Stealing Heaven (33 page)

 

 

 

14

 

 

By the time
they reached Argenteuil, she and Jourdain had stopped speaking. Her throat felt raw from yelling, and she imagined his must be the same.

When they rode into the yard, the portress looked up in astonishment. Heloise waved stiffly and slid down before Jourdain had reined the horse to a halt.

"Mark me," Jourdain muttered, dropping beside her.

Heloise cut him off harshly. "I have marked you. All the way from Paris. Jesu, what more is there to say?"

He grunted. "All I ask of you— Mark me, I'm pleading with you. Friend, use logic. Be reasonable."

She shrugged and laughed. "In a
reasonable world, there would be incentive for making reasonable decisions. This is not a
reasonable world."

Jourdain glowered at her. "It's the only world we've got."

"Well, it's not good enough." At the stricken look on his face, she thumped his shoulder with a
fist. "Ah, friend, I told you. I've made no decision yet. Mayhap I'll take your advice. Let's part in peace."

He smiled sourly and resumed lecturing her.

The sound of his voice enraged her, as did the sight of the banner atop the gatehouse and the snapping of the wind against her ears. "Enough!" she roared, and walked quickly toward the cloister gate without looking back. Dancing toward her, one foot twitching along the cobbles, came Astrane.

"Lady, what happened!" Astrane gasped.

Heloise did not reply.

 

By nightfall, the convent heaved with gossip about Heloise and Master Peter Abelard, and Heloise could turn neither one direction nor another without noticing a whispering novice or nun. She was not surprised at their interest in the matter, since they had little else to occupy their minds. She watched them watching her. The whole thing bored her. They were alive and she was dead: what difference that they took her blood and nerves and brain in their voyeuristic hands and passed judgment. At dinner, she ate two helpings of fish and listened to the weekly reader droning a passage from Corinthians. Everything tasted and sounded blurred, as if she were wearing a band of linen around her senses. Abelard will not have me, she thought wildly. He has chosen death for himself; he has chosen it for me. Because he loves me.

There was no question of her not understanding all this. To keep from losing her, he was willing to bury her. She wondered what she would do in his place. No, she did not think she would feel compelled to bury him. The reader stopped suddenly and everyone else rose from the tresdes. Dark and brooding, Ceci's eyes followed her as she left the refectory. Heloise looked back over her shoulder, and Ceci plunged to her side.

"Heloise," she said, "don't."

Heloise nodded. "I didn't seek your advice," she said mildly.
 

"Leave here tonight. Jourdain is still at the guesthouse. I saw him. He'll take you home." She was babbling.

"Home?" Heloise laughed. "Where's that?"
 

"Jourdain will marry you. He told me."
 

“I have a husband. Did you forget?"

Abruptly, Ceci's face wrinkled into tears. She pawed convulsively at Heloise's sleeve.

"Let go." She dipped around the corner of the cloister and lurched down the west walk. Entering the schoolroom, she pulled a stool to Madelaine's table and sank down.

Sister Madelaine put down her quill with a click. "That young man. Jourdain. He loves you."

"Oh," she said, surprised to hear Madelaine use the word
love.
"Him. Mayhap."

Madelaine's eyes fixed on her face. "More than your Master Abelard."

She turned away, uncomfortable, and tried to strain the anger from her voice. She said evenly, "Sister, you talk foolishly. You do not know my lord. Or Jourdain." Or anything about love, she added silently.

 

For a week, she lay in the infirmary, too exhausted for grief. Gray circles ringed her eyes. When Sister Blanche brought soup, Heloise turned her head toward the wall. On the eighth day, Sister Blanche's assistants tried to pour broth down Heloise's throat. From a stool by the side of the bed, Sister Madelaine crouched like a wizened yellow bird and studied her. Each time she opened her eyes, Madelaine hissed, "Fool."

"Go away."

"Idiot. It's not so easy to die. Besides, I won't let you." She gestured to the sisters with the broth. Heloise jerked away, feet and arms flailing. One of the nuns caught her by the jaw and wrenched. A little of the hot liquid sloshed over her tongue. The rest of it she spat at Madelaine.

The prioress grinned. "Good." She winked at Sister Blanche.

