The rebel nun, p.14
The Rebel Nun, page 14
“Although you are one!” He bellowed a hearty laugh. “Your father was my favorite brother, and the only one I would show my back to as I walked out of a room. Most of your brothers are dead, and your sisters have been married off or cloistered. For years, I have seen no hint of my Charibert in a single face.” He paused as he held his stare. “Until you.”
I felt my face flush. To avoid his eyes, I focused on the hot cider, its sweetness coating my tongue, and reached for a biscuit. It was soft and warm. I marveled at how fine the flour must be in Chalôns, how much more refined than the crude grain we pulverized on the grinding stone in the monastery. “And your sons?” I asked before biting into the spongy biscuit. “Are they well and thriving?”
I knew Guntram’s three wives and his first two sons had all died from plague or murder by my uncle’s enemies, but I had heard nothing of his sons Chlodomer and Clothar.
“Taken from me by sickness,” he answered slowly, sadly.
I regretted having asked; my sympathies were late and worth little, and I struggled to think of what to say next. I noticed that he was enjoying nothing of the feast before us. “Are you not hungry, Uncle? Have you already broken fast?”
“I fast many full days now, Clotild,” he said, looking down at the mug of cider he held but did not lift to his lips. “I have sinned too much for too long, and God has punished me by taking my wives and my sons. These days, I pray and fast, but I do not expect God to grant me His forgiveness, which I do not deserve, however great His mercy.”
Now I noticed how thin he was—much thinner than Gregory or Maroveus. As religious as the bishops were, they did not appear to have ever embraced the ritual of fasting.
“But it is known that you give to the poor, and you have built monasteries and churches,” I said. “I am certain you deserve God’s grace.”
My uncle looked up at me and smiled. “I appreciate your kind assessment, Clotild, but the judgment will be God’s, not ours.”
I nodded and finally bit into the sweet, soft biscuit. I closed my eyes, savoring its buttery, rich texture and wondered how, with access to such bread, anyone could fast.
“And now.” Guntram retrieved my attention. “You must tell me of your quest. Why travel halfway across Gaul to see me?” He watched me finish my biscuit and reach for another. “Although now,” he said, “I see perhaps it was for my biscuits.”
Twenty-one
My cousins were back, circling around me, taunting me with their chants of “whore” and “bastard.” But this time I was wearing one of the dresses from my uncle’s wardrobe, and the low-cut neckline showed the bare tops of my breasts. Grabbing at me, they tore the amulet from my throat, and I screamed.
I sat straight up in bed, a cold sweat soaking through my nightgown, and blinked until I had erased the image from my mind. I fell back against the feather pillow and stared at the ceiling. The moon was bright, almost full, and the room’s rich furnishings cast shadows against the wall.
I had been at my uncle’s house for nearly three months. As summer steamed through the countryside, I had quickly grown accustomed to the comforts of his home, and the longer I stayed, the more I dreaded the trip back. With no food to prepare, laundry to tend to, or texts to copy, I found the idle days lusciously long, and tried to push the inevitable return of long winter nights in the monastery’s dormitory out of my mind. My uncle forbade me to return to Tours in the heat and demanded that I stay with him until fall. But honoring the vow I had to renounce the world and its temptations, he kept me inside, as if in the cloister, and I do not deny that I longed to see the baths, the Colosseum, and other grand buildings left behind by the fading Roman empire in Chalôns. I wrote frequently to my sisters in Tours, sending my letters in care of the Bishop Gregory. I did not tell them about my luxurious surroundings, but I explained my uncle’s orders to stay until cooler weather. I bid them a pleasant stay in sanctuary and reminded them of the reason for our rebellion.
“My uncle is considering our request for assistance,” I wrote each time. “I am praying for his sympathies, as I am certain you are.” As time passed, and I began to fear that my uncle would not intervene on our behalf, I began to add, “We must have faith that God will aid our righteous quest to preserve our monastery.”
