Peter Abelard

by Helen Waddell

  “That’s it,” said Fulbert. He sat back in his chair, his hand over his eyes.

  “When summer on is stealing,

  And come the gracious prime

  And Phoebus high in heaven

  And fled the rime,

  With love of one young maiden

  My heart hath ta’en its wound,

  And manifold the grief that I

  In love have found.”

  Fulbert sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands covering his face. And for once Guibert’s mind left the thought of Bele Alys and the torture of that remembered gesture that had once been for him, and then no more, and bent itself on the old man’s strange trouble.

  “Ut mei misereatur,

  Ut me recipiat,

  Et declinetur ad me,

  Et ita desinat.

  “If she would once have pity

  And take me to her side,

  And stooping lean down o’er me,

  And so abide.”

  The room fell silent. The old man sat all huddled in his chair. Suddenly he raised his head.

  “Et declinetur ad me,” he cried in a strange loud voice. “Never, never, never.” He leaned across to Guibert, gesticulating, his hands shaking as if in a palsy.

  “He took her from me. He made her hate me, my little one, my white wood sorrel, my white doe. He smutched her, and had his dirty will of her, and now he’s tired of her”—his voice rose to a scream—“and he’s flung her, like foul water, on the ash-heap at Argenteuil.”

  Guibert sat, too terrified to speak or move.

  “He’ll make a nun of her,” he went on. “She that was meant to be a man’s darling, she that he took to wife before my own eyes, at St. Aignan, just two doors away. He’ll make a nun of her, so that he can break the marriage and be priested.” His voice dropped. “I’ll priest him,” he said, very low. Suddenly he turned on Guibert.

  “What are you gaping at, you fool? Haven’t you heard it?”

  Guibert shook his head. “The young mistress is at Argenteuil, sure enough,” he said, placating. “But I never heard that the master had any notion of orders, beyond what he has already.”

  “Orders? Haven’t I heard them in this very room joking him about being the Lord Pope some day? Why else should he send her to Argenteuil? Isn’t she going about in her grave-clothes, all but the veil, that they’ll put on her—aye, the Bishop here will put on her—in a six months? And then my holy Master Peter will come ambling up to take his vows of chastity too. Chastity.” He stood up and clawed the air. “But I’ll save him the trouble. Aye, I’ll save him any trouble there. He’ll sleep sound of nights when I’ve done with him.”

  Guibert leapt to his feet, his own fear forgotten. “Master Fulbert,” said he, “may God forgive you. You would not murder him?”

  Fulbert’s hands dropped. He stood stock still for a moment, peering into Guibert’s face. The demoniac light flickered out. “Man alive, what put that in your head? No, no, I wouldn’t murder him. I hope he’ll live long, long, long, the way I would have him. Long and chaste.” He giggled. “Sit down, lad. What’s your hurry?”

  Guibert sat, rather because his knees gave under him, than from any wish ever to sit in this accursed presence again.

  “He’ll live chaste, but he won’t be a priest, Guibert,” the old man went on. “I’ve been reading a deal, these days. It takes a whole man to be a priest. Do you know that they couldn’t make offering even of a gelded beast, Guibert?”

  Guibert opened his mouth to cry out, but he could not. Deadly sickness had taken him, and it seemed to him that the chair with the old man in it was heaving up and down. With a mighty effort he thrust his sickness down, keeping his head low in his hands.

  “But he’ll live the holier for it. Didn’t Our Lord say that some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake? I doubt Master Peter will never do that, Guibert, but I know some will do it for him.”

  Guibert had but one thought, to get away, to tell the Bishop, to have this man shut up, somewhere, before his master came back that night. Was he to be waylaid even this very day? He rose again to his feet.

  “I must be going, your reverence,” he said steadily. “Thank you kindly for the wine. But I’ll give you back your gold piece, if you don’t mind, your reverence.” His fingers were on it where it burnt above his heart, like her own touch, but they faltered. He saw the curve of her shoulder as she stooped over him. He had almost two pieces towards the hundred. This would make it almost three.

