Stealing Heaven (7 page)

At the spit, Petronilla was turning, halfheartedly, a pair of fowls. She threw Heloise a jeering look. "Lady. You are dumb."

Heloise ignored her, but Agnes bounded across the kitchen and whacked the girl's face until she'd raised a liverish welt. "God's toenails, can't I trust you to do anything properly? Those hens are beginning to look like cinders." She went back to the circles of dough and started dropping spoonfuls of minced cheese on the moons. "Bertrada," she explained carefully, as if informing Heloise of some momentous battle, "Bertrada was Louis's stepmother, that is to say, the second wife of Old King Philip, God rest his soul. She tried to poison Louis so that her spindly brat could have the throne." Triumphant at the skill with which she had condensed years of complex history into a few sentences, she turned to Heloise with a smile and said, "You see? The point is, the old hag didn't succeed. Mind you, Louis was sickly for quite a time, but—" She shrugged, and immediately embarked on a dissertation about how to keep moths out of feather beds.

The aromatic warmth of the kitchen made Heloise drowsy; the greasy juice rolling down the sides of her cheeks made her skin itch. Propping her feet up on a wooden keg, she raised her face to the ceiling. Hanging from the beams were bunches of dried herbs—sage, mint, fennel, hyssop, all carefully extracted from the garden before the first frost. This room was Heloise's favorite part of the house. The fireplace stretching across one whole wall belched warmth; everything was permeated with delicious aromas. When she awoke in the mornings, even before she had opened her eyes, the smells were already drifting through the house—stews and soups, goose, frumenty, bacon and beans, minced beef and raisin pies. In the pantry were massed jars of wine that Agnes had made from cherries, currants, raspberries, and pears, and down in the cellar she kept the imported wines of Cyprus and Spain that Fulbert served to guests. Never had Heloise imagined such an abundance of food and drink. As though she had been starved all her life, she ate ravenously and sometimes stole to the kitchen between meals to beg Agnes for a taste of this or that. In only a few months, her cheeks and breasts had rounded and her hips were beginning to curve snugly inside her gowns.

From the hearth, Petronilla hissed belatedly, “I know why King Louis didn't die. He had a philtre from the Fairy Lady. And her magic was stronger than Bertrada's."

"So they say," Agnes answered. She looked hastily over at Heloise. "If you believe that mumbo jumbo."

Heloise sat up straight on the stool. "This Fairy Lady, does she make love philtres? Will she tell your fortune?"

Petronilla was prowling along the wall, hoping Agnes would not notice the untended spit. "She knows who a girl's true love is."

Heloise laughed uneasily. At Argenteuil, the nuns had gossiped incessantly about witches and fairies—after crossing themselves, of course. Madelaine had called it hocus-pocus, but Heloise always listened just the same. She believed all of it and none of it. How was it possible for a fortune-teller to scan the emptiness of time for that which is yet to be? It was not possible, she suddenly decided. Or if it was, then only God could manage such a feat. Wiping the grease from her face, she threw down the towel and turned her back on Petronilla and her Fairy Lady.

 

Later that morning, she walked over to Notre Dame. Coming back from mass she decided to walk past Saint-Christofle and return home through the cloister, a route she rarely took because of Agnes's warnings that it was dangerous for decent girls to go among the students. "Animals," Agnes called them, and it was true that their drinking and roistering created disturbances in the Ile and gave them a bad name with the burghers. But with so many of them crammed into one small island, it was to be expected that a few would misbehave.
 

A smell of burning leaves hung in the air. Trying to look inconspicuous, she pulled her cloak around her ears and tucked her chin into the collar. Everywhere there stood bands of gowned young men, but nobody paid attention to her; they were all too busy talking. She was marching briskly eastward when a boy disengaged himself from one of the gangs and began to skip alongside her. She threw him a stern glance and walked faster; with her long legs, she soon managed to outdistance him.

When she jerked around to look, she saw that he had stopped but was continuing to stare at her.

"La tres sage Heloise,
greetings," he said. "Lady, forgive. I meant no harm." The boy was only half grown; he had apple cheeks and wisps of fuzz on his chin.

Curious, Heloise waited while he came slowly toward her. "How do you know my name?" she said.

