Stealing Heaven

by Marion Meade

  “I’ve already told you why."

  "That's nonsense,” Fulbert said in a flat voice. "There's no need to protect him."

  "It's as I've told you.” Heloise murmured. She threw down the embroidery frame and stood up. Leaning back crooked in his chair, Fulbert lifted a henap to his lips and scrutinized her coolly over the rim.

  An uneasy silence reverberated through the house, as if someone had died. The ordinary after-supper sounds, the clanging of caldrons, the splashing water, the whine of commands, were strangely muted. All day long, Agnes had said little to Heloise, except half-audible grunts; tonight even Petronilla scurried around with eyes glued to the floor.

  Heloise walked to the window and jabbed at the shutters. The last stain of lilac had faded from the sky. At the corner, near the quay, the watchman had lit his cresset. He was talking to two women who lived farther down the street; the current of their voices moved lazily to Heloise in the dusk.

  She watched the women's shadows glide past the house. One of them was complaining about a toothache. She closed the shutters and yawned, then turned back to Fulbert. "There is nothing more to say."

  He scratched his chin. "It's getting late," he said benevolently. "Quickly, now. Tell me what happened."

  She anchored herself motionless in the middle of the room. There was no use talking to him. She had said everything that could be said, but it had not penetrated. He was beyond hearing. She had expected him to beat her, but he had not—only repeated his wearying questions over and over without listening to her replies.

  "Heloise." He was sipping the Macon in jagged gulps. "Did he force you?"

  "No. I told you. It didn't happen that way."

  "Beast." He sat like an effigy. "The dirty beast violated you. You should have told me."

  "I love him."

  "Yes. So you've said." He added, acidly, "I've heard all I want to hear about your love."

  Heloise stared down at her slippers. "Free will," she said, painfully hoarse. "God gave us free will. I chose to lie with him."

  "He forced you to submit to his filthy deeds."

  "I wanted to lie with him—because I love him."

  "The dirty Breton Judas came into my house like a fox. He ate my food, slept in my turret—" His voice grew ragged, a lot less careful than before, but he did not seem to notice. "He stole my little one and fouled her with his poison."

  "Uncle—"

  "Honor has no meaning for that cunning whoreson. My innocent child—mutilated and dishonored by his filth. God's curse on him!" The venomous words rushing out made him sound weak, almost childlike, and invited her contempt.

  Heloise avoided looking at him. "No," she whispered. I’mnot a saint."

  "I trusted him. He dared sit at my table and lie to me!"

  "You trusted me," she said quickly, deliberately meeting his eyes. "I sat at your table and lied." The words stuck in her throat like a sob.

  Fulbert ignored her. He was clenching the henap below his chin. On his index finger gleamed an enormous ruby. "By the wounds of Christ, he shall learn what it means to dishonor the house of Saint-Gervais." His lips had turned gray; for a moment, his scowl seemed almost maniacal. "You shall not go unavenged, that I swear to you."

  "No." Heloise staggered to the hearth and stooped for her embroidery, her hands twitching. On no account must Abelard be made to suffer. Barely above a whisper, she said, "For the love of God, don't say that. I can't stand it."

  "Better that he should have murdered you," Fulbert cried scornfully. He put down the goblet with a little click. "How can you show your face on the streets again!"

  "Stop." She pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to control her shuddering. "Uncle, please, listen. His love has raised me above all the women in this city."

  "You think he loves you!" he shouted. "A man like that, who makes a common whore out of a noblewoman. Think you that is love!"

  She wheeled on him. "I am a whore. His whore." Then: "But I tell you this, I'm proud of it."

  Fulbert ground his teeth audibly. He spat out the words, "I don't believe you."

  The room was glutted with the stench of sorrow and fear. The fear was hers. From beyond the shutters cracked the jingle of metal on metal. The watchman was dragging the chain across the Rue des Chantres. Fulbert jerked to his feet and moved slowly, like a man walking under water, toward his apartments. Without looking back, he went in and closed the door. Heloise stood staring. She could go now; it was ended. The standing candle was drawing fleecy shadows on the door; beyond, she could hear sounds. For several minutes she forced herself to listen to him crying, great dry, weary sobs. Then he stopped abruptly.

