Stealing Heaven

by Marion Meade

  Jehane sighed angrily. "She made me swear that I wouldn't bother Lady Abbess. The message is for you, my lady."

  Heloise shrugged. "But what can I do? Tell her that bread and alms are distributed every morning. She must come to the yard."

  "She doesn't want to. She wants you to come to her." Jehane shook her head in annoyance. "Please, lady. She won't go. What am I to do with her?"

  "Is she crazy, do you think?"

  "Can't tell. Mayhap."

  Slipping a few coppers into her girdle, Heloise whistled for Aristotle, and tramped behind Jehane into the yard and out into the south field along the river. The smell of wild parsnips hazed the air; the dog danced in circles around her feet. Poor baby, she thought, she doesn't get a good run very often. Nor do I, she thought, smiling to herself. Lately she had spent so much time with her ledgers that she had forgotten to visit the rock.

  Jehane's wattle hut looked like every other cottage on Argenteuil's land, except hers had no door. Probably she had used it for firewood last winter and never bothered to replace it. Fifty yards distant, under a tree, sat a thickset woman in a red tunic. Jehane nodded. Heloise started toward the tree. Halfway, Aristotle let out a squeal, hurtled over the ground as if shot from a catapult, and slammed herself into the woman's lap. Heloise stopped and stared. Aristotle never bothered with strangers. The woman must be a witch if she could cast that powerful a spell on a dog.

  Cautiously, she approached. "Bad girl. Aristotle, come here."

  The woman in the red gown set Aristotle on the ground. Awkwardly, she hobbled to her feet and thrust forward her arms. "Heloise, Heloise—"

  Heloise's skin exploded in goose bumps. "Oh dear God!" she cried. She ran to Ceci, tears flooding from her eyes, and neither of them could speak.

  "Ceci," Heloise said, "you've come back."

  Ceci laughed. "That's exactly what I said when you came back. I said, 'Heloise, you've come back.' You know, I prayed for your return. Did you pray for mine? Did you, Heloise?"

  Heloise leaned against the tree trunk and studied Ceci. She saw a plump woman in a shabby tunic, her face grimed with dust and her hair done up in two matted plaits. And then she noticed, for the first time, that Ceci was not fat but pregnant. Near term, too. "No," she said, forcing a smile, "no, I didn't pray for you to come back. I prayed you would find happiness wherever you were."

  "Oh, well. That." Ceci grimaced and shook her head. "It was not God's will that I should be happy. But gramercy for your prayers, sweeting."

  "What happened to Raimon?" Heloise gulped.

  "Left me. In an inn near Pamplona." Her voice was quite calm and matter-of-fact.

  "Pamplona! God's eyes, you've been across the Pyrenees?"

  "Farther than that," Ceci said proudly. "Oh, I've traveled. Heloise, I went to Compostela. Oh, you should see it—there's a botafumeiro swinging from this big pulley on the ceiling, and the incense—"

  "Whoa!" Heloise laughed. "Slow down." She led her toward Jehane's hut and made her sit down. All the way Ceci babbled—Rouen, Limoges, Gascony, she had been everywhere. Raimon had bought her silk gowns and he had taught her Moorish dances, so that she could dance while he played. People put more oboles in the bowl when a jongleur is accompanied by a dancer, did Heloise know that? She had silver bells for her ankles, but she had been forced to sell them along the road.

  "Ceci,” asked Heloise, "you didn't travel from Pamplona alone, did you?"

  "Certainly not. I came with pilgrims. They were very kind to me.”

  "Still, that was dangerous. What if you'd had the babe on the road?"

  Jehane brought bowls of water. They drank. "What if—what if— I don't think about what if." Ceci clicked her teeth impatiently. "Oh, Heloise, please don't look at me like that. I'm sorry. I know I'm a burden to you." She stood and swayed a dozen steps. Aristotle followed. She picked up the dog and kissed her nose. "Adorable, you're adorable."

  Heloise's shoulders sagged. "Ceci," she said, weary. She took a step toward her.

  "If you can spare a few deniers," Ceci said, "I'll be on my way."

  "Don't be stupid." The perspiration was rolling down her nose. Soon they would be ringing the bell for vespers and she wouldn't be there. Forcing herself to think clearly, she said, "When is the babe coming?"

