Women in the Wall (29 page)

“Nothing. Nothing that matters now,” Fortunatus told him. “Don’t mention the murders to Radegunda. She couldn’t take that.”

“The news”, Palladius told him, “is common knowledge along the trade routes by now. It wasn’t my intention, I assure you, to have so much blood. The thing got out of hand. Once Rauching was brought in…” He broke off again to cough. “The dust,” he coughed.

“Leave your horse here,” Fortunatus told him. “We’ll get you a drink.”

*

Radegunda and Palladius faced each other: two white figures. Hers was the vertical whiteness of her habit which fell in flat folds from her shoulders. The bishop was white from road-dust which clung like a fungus to his surfaces, buried his eyebrows, disappeared in the chapped pallor of his lips. He had told her his story—less than he told Fortunatus but enough, it was clear, to shock her into realizing that the endeavour to which she had lent herself was not only defeated but had been impure from the start.

The bishop sighed, groped for a bench, remembered he had not been invited to take one and straightened up. A moment later he was sagging again. His hands foundered. “Unity”, he said wearily, “is the bloodiest word in the lexicon. One makes … concessions to it. It becomes … the main end. And then, nothing cements like blood. Literally speaking. Masons tell you that. When one starts making … concessions, the extremists take over.
I
tried to hold out, …” His hand fell in discouragement. “You ask why we chose Rauching. We didn’t. We all said we would
not
have him and then, somehow, I don’t know … it became accepted that there was dirty work to do … someone dirty needed to do it. Rauching …”

Radegunda held herself as stiff as a stake. Her nose menaced the bishop like a knife-blade badly sheathed in its aged and thinning skin.

“Bishop Palladius!” She summoned and quelled his glance. “You deceived me and are now attempting to deceive yourself. You talked to me of the City of God.
Now
you talk of having dirty work to do.”

His hands flew, froze.

“No!” She quashed their implications. “Things are and must be clear. They must be right or wrong. I blame myself. I should have known when Bishop Bertram asked us to violate our cloister that sin leads to more sin. You have been so busy brewing and stewing in the hope of distilling good from evil that you no longer know one from another. I can see that. You and your fellow-bishops are now the devil’s workers.”

The bishop let his hands fall. He opened his mouth, closed it, shrugged and drooped. He had been through bad days and nights and expected to go through some more. His horse was perhaps dead. Only a fraction of his attention was alert. “It is more complex,” he pleaded.

“Complexity,” she told him, “is of the devil.”

Palladius coughed. “You lack charity, Mother. You are not humane.” He coughed again, so that tears came to his eyes, fell on his dusty chest and rolled down carrying the dust with them and making lines like long black cuts. He had not been given the drink which Fortunatus had promised. “Perhaps”, he said, “I had better take my leave.”

Radegunda closed her eyes. Palladius started to go.

“I’ll come with you, Bishop Palladius,” Fortunatus offered.

“No!” she stopped him. “I need
you
!” She looked impatient. “Send the steward with the bishop.” With an obvious effort she turned her attention back to Palladius. “Extremism was not your mistake,” she told him. “
Impurity
was, and that comes from worldliness. You should have purified yourself in the furnace of terror and solitude. But you wanted the support of a crowd, a … crowd of Rauchings. Where was your faith? With faith you would not have used
human
methods. You would not have become—as you have, my lord bishop—indistinguishable from your enemies. It was because your methods were human that this all took so long, so long!” Her voice rose. “Where was the fountain of strength which explodes in a man’s soul when God has touched him with his grace? If we’d had that, we would have moved long ago, sped by the winds of holy impetuosity. Even now …” Her voice lightened. “
If
you could rely on God’s strength, we, the faithful among us,” she was cajoling, coaxing, almost smiling at the astonished Palladius, “by ourselves,” she begged, “we might act. If God gives us a sign. Shall we ask for one? Fortunatus!” She pointed to a chest on which lay a gold box. “Take out the Epistles. We shall give God a chance to speak to us. We shall consult the auguries. Bishop Palladius,” she cried to him, “will you consent to consult Holy Writ? To be led by it?
Will
you?” She was suddenly mobile, alert, almost quivering and the opalescent transparencies of her aging face—
blue-veined
, green-bruised, flecked with brown and chillblained with pink—were suffused by a girlish flush. Radegunda was aflame again with hope and urgency. “
You
must open it, since it is you,” she told the bishop, “who have need of reassurance.”

