—but without conviction and as though he had been hastily drilled in fine phrasing which he did not find congenial. He scratched himself once or twice during his speech, gabbled it through at speed and reserved his considerable power of expression for the grunts and groans which must have been his own addition.

“Mother Agnes,” he began, “as you so usefully reminded me just now, your convent is cut off from the world and you probably do not know the latest news from court? No? … I thought not! Well, it’s not good. It is
particularly
painful to the princess here, so, if you’ll allow me, I’ll make my account of it brief. Yes: this is Princess Basina, King Chilperic’s daughter by his ex-wife, Audovera, who, you will recall, withdrew into a convent on the princess’s birth. The reason for that was that she had been imprudent enough to baptize the child herself—the usual story, she had taken bad advice. Well, that made her her own daughter’s godmother, her husband’s godsip and thus, by Church Law, ineligible to continue as his wife.” The bishop waved a hand impatiently at these theological niceties. “There was controversy about all that but the upshot was that she
chose
to renounce the marriage leaving His Majesty free to marry Queen Fredegunda. I remind you of all this because there have been some … developments. Audovera has just been murdered in her convent. The assassin’s identity is
unknown
. You will appreciate the shock this was for her daughter here. Indeed for us all. A terrible thing. It has contributed to the girl’s distaste for the world and her eagerness to join your flock, Mother Agnes. There are other circumstances, too. The girl’s brother, Clovis, has killed himself. He was found with a dagger in his chest and his own hand on the hilt. An unstable family, as you see. He was her last remaining brother. Two others had already ended violently. I would rather not go on with all this in front of the princess. It must be painful for her to hear.
Perhaps
she might withdraw? I say this purely from sympathy, Princess Basina, though I know I’ll get no credit for any with you. May she withdraw?” he asked Agnes.

Agnes nodded and Justina took the girl out, then returned alone.

The bishop immediately dropped his official manner. He continued in a confiding gossip’s voice with which he was obviously more at ease. It was a voice which evoked winks, cynical leers and digs in the ribs, but the bishop managed to keep his ponderous face straight.

“The truth is”, he told Agnes, “that the step-family—this girl and her mother and brother—are suspected of having poisoned Queen Fredegunda’s sons in the hope of obtaining the succession for themselves. True or untrue,” the bishop shrugged, “what matters is that the queen believes the story. She had several maids tortured when her sons died. The doctors said the boys died of the plague but royalty”, again the sly insinuating tone, “don’t like to think their own kinsmen can die as serfs do: of natural causes.” He paused as though expecting a laugh. “Well,” he resumed briskly, “some of the tortured maids were persuaded to blame the step-family and say that they had paid them to poison the children. This may be true and it may not. Either way the girl is unsafe at court and
Fredegunda
doesn’t want her there. The maids”, said the bishop meditatively, “took back their story before dying—but what does that prove?”

“Are you seeking”, Agnes wondered, “a sanctuary or a prison?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. If the girl doesn’t want to stay, I shan’t have her.”

“And what if she ends up like her brother? With a dagger in her breast and her own hand on the hilt?” The bishop waited a few moments, then: “It will have, in part anyway, Mother Agnes, been put there by you!”

“All these stories”, said Agnes in some agitation, “bring in here a world which we do not understand and with which we do not know how to deal. You’re trying to make use of us, Bishop Bertram. I don’t know if it is a good use. I don’t know at all. We did not leave the world and its …” she looked for a strong word, “sewer in order to have it follow us here. Our office here is to pray. We attempt to live in harmony—I wonder if you know how hard that is, Bishop Bertram. We offer our harmony to heaven. We recite eighty psalms a day. We try to mediate between God and those who have less leisure to pray than we do. We pray for our own sins”, Agnes told him, “and for others’. That is our function. If we begin to act as the prisons of the realm we will end up performing both functions badly.” She panted nervously—angry at her own anger. She should be in better control!

“You prize your peace! Mmm! It is true”, the bishop remarked, “that you’re lucky here. You have never, I believe, been pillaged by one of those ragged armies our kings are forever hurling into battle against”, the bishop rubbed his fat nose in amusement, “each other,” he finished disbelievingly. “Remarkable luck really! Have you even seen any of our soldiery close up? No? Horrifying scum, Mother Agnes. Not paid at all of course. They are expected to pay and feed themselves with whatever they can grab from the populations whose lands they pass through. They tend not to distinguish between Church property and the rest. A convent is no different to them from a bordello. A lupanar. Forgive me, mother, the word slipped. Yes. We bishops have to deal with matters of the world, you see and—what was that word you used just now? ‘Mediate’? Yes, we mediate between such holy persons as yourself and the world. We can become
somewhat
foul-mouthed. I do hope you’ll forgive me. Pray for me even.” The bishop shook his jowls. “As I was saying, these armies are quite uncontrollable. You’ve no idea. The officers follow as a huntsman does his dogs. When they’re too late they find the hounds have torn the prey apart. You’ve been lucky here!” He drilled his glance into hers. “You’ll agree you have?” he harried her.