Of the comfortable hours I spent in my uncle’s house, my favorites were those with Hilda, who arrived a few days after me. Almost unheard of in the history of the Merovingians, my uncle and her son Childebert had formed an alliance to rule jointly over their two territories in Gaul. Now Hilda and her son spent most of the time in Chalôns with Guntram. I was lucky to have her as my companion. She knew my mother like no one yet living in this world, other than my grandmother (if by some miracle or charm she were still alive). Hilda brought me small embroidery projects, which we worked on while she chattered about my uncle’s politics and my cousin’s military campaigns. When she had no sewing projects for us, we read aloud the plays of Aeschylus and other Greek masters from books my uncle had yet to purge from his library since his rededication to Christian piety. Hilda was one of the few women I knew who could—or would—read anything but the Scriptures since Gregory had pronounced the ancient texts to be demonic, damning fables.
In spite of the gentle way my uncle treated me in his house, and his promise to talk to the archbishop and Maroveus about conditions at the Holy Cross, he declined to align himself with my sisters and me against the church’s wishes for Lebover’s continued rule. As he had pledged himself to a new life of piety and abstinence, he found my complaints too worldly for sympathy.
I was gaining weight and starting to fill out my borrowed dresses like a mature woman, and as I lay and stared into the moonlit room, I wondered if that had something to do with a new recurring dream. In it, I was lying next to a man, listening to him breathe, wishing he would turn to me and pull me atop his broad chest. He never did, but I awoke each time with my heart pounding and breath short.
I had never been comfortable thinking or talking about the affairs of marriage. The only instruction I had in such matters were the whispers and gossip of the sisters, most of whom had as little experience—that is none—with a marital bedroom as I. I had never allowed myself to imagine an attachment—physical or emotional—to a man. But as my body became softer and more feminine, I felt an emptiness in those dreams that I could not erase by reciting the Psalms or prayers.
One cool, late summer morning, I was stoking the cooking stove when I heard someone clear his throat behind me, and I startled, knocking the iron to the floor with a clang. The man with his helmet in his hand behind me was one of my uncle’s top lieutenants, a man who commanded several legions. Yet, there he stood, looking shyly at the floor, perhaps embarrassed for having come upon me stooped over, my newly rounded backside projecting toward him.
I felt my face flush. It was not the first time I had noticed him. His broad shoulders and narrow hips formed a silhouette nearly the opposite of mine. I had seen him walking with my uncle in the gardens, their heads bowed in serious conversation, and his had become the figure I imagined lying next to me in my dreams. Was it the return of my monthly bleeding that brought about this awareness of the shape of men’s bodies?
“I beg your pardon—”
I realized he was trying to figure out what to call me. “Sister,” I filled in for him. “Sister Clotild.”
At that, his eyes rose to meet mine, and I saw an amused grin spread across his clean-shaven face. “Yes, of course. Sister,” he said.
My hand flew to the cool skin of my bare décolletage, and I blushed. “Do you need . . . Can I help—?” I could not decide how to address him either or what to offer. I had no experience to fall back on. The only men I had spoken with were priests, bishops, the poet Fortunatus, my father, and my uncle.
In my confusion I turned to run from the kitchen and collided with Guntram. He looked down at me, then across the kitchen at his lieutenant, and frowned. “Sister Clotild,” he said—the first time he had addressed me as such instead of “my dear niece.” “Please leave the lieutenant and me to discuss our affairs. It is probably time for your hourly prayers, is it not?” His eyes were focused on the bareness of my chest, and I believed it was the first time he noticed me as anything other than the young girl who sat on my father’s lap and danced around the garden with my cousins.
Even though my uncle had taken new vows of piety and abstinence, his bed was still warmed by the presence of his concubine, whom he had acquired after his third wife, Austrachild, had passed, and his choice for his fourth bride, Rusticula, had declined to marry him, preferring instead her life as an abbess in Arles. As I ran to my room with embarrassment, it struck me that his judgment was unfair. Why did men have a right to pleasures of the heart and body, while women had none? Why would God punish me and not him? At that moment, I realized I had forgotten my pledge at the monastery to join myself in marriage to Jesus Christ. Had I more than forgotten it? Was I ready to abandon it altogether?
