As for Héloïse tonight, her screaming was silent. God’s Mother might have been expected to mock one whose conceiving had had more to do with transports of grunting flesh than with angelic visitation, but God’s Mother, too, was husbandless, ready for shame. Indeed, Héloïse chose to believe that God’s Mother would be more stirred than vexed by the secretum secretorum. Héloïse, for her part, was vexation itself. And now, as this meeting approached, there had been not only God’s reaction to fear, but Peter’s.
Yet, once again, when she finally turned to him, his large heart took her by surprise. He was waiting for her at the garden wall, expecting something else. She went into his arms, but there was no question of yielding to him—or to herself, for that matter. “My darling Peter,” she said with forced calm, “tonight we must do our talking at the start, not the finish. I have things to say to you.”
He pulled his face back from hers, holding her then with his eyes more than his arms. She sensed it as he read what was written in her expression. “What, my dear one?” he asked quietly.
Beside the wall was a stone bench, and they moved to it. It was a midsummer night, in the stretch of time when all in the Cathedral close were hard asleep, well before the sounding of Matins. An ample moon was high in the sky, and in its light the settle stone glistened with the film of river dew. The air was cool. Each wore a woolen cloak, and each drew it close as they sat, ignoring the moisture on the bench. Héloïse spoke of her circumstance with measured cadence, a report she had rehearsed in her mind. Peter allowed her to complete her explanations. Then he simply drew her into the shelter of his arm. For a long time, they clung to each other.
Finally, he said, “We must be sure.”
“I am sure.”
“Hippocrates recorded cases of phantom parturition.”
Héloïse laughed, though she was in no way amused.
Peter blushed. Even he saw the obtuseness of what he’d said, the cowardice of it. “I did not mean that,” he offered. “The first reaction of a dolt. Let me say instead what I truly mean…what matters most and first. We must see that you are properly cared for. Your uncle—”
“My uncle will regard you as the source of mortal dishonor.” Suddenly, Héloïse pulled herself away from him, turning to clutch at his tunic, making fists around the fabric with which to shake him. “He will be terrified of my cousin’s reaction; he will grovel before the Bishop, to deflect the loss of his benefice”—such was the litany of dread to which, night after night, Héloïse had submitted; it poured from her now—“while the Bishop, imagining me as more Royal than I am, will fear for the King’s honor. For all of this, my uncle will be deranged with anger, but that is the least of it. Our child will be deformed—”
“Héloïse—”
“No! Listen to me: ‘Corrupt unions produce corrupt children.’ You know that.”
“I know no such thing.”
“It’s the Decretum.”
“The Decretum be damned. Is our union corrupt?”
“If the child is whole, the Church will seize him as its slave. Filius nullius. The son of one tonsured is the ‘son of no one.’ He will be a thrall, and you’ve seen even here how such poor bastards are treated.” Héloïse’s fear was well founded, for in the wake of the Gregorian Reforms, the Church was just then imposing fierce new disciplines on clergy. This was happening in the name of chastity, but even Héloïse knew that the real issue was lucre: when the ordained men died, their putative wives, sons, and even concubines were laying claim to the properties over which the tonsured class presided—from Pope, Bishop, and Abbot down to parish priest and oratory chaplain. Therefore, clerics and monks had to be universally reined in, the entitlement of ecclesial heirs eliminated. The most efficient way to do that was to enslave the sons of all who’d undergone the laying on of hands. Enthrallment was a present solution and a future deterrent.
“If the child is female,” Peter insisted, “the Church will care nothing for her, whether I wear the tonsure or not.”
“The child is male.”
“You cannot know this.”
“But I do. Joanna showed me.”
“Joanna knows of your condition?”
“She is my maidservant. Of course she knows.”
“What did she show you?”
“A drop of leakage from my breast, into a bowl of water. If it floats, a girl child. But in my case, it sank. A boy.”
“In what text does Joanna find such a method of assessment?”
