Stealing Heaven (4 page)

"What?"

Ceci twisted around and stared, as if her eyes were ready to fly off her face. "Oh, Heloise," she whooped, "it's a real dress! You're so beautiful!"

She knew that she looked terrible, so she shrugged the compliment aside. "It's just a dress." She was thirsty; a pitcher of ale was sitting on the table, but fast could not be broken until Lady Alais arrived for the benediction. The nuns across the table were watching her, their eyes were critical.

"Well, what are you staring at?" she demanded sharply.

One of them laughed. "You can ask that when you've gotten yourself up like a knight's doxy."

"What did you expect? A black veil?" She had not intended to be nasty but it had slipped out. This morning nothing had gone right. Everyone was being spiteful and vicious. They couldn't stand the thought that one of them had been reprieved.

“I'm a bride of Christ," bellowed the woman, eyes hard as agates. "I like the nun's habit."

Heloise mumbled between her teeth. "Shit."

"What did you say?" said the nun, surprised.

"I said you're jealous." A kitchen scullion was trotting around, dropping round loaves of bread on the tables—the hot yeasty aroma made her stomach feel queasy. She bowed her head, hoping to discourage the woman, who clearly wanted to start an argument. Who, in fact, had already begun one. Quarreling was a favorite recreation at Argenteuil. She thought, We can't help but get on each other's nerves.

"Excuse me. Jealous of somebody who looks like the very devil? You should see yourself. That dress is so wanton that everybody can see the outline of your breasts." She paused to take a breath. "Disgusting. You look like a strumpet, a harlot from the back alleys of Sodom, a—"

Heloise grinned. "Oh, shut up." She felt her good humor returning, "—a whore who throws up her skirts for any—" "I get the idea," Heloise said, laughing.

Winging down the table came Sister Judith's warning voice. "Leave her alone. She's taken no vows and she's leaving today. She can do as she wishes."

Heloise leaned against Ceci's side and relaxed her weight. Strict silence was supposed to be observed in the refectory. If a nun wished to communicate at table, she was to do so by means of signs. When Heloise had first come to Argenteuil and watched the women wagging their hands like fishtails and rubbing their thumbs against their noses, their dumb show had made her snicker. There were over a hundred signs, all of which she knew by now, but the rule of silence was never observed until Lady Alais made her appearance at the head table.

"Don't quarrel today," she said to the nun sitting opposite. "I want to leave with pleasant memories. Don't spoil it. Please."

The woman jerked her head. "As you wish." She fixed Heloise with a sour smile. "What is Paris like?"
 

"I don't know."
 

"But you came from there."

"Yes," Heloise said pleasantly. "Yes. But I was a babe when I left."
 

"Your uncle has never brought you home for a visit?"
 

Heloise kept her gaze steady. "No."

"Why not?"

Under the table she felt her hands begin to tremble. "I don't know," she said evenly.

Happy, the nun began to dig like a dog hot on the scent of a buried bone. "That's exceedingly strange, isn't it? Your own kin—"

"I expect he has more pressing matters to attend to." From the corner of her eye, she saw Ceci watching her uneasily. "He's a canon at Notre Dame, you know."

Ceci said, defensively, "Her uncle sent her here to be educated like a great lady. Now that she's grown, he's going to present her at court and betroth her to a rich baron with three castles."

Heloise shook her head, blushing. "No, Ceci. That isn't true."

The girl reached out and touched her arm. "Well, you don't know. It might be true. Mightn't it?"

"No. I'd like to study in Paris."

"What for?" called someone from the other end of the table. "Don't you know everything already?" The whole table broke into a good-natured roar.

At a loud hiss, everybody stopped talking. Lady Alais was coming in the door and taking her place. Methodically, she swept her eyes up and down the tables, checking for absentees. When she reached Heloise, she stopped and her eyes widened; then she moved on. At last she slouched her neck and gibbered a perfunctory blessing, not a bit like the sort she said when guests were present. After the abbess had finished, water bowls were passed and each nun washed her hands. By the time the bowl reached Heloise's end of the table, the water was gray and oily. Then the only sounds to be heard were teeth crunching bread and the clattering of the ale pitchers.