My shame burning in my face, I tore off the gown, slipped my nun’s undergarment and shift over my head, and tugged them down over my breasts and hips. It had been nearly three months since the night I had arrived and taken them off. I looked down at my shapeliness, wishing again I could see a reflection of the length of my body as I had seen my face in the pewter.
I sat down on the bed and cried into my hands. It was shameful to be so proud, to care about one’s appearance. Who was I? I once had known myself as a cloistered nun, but as my Christian faith wavered, as I wallowed in this luxury, I had lost a sense of myself.
I retrieved my uncle’s Bible from his library and searched for lessons in humility and abstinence to refresh my desire for the lifestyle of a penitent. I wished I also had a copy of Caesarius’s Regula to refresh my dimming memory. I knew it was time to get back with my sisters and talk to Covina, Basina, Greta, and Merofled about our next move. I was accomplishing nothing in Chalôns, and, even more worrisome, they had never responded to my letters.
Guntram and I spoke less often after that collision in the kitchen, in part because he had started planning his spring military maneuvers with my cousin, but I knew he was also avoiding me, even when he had time to join me at my breakfast or dinner. I mourned the sudden change in our relationship and realized I did not belong there, luxuriating in his royal lifestyle. Once I had pledged myself to an ascetic life devoted to Christ, even though I had secretly reserved part of my soul for my grandmother’s gods, and here I had been eating, dressing, and socializing like a courtesan.
Two weeks later my uncle gave me a cool parting hug at his front door and retreated into his house. I felt like something valuable between us had been ripped away over the last month. But Hilda was waiting and she hugged me warmly and handed me a large sack of biscuits, dried meats, and dried figs and dates.
“Travel safely, dear Clotild,” she said, stroking my cheek, tears gathering in her eyes. “I hope your pleas are answered by the bishops and your monastery can feel like a home to you again.”
The road back to Tours was as rough as it had been three months before, but this time, I had the roof of Hilda’s covered wagon over my head, and my compartment was cushioned with layers of wool blankets. We stopped overnight at another abandoned army outpost, but my new, courteous escort helped me down from the wagon and honored my privacy by taking an adjoining bunkroom. I was eager to get back to the rituals that had filled my days at the monastery and fell asleep reciting prayers from Compline. I was anxious to share these with my sisters again.
In my uncle’s house, I had set aside my vow to live a life of austerity, and for a short period, I had even contemplated abandoning my sisters. The temptations of aesthetic pleasure had lured me into complacency, greed, and gluttony. It slashed at my love for my sisters, threatening to sabotage our mission to save our community. I remembered my grandmother’s prediction: that I would be a link to the goddesses of our ancestors who gave women the strength to survive, bear children, and tend their gardens. My sisters needed me, and for that reason, I needed them.
I had heard nothing from my sisters in Tours since I left. Gregory had not communicated with me either, so I was unprepared for the chaos that I found at the basilica when I returned.
We arrived late in the evening, well after the sun’s last light faded overhead. Guntram’s kind servant helped me dismount from the wagon and waited until a monk opened the door of the basilica before wishing me God’s speed, doffing his cap, and backing away into the dark street.
Walking into the narthex, I was confused by the silence in the chapel. It was the Hour of Compline, and I had expected to hear twenty-eight voices raised in Psalms and prayer. “Where . . . ?” I turned to the monk. With his hands in the pockets of his robe, he walked down the side of the nave toward the north transept. I followed, not knowing if he meant me to, and saw a small gathering of my sisters, their heads bent in prayer, sitting in a tight circle on the floor. I recognized our leaders, Covina, Greta, Basina, and Merofled. Eight others were with them. Our quiet approach had not interrupted their prayers, and I stood, watching. I had missed these women, and I wanted to kneel and embrace them all at once.
But where were the others? The twelve sisters on their knees on the floor accounted for fewer than half of the pilgrims I had left behind. I had paltry news for them. And now, if only these dozen sisters were still with me, I realized the prospect of our mission’s success was even lower than I thought.