"Everybody in Paris knows," he told her with a toothy grin. "The very wise Heloise they call you. You're Canon Fulbert's niece, and I've heard that you're the wisest girl in France. Mayhap in the whole world."

Heloise laughed. "And you're a very foolish boy. Do you believe everything you hear?"

"Lady, I've just begun studying with Master Abelard. I wish that I knew as much as you."

His look was so full of admiration that she stifled her smile. "Good," she said gravely. "Then go back to Master Abelard and listen well." She turned away, amused by the boy but anxious to go home.

He ran after her. "Lady, tell me something, please. Are you a Nominalist or a Realist?"

"My friend, all I can tell you is that I have no idea what you're talking about. Pray, what is a Nominalist?" She felt dumb for asking.

The boy spent ten minutes explaining that the Realists believed in the importance of universals—the Church, humanity, divinity—while the Nominalists thought particulars more significant—churchmen, individuals, persons of the Trinity. Apparently this was a fashionable intellectual controversy in the schools. No scholar could ignore it; one must, he informed her, take a side.

Heloise smiled at him. "I'm in debt for your information," she said lightly, "but does it really matter, after all, believing one thing or the other?"

"Oh, yes." He stood there, clumsily knotting and unknotting the girdle of his tunic. "Yes, it matters a lot."

"Ah, well—in that case." She moved off quickly. "Farewell."

Behind her, the boy was shouting, "God guard you, lady!"

The rest of the morning she spent in her room translating Lucan, a project that had occupied her for some weeks. But today she found her attention wandering, her mind trailing back to the boy she had met in the close. Not to the boy himself but to something he had said, his explanation of the Nominalists and the Realists. The controversy in itself she found of no great interest, yet she had to admit that the idea of debating such subjects intrigued her. She knew that she was weak in dialectic, and even though Madelaine had halfheartedly imparted the fine points of logical argument, thesis and antithesis, antecedent and consequent, she had had few opportunities to practice. Fulbert was heavily unenthusiastic, dismissing it as mere showing off.

The turret room was freezing. She padded down to the kitchen and asked Agnes to make her a cup of hot almond milk. Upstairs again, she crawled under the coverlet and sipped her milk thoughtfully. The idea that had been thrashing around at the back of her mind for hours suddenly forced its way into consciousness; she wanted to go to school. Immediately she began to sigh and berate herself for wishing the impossible. But was it?

She pulled the cover around her neck. Agnes once mentioned a niece of the Count of Montmorency who had attended classes at the abbey of Saint-Victor across the river; at the same time Heloise vividly remembered Agnes's scalding grimaces of disapproval and her mutterings about immodest hussies. Evidently, females rarely showed their faces in the all-male schools, and when they did, people talked about them. Knowing Fulbert, she knew he would not want that. Coughing, she got out of bed and checked to see if the shutters were securely fastened.

Something else occurred to her; that boy in the cloister knew all about her. How? Presumably through Fulbert's boasting and those of his friends who had met her. Uncle seemed to have no objection if the people of Paris admired his "wise" niece. Perhaps there was a way to get around him after all.

She heard the clump of the downstairs door and Fulbert's voice, then Agnes squawking waves of orders to Petronilla and the creak of running feet. Abruptly the hushed house sprang into motion. Before going down, Heloise brushed her hair down with her palms.

Already the trestle had been covered with a white cloth, and Petronilla was laying out the trenchers and goblets. The girl wore her usual surly expression. "Master was asking for you."

A few minutes later, Fulbert was blessing the table and reaching for the pitcher of Macon. "Come kiss me, child," he said.

Heloise trotted over and wound her arms around his neck. Unlike most men, who shaved only two or three times a week and had prickly cheeks, Fulbert had Agnes shave him every morning. His alabaster skin was always smooth as a woman's and smelled of pine scent. She stroked a tiny wet peck on his cheek and ran to her chair.

Heloise poured a little of the Macon into her goblet and filled it to the top with water. While Agnes brought in the dishes, she studied Fulbert's face, searching for signs of his mood.

"What did you do this morning, sweet?" He doused a helping of roasted fowl with garlic sauce.

"Worked on my Lucan." She paused. "While I was out walking earlier, a young man came up to me. A lad really. He called me 'the very wise Heloise.'" She scratched her nose, keeping her voice bland. "He said that everyone in the Ile knew of me."