On the tenth day, Heloise rose and dressed. Her bliaut hung like a
sack over her bony shoulders. Feeble, she said to Sister Blanche, "Is that boy still here?"

"What boy?"

"You know. The one who brought me here."
 

The infirmarian shrugged. "I can find out. Do you want to see him?"

 
"No. Ask him—ask him if he has a
message for me. From Paris. That's all."

There would be no message, she was certain of that. A long time ago—two weeks, a
century—she had had a husband and infant son. Little by little, her mind had been letting them go. Possessing them no longer seemed so desperately important; nothing seemed important.

She went into the cloister and sat on a
bench near the lemon tree. Around her, September leaves drifted into the grass. Throughout the morning, she watched the nuns passing in and out of the cloister, whispering, arguing, carrying piles of linen and manuscripts. Busy with their duties, they seemed happy. Or at least content. Once, with effort, Heloise got up and walked the few steps to the lemon tree. Then she dragged back and sank down again. No strength remained to her— no strength to fight—but somewhere she must find strength to do one last thing. Very well, she thought, very well. Thy will be done. You know that I never wanted anything but Abelard, not wealth or power or marriage or possessions, only my beloved. You have denied me the one thing I love above all else; I will deny you the one thing you love. My heart and soul. Those belong to Abelard. The rest of me, the part that does not matter, you may have. He heard; she knew that he heard.

Sext rang. She went to find Lady Alais.

 

"Here is the law." The abbess read from the Rule. "If you can observe it, enter. If you cannot, you are free to depart."
 

“I can."

"Do you truly seek God?"
 

“I do."

"Are you zealous for the work of God?"

"Yes."

The abbess looked up. "The journey to God is made by hard and rugged ways."

Heloise returned her gaze calmly.

The abbess went on reading. "According to the law of the Rule, from this day forward you may not leave the convent." She paused. "Nor withdraw your neck from under the yoke of the Rule. Do you understand?"

"I do," said Heloise.

Lady Alais spoke of other things, but they were unimportant and Heloise did not listen.

 

The cloister had emptied but for the birds. Sister Madelaine led her down the east walk and into the side entrance of the abbey church. The sanctuary was crammed with a blur of people and candles, and the air stank of sweetish incense. Heloise tried not to focus. Her palm against Madelaine's began to sweat. They walked to the back of the nave and crossed to the center aisle. Madelaine said they would wait there until Bishop Gilbert gave the signal. Ahead and to her left, somebody was crying. Deliberately, she turned her head away, staring at nothingness. The sounds of the whimpering grated on her ears.

"Sister," she said to Madelaine, "somebody is bawling. Can't you make them stop?"

"Shhh—pay no mind. Stand up straight."

For a while, they stayed there, not speaking. Madelaine sent a novice up to notify the bishop that they were ready. Nuns were swarming around the altar as Sister Judith arranged them into lines. The ultimate ritual. Heloise had watched it dozens of times. As a child, she could hardly sleep for excitement on the nights before a novice was to be received into the order. There was Sister Marie, who had cried for her lord father, and Sister Custance, who had forgotten to wear an undershift and was sent back to the dormitory to dress properly. Or was it Sister Marie who'd neglected her undershift? It was all a jumble now. Sister Custance was dead anyway. She'd had beautiful breasts, rose-tipped and saucy. But she had bled to death one Advent—Heloise thought it must have been the sixth year she had been at Argenteuil.

Behind her, the door to the porch opened on a shaft of cool air. The door closed noisily. Someone came forward and stopped behind her right shoulder. From the corner of her eye, she realized that it was Abelard. Heloise glanced at him quickly. He looked well, his cheeks clean-shaven and ruddy from the crisp fall weather. She remembered the blue cloak. The fine soft wool had come from England, and it had been very dear. All in a
rush, she realized that he was still wearing his usual clothes. Which meant that he had not taken his vows yet. He had waited for her to leave the world first. She turned away without looking into his eyes.

Abelard pulled a
bundle from under his cloak and stepped around to Sister Madelaine's side.

The prioress looked annoyed. "What is this, sire?" she muttered.

"Lady Heloise's personal belongings."

Madelaine frowned. "I can't take them now, my lord. You must leave them with the wardrober."

