Stealing Heaven (58 page)

"He adores you," said Jourdain, who had remained behind. After three days of walking all over the convent grounds that were open to guests, he had told Heloise that she had created a miracle. He was still shaking his head, his plain, amiable face vaguely astonished.

Heloise searched his face, still looking for the awkward boy. "I told you," she said. "People have been incredibly generous to us. God be thanked."

"Because you are a model abbess and this is a model convent."

"Oh, certainly," she said lightly, turning away from him. "People see only the facade."

Jourdain fingered his beard. "You still," he said, "think of yourself as a failure." He had grown stout, and his hair had thinned on the crown.

She smiled, her mouth tight. "I built this house for Abelard. Nothing was done for God."

"No, I think you're wrong." She wheeled to face him. "God works through people. Mayhap by serving your lord, you are serving your Lord."

Heloise shrugged. "Intention is all that counts." She merited no applause from heaven. The sun was going down. She led him into Abelard's apartment, fit the candles, and ordered wine and wafers. Jourdain sat drinking white wine from the Paraclete's own vintage.

He gazed about the room. "Master Peter must find this to his taste. Peaceful." Abruptly, he went on. "You've heard about the joust, of course."

Heloise tried to smile. "Joust? Is that what it's become?"

"It's no longer a private quarrel. Bernard has been writing letters to various cardinals and bishops."

There was a long pause. Heloise said finally, with an effort, ''Denouncing Abelard for heresy."

"He's gotten no support."

"It makes me nervous."

Jourdain smiled at her, his forehead pitted with tiny wrinkles. "I think Master Peter will fix the abbot of Clairvaux once and for all at Sens. Bernard will retire to his cell and never come out again."

Heloise frowned and sat up straight. "In heaven's name, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sens," he answered impatiently. "The octave of Whitsun. There's to be a big display of relics, and even the young king is coming. I thought you—"

She had received the circular invitation weeks ago. Archbishop Henry Sanglier had summoned abbots and abbesses and rural priests from every corner of the archdiocese. It was to be a great assembly—churchmen of every rank, as well as nobles and commoners.

"Are you going?" Jourdain asked.

She nodded.

"Then you will see Master Peter there. He's challenged Bernard to a debate."

Heloise stared. "That's very interesting. But whatever for? Bernard isn't a debater."

"He's going to outline his views and defy Bernard to refute them. Inspired plan, isn't it?"

"Do you mean to tell me," she said sharply, "that the archbishop agreed?" Outside in the yard, she could hear someone shouting; she hoped that Gertrude would quiet him.

Jourdain, yawning, drained his goblet. "Why should he refuse?"

"Jourdain," Heloise murmured, moving her stool closer. "You've known me since I was a girl—you know that I worry about everything. But isn't this something to worry seriously about? Isn't this very foolish of Abelard?"

"I don't think so. Because this way he can show everybody how pure his teachings are. It's the only way now that he can expose Bernard's attempts to discredit him."

"I don't know." In a debate, Bernard would be demolished. She could not imagine the frail little abbot defeated. "Bernard has accepted?"

“I told you. It's going to be the theological joust of the century."

"Has Bernard grown stupid, do you think? Do you think he realizes what he is doing?" Her voice climbed to a high-pitched laugh of jubilance. "Abelard will win, won't he?"

Jourdain grinned. "He can't lose."

 

 

 

25

 

 

The roads leading to
Sens on that first day of June swarmed with travelers on horseback and foot, and Heloise and Jourdain were among them. Student and priest, king and commoner, all jounced along to witness the display of relics, to have a look at the rising cathedral with its novel arches, and if possible to hear Abbot Bernard argue the Trinity with Master Peter Abelard. Because the town had no place to lodge this invasion, people camped outside the sand-colored walls, among the fields and vegetable gardens and the wild hyacinths.

When Heloise and Jourdain rode up to the Troyes Gate, the mob was so great that they had to wait in line to enter. They inched over the drawbridge into the noisy commercial quarter with its three- and four-story houses and shops shouldering into the streets, their corbeled upper stories looming precariously overhead. Shopfronts were painted blue or garish red, many faced with tile, and a clutter of merchandise spilled from the stalls into the street—boots, cloth of gossamer and wool, savory spices, rosaries.