Fulbert shook his head at her. "An exaggeration, naturally. Still, I'm sure that a great many people know you by reputation."
 

"That doesn't bother you?"

"No." He took a generous portion of pease porridge, tasted it, and wiped his mouth on his napkin. "Why should it? Try a little of this porridge. It's superb."

She shrugged. Uneasily, she wondered if this might be the proper time to bring up the subject of school. Realizing that she had not yet touched her trencher, she hastily skewered a chunk of fowl on her knife and flicked it into her mouth. "I was wondering," she said quickly, chewing and talking at once, "what you would think of my attending one of the schools. I mean, becoming a pupil of some master. I—" She stopped to swallow.

"Yes? You what?"

She looked swiftly at Fulbert. "I'd like that."

He pushed aside the trencher and picked up his goblet. He held it for a little while before drinking, his eyes cloudy. She knew that look. It meant that he was searching for a tactful way to say something.

Smiling, he said, "This is a tender situation. A unique set of circumstances that we, uh, have to deal with."

Heloise crumbled a piece of bread into pellets and mounded them next to her trencher.

"I'm aware," he went on, "that a person of your intelligence should be attending classes. Now, if you were a young man, I would have signed you up with some master immediately." He threw up his hands with a loud sigh. "But what can I do? There's no place in the schools for women, and rightly so."

Avoiding his eyes, Heloise stared stiffly into her lap.

"Now, now, poppet, you're not going to cry, are you? Please don't cry. I know you're disappointed, but face facts. God didn't make women to be scholars. Now, you must admit that's so. It's not my fault, is it?" He rubbed his chin and smiled brightly, trying to jolly her into looking happy.

Her head snapped up. “I have heard that it's not totally unknown for a woman to attend classes." She strained to speak calmly. "There was a niece in the Montmorency family—"

"A strumpet. She didn't know A from B. Just interested in getting a master into her bed."

Heloise flushed dark red. Never before had she heard Fulbert refer to the sin of the flesh, and she was a trifle surprised. Nonetheless, she felt her advantage slipping and leaned forward to renew her attack with more force. “I'm a serious student, Uncle. If Saint-Victor could find room for a strumpet, surely they can tolerate my presence. Or—now, listen to this. With your influence at Notre Dame, you can find a way for me to attend the cathedral school. After all—"

Fulbert flung up his arms. "Listen to reason!"

"I won't!" Heloise cried hotly. She sat on the edge of her chair.

"By St. Denis, I see you have your grandmother's temper! There's no missing that."

Hearing the raised voices, Agnes hurried into the solar with apprehensive glances at both of them and deposited a flawn on the table. Heloise ate half the custard while haranguing Fulbert unmercifully. To his every groan of "Impossible, child," she had an answer, if not always a sensible one.

In the following weeks, she nagged him whenever she saw an opportunity, but he remained adamant, saying that she asked the unreasonable. Not until Advent had arrived and he'd begun talking about going to Saint-Gervais for the Christmas holidays did Heloise gradually subside in her demands. Excitement over the forthcoming journey soon driving all other concerns from her head, she pumped Agnes daily for information. How big was the castle? How many children did Uncle Thibaut have? And how did he get the nickname "the Lecher"? When had her grandmother, Mabile of Aspremont, died? Since Agnes had been born at Saint-Gervais and had come to Paris only when Fulbert received his canonry, she had plenty of stories to tell—in fact, several generations' worth. Nearly every day, Heloise trailed after her while Agnes aired feather beds and dusted, and she continued to plague her with questions.

It was during one of these interrogations that she discovered the reason for Fulbert's decision. Actually, it had not occurred to her that the excursion might be unusual; she assumed that Fulbert went back to Saint-Gervais every Christmas.

But Agnes said no. Ordinarily, he never left the Ile at this time of year because it was his busiest season, with many extra services at the cathedral. "It's for your sake, lady. Master says it's bad for you to stay cooped up with old people all the time. You need friends your own age. At home, there are lots of cousins." She scratched her head. "Let's see, Lady Marie's oldest girl must be about eighteen now. And there's Claude and Little Alis. I forget."