  She went to the kitchen. Agnes flicked a glance at her before turning back to the caldron she had been scouring. Heloise took a goblet from the cupboard and poured unwatered wine up to its brim. Unsteadily, she lifted the goblet and drained it. She set down the goblet and refilled it.

  Behind her, Agnes croaked, "Lady—"

  Heloise twisted around. "Leave me alone."

  "You'll be drunk."

  T don't care!" She wanted to be drunk, as if by being drunk she would not have to think.

  Agnes did not look at her. In a tight voice, she said, "Tomorrow we must find a priest. Some church on the Right Bank. Where we're not known. If you say you were raped—"

  "Agnes! I was not raped."

  "—he might give you a light penance. Or we'll slip him a purse of deniers. You'll receive absolution."

  Was this the way it was going to end, then? Heloise thought wearily. A priest, a few coins, and the history of their love would be wiped off the skein of time and space as surely as if it had never been. “I don't want to be absolved," she said.

  Agnes crossed herself. “Lady, you blaspheme—"

  “I have no regrets," Heloise said sharply. Leaving her untouched goblet on the table, she went up to bed.

  She had come too far now along a tangled path to go back and retrace her route; she could only stop, and remain rooted where she stood. Further meetings with Abelard would be impossible, for even if he somehow found a way, she did not dare go to him. If Fulbert found them together a second time, she realized that he might harm Abelard. She snuffed the candle.

  Sometime after lauds she awakened, sweating. In the darkness, she swooped her feet over the side of the bed and crouched on the icy floor, her hands clasped under her forehead. Our Blessed Lady, Queen of Heaven, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I have sinned. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I have acted like a bitch in heat. I have betrayed the trust of those who love me. I have dishonored my house. I lack all shamel Lady of God, you who know what it is to love, I ask no pity for myself. Let my soul be branded forever, but intercede for me: Allow no harm to befall my beloved.

  It was over. It was like a death, but she would live on, unfortunately; she would read Aristotle, walk circumspectly to mass with Agnes, eat meals in the solar with her uncle. On the street, she would, sooner or later, encounter him, and she would be obliged to bow and smile. She would say, "God's greetings, my lord," and other meaningless pleasantries and then walk on. More than that could never be. Gazing down the corridor of time, she saw neither hope nor escape. And she saw, too, something far worse, the slow reality of a truth too bitter for tears; in time, Abelard would forget her.

  At first, Fulbert forbade her to leave the house, a prohibition that left her wholly indifferent as there was no place she desired to go. But he couldn't keep her locked up indefinitely, and some days later she began going out with Agnes. She was surprised to find that the sun still rose at dawn and died after supper.

  In the fourth week of Lent, Jourdain came to the garden door one afternoon, and Agnes reluctantly admitted him. In plain terms, however, she let him know that it was against her better judgment, saying that she would not permit him to stir up trouble.

  "Trouble," Heloise repeated dully when Agnes had left them alone in the kitchen. "The trouble is past." She laughed shortly.

  "
Trouble comes in threes," Jourdain replied cheerfully. He cut himself a piece of bread and spread butter on it.

  "Oh, marvelous." Heloise pulled up a stool and sat opposite.

  "Lady, you look pale. Are you ill?"

  "No. No." Then: 'Tell me quickly. Have you seen him?"

  Jourdain shrugged. "Of course. Every day."

  "Well?" Her voice snapped impatiently. "Christ's Hood, tell me. Why has he sent no letters?”

  "Ummm, this butter is delicious." He dabbed a whitish gob on the crust and stuffed it into his mouth. "He thought the danger too great for you," he said, chewing.

  Heloise grunted. Fulbert had calmed down considerably in that he no longer referred to Abelard as "dirty beast"; for that matter, he rarely mentioned his name, but Heloise had no illusions on that score. Fulbert was, she had discovered, a man of uncertain temper and she had no wish to provoke him unduly. Left alone, he might forget his threats of revenge; he was, after all, a civilized lord. With a knife she chipped away a shard of crust and ate the crumbs. "How is he?"

  Jourdain licked the butter from his fingers. Petronilla came in for a bucket, stared at them, and left. He said, expressionless, "Worse than you look, believe me. He suffers pitifully from the headaches."