I placed my bag of food on the floor and knelt outside the circle. I said my own prayer, silently, asking for forgiveness for my sloth over the past three months. I would fast and pray until I felt absolved and deserving of my sisters’ faith in my leadership again.
Twenty-two
My sisters raised their heads from their prayers and slowly rose to their feet. Covina was the first to notice me kneeling behind them. “Sister Clotild!” She ran and wrapped her arms around me as if to lift me off the floor. She had no idea how much weight I had gained in my absence and she grimaced as my knees stayed planted on the stone tiles. “My, you have eaten well, my dear sister!” she whispered, laughing quietly.
The women surrounded me and begged for news. “Is Guntram going to help us?” “What will happen to us?” And from Basina: “Is our uncle going to save our monastery?”
As the others swarmed around me, Covina’s comment on my weight gain took on greater significance. Their lean fingers were like spikes, their nails broken and untidy. They threw bony arms around my neck, sharp elbows poking me painfully. Their sunken eyes looked wild with hunger. Had Berthageld not provided for them?
“Let me rest first,” I said. I was shocked by their appearance, more afraid now that my unimpressive report would add injury to their obvious misery. I wanted everyone to get a night’s sleep, including me, before we discussed what little progress I had made. And I needed to know what had happened to them and to the missing sisters before we could begin to consider our next move.
“Yes, of course,” Greta said. “I imagine you are tired from your journey. The summer heat does not seem willing to give up its hold on Gaul this year. It must have been miserable out there.”
They led me to a dark hut next to the basilica that smelled of unwashed bodies and urine. A bucket in the corner of the mud floor was half full of human waste, and I fought the urge to hold my nose. Greta’s sympathy for my “miserable” trip took on new irony. This was far worse than anything I had experienced in my two-day trip back to Tours. Was Greta being sarcastic?
Covina pulled me aside. “We do not rise for Matins,” she admitted, looking sheepish. “None of us has the energy anymore. Please understand. The past few months have been hard.”
I had just enjoyed more than three months in inexcusable luxury, never rising for Matins or Lauds, and missing more Hours than I observed. They were living in this sty and apologizing for missing one. Horrified and ashamed, I shook my head, glad for the darkness that hid the tears in my eyes. “Of course,” I said. “Let us all sleep and have a long discussion in the morning. God bless you all for your patience with me.”
The news I had to share with my sisters was tepid but it was less dreary than the tales they had to share with me.
We gathered around a makeshift table set up for my sisters outside their hut, away from the room’s stench. It would have been simple for the priest to give them access to the kitchen after our brethren had finished their meal and scattered to their daily chores, but he had refused.
I opened my food bag and spread out the figs, dates, dried meats, and biscuits in the middle of the long table. I looked around and recounted. There were thirteen of us, counting me. “Where are the others?” I asked. My question was innocent; at that moment I guessed they had gone back to Poitiers.
“They are gone.” At Covina’s answer, the nuns all bowed their heads and murmured blessings.
“To Poitiers?”
“No, gone.”
The finality of the word horrified me. “Did they die here?”
“No,” Covina answered again. “They left.”
“Do they intend to come back?” I asked. Maybe they joined Berthageld’s monastery, the one nearby that was founded by Ingoberga, her mother.
“Sister Clotild,” Greta said with a tone that foreshadowed the grave news to come and barely concealed her impatience with my ignorance. “Some have taken husbands, and some of them are with child. Others may be in Paris or Avignon, for all we know, or possibly we will never know what becomes of them.”
In my absence, hunger, cold, and the misery of their living arrangements had worn down their tolerance, even though they had been accustomed to an ascetic life. Like me, many of them had ended up in the monastery for its security, sustenance, and freedom from marriage, not for their piety. Now that security and sustenance was less than assured, marriage seemed like a reasonable alternative. More than half of those I had left behind in Tours had departed the basilica to join relatives outside or take their chances on the streets, all breaking their vows of cloister.