  “You earned it fairly, man. I don’t want it back,” said Fulbert. The craziness had gone from his face and voice. He was talking quietly and gravely. “But I want to put you in the way of earning a deal more. Look, Guibert”—he drew a long purse suddenly from below the cushion on his chair—“how much do you think there is in that?”

  “I’d say there might be fifty,” said Guibert hoarsely.

  “There’s a hundred,” said Fulbert, “and they’ll be yours this night, if you choose.”

  Guibert opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry. He swallowed once or twice.

  “I’ll be going, your reverence,” said he.

  “But I have never told you what I want you to do,” said Fulbert reasonably. “Listen, Guibert. I do not want you to lay a finger on him. But do you go out to-night to see Bele Alys and leave the door open as you have many a night; and give your master this that I have here”—he held up a tiny parchment packet between finger and thumb—“in his posset, to keep him sleeping till you come back again. I swear to you that you’ll find him safe and well. Well enough. I mean him no harm, I tell you. I have a Jew physician trysted that will be a deal more skilful than any Christian leech. He was prisoner with the Saracens himself, you see.” He giggled again.

  “I’ll be going, your reverence,” said Guibert again. If he could but keep on saying it till he was out of the door and in the outside air. Whether it was the wine, or the dizzy sight of that gold, but the warm sweetness of her was breathing about him, his feet struggling and slipping as he remembered them once in a quicksand, when they were bathing in the Loire.

  “As you please,” said Fulbert tranquilly. “It is all one. But mind you, the thing will be, soon or later. There are other ways. But this secures him with least risk of hurt.”

  Guibert shook his head. Dizzy, he was groping for the latch of the door.

  “There’s no hurry,” said Fulbert. He came nearer, and thrust the little packet into Guibert’s hand. “Anyhow, give him this in his posset. It will only give him a good night’s sleep. And if you hear an owl in the night and come down the stairs and open the door, there’ll be this in my hand for you. And you need look neither this way nor that way, but go your way to the Rue des Marmousets, and no one the wiser.”

  Without a word, without a backward glance, Guibert stumbled through the door, and was sick in the gutter. But the packet was still in his hand.

  The light was still in her window. She would open it when she heard the knocking at the door, and lean out with the candle-light behind her, as she had done a score of times, and then no more. He was knocking, but she was not looking out. Should he try hooting like an owl? He had not given Master Peter the stuff in his posset. He was guiltless of that. It was not his fault if Master Peter lay sleeping like a log with his day’s riding, when the owl cried outside. He had gone in and looked at him, had even cried his name. If he had wakened then, Guibert said to himself, he would have told him. But he had not wakened. It was meant to be. He must knock louder. She must have fallen asleep with the candle still burning. There, he could hear the latch.

  “Who’s there?” That sleepy, husky voice that was his heaven to hear.

  He stepped out from under the overhang of the house to look up at her, and dared not. The moonlight fell on his closed eyes.

  “Lo
rd ha’ mercy!” she cried out. “It’s a dead man.”

  A man’s head came beside hers and a man’s laugh came down to him.

  “It’s that poor fish Guibert,” said a man’s voice. “Run home, Guibert, there’s a good lad.”

  He stood looking up at them. “Let me in,” he said. “I’ve brought the money just as she said. Let me in.”

  He heard her give an impatient Tcha under her breath.

  “He’s clean crazed,” the man said, compassionately enough. “See here, Guibert,” he leaned out, broad-fronted, the candle-light gilding the bronze of his hair, “it’s my turn to-night. Go home, like a good lad. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

  “To-morrow!” Guibert screamed in sudden agony. To-morrow the world would end, but he would have had to-night. To-morrow they would break him on the wheel, but she would have held him to-night. He stood looking up at them, trying to find words to explain it to them, but the right words would not come. He was mouthing at them, his hands clawing in the air.

  Bele Alys shivered. “Mother of God,” she muttered under her breath. “Wait, Roger.” She slipped back into the room and came again. “Give him this—they say he’s greedy for money these days—and get him to go home. It’ll maybe distract him, poor soul.”

