Stealing Heaven

by Marion Meade

  "I'll try to get you more covers," she told Ceci. "But please, you've got to be quiet. Agnes sleeps on the second floor. If she hears noise up here, she'll think it's mice and be up in a second." She added lamely, "Agnes won't tolerate mice in the house."

  Ceci nodded, her eyes brilliant with anxiety.

  "There's plenty of food in the kitchen. Agnes will never miss it. You won't go hungry." She held her voice even and tried to smile reassuringly.

  "What if Agnes comes in here?" Ceci said.

  "She only comes to this floor to clean, and there's nothing to clean in here." She was not at all certain of that, but she wasn't going to tell Ceci. Agnes went wherever she pleased in the house—she regarded it as her own—and sooner or later she would open the door. Heloise didn't want to think about it right now. Trying to hide a person in a house where four people lived was impossible. Tomorrow she would decide what must he done about Ceci. If only she had someone to talk to, if only Jourdain were here.

  The rest of the afternoon, she scurried cautiously about the house, bringing Ceci quilts, pillows, a chamber pot, clothing, and food. Whenever it appeared as though Agnes or Petronilla might be heading for the third floor, Heloise found an excuse to keep them downstairs. She even emptied her own chamber pot, which made Petronilla give her a quizzical look. In the days that followed, circumstances conspired to keep the house more empty than usual. It was Easter weekend, and Fulbert returned from the cathedral only to sleep. On Easter Eve, the candles in Notre Dame were extinguished and the great paschal candle lit during the all-night vigil. Heloise prayed fervently for a solution to Ceci's problem, but despite her night of prayer, she received no guidance. Perhaps God did not bother to answer because she, Heloise, was in a nervous frenzy. Ceci could not be left alone in that room forever, she would go mad.

  The end of it came without warning. On the Tuesday after Easter, leaving mass, she rounded a column in the nave and bumped straight into Fulbert. They chatted a few minutes, and as Heloise turned away, he called her back.

  "My fair niece," he said calmly, "who is that child sleeping in the room across from you?"

  Her mouth dropped. To her amazement, she heard herself saying coolly, "A friend of mine, Uncle."

  "That I took for granted. But which friend and where did she come from? I've not had the honor of an introduction."

  Hot with shame, Heloise stared at the ground. "How long have you known?"

  "Since Friday, when I went up there for St. Loup's molar. The young lady was asleep."

  Heloise rubbed her nose with a fist. She did not look at him. "Forgive me, I'm sorry, Uncle," she said in a small voice. "I was going to tell you, but I didn't know how. Her name is Ceci and—"

  "And?"

  "—she has run away."

  "From where?"

  She sighed. "Argenteuil."

  Fulbert looked more puzzled than angry. “I see," he murmured. They stood staring at each other. After a moment, he said, "Go home now. We shall speak about this later."

  Outside, she raced alongside the Campus Rosaeus and down to the Port Saint-Landry, dreading to share the news with Ceci. Fulbert was not a cruel man—he was kind and wonderfully indulgent—and he would help Ceci if he could. At the same time, she realized that no matter how kind he might be, he was also a canon of the Church. Under no circumstance could he agree to harbor a convent runaway.

  In fairness, she could not blame him.

  Ceci did not leave immediately. There were a number of conversations, between Heloise and Fulbert and also between Ceci and Fulbert. In the end, Fulbert offered to write Lady Alais and see if anything could be done. Possibly Ceci's family were unaware of her reluctance to become a nun; once they fully understood the situation, perhaps they would take her home after all. After speaking privately with Ceci, Fulbert said that in his opinion she should not be forced to take the veil against her will: she had no vocation, that was certain. And Fulbert, as Heloise knew, had always been adamant about men or women taking monastic vows if they had no sense of vocation. He said that it disgraced the Church and caused all manner of evildoing.

  Heloise wanted to believe that it would be all right. Hours she spent on her knees, at Notre Dame or in her room, begging God to see the justice of Ceci's case, and adding automatically, "Thy will be done." Fulbert, calm and affectionate as ever, did not discourage her hopes. Nor did he encourage them.

