Stealing Heaven (12 page)

Her chest knotted with dread. "My future?" she repeated faintly. "You promised not to send me away! Who are you going to choose for me? Some horrible old man?"

His head jerked up sharply. "Who said anything about a husband? I'll not give you to another man." His voice was harsh.

She stared at him, and the muscles around her mouth tensed. Uncomfortable, she said at last, "Then what did you mean when you spoke of my future?"

Fulbert shook his head. "I don't know." He rose unsteadily and walked toward her. "You must trust me to find an answer, with God's help."

"Yes." The sun was gone; the garden drowned in shadows, illuminated in flashes by the vague glimmerings of the fireflies, and the river wind brushed her cheek, soft as the plumes of a feather. She said, "I trust you."

"I have spoken with Jourdain. The boy meant well, but it was wrong of him to take you to the palace. In future, he is to come here every day and instruct you in what he has learned from Master Abelard's lectures." He smiled sardonically. "Not that this is a satisfactory solution to the problem."

Heloise burst into relieved laughter. "Oh, but it is. I'll be a secondhand student of Abelard's. Jourdain can be my ears and eyes." She stood and hobbled over to Fulbert. He caught her shoulders and pulled her tightly against his chest so that her mouth was brushing his ear.

"Sweet heart," he whispered, pressing his face into her hair. "Lovedy, my very own sweet girl, my angel."

She did not move. The dark warmth of his arms, the sudden contact with his hard male body, whipped an image of Abelard into her mind. She saw him as clearly as if he were there, and she could not think or speak. After a minute, Fulbert released her and walked into the house without a backward glance.

 

In the late-afternoon shadows, she sat at the back of the garden with her head pressed against the wall. In the cloister, close behind her, someone was playing a lute and singing. The tune was unfamiliar, but the words she had heard before, perhaps from Jourdain. It was about a queen named Guinevere who falls in love with the bravest knight in Christendom.
Lancelot, my love, my own.
As the words rushed over her, she exhaled a shuddery sigh.
Courteous knight, gentle lover.
The singer paused and repeated the word
lover,
as if he were rolling a jewel on his tongue. Near tears, Heloise waited for him to go on.

Ceci came bounding out of the kitchen door. When she saw Heloise, she ran toward her. Heloise swiveled her eyelids closed and pretended not to see her.

"Heloise."

"Shhh."

"What are you doing?"

"Listening." She jerked her head toward the wall. Ceci slid to the ground beside her.
Dearest angel,
I
care for nothing but you.
After a long while, the voice stopped and she heard only the sour plink of a lute string. Then there was silence, the wind teasing the leaves.

Ceci asked, "If Arthur was the wisest king in the world, why didn't Guinevere love him?"

Without moving, Heloise opened her eyes and sighed impatiently. "She did love him. Sort of. But Lancelot was her true love."

Ceci leaned her cheek on one hand. She said, obstinate, "If I were Guinevere, I would have run off with Arthur."

"That's stupid. How can you run away with your husband? Besides, true lovers are never married."

"Are you sure?"

"Certainly I'm sure. Then they'd be ordinary like everyone else." She stared up through the branches at a primrose sky and smiled dreamily. "The names of true lovers are written in the stars."

"Who writes their names—God?"

She hesitated a moment. "Yes. God." She closed her eyes.

 

Jourdain came nearly every day now. Fulbert allowed them to use his private apartments, but when the weather was fine they worked in the garden. Usually at their side sat Ceci, yawning and dreaming, her head bent over the pillowcase she was embroidering. Heloise noticed that the girl had grown unusually withdrawn in recent days. No letters had arrived from Argenteuil in some time, and it almost seemed as though everyone had forgotten about her.

"What are you working on now?" Jourdain asked her.

"The stem of the rose." Ceci held up the fabric.

"Don't you think those leaves are a bit lopsided?" he said playfully. "They look like green worms."

"Oh shut up, will you."

"You mean they're not worms?"

"Jourdain—" She ran into the house, slamming the kitchen door behind her.

Jourdain stood in bewilderment. "What did I say? Surely she knows I'm chaffing her."

"She's not in the mood for it," Heloise told him.

He sat down again and picked up the tablet on which he had scrawled notes from the day's lecture. "Has something happened?"