  She turned away, tears welling up in her eyes. "Oh God, God." Later: "Does he speak of me?"

  "Of nothing else," he said. "Friend, may I give you some advice? As your friend."

  Heloise blew her nose on her sleeve.

  "It would be better if you tried to put him out of your mind."

  "How can I do that?"

  They fell silent. After a few minutes, Heloise said, "You're quite right." Somewhere within herself, she must embalm and entomb Abelard. Sooner or later. Outside in the garden, birds were twittering. Suddenly she felt a desperate need to know how much Abelard had revealed to Jourdain. "Did he, uh, tell you how Uncle came to discover us?"

  "A little." He shrugged. "That Fulbert came to his lodging and you were there."

  Heloise stood up. "We were in bed." His eyes widened.

  She looked away hastily, afraid that she had shocked him. "Uncle was—it was hideous. You can imagine. Uncle has spoken of revenge."

  Jourdain patted her arm. "He's just talking."

  "I know." But in her heart she felt far from reassured. There seemed to be an immense stone sitting on her breast, and at times she felt in danger of suffocating. Weeks earlier, she had been positive she would die, or, more likely, that God would strike her dead. Certainly she felt deathly sick and often had trouble getting out of bed in the mornings. It was no joy to get up and think of the blank hours stretching before her, hours to be filled somehow before it was time to sleep again. Finally, queasy, she would rise and pull on her clothes without much thought about what she wore. In the mornings, she wandered aimlessly about the kitchen, the garden, the solar, and lacked even the orientation to bathe or comb her hair. Later, if she went out walking with Agnes, she took no delight in the shops, or in the crowds busy with their errands on the narrow streets of the Ile. Suddenly it was just another city, full of earsplitting noises and sickening smells. And then, too, she could not help suspecting that everyone knew of her shame—Abelard's leman caught like a laundress with her skirt thrown over her head, Abelard's former leman. And if anyone looked twice at her, she bent her head and walked a little more quickly.

  Improbably enough, a feeling of acute numbness gradually overtook her, perhaps a result of having purged herself of emotional debris, perhaps merely the narcotic of resignation. Then, once again, she felt able to read, a sort of indulgence conferred by God, and she opened Plato's work on freedom. One passage in particular plucked at her attention: it said that man, a creature of the divine Creator, may order his life so as to live wisely and justly, or he may do precisely the opposite. When appetites seize control of him, when his passions refuse to obey the dictates of his reason, then man becomes dysfunctional. He contorts the divine harmony of the universe. It seemed to her an exotic idea. Goodness comes, Plato said, when one has met evil and overcome it, or has made a choice and chosen wisely. Had the cool, ordered mind of Plato made correct choices, or had he ever ceased to function, as she had? Had Plato loved? Known desire?

  And then she looked into Aristotle and found the place where he said, "Virtue is a disposition, or habit, involving deliberate purpose or choice."

  The implication seemed clear enough to her. Did blind fate, inevitable and predetermined, rule one's life? Or was she able to choose, to determine her own fate? She did not know, but the latter seemed more reasonable. One day she would have to begin life again. Abelard had gone, but there was nothing to be gained by wallowing in an ooze of self-pity; she was eighteen, and she determined to stop shuffling about the house like a wilted cabbage.

  So full of resolution, she continued, nonetheless, to do nothing.

  On Palm Sunday, Petronilla's betrothed came across the river to spend the afternoon. Richwin, his name was, and he turned out to he a bearded colt with big teeth and a tunic that smelled, not unreasonably, of fish. Fumbling in his purse, he brought out a colored egg and thrust it at his future wife without raising his eyes. After that, he completely lost his tongue and did little but sigh and scratch. Petronilla had put on her red dress and rouged her cheeks; she talked enough for both of them, calling him "mouse" and "my fair falcon" until Heloise had to smile.

  All during Easter Week it rained—warm, silver showers that promised tufted trees and the budding of violets and daffodils, blossom by blossom. Soon the curving meadows on the Left Bank would spring into rainbow prisms, and students would dance their frenzied caroles on the hillsides. Spring surprised Heloise; it seemed wildly out of place in the ruins of her life.