“The text of what women know.”
“There are other texts, my lady.” Peter silenced her by drawing her face into the hollow of his neck. “And for tonight, our concern is not with the child, but with you—and you alone.” A burst of feeling stopped her lover from speaking more, and Héloïse read it. Unspoken between them now was the fate of her mother, but Héloïse had described that horror to Peter, and he knew that she had never put it out of her mind. For them, it was the particular instance of the general condition—that bringing a child into the world was the most dangerous thing a woman could do, a brutal God’s punishment of baneful Eve.
Abelard collected himself, and said, “We must learn what you need. We must be sure that you are well.”
With her face closed into the cleft of Peter’s throat, the dolors of Héloïse seemed wholly private, and she wept. That she was carrying a child conceived in sin—a humpback child, an imbecile—brought implications she could not openly acknowledge. In truth, the near-certain deformation of her child defined her fear as much as the dangers of delivering him. The only reprieve from her anguish came from this fresh taste of Peter’s love, which alone outweighed her worry. His love—pure, constant—redeemed the iniquity of what they had done.
After a time, he said, “Come now.” He stood, pulled up his cowl, less for warmth, she sensed, than to cover his tonsure. He still could not be seen with her alone, even in the night. Especially in the night. She let him adjust the hood of her cloak, so that she, too, was covered. Nor did she resist as he led her out of the garden, through the horse-gate, into the lane that ran along the north wall of the close. Because of the moon, once they were out of the shadow of the looming Cathedral, the hooded pair could make their way without a torch, and Peter moved them along as if he knew just where to go. She let him lead her, consoled to have, finally, yielded her will.
Soon they were in the ghostly warren of shuttered market stalls, a silhouetted salmagundi of vacant lean-tos and booths, where rats scurried away at their passing, and where the stench of melon spoilage and butcher’s offal rose from the runnel that divided the street. Peter nudged her away from the scummy puddles, while Héloïse, leaning into him, carried her skirts. At one point, an upended miller’s cart blocked the way, and for a moment Héloïse feared the obstacle as the trick of thieves, but Peter, releasing her, simply hoisted the cart up and, with a grunt, pushed it aside. No thief would challenge such a man.
When he took her by the arm again, she asked, “Where are we going?”
He said, “To one who knows.”
Again she yielded to him. When they left the market labyrinth behind, the street narrowed even further, now hemmed in on both sides by huts made of woven sticks and dried mud. As they went deeper into the quarter, huts yielded to timber-framed houses with second stories. The structures loomed over the street, blocking the open night sky and its moon, plunging the couple into a tunnel of shadows. Here the stench of the market gave way to aromas of curdled milk, boiled roots, and dampened ash. Héloïse felt a wet breeze on her face—the river again. Therefore, they were not far from the north bank of the city island.
“Wait,” she said. “Where are we?”
“Just come,” Peter answered.
“No.” She stopped and pulled away. “Where are we?”
“Vicus Judaeorum.”
“The Jews’ quarter!” Now she understood her discomfort. The district between the market and the river was forbidden to Christian ladies. She had never ent
ered it. “Why are you bringing me here?”
“Prince Isaac ben Joseph Benveniste. He has what we need tonight. Wisdom and science.”
“Prince? What prince?”
“Prince among the Hebrews,” Abelard muttered. “They say ‘nasi.’ We say ‘prince.’ ”
Benveniste was the Elder of Elders, a sage from Toledo, in the Kingdom of Castile. He had come to Paris to establish an academy for the study of Talmud, but holy books were only part of his expertise. Among Jews, he was a legend on both sides of the Pyrenees.
“And he receives intruders in the depth of night?” she asked.
“Shh…shh…dear woman. We are not intruders.”
“Peter, we cannot do this.”
“We are doing it. The depth of night is the best hour. No one will know of our meeting.”
“Meeting? Where?”
“Here.” At that, he turned and rapped softly on a nearby door.