The foot traffic separated Heloise's mare from Jourdain, and she had to rein in sharply to keep from riding down the honking geese that nipped around her mount's hoofs. Twisting in her saddle, she called back, "Jourdain! Rue du Temple, in case I lose you. Third house." He nodded.

At the Knights Templars' house, she stopped and waited for Jourdain. A goodwife, white wimple bobbing, smiled at her and boldly asked for a blessing. Jourdain came. "This is incredible!" he cried. His voice was thick with glee. "Every monk in France must be here."

Heloise tipped back in her saddle and laughed. Carefully, they picked their way down the Rue du Temple to the house of a widow who had donated a water clock to the Paraclete and counted it a great honor to lodge its abbess in her home.

The Montauban family was lined up in the vestibule, the children washed and combed like archangels. Each of them scrambled forward, knelt down, and brushed a kiss on Heloise's ring. "Lady abbess," murmured Mme. Montauban, "are you alone? Where is your maid?"

"I have no maid," Heloise said, smiling. "We are all equal at the Paraclete."

"Lady, this is a great honor for our house—" Chattering nervously, she escorted Heloise to a second-floor chamber, where Heloise washed her face and shook the dust from her habit. She immediately went out again. On foot, she walked quickly to the cathedral to say vespers. As she returned to the house, a red sun flamed and slipped behind the roofs.

A servingwoman told her that a young man had come, and she had sent him up to the abbess's chamber. Heloise swung up the stairs, breathless with excitement. The door slammed open. "Mama!" Astrolabe pulled her to his chest in a hug that cracked her elbows. "Mama!" he shouted, "did you ever see anything like this, did you?" and danced back.

She caught him by the arm, planting a kiss on his cheek. "No"— she laughed—"I never have. Sweet heart, you need a haircut. Where are you lodging?"

He ran his fingers loosely through the glossy strands. "The archbishop's guesthouse. Mama, Queen Eleanor is here. I saw her this morning. She has golden hair and the whitest skin."

Heloise paid no attention. Astrolabe, face flushed, tunic askew, was prowling about the room like a caged lion. “Your father, is he well?"

"Quite well." He threw her a surprised look, as if that were an irrelevant question. His eyes were dark and shining. "He's in splendid spirits."

"Son, he has no idea I'm here, has he? You didn't tell him?"

“You asked me not to. I can't see why—"

Heloise smoothed his hair, loving the touch of him. His skin smelled like musk. "He doesn't like me to leave the Paraclete."

 
"Well, you do."

She looked away, smiling a little. "I know. But we're not going to tell him."

"Everyone is here! Father's students followed us all the way from the Ile, Gilbert and Berengar and Arnold of Brescia—"

Heloise started. Arnold was a well-known agitator, banished from Italy by the pope for his political activities and charged with heresy. She had not known him to be one of Abelard's students. She said, "That's wonderful."

"They've all gathered at the Tournelles Inn. You should see them. Mama, come with me, you can meet them." He jabbed at her shoulder.

She stretched out her arms and hugged him, saying, "Son, I'm too old to frequent taverns."

"Oh, lady, you're not old. Please."

She backed away and went to light a candle. Dappled light gashed the room with shadows. "Don't be silly," she said. "My sweet boy, I'm an abbess."

He turned to her, face sheepish. A moment later, he was hitching up his girdle with a delighted smile. "Nobody will sleep tonight. We're going to stay up and talk."

Heloise could see that he was impatient to get back to the noisy taverns and the cheering young men who would be thronging around Abelard. Kissing him, she sent him off into the darkness.

Later, she stretched on the bed, watching the moonlight quiver in milky pools on the tile floor. She slept and dreamed of Fulbert's turret above the Seine.

 

At daybreak, the great bells of the cathedral began to bellow.

Heloise and Jourdain hurried toward the main thoroughfare, doubled back over the Grand Rue, and threaded their way through a warren of muddy lanes. "Jourdain," Heloise said, "Astrolabe came to see me last night. He said that Arnold of Brescia was with Abelard. Isn't he a heretic?"

Jourdain looked at her with no particular interest and shrugged. "That's what they say. I think he's merely a hothead. Talks a lot."

"But isn't that bad for Abelard?" she demanded.

“Lady, there are hundreds of his students here. And former students. Some radical, some as orthodox as you please."