"That's just it. Nothing has happened." Leaning over his shoulder, she squinted at the tablet. "Holy Mother, I wish you'd learn to write legibly. What's that word?"

"Ezekiel," he said, frowning. "No news is good news."

"Or bad news. Take your choice." She didn't want to think about Ceci. The girl had difficulty sleeping. Hardly a night went by that she did not wake, sobbing and terrified, and slip into Heloise's bed. Horned monsters, she said. Furry black creatures breathing smoke and fire pursued her. It was God coming to eat her alive. Heloise would rock her until she fell back to sleep. She understood the nightmares well enough but could offer small consolation. In the end, Ceci would have to accept God's will, whatever that should prove to be.

Jourdain, glancing now and then at his notes, proceeded to give her an abridgment of Abelard's remarks. She listened dutifully. From the outset, however, it had been apparent to her that this new system would not work. The few nuggets of information that Jourdain passed along were fascinating—she doubted if Abelard could be otherwise—but ultimately unsatisfying. It was like listening to a chanson and hearing only every tenth word. Bored, she interrupted Jourdain as often as possible, attempting, without being obvious, to elicit information about Abelard. “Tell me something,” she said. "Where does he come from?"

 
"Who?"
 

"Your master."

"Brittany," he answered. "Near Nantes. His father was a knight in the service of the Duke of Brittany."
 

"Was? Is he dead?"

Jourdain shook his head. "He's a monk now."

"A monk!" she repeated incredulously.

"And his mother has taken the veil." He smiled. "See. Some women want to be nuns."

Heloise said quickly, "She's old. That's a noble way to end one's life." After a moment: "So Master Peter is heir to his father's fief."

"No. Oh no. He gave up his rights." He gave a dry, patient laugh. "You're very curious. What else would you like to know?"

"Nothing," she said, coloring. She added hastily, "I don't mean to pry, but you know him so well. I mean, one hears gossip."

There was a long silence. At last, Heloise said slowly, "I've heard that he has many enemies in the Church."

"A few," Jourdain replied a bit tardy. "You know. Greatness always invites envy. Besides, Master Peter has little patience with fools. I'm afraid that he has crossed swords with a number of high-placed fools in the Church."

She laughed. "Who won?"

"Guess." He patted the bench. "Come sit down or we'll never finish today."

Reluctantly, she sank down beside him. If she stopped interrupting, the lesson would be over sooner. She sat calmly, hands folded in her lap, and waited for Jourdain to finish.

 

Early on the morning before St. John's Day, two men-at-arms came to the Rue des Chantres and asked to see the canon. By noon, Ceci was packed and gone.

Heloise had slumped next to Ceci on the bed while she erupted in peals of terrible laughter and clawed her cheeks until the blood spurted. Exhausted finally, Ceci had heaved herself to her feet and stumbled down the stairs without speaking. Outside, her face contorted, she crouched in a heap by the side of the road. After a while, the men came out and mounted her on a spare horse. Her eyes gazed ahead, and when they moved off she would not look around or speak a word of farewell.

Heloise had raced after them as far as the Campus Rosaeus, then she walked slowly back to the house and climbed to her turret room. For the rest of that day she stayed there, staring out at the river. As nightfall drew near, she watched the celebrations for St. John's Eve along the Quai-aux-Fleurs. Children were burning piles of rubbish and bones they had collected earlier in the day; students, flown with wine, ran up and down the road brandishing sticks. Darkness was blotting the river when Heloise heard the bedroom door grate. Fulbert stood in the doorway balancing a platter of meat and a henap.

"Starving yourself won't help."

"I'm not hungry."

"Have some—"

"No, thank you."

Fulbert sighed. He placed the food on the floor adjacent to her feet. "Ceci is still immature," he said. "When she's older, she will reconcile herself to what is best for everyone concerned. There's no reason for you to reproach yourself."

"Ceci's going to die." Listlessly, Heloise buried her head in her arms.

“You underestimate the resiliency of the human spirit. People don't die because they can't get their way."

"She's going to die without having lived."

Fulbert cocked his eyebrows. "An exaggeration surely. Why, a life spent in the service of God is the most noble life of all."

