Chlothar was not one to regret his decisions. He had learned of a threat and he had had it dealt with. That was all.

Still, he was growing older, and weighed down with many deaths. Christ was as real to him as Odin once had been. The Church’s relentless talk of mortality touched him ever more closely as his teeth fell out, his bones ached, old wounds itched for no apparent reason. With a host of small torments, Time reminded him it would end; and he was ill-prepared for Eternity.

As much as his younger wife maddened him, as much as she had betrayed his expectations, her grace, the fresh bloom of her beauty, served to salve his own decay, dispelling the odor of approaching age with the fragrant balm of her youth. Even her infuriating piety gave him hope of sharing in its light. But now she lay in her bed, a torn rag of grief. Only Agnes could approach her; insisting that, whatever her shattered state, she pray. The bishop showed no more compassion than before – perhaps he thought this loss the wage of her sin – but with that quiet will Radegund had sensed early on, Agnes marched to the cathedral and insisted he come to Radegund’s room to give her Communion.

Radegund, for her part, had to peer past nightmares to see Christ, struggling to make out His radiance through a host of the slaughtered: those at Erfurt, the two little princes, the Goth women and children, and over and over her brother, his hacked body lying in a thick forest, being torn apart by wolves. The Devil stood before her, showing her only evil, so that she struggled to see the healing light of the All-Mighty, to look past suffocating darkness to the one source of all her strength.

It ended. She would have said, by the Grace of God and thanks to Agnes’ unstinting love. But above all because of the core of strength deep within herself; a strength which had made itself plain in her stubborn piety, in her willful simplicity in the midst of luxury, but still within the bounds of her duty and her role. Now, as she finally rose from her bed, eating on her own for the first time, and prayed fervently and at length to Christ, that strength moved to the forefront, sloughing off the constraints of expectations and propriety; coming forth from her grief as from a cocoon.

She did not leave her room – she had no desire yet to see Chlothar – but quietly conferred with Agnes, who in turn ordered trunks sent to Athies, full of Radegund’s finest robes, jewels and other objects of value; one trunk she had sent to Noyon, to be held in the cathedral. She sent word too that the fruits of her estates were not to be sent to Soissons but held where they were.

Only when all was in place did Radegund ask to see Chlothar.

He sat on the cushion on his folding chair, flanked by guards, too impassive to show his shock at her hollow cheeks, the new lines in her face, the harder glint in her eyes. All traces were gone of the soft, fragile girl he had first taken into his bed. She was every bit a woman now, the depth of her will etched in her face.

“I must go to Noyon to see Bishop Médard.”

He did not bother to ask why, if she needed spiritual comfort, she did not turn to Blandy. “Very well. Ragingot and his men will escort you.”

“There is no need.”

“You are my queen,” he said. “You must be guarded.”

Clearly, he was wary. The strength in her face was too plain. He did not know what she might do, only that his own wishes no longer mattered to her at all.

As Noyon came into sight, she did not feel joy. That was still beyond her. But already she felt lighter, relieved of Chlothar. She smiled to show Agnes the convent where she had stayed and the cathedral where she had taken her first Communion.

The old bishop – now past ninety – embraced her warmly in his frail arms. His voice was weaker now, and sometimes hard to hear, but he said clearly, “I have not stopped praying for you, Your Piety, and for your brother’s soul.” She thanked him and bent her head for his blessing. Ragingot and the guards bowed in reverence, then stepped back so the two could speak. Agnes left, unnoticed.

The bishop and the Queen moved towards the altar. Suddenly, Radegund dropped to her knees. “Ordain me, Holy Lord! Make me a servant of the Church!”

Médard recoiled. Ragingot and his men stepped forward, their swords drawn. “Do you dare, priest, take the wife of a king from him like some whore?” The old bishop paled as they approached. He did not see Radegund step into the salutatoriam, where Agnes awaited her. As the warriors menaced the bishop, Radegund stepped out, wearing the simple white robe of a deaconess.

“Beware, priest!” hissed Ragingot.

