Stealing Heaven (46 page)

A half mile from Le Pallet, he turned off, and they walked the rest of the way. The drawbridge was down, the gatehouse deserted. Heloise and Ceci went into the ward, where a dozen or more children were playing tourney with stick swords. Swiftly, Heloise scanned their heads for blond hair, but none of the boys was especially fair. One of the older girls ran up, breathless. She looked at them as though they had landed from the moon. The rest of the children had dropped their swords and stood gaping.

"Child," Heloise called, "we wish to see your lady mother. Is
she about?"

"Agathe!" one of the boys shrieked. "Ask her what she wants." The girl ignored him. "Holy sister, I think she's in the hall. Shall I fetch her?"

Heloise smiled. “Your name is Agathe?" The girl was thirteen or fourteen and her breasts were hard little apples under her bliaut. Heloise thought, This one was a
babe when I last saw her,

"Agathe! Ask her—"

"Oh, shut up," Agathe threw over her shoulder. "Lady, I am Agathe. Do you want me to find Mama?"

Heloise resisted the urge to stroke the girl's head. "No, go back to your game." She motioned Ceci up the wooden steps to the keep. This was going to he difficult. She must remember to keep a good control over herself.

The hall smelled of incense and fresh rushes. Somebody had picked sunflowers and scattered them over the trestles. Denise walked in, carrying a pile of bed sheets. When Ceci cleared her throat, Denise stopped and swung around.

"Greetings, lady," Heloise said.

Denise blinked at them, puzzled. "Good sisters—"

Heloise broke in. "Don't you know me, Denise? It's Heloise. This is my friend, Sister Cecilia."

The sheets tumbled to the floor, but Denise made no attempt to catch them. Her face was lined around the mouth and eyes, and patches of sweat stained her gown beneath the arms. "Heloise," she echoed in a dazed voice.

Ceci started to say something, but Heloise put a hand on her arm. She said to Denise, "Are you in good health, lady?"

Denise nodded blankly. She was watching Heloise and Ceci, her eyes darting between their faces. Finally she said, "I didn't know that you'd left your convent."

"The house closed," Ceci said quickly.

"We have not yet entered a new one," Heloise added.

"You are just passing through Brittany?" Denise asked thinly.

Heloise shook her head. "I've come to see Astrolabe."

"Astrolabe?" Her voice was stupid.

"My son. Astrolabe. What do you call him?"

Denise said slowly, "Peter—is what we call him."

Heloise looked carefully at the woman's face. She's afraid, she thought, frightened I will take him away or something. But why? She has a dozen others. "Is Peter well?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"What do you want with him? You won't make him feel bad?"

 
"I love my son," Heloise said. "You must know that from my letters."

At the mention of the letters, Denise flushed and stared down at the mounds of bed linen heaped around her feet. "Go away," she mumbled. "Go now before he sees you. I don't see why you've come back." She added in a small voice, "Have you no shame?"

Heloise swayed against Ceci. She struggled to keep her voice even.

"Shame? Lady, I can't feel shame in loving my babe. Come now, send in my son."

"I've warned you. Remember that."

"Send him to me."

Denise scooped up the sheets and went out. Ceci glared at Heloise. "What's wrong with her? She's certainly disagreeable."

Sighing, Heloise walked over to a trestle and sank on a bench. Through the open shutters she could hear the children screaming in the ward. The minutes dragged. Ceci, at the window, called to her, "I see someone coming." Trembling, Heloise got to her feet.

The boy coming slowly across the hall was not one of the children she had seen below. He was tall for his age and gave the impression of being frail, even dreamy, although she could see that he was muscular and healthy and his arms, hanging loosely from the short-sleeved tunic, were covered with dirt and mosquito bites. Going up to Ceci, he smiled easily and said, "Sister, my lady mother said you wished to see me."

Ceci pointed to Heloise. He trotted over and bowed.

"Peter." Heloise made herself say the name. "Did Lady Denise tell you who I am?" It was a rhetorical question, but she did not know how else to begin.

"No," he answered.

Oh, Denise, she thought, how unkind you are. Licking her lips, she said gently to him, "Peter, Lady Denise is not your real mother. You know that, don't you?"