Heloise poured the pale, weak ale into her cup and took a long drink. The bread was black and burned on the bottom crust, but inside it was warm and moist. She ate around the scorched part, trying to think about what sort of food Uncle might serve at his table. White bread, no doubt. Perhaps soused herrings and roast mutton with mint and tansy sauce. Certainly frumenty and baked figs in syrup of honey, because Agnes often told her that Uncle loved sweets. She still couldn't believe that by tonight she would be in Paris finally, that she would never eat another silent meal in this hall. She thought, I must ask Uncle to buy me proper clothing, the styles they are wearing in Paris. Under the table, Ceci was tugging insistently at her skirt.

"Heloise," she whispered.

"What?"

'Take me with you."

"Don't be stupid," she said mildly.

When the meal was over, she rose quickly, but a scullion stood in her way. "Cook wants you, mistress."

Heloise went down the passageway and pushed open the door to the kitchen. A wave of heat slammed her in the face. The huge fireplace was blazing; blackened caldrons bubbled on tripods above the open flames, but the spit was empty. On a table in the center of the room were heaped mounds of minced cabbage, and also lentils, millet, onions, and garlic. The cook was standing in the doorway to the storeroom swearing at someone inside. "Of course it's there. Are you blind? Look again." When a small, dirty boy emerged with a cheese, she gave him a stinging cuff across the ear. “Turd-head."

As she turned and noticed Heloise, her broad face widened into a grin. "By St. Denis, so you'll be leaving this hellhole of cunnies today."

Heloise threw her head back and burst out laughing. "If Lady Abbess could hear the way you talk back here, you'd be looking for a new job."

Cook attacked the cheese with a meat cleaver. "Piss on her ladyship," she said cheerfully. "She'd be doing me a favor. There are plenty of castles needing cooks—and willing to part with a few more deniers than this miserable place."

She hacked off a good-sized chunk of goat cheese and wrapped it up with a loaf of bread; from a bucket in the corner, she filled a wineskin. "You'll be needing something to eat on your journey," she said. Heloise slid her arms around the cook's sweaty neck. The woman patted her back kindly. "Now, now, little damsel. Don't go pulling a long face. Our Blessed Lady in heaven has answered your prayers and reached down to pluck you straight out of here. ‘Tis a happy day."

"Yes," said Heloise. Outside in the passageway, she began to smile.

 

After breakfast, they all gathered in the great courtyard near the portress's lodge to hear the abbess deliver her farewell blessing for Heloise. Near the gatehouse clustered the guests who had spent the night at Argenteuil—a few poor pilgrims, a group of merchants and men-at-arms, contentious and bragging, a noble dame with her maids. Across the yard milled a clump of beggars squirming impatiently for the almoner to distribute bread. This morning they babbled in excitement, because not every day did they have a chance to gape at Lady Alais herself. Soon she entered the yard on narrow, dainty feet, trailed by a small girl of seven or eight carrying a parrot. She was an aristocratic woman, this abbess, a lady born and bred, and one had to look closely to make certain that she was not a duchess or a countess. For that matter, she might easily have been one if her father had not had three daughters to marry and a son who spent money on tournaments and fashionable cloaks.

Heloise, flanked by her bundles, stood in the front row of nuns and studied Lady Alais's appearance. Everything that she knew about fashion she had learned from observing the abbess. She marked the low neck and long train on the dress, the gold pins holding her silken veil, the silver belt.

"Oh sweet Jesu," the abbess gravely intoned. Her straight nose, gray eyes, and little red mouth puckered into an expression of determined blankness. "The Son of God, the endless sweetness of heaven and earth and of all the world—" Heloise yawned with pain. A cramp was edging its way across her left ankle and up her calf. She dared not shift her weight to her right leg because she was in the front and everyone would notice if she fidgeted. Instead, she concentrated on Lady Alais's rings; her fingers glittered with garnets and rubies, and suspended from a necklace of snowy lace was a gold ring with one diamond, "—be in this child's heart, in her mind, in her will, now and forevermore."

Nonsense. God had had thirteen years to enter her heart at Argenteuil and he had not troubled to concern himself with her existence. If he could not find her here, she doubted if he would come searching for her in Paris. Trying to ease the cramp, she carefully flexed her toes inside her slipper. The cramp left but the sun was burning her shoulders. Already the dress was clinging, sodden, to her back. She wished that Lady Alais could have thought of a more inspirational message. But then the abbess was not known for her originality. She was given to laziness.