They turned a corner and came out alongside the apse of the cathedral, into an area that looked like a work yard. There were sheds sheltering forges and a carpenter's shack next to a large pit where saws and long pieces of timber had been stacked. Some ten years earlier, Henry Sanglier had decided to rebuild the church, and he had hired the eminent master builder William to draft a ground plan. At Sens, as at Saint-Denis, a daring new style of engineering was being used, and people raved about the wonders of ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. Jourdain said, staring in awe at the scaffolding soaring into the hot sky, "This is going to take fifty years to finish."

"More like a hundred," Heloise answered. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

The yard, frosted with stonecutters' dust, stood empty today. They skirted the sawing pit and started around the side of the cathedral, only to run up against a solid wall of backs. Although the service had already begun, the bronze doors were jammed and people stood in the aisles at the rear of the nave. When Heloise presented her billet of admission to a Knight Templar, he advised her of the futility of trying to reach her place. People were climbing on tombs and hanging from the marble pillars, and when the knights herded them down, they crept back an instant later. At last, Heloise and Jourdain were crushed against a statue of the Virgin, and there they stayed, squeezed tight. They could hear, but seeing was more difficult. After the service came the presentation of relics; the golden reliquaries encrusted with rubies and diamonds were brought forth with their treasures—the Crown of Thorns, fragments of the True Cross, a drop of blood belonging to St. Clement, one of Judas's thirty pieces of silver. Or so Heloise heard, for she could see nothing but a blur of incense and tapers and billowing gonfalons.

When knights tried to clear the aisles, the mob heaved back. There was silence. Slowly down the nave moved King Louis carrying a gold cross. He walked sturdily, the boy that Heloise had last seen huddled at his father's feet in the Cite Palace, and his eyes were downcast in an attitude of humility. On tiptoe, Heloise caught only a glimpse before he moved on, followed by a queue of bishops and monks. There were not only the prelates of the diocese—Elias of Orleans, Hatto of Troyes, Manasses of Meaux—but many others whom she did not recognize. Jourdain whispered into her ear as they went by: the archbishop of Rheims; Abelard's old friend, Geoffrey of Chartres; and on and on they came. A thousand necks stretched to goggle at the jeweled miters, the vestments gleaming with gold.

The procession wound down the center aisle, turned, and headed back along the north aisle toward the choir. The aisles filled again as the crowd surged forward. The chanting of the choristers trumpeted along the stone walls. The air inside the cathedral reeked of sweat and incense. As the morning wore on, sweat gushed on Heloise's face, and she felt on the verge of suffocating.

When Jourdain grabbed her arm and began dragging her through the bodies, she followed blindly. Outside milled hundreds of people, but here at least there was air. They stood together on the porch, next to pilgrims speaking German, and gasped at the breeze. "Let's wait a bit," Jourdain said, panting. "It will be over soon and the court will be coming out. You don't want to miss that, do you?"

Heloise did not care, but she nodded. All during the procession, she had been thinking of Abelard, hoping it was less crowded where he sat. She turned to Jourdain, and said, "I don't mind." Ceci would ask her if she had seen the young queen and demand to know every detail. Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, had been queen of France three years and she was still less than eighteen. Incessantly, people gossiped about her, even the nuns of the Paraclete. This granddaughter of William the Troubadour was supposed to be spectacularly beautiful—and spoiled. From Aquitaine she had brought troubadours to the Cite Palace, an incident which caused the pious Queen Adelaide to move out, and people also said that Eleanor did not get along well with the king either.

The crowds wedged into the bronze doors parted, and Heloise could see the royal bodyguard shoving through roughly. Trumpets brayed and people began to shout,
"Vivat Regina!"
Behind Heloise, somebody said, "Three years and no babe. She must be barren." Another voice, full of mockery, answered, "It's the king—he's too holy to fuck." Heloise choked back a smile.

Clouds of silk—red, rose, yellow, and orange—drifted through the summer afternoon like blossoms of dust raised by stallions' hoofs. Behind them sailed a radiant girl loaded down with bracelets and winking ear pendants. Heloise drew in her breath sharply. The queen's gown was made of magnificent lavender tissue, and over her blond hair, fastened to her brow by a circlet of wrought gold, flowed the sheerest of wimples. She had draped it around her neck and shoulders, and one corner cascaded over her left arm. When the crowd cheered, she scanned their gaping faces and smiled beautifully.