  Agnes was teaching her to spin, and several hours a day she sat, cauterized, in the solar and worked unhurried fingers to the hum of the wheel and the rain, watching the movement of the flax and trying to think of nothing. At the end of April, despite the liquid mud of the roads, Fulbert rode down to Melun to visit his farms, and the house seemed vast and empty. He had a new purple cloak plumed with vair, and he had kissed her goodbye warmly, promising to bring her a present. "Some trifle," he called it.

  Two mornings later, she woke and vomited into her chamber pot. Agnes prepared an anise posset, and by sext the nausea had subsided. The next morning it happened again, and the next and the one following. She had no appetite and lost most of what she did manage to get down; Agnes called it a bad case of indigestion and fed her ground cloves and cooked pears until they choked her.

  Sitting in her bath one afternoon, she recalled having had mild sieges of nausea the previous month, after Lady Day it must have been, but then she had been feeling far too miserable to worry about an upset stomach. Now a thought rushed into her mind and stuck there: She had not passed blood for a while, how long she could not remember. Quickly she began to count backwards, and when that proved inadequate, she computed on her fingers. In the end, her best reckoning told her that she had not had a monthly flux since Lent began. She made it two months, more or less. Hastily she stood up in the water and examined her belly. Slightly bloated. Overripe but still flat. Before the afternoon was out, she made up her mind that she was going to have a child.

  There was no one to consult, of course, no woman anyway. In the end, she dispatched Petronilla to track down Jourdain. and when he could not be found at his lodging house, she sent her out again to search the taverns west of the cloister. Finally, after supper, he turned up at the garden door looking slightly quizzical and out of wind. His breath smelled of sour ale.

  Hurrying around the stable, she dragged him down toward the river, shushing him and refusing to say a word until they were some distance from the house. At the quay, he slapped his feet in the mud and refused to go farther. "Lady, friend, enough! What ails you?"

  Clutching his soiled tunic with both hands, she threw back her head and laughed. "Jourdain, I'm going to have a child. His child, friend! His child."
<
br />   "Oh Christ," he groaned under his breath.

  "Can you believe it? A little babe, his and mine. Oh God, Jourdain, do you think it will be a boy? I hope so. No, a girl is fine. God grant that it's a boy! So sweet and soft, just like him. Jourdain . . ." She waited for him to answer.

  In the coppery light, he blinked at her, moving his eyes impassively across her face. He said, "When?"

  "Christmas. Or New Year's. Sometime around then." She laughed.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Well, no." She laughed again, delightedly. "It's impossible to figure the exact day."

  He broke in. "I mean, are you sure you're with child?"

  "I'm sure." She turned away with a smile and peered down at the water licking the embankment. A breeze flurried the wrinkled surface into deep shadowed pools. Down by the dock, torches winked nervously from a clump of boats. She heard Jourdain clear his throat and say, "Lady . . ." and when she turned back to him, she saw, much to her annoyance, that his face was grooved with a scowl of indecision. "Mark me, lady," he said slowly, "there are ways to get out of this, you know."

  Instantly alert, she said, "What do you mean?"

  He stammered slightly. "Things women drink. Let's say, potions." Hunching his shoulders, he stared into the water. "To make the babe go away."

  "How do you know that?" she cried angrily.

  He shrugged. "I've heard."

  She looked away, her eyes enormous with rage. He disgusted her. What did he take her for? A fool, a murderess who would extinguish the seed of Peter Abelard in some excrement-smeared privy? She began to wish that she had not told him.

  Brushing past her, Jourdain walked a few steps up the quay. From the shadows, he said, "Don't be angry with me. I'm sorry. Heloise, I said I'm sorry. But he may not want the child. Did you ever think of that?"

  No, she had not thought of it; such an idea was unthinkable and only a man could have said it. "He'll want it," she said, with barely opened lips. "Don't be stupid."

  Without speaking, he began to walk back toward the house, and she followed. The river breeze smelled of moss and whiffs of baking bread. Her thoughts kept turning to the babe growing inside her, and a few minutes later she'd almost forgotten her anger at Jourdain. "When do you think my belly will show?" she asked him eagerly.