"Oh yes. But she is my mother." The boy's voice was confused.

She was going about this all wrong—she should have told him at once. She heard Ceci, at the window, cough sharply. Astrolabe was shuffling his feet and scratching his bites. She saw at once that he could not keep still a minute. She smiled at him. "Lad, I am Heloise. Your lady mother."

He opened his eyes wide. Obviously he was reluctant to accept that piece of information, but he did not want to be rude. "If you say so," he said at last. "But the Lady Denise is my mama."

The expression on his face was so full of pain and bewilderment that Heloise forgot her reserve. She went to him, took him by the hand, and sat him down on a bench. He did not resist, but next to her he began fidgeting. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. "Tell me, Peter. Don't you remember the letters I wrote you? About the convent and my little dog Aristotle? About the river with all the pretty boats?"

Puzzled, he tossed his head. "No."

"Fair son, mayhap you've forgotten. You were smaller then."

"No. I had no letter." He looked up at her impatiently.

Heloise knew there was no point in insisting. It was as she had always suspected. Denise had destroyed the letters. The boy was ill at ease anyway; he did not understand that the letters were meant to convey her love and longing for him. She wanted to fling her arms about those skinny shoulders, shout that she loved him. "Do you like books'?" she asked cheerfully. "Tell me what you read."

The question seemed to surprise him. "Why, the
Disticha Catonis
and the
Eclogue
of Theodulus . . ."

Heloise nodded encouragingly. These were the standard beginner's readers. "And?"

"And my Latin grammar."

"Donatus. What else? Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine?"

"No. I mean, I can't remember. Mayhap."

Questioning him further, she learned that a priest from the village came once a week to instruct the children at the castle. Astrolabe did not feel deprived in regard to his education, indeed he seemed to think that he showed more progress in his studies than his cousins, who were prone to tease him about it.

"At your age," Heloise told him, "you should be more advanced in your education. Your lord father is the most brilliant scholar in—well, in all of Europe."

"I know," he mumbled sullenly. "He's a great abbot."

"And a very learned man. As you must be, too, when you grow up and become a man."

He stared at her, his eyes flashing. "I'm going to be a knight and ride in tourneys."

The racket in the ward had stopped. The children must have gone away somewhere. From the passageway leading to the kitchen, Heloise could hear the clanging of pots. She glanced at Ceci, who raised her eyebrows. She said to Astrolabe, "Your lord father and I love you very much, my sweet. Even though God has willed that we should be parted from you."

The boy did not answer.

She leaned toward him, carefully stroking the hair back from his eyes. To her astonishment, he flinched. "Sweet, what's the matter?" Suddenly Astrolabe burst into sobs. "What is it?" cried Heloise. "Are you ill? Holy Mother, Ceci, what ails him?" Ceci started toward them, then stopped. The boy continued to sniffle loudly.

"You're going to take me away!" he blubbered. "I won't go, I won't!"

To soothe him, Heloise stroked his hair. "There, there, I wouldn't take you away. We can be friends. There's nothing to cry about."

"You'll bewitch me and steal me—my mama said so."

Forgetting to guard her tongue, Heloise cried, "And who has a
better right to you? You're my son. I would be the happiest woman in the world if I could be with you."

"You're a whore!"

"Son—"

"You're impure and wicked. I don't want you to be my mother!"

Heloise wrenched back. Astrolabe hopped to his feet and raced from the hall as if pursued by demons. For a long time, Heloise did not move. Finally Ceci said, "Heloise, I think it's time to go." And when Heloise did not answer, Ceci said again, "Friend, let's go. There is nothing more you can do here."

Heloise rose quietly and clung to Ceci's hand.

 

For three days, they had been walking along the riverbank, looking in vain for a boatman who would take them across without wanting payment. Now it did not matter. Sweat bathed Heloise's body and her cheeks were an ashy green. She stumbled along until the middle of the day, when she crawled into a ditch and closed her eyes. When she woke, the sun was coasting down the sky and the afternoon shadows had lengthened. Ceci was sitting cross-legged by the side of the road. Heloise got up and they went on.

The fields were golden bronze with ripe corn. They crossed a little hill and descended into a valley where black and white goats were cropping on the slopes. Farther down the road, alongside a
clump of yew trees, they saw tendrils of smoke. Relieved, Ceci warned, "We're stopping there. I don't care."