“We cannot do this,” she hissed.
But Peter Abelard did this once a fortnight. With all discretion, he regularly presented himself to Benveniste for instruction in the texts coming from al-Andalus, and for tutoring in the language of the Moors. But on this night, medicine was the point, and Prince Isaac was a master there, too, knowing the herbals and the lapidaries; knowing the four humors, and the course of blood. But Héloïse was still resisting, pulling back from the door. Abelard held her close, to whisper, “The King—our King—has given him the Physician’s Privilege.”
“Physician! My condition is a matter for midwives, not physicians—women, not men.”
“I honor your superior knowledge, dear Héloïse. I admit my ignorance. But on matters of the body’s well-being, Prince Isaac is the wisest man in Paris. From birth to death.”
“How do you know him?”
“He is my tutor.”
“He is your Jew? What they say of Abelard and ‘his Jew’ is true?”
“Perhaps, depending on what they say.”
“That your mind is turned,” she said. “A Jew has twisted your thought. Your enemies say that.”
“Would that my mind could be turned by such a one. It is true, I entrust my thought to Prince Isaac.”
“And now you would entrust me?” She clutched at his garment, insistent.
Abelard reined in his impatience. He well knew that the Iberian Moors had opened the secrets of medicine to the Jews—secrets of Hippocrates and Galen and Ibn Sina. Secrets that did indeed have to do with childbirth, whatever women said. Still with his voice lowered, though it was now laced with impatience, he said, “I will not have you burning incense to planets and frogs….” He might have added, such was the wisdom of the women, “and sucking on the severed right foot of a crane.” Instead, he said, “When your time comes, I will not have you clutching a piece of the toenail of Saint Mary of Magdala.”
“Of Saint Margaret.”
“Who died a virgin. Why should a virgin be the patroness of the pregnant?” He covered her hands with his, pressing them. “Rationality, dear Héloïse. That is what we need. You know this of your own experience….”
Héloïse buried her face against him.
Peter stroked her, saying, “I am thinking of your dear mother.”
Her voice was muffled when she said, “I think of nothing else.”
“Then it is settled,” he told her. “We must know what your well-being actually requires.”
She pulled back, looked at him, and began, “You are the only man to whom I reveal myself. You must—”
Before Héloïse could object further, the door opened. A white-bearded man appeared, his craggy face illuminated by the flame of an oil lamp he held at his breast. On his head he wore an odd three-pointed cap. He stood in what she now saw as an exceptionally solid door frame, to one side of which was nailed a small tube of parchment. Protruding from above the door was the timbered overhang of a second story. Héloïse took a step back and lowered her head, hiding her face in the shadow of her hood. Yet she saw it when the Jew lifted the flame before Peter, to make him visible.
“Master Peter Abelard,” the Jew said.
“Your Holiness.” Peter half bowed. “Forgive this violation of the peace of your household. We are in great need of your counsel.”
For a long time, the Jew was silent and impassive. Finally, without a word, he stepped aside. Peter led Héloïse into the house, and the Jew pulled the door closed behind them. In two corners of the first room, barely more than a vestibule, were blanketed sleepers. They did not stir. Servants. If the Jew had family, they would be on the warmer floor above, in the eaves.
Peter seemed to know where to go, and he crossed into a second, larger room, where a pair of benches flanked a hearth in which embers smoldered. In from a third room washed a cone of yellow light, and Peter went directly there. Héloïse followed. A slightly elevated ceiling accommodated an arrangement of shelving that covered two walls. The shelves were made of hewn lumber. One set held a hodgepodge of vessels—earthenware jars and pots, some large. The other, she saw with astonishment, held pyramids of scrolls and stacked codices, books—a rich man’s library. Running the length of the third wall was a single low shelf of doubled planks on which rugs and animal skins were haphazardly spread; a sleeping pallet—the Jew’s?
