This is Chapter 24 of The Wanderer and the Way, now available for purchase.
Leaving Imus Pyrenaeus proved more difficult than Theodemir had expected. Mother Rotlenda did everything she could to aid and facilitate his departure, but she placed every obstacle and objection in the way of Agnes going with him. It was immoral for a young man and a young woman to travel alone if they were not married. It would be the ruin of Agnes’s reputation. Her shoes were ruined, and there was not another pair to be found to fit her small feet. And the cobbler was a drunkard who had been punished for his vice with a severe case of boils, which prevented him from working. As to her clothing, the entirely inadequate smock in which she had been dressed all through her journey had been ragged and filthy and had had to be burned to destroy the vermin that infested it, and there was currently nothing in the convent’s charity basket to fit her small figure, and Sister Gisela the dressmaker had developed a stiffness in her fingers that made it impossible for her to sew.
Theodemir solved these problems by finding a young woman of the village who was of Iberian blood and similar in stature to Agnes, though somewhat plumper. From her, he purchased, at twice their proper price, her second-best dress, underthings, cloak, hose, and shoes, all of which Agnes declared to be a perfect fit and entirely suited to the journey before them. The objection then became a lack of horses. One, certainly, could be found to get Theodemir on his way, but it was impossible to find one of a temperament fit for a lady. And though Agnes protested that she was perfectly able to ride any horse that could be found, and the more spirited the better, it turned out that Mother Rotlenda had anticipated Theodemir’s response to this new objection, and when he went looking, there was not a horse to be found for sale anywhere in the district. Wondering at the extent of Mother Rotlenda’s influence, Theodemir returned to report his failure to Agnes, who, after climbing the convent wall and jumping down into his arms to evade her captors, had declared that they had walked this far and that it would do them no harm to walk a little further. To his suggestion that they could take the horse that Mother Rotlenda had offered him and take turns riding it, she had declared that she wanted to take nothing more than she had to from that awful woman, and so they had agreed.
All of this intrigue seemed to have a singularly cheering effect on Agnes. Once a reluctant traveler, burdened by the thought of duties and friends abandoned, she now became eager for the road and its excitements, positively gleeful in the necessity of climbing over the convent wall again by starlight and setting out surreptitiously in the middle of the night, so as to be out of Mother Rotlenda’s sphere of influence before her escape should be discovered and any pursuit could catch up with them.
Theodemir had been dubious of the notion that Mother Rotlenda would launch any such pursuit, but indeed, at about the ninth hour of the day, when they were resting under a tree by the side of the road, Agnes spotted a cloud of dust in the road behind them and insisted that they hide themselves in the undergrowth until whoever was coming had passed by. They had done this several times on their passage through the Pyrenees, which Agnes had borne with a stoicism that Theodemir had thought heroic. But now, as Mother Rotlenda herself, riding the very horse which she had offered to Theodemir to hasten his departure, and leading four armed men, cantered by, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them, Agnes lay on her back giggling with delight at having evaded her.
In this mood it seemed impossible for Theodemir to decide if it was Agnes or Elswyth who was lying beside him in the roadside grass. It was not part of Agnes’s character, at least as he had so far observed it, to giggle so at the follies of another or to rejoice so in the thrill of their evasion. And yet the creature beside him was also not the seductive charmer who had entertained the company in the hall when Alphonso had visited Witteric. Could it be that the rift between Agnes and Elswyth was at last beginning to close and that the enthusiastic, fun-loving creature beside him, more lovely than either Agnes or Elswyth had been in her simplicity and joy, was what would emerge from their union? And if so, if the wound would only continue to heal as it seemed to be doing, would the woman who emerged, by whatever name she chose to live, be willing to marry where neither Agnes nor Elswyth had been willing to do so?
“We must go across country now,” she said when the sound of their pursuer's hooves had faded into the distance ahead. “I’ll bet she will have put out the news to the whole district that you have kidnapped me by force and intend to use me for immoral purposes.”
“You laugh,” he said, “But if that is so, I will be cruelly used if anyone catches us.”
“Cruelly killed, I am sure,” she said. “You men do so love to kill each other to spare the virtue of maidens.”
This was said in all innocence, but it stung in his breast because he had not killed Witteric to spare Agnes’s virtue but had instead almost killed her with his ill-mixed surgeon’s draught. But he knew her well enough now, even this new form of her, to know how she would have spoken these words if she had meant them for a jibe. But she had said them as a jest against all men, not as a rebuke to him in particular, and so he bore the blow bravely and did not let the sting of it show in his face or his voice.