“I'm not sick."

Ceci snorted. "Don't be stupid. You're sick."

The cottage was a one-story building of wood, wattles, and thatch, all of dirty brown. Inside the fence sprawled an enormous dung heap, on which hens and pigs roamed nonchalantly. When Ceci shouted, a
woman in homespun blouse and loose trousers hurried out. Heloise did not pay attention to their conversation. She leaned against the gate, watching. The yard seemed to be filled with long, lean cats, none of whom appeared friendly. The peasant woman was staring at the ground while Ceci talked, and finally wagged her head. Ceci came back and led Heloise into the hut. It was a single large room, the walls and ceiling timbers blackened by soot. There was no hearth, only a flat stone in the center of the room and a smoke hole in the roof. Several half-naked children playing on the floor goggled at the nuns and fell quiet.

The woman, whom Ceci called Marie, showed Heloise to a straw pallet and covered her with a blanket. The silence of the children changed to giggles and whispers as they began to play again. Ceci, crouching, put one hand on Heloise's forehead. With the edge of her sleeve, she blotted the perspiration from her face. She looked scared.

"Don't look at me like that," Heloise said abruptly. "I'm not going to die."

“I didn't—"

"Oh yes you did. God won't let me die. He's not through torturing me."

"Don't talk like that. It's bad luck."

Heloise closed her eyes. "He has emptied a full quiver into me. If he had a single arrow left, he could find no place in me to take another wound. And still he won't end my suffering."

After a while, Marie brought a crock of water, a ladle, and a rag. She set them on the ground near Heloise's pallet, and Ceci gave her small sips of water. "Shhh, shhh. God is with you, sweeting."

She opened her eyes and whispered bitterly. "God is
not
with me."

Ceci began to argue with her. "Mayhap that is because you refuse him."

"That isn't true. It is he who has refused himself to me." She slammed her lids shut again. Later, across the room, a man's voice rose in waves and receded. She thought, I have done nothing for the love of God, why should he reward me? Is it my fault that I love Abelard above him, did I volunteer for this madness"? She could feel flies crawling on her face, hear the nervous swoosh of Ceci's hand as she shooed them off. Without opening her eyes, she plucked at Ceci's sleeve. "Comrade, why are you so worried?"

"I'm not worried."

"God has taken everything from me. I long for death."

"You'll get better. I'm going to take care of you."

Heloise drifted away, not listening. During the night, her bowels plunged to water and by morning the hut reeked of foul odors. Once she strained to open her eyes and saw Ceci crying. Quickly her lids fell together and she did not make the effort again.

Time passed. A week and then another week, perhaps more. She did not attend to the rising and sinking of the sun. Finally, one afternoon, she woke and swiveled her eyes around the room. It was empty, save for Ceci stirring a kettle at the fire. She called out weakly. Ceci ran to her and knelt. "Ceci, I'm still here."

"Oh, you're still here," Ceci said in a
light voice. That night, Heloise slept deeply, without the fever dreams. Her eyes were sunk in great brown holes in her face, but she could not see that.

Ceci had washed her habit and veil and hung them on a hook near the pallets. Although Heloise could not get up yet, she sat propped against the wall and watched the family eating and talking. The man, Simon, said little to her beyond inquiring about her health, but one evening she called him to her. She asked him, "How much do you plow in a day?"

He shrugged. "An acre, sometimes more."

"Do you have a helper?"

"My oldest boy. He drives the oxen."

"And besides the plowing. There's more to do, isn't there?"

He could not understand the reason for her curiosity, but he smiled, wanting to humor a sick nun. "To be sure, a good deal more. I have to fill the oxen's cribs with hay and give them water and carry the dung—you know."

Heloise sighed, sympathetic. "It's hard work."

"Oh yes, it's hard work. Because I'm not a free man."

While she was listening to Simon, she thought of the whey and eggs that Ceci had been feeding her. The family was poor; she was taking food from their mouths, and she squirmed with guilt. Later that evening, she mentioned this to Ceci, who looked away uneasily.

"Heloise," she finally quavered, "I did something you won't like."

Heloise stared at her.