Women in the Wall Read Online Free PDF Page A

breeches and a fur tunic slipped quietly in, kissed her, then sat on the chest.
    “I saw you just now”, he whispered, “trying to freeze the memory of his touch from your skin. You still hate him.”
    “He is my husband. I owe him obedience.”
    “You owe him a short sword between the ribs. Or a poisoned stirrup-cup. Who chose him for your husband? Not you. Not your family.” The young man’s face was pale. His eyes were flecked like a trout’s belly. His hands twitched as he talked and there was a tic in his cheek. “The bloody murderer,” he whispered. Trembling and trying not to, he gripped the edges of the chest and his knuckles went white as ivory dice.
    “God will judge his murders,” whispered Radegunda. She shivered.
    “You’ll get a fever from these nightly outings of yours! That’ll be another murder God will have to judge.”
    “He treats me well.”
    “Well! I’ve seen the marks of a whip on your back. It was striped like a slave’s just now when you were out there! My sister’s! And I …” The young man trembled furiously.
    “I whipped myself.”
    “You must think I’m a moron if you think I’ll believe …”
    Radegunda took a discipline from behind the kneeler and lashed herself with it on the back. Peeling down the haircloth dress, she showed the mark. The young man groaned.
    “Why?”
    “To subdue my flesh.”
    Chlodecharius laughed without amusement. “A nun! They all say it! Washing beggars’ feet. Distributing alms, praying all night—and now this! Ha!” His sour laugh swelled cautiously. He didn’t want to be overheard. He whispered in a voice gasping with emotion, coughed, tried to stifle his cough and was shaken by dry, soundless, probably painful convulsions. It was clear that his own weakness maddened him. “You,” he managed at last, “you commit ad-adultery with Ch-Christ! You deceive your earthly husband with a heavenly one. The king with God! Nice, I suppose, the perfect slap to his pride—but, well, that’s no solution for me!”
    “You?”
    “He is going to have me killed.” Chlodecharius slipped off the coffer and began to walk silently about. His breath came in nervous gasps. “On the sly. An accident? A brawl? A highwayman? Poison? What do I know? I’ve been tipped off. I talk too much, it seems. My anger irks him. My silence too. I lurk. I look morose. My humiliation gives him no pleasure but some anxiety and Clotair doesn’t suffer any irk at all for long. I suppose he suffered as he did because you please him. He likes to violate your white, unwilling flesh. It must be a novel enough sensation to sleep with a would-be nun: cuckolding the creator as it were. It’s kept you in favour and me alive for fourteen years. Perhaps it’s losing its novelty? Anyway I’ve been tipped the wink. The thing is: where do I go? To Constantinople to join Hamalafred? It’s a longish journey in mid winter with the roads under ells of mud. But the danger is urgent. Also, there’s another matter …”
    “Chlodecharius! You wouldn’t leave me?”
    “It may be a matter of method, sister: whether I go feet first or with them firmly under me. From what I’ve been told I’d be unwise to delay. We both know Clotair. Not just a killer in war but—well, though there’s no need to go back so far, remember how he butchered his infant nephews!”
    “Take refuge in a church or with his brother. There’s no love between them.”
    “Radegunda, help me kill him.”
    Radegunda made the sign of the cross. “Chlodecharius, you’re a Christian!”
    “So’s Clotair. It’s never stopped him, has it? It won’t stop him killing me! Radegunda, you’re the last of my family. You’re my only ally here. Give me your fur cloak. With it on—we look enough alike—I can slip into his bedroom and avenge our family! Put an end to your martyrdom. Even,” he was leaning over her, gripping her shoulder, hissing with excitement, “even if they kill us both afterwards,