  "These are hard times," he warned Heloise. "If her kin can't find money for a dower, what choice do they have?" He added, "She could do worse than Argenteuil. There are places like Odette de Pougy where the bellies of the nuns are always swollen."

  Weeks passed. Letters slowly moved back and forth between Paris and Argenteuil, and between Argenteuil and Angers. Spring came at last. The chestnut trees in the cloister unfurled green banners, and the students, liberated from their lodging houses and taverns, roamed the He with uproarious good spirits and danced, fortissimo, around Maypoles.

  On Ascension Day, Heloise woke to see musk roses budding in their garden. For some reason, the roses made her feel guilty; she had not opened a book since Ceci's arrival—that fact she could and did blame on the girl—but then, too, the good weather drove all thoughts of work from her head. For that she could not fault Ceci, and she castigated herself for being a pseudo-scholar. Her lethargy, the shadowy frustration she could not throw off, heightened when she looked ahead. Sister Madelaine had been right, she thought; her studies could be put to no use, now or ever. They must always exist solely for her own selfish pleasure, thus they would forever remain tinged with a certain element of absolute futility. She told herself that she was absurd, for she had everything a girl might want.

  At first, Ceci had slept in Heloise's room. But Agnes, having scoured the house from turret to cellar in a fever of spring cleaning, unexpectedly turned her energies to the room across the landing. Fulbert's relics were carefully transported to a second-floor storeroom; buckets of whitewash were dragged up the staircase and the walls freshened to a whiteness that would have done justice to a Lady chapel. Mattresses were beaten and heaped on the bed frame, sheets were rinsed with saffron, and Agnes draped strawberry hangings around the bed. The room transformed, Ceci settled in. She was so happy that she could hardly keep still. Bouncing with both feet on the bed, she shouted, "How kind you are, Agnes! I love this bed, I love Paris, I love everybody!"

  Agnes giggled. "You're nothing but a weanling," she said, smiling fondly.

  "When I go home, can I take the bed with me?"

  Agnes's smile faded. "God's toenails, how could you be carrying a bed to Angers? On your back?" She lifted Ceci off the bed and unfolded a linen sheet. "Off with you now. I have work to do."

  "Heloise," said Ceci, tilting her head to one side, "what shall we do today? Quick, think of something wonderful."

  "We could—"

  "Let's go to a tournament. Oh, Heloise, I’ve never seen any real knights!"

  "There are no tournaments now. Why not a picnic instead? We could take our dinner and eat along the river."

  "Just like pilgrims!" Ceci squealed. "Please, Agnes, can we?"

  Heloise broke in. "You won't have to prepare a thing, Agnes. We'll do everything ourselves."

  Agnes smiled indulgently. "Very well. But don't leave the kitchen a mess."

  They ransacked the pantry for tempting morsels and packed them in a basket: a whole roast chicken, salted herring, ham pasties, gobs of dripping Brie, a long loaf of white bread, a skin of raspberry wine, cups, knives, a rough blue and white cloth with napkins to match.

  At the last minute, Heloise tucked in two gaufres from a batch Agnes had baked earlier in the morning.

  Petronilla watched their preparations with a sour expression. "Can I come along?" she asked.

  "No!" Heloise and Ceci cried in unison, and then Heloise added, "Not today—some other time."

  "I saw you take those waffles," muttered Petronilla. "Those are for dinner. I'm going to tell Agnes."

  "Te
ll her," said Heloise brightly, "but you still can't come."

  "You've taken the last loaf of bread."

  "I'll buy more." She went into the hall and shouted up the staircase, "Agnes! There's no more bread. I'll buy some on my way home."

  It was glorious out of doors. They took the river road around the southern rim of the island, down along the towpath, and the sun glimmering through the willow branches dappled patterns of lace in the water. Coming to the Street Before the King's Palace, they gawked at the high stone wall separating the Cite Palace from the rest of the island, and, near a gate, they watched fishmongers selling herrings and mackerels.

  "Now," said Heloise, 'look carefully. We must find the perfect place for our picnic." After a great deal of debate, they settled in a grassy glade under a willow tree, a spot that looked much the same as any other. Spreading the cloth, they began to lift the food from the basket and positioned the items artistically on the cloth.

