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number of ways, drawing on formulae from Ambrose, Cicero, Jerome and anyone else who came to mind; it was polite to do this and prolonged conversations which might otherwise have died. They had, they assured each other, been parted in body but not in spirit. Honourable love, fragrant as honey, bound them so to each other and to Radegunda and to God that neither of them was ever alone. Yet they rejoiced to see each other again with the body’s eye. Each to the other was as a spring to a thirsty man. In all sisterliness. And brother-lines . And caritas . And so forth. Agnes broke into all this with a practical suggestion:
    “You must be exhausted! And starving! I shall send over a meal from the convent kitchen.”
    She did. A very good one: beef braised with leeks and coriander, fleabane, parsley, basil, chervil, fennel and vinegar and served with a sauce made from honey and must. With this came several kinds of vegetable, gravy and, finally, a milk pudding swimming in heavy cream.
    Fortunatus ate with enthusiasm and afterwards, since he was simmering still with the excitement of his journey but had no one to talk to as visiting hours at the convent were now over, decided to write her a thank-you poem. He had already begun tapping out the meters before he had finished the meal. Strong trochees. One meter-beating finger dived into the dessert and found it finger-furrowed already. Agnes must have shaped the concoction with her own hands. Fortunatus licked his creamy digit with an odd shudder of happiness.
POEM TO THE HOLY ABBESS AGNES TO THANK HER  FOR A MILK PUDDING
    Moulded in cream I found your fingers’ trace
Where, skimming it, they’d left their track.
Say, who could sculpt with such exquisite grace?
Was it from Daedalus you learned the knack?
Rare love whose image skimmed my way
Though the fair form itself had gone!
Sadly, this melting imprint will not stay,
My share in you blurs and grows wan.
     
     
    [ A.D. 586]
    A recluse does not easily forget her animal nature. I am sure I am more aware of my body than any whore of Babylon or meretrix. I am all body. More than a lizard toasting its long belly in the sun, more than a woman in labour or the libidinous Queen Fredegunda, I live in my flesh, think flesh, am flesh. My flesh cannot be ignored; it smells as the queen’s is unlikely to do since she can take baths and walk away from her excrement. My feet slip in mine. My shoes are caked with it. My skin itches all over. My mind too is like an itchy place. My thoughts are scratching nails. Over and over old itches they scrape and scratch. Where would I get new matter for them? I have long ceased to pray. My life, my smelly, itching, mindless life must be my prayer. I offer my filth so that I may be cleansed. I offer the lives I never lived. I offer the baseness of the life I do live. I offer its narrowness, the shrivelling of my mind and my efforts to keep it from shrivelling. I offer my awareness and my forgetfulness, my mistakes and my shame. I have to compensate. I am a child of sin. I am illicit flesh.
    Scream! I shall! Scream ! Not yet. Yes. I must. Now. I need this relief if I am to keep sane and I must stay sane if I am to pay again and again, day after day. Scream: that licence I must allow myself or I shall go mad as my mind itches, itches, scratches over the old itch, bleeds, scratches, itches …
    I have screamed. The nuns hear. “The woman in the wall is screaming again,” they say. They are used to it. Their recluse is no saint.
    *
    [ A.D. 568]
    Agnes’s memories were less precise than Radegunda’s.
    Fortunatus questioned her inquisitively. Coming to the kitchen-garden when it was her turn to do the garden chores, he interrupted her as she was staking bean-vines.
    “Let me help. Then we can talk.”
    “I should do it myself,” said Agnes scrupulously. “The Rule says we should let no one wait on us.”
    “The Rule means servants,” said Fortunatus, “not charitable friends.” He picked up a ball