  Roger hung out again. “Look, Guibert,” he said, holding out a bright coin. “Here’s a whole silver mark for you, if you go home like a good lad, and go to bed. Catch!”

  The coin tinkled in the cobbles of the street. Guibert laughed.

  “Silver?” he said contemptuously. He pulled the purse from his tunic and held it up. “Look yourself. That’s gold.”

  They were talking under their breath to each other now. In a moment they would come down and let him in. But instead the man leaned out and began unfastening the shutters from their iron hooks and pulling them across the window.

  Guibert stood frozen. “Stop!” he cried, in a voice so peremptory that Roger paused involuntarily and Alys’ head appeared again above his shoulder. The poor soul was busy plucking at the strings of his purse. They watched, puzzled, and Bele Alys, bewildered and contrite, pressed for comfort on the solid shoulder above which she leaned, and put her head against his.

  Guibert had his hand in the purse now. “Look!” he cried, and raising his eyes, held up his fist to show them. He saw the curve of her shoulder in the candle-light, he saw the droop of her head.

  “Et declinetur ad me,” he said, in Fulbert’s voice. “Never, never, never.” His voice climbed higher with every iteration. Then with a sudden shriek he flung the fistful of gold into their startled faces and, all reason gone from him, began tearing the silk purse asunder and throwing the gold pieces into the air, throwing them higher and higher, leaping with them and laughing like a crazed juggler.

  “God have mercy on us,” said Roger. He pulled to the shutter and stood shaking. The wild laughter and the patter of gold suddenly ceased: there was a moment’s quiet. Roger looked cautiously through a crack in the shutter.

  “God help him, he’s on his knees trying to pick it up again.”

  Bele Alys looked up, her eyes brimming. “I’ll go to him,” said she. “I can’t endure it.”

  Roger put his arm about her shoulder. “You’ll go to no madman,” said he. “He’ll soon tire. Lass, is there nowhere at the back of the house we can go? They’re like children, they’ll cry as long as there’s anyone to heed them.”

  She nodded, gulping, and took the candle. Even in Margot’s bed, by a good chance that night empty, they heard a muffled knocking, but it did not last long. Bele Alys cried a little, but he comforted her. And when after a while the knocking ceased and a low dreary sobbing began, they did not hear it.

  It was Foulques, indeed, who found it intolerable. Thibault and he were sound sleepers, and the Rue des Marmousets was accustomed to noises in the night. He had slept through most of the clatter, but the last frantic knocking had wakened him, and the low sound that followed it was more than he could bear. He kicked Thibault, and got out of bed.

  “What is it?” said Thibault sleepily.

  “Can’t you hear it? There’s somebody got hurt outside.”

  Thibault listened. “Sounds more like a puppy they’ve shut out, to me.” He got up, and began pulling on his long hose.

  Foulques looked out. “It’s under Bele Alys’ house,” he said. “Can’t see with the overhang. Man, it’s maybe somebody knifed. There’s money spilt all over the road.”

  Joyfully the two pulled on their breeches and were down the stairs and into the street. They saw a small figure crouching on Bele Alys’ doorstep, rocking to and fro, its head in its hands.

  “It’s Guibert, God help him,” said Thibault. “I suppose she won’t let him in.” He went over and touched him on the shoulder. Guibert did not look up.

  “Run along home, Guibert,” he said. “She’ll be fast asleep by now. Better luck to-morrow.”

  “To-morrow,” whispered Guibert. “To-morrow,” he said again, and began shuddering.

  The two boys looked at each other doubtfully. Foulques had a sudden inspiration. He stooped in turn over Guibert, and pointed to the road. “Don’t cry, man,” he said encouragingly. “You haven’t lost it. Here’s the money, spilt all over the road. We’ll help you pick it up.” He stooped and lifted a coin, as one encourages a child. “Look, Guibert,” he held it close to the indifferent eyes. His voice changed. “Lord help us, it’s gold!”

  “It’s gold,” agreed Guibert. “He said gold.”