Her excitement crackled in the air after she had stopped speaking. The two men were very quiet, hunched into themselves as though waiting for thunder. Fortunatus held out the Epistles. Palladius half shrugged, then spoke in a quick, cautious voice:

“You want me to do this?”

“I do. I do.”

“Well…” He opened the book Fortunatus was holding “1 Thessalonians,” he read in a speedy, reluctant tone. “Chapter five, verse three,” he gabbled, “… they shall say Peace and Safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” Then, as though the meaning of what he had read had just caught his attention, he repeated it: “and they shall not escape.” His mouth slipped sideways and he released a sound which might have been on its way towards laughter. “. .not escape,” he said again.

Radegunda walked over, read the verse herself and turned away. After a moment she turned back: “Forgive my keeping you, Bishop Palladius. I realize you must be tired.” She nodded his dismissal.

The bishop left.

“Fortunatus!”

“Mother Radegunda?”

“The bishop’s comfort”, she told him, as though
answering
some protest, “is not important. Neither is mine nor yours. Small things must be sacrificed to greater. Bring the prince.”

“Here?”

“Yes. We must not be fussy about breaking a small rule now. We—through those associated with us—have broken big ones. The blood of the wretched Rauching and of who knows how many others will be on our consciences. All right,” she made an impatient gesture, “dress him in something—anything. Women’s clothes, a priest’s,
whatever
you can so as not to give scandal. But bring him.”

She turned from him, stiff as a board, upright as the leg of the great crucifix in the convent garden, moved two paces from him and collapsed. Fortunatus ran to her and raised her head. Her mouth was edged with froth, her eyes emptily dark like the holes sparks burn in cloth. “Go,” she told him. “Justina will look after me.”

He went. On the stairs he met Agnes. “Keep the nuns away,” he told her and explained quickly why.

“It’s their recreation time.”

“Well, change it. Keep them on the other side of the building for the next hour.”

He rushed off.

Left alone with Justina, Radegunda agreed to lie down but would not be silent. “It’s all my fault,” she groaned.

Justina protested.

“It is,” Radegunda insisted. “You don’t understand. The bishops’ was the temporal part. Mine was the spiritual. They were to plot and I was to pray. I should have swayed God, I should have charged the act with nobility and had faith for all. If there has been a murder it is because my prayers were not insistent. We are part of the same net. Pull here and it twitches there. Weaken here and the weakness spreads like rot. It’s my fault. Christendom”, said
Radegunda
, “is one.”

Justina brought her some water. “You can’t carry the world,” she said.

Radegunda drank and closed her eyes. “I can,” she said. “If I believe I can, I can.”

Justina went to the small cell window and looked out. The sun was going down and she could hear Agnes calling the nuns in another part of the convent. A bell was slowly ringing. She watched the light ripen from blonde to rose as the sun slipped the last fraction of its way towards the horizon. Swallows were flying around the tower. Or were they bats? The light was behind them and she couldn’t tell. Back and forth they swooped like lacemakers’ pegs, down and up, leaving black after-images on the pale, perforated sky.

A voice, quieter now, came from the bed. “Bishop Palladius”, said Radegunda with assurance, “
misunderstood
the text. ‘For when they say Peace and Safety,’ she quoted, ‘sudden destruction shall come upon them.’ He thought this upheld his decision to abandon our plan. But it means the opposite. Exactly the opposite! We should not have said ‘Peace and Safety’! We should have said ‘Suffer and seek the impossible’ for the gate is strait and Christ brought not peace but the sword. It was a sign”, she said calmly, “and he misread it. We should persist, you see, don’t you, Justina, don’t you see that?”

“Try to rest.”

“But you see, don’t you, that we
should
persevere?”

