Women in the Wall Read Online Free PDF Page B

reproaching me with wanting to kill Clotair or marry Agnes? Which?”
    She turned away, sank back to the kneeler, let her face fall into her hands. “Both,” she whispered. “I want Agnes to be pure as I can never be again. Ever.”
    Chlodecharius’s voice came from behind her back, cold now and very steady: “What about me, Radegunda?”
    She raised and turned her head. He was trembling and his mouth was set in a mean, sour line. Hating her. Poor Chlodecharius! Twenty-four years old and nothing to be proud of. Weak in a place where weakness was shame. She loved him but her love was like lava inside a volcano. It did not easily emerge. “You must”, she said, “be patient. Listen, I will intercede with Clotair for you. If I ask him a direct favour he will never deny me. I will do this when he wakes tomorrow!”
    Her brother walked back to the shutter. “It’s tomorrow now,” he said. “No use arguing then: you ask the favour on your knees and I get a reprieve—for the moment. His humour changes with the wind and we are at its mercy. We are like leaves stripped from a tree. We have no root, no place, no nourishing sap. Exiles. Is there any difference between us and slaves? I will talk to you of this again. Meanwhile be thinking. Think what it would mean if we could get away and reach Constantinople. To Hamalafred and Amalaberg!”
    Radegunda walked over to him. She ran a finger down the hollow of his cheek. It was as much of a gesture of affection as she could manage. “We would be exiles still, Chlodecharius!”
    “How can you say that?” The young man was congested. “Hamalafred”, he urged, “has made himself a position there. He has received titles from the Emperor. We would have a family there! Blood-ties, affection, security! My God, Radegunda, what else makes life worth living? Land, Radegunda, is not what makes a home! It’s kin, kin to defend you and back you up! Kin, Radegunda, kin! Blood-kin. If someone maims me or kills me to whom is compensation due? To my next-of-kin. And if I have none to demand it, am I not the most vulnerable man alive? Am I not weaker than a slave since a slave’s master will defend him? In his own interests! That’s what exile means, Radegunda. We’re dependent on Clotair’s whim! But in Constantinople …” His pale, mackerel-flecked eyes were sensuous with longing. “Constantinople,” he whispered urgently, “Radegunda … think !”
    She shook her head. “Life is a place of exile.”
    Suffocating with his need to convince, with his need for his own herd, his frustration at her stubbornness, he shook her: “Life”, he whispered, for caution was bred into his very passions, “is life and to deny it the refuge of slaves and frightened women! Can you be sure that this”, he plucked at the haircloth shift she was wearing, “and that”, kicking at the wooden kneeler, knocking the discipline to the floor, “are not covering up a weakening of the bowels? Cowardice?”
    “I hope I would not fear to die for my faith. Many have!”
    He sighed, dropped his hands. “You’d die all right—but would you live? Your faith is not in life. You have closed it off! You have closed me off!”
    “Chlodecharius, I pray for you every day!”
    He shrugged. “That I may have a Christian death, I suppose? You grudge me Agnes. You say my mind stinks. Oh you have Christian, dutiful feelings for me—I suppose they’re worth the ones you have for Clotair!”
    Radegunda’s teeth were chattering. Fever or perhaps cold had seized her body. “I know when someone is trying to manipulate me, brother. I am not your toy or tool. As you said: dawn is here. Let us say good-night. I shall do what I promised.” She kissed the young man on the cheek, gripped his arm and said: “Sleep well. Try to pray for the gift of peace.”
    Removing the hair-cloth shift, she pulled on her fur coat, left the room, crossed the hall and again slid into Clotair’s bed. In his sleep, the king reached