by Marion Meade
Jourdain shook his head. "Nothing was ever proved against him. So he suffers no dishonor. Only the loss of his canonry income."
'Which he didn't need anyway," Heloise broke in. "God, there's no justice in this world."
Jourdain shrugged. "They say he is senile now. I don't know. All I know is that he's rich."
Heloise said suddenly, "Is Agnes alive?"
"I suppose," he answered. "I've heard nothing to the contrary."
At compline, the two women went to the chapel for the office. When they returned to the hall, Ceci went up to bed and Heloise settled on a stool before the hearth. The hall smelled of spices and sizzling fat. Beside her, Jourdain was throwing a ball of twine for Aristotle, tossing it into the air and trying to catch it before she did. Heloise laughed. The next time Aristotle, tongue hanging down, darted past her feet, she reached over to catch her. She tucked the dog firmly in her lap. "My treasure"—she smiled—"you're an elderly dame now. Those games are for pups." Jourdain was watching her. "Do you know something, my friend?" she said. "In my mind, I always date my entry into religion from the time I got Aristotle. Not from . . ."
Wordlessly, he nodded. He brought her a cup of wine, poured half into the flames, and filled up the space with water. His own he sipped whole, sitting on a chest. "We are approaching middle age, you know." Jourdain grinned.
"Aye. I don't mind." She watched his face with its slightly receding hairline, the beard glinting reddish in the firelight. She said, "It must be lonely for you here. Sancy needs a mistress and you need someone. Why don't you marry, friend?"
"It's crossed my mind." He smiled. "There's a maiden the other side of the forest. I'm waiting for her to grow up."
"How old is this maiden?"
He pulled at his lip sheepishly. "Four."
"Jourdain."
"Well, I'm in no hurry, and neither is she."
Aristotle flipped her body into a ball, resting her chin on her paws. Heloise picked bits of rushes from her fur. "This child. Is she intelligent?"
"Very. Lively and smart."
Heloise glanced at him. "Pretty?"
He hesitated a moment, said "Not unattractive," and they both burst out laughing. She remembered. That was what he had told Abelard, before they had met and Abelard had asked for a description. Not unattractive, Jourdain had said.
She said to him, "I could have killed you on the spot. Jesu, how vain I was."
"No, lady, you were right to be angry. It was not courteous of me." He fell silent. After a moment, he broke out bitterly, "Would to God I had told him you were ugly. Then none of this would have happened."
"No," Heloise said calmly. "Destiny can't be brushed aside that easily. What happened had to happen."
He took a long drink from his cup. "All of it?" he asked her, looking into the cup.
"No," she said slowly. "Not all. I serve God but I accuse him, as ever. Senseless cruelty, that's all it was."
"When are you going to stop fighting with Our Lord?"
"Never."
Jourdain stood and waved to someone at the side of the hall. His squire, Andre, came up with a fresh jug of wine. Easily, Jourdain moved around the hearth, refilling their cups. Heloise stared into the fire.
"In any case," she said finally, "my lord must be happy now."
"Well." Jourdain shrugged slightly. "He is an abbot, that's true."
"The equal of Suger and Bernard of Clairvaux and—"
"Aye." He paused. "Equal in theory but not in fact."
She jerked up her head, suspicious. "What do you mean?"
"I can't say. I've heard . . . things."
"Eh?" She sat upright, her heart banging.
"Ah, Heloise. You know that Saint-Gildas sits on some rock on the wild edge of the Atlantic. Miles from anywhere. What kind of life could that be for a man like Abelard?" He spat into the fire. "And there's been gossip about those monks for years. The Bretons can be bastards."
Frowning, Heloise lifted Aristotle to the floor. She stood and went to Jourdain. "What have you heard?"
"That they are unruly. But, mark me, all Bretons are unruly. It's likely just gossip." His face was guarded.
She said firmly, "Abelard can handle them. He's a Breton himself."
"Not very much. Le Pallet lies in Brittany, but it's more Poitevin than Breton. Besides, I doubt if Abelard even understands their dialect."
Her shoulders had tensed into two hard balls. Painfully, she arched her back, willing them to relax. "What are you trying to tell me?" she asked stiffly.