  The two exchanged glances. Then a kind of horror dawned on Thibault’s face.

  “This morning,” he said, “Fulbert——” He stooped and again caught Guibert by the shoulder.

  “Did Fulbert give you that money this morning?”

  Guibert shook his head. “Not this morning. Tonight.”

  “What for?”

  Guibert smiled happily. “I didn’t do it.” He pulled out the parchment packet from his breast. “I didn’t give it to him in his posset. He was asleep anyhow. I only opened the door.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Thibault and was off like a greyhound down the street, Foulques after him. The moon had gone down, and Foulques tripped twice, but hardly waited to be on his feet before he ran on. Down the Rue des Marmousets they ran, then sharp to the right into the Rue Cocatrice, to the left into the Rue St. Christophe, through the narrow Rue des Oïes into the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, and so breathless round the corner into the Place du Parvis. Even as they darted into the Place, it seemed to them that two shadows slipped under the overhand of the Maison du Saumon into the ruelle to the Rue Sainte Marine.

  “There!” Thibault jerked out and swung sharp to the left in pursuit. With a desperate effort Foulques pitched forward and caught his arm.

  “Abelard,” he gasped, jerking his head to the house behind them. “He’s maybe dying.”

  With a snap like a dog, Thibault turned and darted back across the Parvis. The house was dark and shuttered, but when they reached it, they found the door an inch ajar. They passed inside, and the Parvis was silent again. Then a crack of light gleamed through the chink in the topmost shutter, feet came pounding down the stair, and Thibault dashed through the door, alone, shouting with crying. It was to the porter’s lodge into the Cloître Notre Dame that he ran, and then his hands were on the hammer beside the bell, and the wild clatter of it filled the Parvis. The door opened and he plunged through it, almost overturning the bewildered porter, and on to the archway where hung the great bell of the schools. Cursing and sobbing as he pulled on the rope, it was some solace to him to hear its huge voice drown his own, and clamour his cry for vengeance over the Cloister and the sleeping island, and across the river to the silent Quartier. Windows opened, voices questioned and cried out, feet tramped and ran, all the diverse whispering and crackling of dry timber before the roar of the conflagration leaps to the dark sky, and
drowns all individual hates.

  Only two souls on the island gave it no heed: Peter Abelard in his high room, moaning half conscious on his pillow; and the figure holding its knees and rocking to and fro on the doorstep by the house in the Rue des Marmousets, empty now, for Roger and Bele Alys had long ago rushed out, seeing him not at all in their haste. It was some while before any one remembered him, for Thibault’s mind was on the two shadows he had seen slipping under the overhang by the Maison du Saumon, and the hunt went to the north of the island. They started one hare, but it took sanctuary: whoever it was had the key of the canon’s door. One man leapt from the parapet into the river, but whether the rat swam or drowned it was too dark to see. The third they ran to earth, crouching in the underground passage to the river steps at the Port St. Landry, and it was a little while before they were finished with him. Dawn was breaking as they came down the Rue des Marmousets, faintly discolouring their flaring torches and what they carried in their hands. Their noise had lessened to a kind of confused snarling, but though it swelled again to a keener note when the foremost among them saw their quarry, he made no attempt to run. He did not even look up when they reached him. However, though he gave them less sport than the other, they had their will with this one also.

  CHAPTER IV

  For three days sciatica had kept Gilles de Vannes in bed: to-day his progress across the Parvis was still painful enough. The sweat broke on him as he climbed the stairs to Abelard’s lodging. He stood outside the door for a while, mopping his brow and getting his breath, thrusting out his underlip meantime at the crowd of young men that hung about the landing whispering and watching. For Abelard’s quiet, they had him still in the inner room, but to Gilles, as he came into the outer room, it seemed that he might as well be in the Parvis, with the coming and going and the confusion of tongues. He walked through the crowd, scowling, and recognising no one. The door to Abelard’s room was closed: he was glad of that, at least; and a young giant that he did not know sat with his back to it, a young face, but sullen and brooding.