*
Agnes sat with Radegunda and the abbess of St. John’s convent, Mother Liliola. Outside the window lay Arles, a pale stone city surrounded by marshes and wild birds. Duplex Arelas, the twinned town that had been Constantine’s before he founded his own, rose on two sides of the River Rhône on a scale astonishing to the nuns from Poitiers. Its pontoon bridge, theater, arena, baths and circus were still monumentally intact but, as they rode in, they had passed evidence of the pillagings and plunderings which it, like other cities, had suffered from the recent civil wars. They were talking about this and about the Rule of St. Caesar which they had come here to learn.
“Moderation”, said Liliola, “is the basis and kernel of our Rule. An abbess must guard against extreme behaviour of any kind.”
She was clearly in doubt as to whom she should address. Agnes had been presented as abbess. Radegunda’s fame had reached here and did not, Agnes suspected, dispose the Provençal woman well towards her. Her words, after all, were a condemnation of Radegunda’s way of life.
“Penances of a dramatic or theatrical sort”, said Liliola, “may be of use to the individual in her search for perfection. They can never be other than harmful to the community as a whole—and that”, she looked at Agnes, “must be an abbess’s first concern.”
*
Mint, fennel and rosemary bushes scented the air. Shade was provided by cypresses, those dark rigid trees which stretched in close formation at regular intervals across the surrounding landscape. Packed in straight-lined phalanxes, one expected them to start marching like the ghost of an old Roman patrol: one two, one two. But they simply stood. They were windbreaks, sometimes woven together by reeds, so menacing was the blast of the wind they must withstand.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” said Fridovigia. “It’s no use my putting it off. The opposite in fact. You’re quick with child.”
Agnes failed to take this in.
“Pregnant,” said Fridovigia. “You’re going to ask how I know. Well, I know and …”
She talked. The strong scents flowed approvingly over Agnes. So did sunlight and the marsh-wet air. So who was approving her? Herself? A white stone caught the light dazzlingly. On the low wall a lizard was sunning itself. Fridovigia mentioned the Syrian doctors. Ah, so they had been doctors? On the way back, said Fridovigia, she could arrange a meeting. They would be expecting a message from her. At Bordeaux. Or Auch.
“Obviously”, said Fridovigia, “you must act now. This journey is a heaven-sent opportunity.”
The words clicked like the last piece of a puzzle in Agnes’s brain. She understood what Fridovigia had been saying.
“Do you think so?”
“What?”
“That this is heaven-sent?”
“This? What?” Fridovigia asked.
“I shan’t return by Bordeaux,” said Agnes. “I shall persuade Radegunda to return by the Rhône valley.”
“Suit yourself,” said Fridovigia. “But you’d better think hard about your situation.”
*
“The situation of an abbess”, Liliola said, “is rather special. There can be conflicts between her personal search for salvation and the needs of the convent.”
She was showing Agnes around the grounds. St. John’s, flanked by two churches, rose on the ruins of two temples dedicated, one to Diana whose cult the nuns, in their own way, perpetuated, the other to the Phrygian goddess, Cybele. This was the highest corner of the city and commanded a view of the flatlands beyond its wall.
All the doors but one, Liliola explained, had been sealed up by the convent’s founder and the keys to that were in the abbess’s possession.
“The abbess”, said Liliola, “is answerable to God for the welfare of the whole community. Her authority must be preserved at the expense, if need be, of her humility. She may secretly repent if she has committed faults, but it would be a mistake to ask pardon of those subject to her. Even if she has unfairly punished one of her nuns.”
“How should nuns be punished?” Agnes asked.
“As in the Old Testament,” Liliola told her. “Thou shalt beat thy son—and so therefore thy daughter—with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs, 32:14. It is in our Rule. We are having a copy made for you.”
“And how is the abbess’s soul to be delivered from hell?”