  Ceci said, "I've never been on a picnic before."

  "Nor I." Without bowing her head to pray, Heloise hungrily bit into a ham pasty.

  "Do you suppose Lady Alais knows about picnics?" Ceci broke off a chunk of bread and layered it thickly with Brie. Pulling up her skirt over her knees, she lay back and stretched her legs out in the grass. "Wouldn't she die if she could see us now?" The image sent her into a paroxysm of giggles until she began to choke on the bread.

  Heloise rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in a patch of moss. During the last year, she had given little thought to Lady Alais and the others; to be truthful, she had not thought about Argenteuil other than fleetingly until Ceci had appeared at the garden door. And even then her mind had been on Ceci's troubles, rather than on the convent itself. Her memories of it had silted in some remote comer of her mind, memories that she could consider with indifference. Argenteuil had been a way station, an antechamber to her real life, that was all. "How's Madelaine?" she asked.

  "Yellow."

  "Oh, Ceci."

  "Her face. It's turning yellow."

  "Is she sick, then?"

  Ceci shrugged. "I think so."

  Heloise turned toward the girl, sighing slightly. "She's getting old." But Madelaine had always seemed old to her.

  "They are all old there," said Ceci, bitterly. "Even the young ones." Awkwardly, she poured wine into a wooden cup, spilling it on the cloth. She passed the cup to Heloise.

  Heloise sat up and asked hesitantly, "Why do you hate it so?"

  Ceci threw her an indignant glance. She said sharply, "Why did you hate it so?"

  Heloise did not answer. While they were finishing the last of the wine, she told Ceci about her cousins at Saint-Gervais, about Mabile and her one-eyed husband, about Jourdain, whose father despised him, and about the lovely Alis, who dreamed of a fairy prince and who would, probably, die unwed in her uncle's castle.

  When Heloise stopped talking, Ceci said, "So?"

  "So—mayhap life outside Argenteuil is not any better than life inside it."

  "You don't believe that."

  No, she did not believe it. She decided to keep quiet. They had a fight over whether prayers to St. Denis were answered more quickly than those to St. Michael, and then they slept. It was late afternoon when they woke, and bells were ringing vespers. "It's time to go home," said Heloise crisply, "and we must stop at the baker's on the way."

  Ants were gorging themselves on the remains of the Brie. Ceci scooped up the cloth, ants and all, and stuffed it into the basket. They walked slowly and turned down the Rue de la Juiverie, then made another turn on Rue de la Pomme. There was a line at the baker's stall, but it seemed to be moving fairly quickly. Ceci stayed outside with the basket, and Heloise queued up behind a woman carrying a trussed goose under her arm. After the nap, she felt drowsy and the roof of her mouth was dry. She should know better than to drink whole wine at midday.

  After a few minutes, the line seemed to come to a dead halt. She peered over the head of the woman with the goose. A tall man was standing at the counter, pointing to one loaf and then another, asking question after question.

  "Is that white bread?" he demanded. "You're sure. How about that flat loaf over there? What's that made of?"

  He seemed utterly unperturbed by the baker's furious glances and by the customers stamping their feet impatiently at his rear.

  Out of curiosity, Heloise began to listen more attentively. The man behaved as if he had never seen the inside of a bakery before. Now he was asking the baker for the yeast content of the barley loaves. Smiling involuntarily, Heloise edged out of line and moved around so that she could get a better look at the fellow. He did not appear simple-minded; he was clean-shaven and had shaggy dark hair, well cut. The profile revealed a handsome face, intense and sensitive. His voice was as silvery as the summer Seine on a moonlit night.

  Someone behind her shouted angrily, "By St. Denis's holy farts, pay your money and move your ass!"

  He turned around then and bowed deeply in the direction of the irate voice. "Madame," he said, smiling broadly, "it took Our Blessed Savior three days to rise from the tomb and he was the Son of God. The least you can allot me is three minutes to purchase a loaf of bread."