"Very well, Sister." Abelard backed away and came around to Heloise once more. He held the bundle awkwardly under one arm and finally placed it on the floor near his feet.

Heloise stared at the altar. She heard Abelard breathing heavily behind her. Pivoting her head for a moment, she had a
glimpse of his white face, and she heard him say low, "Lady."

Madelaine grabbed her hand. "It's time."

Nodding, Heloise turned to face Abelard again. Into her mind suddenly slammed a passage from Lucan, Cornelia's famous lament. She began to recite rapidly, " 'O noble husband, too great for me to wed, was it my fate to bend that lofty head?'" She felt Madelaine's hand stiffen in disapproval. "What prompted me to marry you and bring about your fall?'" Abelard's eyes widened in shock, and he looked away. " 'Now claim your due and see me gladly pay.'"

Madelaine jerked her forward, and they strode quickly, almost running, to the altar. When they reached Gilbert, Madelaine released her and went to join Lady Alais. The bishop began to pray.

Candle wax hissed and sputtered. "Let the petition be presented," the bishop announced. Sister Madelaine came up with a parchment scroll, which she handed to Heloise. Heloise offered it to the bishop, who unrolled the petition and gave it a perfunctory glance.

"Is this written in your own hand or by another at your request?"

"My own hand."

"This is your signature?"

"It is."

"Place it upon the altar with your own hand."

She nosed forward and dropped the scroll. Kneeling, she intoned, "Receive me, O Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. Let me not be confounded in my hope."

Behind her back, the refrain rose from the nuns. "Glory be to the Father."

Rising, Heloise faced the bishop. "I renounce my parents, my brothers, my friends, my possessions, and the vain and empty glory of this world." She glanced toward the nave, but she could not see Abelard. "And I renounce also my own will for the will of God, and accept all the hardships of the monastic life."

Slowly, deliberately, she walked to the far end of the line of nuns and stopped. Pitching to her knees, she prostrated herself at Sister Angelica's feet. "Pray for me," she said. Rising, she moved on to the next sister, prostrated herself, and repeated the words. Halfway down the line, her sore knees stopped aching and she began to move through the motions mechanically. Her legs and neck had no more feeling than a stick of wood. In the roar of the silence, she began to think about the package Abelard had brought. Personal belongings, he had told Madelaine. She remembered the things she had packed that last time at the Rue des Chantres. The Limoges box containing her rings and Abelard's letters, ribbons and a crisping iron and her little mirror. She wanted to laugh wildly. What would the wardrober do with those miserable remnants of a life? She glanced to her right. A dozen more pairs of shoes. She bent quickly and touched her forehead to the ground. "Pray for me." The blue tiles on the kitchen floor in Fulbert's house, the garlic and sage hanging from the rafters. Pasties soft as butter. Lutes and men laughing and the warm, safe fragrance of roses curling up to her turret window. Feather beds and sheets that rocked her in lavender, all these she renounced. "Pray for me." Creaking, she rose at last and walked to the altar.

Sister Madelaine and Sister Judith, carrying the habit and veil, came to stand beside her. They scooped her bliaut over her head. Shivering, she stood exposed in her shift. The black robes fell blindly over her eyes, the hands tugged and pulled, and then it was done. After blessing the veil, Gilbert moved toward her. Heloise snatched the veil from his hands and clamped it on her head. The bishop scowled. Leaning toward her, he said, "Repeat after me. I offer myself—"

"I offer myself—"

"To the Omnipotent God—"

“To the Omnipotent God and to the Virgin Mary for the salvation of my soul." She breathed noisily. "And so shall I remain in this holy life all my days until my final breath."

"Amen." Gilbert turned away, in a great hurry to get somewhere.

Later, Heloise stood just inside the cloister gate and stared into the courtyard. Abelard was saddling his stallion and beside him, already mounted, was Jourdain. With a shock, she remembered that she had not thought of Jourdain during the ceremony. She wondered where he had been standing; she should have said goodbye. Rocking forward on the balls of her feet, she pressed her face to the iron grille. Jourdain was backing his horse away from Abelard. His mouth was moving, but he was too far away for Heloise to make out words. She saw him swerve toward the gate and leave.