Stealing Heaven (20 page)

Petronilla, it suddenly occurred to Heloise, would soon be sleeping with a man she loved. And she, Heloise, would rot away with Agnes and Fulbert in this sterile house.

 

Just before dawn, she snapped herself awake, as if some internal bell had chimed in her head. She was asleep in her undertunic and for a
moment could not remember why. Then she did. The room swelled with blackness, but she could not risk lighting a
candle. She fumbled for the gown she had purposely laid across the end of the bed the previous evening.

When she had dressed, she opened her door a crack and listened. The house rustled with silence. It was too early for Agnes to be up yet. Halfway down the stairs, she remembered her uncombed hair. Well, she was not going back now; she pulled her shawl over her head and felt her way down, pausing briefly on the second floor to make sure there was no chink of light under Agnes's door.

She smiled to herself. Abelard wouldn't mind her scraggly hair; he liked to tease her, saying it was foolish to dress at all. She should throw on a cloak and nobody would know she was naked.

The Ile was uncannily quiet this morning, its obsessive rhythms stilled for a few hours. The deserted streets, left to an armada of rats, wore a shut-down look: no street vendors shrilling their wares, only overturned crates and a few people stumbling toward the cathedral. It was dangerous, of course, for a woman to walk the streets of Paris before daylight. Not long ago, she'd heard about a girl who had been raped by an apothecary's prentice, but the girl had been abroad at midnight, which was asking for trouble. Surely, Heloise thought, all the rapists were abed at this hour. Nonetheless, she walked quickly, but not too quickly lest someone recognize her and report back to Fulbert. Even in the thick half-light, she could feel that it was starting to be spring. In a few minutes, the sun would burst out and the March day would be mild.

For almost two weeks, she had not seen Abelard, in part because something unexpected and quite absurd had happened to her. At the advanced age of eighteen, she had begun having her monthly flux for the first time. That she may have been abnormal all these years had never troubled her, although Agnes would question her periodically and shake her head, and Abelard, even, had commented on this unusual situation, saying that it was unhealthy when a woman was not regularly purged of her superfluous humors. Since Heloise had felt perfectly well in every other respect, she had not paid much attention to either of them.

Then, one night in February, on the heels of so many other misfortunes, she had noticed stains on her undertunics. Later, Agnes had shown her how to wash the rags and fold them for use the next month. But in her opinion the whole thing was literally a bloody nuisance. She would not go to Abelard at this time, even though he had insisted it didn't matter; it mattered to her. She stayed home for several days, and after that Abelard had accompanied Louis the Fat on a royal hunting trip to the forest near Compiegne. It had been a long time, too long.

As she passed Notre Dame, she slowed down. Usually she slipped in to say a fast prayer to Our Lady, because this was a procedure Abelard advised, a kind of alibi in case she was seen. But this morning she felt too full of urgency to bother.

At the corner of Rue Notre Dame, she jumped back to avoid a horseman. Abelard lived in a house on a side street west of the cathedral. Compared to his quarters at Fulbert's, this new place was cramped and hopelessly ugly, full of badly made cupboards and a stool missing a leg.

One of the good things, the only good thing, about the room was that his window fronted on an alley. Obviously she could not enter through the main door of the house, but it was easy to climb in his window without being seen.

Two monks were heading toward her; she ducked into the alley and began to run. An upended barrel was standing beneath Abelard's window. She thought, Some night a thief will decide to pinch that barrel and I'll be in a pretty fix. She climbed up and gave the shutters a
gentle push. Slinging one leg over the sill, she peered in to find Abelard grinning at her from the untidy bed, his hands crossed behind his head.

"What took you so long?" he said, laughing. "I've been waiting since lauds."

She slid to the floor and threw her shawl at his head. "Sweet, I've been waiting since Monday before last." She stayed at the window enjoying the look of him, his flawless head disheveled with sleep, the fragility of his mouth.

He said to her, teasing, "Are you through being a
woman for this month?"

Heloise wrinkled her nose at him. "What a
bother. Why did God have to build me this way?"

"God knows what he's doing." He raised his arm and hurled the shawl back at her. It sailed past her shoulder and dropped over the windowsill.

"Ah, Abelard, look what you've done." She leaned her head out and saw the shawl draped over the barrel like a tablecloth. The sky had begun to whiten, and a pink streak was splashed across the sky over Notre Dame. The day was going to turn out glorious.

"Leave it," she heard him call. "You can collect it on your way out."

"I'd better—"

"God's blood, come here!"

Hearing the urgency in his voice, she smiled mischievously. Straightening, without turning around, she clucked at him in a playful tone, "Forsooth, my lord. What's your big hurry? Haven't you heard that ladies need to be wooed a while?" She could go to him, or she could wait. If she waited, he would be wilder. This morning she wanted him wild.

He was beginning to sound cross. "Heloise, come here or I'll beat you."

"Beat me." Slowly she unwound her girdle and let it slide to the floor.

“I'll rape you."

"Ummm," she sighed happily, still not looking at him. In her mind's eye, she could picture him behind her, his blue eyes gritty with desire.

"Heloise," he called,. "Come here. I have something for you."

Sinuously she lifted her bliaut to the waist and began to raise her arms. 'What?" She made her voice innocent.

"Something you'll like."

She struggled to keep from laughing out loud. The gown fell at her feet. She stood in her undertunic, shivering a little at the thought of him looking at her. The game was making her groin ache deliciously. Kicking off her shoes, she thought, In a minute. She would end it in one more minute. "What do you have for me? Breakfast?"

"Not exactly, sweeting." He paused, and she could hear the laughter brim in his voice. "But you may taste it if you like."

She giggled as she pulled off her undertunic and flung it into the corner. 'Tell me," she whispered, hugging her arms across her nipples. "I won't come unless you tell me what you have for me."

"Heloise!" he yelled. She heard him thump a threatening fist against the bedboard. "Come here."

She wanted him to say something bawdy; it always made her blood race hotly when she heard that dignified voice utter outrageous things. 'Tell me," she insisted.

"The biggest erection in all of the Ile!" he rumbled.

She turned and ran to him. He sprawled her down among the covers and gave her bottom a stinging slap. "Shameless minx. Making me say wanton things." His fingers began to pluck her like a lute, now gentle, now savage. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

She shook her head, letting him do as he liked. "I'm not ashamed of anything." Abruptly a thought thrust its way into her mind. "Sweet, wait," she told him impulsively. "I did do a terrible thing."

He lay still and looked down at her, smiling. "Did you?"

She whispered, "I gave myself pleasure. Last Friday."

Abelard grinned. "Is that all?" He moved his body over her, laughing at her. "As I recall, the penance is six days' fast on bread and water."

"I don't care!" She closed her eyes and locked herself around him. She felt him plunging wildly inside her. "My stallion, my own bawdy boy—"

He was talking quickly against her ear. "Do you like that, angel? Ah God, how I've missed you. Heloise, ladylove. It's torture without you. Do you like that!"

She didn't answer. Heat rushed up all over her skin in a thin layer of dew. After a while, his honeyed voice deepened, chanting almost incoherently the familiar words and phrases, the exquisite litany she knew as well as the paternoster. She clung to his neck and waited for it to happen.

A cool draft brushed across the soles of her feet. Heloise sighed and opened her eyes. Over Abelard's shoulder, she saw framed in the sunlit window a man's head and upper body. He was watching them.

She screamed.

Fulbert said, "Fair niece, it's time to go home."

 

 

 

9

 

 

“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—"