In the following days, Fulbert did not mention Ceci again, nor did Agnes, who removed the hangings from Ceci's bed and packed them in her cedar coffer. Heloise kept to her room, coming downstairs only for meals and the sessions with Jourdain. Those inhuman, piercing cries of Ceci's had driven from her mind all thoughts of Abelard and philosophy.
Good sir God, why did you punish her? She is only a frightened child.

Not until after Lammas did the thought of Ceci begin to dull, and then, oddly enough, Heloise felt slightly guilty. As though she had shed too few tears, she began despising in herself the missing piece that made her somewhat indifferent to the suffering of others; and yet perhaps it was not indifference at all but merely fear. Deliberately closing the sluice gate on her thoughts of Ceci, she took up a new work on astronomy that Jourdain had lent her and began reading about astrolabes and quadrants. Toward midafternoon, she was busy computing the angular distance between the earth and Saturn. Thirsty, she called down for Petronilla to bring her a cup of ale. The girl appeared at the bottom of the stairs, swinging her hips haughtily.

"Get it yourself," she yelled up. "Wait a—"

"Agnes wants me." Petronilla disappeared toward the rear of the house.

Furious, Heloise stamped down the steps. In the kitchen, caldrons of apricots were simmering on the hearth, and Agnes was hustling about, laying out a tray of henaps and platters of cheese and sliced cold fowl.

"God's eyes," she muttered to Agnes. "What's all the fuss about?"

"Oh. It's you, lady. Master wants refreshments right away."

"Uncle is home now? Is something amiss?"

Hurriedly, Agnes sliced a cake and laid the slices on a silver dish. "Canon Martin is here." She stood back and surveyed the tray. "Something very important."

"What?"

Agnes shrugged her shoulders. "How should I know? A privy matter."

Heloise rocked on her heels, thinking. Martin never came to the house at midday. Only to play chess in the evenings or for Sunday dinner. When Agnes handed the tray to Petronilla, Heloise stopped her. "I'll take it in, Agnes. It would be courteous for me to greet the canon."

"Yes, my lady."

Heloise went down the hall. Outside Fulbert's apartments, she paused at the sound of excited voices. She banged on the door with the toe of her shoe.

Fulbert opened. At the sight of her his mouth thinned. "Oh. It's you."

"Uncle." Heloise advanced into the room and set the tray on a trestle. She turned to Martin with a bow. "My lord."

Canon Martin was studying Fulbert's Deluge tapestry as though he had never seen it before. As luxuriously as Fulbert dressed, Martin always outshone him. He wore short, fashionable cloaks and silver spurs. His hair was curled and parted, his freshly shaved skin polished with a pumice stone. He was so fastidiously groomed that he might have been taken for a woman. Summer or winter, Heloise had never seen his chubby hands without gloves. She glanced around the room. "No falcon today, my lord?"

Martin stared into the corner. "Bellebelle is feeling poorly, lady." Neither he nor Fulbert looked at Heloise.

"Sorry to hear it."

There was an awkward silence. Heloise moved to the door. "Good day, my lords." Outside, she paused. The murmur of voices resumed immediately. She heard Martin shout, "Think of the honor! Our own Aristotle!"

Fulbert's reply was jumbled. Heloise pressed her ear against the door. Just as before, Martin's voice rose. "... I told Master Peter that . . ."

They were talking about Abelard. Although she caught a word occasionally, she could not distinguish what they were saying.

Quickly she slipped out the front door and ran around to the side of the house by the stable. When she neared Fulbert's window, she dropped into a crouch and crept the rest of the way. That was better. From there the voices were as audible as if she had been in the room. Behind a currant bush she sat cross-legged and pulled her skirt over her knees.

They were speaking of some proposition that Abelard had made to Martin. No, not exactly to Martin. To Fulbert by way of Martin. Apparently Martin considered the request extremely odd. But whatever it was, both men were obviously intrigued.

Martin said, "He promises to pay whatever you ask."

"Why me?"

"He says your house is convenient to the school."
 

Fulbert snorted. "So is your house, my friend. Why don't you take him in?"

"Master Peter didn't ask me. It's your house he wants to live in."

Sweet Christ! Heloise thought. He wants to live here! It wasn't possible.

There was a long silence. Finally Fulbert said, "What the devil is he—"