  Ceci shrugged. "I don't know. Soon mayhap."

  "From the size of your belly, it looks very soon. You need a place to stay."

  "Where? I can't go over there." She waved in the direction of the convent. "Lady Alais would have an attack of apoplexy."

  Heloise pressed her fingers to her temples. "Lady Alais is away. But even so, I daren't let you come back." Suddenly she thought of Suger and his list. "Listen, you can stay here."

  "Jehane doesn't like me."

  Heloise watched Ceci's face. For all her bravado, she was scared. "Don't argue. If I give her money, she'll like you. Once the babe comes, we can decide what to do. Let's worry about one thing at a time. All right, Ceci?"

  "All right."

  Ceci's daughter was born at the end of the month. She lived three days, turned blue, and died. Ceci wanted a priest, so that the babe's soul would not be damned, but Heloise could not risk it. She found a small wooden box in the storeroom, and they wrapped the girl's body in a towel. After dark, they dug a grave in the woods.

  In a gust of weeping, Ceci stood over the freshly dug earth. Heloise took her hand. It was cold. Ceci said, "Do you know her name? Heloise. I called her Heloise."

  "Thank you."

  After a long while, Ceci dropped to the ground and kissed the dirt. She stood and darted away into the trees. Grabbing the shovel, Heloise ran after her. "Ceci—"

  "Her soul is damned."

  "Surely not," Heloise murmured. "An innocent babe—"

  Among the trees, there was a breathless silence, as if every leaf, every branch were lying under a spell. Nothing was moving. They came out alongside a field of sharp-edged wheat glistening in the moonlight and made their way toward Argenteuil.

  Ceci said, "The Lord has punished me."

  "Be quiet now. Try not to think about it."

  Her voice vibrating, Ceci cried, "God has punished me for poisoning Baby."

  "Holy Mother, you poisoned your babe!"

  "No, no. The parrot. Remember? Lady Alais had this bird. I poisoned it."

  Unsure whether to be angry or laugh, Heloise said severely, "Pox take the parrot. Ceci, you are a bride of Christ's. Did it ever occur to you that God might be punishing you for running off with a jongleur?"

  She shook her head. "I hurt nobody by going. But Lady Alais loved Baby and I killed her. God has smitten me by killing my babe. An eye for an eye."

  "Well," Heloise said after a while, "the Lord does not judge twice on the same offense. Your tablet is clean now."

  The following week, as Heloise had instructed, Ceci presented herself at the convent gatehouse, asking for sanctuary and claiming that her absence had been the result of a spell cast by river fairies. Three-quarters of the nuns accepted the story without hesitation; the rest called her a liar and a harlot and protested against her readmission to the community. If Lady Alais had been present, the furor would have continued for some time. But Heloise squashed all dissent by simply declaring the case closed: Ceci, the unfortunate victim of spirits, now delivered by God's mercy back to their gate, should be welcomed as a lost sheep restored to the flock. Amen. As for her own sin in concocting such a lie, she would worry about that later.

  After mass, she knelt at the grille to say her confiteor. A half dozen candles smoked on the altar. It was cool in the church, far more comfortable than in the schoolroom, and she longed to remain there all day. The flames of hell were hot, or so it was said. She began.

  "Father, I have sinned. The sins of the flesh—I dream about them. The pleasures I shared with my beloved—they please me still. I can't drive them from my thoughts."

  Behind the grille, Father Garin stirred restlessly. He had heard it before. Countless
times.

  “Father, during the celebration of mass, when my prayers should be pure, lewd visions fill my mind. Father, my thoughts are on wantonness." O God, God, free me from these torments. . . . O my God, who searches our hearts and loins, you know everything. 1 do not ask for absolution. I pray thee. Miserable creature that 1 am, make haste to help me.

  Father Garin coughed. Heloise could hear him mumbling. "Do you repent?" he asked dully.

  She didn't answer. Abelard, my lord and my darling . . . Her mind retained the will to sin, her body burned with its old desires.

  Father Garin went on. "My daughter in Christ, you must repent and do penance. I cannot grant you absolution otherwise."