"Keep faith with God, my child. Even though you are one of the naturally weaker sex, formed from a rib of man, trust in the Father, and his holy grace will protect you from evil. Use your great knowledge of letters, the talents which he has entrusted to you, to glorify his name. Do not make the mistake of casting pearls before swine."

Heloise fought the impulse to laugh aloud. The abbess had never been enthusiastic about her studies. Once, after drinking many cups of raisin wine and becoming very slightly drunk, she had prophesied that Heloise's brilliance would lead to her damnation—how could it be otherwise when a woman's body contained a man's mind?—and she had fervently wished for Heloise an elderly and understanding husband. As Lady Alais ground on, the huge red sun stared down implacably on the courtyard. Crickets chattered in a clump of nettles near the gatehouse. The abbess's parrot began to squawk fussily.

"Jesu, as thou art full of mercy, Jesu have mercy on this child and on all mankind redeemed with thy precious blood."

Heloise thought, If I had to remain here the rest of my life I would go mad. I hope Uncle won't insist that I attend mass every day. God's death, if Lady Alais says one more word, I'll spit, right here on the ground—I'll spit and I don't care a damn what they think. From the corner of her eye, she suddenly caught a glimpse of Ceci. She was cleaning her fingernails.

"Jesu, amen."

They crossed themselves and everyone said amen. Heloise boomed a relieved amen in an extra-loud voice. Behind her someone said, "Oh God, I'm sweating to death and it's only nine o'clock."

At last it was over. Some of the nuns charged toward the inside gate to find coolness in the cloister before chapter meeting began. The others streamed up to Heloise to say goodbye. She greeted them awkwardly, uncertain whether to smile or look sad. Finally she pasted a smile on her face and held it there with effort. Lady Alais pushed her way through the crowd and tried to enfold Heloise in her arms, but since the girl stood a head taller, this was impossible. Instead, she rested her head against Heloise's shoulder and the soft red mouth crumpled into a grimace. "It seems like only yesterday that you came to us," she said, weeping. "All those golden baby curls and the thumb always stuck in your mouth." Her voice quivered prettily. "And now you've grown up. Now who will read all those dusty manuscripts in the library, tell me that, child."

Heloise said lightly, "There will be others, lady." Embarrassment flushed her cheeks, and she longed to make her escape before she began bawling. She moved back a step and swept her gaze around the yard. She could not see Ceci. Or any man who appeared to be a butcher.

"Ah yes, but there is only one Heloise." The parrot let loose with a hoarse, mocking shriek. "Oh dear. Baby wants his breakfast." Nervously, she twisted the diamond on its lace chain. "Remember me to your uncle, child."

“I will, lady."

The abbess smiled and a dimple appeared at the comer of her red mouth. "God be with you until next we meet."

Heloise gently corrected her. "Lady, I won't be back. It's not likely that we will meet again in this world."

"Oh." She appeared confused for a moment, and then she shrugged. "Just so." She turned and headed for the cloister gate, like a galley under full sail, the child in charge of Baby limping dutifully in her wake.

Heloise stared at their backs, especially at the child's. She was lame. One leg was several inches shorter than the other. She remembered the day that the little girl had been left here, the father lying broadly, solemnly assuring Lady Alais that his daughter had already had a calling from God, and so forth. Heloise remembered looking at the child's pinched, frightened face and then down at her withered leg, and a cruel rhyme had run through her head: “I was not good enough for man/ And so am given to God." Something about the disfigured girl had filled her with distaste, and she rarely spoke to her unless it could not be avoided.

She picked up her bundles and walked toward the portress's lodge, all the while looking for Ceci. At the doorway, the portress called out, "The butcher was here just a minute ago. Now, where did that scurvy knave get to?" She darted into a crowd of men saddling their horses. Through the doorway, Heloise could see Ceci huddled inside on a stool, her eyes rimmed with tears. As she came slowly toward the door, she blotted her face with the back of her hand. "I have to work on my embroidery now," she said vehemently. "Sister Judith said so."