“It is harder for her,” Liliola said. “I believe there are monks in Ireland who have worked out a scale of secret penances by which sinners can pay for their sins without the scandal of a public confession which—naturally—besides being unadvisable for persons in authority, can only be made once in a lifetime.”
The Abbess Liliola swept ahead, showing the way. She was propped and enlarged by the solidity of her convent, her Rule, her certitudes. Agnes was supposed to be like her. But I’m not, she realized. I’m not. The competence in which she took such pride, her success at running her own convent was a nervous, doubtful skill compared to this woman’s. Decidedly, Liliola had been ‘called’. Her ear was clearly tuned to a superior certitude. Not like Radegunda’s. No. Liliola was simply sure of herself. There was no straining, no flame. She was very solidly here and sure of her use.
“Those Irish penitentials”, she said now, “do, I suppose, fill a need. But our bishops don’t like them. Neither, I hear, does yours. Here in Arles”, said Liliola, “we hear news sooner than most places. This is still the hub of some of the main trade-routes. Of course there has been a decline …”
Trade-routes, bills of lading, penitentials, scales and schedules for prayer and punishment—Agnes had the feeling that the world around her was the figment of a meticulous madman. Why—no, not why: how, how could it be like this? Precisely like this and no other way? Laid down. Fixed. Birds flew, lizards crawled, the sun rose in the east and always would, grass could never be blue nor sin innocent. One was confined within one’s skin. Like a parcel. When one lost it, it would not be to mingle flesh deliciously with a lover’s, dissolving together like two coinciding rays of light. It would be only to get it back in an even more meticulously planned otherworld where one paid many times over what had not been paid here. Carnal lovers, in one account of hell, were attached by their genitals to swiftly spinning wheels. I will repent, thought Agnes. I have always meant to. But how will I know I am forgiven? She plucked an aromatic leaf, crushed and held it to her nose. I can’t quite believe, she thought, in anything. I must be going mad! Carnal passion has fogged my brain.
“Recent news”, Liliola was saying, “is bad …” She went on to discuss an event which was over a year old but now having repercussions all over Gaul: the murder of Queen Galswinthe of Neustria who had been found strangled in her bridal bed a few days after her wedding to King Chilperic. He had returned forthwith to the arms of his concubine, Fredegunda, and was being harried by his dead wife’s sister, the wife of his brother, King Sigibert. Their wars were intermittent, bloody and an especial threat to Poitiers which both kings claimed. In the last year it had changed hands twice and neither was likely to give it up for good.
“But you’ll be safe in your convent,” Liliola consoled. A convent was a sanctuary rarely invaded. “We must try to merit our privilege,” she said. “We escape the world’s dangers …”
These were real enough. Look at Galswinthe. Even the luckiest women in the world must face pregnancy, death in childbirth, miscarriage and the fear of all these.
“We escape …”
But Agnes had not escaped. Like children playing the game of “sanctuary”, she had stepped out and had been caught. Caught by the trap of her own body—who had said that? Her heart stopped and started fiercely up again. It was not of hell she needed to think but of what she could do now! I am mad, she thought. What was I thinking of?
“Human love”, said Liliola complacently, “is never …”
Agnes fell rather than sat on a bench. No! her brain was shouting: no! She could not listen to this.
“Galswinthe,” she mana
ged to say, “passed through Poitiers on her way to her wedding. In a silver-plated car. Someone who saw her told me she looked sad.”
Liliola let herself be steered back to gossip. “Yes, poor little queen …”
The someone who had seen Queen Galswinthe was Fortunatus. He was writing a poem for her death: a delicate venture since Chilperic was a patron and must not be blamed. But the subject could not be passed up. “Think of it,” he had said excitedly to Agnes. “I saw her!” Cutting himself a new pen.
“Aren’t you sorry for her!”
“Of course. That’s why it’s such a good subject! Don’t you see? Heaven-sent!”