  After a while Heloise got to her feet and went out the side door to the cloister. Sister Marie's bracket hound, huffing, was trying to bury a bone in the herb bed, and he had rooted up a yard of mint and sprayed dirt over the walk. A strong odor of lemon rolled slowly toward Heloise's nostrils. She crossed to the abbess's tree and began to count the hard yellow balls.

  It was during dinner when Abbot Suger arrived, unannounced. All morning, the sky had been gray and thunder crackled uneasily on the far bank of the Seine. Breathless, Heloise plowed through the cloister, wondering what the devil Suger could want, and hurried into the abbess's parlor. Suger came toward her. "Where is Lady Alais?" he demanded. “I didn't ask for you."

  "On pilgrimage," Heloise said. She hoped that he would not ask when Lady Alais was expected to return, because she had no idea. She made herself look at Suger's face, just to show the man that he could not intimidate her. He did not seem concerned with the abbess's whereabouts, or so it appeared to Heloise.

  "You are harboring a harlot," he said. "I want explanations."

  Heloise went taut. She said, "God's pardon, my lord. I don't understand what you mean."

  "Sister Cecilia."

  "Sister Cecilia has returned to us." She clenched her fingers behind her back. "God be praised."

  Walking to the window, Suger stood gazing out at the abbess's plum trees. Without looking at Heloise, he said sarcastically, "By whose leave, Sister, have you admitted a wanton into the house of God?"

  "My own, my lord." She added quickly, "The sister was sick, sire. No doubt some spell—"

  He shrugged aside her words. Turning, he said, "I'm not an idiot, Sister. Tell me no tales about fairies and spells." Thunder cracked over the roof, and a second later lightning speared close to the shutters, but Suger seemed oblivious. He went on talking. "Sister Cecilia departed this house on December twenty-four in the year of Our Lord 1120 with a Bordelais minstrel, one Raimon Gerlai. She returned on June thirteen of the present year bearing the fruit of her wickedness in her womb. Approximately June twenty-eight she dropped a brat, which she strangled and buried secretly. Five days ago she—"

  Heloise's head jerked up. "My lord," she protested, "you must be misinformed." Inwardly she was gasping. It seemed beyond belief that Suger could have obtained this information. "Sister Cecilia is renowned for her piety."

  Suger pulled a gold toothpick from his girdle and slowly began to rotate it along the crack between his front teeth. "Did you interrogate the sister as to her whereabouts?"

  "Yes, my lord. She can't remember."

  "That won't do."

  He went on steadily, demanding to know if she had beaten Ceci and why she had been so naive as to accept her word. Heloise, half listening, raced her mind desperately. Clearly Suger had an informant living within the convent—there was no other way for him to know so much and so quickly—but who?

  "Expel her from your midst," Suger was saying. "One diseased sheep contaminates the entire flock."

  "My lord, St. Benedict said that if a brother leaves the monastery and wishes to return, let him promise to reform and let him be received in the lowest place as a test of his humility. We have dealt with Sister Cecilia according to the Rule. I can't expel her."

  After a moment, he said, "Are you defying me?"

  "No, my lord."

  Suger's face showed no emotion. "Let me tell you something, Lady Prioress. I intend to close this house of harlotry, this brothel, this abbey of bawds. I will turn the lot of you into the road to beg your daily bread or fill your bellies by fornication. That is a vow, Sister, and I keep my vows. Remember that."

  "Yes, my lord."

  Heloise froze to the ground, and Suger continued to stare up at her, the only sound in the parlor the scratching of the toothpick against his teeth.

  Ceci stayed. Despite Heloise's efforts to discover the identity of Suger's spy, she had no success, and while she did not totally dismiss the mystery, weightier matters eventually pushed it aside. Between Michaelmas and Advent, she accepted eight new novices, two of them with generous dowries, and she also instituted a policy of accepting permanent paying guests. The latter was standard practice at some convents, but, traditionally, Argenteuil had never done so. The reason was not clear to Heloise, because, even though nunneries had difficulty controlling the worldly habits of guests and it was often fatal for discipline, the laywomen did bring much needed income into the community. Taking no chances, she screened applicants carefully and finally accepted three wealthy widows, elderly women who seemed sufficiently weary of life.