“Yes,” said Justina. She could see Fortunatus and the prince approaching. They were walking across the
vineyards
below the convent garden and the prince—she supposed it must be he although she had never seen him—was dressed as a cleric. Fortunatus was speaking, making gestures and the two were moving fast. When they came closer, they moved out of her view but a minute or so later emerged into it again as they crossed the convent garden beneath the tower-window. She could hear their voices now although she could not distinguish their words. Suddenly, as they passed a thick clump of bushes, two nuns skipped out from behind it as though to head them off. Their backs were to her.

“Father Fortunatus!” a high voice challenged. Justina recognized the abrasive tone as Chrodechilde’s. “I have a complaint,” it shrilled. “You
must
listen this time! Our rights are not being respected here. The Rule is not respected. Our recreation just now …” Justina strained her ears but Chrodechilde had lowered her tone and she could make out no more.

Justina glanced at the bed. Radegunda’s eyes were closed. Taking a stool, Justina stepped up on it and managed to crane her neck out the small window. She saw Fortunatus push Chrodechilde quite roughly out of his way and draw the prince quickly past her. “The
Foundress
”, she heard him say, “is ill, possibly dying and we are bringing her spiritual succour. This is no time for
trouble-making
.”

But while he was addressing himself to Chrodechilde, the other nun—it was, Justina saw now, Basina—had approached the prince. “Holy St. Hilary,” thought Justina. “He’s her brother! She’ll know him!” The two were in fact staring intently at each other. The prince put his hand on Basina’s arm and must have asked her
something
, for Justina saw her open her mouth to reply. Abruptly, Fortunatus wrenched the young man’s hand away and propelled him ahead of himself towards the door of the tower.

“Father Marius!” Fortunatus called loudly after him, “Hurry ahead and tell our Holy Mother I am coming.” He turned to the two nuns. “Go and join your companions at once! Tell them our Holy Foundress is dying and to start singing psalms and praying for a happy release of her soul.” His voice was peremptory. “Go!” he let out a roar. “At once!”

Justina saw the two nuns back away in fright, turn and run around a corner out of sight. As they disappeared, Basina clutched her companion’s elbow and Justina had the impression that she was panting out information. Fortunatus followed the prince.

“Mother Radegunda!” Justina stepped down from her lookout point. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” Radegunda rose from the bed and, moving unsteadily, joined Justina at the window. She looked out.

“A cindery sky,” she remarked. “We must be prepared for further suffering.”

Justina asked, “Are you in pain?”

“I welcome pain,” said Radegunda. “I welcome
disappointment
. I offer it up. It may be my last offering. What matter whether
I
see the success of our plans so long as they do succeed? As they will,” she told Justina. “I know it. Sooner or later Gaul will be united under one king annointed by the Holy Church. The project is a seed. It will take root.” She lurched and Justina caught her.

“Sit. Please, Mother. I can tell you’re dizzy!”

“Pain keeps me lucid. I shall stand.” Radegunda clutched her chest and stared at the empty doorway. “Are they coming?”

Justina walked through it and down the stairs. “They’re coming,” she called.

When the two came in from the well of the dark stairway, the light from the window was in their eyes. Radegunda was standing with her back to it so that reflections mirrored in the open pane fell on her veil and rippled redly down its folds. She seemed to have difficulty directing her tongue. She clutched herself, panting as though the air were burning her throat. “Prince Clovis,” she managed in a scorched voice, “I shall not live to see you King of Gaul nor even … Neustria. I shall not …” Her breath came in gulps. She staggered, motioned the others to keep away and said, “guide you, but I want to say … Clovis,
I
am your spiritual mother. I am the mother of Gaul,
I
… no don’t stop me, I … must say this …” There was a long pause. “Beware”, she managed finally, “of pride. It is the most corrosive sin. Her breathing was growing rougher. “Do not”, she croaked, brutally forcing her voice, “think of God as a source of … power or a … counterpower who may help you … on this earth. Clovis…” Her hands still repelled the others’ dancing, tentative impulses to advance and help her. Outstretched, palms forward, they might have been those of someone wondering how to swim or eager perhaps to test some new, quite unfamiliar element. “I willingly renounce,” she said, “I … will … Clovis, remember always that we sacrificed the greatest—sacrificed oneness with God to try and … help you. Clovis … I, I…”