“Tell you? Nothing."
Andre brought up a dish of gingered pears. She scooped a handful and placed one on the tip of her tongue, sucking out the sweet flavor. "These are good."
"Suger did him no favor by sending him to Brittany."
"So? Why did he do it?"
'To get rid of him."
"But why? He's the most brilliant man alive today. I would say that even if he weren't my lord."
"This is the twelfth century. Holy Church doesn't want thinkers."
She said slowly to Jourdain, "Fair friend, I would not tell this to anyone but you."
He watched steadily, waiting.
"Abelard has always been a—" She hesitated.
'Troublemaker."
Half offended, she smiled. "I was going to say rebel. It stands to reason that a rebel, any rebel, would have many enemies."
Jourdain said, "He doesn't recognize his most dangerous enemy."
She raised her brows uncertainly. "Who's that?"
"Peter Abelard."
They were silent for a moment. Heloise could see they were getting nowhere. "Jourdain," she said, "what you say may he true. But God grant that it is not."
The following noon, at dinner, she said to Jourdain, "Have you a spare varlet and horse you could lend me?"
"Certainly." He smiled quizzically at her. "Where do you want to go?"
"To Uncle."
"God forbid!" he cried. "What do you want to do that for?"
As she herself did not really understand, she merely shrugged. "You think I shouldn't?"
"I didn't say that," he answered, composed again. "It just seemed curious to me."
"Mayhap that is my reason. Curiosity."
He did not question her further, and at midafternoon he escorted her to Fulbert's manor house, some thirty minutes' ride from Sancy. Under the autumn sun, the meadows were all gold and brown and the hills were drowned in a veil of apricot light. In the distance, Heloise could see the ramparts of a castle, sharp-edged against the sky. It was, Jourdain noted casually, Saint-Gervais. She looked again, then turned her eyes away.
Fulbert lived in a country house set on a wooded knoll. There was a shallow dry moat with dirt heaped on the far edge and a palisade that completely enclosed the house and its outbuildings. The gatehouse was empty, but the bridge had been left down and they crossed into the yard. Jourdain said, "I'll wait here."
Her mouth suddenly dry, Heloise went to the door and knocked. In a window to her left were hanging gourds full of aromatic spices. She braced her shoulders, expecting Agnes to open the door, but it was only a kitchen maid of ten or eleven. Without questioning her, the maid led her through a vestibule and into the salle, whose ceiling beams were carved with blue- and gold-painted fleur-de-lis. It was unusual to find such elegance in a country dwelling. Fulbert's ill-gotten gains, Heloise thought sourly.
At the sound of feet, she wheeled to face Agnes standing in the doorway. For a moment, the woman goggled dumbly at Heloise, as though she had seen a mirage, and then her gaze turned cold. She started to say, "What do you—" then stopped herself and bowed. "Lady," she murmured.
"Agnes." She glanced around at the furnishings, noting the carved chests, the scribe's writing chair, and the expensive chandelier hanging by an iron chain. She went on, "I wish to see my lord uncle."
"He's asleep. He can receive no visitors."
"All the same, I wish to see him,"
Agnes did no
t move. After a moment, she said, reluctant, "As you please." In single file, they went down a darkened hall, out a back door, past a manger and pigsty. In an enclosed garden at the rear of the stockade, Fulbert reclined in an easy chair, a cup of brandy within reach. Heloise started. Tied to the foot of his chair was a monkey placidly licking its private parts. Agnes nodded dryly and hobbled back to the house.
Heloise waited, staring first at the monkey and then at her uncle. His hair, once silvery blond, had bleached out to a metallic white, and the hands that lay clasped peacefully over his abdomen were as yellow and wrinkled as the flesh on his cheeks. He did not look wicked, only old. And, as Jourdain had said, probably he was witless.
At last, Fulbert's eyes flickered. In the warm yellow light, he squinted at Heloise, glanced down at the monkey, and lifted his face to Heloise again. "Ah, fair niece." He smiled. "God's greeting to you. It's been many a year since I've seen your face."
"God be with you, Uncle."