  Heloise started to laugh, but the grin froze on her mouth. Paralyzed, she stared at the man's smiling face and then, when he had turned once more to the baker, at his back. She saw him drop a handful of oboles on the metal counter and shove a loaf of white bread under his arm. As he strode by her, she looked squarely into his eyes. His step faltered by half a beat. Smiling sheepishly, he said to her, "That's what comes of being wholly enslaved to one's stomach at regular intervals," and passed on.

  Stumbling out of line, she darted after him into the street, only to see his back vanish into a crowd of shoppers.

  Ceci ran up to her. "Heloise, you didn't get the bread."

  "Did you see that man?" She pointed vaguely toward the Petit Pont.

  "What—"

  Her voice rose feverishly. "The man who just walked out of here. With black hair and a loaf under his arm."

  Ceci frowned. "I guess. I don't know. Why?"

  "That man is mine."

  “Yours? What do you mean—yours? Heloise, what are you talking about?"

  "Nothing." Her heart was pounding; she gulped for air. "I didn't mean anything." Slowly she turned and walked back to the end of the line.

  5

  Jourdain returned as abruptly as he had departed. Two days before St. Barnaby's Day, he was back in the kitchen once more, inviting Heloise to attend a lecture at the palace garden. He was in a fever to be off because Abelard was scheduled to speak first, and if they hurried, they could still hear most of his remarks.

  Avoiding the crowds, they sprinted along the towpath beside the river and ran all the way to the Cite Palace. By the time they got there, Heloise had a cramp in her side. Her lungs were burning, and she could only gasp in disappointment. The gates had been thrown back, but the entrance was thronged so tightly with students that not even a lizard could have squeezed through. Milling around outside were hundreds who had obviously arrived too late for admission. She looked at Jourdain despairingly.

  "Come on!" Clutching her hand, he made a flying frontal attack on the mass of backs wedged into the entrance. "Make way!" he bellowed. "Make way for the Lady Heloise. Move it, you turd."

  Jourdain managed to pummel his way through the solid-packed wall of men, dragging Heloise behind him. Some of them inched aside, more from surprise than from any desire to let them pass; others cursed and retaliated with a volley of elbows and fists. Heloise felt a boot thud into her ankle; unknown fingers pinched her breast.

  Inside, it was not much better. Men were sitting and standing on every available inch of space. Jourdain pulled her up to a trellis, but farther he could not go. Breathless, she peered through a thicket of vines at people's backs. Somewhere in the front of the garden a man was speaking, but she could not see him. Her ankle throbbed. Slowly she grew aware of
a wet, sticky sensation, and when she looked down, she saw blood rolling into her slipper. Through a haze of pain, the man's voice penetrated her consciousness. It was an extraordinarily compelling voice—commanding, melodic, full of confidence and razzle-dazzle good humor—the voice of a person who knew everything worth knowing.

  Glancing at Jourdain, she saw that his face was glazed with a kind of rapturous admiration. She tried hard to pay attention to the content of Abelard's words, but only a phrase now and again sank in; involuntarily her mind kept drifting away on the sound waves of the voice. Abruptly the garden burst into prolonged applause. Beside her, Jourdain was shouting at the top of his voice.

  She tugged at his sleeve. "Is it over?" Around them the crowd began to seethe and ripple in the direction of the gate. It looked as though many people were leaving.

  Jourdain beamed. "Now, isn't he everything I said? I told you, didn't I?"

  "Is it over?" she repeated. "Everyone's leaving."

  "Not at all," he insisted. "Three more lectures to come. But Master Peter's are the best attended." He added, "Anyway, now we can sit up close."

  "Fine." She smiled.

  He turned away and began stretching his neck, looking for something. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

  Tides of students were pouring by, all with the same peculiar enraptured look that Jourdain had worn. Heloise clung to an apple tree for fear of being swept out of the garden. Minutes went by and Jourdain did not return. The pain in her ankle had settled into a numb ache. She sat down under the tree and dabbed the blood with the hem of her gown. What a fine mess. The slipper and the gown would be ruined. Agnes always said you must soak bloodstains immediately or they never came out. Agnes, she groaned to herself, Agnes would want to know how she had been injured, and if Heloise told the truth, Fulbert would certainly find out. And he would be hurt or angry or both that she had not asked his permission to come here. Her thoughts spun madly ahead, building catastrophe upon catastrophe.