“We’ve been footing it twelve hours already,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“I have rested till I am sick of it,” she replied. “Come on. You are made of sterner stuff than this. Besides, they may have dogs. We both left enough of ourselves there to give them our scent.”
And so he rose and followed her. And follow her he did, for it was she who took the lead now, she who chose the route to avoid roads and keep them from the crest of hills where they might be outlined against the sky. It was she who had them wade half an hour through a stream and emerge on a gavel bar that was cruel to the feet but less apt to betray their scent if Mother Rotlenda did indeed send dogs after them. For the first time in their journey together, he realized the danger to him was greater than the danger to her, and something in this had emboldened her and given her joy. And so they continued, through woodlands and hedgerows, keeping out of sight of anyone who might give chase or make report of them after their passing, and the stars that had observed their departure were again alight to see when she finally called for a rest.
“I am properly tired now,” she admitted as she sat down under a spreading oak and took off her shoes to massage her feet.
“I am astonished at your courage and perseverance, lady,” he said.
“Oh, give it a rest, won’t you,” she said, but without her customary weariness and disgust with his compliments.
“Do you think it would be safe for us to have a fire,” he asked.
“No,” she said decisively. “Tomorrow night, perhaps,” she added as if she had been a matron appeasing a disappointed child.
“You enjoyed today,” he said.
She turned to him with a shining face. “Didn’t you?” she said. “We foxed the old hen, didn’t we?”
“You foxed her indeed, lady. But such weariness and peril have never brought you such joy before.”
“Are you scolding me?” she asked, frowning slightly.
“No, no, lady,” he said hurriedly. “Far from it. It is only envy on my part. I have walked from Rome to Iria Flavia, and from Iria Flavia to here, through many perils and with much privation, and never felt a moment of the joy that has been in your heart today. You almost put me in mind of that man Pelagius that we met in the desert of the Douro. A happier pilgrim I had not seen until today.”
She grew wistful then. “When I was a girl,” she said, “I was kept at home on my father’s estate in safety and plenty. But I always wanted to roam. Did I tell you that I stowed away on a Norsk ship when I was five and had to be brought back? I feel so sorry now, knowing how my poor mother and father must have felt until Uncle Harrald brought me back. And after that, my mother would hardly let me out of her sight. I was never allowed a horse, only a dear wretched little pony. And so I wandered my little patch of the world over and over and over until I knew every leaf and stone by name. And all the time, I was safe. I never knew fear or peril. But I heard tales of fear and peril in the hall and saw the joy and pride men had in facing them and overcoming them with their strength and courage, and I was jealous. I remember telling Leif once that I wanted to know what it was like to be terribly, terribly afraid. And he scolded me for it. He was right too. I know that now. I have been terribly, terribly afraid. Many times, and for a long time. And you saved me,” she concluded, looking up at him with shining eyes. “You saved me.”
“Such is my vocation, lady,” he replied awkwardly, feeling his cheeks flush.
She was silent for a while, and he began to think that she had fallen asleep. But then she said, “I think today I was that little girl again, escaping her mother to hide away on a ship and go to Spain. Except this time, I had someone of my own to rescue. It was wrong to be so gleeful about it. I’m sorry. The danger to you was very real. It will be for another day at least. I promise to be more sober tomorrow.”
“Not for worlds, lady, would I have you be anything but gleeful. I have seen you melancholy for so long. You should have year upon year of gleeful days now to bring glee and melancholy into their proper proportion in your life.”
“I think I would settle now for the very thing I rebelled against for so long,” she replied, “a settled home. A peaceful life. A means to be useful to people I love.”
“I desire nothing more than to make such a home for you,” he said. He knew it was foolish to make this plea at this moment, but his heart was too full to contain it.
She got up wearily and stiffly, for she had lain just long enough for her long-used muscles to grow stiff from the exertions of the day. She came and knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers. “Be my brother,” she said. “I have had a mother twice. I have had a father twice. Three times if I count Thor. I have had a husband twice. I have had sisters by the dozen. I have had more suitors than there are flies on a dead horse. But I have never had a brother. You have been to me all a brother could be, done for me all a brother could do, and I love you for it. Be my brother.”
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