He continued to smile at her. "God knows you don't resemble your fair mother at all. Hersinde was the baby of the family. When she was born, she had cheeks like unopened rosebuds." Heloise nodded. "She always reminded me of an angel. Too delicate to be real."
She nodded again. "Yes. My lady mother was a beauty." His pleasantness amazed her, as she had been expecting something far different.
Yawning, Fulbert said, "I'm well pleased to see you, niece. But I don't understand why you've left your convent. Have you run away?"
"Run away? No, I haven't run away. Argenteuil has been closed."
There was a long silence. Heloise was waiting for him to ask why Argenteuil had been closed, but he did not. Finally, Fulbert said, "I advise you to find another house, niece. The handmaids of Christ must not go into the world. It's not proper."
"Yes, my lord. I intend to enter another, you may be sure."
The monkey clawed at Fulbert's leg; hitching himself forward, he untied it and the animal hopped into his lap. "Hie, little monkeykin, have you had your nap?" He pummeled the monkey's chin. "Cunning, isn't he?"
"Yes." Then, with effort: "Are you in good health, my lord?"
"Good health, good health," he whinnied. "Of course I'm in good health. And would be in better health if Agnes fed me properly."
"You look well fed."
"Bah! She skimps on the honey in my sweet cakes. Says it's for my own good. Am I a babe? Don't I know what's good for me? I've money enough for all the bees and honey I wish." He waved at the trestle. "Give me my brandy."
He swallowed and wiped his mouth. "Ah. Yes, fair niece, I’m pleased to see you. Of course."
He maundered on for an hour or more, talking about his various properties, the current market value of his relics, his rent receipts, his will, the bowel habits of his monkey. There was no place for Heloise to sit. She rocked on one leg, then the other, nodding and murmuring responses from time to time and biting her lip. Agnes came and stood anxiously at the entrance to the garden, hands folded over her waist. Neither Heloise nor Fulbert glanced at her. He held the empty cup on one knee, the monkey on the other. Is it possible that he has forgotten? Heloise thought, full of horror. After robbing her of the things dearest to her, after destroying Abelard's career and reputation, was he not eaten alive by guilt and remorse? At last she made a farewell, screaming inside with awful laughter because she grasped that he lived untroubled, the suffering he had caused utterly forgotten. She left him to his monkey and his brandy.
Relieved, Agnes hurried her toward the house. She did not speak, and finally Heloise asked, politely, "Your daughter. God grant that she is well."
"She's dead," Agnes growled. "In childbed."
"Oh, Agnes," Heloise burst out, "I'm so sorry." She paused, searching for a word of consolation. "I—I have a child too." Agnes pretended not to hear.
All along, Heloise had known their destination, but had not been able to name it, even to herself. "We are going to Brittany."
Ceci looked straight ahead. "He's an abbot now. He won't want his wife around."
Heloise said harshly, "You forget. I have a son in Brittany."
They stayed at Sancy, snowed in, until the New Year. Two days after Epiphany, the temperature rose to a springlike mildness, the snow unexpectedly thawed into a great dirty pond in the ward, and the roads became passable, if far from ideal. For their journey, Jourdain gave them a strong brown gelding and a wallet stuffed with money. He had not been pleased about their going, which he said was not a good idea in the first place, and if Heloise really meant to make the journey, she should wait until spring. But on the morning of their departure, he bade them farewell with tears and prayers, and at the last moment sent with them for protection a fourteen-year-old serf, John by name.
Among the trees, the air was smoky with snow; it lay so thick on the earth that it was hard to go forward in normal strides. Already the snow was starting to drift, confusing the trails and game tracks and transforming the forest into an immense white maze with neither beginning nor end. The two women were plodding now, lost, and they kept scanning the trees before and behind them, hoping to see a wisp of smoke from a chimney. On the rimed branches above their heads, hungry crows bleated and flapped. Under her mantle, Heloise hugged Aristotle to her side, leaving a tiny opening so that she would not smother.
Ahead, Ceci called over her shoulder, "Heloise, please. Let's stop for a while."
"No. Keep going." If they stopped walking, they would surely die. Earlier in the day, several times she had heard wolves howling in the distance; unlike the crows, they would not wait until their meal stopped breathing. She tried to walk faster.