But Radegund stepped firmly in front of the altar, untroubled by threats or rage. “If you do not make me the Lord’s, if you fear the hand of Man more than God’s, good shepherd, you will answer to God for his lamb’s soul!”

The bishop froze, as did Ragingot’s men, a few steps away. However coarse, they were Christians and believed without question in God. More importantly, they believed in Hell, and Radegund’s unquestioning assurance made them fear what they risked in defying the Divine Will. Though Ragingot raged, urging them to intervene, they held back and he did not dare act alone.

Finally, Médard stepped forward, with the Frankish warriors watching, and, as Radegund fell to her knees, spoke the words which made her a deaconess.

Ragingot watched, trembling with rage, but afraid to harm a bishop. At last, he raised one hand and led his men out of the cathedral.

Seeing them mount their horses to return to Soissons, the old bishop turned to Radegund. “Do you know how many canons we have broken? The Church has sanctioned others who have taken a wife from her husband to put her in orders. Did not the Apostle say, ‘If you are bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed’?” And a deaconess? A deaconess is supposed to be at least forty.”

Radegund answered quietly, “It is what the Lord wills, Holy Lord.”

He sighed. “I pray that you are right. I will meet Him soon enough.”

Returning to the salutatorium, she slipped her finest silk robe on over the white robe, and with Agnes’ help, put on all her finest jewelry, eagle’s heads projecting from her earrings, rearing stags facing each other on the clasp of her belt, doves meeting on her fibulae, beads and rubies bright on her bracelets. Over her robe, she put on the finely worked girdle of gold Chlothar had given her long ago – the first of her beatings. For the last time, she put on the triple crown she had worn on the day of her wedding.

As she returned, with Agnes behind her, to the altar, Médard’s jaw dropped at the pure beauty of the spectacle, at this sudden display of regal magnificence. Though she was no longer the fresh young girl who had married Chlothar, her blonde hair still shimmered and her blue eyes now shone with the light of her will.

As he stood shocked by her transformation, she took the crown from her head and set it at the base of the crucifix, beneath the image of the suffering Christ. She took off the golden girdle and laid it beside the crown. Slowly, methodically, she took off her earrings, pulled the fine hairpins out of her hair, slipped off her colorful bracelets, undid her belt and laid all these out, with their immense worldly value, on the altar. At last she undid her fibula, set it too on the altar, opened her fine silk robe and removed it, then folded it neatly and set it beside her jewelry.

Now dressed only in her deaconess’ robe, she turned to Médard and said, “May all these vanities feed many of the poor.” He stayed silent, counting how many in his flock might be helped by such treasures.

This was not all of Radegund’s wealth. Years as a queen, and lady of several estates, had taught her the power of these baubles which meant so little in themselves. Other rich clothes and innumerable ornaments waited for her at Athies, and she had ensured she would still receive the income from Peronne and her other estates.

She did not yet know what she would do with all this. In fact, she did not know what she would do now at all. She had taken the first step, away from Chlothar and towards Christ – but she was far from certain of her path. Nor was she healed. Her brother’s death had awoken all the horrors she had fought to put aside, reminded her again that the world was a place of sin and evil, that she could never escape it, but only embrace the horror and the suffering of a sinful existence, however desperately she might reach out for Grace.

For a month, she served the cathedral, joining the other deaconesses, all of them much older, in training neophytes and doing simple chores around the church. But she met with Médard often and discussed her uncertain plans.

“I want to do good, Holy Lord, more good than I can do here.”

He understood that she was not yet free of her royal life, that she still had much to do to put it aside. Above all, she still had riches, well beyond her needs, in Noyon, Athies and beyond. She wanted these to serve the Church. She asked him who in the region were the holiest, who the ones who did the most good work. He named the bishops, abbots and hermits who lived closest to the Lord; who were neither, like Blandy, blinded by self-righteousness and dogma, nor, like too many others, inclined to turn the Church’s riches to their own pleasures. She sought warriors, warriors like herself, whose first concern was Christ, and through Him, the sick and the poor.

Médard gave her men from his domain, and serving women, and she and Agnes set out in search of the righteous.

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