Did he think her a fool? Probably. Agnes refused to react. “We pray for the soldiers too,” she said.

The bishop shook himself. “Prayer…”

“My lord,” she interrupted him. “It is almost time for our next service. Do you want me to question the princess.”

He shrugged, nodded, closed his eyes. “Why not?”

“Justina?” said Agnes.

The prioress left. The bishop and the abbess stared in different directions. The prioress returned with the girl. Agnes beckoned her. She moved forward, crabwise. Her face was tight with a look of dislike which she turned impartially on the abbess and the bishop. Agnes guessed that she was about eleven.

“Do you know”, Agnes asked her, “that convent life is austere and often disappointing?”

The girl considered her own foot. “My mother”, she told it in a flat voice, “was in a convent. She kept me with her for a while. I know about convents.”

“You may not know about ours. We make no exceptions for persons of royal blood. Our foundress is Queen Radegunda whose husband ruled all Gaul, but she treats herself more harshly than anyone else here. We own
nothing
. There are no chests with keys. Nobody has any personal possessions. Everyone sleeps in a dormitory. There is no privacy.”

“You don’t want me?” The girl sounded surprised.

Agnes scrutinized her: dull-eyed, dull-haired, pale, suspicious, sly-looking, possibly stupid, certainly unhappy, presently in a state of shock. Hardly a good recruit for community living. Poor child! Yes, but it was Agnes’s business to look out for the community.

“Do you think you’d fit in here?” she asked. “We are two hundred sisters. We live and work together. Each must take her place and no more than her place. Each must move at the pace of the others. It can be a harsh life if one has not a vocation. Boring.” She fixed her eyes on the girl, “difficult if one already has difficulties of one’s own.”

“You don’t want me either then?”

“Either?”

The girl shrugged.

“We want you if God wants you. Only you can know that. Has he called you?”

Another shrug. Basina’s face was as expressionless as a plate of porridge.

The bishop was tired of this. He crossed the room. “Basina,” he put a professional hand on the girl’s arm. She looked at it as though it were a slug. “The abbess”, he said briskly, “is not trying to discourage you. All this is routine. She would not”, a faint grunt of amusement here, “want you to be able to say …
afterwards
, that you didn’t know what you were taking on. The vow”, his voice hardened, “is binding.”

Mute, Basina stared at the floor.

“You will be safe here,” he encouraged. “You can pray for your mother and brothers.”

The girl whipped from his arm and into a corner. She dug her back into it and screamed, “Why don’t you kill me too? Be done with it? Aren’t those your orders? Shove her into a convent and turn the key. Kill her if she refuses. Or are three murders too much for even Fredegunda—and my father?”

Poor child! Yes. The girl’s own father—Fredegunda’s husband after all—must be involved too! Agnes repressed her impulse to comfort the girl. All this would have been planned by Bishop Bertram and with neither the girl’s nor the convent’s good in mind!

“My dear,” she remarked instead, “if there had been an intention to murder you, it would be more difficult now to carry it out. Besides, your way back to Soissons leads through the kingdom of King Guntram. You could seek refuge there.”

The bishop gave Agnes a furious look.

“It seems to me, Mother, that you are curiously ready to encourage this child’s delusions! They have been
malignantly
and deliberately induced. Surely such receptivity is dangerous in an abbess. It makes me wonder do you have many mad nuns here? Many who receive visits from demons? Incubi?” He bared his teeth. They were yellow, waspish, veined with black.

“We do”, said Agnes insolently, “have unsolicited visits we might have preferred to forego. Perhaps this one might now be terminated? The girl has clearly no vocation.”

“You refuse to take her?”

“I do.”

“The queen will be curious to know your reasons.”

“Tell her the girl has no vocation.”

“The queen is convinced she has.”

“With respect, this is a matter over which the queen’s jurisdiction does not extend. I must be allowed to decide for myself.”

“Might I remind you…”

“No, my lord. You have reminded me already of too much. You have brought with you the smells and schemes of a world we pity but in which we do not choose to live. Please convey my obedient respects to the queen and tell her we remember her in our prayers.”