Heaven sent odd gifts. Oh, Fortunatus, are we a good subject? Oh, what can I do? If only you were here! At least half of me would be consoled.
“You”, Liliola was saying, “are a woman of sense.”
Senses?
“Balanced,” said Liliola. “You’ll make a good abbess. Our Rule, you’ll see …”
“I am less worthy”, Agnes rushed out a half confession, “than may appear. I …” She was tempted to unburden her sin.
“What appears”, said Liliola, “is what matters. You are God’s representative to your nuns. For their sake, so as not to trouble their faith, you must appear worthy.”
“But I—supposing I sin? Who will forgive me?”
“Do not judge yourself too harshly. Excessive remorse can hinder the performance of God’s service. It is the service which matters.”
But it was not a matter of judging or not judging. It was a matter now of deciding what to do. An abortion—Fridovigia’s solution—was unthinkable. So was a pregnant abbess. God’s service could be helped by neither.
“God help you!” Fridovigia had whispered last night when bringing Agnes the sleeping-potion without which she could not sleep. Was it a sleeping-potion? Agnes, seized by distrust, had poured it on the floor. “Oh my lamb!” the old woman had muttered as she cleaned it up. “If it were as easy as that! At two months gone! Two—or may be three? There are abortifacients. I’m not saying there aren’t. But I’d put scant faith in anything taken through the mouth. No. There’s some use clysters though, or sit in a bath of linseed, wormwood and other herbs. Or do exercises …” She paused artfully. “No? Well I wouldn’t count on them anyway. If you’d only come to me earlier. If you’d come before! There’s plently of help I could have given you then, my lamb. Unguents to smear on the matrix. Not hard to get either. Such simple things: honey, old olive oil, the juice of the balsam tree or even a lock of wool … So easy, my plant. But would you tell old Fridovigia? No, not a thing. And taking no precautions. There’s virtuous women for you! The worst fools. Well, the scalded cat fears cold water and I’ll lay it won’t happen to you twice. What you should do now if you’d be led by me …”
“That’s enough, Fridovigia.”
“You think it would be such a terrible sin—but there’s less to it than killing a mouse. Than killing a wren. They’re no bigger than that!” Fridovigia measured off a length of thumb. “If it came out now it’d be no bigger than what brought it in!”
“Fridovigia!” A shriek.
But she had lost all authority over the old woman. Joying in her special position as confidante—coveted for so many years that Agnes could almost believe she had laid a spell on her—Fridovigia was milking the circumstance for all it was worth.
“All nuns do it. God help you but you’re innocent! I was talking to a pilgrim yesterday”—Fridovigia spent hours in the basilica atrium talking to people who were washing in the fountain or resting or eating between prayers—“who told me about a convent in his home town. I forget the name but it had a pond behind it that had to be dried for some reason and do you know what was found in it? How many infant skeletons? In the mud. It seems the mud preserved them though some say it was a miracle. They were white, perfect. Like a pile of shells or necklaces. All white. Thrown there by the nuns. I tell you they all do it. It’s no worse than killing rabbits—and those were full-term babies. But those Syrian doctors …”
Agnes covered her ears. “Go away,” she shrieked. “I want the baby. I want it, do you hear? Now leave me alone or I’ll go mad. I’ll go crazy, out of my mind and it’ll be born an idiot. Pregnant women should look at beautiful things and think happy thoughts and instead what do I have to listen to? If I give birth to a monster, it’ll be your fault, Fridovigia!”
The old woman had gone off. Just as happy really. She was still in possession of a secret, was probably already laying plans. But Agnes lay awake all night—regretting the sleeping potion which she had poured away—and wondered had she meant what she said? She did not think she was sleeping but next morning was convinced she must have been for how, while awake, could she have entertained such lunatic fancies? She had imagined herself and Fortunatus fleeing to Italy or even the East, abandoning nuns, Radegunda, responsibilities, everything to live and love together with the baby: a family. A lunatic dream. Or was it? They would live happily, die and rot in hell spinning from the wheels that tortured carnal sinners. Or repent? No, how could they repent?