Two weeks had passed since they left Jourdain, but once the blizzard had begun, it seemed an eternity. Under her breath, Heloise cursed the lad John. A sullen boy, who only spoke when asked a direct question, he had proved useless as an escort and, in fact, had slowed them down considerably, because the presence of a third person meant one of them always had to walk. And now the vile son of a sow had flown with the gelding and Heloise's wallet. When they had awoken that morning and crawled from the cave where they had huddled to sleep, it was snowing. There was not so much as a track to indicate in which direction the accursed boy had gone. Devil take him; she hoped the wolf pack got to him first. Keep walking, she told herself, walk or you will not live for long.
It was cold in the forest, and the wet snow numbed her feet through the soles of her boots. Wind whipped through the branches, and she heard Aristotle, a warm spot under her breast, begin to whimper. She unwrapped her cloak, kicked at the snow until she'd made a level patch, and set the dog on the ground. Bewildered, she stood dead still; Heloise, knee joints cracking, stooped and patted her soothingly. "Hurry up, sweet. Do something." After a minute, she picked her up and thrust her quickly under the cloak.
The only things the serf had not taken were Aristotle, and Abelard's letters and the two rings, which had been sewn into Heloise's habit. But the map that she had been using to chart their way was in the saddlebag. Now she foraged her memory, trying to recall the look of the parchment sheet. They had been aiming for Blanchart, which could not have been more than three or four miles. But in which direction? By this time, she could not guess whether they were walking west, or deeper into the wilderness.
Single file, they went on all the rest of the afternoon, and when twilight came they perched in a tree, half dozing on a thick branch, their minds stupefied with exhaustion. All night long the dog whined with hunger, and the cold made sleep impossible. At some time during the night, the snow stopped.
Once, the next day, they heard oliphants blowing and the baying of hounds. But the hunters must have been far away; although Heloise and Ceci shouted until their throats were raw, the only sounds cutting the air were the echoes of their own voices. By midafternoon, they were walking aimlessly, slowly, to conserve their strength. Their toes and fingers screamed with pain of the cold. Under the broken branches all was quiet. Only crows beat the icy air, and under He
loise's cloak Aristotle keened through her nose, whether from cold or hunger she did not know. They ate snow and prayed.
To the south they saw a thicket of low hills and began stumbling toward them, hoping to find caves. They could not spend another night in the open. The sun had almost fallen when they crawled into a ledge beneath some tightly wedged rocks. There was no room to stretch out, but at least the ground was dry. Too exhausted for sleep, they huddled in each other's arms with Aristotle locked between their bodies. The sky darkened to jet and the stars came out, hard and white.
Ceci said, "Near Pamplona, we stayed at an inn once. It was really charming. There was a dear little garden and it smelled so—I don't know what kind of flowers, but it was like breathing perfume. You know."
"Did you dance there? I mean, at the inn."
"In a tavern nearby, at a wedding. It wasn't bad. But not as nice as the inn."
Heloise sighed. "Raimon. Was he—kind to you?"
That required thought. "I suppose," Ceci said at last. "He bought me lovely things. I had a yellow gown with a little blue overdress and a blue veil and—shoes, I had green silk shoes."
"Holy Mary, what a combination!"
"It was pretty, really it was. And I danced with castanets."
Heloise nodded and turned her head. "The prettiest gown I ever had was one that Abelard bought me. It was purple—no, more of a lavender, I guess. There was gold lace around the sleeves and I had a gold girdle."
"I love lavender."
"It was beautiful, the most beautiful gown in the world."
Aristotle, fussing, poked her head out for a moment and then slumped her chin against Ceci's knee. Ceci said, "We're going to die here." Heloise hunched her shoulders, not daring to answer.
In a thicket to their right something thrashed and then subsided. "I once had a hair crimper," Heloise said with forced cheerfulness. "Can you imagine that?"
"No."
"Well, I did. I made myself ringlets all down my back. Uncle was furious."
"He was a canon. They don't like women to look pretty."
"Abelard was a canon. He liked my curls." Ceci sighed against her ear. Heloise waited a moment and said, "Ceci, your Raimon. Was he—"