In the room’s center was a rectangular table, on which the candlestick stood. Fresh-cut rushes, intermingled, judging from the scents, with lavender, lemon balm, and thyme, were spread on the hard-caked mud of the floor. The table also held a stripped feather quill, a knife, a horn of carbon ink, and a fan of vellum pages on which could be seen the small angled marks that Héloïse recognized as Hebrew letters. The Jew placed the oil lamp on a shelf, then began efficiently to clear the table, shifting its material to the bench. From the easy agility with which he moved, Héloïse saw that the man was not as aged as the white of his flamboyant hair and beard had suggested. The skin around his eyes and mouth was smooth.
Once the table was clear, the Jew drew himself up to his full height, touched his cap, and bowed to Héloïse—his first acknowledgment of her. In return, she nodded.
The Jew then stooped to pull a stool out from under the table, and Peter, opposite, knew to do likewise. The Jew sat. Peter arranged the stool for Héloïse. She collected the drapery of her gowns and cloak, and sat. Peter stood behind her. “We come to you with secrets,” Peter said.
The Jew’s almost imperceptible nod seemed the appropriate reply. His hands were folded on the table.
Peter continued, “We have reason to believe that we have conceived a child.”
The Jew showed nothing. His gaze went to Héloïse, who, to her surprise, sensed in him nothing but kindness. She said, “It is true. I am certain.”
The Jew said, “No one can match you in this knowledge.”
Peter said, “But is there a way to be more certain? Secrets of the Talmud? The Moorish texts?”
Though the Jew spoke in answer to Peter, he did not take his eyes from Héloïse. “The way to stand beyond question is to listen to the one who knows. Neither the Talmud nor the Canon of Ibn Sina compare to that. Is it you, my lady, who seeks my counsel?”
“I yield to Master Peter Abelard,” she answered. “He has set us in flight from superstition. What would you do to confirm my condition? With your science, I mean.”
“There are measures.”
“What measures?”
The Jew stood and turned to the shelves behind him. He opened a metal box and, with pinched fingers, carefully placed something in his cupped hand. Then he turned back, to sit again. He spilled onto the table a small quantity of seeds, and a single shoot of wheat.
“In the privacy of your place,” he said, “if you chose to adopt this method, you would keep these moist with your urina, the fluid discharge from your bladder. These are barley seeds; this is a spike of emmer wheat. If, after two days, either the seeds failed to sprout or the emmer failed to germinate, then you would know that you are not with child. It is
possible. On the other hand, the quickening of either the barley or the wheat would mean that you are indeed with child. With a high degree of certainty.”
“And as for the”—Peter hesitated—“state…of being male or female?”
The Jew answered solemnly, “Some say that if the barley sprouts before the emmer the child will be male. Vice versa, female. This part of the measure is also reliably accurate” all at once the Jew smiled—“about half the time.”
Héloïse did not match his smile. She said soberly, “For the knowledge of my son’s gender, I was instructed to let a drop of discharge from my breast fall into the water.”
“Yes,” the Jew said, “to see if it floats. Also reliably accurate…about half the time.” Again, a smile.
“But my knowledge does not depend on experiments,” Héloïse said.
The Jew shrugged.
Peter asked, “And what of my lady’s well-being?”
The Jew opened his hands. “God in His wisdom has prepared the woman magnificently for this miracle.” Addressing Héloïse, he said, “You are a healthy girl. I see that. Good color in your face. The proper pink in the cuticles of your fingernails. Robust posture. Hips. You have come into womanhood with grace. Is this your question, or only his?”
“It is mine.”
“Then may I ask questions of my own?”
“Yes.”
“Is there pain in your abdomen?”
“No.”
“Difficulty in emptying the bowels?”
“Some. Yes.”
The Jew nodded. “The body adjusts, as your digestion now must feed two stomachs. If that difficulty persists, have your kitchen prepare squash, boiled in ale. Take it in with mustard. What of your blood flow?”
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