  By the time Lady Alais came back, the widows were happily installed, and it was almost impossible to distinguish them from the sisters. The abbess offered no objections—indeed, she made no attempt to resume her supervisory duties as abbess. She did not turn over her authority to Heloise; she simply stopped exercising it and kept out of the way as much as possible. She had brought back a new parrot and, of course, Sarazanne, who shared the abbess's private quarters. Astrane never went near Lady Alais now.

  Travelers who stopped at Argenteuil that winter brought news of war approaching—the German emperor was threatening to invade France. He was assembling his forces on the borders of Champagne. No, the king of England, who had married his daughter to the emperor, was planning to invade Anjou. It was all very contradictory and confusing, and Heloise waited to see what would happen. At the end of Lent, the road passing Argenteuil clattered with men-at-arms and war-horses heading east, Louis the Fat having called for a muster of his vassals on the plains of Rheims. Heloise climbed to the top story of the gatehouse to watch them ride by. In the distance, she could see them coming up the highroad, standards thrashing in the wind, baggage wagons piled high with lances and sacks of grain. An army of clanking iron. Rheims was in the north, a long way from the Arduzon River. Still, her stomach wobbled.

  She came down to the yard and looked around for the portress. Sister Martha had died before Lady's Day, and in her place Heloise had appointed her deputy, Sister Esclarmonde. The office of portress required a special kind of personality, tough and dedicated. She did not sleep in the dormitory, but at her lodge by the gate, where she could be ready to admit, or reject, all comers. Passing into the yard, Heloise noticed Esclarmonde speaking to a bearded knight. Grinning, he stretched one arm toward her.

  "Sister Heloise," he murmured.

  She blinked; a grin split her face and she spun toward him, eyes brimming with laughter. "Jourdain, I didn't recognize you."

  "Have I changed so much?"

  He was perhaps heavier in the chest, and the beard gave his face maturity, but he still grinned in the same toothy, earnest way. "No. But how splendid you look."

  Jourdain smiled. "As a trusted minister of Count Thibaut's, I must dress for the role. Don't you think?"

  "Naturally." She gazed into his face. "Oh, Jourdain, I'm so happy to see you."

  He nodded. They kept staring, as if they had forgotten how to move or walk, and Sister Esclarmonde left them. Words and sounds came back to Heloise, her pretty cousin shrieking against the afternoon wind, the snow crunching under her feet. What a fine day! Jourdain is herel She took his hand and led him toward the abbess's garden.

  "How long will you stay, friend?"

  "Not long. I carry the count's messages t
o King Louis. I should be on the Paris road right now." He smiled. "But how could I pass close to Argenteuil without seeing you?"

  Heloise sent a novice to fetch wine and bread. "Will there be war?" she asked anxiously.

  "Aye, mayhap," he replied. "There has been no real fighting in a long while. The barons are eager to break a few lances. You know."

  Neither of them spoke for a while. The novice brought a tray of cheese and bread and a jug of wine, and Jourdain ate. He said, "How is the dog? What did you call her—Aristotle?"

  She laughed. "Splendid. My pretty baby. She is like a child to me, since I have no other." She tried to keep her voice light.

  He regarded her gravely. "And your son? What news of him?"

  "None." She tried to think of something more to add, but there was nothing. The pain of his loss had dulled, although it remained with her constantly, like a chronic toothache. Shrugging, she repeated, "None."

  "That is wrong of Denise," he sighed. "And bad for the boy as well. He has two living parents. Denise should bring him to visit you."

  "Ah, Jourdain, you know she will never do that."

  "Heloise."

  "Yes, yes." Uncomfortable, she was on the verge of changing the subject when he asked suddenly, "Have you found peace here, my friend?"

  The question startled her. "Do you mean have I made peace with God?"

  "Forgive me. That was a stupid question."

  She hesitated, but only for an instant. "I am here for love of Abelard and none other. That has not changed."

  "Heloise!" Jourdain was dumbfounded. "Surely you owe loyalty to God first. For certain God sees everywhere. I—you must know that you're endangering your soul."

  "I know," she said. "I know."

  Leaning forward, Heloise said to him tremulously, "Listen, Jourdain, there is not much time. I pray you—Jourdain, he never loved me, did he?"