Strictly speaking, the Rule allowed only select men – primarily priests – to enter the convent. As a priest and the convent’s agent, Fortunatus was among these. Agnes and Radegund both cared deeply about the sick however and did not want to abandon the convent’s healing mission. And so men were still allowed as patients in the hospital.

One day a mother came in, leading her son, about eleven, by the hand. He was twisting with pain, clutching at his groin. “Please, I beg you, help my son. He is suffering terribly.” The nuns took him to Reovalis, who examined him and determined he had a hernia. Sometimes these could be cured or at least eased by binding. But nothing eased the boy’s awful suffering. The doctor took Radegund aside. “I have seen this cured in Constantinople. But it is a terrible cure.”

“Yes?”

“I must unman him.”

She knew how much virility meant to a male. “It must be his decision.” The doctor agreed. As he softly explained matters to the boy, the child’s face contorted. “But I am not yet even a man. And now I will never be! Is there no other way?”

But there was not. And the pain had become unbearable.

Nuns prepared hot water, towels and ointments. Three men came in, servants of the convent, and held the boy down as, beneath his robe, the doctor squeezed his testicles, slit his scrotum and squeezed the two white masses out. With one swift movement, he cut these free. The boy let out a terrible cry as the nuns dipped a towel into the water and handed it to the doctor, who bathed his empty scrotum, patted it dry, rubbed it with ointment and wrapped the groin in bandages.

The boy lay calm now, staring up. “My pain is gone,” he said, almost in wonder. The doctor’s awful cure had worked.

Several years later, he returned to the convent, now a young man, and begged to see Radegund. At first she refused, but he insisted. She was shocked to see, when he came in at last, that he wore a woman’s robe, his dark hair just long enough to be in braids. “I can never act as a man,” he said. “And those who can mock me for what I have lost. I can live in the world no longer. Please, I beg you, allow me to live as one of you.”

Horrified, she refused. But Agnes considered his plight. Where in the unkind world could one live who, if not quite a woman, would never be man? They put the problem to the nuns, who decided that charity required them to give him a refuge, at least for a time. He was to be housed separately, but otherwise share the chores and prayers of convent life.

Months later Fortunatus, who often toured the convent’s estates, found a house on one with its own plot of land. He suggested the man be sent there, with a small income, under the protection of the local priest. Radegund and Agnes agreed, only asking that he be brought to Poitiers to celebrate Easter and Christmas, seeing as best they could to both his earthly and his spiritual needs.

Chilperic sent word he had found a husband for Basina. This was unexpected – Fredegund had made sure the world knew of her ruin. But the prince Chilperic had in mind was said to have unnatural tastes, and could not be particular; more to the point, the marriage would cement a valued alliance.

Radegund could not decipher Basina’s wishes. Since the day she had arrived, she had been changeable, fragile at times and collapsing into tears, angry and resentful at others. At first she welcomed this latest news, then spoke with terror of her step-mother and what would happen if she returned to the world. Radegund at last took this as a test of the Rule, which stated that no nun, once she had entered the cloister, could ever leave. Basina raged and threatened her, yet seemed relieved when Radegund was adamant. Radegund wrote firmly to Chilperic to refuse his demand.

Chilperic, who recalled his father’s frustration at his stubborn spouse, now understood it. He could not believe a nun would dare defy him. But he had also known Radegund as a queen and witnessed her wordless strength. With this, the Church had grown stronger since Chlothar’s time and he dared not defy it openly. Nor did Fredegund favor the project. Faced with his virulent queen and an unyielding nun, he gave up.

The saint -->