“Do not judge yourself too harshly,” Liliola was saying. “Or abstain too much from sleep or food.” She was looking hard at Agnes’s scorched eyes. “That”, she said, “can be a mistake. Some would say a temptation of the devil. I prefer to say a mistake.”
She thinks, thought Agnes, she thinks I am tempted by sanctity.
“You mistake me, Mother,” she told Liliola. “I am not too fervent.”
Liliola gave her an evasive look. “I doubt if you are lukewarm either. Remember,” soothing voice. “If you, ever were to fall into sin, you must not despair. The suffering itself would bring you near to God. You would suffer for, unlike ordinary nuns who may unburden themselves by confiding in their abbess, you would have to carry yours. But that in itself—the suffering—might save you. Downright sin can be better than a life of tepid virtue. The shame of the sinner brings him back to God. O felix culpa! Remorse is God’s last lifeline thrown to the sinner.”
Agnes stared at Liliola. What had she guessed?
“Come,” said Liliola. “I want to show you our herb-garden. One can make excellent cordials …”
The two abbesses returned to manageable matters. They were women who allowed for incursions of the irrational—how could they not?—but knew and cultivated techniques for keeping these to a minimum. One was to turn one’s mind to spheres where it could be effective.
“Beware of fervour,” reminded Liliola, handing Agnes a crushed sprig of lemon balm. “The crushed herb”, she remarked, “pleases the senses best. We are God’s plants but should not seek to destroy ourselves before our time.”
*
“Oh, a fox!”
It streaked through dew-white grass, speedy, red and three times its static length. The farmer’s enemy. Predatory and nocturnal: the very carnal manifestation of nature’s turbulence, it briefly gave the land an untrammelled look. But the sun was up and it would be making for the safety of its underground tenement. Beautiful as sin, thought Agnes, astonished at her own image, it served its sentence daily in its smelly catacomb.
The nuns were proceeding home by the Rhône valley. The air was heady. Grapes fermented on vines. Autumn was ripening and putrefying in the hot valley hollowed by the slow passage of the river. Blackberry time. Leaves were turning a transparent yellow. Crab apples and nuts grew on common land. Late peaches fell softly and bubbled amber-sweet sap where insects had pierced them.
Radegunda carried a crucifix and the two women prayed before it wherever they stopped for a night or even for food. Radegunda had taken to reciting a few lines she had learned off by heart. They were by St. Augustine.
“Thus the soul is guilty of fornication,” recited Radegunda, “whenever she turns from You and seeks from another source what she will nowhere find pure and without taint unless she returns to You. Thus even those who go from You and stand up against You are still perversely imitating You.”<
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The lines reminded Agnes of Fortunatus, whose habit it was to take the evidence of his senses and turn it on its head. Good became bad, pleasant sensations a threat. He looked at daily events as though they were fodder for poems and of no interest until he had fabricated some surprise out of what had seemed quite straightforward. As though the word “no” were a guiding principle instead of a mere check. Trees must be lopped, saplings twisted, leaves crushed, spices pounded—how bored she was with the whole sad stock of images. “The loppèd tree doth best and soonest grow!” Did it? Did it always? Some of these wild unlopped crab-apple trees and chestnuts were doing very nicely by themselves. The raeda swayed and jolted. Agnes could feel Fridovigia’s eyes on her. Hoping still for a miscarriage? A lopping? No, old friend. She smiled at Fridovigia who smiled back.
Fortunatus had written a new poem just before they’d left: a hymn to the cross, it turned on the most basic Christian paradox and he had written it to celebrate Radegunda’s obtaining the fragment of the True Cross from the Emperor Justin. It had been sung by the procession which had come to deliver the relic, sung by the nuns receiving it, sung again so often Agnes could not get bits of it out of her head:
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